All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[Tami]

Politics aside, the non-stop media coverage of Trump is really exhausting.

Even after he was voted out, almost everything he does is covered extensively by the media.

I know he has several court cases but I'm personally tired of seeing his orange face on tv.

Seriously, apart from on the mainstream media, I don't see anything from "Truth Social" or whatever it's called. The media has done an excellent job of amplifying Trump's nonsensical messaging.

Maybe that's the real purpose why the Iowa Republicans insisted on going first. Anything to get the news media's attention nearly on.

[lilyrose]

I'm not convinced those 49% won't just fall in line easily, tbh. It's probably just wishful thinking, unfortunately.

[Jack Dracula]

He does have another potential choice.

He could decide not to run, and then back another candidate wholeheartedly.

Being brutally honest, given his age it feels that not making sure there’s an obvious successor has been a massive error.

Biden’s administration has made a lot of unforced tactical errors over the last few years. Frankly, it’s frustrating as hell.

[Jack Dracula]

I think the biggest factor in elections is incumbency. The second biggest is how you did on the economy. It would be complete madness for Democrats not to go with Biden just because he is older.

This would make more sense if his administration had been much more vocal about his accomplishments instead of letting the narrative be about his age. That really should be the last thing brought up right now.

[Jack Dracula]

I thought all the really horrible and stupid states were in the south...but Iowa may take the cake with this:

Because the right-wing propaganda sites have convinced them Trump’s legal troubles are a “witch-hunt”.
They’ll also stand aside and let Trump weaponize the DOJ after he’s elected because in their minds it’ll be justified.

[Jack Dracula]

I'm not convinced those 49% won't just fall in line easily, tbh. It's probably just wishful thinking, unfortunately.

The Iowa caucus isn’t a reliable indicator. The bitter cold and football kept a lot of people home and why should MAGA people bother going out when it’s obvious to everyone Trump was going mop the floor with his competitors? The main thing is showing up to vote.

[Mister Mets]

The 49 percent was the combined total for all the other Republican candidates.

Sure, it’s true that some of that 49 percent won’t vote for Trump.

But then I might well be wrong, I can’t understand why any sane person would vote for him, so must be missing some obvious point.

Plenty of the 49 percent will still see Trump as a second choice, especially among the 7.7 percent that went for Ramaswamy.

There are also some DeSantis backers who prefer Trump to Haley (they see Haley as too interventionist.)

Maybe that's the real purpose why the Iowa Republicans insisted on going first. Anything to get the news media's attention nearly on.

Iowa has been going first for generations. The only change is that it may be harder to justify.

It's not 60% of new illegal immigrants, it's 60% of the total illegal immigrants residing in the country. And it's that way because most who over stay their visas stay here while many who cross borders illegally eventually return home.

What's the source for this?

How do we determine that Visa overstays are so much likelier to stay in the US than people who cross borders illegally?

There are major differences from 2016 with border crossings. More people are doing it with their families.

Kamala Harris isn't the obvious successor. She's done what most VP's do, go do the job quietly. There's also the fact that while I would be ready to vote for her, I know that the country isn't ready for a woman to be president yet. Whomever that would be would have to be extremely charismatic and beloved to overcome it. Add that she's a person of color, and there's no way you get crossover appeal to pull GOP voters, given that it has now become a white nationalist party.

I think the successor lying in the weeds is Gavin Newsom.

2 days behind on the blog, so today's a catchup day, for sure.

If Joe Biden were to announce that he's not the nominee, his Vice President would seem to be the obvious establishment favorite.

The argument that the party needs to nominate a white guy (I don't buy it, incidentally) doesn't seem like it would go over very well.

ABC had a decent take on what would happen if a leading candidate dropped out during the primaries.

https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-tru...y?id=106136493

But I'm trying to figure out how someone other than Harris wins either by entering primaries at the last minute (we can assume some states would change filing rules if Biden announced tomorrow that he's not up for another term as President), at a brokered convention or after Biden is nominated at a convention.

Harris would seem to have a heavy start with delegates.

[Username taken]

https://us.yahoo.com/news/almost-two...152621292.html

Almost two-thirds of Canadians in a new survey said they are concerned that U.S. democracy will not survive another term under former President Trump.

The poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that 64 percent of Canadians strongly agreed or agreed that U.S. democracy would not survive four more years with Trump in the White House. Nearly 50 percent of Canadians also agreed that the U.S. is “on the way to becoming an authoritarian state” as the election season ramps up.

A slightly smaller percentage of Canadians surveyed, 62 percent, said that the U.S. would be “much worse” if Trump were elected again in November. In contrast, just 19 percent said the same of President Biden.

The Canadian respondents also expressed concerns that there are not enough safeguards to prevent fraud and cheating in this year’s election. Sixty-one percent said they are not confident at all or not very confident that the U.S. elections have enough measures to prevent interference in 2024.

No ****...

[Tami]

Canadian man who claimed wildfires were a federal conspiracy admits arson

A Canadian man who claimed forest fires were the result of a government conspiracy has pleaded guilty to lighting more than a dozen blazes during the country’s record-breaking wildfire season, as nearly 100 fires persist in drought-stricken regions.

Brian Paré admitted to 13 counts of arson and one count of arson with disregard for human life at the courthouse in central Quebec, an act that drew away key firefighting resources from nearly 700 fires in the province last summer.

Those blazes, which required the aid of international fire crews, charred more than 4.5m hectares of boreal landscape. Virtually all of those fires were caused by lightning strikes, the Quebec’s fire service says.

But at the courthouse in the town of Chibougamau, prosecutor Marie-Philippe Charron said on Monday two of the 14 fires lit by Paré forced the evacuation of 500 homes, the Canadian Press reported. The largest fire lit by Paré consumed nearly 873 hectares of forest.

Police later obtained a warrant to install a tracking device on Paré’s vehicle and found he travelled to locations where other fires were started.

After he was arrested in September, he admitted to starting nine fires and “claimed he was doing tests to find out whether the forest was really dry or not”, Charron told the court.

[Username taken]

Nimarata says the US has never been a racist country.

She says its had racism but it was never a racist country.

I guess all the years of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow never happened in Nimrata's world.

[numberthirty]

Without trying to be gloomy, this was a disconcerting read...

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/here...pt-out-in-2024

Gen Z Voters Say They Are Opting Out of the 2024 Election

For the first time since he became eligible to vote, Elias, 26, isn’t going to cast a ballot for president in the next election. Lillian, 20, hasn’t decided whether she’s going to vote or not. Lia, 28, is going to leave the spot for “president” blank on her ballot. And Zach, 22, is having a hard time convincing some of his friends that their vote matters.

After a record-breaking youth turnout in 2020 helped decide the election for President Joe Biden, a recent poll released by the Harvard Kennedy School shows that young Americans seem less likely to vote in 2024 than they were in 2020. According to the poll, at this point in the 2020 election cycle, 57% of Americans between ages 18 and 29 were planning to vote; that number has since declined to 49%. Though Gen Z voters prefer President Biden over his likely challenger, former president Donald Trump, only 35% of this demographic approves of Biden’s performance as president.

Given that young voters helped secure a win for Biden in 2020, lower youth-vote turnout in 2024 could change the outcome of the election. Still, some left-leaning young people have decided to abstain rather than vote for Biden or the Democratic Party, a candidate and a system some say they simply cannot support.

The first time Elias voted, it was 2016, when he reported to an elementary school polling place near his college campus. He was proud to cast his vote and perform what he saw then as his civic duty. For the upcoming election, however, Elias says he isn’t going to cast a vote for president, partly to send a message to Democrats, who he believes don’t take their voters’ preferences into account. “I think power is a language that they understand, and by refusing to put them into power, we’re forcing them to listen to us,” he explains. “They can’t… plug their ears and turn their heads away.”

Elias, who is Palestinian American, has a laundry list of issues with the current administration that have pushed him to this point, including sales of new oil and gas leases and Biden’s support of Israel. For Elias, the deciding moment came when Biden cast doubt on the Gaza Health Ministry’s reported death tolls. “I just found that to be truly monstrous,” he says. “It’s something I cannot cosign with my name and my vote.”

For Elias, the answer to this hypothetical question depends on expectations. “We don’t have any illusions about who the Republican Party is or what they stand for. We know they’re dangerous for our communities,” he says. “The logic of not voting for Joe Biden in 2024 is that the Democratic Party is supposed to be accountable to young people and diverse communities.”

Joshua Martin, a 21-year-old college student and political director for College Democrats of America, says the focus needs to be not only on registering voters but on actually getting them to the polls. Part of that effort, Martin adds, is simplifying the message: “[I’ll say], ‘Hey, you want to buy a house after college, right? You want to have a good-paying job after you graduate, right? You want to be able to have access to health care?” When Martin speaks to his fellow college students, he says he tries to keep his language spare. For example, instead of talking about Roe v. Wade, which can be confusing for someone who isn’t super politically aware, he’ll talk frankly about abortion rights. He’s frustrated by the possibility of lower voter turnout, but he believes there is time to change the tide.

Lillian, a college student in New York, is undecided about voting this year. She’s been disappointed by the Democrats on so many issues, including Biden’s promise to forgive $10,000 of student loans, which was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court; the party's neglecting to further efforts to codify abortion; and the president’s support of Israel.

And then there’s the Electoral College. For Lillian, it’s difficult to feel like her vote matters in a state that has gone blue since 1980 and a rural county that generally swings red. "The whole [voting] thing is a symbolic gesture,” she says. “If we had a more direct voting system, I would participate more. The Electoral College is scum.”

Lillian adds, "And it’s not that young voters are too lazy to get to the polls — it’s deeper than that. It’s hopeless [to us],” she says. “The collective vibe is hopelessness.”

Lia voted for Biden in 2020, but is considering withholding her vote in 2024 because of what she sees as the disappointing outcomes of his presidency. She doesn’t agree with Biden about funding Israel’s war on Hamas, and she’s saddled by student loans the president said he would forgive. “It felt like kind of a con,” she says about then-candidate Biden’s proposal to forgive $10,000 of student loan debt per borrower. “I don’t want to vote for Biden. I want a better option.”

London, 24, doesn’t want to hear a guilt trip for not planning to vote in the 2024 presidential election. It won’t work, she says, and stop telling her that Biden is the lesser of two evils because she’s tired of that argument. “Every four years we’re told to choose the lesser of two evils and things will get better,” she says. “And it just doesn’t get better.”

[Username taken]

Without trying to be gloomy, this was a disconcerting read...

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/here...pt-out-in-2024

The large number of undecided folks (across all demos) is likely why Trump is leading Biden in the polls.

This is a big problem for Biden because this could be a 2016 all over again.

It could all change before November but there's work to do for Biden and his team.

[Mister Mets]

Nimrata says the US has never been a racist country.

She says its had racism but it was never a racist country.

I guess all the years of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow never happened in Nimrata's world.

Why do you call her Nimrata?

[Tami]

Why do you call her Nimrata?

Ask WPP, he might know.

[Username taken]

Why do you call her Nimrata?

That's her name- Nimarata Nikki Haley.

(I edited the original post to spell Nimarata correctly).