The Race For 2024

[lpetrich]

Trump adds ex-Democrats Gabbard and RFK Jr to his transition team

Ms Gabbard is a former congresswoman and military veteran who ran to be the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2020, before distancing herself from the party.

Mr Kennedy initially launched a bid to win the Democratic nomination this time around, but later ran as an independent before dropping out and endorsing Trump.

...
Ms Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in Congress from 2013 to 2021, quit the Democratic Party in 2022, complaining of its "wokeness".

...
She was the first Hindu member of the US Congress, going on to serve as vice-chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee - before resigning to endorse the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders.

When Ms Gabbard ran for president in 2020, she championed liberal issues like government-run healthcare, free college tuition and gun control.

...
She has since staked out conservative views on issues including abortion and transgender rights, and has become a regular and outspoken guest on Fox News. She has also been accused of spreading "promoting Russian propaganda" by officials in Ukraine.

By early 2024, she was singing the praises of Mr Biden's rival, Trump, who will this time compete for the White House against Ms Harris.

There is a certain problem with both RFK Jr. and TG.

The two former Democrats are also known for being staunch environmentalists.

Trump has promised to ramp up US fossil fuel production and regularly uses the slogan "Drill, baby, drill!" at his rallies.

Some 200 Republicans think otherwise:

In an open letter, former staffers for George HW Bush and George W Bush, and Senators John McCain and Mitt Romney said another Trump administration would endanger American democracy.

The Republicans wrote: "Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov Walz. That’s to be expected.

"The alternative, however, is simply untenable."

 

[lpetrich]

How Democrats View Kennedy and Trump: ‘A Weirdo Campaign Just Got Weirder’ - The New York Times - "Democrats once seriously worried that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be a spoiler. Now, after his endorsement of Donald Trump, they see a political opportunity."

Democrats say they have a simple plan for discrediting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now that he has dropped out of the race and endorsed former President Donald J. Trump: calling him “weird.”

It’s a playground-style strategy that the Harris campaign has already deployed against Mr. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, and the put-downs have proved popular with the Democratic base.

The party doesn’t have to look far for ammunition. Mr. Kennedy has recently made headlines for decapitating a dead whale with a chain saw and strapping its head to the family minivan, as well as dumping a deceased bear cub in Central Park. Now the Democrats want to attach his baggage to Mr. Trump.

The DNC on Tulsi Gabbard joining Donald Trump's campaign: “Trump’s Circle of Weirdos Gets Even More Extreme.”

Before he dropped out, Mr. Kennedy was polling worse than Gary Johnson had in 2016 when he ran on the Libertarian ticket.

“Once around 15 percent, R.F.K. Jr.’s support has been in free fall — now under 5 percent — and he’s not positioned to deliver any electoral benefit to Trump,” Ramsey Reid, the Democratic National Committee’s campaign manager for its effort against third-party and independent candidates, wrote in a memo.

 

[lpetrich]

On the lighter side:

 

[lpetrich]

 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries and  2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries

Marianne Williamson was in the race no less than three times:

• March 4, 2023 - February 7, 2024
• February 28, 2024 - June 11, 2024
• July 2, 2024 - July 29, 2024

She first suspended her campaign after it seemed like she was not likely to win, but after the results of the Michigan primary, she restarted her campaign. She suspended it after the primaries ended, and she restarted it after the Biden-Trump debate of June 27. Did President Biden seeming so feeble make it seem like she has a chance? But when the Democratic Party united around Kamala Harris after Joe Biden dropped out on July 21, she decided that there was no point in continuing, it seems to me.

 

[LoAmmo]

One of my biggest irritants of the 2024 race is the vastly asymmetrical advantage given Trump in…what to even call it—“the consequence-free latitude to say and do wildly crazy unhinged shit in quantity, any one of which would instantly end the campaign of Kamala Harris were she the one to have said or done it.”
In just one 24-hour period—which wasn’t even some kind of unique, one-off outlier—Trump got away with any number of “offenses” which would have been fatal to Team Blue had they committed them.

If Harris/Walz had gone and shown their asses at Arlington National Cemetery (in strict violation of rules against politicizing one’s visits there), it’d have become a national shitstorm and then “game over.” Trump gets a free pass.

If Harris/Walz had posted advocating for military tribunals/public executions of political opponents, the blowback would have crippled her momentum and eroded her support past the point of viability. With Trump, it’s just, “Heh. He says things.”

If Kamala Harris had posted a crude joke about Trump which hinged on the word “blowjob,” She’d have been instantly and relentlessly excoriated not only by Fox, OAN and the like, but also—perhaps even more fervently—by the so-called mainstream media outlets as well, who are still twisting into pretzel shapes trying to normalize Trump’s insane behavior and apply a “both-sides-ism” argument that’s clearly uncalled for.

Yes, Trump’s missteps “make the news” (else, how would I have heard of them?)
But they invariably fail to gain traction and impose meaningful consequences on him, where any one of them—yet alone a daily slew of them in aggregate—would hang like an anchor around Harris’ neck. This is in large part due to the sheer prodigious output of crazy emanating from Trump; there simply isn’t gas enough to fuel the outrage bus around the clock for years on end. Part of it is media influence—Trump’s crazy is downplayed (if not outright ignored) on Fox and re-worded into benign normalcy by CNN.
Whatever the myriad reasons for this disparity, at the end of the day we have created a model in which the exact same behavior ends up good for the goose…bad for the gander. It’s fundamentally unfair, and should be resisted.
But won’t be.

 

[Janice Rael]

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

I'm a Jersey Girl. We called him Don the Con because he never paid his workers, he got the banks to give him free money to build gaudy, tacky casinos (snort, I know, they sort of need to be gaudy); he used undocumented workers, didn't pay them, either, then he'd just file bankruptcy to avoid paying back the loans.

Then the banks just gave That Man more money, over and over. Did he not have 4 bankruptcies? idk.

I am still surprised that Elon Musk hasn't yet filed for bankruptcy to avoid repaying the loan of $15Bn to that one bank, that he got for TwitterX, and, idk who else. I am expecting Elon's bankruptcy, and have long been waiting for him to do it. But he hasn't finished breaking his toy yet.

Trump has gotten a free pass from everyone, forever, and still does, because he is a Useful Fool, a patsy, an egotistical rapist who is so full of his own bullshit that he can't tell he is being used by the Lindsey Grahams and Mitch McConnells of Congress, not to mention Mister Ginni, Anti Abortion Amy, or Beer-Swilling Brett.

I'm also convinced that Mr Ginni is so terrified of his traitor wife that he is willing to undo everything from Obergefell (marriage equality across genders) all the way back to Loving v Virginia (marriage between people with different skin color and melanin levels).

Why else would he BE like this.

Anyway, Trump has *always* gotten away with this shit because his greed and idiocy help make money for other assholes. As long as Trump continues to exist, these assholes are gonna hone their Project 2025 plans and make some new, identical thing.

 

[Elixir]

I'm also convinced that Mr Ginni is so terrified of his traitor wife that he is willing to undo everything

That would explain a lot.
What a tiny little man.

 

[Swammerdami]

One of my biggest irritants of the 2024 race is the vastly asymmetrical advantage given Trump in…what to even call it—“the consequence-free latitude to say and do wildly crazy unhinged shit in quantity, any one of which would instantly end the campaign of Kamala Harris were she the one to have said or done it.”
In just one 24-hour period—which wasn’t even some kind of unique, one-off outlier—Trump got away with any number of “offenses” which would have been fatal to Team Blue had they committed them.

If Harris/Walz had gone and shown their asses at Arlington National Cemetery (in strict violation of rules against politicizing one’s visits there), it’d have become a national shitstorm and then “game over.” Trump gets a free pass.

If Harris/Walz had posted advocating for military tribunals/public executions of political opponents, the blowback would have crippled her momentum and eroded her support past the point of viability. With Trump, it’s just, “Heh. He says things.”

If Kamala Harris had posted a crude joke about Trump which hinged on the word “blowjob,” She’d have been instantly and relentlessly excoriated not only by Fox, OAN and the like, but also—perhaps even more fervently—by the so-called mainstream media outlets as well, who are still twisting into pretzel shapes trying to normalize Trump’s insane behavior and apply a “both-sides-ism” argument that’s clearly uncalled for.

Yes, Trump’s missteps “make the news” (else, how would I have heard of them?)
But they invariably fail to gain traction and impose meaningful consequences on him, where any one of them—yet alone a daily slew of them in aggregate—would hang like an anchor around Harris’ neck. This is in large part due to the sheer prodigious output of crazy emanating from Trump; there simply isn’t gas enough to fuel the outrage bus around the clock for years on end. Part of it is media influence—Trump’s crazy is downplayed (if not outright ignored) on Fox and re-worded into benign normalcy by CNN.
Whatever the myriad reasons for this disparity, at the end of the day we have created a model in which the exact same behavior ends up good for the goose…bad for the gander. It’s fundamentally unfair, and should be resisted.
But won’t be.

LoAmmo describes a big problem very eloquently.

I didn't know whether to click Like, Sad, Angry, I Care or Love; so I just copied the whole post to frame it.

 

[Copernicus]

It turns out that the intrepid Trump photo op entourage manhandled a woman employee of the cemetery, shoving her aside, to make and illegal campaign film in violation of the Code of Federal Regulations:

Title 32 Subtitle A Chapter V Subchapter D Part 553

The reason that the government prohibits using cemeteries for campaign events is that such events do not have the consent of those interred there or their families to have their gravesites used as political props. If that were allowed, we would see a never-ending stream of politicians trying to use the cemeteries for those purposes. In this case, the family that invited Donald Trump did not have permission to use the cemetery as a backdrop for his campaign photo op, no matter what they may have thought. People can only take private photos there for personal use. Trump's campaign falsely claimed to have permission, as the Army has made clear, and the woman who was physically shoved aside was not having a mental problem. She was doing her job.

US Army rebukes Trump campaign for incident at Arlington National Cemetery​

So far, no apologies from the Trump campaign, but does anyone expect contrition on their part? They got what they wanted. That's the kind of people they are and the kind of candidate they are promoting.

 

[southernhybrid]

LoAmmo's post reminded me of an article I'm about to share. Hell. I might as well not waste any of my free give aways before the month is over.

https://wapo.st/3yNKt0T

Donald Trump amplified a vulgar joke about Vice President Kamala Harris performing a sex act. He falsely accused her of staging a coup to secure the Democratic nomination and faulted her without evidence for a security lapse that enabled a rogue gunman to try to assassinate him. He shared a manipulated online image of Bill Gates in an orange jumpsuit and a call for Barack Obama to face a “military tribunal.” He promoted explicit tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory. He hawked digital trading cards in an online infomercial along with pieces of his debate night suit. (“People are calling it the knockout suit.”) His campaign feuded publicly with Arlington National Cemetery over their visit.

And that was just in the span of 24 hours.

Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

With fewer than 70 days until the election, Trump is zigging and zagging with an arsenal of unfocused attacks and peripheral pursuits that for any other politician would amount to a stunning stretch at such a pivotal moment in the campaign.

But even at policy-oriented events, Trump often strays from the script. In Michigan last week, he skipped over a new crime proposal that aides had promoted in his prepared remarks. Earlier this month, at an event with megadonor Miriam Adelson meant to showcase his support for Israel, Trump veered into a comparison of civilian and military awards that prompted a rare rebuke from the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Trump recounted giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Adelson, and said it was better than the Medal of Honor, which recognizes valor in war, because the recipients of the latter are “in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
On Monday, after his Arlington visit, Trump sought to showcase his support for the military in an address to the National Guard Association of the United States. Audience members applauded as Trump criticized the United States’ chaotic exit from Afghanistan under Biden and said he would “get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity.”

James Palembas, a 62-year-old retired National Guard member in the audience, wasn’t a fan of the “Tampon Tim” jab.
“I would not have done that,” he said after the speech. “Some of the things that come out of Trump’s mouth are very shock-effect.” He said he does not identify as a “strong MAGA guy.”

But like so many voters, Palembas was willing to overlook that and said he trusts Trump on issues he cares about: immigration, the economy, foreign policy.


Roe, the former Michigan GOP executive director, said people around him often dismiss Trump’s behavior, saying, “It doesn’t matter, everybody already knows who Trump is.” He marveled at how Republicans who were deeply offended by Bill Clinton’s affair with an intern in the 1990s are now willing to overlook transgressions by Trump.
It’s “jersey politics,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what is said or done, it only matters what jersey is worn.”

There's more in the article if anyone is interested but you get the point. Trump can say and do all kinds of crazy shit, but his cult still supports him. idiots!

 

[Shadowy Man]

If someone broke the law then someone should get arrested. So much for "law and order".

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

WTF?

After the wreath-laying ceremony, Trump accompanied the families and two Marines who were injured in the attack, Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews and Corporal Kelsee Lainhart, to Section 60 of the cemetery. It’s an area that’s mostly reserved for U.S. veterans who have been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The service members Trump was honoring were killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.

Two members of Trump’s campaign staff reportedly had an altercation with a cemetery official who tried to prohibit the Trump staffers from filming and photographing in Section 60, NPR reported. At that point, Trump’s campaign staff allegedly verbally abused and pushed the official aside.

A defense official told the Associated Press that the Trump campaign was warned ahead of Monday’s visit that they could not film or take photographs in Section 60 due to the cemetery’s media policy.

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery said in a statement.

Despite the federal law, the Trump campaign posted a video of Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, including Section 60, to the former president’s TikTok account after the visit.

Smiles and thumbs up everyone, we're at Arlington National Cemetery, in an area dedicated to Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan!

 

[ZiprHead]

The U.S. economy grew 3% in the second quarter — faster than initially thought

“This economy is neither in recession nor is it at risk of an imminent end to the current business cycle,” one economist said.

www.nbcnews.com

The U.S. economy grew faster in the second quarter of 2024 than first reported, suggesting there was little sign of a slowdown through the first six months of the year.

The latest reading of the gross domestic product (GDP) published by the Commerce Department came in at 3%, up from an initial estimate of 2.8%. The change was driven by personal spending, which advanced 2.9% compared with the prior estimate of 2.3%.


GDP is the largest single measure of economic activity, capturing consumption, investment, government spending and trade.

The U.S. economy continues to demonstrate resiliency despite various headwinds. Inflation remains higher than the Federal Reserve's 2% target but remains well below its pandemic-era peak of more than 9% — and earnings for the typical worker have been keeping pace. Meanwhile, layoffs remain subdued even as the unemployment rate is up from historic lows.

The typical U.S. worker out-earned inflation by $1,400 a year, data shows

Even as price growth has surged in the pandemic era, earnings of middle-class and even lower-class jobholders have risen too.

www.nbcnews.com

In the tug-of-war between paychecks and prices, the typical American worker has come out on top.

While higher costs for everything from milk to medicines have preoccupied U.S. consumers in the pandemic era, earnings have also risen enough, on average, to push up households’ purchasing power a bit. And blue-collar workers have been the biggest beneficiaries.


An analysis published in July by economists at the Treasury Department found that the median worker can afford the same representative basket of goods and services as they did in 2019 — plus have an additional $1,400 a year.

Thanks, Dark Brandon.

 

[ZiprHead]

WTF?

After the wreath-laying ceremony, Trump accompanied the families and two Marines who were injured in the attack, Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews and Corporal Kelsee Lainhart, to Section 60 of the cemetery. It’s an area that’s mostly reserved for U.S. veterans who have been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The service members Trump was honoring were killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.

Two members of Trump’s campaign staff reportedly had an altercation with a cemetery official who tried to prohibit the Trump staffers from filming and photographing in Section 60, NPR reported. At that point, Trump’s campaign staff allegedly verbally abused and pushed the official aside.

A defense official told the Associated Press that the Trump campaign was warned ahead of Monday’s visit that they could not film or take photographs in Section 60 due to the cemetery’s media policy.

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery said in a statement.

Despite the federal law, the Trump campaign posted a video of Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, including Section 60, to the former president’s TikTok account after the visit.

Smiles and thumbs up everyone, we're at Arlington National Cemetery, in an area dedicated to Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Damage control.

 

[Ford]

View attachment 47536

Damage control.

Bigly. Did he join them on the first or second anniversary of their deaths? And you can "give approval" all you want, but the rules are the rules. Just because you happen to support the candidate that's using you and your family for a campaign event doesn't change the fact that campaigning is not allowed on those hallowed grounds.

Compare that with the time when Obama met with the families of Sandy Hook victims. Not a photo op. Not a campaign event. There were no photographers or videographers.

The president took a deep breath and steeled himself, and went into the first classroom. And what happened next I’ll never forget.

Person after person received an engulfing hug from our commander in chief. He’d say, “Tell me about your son. . . . Tell me about your daughter,” and then hold pictures of the lost beloved as their parents described favorite foods, television shows, and the sound of their laughter. For the younger siblings of those who had passed away—many of them two, three, or four years old, too young to understand it all—the president would grab them and toss them, laughing, up into the air, and then hand them a box of White House M&M’s, which were always kept close at hand. In each room, I saw his eyes water, but he did not break.

And then the entire scene would repeat—for hours. Over and over and over again, through well over a hundred relatives of the fallen, each one equally broken, wrecked by the loss.

 

[Patooka]

Isn't this a security risk? I mean, public photos clearly showing the names of recently killed soldiers is a free kick for foreign actors who have a social media department.

Obviously this is minor compared to all the other espionage shit Trump has done, but it's still not good. Or am I missing something?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

At this point I can't see how the '24 election is that important, the real key being the '28 election. Whichever one wins in '24 will serve one term only: Trump because he'll be termed out, Harris because she'll lose in '28.

Right now both sides see the government as a cudgel with which to pummel their opponents.

The candidate who wins in '28 will determine if we continue down the road to self-destruction or if there will be an attempt to put the US on a better track. The big test will be to see if that person stops the process of lawfare against rivals and prosecuting the loser of an electoral contest.

 

[laughing dog]

Yeah, if you lose an election it is unfair to prosecute you for any laws you may have actually broken. Succoring such losers with special treatment before the halls of justice avoids the road to perdition and chaos.

 

[bilby]

View attachment 47536

...and the award for "least accurate use of the words 'respect', 'dignity', and 'respectfully'" goes to...

 

[Harry Bosch]

Isn't this a security risk? I mean, public photos clearly showing the names of recently killed soldiers is a free kick for foreign actors who have a social media department.

Obviously this is minor compared to all the other espionage shit Trump has done, but it's still not good. Or am I missing something?

Trump and his weird team have no respect for veterans and the law. He's claiming that he had the permission from the families to mock the graves. Even it true, doesn't matter. It's against federal law. Period.