US US Politics 2024

There has been talk about secession recently.

Which reminded me of this e-mail I got 4 years ago.

--------------------


DEAR RED STATES; WE'RE LEAVING.

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country that includes Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Washington D.C.

We also get the vast majority of the major shipping ports. So good luck with getting goods in or out of the country affordably.

We also get Costco, Starbucks and Boeing. You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Branson, Missouri.

We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Mississippi.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happier, intact families.

Please be aware that California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

With the Blue States unified, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at your state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools -- Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Penn, Princeton, and Yale; and Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and Radcliffe colleges; plus UCLA, UCB, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Rand Paul.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 62 percent of you believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. (See that part about divorces. ...)

Oh, and you can have all the new COVID-19 cases since you're too dumb and self-centered to wear masks.

Peace out.

We are the people of the Blue States

______________________________

Gosh, As a Californian this sounds pretty good.
 
I watched From Russia With Lev, a MSNBC documentary. I think Rachel Maddow had something to do with it. It was not what I expected. And it was really interesting.
I'd tell you more about it but I don't want to spoil it. I will tell you that the last scene was mind-blowing.

Here is a brief synopsis from IMDB
  • A documentary exploring Lev Parnas' involvement in the Trump-Ukraine scandal that resulted in the former president's impeachment, detailing Parnas' unexpected entanglement with Trump and Giuliani, leading to his incarceration.
 
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There has been talk about secession recently.

Which reminded me of this e-mail I got 4 years ago.

--------------------


DEAR RED STATES; WE'RE LEAVING.

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country that includes Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Washington D.C.

We also get the vast majority of the major shipping ports. So good luck with getting goods in or out of the country affordably.

We also get Costco, Starbucks and Boeing. You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Branson, Missouri.

We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Mississippi.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happier, intact families.

Please be aware that California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

With the Blue States unified, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at your state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools -- Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Penn, Princeton, and Yale; and Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and Radcliffe colleges; plus UCLA, UCB, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Rand Paul.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 62 percent of you believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. (See that part about divorces. ...)

Oh, and you can have all the new COVID-19 cases since you're too dumb and self-centered to wear masks.

Peace out.

We are the people of the Blue States

______________________________

Gosh, As a Californian this sounds pretty good.
I agree that it's frustrating with all the red state secessionist talk. And I understand it's not meant to be taken seriously. (For one, the blue states don't compromise a contiguous land area.) But another way to look at all the great assets of the blue states you listed is that the blue states have hoarded all the wealth, high tech, big corporations, well-funded universities for themselves. Which created fly-over states where people feel left behind and hopeless, fertile ground for the great political populist, the Orange Menace
...
 
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I agree that it's frustrating with all the red state secessionist talk. And I understand it's not meant to be taken seriously. (For one, the blue states don't compromise a contiguous land area.) But another way to look at all the great assets of the blue states you listed is that the blue states have hoarded all the wealth, high tech, big corporations, well-funded universities for themselves. Which created fly-over states where people feel left behind and hopeless, fertile ground for the great political populist, the Orange Menace
...
I was all in favor of California seceding. but then I learned that Russia funds the movement


 
There's a vice presidential debate scheduled for 1. October on CBS News. How do you think this will play out?

Is Vance the more energetic candidate of the two, and will he somehow be able to present Trump's policies and talking points as something more reasonable-sounding? Or will his radical side reveal itself as he blurts out awful things that will be off-turning to even Trump-leaning voters?

Is Walz up for the job? He almost seems like too decent a man to take on a slime-ball like Vance, but he's had some great talking points, including the framing of Trump's policies as "weird". So maybe? Or maybe Vance will just shoot himself in the foot, so Walz doesn't have to do much?

(I think Vance is a slime-ball based on his initial never-Trump stance which somehow morphed into licking Trumps boots to get his endorsement for the Senate seat and then more boot-licking to get the VP nomination, and along the way he seems to have betrayed the demographic he originally championed. But what do I know.)
I think my concerns turned to reality to some extent, and the media pundits soon decided Vance had won the debate, hands down. Vance just came off as the better, slicker debater.

However, the polls seem to suggest the voters are not as convinced.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about the debate was how civilised it was.
 
I think my concerns turned to reality to some extent, and the media pundits soon decided Vance had won the debate, hands down. Vance just came off as the better, slicker debater.

However, the polls seem to suggest the voters are not as convinced.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about the debate was how civilised it was.
I've only seen our media showing them tied, with little points either way.
I didn't watch, but see clips of Vance saying the rules said no fact checking when they corrected him about the Haitians legality--then they had to cut his mic

I found this breakdown of debate, which is pretty good--
 
I'm hearing how "normal" Vance came across...not the nut job that he's portrayed as in the daily tidbits we see online... than not acknowledging that Trump lost the election in 2020. I haven't found a link to watch it yet. I'm only seeing short clips here and there and I don't trust those. It's so easy to twist things when taken out of context.
 
I didn't watch the debate, but what I've read and heard is that there was no clear winner/loser and that Vance toned down his usual lunatic campaign nonsense and came off as almost "normal." On public radio, one talk show host commented that anyone who didn't know anything about Vance before the debate would have considered him a well-spoken, decent candidate after his performance.
 
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I just watched the highlights and read the head lines. Seemed like it was ok. Walz lost points for not knowing when he was in china, he just should have said it was a long time ago and he forgot and it's not that important. But Vance lost a lot of points for not being able to say that Trump lost the election.

The one bad thing I'm hearing is from the moderate right who think Vance would make an even better president if Trump dies in office. And that gives them a good reason to go out and vote for Trump.

Rachel Maddow did a longish deep dive on Vance comparing him to some other figures in history. The guy scares the **** out of me.

 
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I just watched the highlights and read the head lines. Seemed like it was ok. Walz lost points for not knowing when he was in china, he just should have said it was a long time ago and he forgot and it's not that important. But Vance lost a lot of points for not being able to say that Trump lost the election.

The one bad thing I'm hearing is from the moderate right who think Vance would make an even better president if Trump dies in office. And that gives them a good reason to go out and vote for Trump.

Rachel Maddow did a longish deep dive on Vance comparing him to some other figures in history. The guy scares the **** out of me.

Bold emphasis mine. I agree. He's just as evil as Trump, but he is a lot smarter.
 
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I started this post over in the Weather Thread. but by the time I was done with it, it had become a political rant. So I deleted it and I'm putting it here.
Hey - I'm self-moderating.

I know my vegan friends in Florida are not going to vote Republican. I hope they all get thru this storm and stay safe.

--------------

A well known American writer said once that, while everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it.

I'm reminded of this right now as Milton is almost upon my friends in Florida.

There is not much Florida can do now besides haul sandbags and do the standard Hurricane proofing. As our climate warms, we’re experiencing stronger winds, higher storm surges and record rainfalls during hurricane season.

It's not like Florida can stop climate change although about 10 years ago they did ban the words "climate change" and "global warming". Florida state employee can no longer use these words in correspondence, or write legislation that include those words.

I'm not sure if this is ironic. It would be funny if it wasn't sad. The State that might be the most vulnerable to climate change can't do anything about it.

Florida is a red state. Republican law makers are by and large climate deniers. Trump and Desantis are climate deniers. I'm hoping that once the Good People of the Great State of Florida recover they take a look and realize it's not too late to make Florida Blue.

Really, its that or learn to breathe underwater.

----------------------

How climate change makes hurricanes more destructive

As our climate warms, storms are becoming more destructive and costly. Why do hurricanes bring more rain in a warmer climate? Learn about it here.
www.edf.org
www.edf.org


https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article12983720.html
 
MAGA is spreading misinformation about hurricanes. Well, not usually the hurricanes. More like how the government is responding. I haven't seen anything that is too similar to the Covid Lies. But maybe that is next: Don't evacuate, it's just a little rain.

But MGT is breaking some records.
“Yes they can control the weather,” Greene wrote on X Thursday. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” She also seemed to imply that the government had been targeting Republican areas, which Donald Trump has also suggested.

 
MAGA is spreading misinformation about hurricanes. Well, not usually the hurricanes. More like how the government is responding. I haven't seen anything that is too similar to the Covid Lies. But maybe that is next: Don't evacuate, it's just a little rain.

But MGT is breaking some records.
“Yes they can control the weather,” Greene wrote on X Thursday. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” She also seemed to imply that the government had been targeting Republican areas, which Donald Trump has also suggested.

These weather conspiracy theories have been around for a long time! Just more of her bat-**** craziness!