Election Thread 2024

[Unbeliever]

Farty Five thinks he's running against some guy named Joe Bride! 🤣

[Hydra009]

Trump waves to nobody

Maybe he thinks it looks good from certain angles.  Maybe he's talking to the Green Goblin mask.  I don't know.

[ferdmonger]

Policies?  Policy scmolisy.  Who needs policies when you have hateful soundbites that work on the rubes. Interviews with the man/woman on the street are special and can be found everywhere.

'Jan 6 was mostly peaceful.'  No it wasn't.
'They say Trump was convicted of felonies, but I just don't see it.'  I don't care if you see it.  He was convicted of 34 felonies. 
'The election was stolen!'  No it wasn't.  Fucking grow up and admit your loss.
'The border is a mess and Biden isn't doing anything about it!'  Other than the bipartisan bill that Trump sabotaged and Lankford - a republican's republican - was thrown under the bus to stoke Trump's ego and deny Biden a victory. Better to have campaign issue than a solution.

These people make me cranky. 

[ferdmonger]

Farty Five thinks he's running against some guy named Joe Bride! 🤣

Don't forget he announced that he wants a cognitive test because Dr Ronnie Johnson certified that he can remember: sedition, fake electors, Jan 6, conspiracy, and insurrection.

Oh, and his doctor's name happens to be Ronnie Jackson, not Ronnie Johnson. I really dislike this half-wit. 

[Unbeliever]

I passed dislike long ago, now I'm at the loathe stage.

[Hydra009]

Something that doesn't get talked about often is the legitimately good things that have happened under Biden.  Here's an example from a couple of months ago that I somehow missed due to the wall-to-wall Trump's-a-felon coverage:

Asthma inhalers capped at $35 - passed in April, went into effect in June

Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions noted AstraZeneca charges $645 in the U.S. for the same inhaler it charges $49 for in the U.K. Teva Pharmaceuticals, another major inhaler manufacturer, charges $286 in the U.S. for an inhaler that costs $9 in Germany.

It's true.  And europeans are generally shocked by the gouging that goes on in the US - the more in-tune Americans are angered and disgusted by it while a sizable, possibly larger, portion of Americans just assumes this is just what it actually costs, apparently unaware of the different situations in terms of what is spent on healthcare (including taxes) versus what is received in the US and other western countries.  Spoiler alert, it's not great in the states.  (And while the article attributes the price increase to climate change - lemme ask you one simple question: do they have climate change in Germany?)

I can't stress enough how important it is that inhalers are capped.  I have asthma and I (unfortunately) have extensive experience with the things.  Fortunately, it's been a while since I've had to huff down that stuff, which is good because man, they've really gone up in price over the years.  These things are literally the difference between life or death and they've gone up dramatically.  Talk about making a killing.

I dunno where everyone stands politically, but I'm of the opinion that being poor shouldn't be a death sentence.  Maybe that puts me way on the left with all the other bleeding hearts, I dunno.  But I'd rather be in that camp than the one where you force people to decide between paying rent or living to tomorrow.

And just fyi, while we don't know the exact cause(s) of asthma, there's a fairly straightforward association between air pollution and at least some asthma cases.  So this is something that people come down with through no fault of their own, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't people at fault.  Let's just say that capping the price of inhalers is a good first step, but it's not the only step that needs to be taken.

[Unbeliever]

I pay nothing for any of my medication.

[SGOS]

I pay nothing for any of my medication.

Do you have insurance for meds?

[Dark Lightning]

I have asthma. It got worse recently- from using a rescue inhaler maybe half a dozen puffs a year, to a couple of times a day. Doctor prescribed a different one that didn't work too well, and cost $40 each! Changed it to another drug, which does work, and only costs me $6. Either way, my former employer has an insurance plan to cover medication, so I get reimbursed, anyway. Poor people aren't as fortunate.

[Unbeliever]

Do you have insurance for meds?

Yeah, I'm fully covered. After my heart attack I was lucky enough to get social security, so I don't have to pay for doctor visits or meds.

[Unbeliever]

Farty Five says fossil fuel truck drivers can drive from New York to Los Angeles  - ALL THE WAY - without stopping for fuel! 🤣

[Hydra009]

Republican seeks to block the certification of his Republican rival

"I never thought the leopard klan we raised together would try to eat *my* face!"

Rep. Bob Good said Monday his campaign would file a legal challenge to "try to block certification" of the Republican primary election in a key city in Virginia's 5th District as he trails his opponent in the vote count.

Take note that everything they're doing here, they're going to do in November.

Good claimed during an appearance on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast Monday

Oof.  Going on the disgraced Trumper's podcast - the same guy who iirc has to go report to prison soon.  That's how you know everything's above board.

These are totally normal election challenges that happen every time someone loses and gets really, really, really butthurt about it.  And the evidence is pretty solid - apparently there were fires and those sorts of things don't just happen (there weren't really any fires, tellingly) so the city of Lynchburg should just do a do-over election.

So in the Republican spirit of election "integrity", I'd like to throw my hat into the ring in this election.  Was I born there?  Nope, but neither was Ted Cruz.  Did I live there?  Nope, but neither did Lauren Boebert.  And I might have a hard time convincing whoever's in charge of elections in Virginia, probably Nikki Haley, according to Trump.  Maybe Obama.  Man person woman man...something, I forget.

The point is, we need to redo the election because it wasn't free and fair.
If I lose, I get a rematch.
If I win, I keep the seat.  Forever.

[Hydra009]

A tale fit for a handmaiden and a portent of things to come:


(red arrows are fleeing from states with an abortion ban, gray arrows are from states without such a ban but where it may still be difficult to receive care)

My local newspaper had a little blurb about how abortions are down in Texas (I'll give ya three guess as to why) and left it for the reader to decide if that's a good or bad thing - which is a strangely neutral take on Americans literally fleeing for their lives.  I suppose it's more important to not be seen as "political" by taking a stand on such matters.

But in the body of the article - for all us avid newspaper readers out there and not just people who skim headlines, there are literally dozens of us - they noted that infant mortality went way up:

a 12.9 percent increase in infant deaths in Texas versus a 1.8 percent increase in infant deaths in the rest of the U.S. during the same period.

An analysis of neonatal deaths—deaths in the first 28 days—found similar patterns, with an estimated 145 excess deaths in the post-policy period. These results were not observed in other states.

Well color me shocked.  I had no idea that denying healthcare for women would have negative health consequences.  Why, whoever could've foreseen that?!

Also, I can't help but note that birth control and sex ed put a huge dent in abortions.  I'm not talking a 5% or 10% reduction.  Free access to birth control alone reduces abortion seeking by 62-78 percent compared to the national average.  But apples-to-apples, the usual abortion rate in that area was 13.4 to 17 per 1,000 women, and participants were at 4.4 to 7.5 per 1,000 women.  That's roughly three times less.

Republicans say they despise abortion and consider it tantamount to murder.  Yet when they have power, do they champion stuff that is proven to significantly decrease the abortion rate?  No.  Not at all.  In fact, blocking contraception access is next.  These apparently deliberately ineffectual policies would be very confusing if it wasn't obvious from the onset that the "for the children" rallying cry is a cheap slogan dressing up an ugly attack on women and family planning in favor of a more "traditional" way of life - one where infant mortality increases, not decreases.  A reversal of hard-fought gains and rights.  Welcome to Red State Amerika.

[Unbeliever]

Apparently Mountain Dew can make someone a brilliant orator and can turn Sleepy Joe into a master debater! Who knew soda was a performance enhancing drug!? 🤣

[Dark Lightning]

^ Well, MD does have caffeine in it.