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2024 U.S. Election of President and Vice President

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  • Voted this morning, come what may.

    Early voting on this scale should've been available decades ago.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

    Comment


    • Trump’s ex-chief of staff warns his former boss would rule like a ‘fascist’


      Former White House chief of staff John Kelly, seen here on a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, France, in 2018, has criticized his former boss Donald Trump.

      Former Marine Gen. John Kelly, who was former President Donald Trump‘s longest-serving chief of staff, called Trump’s leadership style “dictatorial,” “fascist” and lacking empathy.

      Kelly is perhaps the most high-profile of Trump-era White House officials to publicly criticize their former boss, arguing that Trump is not fit to hold office again.

      “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators – he has said that,” Kelly said in an interview with The New York Times. “So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

      Kelly also accused Trump of being critical of those disabled, injured or killed while serving in the military.

      In response to Kelly’s comments, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told NPR Kelly has “beclowned” himself “and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

      “President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women,” Cheung added.

      Trump’s Democratic opponent Vice President Harris has sought to capitalize on the slew of former officials who now oppose Trump, holding events with them and urging moderate Republicans to vote for her, instead.

      In a town hall with Univision, Trump said that only a “small number” of his former officials have publicly said they won’t support him.

      Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper — who Trump fired, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence are among those who have been critical of Trump’s leadership since leaving office.

      According to The New York Times, recent Trump comments about using the military against the “enemy from within” sparked Kelly to speak out.

      The Atlantic also cited reporting that while his chief of staff, Kelly several times corrected Trump on his understanding of Hitler’s rule in Germany as a comparison for how to manage the U.S. military.
      ___________

      Still blaming empirical evidence on "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

      Comment


      • Mark Esper: Trump 'has those inclinations' toward fascism
        “I think it's something we should be wary about,” Trump’s former Defense secretary said.

        Mark Esper, who served as secretary of Defense under Donald Trump, backed former colleague John Kelly’s recent remarks that he believes Trump meets the definition of a fascist.

        Esper told CNN Wednesday that he has no reason to doubt Kelly’s “honesty or integrity” in relaying Trump’s previous comments. He encouraged the audience to look up the definition of fascism, as Kelly did, and ask whether Trump falls “into those categories.”

        “It's hard to say that he doesn't, when you kind of look at those terms. But, he certainly has those inclinations,” Esper said. “And I think it's something we should be wary about.”


        Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff and secretary of Homeland Security, said in interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic published Tuesday that Trump is “certainly an authoritarian” and that the former president once told Kelly he wished he behaved more like the “German generals,” and specifically “Hitler’s generals.” Trump’s recent statements about using the military against his political opponents compelled Kelly to speak out, he told the Times.

        The Trump campaign said Kelly’s statements were “debunked” and “fabricated” in a statement to POLITICO Tuesday.

        While Esper told CNN he had not experienced the type of incidents Kelly and others described, he recalled Trump being “very troubled by the fact that we would have America's wounded warriors out in public, and he did not like that.”

        “[Trump] just thought we should conceal them. And our view — my view, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — was that these were America's heroes and it was important to show the American people and their colleagues in the service that when our heroes come home wounded, that we take care of them,” Esper said.

        When asked whether checks and balances exist to prevent Trump from using the military to go after his political rivals, the former Defense secretary emphasized his trust in the military.

        “I fully believe that the uniform officers will live up to that oath to obey the Constitution and will not swear a loyalty oath to the president of the United States. And so my concern, of course, is to the institution,” Esper said.
        _______

        "Wary?
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • Can't help but wonder if Trump served more than just fries, but also touched the quarter pounders with unwashed hands after adjusting his leaky diaper.

          E. coli cases linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders rises to 75, federal agencies say
          https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/healt...ase/index.html

          McDonald’s didn’t give Trump permission to serve fries. It didn’t need to
          https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/21/busin...ent/index.html
          "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
            Can't help but wonder if Trump served more than just fries, but also touched the quarter pounders with unwashed hands after adjusting his leaky diaper.

            E. coli cases linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders rises to 75, federal agencies say
            https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/healt...ase/index.html

            McDonald’s didn’t give Trump permission to serve fries. It didn’t need to
            https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/21/busin...ent/index.html
            Everything Trump Touches Dies
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • Cant wait to see what Saturday Night Live does with this news.
              If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

              Comment


              • Trump’s National Security Advisers Fall Flat Defending Him
                Ross Douthat’s interview with two Trump administration alumni is revealing for what it conceals.



                THE LATEST EFFORT TO GIVE SHAPE, form, intellectual coherence, and respectability to Trump’s bluster and impulsiveness on matters of national security is New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s conversation with Robert O’Brien and Elbridge Colby.

                Douthat describes his interlocutors as “Republican foreign policy professionals [who] believe that Trump 2.0 would be a continuation of his first term, showcasing a grand strategy forged with both Trumpian and traditional Republican elements.” They could just as easily be described as, in O’Brien’s case, Trump’s national security advisor during the former president’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and in Colby’s case, one of the authors of the 2018 National Defense Strategy led by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis—though Colby has come to a very different conclusion from Mattis about Trump’s fitness for office and the prospects for a second Trump term.

                The interview could give the unsuspecting reader the idea that the foreign policy choice between Republicans and Democrats in this election is fundamentally the same as in, say, the 2012 election: The Republicans favor a more muscular foreign policy focusing on military strength, while the Democrats favor a softer, gentler, diplomacy-first approach. In other words, it is misleading—if not outright untrue—almost from beginning to end.

                O’Brien’s overall argument is that Trump’s administration operated along the Reaganite lines of “peace through strength” and asserts that the world was more peaceful under Trump because, for example, he provided lethal assistance to Ukraine in the form of Javelin anti-tank missiles and sanctioned Russia. Now the world is barreling toward World War III, which in his telling is obviously Joe Biden’s fault.

                Far from serious policy analysis, O’Brien’s argument is a jumble of partisan talking points. The Trump administration was marked by lots of bluster—and some good steps, like giving lethal assistance to Ukraine—but the failure to respond to Iranian aggression in the Gulf, including calling off retaliatory strikes on Iran because Tucker Carlson worried it would lead to escalation, and failure to respond to the Iranian attack on the Saudi Abqaiq oil facility, degraded U.S. deterrence in the region. Sanctions on Russia were imposed by Congress over Trump’s vigorous objections. The world barrelling toward World War III obviously has deeper roots than the past four years, and both Trump and Biden bear some responsibility for where we are.

                On Afghanistan, O’Brien intimated that he stopped a harebrained effort to precipitously withdraw from Afghanistan, that Trump agreed with him, and that Biden botched the withdrawal. That last part is true, but the first part—not so.

                The effort to withdraw recklessly from Afghanistan went completely around O’Brien, who was a weak national security advisor within the chaotic Trump administration. It wasSecretary of Defense Mark Esper and, after Esper was fired, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, whostopped the idea.

                O’Brien also carefully elides the fact that it was Trump who sought and sanctioned the Doha Agreement (signed by Mike Pompeo) behind the back of our Afghan partners, demoralizing them and setting the stage for the disaster that followed. He also ignored that the Trump administration never held the Taliban accountable to the terms of the Agreement. One of the Biden team’s early mistakes was retaining Trump’s Afghanistan negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, to carry out the agreement. What reason or evidence can anyone advance that an Afghan withdrawal under Trump would have been any better than it was under Biden?

                Turning to Ukraine, O’Brien proposes a plan—though, he cautions, not necessarily Trump’s plan—to escalate economic sanctions on Russia rather than escalate militarily to get them to the negotiating table.

                There are problems with O’Brien’s plan, but they don’t really matter because we know what Trump’s plan is. Trump has said hinted that he wants to end sanctions on Russia. More specifically, he has apparently endorsed the plan published by Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz of the America First Institute, which consists of threatening both sides, and when that fails, imposing the current lines of contact as an armistice line. (Colby essentially endorses this framework in his conversation with Douthat.) The plan would, in effect, ratify Putin’s aggression.

                The former national security advisor also asserts without evidence that Trump’s chumminess with dictators like Putin was a tool to have tough conversations with them that kept them off guard and guessing about his real intentions. This theory, while dubious, is impossible to disprove because we don’t really know what was said between Trump and Putin in their one-on-one meetings in Helsinki and Hamburg. Trump confiscated the translators’ notes.

                Perhaps the most easily disprovable of O’Brien’s assertions is that the Trump team spent four years rebuilding the military and replenished our depleted stockpiles of munitions. But the numbers don’t lie: Trump’s first two years saw 3 percent growth in the defense budget, followed by two flat budget years (which means slight decreases in defense spending due to inflation). The munitions accounts were not increased significantly. In fact, the 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission that I co-chaired with former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead pointed out that we nearly ran out of precision munitions in the counter-ISIL campaign—but virtually nothing was done to remedy the situation.

                When asked by Douthat whether the Middle East is a priority region for the United States, O’Brien starts his answer, “If you are a Jewish person . . .” Douthat saved him from saying something regrettable by redirecting the question.

                Elbridge Colby is more sophisticated than O’Brien and wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. He argues, as he has many times, including at book length (with a blurb from Douthat) that faced with limited resources, the United States must ruthlessly prioritize the Indo-Pacific theater because China is the most important long-term strategic threat to the United States.

                Colby’s policy therefore seems to have no hope of repeating the defense build-up of the 1980s. Call it “peace through retrenchment.” The National Defense Strategy Commission I co-chaired with Rep. Jane Harman calls for 3 to 5 percent real growth in defense spendingfor two years, followed by ramping up to roughly 5 to 6 percent of GDP thereafter—roughly the proportion of defense spending to GDP during the 1980s. Colby seems to believe that is impossible, which it would be if Trump were to realize all his irresponsible tax proposals.

                Moreover, the idea that we can prioritize among our commitments to allies—prioritizing those in East Asia and neglecting those everywhere else—ignores the fact that our allies themselves are indivisible to our national defense. Faced with declining American power relative to the rest of the world, Colby calls for alienating our friends, when the only logical option is to draw them closer. What happens in Europe has repercussions in Asia—just ask the South Koreans, or for that matter the Taiwanese and the Japanese.

                Almost everyone in Washington wishes it were easier to get America’s allies to bear more of the weight of their own defense, but it’s easier said than done—especially for Colby.

                For the United States, he advocates tailoring a foreign policy to what the American people are willing to support: “We need a willingness to grapple with the difference between what the American people are realistically willing and able to do and what we’re trying to do on the international stage.” (No argument there, though part of the job of politicians is to lead, not follow, public opinion.) And yet, puzzlingly, our allies don’t face the same constraints. “Europeans need to be the ones to step up,” he admonishes. “And Germany and Poland can do a lot more. . . . the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks and the Turks and the Brits and the French, with their naval forces, they could actually take a much more significant role. . . . Most of the Europeans are spending too little.” If convincing the public to spend more on defense is so hard for Americans, why should it be easy for our allies?

                Colby is well practiced at explaining and defending his iconoclastic and idiosyncratic view of foreign policy, but it’s not clear what it has to do with Trump, who has questioned whether or not we should defend Taiwan. He also neglects the valuable steps by the Biden team to improve our competitive position in the Indo-Pacific: AUKUS, additional base access agreements with allies, and improved coordination through the Quad and U.S.-ROK-Japan consultations, just to name a few.

                All of these elisions, omissions, and downright falsehoods don’t make a very convincing case that a second Trump term would be anything other than a train wreck with enormous damage to our alliances and to international security writ large.

                And the timing couldn’t be worse. Robert’s testimony that Trump loves our soldiers flies in the face of John Kelly’s and Mark Esper’s revelations that he considers dead service members to be “suckers and losers” and that he didn’t like seeing wounded warriors because it was a “bad look” for him. Milley, Mattis, Kelly, and Esper have all been in the news recently calling Trump’s views and fundamental fitness into question. If the guy at the top is an unstable admirer of fascists, then what his foreign policy advisers think doesn’t really matter that much.
                __________
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • Fires set in drop boxes destroy hundreds of ballots in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon



                  SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities, including the FBI, were investigating Monday after early morning fires were set in ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and in nearby Vancouver, Washington, where hundreds of ballots were destroyed.

                  The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in one ballot drop box at about 3:30 a.m. and determined an incendiary device had been placed inside. Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said a fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots; only three were damaged, and his office planned to contact those voters to help them obtain replacement ballots.

                  A few hours later, across the Columbia River in Vancouver, television crews captured footage of smoke pouring out of a ballot box at a transit center. Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.

                  “I hope the perpetrator of this reprehensible act is quickly apprehended — and local and federal law enforcement have my full support in working to keep our democratic process safe and secure," Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement.

                  She said she's requesting an overnight law enforcement presence posted at all ballot drop boxes in Clark County through Election Day.

                  “Southwest Washington cannot risk a single vote being lost to arson and political violence,” her statement said.

                  Representatives for Kent's campaign didn't immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment.

                  Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey in Vancouver told The Associated Press that the ballot drop box at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason it wasn't effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and Kimsey said hundreds were lost.

                  “Heartbreaking,” Kimsey said. “It’s a direct attack on democracy.”

                  There were surveillance cameras that covered the drop box and surrounding area, he said.

                  The last ballot pickup at the transit center drop box was at 11 a.m. Saturday, Kimsey said. Anyone who dropped their ballot there after that was urged to contact the auditor’s office to obtain a new one.

                  The office will be increasing how frequently it collects ballots, Kimsey said, and changing collection times to the evening, to keep the ballot boxes from remaining full of ballots overnight when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.

                  An incendiary device was also found on or near a ballot drop box in downtown Vancouver early on Oct. 8. It did not damage the box or destroy any ballots, police said.

                  In a statement, the FBI said it is coordinating with federal, state and local partners to actively investigate the two incidents. Anyone with information is asked to contact the nearest FBI office, provide information through tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI ( 800-225-5324 ).

                  Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the state would not tolerate threats or acts of violence meant to derail voting.

                  “I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state,” he said.

                  Voters were encouraged to check their ballot status online at www.votewa.gov to track its return status. If a returned ballot is not marked as “received,” voters can print a replacement ballot or visit their local elections department for a replacement, the Secretary of State’s office said.

                  Washington and Oregon are both vote-by-mail states. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a few weeks before elections and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes.

                  In Phoenix last week, officials said roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.
                  ________
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                    Fires set in drop boxes destroy hundreds of ballots in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon



                    SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities, including the FBI, were investigating Monday after early morning fires were set in ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and in nearby Vancouver, Washington, where hundreds of ballots were destroyed.

                    The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in one ballot drop box at about 3:30 a.m. and determined an incendiary device had been placed inside. Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said a fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots; only three were damaged, and his office planned to contact those voters to help them obtain replacement ballots.

                    A few hours later, across the Columbia River in Vancouver, television crews captured footage of smoke pouring out of a ballot box at a transit center. Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.

                    “I hope the perpetrator of this reprehensible act is quickly apprehended — and local and federal law enforcement have my full support in working to keep our democratic process safe and secure," Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement.

                    She said she's requesting an overnight law enforcement presence posted at all ballot drop boxes in Clark County through Election Day.

                    “Southwest Washington cannot risk a single vote being lost to arson and political violence,” her statement said.

                    Representatives for Kent's campaign didn't immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment.

                    Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey in Vancouver told The Associated Press that the ballot drop box at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason it wasn't effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and Kimsey said hundreds were lost.

                    “Heartbreaking,” Kimsey said. “It’s a direct attack on democracy.”

                    There were surveillance cameras that covered the drop box and surrounding area, he said.

                    The last ballot pickup at the transit center drop box was at 11 a.m. Saturday, Kimsey said. Anyone who dropped their ballot there after that was urged to contact the auditor’s office to obtain a new one.

                    The office will be increasing how frequently it collects ballots, Kimsey said, and changing collection times to the evening, to keep the ballot boxes from remaining full of ballots overnight when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.

                    An incendiary device was also found on or near a ballot drop box in downtown Vancouver early on Oct. 8. It did not damage the box or destroy any ballots, police said.

                    In a statement, the FBI said it is coordinating with federal, state and local partners to actively investigate the two incidents. Anyone with information is asked to contact the nearest FBI office, provide information through tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI ( 800-225-5324 ).

                    Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the state would not tolerate threats or acts of violence meant to derail voting.

                    “I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state,” he said.

                    Voters were encouraged to check their ballot status online at www.votewa.gov to track its return status. If a returned ballot is not marked as “received,” voters can print a replacement ballot or visit their local elections department for a replacement, the Secretary of State’s office said.

                    Washington and Oregon are both vote-by-mail states. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a few weeks before elections and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes.

                    In Phoenix last week, officials said roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.
                    ________
                    Someone’s getting scared
                    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                    Mark Twain

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by C-SPAN
                      Tuesday, 29 October 2024
                      Vice President Kamala Harris Full Speech on The Ellipse in Washington, DC
                      (29 min, 37 sec)

                      Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her “closing arguments” to voters in an address at The Ellipse in Washington, DC. Included in her remarks, ""Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is, but America, I am here tonight to say that is not who we are!" She also says, "I pledge to be a president for all Americans. And to always put country above party and self."
                      ...




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                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by LiveNOW_from_FOX
                        Friday, 25 October 2024
                        TRUMP: “We’re like a garbage can for the rest of the world”
                        (0 min, 46 sec)

                        (no description was provided with this video short clip)
                        ...
                        Last edited by JRT; 30 Oct 24,, 03:11.
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                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Forbes
                          Wednesday, 30 October 2024
                          ‘A Trump Presidency Would Be Significantly Inflationary’: Ian Bremmer Sounds The Alarm
                          (05 min, 01 sec)

                          President of Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer joined Brittany Lewis on "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the United States’s relationship with China, tariffs, trade and the infighting within the United States.
                          ...
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                          .

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by JRT View Post
                            ...
                            Since part of my family immigrated here by hoping on a boat only a few generations ago I am garbage. Well, damn, I am proud to be garbage. By the way Drump where did your family come from? Here?

                            Meanwhile all those Venezuelan gangs, driving around in old Toyota pickups pretending to be gardeners and roofers, I better keep an eye on. Maybe they are making drugs in my backyard and attic. Think I am kidding?

                            Comment


                            • Speak Out Now Republicans, Or You’ll Regret It
                              Going public with your concerns about Trump is vital, and it could still make a difference.



                              I HAVE A QUESTION FOR FORMER Trump administration officials, Republican electeds (and former electeds), business leaders, and conservative writers and pundits who recognize Donald Trump for the threat he is. Actually, it’s a question for anyone on the right who knows what Trump’s re-election could mean for the country, for liberal democracy, and for the world—and, who, in the face of this threat, has decided to maintain either a posture of silence or both-sides-are-bad neutrality.

                              My question is this:

                              How are you going to feel if Trump wins on Tuesday by an extremely narrow margin?

                              I suspect you’ll spend the next four years holding your breath.

                              Because if Donald Trump does a tenth of what he has promised—pulls the United States out of NATO, abandons Ukraine and sides with Vladimir Putin, puts RFK Jr. and Elon Musk in charge of serious parts of the American government, rounds up 15 million undocumented immigrants into camps and deports them, seeks political retribution on those who opposed his candidacy—I suspect you’ll come to regret your silence when you could have made a difference.

                              I can see you holding up your hands to show us how clean they are. Saying, “But I said Donald Trump was a threat! I said I wouldn’t vote for him! What more do you want from me?”

                              And I get that. I do. The problem is that this moment demands more from all of us.

                              It demands clarity. And it demands your leadership.

                              Over the course of your career you’ve asked people to trust you. Either by voting for you, or listening to your advice, or relying on your judgment and analysis.

                              So why is it suddenly a bridge too far for you to tell everyone what you really believe?

                              I understand that this moment is hard. Trump could win. Even if he doesn’t win, coming off the sidelines could alienate you from career networks, business opportunities, or even friends and family.

                              But being a leader means standing up and telling the truth even when it’s hard, or costly, or scary. Especially when it’s hard, or costly, or scary.

                              It’s still not too late. Every day, more people are speaking out—people with reputations, and reservations, but whose consciences won’t let them sit this one out.

                              You shouldn’t sit this one out, either. You should not decide, after a career in leadership, that this time you’d rather just be a spectator.

                              Maybe you think that adding your voice wouldn’t matter to voters. After all, so few things seem to move the needle. Well I’m here to tell you that it matters. It all matters. Every little bit. You do not know who’s listening as the moment approaches to cast their vote. You do not know who you might persuade at the eleventh hour. And you do not know what the margin will be. If this election is decided by 9,000 votes in Pennsylvania—which is absolutely a real thing that could happen—then every single input could be the tipping point.

                              I can’t see the future. I don’t know if your endorsement would be the difference maker. Just like I don’t know what price you would pay for speaking out more clearly.

                              What I do know is this: If you abdicate the obligations of leadership in this moment and the thing you fear comes to pass, you will regret having stood down when the country needed you to stand up. You will regret it for all of your days.

                              MAYBE YOU ARE A RETIRED FOUR-STAR GENERAL, or cabinet secretary, or someone who took a job as a political appointee in the Trump administration and saw things that shocked your conscience. And maybe you’ve told reporters about what you saw; or written about it in a book. That’s not enough because books have a relatively small reach and your words are mediated through paper. What’s needed is for you to look voters in the eye and give them a direct warning about what a second Trump term might mean. Especially now that you won’t be on the inside to try to protect the country from him.

                              Maybe you’re a former Republican president, or presidential nominee. Maybe you were once the leader of the party Donald Trump has destroyed. I am sorry but the unpleasant fact is that you cannot preserve your influence for some future GOP. This is actually the last moment in which you have a chance to influence it. Your party, every bit as much as your country, needs you. Right now.

                              Maybe you’ve led venerable conservative publications. You’ve acted as a thought leader. Someone shaping our political culture. But today you want to keep your hands clean by writing in Edmund Burke on your ballot or some other nonsense protest candidate—as a sign that you kept your purity. I understand this impulse. But it’s wrong. You know that if yours was the single deciding vote, you’d vote for Harris. So just say so. This isn’t an academic exercise and it’s not about you.

                              Maybe you’re a billionaire, to whom this country has given everything. Your wealth insulates you from the consequences of the worst case Trump scenarios. And yet, you see Trump’s transactional nature, his willingness to provide favor if you provide obedience, and instead of standing up to Trump, you cower. This might seem like wisdom, but it’s not actual safety. There will be more demands. The only way to actually protect your business is for the rule of law to be victorious and democracy to be stable.


                              FOR MONTHS, YOUR COUNTRYMEN have been waiting for you to tell them the full, unvarnished truth about the danger you believe Donald Trump presents. To tell everyday Americans the same words you say in green rooms, at dinners, and in off-the-record conversations. You haven’t gotten there yet, but you still can. Before you make your final decision, think about Liz Cheney’s warning that some day Donald Trump will be gone, but the choices we make today will be with us forever.

                              Choose honor. It’s the choice you’ve made again and again in your professional lives. It would be a sin to stop choosing it because of a mountebank like Donald Trump.

                              I want to tell you about some Republicans who are already putting themselves on the line for democracy. They don’t have security details, or staff, or budgets. They’re just regular people who voted for Trump before, but refuse to support him again. They joined Republican Voters Against Trump to get the word out to their friends and neighbors. A few of them have lost jobs. Some of them have lost family. All of them have lost friends. None of them regrets it.

                              They’ve put their faces on billboards across the country. They’ve appeared in millions of dollars worth of paid ads running in their own communities. They’ve taken part in text campaigns, spoken to the media, knocked on doors, and traveled to swing states in the hopes of making a difference.

                              If Kyle from Alabama, or Jackie from Michigan, or Robert from Pennsylvania, or Jim from Wyoming can speak out, then so can the generals, politicians, and thought leaders.

                              THE REASON I BELIEVE THAT every little bit counts is because conservative-leaning voters say that to me all the time.

                              In swing-voter focus groups, one thing I hear again and again is that voters are open to hearing from the leaders who served under Trump, who were in the room with him. The messenger is as important as the message, and these people are ready to believe the words of a lifelong Republican or flag officer much more readily than they’ll believe a Democrat telling them the same things.

                              So if you’re one of the small number of people who can make a difference in this moment, the question is: What are you going to do?

                              Courage is contagious. And I have one last piece of advice: No one ever regrets doing the right thing.

                              You won’t regret it, either. So stand up. Do the right thing. It’s our last chance.
                              ______
                              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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                              • >>> spoiler alert <<<


                                Originally posted by the_guardian
                                friday, 01 november 2024

                                european greens ask jill stein, us green party leader to withdraw from presidential race to prevent donald trump victory.

                                A coalition of european greens have urged the us green party’s nominee, jill stein, to pull out of next week’s election and endorse kamala harris to stop donald trump from becoming president.

                                Green parties in 16 european countries from portugal to ukraine distanced themselves from their us counterparts in a statement on friday, and called for stein to withdraw from the race.

                                “we are clear that kamala harris is the only candidate who can block donald trump and his anti-democratic, authoritarian policies from the white house,” they wrote.

                                The signatories include green parties from several countries in which they govern as part of coalitions, such as germany, ireland, belgium and spain. The parties said there was “no link” between the greens in europe and the us.

                                “the us greens are no longer a member of the global organisation of green parties,” they wrote. “in part, this fissure resulted from their relationship with parties with authoritarian leaders, and serious policy differences on key issues including russia’s full scale assault on ukraine.”

                                the us electoral college system disadvantages small parties such as the greens, which attract 1-2% of support in opinion polls.but their influence could still sway the overall outcome by drawing away support for the two main parties in key battleground states.

                                as of 30 october, polls put harris at 47% and trump at 46% – but analysis shows even minute shifts in voter behaviour can decide who ends up in the white house.

                                in the us, the green party has been called “not serious” by alexandria ocasio-cortez, the progressive democratic congresswoman from new york. “all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious,” ocasio-cortez posted on instagram last month. “to me, it does not read as authentic. It reads as predatory.”

                                the us greens said the european greens were reiterating “intense partisan invective, smears, misinformation, and democratic party talking points.” they criticised the democrats for increasing oil and gas production and providing military aid to israel.

                                They also suggested the us greens were drawing support from people who had no desire to vote for either of the two main candidates.

                                “european greens can endorse whomever they please in a us election but we invite them to communicate directly with us to understand our positions and participation in elections, and to support our demand for a national popular vote by ranked-choice voting (rcv) for president, which would eliminate the alleged spoiler factor.”

                                “the democratic party has ignored and rejected this demand, which leads us to suspect that democrats would rather lose to republicans like trump than tolerate the presence of more than two parties in us elections.”

                                trump has dismissed the climate crisis as a hoax and promised to scrap spending on clean energy while unleashing a wave of oil and gas expansion.

                                During trump’s last term in office, the us became the first country in the world to pull out of the 2015 paris agreement on climate change. The un secretary general, antónio guterres, in an interview with the guardian on the sidelines of a biodiversity summit in colombia this week, , compared the prospect of a second us departure from the treaty to losing a limb but surviving.

                                “we don’t want a crippled paris agreement,” he said. “we want a real paris agreement.”
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