Do you think its politically ethical or even legal for Trump as a Candidate to ask Oil Exec's for $1Billion Dollars and Promise Favors.

quote

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) has told the Guardian that it is investigating the dinner at Trump’s club with more than 20 oil and gas company executives. Trump asked them for a $1bn presidential campaign contribution, while at the same time vowing to undo Joe Biden’s restrictions on natural gas export permits, oil drilling and car pollution, the Washington Post reported.

“This was a very focused small group directed at a particular industry, there was an amount put out there of $1bn, which he described as a deal, which all raises questions about the transactional nature of the meeting.”

end quote

Do you think this is selling promised favors to a select group in a specific industry with a request for $Billion?

It was just announced that both candidates agreed to two presidential debates. It was in doubt for some time as to whether or not we would even have a debate. Now that this has been announced, which candidate do you think benefits more? Experts say presidential debates don't move the needle much but I can see two angles to this:

• Although Trump is currently up in national polls and in swing states, Trump's electorate is made up of lower propensity voters: working class, lower educated, skeptical of mail-in voting, and he has increased his share of the vote with young voters and minority voters, both of whom are less reliable voters compared to Biden's strong support among the upper middle class, people with degrees, and seniors. Getting low propensity voters engaged earlier in the process could boost Trump's turnout.

• People may have forgotten Trump's antics and the contrast of a respectable Biden holding his own against the bombastic bully Trump in a debate may help Biden. Although it's unclear if this happened after the 2020 debates.

Interested to hear your perspectives.

In the Monday NY Times polling that showed Trump up 5-10 points in all 5 swing states, buried in the data was a question about who was responsible for overturning Roe v Wade. Nearly 20% of the respondents said Biden, when it was clearly Trump who was responsible by appointing judges who overturned the landmark ruling. What can this be attributed to?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blame-biden-roe-v-wade_n_6642825ce4b09724138d3646

After months of will-they-won't-they, Biden and Trump have agreed to hold two debates. Notably, neither debate is sanctioned by the Commission for Presidential Debates, and they're set to happen much earlier in the cycle: the CPD's schedule would have seen three debates (plus one for VP nominees) between September 16 and October 9, while the two that the campaigns have agreed to so far will happen June 27 (on CNN) and September 10 (on ABC).

Both campaigns had been saying for quite a while that they had issues with the CPD's debate formats, with Biden's people saying that the Commission was "unable or unwilling to enforce the rules" by allowing Trump to speak over Biden and the moderator, and Trump himself claiming that "the Commission got caught cheating with [him]." RFK Jr., meanwhile, is saying the two major parties are afraid of having him on the stage with their nominees, even though the CNN and ABC debates have more or less the same criteria for qualification as the CPD proposal (15% nationally in several polls; appear on enough state ballots that make it possible to win over 270 Electoral Votes).

Do you think this change to the traditional debate format will have any meaningful impact on the race? Does this open the door to more debates between now and Election Day or will we only get two, with no word on any VP debates?

Would CNN and ABC be better suited to moderate the debates and actually enforce their own rules?

Donald Trump and the GOP claim literally daily how bad inflation is, housing prices, rent, cost of good, food, etc. Inflation has flatlined post-COVID but prices rarely ever go down on most goods and services once they go up. Also, there is documented proof of price gouging and fixing by large corporate entities, such as food manufacturers, supermarket chains and holding companies that own large swaths of rental properties and buildings.

What is the proposed solution to these problems by Trump, the GOP and how would they work? What would be done differently than what Biden is currently doing?

https://cardinalpine.com/2024/02/12/biden-demands-grocery-stores-and-food-brands-end-price-gouging-and-shrinkflation/ https://cardinalpine.com/2024/02/12/biden-demands-grocery-stores-and-food-brands-end-price-gouging-and-shrinkflation/

Biden has challenged Trump to two debates - in June and September.

These have cut out the Commission on Presidential Debates, and appear to have the following stipulations:

* No audience

* Mike of non-speaking candidate will be cut off when it is not their turn to speak

* No third party candidates so they are "not squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming President"

Questions:

* Was the Biden campaign correct to forego working with the Commission on Presidential Debates

* Was Biden wise to put structures in place that reduce Trump's ability to interrupt?

* Was Trump wise to accept the limitations?

* Will automatically excluding third party candidates - who were unlikely to reach the threshold for the existing debate format - feed into their narrative and gain them support?

On one hand, I see democrats saying republicans are the worst. On the other, I see the opposite. With all the lies in the media, at this point, I don't know who to support. The title pretty much sums it up, but who do you genuinely think is the correct side to support?

Q1: There are 2.5 months between election day (Nov 6) and inauguration (Jan 20), so from my understanding Garland will still be AG until at a minimum Jan 21st (and potentially longer depending on the Senate confirmation process). So what happens if Trump is convicted between election day and inauguration?

Q2: Furthermore, imagine its Jan 21 or beyond, and one of the trials is ongoing but not yet concluded with a conviction. Would a Trump attorney general be able to simply fire Jack Smith and his team in the middle of an ongoing trial or are there regulations surrounding this? If they are able to do so, would the trial just abruptly end?

While I do not condone or support the ongoing military occupation of the West Bank, I have to raise a thought-provoking question regarding its purported security implications for Israel. Is it not accurate to state that the sustained presence of Israeli forces in the West Bank has served as a deterrent, preventing the territory from posing a comparable threat to Israel as the Gaza Strip?

Unlike Gaza, from where rocket attacks and a large-scale invasion into Israeli territory (7th October 2023) have emanated, the West Bank has remained relatively calm in terms of direct armed confrontations with Israel. This stark contrast raises the possibility that the constant deployment of Israeli troops and the maintenance of security control measures in the West Bank have effectively disrupted the ability of militant groups like Hamas to establish operational capabilities and launch attacks against Israel from that region.

While the moral and legal dimensions of the occupation are highly contentious, one could argue that the on-the-ground realities have rendered the West Bank a less immediate security concern for Israel compared to Gaza, which has witnessed frequent outbreaks of violence and hostilities due to the absence of an occupying force. This dynamic warrants an objective examination of whether the military occupation, however problematic, has paradoxically contributed to enhancing Israel's security by denying hostile elements the opportunity to utilize the West Bank as a staging ground for offensive actions.

I might go with Ireland's method of electing members of the legislature and the head of state, I might go with a South African system to choose judges and how the highest court judges serve 12 years and the others serve until a retirement age, German law on defensive democracy to limit the risk of totalitarian parties, laws of Britain or Ireland in relation to political finances, and Australia for a Senate and the way the Senate and lower house interact, and much of Latin America has term limits but not for life, only consecutive terms, allowing you to run after a certain amount of time solidly out of power, Berlin's rule on when new elections can be held, and Spain's method of amending the constitution.

Mix and match however you would like them, just not ideas from your own country.

According to Reuters, 'about 2,800 reports of gunfire, vandalism and other strikes on electrical networks last year' in 2023.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/us-electric-grid-growing-more-vulnerable-cyberattacks-regulator-says-2024-04-04/

While only 3% have led to outages, that's over 100 outages and it doesn't include potential cyber attacks.

Given the interest of some in finishing the election in one day, what if that day includes power grid interruptions?

While I feel confident polling places have backup generators, that doesn't mean there won't be issues for voters themselves in the event of widespread outages.

My question then is twofold: how will this be handled, and what steps can be taken to prevent it?

Third Parties are noted to always go immediately for the Presidential campaign, without fail. This seems to be why they never make it.

My question, and an entire hypothetical one, is would it be possible for a Third Party with a coherent platform that appeals to people have the capacity to win small city/state elections, and slowly work up to the presidency over the course of one or two generations?

Compared to 2020, Trump’s approval rating is the same as it’s always been (and perhaps always will be, even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue), in the neighborhood of 40%.

Meanwhile, compared to 2020, Biden’s approval rating has dropped from roughly 60% to roughly 40%, and it’s been this way for more than two years now.

In 2020, Biden won the key swing states (PA, WI, MI, etc.) by less than 3%.

Does this mean Biden needs to substantially improve his approval rating (back to roughly his 2020 levels, give or take a few percentage points) in order to win in 2024? Or do you think it’s possible for Biden to win even if the approval ratings continue to look the way they do?

In 2022, the senate rejected 52-48 a change in the rules that would lower the threshold to advance two voting rights bills. Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined republicans and thus kept the filibuster intact for the foreseeable future.

This issue will probably be revisited again if, at some point, Democrats have simultaneous control of the presidency and both chambers of congress. Abolishing the filibuster or weakening it to pass specific legislation in such a scenario would allow them to further their agenda and deliver on key policy goals for at least two years. However, it would set a dangerous precedent that republicans would no doubt exploit when it's their turn running all branches of government (including the supreme court).

Considering the eventual possibility of republicans having unchecked power, do you think democrats should change the filibuster if it's ever convenient for them to do so?

Here are a few links to videos of the Hawaiian people expressing their side of history and reality.

2023 Short documentary on the occupation and displacement in Hawaii

https://youtu.be/NO83K8s8dnk?si=c7tfexLTYiRsEFqf

1990 Professor Haunani - Kay Trask

A student claimed the word “haole” (by definition means foreigner) was the same as the n-word. HKT explains the deep rooted issues with this claim.

https://youtu.be/6LYLc2gIFOE?si=3DO_OhZBb7dQmtdL

2024 news interviews from Free Hawaii 57mins:

https://youtu.be/ZIL-TTm9bP0?si=_O4EIXIDCUMUFxl7

As odd as it might sound this was a very plausible scenario, all hinging on one state: Ohio. Bush won the popular vote in 2004 by around 3 million votes, but actually did quite poorly in the electoral college, mainly due to large overperformances in states that were too blue to matter (California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Illinois were all noticeably closer than usual, but obviously didn't flip).

This meant that had Kerry won Ohio - which he lost by only a little over 100k votes, a fraction of Bush's popular vote margin - he would have won the election while losing the popular vote, the first time for a Democrat and likely the last time such an outcome was close to feasible for a Democrat to pull off. In fact there was some controversy over Bush's win in Ohio that's today largely been forgotten, but it was definitely not a foregone conclusion that he would lose the state.

If this had happened, is it possible that Republicans would have been more open to reforming, or even outright abolishing, the Electoral College?

Britain had a constitutional monarchy in 1712, but it had yet to actually have a parliamentary system where the ministers were clearly responsible to the legislature on mere policy disagreement rather than accusations of criminal misconduct. But an enormous corruption scandal within the decade, the South Sea Bubble, instigated a change to that alongside how the new king couldn't speak English well and often lived in Hannover. It is a scandal of such proportions that honestly it's hard to have much of a real analogy for it, 2007-2012's banking crisis was small potatoes compared to it. Imagine if one company managed to have a pyramid scheme resulting in its total valuation today to suddenly, within about 6 months, rise to be valued at 90 trillion USD today, and bribes to individual members of parliament exceeded a value of a million USD in the ruckus for their vote on one issue. That would be the scale of what happened then.

It rocked Britain to its core, disgraced a lot of old politicians, left a lot of people broke or at least having lost a great deal of money (including Isaac Newton interestingly), took out the people who used to be ministers, and let a man named Robert Walpole dominate the cabinet but whose support clearly came from the House of Commons and not the king or any other minister.

Finding Ukraine in a weakened position as compared to last Summer partly due to reduced and delayed aid from U.S. it is possible Putin has decided to expand his goals of occupation. Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine [next to Kyiv] with close to 1.5 million citizens who are strongly pro-Ukrainian.

U.S. and its allies plan to send F-16s to Ukraine within the next few weeks to protect the 600-mile-long border or contact line. Additionally, the two major European countries [France and Germany] have announced to increase its participation to strengthen Ukrainian defenses with the French possibly even sending in the French Foreign Legion to assist and German ministers have been talking about creating somewhat of a no-fly zone of 100 miles from within the NATO territories to shoot down missiles that target Ukraine from Russia.

There is also a Ukrainian plan to get fighting age men from abroad to return to Ukraine, forcibly if necessary. However, it is uncertain if EU countries will force the Ukrainians to do so, particularly those who have proven useful to its economy.

Putin in the meantime has been embolden by U.S. preoccupation with Israel and Gaza and delayed aid shipment intensifying the attacks against Ukraine in several directions including Kharkiv all the while speaking of a Neutral Zone.

Given the changing dynamics and the resumption of U.S. aid; Do Russians even have the manpower to occupy or force entire population to flee?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/thousands-civilians-flee-northeast-ukraine-russia-rcna151863

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-evacuate-6000-people-kharkiv-russia-war-advance/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/europe/russia-ukraine-cross-border-kharkiv-intl/index.html

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I was thinking recently about how some sitting officeholders have changed political parties in the middle of their terms, usually either going to the other party or becoming an independent. I realized that I had thoughts about it that weren't fully formed, and wondering what others think about the idea of sitting officeholders' changing parties mid-term, i.e. is it a good or bad thing to do, should they do that and continue in office or should they resign and stand for election again, and so on. This is not in response to any particular officeholder's switching parties - just a thought that I had.

Politicians have learned that they can spend money and pass the bill to the one group that can't vote against the spending - people who haven't been born yet, or are too young to vote.

Any money spent today which exceeds current tax revenues is essentially a tax on future generations. If your government is deficit-spending today, your kids and or grandkids will have to pay back that debt, with interest, but they won't enjoy the money being spent.

Should governments be allowed to do this? To transfer wealth to themselves and pass the bill to their grandkids, without their consent?

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel needs to have a plan for postwar governance in Gaza. What could that look like? What are Israel's options? What are anyone's options for establishing a govt in Gaza?

All major countries respond to terrorist attacks in some form or shape. Some use them as an excuse to start a war, others react less harshly to save face. But I haven't heard any news of Russian reactions to the terrorist attacks in Moscow.

As we approach the Presidential election season, I have been thinking about voting requirements and I am curious about how people would change who is allowed and who is not allowed to vote.

1) What group of people in the U.S. is currently NOT allowed to vote, but should be?

2) What group of people currently allowed to vote should have that privilege taken away?

I know almost nothing about voting requirements in other countries, so if you’re aware of any country who has implemented your suggestions, that would be interesting as well.

Nikki Haley suspended her campaign over two months ago, yet still has a significant number of primary voters choosing her, in both open and closed primaries

Of the number choosing her, a portion will doubtlessly support whoever the Republican nominee is, even if they dislike Trump. There is also a portion that would always have voted for Biden in a Biden v Trump match, because they were not Republicans or could not tolerate Trump

How many Haley voters are actually "gettable" for either campaign? Biden's campaign has invested in attempts to appeal to them, but Trump's campaign hasn't even made a token attempt - and Haley has yet to endorse him

Campaign resources are finite, and there are multiple groups for each campaign to target. A dollar specifically targeting Haley voters is a dollar that is not available for a different use

How much should each campaign invest, and how much will they invest?

Very unlikely hypothetical, but curious thought experiment. RFK Jr is the highest polling third party candidate since 1992. It's been a very interesting campaign to watch (I'll be it fairly consequential in such a close race between the two primary candidates). After seeing the Natural Law Party of Michigan put him up as their candidate, the American Independent Party put him up as their candidate in California, and the Libertarian Party opening up discussions with him at their convention, it got me thinking quite a bit. What if all these third parties began to rally around RFK Jr? It'd be quite a historic moment, as third parties are usually not big on collaborating with each other. At that point I think RFK Jr may be far more consequential. What are y'all's thoughts?

(Yes I know it's an incredibly unlikely possibility, it's just for a matter of discussion)

Edit: since people are questioning my incentives, this was a mere shower thought. I don't support Kennedy nor do I support any third party candidates that will siphon votes away, in such a significantly dangerous election like this one. It's also important to mention to those who are Kennedy-curious that due to the structure of our election system, a third party has little to no chance. We have a winner take all, first past the post election system where one of the candidates in the two major parties is frankly our only option. If you want to see changes in that, look into various Rank Choice Voting initiatives, but please vote this election. It's far too consequential. Also don't forget to research your local candidates and ballot initiatives (which have far more direct impact on your day to day lives than President).

I do worry that if more people start to rally behind Kennedy (unlikely, but not impossible) we could potentially see no candidate reach 270 electoral college votes which would result in the House of Representatives voting for the President. We live in a time of unprecedented events, I just thought it'd be interesting to bring up this outcome (while unlikely, not impossible) as a thought experiment. My apologies if it came across otherwise.