REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Elections; 2024

POSTED BY: THG
UPDATED: Saturday, November 23, 2024 19:33
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 65568
PAGE 44 of 96

Thursday, April 4, 2024 9:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 5, 2024 5:36 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Many Democrats Are Worried Trump Will Beat Biden. This One Isn’t.

By Adam Nagourney | April 3, 2024

Adam Nagourney has been covering presidential campaigns since Michael Dukakis ran for president in 1988 — the same campaign in which Simon Rosenberg, the subject of this interview, began his long career in presidential politics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/us/politics/simon-rosenberg-trump-b
iden.html?ugrp=c&unlocked_article_code=1.iE0.Yd_O.moeAPRi9MyKG&smid=url-share

Simon Rosenberg has spent the past two years telling Democrats they need to calm down. His Biden-will-win prediction is his next big test.

Simon Rosenberg was right about the congressional elections of 2022. All the conventional wisdom — the polls, the punditry, the fretting by fellow Democrats — revolved around the expectation of a big red wave and a Democratic wipeout.

He disagreed. Democrats would surprise everyone, he said again and again: There would be no red wave. He was correct, of course, as he is quick to remind anyone listening.

These days, Mr. Rosenberg, 60, a Democratic strategist and consultant who dates his first involvement in presidential campaigns to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, is again pushing back against the polls and punditry and the Democratic doom and gloom. This time, he is predicting that President Biden will defeat Donald J. Trump in November.

In a world of Democratic bed-wetters, to reprise the phrase used by David Plouffe, a senior political adviser to Barack Obama, to describe Democratic fretters, Mr. Rosenberg is the voice of — well, whatever the opposite of bed-wetter is these days. He even has a Substack newsletter offering insights and daily reassurance to his worried readers — “Hopium Chronicles,” the name taken from what the pollster Nate Silver suggested he was ingesting back in 2022.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-president-is-kicking-ass

I talked to Mr. Rosenberg about what it feels like to be an outlier in his own party, and why he sleeps so well at night while so many of his fellow Democrats are plotting their moves to Paris after November. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length, and because Mr. Rosenberg — God love him — likes to talk about this subject. A lot.

Good morning, Simon. And, first things first, thank you for doing this.

Any opportunity I have to talk about the good works of Joe Biden and the Democrats — how could I turn that down?

The idea of this interview is that, at a time when there is so much fretting in the Democratic world, you are not — and have never been — a bed-wetter. Can you explain why? This goes back to the midterm congressional elections in 2022, as I recall?

Yes. The argument I made then was threefold. One was that the Republicans did something unusual in 2022. Usually when a party loses elections, they run away from the politics that caused them to lose. And Republicans were running toward it. They were becoming ever more MAGA, even though MAGA had lost in 2018 and 2020.

Second, that Biden was actually a good president, and we’d have a strong case to make. And third, there’s been this huge increase in citizen engagement in the Democratic Party. We’ve been raising crazy amounts of money and have an unprecedented number of volunteers because of the fear of MAGA.

We were stronger and better than was the conventional wisdom. The constant mistake everyone’s been making since the spring of 2022 has been the overestimating of their strength and the underestimating of ours. We went into Election Day with there being this huge belief that the Democrats were going to get killed. I believed those three things were going to allow us to do better than people expected in 2022. And I have that basic view now about 2024.

Here we are almost two years later, and a lot of the same kinds of things are still happening — and Trump is a far weaker candidate in this election than he was in 2016. He’s more dangerous. He’s more extreme. His performance on the stump is far more erratic and disturbing. I’m just giving you my rap here.

How critical to your case — to your rap — is the Supreme Court decision on abortion rights?

I think the election changed a lot with Dobbs, and it hasn’t really changed very much since. There’s one party that just keeps winning all over the country, and every type of election going back now two years — the same basic dynamic, which is, we keep winning, they keep struggling. Why would it be different in November? My view is that it won’t be, because there’s a structural thing happening underneath all of this, which is that Dobbs broke the Republican Party and that a big chunk of the Republican Party has become loosened from MAGA. It’s costing them in elections and costing them a lot of donors — and money.

But poll after poll shows Americans have unfavorable views of Biden and are distressed about the direction of the country. A Wall Street Journal poll released this week found Mr. Biden trailing Mr. Trump in six of seven swing states. That seems like rocket fuel for the worrying class.

I’m not really surprised by anything we’re seeing. But I will tell you that we were told in 2022 that Biden’s low approval rating meant that Democrats were going to get crushed in the elections. And that’s why I think that centering your understanding of this election around Biden’s approval rating or around the public polling is risky business.

Polling can only tell us where things are today. Those of us who’ve been in the business understand how these things evolve and that polling is very soft this far out. We’re asking polling, in my view, to do too much when we have all this other information and data that’s available to us to augment our understanding. And to me, that additional data suggests that we’re going to have a good election. But we’ve got a long way to go.

Now, on the issue of the nervousness? Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, the media tells us, The New York Times tells us, MSNBC tells us, that we should be looking at this election largely through the prism of current polling. That’s the polling industrial complex asserting itself in a very aggressive way in the daily understanding of our elections. I think those of us who have a more holistic understanding of the health of candidates and parties, we have to keep making our case that there’s a lot of other things we should be looking at.

Is there evidence already that polls that suggest Biden is in trouble are misleading?

Well, the evidence is that Trump has underperformed in these early primary states and underperformed in public polling in every one of these states, except for North Carolina. Second is that we know from polling in these early states that somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of the Republican coalition is open to not supporting Trump.

OK, but is there anything that keeps you up at night, that worries you in terms of Biden winning re-election?

I wish we had more time. I think the campaign got a late start, and we have a lot of work to do to win this thing. But we are where we are now, and just have to put our heads down and go to work.

Would you list the backlash against Mr. Biden for Gaza as a problem?

Building and maintaining a winning coalition in a presidential election is always hard, and will be for Biden-Harris in 2024. We are going to have challenges along the way — debates, discussions, even disagreements. But the Democratic Party is very unified right now. There is no one holding back endorsements, or saying they won’t support Biden, as Trump is now facing on the Republican side. Gaza is today a challenge to be managed by Biden, not a threat.

What about third party candidates? What if Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to name the most famous, grabs ballot lines in super-close swing states?

We know from history that we have to take all that very seriously. Democrats understand that we are not just running against Donald Trump this cycle, but we’re running against three other candidates as well, and that we’re going to have to engage them. We’re going to have to treat them like they are serious candidates in this election. And we have to do what we do in politics, which is we have to make them unacceptable to voters.

Is anyone on your side of the house listening to you on all of this? Do you feel like an outlier in your own party — or rather, why are you such an outlier in your own party?

But also, Democrats tend to gravitate to the negative right?

Yes. There is that. And also because there’s a sense that, in the Democratic Party, if we stumble in an election, our democracy could go away. The worry that people have is warranted.

But I’m looking at a lot more than just polling.

The other factor, I would argue, is that Democrats still remember what happened in 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton after polls told them to expect an easy Clinton victory.

Yeah. There’s trauma from 2016 about the election. The most important thing I can say, however you put this in, is that it isn’t like Democrats are sitting around in their houses twiddling their thumbs and throwing things at the television.

Does this mean you are not worried about Biden’s age as a factor in this election?

I am. I know Biden’s age is an issue. But I think Biden assuaged a lot of the concerns that people had with a strong performance at the State of the Union. But also you have to write, in my view, you have to be honest and fair-minded: there’s a strong argument that Biden’s age is also an asset for him, that, in a time of an enormous challenge for the country, having the guy who’s the most experienced person to ever be in the Oval Office may have been a blessing for us. I think we can make that case without sounding like, you know, we’re pushing the envelope on truth.

Are there any other Democrats who would be — would have been — stronger against Trump in this election?

I don’t think that’s even worthy of — no, no, I mean, Joe Biden’s the nominee. I mean, it’s not worthy of speculation, right? Look, we just had a primary. People could have challenged him. They didn’t because they didn’t think they could beat him. And the two candidates who did challenge him got crushed.

We are quietly confident. In the grand scope of things, we can handle this; we can win the election. The big thing that people got wrong in 2022 was that they thought the Democratic Party wasn’t going to bring it, that we weren’t hungry and we weren’t energized. And it turned out that we were.

A version of this article appears in print on April 5, 2024, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Not All Democrats Fear Biden Will Lose to Trump.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 5, 2024 9:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Many Democrats Are Worried Trump Will Beat Biden. This One Isn’t.

...


The idea of this interview is that, at a time when there is so much fretting in the Democratic world, you are not — and have never been — a bed-wetter. Can you explain why? This goes back to the midterm congressional elections in 2022, as I recall?

Yes. The argument I made then was threefold. One was that the Republicans did something unusual in 2022. Usually when a party loses elections, they run away from the politics that caused them to lose. And Republicans were running toward it. They were becoming ever more MAGA, even though MAGA had lost in 2018 and 2020.


That's not what happened. The Uniparty Bushites like Mitt Romney and Karl Rove were still in control of the RNC and purposefully withheld any campaign finances from candidates they didn't approve of, and instead spent all that money pointlessly on races like in Alaska where the only two candidates running against each other were Republican. In a fight for their very life in the party, they were willing to sacrifice majorities in the Senate and House if it meant keeping good candidates out of office.

Ronna McDaniel was the one charged with keeping MAGA out of the NeoCon ruled Republican party. She was great at her job. And now she's gone.

The NeoCons are in their death throes. Karl Rove coming out and calling political hostages over the non-event on January 6th criminals are the last desperate attempt to maintain power. Good riddance.

And now you'll get to face what a Republican party that's actually trying to win an election cycle looks like. Also one that has embraced the mail-in-fraud-ballot system the Democrats have set up for them during Covid and weren't smart enough to remove for the 2024 Presidential Election. Those cheating apparatuses they put were left fully intact for Republicans now to come in and show the Democrats how to really cheat.

You should have buttoned all of that up while you could have like I told you to.

Quote:
Second, that Biden was actually a good president, and we’d have a strong case to make.


Now we're just outright bullshitting our way into pure fantasyland here.

Quote:
And third, there’s been this huge increase in citizen engagement in the Democratic Party. We’ve been raising crazy amounts of money and have an unprecedented number of volunteers because of the fear of MAGA.


That may be true, but what you might not have read is that the new RNC just raised a record amount of money in the last calendar month. The media has done their best not to talk about that problem at all.



Tick Tock




ETA: Regarding fundraising...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-campaign-rnc-triple-fundraising
-march-656-million-2024-04-03/

The election campaign of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee said on Wednesday they raised over $65.6 million in March, more than three times the amount raised in February.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 6, 2024 7:21 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:
And third, there’s been this huge increase in citizen engagement in the Democratic Party. We’ve been raising crazy amounts of money and have an unprecedented number of volunteers because of the fear of MAGA.


That may be true, but what you might not have read is that the new RNC just raised a record amount of money in the last calendar month. The media has done their best not to talk about that problem at all.



Tick Tock




ETA: Regarding fundraising...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-campaign-rnc-triple-fundraising
-march-656-million-2024-04-03/

The election campaign of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee said on Wednesday they raised over $65.6 million in March, more than three times the amount raised in February.
And most significant for Trumptards is DJT stock! Trump now has $billions and $billions available for winning the White House. He can finance his and every other politician's reelection campaigns, far outspending the Democrats. There is precedence: DJT stock is like Trump Casino stock, which was another lucrative scam. This time, the scam is so much bigger, and the people buying DJT understand even less how a successful business works, which means Trump will be fine and he will be the next President. A knowledgeable fellow named 6ixStringJack said so.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+story+of+trump+casino+stock

Don't forget that Putin has pledged to support Trump in every way possible. To discerning voters, Russia's support is the gold standard for who should be President. Russia only wants what is best for America and what is best for both Russia and America is Trump as the next President. Believe me.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Putin+will+help+Trump

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 6, 2024 8:44 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'm not talking about DJT stock. You already know this because you knew my stance on that from another thread which you also replied to, so your reply about it here is completely disingenuous, let alone not even pertinent.

Bottom line... Don't worry about Trump's campaign finances. Trump certainly isn't.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 6:56 AM

THG


T






NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 10:38 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


More like giant Democratic Machine isn't able to destroy the Constitution so they're forced to run on their performance which is why they're going to lose.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 10:52 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:
And third, there’s been this huge increase in citizen engagement in the Democratic Party. We’ve been raising crazy amounts of money and have an unprecedented number of volunteers because of the fear of MAGA.


That may be true, but what you might not have read is that the new RNC just raised a record amount of money in the last calendar month. The media has done their best not to talk about that problem at all.



Tick Tock




ETA: Regarding fundraising...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-campaign-rnc-triple-fundraising
-march-656-million-2024-04-03/

The election campaign of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee said on Wednesday they raised over $65.6 million in March, more than three times the amount raised in February.
And most significant for Trumptards is DJT stock! Trump now has $billions and $billions available for winning the White House. He can finance his and every other politician's reelection campaigns, far outspending the Democrats. There is precedence: DJT stock is like Trump Casino stock, which was another lucrative scam. This time, the scam is so much bigger, and the people buying DJT understand even less how a successful business works, which means Trump will be fine and he will be the next President. A knowledgeable fellow named 6ixStringJack said so.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+story+of+trump+casino+stock

Don't forget that Putin has pledged to support Trump in every way possible. To discerning voters, Russia's support is the gold standard for who should be President. Russia only wants what is best for America and what is best for both Russia and America is Trump as the next President. Believe me.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Putin+will+help+Trump

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm not talking about DJT stock. You already know this because you knew my stance on that from another thread which you also replied to, so your reply about it here is completely disingenuous, let alone not even pertinent.

Bottom line... Don't worry about Trump's campaign finances. Trump certainly isn't.



ABC News: Trump's Palm Beach fundraiser, joined by Melania Trump, rakes in $50 million

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-palm-beach-fundraiser-joined-me
lania-trump-rakes/story?id=108949489

Quote:
Earlier on Saturday, Biden took aim at Trump's fundraiser in a fundraising video on X, Instagram and Facebook thanking grassroots donors for their contributions to his campaign and criticizing Trump for attending a fundraiser for only wealthy donors.

"Folks, you know, Trump is down in Florida today raising money from a bunch of hedge fund billionaires," Biden said. "This campaign is Scranton vs. Palm Beach, this is a grassroots campaign of nurses and teachers and firefighters and cops versus Donald Trump and a couple of billionaires looking for a tax cut."

Tickets for Biden's fundraiser with Obama and Clinton last weekend went up to $500,000, lower than the tickets for Trump's fundraiser Saturday night, but the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party have accepted donations north of $800,000.


LOL...

Keep lying to the idiots. There's less of them than you think, and you've woken a lot of them out of their trance with the shit job you've been doing running the country.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 11:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Trump is up 1.1 in the RCP Polling Aggregate today.

On this day in 2020, Joe Biden* was up 6.1 points.

On this day in 2016, Hilary Clinton was up 10.5 points.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs
-biden


And Trump has only just barely started campaigning and fundraising.

Tick Tock



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 11:38 AM

THG


On March 2nd Trump was up 2.3, Bidens gaining. Before November comes Trump will be saying, where did everybody go?

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 11:41 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
On March 2nd Trump was up 2.3, Bidens gaining.

T


It ebbs and flows the entire time. This is nothing new. Trump's lead on Biden* was 1.1 points from February 13th to February 17th as well.

What's different this time is that there wasn't one single day during the 2020 election cycle where Biden* wasn't leading Trump in the aggregate.

The last day that Biden* was leading Trump in this election cycle was September 11th of 2023. That's 199 straight days of Trump leading Biden* in the polling.




Trump's lead also increases nearly 2 points in a 5-way race, and his current lead in the Battleground states is +2.8.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 12:41 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump is a true genius of foreign policy

Inside Donald Trump’s secret plan to end the Ukraine-Russia war

By Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, Michael Birnbaum | April 7, 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/05/trump-ukraine-secre
t-plan/

Former president Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force.

Trump’s proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential. That approach, which has not been previously reported, would dramatically reverse President Biden’s policy, which has emphasized curtailing Russian aggression and providing military aid to Ukraine.

As he seeks a return to power, the presumptive Republican nominee has frequently boasted that he could negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours if elected, even before taking office. But he has repeatedly declined to specify publicly how he would quickly settle a war that has raged for more than two years and killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.

Trump-aligned foreign-policy thinkers have emphasized addressing threats to U.S. interests from China and seeking ways to reverse Russia’s increasing dependence on China for military, industrial and economic assistance. They have also embraced limiting NATO expansion.

Privately, Trump has said that he thinks both Russia and Ukraine “want to save face, they want a way out,” and that people in parts of Ukraine would be okay with being part of Russia, according to a person who has discussed the matter directly with Trump.

Accepting Russian control over parts of Ukraine would expand the reach of Putin’s dictatorship after what has been the biggest land war in Europe since World War II. Some of Trump’s supporters have been trying to persuade him against such an outcome.

“I’ve been spending 100 percent of my time talking to Trump about Ukraine,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a onetime Trump critic turned ally. “He has to pay a price. He can’t win at the end of this,” Graham added, speaking of Putin.

Russia has previously declared it was annexing Ukrainian land beyond the Donbas region and Crimea and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has said he would not accept surrendering any territory. Exchanging territory for a cease-fire would put Ukraine in a worse position without assurances that Russia would not rearm and resume hostilities, as it has in the past, said Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “That is a terrible deal,” she said of Trump’s proposal.

The Trump campaign declined to directly address questions for this article. “Any speculation about President Trump’s plan is coming from unnamed and uninformed sources who have no idea what is going on or what will happen,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing.”

Biden said in his State of the Union address that Putin is “on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond,” and that Ukraine is trying to defend itself. The president has outlined a long-term plan of support for Ukraine that would build up its military capabilities this year so that it is in a better place to go on the offensive next year. But U.S. aid is already in jeopardy as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces a revolt from Republican hard-liners who are digging in against any more funding and clamoring to oust him.

Out of office, Trump has pressured congressional Republicans to resist additional American support for Ukraine’s war effort and a return to the White House would significantly expand his influence over the debate. Seeing the political dynamics in the U.S., European allies have jump-started military industry to a point where they hope to supplant a significant portion of the current U.S. assistance to Kyiv. But analysts said that realistically, Ukraine’s capacity to keep fighting would be weakened if Trump succeeds in blocking further U.S. aid.

In many ways, Trump’s plan is in line with his approach as president. His preference for splashy summits over policy details, confidence in his own negotiating skills and impatience with conventional diplomatic protocols were all hallmarks of how he approached foreign affairs in his first term.

In his eight years as the GOP’s standard-bearer, Trump has led a stark shift in the party’s prevailing orientation to become more skeptical of foreign intervention such as military aid to Ukraine. Trump has consistently complimented Putin, expressed admiration for his dictatorial rule and gone out of his way to avoid criticizing him, most recently for the death in jail of political opponent Alexei Navalny. He has not called for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter held in Russia for a year without charges or a trial.

Trump has refused to acknowledge Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and falsely blamed Ukraine for trying to help Democratic rival Hillary Clinton — a smear spread by Russian spy services. His attempt in 2019 to withhold aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky announced an investigation into Biden led to Trump’s first impeachment.

In a phone call with Zelensky that year that Trump said was “perfect,” the U.S. president pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden and the discredited theory that Ukraine and not Russia sought to interfere with the 2016 election. The GOP-controlled Senate later acquitted Trump.

“Former president Trump’s inexplicable and admiring relationship with Putin, along with his unprecedented hostility to NATO, cannot give Europe or Ukraine any confidence in his dealings with Russia,” said Tom Donilon, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. “Trump’s comments encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants with our European allies are among the most unsettling and dangerous statements made by a major party candidate for president. His position represents a clear and present danger to U.S. and European security.”

Graham said he has warned against giving Russia desired land and wants Trump to embrace a pathway forward to Ukraine to join NATO.

“The way you end this war to me is you make sure Ukraine gets into NATO and the E.U.,” he said. “He doesn’t say much about that. I don’t know if he’s thought too much about it.”

In his public promises to end the war, Trump has pointedly withheld the specifics on how he would negotiate with Putin and Zelensky. “I will say certain things to each one of them that I wouldn’t say to the rest of the world, and that’s why I can’t tell you much more than that,” Trump said in a March interview with former aide Sebastian Gorka.

His public silence on his negotiating tack has left room for others to fill in the blanks. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has antagonized European allies with his autocratic and pro-Russian tendencies, met with Trump last month and afterward claimed Trump told him he will force the war to end because “he will not give a penny” to help Ukraine. Orban’s statement was false, but the former president didn’t want to publicly contradict him after entertaining him all night at his Mar-a-Lago Club and admiring his toughness and anti-immigration positions, according to a person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

During the meeting, Orban spoke at length about Soviet history, Russia’s desire for Ukrainian territory and the military challenges facing Ukraine, the person said. Trump listened but was noncommittal, the person said. An Orban spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Word of Trump’s plan for Ukraine circulated in Washington last November at a meeting at the Heritage Foundation between right-of-center foreign policy figures and a visiting delegation from the European Council on Foreign Relations. Former Trump White House aide Michael Anton described the expected contours of Trump’s peace plan as Ukraine ceding territory in Crimea and Donbas, limiting NATO expansion and enticing Putin to loosen his growing reliance on China, according to multiple people present for the meeting, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private discussion.

Reached by phone in March, Anton said he hadn’t spoken with Trump in 18 to 24 months and denied knowing anything about Trump’s plan for Ukraine. He did not respond to further questions.

James Carafano, a Heritage Foundation fellow who convened the meeting, declined to comment on the private discussion but criticized the idea of splitting Russia from China. “That is stupid idea 101,” he said. “Anything you could give Russia that they would really value would compromise all your other interests. The way to deal with the Russia-China relationship is to make Russia a weaker partner.”

Peeling Russia away from China would presumably involve sanctions relief, since the Kremlin has turned toward Beijing to try to offset broad-based Western sanctions on its energy, defense and financial sectors, said Jeremy Shapiro, head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, who brought the group’s delegation to the meeting in November. Shapiro declined to comment on the specifics of the conversation, citing ground rules of the November event that prohibited attributing anything that was said, but he said that Trump’s Ukraine peace plan did not appear to be detailed.

“Trump people feel as if one of the great sins of the Ukrainian war and the Russia policy, generally speaking, is to push Russia toward China and to make it all the more dependent on China,” he said. Trump’s “fundamental approach with all things is to get men in a room together to discuss,” without necessarily having detailed plans in advance, Shapiro said.

Russia experts doubted Trump’s peace efforts could succeed. Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was Trump’s top Russia adviser and has since emerged as a prominent critic, said it reminded her of 2017 — when unvetted foreigners and business executives approached Trump with various peace plans, and he thought he could sit down with Russia and Ukraine and mediate on the strength of his personal charisma.

Trump’s team “is thinking about this very much in silos, that this is just a Ukraine-Russia thing,” Hill said. “They think of it as a territorial dispute, rather than one about the whole future of European security and the world order by extension.”

Even drawing an armistice line might not be so straightforward. The Kremlin in September 2022 declared that it was annexing four southern and eastern Ukrainian provinces, including the Donbas region but extending well beyond it. Since Kyiv still controls much of the territory, any attempt to resolve the war with territorial concessions is likely to involve extensive haggling — unless both sides simply agree to freeze the front lines that are in place at the moment of a deal.

Ukraine and European allies would probably resist Trump’s efforts to strike a deal with Moscow, Hill said. She said the Europeans have jump-started their military industry to a point where they hope to supplant a significant portion of the current U.S. assistance to Kyiv. She added that the U.S. has limited leverage for a unilateral deal because meaningful sanctions relief would rely on European cooperation.

“No amount of leverage the United States has is likely to compel Ukrainian leadership to engage in policies that would constitute domestic political suicide,” said Michael Kofman, an analyst of the Russia-Ukraine war at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan research center. “And no amount of leverage the United States has can compel Ukraine to cede territory or engage in these types of concessions. This is a situation where if you’re willing to give a hand, the other side will very quickly want the rest of the arm.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 1:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Keep your dumb Russia/Ukraine shit in the dumb Russia/Ukraine threads where it belongs.

Joe Biden* owns that clusterfuck.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 2:45 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Keep your dumb Russia/Ukraine shit in the dumb Russia/Ukraine threads where it belongs.

Joe Biden* owns that clusterfuck.
Trump was impeached over withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine smearing Biden's election campaign. The president of Ukraine, both back then and nowadays, refused to do Trump's dirty work and Trump has held a grudge since then. Trump is still withholding aid to Ukraine, but this time he has a more compelling reason. Putin wants Trump to help Russia by harming Ukraine or else Putin will release Trump's IRS records that the IRS cannot legally share with the public. Trump, as you may not be aware, does not pay all his taxes. He doesn't want the proof widely known. Trump will make a fine President because he will lower taxes and decrease the number of IRS auditors exclusively working on the tax returns of rich scofflaws such as Trump.

I see good reasons to vote for Trump and return the Senate to Republican control.
FACT SHEET: Extreme MAGA Congressional Republicans Propose Handouts to Rich and Tax Hikes for Working Families
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/2
7/fact-sheet-extreme-maga-congressional-republicans-propose-handouts-to-rich-and-tax-hikes-for-working-families/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, April 7, 2024 3:55 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


The above post is pure bullshit and propaganda from a mindless tool.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 12:55 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The above post is pure bullshit and propaganda from a mindless tool.
Just in the past few days, Donald Trump has said the following:

• Billionaires can trust him to keep their taxes low.

• Joe Biden was probably jacked on cocaine during his State of the Union address.

• Ukraine should just give Russia the territory it wants.

• I'm gonna keep smearing the judge's daughter even if I go to jail for it.

• On Monday I'm going to betray all the pro-lifers who have supported me. But they should vote for me anyway.

• We need more immigrants from nice countries like Denmark.

Remember back during the Trump presidency, when every day was like this? You can't wait for life to be like that again, can you?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 1:25 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Remember back during the Trump presidency, when every day was like this? You can't wait for life to be like that again, can you?


It never stopped for you, dummy.

Over 3 years of Joe Biden* in office and you haven't gone a single day here without saying Trump's name. Not one.

It doesn't even matter who wins in November. You're going to spend the next 4 years after that obsessing over Trump either way.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 2:00 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Remember back during the Trump presidency, when every day was like this? You can't wait for life to be like that again, can you?


It never stopped for you, dummy.

Over 3 years of Joe Biden* in office and you haven't gone a single day here without saying Trump's name. Not one.

It doesn't even matter who wins in November. You're going to spend the next 4 years after that obsessing over Trump either way.
Truthfully, there is nothing wrong with Trump that isn't wrong with his Trumptards. An excess quantity of Trumptards is bad in any situation, task, or organization. Trumptards pollute/contaminate/spoil/degrade companies and countries. That is the true problem connected with Trump. His Trumptards are deadly plutonium sending rays of their stupidity & mental illness in all directions. They are radioactively deadly. 6ix, I am not surprised that your solution to world problems is to kill everybody. See http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65972
6ix, you sense at some unconscious level that you and your Trumptard friends are a problem that needs solving. Unlike you, I am very conscious, because I work around Trumptards, that you people are a problem needing a Final Solution.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 7:30 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Remember back during the Trump presidency, when every day was like this? You can't wait for life to be like that again, can you?


It never stopped for you, dummy.

Over 3 years of Joe Biden* in office and you haven't gone a single day here without saying Trump's name. Not one.

It doesn't even matter who wins in November. You're going to spend the next 4 years after that obsessing over Trump either way.
Why do Trumptards frequently screw-up their lives in the same way Trump screws up? Because the Dunning-Kruger effect makes it difficult to impossible for them to understand what they are doing wrong.

There was a surge of interest in the Dunning-Kruger effect during the Trump administration.

What’s Behind the Confidence of the Incompetent? This Suddenly Popular Psychological Phenomenon.

By Angela Fritz

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-s-behind-the-confidence-of-the
-incompetent-this-suddenly-popular-psychological-phenomenon

You may have witnessed this scene at work, while socializing with friends or over a holiday dinner with extended family: Someone who has very little knowledge in a subject claims to know a lot. That person might even boast about being an expert.

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s not a disease, syndrome or mental illness; it is present in everybody to some extent, and it’s been around as long as human cognition, though only recently has it been studied and documented in social psychology.

In their 1999 paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, David Dunning and Justin Kruger put data to what has been known by philosophers since Socrates, who supposedly said something along the lines of “the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” Charles Darwin followed that up in 1871 with “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

Put simply, incompetent people think they know more than they really do, and they tend to be more boastful about it.

To test Darwin’s theory, the researchers quizzed people on several topics, such as grammar, logical reasoning and humor. After each test, they asked the participants how they thought they did. Specifically, participants were asked how many of the other quiz-takers they beat.

Dunning was shocked by the results, even though it confirmed his hypothesis. Time after time, no matter the subject, the people who did poorly on the tests ranked their competence much higher. On average, test takers who scored as low as the 10th percentile ranked themselves near the 70th percentile. Those least likely to know what they were talking about believed they knew as much as the experts.

Dunning and Kruger’s results have been replicated in at least a dozen different domains: math skills, wine tasting, chess, medical knowledge among surgeons and firearm safety among hunters.

During the 2016 election and in the months after the presidential inauguration, interest in the Dunning-Kruger effect surged. Google searches for “dunning kruger” peaked in May 2017, according to Google Trends, and has remained high since then. Attention spent on the Dunning-Kruger Effect Wikipedia entry has skyrocketed since late 2015.

There’s also “much more research activity” about the effect right now than immediately after it was published, Dunning said. Typically, interest in a research topic spikes in the five years following a groundbreaking study, then fades.

“Obviously it has to do with Trump and the various treatments that people have given him,” Dunning said, “So yeah, a lot of it is political. People trying to understand the other side. We have a massive rise in partisanship and it’s become more vicious and extreme, so people are reaching for explanations."

Even though former President Trump’s statements are rife with errors, falsehoods or inaccuracies, he expresses great confidence in his aptitude. He says he does not read extensively because he solves problems “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had.” He has said in interviews he doesn’t read lengthy reports because “I already know exactly what it is.”

He has “the best words” and cites his “high levels of intelligence” in rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change. Decades ago, he said he could end the Cold War: “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump told The Washington Post’s Lois Romano over dinner in 1984. “I think I know most of it anyway.”

“Donald Trump has been overestimating his knowledge for decades,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. “It’s not surprising that he would continue that pattern into the White House.”

Dunning-Kruger “offers an explanation for a kind of hubris,” said Steven Sloman, a cognitive psychologist at Brown University. “The fact is, that’s Trump in a nutshell. He’s a man with zero political skill who has no idea he has zero political skill. And it’s given him extreme confidence.”

Sloman thinks the Dunning-Kruger effect has become popular outside of the research world because it is a simple phenomenon that could apply to all of us. And, he said, people are desperate to understand what’s going on in the world.

Many people “cannot wrap their minds around the rise of Trump,” Sloman said. “He’s exactly the opposite of everything we value in a politician, and he’s the exact opposite of what we thought Americans valued.” Some of these people are eager to find something scientific to explain him.

Whether people want to understand “the other side” or they’re just looking for an epithet, the Dunning-Kruger effect works as both, Dunning said, which he believes explains the rise of interest.

The ramifications of the Dunning-Kruger effect are usually harmless. If you’ve ever felt confident answering questions on an exam, only to have the teacher mark them incorrect, you have firsthand experience with Dunning-Kruger.

On the other end of the spectrum, the effect can be deadly. In 2017, former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison for maiming several patients.

“His performance was pathetic,” one co-surgeon wrote about Duntsch after a botched spinal surgery, according to the Texas Observer. “He was functioning at a first- or second-year neurosurgical resident level but had no apparent insight into how bad his technique was.”

Dunning says the effect is particularly dangerous when someone with influence or the means to do harm doesn’t have anyone who can speak honestly about their mistakes. He noted several plane crashes that could have been avoided if crew had spoken up to an overconfident pilot.

“You get into a situation where people can be too deferential to the people in charge,” Dunning explained. “You have to have people around you that are willing to tell you you’re making an error.”

What happens when the incompetent are unwilling to admit they have shortcomings? Are they so confident in their own perceived knowledge that they will reject the very idea of improvement? Not surprisingly (though no less concerning), Dunning’s follow-up research shows the poorest performers are also the least likely to accept criticism or show interest in self-improvement.

-------------

Angela Fritz is the Deputy Editor on the General Assignment News Desk. She is also an atmospheric scientist and was formerly Deputy Weather Editor on the Capital Weather Gang. Before joining The Post, Fritz worked at CNN in Atlanta and Weather Underground in San Francisco. She has a B.S. in meteorology and an M.S. in earth and atmospheric science.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 8:05 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


There are powerful groups within Trump’s coalition — both his base of supporters and his stable of former and current advisers — who care a lot about abortion. And contraception. And gender identity. And marriage.

They’re likely to have an outsize influence on policy in a second Trump term, in part because Trump has few social policy positions of his own.

Understanding them is key to predicting how he and his surrogates might govern in 2025, if they get the chance.

Radical social conservatives could define Trump’s second term. From a “Department of Life” to a “future regime” led by Christian men, their ideas could have an outsize influence on Trump’s policies.

More at https://www.vox.com/policy/24122099/trump-second-term-project-2025-chr
istian-nationalists

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 9:28 AM

THG


Roe v Wade, mifepristone, the morning after pill; people understanding the pill and even condoms will be next.

Trump has suggested cuts to SSI and Medicare while doing away with the Affordable Care Act. It's long been over folks. All that's left is showing up to vote.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 10:09 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Do Voters Care About Policy Even a Little?

Joe Biden turned one of the highest-polling ideas in politics into reality. Few voters have even noticed.

By Rogé Karma | April 4, 2024

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/joe-biden-drug-pr
ices/677961/

Suppose the president asked you to design the ideal piece of legislation—the perfect mix of good politics and good policy. You’d probably want to pick something that saves people a lot of money. You’d want it to fix a problem that people have been mad about for a long time, in an area that voters say they care about a lot—such as, say, health care. You’d want it to appeal to voters across the political spectrum. And you’d want it to be a policy that polls well.

You would, in other words, want something like letting Medicare negotiate prescription-drug prices. This would make drugs much more affordable for senior citizens—who vote like crazy—and, depending on the poll, it draws support from 80 to 90 percent of voters. The idea has been championed by both Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin. Turn it into reality, and surely you’d see parades in your honor in retirement communities across the country.

Except Joe Biden did turn that idea into reality, and he seems to have gotten approximately zero credit for it. Tucked into the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was a series of measures to drastically lower prescription-drug costs for seniors, including by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. And yet Biden trails Donald Trump in most election polls and has one of the lowest approval ratings of any president in modern American history.

In that respect, drug pricing is a microcosm of Biden’s predicament—and a challenge to conventional theories of politics, in which voters reward politicians for successful legislation. Practically nothing is more popular than lowering drug prices, and yet the popularity hasn’t materialized. Which raises an uncomfortable question: Politically speaking, does policy matter at all?

High drug prices are not a fact of nature. In 2018, the average list price of a month’s worth of insulin was $12 in Canada, $11 in Germany, and $7 in Australia. In the U.S., it was $99. America today spends more than seven times per person on retail prescription drugs than it did in 1980, and more than one in four adults taking prescription drugs in the U.S. report difficulty affording them.

Short of direct price caps, the most obvious way to address the problem is to let Medicare—which, with 65 million members, is the nation’s largest insurer—negotiate prices with drug manufacturers. Just about every other rich country does a version of this, which is partly why Americans pay nearly three times more for prescription drugs than Europeans and Canadians do. Price negotiation would slash costs for Medicare beneficiaries, while cutting annual federal spending by tens of billions of dollars.

The pharmaceutical industry argues that lower prices will leave companies with less money to invest in inventing new, life-saving medicines. But the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that even if drug companies’ profits dropped 15 to 25 percent as a result of price negotiation, that would prevent only 1 percent of all new drugs from coming to market over the next decade.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel: Big Pharma’s go-to defense of soaring drug prices doesn’t add up

Medicare drug-price negotiation has nonetheless had a tortured three-decade journey to becoming law. Bill Clinton made it a central plank of his push to overhaul the American health-care system, an effort that went down in flames after a massive opposition campaign by all corners of the health-care industry. Barack Obama campaigned on the idea but quickly abandoned it in order to win drug companies’ support for the Affordable Care Act. In 2016, even Donald Trump promised to “negotiate like crazy” on drug prices, but he never did.

Joe Biden accomplished what none of his predecessors could. The Inflation Reduction Act is best known for its clean-energy investments, but it also empowered Medicare to negotiate prices for the drugs that seniors spend the most money on. In February of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs, on which Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that will go down dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect. The IRA will also cap Medicare patients’ out-of-pocket costs for all drugs, including those not included on the negotiation list, at $2,000 a year, and the cost of insulin in particular at $35 a month. (In 2022, the top 10 anticancer drugs cost a Medicare patient $10,000 to $15,000 a year on average.) And it effectively prohibits drug companies from raising prices on other medications faster than inflation. “Right now, many people have to choose between getting the care they need and not going broke,” Stacie Dusetzina, a cancer researcher at Vanderbilt University, told me. “These new policies change that.”

Yet they don’t seem to have caused voters to warm up to Biden. The president’s approval rating has remained stuck at about 40 percent since before the IRA passed, lower than any other president at this point in his term since Harry Truman. A September AP/NORC poll found that even though more than three-quarters of Americans supported the drug-price negotiation, just 48 percent approved of how Biden was handling the issue of prescription-drug prices. A similar dynamic holds across other elements of the Biden agenda. In polls, more than two-thirds of voters say they support Biden’s three major legislative accomplishments—the IRA, the CHIPS Act, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill—and many individual policies in those bills, including raising taxes on the wealthy and investing in domestic manufacturing, poll in the 70s and 80s.

All of this poses a particular challenge for the “popularism” theory. After Biden barely squeaked by Donald Trump in 2020, an influential group of pollsters, pundits, and political consultants began arguing that the Democratic Party had become associated with policies, such as “Defund the police,” that alienated swing voters. If Democrats were serious about winning elections, the argument went, they would have to focus on popular “kitchen table” issues and shut up about their less mainstream views on race and immigration. Drug-price negotiation quickly became the go-to example; David Shor, a political consultant known for popularizing popularism, highlighted it as the single most popular of the nearly 200 policies his polling firm had tested in 2021.

One obvious possibility for why this has not translated into support for the president is that voters simply care more about other things, such as inflation. Another is that they are unaware of what Biden has done. A KFF poll from December found that less than a third of voters knows that the IRA allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and even fewer are aware of the bill’s other drug-related provisions. Perhaps that’s because these changes mostly haven’t happened yet. The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025, and the first batch of new negotiated prices won’t kick in until 2026. Or perhaps, as some popularists argue, it’s because Biden and his allies haven’t talked about those things enough. “I’m concerned that Democrats are dramatically underperforming their potential in terms of talking about healthcare policy and making healthcare debates a salient issue in 2024,” the blogger Matthew Yglesias wrote in October.

When I raised this critique with current and former members of the Biden administration, the sense of frustration was palpable. “The president is constantly talking about things like lowering drug prices and building roads and bridges,” Bharat Ramamurti, a former deputy director for Biden’s National Economic Council, told me. “We read the same polling as everyone else. We know those are popular.” He pointed out that, for instance, Biden has spoken at length about lowering prescription-drug prices in every one of his State of the Union addresses.

The problem, Ramamurti argues, is that the press doesn’t necessarily cover what the president says. Student-debt cancellation gets a lot of coverage because it generates a lot of conflict: progressives against moderates, activists against economists, young against old—which makes for juicy stories. The unfortunate paradox of super-popular policies is that, almost by definition, they fail to generate the kind of drama needed to get people to pay attention to them.

Both sides have a point here. It’s true that Biden’s drug-pricing policies have received relatively little media coverage, but it’s also up to politicians and their campaigns to find creative ways to generate interest in the issues they want people to focus on. Simply listing policy accomplishments in a speech or releasing a fact sheet about how they will help people isn’t enough. (The same problem applies to other issue areas. According to a Data for Progress poll, for example, only 41 percent of likely voters were aware as of early March that Biden had increased investments in infrastructure.)

Ronald Brownstein: Americans really don’t like Trump’s health-care plans

For the White House, the task of getting the word out may become easier in the coming months, as voters finally begin to feel the benefits of the administration’s policies. The cap on annual out-of-pocket drug costs kicked in only at the beginning of the year (this year, it’s about $3,500, and it will fall to $2,000 in 2025); presumably some Medicare-enrolled voters will notice as their medication costs hit that number. In September, just in time for the election, Biden will announce new prices for the 10 drugs currently being negotiated.

Another assist could come from efforts to stop the law from taking effect. Last year, multiple pharmaceutical companies and industry lobbying groups filed lawsuits, many in jurisdictions with Trump-appointed judges, to prevent Medicare from negotiating drug prices; meanwhile, congressional Republicans have publicly come out against the IRA overall and drug-price caps in particular. As the failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 showed, few things rally support for a policy like the prospect of it being taken away.

The more pessimistic outlook is that voters’ impressions of political candidates have little to do with the legislation those candidates pass or the policies they support. Patrick Ruffini, a co-founder of the polling firm Echelon Insights, pointed out to me that, in 2020, when voters were asked which presidential candidate was more competent, Biden had a nine-point advantage over Trump; today Trump has a 16-point advantage. “I don’t know if there’s any amount of passing popular policies that can overcome that,” Ruffini said.

That doesn’t make the policy stakes of the upcoming election any lower. If he’s reelected, Biden wants to expand Medicare’s drug negotiation to 50 drugs a year and extend the out-of-pocket spending caps to the general population. Trump, meanwhile, has said he is going to “totally kill” the Affordable Care Act and that he intends to dismantle the IRA. There’s some drama for you. Whether it will get anyone’s attention remains to be seen.

Support for this project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 11:44 AM

THG


Biden has 7 months to get his message out; and he will. In that same 7 months Trump will be reminding the voter he is bat shit crazy. That he is out to take over, overthrow, the country.

T



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 12:01 PM

THG


T


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 12:08 PM

THG


Biden has 7 months to allow the American voter to learn this.

T


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 12:46 PM

THG


“Since 1989 and a new age of globalization began, 51 million jobs have been created in America. 49 million, 96%, have been created under Democratic presidents.”

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/mar/21/simon-rosenberg/have
-96-of-jobs-created-over-35-years-emerged-unde/


If this becomes a mainstream topic during this election it will be devastating for the GOP. This makes me feel, hmmmm, happy.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 5:58 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Biden should fully expect to be criminally tried if Trump wins

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, says:

Axios has a story up, headlined, “Trump, GOP plot 2025 criminal probe of Bidens.” I generally favor leaving former presidents alone, but, as I’ve noted before, it’s hard to see how one side can violate this norm and not expect the precedent to be turned against it.

A "norm"? Is he kidding? Bill Clinton lost his law license and then was disbarred by the Supreme Court after he left office. This was a direct result of the jihad against Clinton led by Ken Starr and the Republican Party.

Richard Nixon was most certainly criminally responsible for his part in Watergate, but he was pardoned by a fellow Republican.

On the other hand, Democrats left George Bush Sr. alone despite considerable evidence about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. They left George Bush Jr. alone despite considerable evidence of his role in torturing prisoners and other war crimes.

The only norm that's been broken over the past few years is (a) the norm that former presidents obey the law just like anyone else, and (b) the fact that it's a Republican being prosecuted this time.

I mean, put aside all the other cases and just consider the classified documents case. It's open and shut. It's not that Trump took some documents when he left office, it's the fact that he repeatedly and persistently refused to give them back even after being ordered to. There's a "norm" that ex-presidents don't do that. What possible choice did Jack Smith have except to charge Trump?

The E. Jean Carroll case had nothing to do with Democrats and was decided unanimously by a jury of 12. The business fraud case was likewise a state trial that had nothing to do with Democrats and will ultimately be decided on appeal. And the Georgia case—well, we'll see what happens with that. But the probability of criminal conduct on Trump's part is pretty strong. In the end, a jury will decide.

As for the January 6 case, it's based on the "norm" that presidents not incite riots at the Capitol in order to prevent Congress from certifying election results they don't like. Here's what Lowry had to say about it at the time:

The rioters themselves bear ultimate responsibility for their acts, but Trump egged them on. He fed them poisonous lies about the election.... He encouraged them to come to Washington and said they wouldn’t stand for his “landslide” victory getting taken away.... He whipped them up on Wednesday...and urged them to march on the Capitol... When the mob overwhelmed security and made its way on the Senate and House floors, sending Vice President Pence and lawmakers fleeing, Trump tweeted about how he’d been wronged by Pence’s entirely correct view that he lacks the power as vice president to unilaterally declare him the victor.

This is what Trump is on trial for.

Needless to say, the difference with the Bidens is that Hunter is already being tried and Joe hasn't done anything wrong. I realize that's a technicality in Republican-land, but for the rest of us it's a pretty big difference.

https://jabberwocking.com/national-review-editor-biden-should-fully-ex
pect-to-be-criminally-tried-if-trump-wins/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 6:43 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Biden should fully expect to be criminally tried if Trump wins


As he should be.

*ahem*... WHEN Trump wins.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 6:46 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
“Since 1989 and a new age of globalization began, 51 million jobs have been created in America. 49 million, 96%, have been created under Democratic presidents.”

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/mar/21/simon-rosenberg/have
-96-of-jobs-created-over-35-years-emerged-unde/


If this becomes a mainstream topic during this election it will be devastating for the GOP. This makes me feel, hmmmm, happy.

T


I don't know why it makes you happy, Theodore.

It's a boldfaced lie that only dummies believe in. It ain't going to pull in a single vote from the middle, so by all means scream that lie from the tops of the highest mountain cliffs if you desire.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 7:00 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Biden should fully expect to be criminally tried if Trump wins


As he should be.

*ahem*... WHEN Trump wins.
There have already been 2023 criminal probes of Biden by a partisan Republican Congress. It has not produced criminal charges because they can't find any actual evidence. This does not get easier when you have to make the charges in a court of law. There was also the Durham probe that doesn't get called a probe of the Bidens only because it couldn't get close enough to Biden to look like one.

The courts are generally not favorable to Republicans when it comes to criminal trials because the courts require evidence and punish lying, and that crimps the style of the Trumptards.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 7:08 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I don't know why it makes you happy, Theodore.

It's a boldfaced lie that only dummies believe in. It ain't going to pull in a single vote from the middle, so by all means scream that lie from the tops of the highest mountain cliffs if you desire.
Trump started at 145,612,000 jobs and ended at 142,669,000.
That is millions of jobs lost.

Biden started at 142,669,000 jobs. Wiki shows 156,419,000 (for August 2023).
That is millions of jobs gained.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_te
rms

There were 157,232,000 jobs in the US in December 2023 according to the CES survey of employers. The CPS survey of households showed 161,183,000 employed persons for the month.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+jobs+are+there+in+us%3F

Those more recent numbers make Trump look even worse at job creation.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 7:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I don't know why it makes you happy, Theodore.

It's a boldfaced lie that only dummies believe in. It ain't going to pull in a single vote from the middle, so by all means scream that lie from the tops of the highest mountain cliffs if you desire.
Trump started at 145,612,000 jobs and ended at 142,669,000.
That is millions of jobs lost.


That was Democrat ran shithole states putting everyone out of work because of a cold.

Trump doesn't count those losses and Biden* doesn't get those gains either.

Everybody knows this. I suspect that even chronic Democrat voters like you two know it deep down too though you'd never admit it.


Oh... and Biden* putting 10 Million illegal aliens that he shipped in the country with helicopters in the dead of night to work doesn't count either.



--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 8:01 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


This fuckin' con man...

Biden to Unveil Latest Student Loan Forgiveness Plan

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/04/08/biden_to_unveil_
latest_student_loan_forgiveness_plan_150764.html


Fool you once, shame on Joe Biden* and the Democrats.

Fool you twice, shame on you.

None of you dumb motherfuckers are going to get any college relief. You don't deserve any of that money anyhow, and you're among the most upwardly mobile and mostly white kids born with silver spoons up your asses anyhow.

Get fucked.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 8:32 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

That was Democrat ran shithole states putting everyone out of work because of a cold.

Trump doesn't count those losses and Biden* doesn't get those gains either.

Everybody knows this. I suspect that even chronic Democrat voters like you two know it deep down too though you'd never admit it.


Oh... and Biden* putting 10 Million illegal aliens that he shipped in the country with helicopters in the dead of night to work doesn't count either.
Unlike the typical Trumptards I am surrounded by in Texas, 6ix and Signym will explain in detail what is happening inside their heads. This pleases me because in Texas I was frequently baffled by the Trumptards' decision-making and the always sad and sometimes disastrous results that followed. What I needed was a mind reader. 6ix and Signym are better than a third party who reads Trumptard minds. 6ix and Signym explain how they came to their decisions. I'm not baffled anymore. I now have impeccable insight: Trumptards are boneheads. I don't need a mind reader to know that, now.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, April 8, 2024 11:02 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump posts bizarre solar eclipse ad – with his head blocking out the sun, plunging US into darkness

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald
-trump-solar-eclipse-campaign-ad-b2524956.html



Biden mocks Trump looking at 2017 solar eclipse with PSA: ‘Don’t be silly, folks’



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 2:13 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

That was Democrat ran shithole states putting everyone out of work because of a cold.

Trump doesn't count those losses and Biden* doesn't get those gains either.

Everybody knows this. I suspect that even chronic Democrat voters like you two know it deep down too though you'd never admit it.


Oh... and Biden* putting 10 Million illegal aliens that he shipped in the country with helicopters in the dead of night to work doesn't count either.
Unlike the typical Trumptards I am surrounded by in Texas, 6ix and Signym will explain in detail what is happening inside their heads. This pleases me because in Texas I was frequently baffled by the Trumptards' decision-making and the always sad and sometimes disastrous results that followed. What I needed was a mind reader. 6ix and Signym are better than a third party who reads Trumptard minds. 6ix and Signym explain how they came to their decisions. I'm not baffled anymore. I now have impeccable insight: Trumptards are boneheads. I don't need a mind reader to know that, now.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Ha! That's rich.

You couldn't match me in the morning before my first coffee if you were hopped up on the same Adderall and Methamphetamine cocktail they feed to Biden* in his ice cream cone before the SOTU.




I invite you to prove me wrong and write a paragraph or two that would be considered an interesting read by anybody that isn't plagiarized from Kevin Drum or Paul Krugman. Or anybody else for that matter... since you know I was able to find that obscure book that you ripped off too. It's very easy to tell when you are trying to pass off somebody else's words as your own because, if I'm being generous, you have a 8th grade writing level for starters, and your only four topics of interest are Trump, Texas Republicans, how perfect your fake internet persona is and posting pirate links to copyrighted material that anybody smart enough to figure out how to fog up a mirror with their own breath can find with a simple Google search.




--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 7:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I invite you to prove me wrong . . .
Trumptards can not be convinced they are wrong which is the reason they have troubled lives until they die early for something they did wrong. Still smoking, 6ix? Nobody but you can stop you from killing yourself.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 7:51 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The only thing Trump touched in the 2016 Republican platform — the only thing that mattered to him — was the provision expressing support for Ukraine. Isn’t that odd?

Trump disclaimed any knowledge of this, blaming it on his campaign manager, Paul Manafort. But even if that were true (the way it was true, say, that E. Jean Carroll was not his type), isn’t it odd Manafort, with his ties to Russia, was selected as his campaign manager? Or that, even after having been convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, he would again be under consideration for a role in Trump’s campaign?

Do the kids who support Trump (or their parents) think that just because they won’t read the 199 pages of the Mueller report connecting Trump to Russia, or the subsequent 182 pages detailing his multiple indictable obstructions of justice that prevented even more damning information from coming out . . . Trump isn’t a Putin ally?

https://andrewtobias.com/hey-kids/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 10:16 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah




The damage Trump does is blah blah blah to Jack. It's not that for the rest of us.

T

'Donald Trump did this': Biden ad blames Trump for state-level abortion bans




NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 10:37 AM

THG


T

Are Americans less divided than we think? New data says yes


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 11:19 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah




The damage Trump does is blah blah blah to Jack. It's not that for the rest of us.

T

'Donald Trump did this': Biden ad blames Trump for state-level abortion bans



I can't do anything about your lack of intelligence and how easy that makes you to manipulate, son.

I don't know what to tell you.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 11:37 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


CBS News: Half of Americans struggling to afford housing

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/help-paying-mortgage-rent-homeowners-rent
ers/


Median monthly mortgage payment by year in the US.

2023 $2,268
2021 $1,525
2019 $1,242
2017 $1,250
2015 $1,122
2013 $1,037
2011 $927

That's an increase of $1,341 per month in 12 years.

$130 of that increase came while Trump was President. $1,211 of it were during Biden* and Obama's administrations.

--------------------------------------------------

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 11:58 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
CBS News: Half of Americans struggling to afford housing

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/help-paying-mortgage-rent-homeowners-rent
ers/


Median monthly mortgage payment by year in the US.

2023 $2,268
2021 $1,525
2019 $1,242
2017 $1,250
2015 $1,122
2013 $1,037
2011 $927

That's an increase of $1,341 per month in 12 years.

$130 of that increase came while Trump was President. $1,211 of it were during Biden* and Obama's administrations.
6ix, do you want Washington to provide your housing for free, except for what you pay for federal income tax? Because that will never happen.

The U.S. has a median annual household income of $74,755, according to the 2022 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The median family can afford $2,268 per month. But the angry poor white trash who vote for Trump can't. It is tough for losers but what do you expect winners to do? Subsidize the poor white trash Trump voters? That will never happen.

Map Reveals States Where People Earn Most, Least Money
Published Apr 04, 2024 at 11:31 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/map-states-rich-poor-earn-money-1886945

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 2:26 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
CBS News: Half of Americans struggling to afford housing

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/help-paying-mortgage-rent-homeowners-rent
ers/


Median monthly mortgage payment by year in the US.

2023 $2,268
2021 $1,525
2019 $1,242
2017 $1,250
2015 $1,122
2013 $1,037
2011 $927

That's an increase of $1,341 per month in 12 years.

$130 of that increase came while Trump was President. $1,211 of it were during Biden* and Obama's administrations.
6ix, do you want Washington to provide your housing for free, except for what you pay for federal income tax? Because that will never happen.

The U.S. has a median annual household income of $74,755, according to the 2022 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The median family can afford $2,268 per month. But the angry poor white trash who vote for Trump can't. It is tough for losers but what do you expect winners to do? Subsidize the poor white trash Trump voters? That will never happen.

Map Reveals States Where People Earn Most, Least Money
Published Apr 04, 2024 at 11:31 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/map-states-rich-poor-earn-money-1886945

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



So so true...

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 2:28 PM

THG


Trump just lost Arizona due to abortion ruling today in that state.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 2:33 PM

THG


Biden is still climbing in the polls. Real Clear Politics has Trumps lead down to 0.3, when in February Trump led by 4.3. Since February, Trump dropped and Biden gained 4 points.

tick tock

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 3:31 PM

THG


Might as well just call Arizona for Biden now; why wait.

T

BREAKING NEWS: Gov. Katie Hobbs Reacts To Arizona Supreme Court’s Near-Total Abortion Ban


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 5:20 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

So so true...

T
I was thinking that 6ixStringJack would insist that the President controls how many houses are built and what the mortgages will be priced at, but 6ix has not. If Congress passed a law, the President could have such sweeping powers. There are two examples of Congress giving superpowers to the President: 1) The New Deal and 2) The Recovery Act of 2009.

Lifetimes have passed since The New Deal and yet I have never known a Trumptard who understood it. Instead, they foam at the mouth like ex-President Herbert Hoover did about the New Deal being Communism or Socialism or whatever. Hoover even set up the Hoover Institution to house the "scholars" who ranted and raved against the New Deal. The Trumptards are still trying to wreck Social Security because it is a "Ponzi Scheme" in their retarded minds.

The Recovery Act of 2009 is another one of those Democrat programs that Trumptards are unable to understand. Google how much did it cost to rescue the economy in 2009?
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+did+it+cost+to+rescue+the+eco
nomy+in+2009

It is possible to pass The Housing Act of 2025 specifically designed to reduce the cost but I'm certain that nearly every Trumptard voter and Republican Congressman would be against it. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was passed along party lines, but that is because Trumptards are stupid and proud of it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_o
f_2009

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 5:47 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

So so true...

T
I was thinking that 6ixStringJack would insist that the President controls how many houses are built and what the mortgages will be priced at, but 6ix has not. If Congress passed a law, the President could have such sweeping powers. There are two examples of Congress giving superpowers to the President: 1) The New Deal and 2) The Recovery Act of 2009.

Lifetimes have passed since The New Deal and yet I have never known a Trumptard who understood it. Instead, they foam at the mouth like ex-President Herbert Hoover did about the New Deal being Communism or Socialism or whatever. Hoover even set up the Hoover Institution to house the "scholars" who ranted and raved against the New Deal. The Trumptards are still trying to wreck Social Security because it is a "Ponzi Scheme" in their retarded minds.

The Recovery Act of 2009 is another one of those Democrat programs that Trumptards are unable to understand. Google how much did it cost to rescue the economy in 2009?
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+did+it+cost+to+rescue+the+eco
nomy+in+2009

It is possible to pass The Housing Act of 2025 specifically designed to reduce the cost but I'm certain that nearly every Trumptard voter and Republican Congressman would be against it. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was passed along party lines, but that is because Trumptards are stupid and proud of it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_o
f_2009

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



Agreed SECOND; and I'll add the reason Jack doesn't get into the weeds concerning Trump, but does criticize Biden, is because Biden is trying to build something and Trumps' cult want everything destroyed. They hate because they, as you've said, are losers.

Some of it because they can't get girls. Some of it is because they've been told since childhood, being a white male means you are the root of everyone's problem and you are toxic. It's very complicated. Trump voters are riding a tsunami of hate.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 8:37 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

It's very complicated. Trump voters are riding a tsunami of hate.

T
This may sound like Yoda describing the dark side of the Force but from decades of experience this fits them perfectly: A Trumptard's stupidity begets their loser status. Being a loser begets a Trumptard's hate toward winners. Today the Trumptards of America got even stupider on orders from Trump:

If abortion is murder, you'd think Trumptards would be opposed to permitting murder in half the country. And until yesterday, they were. But maximum leader Trump has spoken, and anyway, haven't we always been at war with Eurasia?

It's a miracle! Suddenly conservatives no longer believe in a national abortion ban. It should be up to each state:

Fox’s stars are rallying behind Trump’s abortion message.

The network is a pro-Trump propaganda outlet first and foremost, not an ideologically conservative one. https://t.co/7Y4QZGQEJr

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) April 9, 2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE
THG 11.23 06:28
6ixStringJack 11.23 08:57
6ixStringJack 11.23 19:33

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Where is the 25th ammendment when you need it?
Sat, November 23, 2024 20:14 - 16 posts
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Sat, November 23, 2024 20:07 - 4758 posts
Australia - unbelievable...
Sat, November 23, 2024 19:59 - 22 posts
Elections; 2024
Sat, November 23, 2024 19:33 - 4796 posts
MAGA movement
Sat, November 23, 2024 19:28 - 12 posts
More Cope: David Brooks and PBS are delusional...
Sat, November 23, 2024 16:32 - 1 posts
List of States/Governments/Politicians Moving to Ban Vaccine Passports
Sat, November 23, 2024 16:27 - 168 posts
Once again... a request for legitimate concerns...
Sat, November 23, 2024 16:22 - 17 posts
What's wrong with conspiracy theories
Sat, November 23, 2024 15:07 - 19 posts
human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
Sat, November 23, 2024 14:38 - 945 posts
Convicted kosher billionaire makes pedophile Roman Polanski blush
Sat, November 23, 2024 13:46 - 34 posts
The worst Judges, Merchants of Law, Rogue Prosecutors, Bad Cops, Criminal Supporting Lawyers, Corrupted District Attorney in USA? and other Banana republic
Sat, November 23, 2024 13:39 - 50 posts
 VIEW MORE TOPICS 

FFF.NET SOCIAL