Republican primary debate last night was insane, btw.

Had some racism being aimed at Ramaswamy, he was even compared to Obama as being a "guy with a funny name" (though to be absolutely fair to the racists, Ramaswamy described himself that way first). Ramaswamy's actual point throughout the whole debate, however, was that everyone else was a corporate shill, and he was the only one who believed these things genuinely. Nikki Haley took a girlboss angle to her image which was mediocre to me, but I'm not a liberal so girlboss doesn't really work on me. I don't think girlboss works on conservatives either though. Chris Christie stuck to his only talent: criticizing everyone and being sassy. He also took a few shots at Trump. Risky move. Speaking of shots at Trump, Mike Pence tried to gain some level of support by pandering to the Christian faith. He talked a lot about the oath he made before God to uphold the constitution, and it wasn't met with boos, so that's...something. I guess. Ron DeSantis managed to say nothing the entire time. Even when he started talking, I can't think of a single question he actually answered. The others were just completely forgettable.

They were asked a few things as a show of hands:

None of them believed in climate change.

When they were asked if they still loved God Emperor Trump, Ramaswami alone raised his hand, which drew cheers from the crowd. Slowly, as they all realized the crowd wanted it, all of them raised their hands except for, as I recall, Pence. All of them are lying bastards, and this was an hilarious demonstration.

Nobody raised their hand when asked if we should continue to aid Ukraine, but then when they were asked directly, more than one of them tried to take a stand on the issue, so they just...didn't answer that one honestly, in some form or another.

Media Alt-Centrists in Disarray

  When I first saw this Tweet (Xeet?), my eye was drawn to "Dems should pursue working-class voters of all races." It's a great example of something that is simultaneously (a) alt-center conventional wisdom and (b) utterly inane. What are the sorts of policies Dems should pursue to working-class voters of all races? Answer: the ones they're already supporting!  The difference between talking and delivering. pic.twitter.com/mb6bp65eKV — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 31, 2023 Price negotiations for prescription drugs is a great, obvious example of a policy that's geared to the interest of working-class voters of all races. Standing with the incipient wave of labor mobilization is another. The infrastructure bill was yet another. All of these are centerpiece items of the Democratic Party's economic agenda. But the alt-center punditry acts as if they don't exist. The "advice" on offer is "do what you're already doing, but make me pay attention to it." And one cannot help but think that the price the pundits have put on "make me pay attention to it" is "stop distracting me by also supporting policies that are distinctively to the benefit of specific historically marginalized communities." At the same time, there is a separate vapidity in the "advice" that Biden shouldn't run for reelection. Again, as advice this is just terrible: Biden has a proven electoral track record and has already beaten Trump once. There's no universe where a chaotic primary free-for-all would actually be healthy for the Democratic Party or the broader prospect of ensuring that Trump or any of his lackeys stay out of the White House. The desire for "a real primary" is just thinly-disguised thirst for the good old days of "Dems in disarray" and the chaotic intraparty knife fights that aren't happening on the GOP side because virtually all of Trump's "challengers" can't help but cozy up to him (with a not-so-subtle wink to the various factions within the Democratic Party whose definition of a "real primary" excludes any primary where their preferred candidate doesn't march to victory). Finally, "faculty lounge" politics is also a meaningless phrase. If it's meant to refer to the notion that Democratic party politics take their cues from whatever petition is currently being passed around the Wesleyan anthropology department email list, it's delusional. If it's meant to be a general referent to so-called "culture war" politics, then it's horribly outdated -- we are long past the days where the main "culture" wedge issues favored Republicans over Democrats. Republicans are getting absolutely blitzed on reproductive rights as their radical campaigns to imprison, maim, and murder women are predictably reviled. And their anti-LGBTQ agenda doesn't fare much better. Democrats have a lot of room to punish Republicans for their extremism here, and absolutely should. Biden should run for reelection, and in the process will no doubt trounce token primary opposition. He should promote his policies which will improve the lives of working class voters of all races, and he should absolutely torch Republicans for their unabashed extremism in desiring to take American "culture" back to the 19th century. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/zVgUnOJ

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Report: Donald Trump to Sit down with Tucker Carlson in Lieu of First Republican Presidential Debate https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2023/08/18/report-donald-trump-to-sit-down-with-tucker-carlson-in-lieu-of-first-republican-presidential-debate/

Fuck Fox News. Fuck the RNC.

Rumble, the so-called free speech alternative to YouTube, is the subject of an investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to the company and a letter from the SEC. The SEC confirmed its investigation involving Rumble in response to a public records request that WIRED first filed in November, seeking documents related to the company. The agency denied WIRED's request on the grounds that related documents were part of an “active and ongoing” investigation. Confirmation of the probe follows public allegations that Rumble inflated key user metrics, which the company denies.

The SEC says that the existence of the probe should not be an indication that “any violations of law have occurred with respect to any person, entity, or security.” The exact nature of the SEC investigation is still unknown.

“We have confirmed with Division of Enforcement staff that the investigation from which you seek records is still active and ongoing,” Melinda Hardy, the assistant general counsel for litigation and administrative practice at the SEC, said in a January 8 letter to WIRED.

Hardy added that disclosure of the documents WIRED sought as part of its Freedom of Information Act request “could be reasonably expected to cause harm to the ongoing and active enforcement proceedings because, among other things, individuals and entities of interest in the underlying investigation could fabricate evidence, influence witness testimony and/or destroy or alter certain documents.”

Rumble spokesperson Rory Rumore tells WIRED that the company provided information to the SEC voluntarily in response to a request for documents from the SEC Enforcement staff. Rumore also says in a statement: “We caution anyone from jumping to false conclusions about matters related to Rumble.”

Founded in 2013 by Canadian entrepreneur Chris Pavlovski, Rumble was originally dedicated to hosting viral videos of dogs and cats. The site now claims to push back “against cancel culture and creeping censorship,” hosting shows by Donald Trump Jr. and right-wing personality Steven Crowder. Rumble is also the official streaming partner of the Republican National Committee’s 2024 presidential primary debates. “The SEC does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation,” an SEC spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Rumble’s investors have included JD Vance, a US senator from Ohio, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who has contributed heavily to Republican candidates. Elon Musk confidant and tech venture capitalist David Sacks sits on Rumble’s board of directors.

In May 2021, the site was reportedly valued at an estimated $500 million. In September 2022, Rumble became a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq as part of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) deal. Its valuation currently exceeds $1.2 billion.

In April 2023, investment research firm Culper Research released a report expressing skepticism about the legitimacy of Rumble’s claimed monthly active user (MAU) counts, a key metric for investors to evaluate the performance of a social media company. Culper Research said it had taken a short position in Rumble, meaning it stands to profit if Rumble’s stock price decreases.

“Combined, the web and app data suggest to us that Rumble has only 38 to 48 million unique users, and the Company has overstated its user base by 66% to 108%,” Culper Research claimed in its report.

In a quarterly earnings call following the report’s publication, Rumble reported that its monthly active users declined by 40 percent during the first three months of 2023, from 80 million to 48 million. In a financial filing, Rumble attributed the decrease in users to its popular creators being less active on the platform in the first part of 2023, and news events slowing down following the 2022 midterm elections.

“Investors should be especially dubious of rumors peddled by short-sellers who are attempting to distort facts for their own financial benefit. We are aware of misleading claims about Rumble’s monthly active user (MAU) statistics, which, as we have previously disclosed, are provided by Google Analytics,” Rumble spokesperson Rumore says. “Any suggestion that Rumble has inflated its MAUs is false—as any objective person quickly realizes upon even a cursory review of the data.”

Christian Lamarco, the founder of Culper Research, believes the change in reported users was a response to its report. “That was a bit of validation, in my view,” he says.

Updated 5:45 pm ET, January 8, 2024: Immediately following publication, Chris Pavlovski, Rumble's founder and CEO, said in a post on X that the SEC investigation was part of “the playbook to try and destroy” the company. “A short seller creates a bogus report and sends it to the SEC. The SEC investigates the bogus report. Then the short seller talks to the media to get a story about how the SEC is investigating the report that started with him. The media happily writes the story,” Pavlovski wrote. “The report is bogus, but that doesn’t matter—it’s all to get investors to sell the stock so the short seller profits.”

Pavlovski added that the company used Google Analytics to track user metrics “so we could be ready for this very moment.”

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/21/2023

Note: Starting Monday, 7/24/2023, the amount of entries on this list will be upped from three to, at most, five. Due to this, I have also decided to open submissions to the blog.

Third place: Dagen McDowell of Fox News

Today on Outnumbered, she said the following about a story revolving around--prepare yourselves, this might be the scandal that brings Biden down--the President wearing sneakers:

Well I made a joke last night on Hannity, those shoes, my father will be 87 in a week, and to a man of that generation wearing those shoes, particularly as commander in chief in public, when you're going on, this is formal business -- that's the equivalent of wearing your bedroom slippers outside. That's like wearing a speedo and flip-flops to a funeral. So these elitist snobs in the White House are blithely lying to the American people over and over again because they think we're stupid, and we're not. We've cared for elderly parents and relatives and we can look at this man and see what's going on. We know dementia, we know age, we know Alzheimer's when we see it. And we look at Joe Biden and think, we would not let him drive our car in an empty church parking lot. We know what's happening with him. It's sad, but distressing. 

First off, you have to admire the audacity of somebody to call others snobs while she is saying it's possible a person has a serious mental condition because of their choice in foot wear. Also, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated to the Presidency in his street clothes. Although, what do I expect from a network that spent weeks during the Obama Administration talking about the color of his suit?

Second place: Laura Ingraham

While engaging in the continuing quest by the media to make RFK Jr.'s Presidential Campaign a thing, we got the normal talking points. Among them that the DNC must be really scared of him because Joe Biden hasn't agreed to debate him yet--never mind that in 2020 Donald Trump not only never debated either Bill Weld, Mark Sanford, or Joe Walsh, but state Republican primaries even cancelled primaries specifically to prevent either of those candidates from getting a foothold within the party.

However, while talking about how popular RFK Jr. is, Laura showed this poll:

Now fourteen percent is not nothing, especially when you're a primary challenger to an incumbent President. However, after two straight years of Biden bashing by the mainstream media along with the perpetual push to make RFK Jr. into something other than a waste of everyone's time, the odds of RFK Jr. doing any better are rather unlikely. For reference, fourteen percent is about the percent of votes gotten by Newt Gingrich in 2012, John Anderson in 1980, George Wallace in 1976, and Al Gore in 1988. Hardly the battle similar to that Ford and Reagan had for the Republican Nomination back in 1976, fuck it's not even the fight Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy had back in 1980 or the fight George Bush and Pat Buchanan had back in 1992.

Winner: Ron DeSantis

I think the headline "Florida Schools Will Teach How Slavery Brought ‘Personal Benefit’ to Black People" from The Daily Beast sums this story up perfectly. The article also notes that High Schools are going to be taught that a deadly massacre against black citizens in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”

I wish to remind you all that Ron DeSantis wants to become President, presumably so he can implement this education system across the country.

Ron DeSantis, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 24, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON Today a former U.S. president and the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination turned himself in to be arrested in Georgia. He had to because a grand jury of ordinary Americans indicted him, along with 18 other defendants, for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. For the first time in U.S. history, there is a mugshot of a former president. And, for that matter, mugshots of his chief of staff and key advisors. With noon tomorrow, August 25, the deadline for the defendants to surrender, they have been showing up since Tuesday, when Scott Hall, accused of breaching election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, became the first of the defendants to surrender. Since then, several of the lawyers behind the election scheme, including John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Rudy Giuliani have surrendered. So have Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff, and David Shafer, the former chair of the Georgia Republican Party. All but one—Harrison Floyd, the former executive director of Black Voices for Trump, who is charged with harassing election worker Ruby Freeman and who had previously assaulted an FBI agent—have been released on bail. Trump is the first president to be charged with crimes, and he is facing an astonishing 91 counts in four different cases, two at the state level in New York and Georgia, and two at the federal level. In addition, Trump, his two elder sons, and the Trump Organization are also facing an October trial in a civil fraud case in New York City, after which he has a January trial in a defamation suit from writer E. Jean Carroll for denying that he raped her (a judge recently agreed that his sexual assault of her was rape by common understanding, although the narrow definition of rape in the New York penal code meant that a New York jury in May did not find him liable for it). And then there are the criminal charges. In New York he is charged with 34 counts surrounding an alleged hush-money scheme before the 2016 election. He has been charged with 40 counts in the federal case concerning his theft and concealment of national security documents at his organization’s Mar-a-Lago property. In a separate federal case, he is charged with 4 counts of conspiring to defraud the government, obstruct an official proceeding, and take away voters’ right to have their vote counted. In the Georgia case for which he was arrested today, he has been charged with 13 crimes under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute of Georgia, a law that permits a group working together for a criminal purpose to be charged as a criminal organization. True to form, Trump appears to have timed his surrender to make the evening news. And then, after he surrendered, he posted his mugshot himself on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, telling his supporters “NEVER SURRENDER!” In our system, Trump, like any defendant, is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But here’s the thing: At last night’s Republican primary debate, all the candidates except former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (polling at 3.3%) and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson (polling at 0.7%) pledged they would support Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee even if he’s convicted. [MORE]

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

The first Republican debate of 2023 happens tonight. Here's what to know. The presidential primary season's first GOP debate will be held in Milwaukee. Eight candidates will take the stage. https://t.co/W8QuXkRSVA http://dlvr.it/Sv3T6B

The June 23, 2023 write-up in full (the authors permit this with credit):

The Republican primary field just keeps getting bigger. Former Texas representative Will Hurd has been teasing a run for the better part of 3 years (since the tail end of his time in Congress, which ended in 2021), and yesterday he took the plunge.

Here is the first portion of Hurd's announcement, which summarizes his pitch for the presidency:

The soul of our country is under attack. Our enemies plot, create chaos and threaten the American dream at home. Illegal immigration and fentanyl streaming through our country. Inflation still out of control. Crime and homelessness growing in our cities. And liberals do nothing. President Biden can't solve these problems. Or won't. And if we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump who lost the House, the Senate and the White House, we all know Joe Biden will win again. Republicans deserve better. America deserves better. It's common sense. Common sense says we're better together.

Executive summary: Joe Biden sucks. Donald Trump sucks. Vote for me. It's just common sense.

There is a time and place where Hurd would have been a compelling candidate. He's young, charismatic, Black, comes from a state with a lot of voters, and is sorta moderate (but only sorta, and only by the standards of the current iteration of the Republican Party). If the candidate had a time machine, and could travel back to 1996, for example, he would have been an interesting alternative to Bob Dole. Not that he would have won the nomination, mind you, just that he would have been interesting.

But Hurd has no time machine and it's not 1996. He now enters a field where the majority of the primary voters are far-right populists, Donald Trump is dominant, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is waiting to pounce if the former president falters. And, of course, the Trump/DeSantis/Haley/Pence lane isn't even the one that Hurd is gunning for. No, he's gunning for a lane that already has Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie and, to a greater or lesser extent, Miami mayor Francis Suarez.

There is a scenario where the Trumpers somehow split the majority of the vote, and a candidate in the anti-Trump Republican lane unifies the anti-Trump Republican vote and makes some real noise. Remember, most Republican primaries are winner-take-all or nearly so, so if there's a result that's 30% anti-Trump candidate, 25% Trumpy candidate, 20% Trumpy candidate, 15% Trumpy candidate, 10% other candidates, then the anti-Trump candidate would claim most or all of the delegates.

However, that sort of outcome requires a lot of things to break just right, and it's not going to happen if the non-Trump vote is split multiple ways, since the non-Trump vote is definitely in the minority among Republican primary voters. And even if a non-Trump candidate somehow does get something going, we think Christie is far more likely to be that person than Hurd is. We'd probably rank Hutchinson above Hurd, too, especially since Hurd is getting such a late start.

In short, Hurd isn't going to be the Republican nominee and he isn't going to be inaugurated as president on January 20, 2025. So, what's he after? Maybe the VP slot on a DeSantis ticket, though the Florida governor seems to want a female running mate, should he get the nomination. Alternatively, like so many of those folks, Hurd could be auditioning for a cushy gig at Fox or News Nation or CNN, or he could be trying to sell books, or he could just be interested in taking Trump down.

To that latter point, we will point out that it's somewhat unlikely Hurd would jump in unless he knew he had the financial backing to make a run at appearing on the debate stage on Aug. 15. A billionaire can't write checks directly to Hurd or his campaign, but if that billionaire is running a pro-Hurd super PAC, then that billionaire certainly knows what's needed for the candidate to qualify for the debates, even without any coordination between the PAC and the campaign. Put more specifically, Hurd is very much the type of candidate that meets the fancy of Charles Koch, so it wouldn't be too surprising if we learned that the surviving half of the Kochtopus, who hates Trump, is backing this bid. (Z)

Map of The US With Trump's Shadow Looming. Image: Alberto Miranda

America Will Need A New Vocabulary To Discuss Its Presidential Election! Unprecedented, Uncharted, Not Unthinkable

— November 13th, 2023 | By John Prideaux

Barring unforeseen illness or death, the 2024 presidential election will be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. This will be confirmed by the party primaries, which in 2024 will be completed much earlier than usual. Normally the incumbent president is chosen as his party’s nominee without much of a fight. On the Democratic side that will happen again. But the Republican side, where one candidate is so far ahead already that he has been able to skip the early debates, will be much weirder.

In a typical primary cycle, Americans have to wait until the end of March, or beyond, to know who the challenger is likely to be. This time the Republican primary could in effect be finished by the end of February. Americans would then be subjected to a full eight months of a general election campaign between two unpopular candidates—while America’s allies around the globe hold their breath.

If the primaries are less relevant than usual, the attention of politically engaged Americans (particularly those who do not wish to see a second Trump presidency), will shift from Trump the candidate to Trump the defendant. The former president’s federal trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 election starts on March 4th, the day before “Super Tuesday”, when 13 states will vote in the Republican primary.

His campaign will take advantage of this timing, portraying the cases against Mr Trump as a left-wing plot to prevent him from winning a second term and inviting his backers to vote for him (and donate to his legal fund) as an act of defiance. One of Mr Trump’s favourite political techniques is to turn whatever he stands accused of back against his accusers. Thus, while he is actually on trial in a federal court for undermining American democracy, he will claim that the real threat to democratic freedom is the federal court.

The coronations of the candidates will take place in Milwaukee, where the Republicans will hold their convention in July, and Chicago, where Democrats will gather in August to enthuse about four more years of Mr Biden (at the end of which their candidate would be 86 years old). The choice of locations is another reminder of the outsized importance of the Midwest in an election year, and the extent to which the contest to choose the president is not really a national election.

It Is Hard To Overstate How Important The Outcome Will Be, For America And The World

If the vote is close, as most presidential elections are now, then the result will come down to what happens in six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This means states with a combined population of 50m people, a bit more than Spain but fewer than Italy, will choose the next president. A bigger swing in either direction could bring a few more states into play: Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, perhaps even Florida.

The federal cases against Mr Trump are unlikely to be litigated by November 5th, the day of the election, because Mr Trump’s legal strategy will be to delay and then to appeal. As a result, for the first time, America will have a presidential candidate on the ballot who stands accused of federal and state crimes. Words like ”uncharted” and “unprecedented” were worn out by the end of Mr Trump’s first term. America will need new ones for this election.

It is hard to overstate how important the outcome will be for America and the rest of the world. America’s next president will face some predictable problems. The trust funds that pay for Social Security and Medicare (health care for pensioners) are running out of money. Nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea will be in the in-tray again. And there is the looming question of Taiwan. China-watchers in the West believe there is a narrow window, which overlaps with the next presidency, during which the People’s Liberation Army would have the advantage in a conflict over the island. The president chosen in 2024 will thus be in charge in the moment of maximum danger.

Most crises, though, are of the unexpected sort. In 2016 Mr Trump campaigned on ending American entanglements in the Middle East. Less than a year later, he gave the order to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Syrian territory. The last year of his presidency was consumed by mishandling the spread of a new virus. Mr Biden’s presidency has been steadier and more successful, but the subjects that have demanded most of his attention—the bungled retreat from Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a war between Israel and Hamas—were unforeseen.

A second Trump win, though, would be predictably awful. Plans will be laid over the next 12 months to staff his administration with true believers. The full effect is hard to imagine. What would it mean for foreign policy, or action on climate change? Would other countries elect nationalist populists in imitation again, as Brazil did in 2018?

For America, the questions are even bigger. What would it mean for the country’s democracy to re-elect a man who governed as Mr Trump did, who was impeached twice by the House of Representatives—and who tried to overturn the result of the last election? ■

— John Prideaux, United States Editor, The Economist

It's already too late.

November 9, 2023

Even as Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican Party, there's still a minority of GOP voters (perhaps as many as 2 in 5) who don't want to see him as their presidential nominee next November. To those not in thrall to the MAGA cult, running a criminally indicted (91 felonies so far!) presidential candidate, who already lost to the same opponent, is a seriously bad idea. Which explains the desperation of the Never Trumpers to find someone, anyone who might be a better choice.

This past spring, that alternative appeared to be Florida's proudly fascist governor, Ron DeSantis. Donors willingly opened up their checkbooks for him. And, in the days after Trump's first indictment, he even enjoyed a higher net favorability than Trump among likely Republican voters in the three primary kickoff states — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Said DeSantis aide Gennera Peck optimistically, “Everyone knows the majority of the Republican Party wants to move on.”

But then DeSantis started campaigning in earnest, and as people were increasingly repelled by him, it soon became apparent that he was the most awkward presidential candidate in modern American history. Vanity Fair accurately summed up his campaign style by calling DeSantis "an unlikeable jerk."

Then, following the first GOP debate, Vivek Ramaswamy's star commenced to ascend. Time Magazine ran a gushing profile of him, calling Ramaswamy "the most interesting and unknowable factor in the unfolding fight for the future of the GOP."

However, as his appearances on Faux News and other right-wing media ramped up, voters discovered that, in addition to being really annoying, the inexperienced pharma entrepreneur's naive policy ideas — such as allowing those under 25 to vote only if they pass a civics test — merely demonstrated how unqualified he actually was.

Emerging more recently as a contender is former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley. Last week the conservative National Review urged all the other Republican hopefuls — Scott, Christie, Burgum and the rest — to drop out and clear the way for her to take on Trump.

Meanwhile, several billionaires are quietly donating big bucks to support a presidential run by Virginia's secretly fascist governor, Glenn Youngkin. However Tuesday's Democratic victories may have snuffed out that notion.

But this is all just wish casting. A magic hero suddenly popping up to save the Party is simply not going to happen. As many Republicans rightly fear, barring a heart attack, a prison sentence or a meteor strike, Trump is certain to be their nominee and drag the entire GOP ticket down with him. Again.

For most of the first year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, U.S. politics “stopped at the water’s edge”—an adage that conveys the tendency for foreign policy to be more bipartisan than domestic policy. While showing some soft spots, consensus on the war—and robust U.S. support of Ukraine—largely prevailed. Not anymore. The issue of how involved the United States should be has begun spilling over into congressional and Republican presidential primary politics, and likely will be a factor in the 2024 presidential election.

Some of this is genuine policy debate. Indeed, in some instances when politics has been too quick to stop at the water’s edge—Vietnam in the 1960s, Iraq in 2003—deeply flawed policies have resulted. No lesser than Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley has raised questions about the prospect of a Ukrainian military victory. The resolutely centrist RAND think tank asked, “How does this end?” and journals and magazines such as Foreign Policy are running articles with a range of views as to optimal U.S. strategy.

But while there is some substantive debate going on, the partisan politics have intensified.

When the war first started, support for Ukraine was strikingly bipartisan. Chicago Council on Global Affairs polling last March showed sanctions against Russia getting 82 percent support from Democrats and 75 percent from Republicans; arms and other material assistance to Ukraine 83 percent and 80 percent; and Ukrainian economic assistance 85 percent and 74 percent. The partisan split widened a bit in July 2022, but only a bit, with Republican leaders becoming more critical of Biden but still cautiously so.

But by November 2022, as election season hit, the spreads got wider: Arms and material assistance had 76 percent Democrat and 55 percent Republican support, from a 3-point gap to a 21-point one; and economic assistance had 81 percent Democrat and 50 percent Republican support, an 11- to 31-point gap. Support for sanctions against Russia was still pretty bipartisan, at 83 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Republicans; the gap only increased from 7 to 10 points. But in answer to a question about supporting Ukraine despite higher gas and food prices, Republican support fell from 50 percent in July to 33 percent in November, while Democrats only went from 69 percent to 61 percent. Here, the gap went from 19 to 31 points.

Committee hearings already have gotten more abrasive in the House of Representatives, with confrontational questioning of Biden administration officials. The supplemental appropriation the Biden administration may soon need risks rough waters, too; as a January 2023 CBS News poll showed, while overall support for more Ukrainian aid was 64 percent and 48 percent among Republicans as a whole, among self-identified “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) Republicans it was only 36 percent. While Senate Republicans such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch have been trying to counter with statements of support for Ukraine, the war was one of the issues on which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made pledges to hard-right members of his caucus in order to gain his position.

Ramping up even further, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—who during the 2022 election alleged an FTX-related cryptocurrency conspiracy, claiming Ukrainian military aid was being funneled to Democrat campaigns—said at the early March Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) confab that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “wants our sons and daughters to go die there.”

In the last month, all-but-declared presidential candidate and current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis brought Ukraine squarely into the Republican primary race. His statement to Tucker Carlson posing the issue as just a “territorial dispute” between Ukraine and Russia, not an invasion by the latter of the former, and not a vital U.S. interest, was clearly intended to compete with former President Donald Trump for the MAGA primary vote. DeSantis made the Ukraine conflict conversation his own version of America First—contending that all those billions should be spent at home and the weapons be kept for defending the United States’ own southern border from “narcotics smuggled” and the like. And he checked off the China hawk box, deriding Russia as a “third-rate” threat that should not distract us from the ominous Big Threat. But DeSantis obviously felt he needed to respond to the ensuing Republican establishment outcry; he softened the edges of his statements by labeling Putin a war criminal and re-invoking the claim from earlier in his career of being Reaganite tough on Russia.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Hayley, a declared presidential candidate, has tried to capitalize on the criticism of DeSantis and lay claim to at least a degree of more traditional Republican conservative internationalism. This, though, is where the current Republican party differs from its Cold War-era “peace through strength” predecessor, when internationalist presidential aspirants prevailed over isolationist ones. In 1952, for instance, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated “steadfast isolationist” Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft for the party nomination. In 1992, George H. W. Bush prevailed over Patrick Buchanan (a nativist and isolationist in a number of assessments). But in 2016, a whole coterie of conservative internationalists competing for the Republican presidential nomination—Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham—were left in the dust by Trump’s America First.

Whoever emerges as the Republican candidate, they are more likely to be in the Ukraine critic lane than the supporter one. And that may have some advantages for the party in the general election.

In the past year, survey questions about Ukraine that explicitly identified policies as Biden’s got much lower approval than those about just the policies themselves. In a May 2022 University of Maryland poll, “U.S.” policies got higher approval than “Biden Administration” policies. An October 2022 Reuters/Ipsos poll similarly showed 66 percent approval for Ukrainian weapons aid and 59 percent approval for financial aid, but only 46 percent approval for “the way Joe Biden is handling [Ukraine].” Even keeping the questions political but taking Biden out of them, 69 percent supported pro-Ukrainian military aid congressional candidates in the then-upcoming midterm elections.

How Ukraine affects the 2024 presidential general election is contingent on three potential scenarios—one of which could help Biden, but only a bit, while the other two could hurt him quite substantially.

1. Ukraine wins. Let’s take this to mean the war ends, Russia withdraws its forces to the pre-invasion lines, the 2014 Crimea annexation may or may not be reversed, and the peace agreement reached is generally seen as robust and durable. Biden could rightly claim success, and that his policy was a critical factor. But foreign-policy victories often do little to help presidential re-election bids. In 1992, then-President George H. W. Bush lost reelection despite the major 1991 Gulf War victory. In 2004, public opinion was still largely supportive of the Iraq War and Democrat candidate John Kerry had many weaknesses, but incumbent George W. Bush only got narrowly reelected. Indeed, in a number of other recent elections—2000, Al Gore vs. George W. Bush; 2008, Barack Obama vs. John McCain; 2016, Trump vs. Hillary Clinton—the candidate who is stronger on foreign policy has been defeated.

2. Ukraine loses. The Biden administration’s policies would be criticized as both too little and too much, with the Republican candidate likely making both arguments. Had the United States and NATO done more and done it sooner, Russia would not have prevailed. By doing only what it did, Washington ended up wasting U.S. taxpayers’ money.

3. War persists. Biden could credibly claim that Ukraine continuing to hold its own validates his policy. The little guy against the big guy. Wars do go on for years. The course needs to be stayed. U.S. interests, values and reputation all are at stake, both directly in Ukraine and indirectly by the lessons China would draw.

Adding historical perspective, this would not be the first time that ending wars or keeping out of them was a winning position for a presidential candidate. Woodrow Wilson ran his 1916 reelection campaign on having kept the United States out of World War I since its start in 1914. While having taken some steps to prepare the country for war, Franklin D. Roosevelt calculated that he needed to promise in his 1940 re-reelection campaign not to send U.S. soldiers into battle. Richard Nixon’s touting of an ostensible secret peace plan for the Vietnam War was a key factor in his 1968 election victory (notwithstanding the fact that he was actively sabotaging the actual peace talks then going on). Obama’s promise to end the Iraq War was more politically potent than McCain’s commitment to win it. Trump was on record even before his 2016 presidential campaign that the war in Afghanistan was a “complete waste” and that it was “time to come home.”

Ukraine will not be the most important issue in 2024; that spot will likely be taken by domestic problems, culture wars, and personas. There’ll be some competitive China-hawking as well. But given margins such as 2020’s 0.23 percent in Georgia, 0.63 percent in Wisconsin, and 1.16 percent in Pennsylvania, if even a few percent of the electorate vote based on Ukraine, the marginal difference could be decisive.

The Other 50%

By Cassidy Gable

As America gets closer to the primary elections, it’s time to ask about the women gunning for the presidency.

On November 5, 2024, a race between two people will ensue that has been brewing for several months already. We don’t know yet who the contenders will be, but we know what the winner will need and what the coveted prize is.

The winner will need 270 electoral college votes, and the prize is the highest office in America: the president’s.

For the past several months, different politicians, entrepreneurs, and academia have announced their campaign for the 2024 presidential election. Current president Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump are both running. 

Governors Chris Christie and Rob DeSantis, pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, lawyer and activist Robert F Kennedy, Jr., and former vice president Mike Pence are some of the men competing for a spot in the ballot.

But as we approach electing our 47th American president, the question is where are the women?

The U.S. is notorious for having few women in politics. And despite the numerous women who have run for president, with Victoria Claflin Woodhull being considered the first in 1872, only Democrat Hilary Rodham Clinton has made it all the way to the final ballot in 2016 against Donald Trump, where she ultimately won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but lost the presidency (1). 

Currently, there are two female presidential candidates, which is less than there were in 2016 and 2020 when 3 and 6 women ran for president, respectively. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and author and activist Marianne Williamson are challenging the other 15 men, hoping to win the primaries in the spring of 2024, and eventually the election in November.

Many Americans want a woman in the White House. In 2018, Pew Research Center found that 45% of Americans surveyed personally hoped a female would be elected president in their lifetime, and a majority of women surveyed agreed (2).

To make this a reality, voters need to be educated on what the women running want and believe. Regardless of political party, understanding where any potential candidate stands is important so voters can make an educated decision to elect a nominee--and eventually a president--who can run the nation and represent them truly.

Battling against the massive amounts of misinformation put out about political candidates, much of which is aimed at women in the name of misogyny and sexism, is going to help the American people make the best decision when the primaries come around. So, here are the facts about the two female candidates who have their eyes on the Oval Office in 2024.

Republican Nikki Haley 

Haley’s political background starts in 2005, where she won a South Carolina seat in the state legislature against the incumbent. Later, in 2011, she became the youngest governor in the nation and the first female minority governor. During this time, approximately five years, she reduced unemployment and attempted to bring reform to the Southern state. (3)

In 2016, she was nominated to be the Ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump administration. 

As far as career politicians go, Haley has a strong background at various levels of government, serving different functions. Her experience as U.N. ambassador gives her an awareness of foreign affairs and shows that she can handle diplomacy. 

Haley is polling closest to Trump, who has a lead on the rest of the Republican candidates by 45% of voters. According to the Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Haley’s closest polling candidate is governor DeSantis, who is polling 11% compared to her 15%. (4)

Due to Haley’s long standing political career and her participation in both G.O.P. debates in August and September 2023, her stances, opinions, and future goals are well-documented. 

Her general economic views support reduced spending and lowering taxes, and has been since she was governor-elect in 2010. She was also in favor of eliminating the corporate income tax at the time. Currently, she’s stressing “fiscal responsibility,” as stated in her CNN Interview in June 2023. Haley is a strong opposer of the COVID stimulus bill. (5)

Second GOP debate ratings: Viewership drops by more than 25 percent

New Post has been published on https://truckfump.life/2023/09/28/viewership-second-republican-presidential-primary-debate-00118960/

Second GOP debate ratings: Viewership drops by more than 25 percent

Around 13 million people watched the first debate. About 9.5 million people tuned in for the second.

Antonio Velardo shares: Trump Maintains Huge Lead in Polls Ahead of Second Republican Debate by Mark Boyer

By Mark Boyer Donald J. Trump’s lead in the Republican primary has grown since the first debate, and he plans to skip the Republican debate for a second time. Published: September 26, 2023 at 06:48PM from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/PhuxawQ via IFTTT

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[ad_1] The race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination runs through Democratic-dominated California next week.The second GOP presidential primary debate will be held Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. And two days later, some of the top contenders for the Republican nomination will address the California GOP's fall 2023 convention in Anaheim.While modern-day California is a heavily blue-shaded state, Republicans once thrived in statewide contests.The GOP carried California — which for six decades has been the nation's most populous state — in every presidential election but one from 1952 through 1988.FIRST ON FOX: THE RNC RAISES THE BAR FOR THE CANDIDATES TO MAKE THE STAGE AT THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE The Air Force One Pavilion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, will host the FOX Business Republican primary debate on Wednesday.  (Steve Whitaker Photography.)But Democrats have captured the state's large cache of electoral votes in every presidential election the past three decades, and have topped 60% of the vote in the past four White House contests.It's a similar story in Senate elections, with incumbent Pete Wilson's 1988 re-election the last time a Republican won a Senate contest in California.WATCH: MODERATORS PERINO, VARNEY PREVIEW WEDNESDAY'S DEBATERepublicans used to dominate gubernatorial elections in the Golden State — with Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian, Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger each winning two terms over the past six decades. But Schwarzenegger's 2006 re-election was the last time a Republican won the governorship or any other statewide executive office in California."It’s been decades since it’s been a red state," Jack Pitney, a political science professor at California's Claremont McKenna College, noted. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger followed in former President Ronald Reagan's footsteps to serve as GOP governor of California. Since Schwarzenegger left office in 2011, no Republican has won the governor's mansion. (Robert Mora/Getty Images)Pitney says the Democratic political surge in the state the past half century is due to "a combination of things — economics, demographics, Prop 187.""The end of the Cold War meant the defense industry downsized," Pitney spotlighted. "The defense industry was always a bulwark in California of the Republican Party."He also said that, to a degree, Prop 187 shifted the states growing Hispanic population towards the Democratic Party.The California ballot proposition, which passed in 1994, established a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibited illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public education and other state services.Next year's high-profile Senate election in the race to succeed longtime Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is further evidence, Pitney argued, that the California GOP — which produced two presidents and four governors during a half-century span — "barely exists" anymore at a statewide level. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., listens during the Senate Judiciary Committee markup hearing on July 20, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)While three well-known Democratic House members are running for the Senate, no major Republicans have entered the race.And while California Democrats have dramatically outraised their Republican rivals in recent years, there are bright spots for the state GOP. Republicans picked up five congressional seats in the state in the 2020 and 2022 elections, helping to make Californian Kevin McCarthy House Speaker.California GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson told Fox News that "Californians are responsible for the House majority."Looking forward, Patterson said "we are edging towards" being competitive again in statewide races.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPRepublicans point fingers at two-term Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the veto-proof supermajorities the Democrats hold in both houses of the California legislature."I think Californians are getting to a point where they’re very fed up with what California Democrats have served up over the last decade," she argued. "So we hope to be a viable alternative to that."Patterson noted that "we have a lot of opportunities here in California," and that with the right candidate and the right resources, victory may be in reach.Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.  [ad_2]