rjshae

I wonder what DJT has in mind for MTG? If I had to guess, I'd say Secretary of *COUGH*racial purity*COUGH* Homeland Security.

Probably my favorite indie band, but I always thought they were English. Nope, Canadian.

What I don't get is why he'd take on a job like that. Bureaucracy fixer is about as uninteresting as a job can get. Getting ready for life on Mars?

I see DJT has been carefully assembling his crack(pot) team. Rubio is the only one I can take seriously thus far, but there's a couple I don't recognize so we'll see I guess.

Been dealing with a bug that's had me laid up for a few days. I don't have a temperature so it's probably not the COVID, fortunately. Can't wait until it goes away though.

For DJT's second term, I'm expecting a lot of sturm und drang, but not a lot of accomplishment. In terms of foreign policy, there will be nothing that he accomplishes which will make up for losing Ukraine. He's going in to that situation with a weak negotiating position vs. Putin, and Russia will get nearly all of what they want. A halt to hostilities will allow Russia to re-arm and prepare for the final takeover. Hostilities with Iran will continue, and relations with US allies will sour thanks to his "bull in a china shop" diplomacy. DJT's efforts to apply tariffs will increase costs for consumers, particularly those with a low income, and may be inflationary. His work to end the ACA and to "reform" medicare will result in fewer people with health insurance, and a lowering of life expectancy. He'll curb efforts to reduce climate change, which at best will only slow down the transformation to a renewable energy economy. If he deploys troops to round up illegal immigrants, it may severely disrupt the economy and increase costs for consumers.

What this does demonstrate is that Iran is an enemy of DJT. His actions ensured that would be the case. It's unclear whether relations with Iran would have become more normalized without DJT's antagonistic intervention. But I like to think they were starting to trend in a positive direction prior to 2017. Now we're likely in for more decades of (possibly unnecessary) hostility. It will take a new generation of leaders to cool things down.

Timber! Japan launches world’s first wooden satellite into space

Most of those efforts took place in red states, so it wasn't as concerning as it might have been. Still, the optics were pretty bad. As for forcing people to stand in line for 6 hours to vote, that seems like a form of a poll tax which violates the 24th amendment. But I'm not sure how well that argument would play out in the court system.

I'm not convinced the fear-mongering strategy failed; it just wasn't enough. Lower income people got clobbered in the pocketbook by inflation, and no amount of good economic news was going to counter that. The Fed took a year before changing the rate to counter inflation, and as consequence it nearly got out of hand. I think that's why DJT is President. Yes, the entire world went through inflation, but Americans tend to be insular and think locally. Back before the 2020 election I thought some of DJTs policies were inflationary (E.g. massive aid package; tariffs), yet somehow he's escaped blame. That's partly because of poor messaging by the Biden administration, something they've shown over and over they're not good at. The Democrats painted themselves into a corner on the border issue, and they have nobody but themselves to blame. My concern now is with DJT planning to use the military against targets in the US. That's the path to becoming a banana republic.

Fabrik?

I think Biden would just have lost by a larger margin. His polls were scraping bottom at 38.5% approval rating; they flipped back in 2021 (with the withdrawal from Afghanistan) and have never recovered. There was nobody else to step into his place other than Harris, and she and Biden controlled the campaign budget. If there had been more time, maybe Harris could have built more of a coalition. She gave it a good run, given the limited time available.

Well, the Democrats are now 0-2 running female candidates for Presidents. My conjecture is it will take a special female candidate to win the office for the first time (assuming there will be any future fair elections). To me, Harris lacks charisma and doesn't have a good speaking voice. I thought at the time that Biden made a non-optimal choice for VP, and now here's the consequence. As for the election whiner, well life is funny even when it's not. It was a "titanic" victory.

Word is the Russians were behind it, along with a number of disinformation videos.

My sympathies for all the US election workers and the stuff and nonsense they have to put up these days for just doing their patriotic duty.