The season is upon us as people started to campaign.  Will update with key races as time goes on, but the presidential games already started.  

Presidential race looks like:

Major GOP declared candidates:

Donald Trump

Ron DeSantis
Doug Burgum 
Chris Christie
Mike Pence
Nikki Haley
Tim Scott
Larry Eldar
Asa Hutchinson
Perry Jackson
Vivek Ramaswamy
Francis X. Suare

Major Dem declared Candidates:

Joe Biden
Robert F Kennedy Jr
Marianne Williamson
Tiger King Joe Exotic

For the presidential race, GOP will do debates while the Democrats will not.  It is tradition for the incumbent not to debate.  Fox is the only media source that claims the democratic primary will be competitive.  Everyone else believes that Biden will easily sweep most states going into the conference with a secure win.  

First GOP debate is Aug 23rd, with an 1% in three national polls qualifiers.  Also need 40k donors nationally and 200+ donors in each of 20+ states.  This is a very aggressive first round criteria and will rapidly cut the above field down.  They do not want 20 candidate primaries this time around, but to focus on those who may be able to actually win.  Pence and DeSantis will make it, as likely will Pence, Haley and Christie.  The rest unsure about as they lack name or star power right now.


Key Senate seats up:

Arizona =  Kyrsten Sinema - Sinema is unlikely to win her seat again.
West Virginia = Manchin - Like Sinema he is unlikely to be able to win his seat again.  Almost certain to turn red.
California = Feinstein - The animated corpse of Feinstein is being retired.  It will stay blue, but who gets it is uncertain.
Florida = Rick Scott - Scott won by a razor thin margin and wants to defund social security, very likely he loses his seat.
Indiana =  Mike Braun - Braun won by a small margin the first time and is moving to the Gov race making this a race to watch.
Montana = Jon Tester - Tester keep winning by small margins in the red state.  
Nevada = Jacky Rosen - Another race won on a small margin in a state that swings.
Texas = Ted Cruz - Ted won by a small margin and is deeply unpopular.  Huge pool gunning for his seat.

Those 7 races will likely determine control of the Senate.  

House Race:

House is also up for grabs, but that is really hard to get into given the sheer amount of races.  Freedom Caucus and Progressives are who to really watch as their views leaves them open to moderates from both parties.  Should be a very close election for overall control, with a secondary story of how many Freedom and Progressive caucus people come in or win reelection.

Maps:

www.270towin.com/

Too early to use the old map, but that is where it lives.  10 states likely determine the election though, as is traditionally the case.

Major factors at stake for the world:

First, both Trump and Biden are so old, the vice president really does matter, as it is well within the realm of possibility they die before 2028.

If Trump wins it is widely believe he will act in a punitive manner to his enemies, which will include countries he felt wronged him during his first term, or did not support him winning the 2020 election. Deals will be cancelled, tariffs put in place and others actions likely taken. Groups like NATO will likely be abandoned as well.

Several of the GOP candidates have stated they want to send troops into Mexico with or without their consent to deal with the troops. The geopolitical blowback from this will be uncertain.

Several of the GOP candidates support Russia in the Ukraine conflict, and will cut off the Ukraine and work with Russia to achieve their objectives within the Ukraine. Another event that will have geopolitical effects that are very uncertain right now given the world is mostly aligned against Russia. At the very least many of the GOP candidates will cut off funding for the Ukraine, and the US is the main sponsor right now.

As time goes on, trade deals with China will become a factor. Right now we have no free trade deal with them. Trump will return to punitive ones, but other candidates are all over the place. Everyone says the US needs to reform trade with China but the how is all over. What happens will likely shock through global prices given the size of these two trade markets. Reforming the WTO is also a topic that may get debate as China managed to utterly subvert it.

Rob Kennedy is going pretty hard, he was on Joe Rogan and while I don't listen to his podcasts it seems he lobbed a few hand grenades.

I think he got the nomination as unlikely as that is, he would capture a fair chunk of the Trump vote if he isn't allowed to run.

For the party nomination only registered Democrats can vote in the primary. Only 15% of registered democrats support him. His popularity is with independents and Republicans. But they do not get to vote.

No president has lost a primary with an approval rating among their party above 70% since FDR. Biden at 84% percent with Democrats. Kennedy's approval rating is 25% with 39% having an unfavorable view of him. Those are not winning numbers.

Kennedy is likely to lose in South Carolina and drop out of the race shortly after.

Media now remembering who RFK Jr was before the change in image. His playboy past will likely be revived over the next few weeks likely. Things like him being found barely alive on a plane suffering from a heroin overdose, his arrest for possession of heroin after said overdose, his constant affairs with multiple wives, that he drove Mary to suicide by repeatedly telling she should kill herself, his support for his cousin, the child murderer Michael Skakel who he helped get released on a technicality, and all his kid's legal problems (I Am a Kennedy, Google Me).

Here in CT, people were pissed that Shakel was let go.  Girl was last seen in his backyard, with the murder weapon in his backyard, and two people testified he said he killed her and he would get away with it because he was Kennedy.

Videos of RFK Jr saying the COVID pandemic was planned being shared around now.

The planned pandemic conspiracy is that the US planned a pandemic to take control of the country by funding research in China to create a deadly pathogen, then deliberately leaking it in China with the hopes it would spread internationally and eventually spread to America, which then could use it as an excuse to do a lockdown the country that most areas of the US never participated in. This was heavily shared stuff in the QANON circles.

Also looks like he will not have the support of the rest of the Kennedy clan in his run either as most of them are disgusted by him ruining the Kennedy name with his insane conspiracy theories.

Hilarious segment from the Fox Trump interview.

Trump also making things very, very awkward for Fox.  

God I wish there were democratic primary debates just to show how insane RFK Jr really is.

Trump claims if he wins he will defund the government and give more tax cuts to the wealthy.

Jun 19, 2023 17:50:51 GMT c said:

Videos of RFK Jr saying the COVID pandemic was planned being shared around now.

The planned pandemic conspiracy is that the US planned a pandemic to take control of the country by funding research in China to create a deadly pathogen, then deliberately leaking it in China with the hopes it would spread internationally and eventually spread to America, which then could use it as an excuse to do a lockdown the country that most areas of the US never participated in. This was heavily shared stuff in the QANON circles.

Also looks like he will not have the support of the rest of the Kennedy clan in his run either as most of them are disgusted by him ruining the Kennedy name with his insane conspiracy theories.

This is a bit of a shame, even here the "Plandemic" movement got a lot of traction.
It frustrates me because our health officials and governments completely, totally and utterly screwed the pandemic response.
It's trying to be hushed up now, but all they have succeeded in doing with that is destroy the credibility of the various authorities.

The bitching is the US is so weird, given the people who are complaining about lockdowns were never locked down. Most of the US did business as usual. Only the cities did lockdowns. People still went home for the holidays and took vacations and shit. Most stores were able to remain open. We had one of the most permissive responses to the pandemic in the world, and it showed as COVID fucking wrecked the parts of the country that took no precautions.

In other RFK Jr news, he is doing the Alex Jones chemicals will make the frog gay thing claiming chemicals in the water are turning kids trans.  But only for male to female transitions apparently.  The rise in female to male transitions at the same time is a complete coincidence.  

RFK Jr will speak at an anti-trans event with DeSantis and Trump. But surely he can beat Biden in the Dem primary still.

Fox's Bret Baier announced as the first moderator for the GOP primary debates.

Notable as Trump just did an interview with him and Baier called him out repeatedly for misinformation.

Many believe this pick means Trump will not show up.  

Democratic primary debates absolutely crushed this week as consensus is that neither RFK or Williamson poll well enough with likely voters to justify a debate against the incumbent. More at the DNC against the debates than would support them.

Last time an incumbent did a primary debate was Ford, and that was because he was unelected.

Before that was the three way race between Johnson, McCarthy and RFK that was a right mess and saw the incumbent drop out, the clear leading candidate assassinated and the nomination going to Humphrey (the former VP) who shipped the primaries but won at the DNC convention while a riot was going on outside. Then he got destroyed by the mighty Dick.

Blue state House Republicans in competitive races plan to run on a national abortion ban it seems for the 2024 election. I honestly do not know what to say. They got to be a special type of stupid to think that will play in NY or Cali. Forget the general election, they may not make it out of the primaries. Dems are already running ads on the 31 seats they want to take focused on abortion. They do not even have candidates yet and are on messaging already. 

Trump promoting RFK Jr now. And his Super Pac is run by the same people running MAGA PAC.

Analysing of funding also confirmed that No Labels is funded by mostly big Trump donors, with several small democratic donors to attempt to show impartiality. Which matches their internal research that they will help Trump will by taking more vote from Biden than Trump. And matches their plan to drop out if Trump is not the nomination or Biden has a clear lead. Third way is currently calling them out for being a MAGA front.

Still no confirmation who they plan to try to run. Not be shocked if they push RFK Jr to drop out of the primary and run third party instead on their platform. The cash comes from the same place.

For the record, the last time a third party won a US election was in 1848.  And that was only because the modern republican party was not formed yet.  In 1856 when the Republicans started to run candidates for president it created a two party system that was unbreakable.  

RFK Jr says he will not commit to endorsing Biden if he wins the primary.

And like that, he justifies the DNC not holding a primary.

///

RFK Jr also released his first ads, of people wearing RFK Jr shirts in Russia.

Talk now that the GOP may fail to regain Senate due to pushing MAGA candidates in the primaries. MAGA candidates while popular in the GOP, have little appeal to independents or democrats. And many of the candidates have histories of losing against democrats in other races.

Supreme Court just ruled that businesses do not have to serve gay people.  Believed this does not work in reverse and that straight people cannot be discriminated against, due to the equal protection clause.  Gay people are just not as equal as others.  

And the Supreme Court ruled unlike Trump, Biden cannot forgive student debt.

These ruling will motivate these bases.

Some already assuming that the no homo supreme court ruling means they can legally bring back white only businesses.  Another issue that may motivated voters.

We need to get c another thread to post in called "the positive news story thread".

Because you make it sound like America is just a bleak country to live in

There was some amazing news this week on gravitational waves  Also a company with a brain nerve interface managed to allow a man with a spinal injury to walk away.  Sound be able to be replicated, and overtime, improved to restore full functioning in the future.  This was the stuff originally Reeve's was looking into to walk again.

Science stuff when I post no one really comments on so I stopped posting it.  I may make a general science thread though as stuff is accelerating again now research recovered post COVID.

Jun 30, 2023 15:35:47 GMT Foos said:

We need to get c another thread to post in called "the positive news story thread".

Because you make it sound like America is just a bleak country to live in

I like the idea, the problem is that it wouldn't receive any posts.

Tons of neat science news I see but just do not post. If people want can start to toss it in a thread.  This has been a crazy year for science.  Implications for medicine alone are absolutely unreal with biopolymers, single cell metabolics and mRNA vaccines.  Like we are in straight sci-fi land now.  Shit like regrowing neutral structures in reattached limbs, a flu vaccine that protects against 20 different strains, doing diagnostic medicine with a single cell, AI being able to do protean folding rapidly, making insulin and silk without pigs or spiders.  It is just insane. 

Here is the Trump platform so far.

Cities of the future:

Trump will build 10 cities on federal land that will become industry hubs and have flying cars. They will be manufacturing hubs and people will flock to them from all over America. These will be paid for by taxpayers but everything built will become privately owned. No word on how the fuck the flying cars will work.

America's birthday:

From 2025 to 2026 the US will have a year long celebration of it's 250 birthday.

Rebuilding America:

Cities will be forced to remove all ugly buildings and redesign them with classical architecture. No word on who will pay for this. Streets will be all renamed after American heroes. The homeless will be rounded up and move to federal land that will be used as relocation camps.  If only there new cities that could house them.

War on Drugs:

The US will declare the cartels terrorists, and move the war on terror to Mexico. All drug dealers will receive the death penalty. Not sure if this includes those he pardoned.

Mass pardons:

Everyone arrested in connection with Jan 6 will be pardoned, as will those involved in right wing terrorism, like sending teachers death threats.

Stop and Frisk:

Stop and Frisk, despite being declared unconstitutional, will be mandated for all police. Police will be sent up to search people at random. For liberal cities the National Guard will be deployed to root out Marxists.

Culture Wars:

Doctors will be barred from providing any care to transgender people. Schools will be barred from teaching about topics like socialism, America's racial past, slavery, Indian relocation, etc. Teachers will be expected to carry concealed firearms and deal with mass shooters.

Immigration:

Trump will end birthright citizenship, and work to remove citizenship from people born in the US to undocumented migrants. Then they will be deported.

I know it's Trump, but that has to be a joke, right?

Nope, all from his recent speeches. And some of it he talked about for a few years now. All stuff that plays well with his crowd. Trump alone can bring people into a sci-fi future and end of all society's problems, despite having the chance to do this all his first term and not doing any of it.

Trump fans are raging as secret service last night did full car searches at his rally and forced people out who had guns. First time they did a full parking lot search from what I seen. People were not happy, as the GOP tells them that they should have a right to carry a gun anywhere, and having guns makes them safer.

Jun 19, 2023 0:01:37 GMT iNCY said:

Rob Kennedy is going pretty hard, he was on Joe Rogan and while I don't listen to his podcasts it seems he lobbed a few hand grenades.

I think he got the nomination as unlikely as that is, he would capture a fair chunk of the Trump vote if he isn't allowed to run.

Definitely should get his will ready while he's at it. A Kennedy running for office always ends in tragedy.

RFK will need the support of people who can vote for him. Right now his support is from Republicans. Democrats and independent he is floating around 10% and dropping. For Kennedy to win Republicans would have swap to Democrat to vote for him in the primaries, then vote him over Trump.