Category: Vote / Voting
Kamala is gaining support, tRump is losing support.
NYT: Harris +4 In Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin
NYT: The Harris Campaign Is Being “Fueled By Joy”
https://www.joemygod.com/2024/08/poll-shows-harris-2-across-seven-battleground-states/
Poll Shows Harris +2 Across Seven Battleground States
New Nevada Poll Shows Harris +6 Over Trump
https://www.joemygod.com/2024/08/harris-puts-stop-to-lock-him-up-chants-at-rally/
Let’s talk about Trump musing about Biden and the Constitution….
The party of tRump
Media report on tRump’s age and infirmities as much as you did Biden’s, please
The UAW
Ten Bears posted this yesterday, and it’s great. Earlier yesterday, I saw the video linked below, also great. Morning cheer!
This Looks Like News
(Saturday’s post on Sunday. Saturday was National Lazy Day. I actually got my Inbox clean and organized, along with other areas in my actual house. But slowly and peacefully! Some might say lazily? Anyway, maybe that’s why news was slow. Or, could it be, Satan? I mean, the US news media?)
“This clip is the Harris/Walz crowd in Arizona yesterday. It’s big, and these people are turned up to eleven.
“Now, I understand the news media like to cover Donald Trump–if it bleeds, it leads, and there’s probably money riding on his having a big old red-faced aneurism on stage one day or of course, he just spews his usual ‘American carnage’-flavored rant–it’s a lurid carnival where both the observers and the observed are the freak show.
“But what if there was a thirst for something different and better? Maybe instead of hearing for the hundredth time about low water pressure and whales being driven mad by windmills, insults against journalists, other politicians, immigrants, wide swaths of the American people, and of course, lying about every little thing under the sun and a few beyond it, we could have a conversation about something more constructive than that.
“I think this is the podium to train the cameras on–not the empty one that stays empty even when a late, sweaty, angry old man finally lumbers behind it. Take a look at this crowd, and what had happened to those poll numbers over the last two-three weeks, and ask yourself ‘What are these people seeing now that they weren’t before?’
“This looks like news to me. What if we just want some good news for a change? What if people are tired of being mad and just want nice things for a change? What if they want some truth? For a change?
“You know, I could go with that. I think a lot of people could.”
https://vixenstrangelymakesuncommonsense.blogspot.com/2024/08/this-looks-like-news.html
OSDE attempts to deprive schools of rollover funds for safety, security enhancements despite previously promising them
by: Spencer Humphrey/KFOR Posted: Aug 8, 2024 / 10:00 PM CDT, Updated: Aug 9, 2024 / 06:06 PM CDT
(I sent this to me to post a couple of days ago; I lost it in the Inbox. But it’s been updated, anyway, so here it is. I suppose this is another thing, like the taxpayer-funded trips, that Walters, et al. were doing while everyone was looking at the Bibles in the classroom thing. In addition, most of the links included here go to yet more stories about Walters and his crew.)
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — The Oklahoma State Department of Education is attempting to take away certain funds the state legislature allotted school districts to make security enhancements after the Uvalde shooting, even though OSDE’s website said districts would be able to keep the money—until lawmakers began asking questions.
Now, numerous Republican lawmakers are calling for State Superintendent Ryan Walters to be held accountable, with at least one of them calling for Walters to be impeached for the first time.
OSDE no longer has lawyers on staff according to department’s website
In 2023, Oklahoma legislators overwhelmingly passed House Bill 2904. The bill provided Oklahoma schools with $150 million to make security enhancements to campuses and hire school resource officers in the wake of the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead.
HB2904 created a three year revolving fund, in which every school district in the state would receive approximately $96,000 per year for three years to make the improvements.
Several superintendents from mostly rural districts across Oklahoma told News 4 it was their understanding that they would be allowed to roll over any unused funds from one year to the next.
They told News 4 they planned to let their ‘Year One’ funds roll over to the following years until they saved enough to pay for improvements that would cost more than $96,000.
OSDE paying Texas-based company $50k+ to make social media videos
But now, those superintendents—who spoke to News 4 anonymously—say the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) denied them access to leftover ‘Year One’ funds they had not yet spent.
The superintendents say, without the leftover Year One funds available, they will have to cut the security improvements they planned to make, including additional school resource officers, secure entry vestibules, bulletproof windows, and more.
OSDE’s lawyers are now telling lawmakers they believe HB2904 did not allow for funds to rollover each year.
This bill’s authors say that is not, and never was the case.
Several republican lawmakers spoke out to News 4 about the issue, and how they feel about Walters’ role in it all.
“It gets me upset,” State Rep. Eddy Dempsey (R-Valliant) said.
“It just seems like it’s getting untenable at this point,” State Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) said.
“[Walters] answers to the legislature,” State Representative Mark McBride (R-Moore) said. “And it’s time to stop.”
Let’s talk about Trump’s press conference….
House Republicans’ congressional offices spent millions more on taxpayer-funded travel than Democrats since 2023
House Republicans outspent their Democratic counterparts in taxpayer-funded travel expenditures by nearly $8 million since the start of 2023, a new OpenSecrets analysis found.
Eight out of the top ten biggest spenders between the start of 2023 to March 2024 were Republican members of Congress. They accounted for 7% of total taxpayer-funded travel spending by GOP members of Congress and with each of the top spenders spending two to five times more than the average House office. (snip-there’s a graph; the embed link doesn’t seem to be working.)
(Graph on the page)
The total travel spending reported by House Republicans’ offices exceeded $23 million from January 2023 to March 2024 — nearly $8 million more than House Democrats spent on travel during the same period. Despite having only a seven-member majority, House Republicans have significantly outspent Democrats. Congressional offices of House Republicans spent around $102,000 on average for travel during that period, while the average spent by House Democrats sat around $70,000, according to the House Statement of Disbursements.
According to the Congressional Management Foundation, the average total annual budget of a House office is around $1.5 million, which is distributed across a variety of categories such as personnel compensation, franked mail, supplies and materials and travel.
The most commonly cited travel expenses are lodging, meals, wifi on travel and parking as well as the transportation expenses themselves such as car rental, airfare and taxis. Entertainment or recreational activities are not considered to be a part of the travel category and are not covered by taxpayer money, according to Public Citizen.
House Statements of Disbursements are public reports featuring all receipts and expenditures of offices of the U.S. House of Representatives, as required under federal regulations. These reports are released quarterly by the Chief Administrative Officer of the House.
Since 2009, House Statements of Disbursements have been accessible to the public. However, they do not reflect information about the purpose of the travel, travel destinations or specific transportation details.
Of all 435 House Member offices, the top spender on travel was the office of Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) which spent about $379,000 on travel expenditures since the start of last year, nearly 5 times more than the average House member office. Gooden’s travel spending constitutes more than 16% of his office’s budget, also higher than the average of around 4% spent by other House offices, according to OpenSecrets’ analysis.
Gooden is known to be an active traveler with high spending on both office and campaign-related travel, according to Roll Call. After winning reelection to his second term in 2022, Gooden spent leftover campaign money abroad and at popular destinations, including New Orleans, La., and Las Vegas, Nev.
Gooden himself has been spotted in a meat boutique in Israel, a bar in New York and Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. The office declined our request for comments about the purpose of the travel, its details, or sources of funding.
The second biggest spender was a Democratic member from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Rep. Gregorio Sablan. Yet, Sablan’s office represents a territory almost 8000 miles from Washington, D.C. managed to incur around $90,000 less than Gooden from Texas.
Bob Schwalbach, Sablan’s chief of staff, told OpenSecrets that the high travel expenditures simply reflect the costs of getting to the district.
Scottie's Playtime 