Donald! Trump!

Fatty looking pretty angry earlier today

What do you notice in this video of Trump at his Bedminster golf course today? pic.twitter.com/4dKffU2IPU

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 15, 2024

Press conference seems to be going as expected.

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1824195621319749987

This is good just for the Tango and Cash reference and Trump is a scab.

Damn commies gonna give everyone health care.

https://x.com/JuddLegum/status/1824544757235978359

Damn commies gonna give everyone health care.

This is something I just cannot understand. The Republicans were vehemently opposed to Obama helthcare plans, so it isnt something new, but why are they opposed to such stuff? Surely anyone can see it is for the good of everyone to get some type of healthcare plan? The ridiculously high cost of treatment in the USA would make you think that the bulk of people would be really happy for the Government to provide some cover for them, but a large minority are against it. It’s baffling.

The Republicans were vehemently opposed to Obama helthcare plans, so it isnt something new, but why are they opposed to such stuff? Surely anyone can see it is for the good of everyone to get some type of healthcare plan?

It’s just politics. Obamacare was modeled on Romneycare, which Romney introduced when he was the Governor of Massachusetts (which is a pretty liberal state). Democrats thought that Republicans would get on board with it because it was basically a Republican health-care plan. What they didn’t count on was the scorched earth strategy that the modern GOP has adopted of absolutely rejecting anything that a Democratic President supports. The recent border security bill is a prime example – it was basically everything that the Republicans had been demanding but when Biden agreed to do it, they changed their minds and tanked it purely because they didn’t want to give Biden a bipartisan win.

Trump kept on promising that he would replace Obamacare with something better but he personally knew nothing about the details of it and Republicans couldn’t come up with any alternative that made any sense (because Obamacare was a Republican policy in the first place.) They don’t have any alternative policy, they’re just opposed to anything that Democrats support.

The problem with Health Care as a topic in the US is the odd way it has always been delivered. There are plenty of countries that have an insurance based healthcare system but in the US your health isn’t in the hands of your doctor, it’s in the hands of your employer’s HR department. Healthcare has therefore become an employment ‘perk’. So it’s not just a case of having healthcare or not having healthcare, it’s one of having incrementally better healthcare than the next guy.

It has become part of the rewards system of little pats on the head people get for doing a good job. All sorts of workplace rewards are absurd. I remember during the small portion of my life where I actually had a job needing to order a new chair and being shown the catalogue and the specific chair specs that went with my grade – somewhere in the middle between ‘admin’ and ‘the manager’ so my chair could have armrests, unlike our admin assistant who didn’t qualify for them, but it couldn’t have adjustable lumber support like my bosses, because thats for a different class of employee. It didn’t matter that Jeanette the office admin was the only person in the office who actually had to sit in her chair all day.

All these little rewards, a parking space nearer the door, being senior enough to not have to wear the company’s stupid uniform, a nicer office, they’re not a material difference like actually taking home more pay but they signal to everyone the comparative worth to the employee by giving them something that others pointedly don’t have.

So by accident rather than design thats how healthcare works in the states, it was never the idea, but by making healthcare an employer-managed system that meaning that has become attached, and becuase thats been happening for a century or so its baked into the society. The boss gets the better healthcare package even though its the guys in the warehouse that do the real physically strenuous work – they need better care, but its more important for it to be clear that the boss deserves better care.

And sadly it really, really works. Although everyone views the unfairness of healthcare provision as tragic and pity those that suffer for the lack of it, making it universal also robs people of that sense of reward. You’re giving away something that they feel like they’ve earned on merit.

And it also means that U.S. unions see healthcare coverage as a benefit they have fought for so they have no incentive to fight for universal health care (not saying they oppose it, but they’re happy with insurance based health care.)

Roger Stone documentary (iPlayer – watch it if you’re into rats in a sack). He lightly mocks the socialist healthcare system that the Danish documentary maker relied on during the making (it’s a plot twist), but you can tell it’s mocking and not jocular.

Universal healthcare in the US would be a tax, it would also need a nationwide bureaucracy to administrate it.  Republicans in general are against tax rises and larger government.

Knowing a fair few Americans, I’d also suspect there’s an aspect of “why should I work hard to pay for them?”  It’s often very much a case of making YOUR money, YOUR life, YOUR American dream.

“why should I work hard to pay for them?”

I heard this expression on a BBC radio program at a gop convention years ago. Why should my money go towards saving this little girl? She’s nothing to do with me.

I was repulsed by it then and still am

Not a massive fan of Anthony Scaramucci, he makes my teeth itch much of the time. But the second half of this was a very good insight into traditional Republican thinking Vs Trump’s version of Republican thinking. I.e. getting behind the crack pot persona and understanding how the Trump administration led (arguably not the right word!) the nation in his time in office.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1XzmUtVvoMSa9P7bH7ca6P?si=C3nYeS_hTwSjMBIXgrSksA

On healthcare, it’s part of the reward package – get a job offer, then off for a medical to work out how much of an employer contribution goes towards healthcare and then the remainder is remuneration. But like the UK, some industries are becoming heavily reliant on immigrant workers because US citizens are too costly to deploy.

Trump’s relationship with Project 2025 is proving an interesting watch. Something he’s prone to do when things aren’t going well is he starts to reject the help and advice of his helpers and advisors and just starts free styling and shooting from the lip (which is exactly what he’s helpers and advisors spend all their time trying to stop him from doing so things don’t go badly)

So he’s started telling everyone “he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025” and has even started to get his crowds to boo them. They pretty much are his campaign however, and as well as a 900 page document detailing their plans for, erm, facism –  they’ve set up a sort of MAGA Linkdin to recruit and coach loyal henchmen to put in place when they enact that plan which basic involves purging the Whitehouse.  government and civil services of anyone who isn’t Trump-loyal, so that the 900 page plan for fascism can be implemented without any inconvenient resistance.

They also have an induction video for all theses would-be / soon to be MAGA drones. One that seems to suggest that if Trump  applied for one of these jobs he wouldn’t get it 🙂

Of course they don’t want him in the Whitehouse, they just want him to lie down so they can use him as a doormat to get themselves in the Whitehouse.

Blue collar republicans like national health care. They just don’t know it’s national health care and think they are protecting the limited public health benefits they have by campaigning against “Obama care” etc.

What was the other group that did this in his previous campaign and ego trip? They managed to get a swathe of their team into positions of power and have been creaming off money and power ever since…seems to be the same situation just less subtle!

Q anon?

What was the other group that did this in his previous campaign and ego trip? They managed to get a swathe of their team into positions of power and have been creaming off money and power ever since…seems to be the same situation just less subtle!

Jones Day – a team of lawyers who made their money/reputation representing plucky underdogs like the tobacco industry, opioid manufacturers, guns, oil – you know, the good guys – in cases against government regulators seeking to mitigate the harms those companies subject on US citizens . They decided to get into political campaigning at a time when Trump was launching his initial nomination (probably not at the time expecting, or even wanting to actually get nominated). They decided to back / support Trumps campaign early on becuase they could see he was an empty vessel which made him the perfect vehicle for their own plans. Once he was in the Whitehouse they got themselves appointed to various Whitehouse posts (becuase Trump had no idea who to appoint)  and used those posts to make numerous legal appointments in the courts – many of the jobs for life – that they packed with other Jones Day employees. Then they seemed to just quietly moonwalk away.

Now as a law firm they’re in a unique position to be able to represent their clients in courts where the judge ruling on the case owes them their job, has probably worked for Jones Day before, and if it isn’t a lifetime appointment, will know theres a job for them Jones Day in future.

What they particularly aimed to do was pack the legal system with judges who  were antithetical to federal authority, aiming to undermine the states role in moderating the excesses and exploitative actions of corporations (ie – their clients)

They also have an induction video for all theses would-be / soon to be MAGA drones. One that seems to suggest that if Trump  applied for one of these jobs he wouldn’t get it 🙂

I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if they tried to reframe Trump as a “freedom fighter” and quash all his convictions… Or at least, i reckon that’s what trump thinks (and the Jan 6 nutters!)

Even though Trump only seems to think in insults the only thing he cares about is being flattered. He currently has a strange bee in his bonnet about a picture of Kamala Harris on the cover of Time magazine. Seems to bother him that it’s too beautiful and he makes weird comparisons between it and famous movie stars, and between it and his wife. And now he’s decided he has to announce that he’s better looking than Kamala (and therefore better looking than his wife and all of the most beautiful movie stars)  His issue in particular is that the cover is a drawing rather than a photograph and is therefore seemingly flattering to her. The only thing that matters is people being flattering to him.

So I’ve knocked this together – hopefully it’ll cheer him up.

This showed up on Flipboard a little while ago, and it is, apparently, real. I can’t help but think it would make a nice Thanksgiving gift for Vance, for private moments when he hasn’t got a couch handy…

https://gizmodo.com/youll-never-be-able-to-unsee-the-trumpy-trout-2000489920

Hopefully this will link up ok, the slight smile on the female newsreader’s face hints that she saw what was happening on the monitor, even if he didn’t. I just love the wonderfully casual way the lad with the phone acted!

https://x.com/acyn/status/1826724048002572621?s=61

Can’t stop giggling at this. Needs the sound on.

I can’t stop laughing. ? pic.twitter.com/8JYm6ftlDC

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) August 23, 2024

That is wonderful

She really has got under his skin and he is losing the plot nicely

Harris’s convention speech sparks live rant from outraged Trump

Kamala Harris’s Democratic national convention speech provoked a torrent of outrage from Donald Trump as the former US president fired off a volley of ripostes, rebuttals and angry calls to TV stations.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/23/trump-reaction-harris-dnc-speech

They have to be careful not to focus on Trump too much IMO, keep it substantive with just some throw away comments about Trump, he will never respond to the substance of the speech just the little digs, make the Streisend affect work for them and letting Trump defend himself against  few small digs just makes him look an even smaller pathetic excuse for a person.

Interesting to see what effect the insane Kennedy dropping out of the race will have, I guess most of his supporters will follow him to Trump, but that is far from guaranteed. I do think it was timed to take the headlines away from the democrat momentum that has been building, not sure it has worked out as well as they had hoped, the momentum is still with the dems and Trump is looking a bigger loser with every word he says.

RFK jnr has a fake tan that makes the blathering gibbon look pale.

She really has got under his skin and he is losing the plot nicely

Trump is so thin-skinned and insecure that the thing that seems to really needle him is being ridiculed. The fact that it’s a woman of colour (who’s about a million times more intelligent than him) doing it is only adding to his apoplexy. It’s truly a joy to behold

That Silence of the Lambs video is truly unhinged. What on earth is he blathering on about?

I know we’ve said it a thousand times but I still just can’t believe that anyone in their right mind can look at Trump, listen to his insane ramblings and think ‘yep, that’s who I want leading this country while in possession of the nuclear codes’

Mind you, I said the same about Boris Johnson. And Liz Truss.

The interesting thing with the RFK endorsement of Trump is it came in trade for a promise of a job in trumps administration if he wins…. But  whats more interesting is that a week or so prior to that RFK had approached the Harris campaign with exactly the same deal – pull out of the race and endorse in exchange for a promise of whitehouse job in a Harris administration. He then apparently got narked because ghosted him and didn’t  repliy to his email.

so – in effect  RFK endorses Trump as his second choice in what is now a two horse race

I doubt it will make much difference. The number he has is pretty constant , the majority of the rest/undecided are pretty decided on him at least

They have to be careful not to focus on Trump too much IMO, keep it substantive with just some throw away comments about Trump, he will never respond to the substance of the speech just the little digs, make the Streisend affect work for them and letting Trump defend himself against few small digs just makes him look an even smaller pathetic excuse for a person.

I agree.  Its all looking very slick and well managed so far so “fingers crossed” they don’t eff it up

What the fudge is all that Silence of the Lambs obsession about?

I think he’s trying to link that to immigrants coming in and killing people? However, he goes so off of that already off script madness that I can’t help think it’s Trump that needs institutionalising.

Anyone good at maths and familiar with the US electoral system?

A few days ago, Harris was polling at 47% and Trump at 44%…

But, given the way some states/colleges hold more weight than others, what basic ‘national’ percentage lead would Harris need to pretty much ensure victory? Is it even possible to suggest such a figure?

Harris has a 3.8% lead nationally currently. Mind boggling that anyone at all would vote Trump, shrug emoge.

Is it even possible to suggest such a figure?

Not really, at least not within 3-4%.

In 2020 Biden got 51% of the popular vote (nationwide), and that gave him 56% of the Electoral College. That was with 66% turnout.

But in 2016, Trump only got 46% of the popular vote and over 57% of the Electoral College. That was on 57% turnout.

So it’s a mug’s game until the final results arrive and we know how many turnout, and where.

Ref: Wiki US Presidential Election history

A few days ago, Harris was polling at 47% and Trump at 44%…

But, given the way some states/colleges hold more weight than others, what basic ‘national’ percentage lead would Harris need to pretty much ensure victory? Is it even possible to suggest such a figure?

It’s all pretty unpredeicalble when things are  close becuase different states of different sizes have different numbers of electoral votes. So  where the votes are counts differently for different parties and also.

As something to sober folk up – Hillary Clinton had a bigger lead over trump in the poles  at this point in the run up to the  2016 election than Kamala has presently, and went on to lose in the electoral college even though she  poled a couple of million more votes. The 2004 Bush election is the only Presidential election in the last 32 years that Democrats didn’t ‘win’ in popular vote terms

That sort of range is well within the margin of error for these things (which the polling companies all state, but the press ignore) so I wouldn’t read into at all at the moment

There’s a shocking tale on the Rest Is Politics US about Trump phoning Netanyahu and trying to get him to hold off on any peace deal as it would be ‘bad for his campaign’

I’ve seen little about it on this side of the atlantic; surely it can’t have any truth in it or it would be another illegal act, not to mention morally repugnant;.