Republican 2024 hopefuls will gather in Simi Valley, California Wednesday as they lag far behind Donald Trump in the polls. Trump, satisfied with his decision to sit out the first debate, will do so again tonight.
When the candidates were asked if they’d still support Trump, even if it was discovered he had sold the nation’s nuclear launch codes to Putin, all their hands immediately shot up in the air.
Then Trump blessed this day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.…
Only to be roused prematurely by yet another pending indictment and word of yet more actionable fraud allegations against his biggest and most beautiful creation. (ed.)
They are all idiots.
Challenging Trump is how NOT to get the nomination…
Trump’s legal troubles may preclude his holding the nomination, but his ego will ensure to tank anyone who announced prior to his abdication…
Hilarity ensues…
If I had to bet my collection of gold bars and monogramed jacket stuffed with cash
I simply love Kate Riga’s writing.
She really blings out the best.
If you want to watch a different game show with more intellectual depth and moral spine than this NOT-A-DEBATE, I suggest The Masked Singer: bad costumes, dumb songs, C-list celebs, and banality galore.
I was thinking of scheduling a root canal.
So that arrogant little asshole Ramiswamy’s going to be there? I wonder how swarmy and loathsome he’s going to be today.
And, of course, anaesthetic will be an option I’ll forego until my finances stabilize in an unforeseen future.
Existentially speaking, that should make the two experiences about equal.
Of the 7 candidates, they can be divided into 3 groups; those actually trying to win the 2024 GOP nomination, those running to be Trump’s VP pick, and those running for the 2028 nomination.
Those actually running for the 2024 nomination are Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence.
Those running to be Trump’s VP are clearly Tim Scott, Dug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Finally, the most interesting and potentially problematic in regard to what they will say in tonight’s debate is Chris Christie and Nikki Haley as they are running to be the GOP after Trump whereas those running to be Trump’s VP are also looking at 2028 but they would be running as Trump.
President Joe Biden’s campaign has bought airtime on Fox Business Network, Fox News, and Univision to run two new political ads before and during Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate, The Daily Beast has learned.
During Wednesday night’s broadcast, the Biden campaign will unveil an ad targeting Latino voters. The English-language version, titled “The Difference,” will run on Fox News and Fox Business in select local markets. A Spanish version, “La Diferencia,” will air on Univision.
Another ad, which was announced on Wednesday morning, specifically takes aim at Trump and slams the ex-president’s record with union laborers ahead of his Michigan speech. It also comes just a day after Biden historically joined the picket line of strikers from the United Auto Workers. The ad, titled “Delivers,” will air ahead of the debate on Fox Business.
“He says he stands with autoworkers,” the campaign spot states. “But as President, Donald Trump passed tax breaks for his rich friends while automakers shuttered their plants, and Michigan, lost manufacturing jobs.
Good ads and glad to see them.
I know the exact spot. Simi Valley is a cop-only (practically) suburb of LA. I used to be a window cleaner up that way.
People think of CA as blue, but it really isn’t. We got hill people too.
I came across this recent Paul Krugman article about the current GOP.
His conclusion:
"Now, I don’t know how important these different factors are to the fact that America’s “populists” are anything but populist in practice. But we do need to ask why people who denounce elites somehow always manage to avoid targeting corporations not named Disney and billionaires not named George Soros.
The entire article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/opinion/columnists/republicans-populism-soft-corruption.html
There are currently two clown shows — sorry, but let’s be honest — going on in the Republican Party. One is the intraparty fighting that seems extremely likely to cause a government shutdown a few days from now. The other is the fight over who will come a distant second to Donald Trump in the presidential primaries.
There are many strange aspects to both shows. But here’s the one that has long puzzled me: Everyone says that with the rise of MAGA, the G.O.P. has been taken over by populists. So why is the Republican Party’s economic ideology so elitist and antipopulist?
Listen to the rhetoric of the people making Kevin McCarthy look like a fool or of the presidential candidates, and it’s full of attacks on elites — but also of promises to cut taxes for the rich and slash government spending that benefits the working class. For example, Nikki Haley — who is making a credible bid to be Trump’s also-ran, given Ron DeSantis’s implosion — is calling for big cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
As I write this, McCarthy is reportedly trying to appease MAGA dissidents with a temporary funding bill that would cut nonmilitary discretionary spending outside of Veterans Affairs by 27 percent — meaning savage cuts to things like the administration of Social Security (as opposed to the benefits themselves).
The thing is, such proposals are deeply unpopular. It’s true that Americans tell pollsters that the government spends too much, but if you ask them about specific types of spending, the only area on which they say we spend too much is foreign aid, which is a trivial part of the budget. Oh, and most Americans still support aid to Ukraine.
So there would seem to be an opening for politicians who are right wing on social issues like immigration and wokeness but are also genuinely populist in their spending priorities. Such politicians exist in other countries. For example, Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, whose party has deep links to the nation’s fascist past, ran last year on a platform calling for earlier retirement for some workers and increases in minimum pensions and child benefits.
So why aren’t there such figures in the G.O.P.? To be fair, during the 2016 campaign Trump sometimes sounded as if he might turn his back on Republican economic orthodoxy, but once in office he pursued the usual agenda of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy combined with benefit cuts for the rest.
Part of the answer may lie in the American right’s general mind-set, which valorizes harshness, not empathy. People who are drawn to MAGA tend to imagine that solving society’s problems should involve punishing people, not helping them.
Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of ignorance: MAGA politicians, who generally disdain any kind of expertise, may not have any clear idea of what the federal government does and where tax dollars go.
Finally, there’s the Clarence Thomas factor.
What I mean is that part of the explanation for the absence of genuine Republican populists may involve the gravitational pull of big money, which is both broader and subtler than the way it’s often portrayed.
If the accusations against Senator Robert Menendez are true — and it’s not looking good — old-fashioned bribery, payments to politicians in exchange for favors, hasn’t gone away. But it’s probably not shaping party ideology.
Campaign contributions, on the other hand, definitely do shape ideology; DeSantis was touted as a rival to Trump because he got a lot of support from big donors who believed he would serve their interests and had real political skills. (Being rich doesn’t necessarily come with good judgment.)
But there’s a sort of gray area that doesn’t involve outright bribes in the sense of money given in return for specific actions but nonetheless involves a form of soft corruption. For the fact is that public figures whom the very rich see as being on their side can reap considerable personal rewards from their positions.
Recent revelations about Justice Thomas show how this works. ProPublica reports that he has received many favors from ultrawealthy conservatives, notably lavish free vacations. These reports are shocking because we don’t expect such behavior from a Supreme Court justice, and Thomas may have violated the law by failing to disclose these gifts. But does anyone doubt that many politicians who favor tax cuts for the rich and reduced benefits for the working class, even as they rail against elites, receive similar favors?
And the hermetic information space of the American right surely facilitates this soft corruption. Suggestions of improper influence on right-wing officials and politicians won’t get much coverage on Fox News, except possibly for claims that they’re the victims of a liberal smear campaign.
Now, I don’t know how important these different factors are to the fact that America’s “populists” are anything but populist in practice. But we do need to ask why people who denounce elites somehow always manage to avoid targeting corporations not named Disney and billionaires not named George Soros.
“He will instead be counterprogramming — just as he did during the last debate — by delivering remarks before a crowd of current and former union members in Michigan.”
It’s unusual for a TPM writer to omit additional key context, such as the fact that Scab Donnie’s meetup with autoworkers was arranged by the chief of a non-union manufacturing shop. Jacobin reporter Alex Press has tweeted that a national right-to-work group is helping coordinate the event. In short, Trump is holding a more or less explicitly anti-union event, which the mainstream press is reporting as follows: Trump to meet with striking UAW members.
A rare slip at TPM, but as for the MSM, it’s beyond mere incompetence, at least to gross dereliction of duty, and well on the way to active malice.
Nice ads, good placement. Sounds like money well spent. But then that’s what Democrats strive for.
Republicans? Not so much.
Look at their budget process ; - )
a lot
