The imminent disaster which is going to be the American elections

[Roma_Victrix]

'They are weird people': Walz breaks down the GOP's 'weird ideas'



Hear, hear!

Walz is really good at boiling things down in simple terms and easily digestible ideas. Within the span of like a minute he lays out a solid vision for how the Dem policy platform is so profoundly different than the GOP one. When combined with his ability to communicate effectively, his authentic life story appeals to a wide swath of people. On top of being a US Army veteran with the rank of sergeant major, the dude is also a pro marksman (with medals to prove he's a better sharpshooter than any Republican in Congress who shoots with him in competitions). He has hobbies like butter carving, goes to county fairs with his family, and owns a rescue dog. The guy is just a mensch, the type who would probably help you fix your lawnmower when it breaks down or help you with a brake job on your Ford pickup truck. LOL.

The fact that he was a revered high school football coach (state champion) who stood up for gay kids in rural Minnesota during the 1990s is just a cherry on top. It's almost like this guy's life story is a script for the sequel to Varsity Blues. LOL.

I think the sudden focus on VPs is weird.

Probably because you lack some imagination, or suddenly forgot that Trump was almost assassinated by a (ironically Republican) nutcase a few weeks ago? The VP is not some minor role despite the public perception of the office at times, and not only sitting around waiting to be first in line should a resignation or death occur. Aside from the VP being a tie-breaker in the senate, they are also key advisors to the president, and advocate on his or her behalf as a spokesperson in public, even as diplomats sent abroad (in conjunction with secretaries of state) to conduct foreign policy. Harris has done these things for Biden and previous VPs have done the same. Hell, Vice President Dick Cheney (with his "Unitary Executive Theory") almost served as the de facto president at times during the George W. Bush administration.

On top of that, I can see why Republicans don't want to have this conversation. It highlights some sudden and uncomfortable news. I don't think J. D. Vance added this much excitement to his own ticket, considering how this just happened in the last 24 hours for the Harris-Walz campaign:

The Democrats raised $41 million after Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to be her running mate: The Minnesota governor was announced as Harris's running mate on Tuesday morning (from Quartz, qz.com)

If grassroots funding like this continues, then how is Elon Musk supposed to keep up and match it without losing serious profits!

[PointOfViewGun]

After all, if we're not to focus on VP picks while they're being picked, when? It's ridiculous that someone made that statement.

[alhoon]

I think Walz deserves his own thread... Can someone make one please?

[Forward Observer]

Damn! I thought for sure Kamala Harris, being more of a centrist Dem, would pick Arizona Senator Kelly or Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro, but she went with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate and choice for Vice President on the ticket. He's far more of a progressive, but at the same time appeals to Midwesterners with his life story.

Holy Smokes! Referring to Kamala Harris as a centrist is almost analogous to calling Jeffery Dahmer a Vegan!

Harris still is and always has been a far left California elite progressive radical. Based on her senate voting record she was listed as the most radical senator in the US senate for 2019 by Govtrack. They've recently taken that award down but here's a link to Govtrack page showing where she ranked over her entire term where she accomplished almost nothing in the way of passing any legislation other than a couple of bills on state park land purchase for memorials.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/kamala_harris/412678

As a vice president she accomplished the same as the number of primary votes she has earned, in other words---ZERO! Even after Biden assigned her to work on the border, all she appeared to do was waste tax payer money traveling to various South American countries that largely ignored her. She never bothered to even visit the border.

Just as recent as 4 weeks ago, Harris was still mostly a mostly M.I.A. vice president, largely unlikable, and with an approval rating cratering in the mid 30 percent. Once the the Democratic machine ousted Joe Biden, suddenly without ever receiving a single primary vote, Kamala Harris becomes the revered Queen of the party.

Did she magically take a crash course in charisma and political science in the meantime? Why for 3 weeks now has she had no interviews nor has she been asked any difficult questions about her views or possible platform. What the hell is the legacy media doing. Aren't they supposed to be journalists asking the tough questions? Of course not--as always they're in the tank with the Democratic party and are protecting her from herself.

Did everybody completely forget that she tried to run in the Democratic primary in 2019 and failed miserably. In the first debate she called out Joe Biden as being a racist concerning his stance on school busing. He had no comeback and for a brief moment she was a star. However, Kamala doesn't generally do well when she's off the teleprompter. She tends to ramble and speak in circuitous word salad sentences. One of the complaints of her numerous (too many to count actually) former staffers is that she is lazy and can't be bothered to prepare for interviews. Consequently during the next debate her terrible record as the attorney general of California was exposed for all to hear by opponent Tulsi Gabbard.

Behold the simple takedown of Kamala in 2019. She had no retort for what Tulsi said and simply resorted to ad hominins. Dead in the water, she dropped out of the race the very next week. There's a follow up video where she's being asked about the border by Lester Holt. All of this just goes to show what an incompetent and unlikable politician Kamala is. She can't hide in the basement like Joe did. Sooner or later she is going to have to do an interview or a presser.





Then we come to Tim Walz

That is one salt of the Earth guy. Yes, he's not a NASA astronaut or former Navy fighter pilot like Kelly, but he's a regular Midwestern dad who can appeal to average Joes. He also has a progressive policy record when it comes to marijuana decriminalization, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ rights, women's rights and abortion rights, paid sick leave for workers, paid family leave for workers, funding public education and needs of schoolchildren, tuition-free college for students from low-income households, gun reform with stiffer background checks (though is a strong advocate for responsible gun ownership), and fiscal reforms that favor average American workers and small businesses rather than the big banks and multinational corporations.

It would be very interesting to see a debate between him and Trump's pick for VP: Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio. I'm actually stunned that Harris is making these kinds of moves. She actually picked someone who is an effective communicator and public speaker to go up against Trump's pick, a venture capitalist and author who graduated from Yale Law School after serving as a combat correspondent in the Marines. Dare I say the Dems are in array rather than disarray for a change. LOL.

Don't be fooled by his everyman persona. He is at heart a socialist and a Gavin Newsom wannabe. He is trying to turn Minnesota into California and he may break them trying.

It's a testament to Kamala's incompetence as a politician that she chose Walz. Minnesota was already a totally blue state and has been for years. The smart move politically was to go with Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a very important swing state with a lot of electoral votes. You simply can't win with the electoral college without it. However, Kamala appeared have been worried about her progressive base--many of who are on the Hamas/Palestine side of the current turmoil in the middle East and of course Shapiro is a Jew. Unfortunately, there is a strong anti-Semitic faction in the progressive side of the Democratic party and she's afraid of it.

Thus she caved and went with the less politically competent choice of Walz. The GOP let out a sizable gasp of relief that she didn't pick Shapiro. Tim Walz is a lot more target rich for the conservatives. This choice may have been worse that J.D. Vance for Trump. However, I would also love to see a debate between Vance and Walz. Personally, after watching Vance handle adversarial journalists on numerous occasions with ease I think he might outclass Walz.

I was kind of surprised to find this article on USA Today since they tend to be left leaning but it is an opinion piece after all on Harris and Walz--obviously a take from a conservative author and a good sum up for this post. It even includes Walz' shocking statement that socialism is just like being a good neighbor. Toward the end it does mention a recent rally with Harris and Walz where the latter snuck in an already debunked lie about Vance. Walz is a politician after all. I have yet to hear a totally honest one on either side of the aisle.

See the section titled: Let's not pretend that Walz is a nice guy

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...e/74702898007/


Cheers

[Kyriakos]

This is all very disappointing and the opposite of fun
Trump should had changed his vp to Tulsi.

[Legio_Italica]

Probably because you lack some imagination, or suddenly forgot that Trump was almost assassinated by a (ironically Republican) nutcase a few weeks ago? The VP is not some minor role despite the public perception of the office at times, and not only sitting around waiting to be first in line should a resignation or death occur. Aside from the VP being a tie-breaker in the senate, they are also key advisors to the president, and advocate on his or her behalf as a spokesperson in public, even as diplomats sent abroad (in conjunction with secretaries of state) to conduct foreign policy. Harris has done these things for Biden and previous VPs have done the same. Hell, Vice President Dick Cheney (with his "Unitary Executive Theory") almost served as the de facto president at times during the George W. Bush administration.

I think the Cheney reference concedes the exception to the rule that VPs don’t really do much, but it goes without saying people vote for POTUS, not VP. Nobody who was going to vote for Trump is going to vote for Harris because of Walz, or vice versa. In any case, Kamala herself seems to believe she’s not capable of doing much of anything as VP, given all the promises she is making about what she’ll do IF elected president.

On top of that, I can see why Republicans don't want to have this conversation. It highlights some sudden and uncomfortable news. I don't think J. D. Vance added this much excitement to his own ticket, considering how this just happened in the last 24 hours for the Harris-Walz campaign:

Seems like the Democrats have wised up and realized the more they put the spotlight on Trump, the stronger he gets. It works out better for them to pretend this is a race between Vance and Walz since Kamala makes Biden look like Cicero whenever she isn’t heavily scripted, coached and sober. That’s why she hasn’t been doing interviews. One thing she might have that Biden didn’t is self awareness, at least as far as a successful politician is capable of it. As for fundraising, I’d be more surprised if the woman who had the support of the US government, media and corporate establishments didn’t magically raise boatloads of cash overnight following her coronation. It’s a much bigger stretch to chalk this up to “grassroots” popularity she never had.

[Coughdrop addict]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-har...68ba94847297cf

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been spreading false claims that an image of thousands of people waiting at Detroit’s airport as Democrat Kamala Harris arrived for a campaign rally was fabricated with the help of artificial intelligence.
Reporters, photographers and video journalists representing The Associated Press and other news organizations who either traveled with Vice President Harris or were on the airport tarmac documented the crowd size last Wednesday as she arrived on Air Force Two. Harris’ campaign also denied the photo in question was manipulated and posted about it on social media.
Fifteen thousand people attended the Detroit airport rally, Harris’ campaign said. Harris and Walz spoke from inside a hangar where people were packed in. The crowd also spilled out onto the tarmac. The Wayne County Airport Authority, which oversees the airport, referred questions about the size of the crowd to Harris’ campaign.

It's okay MAGAs. Just ignore that Marxist "reality" and tell yourself the following alternative facts.

Trump is totally not melting down over Harris' popularity.

Trump is defiantly not behaving like a spoiled three-year old.

Trump is certainly not worried about losing the election.

[Alastor]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-har...68ba94847297cf

It's okay MAGAs. Just ignore that Marxist "reality" and tell yourself the following alternative facts.

Trump is totally not melting down over Harris' popularity.

Trump is defiantly not behaving like a spoiled three-year old.

Trump is certainly not worried about losing the election.

You clearly aren't following any conservative outlets. If you did, you would know they are constantly expressing concern over Trump's flagging campaign. Just because your side likes to rewrite reality whenever it benefits them, doesn't mean everyone does it. Remember Biden the genius with the eidetic memory? He is still president you know, not that anyone cares.

[Kyriakos]

I am not happy about the (very real) prospect of Trump losing. Trump is a clown and would create all sorts of other problems (also, after being shot he seems to have become even dumber, while already being dumb and senile-adjacent), but at least he would have ended the Ukraine war.

[PointOfViewGun]

I am not happy about the (very real) prospect of Trump losing. Trump is a clown and would create all sorts of other problems (also, after being shot he seems to have become even dumber, while already being dumb and senile-adjacent), but at least he would have ended the Ukraine war.

Trump claimed that he would end the Ukrainian war before he took office. So you still have time.

[Ludicus]

“Damn, AOC knows how to give a speech,” Jon Favreau, former speechwriter for former President Barack Obama.

I know I'm biased, but it's a very accurate statement.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Brought Massive Energy

The New York representative was a blast of energy from the new wave of Democrats onstage Monday night.
A decorated list of speakers had delegates feeling good on the opening night of the Democratic convention. Then Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the stage in prime time and turned it up a notch — and ventured where no other speaker dared to go.

Speakers vamped for Harris and Walz (and attacked Trump and Vance) on almost every political issue — except the war.

But Ocasio-Cortez, a vocal advocate for Palestinians and a cease-fire in Gaza, changed that.

Emerging to wild applause, Ocasio-Cortez didn’t even get out two sentences before being interrupted by chants of “AOC, AOC, AOC!” It was the welcome of a crowd favorite, and she immediately leaned in.
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock later gave an oblique reference to the war as he closed his speech, saying, “I need all my neighbors’ children to be OK. Poor inner-city children in Atlanta and poor children of Appalachia. I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza, I need Israelis and Palestinians” to be OK, “because we are all God’s children.”


The war in Gaza has been politically toxic for President Joe Biden.

Progressive activists dubbed him “Genocide Joe” for providing Israel with military aid during its offensive in Gaza. Meanwhile, Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for not being a strong enough ally of Israel.
Harris — riding a wave of enthusiasm among younger voters, many of whom oppose Israel’s war — doesn’t want any part of it onstage in Chicago. But she did want AOC, who offered a sharp contrast to GOP nominee Donald Trump, who has seen age attacks boomerang back at him since Harris replaced Biden on the ticket.

“Over the next 78 days, we will have to pour every ounce, every minute, every moment into making history on Nov. 5,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

Then she walked offstage as the crowd went crazy.

Amanda Litman

If @AOC wants to be president one day, she will be president one day. Absolutely no doubt about

[Kyriakos]

I do hope AOC does become potus.
But there are way too many interest groups (and weirdos) against her :/

[Legio_Italica]

I am not happy about the (very real) prospect of Trump losing. Trump is a clown and would create all sorts of other problems (also, after being shot he seems to have become even dumber, while already being dumb and senile-adjacent), but at least he would have ended the Ukraine war.

I don’t think anyone can simply “end” the Ukraine war, least of all in the US. Any end would only be a pause until Moscow resumes the effort to accomplish regime change and territorial expansion by force at Kiev’s expense. Theoretically, yes, the US could achieve this pause tomorrow by withdrawing from NATO and leaving Ukraine to its subsequent fate. However, the people who are actually in charge in the US would never allow that to happen, regardless of who is president, so it’s useless to speculate.



The mere fact that Trump is willing to have his own independent opinion on any of it is just one example of what’s at stake in this election. Harris has no discernible policy positions and neither does her campaign. Most of what she has mentioned to that effect is either copied from Trump’s positions or empty rhetoric some strategist told her will help in the polls. She doesn’t speak to the press in any unscripted format because she doesn’t know anything and therefore is incapable of articulating it. She was a political non entity until her coronation in the wake of the Biden coup. Now the liberal establishment is working overtime to recreate her in Obama’s image within the span of a few weeks. It’s a true test of the power of propaganda.



The US de facto doesn’t have and hasn’t had a President since Trump left office. If Harris is elected, the presidency will continue to serve as nothing more than a rubber stamp on the initiatives enacted by clandestine interest groups within the oligarchy. That’s the real reason they hate Trump so much and have exposed the scope of what lies behind the mask in their desperation to undermine him. They will probably be successful in preventing Trump’s reelection, but in the process, they have revealed how fake and ornamental most of our political process is. The choice this November isn’t between left and right, but rather, whether or not we will have a POTUS in any meaningful sense at all. I’m not particularly optimistic, but I think it’s objectively clear those are the stakes.

[Ludicus]

The US de facto doesn’t have and hasn’t had a President since Trump left office. If Harris is elected, the presidency will continue to serve as nothing more than a rubber stamp on the initiatives enacted by clandestine interest groups within the oligarchy.

Let's not exaggerate - Trump is simply dividing the oligarchs. I can mention, for example, the supreme oligarch Elon Musk, and Paul Singer, Bill Ackmen, Ken Griffin, Jeff Yass and Timothy Mellon, among others.
Project 2025, which Trump says he doesn't know about, is a Salazarist project that obliges the American public administration and its agencies and departments - which are now independent of the executive branch - to implement the policies of the White House, while substantially undermining the separation of state and church.
---


Ocasio-Cortez defends accusing Israel of genocide in floor speech CNN

... “If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like,” the New York Democrat added, “open your eyes.”

As we know, Chicago metropolitan area is home to the largest Palestinian population in the US. But it wasn't just opportunism, I think it was a brave decision by Kamala Harris to ask AOC to speak on DNC's first night.

[PointOfViewGun]

I don’t think anyone can simply “end” the Ukraine war, least of all in the US. Any end would only be a pause until Moscow resumes the effort to accomplish regime change and territorial expansion by force at Kiev’s expense. Theoretically, yes, the US could achieve this pause tomorrow by withdrawing from NATO and leaving Ukraine to its subsequent fate. However, the people who are actually in charge in the US would never allow that to happen, regardless of who is president, so it’s useless to speculate.

The mere fact that Trump is willing to have his own independent opinion on any of it is just one example of what’s at stake in this election. Harris has no discernible policy positions and neither does her campaign. Most of what she has mentioned to that effect is either copied from Trump’s positions or empty rhetoric some strategist told her will help in the polls. She doesn’t speak to the press in any unscripted format because she doesn’t know anything and therefore is incapable of articulating it. She was a political non entity until her coronation in the wake of the Biden coup. Now the liberal establishment is working overtime to recreate her in Obama’s image within the span of a few weeks. It’s a true test of the power of propaganda.

The US de facto doesn’t have and hasn’t had a President since Trump left office. If Harris is elected, the presidency will continue to serve as nothing more than a rubber stamp on the initiatives enacted by clandestine interest groups within the oligarchy. That’s the real reason they hate Trump so much and have exposed the scope of what lies behind the mask in their desperation to undermine him. They will probably be successful in preventing Trump’s reelection, but in the process, they have revealed how fake and ornamental most of our political process is. The choice this November isn’t between left and right, but rather, whether or not we will have a POTUS in any meaningful sense at all. I’m not particularly optimistic, but I think it’s objectively clear those are the stakes.

Trump didn't state an opinion. He made a claim that he would end the Ukrainian war in a single day before taking office. Are you saying Trump made a bogus claim?

[Coughdrop addict]

I don’t think anyone can simply “end” the Ukraine war, least of all in the US. Any end would only be a pause until Moscow resumes the effort to accomplish regime change and territorial expansion by force at Kiev’s expense. Theoretically, yes, the US could achieve this pause tomorrow by withdrawing from NATO and leaving Ukraine to its subsequent fate. However, the people who are actually in charge in the US would never allow that to happen, regardless of who is president, so it’s useless to speculate.



The mere fact that Trump is willing to have his own independent opinion on any of it is just one example of what’s at stake in this election. Harris has no discernible policy positions and neither does her campaign. Most of what she has mentioned to that effect is either copied from Trump’s positions or empty rhetoric some strategist told her will help in the polls. She doesn’t speak to the press in any unscripted format because she doesn’t know anything and therefore is incapable of articulating it. She was a political non entity until her coronation in the wake of the Biden coup. Now the liberal establishment is working overtime to recreate her in Obama’s image within the span of a few weeks. It’s a true test of the power of propaganda.



The US de facto doesn’t have and hasn’t had a President since Trump left office. If Harris is elected, the presidency will continue to serve as nothing more than a rubber stamp on the initiatives enacted by clandestine interest groups within the oligarchy. That’s the real reason they hate Trump so much and have exposed the scope of what lies behind the mask in their desperation to undermine him. They will probably be successful in preventing Trump’s reelection, but in the process, they have revealed how fake and ornamental most of our political process is. The choice this November isn’t between left and right, but rather, whether or not we will have a POTUS in any meaningful sense at all. I’m not particularly optimistic, but I think it’s objectively clear those are the stakes.

To claim that “The US de facto doesn’t have and hasn’t had a President since Trump left office,” or to assert that “If Harris is elected, the presidency will continue to serve as nothing more than a rubber stamp on the initiatives enacted by clandestine interest groups within the oligarchy,” is as nonsensical as insisting that two plus two equals five.

Such statements are fundamentally at odds with reality, regardless of one's personal beliefs, desires, or motivations. It’s irrelevant whether you might personally prefer that two plus two were five, or it would serve your ideological goals if two plus too were five. The fact remains: two plus two equals four. No amount of debate, rhetoric, or emotional appeals can change this. Likewise, no amount of argumentation, spin, or name-calling can alter the reality that Joe Biden is President, and that there is no secret cabal of oligarchs who control everyone but Trump.

[Legio_Italica]

Let's not exaggerate - Trump is simply dividing the oligarchs. I can mention, for example, the supreme oligarch Elon Musk, and Paul Singer, Bill Ackmen, Ken Griffin, Jeff Yass and Timothy Mellon, among others.

Some nominally pro-Trump elites have made a name for themselves as opponents of the liberal establishment. Some more prominently, as in Musk’s case, others less so, like when Ackman donated to a fraternity whose members went viral defending an American flag from far left rioters on a university campus. I wouldn’t confuse these occasionally anti-establishment libertarian types, or those hedging their bets, with the real power driving the administrative takeover of the US government and centralization of its functions under the control of the deep state. SCOTUS is the last functional pillar of constitutional government, and that’s why the liberal establishment wants to abolish it and absorb its functions into the administrative state it dominates.

Project 2025, which Trump says he doesn't know about, is a Salazarist project that obliges the American public administration and its agencies and departments - which are now independent of the executive branch - to implement the policies of the White House, while substantially undermining the separation of state and church.

We can safely conclude the Heritage Foundation is not taking notes from Portuguese history when they pitched a policy agenda to the Republican candidate, neither in 1980 nor the barely updated version in 2024.

[Ludicus]

We can safely conclude the Heritage Foundation is not taking notes from Portuguese history...

Why not, although the corporatist wave in Europe was not exclusive to Portugal. As we know, corporatism was associated with authoritarianism in the 1930s Europe. Trump is a classic corporatist. It's not just me who's saying it.
Even wiki knows ...

The project also seeks to infuse the government and society with conservative Christian values.[13][14] Critics have characterized Project 2025 as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan to steer the U.S. toward autocracy.[13][15][16][17] Legal experts have said it would undermine the rule of law,[18] separation of powers,[5] separation of church and state,[19] and civil liberties.[5][18][20]
Project 2025 envisions widespread changes to economic and social policies and the federal government and its agencies

etc...
---
Aren't you a libertarian? isn't the Cato Institute a libertarian think thank? Donald Trump: the 'Anti-Corporatist' Candidate? CATO INSTITUTE

Is he the fierce anti-corporatist many of his supporters see him as?
Of all the mystical qualities that Trump supporters attribute to their candidate, the one I find most curious is that Trump is the “anti-corporatist” candidate.

Trump? “Anti-corporatist”? Really?

If there were a corporatist hall of fame, Trump’s name should be emblazoned across the front in huge red letters, the way it is on his casinos. We are, after all, talking about a candidate who has just finished attacking his leading rival, Ted Cruz, for insufficient devotion to ethanol subsidies. This is not an aberration. Trump has rarely met a proposal for corporate welfare that he didn’t love.
Republicans have been highly critical of the Obama administration’s propensity to throw money at so-called “green energy” companies. But Trump is just as big a supporter of taxpayer subsidies for alternative energy sources. Defending his support of subsidies for wind turbines, for instance, Trump explained that “you need subsidies” because it can be hard for wind to be competitive in energy production, particularly when prices for fossil fuels are so low.


Trump’s support for corporate welfare can’t be explained away as pandering to key voter groups, either. It’s heartfelt and longstanding. As far back as 1986, Trump opposed Ronald Reagan’s tax reform because it eliminated corporate loopholes, including special tax breaks for real-estate developers; he warned that it would be “a disaster for the country.”

He was wrong, of course, about Reagan’s tax plan, but his tune hadn’t changed by 2009, when he backed TARP and the bailout of the big banks. In fact, Trump was willing to go even further, actually nationalizing the banks. As he told Larry King, “Whether they fund them or nationalize them, it doesn’t matter, but you have to keep the banks going.”


And it wasn’t just the banks. Trump also supported the Obama administration’s bailout of the auto industry and its unions. “I think the government should stand behind them 100 percent,” Trump told Fox News. “You cannot lose the auto companies. They’re great. They make wonderful products.”


Trump may have flip-flopped on all sorts of issues, but when it comes to corporations feeding at the public trough, he’s been steady as a rock.


Then there is Trump’s long love affair with eminent domain. Trump has, of course, famously attempted repeatedly to use eminent domain to benefit his own business dealings, most notoriously when he encouraged the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, a government agency, to seize the home of Vera Coking, a 70-year-old widow, and turn the property over to him for development. In another instance, Trump asked the Connecticut government to condemn five Bridgeport businesses so that he could use the land for a business development.


Trump lost in both those cases, but he still resolutely defended the government’s power to seize an individual’s property for the benefit of private corporate interests. He enthusiastically backed the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, telling Fox’s Neil Cavuto, “I happen to agree with it 100 percent. If you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and … government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and … create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.”


Even Trump’s protectionist trade policy is essentially a corporatist subsidy for favored industries and unions at the expense of consumers and non-favored industries. There are a great many corporations — automakers, steel mills, textile companies — that would agree with him. Those of us who will have to pay more for everything we buy, not so much.


When it comes right down to it, Trump’s entire anti-corporatist image rests on his opposition to immigration. And certainly, the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups support increased immigration. That’s a fair debate. (In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I believe that the free movement of people is a basic tenet of the free market.) But no matter what your position on immigration, wanting to build a wall hardly qualifies Donald Trump as the scourge of corporate special interests.


From congressional support for the Export–Import Bank to Marco Rubio’s shilling for the sugar industry, too many Republicans believe that handouts to business are somehow less egregious than other forms of welfare. Trump’s supporters should understand that their candidate is one of those Republicans.

--

Harris has no discernible policy positions and neither does her campaign. Most of what she has mentioned to that effect is either copied from Trump’s positions

I don´t think so. As far as Ukraine is concerned, Europe will withdraw the aid it is giving to Ukraine if Trump is elected.Mark my words. As far as Palestine is concerned, ask Nethanyahu.

“Netanyahu is trying to renegotiate the Camp David Accords through the back door. Egypt is not having any of this,” wrote analyst Ghanem Nuseibeh in a post on the X platform, referring to the Philadelphi Corridor. Ghanem Nuseibeh
He accuses Netanyahu of acting with total disregard for the peace agreements with the states in the region. Egypt's President el-Sisi, during his recent meeting with Blinken, warned of the risk that the Gaza war could expand throughout the region in a way that is "hard to imagine."

To conclude, the inescapable irony: Netanyahu knows that, at this moment, an agreement would be seen as a diplomatic achievement for Biden, benefiting Kamala Harris, while a full-scale war, for which he knows he can count on U.S. military power—always and under any circumstances—will bolster Trump's campaign, whom he wants to see back in the U.S. Presidency.
I'm not wrong.

--
Edit,
I stand by what I said about Elon Musk. Krugman calls Musk the "petulant oligarch". David Lingelbach wrote in his book “The Oligarchs’ Grip” that an oligarch is "someone who secures and reproduces wealth or power, then transforms one into the other”.
He says: "Elon Musk went from tycoon to oligarch when he bought Twitter, and shapes opinions on events from Ukraine to Israel. Musk is one of the five or 10 most consequential oligarchs in our world.”

For instance, Elon Musk has become the world's biggest hypocrite on free speech -The Guardian
The author, Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

He’s built a system that is the exact opposite of what he espouses, more arbitrary and more opaque than the old Twitter he relentlessly criticized – or Facebook or Instagram or any other social media platform, for that matter. And he uses his power to retaliate against his critics more than anyone this side of Donald Trump.
The latest example happened earlier this week when a group of leftwing journalists and commentators, including the Intercept’s excellent reporter Ken Klippenstein, were mysteriously suspended from Twitter (sorry, I will always refuse to call it “X”) without warning or notice as to why. The only thing all the accounts had in common was they had been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza.
After a sustained outcry, their accounts were eventually restored.
...The examples of Musk’s hypocrisy are so frequent, it’s hard to keep track of them all.

More, Elon Musk and the oligarchs of the 'Second Gilded Age

[Legio_Italica]

The project also seeks to infuse the government and society with conservative Christian values.[13][14]Critics have characterized Project 2025 as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan to steer the U.S. toward autocracy.[13][15][16][17] Legal experts have said it would undermine the rule of law,[18]separation of powers,[5] separation of church and state,[19] and civil liberties.[5][18][20]
Project 2025 envisions widespread changes to economic and social policies and the federal government and its agencies

Miraculously, the original and politically identical 1981 Mandate for Leadership has accomplished none of these things, with a government and society less Christian than ever before, dominated by an anti-theist socially liberal left wing establishment that is undermining the rule of law, separation of powers and civil liberties in order to “defend democracy.”

[mishkin]

I wish a powerful group of left-wing liberal atheists existed. Seriously.

And now imagine someone ranting because a country is not religious enough, not as Muslim/Christian/Jewish as it was in the good old days.