Home » Open thread 7/26/24

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Open thread 7/26/24 — 45 Comments

  1. I know that the Dems are pushing this 2025 thing. But really, how many people on both sides really know what it is? I don’t, do you?
    I also know that just lying about it to the Left voters is enough to convince them that it is Really Bad, and Trump will have concentration camps for them.
    (Which, I would endorse)

  2. 🙂 Jeez – “concentration camps”!? Don’t be giving DEMs any more ideals. Not too long ago, the MAGA mobs were chanting “Jail her! Jail her!”, and that didn’t work out well for Trump—who is still facing jail whilst Hillary never even came close to being jailed.

    I don’t know much about the Project 2025 either – other than a brief search and some Heritage Foundation ‘Chatter’. Supposedly, it is going to help Trump get off to a better start this time, when compared to the disastrous start the last time. Trump exhibited terrible leadership qualities last time—so bad that I doubt he can overcome them at this point in his life. Am hopeful for him tho…

    About Project 2025 – ‘Building now for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training

    Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s “Mandate” for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office.

    So Trump apparently tried it in 2017-2018, if I read it right, and the link is – Trump Administration Embraces Heritage Foundation Policy Recommendations from Jan 23, 2018. Article claimed it was an ‘extraordinarily successful first year’ – an opinion that differs greatly from my recollection.

    First article says they have ‘a 180-day playbook’ this time around, so that sounds like a sound first step. Hopefully Trump learns from his many mistakes the first time.

    UPDATE: apparently Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved – Jeez…!?!

  3. So I came upon this interview by Megyn Kelly with the publisher of Axios in which he states ( I think rightly) that the election will be determined by a small percentage of voters in the 3 states of WI, PA, and MI. Further, due to the very bipolar nature of the electorate, he estimates just 6% of the voters in those states will determine the presidency. So how many voters is that? I looked up the number of registered voters in each state, then found that very consistently on average (US Census) that about 66% of the registered voters actually vote, then multiplied that by 6% to get:

    MI 296k
    WI 164k
    PA 356k

    So if he is correct, just about 3/4 of a million people determine our fate. And he further breaks this group down into: black makes, Hispanics, and young voters. They have the power to determine our destiny.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNfY5vO1aPw

  4. And in another vein, VDH has a great summary column up at Townhall, I’ll just quote the last part:

    “In 2020, covert actors decided to ossify the Democratic primary races. Next, they conferred the nomination on a clearly cognitively challenged Biden. He was now tasked with serving as a useful moderate vessel for a virtual, even more radical, Obama third term.

    The same operators next assumed virtual control of Biden’s presidential agenda, given his accelerating cognitive decline.

    When that charade could no longer be sustained, for a third time, they circumvented the normal transparent democratic process.

    So, they removed the once useful but now a liability Biden — while insisting that he was still fit enough to keep the left in power — until the anticipated Harris victory in November.

    And all of this was the shadowwork of those who sanctimoniously lectured America that “democracy dies in darkness.””

  5. Rachel Maddow, who is nuts, has already talked about Trump concentration camps on-air, I believe.

    The Heritage Foundation and associated groups are traditional conservative think tanks. Trump may take some of their recommendations but not the whole package. The Democrats’ efforts to tie Trump to the whole program, and lie about what’s in it besides, is just political hype. It’s what they do.

  6. Trump’s mistake was in believing the GOP would want to deliver what they campaigned on. “It’s your party. Let’s govern.” They didn’t. He was conned and they stabbed him in the back, front, side, top and bottom. His @#$& VP and all the rest.

  7. Contrary to Karmi, I thought Trump’s first term was a success until the Chinese communists let loose biowar. He certainly got no help from Ryan and McConnell but his pruning of regulations helped a lot. Of course he was under attack constantly by lots of big government types.

  8. On Wednesday night we had a very, very big blow. Close to 100 mph gusts of wind took down two trees and split three more. All day yesterday (Thursday) we had men outside working with chain saws–they brought in a cherry picker to reach some of the downed trees on the roof. Yesterday was full of men with muscles and good minds coming and going. Strong and hardworking decent men came and knocked on our door many times during the day. A normal knock. You know the kind of knock you do with your neighbor or friends. Knock, knock, knock. Then yesterday evening after chains had stopped and the men had gone home there was another knock on our door: pound, pound, pound. I ran to the door because it sounded so desperate. A youngish (25?) man with his ear buds in place handed me a flyer for full abortion rights! I told him I would only support partial abortion. His face fell and he told me I was destroying the freedom of every woman! Then he stalked off. I couldn’t resist the comparison. My Dh is registered as Dem–he keeps it that way so we can see what the other side is doing! See what kind of kids and brochures the liberal adults are sending around with what type of indoctrination material they are handing out at that moment in time!

  9. Michael K: Totally agree

    Kate: Sure, I can get on board with “nuts”. But I prefer “stupid asshole.” Anyway, tomato-tomahto.

  10. here’s a list of the advisory board to Project 2025
    Alabama Policy Institute
    Alliance Defending Freedom
    American Compass
    The American Conservative
    America First Legal Foundation
    American Accountability Foundation
    American Center for Law and Justice
    American Cornerstone Institute
    American Council of Trustees and Alumni
    American Legislative Exchange Council
    The American Main Street Initiative
    American Moment
    American Principles Project
    Center for Equal Opportunity
    Center for Family and Human Rights
    Center for Immigration Studies
    Center for Renewing America
    Claremont Institute
    Coalition for a Prosperous America
    Competitive Enterprise Institute
    Conservative Partnership Institute
    Concerned Women for America
    Defense of Freedom Institute
    Ethics and Public Policy Center
    Family Policy Alliance
    Family Research Council
    First Liberty Institute
    Forge Leadership Network
    Foundation for Defense of Democracies
    Foundation for Government Accountability
    FreedomWorks
    The Heritage Foundation
    Hillsdale College
    Honest Elections Project
    Independent Women’s Forum
    Institute for the American Worker
    Institute for Energy Research
    Institute for Women’s Health
    Intercollegiate Studies Institute
    James Madison Institute
    Keystone Policy
    The Leadership Institute
    Liberty University
    National Association of Scholars
    National Center for Public Policy Research
    Pacific Research Institute
    Patrick Henry College
    Personnel Policy Operations
    Recovery for America Now Foundation
    1792 Exchange
    Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
    Texas Public Policy Foundation
    Teneo Network
    Young America’s Foundation

  11. The first indication that I can remember about a disaster in Trump’s administration was when the big wigs pulled out of his “advisor’s cabinet”. You know–Campbell products, and a few more. I think US Steel pulled out–can’t remember how many or who they were. I just remember that they were significant to the design of the future economy. They were afraid of America’s communists. Would rather be affiliated with WEF than a conservative America.

  12. Recent history shows us that Americans prefer divided government. That’s certainly true this year. Neither Trump nor Harris is going to be able to do everything they want or everything they promised. Trump certainly isn’t going to do everything that Establishment Conservatism wants to do. He didn’t come up through that movement and doesn’t follow their dictates.

    I wonder how Harris will juggle what her party wants with what her big donors want. Traditionally, Democrat presidents deliver less than the party and its activists want. Biden was blinded by his desire to be FDR or LBJ and the Democrats control of the White House and both Houses of Congress early on, so he broke with the Carter-Clinton pattern. Is Harris going to follow through on that, or is she going to be more responsive to the donor class and more docile?

    Harris’s San Francisco background makes her look more like an ideologue, but her bio suggests that she’s a careerist and opportunist who takes the views that will help her get elected. Maybe the old distinction between ideologists and pragmatists no longer exists. The Democrats do what the powers in the party dictate whether they appear to be true believers or moderates.

  13. physicsguy:

    Re your 10:29 AM post, do you think this is indicative of a flaw in the electoral college system?

    I’m not baiting you. This is a genuine good-faith question.

  14. @physicsguy:Further, due to the very bipolar nature of the electorate, he estimates just 6% of the voters in those states will determine the presidency. So how many voters is that?

    This is why I am troubled by the lack of information on how and where the “fortification” in these three states has been rolled back, and I’m forced to conclude that it has not been. Pulling in another 3-6% of Dem voters, which is what the Dems have got very good at doing, seems pretty plausible, and that would definitely give them all three states.

  15. @physicsguy:So if he is correct, just about 3/4 of a million people determine our fate. And he further breaks this group down into: black makes, Hispanics, and young voters. They have the power to determine our destiny.

    @Irish Otter:Re your 10:29 AM post, do you think this is indicative of a flaw in the electoral college system?

    Speaking for myself I’d say “no” because the Dems can’t win without California, New York, and Illinois either. Because physicsguy has focused in his comment on the people who are in the margin, they seem like they are much more important than the others. But every Electoral College vote counts the same as every other. It’s a sort of hindsight that encourages you to put your finger on these particular Electoral College votes and think that these somehow are unique. But what makes them unique is that they are competitive, not that they have magic EC votes. We know the Dems are getting California and we know Trump is getting Florida so we don’t spend much time talking about them, but Trump can’t win without Florida and the Dems can’t win without California.

    It’s only because the states with the most EC votes are already locked in for one side or the other that smaller and more competitive states loom in importance in the media. The single EC vote in NE or ME could “determine” the Presidency this year if they don’t go as forecast, as could a surprising result in NV or AZ.

    Suppose the presidency were determined by popular vote and Trump won by one vote, it was the last guy to mail in his vote and his name was say Mortimer Svenson. It would not be correct to say that Mortimer Svenson determined the whole presidential election, because every single vote was needed for Trump to win. It just that he’s the guy who came last in the process. If he’d voted differently Trump would have lost but that would be equally true of anyone else who’d voted for Trump.

    And if the Electoral College didn’t exist, you could win the Presidency by winning just the very biggest states, instead of worrying about WI, PA, or MI.

  16. Foundational principles that Project 2025 is built on:

    Contributors include former elected officials, world-renowned economists, and veterans from four presidential Administrations. This is an agenda prepared by and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to save our country from the brink of disaster.
    The Heritage Foundation is once again facilitating this work. But as our dozens of partners and hundreds of authors will attest, this book is the work of the entire conservative movement. As such, the authors express consensus recommendations already forged, especially along four broad fronts that will decide America’s future:
    1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
    2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
    3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
    4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

    What makes these four pieces of the conservative promise so valuable to the next President is that they cut through superficial distractions and focus on the moral and foundational challenges America faces in this moment of history. This was one of the secrets of conservatives’ success in the Reagan Era, one our generation should emulate.

  17. IrishOtter and Niketas,

    I think it really points to how divided the country is. As the fellow points out, about 47% are going to vote D, and 47% are going to vote R…no matter what. As a result, the small minority of the MotR voters have control.

    I know for myself, it would take a truly unique individual, such as Joe Lieberman or a Zell Miller for me to even consider voting for a Democrat at present. I don’t trust any of them since Obama was elected. And you know on the other side, they hate Republicans and conservatives with a white hot passion.

  18. My lefty friends are going nuts over Project 2025 on Facebook. I tracked down one of the outrageous sounding quotes from the Project’s book. It was an entirely false misquote. Yet, some unknown person posts it, and my friends spread it around. Amazing.

  19. Much discussion on X of Vance’s comments about people with and without kids: He said that people with kids should have lower taxes than those with kids, and also more votes. He also took a shot at Kamala for not having children, like so many European leaders (the term ‘cat ladies’ was used) and he said that she was bitter because of her childlessness.

    While he was directionally correct about the importance of people, especially leaders, having a long-term stake in the future via children, these comments were bound to offend a lot of people and they have. The lower taxes comment was predictably headlined as ‘higher taxes for those with no children’, rather than the other way around. There are a lot of women that were very offended by the ‘childless cat ladies’ thing. And while there are plenty of things that you can and should justly accuse Kamala of, to me she does not come across as Bitter. When critiquing and/or insulting people, it’s important to focus on an attribute that they clearly have and are perceived as having.

  20. I hear Obama finally endorsed Kamala. I suspect he didn’t have much of a choice since the wind has been a blowin strongly her way since Biden endorsed her. It did take 5 days for him to finally do so though, so it doesn’t exactly speak volumes about Obama’s confidence in Kamala’s chances of victory.

  21. Megan Kelly and JD Vance have a conversation about his 3-year old “childless cat ladies” remark taken out of context. JD Vance wants the Republican party to be the party of the family. The left has abandoned the family and promoted a society the diminishes the value of children in the family.

    One key element of how the left distorts/lies about conservatives is that any lie/distortion the left makes about their enemies (and that is anyone that doesn’t agree/keep quiet about the left’s agenda to fundamentally transform society) is a virtue.

    Sen. J.D. Vance Addresses “Childless Cat Ladies” Remark and Calls Out “Anti-Family” Democrats
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5eKcsdOf7k

  22. My middle daughter had a baby 5 years ago next month. She was 38 at the time and had the usual concerns about risk. She told me it changed her life. She was a good student with several degrees. She finally gave up her plans for a PhD about 8 years ago. She was pretty far along in the process, including learning to speak and read Arabic. She loves being a mother and was kind of surprised by her own reaction. Now, she is 43 and thinking about having another one. My mother was 40 the year I was born and 43 the year my sister was born. We have encouraged her. I have two other daughters who are childless.

  23. Kamala is enamored of Venn diagrams.

    Well, take a look at a YouTube video by one Tim Kennedy, in which he uses a Venn diagram to illustrate the confluence of Incompetence, Enemies of Trump, and it being an inside job, and see what conclusion you come up with.

  24. The middle of the road voters.
    These are the people that need to understand that Biden changed Title IX.
    These are the people that need to hear a distinct opposition to boys in girls spaces.
    ” Why does Kamala Harris support boys in your daughter’s public school restrooms ? ”
    ” Why do the Democrats support housing male prisoners with female prisoners, many of whom have been previously abused by men?”
    ” Kamala, what is a ‘ Woman ” ?
    ” Kamala, when does a “transgender woman” become a ” woman”? When do they cross the line into ” woman hood “?

  25. Read the essay about Islam and how her father lived it, by the child of an immigrant Muslim father, above, posted above at 3:34 by Richard F. Cook–it is well worth taking the time to read.

  26. From what I have read, Mark Elias is the source of most of the false quotes of 2025.

  27. David Foster, it depends on the value of the product as a percentage of labor costs, where the question of automation should enter.
    Total cost of labor– which is let’s say double the salary. A robot doesn’t go out on strike, doesn’t call in sick, doesn’t have to take the kid to the doctor, doesn’t get called to jury duty, or called up for military duty.

    The benefit of human labor allows more flexibility in responding to the market. If the market tanks– you’re still paying for the automation vs. unemployment insurance.

    And what qualifies as high wages?

    I read some bemoaning the idea of tariffs in lieu of taxes and the economic contraction that would entail– but it depends on the sectors where tariffs are imposed vs. the global nature of the product. And in many cases I’m talking about assembly.

    Someone pointed out that Reagan used tariffs/import quotas.

    No every product can be produced in the US, but more can than are. I think your blog posted the cost of making the i-phone in the US vs. China several years ago. I don’t remember what the figures were.

  28. The left regurgitating the “childless cat ladies” fur ball prompted Steve Hayward over at Powerline to notice it’s a marriage gap between Republicans and Democrats/Independents:

    The “gender gap” between the two parties is at least 40 years old by now, though the fact that women are vote more Democratic than men is always portrayed by the media as a Republican problem, but why don’t Democrats ever have a men problem? Anyway, the real gap may not be gender, but marital status. This is suddenly germane in this election cycle because of child-bearing, cat ladies and something something, Project 2025, Handmaid’s Tale, etc. Social science data show that married people are happier than single people, and tend to vote more Republican.

    The Daily Chart: The Marriage Gap
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/07/the-daily-chart-the-marriage-gap.php

  29. Deadpool is decidedly meh which is better than most marvel product but not by much

  30. Killing Three birds with one stone.

    Most MSM sites are Left of Center – or Lean Left of Center like Mediaite. I know, I know that some many here consider it sacrilegious and/or Trolling if someone links to a Left or Left of Center site, but I like to check out as many varying sites as I can, and then try to decide what is going on since Lean Right or Right of Center sites can be as biased as the Lefties.

    However, Lefties are long time Masters of Biasness, and can easily kill Three birds with one stone just in their title of a news/opinion article:

    Trump Has Tucker Carlson to Blame for the Abject Disaster of Selecting JD Vance as His Running Mate

    Trump, competitor Tucker, and JD Vance are ‘Killed’ in the title (one stone), and then it continues into the article as it mutilates their corpses. Heck, even Hollywood helps in the corpse mutilations, e.g., “apolitical movie star Jennifer Aniston” does some work on Vance’s corpse.

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