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2024 US Election

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In Virginia, my State, Tim Kaine will be up for re-election. If the Republicans field a candidate committed to outlawing abortion, I'll vote for Kaine to do my bit against such a Republican candidate (as is likely – sigh!).

On 5/3/2022 at 6:20 AM, Boydstun said:

. . .

The mystical metaphysics is with the voters who voted for Republican candidates in state-wide races or for the Presidency in the these last decades because they favored overturning Roe and outlawing pre-viability abortions. The Justices appointed by G. W. Bush and by Donald Trump were candidates for appointment because they satisfied the requirement of being in step with that electoral constituency.

. . .

Now the fight over abortion turns back full-tilt to the States. In the US Senate, I doubt either side can get a super-majority to go along with a federal abortion law [but mere majority matters for new Supreme Court Justice nominee approvals, sorry as that new pattern of the Senate on approvals may be]. 

 

 

Edited by Boydstun
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  • 1 month later...

 

I would not vote for Asa Hutchinson for President, and that is on account of his position on the legality of elective abortions. I do like his emphasis on balancing the federal budget.* His advice on the Trump candidacy is sensible.* Hillary Clinton did not drop out of the general election when, nine days before election day, it was announced by the FBI Director that the investigation into her emails while Secretary of State was being reopened due to a new source of information. But reopening an investigation is less advanced in legal process than an indictment, and she was in the general election, where withdrawal would mean putting Trump into Presidential power point blank. As it worked out, even that reopening of her case destroyed her lead in the race, and we got Trump. Mr. Trump is, of course, innocent until proven guilty at trial, but just as many voters did not want to be going into the new term with a legal shadow over a Pres. H. Clinton, so they would not want to be going into the new term with an even darker legal shadow over a Pres. Donald Trump. 

Edited by Boydstun
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  • 2 weeks later...

Former CIA , racist nothing burger in a suit , getting support from state media aligned with his supposed political/partisan opposition. He named , described three problems and the interviewer called that an exposition of his policies. I guess 70 mil ain’t really what it used to be.

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Tad,

I probably should have put those two recent developments into two different posts. So far as I know, this candidate is of no particular interest to the Koch group. Also, that interview of him, which allowed him a lot of time to speak, did not contain much of substance. Since he was in the House for three terms, I expect his voting record would say more about what could be expected from him in policy. I don't care for candidates who do not promote making their first budget a balanced one. Though, from what I've seen, such a candidate would attract no interest at all from Republican primary voters (attention on culture wars). Such a Republican nominee might however win in the general election against a big spending Democrat, and like the Democrat, would have the attraction that he or she was not Donald Trump. My Democrat friends favor Trump for the Republican nomination, because they expect they can beat him again by an even wider margin. If the nominee is not Trump, they are not sure they can win.

Why did you say this new contestant is a racist?

Edited by Boydstun
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I think your Democrat friends should be careful what they wish for. And let’s hope all democracies don’t go the way of Ukraine and suspend elections in wartime. God forbid a NATO country is attacked by Putin before fall of 2024 or 100 % of our ballots will be handled in a non traditional way that cycle , as opposed to the 69% in 2020, the year of the grand margin.

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Koch spending $70 million is peanuts compared to $350 million Mark Zuckerberg spent in 2020,  see: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-from-facebooks-ceo-saved-the-2020-election .  That spending was just on getting the votes counted (for Biden) and wasn't part of the more than one billion spent by the Biden Campaign. 

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9 hours ago, Jim Henderson said:

see: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-from-facebooks-ceo-saved-the-2020-election .  That spending was just on getting the votes counted (for Biden)

I read the article.  It comes across as spending on getting the votes counted, regardless of who they were for.

 

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On 6/29/2023 at 2:40 PM, Boydstun said:

 

The Koch Network has raised 70 million dollars to place in the Republican presidential primary contest for some candidate or other not Trump.

I was surprised to learn that Charles Koch has donated significantly to the ADF (2020). That does not bode well for what sort of candidate the Koch Network might be willing to back in the Republican Primaries. The ADF has the repeal of my same-sex marriage in its sights.

https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/samesexmarriage-adf-pamphlet.pdf

ADF states: "ADF believes that all people are made in the image of God and that everyone is worthy of dignity and respect. While ADF takes legal and policy positions that are informed by a biblically-based understanding of marriage, human sexuality, and the sanctity of life, we respect the human dignity of those with whom we disagree and win legal cases that also protect their freedom to express and advocate for their beliefs."

Well, thanks for the sop, but I'm not an idiot. Legally unequal is legally unequal, and that goes not only for equality under laws that prohibit or enjoin, but for laws that confer legal powers.

"The Charles Koch Institute also gave $275,000 to the anti-LGBTQ, Christian litigation powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, a first for Koch, according to CMD's tracking of his funding. Designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom is a major pusher of so-called “campus free speech” legislation and in recent years has been an active litigant in cases seeking to upend LGBTQ rights in the name of "religious freedom."

Hopefully, that report about Koch is false.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/11/29/koch-spent-nearly-150-million-2020

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On 6/29/2023 at 7:42 PM, tadmjones said:

racist nothing burger in a suit

"In a suit" means nothing. 

On 6/29/2023 at 8:45 PM, tadmjones said:

[He's racist] because he’s a black man who won in Latino district and apparently that means something?

I take it that you mean he's a racist because he mentioned that it was not expected that a black Republican would win a 72% Latino district. He's arguing for his electability, of which the demographic fact he mentioned is relevant. I don't see that as racist. But if it is, then Trump displays racism every time he boasts about the number of Hispanic votes he got. 

On 7/1/2023 at 5:36 AM, Jim Henderson said:

Koch spending $70 million is peanuts compared to $350 million Mark Zuckerberg spent in 2020

20% of $350M is not peanuts.

Edited by InfraBeat
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  • 3 months later...

“It’s very clear where I stand on this,” Youngkin said after the Henrico County rally. “We’re running a big advertising campaign. … I believe Virginians can come together around a bill to protect life at 15 weeks with full exceptions for rape and incest and when a mother’s life is at risk.”

Today is election day in Virginia for the State legislature, and NO, Gov, we cannot come together on your abortion ban.

It is at around 26 weeks of gestation that a fetus reaches a condition in which it can be supported outside the womb of the mother. Until then anyone forcing a woman to carry the fetus to term is impressing her into their service, just as when this State had the forced labor that is slavery. No compromise.

Edited by Boydstun
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Yesterday the voters rejected Gov. Youngkin's abortion-banning ploy, which he had used in campaigning for Republican candidates around the State. The Democrats now narrowly hold both legislative chambers in Richmond,* making a bit more secure the present law which does not prohibit abortions until the third trimester (i.e., after 26 weeks of gestation).

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4 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

. . . a vote for Trump might “really” be a vote against Harris whom I consider to be a more-dangerous potential POTUS than Biden. . . . 

What policies of Harris as President do you think more dangerous than Biden's?

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“Policies” are emergent, they emerge after the candidate takes office and has to execute the duties of the office. At the campaigning stage, we mostly have slogans like “Make America Great Again”, “Hope. Change”, “Bye, Don”, “Believe in America”. Since Harris is not running for president, she has not declared any policies, that is up to Biden. When it comes to the VPOTUS package deal, all we have to go on is ideological probabilities. The two central questions w.r.t. Harris are (1) is she more progressive than Biden or less – my judgment is “more” – and (2) does she have the political strength to resist the demands of the substantially more progressive Democratic machine – my judgment is “not much”. Of course, we saw the disasterous results of a president who was totally willing to ignore the advice of his betters.

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