Donald Trump for President of the USA

Sluffy wrote:He still isn't "the highest ranking member of the armed forces ever to serve in Congress" if you feel the need to quote yourself then the least you should do would be to edit out your fake news after it was pointed out to you some days back.

Anyway this is the article published on the same day as your original post giving the strengths and weaknesses of the Vice President options that Harris had.

Top contenders emerge in Harris VP hunt

Tim Walz, Minnesota governor

Mr Walz is a battle-tested leader who served 12 years in Congress before becoming governor in 2018.

He has gained national attention for his strategy calling Donald Trump and JD Vance "weird".

The phrase caught on with a number of Democrats - including Ms Harris. "He's just a strange, weird dude," Mr Walz said of Trump during a fundraising event on Monday.

His plainspoken and small-town Midwestern persona could appeal to independent and conservative voters.

The 60-year-old led Minnesota through the 2020 protests over George Floyd's death in Minneapolis

He deployed the National Guard to help quell riots that broke out during the demonstrations.

Mr Walz served 20 years in the National Guard, taught high school and also worked as an assistant football coach.

Vulnerabilities: Mr Walz's political foes have criticised his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 protests, with Minnesota GOP chairman David Hann recently telling Fox that he believes Mr Walz "was fearful of alienating his progressive base" with a more forceful response.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce4q832w7dgo


Hope Kamala and Tim win though!

For democracy's sake and for Europe's sake, we need to vote blue!

He was the highest ranking non-commissioned officer to have served in Congress. While other veterans have served almost all of them were commissioned officers during their military service while a couple were corporals or sergeants. Governor Walz was a command sergeant major who actually retired as a Master Sergeant. 

The confusion on his rank was pretty simple to explain. He was given a brevet (acting) promotion to Command Sergeant Major. As such he wore the insignia of a csm and was addressed as such but was paid as a master sergeant and retired with master sergeant's pension rights etc. 

The reason his promotion to command sergeant major was not permanent (according to the Minnesota National Guard) is that there was a single piece of academic coursework he would have needed to complete but he chose not to do it as he was already in the retirement process.

It might be cast as some sort of jokey cartoon but in essence it is accurately describing the American Republic Trump support base.

Morons and/or racists who have the right to vote.

Sluffy wrote:It might be cast as some sort of jokey cartoon but in essence it is accurately describing the American Republic Trump support base.

Morons and/or racists who have the right to vote.

The only group you left out are the financially well off elitists who want to maintain their wealth by donating to Trump, who has promised them a laissez faire approach to their taxes, and who will help them and their heirs stay wealthy.

observer wrote:

Sluffy wrote:It might be cast as some sort of jokey cartoon but in essence it is accurately describing the American Republic Trump support base.

Morons and/or racists who have the right to vote.

The only group you left out are the financially well off elitists who want to maintain their wealth by donating to Trump, who has promised them a laissez faire approach to their taxes, and who will help them and their heirs stay wealthy.

True.

I did consider mentioning them - remember the hospital surgeon at the rally when Trump was shot?

I didn't list that group though because I thought in terms of percentage of voters who will vote for Trump, that 'they' would only comprise a small fraction of the total.

Maybe I was wrong to omit them - but they were always going to vote for someone like Trump whereas the poor and needy who will vote for Trump - if better educated - should be voting for the Democrats - to serve their best interests.

That was my thinking anyway.

Oh dear, you people really have lost it and the scary thing is that YOU actually have the vote. You’ll very quickly, if you haven’t already, realise that whilst I completely accept that recent Tory governments have been a shambles, voting and supporting Labour was the quickest way to doom this country, so well done guys. 🥳

Sluffy wrote:

True.

I did consider mentioning them - remember the hospital surgeon at the rally when Trump was shot?

I didn't list that group though because I thought in terms of percentage of voters who will vote for Trump, that 'they' would only comprise a small fraction of the total.

Maybe I was wrong to omit them - but they were always going to vote for someone like Trump whereas the poor and needy who will vote for Trump - if better educated - should be voting for the Democrats - to serve their best interests.

That was my thinking anyway.

This is why this is so important...     We know from his rhetoric that Trump offers to sell quid pro quo's for cash.                                                                                                  Some of the nation’s wealthiest people are powering Trump’s bid to return to the White House: His 26 biggest billionaire backers, worth a combined $143 billion, have poured $162 million into the effort so far. - Forbes - Aug 14, 2024  

[size=100]“ We need a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man,” declared Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, at the Republican National Convention last month. “A leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations, but will stand up for American companies and American industry.”[/size]

Federal Election Commission filings tell a slightly different story. Many of the nation’s richest individuals, including founders and executives at some of America’s biggest businesses, have backed the Trump-Vance ticket. In fact, 26 billionaires have already given more than $1 million apiece to pro-Trump PACs and committees. But there may still be something to Vance’s distinction between “multinational corporations” and “American companies”—at least when it comes to who supports Trump. Of the former president’s 26 biggest billionaire donors, 16 derive their fortunes from private, often family-held corporations based in the U.S. Many of them, like Diane Hendricks’ ABC Supply and Liz and Dick Uihlein’s Uline, openly celebrate their track record of operating mostly in the U.S. and generating American jobs.

The list includes a few heirs like Johnson & Johnson scion Woody Johnson and Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. But the vast majority of the donors–22 out of 26–have built their own billion-dollar empires. The top industries among Trump’s top billionaire backers are casinos (4), finance (3) and oil and gas (3).   In an election year, money flows fast. Since Forbes first looked at Trump’s top billionaire backers two months ago, Adelson has rocketed up the ranks, now the fourth biggest donor after a huge lump sum gift in late May. (And she reportedly has plans that could soon take her to the top of the list.) Also new to the top 10 are stock exchange billionaire Jeff Sprecher and his wife, former senator Kelly Loeffler. Hendricks has also moved up, from fourth to third. Those moves pushed the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and the Los Angeles real estate magnate Geoffrey Palmer out of the top 10.

Five of these donors have given to the newly-launched America PAC, which Elon Musk says he helped start. It was created in May and has already spent close to $8 million on pro-Trump field operations and text campaigns. It was widely reported that Musk had pledged $45 million a month to the super-PAC, though he has since said he will be supporting the group at a “much lower level”–and he has not reported a federal contribution since 2020. Musk may not yet make the list, but his longtime friend and investor Antonio Gracias does. He gave America PAC $1 million in June.

My point in case you missed it was that there may well be 26 billionaires bankrolling Trump but THEY amount to just 26 votes for him at the ballot!

That's why I didn't included them in along with the morons and racists, whose volume of votes WILL decide the ballot one way or another for Trump.

Of course their dollars will help Trump get his message out to the morons and racists but we can only hope their are enough sane and enlightened people out there who will vote to stop him.

Sluffy wrote:My point in case you missed it was that there may well be 26 billionaires bankrolling Trump but THEY amount to just 26 votes for him at the ballot!

That's why I didn't included them in along with the morons and racists, whose volume of votes WILL decide the ballot one way or another for Trump.

Of course their dollars will help Trump get his message out to the morons and racists but we can only hope their are enough sane and enlightened people out there who will vote to stop him.

I believe you may have missed my point and that of Forbes.  26 Billionaires are funding his message to the illiterate voters who support him. I wouldn't count on those 26 to vote either, unless they can send their butlers to do it for them!  No need to argue about it... we are both on the same side here.   What you should be asking yourself is how the Citizens United decision by SCOTUS has upended voting allowing dark money into these campaigns... money that cannot be traced... a decision that has favored the Rethuglicans and their billionaire friends. Of course, the Democrats have a few of those as well.

Just to inject a little humour, Jon Stewart.

I'm not arguing, I was merely pointing out that I was talking about something completely separate to what you have, namely the composition of the mass vote for the Republicans these days being composed of the uneducated (morons) and racists.

Of course others will vote Republican for their own reasons such as greed and influence as in the case of the 26 billionaires but their 26 votes are completely insignificance to the 74 million votes cast for Trump in 2020

You are highlighting something else, namely the billions of dollars flowing in to the Trump campaign.

Of course it takes money for any candidate to get their message out to the people to vote for them but I imagine in some ways the voters in America are the same as voters in the UK and that despite what you may tell them, they will vote for the same political party regardless and that why elections hinge on marginal constituencies (in the UK) and swing states (in the US presidential elections).

A change in demographics is usually the reason 'safe' seats/states become marginal/swing ones - Democratic states in the 'Rust Belt' moving towards being Republican or Republican states moving towards Democrats such as Georgia galvanising the black voters in the 2020 election.

At the end of the day though it won't matter how much money the Democrats have to campaign with they won't win states like Texas and similarly the Republicans won't win California or New York State.

People are people - we can see it in microcosm even on Nuts where W63 will always vote Conservative no matter what (although he really is a Reform voter in that the political policies he espouses are far right Libertarian ones) and Wanderlust who claims to be Labour (but in reality never talks about any Labour policies but only of his hatred of all things Tory).

These people will never alter their views and only a change in demographics around them will effect the vote in the constituency/state where they live.

Fwiw the biggest danger I see to democracy is the control of peoples minds through social media brainwashing - which again can be demonstrated on Nuts in microcosm with W63 and Wanderlust in what they have posted on here after seeing fake news from their 'echo chambers' (confirmation bias) they clearly frequent.

We get what we deserve I guess?

You do make me laugh Sluffy. A bit sad though really.

Whitesince63 wrote:You do make me laugh Sluffy. A bit sad though really.

Fair enough, as you make me laugh for being so stupid as to not even understanding where the polices that you so truculently defend originate from and why they were formulated as such.

None so blind as those that will not see and all that.

Anyway who are you going to vote for the next Tory leader - Badenoch (who - just for starters - wants to get rid of maternity benefit), Jenrick (who was mired in sleaze (and corruption?)) over his extremely dodgy approval for Planning Permission over the Westferry site), Cleverly - who lied about the remarks he made in Parliament about Stockton on Tess (and also jokes about spiking women's drinks!).

Tugendhat - the best of the candidates - will almost certainly be the next to be kicked out of the race, unfortunately.

PS, great job for voting for Truss the last time - she only went on to wreck the economy - and fwiw, I even told you on here before you voted for her that her economic policy was clearly bonkers and simply would not work - I never in my wildest dreams thought she would implement it, I just thought she was saying it for clowns like you to vote for her - and YOU DID...

ZZZZZ 🥱

Whitesince63 wrote:ZZZZZ 🥱

Hahaha!!!

You don't understand where (or why) all the polices you support have been formulated for you, and many others, simply to regurgitate without thought.

You are too embarrassed to state who your preferred next Tory leader will be from the list containing an extreme radical nutjob, a very dodgy (corrupt?) ex-Minister, and a liar.

And you are still clueless why Truss economics ruined both the national economy and her own career.

So how else other to avoid absolutely everything, could you ever reply to me, I suppose?

Fair play for even trying though.

Sluffy wrote:

Hahaha!!!

You don't understand where (or why) all the polices you support have been formulated for you, and many others, simply to regurgitate without thought.

You are too embarrassed to state who your preferred next Tory leader will be from the list containing an extreme radical nutjob, a very dodgy (corrupt?) ex-Minister, and a liar.

And you are still clueless why Truss economics ruined both the national economy and her own career.

So how else other to avoid absolutely everything, could you ever reply to me, I suppose?

Fair play for even trying though.

I didn’t try. The thought of ever trying to have a sensible dialogue with you was proved hopeless long ago.

Whitesince63 wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

Hahaha!!!

You don't understand where (or why) all the polices you support have been formulated for you, and many others, simply to regurgitate without thought.

You are too embarrassed to state who your preferred next Tory leader will be from the list containing an extreme radical nutjob, a very dodgy (corrupt?) ex-Minister, and a liar.

And you are still clueless why Truss economics ruined both the national economy and her own career.

So how else other to avoid absolutely everything, could you ever reply to me, I suppose?

Fair play for even trying though.

I didn’t try. The thought of ever trying to have a sensible dialogue with you was proved hopeless long ago.

Ditto.

Unlike you I do though continue to keep giving you (and everyone else) the facts (linked to their sources), in the hope that one day people might begin to grasp that believing stuff from social media (echo chambers, confirmation bias, etc) and/or politicised news media's are simply not the real truth and are at best presented with a great deal of bias or at worst, simply lies.

Fwiw here is a story today about how people believed a social media lie - it's non political so give it a read.

It might open your eyes at long last - but I doubt it...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg9k5dv1zdo

See what I mean