OT: Clinton or Bush?

[Clyde_Style]

Read on Twitter

[Jalen Bluntson]

I fully expected to see Trump have a meltdown at some point over the beating he took yesterday in the media and by Obama/Harris speech. I haven't heard anything so far. Have avoided most of the cycle today. Anyone hear anything?

[WargamesX]

Imagine talking about someone's penis size at an event honoring them? Trump is and has always been shameless.

[Stannis]

Early voted. got that out of the way. took like 5 minutes.

[Clyde_Style]

I fully expected to see Trump have a meltdown at some point over the beating he took yesterday in the media and by Obama/Harris speech. I haven't heard anything so far. Have avoided most of the cycle today. Anyone hear anything?

I guess you missed the big news, but .....

[Jalen Bluntson]

I fully expected to see Trump have a meltdown at some point over the beating he took yesterday in the media and by Obama/Harris speech. I haven't heard anything so far. Have avoided most of the cycle today. Anyone hear anything?

I guess you missed the big news, but .....

I meant about the the things said about him. I fully expected Untruth Unsocial rants at 2am

[Clyde_Style]

I fully expected to see Trump have a meltdown at some point over the beating he took yesterday in the media and by Obama/Harris speech. I haven't heard anything so far. Have avoided most of the cycle today. Anyone hear anything?

I guess you missed the big news, but .....

I meant about the the things said about him. I fully expected Untruth Unsocial rants at 2am

NY Times Editorial Board today said:

American Business Cannot Afford to Risk Another Trump Presidency

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/opinion/trump-business-economy.html

Spoiler:

Throughout American history, business leaders have been able to assume that an American president of either party would uphold the rule of law, defend property rights and respect the independence of the courts. Implicit in that assumption is a fundamental belief that the country’s ethos meant their enterprises and the U.S. economy could thrive, no matter who won. They could keep their distance from the rough-and-tumble of campaign politics. No matter who won, they could pursue long-term plans and investments with confidence in America’s political stability.

In this election, American business leaders cannot afford to stand passive and silent.

Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have sketched out versions of their parties’ traditional positions on issues like taxation, trade and regulation that are well within the give-and-take of politics. In this election, however, stability itself is also at stake.

Mr. Trump denies the legitimacy of elections, defies constitutional limits on presidential power and boasts of plans to punish his enemies. And in these attacks on America’s democracy, he is also attacking the foundations of American prosperity. Voting on narrow policy concerns would reflect a catastrophically nearsighted view of the interests of American business.

Some prominent corporate leaders — including Elon Musk, a founder of Tesla; the investors David Sacks and Bill Ackman; and the financier Stephen Schwarzman — have been supportive of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Beyond pure cynicism, it’s nearly impossible to understand why.

Business leaders, of course, may be skeptical of Ms. Harris’s policies, uneasy because they don’t feel they know enough about how she would govern or worried that she may not be open to hearing their concerns — a frequent criticism of the Biden administration. They may be reluctant to offend or alienate employees, customers or suppliers who have different political views. Most of all, they may be afraid of angering Mr. Trump, who has a long track record of using the levers of power to reward loyalty.

They should be more afraid of the consequences if he prevails.

This week Donald Trump provided a stark reminder that this election is different. In remarks that ought to alarm any American committed to the survival of our democratic experiment, the Republican nominee again refused to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. That comes on the heels of remarks in which he declared that he regards his political opponents as an “enemy from within” and that he would consider deploying the military against them merely for opposing his bid for the presidency. The implication is that participation in the democratic process is treason, and the threat is a fresh indication that if he is elected to a second term, Mr. Trump intends to deploy government power in new and dangerous ways.

Mr. Trump may seem like a novelty in American politics, but he is a familiar type in the broader sweep of world history. Right-wing populists often win elections by promising pro-business policies that will unleash economic growth. Once in office, however, they don’t just fiddle with the knobs; they break the machinery. They undermine economic stability by attacking and delegitimizing people and institutions, inside or outside the government, who might challenge or correct bad economic decisions. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for example, fired three central bankers in two years, all of whom failed to fall in line with his demand to lower interest rates. The country fell into a currency crisis and eventually had to raise interest rates significantly to drag itself out.

“It is this change to the nature of governing, more than individual policies, that is so dangerous to business over the long term,” as Roberto Foa and Rachel Kleinfeld argued recently in Harvard Business Review. “Populists undermine the operating environment capitalism depends on — most notably, free competition and a predictable rule of law.”

Mr. Trump’s attacks on the integrity of federal data and on government experts are examples of the ways in which he already pursues these strategies. In August, for example, he claimed that a routine revision in employment data issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was manipulated to favor his opponent. Michael Strain, a conservative economist at the American Enterprise Institute, called this attack on the integrity of the agency “grossly irresponsible and completely inaccurate.”

Business leaders often say they hate uncertainty about taxes and regulation even more than they hate taxes and regulation. Mr. Trump is the personification of uncertainty. During his four years as president, he demonstrated an alarming willingness to rewrite federal policies abruptly, out of spite, for favoritism or just on a whim. Planning to develop a property or make an acquisition that needs regulatory approval? Businesses might assume that a second Trump administration would be more supportive than Mr. Biden was or Ms. Harris would be. But a populist’s favor is capricious; there’s no way to predict who might end up on a Trump enemies list or why. Building a factory to make parts for electric vehicles? Counting on suppliers in other countries? Good luck.

Even by a traditional policy scorecard, Mr. Trump would do damage to American business. The candidate’s promises of tax cuts and regulatory leniency also must be weighed against other campaign proposals that are clearly not in the interests of American business. He has proposed large tariffs on imports, which would raise costs for companies that rely on foreign suppliers and could revive inflation. He has proposed large-scale deportations of immigrants, which would deprive businesses of needed workers and consumers. He has threatened to meddle in the Federal Reserve’s management of monetary policy. His proposed tax cuts would add trillions to the federal debt, which could drive up borrowing costs for the government and the private sector.

Executives who convince themselves that they can shape Mr. Trump’s decision making should consider the record of everyone who has tried to ride the tiger in the eight years since he emerged as the leader of the Republican Party. Those expecting his instincts to be tempered by advisers, as sometimes happened during his first term, will be disappointed. His inner circle has been purged of people who say no. In a second Trump term, the secretary of state would not come from Exxon, and the secretary of the Treasury would not come from Goldman Sachs. The smart — and courageous — people have left the room. What remains are loyalists and ideologues and a decision-making process that begins and ends with the question of what is most expedient for Mr. Trump.

As president, he treated the wide-ranging powers of the federal government as instruments to reward friends and to punish enemies. According to a 2019 report by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner because he was mad at CNN, a Time Warner subsidiary at the time. Last month he threatened to prosecute Google because, he said, the company “has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump.”

And he is not the man for moments of crisis. His management of the government’s response to the Covid pandemic was disastrous. On China, his confrontational showmanship and his dismissive treatment of potential allies did nothing to improve America’s strategic position. Is there any reason for public confidence in the ability of a Trump White House to wrestle with the ever more thorny and high-stakes issues posed by artificial intelligence technology?

The questions run deeper, however: Is Mr. Trump honest? Is he willing to listen or learn? Does he demonstrate moderation or equanimity under pressure? Does he take the long view? Does he ever put the American public interest first?

Mr. Trump is not running as a champion of business. He is running as a tribune of populist grievance, committed to short-term gratification without regard for long-term consequences. For business leaders, as for other Americans, the responsible and necessary course is to defend American democracy by publicly opposing his candidacy.

[Jalen Bluntson]

I guess you missed the big news, but .....

I meant about the the things said about him. I fully expected Untruth Unsocial rants at 2am

NY Times Editorial Board today said:

American Business Cannot Afford to Risk Another Trump Presidency

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/opinion/trump-business-economy.html

Spoiler:

Throughout American history, business leaders have been able to assume that an American president of either party would uphold the rule of law, defend property rights and respect the independence of the courts. Implicit in that assumption is a fundamental belief that the country’s ethos meant their enterprises and the U.S. economy could thrive, no matter who won. They could keep their distance from the rough-and-tumble of campaign politics. No matter who won, they could pursue long-term plans and investments with confidence in America’s political stability.

In this election, American business leaders cannot afford to stand passive and silent.

Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have sketched out versions of their parties’ traditional positions on issues like taxation, trade and regulation that are well within the give-and-take of politics. In this election, however, stability itself is also at stake.

Mr. Trump denies the legitimacy of elections, defies constitutional limits on presidential power and boasts of plans to punish his enemies. And in these attacks on America’s democracy, he is also attacking the foundations of American prosperity. Voting on narrow policy concerns would reflect a catastrophically nearsighted view of the interests of American business.

Some prominent corporate leaders — including Elon Musk, a founder of Tesla; the investors David Sacks and Bill Ackman; and the financier Stephen Schwarzman — have been supportive of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Beyond pure cynicism, it’s nearly impossible to understand why.

Business leaders, of course, may be skeptical of Ms. Harris’s policies, uneasy because they don’t feel they know enough about how she would govern or worried that she may not be open to hearing their concerns — a frequent criticism of the Biden administration. They may be reluctant to offend or alienate employees, customers or suppliers who have different political views. Most of all, they may be afraid of angering Mr. Trump, who has a long track record of using the levers of power to reward loyalty.

They should be more afraid of the consequences if he prevails.

This week Donald Trump provided a stark reminder that this election is different. In remarks that ought to alarm any American committed to the survival of our democratic experiment, the Republican nominee again refused to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. That comes on the heels of remarks in which he declared that he regards his political opponents as an “enemy from within” and that he would consider deploying the military against them merely for opposing his bid for the presidency. The implication is that participation in the democratic process is treason, and the threat is a fresh indication that if he is elected to a second term, Mr. Trump intends to deploy government power in new and dangerous ways.

Mr. Trump may seem like a novelty in American politics, but he is a familiar type in the broader sweep of world history. Right-wing populists often win elections by promising pro-business policies that will unleash economic growth. Once in office, however, they don’t just fiddle with the knobs; they break the machinery. They undermine economic stability by attacking and delegitimizing people and institutions, inside or outside the government, who might challenge or correct bad economic decisions. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for example, fired three central bankers in two years, all of whom failed to fall in line with his demand to lower interest rates. The country fell into a currency crisis and eventually had to raise interest rates significantly to drag itself out.

“It is this change to the nature of governing, more than individual policies, that is so dangerous to business over the long term,” as Roberto Foa and Rachel Kleinfeld argued recently in Harvard Business Review. “Populists undermine the operating environment capitalism depends on — most notably, free competition and a predictable rule of law.”

Mr. Trump’s attacks on the integrity of federal data and on government experts are examples of the ways in which he already pursues these strategies. In August, for example, he claimed that a routine revision in employment data issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was manipulated to favor his opponent. Michael Strain, a conservative economist at the American Enterprise Institute, called this attack on the integrity of the agency “grossly irresponsible and completely inaccurate.”

Business leaders often say they hate uncertainty about taxes and regulation even more than they hate taxes and regulation. Mr. Trump is the personification of uncertainty. During his four years as president, he demonstrated an alarming willingness to rewrite federal policies abruptly, out of spite, for favoritism or just on a whim. Planning to develop a property or make an acquisition that needs regulatory approval? Businesses might assume that a second Trump administration would be more supportive than Mr. Biden was or Ms. Harris would be. But a populist’s favor is capricious; there’s no way to predict who might end up on a Trump enemies list or why. Building a factory to make parts for electric vehicles? Counting on suppliers in other countries? Good luck.

Even by a traditional policy scorecard, Mr. Trump would do damage to American business. The candidate’s promises of tax cuts and regulatory leniency also must be weighed against other campaign proposals that are clearly not in the interests of American business. He has proposed large tariffs on imports, which would raise costs for companies that rely on foreign suppliers and could revive inflation. He has proposed large-scale deportations of immigrants, which would deprive businesses of needed workers and consumers. He has threatened to meddle in the Federal Reserve’s management of monetary policy. His proposed tax cuts would add trillions to the federal debt, which could drive up borrowing costs for the government and the private sector.

Executives who convince themselves that they can shape Mr. Trump’s decision making should consider the record of everyone who has tried to ride the tiger in the eight years since he emerged as the leader of the Republican Party. Those expecting his instincts to be tempered by advisers, as sometimes happened during his first term, will be disappointed. His inner circle has been purged of people who say no. In a second Trump term, the secretary of state would not come from Exxon, and the secretary of the Treasury would not come from Goldman Sachs. The smart — and courageous — people have left the room. What remains are loyalists and ideologues and a decision-making process that begins and ends with the question of what is most expedient for Mr. Trump.

As president, he treated the wide-ranging powers of the federal government as instruments to reward friends and to punish enemies. According to a 2019 report by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner because he was mad at CNN, a Time Warner subsidiary at the time. Last month he threatened to prosecute Google because, he said, the company “has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump.”

And he is not the man for moments of crisis. His management of the government’s response to the Covid pandemic was disastrous. On China, his confrontational showmanship and his dismissive treatment of potential allies did nothing to improve America’s strategic position. Is there any reason for public confidence in the ability of a Trump White House to wrestle with the ever more thorny and high-stakes issues posed by artificial intelligence technology?

The questions run deeper, however: Is Mr. Trump honest? Is he willing to listen or learn? Does he demonstrate moderation or equanimity under pressure? Does he take the long view? Does he ever put the American public interest first?

Mr. Trump is not running as a champion of business. He is running as a tribune of populist grievance, committed to short-term gratification without regard for long-term consequences. For business leaders, as for other Americans, the responsible and necessary course is to defend American democracy by publicly opposing his candidacy.

reading material while I wait for an answer?

[Clyde_Style]

I meant about the the things said about him. I fully expected Untruth Unsocial rants at 2am

NY Times Editorial Board today said:

American Business Cannot Afford to Risk Another Trump Presidency

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/opinion/trump-business-economy.html

Spoiler:

Throughout American history, business leaders have been able to assume that an American president of either party would uphold the rule of law, defend property rights and respect the independence of the courts. Implicit in that assumption is a fundamental belief that the country’s ethos meant their enterprises and the U.S. economy could thrive, no matter who won. They could keep their distance from the rough-and-tumble of campaign politics. No matter who won, they could pursue long-term plans and investments with confidence in America’s political stability.

In this election, American business leaders cannot afford to stand passive and silent.

Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have sketched out versions of their parties’ traditional positions on issues like taxation, trade and regulation that are well within the give-and-take of politics. In this election, however, stability itself is also at stake.

Mr. Trump denies the legitimacy of elections, defies constitutional limits on presidential power and boasts of plans to punish his enemies. And in these attacks on America’s democracy, he is also attacking the foundations of American prosperity. Voting on narrow policy concerns would reflect a catastrophically nearsighted view of the interests of American business.

Some prominent corporate leaders — including Elon Musk, a founder of Tesla; the investors David Sacks and Bill Ackman; and the financier Stephen Schwarzman — have been supportive of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Beyond pure cynicism, it’s nearly impossible to understand why.

Business leaders, of course, may be skeptical of Ms. Harris’s policies, uneasy because they don’t feel they know enough about how she would govern or worried that she may not be open to hearing their concerns — a frequent criticism of the Biden administration. They may be reluctant to offend or alienate employees, customers or suppliers who have different political views. Most of all, they may be afraid of angering Mr. Trump, who has a long track record of using the levers of power to reward loyalty.

They should be more afraid of the consequences if he prevails.

This week Donald Trump provided a stark reminder that this election is different. In remarks that ought to alarm any American committed to the survival of our democratic experiment, the Republican nominee again refused to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. That comes on the heels of remarks in which he declared that he regards his political opponents as an “enemy from within” and that he would consider deploying the military against them merely for opposing his bid for the presidency. The implication is that participation in the democratic process is treason, and the threat is a fresh indication that if he is elected to a second term, Mr. Trump intends to deploy government power in new and dangerous ways.

Mr. Trump may seem like a novelty in American politics, but he is a familiar type in the broader sweep of world history. Right-wing populists often win elections by promising pro-business policies that will unleash economic growth. Once in office, however, they don’t just fiddle with the knobs; they break the machinery. They undermine economic stability by attacking and delegitimizing people and institutions, inside or outside the government, who might challenge or correct bad economic decisions. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for example, fired three central bankers in two years, all of whom failed to fall in line with his demand to lower interest rates. The country fell into a currency crisis and eventually had to raise interest rates significantly to drag itself out.

“It is this change to the nature of governing, more than individual policies, that is so dangerous to business over the long term,” as Roberto Foa and Rachel Kleinfeld argued recently in Harvard Business Review. “Populists undermine the operating environment capitalism depends on — most notably, free competition and a predictable rule of law.”

Mr. Trump’s attacks on the integrity of federal data and on government experts are examples of the ways in which he already pursues these strategies. In August, for example, he claimed that a routine revision in employment data issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was manipulated to favor his opponent. Michael Strain, a conservative economist at the American Enterprise Institute, called this attack on the integrity of the agency “grossly irresponsible and completely inaccurate.”

Business leaders often say they hate uncertainty about taxes and regulation even more than they hate taxes and regulation. Mr. Trump is the personification of uncertainty. During his four years as president, he demonstrated an alarming willingness to rewrite federal policies abruptly, out of spite, for favoritism or just on a whim. Planning to develop a property or make an acquisition that needs regulatory approval? Businesses might assume that a second Trump administration would be more supportive than Mr. Biden was or Ms. Harris would be. But a populist’s favor is capricious; there’s no way to predict who might end up on a Trump enemies list or why. Building a factory to make parts for electric vehicles? Counting on suppliers in other countries? Good luck.

Even by a traditional policy scorecard, Mr. Trump would do damage to American business. The candidate’s promises of tax cuts and regulatory leniency also must be weighed against other campaign proposals that are clearly not in the interests of American business. He has proposed large tariffs on imports, which would raise costs for companies that rely on foreign suppliers and could revive inflation. He has proposed large-scale deportations of immigrants, which would deprive businesses of needed workers and consumers. He has threatened to meddle in the Federal Reserve’s management of monetary policy. His proposed tax cuts would add trillions to the federal debt, which could drive up borrowing costs for the government and the private sector.

Executives who convince themselves that they can shape Mr. Trump’s decision making should consider the record of everyone who has tried to ride the tiger in the eight years since he emerged as the leader of the Republican Party. Those expecting his instincts to be tempered by advisers, as sometimes happened during his first term, will be disappointed. His inner circle has been purged of people who say no. In a second Trump term, the secretary of state would not come from Exxon, and the secretary of the Treasury would not come from Goldman Sachs. The smart — and courageous — people have left the room. What remains are loyalists and ideologues and a decision-making process that begins and ends with the question of what is most expedient for Mr. Trump.

As president, he treated the wide-ranging powers of the federal government as instruments to reward friends and to punish enemies. According to a 2019 report by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner because he was mad at CNN, a Time Warner subsidiary at the time. Last month he threatened to prosecute Google because, he said, the company “has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump.”

And he is not the man for moments of crisis. His management of the government’s response to the Covid pandemic was disastrous. On China, his confrontational showmanship and his dismissive treatment of potential allies did nothing to improve America’s strategic position. Is there any reason for public confidence in the ability of a Trump White House to wrestle with the ever more thorny and high-stakes issues posed by artificial intelligence technology?

The questions run deeper, however: Is Mr. Trump honest? Is he willing to listen or learn? Does he demonstrate moderation or equanimity under pressure? Does he take the long view? Does he ever put the American public interest first?

Mr. Trump is not running as a champion of business. He is running as a tribune of populist grievance, committed to short-term gratification without regard for long-term consequences. For business leaders, as for other Americans, the responsible and necessary course is to defend American democracy by publicly opposing his candidacy.

reading material while I wait for an answer?

[Clyde_Style]

Trump’s Closing Pitch to Voters:
I Will Let You Die If You Don’t Bow to My Demands
If the former president's first term is any indication, he's not bluffing when he threatens drastic action against Americans who oppose him

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-threatens-let-americans-die-1235137748/

Spoiler:

During the final full month of Donald Trump’s first and potentially only term in the White House — as the coronavirus pandemic still raged and as the outgoing president worked to overturn an election that he clearly lost — he was also hosting a series of meetings and phone calls to decide whether or not a man should be put to death before Christmas.

The U.S. government had executed just three federal prisoners in the 60 years prior to 2020. In a six-month span during Trump’s final year in office, he and Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department put to death 13 inmates, in what defense attorneys and criminal justice activists described as a “bloodbath” and historic “killing spree.”

One of those inmates was a man named Brandon Bernard, who at a young age had been involved in a grisly double murder. In the years since his incarceration, Bernard had become an international cause célèbre of anti-death-penalty advocates — including major celebrities like Kim Kardashian — many of whom felt he was an exemplar of remorse and deserved clemency.

But as Trump sat in the White House, holding Bernard’s fate in the palm of his hand, he had a pressing question for his staff, according to a former Trump administration official and another source intimately familiar with the matter: Trump wanted to know if one of the murder victim’s parents, who were urging him to allow the scheduled execution to go forward, had voted for him. At the same time, he was refusing to hear pleas from Kardashian on Bernard’s behalf — all because he saw her social-media post celebrating Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

Bernard was executed on Dec. 10, at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Bernard’s death came at a time when the nation was consumed with the chaos of Trump’s final few months in office following the election, making it especially easy for Bernard’s story to get buried under an avalanche of other news. It was also just one of many examples of how Trump allowed raw partisanship — and self-obsessed considerations about who did or didn’t vote for him — to influence his decision-making in life-or-death situations while in office.

Editor’s picks
Trump’s decision wasn’t an isolated incident of personal grievance or cruel preference. The former president using whether Americans support him or not to make life-or-death decisions is an actual, serious prescription for federal policies that reaches far beyond just one inmate and one execution.

In recent weeks, Trump has been explicitly campaigning on a platform of turbo-charging that attitude in regard to how a second Trump administration would help or not help his fellow Americans — including in dire emergency scenarios.

The former president has on multiple occasions down the stretch of the 2024 campaign threatened to withhold federal disaster relief from California — putting the lives of its citizens at risk — unless the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, gives in to his demands. He made the threat as recently as last weekend during a rally in California’s Coachella Valley, telling supporters that if Newsom doesn’t get on board with Trump’s water policy, “we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have. It’s not hard to do.”

“We’ll force it down his throat,” Trump said.

Trump made the same threat while speaking from his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes in September. “If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires,” Trump said. “And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s got problems.”

Newsom warned on X that Trump would apply the same quid-pro-quo to the rest of the nation. Trump “just admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas,” the governor wrote. “Today it’s California’s wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America — he only cares about himself.”

Hurricane Helene rocked the Southeast a few weeks later. Trump responded by pushing conspiracy theories about the federal response, including an absurd accusation that the Biden administration was deliberately withholding aid from Republican areas. There was no basis whatsoever for the claim, but it isn’t hard to understand why this is where Trump’s mind went.

Politico later reported that while president in 2018, Trump initially refused to approve federal aid for California to fight wildfires because he felt some of the affected regions didn’t support him. It was only after Trump was shown data about the regions voting for him that he approved the relief. “We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” Mark Harvey, then Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told Politico.

A year earlier, Trump blocked congressionally approved aid to Puerto Rico, an American territory populated by American citizens, in the wake of Hurricane Maria — during which Trump was publicly attacking Carmen Yulín Cruz, then the mayor of San Juan, for not being more grateful to him — and then tried to obstruct an investigation into what happened to the money.

Trump also notably tried to intimidate Democratic governors during the Covid-19 pandemic, when states were desperate for federal aid. “It’s a two-way street,” Trump said of giving New York and other states federal help as the crisis continued to claim American lives. “They have to treat us well, too.”

If Trump secures a second term next month, there are a number of reasons why the twice-impeached former president and convicted felon and his lieutenants aren’t entirely worried about this kind of strong-amring and preferential treatment passing constitutional muster.

Beyond the comfort of enjoying a federal judiciary and Supreme Court that Trump and the Republican Party stacked with Trump allies and staunch conservatives during his first term in office, multiple lawyers and political advisers close to Trump who have examined the issue and discussed it with the ex-president tell Rolling Stone that they can argue in court that such actions are akin to other administrations conditioning federal funds on state governments behaving a certain way. They have cited the highly controversial 1994 crime bill — which dangled financial incentives to states that, for instance, erected or expanded their prisons — as an example.

Trending
Beyond threatening to withhold disaster relief, Trump has repeatedly fantasized about taking revenge against his political opponents, should he retake the White House. He’s spoken of doing so in terms of federal investigations, but his rhetoric has intensified as Election Day has neared. Last weekend on Fox News, the morning after he told Californians that he will let the state burn unless Newsom cows to his demands, Trump said the military should be used on “radical left,” which he described as the “enemy within.” He doubled down on the comments a few days later, citing California Rep. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as examples of the nation’s enemies, calling them “evil.”

Republicans have tried to spin Trump’s comments as no big deal, but there’s plenty of evidence that he doesn’t view Americans who don’t support him as worthy of the same rights as those who do — not the right to the pursuit of happiness, not to liberty, and, in some cases, not even to life.

[Jalen Bluntson]

Watch on YouTube

[Pointgod]

In case anyone questioned my comment about Trump having to sit on a black towel on Fox News. Here you go. They were afraid this old man was going to sh*t out his guts on their couch.

Also, during this segment, Trump threatened to block funding for schools who teach about American history Slavery.

Now why would someone want to prevent American children from learning our country's history?

Learning from the past is how you create a better future. Food for thought.

About the black towel, it was actually his jacket if you watch the whole clip. Just keeping it honest, no need for us to lie about everything like the MAGATS and right wingers. Everything else you’ve said is true though.

Read on Twitter

[MrDollarBills]

In case anyone questioned my comment about Trump having to sit on a black towel on Fox News. Here you go. They were afraid this old man was going to sh*t out his guts on their couch.

Also, during this segment, Trump threatened to block funding for schools who teach about American history Slavery.

Now why would someone want to prevent American children from learning our country's history?

Learning from the past is how you create a better future. Food for thought.

About the black towel, it was actually his jacket if you watch the whole clip. Just keeping it honest, no need for us to lie about everything like the MAGATS and right wingers. Everything else you’ve said is true though.

Read on Twitter

Ah okay

Listen, I would rather be corrected than continue to spread something that isn't true. That is my bad, I should have verified that claim on my own before posting it.

That poor jacket

[MrDollarBills]

Watch on YouTube

Blacks for Trump amirite?

[MrDollarBills]

Trump’s Closing Pitch to Voters:
I Will Let You Die If You Don’t Bow to My Demands
If the former president's first term is any indication, he's not bluffing when he threatens drastic action against Americans who oppose him

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-threatens-let-americans-die-1235137748/

Spoiler:

During the final full month of Donald Trump’s first and potentially only term in the White House — as the coronavirus pandemic still raged and as the outgoing president worked to overturn an election that he clearly lost — he was also hosting a series of meetings and phone calls to decide whether or not a man should be put to death before Christmas.

The U.S. government had executed just three federal prisoners in the 60 years prior to 2020. In a six-month span during Trump’s final year in office, he and Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department put to death 13 inmates, in what defense attorneys and criminal justice activists described as a “bloodbath” and historic “killing spree.”

One of those inmates was a man named Brandon Bernard, who at a young age had been involved in a grisly double murder. In the years since his incarceration, Bernard had become an international cause célèbre of anti-death-penalty advocates — including major celebrities like Kim Kardashian — many of whom felt he was an exemplar of remorse and deserved clemency.

But as Trump sat in the White House, holding Bernard’s fate in the palm of his hand, he had a pressing question for his staff, according to a former Trump administration official and another source intimately familiar with the matter: Trump wanted to know if one of the murder victim’s parents, who were urging him to allow the scheduled execution to go forward, had voted for him. At the same time, he was refusing to hear pleas from Kardashian on Bernard’s behalf — all because he saw her social-media post celebrating Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

Bernard was executed on Dec. 10, at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Bernard’s death came at a time when the nation was consumed with the chaos of Trump’s final few months in office following the election, making it especially easy for Bernard’s story to get buried under an avalanche of other news. It was also just one of many examples of how Trump allowed raw partisanship — and self-obsessed considerations about who did or didn’t vote for him — to influence his decision-making in life-or-death situations while in office.

Editor’s picks
Trump’s decision wasn’t an isolated incident of personal grievance or cruel preference. The former president using whether Americans support him or not to make life-or-death decisions is an actual, serious prescription for federal policies that reaches far beyond just one inmate and one execution.

In recent weeks, Trump has been explicitly campaigning on a platform of turbo-charging that attitude in regard to how a second Trump administration would help or not help his fellow Americans — including in dire emergency scenarios.

The former president has on multiple occasions down the stretch of the 2024 campaign threatened to withhold federal disaster relief from California — putting the lives of its citizens at risk — unless the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, gives in to his demands. He made the threat as recently as last weekend during a rally in California’s Coachella Valley, telling supporters that if Newsom doesn’t get on board with Trump’s water policy, “we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have. It’s not hard to do.”

“We’ll force it down his throat,” Trump said.

Trump made the same threat while speaking from his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes in September. “If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires,” Trump said. “And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s got problems.”

Newsom warned on X that Trump would apply the same quid-pro-quo to the rest of the nation. Trump “just admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas,” the governor wrote. “Today it’s California’s wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America — he only cares about himself.”

Hurricane Helene rocked the Southeast a few weeks later. Trump responded by pushing conspiracy theories about the federal response, including an absurd accusation that the Biden administration was deliberately withholding aid from Republican areas. There was no basis whatsoever for the claim, but it isn’t hard to understand why this is where Trump’s mind went.

Politico later reported that while president in 2018, Trump initially refused to approve federal aid for California to fight wildfires because he felt some of the affected regions didn’t support him. It was only after Trump was shown data about the regions voting for him that he approved the relief. “We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” Mark Harvey, then Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told Politico.

A year earlier, Trump blocked congressionally approved aid to Puerto Rico, an American territory populated by American citizens, in the wake of Hurricane Maria — during which Trump was publicly attacking Carmen Yulín Cruz, then the mayor of San Juan, for not being more grateful to him — and then tried to obstruct an investigation into what happened to the money.

Trump also notably tried to intimidate Democratic governors during the Covid-19 pandemic, when states were desperate for federal aid. “It’s a two-way street,” Trump said of giving New York and other states federal help as the crisis continued to claim American lives. “They have to treat us well, too.”

If Trump secures a second term next month, there are a number of reasons why the twice-impeached former president and convicted felon and his lieutenants aren’t entirely worried about this kind of strong-amring and preferential treatment passing constitutional muster.

Beyond the comfort of enjoying a federal judiciary and Supreme Court that Trump and the Republican Party stacked with Trump allies and staunch conservatives during his first term in office, multiple lawyers and political advisers close to Trump who have examined the issue and discussed it with the ex-president tell Rolling Stone that they can argue in court that such actions are akin to other administrations conditioning federal funds on state governments behaving a certain way. They have cited the highly controversial 1994 crime bill — which dangled financial incentives to states that, for instance, erected or expanded their prisons — as an example.

Trending
Beyond threatening to withhold disaster relief, Trump has repeatedly fantasized about taking revenge against his political opponents, should he retake the White House. He’s spoken of doing so in terms of federal investigations, but his rhetoric has intensified as Election Day has neared. Last weekend on Fox News, the morning after he told Californians that he will let the state burn unless Newsom cows to his demands, Trump said the military should be used on “radical left,” which he described as the “enemy within.” He doubled down on the comments a few days later, citing California Rep. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as examples of the nation’s enemies, calling them “evil.”

Republicans have tried to spin Trump’s comments as no big deal, but there’s plenty of evidence that he doesn’t view Americans who don’t support him as worthy of the same rights as those who do — not the right to the pursuit of happiness, not to liberty, and, in some cases, not even to life.

Trump and Jared Kushner played political games with PPE and other life saving equipment while people in NY, NJ, and CT were dying in droves.

He literally had governors calling him to grovel for help. I remember both Cuomo and Murphy airing frustration over this. Robert Kraft of all people had to use the Patriots private plane to obtain PPE and supplies for people in Massachusetts. Trump literally had feds confiscating supplies to hurt people in this area and down in Maryland.

Mitch McConnell called Covid a "blue state problem".

Both sides are not the same. If you think so, you either haven't been paying attention, or you haven't been paying attention.

[Clyde_Style]

Trump’s Closing Pitch to Voters:
I Will Let You Die If You Don’t Bow to My Demands
If the former president's first term is any indication, he's not bluffing when he threatens drastic action against Americans who oppose him

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-threatens-let-americans-die-1235137748/

Spoiler:

During the final full month of Donald Trump’s first and potentially only term in the White House — as the coronavirus pandemic still raged and as the outgoing president worked to overturn an election that he clearly lost — he was also hosting a series of meetings and phone calls to decide whether or not a man should be put to death before Christmas.

The U.S. government had executed just three federal prisoners in the 60 years prior to 2020. In a six-month span during Trump’s final year in office, he and Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department put to death 13 inmates, in what defense attorneys and criminal justice activists described as a “bloodbath” and historic “killing spree.”

One of those inmates was a man named Brandon Bernard, who at a young age had been involved in a grisly double murder. In the years since his incarceration, Bernard had become an international cause célèbre of anti-death-penalty advocates — including major celebrities like Kim Kardashian — many of whom felt he was an exemplar of remorse and deserved clemency.

But as Trump sat in the White House, holding Bernard’s fate in the palm of his hand, he had a pressing question for his staff, according to a former Trump administration official and another source intimately familiar with the matter: Trump wanted to know if one of the murder victim’s parents, who were urging him to allow the scheduled execution to go forward, had voted for him. At the same time, he was refusing to hear pleas from Kardashian on Bernard’s behalf — all because he saw her social-media post celebrating Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

Bernard was executed on Dec. 10, at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Bernard’s death came at a time when the nation was consumed with the chaos of Trump’s final few months in office following the election, making it especially easy for Bernard’s story to get buried under an avalanche of other news. It was also just one of many examples of how Trump allowed raw partisanship — and self-obsessed considerations about who did or didn’t vote for him — to influence his decision-making in life-or-death situations while in office.

Editor’s picks
Trump’s decision wasn’t an isolated incident of personal grievance or cruel preference. The former president using whether Americans support him or not to make life-or-death decisions is an actual, serious prescription for federal policies that reaches far beyond just one inmate and one execution.

In recent weeks, Trump has been explicitly campaigning on a platform of turbo-charging that attitude in regard to how a second Trump administration would help or not help his fellow Americans — including in dire emergency scenarios.

The former president has on multiple occasions down the stretch of the 2024 campaign threatened to withhold federal disaster relief from California — putting the lives of its citizens at risk — unless the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, gives in to his demands. He made the threat as recently as last weekend during a rally in California’s Coachella Valley, telling supporters that if Newsom doesn’t get on board with Trump’s water policy, “we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have. It’s not hard to do.”

“We’ll force it down his throat,” Trump said.

Trump made the same threat while speaking from his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes in September. “If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires,” Trump said. “And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s got problems.”

Newsom warned on X that Trump would apply the same quid-pro-quo to the rest of the nation. Trump “just admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas,” the governor wrote. “Today it’s California’s wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America — he only cares about himself.”

Hurricane Helene rocked the Southeast a few weeks later. Trump responded by pushing conspiracy theories about the federal response, including an absurd accusation that the Biden administration was deliberately withholding aid from Republican areas. There was no basis whatsoever for the claim, but it isn’t hard to understand why this is where Trump’s mind went.

Politico later reported that while president in 2018, Trump initially refused to approve federal aid for California to fight wildfires because he felt some of the affected regions didn’t support him. It was only after Trump was shown data about the regions voting for him that he approved the relief. “We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,” Mark Harvey, then Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told Politico.

A year earlier, Trump blocked congressionally approved aid to Puerto Rico, an American territory populated by American citizens, in the wake of Hurricane Maria — during which Trump was publicly attacking Carmen Yulín Cruz, then the mayor of San Juan, for not being more grateful to him — and then tried to obstruct an investigation into what happened to the money.

Trump also notably tried to intimidate Democratic governors during the Covid-19 pandemic, when states were desperate for federal aid. “It’s a two-way street,” Trump said of giving New York and other states federal help as the crisis continued to claim American lives. “They have to treat us well, too.”

If Trump secures a second term next month, there are a number of reasons why the twice-impeached former president and convicted felon and his lieutenants aren’t entirely worried about this kind of strong-amring and preferential treatment passing constitutional muster.

Beyond the comfort of enjoying a federal judiciary and Supreme Court that Trump and the Republican Party stacked with Trump allies and staunch conservatives during his first term in office, multiple lawyers and political advisers close to Trump who have examined the issue and discussed it with the ex-president tell Rolling Stone that they can argue in court that such actions are akin to other administrations conditioning federal funds on state governments behaving a certain way. They have cited the highly controversial 1994 crime bill — which dangled financial incentives to states that, for instance, erected or expanded their prisons — as an example.

Trending
Beyond threatening to withhold disaster relief, Trump has repeatedly fantasized about taking revenge against his political opponents, should he retake the White House. He’s spoken of doing so in terms of federal investigations, but his rhetoric has intensified as Election Day has neared. Last weekend on Fox News, the morning after he told Californians that he will let the state burn unless Newsom cows to his demands, Trump said the military should be used on “radical left,” which he described as the “enemy within.” He doubled down on the comments a few days later, citing California Rep. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as examples of the nation’s enemies, calling them “evil.”

Republicans have tried to spin Trump’s comments as no big deal, but there’s plenty of evidence that he doesn’t view Americans who don’t support him as worthy of the same rights as those who do — not the right to the pursuit of happiness, not to liberty, and, in some cases, not even to life.

Trump and Jared Kushner played political games with PPE and other life saving equipment while people in NY, NJ, and CT were dying in droves.

He literally had governors calling him to grovel for help. I remember both Cuomo and Murphy airing frustration over this. Robert Kraft of all people had to use the Patriots private plane to obtain PPE and supplies for people in Massachusetts. Trump literally had feds confiscating supplies to hurt people in this area and down in Maryland.

Mitch McConnell called Covid a "blue state problem".

Both sides are not the same. If you think so, you either haven't been paying attention, or you haven't been paying attention.

Kushner definitely used federal employees to intercept planes full of supplies on the tarmac at the airports and confiscated those supplies. Not only were they denying blue states supplies and shipping them off the China, there is also the possibility they were re-allocated to for profit operations that profiteered off the crisis.

These people are criminals to the bone

[ScienceOfLosing]

You're posting content from a dude i just told you is an antisemitic holocaust denier who has made bigoted comments about gays in the past. Like Lord Jamar is a hateful piece of sh*t. He called Kamala a bitch ffs.

And it bothered you not one bit.

I'm just saying dude, you and other MAGAs post stuff from sources that are known for stoking violence, racism, antisemitism etc. What do you expect people to think about you????

The desperation to validate black support of Trump is palpable.

It's a myth. Trump has not picked up any of the black vote that went to Biden.

I've been hearing about "Blacks for Trump" for the last few years, yet Black women and men still vote Dems in massive numbers over Republicans. Even despite the fact that Black men aren't a 99% bloc like Black women are, because our sisters understand the gravity of this situation way more than we do, we still support Dems at a rate better than other male racial/ethnic groups.

It's all a lie, and there's no coincidence that the openly loud Black male Trump supporters routinely engage in misogyny, bigotry, and antisemitism like their white male counterparts. If Republicans weren't so racist they'd be able to peel away a lot more men then I'd care to admit....but still not enough to remotely make a dent in Black support for Democrats.

When you've got Black men questioning a candidate's "racial purity", that should tell you everything about where they are regurgitating their talking points from.

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[Jalen Bluntson]

I really don't care about black men voting for Trump. All I care about is that the majority of Americans vote him out of office for good.

Anyone saying Trump isn't racist is a moron. He is factually racist. Anyone saying he is a good businessman is a moron. He doesn't even pay his bills and has 6 bankruptcies. That list of failed businesses is ridiculous. Anyone that says he's a good Christian family man is a moron. He has multiple children with multiple women. All of whom he cheated on with the next one.

The man is an absolute pig. If you vote for him you're a moron. Period. I am done trying to rationalize with morons. I am done with the whole discussion honestly. I hope Kamala gets this man out of the white house so the country can attempt to heal itself before the next racist lunatic tries to divide the country. Elon should be jailed and deported. Twitter needs to be shut down until they can safeguard the product. Right now it is nothing but a tool being used to destroy this country. All of these social media outlets need regulation. They are the tool that will divide this nation and destroy us from within. Just like the commies said decades ago. Well, now they have an open door to walk right through. It is the most important BORDER we need to secure! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

[Jalen Bluntson]

Oops

[Jalen Bluntson]

Oops