8 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 26

Automatically posted
Tags: usa, politics, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

7 comments

  1. psi
    Link
    Yesterday the Supreme Court decided to hear Trump's appeal regarding his claims of absolute immunity. There is virtually no chance Trump will prevail, of course, but he will have succeeded in...

    Yesterday the Supreme Court decided to hear Trump's appeal regarding his claims of absolute immunity. There is virtually no chance Trump will prevail, of course, but he will have succeeded in furthering his actual goal: delaying his DC trial for as long as possible, likely until after the election. The Supreme Court could have heard this case months ago when the Justice Department petitioned the Court for certiorari before judgment. It would have been unusual, but this is the rare case where timeliness is essential. Instead the Court decided to make itself complicit in Trump's gamesmanship of the judiciary.

    4 votes
  3. [2]
    boxer_dogs_dance
    Link
    Look closely at the voter defection numbers and compare the candidates before reaching a conclusion

    Look closely at the voter defection numbers and compare the candidates before reaching a conclusion

    2 votes
    1. ackables
      Link Parent
      It's hard to compare Biden's and Trump's support in the primaries to actual results in the election. Biden has been dominating every primary so far. Even in New Hampshire where he wasn't on the...

      It's hard to compare Biden's and Trump's support in the primaries to actual results in the election.

      Biden has been dominating every primary so far. Even in New Hampshire where he wasn't on the primary ballot, he won 63% as a write in. In Michigan, he got ~80% of the vote and only 5.7% of the votes going to other candidates. The 13.3% uncommitted votes were people protesting Biden's policy on Israel and Gaza. They don't believe there's a better candidate on the ballot this November than Biden but want him to know that they have issues with his current stance.

      Trump has been winning the Republican primaries, but not by the landslide that Biden has. Trump has been consistently losing 30% to 40% of the primary votes to other candidates save for Nevada where Nikki Haley wasn't on the ballot. As the defacto incumbent for the Republican party, he is not seeing the strong backing of his party that Biden is seeing.

      It's hard to tell if certain messaging issues and policy disagreements Biden has with portions of the democratic party will result in less enthusiasm and lower turnout at the polls, or if the current discourse is about trying to gain concessions on further left issues before the November election.

      It's also hard to tell how many of these Nikki Haley primary voters are Republicans that will not vote Trump under any circumstances, will vote Biden if it comes down to it, but want to shift the party away from Trump, and how many will still vote Republican if Trump is the candidate but would prefer another candidate. I have heard interviews with Republican primary voters that could fit in either category, but it's hard to tell how any of the non-Trump primary voters will vote on election day.

      This still feels like a closer race than I would like given the stakes. I really hope that the Biden campaign can find the messaging that resonates with voters. They are in a precarious place where the fracturing of the GOP can bring extra votes to Biden, but finding a message that resonates from moderate right wing voters to further left liberal voters may be difficult.

      4 votes
  4. psi
    (edited )
    Link
    In Trump-being-Trump news: "Trump Media co-founders sue company, alleging a scheme to dilute shares." The Washington Post. (gift) To summarize the facts as alleged: Two former contestants from The...

    In Trump-being-Trump news:

    To summarize the facts as alleged:

    • Two former contestants from The Apprentice pitch Donald Trump on a Trump-branded social media company (Truth Social).
    • In exchange for his branding and presence, Trump would own 90% of the company and 78 million shares, worth ~$3.5 billion (yes, this is incredibly depressing); the two co-founders would own 8.6% of the company and 7 million shares, worth ~$339 million; and a lawyer managing the deal would own the remaining 1.4%.
    • The two co-founders leave the company amid disputes with leadership.
    • Now that the company is about to go public, the company has increased the total amount of shares from 120 million shares to 1 billion shares. (The lawsuit describes this as an "11th hour, pre-merger corporate maneuvering" tactic.)
    • However, the co-founders would still receive the same fixed 7 million shares, which would now be worth "only" tens of millions of dollars. The lawsuit alleges that the newly minted shares would be issued to Trump, his associates, and his children.

    So yeah, Trump continues to screw over his business associates. Hear me play the world's smallest fiddle for the fools who indulged America's worst President. And as if to prove the universe abhors justice, this merger could be a real landfall for Trump, making the recent civil cases against him look like peanuts in comparison.

    2 votes