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The Race For 2024

Loren Pechtel said:
scombrid said:
This isn’t 1890. There are organizations that will find homes for high energy breeds that shitty owners don’t train properly.
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The problem is that the dog was bitey.
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So was the fear aggressive abused street dog we adopted. The only dog I have ever had to euthanize for aggression was a severely abused “bait” dog from a dog fighting ring that got busted. That dog was miserable and dangerous.

That is a huge difference from an adolescent hunting dog that pissed you off while it joyfully killed chickens. Here is a hint for anyone that wants a Wire Haired Pointer. Don’t turn it loose around domestic birds unless you’ve taken the time and effort to train it.

I have a mutt from a shelter. He is a mix of bulldog, catahoula leopard dog, and blue heeler. There is a lot of herding and prey drive. It took work to get him into good citizen territory where he is now welcome in nursing homes.

If that adolescent hunting dog was bitey it was Noem’s fucking fault.

My coworker had a Wire Haired Pointer named Sig. It killed a neighbors chickens. Earl did not kill Sig. Earl kept him away from Chickens. Same with our greyhound. We taught him to be nice to cats but all other prey were on the table and it was our responsibility to keep him from killing things he wasn’t supposed to kill.
 
 Project 2025 - Project 2025 | Presidential Transition Project

Donald Trump on What His Second Term Would Look Like | TIME

Interviewer Eric Cortellessa toward the end of his interview:
... I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”
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lpetrich said:
 Project 2025 - Project 2025 | Presidential Transition Project

Donald Trump on What His Second Term Would Look Like | TIME

Interviewer Eric Cortellessa toward the end of his interview:
... I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”
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Hires only the best.

:LD:
 
Donald Trump plans an imperial presidency.

- "To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland."

His targets don't exactly wear name tags saying "I'm an illegal immigrant". So how will his underlings find these people?

- "He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans."

What will happen to blue states?

- "He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers."

Richard Nixon did this - impoundment - but Congress objected, and outlawed it.

- "He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding."

So he would decide what the law is to be?

- "He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury."

Like what he did in the last days of his Presidency, pardoning Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Ivanka father-in-law Charles Kushner.

- "He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense."

How would he judge that? Given how much he likes Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, one has to ask which side he is on about Ukraine and Taiwan and South Korea.

- "He would gut the U.S. civil service,"

He wants to staff it with loyalists without regard to competence.

- "deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit,"

Thus wanting to be a military dictator.

- "close the White House pandemic-preparedness office,"

I don't understand his grudge against that.

- "and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen."

Thus valuing loyalty more than competence.
 
Imperial Presidency? In 1973, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote  The Imperial Presidency
The Imperial Presidency examines changes in the extent of executive power, particularly in the context of war, from the establishment of the United States through the presidency of Richard Nixon. It discusses how the applications of the Constitutional authority to declare war given to Congress and the Constitutional authority to conduct foreign policy and act as commander-in-chief given to the president have evolved since the government's inception, creating a dangerous imbalance in the separation of powers.

The book argues that throughout US history, the office of the president gradually appropriated authority exceeding that which was granted to the presidency by the Constitution, resulting in a concurrent erosion in congressional authority. The Imperial Presidency identifies a pattern of presidents during critical points in history setting policies and taking actions that were arguably the province of Congress, to be followed by a return to "normalcy" when the crisis had passed. Schlesinger presents James K. Polk's deployment of troops to the disputed area between Texas and Mexico, leading to the Mexican–American War, as the first example of a president exploiting the ambiguity of war-making powers in the Constitution. Another example he gives is Abraham Lincoln and his executive orders and actions during the American Civil War, such as the suspension of habeas corpus.

The book argues that the pattern of expansion and reversion was disrupted by World War II. The state of world affairs in its wake engendered a condition of "perpetual crisis", a condition that presidents relied upon to justify extending executive privilege largely unabated.
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AS wrote "...by the 1970s the American President had become on issues of war and peace the most absolute monarch (with the possible exception of Mao Tse-tung of China) among the great powers of the world." While he criticized Richard Nixon a lot in his book, he stated that the Nixon Admin was "not an aberration but a culmination" of a trend toward an imperial presidency. Culmination? It seems like Donald Trump wants to go a lot farther than Richard Nixon.

Wikipedia: "As Congress permitted its authority to be diminished in deference to the presidents, it encouraged the presidents to extend their imperial powers in the domestic sphere as well."
 
Bertrand Russell, in his "History of Western Philosophy", notes a book that advocated absolute monarchy. "Patriarcha: or The Natural Power of Kings", by Sir Robert Filmer, published in 1680.

"In fact, both Protestant and Catholic divines, in their contest with Catholic and Protestant monarchs respectively, had vigorously affirmed the right of subjects to resist tyrannical princes, and their writings supplied Sir Robert with abundant material for controversy."

Sir Robert Filmer was knighted by Charles I, and his house is said to have been plundered by the Parliamentarians ten times. He thinks it not unlikely that Noah sailed up the Mediterranean and allotted Africa, Asia, and Europe to Ham, Shem, and Japheth respectively. He held that, by the English Constitution, the Lords only give counsel to the king, and the Commons have even less power; the king, he says, alone makes the laws, which proceed solely from his will. The king, according to Filmer, is perfectly free from all human control, and cannot be bound by the acts of his predecessors, or even by his own, for "impossible it is in nature that a man should give a law unto himself."
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That might be what Donald Trump wants Congress to be: an advisory council.
Patriarcha begins by combating the "common opinion" that "mankind is naturally endowed and born with freedom from all subjection, and at liberty to choose what form of government it please, and the power which any one man hath over others was at first bestowed according to the discretion of the multitude." "This tenet," he says, "was first hatched in the schools." The truth, according to him, is quite different; it is, that originally God bestowed the kingly power upon Adam, from whom it descended to his heirs, and ultimately reached the various monarchs of modern times. Kings now, he assures us, "either are, or are to be reputed, the next heirs to those first progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people." Our first parent, it seems, did not adequately appreciate his privilege as universal monarch, for "the desire of liberty was the first cause of the fall of Adam." The desire of liberty is a sentiment which Sir Robert Filmer regards as impious.
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So the American revolutionaries were rebelling against God when they rebelled against King George III, because that king was one of God's provincial governors.

BR then discussed how medieval theologians argued for limits on the power of monarchs. Their doing so was part of the power struggles that the medieval Church had with medieval monarchs, on such things as who gets to appoint people to Church positions.
Though intended in the interests of the Pope, they could be used to support the rights of the people to self-government. "The subtle schoolmen," says Filmer, "to be sure to thrust down the king below the Pope, thought it the safest course to advance the people above the king, so that the papal power might take the place of the regal." He quotes the theologian Bellarmine as saying that secular power is bestowed by men (i.e., not by God), and "is in the people unless they bestow it on a prince"; thus Bellarmine, according to Filmer, "makes God the immediate author of a democratical estate"--which sounds to him as shocking as it would to a modern plutocrat to say that God is the immediate author of Bolshevism.
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His theory of political power?
Filmer derives political power, not from any contract, nor yet from any consideration of the public good, but entirely from the authority of a father over his children. His view is: that the source of regal authority is subjection of children to parents; that the patriarchs in Genesis were monarchs; that kings are the heirs of Adam, or at least are to be regarded as such; that the natural rights of a king are the same as those of a father; and that, by nature, sons are never free of paternal power, even when the son is adult and the parent is in his dotage.
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A second Trump term would be disastrous for democracy in America and all around the world. One cannot discuss this horrible prospect without being accused of hyperbole.

We are stunned with grief to imagine that tens of millions of Americans will still vote for this sociopath. German voters in the early 1930's at least had the worldwide Great Depression and lingering anti-German anger as excuses; what excuse do Trumplickers have?

Polymarket still shows Trump as the favorite in November, 47% vs 45%. Betfair is even worse, 46% vs 41%. Anyone who thinks Trump victory is impossible can double their money with ease.
 
I've more or less given up. Biden is barely bothering to campaign, and Trump really could shoot someone on 43rd street without any fear of losing supporters.
 
Politesse said:
I've more or less given up. Biden is barely bothering to campaign, and Trump really could shoot someone on 43rd street without any fear of losing supporters.
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I guess what we need is a pandemic.
 
Trump has fallen asleep during his trial several more times. Are we electing a wannabe dictator juat so he can take naps in the Oval Office once or twice a week instead of at Mar a Lago or in a court room somewhere?
 
Politesse said:
Trump has fallen asleep during his trial several more times. Are we electing a wannabe dictator juat so he can take naps in the Oval Office once or twice a week instead of at Mar a Lago or in a court room somewhere?
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If that constituted the totality of his damage to the human condition I could care less where he took his naps. I would even gift a few pillows from Lindell to the White House so the incorrigible nine-year-old could nap in peace.
 
T.G.G. Moogly said:
Politesse said:
Trump has fallen asleep during his trial several more times. Are we electing a wannabe dictator juat so he can take naps in the Oval Office once or twice a week instead of at Mar a Lago or in a court room somewhere?
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If that constituted the totality of his damage to the human condition I could care less where he took his naps. I would even gift a few pillows from Lindell to the White House so the incorrigible nine-year-old could nap in peace.
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Mike looks like he could use a nap.
 


The guy is delusional. That worm must have eaten more of his brain than previously thought.
 
jeezus wept

President Joe Biden stubbornly refused to admit Americans' struggles with inflation might cost him the election in a rare interview Wednesday. Biden, in his interview with CNN, claimed the polls are wrong and Americans struggling with inflation have more cash in their pockets, saying: 'They have the money to spend.' He did admit that inflation, one of the biggest factors that sank Biden's popularity in the first half of his term, was real. 'It really is, and it is real, but the fact is that if you take a look at what people have, they have the money to spend,' he claimed.
But he instead chose to blame 'greedy corporations' for consumers lack of confidence. 'It angers them and it angers me that you have to spend more. For example, the whole idea of this notion that you have... shrinkflation... It's like 20% less for the same price, that is corporate greed. It is corporate greed and we've got to deal with it.'
Many were enraged on social media by Biden's comments while Americans continue to struggle.

One critic wrote: 'Most people don’t have the money because they are honest, unlike pathological lying Joe!'

Another said: 'He is the most clueless president this country has ever had and that is the way history will remember him.'

'The man is out of touch with EVERYTHING,' added another.
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Daily Mail

Brandon is clueless.
 
TSwizzle said:
jeezus wept

President Joe Biden stubbornly refused to admit Americans' struggles with inflation might cost him the election in a rare interview Wednesday. Biden, in his interview with CNN, claimed the polls are wrong and Americans struggling with inflation have more cash in their pockets, saying: 'They have the money to spend.' He did admit that inflation, one of the biggest factors that sank Biden's popularity in the first half of his term, was real. 'It really is, and it is real, but the fact is that if you take a look at what people have, they have the money to spend,' he claimed.
But he instead chose to blame 'greedy corporations' for consumers lack of confidence. 'It angers them and it angers me that you have to spend more. For example, the whole idea of this notion that you have... shrinkflation... It's like 20% less for the same price, that is corporate greed. It is corporate greed and we've got to deal with it.'
Many were enraged on social media by Biden's comments while Americans continue to struggle.

One critic wrote: 'Most people don’t have the money because they are honest, unlike pathological lying Joe!'

Another said: 'He is the most clueless president this country has ever had and that is the way history will remember him.'

'The man is out of touch with EVERYTHING,' added another.
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Daily Mail is clueless.
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FTFY.

"Many were enraged on social media" I am shocked! Please tell me it ain't so!

Oh, wait; "Many" are always enraged on social media. Rage addiction is endemic in right wingers and their social media cesspools.

"One critic wrote" One? OMG! I am astonished to hear that Biden has a (notably anonymous) critic.

"Another said" OMFG!! There's two of them!!! That's a significant proportion of the US voting population right there!
 
In round figures, I'll guess that the probabilities over a partition of future cases are roughly as follows:

  • 2% . . . . Biden drops out, Trump loses
  • 15% . . . . Biden wins decisively
  • 10% . . . . Biden wins a very close election, riots are subdued
  • 15% . . . . Biden wins a very close election, severe riots ensue
  • 3% . . . . Biden wins a very close election, a sort of Civil War follows
  • 2% . . . . similar to preceding but Trump would have won w/o RFK
  • 14% . . . . Trump wins (Biden would have won w/o RFK)
  • 17% . . .. Trump wins in a close election (Biden wins popular vote)
  • 10% . . . . Trump wins (close popular vote)
  • 5% . . . . Trump wins, and wins popular vote
  • 2% . . . . Biden drops out, Trump wins
  • 2% . . . . Nikki Haley wins
  • 3% . . . . Other

Disclaimer: I spent several minutes trying to make reasonable guesstimates I might be satisfied with. But I've no doubt the estimates have many flaws. I appeal to fellow Infidels to help improve these guesses.
 
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