General Election 2024 Harris vs Trump (4 Viewers)

[SamAndreas]

Today it begins, Kamala has reached the point that she's the Democratic Party nominee:

There's video from today. this link has video from her first public appearance since Biden endorsed her:

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/22/live-updates-harris-democrats-biden-drops-out-trump-campaign.html

She spent yesterday on the telephone for most of the day. I read that yesterday that she called the party leaders in all 50 states. That would take me three days.

She's renamed her YouTube channel, that's the where to go for video: https://www.youtube.com/@kamalaharris

This is her video on her channel from two hours ago:



To play it, start it, and then move it up to 5:47. This was one of those live videos which don't start at zero.

I've named this thread General Election 2024 Harris vs Trump

Trump needs an introduction post as well, a MAGA suporter ought to write it: @Farb, @SaintForLife , @Others, calling for someone to please introduce your GOP candidate for this 2024 general election thread.

 

[Booker]

Yup.
I felt bad about that.
While you were posting I found this....
*

Top Ten Historical References to Jesus Outside of the Bible

Here is the video version of this blog from episode 222 of Digging for Truth: After publishing my blog of Top Ten Discoveries Related to Jesus, I faced some criticism from people who noted that non…

biblearchaeologyreport.com

Just apologetics trying to make something out of nothing ("At first glance, Jesus isn’t mentioned in this quotation." "While Jesus is not explicitly named..."). Weak sauce for the weak minded.

 

[SteveSBrickNJ]

Just apologetics trying to make something out of nothing ("At first glance, Jesus isn’t mentioned in this quotation." "While Jesus is not explicitly named..."). Weak sauce for the weak minded.

It might be "weak sauce". Yet we believers don't need secular proof of what we know to be true.
I know who I was before becoming a Christian and I know who I am today.
In the old days the thought of Jesus being LORD was really super unappealing.
The old me: "I want to do what I want to do and I don't want any Jesus being Lord over my life."
Can any of you relate to that?
THEN at age 28 God opened my eyes and I understood and responded to the gospel message.
In our church lingo we call that becoming "saved"
Years later I can say that Jesus did nothing to ruin my fun.
Life is much better as a Christian than it was back in my mid 20s.
*
OK, now I have said everything and I want to express my gratitude to the moderators for allowing me to do so.
Let's get back to politics and be done with this topic.

 

[Booker]

It might be "weak sauce". Yet we believers don't need secular proof of what we know to be true.
I know who I was before becoming a Christian and I know who I am today.
In the old days the thought of Jesus being LORD was really super unappealing.
The old me: "I want to do what I want to do and I don't want any Jesus being Lord over my life."
Can any of you relate to that?
THEN at age 28 God opened my eyes and I understood and responded to the gospel message.
In our church lingo we call that becoming "saved"
Years later I can say that Jesus did nothing to ruin my fun.
Life is much better as a Christian than it was back in my mid 20s.
*
OK, now I have said everything and I want to express my gratitude to the moderators for allowing me to do so.
Let's get back to politics and be done with this topic.

Yes, you've made it very clear since joining the board that facts and evidence aren't pre-requisites for your beliefs -- which is indeed a nice segue back to the topic.

 

[Booker]

Elon Musk’s Stunning $250 Million Favor to Trump Should Wake Up Dems

Musk and others helped the GOP run rings around Democrats in the info wars. I asked three leading contenders for party chair how they’d fix this.

www.yahoo.com

You can't persuade voters if you can't reach them...

For Wikler, the party’s central problem became visible back in April, when a little-noticed NBC News poll showed Trump with the support of 53 percent of people who don’t follow news at all and 55 percent of those who get news from YouTube and Google. By contrast, President Biden (who hadn’t yet left the race) earned 55 percent from those who follow network news and 70 percent from those who read newspapers.

“There are millions of voters who get their news about Democrats from Republicans,” he tells me, and “only hear from the right.”

“It’s the people least likely to seek out information about either party who we lost in this election,” Wikler said. “They’re generally younger, more working-class.” For the party, he said, “solving the information problem has to be a core focus,” requiring a “constant effort to get out of our heads and into the minds of the extraordinarily diverse electorate that is getting information from a dizzying array of places.”

 

[fooferdoggie]

It might be "weak sauce". Yet we believers don't need secular proof of what we know to be true.

You are mistaking knowledge for faith. You have faith; it's true; you don't have knowledge; it's true. That is the whole basis of faith. Remember, no one in the world shares your faith; everyone has their version of faith, so saying your faith is the only real one is saying all other Christians are wrong.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Elon Musk’s Stunning $250 Million Favor to Trump Should Wake Up Dems

Musk and others helped the GOP run rings around Democrats in the info wars. I asked three leading contenders for party chair how they’d fix this.

www.yahoo.com

You can't persuade voters if you can't reach them...

They say one of the reasons Obama won was he embraced the internet and social media like no candidate ever had before

I don't know if they do or but if not the DNC needs a whole committee/advisory board just on marketing and messaging

The people who don't follow news at all? The people googling 'Did Biden drop out?' on Election Day?, I really don't know what you can do to reach those people

It seems those people are intentionally trying not to be reached

 

[t_rav_82]

Maybe this?
I'm at work so I didn't read it.
*

Top Ten Historical References to Jesus Outside of the Bible

Here is the video version of this blog from episode 222 of Digging for Truth: After publishing my blog of Top Ten Discoveries Related to Jesus, I faced some criticism from people who noted that non…

biblearchaeologyreport.com

I absolutely love the logic of “here let me prove my point with this link I didn’t read”. And thank you for being so upfront about it. It’s nice when people own their ignorance.

 

[Booker]

They say one of the reasons Obama won was he embraced the internet and social media like no candidate ever had before

I don't know if they do or but if not the DNC needs a whole committee/advisory board just on marketing and messaging

The people who don't follow news at all? The people googling 'Did Biden drop out?' on Election Day?, I really don't know what you can do to reach those people

It seems those people are intentionally trying not to be reached

It's gotten really easy to filter out what you don't want to hear. When we were kids there were only three channels to choose from, and they all showed the news in the early and late evening. Now there are so many viewing options, it's quite easy to keep yourself in a bubble.

 

[Booker]

You are mistaking knowledge for faith. You have faith; it's true; you don't have knowledge; it's true. That is the whole basis of faith. Remember, no one in the world shares your faith; everyone has their version of faith, so saying your faith is the only real one is saying all other Christians are wrong.

“Having faith is believing in something you just know ain't true.”​

― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

 

[Booker]

Good read...

Triumph of the feels

Our UK contributor looks at the American disaster with recently acquired humility.

onlys.ky

Trying to explain the reality of these macroeconomic statistics is a tough ask when set against people’s feelings. The economy was seen as one of the most important issues in the election and the Democratic ticket suffered from the lag between the time of inflation lowering and the time of realizing the reality of this. As 538 showed, this lead time has been influenced heavily by the COVID pandemic.

The Republican strategists know this all too well. You see, it’s all about the feels. This election was not won on a solid platform of granular policy detail. Trump won on feels. “Make economy good, immigration bad.” Kamala Harris produced an 82-page book to detail her economic agenda. Trump, on the other hand, couldn’t care for details: “I’ll say 100, 200, I’ll say 500— I don’t care!” This was one of his many vague claims about the level of tariffs he would put on all imports into the US. As many have pointed out, showing much more knowledge of basic economic mechanisms, these tariffs would act as a sales tax on US consumers, creating incredible inflationary pressure.

Yet one of the most frequent, mindless comments from his supporters (and bots) during the election was that Harris had no policies.

Here is my controversial opinion: No Democrat in this cycle, particularly in the meager 107 days that were available after Joe Biden stepped down, would have won the 2024 US election.

We are now in a period of the blame game. The US wasn’t ready for a woman of color. They chose the wrong vice presidential nominee, they should have chosen Josh Shapiro. They chose the wrong presidential nominee. They were too far left. They were too far right. They didn’t appeal to men and concentrated too much on toxic masculinity. They didn’t concentrate enough on black/white/Asian/Hispanic old/young men/women. They were too pro-Israel. There were too pro-Palestine.

On and on and on and on.

Some of these gripes may well have contributed to some degree, but the Democrats were destined not to win this election. Why? Not to completely ignore the global trend of anti-establishment anti-incumbency, but it was disinformation, misinformation, lack of information, and information-space control.

 

[Booker]

Actually your theory that Matthew Mark Luke and John made up stuff regarding an old myth is really ignorant.
Even NON Christian historians recorded that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Jesus did grow to become an adult who was crucified. This is documented by more than one SECULAR historian.

Apologies for the thread jack again, but I wanted to come back to this post. Again, the use of existing literary sources to color the Gospels is extensively documented, but I'm feeling kind of lazy so I'm just going to copy something I wrote previously that cites some clear and undeniable examples of old myths being repurposed as new...

For the sake of brevity I’ll cite just a few examples, but Mark and the later evangelists make extensive use of existing scripture, most obviously the Elijah/Elisha stories from Kings but also other books that are now in the Old Testament (but that were first collected in the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of those texts that early Christian writers were reliant upon -- and if you were to look at the passages that I’m going to cite in the original Greek, the parallels would become more obvious with the repetition and duplication of key words and phrases). https://www.septuagint.bible/#

[And again, these are just a few representative examples to show I’m not making it up – for a more exhaustive rundown consult Gospel Fictions by Randel Helms - Amazon product ASIN 0879755725. The article in this link also provides an overview of examples of allusions to Old Testament scripture being woven in to color the Gospel narratives https://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_midrash1.htm.]

As I mentioned previously, the Gospels pull a lot from Kings, where John the Baptist and Jesus from the very beginning are meant to parallel Elijah and Elisha, and the reader is supposed to make the connection (just like in the new Alien movie, the viewer is supposed to recognize all the call backs to the previous films in the series).

• Mark 1: 6 “And John was clothed with camel's hair, and a girdle of skin around his loins.”
• 2 Kings 1:8, speaking of Elijah, “A man -- hairy, and a girdle of skin girt about his loins.”

An example of where the “feeding of the multitudes” stories came from is 2 Kings 4:42-44, where Elisha feeds 100 men with only 20 loaves (‘They will eat and have some left over.’)

The raising of the dead boy in Mark 5, Matthew 9 and Luke 8 comes from 2 Kings 4:32-37.

The healing of the leper from Mark 1:40-44, Matthew 8:1-4 and Luke 5:12-16 is a retelling of 2 Kings 5 ("Naaman healed of leprosy").

In Luke 7:11-16 Jesus raises the dead son of a widow. This story was not known to Mark or Matthew, but it’s another story pulled from old scripture, 2 Kings 17:9-23, where Elijah raises the dead son of a widow.

Jesus stilling the storm (Mark 4:35-41) is drawn from both Psalms 107:25-30 (Psalm 107:29 “He stilled the storm to a whisper”) and Jonah 1:4-1:16. Jesus walking on water is drawn from Job 9:8, where God “treads on the waves of the sea.”

Matthew adds the story of Herod ordering the execution of all male babies, a blatant rip-off of Exodus, where the Pharaoh orders all male babies executed.

Further evidence of mythmaking -- the story of Jesus and the two thieves is actually an update of Yom Kippur. There was no Roman “tradition” to release a prisoner, but with the Yom Kippur sacrifice a scapegoat is released into the wild while the perfect goat is sacrificed. Barabbas was the scapegoat released into the wild, Jesus is the perfect sacrifice.

Another clever turn was Luke having Jesus born in a manger with livestock, as he'll later be the sacrificial lamb for mankind. Symbolic mythmaking, not history.

Likewise, Jesus’s execution is depicted at Passover so that Jesus replaces the Paschal lamb (John even moves the crucifixion to the day before Passover, contra the three preceding Gospels, because that was the day the lamb was slaughtered), but this was historically impossible.

Had he been arrested at Passover it would have been like getting arrested during Mardi Gras -- he would have been thrown in jail for the weekend and dealt with afterwards. Beyond that, a Passover execution, also being illegal, would have been so out of the ordinary it almost certainly would have been written about, but there is no contemporary record of this ever happening (just as there is no contemporary record of any of the activities depicted in the Gospels).

Similarly with Jesus storming the Temple. The temple grounds were something like twelve acres, and with guards on hand to prevent any trouble. Anything similar to what is alleged would have likely been documented contemporaneously, but there's no evidence of this.

A minor, relatively insignificant skirmish could be seen as the source of this story, but it actually seems to be generated from texts such as Jeremiah 7:11 (“A den of burglars hath this house”) and Zechariah 14:21 (“And there is no merchant any more in the house of Jehovah of Hosts in that day!”)

Regarding the crucifixion scene, first depicted in Mark 15 it draws heavily from Psalms 22. For example:

• Mark 15:34 “My God, my God, why didst Thou forsake me?”
• Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
• Mark 15:24 “And having crucified him, they were dividing his garments, casting a lot upon them, what each may take”
• Psalms 22:18 “They apportion my garments to themselves, And for my clothing they cause a lot to fall.”

Why is Jesus executed right at noon (Mark 15:33 “And the sixth hour having come, darkness came over the whole land till the ninth hour”)? Because Amos 8:9 says “And it hath come to pass in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, I have caused the sun to go in at noon, And caused darkness on the land in a day of light.”

The Gospels also seem to draw from non-Jewish sources, such as Homer, as there are a number of parallels that can be found with the Odyssey (and as the Gospel authors were highly educated writers, they would have all been heavily exposed to the classics, Homer in particular).

They also seem to have drawn from the myth of the death and resurrection of Inanna, a Mesopotamian goddess, which dates back at least 4,000 years. Inanna, forced to face a trial, is stripped of her clothes as she passes through seven doors as she descends to the underworld to face judgment, where she is turned into a corpse and hung on a hook (i.e. crucified), and is then later resurrected after three days and three nights.

Likewise, Jesus is stripped of his clothes, tried, and executed (and it's interesting, though maybe insignificant, that Jesus is said to be "hung on a tree" by both Paul in Galatians and also in 1 Peter, both of which were written prior to the Gospels, and possibly a reference to Deuteronomy 21:22).

And by the way, only Luke ties Jesus to Bethlehem, not any of the other evangelists, and certainly no secular historian, and this is most likely not because of anything historical, but simply because Luke was trying to work in Micah 5:2, which prophesizes that a ruler for Israel will emerge from Bethlehem.

 

[Booker]

More post-mortem...

Pre-election research shows disturbing trend among Republicans

Public opinion research conducted in October shows a shift in one political party that might make Donald Trump’s election on Nov. 5 less of a surprise. A majority of the party now agrees with a sentiment about immigration that has previously been associated with organized hate — that they are...

www.yahoo.com

In the survey, Jones asked, “Do you agree or disagree that immigrants who are entering the country today are poisoning the blood of our country?”

A full 34% of Americans agree.

“There is a gigantic partisan gap on this question,” Jones said.

Almost two-thirds of Republicans — 61% — 33% of independents, and just 13% of Democrats agreed that immigrants are poisoning the blood of a nation of immigrants.

Jones, who holds a Ph.D. in religion, said that so many Americans agree with such a statement should concern everyone.

“A racist and hate-filled conception of immigrants has really taken hold with a significant minority of the population,” he said.

 

[Dragon]

Nothing new really. History has repeatedly shown that hate often resonates more deeply than hope. Hope challenges people to take responsibility, to believe they have the power to drive change, and to strive toward meaningful goals. Hate, on the other hand, offers an easy escape—it absolves individuals of accountability, reinforces a victim mentality, and demands no effort or action. It’s a seductive narrative that shifts blame outward rather than fostering the self-reflection and initiative required to create progress.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

More post-mortem...

Pre-election research shows disturbing trend among Republicans

Public opinion research conducted in October shows a shift in one political party that might make Donald Trump’s election on Nov. 5 less of a surprise. A majority of the party now agrees with a sentiment about immigration that has previously been associated with organized hate — that they are...

www.yahoo.com

This is the result of the constant dehumanizing rhetoric. We have degraded these people to the point some very sick people believe it's "brilliant" to force bus their children into freezing cold temperatures without proper attire and dump them on a street corner in those conditions. It's barbaric and disgusting, but it's the way these animals think.

 

[Texan1211]

This is the result of the constant dehumanizing rhetoric. We have degraded these people to the point some very sick people believe it's "brilliant" to force bus their children into freezing cold temperatures without proper attire and dump them on a street corner in those conditions. It's barbaric and disgusting, but it's the way these animals think.

Look at it another way then. Republicans let Democrats put their money where their mouths are and show how committed they are to immigrants, even at the expense of their own taxpaying citizens.

 

[Dragon]

Look at it another way then. Republicans let Democrats put their money where their mouths are and show how committed they are to immigrants, even at the expense of their own taxpaying citizens.

So, cruelty towards children and vulnerable people is acceptable if it serves a political purpose against those who disagree with you? Many Trump supporters who share your opinion claim to be Christians. I genuinely wish someone could show me where in the Bible it says cruelty is justified, especially against those they deem inferior.

 

[bird]

Look at it another way then. Republicans let Democrats put their money where their mouths are and show how committed they are to immigrants, even at the expense of their own taxpaying citizens.

Look at it another way. Republicans have never actually cared until Trump stirred the pot with xenophobia and racism.

Who was it gave amnesty to immigrants? Oh, yeah, Reagan.

If Republicans actually cared they would have put forth legislation for decades.

 

[coldseat]

This is the result of the constant dehumanizing rhetoric. We have degraded these people to the point some very sick people believe it's "brilliant" to force bus their children into freezing cold temperatures without proper attire and dump them on a street corner in those conditions. It's barbaric and disgusting, but it's the way these animals think.

I mean, this isn't anything even remotely new. Republicans don't care about their own kids being gunned down in schools, why would they care about immigrants? They don't even need to send out thoughts and prayers to immigrants.

There is this purposeful creation of paradigm, almost expectation, in American society that Republicans are able to show how soulless and vindictive they can possibly be, while Democrats are expected to carry the well of compassion and care that bind us all together. Like so many other things in this country it's a striking dichotomy in this electorate as to what they will allow Republicans to get away with, as opposed to Democrats. That's why we're on the hateful train with Trump right now.