ewsieg

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/04/trump-presidential-run-2024-announcement Wonder if this leaking with help democrats. Republicans have focused the mid-terms on the economy but that means less attention on Trump and by gosh, can't let that happen!

If the Dems have a good showing, I think the inner workings of the GOP that would love to find a way to boot the Trump like folks out of the party would push for Hogan. If the GOP wins, like they should in a off year election with a troubling economy, you'll see GOP folks be afraid to push against Trump still and we'll have more of a DeSantis/Lake/Noem push. The problem for both is that even if Trump doesn't run, he's going to constantly pull the rug out from them and tease an entry towards a nomination. Lake appears to be better on camera, but has she ever debated in a local race, let alone a national one? Seems way to early to put her as a front runner. Add in the fact that she's gone full MAGA, I just don't think that works on a national stage anymore and we do have 81 million votes as evidence towards that. In regards to the talk above, Mastriano is the worst case scenario. I personally think Lake is going full MAGA based on a political calculation. I think there is less chance of her having an effect on the national stage from where she's at. Plus we're talking 11 votes which tend to go towards GOP anyway. Likely the reason she's fine going full MAGA right now. Mastriano, he was there on 1/6. He's not pretending. Add in the fact that I think PA has a better chance to go blue than AZ, than add in state law which gives him power of PA - SoS. Most depressing - Walker, without a doubt. I have no doubt he'll just be a puppet, but no different than 95 of the other senators on any given day. He's an embarrassment to the GOP and the Senate though.

I like those Winter Wonderland plates and wanted to grab them next time I got a new plate. I want one a little bit more now.

You can directly associate Trump with the off year elections in 2018 and again with the Georgia runoff. Quite possible that democrats have been able to continue that association with their voters and independents turned off by Trump, but i'm just not sure yet. I'm hopeful, but not sure.

The scary part is I'm not convinced that Democrats are going to show up without Trump on the ballot. You are right though, it all comes down to Dobbs.

An anecdote, so take it for what it's worth. My aunt was never terribly political, but add in Facebook and Trump and she was all on board. She's a devout Catholic as well. She's going to be out of town so she sent in her Absentee ballot. Did not vote for Whitmer, but couldn't vote for Dixon either, citing how she would love to hear Dixon explain what makes a raped teenager a 'perfect' example of why there should not be abortion. (You dems should give some props to Charlie for that). Voted for Nessel and Benson because she didn't want the GOP alternative in case it was close. Voted for Prop 3, despite what the Catholic church stated and her own personal views on abortion. She's not happy with the wording but says this brings us closer to what she truly wants for abortion, something between a women and whoever else that women wants involved in it. Not a government issue. Whitmer, Benson, and Nessel will probably win and within a few days i'll see meme's about how they stole the election on her Facebook feed.

The GOP and/or Trump will find a way to screw it up still. I learned just this week that analysis indicates Trump would have likely won Georgia, if he hadn't dissuaded so many of his own voters from mailing in their ballots.

He won't release any medical info though, so I do think it's somewhat concerning. But we were ok with Strom Thurmond, we're ok with Diane Feinstein, so even if Fetterman truly isn't with it, you're still voting for a staff that will vote the way you want.

I was listening to NPR this morning speak about the debate and were mentioning Fetterman struggled, which to me meant he was horrible. But then they cut to the clip above from Oz and damn. Sounds like he had a layup, but he not only missed, he tripped and lost the ball out of bounds.

Now we know we have 30 Russian assets within the Democratic party too.

I'm not sure exactly how the process goes, but you can request a disqualification of a judge on an issue in front of their court. The process would need to play out with an overturn of the original order to force Graham to testify I'd assume which would be done at the SCOTUS level and as Thomas is on the Supreme Court, I think he could still refuse to recuse himself for that vote, but then if a disqualification request passed on the Supreme Court, does that mean Georgia could push for another vote on pushing Graham to testify? IDK, sounds like a legal loop. Wonder if there are backroom talks with Thomas regarding this as well. Roberts knows this is making a mockery of the Supreme Court if Thomas is voting on anything election related.

Actually I feel like I'm looking forward, not backward. In a nuanced world, I think it's possible to see good and bad in all people. Additionally, I think it's possible to criticize someone in one party as well as criticize someone in another even if as a whole, I completely support one over another. Additionally punishment should fit the crime. I am a conservative. I, for the most part, voted only GOP for the first 20 years of my voting. I had lots of issues with them, but as a whole, preferred them over the alternative. At the same time, if there were crooks within the party, I wanted them called out under the hope that a better GOP candidate would emerge. I'm going to vote for Biden if the alternate is Trump. At this time, we need to go to Bizarro world where somehow Kinzinger, Romney, or McMullen some how won the primary for the GOP before I could even entertain the thought of not voting for Biden (heck, even Harris). That said, I really would love a better candidate than Biden. I'm going to vote for Whitmer, despite the fact I don't think she was a good Governor. Despite the fact her Lt Governor is a crook, whom I'm also going to vote for. I'm going to vote for Nessel, despite the fact that she has been a horrible Attorney General. Honestly, was she in on the Flint fiasco or the cover up at least? I think I could make a better criminal case against her than Snyder. Benson's husband is part of the McNamara machine and broke the law. Nessel ignored it, I'm sure it helped him he's married to Benson. Yup, i'm voting for her too. So yes, Gilchrest should be in jail. Benson's husband should be in jail, as should Duggan. And there definitely should be an investigation into Nessel/Benson regarding her husband. People in power should be held accountable. Trump, well, i'd settle for jail until he dies. He deserves worse though. Hunter peddled his father's influence for money and I'm confident that at the least, Joe knowingly helped feed that appearance to support his son. Borderline crooked. I'm also confident that Joe took it further, but that's just my gut based on the some of the emails/texts Hunter in all likelihood wrote.

Oh good lord, I apologize for the semi-defend of her in regards to foreign policy.

There was no international alliance assisting in Afghanistan? Additionally, there were no Afghani's fighting against the Taliban right up until our departure? Plus we weren't intervening.....we were already there. You're absolutely right about the "value" in defending Afghanistan, it doesn't make as much sense. But that argument doesn't seem to be allowed if you advocate anything but a Ukraine complete win resulting in Putin losing power. As of today, if the war ends with Russia keeping some Ukrainian land which is more pro-Russian already, but humiliates Russia on the world stage, results in his power being questioned at home, the Russian economy destroyed, a lesson learned that Russia better stay the F out of any country west of Ukraine (and including Ukraine) otherwise you'll encounter NATO again, combined with requirements to bring so many of the kids/people kidnapped by Russia back to Ukraine, you'd be labeled a Putin sympathizer.

I think his point is that we should be mindful and maybe instead of just writing off anyone that says we should look for peace as an obvious Russian asset, maybe keep some eyes out there to see if there is a possibility to bring peace. Dan Carlin had a podcast I still remember from years ago that basically pointed to the belief that most people essentially believed nuclear war could not happen any longer as there was no way either side was that stupid to pull the trigger. He outlined a series of escalations that on their face, were all logical, eventually you got to the point where it made sense that one side or the other flipped the nuclear switch. From a foreign policy standpoint, this has been like the US winning the lottery. Prolonging this, assuming it doesn't change, is just icing on the cake. But death and destruction continues, the global economy is sliding down and will impact the poor harder than most. Even if the foreign policy benefit continues, there will be drawbacks. Those should be pointed out. I'm pro Ukraine and at this point I'm pretty much on board with what Biden has done. In fact at this point, I'm more hawkish on air defense than the US is. But I am shocked at how if you have any caution in regards to war this is and could become, you're labeled a Putin sympathizer. If we're the policeman of the world again, why stop at Putin? Shouldn't we go after Saudi Arabia? MBS killed an American citizen in a NATO country and just turned his back on us in support of Russia after decades of support from us. Pretty sure Yemen would like help defending itself against SA. Women are dying in Iran because they want to show their hair in public. Why are we not sending them Javelin's? Do you hate women or do you like them... when they are in the kitchen and barefoot? There were many in Afghanistan that wanted us to stay and fight the Taliban, but because Trump wanted us out, Biden apparently had no ability to change that.

What an idiot. In this state everyone knows the winning formula is to ignore anything north of Saginaw and all those large pockets of land between the real voters around Detroit, Lansing, Flint, and GR. Insinuate they are stupid as well, that'll help bring out the base.

Apparently one of the victims is a brother to the shooter. I listened to the 911 calls and one in particular angered me a bit. This is probably going to sound bad, but you hear the caller say that an officer was shot. The 911 operator catches that someone is shot and says they will be sending cops, but the guy keeps on pointing out it's a cop, then misses some questions from the operator and starts answering questions about the shooter, but eventually the operator realizes he's being told that an officer is down. All of a sudden it's like the operator feels the situation is urgent. Sad that if people are getting shot, it's just a normal (obviously still priority) call, but an officer shot, whoa... this is serious.

In regards to 4, he threw his opinion on Twitter. Obviously because of who he is, it got some extra attention, but the biggest issue I believe we see with Twitter is that all to often, it gives a voice to a lot of people that really shouldn't have one, or at least one big enough to report about. In regards to 5, he claims he did not speak to Putin recently and only once in his life. The person that did say he spoke to Putin has lied before. Honestly it should have never been reported, at least without an additional source or at least reaching out to Musk for his comment. If he did speak with Putin, our intelligence knows about it and I'm confident there will be a leak confirming it soon.

I can understand that.

Are you saying he's right about Twitter?

There are others, but from everything I've read, they simply are not comparable in terms of speed and latency. Musk pushed this out ahead of schedule and many of the reports we've seen in the last few weeks about some issues are related to efforts from keeping the Russians from utilizing this service. Musk doesn't need to act like a baby and take his ball home, but he's been unfairly crapped on by the same folks he's helped quite a bit as well.

James needs to really beat out Marlinga in Shelby though.

I haven't followed polls/news related to the election as much as I usually do, but no scientific data, just my eyes in what I see when I drive around and there are very few political signs up in front of people's houses up here in Northern Macomb county. I want to believe that it's a sign that republican voters are just not motivated to vote. Of course it could just be that Trump is getting the donations instead of the state/local GOP parties and they can't afford them.

She has stated his invasion was reprehensible.

But everything is perfectly ok with letting a country bomb the crap out of another sovereign country, give them military aid, allow them to kill an American journalist in a NATO country with little retribution and still bend the knee just because you don't want high oil prices? Tulsi and Paul, IMO, have always been of the mindset that while some things may seem like the right thing to do, just try and stay out of it altogether. Again, i'm not advocating that stance, but it doesn't mean that they don't have some legitimate points at times which is all I'm saying.