November 1, 2024

JIM has a long MUSTACHE. Repeat: JIM has a long MUSTACHE.

Anna Santa has a full dining set. Repeat: Anna Santa has a full dining set.

Celtic will order the chocolate ice cream at 3000. Repeat: Celtic will order the chocolate ice cream at 3000.

Margie's cheeseburger is covered with maggots. Repeat: Margie's cheeseburger is covered with maggots.

JADE HELM 16 is a GO! Repeat: JADE HELM 16 is a GO!


Destroy your code keys, then Move to DARK BRANDON 947 for ticket information.
This post will self-delete when the mousetrap is reset.



Don't worry, folks, just testing the equipment.... Please move along. Nothing to see here.

October 30, 2024

Glad that the NY Yankees are leading tonight----

as the LA Dodgers' inevitable World Series victory would mean much less,
won against a team who hasn't shown up since Game One, until tonight!




These have been pretty good games--- but I expected more from the Yankees.
Luck wasn't with them for the first three games, that's for sure.


Wish I'd been able to see some of the Tigers playoff games--
I didn't even know they'd made it there for a while.

October 29, 2024

All the pictures of Trump surrounded by black men were created with A.I.

says a news report which I am listening to right now....
(on a local Fox channel after the World Series---
yeah, LOCAL Fox station news are independent--
and that report actually came from ScrippsNews,
playing on the local Fox station)


Yeah, go figure. He wouldn't get that close to them..... or rent to them!

October 29, 2024

My "socialist" theory of baseball championships---

That money should not be allowed to predominate (buying up the best players, etc)---

so the New York Yankees ought to be disallowed from winning so many World Series, by virtue of new rules which would limit such from happening, and give other teams a fair chance!---

No ONE TEAM ought to be allowed to BUY 27 world series championships out of 100 or so!

(I never got further into the particulars, but presumably there would have been a particular formula about league championships, and how many had been won by any particular team within a particular number of years....)


As such, I am very happy to see the Los Angeles Dodgers leading the Yankees 3-0 in Game 3 of this year's 'World Series' championship..... headed towards their 3rd win in this world series, in front of the New York crowd, no less!


Sorry Yankees fans---- but you've won more than ENOUGH in the past 100 years!

However, it has been one hell of a competition throughout--- pitching duels in every game, even though each side scored a number of runs...
That first ever World Series GRAND SLAM homerun by LA in extra innings of Game One was certainly a historic moment!

October 25, 2024

Harris campaign should shift back to economic populist message as closing campaign argument (Progress Report newsletter)

This is from a non-copyrighted email newsletter to which I subscribe. The basic subscription is free, you can join it here, and I recommend it https://www.progressreport.news/?r=jxw8i

Last night he sent a newsletter which says that the Harris campaign will shift back to their economic populist message which emphasized the need to prevent corporations from continuing their "greedflation", that much inflation has been made worse by them, and that the rich should be made to pay their fair share of taxes-- a message which even a majority of Republicans are in agreement, per polling. I have thought this message should have been their top priority from the beginning, way back when President Biden was the 'only candidate', for the reason that this message resonates far across party lines.
Further, the non-economic attacks on Trump just are not working, they never have--- even though they SHOULD---

I saw an article elsewhere which confirmed that the Harris campaign WILL emphasize this part of their economic message as the closing argument of their campaign (sorry I don't have a link to that at the moment)

The newsletter cites a lot of polling about these issues, most of which I have seen before. If they are really going to shift to this message, I agree that THIS IS THE WAY to put Trump away in this election! ~ Jack Valentino





This is a free edition of Progress Report, an award-winning newsletter.


The data is unambiguous: people like cheap groceries, not Liz Cheney
JORDAN ZAKARIN
OCT 24, 2024


Welcome to a Wednesday night edition of Progress Report.

Over the past 36 hours, Donald Trump has been credibly accused of admiring Hitler, ripping off the family of a murdered American soldier, and groping a young woman while hanging out with his buddy Jeffrey Epstein. And because he’s Donald Trump, it’s exceedingly likely that none of those contemptible allegations, each of which is almost guaranteed to be true, will still be in the news 36 hours from now.

It’s a depressing comment on the legacy media’s surrender to myopia and society’s descent into cynicism, but not at all a surprise at this point in our cultural ice age. Tonight, instead of lamenting the national nihilism, we’ve got a report on the strategy that progressives and labor allies think can finally vanquish Trumpism, the data that backs their argument, and the fight to implement it before time runs out.


Democracy, if they can afford it
Armed with polls and other data points, progressive leaders and strategists have launched a campaign to redirect Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign in a more populist direction in the two weeks before Election Day.

The effort launched in earnest on Tuesday, when several left-leaning economic advocacy groups released polling that found broad support for shifting the balance of power in the American economy toward workers and consumers.

The American Antitrust Institute and Committee to Support the Antitrust Laws together sponsored a swing state survey that revealed deep antipathy for concentrated corporate power. According to their survey, nearly three-quarters of voters in the seven key swing states hold an unfavorable opinion of corporate monopolies, including 68% of Republicans.

The survey also found that 63% of swing state voters believe that higher prices on goods and services are a result of corporate price-fixing. That understanding of post-pandemic inflation as a series of predatory, profit-driven business decisions illuminates why two-thirds of respondents supported prosecuting wealthy corporations that rig the marketplace.

More than half of swing state voters also said that they’d be more likely to back a candidate who promised to crackdown on price-gouging — a question no doubt designed to send a message to Harris and other Democrats who have moved away from such messaging over the past month despite the success it produced in the late summer and early fall.

Seeking to quickly define herself after replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president, Harris rolled out a series of policy proposals in July and August aimed at helping young families and reducing the cost of living. Calls for cracking down on price gouging — which polled at unprecedentedly high levels — and raising taxes on the wealthy contributed to a comfortable polling lead that peaked after Harris’s debate victory against Donald Trump.

Her campaign has since pivoted to appealing to a vanishingly thin band of Trump-averse neoconservatives, which has coincided with a statistically significant regression in critical battleground state polls.


Harris temporarily regained momentum post-debate, but soon lost it again
According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, the economy remains the most salient issue for voters. Overall, 70% of voters said that their cost of living was on the wrong track and 65% said the same of the broader economy. Nearly half of respondents (46%) said they thought Trump would do better at managing the economy, while just 38% gave the nod to Harris.

In a new swing state poll from Bloomberg and Morning Consult, more than a third of voters said that the economy was the most important issue in this election. Respondents gave Trump a five point edge over Harris on the economy, 50-45%. All told, Trump and Harris were tied among likely voters at 49% apiece in all seven swing states, indicating that a more robust economic message from Harris could make the difference.

Further bolstering the argument for a Harris pivot back toward economic populism is the fact that Trump is gaining support from the traditional Democratic constituencies — including young men of color — who tend to be far less economically secure.

Democracy won’t win elections
All of this regression has coincided with Harris’s open courting of Silicon Valley and Wall Street billionaires (who in turn refuse to publicly endorse her).

It’s been a steady drumbeat of public appeals to the elite, including high-profile, high-dollar fundraisers that drew media coverage from coast to coast; leaks to reporters about business leaders that could serve in a Harris administration; and regular appearances by surrogates like Mark Cuban, who has frequently undermined Harris’s most basic populist promises.

Backing off the economic populism has coincided with an odd decision to focus on the one thing that has never seemed to bug voters: Donald Trump’s perceived willingness to blow up political norms and wipe out the sclerotic establishment.

The Bloomberg poll found that democracy topped the list of concerns for just 10% of voters, and a second study made public on Tuesday underscored just how little wage-earning, swing state voters are moved by existential concerns about democratic institutions. Conducted by the Center for Working-Class Politics, the poll focused on working and middle class voters in Pennsylvania, the largest and most demographically varied of the major swing states.

Researchers cross-tested messages that reflected each campaign’s major themes, pitting seven Harris-coded statements against seven Trump-style messages. In many cases, they used the same language as the candidates, and always reflected the most common rhetoric.

The message that reflected Harris’s current approach, urging voters to “defend our freedom and our democracy” against “convicted felon” Donald Trump, was a total bust across all demographics.

Among blue-collar voters, a group that leans Republican, the democratic threat message was a whopping 14.4 points underwater relative to the average support for Trump’s messages. And among more liberal-leaning service and clerical workers, it was also the least popular message, finishing only 1.6 percentage points ahead of the Trump average. Even among professionals, the most liberal of the bunch and the group that liked the message the best, the message barely outperformed Trump’s messages.

Broken down by partisanship instead of profession/class, the message performed even worse, with Republicans preferring Trump’s message by over 75 points. If the goal is to win over some Republicans, it’s clear that attacking Trump’s character — which winds up feeling like an attack on voters’ character — is far less effective than promising them some better material gain.

Pairing those attacks with the presence of Liz Cheney, who had a 12% approval rating among Republicans when last polled in 2022, likely does little to enhance the appeal.

On the other hand, the “strong populist” messaging, which mixed progressive economic policy with hostility toward “billionaires,” “big corporations” and the “politicians in Washington who serve them”, tested best with all three groups. This is hardly a surprise — in mid-September, a Data for Progress poll found that 71% of Americans agreed that billionaires should pay more in taxes, including 53% of Republicans.

The poll was released around the same time that Harris confirmed her support for a law that required billionaires to pay some minimum annual tax. Her campaign has stayed silent on just how much she’d want to billionaires to pay each year — President Biden has backed a 25% annual levy — and Harris has largely stopped touting it on the campaign trail.

Additional attempts at campaign interventions are ongoing, through backchannels, columns from longtime partisans, and news stories sounding the alarm about a potential crumbling of Midwestern “Blue Wall” states with a mass of working class voters.

Work in Progress
The week began with the vice president visiting those three midwestern swing states with Liz Cheney, but there are signs that a turnaround is now in progress.

Labor unions have have been hard at work trying to communicate the stakes to their own members, with the United Autoworkers in particular enjoying some breakthroughs. A poll of swing state locals released by the UAW on Wednesday found that members in those seven states backed the vice president by 22 points; among members who have heard about the election directly from the union — whether digitally or through a door-to-door campaign that has thus far hit 200,000 member households — Harris leads Trump by 29 points.

Groups like Future Forward, the major Harris-aligned PAC, have also put millions behind ads geared toward working people, even if the campaign hasn’t had its eye on those voters over the past few weeks. And even that seems to be changing.

Harris herself, at the request of labor-oriented allies, came down hard on Trump for dodging a question about raising the minimum wage during his McDonald’s stunt in Pennsylvania, stealing some headlines after his cynical antics on the deep-fryer dominated on Sunday. In tonight’s CNN town hall event, Harris went further, promising to crack down on price-gouging on essential goods, taking her back to some of her original and most popular campaign promises.

More than a quarter of the country has already cast a ballot, but early voters tend to be the most committed and politically engaged. There is still time to convince the fence-sitters that Democrats are willing to fight for their rights, but only if they start right away.



Subscribe here:
https://www.progressreport.news/?r=jxw8i

October 20, 2024

"When the music's over" - The Doors: my song dedication to Donald Trump!

Jim Morrison was prescient--- maybe Trump should try to 'dance' to this at his 'rallies'--
even though it is not a 'dance tune', but he can't dance anyway!

some of the lyrics seem (posted below the video) pretty relevant to this campaign, and this moment in political history
(an improvement over 'YMCA', in my humble opinion)

((The FIRST song in this live concert video is "When The Music's Over"--- but the rest seems pretty good too))

Lyrics
The Doors
"When The Music's Over"


When the music's over
When the music's over, yeah
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Yeah

When the music's over
When the music's over
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights

When the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Until the end

Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside

The face in the mirror won't stop
The girl in the window won't drop
A feast of friends, "Alive!" she cried
Waiting for me outside

Before I sink into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly

Come back, baby
Back into my arms

We're gettin' tired of hangin' around
Waitin' around with our heads to the ground
I hear a very gentle sound
Very near yet, very far
Very soft, yeah, very clear
Come today, come today

What have they done to the earth, yeah?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down

I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it
We want the world and we want it
Now
Now?
Now!

Persian night babe
See the light, babe
Save us,
Jesus,
Save us!


So when the music's over
When the music's over, yeah
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights

Well, the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Until the end

(Recorded by 'The Doors', written by lead singer Jim Morrison)

October 15, 2024

Harris, Trump and 'economy'... and TARIFFS for god's sake!

In my humble opinion, Harris and Walz need to communicate much better about Trump's plan for higher tariffs across the board, and about how this would drastically INFLATE PRICES--- which they have been failing to do, from my observation.

VIce President Harris called it a "sales tax" on the American people in her debate with Trump--- but she did not explicitly spell out that it was his plans for increased tariffs that she was talking about! I only understand that this was what she was talking about, because I have paid so much attention to the economic issues in this election. For the vast middle who have not, I think they would have no idea what she was talking about!
(And there IS no "Trump sales tax" proposed by him, so that is bad framing.)

She needs to explain more clearly that the "Trump sales tax IS his tariffs" and that they are VASTLY inflationary---
that they will increase prices for the American people, which is exactly what inflation IS !

And secondly, his plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would ALSO be extremely inflationary--
ESPECIALLY when it comes to FOOD prices, GROCERIES--- which are the biggest inflation complaint for the American people! If we don't have the workers who harvest the food, food prices WILL go up, because they WILL become more scarce!


Trump's plans would NOT "decrease inflation"--- they will increase it exponentially!

Trump's "plan to bring down inflation" is ONLY a plan to "complain about it"---
otherwise he HAS no plan, other than those which will actually make inflation WORSE!!!


THIS is my biggest complaint about messaging by the Harris-Walz campaign---
there are closing the gap on the economy, but this is an easy message that they are not making clear to the American people---
and I pray that they WILL before this campaign is over.

"Foreign countries do not pay for Trump's tariffs--- YOU WILL!"


Other than on this issue, I think that Harris-Walz is doing everything else exactly right.

October 5, 2024

Saw my first Trump sign in Michigan today, just outside the capitol city...

Now, I don't get out much... but I made the four mile drive to a northern suburb today,
and this was the only political sign I saw on the whole round-trip. I would consider it to be Trump territory, once outside of the city limits....


The Trump sign was hung, poetically and rather appropriately,
upon the front fence of a local junkyard....


That kinda made me laugh! Junk on the inside, junk on the outside...

October 5, 2024

When did the NY Mets last make it to a National League Championship ??

It's been like forever, hasn't it?? Not in my memory, but admittedly I've spent much less attention to baseball in the last decade or two, but "NY Mets" and "NL Championship series" were two phrases that never went together in my way of speaking!

If I'm wrong, someone please let me know!