BS: American Presidential race 2024

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 24 - 08:24 AM

Now he is avoiding interviews and questions because he is "exhausted".
He is also refusing to release his medical records. Makes one wonder.
   I do hope he lives long enough to be defeated in the election.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Oct 24 - 09:26 AM

Judging by the BBC interviews with black male Trump supporters in Georgia shown on TV this morning, he stands every chance of winning.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Oct 24 - 11:10 AM

You would judge a national election result by a conversation with a small minority of voters in one state? Don't be ridiculous. It's time to turn off the manipulative stuff Trump's desperate handlers are pushing out. It's all spin.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Oct 24 - 11:43 AM

It seems to me that the discourse is all about Trump; even Kamala is speaking about Trump a lot of the time. And terrifyingly, the "prediction markets" - the gambling odds on US elections - give Trump a far higher chance: "Bets on Kalshi, which recently won court approval to allow election betting in the country for the first time, give Trump a 55 percent chance of winning, versus 45 percent for Harris. Polymarket has the race at 56 to 44, while PredictIt shows them at 54 to 49."

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Oct 24 - 11:45 AM

The Book makers make it fairly close between them,I wouldnt like to predict the winner

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 24 - 04:12 AM

It seems to me there’s only one person being ‘ridiculous’ and ‘taking their eye off the ball’ here, and that’s the one ignoring reports of growing support for Trump (in this case, nothing to do with ‘manipulative stuff Trump’s handlers are pushing out’, but an independent BBC report conducted by the BBC’s own correspondent), denying there’s any chance of a Trump victory, and trying to silence those who see that chance as an ever-present danger.

Not so much taking your eye off the ball as burying your head in the sand.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 07:15 AM

At long last the GOP candidate has addressed a serious issue that's been on the mind of every voter, the size of Arnold Palmer's talleywhacker.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Neil D
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 07:54 AM

I heard him say that crap about Arnie. It was as creepy as it was sophomoric.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 10:04 AM

Fairly scary piece about prisoners running an election. (It just seems so odd to me that prisoners can't vote in America. Way to remove people from the common good!)
I was wondering why black men were unimpressed by Harris. It's because she was such a brute as a district attorney, apparently. “She ain’t for her people. Do you know how many Black and brown people she put in prison? … She’s gonna be like a Bill Clinton, a conservative Democrat who is tough on crime.”

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 11:37 AM

The reading you're all taking is of the bogus stuff being pushed out by the Trump machine. I told you before and will repeat until the election is over - IGNORE THE POLLS. At this point they are truly meaningless, filled with pumped up fake surveys the Trumps folks are generating. It is supposed to scare you away from the polls. Since most of you aren't here and aren't voting, just sit on your hands and let us get on with the election.

Here are polls that matter - Lisa Desjardins reports from the Washington Bureau of the AP where they call the US election (news reporting - not the actual canvassing and final count by governments). The Associate Press works on this with a team for a year out to be sure they've done the math and are accurate. You can pay attention to that poll on election night and the following days (if required).

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 11:41 AM

”It just seems so odd to me that prisoners can't vote in America.”

Most prisoners in the UK can’t vote either…

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 11:47 AM

”The reading you're all taking is of the bogus stuff being pushed out by the Trump machine”

As you clearly didn’t get it the first time, I’ll repeat - the TV report I quoted was an independent piece conducted by the BBC’s own reporter, absolutely nothing to do with ‘bogus stuff pushed out by the Trump machine’.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 12:24 PM

Many news organizations are responding to the Trump stuff. That's the point. These polls aren't labeled as by the Trump organization, they're side efforts with vague names sponsored by the various dark money PACs. It's another dirty trick. An expert in polls was asked to analyse these supposed results being pushed out and they identified as many as 30 of those bogus surveys of voters now circulating in the same universe with other more respected organizations. They dilute the results of all of the pollsters that attempt to be scientific. If you don't know what you're looking at, you also may be confused by their bogus content.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 01:08 PM

It was nothing to do with any polls, Stilly. It was, direct quote from BWM's post, "BBC interviews with black male Trump supporters in Georgia shown on TV". Maybe those black males are reflecting the polls but I would have thought it more likely that, as Thompson says, those black men do not like Harris.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 01:27 PM

Prisoners can certainly vote in Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 02:01 PM

A few black men don't like Kamala. So you think she'll lose? A lot of white men don't like Trump, but you think he'll win?

Use your critical thinking skills, please.

Here is more of Trump's cockeyed campaign stuff - go "work" at a McDonalds so he can dismiss Harris' experience from a summer job when she was in high school. It's a tit-for-tat thing that matters to him.

Trump's McDonald's visit sets off social media: See photos, video, reactions

Here is a snippet (hopefully you can read the whole thing at the source) from a well-regarded American historian:

Heather Cox Richardson (Letters From An American) has called attention to the next steps should Trump win - This is where his party with Twenty-fifth Amendment his ass out of office.

The need to figure out what would happen if modern medicine could keep alive an incapacitated president became apparent after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Not only did the question of a president’s incapacity have to be addressed; so did the problem of succession. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was falsely rumored to have had a heart attack, and both the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate were old and doubted that they could adequately fulfill the duties of the presidency themselves.

Congress’s solution was the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution, providing a system by which either the president or, if they were unable to realize their incapacity, members of the executive branch would transfer the powers of the president to the vice president. Eisenhower enthusiastically backed the idea that the nation should have coverage for a disabled president.

To anyone paying attention, it is clear that Trump is not in any shape to manage the government of the United States of America. He is canceling interviews and botching the ones he does sit for, while falling asleep at events where he is not actually speaking. He lies incessantly even when hosts point out that his claims have been debunked, and cannot answer a question or follow a train of thought. And his comments of the weekend—calling the vice president a “sh*t vice president,” telling a woman to get “your fat husband off the couch” to vote for him, and musing about a famous golfer’s penis—indicate that he has no mental guardrails left.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Helen
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 02:04 PM

As SRS has said before, the polls are unreliable for multiple reasons, including the methods used by some of them and also the political interference in some of them.

I have been looking at this site for a few months now (after looking at other sites and deciding this one is impartial)

The Hill 2024 Elections

and it compiles results from many polls. I look at the poll results and the graphs of how they are changing, but I have taken SRS's advice and I am waiting to see the actual, real-world election result when it happens.

I like the site because it also has poll results for some key states including the seven battleground states.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 03:13 PM

I didn't say anything about anyone winning or losing, Stilly, I was just pointing out that you were talking about polls while BWM made it quite clear that he was talking about a BBC report that had nothing to do with polls.

I think we all genuinely hope that you are right but whatever we say on here is not going to make an iota of difference. Whether preaching to the converted or voicing genuine concerns.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 24 - 07:00 PM

Most of those articles and networks and such are basing their information on polls. You can't escape them. BBC interviewed people who have probably been part of or are reading those polls. It's one thing for a person to say "this is my opinion" and extrapolate from that. But that's not what all of these sources are doing. There is a lot of generalizing going on "people say" or "BBC says" or whatever source - no one can truly know, now can they? And with the interfering and disinformation by Russia and Iran, and Musk over on X playing head games with naive voters, or not-so-naive voters, it's a hot mess.

You all have to wait it out.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 12:31 AM

Just got home from a fund-raising event held for the lone Representative the State of Alaska has elected to Congress. There has been a lot of money raised for the 'other' guy, a right-wing candidate, who is a TRMPster. She, on the other hand, is one of the only if not THE only indigenous Americans in Congress, and a Dem to boot. And she is articulate, intelligent, and good for the State. It was held at an Alaska art gallery and superbly catered.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 03:47 AM

no one can truly know, now can they?

That applies to everyone, Stilly. Even you! Everyone's opinion is based on outside influence and personal beliefs. Of course some influencers are more credible than others.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 03:51 AM

I'd be inclined to distrust polls, because since mobile phones (and the phishing accompanying them) there is no longer the pool of people to talk to that existed when it was possible to call a landline at random and ask a series of questions.
In the 1990s, say, a lot of polling was done by staff who stopped people on the street and asked them questions; later, this was transferred to randomised phone calls to landlines. But today, an awful lot of people don't answer phone calls from numbers rather than from the names linked to numbers in their phone's contacts list.
This isn't surprising; when I get calls from numbers it's usually someone wanting to tell me that my account with a bank I'm not with has been compromised, or that they're calling from the helpline for a computer operating system I don't use, or that my funds in the form of Bitcoin (ha!) has problems. These phriendly phishermen have removed me, and millions of others, from the pool of poll candidates.
On the other hand, the gambling companies are very well able to calculate the odds, because they're skilled in pouring money into their own pockets by fooling poor eejits who think they can beat the odds. So if they're giving better odds on one candidate than another, it's unlikely that the gambling magnates are wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 04:00 AM

Good points, Thompson. Of course even the bookies get stung by an outsider occasionally but it is rare. Maybe in this case they are listening to the pollsters too!

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 05:15 AM

Crooks attract other crooks...

Elon Musk is offering a $1 million a day to sign his PAC petition. Is that legal?

I really hope they both get their comeuppance! How can so many people not understand that neuther Trump not Musk support democracy? Do they really want the USA to become a Putin-esque staet?

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 06:49 AM

For the third and final time, the piece I quoted was NOT FROM A POLL - unlike some who harp on constantly about them, I’m not in the least bit interested in polls, I listen to experienced political commentators in press and media outlets I have trust in. The piece was a vox-pop conducted by a BBC employee. Were the black gentlemen they interviewed representative of black men in general? No-one can truly know (to quote SRS’s stating-the-blindingly-obvious comment), but they surely do represent at least some of their demographic.

There is nothing in the least bit ‘ridiculous’ about listening to all sides and trying to weigh the various viewpoints. There is something very ridiculous, however, in attempting to silence those who are on your side but who perceive a danger from the other side, or who hold opinions which don’t tally perfectly with your own. That isn’t ‘keeping your eye on the ball’, it’s burying your head in the sand.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 06:53 AM

There is a profound world-wide multi-faceted attack on Democracy going on world-wide. And of course it is reflected on what is going on here at home. This is not a new challenge, it is greatly influenced by new technology and who controls it and how and whether it can be controlled. Think about what the printing press did to civilization and now we have the next phase in the internet as part of the new digital paradigm *christ I'm sounding like another member of this forum who disappeared).

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 09:12 AM

2 weeks...

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 10:57 AM

Ah, Dave, you got my point!

I want this conversation amongst all of us to be clear - none of the sources we quote actually KNOW anything beyond educated guesses. But they are still guesses.

I also want to share a phrase a good friend from North Carolina always used - "don't borrow trouble." It hasn't happened yet. Early voting is getting a huge turnout, we all learned our lesson with Hillary and covering all our bases so are being very thorough and very cautious, but for now, don't tear your hair out about Trump.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 11:12 AM

I lost my hair years ago, Stilly, so don't worry about that :-D

They are indeed all educated guesses. Some have a better record than others but non are infallible. I don't think any of us are 'borrowing trouble' though. Just voicing our worries. Saying 'it will not happen' does not allay those worries and criticising people who do worry does nothing to help either.

I believe you when you say it is not as bad as it seems but that is probably because I want you to be right. We only have 2 weeks to wait to see what happens. In the interim things are going to heat up and opinions will not be changed.

Good luck in all your endeavours

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: meself
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 11:28 AM

"How can so many people not understand that neuther Trump not Musk support democracy?"

What you're missing is that "so many people" just do not care about democracy. They literally - and, yes, I literally mean literally - worship trump. He's all that matters. It is a massive cult.

"Do they really want the USA to become a Putin-esque staet?" Simple answer: yes. Complicated answer: yes. David Frum, years ago now: "Russia is the White Supremacists' Israel."

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 06:08 PM

When you say Trump is massive cult...

Seriously though, are you serious? A vast number of people want a dictatorship?

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: meself
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 11:34 PM

Sadly, yes, that is indeed my impression. Not that they are phrasing it exactly like that, but they do seem to be be quite pleased with the idea of trump doing everything consistent with the definition of that term. His supporters are not, for the most part, unaware of what he is saying and planning; they are of it and approve of it.

I was disturbed some years ago now when I found right-wing Americans on-line, when confronted with the charge that some trumpism or other was undemocratic, countering that the US "is not a democracy; it is a republic". This startling and radical attempt to untether the idea of the US from that of democracy seems to me to be preparing the ground for a widespread acceptance of the idea of dictatorship (after all, Nazi Germany was a "republic"; Fascist Italy was a "republic"; Putin's Russia is a "republic"). Yes, it's scary.

Don't forget: these are the people who were happy to see toddlers torn from their mothers' arms, with no way for them ever to be returned to those arms.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 01:12 PM

I'll always remember the mother's account of a small child who had been taken and held for months, and was returned still wearing the same clothes - never taken off, never washed.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: meself
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 03:17 PM

And she was one of the lucky ones who got their children back .....

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 09:37 PM

I had a short but unsettling conversation with a Native Alaskan woman this morning. The one good thing about it was that she was willing to speak about her stance. Too often Mad Don trumpers aren't able to do so.

She opined that "both sides lie, there is no difference." I said, What is Harris lying about?" Friend said, "Everything! She has no plans, it's just words."

I said, Personally, I think that Trump is awful; I can't imagine what anyone sees in him to vote for. She says, "We need a STRONG leader in these times." Me: A strong and ERRATIC leader is very dangerous.

And so on and so on. robomatic, she is also "disappointed" in Peltola. Frankly, I fear that misogyny is a very big part of the resistance. Hillary was the bellwether- got pretty close but not close enough. Kamala is closer but I fear....

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: meself
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 09:46 PM

As they say, trump is the weak man's idea of a strong man (and the poor man's idea of a rich man, and the stupid man's idea of a smart man).

How anyone gets the impression of "strength" from that pathetic, babbling clown is far, far beyond me.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 10:34 PM

Well said, meself. Very well said.

I still have my faith in a lot of pissed-off American women voting to do the heavy lifting of shoving that orange piece of offal off of the political stage (before Judge Marchand sentences him to prison. Please please please please please!)

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Helen
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 10:43 PM

This morning I watched a video clip on (Oz TV show) Planet America of a very recent Kamala Harris rally where she stopped, looked at something happening at the back of the crowd which was indiscernible and no words could be heard, and said something like, "Did you come to the wrong rally?" and then said that Trump's rally was somewhere else nearby.

The interesting thing is that the GOP propaganda machine, including Fox News has reworked the clip, added a voice track of someone in the crowd supposedly saying "Jesus is Lord", and has then picked up and run with the concept that Kamala was ejecting Christians from her rally.

Who needs AI for generating propaganda when the Fox News people are on the job?

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Helen
Date: 23 Oct 24 - 10:54 PM

Snopes analyses the facts and fiction around the La Crosse WI rally

Note: The purpose of Snopes is to try to find reality among the BS being scattered around the internet.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 12:09 AM

I just saw this on Facebook: "On November 5th, it'll be as if the whole world is waiting for a biopsy to come back."

I already know that I want to be alone that evening. I'll never forget that dumbstruck night in November 2016.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 12:09 AM

Ebby, I went to bed and heard it the next morning. Then asked my daughter to crochet a pink "pussy hat" and went to march at the county courthouse soon after for a local version of the Women's March.

Helen, that Harris rally was a good one, several days ago, when she chided the hecklers for having gone to the wrong event - they probably meant to go to the smaller one down the road.

She handled it like a pro.

Trump is in deep shit these days as his four-star generals (who generally try to stay politically neutral at all times) are coming forward. Two weeks ago Milley said Trump is "Fascist to the core" and today Trump's former Chief of Staff John Kelly has confirmed that opinion. When asked on the CNN Town Hall meeting tonight (that Trump declined to attend) Harris answered Cooper Anderson's question directly - yes, she thinks Trump is a fascist.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 06:53 AM

Price rises are squeezing the American working
class. So they plan to vote in a billionaire. (NYT, paywalled.)

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 07:01 AM

(Underneath that is a piece by an economist saying prices haven't really risen because people are earning more and social welfare rates have risen - you really need to work out how many minutes you need to work to buy your dozen eggs, etc… however, in my experience, working people have a very sound idea indeed of how much they have to spend and whether they have to tighten their belts. Economists, meh, not so much.)

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 07:34 AM

In he event of American voters being stupid enough to re-elect the turnip, can the rest of the world mount a legal challenge and have an international court decide whether or not to remove it and put it out of our misery?

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 07:58 AM

Apologies for our government interfering in your election ;-)

The odious Farage, who supports the orange one, is up in arms. It seems that even though he has spent time and money supporting Trump himself, no-one from the Labour party is allowed to support Harris. In the report is says "British allies of Trump drew a distinction between the actions of an opposition politician and the governing party." So, a very Trumpian one law for us and one for everyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 11:23 AM

Income levels, race, education, gender, sub-groups, all are being treated by pundits as if they're monolithic. And many people have very short memories. This white educated middle class liberal woman is tired of being lumped with the stupid white middle class women who voted for Trump. From Thompson's link to the Times:

Fair enough: But why turn to a lying, abusive billionaire to help them solve their economic problems? Their explanation is simple. Times were good when Trump was president. Now eggs cost nearly three times what they did four years ago, the rate on a car loan is more than 50 percent higher, and some companies are cutting hours. Mr. Trump, they think, is the candidate to turn things around.

Those lower prices were the result of the Obama administration's work. Until Trump crashed everything with his COVID19 idiotic responses. And Biden has been restoring order even as people remember the better days and lower loan rates from the Obama years and unreasonably credit Trump.

The actual voter results are going to reflect the views of a lot of people who are tired of being lumped in opinion pieces. But that other opinion piece you referred to has some good points:

“The first lesson you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid,” Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, told Politico in 2012, presumably in a moment of frustration, as I wrote in my May newsletter.

Stantcheva does not accuse anyone of being stupid, and neither do I. But I think sensible people can err when pure logic bumps into human nature. It’s normal to compare prices when you go shopping. Up is bad. The fifth mistake, however, is to remain anchored to a price from long ago, when conditions were vastly different. I remember when gasoline was less than a buck a gallon. So what?

We human beings are bad at imagining counterfactuals. What would the world be like today if Congress and the White House and the Federal Reserve had moved early and aggressively to keep inflation under control? Much worse, I’m afraid. Prices would be lower, but we very likely would have gone through a long and deep recession.

Inflation, while by no means a good thing overall, did serve a purpose when Covid disrupted the economy, reducing the supply of some items and increasing demand for others. If the overall price level had remained the same, some prices and wages would have had to fall drastically to offset others that rose. But workers hate taking wage cuts, so employers probably would have cut jobs rather than pay more. Inflation allowed employers to impose stealth pay cuts — raises below the rate of inflation — that were more palatable, saving jobs and keeping the economy from spiraling downward.

“The price shock was necessary,” Richard Portes, an economist at the London Business School, told me. “You need inflation to get reallocations after supply shocks. That was necessary. It was right, economically. And now it’s been completed.”

The sixth mistake is for people to say inflation remains high because prices are high. Wrong. Inflation is the increase in prices, not the level of prices. It’s unrealistic to expect prices to go back down to where they were before the pandemic. That would require a Great Depression-scale economic downturn that dried up demand for goods and services. I realize I’m not the first to make this point, but it bears repeating because the mistake keeps being made.

The price of eggs is often cited. The cost of meat. Food can be expensive, but even more so if you don't prepare it yourself, if you buy ready-to-eat dishes or order takeout. Too many people don't know how to do anything else BUT buy processed foods. I recently started reading Michael Pollan's 2008 treatise In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and I can already see gaping errors in his logic, but he's right about a number of basic things. For example:

What is driving such relentless change in the American diet? One force is the thirty-two-billion-dollar food-marketing machine that thrives on change for its own sake. . . . Part of what drove my grandparents' food culture from the American table was official scientific opinion, which, beginning in the 1960s, decided that animal fat was a deadly substance. And then there were the food manufacturers, which stood to make very little money from my grandmother's cooking, because she was doing so much of it from scratch—up to and including rendering her own cooking fats.

I've said it before, in addition to returning Civics class to our junior high and high schools, Home Economics needs to take a stand and start teaching basic food science and cooking to students because many of them aren't getting it at home. Part of that cooking is shopping, and we had to think about our shopping lists in class. Understand our ingredients and base our menus on what was available. Prodding the Department of Education to promote these classes should be on the top of Harris' to-do list. It wouldn't take a huge effort and the justification is obvious. Smarter voters and shoppers.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 01:43 PM

More pundits and news hosts need to make the point that Harris and the Dems didn't raise any prices. The inflationary spiral began with COVID shortages. Then various suppliers and companies used that as an excuse to sneak in unnecessary or higher than necessary hikes.
   Inflation is beginning to slow, but people still just tell themselves. "Well, prices weren't this high under Trump!" as if that were a causal factor. Even with job creation and employment figures doing great, so many just look at the prices and blame whoever in in power! And the GOP of course makes NO effort to dissuade them.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 01:57 PM

I haven't seen this anywhere else, but someone's just earned herself nine years in gaol for electoral fraud:

Tina Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, in 2020 tampered with voting machines in an effort to prove the election had been rigged against Trump. The data she allowed to be downloaded made its way to a presentation given by Mike Lindell, the pillow-hawking conspiracist.

This is from an opinion piece by Jesse Wegman for the NY Times, dated 7th October, which is excerpted in the lead entry in RISKS Digest 34.47 (via seclists.org). It's worth reading that entry in its entirety.

Were Turnip to regain power, I foresee an instant pardon.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 02:40 PM

Having said earlier that I think Democracy is under attack around the world right now, I add to the subject the paraphrase from an episode of "West Wing" that few people have faith in Democracy after a conversation with the average voter.

Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 05:07 PM

I don't know whether we have any Islamic/ Palestinian folks in the forum, particularly whether they live in the 'battleground' State of Michigan, but I'm curious as to their current election evaluation.

There have been some national news selected questioning of Muslim voter demographics as to their thinking and apparently many have answered that they are anti-Biden and by extension anti-Harris, regardless of their perception of TRMP as perhaps more unreservedly pro-Israel and anti-Muslim, based on his Presidential track record 2016-2020.

I do not know if or by how much the election will hinge on minorty thinking in this subject, but it certainly MIgHt.

It certainly seems that Muslim and Palestinian issues (which are not exactly the same thing) have a larger sway in the Democratic Party of today. On the other hand, the recent reports indicate that a lot of people simply want to punish the ruling U.S. party in power.