Election 2024

[sear]

"... Apply the same logic to Kamala Harris." Cole #380

a) You get an "A" for effort. - but -
b) "Don't try to teach pigs to sing. It wastes your time, and annoys the pigs."

note:
Nice to see Vance is preparing his eldest for a career in politics. Presumably the rubber boots will rise to hip-high before the kid runs for dog-catcher.

 

[Shiftless2]

The Fight To Certify Elections Has Already Begun​

The Fight To Certify Elections Has Already Begun

From Marc | With fewer than 100 days until the election, Republicans are building an election subversion war machine.

www.democracydocket.com

 

[sear]

#382

"With fewer than 100 days until the election, Republicans are building an election subversion war machine."​

The Fight To Certify Elections Has Already Begun

From Marc | With fewer than 100 days until the election, Republicans are building an election subversion war machine.

www.democracydocket.com

We live in "interesting" times.

 

[sear]

Former President Donald Trump is reopening an old feud with Republicans in Georgia.
Just before rallying supporters in Atlanta on Saturday, Trump unleashed a tirade on the state's popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp, whose vaunted ground game operation Trump may need in November, ripping into him on Truth Social for "fighting Unity and the Republican Party."
And when Trump took the stage, he went at him even harder.
"He's a bad guy, he's a disloyal guy and he's a very average governor," Trump told supporters, eliciting boos toward Kemp from the crowd.
The attack — on social media and in person at the Georgia State University Convocation Center — marked an escalation of Trump's longstanding criticism of Kemp. And it instantly unsettled Georgia Republicans, who warned Trump's comments threaten his already shaky prospects in the state.
"I'm sitting here scratching my head," Bobby Saparow, a Republican operative and Brian Kemp's former campaign manager, told POLITICO. "Attacking the popular governor of a pivotal swing state makes zero sense. If we want to actually unite, ask for the support of the guy who beat your endorsed primary opponent by 52 points and handily defeated Stacey Abrams."

Trump reopens old feud in Georgia. Some Republicans are scratching their heads.

Some Republicans warned Trump’s comments could threaten his already shaky prospects in the state.

news.yahoo.com

When Trump's mindless antics happen to benefit Trump, observers genuflect to Trump as a genius.
And when he commits conspicuous blunders like this ... ?

 

[sear]

Trump ditches upcoming ABC debate, proposes Fox News debate instead​

Former President Donald Trump said Friday he would not debate Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC, where he originally agreed to debate President Joe Biden
Aug. 3, 2024, 11:32 AM GMT-5
By Alexandra Marquez and Yamiche Alcindor
Former President Donald Trump on Friday said he would no longer participate in a September debate on ABC, opting instead to propose a debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Fox News on Sept. 4.
The former president said the ABC debate was agreed to when President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee “but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant.”

Trump also cited his active defamation lawsuit against ABC and the network’s anchor George Stephanopoulos — but that lawsuit was filed in March and the Biden-Trump debate on ABC was announced in May.
Fox News formally invited Trump and Harris to debate on its network in September just days after Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris.

Trump ditches upcoming ABC debate, proposes Fox News debate instead

Former President Donald Trump said Friday he would not debate Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC, where he originally agreed to debate President Joe Biden.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Shiftless2]

Just how long to we bake it for and at what temperature?

 

[Shiftless2]

More here

In Atlanta, Trump confirms that Georgia's state election board is in his pocket

The comments came at Trump's rally Saturday night and confirm much of what democracy advocates have long suspected of the board's Republican members.

www.american-doom.com

 

[sear]

Just how long to we bake it for and at what temperature?

That's a crummy sign for sure.
Apparently the entire Trump organization is loafing.

Not sure why they're blocking the pathway with it. S'pose it's those dastardly Democrats ?

 

[sear]

Black Hole: The astrophysics analogy to the 2024 presidential campaign

Current understanding of celestial black holes is that they are concentrations of gravity manifest in two ways:
- the singularity, an imagined invisible dot believed to defy laws of physics as we understand them. Beyond the singularity is
- the event horizon. We can think of the event horizon as a spherical boundary surrounding the singularity that functions as a point of no return.
Inside the event horizon, escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, thus the categorization: "black hole".

Unfortunately for those that benefit from the United States Constitution serving however imperfectly as the supreme law of the land [Art.6 Sect.2],
grateful and ingrate alike, the United States is careening toward potential self-annihilation if the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump
either wins the election outright, or legitimately or not is ruled at law court to have won.
Trump has publicly made a campaign commitment to a dictatorship on day one. The United States Constitution does not allow for that.
And it is not a matter of whether Trump would violate his oath to the Constitution. He already has, on January 6.

In the circumstance of a Trump win, legitimate or not, a Trump dictatorship may forfeit the Constitution, in practical terms a point of no return.

 

[sear]

Harris to announce VP pic today: Tuesday August 6, 2024.

 

[Shiftless2]

Kamala Harris chooses Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as running mate in U.S. presidential race against Trump​

Harris chooses running mate meant to appeal to white working-class and moderate men​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/harris-running-mate-walz-1.7286027

 

[sear]

Kamala Harris chooses Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as running mate in U.S. presidential race against Trump​

Harris chooses running mate meant to appeal to white working-class and moderate men​

I'm no huge Trump fan. BUT !
I credit Trump ... He's gotten a Black woman to smooch the dairy air of White men, by the dozens !
Gee Whizz Donald

 

[sear]

Part 1 of 2​

Healthcare:​

Will Harris run on a similar plan in 2024?​

Given Harris’ sudden emergence as the likely Democratic nominee in a highly unusual process, it’s not yet clear what her health reform agenda would look like this time around.

On January 21, 2019, Harris announced that she was seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination for President. ...
In response to a questioner who asked her if her health care solution “involved cutting insurance companies as we know them out of the equation,” Harris agreed, saying, “I believe the solution—and I actually feel very strongly about this—is that we need to have Medicare for all. That’s just the bottom line…it is inhumane to make people go through a system where they cannot literally receive the benefit of what medical science can offer because some insurance company has decided it doesn’t meet their bottom line.”

If You Like Your Health Care Plan, Will Kamala Harris Let You Keep It?

In 2019, Harris campaigned—at times—on abolishing private health insurance in favor of "Medicare for All." What will she stand for in 2024?

www.forbes.com

 

[sear]

Part 2 of 2

Regarding "single payer" Senator Sanders called it "Medicare for All".
Does this mean phasing out private healthcare in the U.S.?
Is it a good idea?

In Western Europe some nations have per capita healthcare costs lower than the U.S., but with healthcare outcomes as good or better, reportedly as quantified by such standards as obvious as life expectancy.
Rather than reinventing the wheel, should the Harris administration lower U.S. per capita healthcare costs as it is done by such Western Europeans?

 

[Shiftless2]

Most of those countries have some sort of universal healthcare - some do have a blended system where there is private insurance in addition to the public one.

As for cost just look north of the border - per capita healthcare costs in Canada are roughly half of what they are in the US and everyone is covered

SOURCE (with detailed discussion)

 

[sear]

Most of those countries have some sort of universal healthcare - some do have a blended system where there is private insurance in addition to the public one.

I apologize for the tangent, but it's my experience as a 70 year old that conceptually being a purist is the simplest, and therefore to minimalists like me, most appealing. BUT !!
Unfortunately or not, bitter experience has taught me in practice, blended systems tend to work best. Conceptually it's half-stepping. But for the efficiency-minded pragmatist, it can't be beat.

As for cost just look north of the border - per capita healthcare costs in Canada are roughly half of what they are in the US and everyone is covered
SOURCE (with detailed discussion)

You've got me over a statistics barrel here S2.
Is there a time component missing here? The Z-axis perhaps? I followed the link, and found this, adjacent to the graph:

Figure 7.4. Health expenditure per capita, 2019 (or nearest year)

?!
The Y-Axis is "USD PPP"
That's U.S. $Dollars per patient person ?
Per year?!
I may be a worthless hulk. But I don't cost $10K / year in healthcare.
Lifetime? Probably more.

Anyway, I'm sure that's significant data, relevant, elucidating stats.
But I can't make sense of it, beyond the conspicuous: the U.S. is at the long end of the non-alphabetical list.
I also don't know what OECD38 is, but it's a flashy color, a stand-out.

 

[Shiftless2]

I may be a worthless hulk. But I don't cost $10K / year in healthcare.

It's not what "you" cost. It's what the average person costs.

Forget the exact numbers but when I was studying this stuff for my actuarial exams it seems that 80%+ of your lifetime medical expenses will occur in the last couple of months of your life.

And then there's the costs associated with a serious disease (what do you think it costs to treat someone with cancer or AIDS). Or the survivor of a major auto accident. Or ....

 

[sear]

It's not what "you" cost. It's what the average person costs.

Indeed.
Seems $high to me if it's per year, and low if it's lifetime.

Forget the exact numbers but when I was studying this stuff for my actuarial exams it seems that 80%+ of your lifetime medical expenses will occur in the last couple of months of your life.

Yes. I recall such reports. Elders I've known have anecdotally corroborated it.

And then there's the costs associated with a serious disease (what do you think it costs to treat someone with cancer or AIDS). Or the survivor of a major auto accident. Or ....

I don't have that information, but suspect the answer is more complicated than the question.
Initially AIDS was a death sentence. After a while (years?) a pharmacology breakthrough, rendering AIDS survivable.
CERTAINLY the R&D, plus the [usually *] time-consuming FDA approval process must be rewarded generously, or big pharma won't bother running the R&D gauntlet, breakthrough meds innovation will stagnate, and ... .
BUT:

(what do you think it costs to treat someone with cancer or AIDS).

At what point does appropriate reward become $windfall $profiteering ? Institutionally, societally we address that by making prescription drugs generic.

* Except in the case of "the novel corona virus" renamed "COVID-19", where the process start to finish took about a year, unprecedented I gather.

 

[Shiftless2]

So turns out Trump's campaign emails are just macro-generated find/replace boilerplate. Weak, Low effort, and Weird.​

 

[sear]

So turns out Trump's campaign emails are just macro-generated find/replace boilerplate. Weak, Low effort, and Weird.

a) I did not know that.
b) Trump seems to be in mental discord. When Harris bumped Biden Trump waffled on the scheduled debate.
Harris skillfully drew Trump to the event by informing Trump she Harris would be there. Trump's risk, if he didn't attend, instead of getting 50% of the air time, he'd get zero.
Worse, Harris would get 100%, a risk Trump wasn't willing to risk.
Now Trump says he wants 3 debates against Harris.

Harris says she, former prosecutor, is looking forward to debating the convicted felon.

My opinion, the key details:
- Will Trump's mic have a kill switch?
- Will there be real-time fact-check, to nail Trump on his prolific lies?
Biden's exceptionally feeble performance may have set Trump up to over-confidence against Harris.

Donald! They're not the same guy, though you have publicly dismissed the distinction by asserting their policies are the same. Not exactly true Donold.