Election 2026 V.2

CCubs :
It's all about hate. As long as he hates dems, minorities, immigrants, gays, trans etc. he's their guy.

skutfarcus : Sad, very sad. But true. America has a president that is very hateful and causing great divide among the whole nation.

CCubs :

mypeez :

This is former Congressman Adam Kinzinger's take on the GOP Dallas Convention. 3 highlights:1. Critics say the idea of having a Mid term convention is not new, but should have been held in June or July.
2. It wasn't the RNC's idea to have it, it was Donny Boy's decision. Therefore, any GOP candidate attending had to ante up a $25k fee.
3. If Donny is trying to help his hand-picked, endorsed candidates to win, he's not spending any money. His MAGA PAC is sitting on $400 million, and only a fraction spent.
Kinziger is a Republican who obviously didn't care for him, even in the 1st term. (Warning, long post):"Trump's last hurrah to fix the GOP's problems ahead of November rests on the shoulders of a party in Dallas. It won't make a difference.Last night, Republicans did something neither party has done in the modern era. They began a full convention in the middle of a midterm cycle, with Donald Trump and JD Vance headlining. Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters has taken to calling it "Trumpapalooza," a nickname he clearly enjoys and can't stop repeating in interviews. It offered a typical cast of the MAGA loyal and the usual rhetoric from Trump officials about what it will take to "Make America Great Again."Like a used car salesman trying to close a deal, Trump took the stage and made the absurd claim that Americans will receive a $5,000 check as a reward if the GOP retakes control of the House and Senate in the midterms. And in his attempt to extend his habit of renaming things, he made dogma his desire to change the name of a state, New Mexico, to "New America."Borrowing the name from Gruters, this "Trumpapalooza" lived up to its branding last night, but will not save the midterm elections for Republicans in November.Midterm conventions aren't really a thing, either. Democrats tried them briefly in the 1970s and abandoned the idea because, as Karl Rove put it this week, "they weren't particularly helpful." There's no nominee to select, no platform being ratified, no procedural reason for the gathering to exist at all. This one exists because Trump wanted it to, because, in Gruters' words, "this is a turnout race," and because Republican strategists believe low-propensity MAGA voters only show up to the polls when Trump's name feels present, even in an election where it isn't.Trump gave the game away at a rally last month when he told the crowd, "what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot." He isn't on the ballot. He can never be on one again. And a party throwing an unprecedented, expensive convention to make voters feel otherwise is not a party operating from strength.I don't doubt that turnout theory has some truth to it. But I think it's incomplete. A party that had full confidence in its record wouldn't need to manufacture an unprecedented, expensive, and desperate spectacle to remind voters it exists. You hold a rally like this when you're worried the case on the merits isn't enough on its own. House Speaker Mike Johnson gave away the real message when he described this fall's elections as "a competition against communism," a line meant to animate otherwise disheartened GOP voters.Karl Rove said as much, more gently, on Fox News this week. "I'm a little bit nervous about it," he admitted, "because, look, we're in the final stages of the campaign. I'd be more comfortable if this had been held in June and July and set a thematic that could be pursued for four or five months rather than for 56 days."He described the White House's strategy in more blunt terms saying "the White House is pushing a big bet, it's like we're at the tables, they're pushing all the chips on saying if we make this about Donald Trump and if we make this about Donald Trump's record and put him at the center of this then we have a shot to pull this thing off."To extend the poker analogy, that's the language of a party going all in because it's pot committed.Doug Heye, a former RNC communications director, put the risk even more plainly: "If it's Trumpapalooza and 'America has never been hotter or richer,' it will fall flat." Gruters himself, touring conservative media in recent weeks, has used language that sits in tension with the celebratory branding of the event he's running. "It's a pending, looming disaster heading our way," he told one interviewer. "We are facing almost certain defeat."You can see the hesitation in who didn't show up last night or plans to today, and it's not a handful of stragglers. A Politico survey of more than seventy Republican candidates and lawmakers found that more than half planned to skip the event entirely. CBS News reached out directly to Republicans in some of the closest races nationwide: five said flatly they weren't coming, and fifty-one more wouldn't even answer the question. By ABC's count, roughly a hundred House Republicans and candidates are expected in Dallas, which is about half of the House GOP conference and this year's slate of candidates combined. The New Republic wrote that the whole event "seems to have been created out of an eleventh-hour necessity rather than a nationalistic groundswell."The people staying home aren't shy about why. Susan Collins and Dan Sullivan, both defending seats in states Trump has struggled in, are skipping it. So is Zach Nunn, an Iowa Republican in a toss-up district, who told reporters he'd rather be "in my district working" than in Dallas. Brian Fitzpatrick is defending a Pennsylvania seat that is always decided by slim margins and offered insight that "our bosses are back home" rather than at a convention.Even the ticket price tells the story. House members were expected to pay at least $25,000 of their own campaign money just to attend. Meanwhile Trump's own super PAC, MAGA Inc., is sitting on more than $400 million and has spent only a fraction of it. Some of the same Republicans skipping Dallas have grown skeptical that money will even move the needle for them this close to the election.Here's what I think is actually happening. Trump has spent his entire adult life needing to be the most important person in whatever room he occupies. The presidency was the ultimate expression of that need, and it is now, by constitutional design, a temporary one. He knows what tends to happen to people who leave that kind of power, especially people whose time in it was this controversial.History does not linger kindly on presidents who leave office deeply unpopular, and Trump's approval, by multiple measures, sits at the lowest point of his second term. To Trump, this convention is an insurance policy against being forgotten.That combination, a man trying to outrun the waning of his relevance and a party that has hitched its midterm survival to his personal brand, is exactly the vulnerability Democrats have been waiting for. Every seat Republicans hold in the House and Senate right now was won in an environment nothing like this one. Democrats enter this fall more organized and more hopeful about retaking Congress than at any point in this administration.If Trump goes down owning this election the way Gruters and Rove are already bracing for, he won't just be leaving office unpopular. He'll be leaving it having spent his final two years in the White House dragging his own party down with him."My opinion and mine alone and no one else.

Another good question:

skutfarcus : It at least aired on YT.

Video Title: Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See

With advances in AI technology, is how you vote a secret anymore? In Georgia, it may not be.
apnews.com/article/e lections-secret-ball ot-voting-georgia-to uchscreen-machi
Excerpt: "Security researchers say rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making it more critical to address a flaw in Georgia's voting equipment that can allow voters to be matched to their ballots after they have been cast.The system's vulnerability has been drawing increased attention, with election security advocates criticizing state election officials for failing to fix it before the November elections. Georgia election officials say they have taken steps to address the potential harm, but some advocates say the state is not going far enough."No opinion, just an FYI.

Who among us needs or wants a $5,000 bribe in order us to vote? I will vote on 9/24 to increase the odds that the bribe offer will not be paid because the Republicans will not maintain the majority!

House Speaker Mike Johnson did affirm that Congressional approval would be needed for the $5k for every adult voter if the GOP retains Congress.
apnews.com/article/t rump-congress-5000-d ividend-election-eco nomy-437910454c"Trump made the unusual pitch at the party's midterm convention in Dallas last week, promising a "Trump Dividend" if voters keep the GOP in power on Capitol Hill. The president later told CBS News Texas that he did not think Congress would need to authorize the payments, though he did not specify how he could spend more than $1 trillion without lawmakers' authorization.But Johnson, R-La., said congressional approval is needed. "I would assume, yes, he'd need Congress to act, and that's a creative idea," he said."Perhaps Mike needs a one-on-one clarification with his MAGA boss Donny, because Donny hasn't needed or wanted Mike's help in hardly any legislation since January 20, 2025. The Executive Orders have been Donny's way of bypassing Congress. Why would Mike confirm THIS time that Donny absolutely has to go through Congress? Mike and the rest of the GOP-controlled Congress has pretty much handed 90% of Legislative powers over to the President.My opinion and mine alone and not my employer's.

I was listening to this guy on YT saying he doesn't think MJ will seat the new Dems if they get a majority of seats. This would end out democratically elected leaders in our Republic. Didn't they try to pull this crap before?This isn't the guy I was listening to but saw this on FB.www.facebook.com/sha re/p/1JLcyfJyTP/"We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in Congress." Speaker Mike Johnson delivered that warning at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas as the party fights to preserve its fragile control of the House. In ordinary campaign language, Johnson was telling Republicans to organize, vote, donate, and defeat Democratic candidates on Election Day. But after years of election denial and efforts to undermine public confidence in voting, phrases like "we're not gonna allow it" inevitably sound more troubling than a standard promise to win. The majority does not belong permanently to either party, and congressional leaders do not get to decide who may take power. Every House seat is determined by voters, and whichever party wins at least 218 seats earns the right to govern. Republicans are free to argue that Democratic policies would harm the country and to campaign aggressively against them. Democrats have the same right to make their case. What no party can legitimately do is treat an unfavorable result as something it is entitled to block. Win the argument, win the votes, or accept the outcome. That is democracy.

Constitutionally, Mike Johnson would have to step down at Noon on January 3rd and allow the new Congress take over. It's my belief that in the transition from old to new Congress, the House clerk is in charge. Not the old Speaker. billybob might know more, but I'm also thinking the House Clerk is NOT beholden to any party. The clerk is then responsible for swearing in the New Congress, and a new Speaker selected.
I'm certain if Democrats take over, there won't be a faction to hold things up for 3 weeks like it was for the GOP 2 years or 4 years ago.
My opinion, mine alone and not my employer's.