USA Politics

[T. D.]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54395534

Why the US election could decide battle against climate change

[Todd]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54395534

Why the US election could decide battle against climate change

The United States is the most important nation state in the history of the world, and this election is the most important election in the history of democracy.  So of course the victor of the US presidential election in 2020 will decide the outcome of the "battle" against climate change, something that occurs over decades and centuries and involves all nation states on earth.  Duh.

[drogulus]

     The solutions to climate change disruption will continue to be technological, and tech the US develops and implements will spread around the world. In the process enormous wealth will be created.

     As in the past the biggest problems create the most important opportunities for growth. Solving the poison energy crisis has led to lower energy costs. Solar now beats coal for electricity cost. I don't see any reason for the US to hand new industries to China and European countries when we need them here. Being a spreader and not just an adopter is a good deal for us.

     

[drogulus]

     We (1+1) voted yesterday, and there were only about 6 people ahead of us in line. Everything was exactly the same as usual as we picked up our ballots in the registration room and walked over to the voting room, voted and left.

[André]

     We (1+1) voted yesterday, and there were only about 6 people ahead of us in line. Everything was exactly the same as usual as we picked up our ballots in the registration room and walked over to the voting room, voted and left.

Sounds anticlimactic 

[Daverz]

I think many Americans don't even know what it's like to not get screwed. It's so normal for them to get screwed in everything. 

Their fine with getting screwed as long as they are ensured that those people will get screwed even harder.

"The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it." -- Davis X. Machina

[71 dB]

Their fine with getting screwed as long as they are ensured that those people will get screwed even harder.

"The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it." -- Davis X. Machina

That's called idiotism.

[T. D.]

They're fine with getting screwed as long as they are ensured that those people will get screwed even harder.

"The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it." -- Davis X. Machina

Not far from the truth.
I once tried to understand this phenomenon, and read books such as Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant and What's the matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank. Neither one new, both recommendable, but I remain puzzled.

[Daverz]

That's called idiotism.

I like this phrase coined by Paul Campos: "apocalyptic Calvinism on meth" or ACOM

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/keeping-the-american-right-wing-respectable

[T. D.]

I like this phrase coined by Paul Campos: "apocalyptic Calvinism on meth" or ACOM

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/keeping-the-american-right-wing-respectable

That's an excellent article! (Sadly)

[drogulus]

     

Sounds anticlimactic 

     Voting suppresses my libido.

[Daverz]

That's an excellent article! (Sadly)

I used to follow a lot of blogs back in the heyday of blogging.  Now it's pretty much just Lawyers, Guns & Money and Digby.

[Karl Henning]

And, from the Bureau of Fake News:

New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts

[Karl Henning]

Federal judge strikes down Trump plan to slash food stamps for 700,000 unemployed Americans

[Karl Henning]

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about how much the 2020 campaign has also been defined by Trump's fighting. But what's struck me has been the people and things he's not fighting that are revealing.

These non-fights began to envelop him when he was confronted with [l'affaire] "white nationalism" at the first debate. Trump handed out some Proud atta Boys, then refused to condemn it, and then finally, reluctantly, days later, said the words. His defenders then bristled that surely this was enough.

But it was so obviously not enough, because when Trump wants to condemn someone, you know it. He is not a subtle man. The leveling of harsh condemnations, his willingness to "go there" when others will not because of politesse, were literally his raison d'etre in the eyes of the GOP.

Pay Attention to Who Trump Spends His Time "Fighting"

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Federal judge strikes down Trump plan to slash food stamps for 700,000 unemployed Americans

Trump wanted to slash food stamps?!    Why, oh why, am surprised?

PD

[Karl Henning]

Note especially: 47% of Fox News viewers think it "makes our country better" when "Americans" protest unfairness. Only 10% of Fox News viewers think "it makes our country better" when "Black Americans" protest

[Karl Henning]

"You cannot find a Republican admitting that Trump's disastrous handling of the novel coronavirus — the central issue in this campaign — is a big reason he's losing. For these Republicans, the very existence of Trump's authorship of this catastrophe cannot be acknowledged. So public revulsion over this sick and dying elephant in the room — and the role that's playing in Trump's travails — also cannot be conceded.

"A lot of Republican consultants are frustrated because we want the president's campaign to be laser-focused on the economy," one GOP strategist tells the Times, adding that the message should be that "Trump built a great economy" that has since been damaged by coronavirus."

[Karl Henning]

"You cannot find a Republican admitting that Trump's disastrous handling of the novel coronavirus — the central issue in this campaign — is a big reason he's losing. For these Republicans, the very existence of Trump's authorship of this catastrophe cannot be acknowledged. So public revulsion over this sick and dying elephant in the room — and the role that's playing in Trump's travails — also cannot be conceded.

"A lot of Republican consultants are frustrated because we want the president's campaign to be laser-focused on the economy," one GOP strategist tells the Times, adding that the message should be that "Trump built a great economy" that has since been damaged by coronavirus."

""All Trump has to do is give people permission to vote for him," one GOP source tells Axios, as if the past four years never happened and the only problem is that Trump isn't letting his opponent's negatives sink him.

It's true that all this shows that Trump is both overly prone to having faith in the fearsome power of right wing disinformation and that he's trapped in 2016, a blissful time when he was the largely unknown outsider that undecided voters might take a chance on over an opponent who had been defined negatively in the public eye for decades."

[Karl Henning]

Geo. Will: So, American voters should ask: Which candidate can be trusted to cope with foreign dangers calmly, assisted by a well-functioning national security apparatus? Is it the candidate who has had two secretaries of defense and state, and four national security advisers, who considers Xi Jinping a "friend," who sided with Putin against the U.S. intelligence agencies concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election and who tweeted "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea" because he spent a few hours with Kim Jong Un, with whom he had an epistolary romance ("We fell in love")? Or is it the other candidate?