American Politics

[EihTooms]

I have three that I think with current state of population, technology advancement, and blindspot that currently not addressed in the constitution.

Proposal A: Change the electoral college to popular vote system, 50%+1.

Reasonings: The electoral college was set up so that large cities with information flowing slowly to the rural areas would not dominate rural citizens every election. Ideally not having only a few states to determine the outcome. In the 20th century, it was argued that the middle of the country would be disadvantage because election campaigns would only need to campaign in the outer perimeters of the country. Problem with this argument is that now we ACTUALLY have a few states deciding the outcome and with less representation of the populace. I believe we are in a good enough technological advancement that there are no real advantages of high population centers determining outcomes as it once did. News / Information is available within seconds as opposed to the past of newspapers lagging at least a day.

Proposal be: NO family members can serve in presidential admininstration, 1st cousins included.

Proposal see: No Elected members of congress / senate; President / Vice President; Supreme Court Justices can receive gifts from ANY person or business. All side hussle earnings will be donated to the treasury with neutral tax ramafication. One exception to this rule is proceeds from book sales will go to the author. All salary of elected officials are tax exempted. All incomes derived from investments shall be managed in a blind trust and tax exempt until leave of office.

Why are you running for a position in the Federal Government if you're not there to protect and improve the lives of its citizens? I think with these changes, you'll have more honorable people in government.

I would go with:

- Abolish the Electoral College, whoever gets the most votes wins (some may not reach 50% + 1).

- No Gerrymanding of House districts by partisan Party officials.

- Number of Senate Seats determined by state population of human beings, not the number of rattlesnakes, tumble weeds and outhouses.

- No term limits on any elected office.

- Term limits on appointed positions; the Supreme Court Justices.

- Major reform and restrictions on Big Money, Corporate campaign donations.

But we know most of these things will never happen in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of people born yesterday:

Constitutional Amendment Process.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

We would need a Dem in the WH and Dems to control at least two thirds of the House and Senate. Mainstream Media will never allow that to happen again after all the Great Things were accomplished for America when we had a Dem in the WH and Dem ratios like that in Congress before or very close to it.

And none of those red states with more rattlesnakes, tumble weeds and outhouses than human beings is going to agree to that critically important popular vote, Senate Seat and gerrymandering stuff.

[EihTooms]

In addition to Trump's repeated lie that "I did the insulin" that Biden-Harris passed into law, he apparently can not pass a Factcheck on a single assertion.

Check out this astonishing (brief and incomplete) list of total lies Trump told at his most recent public lie fest. As always, these Factcheck corrections are filled with hyper-links to the facts and substantiation that debunk Trump's constant lies about everything all the time:

Fact check: Trump falsely accuses Harris and Biden of lying about $35 insulin.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/14/polit...ris/index.html

Other false claims

Trump made a variety of other false claims in the Wednesday speech. Here is a brief fact check of 13 of those claims, many of which have been previously debunked. (This is not a complete list.)

- He claimed that the price of bacon went up by four or five times under Biden and Harris. Its actually up 18%, nowhere near the 300% or 400% spike Trump is claiming.

- He claimed that Harris policy proposals will result in peoples taxes quadrupling. Experts say there is no basis for this claim.

- Speaking of Russias invasion of Ukraine, he claimed Biden is letting him have the whole thing. In fact, Biden has led an international effort to help Ukraine fight Russia; Russia has to date been able to seize about 18% of Ukraines territory, nowhere near the entire country.

- He said Covid-19 was ending all over the world, it was pretty much ending when Biden and Harris took office in January 2021. It was not.

- He said his tax cuts were the largest ever. They were not.

- He said he took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China through his tariffs on Chinese products, and that no previous president had taken in 10 cents from tariffs on China. Both claims are wrong. Study after study has found that Americans paid the overwhelming majority of the cost of Trumps tariffs, and the US was generating billions per year in revenue from tariffs on China before Trump took office.

- He said Biden appointed Harris as border czar and put her in charge of the border. In reality, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been in charge of border security under Biden; Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment, asking her to lead diplomacy with Central American countries in an attempt to address the root causes of their citizens migration.

- He said he built 571 miles of border wall. Official government statistics show it was 458 miles, most of it replacement barrier.

- He said he built more border wall than I said I was going to build. In fact, he repeatedly said during his 2016 campaign that we need 1,000 miles of wall, far more than he ended up building.

- He said he forced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, to deploy the National Guard during civil unrest in Minneapolis in 2020. In fact, Walz deployed the National Guard before Trump pressured him to do so.

- He said Venezuela is taking all of their criminals and people from mental institutions and bringing them to the US. Experts say there is no evidence for this claim.

- He said Houston has the only refinery in the world that can handle Venezuelan oil. Venezuelan oil.

Seriously. How much hatred does someone need to harbor for America to vote (or not vote) in any way that might, however remote the risk, result in a Trump election victory or the election victory of anyone else in his Loony, America-hating Repub MAGA Party?

[EihTooms]

This is from Noah Smith's substack today. Smith is about as far left as you can get for a mainstream economist. Think Paul Krugman. And here's an excerpt from what he has to say about Kamala's latest idea. It's only about the first 20% of a long piece. Please note the analogies to Venezuela and the Soviet Union in bold text below.

I've been doing a series of posts on the substantive ideas of the two presidential campaigns. I talked about Biden's policies back in May when he was still running, and when he dropped out I wrote a post about his legacy. On the Trump / GOP side, I wrote about Trump's terrible idea for revoking the Fed's independence, analyzed the RNC platform piece by piece, discussed the possible upside of tariffs on China, and argued that mass deportation of illegal immigrants would do no good for the economy, while spreading fear and division. Now it's time for some posts about Harris' ideas.

Today I want to talk about Harris' first big policy announcement a call for price controls on food and groceries. Here's the story, from the Washington Post's Jeff Stein:

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will unveil a proposed ban on "price gouging" in the grocery and food industries, embracing a strikingly populist proposal in her most significant economic policy announcement since becoming the Democratic Party's nominee.

In a statement released late Wednesday night, the Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the "first-ever federal ban" on food price hikes, with sweeping new powers for federal authorities.

Harris's plan will include "the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries," the campaign said in a statement.

The exact details of the campaign's plan were not immediately clear, but Harris said she would aim to enact the ban within her first 100 days, in part by directing the Federal Trade Commission to impose "harsh penalties" on firms that break new limits on "price gouging. " The statement did not define price gouging or "excessive" profits.

Price controls on food are a really terrible idea. The best-case scenario is that the controls are ineffectual but create the legal and administrative machinery for far more harmful controls in the future. The worst-case scenario is that they cause shortages of food and groceries, leading to mass hardship, exacerbating inflation, and setting America up for increased political instability.

If you want to defend Harris here, you pretty much have to assume that this is a populist proposal that she'll eventually backtrack on once in office, or fail to get passed. After all, in the final days of his campaign, Biden floated a (very bad) proposal for national rent control an idea he had never embraced in his presidency, and which was probably just a Hail Mary pass. But Harris explicitly said that price controls on groceries are something she'the do in her first 100 days as President, and candidates tend to be serious when they say that.

It's also a very bad sign that Harris intends to use executive power to implement price controls. She appears to believe that the Federal Trade Commission can impose penalties on companies that "price gouge" I. E. , that raise their prices more than the administration believes is warranted. I am not a lawyer, but the idea that the FTC can go in and simply tell a Kroger's in Michigan what price to charge for eggs seems like a vast expansion of the agency's powers.

The FTC has the power to stop price fixing, but that's something very different price fixing means when multiple companies illegally collaborate to keep their prices high instead of competing. It's dealt with under existing antitrust law, and the FTC has to sue companies in court to get them to stop it. I see no reason to believe that existing law allows the FTC to act like a central planning authority that can simply dictate what every grocery store in the land can charge for eggs, milk, diapers, and toilet paper.

So my guess is that the kind of price control regime Harris has in mind would require an act of Congress. I don't know if she could get it passed, or if SCOTUS would strike it down, but if it succeeded, it would create the legal machinery for the kind of disastrous spiral of price controls, hoarding crackdowns, and shortages that brought down the economy of Venezuela..

....Price controls can wreck an economy

Lets talk about the dangers of price controls, because theyre big.

First, think about what would happen if the President of the U.S. managed to impose price controls on grocery stores. As we saw in the last section, these stores have razor-thin profit margins when they increase prices, its because theyre paying higher costs. If the stores are forbidden from raising prices when costs go up, the government will be forcing them to take a loss.

What will the stores do if the government forces them to take a loss? They will sell less stuff, because theyre taking a loss with every sale they make. Shelves will go empty, just like they did in the Soviet Union, and just like they did in Venezuela.

When people hear the words Soviet Union and Venezuela in connection with the U.S. economy, they often roll their eyes. Those regimes were dysfunctional in a very large number of ways price controls were only a piece of the story in each case. But that doesnt mean basic economic operates differently in the USSR or Venezuela than it does in America. The economic logic of price controls in a competitive industry like groceries is basic Econ 101 supply-and-demand stuff. The good old Econ 101 supply-and-demand model doesnt work in all cases, but its very good at explaining exactly why price controls cause shortages in highly competitive industries: (There's a supply/demand graph here)

Yes, we've all grown tired of libertarians and free-market types shouting "It's just Econ 101, bro. Do you want to be the Soviet Union?" every time anyone proposes a government intervention in the economy. But in this particular case, they happen to be correct! (Tiny's note: The Libertarians and Free-Market types are right far more often than Smith cares to admit. But Kamala's nutty proposal is a bridge too far for even him.)

https://www.noahpinion.blog/

As a pro Repub, pro Trump, pretend "bothsider / neithersider", what has your preferred 2025 potus, Donald Trump, proposed as his plan for what his MAGAs are screaming for; lower costs for rent, food and gas?

We know the usual Repub plan to accomplish those results; drive the USA Economy into a Great Depression / Great Recession and Wipe Out a few million jobs. Same solution for Trump this time?

And I have heard him say "drill baby drill" will drive down the cost of rent, etc. How so? And how much more drilling and oil production should Biden have done beyond the record high amounts, achieving true oil-related energy independence for the first time during his presidency, to lower somebody's rent?

And, please, only cite Trump's perfectly sane solutions for lowering the cost of somebody's rent, food and gas.

[Tiny 12]

Harris to propose federal ban on 'corporate price-gouging' in food and groceries

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/15/harr...ndroidappshare

I do not share your enthusiasm for this proposal.

[Tiny 12]

This is from Noah Smith's substack today. Smith is about as far left as you can get for a mainstream economist. Think Paul Krugman. And here's an excerpt from what he has to say about Kamala's latest idea. It's only about the first 20% of a long piece. Please note the analogies to Venezuela and the Soviet Union in bold text below.

I've been doing a series of posts on the substantive ideas of the two presidential campaigns. I talked about Biden's policies back in May when he was still running, and when he dropped out I wrote a post about his legacy. On the Trump / GOP side, I wrote about Trump's terrible idea for revoking the Fed's independence, analyzed the RNC platform piece by piece, discussed the possible upside of tariffs on China, and argued that mass deportation of illegal immigrants would do no good for the economy, while spreading fear and division. Now it's time for some posts about Harris' ideas.

Today I want to talk about Harris' first big policy announcement a call for price controls on food and groceries. Here's the story, from the Washington Post's Jeff Stein:

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will unveil a proposed ban on "price gouging" in the grocery and food industries, embracing a strikingly populist proposal in her most significant economic policy announcement since becoming the Democratic Party's nominee.

In a statement released late Wednesday night, the Harris campaign said that if elected, she would push for the "first-ever federal ban" on food price hikes, with sweeping new powers for federal authorities.

Harris's plan will include "the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries," the campaign said in a statement.

The exact details of the campaign's plan were not immediately clear, but Harris said she would aim to enact the ban within her first 100 days, in part by directing the Federal Trade Commission to impose "harsh penalties" on firms that break new limits on "price gouging. " The statement did not define price gouging or "excessive" profits.

Price controls on food are a really terrible idea. The best-case scenario is that the controls are ineffectual but create the legal and administrative machinery for far more harmful controls in the future. The worst-case scenario is that they cause shortages of food and groceries, leading to mass hardship, exacerbating inflation, and setting America up for increased political instability.

If you want to defend Harris here, you pretty much have to assume that this is a populist proposal that she'll eventually backtrack on once in office, or fail to get passed. After all, in the final days of his campaign, Biden floated a (very bad) proposal for national rent control an idea he had never embraced in his presidency, and which was probably just a Hail Mary pass. But Harris explicitly said that price controls on groceries are something she'the do in her first 100 days as President, and candidates tend to be serious when they say that.

It's also a very bad sign that Harris intends to use executive power to implement price controls. She appears to believe that the Federal Trade Commission can impose penalties on companies that "price gouge" I. E. , that raise their prices more than the administration believes is warranted. I am not a lawyer, but the idea that the FTC can go in and simply tell a Kroger's in Michigan what price to charge for eggs seems like a vast expansion of the agency's powers.

The FTC has the power to stop price fixing, but that's something very different price fixing means when multiple companies illegally collaborate to keep their prices high instead of competing. It's dealt with under existing antitrust law, and the FTC has to sue companies in court to get them to stop it. I see no reason to believe that existing law allows the FTC to act like a central planning authority that can simply dictate what every grocery store in the land can charge for eggs, milk, diapers, and toilet paper.

So my guess is that the kind of price control regime Harris has in mind would require an act of Congress. I don't know if she could get it passed, or if SCOTUS would strike it down, but if it succeeded, it would create the legal machinery for the kind of disastrous spiral of price controls, hoarding crackdowns, and shortages that brought down the economy of Venezuela..

....Price controls can wreck an economy

Lets talk about the dangers of price controls, because theyre big.

First, think about what would happen if the President of the U.S. managed to impose price controls on grocery stores. As we saw in the last section, these stores have razor-thin profit margins when they increase prices, its because theyre paying higher costs. If the stores are forbidden from raising prices when costs go up, the government will be forcing them to take a loss.

What will the stores do if the government forces them to take a loss? They will sell less stuff, because theyre taking a loss with every sale they make. Shelves will go empty, just like they did in the Soviet Union, and just like they did in Venezuela.

When people hear the words Soviet Union and Venezuela in connection with the U.S. economy, they often roll their eyes. Those regimes were dysfunctional in a very large number of ways price controls were only a piece of the story in each case. But that doesnt mean basic economic operates differently in the USSR or Venezuela than it does in America. The economic logic of price controls in a competitive industry like groceries is basic Econ 101 supply-and-demand stuff. The good old Econ 101 supply-and-demand model doesnt work in all cases, but its very good at explaining exactly why price controls cause shortages in highly competitive industries: (There's a supply/demand graph here)

Yes, we've all grown tired of libertarians and free-market types shouting "It's just Econ 101, bro. Do you want to be the Soviet Union?" every time anyone proposes a government intervention in the economy. But in this particular case, they happen to be correct! (Tiny's note: The Libertarians and Free-Market types are right far more often than Smith cares to admit. But Kamala's nutty proposal is a bridge too far for even him.)

https://www.noahpinion.blog/

[Tiny 12]

It is always great for a laugh to hear anyone express concern about a Dem Administration with ANY particular Party conttol in the House and Senate doing serious damage to the American economy after EVERY Repub Administration of the past 100 years has produced and presided over the worst economic downsturns and series of downturns regardless which Party controls the House and Senate but certainly the worst of the worst when Repubs also control the House and the Senate. LOL.

Meanwhile, nothing, zero, nada of the kind has ever happened when Dem Administrations also have Dem control of the House and the Senate. In fact, nothing but damn great results have occurred under that perfectly benign condition while nothing but horrific results have occurred when Repubs are in total control of all three.

The great danger in blithely rooting for a Repub Majority in the House and / or Senate is then all it takes is one more blithering numbskull Electoral College quirk in one individual blithering numbskull Repub's favor to complete the Triumverate of Terror and Total Economic Disaster of a Repub in the White House with a Repub Majority House and Senate.

That is too great a risk for any patriotic American to take when the Dem alternative has shown throughout history to produce zero downside risk of even a notable mild and momentary economic downturn.

If I recall correctly, you're a tea totaler. That is, you don't drink alcohol. As such you don't really have the life experience to understand this analogy. But here goes anyway.

Say you tie one on. You're the life of the party. You bang the woman of your dreams, not realizing in your alcohol dazed stupor that she's an ugly ****. You have a great time.

The next morning, you wake up puking your guts out on your bedroom floor, with a splitting headache and a couple of venereal diseases. Your friends all hate you. Worst of all, you have low self esteem, because you banged a fat, ugly ****.

This is what would happen if you put the current Democratic Party bunch in the White House, House and Senate at the same time. Now this doesn't entirely apply to the good old time Democrats. But the Dems today are nothing like the Dems who ruled America during the first two years of the Clinton and Obama administrations. Or, when you consider the influence of Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, even during the first two years of the Biden administration. The current crop is stark raving mad. You leave them in power long enough and they might just do the same thing to the USA that Chavez and Maduro did to Venezuela or the Kirchner's to Argentina. Initially, for the first eight or ten years, the good times will roll, as they pump massive amounts of government money into the economy. Many of us, especially the ones sucking off the government tit, will live high on the hog. But then the inevitable hangover comes, and there will be hell to pay.

The same effect existed to an extent during past periods when Democrats controlled all the levers of power. They fuck things up a bit and then leave it to the Republicans and to shared power government (for example Clinton and Gingrich) to kind of clean up the mess. If they'd controlled all the levers of power for many years we likely would have ended up no worse than France. Unfortunately now the Progressives control the party. And they have the ideas to run the country down the tubes if in a position to do so.

Read my next post, where Noah Smith says Kamala's latest bright idea is what drove inflation in Venezuela, before you call me Chicken Little.

[Spidy]

I have never met anyone in my life who went into government by choice. People who go into it do so for security not excellence, and most cannot wait to get their pensions and get the hell out.

Okay, So get a gov't job, just for the "security" but "not excellence" required, and then "get hell out"...okay I think I've got it!

But Elvis 2008, how do you square, if "excellence" isn't required for a gov't job, then why would, Repub George H.W. Bush, pass a tax exemption rule, to "attract talent", if none is required? Is this just another, boneheaded Repub tax dodge?

Doesn't this (George H.W. Bush tax exemption) seem to fly in the face of your back of the envelope theory, on "not excellence" in gov't jobs? How do you explain this?

The only people wanting to go into government today are the ones who do get the big payouts.

(...kkkk!) What, the what now? So now you're taking in circles?

First it is for "security" but "not excellence" and now it's "the big payouts" and "bonuses" also? What's next?

BTW, I am pretty sure, SubCmdr's post, already covers this exact topic, when he refers to bonuses, cross-pollenation of employees and the symbiotic revolving door between gov't and business connections and relations.

So what you're really saying is, you now agree with the education SubCmdr provided you in his post? If so, congratulations for coming full circle!

SubCmdr's post: "My education for you Elvis is gratis" --http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/...=1#post2937221

BTW, Elvis 2008, how you do explain, "billionaire" Trump taking the gov't job of president in 2016? Where was the "big payout"? Since we all know he's trying to take the job in 2024, simply to stay outta jail?

[CheckMate1]

I have three that I think with current state of population, technology advancement, and blindspot that currently not addressed in the constitution.

Proposal A: Change the electoral college to popular vote system, 50%+1.

Reasonings: The electoral college was set up so that large cities with information flowing slowly to the rural areas would not dominate rural citizens every election. Ideally not having only a few states to determine the outcome. In the 20th century, it was argued that the middle of the country would be disadvantage because election campaigns would only need to campaign in the outer perimeters of the country. Problem with this argument is that now we ACTUALLY have a few states deciding the outcome and with less representation of the populace. I believe we are in a good enough technological advancement that there are no real advantages of high population centers determining outcomes as it once did. News / Information is available within seconds as opposed to the past of newspapers lagging at least a day.

Proposal be: NO family members can serve in presidential admininstration, 1st cousins included.

Proposal see: No Elected members of congress / senate; President / Vice President; Supreme Court Justices can receive gifts from ANY person or business. All side hussle earnings will be donated to the treasury with neutral tax ramafication. One exception to this rule is proceeds from book sales will go to the author. All salary of elected officials are tax exempted. All incomes derived from investments shall be managed in a blind trust and tax exempt until leave of office.

Why are you running for a position in the Federal Government if you're not there to protect and improve the lives of its citizens? I think with these changes, you'll have more honorable people in government.

[Elvis 2008]

I'm not in awe with Kamala Harris.

But she started the war you love so much, and she stood up to Putin. She is going to be very neocon like. I cannot imagine why you would not like her.

That said, Kamala Harris is the only person currently standing between Donald Trump and America.

And ending the war in Ukraine which would have never started had Trump been president.

Since you do know how I feel about Donald Trump, what else am I supposed to do? For a sane person, there is no real choice between Kamala and Trump even if the former might be lacking somewhat as a presidential candidate.

I guess I am confused. Who is running things now and are you happy with the way things are being run? It is obviously not Kamala and not Biden. So Kamala is lacking but Biden is and was not?

You should vote Kamala Xpartan. Trust me, she will have an administration every bit as pro war as Biden is.

[Elvis 2008]

Good post Elvis. She's wisely saying as little of substance as possible, even with the teleprompter. She's running a "Chance the Gardener" campaign, if you remember the movie "Being There." Indeed some of our fellow board members, the Kamala supporters, seem to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. As an advocate of criminal justice reform, free markets, and a viable domestic oil and gas industry, I believe she sucks.

It is funny that I thought of Chance the Gardner and Being There as well. Anyway, she finally showed her economic colors for the first time today: https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...mbat-inflation.

Yes, let us beat up the food companies and impose price controls. Biden never understood how markets work and neither does Kamala. Remember what I said about Reagan v. Carter. Yeah, with Reagan, he got rid of price controls on gasoline. Carter had pretty up billions of ration coupons for gasoline. It was unreal.

When you look at the Biden list of accomplishments Tooms listed, it seemed like half or more was just spending government money. Going into debt or taking people's money is only an accomplishment if what you invest in has a multiplier effect like the highway system or space program. When you cancel student debt, you are just buying votes. That is not an accomplishment.

[EihTooms]

Of course, this is only happening because the polls are showing Trump might win. Oh. Not at all?

Nevermind.

Consumer spending jumped in July as retail sales were up 1%, much better than expected.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/15/reta...ndroidappshare

Advanced retail sales accelerated 1% on the month, much better than the 0.3% estimate.

In other economic news, weekly jobless claims totaled 227,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week and lower than the estimate for 235,000.

The reports come the same week as data showing that inflation eased slightly in July.

A key metric shows prices normalizing: 'Mission accomplished,' economist says.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/14/pric...ndroidappshare

Biden administration releases prices of 10 drugs in Medicare talks

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/15/medi...ndroidappshare

The Biden administration released prices for the first 10 prescription drugs that were subject to landmark negotiations with Medicare.

The government estimates that the new prices could produce $6 billion in net savings for Medicare in 2026 alone, based on data from 2023.

It is a milestone in a controversial process that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans, a policy the pharmaceutical industry has opposed.

It comes one day before the second anniversary of President Joe Bidens signature Inflation Reduction Act.

Harris to propose federal ban on 'corporate price-gouging' in food and groceries

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/15/harr...ndroidappshare

Vice President Kamala Harris will propose the first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging in the food industry, her campaign announced.

Harris will also pledge that if elected, she will direct the Justice Department to increase scrutiny of potential mergers between grocers and food producers.

The ban is part of a broader effort by the Democratic presidential nominee to respond to voters ongoing frustration with the high cost of meat and groceries.

[EihTooms]

When the Emerson Poll has Harris and the Dems beating Trump and the Repubs, it is time for Trump's constant, career-defining public lying about everything all the time to become Super charged!

LOL. His rally lies about how his economy was "the strongest in the history of the world" when in fact it was weaker than Biden's or Obama's and a few other potuses of the past few decades on every important metric even if you subtract his Historic Trump's Pandemic Disaster numbers (although there is no logical reason to do so) and that he "handed Biden a miracle economy and then he ruined it" when in fact he handed Biden-Harris among the top three worst economic conditions of the past Century (along with Hoover's and GW Bush's handoffs, one of which Biden was also key to producing one of the greatest recoveries of all time) and then Biden-Harris produced the greatest recovery from Trump's Pandemic's economic disaster and inflation on the planet, he might as well keep lying about how his poll numbers are ahead of Harris' "by a LOT", too!

His numbskull cult-followers won't know the difference. And even if they do, nothing delights a Repub MAGA more than their boys and girls lying their asses off in service to weasling into office so they can again and again and again produce the worst economic and national security results in history.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls/election

[EihTooms]

In 1991, Lichtman and coauthor Ken DeCell published The 13 Keys to the White House (Madison Books, 1991), a book laying out the 13-key forecasting system initially developed in 1981 by Lichtman and renowned mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok. They developed the keys based on their analysis of trends in presidential campaigns since 1860.

The 13 keys are simple to use: if 8 or more of the 13 keys are true for the incumbent party, its candidate will win the electionbut if fewer than 8 are true, the challenger will win.

1. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. FALSE.

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. TRUE.

3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. FALSE.

4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. TRUE.

5. Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. TRUE.

6. Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. TRUE.

7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. TRUE.

Unless I am mistaken, I think Lichtman usually frames it as, "If 6 or more of the Keys are False, the WH Party is predicted to lose. ".

Looking at it that way, I would say:

1. False.

2.

3. False.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10. False. It is undeserved, but MSM went berserk blaming Biden and has never let up over 1 Taliban nut with a suicide bomb vest in Afghanistan getting past Taliban "security" and killing 13 USA Military in what is still the least deadly withdrawal from an occupied country by the losing side in war history.

11. False, but there is a better than even chance Ukraine's latest moves will look more and more to the world like Russia is definitely losing. Even though neither that one nor Gaza / Israel is a USA war, such an outcome would add a point score to Biden. Personally, I would credit Biden for a major military success for keeping us out of any war anywhere for the past 3 1/2 years, for the first time in decades. And, of course, for leading the country to a win in Trump's War Against America and American Democracy in January 2021.

12. False. Harris is very popular within her Party. But she shows no sign (yet) of being a historically charismatic cross-over candidate as in FDR or Reagan.

13. (P. S. - See 12 above on steroids for Trump. Nobody outside of his MAGAs can stand him. He lost the Popular Vote twice already by a combined 10 million votes. He is really no FDR or Reagan).

So with 6 or more False Keys being the danger zone for Harris, my count is 5 for now with a good chance that 1 of those 5 could flip True in the next month or two and near zero chance any of the others will go False before November.

Had Mainstream Media not terrorized Dem campaign donors and down ballot Dem candidates over a few verbal gaffes, Biden would have retained the Incumbancy Key, still had all the others Harris has and would have been a 100% lock to win re-election, not even close.

But Harris will still do well.

LOL. In light of her critically important overwhelming popularity within the Dem Party, it is now even more hilarious that pro Repub pretend "bothsider" pundits like Bill Maher were begging Biden to drop out and take Harris with him since there is no way she would be a viable potus candidate, her being his VP pick from the beginning being another terrible decision by that "cognitively impaired" old man. LOL.

BTW, I believe Lichtman's current count is more favorable for Harris than mine right now but says he will give his final count right after the Dem National Convention.

[Spidy]

It is always great for a laugh to hear anyone express concern about a Dem Administration with ANY particular Party conttol in the House and Senate doing serious damage to the American economy after EVERY Repub Administration of the past 100 years has produced and presided over the worst economic downsturns and series of downturns regardless which Party controls the House and Senate but certainly the worst of the worst when Repubs also control the House and the Senate. LOL.

Meanwhile, nothing, zero, nada of the kind has ever happened when Dem Administrations also have Dem control of the House and the Senate. In fact, nothing but damn great results have occurred under that perfectly benign condition while nothing but horrific results have occurred when Repubs are in total control of all three.

The great danger in blithely rooting for a Repub Majority in the House and / or Senate is then all it takes is one more blithering numbskull Electoral College quirk in one individual blithering numbskull Repub's favor to complete the Triumverate of Terror and Total Economic Disaster of a Repub in the White House with a Repub Majority House and Senate.

That is too great a risk for any patriotic American to take when the Dem alternative has shown throughout history to produce zero downside risk of even a notable mild and momentary economic downturn.

Your "she may have started the war in Ukraine" lunacy notwithstanding, why on earth would you drop my name in your diatribe? I'm not in awe with Kamala Harris. I said in this very forum that I would've been happier with another candidate who's more their own person and not mostly known as a sidekick.

That said, Kamala Harris is the only person currently standing between Donald Trump and America.

You know my take on Donald Trump. He is a calamity. I think if elected again, Donald Trump will attempt to end our democracy and way of life. This is my EDUCATED guess based on what he already did or tried to do between 2016 and 2020, the period that might be dubbed by future historians Orwellian or Putinesque, or probably both.

Since you do know how I feel about Donald Trump, what else am I supposed to do? For a sane person, there is no real choice between Kamala and Trump even if the former might be lacking somewhat as a presidential candidate.

I expected as much. As all the fake bluster, bunk and bullshit w/r to the Harris/Walz ticket, is just Repubs, trying to find and suss out, what will stick to the wall.

Personally, I love how the Harris/Walz ticket is handling, the often juvenile and nonsensical comments coming from the dysfunctional Repub campaign, who have yet to announce what plans, polices or political stances there running on. Which we all know they don't have any policies or plans, just more cheap rhetoric.

The Harris/Walz ticket, has them disoriented and still reeling from the campaign jabs of being called "weird" (which BTW, was so apropos!). The other campaign's jabs haven't landed a single blow yet and for the last 3-weeks have only gotten tired, stale and "punch drunk".

[MarquisdeSade1]

And Robert Rubin took it under Clinton. Big deal. That is my point. The only people wanting to go into government today are the ones who do get the big payouts.

Well, here is another one who loved being in politics. Dolton Mayor Tiffany Aiesha Henyard, who has been dubbed "America's Worst Mayor", has disappeared after an investigation into the village's spending revealed more than $3. 5 million in debt, "out of control" credit card spending and $40,000 spend on Amazon purchases in one day.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/do...on-hidden-debt

And then there is disgraced mayor Lori Lightfoot making $400 an hour investigating the worst mayor. Yeah, well, she knows a thing or two about corruption after being Chicago's mayor..

https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-...-chicken-wings

https://amp-marca-com.cdn.ampproject...331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24's&aoh=17236564440974&csi=0&referrer=https%3 A%2 F%2 F www.google.com&ampshare=https%3 A%2 F%2 Fwww.marca.com%2 Fen%2 Fnfl%2 Fkansas-city-chiefs%2 F2024%2 F08%2 F14%2 F66 bc078 de2704 e49888 b4597. Html.