Election 2024

Trump is not the first non-viable political candidate in human history. BUT:
Trump may be among the few that have prospered politically, albeit with 19th Century / 12th Amendment help. Trump lost the 2016 vote, but won the election.

Trump supporters may comprise a minority of the U.S. population. But that Trump support remains fervent.
Shiftless2 said:
" Unhinged " #120
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Haven't seen Trump's poll numbers drop due to this, or similar displays of public embarrassment.

Many a talkative cab driver or barber seem to believe they'd be a better president than the one they're criticizing. Since Trump held the office, I'm fast coming around to this cab driver / barber's perspective.
 

Republicans Struggle to Justify Biden Impeachment Inquiry Ahead of Vote​

Speaker Mike Johnson announced plans to hold a floor vote formalizing the fishing expedition — but no one can seem to justify it

www.rollingstone.com

Republicans Struggle to Justify Biden Impeachment Inquiry Ahead of Vote

Republican lawmakers are struggling to explain their reasoning for moving forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com
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And the truth comes out

GOP Rep. Explains Impeachment Push: ‘Donald J. Trump 2024, Baby!’​

In video obtained by Rolling Stone, Troy Nehls touted Trump returning to the White House when asked what Republicans have to gain from a Biden impeachment inquiry

www.rollingstone.com

GOP Rep. Explains Impeachment Push: 'Donald J. Trump 2024, Baby!'

Rep. Troy Nehls said "Donald J. Trump 2024, baby!" when asked what Republicans have to gain from an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com
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enough !

I don't give a %$# what shade of lipstick they slap on this old sow. SHE JUST AIN'T PERTY ! - or -

If you're from Kentucky:
That dog won't hunt.

S2,
This is nothing less than an attempt to destroy the sovereign Constitutional authority (if not existence) of the United States of America. AND DONALD TRUMP HAS SAID SO PUBLICLY !! (That's what the day one comment was about.)

And for WHAT ?!?!
They like the guy ?! I thought Southerners didn't like yankees. It seems yanks aren't so bad, if they finish off the job Robert E. Lee couldn't.
Princess Leah turned to Obiwan. And we turn to the Old Biden one. My $money's on Leah.
 
Shiftless2 said:
"When Trump was first elected he complained that the Constitution wouldn't let him do what he wanted to do." S2 #123
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Ironic, as Trump lost the vote, BUT ! won the election because of the electoral college designated BY THE CONSTITUTION.
right?
 
True - Trump won the 2016 election because of the Electoral College. But an only somewhat related piece of trivia, unlike what most of us were told in school, the Electoral College was not designed to give power to the small states (the flyover states in today's terminology). It was established to give more power to the slave states.

The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists​

BY AKHIL REED AMAR
UPDATED: OCTOBER 29, 2020 11:51 AM EDT | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 8, 2016 9:00 AM EST

As Americans await the quadrennial running of the presidential obstacle course now known as the Electoral College, it’s worth remembering why we have this odd political contraption in the first place. After all, state governors in all 50 states are elected by popular vote; why not do the same for the governor of all states, a.k.a. the president? The quirks of the Electoral College system were exposed in 2016 when Donald Trump secured the presidency with an Electoral College majority, even as Hillary Clinton took a narrow lead in the popular vote.

Some claim that the founding fathers chose the Electoral College over direct election in order to balance the interests of high-population and low-population states. But the deepest political divisions in America have always run not between big and small states, but between ...

time.com

The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists

The Founding Fathers had something particular in mind when they set up the U.S. presidential election system: slavery
time.com time.com
 
Problem is, If I click "like" for #126, it may be misconscrewed. But thanks to S2 helping to make sense of the senseless. [note: the insights posted here may help distract from the carnage in Ukraine & Gaza]
Shiftless2 said:
The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists
BY AKHIL REED AMAR
" But the deepest political divisions in America have always run not between big and small states, but between ..." Amar #126
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from the link:
"Some claim that the founding fathers chose the Electoral College over direct election in order to balance the interests of high-population and low-population states.
But the deepest political divisions in America have always run not between big and small states, but between the north and the south, and between the coasts and the interior."

https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

True enough.
Paul Havey called it "The Uncivil War":
"The American Civil War was among the first wars to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were all widely used during the war. In total, the war left between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian casualties, making the Civil War the deadliest military conflict in American history." More from Wikipedia
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The figure I've read is 400,000 but either way, ghastly. To quote a Northerner that visited below the Mason - Dixie, - When they talk about "the War", they're not talkin' 'bout Vietnam. -

Does this help imagining the carnage?
"The 1860 United States census was the eighth census conducted in the United States starting June 1, 1860, and lasting five months. It determined the population of the United States to be 31,443,322 in 33 states and 10 organized territories. This was an increase of 35.4 percent over the 23,069,876 persons enumerated during the 1850 census." More from Wikipedia
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From 1861 to 1865, the Civil War ravaged America. It still holds several notorious records, such as the highest number of average deaths per day (504). Read more of the shocking statistics from the War that divided our nation.

- 4:1 — The ratio of people who attended church weekly to those who voted in the 1860 election

- 2.5 — Approximate percentage of the American population that died in the Civil War

- 7 million — Number of Americans lost if 2.5% of the population died in war today

- 2.1 million — Number of Northerners mobilized to fight for the Union army

- 880,000 — Number of Southerners mobilized for the Confederacy

- 50 — Estimated percentage of Civil War deaths that occurred in the last two years of the War

- 40+ — Estimated percentage of Civil War dead who were never identified

- 66 — Estimated percentage of dead African American Union soldiers who were never identified

- 2 out of 3 — Number of Civil War deaths that occurred from disease rather than battle

- 68,162 — Number of inquiries answered by the Missing Soldiers Office from 1865-1868

- 4 million — Number of enslaved persons in the U.S. in 1860

- 180,000 — Number of African American soldiers that served in the Civil War

- 1 in 5 — Average death rate for all Civil War soldiers

- 3:1 — Ratio of Confederate deaths to Union deaths

- 9:1 — Ratio of African American Civil War troops who died of disease to those that died on the battlefield, largely due to discriminatory medical care

- 200 — Number of African American soldiers massacred following their surrender at Ft. Pillow, Tennessee on April 12, 1864

- 100,000+ — Number of Civil War Union corpses found in the South through a federal reinterment program from 1866-1869

- 303,356 — Number of Union soldiers who were reinterred in 74 congressionally-mandated national cemeteries by 1871

- 0 — Number of Confederate soldiers buried in those national cemeteries

- 58 — Number of Confederate bodies thrown down a local farmer's well on a federal burial detail in 1862

- 1,733 — Approximate number of American battlefield deaths in the Mexican War, 1846-1848

- 900 — Approximate number of battlefield deaths in 12 hours at the Battle of Bull Run

- 3,000 — Estimated number of horses killed at the Battle of Gettysburg

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/death-numbers/

- gasp -

PS
I'm a life-long New Yorker. But I spent the Summer of '73 down South. One of my first breakfasts in Georgia featured a style of mush I was not familiar with.
I asked a Southerner at the dining table what it was. He told me: "Greeeits"
"Southern charm."
 
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And though the below article was published in 2017, it's become more relevant as we approach 2024.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ished-with-donald-trump-as-cover-illustration
 
Shiftless2 said:




Laurence Tribe
@tribelaw
·
Our morning wake-up

IHkWTGqo_normal.jpg

S2 #131
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Laurence Tribe​

American lawyer and Harvard Law School professor​



Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School.
A constitutional law scholar, Tribe is co-founder of the American Constitution Society. He is also the author of American Constitutional Law (1978), a major treatise in that field, and has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times. Tribe was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2010.
More from Wikipedia

Larry,
I perceive a mismatch.
I acknowledge Trump is featured in the news fairly frequently, law suits and all. BUT !!

Our Constitution is in jeopardy. Not shoulda woulda coulda. Trump is ALREADY party to bloody insurrection.
And it's not merely a few bought-&-$paid-for crooked politicians.

There are MILLIONS of Republican voters that prefer this dangerous, treacherous criminal over:
- Ambassador Nikki Haley
- Governor Ron DeSantis
- Governor Chris Christie.

And they're willing to vote for Trump even if Trump is to serve his elected term from prison.
 
Historic and not a moment too soon:

IxR4wzb.jpeg



It's a given that this will be appealed to the Supremes but my understanding is that this doesn't fall under their purview. But given the current composition of that court don't be surprised if they do try to take sides (feel free to guess which one).

That said, taking this to the Supreme Court would be a needless, silly risk. If the SCOTUS rules against Trump then it is over for him. If they don't appeal, they simply lose out on a state that wasn't going to go for him anyway.
 
Shiftless2 said:
Historic and not a moment too soon:
"It's a given that this will be appealed to the Supremes but my understanding is that this doesn't fall under their purview." S2 #133
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I suspect it does.
Either way, there may be some other States for whom that deadline has already passed. BUT:
there may be some others that may follow Colorado's lead here. Kind of sad if not.

My mental reservation:
Can Colorado deny Trump ballot access without a formal judicial conviction for insurrection? Has there been such a conviction yet?

note:
we're in uncharted electoral territory here.
The 14th Amendment clause that applies here was intended to apply after the U.S. civil war, an obstacle to confederates seeking office in the government they'd tried to overthrow. Those that drafted it were long dead before Trump was born.
 
PS
The Colorado Supreme Court's decision on Tuesday to disqualify former President Trump from the state's 2024 ballot quickly touched off fierce reactions from members of Congress in both parties. ...

What they're saying: "There is no way this holds," one House Republican told Axios. "There is no way the 14th Amendment was intended to be applied in this way."
  • House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement the ruling is "nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack," adding that he trusts the Supreme Court "will set aside this reckless decision."
  • House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) blasted the Colorado Supreme Court majority as "four partisan Democrat operatives" in a statement, predicting the ruling "will backfire and further strengthen President Trump's winning campaign."
Zoom in: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of Senate GOP leadership, introduced legislation on Tuesday aimed at punishing states that make such rulings.
  • The three-page bill would amend the Help America Vote Act to withhold federal election administration funds to states "misusing the Fourteenth Amendment for political purposes."
  • It would also clarify that the Supreme Court has "sole jurisdiction" to adjudicate such 14th Amendment cases.
The other side: Several Democrats who have championed the case against Trump being allowed to run in 2024 applauded the ruling. ...

 

Trump Vows to Amp Up the Hitler Talk​

Trump plans to keep using the “poisoning the blood” line attacking immigrants, sources tell Rolling Stone. If anything, he thinks he was being “too nice”
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG, TIM DICKINSON

IN THE DAYS following Donald Trump’s remarks that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” the 2024 GOP frontrunner was met with a wave of Democratic and media criticism, likening his speech to Nazi rhetoric. In response to the Adolf Hitler comparisons, Trump has privately vowed to further amp up the volume on his extreme, anti-immigrant messaging, according to two sources who’ve spoken to him since his rally in New Hampshire last weekend.

“He wants the media to choke on his words,” one of these sources says. “The [former] president said he’s going to keep doing it, he’s going to keep saying they’re poisoning the blood of the nation and destroying and killing the country … He says it’s a ‘great line.’” (Trump has been publicly using this specific phrase since at least September.)

According to the second source, Trump said in recent days that he was being “too nice” about the “animals” and alleged gang members who cross the southern border, whom Trump routinely accuses of flooding the United States with drugs, diseases, and violent crime. This person relays to Rolling Stone that Trump also said he and his campaign will be rolling out newer, even “tougher” policy proposals on immigration in 2024, and that his supporters should look out for them because they’ll be “very happy.” His current slate of 2024 immigration policy prescriptions include ...

CONTINUED

Of course he only means brown immigrants - his wife is an immigrant and so was his first wife. And so were his ancestors (paternal grandfather was German and his mother was Scottish).
 
Shiftless2 said:

"Trump Vows to Amp Up the Hitler Talk" #136​

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Trump is a shameless self-promoter.
By now Trump has demonstrated his bottom-feeder skills, and talent for synchronizing to the news cycle. Apparently the media are still onboard. Wide-ranging estimates cluster around a $Billion $dollars worth of free publicity Trump got when he ran for prez in 2016.
Shiftless2 said:
"Of course he only means brown immigrants - his wife is an immigrant and so was his first wife. And so were his ancestors (paternal grandfather was German and his mother was Scottish)." S2 #136
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Trump is ego-centrism personified. D.J. apparently cares more for himself than he does the United States of America, and is willing and prepared to destroy the latter if it pleases him.
Not yet clear whether Trump himself is a xenophobe, or whether he merely leverages the bigotry from the unwashed masses, not necessarily to advance any particular political objective, but merely for the acquisition & retention of power.
 
This issue is not as simple as some may think.
"Expressed dissent is far less dangerous than repressed dissent." President William Jefferson Clinton 99/04/07 C-SPAN
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Martyrdom can empower. Trump has skillfully played the oppression card. Some including the Republicans running against Trump for the Republican nomination have asserted it isn't the courts that should keep Trump off the ballot, it's the voter that should keep Trump from the nomination.

Governor Chris Christie seems to be running a -for-the-greater-good- campaign. His poll numbers are dismal, yet Christie (R-NJ) continues his campaign, in part so he can be the adult in the room, as on the debate stage.
There are persuasive arguments to be made for either of these opposing positions.

Thank you S2 #138 for the latest word. BUT ! It is SCOTUS that shall have the last word. Unfortunately I'm not sure C.J. Roberts can deliver on this one.
 
Given the current makeup of SCOTUS it's not clear if they'll rule based on law or based on politics.

From another board:

We have a bribe-taking insurrectionist Republican, a drunk rapist Republican, an actual neo-Nazi who wants to see Black boys in KKK robes, a religious nut job, an anti-voting Republican and three useless women who are there merely for the photo ops and free meals because they do fuck all otherwise. And it’s all headed up by a “Hear No Evil See No Evil Speak Lots of Evil” leader who has the ability to say it’s not a Republican supreme court with a straight face. Credibility of this court is gone. They stand not for the rule of law but the support of white supremacist ideology of the Republicans.

news.gallup.com

Supreme Court Approval Holds at Record Low

Forty percent of Americans approve of the job the U.S. Supreme Court is doing, unchanged from the record low measured last fall.
news.gallup.com news.gallup.com
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