#2020 presidential primary

[jewish-sideblog]

Young USAmericans will straight up say “Why do we have to pick between two super old dudes! I hate this” and then proceed to vote at half the rate that octogenarians do. Like idk bestie maybe if you had actually showed up to the polls to vote for a candidate you respected during the primaries this wouldn’t be an issue

[plethoraworldatlas]

Current state of Vote Uncommitted

(Linked for data)

Only a few states have yet to hold primaries.

As of now, according to this data, over 794 Thousand primary votes have been uncommitted/uninstructed/none/etc

+794,000

+794k

And this isn't even counting all the people in states that lacked uncommitted options and had to vote write in, or vote for some random other democrat in protest, or left blank, etc. Since so many of those are also protest votes in line with vote uncommitted, I would add another 100-150k to the amount of protest votes Vote uncommitted has gotten so far.

The largest amounts of uncommitted votes are in crucial swing states, by margins that far exceed the tiny amount Biden won by in 2020.

And remember, these numbers are just people who go out to vote in primaries; It takes effort to do that.

Almost 4/5ths of a million Primary voting Democrats have gone out to tell Biden

1) fuck you

2) we are against your genocide

3) our votes for you are dependent on you changing course now and totally

4) We do not have faith in your ability to win while doing this and attacking your own supporters, so stop and change course now

And this is just the vote uncommitted campaign; There are also the many, many, many major dedicated lifelong democrat donors and fundraising organizations that have signed letters and statements telling him to change course because they either can't support this genocide or they know this will cost him the election if he doesn't change course now, as well as those who have cut of funding for the same reasons, and those who did both and more.

here's a fun little quote to keep in mind

When you look at the smallest popular vote shift needed to give Trump a victory, the 2020 election was close. Indeed, it was even closer than 2016. If Trump picked up the right mix of 42,921 votes in Arizona (10,457), Georgia (11,779), and Wisconsin (20,682), the Electoral College would have been tied at 269 all. The House would have then decided the election. Republicans will hold the majority of state delegations in the new Congress, and they undoubtedly would have chosen Trump. If Trump had also picked up the one electoral vote in Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, which he lost to Biden by 22,091 votes, he would have won the Electoral College outright.  -CFR

[britneyshakespeare]

this is my honest exhausted political hot take on the biden resignation situation. i don't fuckin care that we didn't get a dem primary

[simply-ivanka]

This packs a punch.

“In his speech in Arizona endorsing Trump, Kennedy said:

“The DNC deployed aligned judges to throw me and other candidates off the ballot and to throw President Trump in jail. It ran a sham primary that was rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden. Then, when a predictably bungled debate performance precipitated the palace coup against President Biden, the same shadowy DNC operatives appointed his successor, also without an election. They installed a candidate who was so unpopular with voters that she dropped out in 2020 without winning a single delegate,” Kennedy said.

“My uncle and my father both relished debate. They prided themselves on their capacity to go toe-to-toe with any opponent in the battle over ideas. They would be astonished to learn of a Democratic Party presidential nominee who, like Vice President Harris, has not appeared in a single interview or unscripted encounter with voters for 35 days. This is profoundly undemocratic. How are people to choose when they don’t know whom they are choosing, and how must this look to the rest of the world?”

[triviallytrue]

politics 101 post incoming but i think it's interesting how democracy is full of self-fulfilling prophecies - even if something isn't 'objectively' a problem for a candidate, if enough people believe it's a problem it becomes one

the example of this that drove me crazy was the concern about Bernie's electability in 2016 and 2020 - it's my belief (based on the head to head polls i saw) that Bernie would've been favored to win both elections as the democratic nominee, but many primary voters believed he would struggle, so this (imo imagined) issue of general election electability became a very real issue of primary electability and he lost both primaries (not solely for that reason, but i think it was a contributing factor both times)

all of which is to say that it might be true that Biden still thinks perfectly clearly most of the time, that his administration governs more effectively than most other presidential administrations, that he mixes up words frequently but it's not a sign of real cognitive decline, that his stutter makes him sound older than he actually is, that he'll be alive and still functional through 2029. i think it probably isn't, but it could be!

but it doesn't matter. at all. voter perception will doom him either way, and if you are someone making decisions about how to win the 2024 presidential election, you have to understand that

[decolonize-the-everything]

Article from July 27, 2022

Party representatives have claimed it’s because they want to highlight the extremism of today’s GOP, knowing that even candidates who are running as “moderates” will feel pressure to appeal to voters on their right flank. They have denied that it’s with the intent of making extremist candidates more appealing to a Republican primary base and because they think it will be easier to beat those kinds of opponents in November.

But that’s what it looks like to some Democratic operatives, who have mixed reviews of that strategy. Some think it’s too dangerous and that it could lead to some of those extremist candidates actually getting elected. Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson told Politico that the strategy of “putting people into positions where they may actually get elected and have control over the election system in this country — people who don’t believe in democracy — is a very, very risky strategy.”

Article from May 31, 2022

Diane Murray struggled with her decision all the way up to Election Day. But when the time came, the 54-year-old Georgia Democrat cast a ballot in last week’s Republican primary for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. While state law allowed her to participate in either party’s primary, she said it felt like a violation of her core values to vote for the Republican. But it had to be done, she decided, to prevent a Donald Trump -backed “election denier” from becoming the battleground state’s election chief. “I feel strongly that our democracy is at risk, and that people who are holding up the big lie, as we call it, and holding onto the former president are dangerous to democracy,” said Murray, who works at the University of Georgia. “I don’t know I’ll do it again because of how I felt afterward. I just felt icky.”

Raffensperger, a conservative who refused to support the former president’s direct calls to overturn the 2020 election, probably would not have won the May 24 Republican primary without people like Murray. An Associated Press analysis of early voting records from data firm L2 found that more than 37,000 people who voted in Georgia’s Democratic primary two years ago cast ballots in last week’s Republican primary, an unusually high number of so-called crossover voters

Article from August 28, 2024

The lawsuit, filed before a state judge in Atlanta, argues the rules violate a state law that makes certification a mandatory duty. The suit asks the judge to find the rules are invalid because the State Election Board, now dominated by allies of former President Donald Trump, is exceeding its legal authority.

The actions of the board alarm Democrats and voting rights activists, playing out against Georgia's background of partisan struggles over voting procedures that predates even the 2020 presidential election. It's a battle in yet another state over what had long been an administrative afterthought: state and local boards certifying results.

Just another day of totally healthy and fair elections and their outcomes thanks to Democrat's inability to stop literally sponsoring and platforming Trump supporters with their party's funds.

Yeah, that $81 million Kamala raised in a day?

This is most definitely what she's using it for.

And they think our rights are worth the win. The house fucking speaker said it herself in 2022

But hey at least democrats are doing this to us right

At least Trump didn't say he wanted us to have the most lethal military on earth, right? If HE said it'd be bad. But with Kamala it's fine.

Four years later, the DNC sounds a lot different, reflecting how public opinion toward immigration in general has soured as concerns over how secure the border is have risen. Gone are the heartfelt testimonies from undocumented immigrants, the repudiation of Trump-era policies, and the calls for better treatment of migrants and expansion of asylum protections. Instead, Wednesday evening’s speakers embraced tougher policies for asylum seekers, praised President Joe Biden’s attempts to negotiate a bipartisan border security bill, and conceded the changed reality of immigration politics since the pandemic’s dawn. In other words, Democrats’ speeches on immigration and the border were drastically different than the ones at the conventions of 2012, 2016, or 2020 — because reality and the public’s feelings have changed drastically too.

[tomorrowusa]

Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

[ladyluscinia]

If you are getting sick of the two-party system and elections running candidates you hate, or incumbents you can't rebuke without electing someone so much worse, or partisan primaries repeatedly giving you the wing of your too-large-tent party that sucks... You need to look into making voting reform a big part of your political priorities.

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) can be a big part of that!

And in 2024, RCV (also sometimes called IRV for "instant-runoff voting") is going to be on a lot of ballots, so check your state and get informed! Here's a list that I'm not sure is comprehensive, but I did research it for you to have somewhere to start:

First off, here's a post with some resources for you to do your ballot research with! I used Ballotpedia to look up this list, for example, after most of the RCV news only mentioned the 4 states with the most straightforward "vote yes for RCV" measures.

In Alaska... the state approved a RCV system in 2020 that has been a model success, but now the people with narrower support who lost their elections to broadly popular moderates introduced the Repeal Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative to repeal it. This will be on the Nov 5 ballot as an Initiative, and people need to Vote No.

In Arizona... it's possible that optional RCV and a workaround RCV ban will both be on the ballot. The ban from the Legislature doesn't stop RCV but prevents the primary system often used with it - the goal is to make RCV harder to implement. It will be on the Nov 5 ballot as Proposition 133, and people need to Vote No. The Eliminate Partisan Primaries Amendment has RCV options and has turned in its signatures, so it may be on the Nov 5 ballot - Keep Watch and Vote Yes if it appears.

In Colorado... a Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative modeled on Alaska's could bring RCV to state executive, state legislative, and congressional office elections. This may be on the Nov 5 ballot - Keep Watch and Vote Yes if it appears.

In Idaho... a Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative modeled on Alaska's will bring RCV to Congressional office, state legislature, elective state office, and county elective office elections. This will be on the Nov 5 ballot as an Initiative (1), and people need to Vote Yes.

In Missouri... the Missouri GOP has been shoehorning in deceptive Constitutional Amendments to reduce voter influence for the past several elections. This year it's a ban on RCV hidden under a useless ban on non-citizen voting (which is already illegal and the state Constitution already says "citizens" when saying who can vote). This will be on the Nov 5 ballot as the Require Citizenship to Vote and Prohibit Ranked-Choice Voting Amendment, and people need to Vote No.

In Montana... signatures have been submitted for two separate constitutional amendments, one establishing Top-Four primaries and another requiring a majority-vote system to be implemented (which would likely be a run-off or RCV system). These may be on the Nov 5 ballot - Keep Watch and Vote Yes if they appear.

In Nevada... In 2022 the first round of a Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative was approved by 52.94%. It has to be approved again in 2024 in order to be implemented. It will bring RCV to Congressional office, statewide executive, and state legislature elections. This will be on the Nov 5 ballot as Question 3, and people need to Vote Yes.

In Oregon... a Ranked-Choice Voting for Federal and State Elections Measure will bring RCV to Presidential, Congressional office, governor, Secretary of state, attorney general, state treasurer, and commissioner of labor and industries elections. This will be on the Nov 5 ballot as a Measure, and people need to Vote Yes.

And a bonus in South Dakota... it's not RCV, but the Top-Two Primary Elections Initiative (Amendment H) would be a significant voting reform, and it will be on the Nov 5 ballot. Do some research if you live there and decide if this would help or hinder elections.

[renthony]

Just curious. How bad has Biden been at controlling COVID-19 in your view?

First: I already responded to a similar question you left on this post.

Second: Biden has been atrocious for COVID-19 safety and management. COVID-19 is still killing people, and our president has done a horribly insufficient job in mitigating that. "Better than the Republicans" is not the same thing as "good" or "effective." Biden's abysmal reaction to COVID-19 is part of why I'm so thrilled that the Uncommitted campaign for the Democratic primary has achieved some success. That particular campaign is focused on ceasefire in Palestine, but the People's CDC explained in a statement how Palestine is also very much a public health issue. We need to scare the bastard and actually do some of that "pushing him left" that people claimed they'd do after getting him elected. Though it seems to me like a lot of people just settled for, "okay, we got rid of Trump, we don't have to worry anymore."

Third: While I'm at it, people have to do more than vote. You have got to get involved. You have got to do more than participate in the presidential election once every four years. Join a union (may I recommend the IWW?), follow the guidance of The People's CDC, volunteer for your local Food Not Bombs, get involved in a tenants union like the Autonomous Tenants Union Network, read Riot Medicine, get trained in first aid and get involved in a street medic group, read up on your local politics and get involved on the small-scale, do something in addition to voting in the presidential election. Even if you're limited in how much you can personally participate, find the people who are talking about these issues and signal boost them, and share the information with others who may be more able to participate more. If you can tell people to go vote in the presidential election, you can also tell them to go do other things, too.

Now, with all of that out of the way, here are some links related to Biden's abysmal COVID-19 response:

During his 2020 campaign, Biden promised immediate $2K stimulus checks. Instead, he delivered $1,400. Sources: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

Velena Jones for NBC Bay Area: "‘Too expensive': Bay Area residents shocked over new COVID vaccine prices"

Reuters: "COVID vaccine manufacturers set list price between $120-$130 per dose"

Joseph Choi for The Hill: "Free COVID-19 test program to be suspended for now"

Disability activist Alice Wong writing for TeenVogue: "Covid Isn't Going Anywhere. Masking Up Could Save My Life," and the follow-up article, "COVID and the 2024 Election: What Biden and Democrats Owe High-Risk People."

Laura Weiss writing for The New Republic: "Democrats Can't Keep Ignoring Covid in 2024."

David Cohen and Adam Cancryn for Politico: "Biden on '60 Minutes': 'The Pandemic is Over.'"

Alex Skopic for Current Affairs: "COVID-19 is Still a Threat. So is Biden’s CDC."

Adam Cancryn for Politico: "Biden Appears to be Over Covid Protocols."

Paul Thornton for the Los Angeles Times: "Covid Still Rages, and the Biden Administration Isn't Helping."

Eric J. Topol for the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?"

We should have free, universal testing. We should have free, universal vaccination. We should have free, universal treatment. We should have financial assistance for those of us who can't work outside the home. We should have mandated work-from-home for any job that can be done remotely. We should be emptying prisons and paying attention to the way disease and abuse proliferate inside their walls. We should have COVID-19 safety PSAs and government support for universal masking. We should have free distribution of N95s. We should have mandated masking in medical settings and public spaces. We should have a higher minimum wage. We should have healthcare reforms. We should have strong worker protections. We should have improved infrastructure. We should have a president who gives a single flying fuck about how many of us are dying.

And we have none of it.

But we sure seem to have money to keep dropping bombs, arming cops, terrorizing the vulnerable, and imprisoning innocent people to use for slave labor.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

Vice President Kamala Harris said Sunday she would work to win the Democratic presidential nomination in the wake of President Joe Biden’s shock decision to drop out of the race. “I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead.”

She is now the frontrunner to replace Biden at the top of the ticket and the only person to get his support. In her statement, Harris also thanked Biden, who picked the former California senator and state attorney general to be his running mate after she did poorly in the 2020 Democratic primary contest. “With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else,” she said.

Vice President and likely Presidential nominee Kamala Harris (D) responded to today’s news of President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 Democratic Presidential nomination race by vowing to “earn and win this nomination.” Harris should be our nominee, period.

Let’s make some herstory by voting in Harris to be first ever woman to lead the nation in 2024 be defeating Donald Trump! #Harris2024 #Harris47 #DefeatTrump #Herstory

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON — The White House plans to unveil new actions to lower the cost of housing, according to a fact sheet obtained by NBC News.

President Joe Biden will call on Congress to pass a law that would ensure landlords capped rent increases at 5% or faced losing out on federal tax breaks.

If it is taken up by Congress, the plan would apply to landlords who hold more than 50 units, meaning more than 20 million units nationwide could be affected, according to the White House.

There would also be exceptions for new construction and certain renovations.

“The policy is a bridge to rents stabilizing as President Biden’s plan to build more takes hold,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “The President believes that this combination of anti-gouging policies and historic levels of support to build more affordable housing effectively balances the needs of tenants without limiting incentives for more supply.”

Separately, the Biden administration is looking to sell extra federal land to be repurposed into affordable housing, according to the White House.The housing policies will be made public Tuesday as Biden visits Nevada, a key swing state in the election. Local officials in the state have identified more than 560 acres of public land that could be used for housing, the White House said, estimating that the land could be used to build up to 15,000 “affordable rental and homeownership units for Nevadans.”

The White House’s actions come against the backdrop of the first night of the Republican National Convention, where former President Donald Trump officially became the GOP presidential nominee.

The economy and the cost of living is one of Biden’s primary vulnerabilities in his re-election bid. An NBC News poll conducted in April found that voters preferred Trump over Biden by 22 percentage points on the issue of who would better deal with inflation and the cost of living.

At the same time, the poll indicated that 23% of registered voters found inflation and the cost of living to be the most important issue facing the country.

Biden won Nevada in 2020, though by a narrow margin. Multiple polls indicate Trump is slightly ahead of him in the state.

The overall race remains closely competitive, and an NBC News poll this month found that Biden trails Trump by 2 points nationally. The July poll’s results are similar to polling before Biden’s widely criticized debate performance.

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Jan. 6, 2024

"Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Legislation introduced Tuesday by a pair of Democratic lawmakers would close a loophole that lets billionaires donate assets to dark money organizations without paying any taxes.

The U.S. tax code allows write-offs when appreciated assets such as shares of stock are donated to a charity, but the tax break doesn't apply when the assets are given to political groups.

However, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations—which are allowed to engage in some political activity as long as it's not their primary purpose—are exempt from capital gains taxes, a loophole that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) are looking to shutter with their End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act.

Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has focused extensively on the corrupting effects of dark money, said the need for the bill was made clear by what ProPublica and The Lever described as "the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history."

The investigative outlets reported in 2022 that billionaire manufacturing magnate Barre Seid donated his 100% ownership stake in Tripp Lite, a maker of electrical equipment, to Marble Freedom Trust, a group controlled by Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.

The donation, completed in 2021, was worth $1.6 billion. According to ProPublica and The Lever, the structure of the gift allowed Seid to avoid up to $400 million in taxes.

"It's a clear sign of a broken tax code when a single donor can transfer assets worth $1.6 billion to a dark money political group without paying a penny in taxes," Whitehouse said in a statement Tuesday. "Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies."

"We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."

If passed, the End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act would ensure that donations of appreciated assets to 501(c)(4) organizations are subjected to the same rules as gifts to political action committees (PACs) and parties.

"Thanks to the far-right Supreme Court, billionaires already have outsized influence to decide our nation's politics; through a loophole in the tax code, they can even secure massive public subsidies for lobbying and campaigning when they secretly donate their wealth to certain nonprofits instead of traditional political organizations," said Chu. "We can decrease the impact the wealthy have on our politics by applying capital gains taxes to donations of appreciated property to nonprofits that engage in lobbying and political activity—the same way they are already treated when made to traditional political organizations like PACs."

The new bill comes amid an election season that is already flooded with outside spending.

The watchdog OpenSecrets reported last month that super PACs and other groups "have already poured nearly $318 million into spending on presidential and congressional races as of January 14—more than six times as much as had been spent at this point in 2020."

Thanks to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums on federal elections—often without being fully transparent about their donors.

Morris Pearl, chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires, said Tuesday that "there is no justifiable reason why wealthy people like me should be allowed to dominate our political system by donating an entire $1.6 billion company to a dark money political group."

"But perhaps more egregious is the $400 million tax break that comes from doing so," said Pearl. "It's a perfect example of how this provision in the tax code is used by the ultrawealthy to manipulate the levers of government while simultaneously dodging their obligation to pay taxes. We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."

[simply-ivanka]

A Minnesotan Sizes Up Tim Walz

During his tenure, student achievement has slipped, crime has surged, and state residents have fled.

By Scott W. Johnson - Wall Street Journal

St. Paul, Minn.

Tim Walz has such a bad record as Minnesota’s governor that I was astonished when he landed on Vice President Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential shortlist. As Minnesota’s Center of the American Experiment has documented, under Mr. Walz Minnesota has become a high-crime state. Student achievement has tumbled as spending on schools has skyrocketed. Per capita gross domestic product has fallen below the national average. Minnesotans have joined residents of New York, California and Illinois in fleeing their home state.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro—also on Ms. Harris’s shortlist—made sense to me. Pennsylvania is a key state. Mr. Shapiro seems to be a man of substance and would give liberal Jews a reason to vote for Ms. Harris without a guilty conscience. As a Jewish supporter of Israel, I worried that Mr. Shapiro would give the animus throbbing in the heart of the Democratic Party cover. Indeed, that animus drove a nasty intraparty campaign against him.

But Tim Walz? I’m a conservative Republican. I don’t completely understand Democrats’ ways. As an observer of Minnesota politics, however, I understand how Mr. Walz became governor. Having served six terms in Congress from a rural district, he challenged the endorsed DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) candidate—a liberal metro-area state senator, Erin Murphy—in the 2018 DFL primary. Ms. Murphy was also challenged by another metro-area liberal, Lori Swanson, then state attorney general. With Ms. Murphy and Ms. Swanson dividing the liberal urban vote, Mr. Walz and his far-left running mate, former state Rep. Peggy Flanagan, won the primary with 41%.

On taking office in 2019, Gov. Walz was restrained by a one-seat Republican majority in the state Senate—until Covid hit in the spring of 2020. He declared a state of emergency on March 25, 2020, and ruled by decree for 15 months. He proclaimed the emergency on the basis of an allegedly sophisticated Minnesota Model projection of the virus’s course in the state. In fact, the projection reflected a weekend’s work by graduate students at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Relying on their research, Mr. Walz presented a scenario in which an estimated 74,000 Minnesotans would perish from the virus. The following week the Star Tribune reported that with the lockdown Mr. Walz ordered, 50,000 would die. Maybe it would have been preferable to address the virus through democratic means.

Having destroyed jobs and impeded life routines, including family get-togethers and church attendance, Mr. Walz finally let his one-man rule lapse on July 1, 2021. When the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center stopped counting in March 2023, the deaths of 14,870 Minnesotans were attributed to the virus. (In 2020 I successfully sued the administration for excluding me from Health Department press briefings on Covid.)

During the state of emergency, protests broke out in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 following the death of George Floyd. That Thursday, rioters burned Minneapolis’s Third Precinct police station to the ground. Mr. Walz didn’t deploy the National Guard until the weekend. Riots, arson and looting throughout the Twin Cities caused about $500 million in damage.

Minnesota leads the nation in Covid fraud. Under the auspices of the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, its founder, Aimee Bock, allegedly recruited mostly young Somali men to seek reimbursement for millions of meals supposedly served to poor students and families. According to indictments handed up by a grand jury to U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, Ms. Bock and others allegedly defrauded the state and federal government of $250 million. Ms. Bock has pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges.

Among the 70 defendants charged to date, 18 have pleaded guilty. In April the first of the cases to go to trial had seven defendants; five were convicted. The remaining cases have yet to be tried. In all, the Minnesota Department of Education oversaw the payout of $250 million to reimburse fictitious meals. The nature and scale of the fraud are staggering. Mr. Walz tried to blame state district court judge John Guthmann, who in April 2021 handled a case regarding the department’s processing of applications for reimbursements. According to Mr. Walz, Judge Guthmann ordered the state to continue payouts to the alleged perpetrators of the fraud even after the state Education Department discovered it.

In September 2022, Judge Guthmann authorized a news release titled “Correcting media reports and statements by Gov. Tim Walz concerning orders issued by the court.” The release concluded: “As the public court record and Judge Guthmann’s orders make plain, Judge Guthmann never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF. The Department of Education voluntarily resumed payments and informed the court that FOF resolved the ‘serious deficiencies’ that prompted it to suspend payments temporarily. All of the MN Department of Education food reimbursement payments to FOF were made voluntarily, without any court order.”

In November 2022 Mr. Walz was elected to a second term, and the DFL won majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. In the preceding two years the state had accumulated an $18 billion budget surplus. With the DFL in full control, Mr. Walz and the Legislature have spent the $18 billion surplus on infrastructure, education and other programs that will burden the state for years. They have also raised taxes.

Mr. Walz and his DFL colleagues have backed measures establishing Minnesota as a mecca for abortion and a “trans refuge.” The legislation prohibits enforcing out-of-state subpoenas, arrest warrants and extradition requests for people from other states who seek treatment that is legal in Minnesota. It also bars complying with court orders issued in other states to remove children from their parents’ custody for authorizing hormone treatment or surgery to alter sex characteristics.

Like so many Democrats who have kept up with the demands of the progressive agenda, Mr. Walz has “grown” in office. In his second term, he has been the most left-wing Minnesota governor since the socialist Floyd B. Olson (1931-36). I doubt that Mr. Walz could be elected to Congress in his old district, which is now represented by a Republican. The idea that he can appeal to voters who don’t already support Ms. Harris seems far-fetched.

Mr. Johnson is a retired Minneapolis attorney and contributor to the site Power Line.

[qqueenofhades]

do you think there's a considerable amount of (young) people refusing to vote for biden because of i/p, or do you think theyre just a loud minority? i cant really tell, myself

I have been keeping a fairly close eye on polls (at least the good high-quality large-sample ones, not the numerous trash ones which currently flood the sphere), actual voting results, and other empirical data that relies on non-social-media blathering. And while we will still need more data and see if anything changes, at this point I think we can presume that any electoral effect of the I/P situation is already baked into Biden's expected results and performances, and I honestly don't think there's much, if any, of a measurable effect.

I say this because first of all, one of the most recent high-quality, large-sample youth polls (I think it was YouGov, but I can't be sure) had precisely 0% of voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority in 2024. There were other expected priorities: the environment, the economy, American democracy, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, etc -- but not foreign policy. Now, caveat emptor about this being only the people who respond to polls, the fact that most polls have been largely junk this primary cycle (notably, they have way overestimated Trump's performance and way underestimated Biden's), and so forth. However, even in libertarian New Hampshire, which tends to wander more than the other solidly-blue presidential election New England states (as a number of them still have Republican governors), "ceasefire" only garnered 1% of all write-in votes, and Biden won commandingly despite not being on the ballot. In South Carolina, he just won 97% statewide, and even the Democrats who skipped the primary due to it not being particularly interesting or competitive (as compared to the highly competitive open primary in 2020) still generally say that they plan to vote for Biden in November. So overall, Biden is doing even better at this point in the primary cycle than he was in 2020, where Sanders' early wins in Iowa and NH were generating chatter about an upset. Once again, this is early and we are working with a limited sample size, but despite everything, I think we can posit that the "Democrats/Black people/Hispanics/young people won't vote for Biden because of xyz issue and therefore We Are All Doomed" thesis is at best, considerably overinflated and at worst, totally untrue.

Likewise, to be blunt: the loudest voices shouting about how they will never vote for Biden because of the Gaza situation either don't vote at all, only voted once in 2020 under extreme duress and haven't voted since, and otherwise aren't being taken into account either in polls (which are bad data because they are by nature experimental and speculative) or actual voting results (which reflect the way real people actually voted in elections). The reason the YouGov sample might not have pulled any voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority very well could be because these people flat out don't vote and therefore won't pass any "likely" or "registered" voter screens, so despite all their yelling on social media, there's not been any actual impact. Now, this is not to say that there won't be; there has, for instance, been speculation that Biden might be hurt in states like Michigan, which have a large Arab-American population. Michigan is obviously one of the traditional Blue Firewall states that Hillary lost in 2016 and which Biden retook in 2020, and any electoral wobbling there would be ominous for his overall results. However, this is also reckoning without the fact that there is now a largish chunk of old-school GOP/independent voters who say they will not vote for Trump under any circumstances, with that number growing if he's explicitly convicted of a felony. Some of these voters might sit out, or vote for Biden, or maybe decide to vote for some stupid crackpot like RFK Jr., but the point is, if they do in fact not vote for Trump or even vote for Biden, that changes the electoral math.

Likewise: there are about 40,000 Arab-American voters in Michigan. Biden won the state by 154k votes, or 3.35%, in 2020. Even if every single one of those voters voted FOR Trump this time (which would be insane, but never mind), that alone would not be enough to flip the state from Biden, and that's reckoning without the votes that Trump will lose elsewhere. I've seen a few left-leaning publications such as the Guardian picking up the "will Biden's stance on Gaza hurt him in November" question, and the loud social media blabbermouths want to insist that it will because it makes them feel important, but at this point, I honestly don't see widespread electoral evidence of it, because, put bluntly: Democrats vote. Posturing social media "progressives" largely don't. Therefore for all the screaming they do, their views do not get incorporated into the actual results, which is a damn good thing for us.

So in short: No, as of right now, I don't think there is in fact a substantial anti-Biden protest vote, and the people threatening it the most were never going to vote for him anyway. This has gone on long enough that if it was going to flag up as a major thing, I think it would have. There will always be the idiots throwing away their vote on some stooge like Cornel West or Jill Stein (lol), but once again, these people were never going to vote for Biden in the first place and it is not necessarily the case that we need to put undue credence in their threats. Not that we can slack our vigilance, as we cannot and every single person who can vote blue in 2024 needs to fucking do so if they're interested in continuing to live in a democracy, but the situation is not apocalyptic, and yet again, the Online Leftists are far from the most reliable metric of how effective their screaming actually is. So, yeah.

[deadpresidents]

Maine only has four electoral votes, but unlike Colorado, Trump did win a portion of Maine's electoral votes in both 2016 and 2020. Because of how close most Presidential elections have been this century, every single vote in the Electoral College is extremely important. And as more states move to disqualify Trump from the ballot, the Supreme Court should act more quickly to consider whether or not these disqualifications should stand. The Court needs to start working on clarifying a lot of Constitutional questions that have never been tested in the United States because the election season is underway and we're going to end up in a very dangerous place if a twice-impeached insurrectionist with a rabid personality cult built around him, who is charged with 91 felony counts under indictments in four separate criminal trials and is openly speaking about being a dictator and getting revenge on his enemies, quickly wraps up a major political party's Presidential nomination.

[tomorrowusa]

While perhaps it's too early to call it a "masterstroke", Joe Biden stepping aside for Kamala Harris will probably turn out much better than any Democrat would have predicted a month ago.

Kamala Harris will likely be the next president of the United States – and that’s overall good news if you care about democracy, justice and equality. Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to bow out of the presidential race clears the path for the country to elect its first woman and first woman of color as president.

For people who need a historical reminder...

[M]ost people in this country typically choose the Democratic nominee for president over the Republican nominee time and time again. With the sole exception of 2004, in every presidential election since 1992, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote (Biden bested Donald Trump by 7m votes in 2020).

Now for more recent events.

If, in fact, support for Democrats among people of color is the principal problem, then putting Harris at the top of the ticket is a master stroke. The enthusiasm for electing the first woman of color as president will likely be a thunderclap across the country that consolidates the support of voters of color, and, equally important, motivates them to turn out in large numbers at the polls, much as they did for Barack Obama in 2008. The challenge the party will face in November is holding the support of Democratic-leaning and other “gettable” whites, especially given the electorate’s tortured history in embracing supremely qualified female candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams. (The primary difference between Abrams, who lost in Georgia, and Senator Raphael Warnock, who won, is gender.) Sexism, misogyny and sexist attitudes about who should be the leader of the free world are real and Democrats will have to work hard to address that challenge. One critical step to solidifying the Democratic base is for all political leaders to quickly and forcefully endorse and embrace Harris’s candidacy. Mathematically, it is likely – and certainly possible, if massive investments are made in getting out the vote of people of color and young people as soon as possible – that the gains for Democrats will offset any losses among whites worried about a woman (and one of color, no less) occupying the Oval Office and becoming our nation’s commander in chief.

We shouldn't forget that the VP's mom was born in India. A number of people in the growing South Asian community in the US who may not be especially interested in politics will be tempted to pause their disinterest and vote for Kamala. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have all had female prime ministers – so there's not exactly a taboo about women in power.

One way to measure enthusiasm for Kamala is to look at how much money is being raised by ActBlue. Not all the money ActBlue raises goes to the national ticket. I donated to a US Senate campaign in June via ActBlue. BUT the timing of recent donations leaves little doubt what the cause of the recent spike is.

For context, first some recent weekly totals (source)...

Week of June 30 through July 6 — $65,220,920

Week of July 7 through July 13 — $48,669,913

Week of July 14 through July 20 — $61,349,601

As of Noon today (CDT): Week of July 21 through July 27th — $150,042,360 and the third day of the week is just a little over half over. In the previous hour alone, roughly $2.44 million was raised.

These are small donations, not like the $45 million per month promised by multi-billionaire Elon Putz to Trump. So grassroots Dems are stoked and are out for a win.

ActBlue is fairly no-nonsense, it's not exactly Amazon in layout. So people are not drawn there by flashy graphics.

Kamala Harris — Donate via ActBlue