The Race For 2024

[lpetrich]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Receives The Easiest Fact Check Of Her Life

Some of her commenters jumped up and down on her:
Antione Jackson on Twitter: "@mtgreenee Republicans did the same thing in 2020" / Twitter

Chris Coble on Twitter: "@mtgreenee There were no debates for Trump ahead of the 2020 election either." / Twitter

Jon-C on Twitter: "@mtgreenee (pic link)" / Twitter - with a screencap of a quote from  2020 Republican Party presidential debates

The Chud Report on Twitter: "@mtgreenee Trump didn’t hold any primary debates in 2020." / Twitter

️️ The Comfort Stick on Twitter: "@mtgreenee Actual footage of the Republican primary debate of 2020. (pic link)" / Twitter -- showing an empty room with lights going on and off

Ed Krassenstein on Twitter: "@mtgreenee You do realize that the Republican Party held no primary debates in 2020, right?" / Twitter

Milquetoast on Twitter: "@EdKrassen @mtgreenee She knows. She just also knows her followers are too stupid to understand" / Twitter

 

[Elixir]

But don't expect Derec or TSwizzle to dwell on Trump having extramarital affairs and sex with prostitutes and then paying the women to keep their mouths shut about it. Nope. Kamala Harris had an openly publicized affair with an older male

To be more than fair, I and other centrists do harp on Trump’s debauchery, abuse of women and bungling attempts to hide it, rather relentlessly.
So it’s predictable and should be accepted, when the RW extremists try to make similar hay out of a relatively innocuous and non-clandestine affair by a Democrat. Especially if they’re female and not the proper lily white color. It’s what they do.

The only thing I disagree with is that it should be accepted. No, a tactic like this that shouldn't get a pass. They should be called on the hypocrisy.

That’s harsh. What are they supposed to do? Hang their heads and sheepishly admit to their hypocrisy? I think that’s against their right wing extremist religion. They have been intensively trained to ignore it when pointed out, especially over the last 8 years or so.
I think it’s in our interest to accept that which we can’t change, and just keep pointing it out.

 

[Copernicus]

That’s harsh. What are they supposed to do? Hang their heads and sheepishly admit to their hypocrisy? I think that’s against their right wing extremist religion. They have been intensively trained to ignore it when pointed out, especially over the last 8 years or so.
I think it’s in our interest to accept that which we can’t change, and just keep pointing it out.

I would agree if the point of pointing to their hypocrisy were meant to change their behavior. It's really about shoring up our own base of support. If you keep turning a blind eye to hardball tactics like that, then people will think you're blind.

 

[Swammerdami]

Kamala "heels up" Harris, Vice President of the United States

That is disgusting. What a pathetic, juvenile and mean-spirited thing to write about any woman.

What kind of person does that?

Misogynist. A Republican President can cheat on his wife and "grab pussy" and that's just admirable "locker room talk." Democratic women however are not allowed to have sex.

Of course people who bleat such disgusting and mean-spirited things may not actually be as stupid or hate-drenched as their words imply. They're just pandering to their right-wing audience.

We saw similar misogyny recently in another thread. One Infidel can hardly mention AOC without calling her a "bartender." But now he substitutes "barmaid." Google informs me that in the American dialect barmaid is a completely different job than bartender. It is a much more demeaning term, though still a step up from "bargirl." I suppose that Infidel was smart enough to realize that "bargirl" (or "heels up barmaid") would cross the line.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

NOAA is predicting fewer hurricanes this season, but that the hurricanes we will get will be big and very powerful. If Florida gets clobbered, DeSantis will be put to a severe test. Will DeSantis be up to it? Will he still be on the campaign trail while Florida suffers?

DeSantis is just floundering because there is only one Trump. Rubio learned that early in 2016 when he went from teabagger to "moderate" quick.

DeSantis is smarter, more capable, more ambitious, but he still is less Trump. Trump fucked over his supporters with dubious fundraising schemes trapping people into donating more than they thought for causes the money wasn't going to, and they are just as enamored over him. No one in our political history has had this level of brain dead devotion ever.

 

[Elixir]

That’s harsh. What are they supposed to do? Hang their heads and sheepishly admit to their hypocrisy? I think that’s against their right wing extremist religion. They have been intensively trained to ignore it when pointed out, especially over the last 8 years or so.
I think it’s in our interest to accept that which we can’t change, and just keep pointing it out.

I would agree if the point of pointing to their hypocrisy were meant to change their behavior. It's really about shoring up our own base of support. If you keep turning a blind eye to hardball tactics like that, then people will think you're blind.

Nononono- turn no blind eye, just keep pointing it out. Carefully, lest describing a trait of the collective be construed as a personal attack because it too well fits some individual(s).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Milquetoast on Twitter: "@EdKrassen @mtgreenee She knows. She just also knows her followers are too stupid to understand" / Twitter

Does she? I'm just uncertain as to whether Greene is a Palin (Full of shit Idiot firebrand) or a Senator Iselin (Full of shit Firebrand) or an Eleanor Iselin (Chess playing Manipulator) or something in between those.

 

[lpetrich]

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Wealthy Republican Who Thinks Trump Didn’t Go Far Enough - The New York Times

Vivek Ramaswamy, a long-shot 2024 contender, is lavishly wealthy and astoundingly confident. He also promises to exert breathtaking power in ways that Donald Trump never did.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican wunderkind running for his party’s presidential nomination, would like potential supporters to know he believes in the rule of law and the Constitution’s separation of powers — though his applications of such principles can seem selective.

After intense study of the Constitution, Mr. Ramaswamy says he believes that the awesome powers of the presidency would allow him to abolish the Education Department “on Day 1,” part of an assault on the “administrative state” that his 2024 rival, Donald J. Trump, fell short on during Days 1 through 1,461 of his presidency. Never mind that the Constitution confers the power of the purse on Congress, and a subsequent law makes it illegal for the president not to spend that money.

Mr. Ramaswamy also wants to eradicate teachers’ unions, though he concedes that they are governed by contracts with state and local governments.

And he says he would unleash the military to stamp out the scourge of fentanyl coming across the Southern border, unworried by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement.

So he's claiming that the Constitution says that he has a right to rule like an autocrat, issuing ukases like a tsar.

A President acting like King George III was not what the Founders had in mind, and it isn't very good for democracy.

• Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies | Journal of Democracy also at 1. Fish pp 5-20.pmd - fish_steven_-_stronger_legislatures_stronger_democracy_-_en_-_standards.pdf
• Microsoft Word - Parliamentary Powers Index, Scores by Country.doc - PPIScores.pdf
• Measuring Legislative Power: An Expert Reweighting of the Fish‐Kroenig Parliamentary Powers Index - Chernykh - 2017 - Legislative Studies Quarterly - Wiley Online Library

 

[lpetrich]

Mr. Ramaswamy sees a simple path to the White House: score respectably in the Iowa caucuses, win New Hampshire, vault to the nomination — and then triumph in a landslide that would exceed Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980.

What big dreams.

Indeed, Mr. Ramaswamy’s promises have an overarching theme that the nation — especially his generation and younger — has lost its spiritual center, creating what the mathematician Blaise Pascal called “a God-shaped vacuum in the heart.” That hole is being filled, Mr. Ramaswamy says, by “secular cults” — racial “wokeism,” sexual and gender fluidity, and the “climate cult” — which can be “diluted to oblivion” only with the rediscovery of the American ideals of patriotism, meritocracy and sacrifice.

So in the Good Old Days, everybody hated everything but God?

Or at least were devoid of interest in anything other than that entity.

Also, which God? Details differ. Does that entity only speak Sanskrit? Hebrew? Greek? Latin? King James English? Arabic? Does that entity forbid pork? Beef? Is that entity a tripartite one or completely unified? Which sacred books did that entity inspire? The Vedas? The Old Testament? The New Testament? The Koran?

Though he brags about his performance with Don Lemon,

But his statement in that exchange that Black Americans did not secure their civil rights until they secured their right to bear arms made little historical sense, since the civil rights movement was predicated on nonviolence. Indeed, the arming of the Black Panthers led to a deadly government crackdown.

 

[lpetrich]

Mr. Ramaswamy accepts the established science that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but his answer is to “drill, frack, burn coal” and use more fossil fuels. That will supposedly unleash economic growth that will pay for mitigation efforts to shield everyone from climate change.

That's the sort of bullshit that Republicans have been selling tax cuts with for decades. But that never happens.

It also seems like he wants it both ways, claiming climate-change concerns and promising a lot of business for fossil-fuel companies.

On Wednesday night in Windham, N.H., Mr. Ramaswamy suggested he would name Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democratic vaccine skeptic challenging President Biden, as his running mate.

But RFK Jr. is running as a Democrat. Does he really think that his positions have that broad appeal?

On Tuesday in Bedford, he was asked by a woman with a Black son-in-law and a mixed-race grandson to clarify the meaning of “anti-woke.”

Mr. Ramaswamy — the author of “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” — answered, “I’ve never used that word to actually describe myself,” as aides handed out stickers reading: “Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek.”

Much like Bethany Mandel -- not much of an answer.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mr. Ramaswamy accepts the established science that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but his answer is to “drill, frack, burn coal” and use more fossil fuels. That will supposedly unleash economic growth that will pay for mitigation efforts to shield everyone from climate change.

That's the sort of bullshit that Republicans have been selling tax cuts with for decades. But that never happens.

Surprised Palin isn't out there proclaiming how she used Geostatic Rebound to help Alaska manage rising oceans.

 

[Swammerdami]

Vivek Ramaswamy, a long-shot 2024 contender, is lavishly wealthy and astoundingly confident. He also promises to exert breathtaking power in ways that Donald Trump never did.
...
And he says he would unleash the military to stamp out the scourge of fentanyl coming across the Southern border, unworried by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement.

Trump has shown the way, so the Republican Party is unifying behind that model. No matter how exciting their primary becomes (likely only if the front-runner becomes a convicted felon, a line which even Trump-lickers may not cross) we can be sure that the goon selected will be a sociopath, a bigot, a criminal, and/or an imbecile.

Nitpick: I think it is legal for the U.S. military to operate against fentanyl deliveries as long as they do it South of the border.

 

[Elixir]

But don't expect Derec or TSwizzle to dwell on Trump having extramarital affairs and sex with prostitutes and then paying the women to keep their mouths shut about it. Nope. Kamala Harris had an openly publicized affair with an older male

To be more than fair, I and other centrists do harp on Trump’s debauchery, abuse of women and bungling attempts to hide it, rather relentlessly.
So it’s predictable and should be accepted, when the RW extremists try to make similar hay out of a relatively innocuous and non-clandestine affair by a Democrat. Especially if they’re female and not the proper lily white color. It’s what they do.

The only thing I disagree with is that it should be accepted. No, a tactic like this that shouldn't get a pass. They should be called on the hypocrisy.

Yes, I hope they will be called on their hypocrisy. It’s good to have it on display. But I am not going to indulge in too much hand-wringing while the dumbass Trumpsuckers nominate the rapist again. I find it delicious that the very media bubble the insulates them from facts like Trump’s sexual abuse, will also insulate them from winning nationally - hopefully ever again.
Bring on the obstruction charges, seditious conspiracy charges, the mishandling classified material charges - ALL of it!
Sure, it will solidify his standing with ignorant idiots, but they are a dwindling minority.

 

[lostone]

Vivek Ramaswamy, a long-shot 2024 contender, is lavishly wealthy and astoundingly confident. He also promises to exert breathtaking power in ways that Donald Trump never did.
...
And he says he would unleash the military to stamp out the scourge of fentanyl coming across the Southern border, unworried by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement.

Trump has shown the way, so the Republican Party is unifying behind that model. No matter how exciting their primary becomes (likely only if the front-runner becomes a convicted felon, a line which even Trump-lickers may not cross) we can be sure that the goon selected will be a sociopath, a bigot, a criminal, and/or an imbecile.

Nitpick: I think it is legal for the U.S. military to operate against fentanyl deliveries as long as they do it South of the border.

We can also assume, given the adroit way Conservatives have gamed the political system to make it hard for them to lose, even when they are a minority, that the Republican candidate will be a formidable opponent

 

[ZiprHead]

Sen. Tim Scott files paperwork to run for president in the 2024 election

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

From Politico

.....
Ramaswamy, the millennial 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur who made a mark in the primary when he polled on par with former Vice President Mike Pence in a CBS survey last week, told POLITICO that in Iowa this week, he’ll call for increasing the automatic voting age to 25, unless a citizen 18 or older is enrolled in the military, works as a first-responder or passes the same civics test given to immigrants seeking American citizenship. Such a change could only be implemented by passing a constitutional amendment.
......

This should go over big with the Generation Z and younger Millenial voters. Since voter age is set at 18 by the 26th amendment, it ain't gonna happen.

 

[Elixir]

Since voter age is set at 18 by the 26th amendment, it ain't gonna happen.

So, a safe suggestion then.

 

[ZiprHead]

From Politico

.....
Ramaswamy, the millennial 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur who made a mark in the primary when he polled on par with former Vice President Mike Pence in a CBS survey last week, told POLITICO that in Iowa this week, he’ll call for increasing the automatic voting age to 25, unless a citizen 18 or older is enrolled in the military, works as a first-responder or passes the same civics test given to immigrants seeking American citizenship. Such a change could only be implemented by passing a constitutional amendment.
......

This should go over big with the Generation Z and younger Millenial voters. Since voter age is set at 18 by the 26th amendment, it ain't gonna happen.

If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”

- David Frum

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

It would seem the good Swami is a fan of Robert Heinein. A Starship Trooper enthusiast.

 

[marc]

When are the Republican primaries?

from what I’ve been seeing, the more people see Desantis the less they like him. Trump would likely run away with the primary, but if the serious criminal charges start piling up, people might shy away from him. Will they be left choosing between candidates that no one has heard of, or one that has to schedule rallies around his court appearances?