Politics & Stuff

[cosmicway 1,318]

10 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I have a bridge in London to sell folks if anybody thinks the citizens of Venezuela actually elected this CIA plant. This man actually lived right up the street from the feds while getting a degree in Washington DC. We used to be much better at hiding our meddling in the third world. 

So why Maduro fluffed his lines you think ?

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

23 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

So why Maduro fluffed his lines you think ?

I dont think he did. I think he was reelected because the people that live there, despite it sucking, probably remember how much things also sucked when Western plants ran things.

 

We were able to prop up a small minority in these places, usually white and rich, bring them to America where they party for 2-3 years in university, and then send them back to lord over the "poor brown wretches". It works until it stops working. The fact that this guy, just Like Leopoldo Lopez(another guy who took money and partied at American universities with Feds) can just run off to the old colonial power Spain when their little parties end is just further proof of this. None of these people give two shits about Venezuela, or the people who live there. They just want to lord over people they were raised, and further taught at Universities here, to think they are better than.

[cosmicway 1,318]

4 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I dont think he did. I think he was reelected because the people that live there, despite it sucking, probably remember how much things also sucked when Western plants ran things.

 

We were able to prop up a small minority in these places, usually white and rich, bring them to America where they party for 2-3 years in university, and then send them back to lord over the "poor brown wretches". It works until it stops working. The fact that this guy, just Like Leopoldo Lopez(another guy who took money and partied at American universities with Feds) can just run off to the old colonial power Spain when their little parties end is just further proof of this. None of these people give two shits about Venezuela, or the people who live there. They just want to lord over people they were raised, and further taught at Universities here, to think they are better than.

Ok, he is the best thing since Lenin, Stalin and the three Stooges in beer and pretzels.
I asked why he made a mess with the election returns.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

2 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Ok, he is the best thing since Lenin, Stalin and the three Stooges in beer and pretzels.
I asked why he made a mess with the election returns.

I dont think he did. I think this whole focus on it is the west mad their puppet wasnt able to get in there, and make corporations richer off of the natural resources of Venezuela.

[cosmicway 1,318]

21 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I dont think he did. I think this whole focus on it is the west mad their puppet wasnt able to get in there, and make corporations richer off of the natural resources of Venezuela.

Look m8.
I 've been electoral representative for the state once and they paid me 200 quid for my efforts.
I deseved more because apart from being a representative I also had to vote myself and they made an error in my street name and I had to go up a mountain to vote and then return to my assgined position. So I did n't sleep for 36 hours, but still 200 quid.
I know how the system works.
We count. The invalid ballots are discarded and we pass them around to the party representatives so they all agree they are invalid. Then we write down the result. Me, the commie representative, the other one from New Democracy and the socialist. Then I take the result to the fax room and send to the ministry of interior.
Friendly atmosphere, a candidate walked in at one stage and I talked him into ordering us a chinese dinner.
This means there can be no cheat and there was no such thing as postal votes.
I don't remember the party representatives having to sign anything or me having to sign anything for them, but surely they could use their computers to check everything.

This did n't happen in Venezuela because in most election centres the opposition representatives were shown the door.
But not everywhere, hence their claim that they counted many Gonzales wins.
Now, why Maduro is n't showing to anybody the full records of the voting process ?
And we are no longer living in the days of Aristides the Athenian with the voting shards. It's a mere USB we are talking about.
 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

We also play this little game across the third world. Just this year we tried to finance a coup in the Congo through Christian Malanga.

Step 1: Bring over someone from the country. This guy was given "Asylum" from the DRC. Despite the fact that this country was(relatively) stable at the time and his dad had a cushy job as a manager at a General Motors plant.

 

Step 2: Indoctrinate them, make it worth their while. This Malanga plant ends up in the US military. Fine enough, many immigrants join the armed forces.

 

Step 3: Craft a story for them, so they can be viewed as leaders in the old nation. This plant was sent back to a country he had not lived in since a child, as an asylum seeker, and US military member to serve in THEIR military. Sit down and think of this. A guy who was an asylum seeker, true blue American serving in the military, and someone who had not been in that nation since they were a child went there to serve in their military. I repeated this because of how absurd this story is.

 

Step 4:  He ends up in Salt Lake city running multiple used car shops. Ok, No formal education, asylum seeker, US vet, running multiple expensive car shops in the expensive mormon capital of America? Where did this money come from?

 

Step 5: "Where the white women at?" Random mixed kids to be heirs of the new nation with NO ties to the original country


Step 6: "Guess I'm the rightfully ruler of a nation, which I had not lived in since a child, despite making a life and becoming a citizen of this new country." This man randomly got in the ear of every other republican in Washington as a de facto leader of this country, despite being a full on American service-member who was raised in, lived, worked, and had kids that were 100% American.

 

Republican after republican giving this clown money and photo ops:




Step 7: Now my son is balling out. Where did the money come from?


Step 7: Jewish guy Follows me EVERYWHERE:



Even back to the congo when I got tried, and failed, to take over a country:


Feds

Feds

Feds

 

Its what we are trying to do in Venezuela too, and it will failed like it did in the Congo.

[Fulham Broadway 16,825]

40 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

We also play this little game across the third world. Just this year we tried to finance a coup in the Congo through Christian Malanga.

Step 1: Bring over someone from the country. This guy was given "Asylum" from the DRC. Despite the fact that this country was(relatively) stable at the time and his dad had a cushy job as a manager at a General Motors plant.

 

Step 2: Indoctrinate them, make it worth their while. This Malanga plant ends up in the US military. Fine enough, many immigrants join the armed forces.

 

Step 3: Craft a story for them, so they can be viewed as leaders in the old nation. This plant was sent back to a country he had not lived in since a child, as an asylum seeker, and US military member to serve in THEIR military. Sit down and think of this. A guy who was an asylum seeker, true blue American serving in the military, and someone who had not been in that nation since they were a child went there to serve in their military. I repeated this because of how absurd this story is.

 

Step 4:  He ends up in Salt Lake city running multiple used car shops. Ok, No formal education, asylum seeker, US vet, running multiple expensive car shops in the expensive mormon capital of America? Where did this money come from?

 

Step 5: "Where the white women at?" Random mixed kids to be heirs of the new nation with NO ties to the original country


Step 6: "Guess I'm the rightfully ruler of a nation, which I had not lived in since a child, despite making a life and becoming a citizen of this new country." This man randomly got in the ear of every other republican in Washington as a de facto leader of this country, despite being a full on American service-member who was raised in, lived, worked, and had kids that were 100% American.

 

Republican after republican giving this clown money and photo ops:




Step 7: Now my son is balling out. Where did the money come from?


Step 7: Jewish guy Follows me EVERYWHERE:



Even back to the congo when I got tried, and failed, to take over a country:


Feds

Feds

Feds

 

Its what we are trying to do in Venezuela too, and it will failed like it did in the Congo.

Its like the Cold War 'spheres of influence' where The US and CCCP were desperate to dominate South and Central America, Middle East, Africa and South East Asia terrified that there would be a 'domino effect' of countries becoming Socialist. So, as you know the US installed dozens of right wing dictators, death squads, to murder and kill any opposition, trade unions etc all to be US Corporate 'friendly'.

I know China and Putin were/are active in Congo so the installing of this puppet is it a one off, or are there others ?

[Vesper 28,763]

How the media blew 2024′s election | Will Bunch Newsletter

Plus, does America really need the world’s ‘most lethal’ military?

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/media-elections-dnc-kamala-harris-military-20240827.html

 

I’m back — back from Chicago and also back, inshallah, with weekly newsletters from now until Election Day. Friends and neighbors who watched on TV keep asking me what covering the Democratic National Convention was really like. It was the difference between seeing Springsteen or the Stones in a documentary versus being at the show for a few pulsating hours.

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Critics begged the media to rise to the occasion of the 2024 election, but it’s hitting new lows

This column, about the decline and fall of America’s political news media in such a pivotal election year, has proved very hard to write — not for a lack of material, but because I can’t keep pace with every day’s new and stunning examples of bad journalism, each one spiraling a tad lower.

I’ll start with the weekend’s lowlight: a news story that worked up the media food chain from the muck of smaller right-wing outlets, then got boosted on X/Twitter by Alex Thompson, a widely read national political correspondent for Axios, before the New York Post hyped it in your local Wawa and eventually the New York Times felt compelled to address it. You see, an idea that has animated the right for the last couple of weeks is the fantasy that Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz is a phony. Sunday’s purported news slammed Walz for a 2006 episode when his then-congressional campaign claimed he’d won a youth award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce when really it was — get this! — the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce!

Never mind that the 2006 Walz campaign had corrected this tiny mistake (picture Barack Obama doing the hand thing, but even smaller), probably the work of a junior staffer, the second they learned about it. The nattering nabobs of negativism had accomplished their mission in a year when the elite mainstream media has lost its doggone mind — going after small daily clickbait like a puppy chasing its tail, demanding news conferences only to ask trivial questions, issuing ludicrous “fact checks,” and desperately seeking gravitas in the candidate just found guilty on 34 felony counts and liable for rape and financial fraud, who was dinged by NPR for 162 lies or distortions in just one news conference.

Indeed, the outrageous overinflation of the Walz story was nearly forgotten by Monday morning when the Times, which has bent over backwards to belittle the joy of Kamala Harris’ wildly successful Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, published an op-ed from the editor of the conservative National Review, Rich Lowry, headlined simply: “Trump Can Win on Character.” Perhaps that’s true, as critics noted, if voters do what Lowry did in his piece and pretend that inconvenient facts like the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection or the fraud verdict had never happened. But while the column was ridiculed on social media, few people said they were giving up on the Times — because in this annus horribilis for the American media, many had already tuned out the NYT weeks or months ago.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen urged journalists to cover “the stakes, not the odds” of the 2024 election while Margaret Sullivan — who writes for the Guardian and her Substack after stints at the Times and the Washington Post — was more blunt in beseeching the press to ignore the pull of both-sides journalism and take seriously the threat to democracy posed by Trump, who tried to override his 2020 election loss and has made no comforting assurances that he won’t try to do the same after Nov. 5, 2024.

Few journalists — if any — have listened. Much of the righteous fury during the Chicago DNC was directed at fact-checkers from the Times, Post, and independent organizations like PolitiFact. These organizations or practices were mostly established after the endemic political lying of the 2000s — remember the Iraq War? But while no one would argue with their stated approach of tough, unbiased scrutiny of all sides, the fact-checking industrial complex can’t handle the truth when one party’s platform is based on a firehouse of lies and the other party is trying to be serious, if not always literal, about reality.

So Democratic convention week brought absurdities like PolitiFact tackling a DNC video that showed an actual Trump 2016 quote that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions and labeled it “mostly false” (!!) because his panicked aides later told him to walk back such a politically damaging statement. Also typical was USA Today calling it “false” when the DNC talks about “Trump’s Project 2025″ because the blueprint for his presidency was produced by the Heritage Foundation, even though most of its authors are former and would-be future Trump staffers and it offers the only program for filling jobs in a Trump administration.

C’mon, man.

It would require another column — maybe a book — to explain why this is happening. I see it as less the public’s main complaint (corporate control of the media) and more about our profession’s weird value structure, where it’s more important to be savvy, cynical, and not be portrayed as naive shills for liberalism than to care about saving democracy from authoritarian rule, on top of maybe a new and not always healthy brand of careerism from younger journalists.

The Chicago-based media critic Mark Jacob, a retired veteran editor of that city’s Tribune and Sun Times, nailed it Monday with a piece headlined “Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance.” Jacob has harsh words for how reporters have covered the race, writing that “too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources — in service to the political industry, not the public.” But he also notes that traditional media can’t figure out how to compete for young eyeballs against sites like edgy and fast-paced TikTok. Jacob pointed out that public faith in mass media has plunged from 72% in 1976, after Watergate, to just 32% today.

You know who gets the new landscape better than anyone else? Kamala Harris.

The vice president and Democratic nominee is running to be America’s first post-media president. In Chicago, much was made of the fact that Team Harris and the Democrats invited 200 sometimes fawning internet “content creators” who got VIP treatment while mainstream journalists fought over nosebleed-level seats and refrained from eating or going to the bathroom for fear of losing them.

But more broadly, Harris and her campaign is 100% focused on message discipline to build her brand and sell it to the American people in a few short weeks. The surest way to get thrown off that message discipline would be a stray answer at an open news conference or in an interview with the likes of NBC’s Lester Holt — so for now, Harris is simply not doing that.

And she’s getting away with it. Mainstream journalists can carp and whine about this all they want, but when less than a third of Americans trust the mass media, few folks are listening to them. What’s been really striking this year is that while traditionally deep distrust of the mainstream press has been the domain of right-wing Republicans, now it’s liberals who once cheered for the media to do better who seem to be giving up on them.

This is not great. For one thing, the plunge in faith leads to cancelled subscriptions that leads to laid-off reporters or shuttered printing plants — not the vision of America’s founders who believed a free press is essential. In this campaign, I think the healthy journalistic mindset is that we want to save democracy in November, but we also want Harris to show she can answer at least a few tough questions and explain her policies beyond hopelessly vague generalities.

The reality, though, is that Harris might surge into the White House in January doing very little of this — maybe none at all, especially if Trump actually chickens out of their Sept. 10 debate in Philadelphia. Fifty years ago this summer, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency because people believed what they read about him in the Washington Post. Today, Harris feels she doesn’t need journalists at all, and a lot of the public is cheering her on. And a vainglorious elite news media with severe tunnel vision has no one to blame but themselves.

Yo, do this!

1. In the Better Late Than Never Department, the gap in newsletters deprived me of a chance to tell you that — in preparing for my Chicago trip — I finally watched 1969′s Medium Cool. The film by storied cinematographer Haskell Wexler uses America’s third-largest city, the social crises of the late 1960s, and a frame of journalistic ethics to create a remarkable if sometimes muddled time capsule. Wexler’s nervy decision to film fictional scenes amid the real-life chaos of the 1968 DNC is a compelling reason to track down a true relic.

2. Earlier this year, I told you about Benjamen Walker’s quirky podcast The Theory of Everything and its deep dive into the fascinating world of Cold War literary intrigue, “Not All Propaganda is Art.” Walker is back with a great new episode on the 40th anniversary of 1984 (the year, not the book), which ties together Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson, the new Apple computer, and the zeitgeist of that eventful year from the perspective of a sci-fi obsessed middle-schooler, as George Orwell lurks in the background. A must-listen.

Ask me anything

Question: If Kamala pulls it out but doesn’t have a blue Senate, what will that mean for her agenda? — Everything’s Fine (@ResistInBux) via X/Twitter

Answer: The odds of this happening are strong — the GOP is guaranteed a pickup in West Virginia, which means Dems would need to defend every vulnerable seat (including Sen. Jon Tester in blood-red Montana) and/or pull an unlikely upset or two to do better than the slimmest 50-50-plus-Tim-Walz majority. A Republican Senate would surely prevent a President Kamala Harris from any Supreme Court picks, and vote down any progressive Cabinet nominees. And any liberal economic or social safety net policies would be dead on arrival. Pray for miracles this November.

What you’re saying about...

I was blown away by your enthusiastic response to the last newsletter’s question about America’s best and worst vice presidential nominees. In a tight race for worst, Sarah Palin (6 votes), a dunce, edged out Spiro Agnew (5), a felon, with 3 votes for Dan Quayle and single tallies for Richard Nixon, Andrew Johnson, Joe Lieberman, JD Vance, and Dick Cheney (from my dad!...so proud). Showing the leftward bent of this crowd, the best veep race was a tie between the most-progressive-ever No, 2, FDR’s Henry Wallace, and anti-poverty warrior Lyndon Johnson. Al Gore and Joe Biden each got two votes, with one apiece for Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, and Mike Pence, because, as Armen Pandola put it, “when you refuse to destroy the Republic, it’s about the best that a VP can do.”

📮This week’s question: Let’s go with more of an essay question. I know most of you aren’t happy with media coverage of the election; what’s wrong with the Fourth Estate, and how can it be fixed? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me your answer. Please put “Broken media” in the subject line.

Backstory on Harris and the world’s ‘most lethal’ military

The thousands of red, white and blue balloons have all popped, the echoes of DJ Cassidy segueing from Michigan’s Eminem to Minnesota’s Prince have finally died, and those American flags were all confiscated at O’Hare by the TSA (I’m guessing). But two words from Vice President Kamala Harris in her acceptance speech are still ringing for me, and for some other folks also pondering them. Harris made the somewhat boilerplate promise that her administration would offer the strongest military in the world, but added it will also be “the most lethal.”

It was clear that one of the main purposes of Harris’ speech, in introducing herself as a presidential candidate for little more than a month since President Joe Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from the race, was to get voters picturing the would-be first American woman president behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, dealing with adversaries like Iran or Russia. And it accomplished that mission. But the seeming bloodlust of the “most lethal” vow was a bit cringe for some listeners — even, according to Newsweek, for her stepdaughter Ella Emhoff and sister Maya Harris, who didn’t join others in applauding. Leftists on X/Twitter spent the weekend tweeting about all the things — like health insurance or free college — they’d prefer over the “most lethal” military. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Harris supporter who agreed America needs a strong defense said our bloated Pentagon budget should be cut, and that “enough is enough!”

 

Sanders has a point. America currently spends more on defense than the world’s next nine biggest militaries combined, and yet jacking up Pentagon spending every year is the only thing Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill can agree on. And just how lethal do we need to be? One study found that America, mostly through airstrikes from Syria to Afghanistan and elsewhere, killed at least 22,000 civilians since the 2001 terror attack, and maybe as many as 48,000. Some of those folks were anti-American terrorists, but a decent number were Afghanis attending weddings or just living their lives. The United States must be — and by all accounts is — able to defend itself, with deadly force when necessary, but our talent for killing human beings should be reined in, not celebrated by a would-be commander-in-chief. After a week with Stevie Wonder and The Chicks, it was the one false note from Chicago.

What I wrote on this date in 2019

Donald Trump was showing his age, and perhaps losing his mentally acuity or worse — on this date five years ago, when he was still our president. I wrote: “Suddenly, a topic that was only discussed by the unfiltered internet masses — is Trump mentally ill, or at age 73 suffering a steep decline in mental acuity — has gone mainstream, discussed openly by pundits like CNN’s Brian Stelter (“It’s getting worse — we all can see it”) or with presidential candidates like New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker calling him “a dangerous president.” In my Aug. 27, 2019 column I wrote that the constitutional remedies for this, such as impeachment or the 25th Amendment, had failed, and that stopping Trump was up to us. Just like today! Check out: “The Constitution’s 3 ways to stop a demagogue like Trump haven’t worked. Now what?”

Recommended Inquirer reading

1. Hopefully a lot of you already know I was in Chicago last week covering the DNC. I looked for the ghosts of 1968′s violent and tempestuous Democratic convention that haunted the Windy City (and were perhaps exorcised), drilled into the mindset of the pro-Palestinian protesters in the streets, wrote about the United Center vibes that felt more like a warehouse rave than a political confab, and finally how Kamala Harris and her celebration reclaimed the American flag for the Democrats. It was a week I’ll never forget.

2. One last thing about Chicago: It capped a truly epic summer not just for me but for my Inquirer colleagues who’ve been providing some of America’s best political coverage both from the road and from our little newsroom overlooking Independence Hall, where it all began. The great coverage from our team at the DNC last week was led by national political reporter Julia Terusso, the hardest working woman in show business; City Hall ace Sean Collins Walsh, who, like a journalistic Brian Dawkins, was all over Philly’s local pols; photojournalist Jose F. Moreno, who produced some Pulitzer-worthy shots; and my Opinion colleague Jenice Armstrong, who captured the emotions of watching the first woman of color accept a major-party nomination. You’re going to want to follow these guys and the rest of the Inquirer crew from now through Nov. 5, and to do that you’ll need to subscribe. Why not start today?

By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

Will Bunch

 

 

I'm the national columnist — with some strong opinions about what's happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government.

[Vesper 28,763]

Trump cashes in during final weeks of his presidential campaign

No presidential candidate has ever so closely linked his election with personal for-profit enterprises, selling items from shoes to books to pieces of his suit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/08/trump-cash-merchandise-books-cards/

With less than 10 weeks before the presidential election, Donald Trump had a message for voters in late August: He would be selling more digital trading cards for $99 each.

“Fifty all new stunning digital trading cards — it’s really something,” Trump says in the ad. “These cards show me dancing and even holding some bitcoins.”

Buy 15 or more of the digital cards, he said, and he would mail a single physical trading card. Those came with a special perk: “An authentic piece of my suit that I wore for the presidential debate.” Five of the suit pieces would even be autographed, he promised. Those willing to buy 75 of the cards — at a total cost of $7,425 — were invited to attend a gala dinner at his country club in Florida, he said. “Let’s have fun together,” he said.

On Tuesday, he again took to Truth Social for another post: selling a book — $99 without his autograph, $499 with his autograph — of pictures of himself. “A MUST HAVE on U.S. History,” he called it.

In both cases, the money was not going to his campaign but to for-profit ventures he earns millions from promoting. No presidential candidate has ever so closely linked his election with personal for-profit enterprises, selling a staggering array of merchandise that includes signed Bibles where he receives a royalty for hawking them, pricey sneakers, gold necklaces, cryptocurrency cards, pens, books, licensing fees on overseas properties and more.

His company’s website also sells a variety of political merchandise at higher prices than his campaign charges for the same items. A “Make America Great Again” hat that sells for $55 on his company website costs $40 through the campaign. A 3x5 flag from the campaign costs $43, while the same size flag on the company’s site costs $86.

“There’s no precedent in history at all, and certainly not in modern history, for somebody who has monetized the office or running for office of president the way he has,” said Don Fox, former general counsel for the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

But Trump’s various moneymaking strategies also further a narrative that Democrats say resonates with voters: that the former president only cares about himself.

“One of the many arguments we make against Trump is that he cares solely about himself and his bottom line more than anything else, including the American people, it manifests itself in all sorts of different ways,” said Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for the Harris campaign. “We have a lot of different proof points, and it’s not just him hawking bibles and ugly sneakers. It’s also, for instance, when he uses donor money to pay for his personal legal fees.”

A spokeswoman for Trump did not answer questions about how many deals he had struck, how much money he had made or whether he would continue such deals should he win the White House.

“President Trump left his multibillion-dollar real estate empire to run for office, donated his presidential government salary, and was the first President to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. “Unlike most politicians, President Trump didn’t get into politics for profit. He ran for president because he genuinely loves the people of this country and wants to make America great again.”

There are advisers and lawyers inside the campaign who say the deals are a little “slimy,” but “Trump relishes being able to market his name,” said one campaign adviser, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details.

“His general belief is, ‘If I’m going to get attacked and have to pay all these lawyers and deal with everything, I need to make some money off it,’” the adviser said.

Trump has privately complained that being president has cost him money at some of his hotels, golf courses and luxury properties, a fact that is borne out by federal financial disclosures. In other places, he has made far more money because of the gig — jacking up his Mar-a-Lago Club’s membership fee to $700,000, for example, giving people a chance to have access to him.

“There’s nothing surprising considering the individual,” Fox said. “How does any of that commercialization of his former office and the one that he seeks again — how does that translate to making the lives of ordinary Americans better? It doesn’t. It just goes to lining his own pocket.”

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said former presidents have often made money by selling books, giving speeches or serving on boards. “They raise money for their libraries, and they get big checks for their memoirs,” Brinkley said.

But he said no president or major-party presidential candidate had ever marketed themselves the way Trump has — with extensive licensing deals for gear, or merging a campaign for the presidency with a private business enterprise.

“In the sense of marketeering themselves in the way that Trump does, selling bobbleheads and MAGA gear, it’s a new lurch into campaign capitalism and profiteering off the White House,” he said. “It’s a real blurring of the lines between his private marketeering and campaign politics. You can quickly confuse the voting public.”

Leavitt called Brinkley’s criticism “an absurd allegation from someone who has no idea what he’s talking about.”

“President Trump had multiple No. 1 best-selling books long before he ever stepped foot in the White House,” she said.

Trump is interested in licensing deals and one-off deals where he does not have to make large time commitments, according to people who have dealt with the issue. In particular, he has liked the book deals where he makes millions from writing, or approving quick captions on pictures and signing some of the books — both with an upfront payment and a portion of the sales. He also has expressed a preference for deals where he can be paid to show up somewhere, particularly at events at his own club.

A person with knowledge of the discussions said the deals usually came directly to Trump or family members and were later scrutinized by lawyers, often after Trump had already said yes. Most of the deals were in the low millions of dollars, this person said.

“What he was willing to do depended on how much money he was getting, who was asking and what mood he was in,” the person said.

Trump often caused challenges to his lawyers and aides — for example, he demanded that the pro shop in his golf course sell MAGA hats, which was campaign merchandise that his private club cannot sell. Eventually, lawyers suggested an iPad be brought into the clubhouse so that people could make a donation to his campaign to get the hats.

Trump has sold a license agreement to a company that markets a panoply of products branded in his name. Those include various styles of golf shoes, perfume, coolers, and sandals among other projects. Trump hawked the athletic shoes during a stop at a Pennsylvania sneaker event this year, because part of the deal required him to promote them.

Last year, he reported making $300,000 from promoting a Bible with musician Lee Greenwood, who often appears at Trump events. The former president, who is not known to be particularly religious, asked his supporters to pay about $60 for the Bible. Greenwood approached Trump directly about the deal, people familiar with the matter said.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in a Truth Social video. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again.”

Some of Trump’s former and informal advisers have discussed launching a Trump vodka line, according to people familiar with the discussions. So far, that has not come to market. A person close to Trump said he has no plans to endorse or start a vodka line.

One of the more prominent deals includes Trump promoting shoes with his name and autograph on them. Those include “Never Surrender Gold Low Tops” that cost $499. There is a “Crypto President” pair of bitcoin orange sneakers for the same price, and a $299 pair of “Fight Fight Fight” shoes that include his bloody face and his arm foisted in the air after the July attempted assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

“GetTrumpSneakers.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign. 45Footwear is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates. 45Footwear uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms,” the website says.

CIC Ventures is a Trump company. The deal includes Trump getting profits in exchange for promotion and autographed materials. He also had to approve the designs.

It is unclear exactly who profits — Trump advisers would not say, and 45Footwear is affiliated with an LLC by the same name that is based in Sheridan, Wyo., according to state records. The LLC was filed by a Wyoming lawyer named Andrew Pierce.

Pierce’s bio on his company’s website says he was “initially a Caribbean business developer” who “learned the hard way the importance of correct business structuring. His firsthand experiences led him to advocate for accessible legal guidance, culminating in the creation of WyomingLLCAttorney.com.”

On some occasions, Trump has benefited from political organizations that he controls. For example, at various political events, donors, supporters and allies are given copies of his picture book, including at the Republican National Convention in July, per attendees. The party has purchased the books.

One adviser described Trump spending hours signing the copies of the book but said he viewed it as worth the money.

Edited September 8 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,763]

Thousands Flee As California Line Fire Explodes

September 8, 2024

A wildfire in California is getting dangerously close to homes and thousands of people in multiple mountain communities have been ordered to evacuate. The Line Fire has exploded in size since starting late on Thursday, fueled by triple-digit heat. It’s burning about 65 miles east of Los Angeles in the San Bernardino National Forest.

https://weather.com/news/video/california-line-fire-san-bernardino-evacuations-record-heat

[Fulham Broadway 16,825]

Because of the Electoral College, The US Election is Still a Toss-Up.

 

We’ve got a lot to criticise in Britain’s unfair and outdated First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system. America’s system takes the worst elements of FPTP and expands on them, mixing in a bit of 18th century-style bureaucracy for good measure.

 

How does it work? Basically every state (and Washington DC) gets three automatic votes, and then additional votes based on their representation in the House and Senate.

 

The House is at least based on population, but every state gets a flat two Senate seats. That means that California (40 million people) gets the same Senate representation as Wyoming (500k people). What that translates to is an electoral college that does not evenly reflect the core idea of democracy: one person, one vote.

 

But wait – it gets worse. Like in the UK, states are declared on a “winner take-all” basis (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska). It means that if Trump won Texas by a few thousand votes,  he’d get all thirty-eight of those electoral votes. Notably, the winner-take-all element was never mentioned in the US constitution – they just chose to do it that way.

 

The result? Few peoples’ votes matter. Voter suppression is easier and more damaging. Third parties don’t stand a chance in hell, and often act only as “spoilers”.  Swing-states determine the outcome. Two of the last four US leaders were chosen by a minority of the population. George W. Bush (2004) is the only Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote.

 

For Kamala Harris, who is currently polling ahead of Trump by about 3 points, those swing states will make all of the difference. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina will determine the next President of the United States. Most of those states are currently polling within the margin of error.

 

Because of the electoral college, this race is a toss-up. Harris will almost certainly win the popular vote. But as we’ve seen here in the UK, America’s jacked-up First-Past-The-Post system doesn’t play fair. That broken mechanism may usher in the end of American democracy itself if Trump rides it to an ill-gotten victory.  

 

Both the UK and the US have record levels of distrust and dissatisfaction with politics. They’re both well past due for a democratic update.

 

 

[ZAPHOD2319 4,476]

The Electoral College is the only thing that keeps New York and California from determining every presidential election. If it wasn’t in place 80% of the US would have no say in the presidential election. 

[cosmicway 1,318]

Bet365 today:

Trump 1.72
Harris 2.10

The picture for Biden in bet365 before Biden's poor performance in the debate was slightly better !
A few days ago it was 1.90 - 1.90.

You may tell me what oddshecker.com says because I don't have access.

 

Edited September 9 by cosmicway

[Vesper 28,763]

6 hours ago, ZAPHOD2319 said:

The Electoral College is the only thing that keeps New York and California from determining every presidential election. If it wasn’t in place 80% of the US would have no say in the presidential election. 

Texas is RW and larger in terms of population than New York.

The Electoral College is a vestige of slavery and racism.

Unless you live in one of the 7 or so swing states, you have no say in the POTUS elections. THAT is the Electoral College's actual impact.

Your 80% statement makes no sense. If there was no EC, then a Republican voter in CA, or Democratic in Texas, etc etc, could still impact the election. The EC now completely disenfranchises them in terms of POTUS. 

 

 

[Vesper 28,763]

16 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Social media owners are in essence publishers. 

If you or I published hate speech - which Elon Musk (Lone Skum) good anagram btw and Fuckerberg seem to allow we'd be prosecuted. They are responsible for ongoing violence, deaths and misogyny and people aspiring to something they will never be

Leon Skum.

Trump's broken brain 🧠 called him Leon, lol.

[cosmicway 1,318]

Yesterday's national poll says Turmp is 1 pt ahead.
So her momentum has slowed down while Trump seems to have weathered the storm.

It seems to me that pointing the various Trump's misdeeds all the time is preaching the converted.
The Magas and any remaining neutrals would n't care less.
To win over voters in an election one needs more than that.

[Fulham Broadway 16,825]

Gaza’s 625,000 school-age children back to school today.  Gaza and the occupied West Bank have internationally high literacy levels, and the under-resourced education system was a source of pride among many Palestinians.

They wont be going back - 96% of the 307 schools are destroyed. 

More than 600,000 students, have been deprived of their right to a free and safe education.

More than 25,000 children have been killed or injured in Israeli attacks.

[IMissEden 20]

Has Kamala by this point uttered one single statement that isn’t contrived by someone else, or otherwise literal nonsense. Stop falling for the puppet show. Democrats have held 20 of the last 24 years in USA. Trump is the issue? They have the answers for society? No. They remain in power almost indefinitely by design, coaxing lots via the most charismatic appeasing faces they can. They are dark, and wolves in sheeps clothing. Same in UK. Have gaslit population entirely. No opinion, facts. Can corroborate. So to support them is to say, fuck sense. 

Edited September 9 by IMissEden