politics

Good luck with that.

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/09/nx-s1-5099236/trump-harris-debate-2024-when-watch-time

https://live.hexbear.net/c/news <

I will be playing the Kamala v Trump Debate at the link above. I played the Biden v Trump debate on the same channel. For the Biden v Trump debate, we had around 200 hexbear users in the chat. Before/after the debate, I will play news and commentary related to the debate.

Post your debate predictions in the comments.

https://invidious.jing.rocks/watch?v=A6im9OukNqo

https://invidious.reallyaweso.me/watch?v=A6im9OukNqo

Not that it was good or there for good reasons, but it seems to happen quite rarely (say, shovelling weapons into Israel or whatever is not even tangentially on the ballot)

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3418227

He's running as an Independent against a Democrat who has been in office since 2012. There is no Republican candidate; Athens County has always been a blue spot amongst the rural red in the southeastern part of Ohio, and it isn't uncommon for Democrats to run for local office unopposed in the primary, general, or both.

My (extremely inexpert) analysis is that this is because the local business elite realized decades ago that it was easier to run Democrats in college towns, and it is difficult for anyone outside this entrenched group to run for office. The number of landlords in local government is too damn high.

The students in the City of Athens and the scattered rural lefties keep the county voting blue, but there's a huge base of support for Trump – his signs and flags have been everywhere since the 2016 campaign.

I think that will work in Jon's favor, because I suspect many Trump supporters are low-information voters who won't know anything about Jon except that he doesn't have (D) next to his name but the other guy does. While I believe that having Jon in government will be a material improvement for everyone, he has flamboyant fashion that is likely turn off the chuds. Introducing the students and rural lefties to Jon looks to my (again, inexpert) eyes like the key, but I don't know how to do that with so little money.

He's trying to get the money together for yard signs. Chipping in $11 will buy 2 signs, but commenting with tips, thoughts, questions, advice, encouragement, and support is also helpful.

He would be great at the job. From the post link:

Athens County is beautiful, but it’s becoming harder and harder to afford to live here. The taxes and rent prices are absurdly high. Even the gasoline prices are 20-40 cents higher per gallon here than they are in the neighboring counties. How can Athens still be the poorest county in Ohio? When I am elected I will comb through every dime spent by the county to ensure that the citizens’ money is being spent wisely and reinvested in our community. Athens County residents deserve to know how OUR money is being spent. There is a lot of revenue coming in to the county. Where is it all going? I plan on total transparency when it comes to spending.

Child hunger and poverty in Athens County are real and tragic issues. Sixty-eight percent of children in the Trimble Township area are below the poverty line. How have we allowed that to happen?! Joe Burrow, just a boy from Southeast Ohio, did more to help hungry kids in Athens County than the commissioners ever have.

If you’re going to represent Athens County, which is the poorest county in the state of Ohio, you should at least understand what it means to struggle. We need somebody in that office with current and first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to try to raise a family in this economic environment. I have a unique perspective because my low wages were set solely by the commissioners’ office. They seem to think it’s okay for first responders to live at or below the federal poverty line, while also risking their safety and well-being in the line of duty. I was a paramedic with Athens County EMS for six years. When I first started, we made $12.50 per hour. When I stepped down two years ago, we were making $15.50 per hour. The only reason we got up to that hourly wage was because we formed a union and fought for a raise. One of the biggest opponents to us forming a union was my opponent, Charlie Adkins. During our first contract negotiation, the vice president for the Ohio Association of Paramedics and Firefighters stated that this was by far the most difficult contract he has ever had to negotiate because the commissioners were fighting tooth and nail to keep our wages low.

I have lived in Athens County for the past 20 years and have had the pleasure of living in Athens, Glouster, Millfield, New Marshfield, and Nelsonville. I have met many of the outstanding people that call these places home. I vow to bring the same amount of attention to the small communities that the current commissioners only seem to give to the city of Athens and Ohio University. Athens County is supposed to be the county of inclusivity, yet we’re excluding the poorest among us.

There’s a cycle of poverty in Athens County, and we need to break it.

We need to attract new businesses and higher-paying jobs to the area, and we also need jobs that offer in-house training.

Once we get new jobs in the area, the people in the outskirts of the county need to be able to get to them. I live in Glouster, and on my way into Athens, I pass several individuals on bicycles making a 15+ mile commute. Athens does have a transit system but it only goes as far as Chauncey. This means the hard-working individuals who live in Amesville, Coolville, Guysville, Jacksonville, Millfield, Trimble, and Glouster are unable to get out of their small towns. If they can’t get to a job, how can we expect them to afford a vehicle, registration, insurance, and gasoline?

We need to encourage and support entrepreneurs and local small businesses. As a small business owner myself, I know how hard it is to build something from the ground up.

With the right support system in place, we could make Athens county a hub for innovation and growth.

We need more recreational activities. There aren’t many things to do in Athens County that don’t involve drinking or biking. My family often travels to Columbus in search of fun and adventure that could very well be offered here. We especially need indoor activities for the cooler months. A multi-sport complex that would bring sports teams to the area and encourage teamwork and sportsmanship, an indoor skate park, an inflatable park, a bowling alley...the possibilities are endless. Our kids and teens are isolated, bored, and addicted to screens. They don’t have places to hang out anymore. We can offer them community and excitement outside of social media. This is why I opened Bigfoot Hollow Paintball, Airsoft, and Laser Tag Park in Glouster.

We need to, as a community, figure out a way to curb the bullying that takes place. I have witnessed firsthand, as a paramedic, the devastating consequences of child and teenage bullying. And even as adults, we are not immune to this. Introducing programs and support systems in schools is vitally important to the mental health of our children.

Running for office is more difficult that it should be. As an Independent candidate, I did not have the help of a major party. I had to spend hours pouring over campaign handbooks, deciphering fundraising laws, creating my own committee, appointing my own treasurer, ensuring all my petitions were correct, and completing countless other tasks, figuring it all out along the way. I want to encourage more people to run for public office, and I will use my newfound knowledge to help the next generation of public servants navigate the land mines of running for public office. We need new blood, new ideas, and new enthusiasm in Athens County.

As Athens County Commissioner, I will make the office more accessible to everyone. I will ask people what they need and want from the county, actually listen to what they have to say, and work to make that happen.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/most-muslim-americans-are-voting-jill-stein-or-kamala-harris-poll-finds

By Umar A Farooq in Washington

A new poll conducted this week shows that the majority of Muslim voters in the United States are evenly split on who they plan to vote for as president in the upcoming November election, with roughly 60 percent planning to choose either third-party candidate Jill Stein or Vice President Kamala Harris.

The new survey, part of a report published on Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), shows that the majority of Muslim-American voters have decided against voting for either Republican candidate Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.

Twenty-nine percent of those Muslim voters polled said they were planning to cast their votes for Stein, leader of the Green Party who has made ending Israel's war on Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank a key policy priority.

"We're grateful for the strong support of Muslim voters who share with us an ironclad determination to end genocide in Gaza, as well as the endless wars in the Middle East, and the discrimination and injustice faced by our Muslim neighbours, immigrants and refugees," Stein said in a statement provided to Middle East Eye.

"We urge all people of conscience to resist the propaganda telling you to hold your nose and vote for genocide. If you vote for genocide, you are actively consenting to it and enabling it. Don’t let them talk you out of your humanity. Stopping genocide is the moral imperative of our time."

A new poll conducted this week shows that the majority of Muslim voters in the United States are evenly split on who they plan to vote for as president in the upcoming November election, with roughly 60 percent planning to choose either third-party candidate Jill Stein or Vice President Kamala Harris.

The new survey, part of a report published on Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), shows that the majority of Muslim-American voters have decided against voting for either Republican candidate Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.

Twenty-nine percent of those Muslim voters polled said they were planning to cast their votes for Stein, leader of the Green Party who has made ending Israel's war on Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank a key policy priority.

"We're grateful for the strong support of Muslim voters who share with us an ironclad determination to end genocide in Gaza, as well as the endless wars in the Middle East, and the discrimination and injustice faced by our Muslim neighbours, immigrants and refugees," Stein said in a statement provided to Middle East Eye.

"We urge all people of conscience to resist the propaganda telling you to hold your nose and vote for genocide. If you vote for genocide, you are actively consenting to it and enabling it. Don’t let them talk you out of your humanity. Stopping genocide is the moral imperative of our time."

Another 29 percent said they are planning to vote for Harris, who some Muslims and pro-Palestinians have claimed has been more sympathetic to Palestinians but has so far said she would maintain support for Israel and has rebuffed demands for an arms embargo on Israel.

The poll also showed that around 11 percent of Muslim voters surveyed are planning to vote for Donald Trump, while four percent are choosing third-party candidate Cornel West and 16 percent are still undecided.

The survey consisted of responses from more than 1,000 registered Muslim voters and was conducted after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week. The survey is part of a larger Cair report chronicling the political attitudes of Muslim voters. This report included an additional survey that polled 2,850 Muslim voters between May and July, prior to Biden dropping out of the race.

"Our latest survey reveals that American Muslim voters are highly engaged in the upcoming presidential election, open to supporting a diverse range of candidates and political parties, and deeply dissatisfied with the current state of the nation, particularly US support for the war on Gaza," Cair national director Nihad Awad said in a statement. Jill Stein on America's democracy crisis, movement building and ending Israel's war on Palestinians Read More »

"The poll also shows that an unusually high number of American Muslims are planning to vote for third-party candidates."

The report reveals the increasingly visible electoral fault lines inside the Muslim-American community, with more Muslims choosing not to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate than in previous years.

A 2020 poll by Cair found that 69 percent of Muslims voted for Joe Biden in the previous presidential election.

However, the survey conducted before Biden dropped out found that only 26 percent of respondents planned to vote for the Democratic Party in the upcoming election, and 60 percent plan to vote for either a third-party candidate or an Independent. That's a 43 percent drop in Muslim support for the Democratic Party.

The Biden administration's support for Israel's ongoing war on Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians and labelled a genocide by rights groups, scholars, and several countries, has outraged Muslim and Arab-American communities.

That outrage has emerged in a number of ways, including mass protests in major US cities and across university campuses, as well as voter outreach efforts.

One such effort, the Abandon Harris (formerly Abandon Biden) campaign, is urging Muslims, Arabs, and voters against the war on Gaza to cast their ballots for a candidate other than Harris - a protest vote to show their widespread disapproval of her administration and campaign's support for Israel.

"While we don’t want to overly rely on polling as a definitive marker of the mood in our communities across the country, if these numbers are statistically accurate, they confirm what we've been saying for almost a year: the Democrats have lost Muslim Americans due to their support and funding of the Israeli genocide in Gaza," Hudhayfah Ahmad, communications director for Abandon Harris, told Middle East Eye.

Cair said this is the first national poll of Muslim voters that was conducted since Harris replaced US President Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket.

When Biden was still running for president, an unreleased Cair poll of 2,500 Muslim voters found that the overwhelming majority, 61 percent, were planning to vote for third-party candidates Stein and West. Biden, meanwhile, only garnered seven percent of the Muslim American vote.

Cair has reported previously that there are more than 2.5 million registered Muslim-American voters in the United States, engulfing previous estimates of 1.2 million voters.

WaPo article

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign posted a list of her policy positions on her website Sunday, as the latest polls show her locked in a tight race with former president Donald Trump.

Titled “A New Way Forward,” the page outlines her agenda on the economy as well as immigration and foreign policy. On each issue, the campaign contrasts her positions with the agenda of Project 2025, the far-right policy proposal that Democrats have warned could form the blueprint for a second Trump presidency, even as the Republican nominee has distanced himself from it. Harris and Trump will face off in their first debate Tuesday.

The page says Harris’s economic policies are aimed at “lowering the costs of everyday needs” for working- and middle-class families. They include the expansion of two tax credits, which the campaign said would benefit 100 million families: the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, for which Harris aims to include a $6,000 cut for families with newborns.

Harris, who has sought to build on President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, says she will extend to all Americans the cap on prices of lifesaving prescription drugs brought in by their administration — including capping the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 per month and limiting annual out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs to $2,000. Those two provisions are currently in effect for Medicare beneficiaries, but extending them to all Americans could face resistance from the pharmaceutical industry and Republicans, The Washington Post has reported.

Another campaign promise for the middle class is the provision of a $25,000 credit for first-time home buyers. She has also promised the “first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries.”

Harris’s economic agenda also includes the expansion of the existing $5,000 tax deduction for start-up firms to $50,000. This, The Post has reported, is an attempt to draw a contrast with Trump, who has called for reducing the tax rate paid by corporations and maintaining lower tax rates for high-income people, along with policies aimed at helping people in other tax brackets.

On health care, the Harris campaign does not mention support for Medicare-for-all. She has said she no longer supports it, reflecting a shift away from some of the progressive stances that marked her 2019 presidential campaign.

The campaign also promised to revive a bipartisan border security bill and make it law to tackle the thorny issue of immigration. Trump — whose criticism and mischaracterization of the bill helped torpedo it — has repeatedly attacked Harris on border security and disparaged her as a failed “border czar.” Although she wasn’t placed in charge of the border as vice president, she was assigned to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty and violence, in Central America.

On her foreign policy outlook, the Harris campaign said she will “stand with” the United States’ allies and “stand up to dictators” while ensuring that “America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century.” On Israel’s war in Gaza, an emotional and divisive issue for many Democratic voters, the campaign repeated her pledge to stand up for Israel’s right and ability to defend itself as well as making sure Palestinians have a right to self-determination and security.

The Trump campaign attacked Harris in August for not having a policy page on its campaign site. On his own campaign site, Trump has a brief list of 20 policy items, including “seal the border” and “end inflation.”

https://archive.ph/hxuZQ

Just finished it! Would really recommend for a short primer on socialist China.

During a heat advisory, these badasses protested for hours and got the middle finger from a local official.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz07zlr58vvo

Enjoy watching a fascist slowly realize that he got grifted. You can tell he's struggling not to cry lmao.

https://xcancel.com/Kaizerrev/status/1831159063695983091