the DON JONES INDEX…

 

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

 

      9/9/24...     14,741.45

      9/2/24...     14,769.49

     6/27/13…    15,000.00

 

(THE DOW JONES INDEX:  9/9/24... 40,345.41  9/2/24... 41,563.08; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

 

LESSON for SEPTEMBER NINTH, 2024

“DOWN, BOY, DOWN”

 

Former President Donald Trump and present Vice President Kamala Harris will be holding their first (and perhaps only) Presidential debate tomorrow.  Next week’s Lesson will cover the transpirings, but there is a large, large gulch of potentialities and possibilities that will also be addressed in November... the down ballot races (and specifically those for Congress, the Senate and State Governorships.

All 435 House seats will be up for grabs on Election Day.  A third of the Senate seats and Governorships will also be contested... many perfunctorally, some hotly and viciously.

And before November, lame duck President Joe will have to deal with the crises of the moment, from the wars in Ukraine and the MidEast to the wildfires in California (and at least one hurricane on the way to inflation... on the way down but still troubling to kitchen table voters and its economic brethren, a rising unemployment toll (as might  have the paradoxically beneficial result of finally motivating the Fed to cut interest rates.  And there are old and new issues of trade and the border, social issues including abortion, contraception and IVF, identity issues of race, gender, sexuality and age and new crises yet to manifest, as well as old ones, like the prospect of a government shutdown, rolling around once more.

Yesterday’s lesson, for example, interviewed a ten spot former politicians, present-day journalists and partisans of every stripe, crowding into the talk show talkings to tell Don Jones what to make of circumstances that might affect Tuesday’s debate and, thus, the election.  (Sunday, see below)

We’ll save them for next Lesson’s debate prep pages because, this week, the question of whether and how whomever is elected President will be able to attain, or even aspire to, key questions of policy.

 

The latest barrage of Harris advertisements warn that Trump would like to take “control” of America... some liberal critics citing his past statements (especially the interview on Elon Musk’s podcast) say that he desires to rule as a dictator.  However, unless he (or Harris) can somehow nullify the legislative and judicial branches of government, whoever does become President may well find him or herself frustrated by an opposition party in control of Congress.

Further complications ensue when enforcement is left in the hands of hostile Governors, state legislators and the judiciary (some, like the Supremes, appointed for life, others appointed for fixed terms by the party in power in the state, still others elected by the voters).  These can overturn state laws, hinder enactment of federal statutes and... perhaps more notably at present... delay, delay, delay.

There are some murderers sitting in prison who have waited for their Execution Day for twenty, even thirty or more years.  Other criminal defendants, guilty or not, wait for years on appeals and many civil cases take even longer.

Most observers credit, or blame, the three Trump-approiuted Supremes for overturning Roe v. Wade.  The next President may also confirm or overturn this majority during their four (or eight year... Trump, if victorious, is likely to declare himself an exception to the 22nd Amendment by virtue of his non-consecutive terms in power; power which will be sanctioned by a tail-wagging SCOTUS and wielded to reward supporters and punish dissenters.

There have been plenty of polls, pundits, opinionators, publications... ranging from magazines and newspapers of over a century’s duration to pop-up social media sites: some of which espouse strange or extremist viewpoints.  Some are clearly disinformational, others clandestine... our Lessons have included representative views from known bad actors, especially Russian, Chinese and Islamist propaganda outlets.

Specific down-ballot elections in November will determine the composition and progress (or gridlock) of issues, as applicable to the following...

 

THE CONGRESS

“It’s Congress, Stupid,” declares Foreign Policy (Attachment One), adding that “(t)he world may currently be focused on the presidential race, but how power is distributed on Capitol Hill is just as important.”

As evidence, FP cited President Ronald Reagan who, after a “devastating” demolition of Jimmy Carter, was foiled and frustrated by Congress.

“While Reagan defeated Carter in an Electoral College landslide, 489-49, Democrats exited Election Day with a 243-seat majority. Though the number of conservative Democrats had increased, the caucus as a whole was quite liberal compared with the Republicans. Under the speakership of Tip O’Neill, the lower chamber became the last bastion of liberalism. Using this as a base of power, Democrats were able to veto many of Reagan’s boldest initiatives while continuing to push forward their own agenda, even as the chances for passage were minimal.”

On a parade of issues... slashing the social safety net, cutting taxes, foreign policy... House Democrats “played a pivotal role in restraining conservatism while protecting the liberal legacy of the New Deal and Great Society.”

Then, in 2020, one of the most important outcomes was Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock winning in Georgia, giving Democrats two Senate seats and effective control of the upper chamber. “As soon as they won, the Biden administration’s fortunes changed dramatically. With unified control of Congress, Biden’s path to legislative success opened. Although the administration would have to struggle to placate the demands of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Biden kept his party united enough to move a series of major bills on COVID-19 relief, infrastructure, and climate change.”

And now it’s 2024, and both parties are expressing and exuding confidence about their prospects in November.

On the Republican side, Speaker Mike Johnson declared that he is “100 percent” convinced the GOP will win both chambers of Congress and the White House despite tight polling.  (Politico, 9/6, Attachment Two)

Top Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita noted that the upcoming presidential debate on Tuesday will be the first time Harris is actively put to the test. And LaCivita indicated he isn’t counting on Harris faceplanting the way President Joe Biden did in June, though he still expects Trump to emerge from the debate stronger.

“If we are consistent on messaging and stand together, it’ll be a landslide,” LaCivita told the call attendees, according to the readout – projecting confidence in flipping the Senate, arguing that Montana and West Virginia — which would be sufficient to win the majority as long as Republicans don’t suffer unexpected defeats in Florida or Texas — are theirs to win.

On the other hand, the Texas Tribune interviewed Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican congressman warned that his own party “will be to blame for defeats in the November election.”

Gonzales, a moderate San Antonio Republican who has routinely spoken out against his own party, predicted Thursday that Republicans will lose control of the House in November, suggesting the GOP majority has failed to address people’s everyday concerns.

“What is frustrating me is, I firmly believe that House Republicans are going to lose the majority. And we're going to lose it because of ourselves,” Gonzales said in an interview with Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman at The Texas Tribune Festival. “We’re getting outraised. We’re getting outspent.” He added that the messaging from Democrats “is at a different level than where we’re at.”  (9/5 Attachment Three)

Most people, Gonzales said, “just want their lives to be better. They want to feel safe in their communities. They want their kids to feel safe in school. They want more money in their pockets. These are real issues. … Yet the House Republicans continue to get in their own way, and I worry if we stay in this spot, we’re gonna be in the minority.”

Few of Texas’ 38 congressional districts are seen as competitive, with just three seats — all along the border — thought to be truly in play. Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen are looking to defend their seats, while Rep. Monica De La Cruz of Edinburg is the only member of Texas’ House GOP delegation considered vulnerable.

Gonzales’ seat — a sprawling district that runs from San Antonio to El Paso and covers more of the U.S.-Mexico border than any other seat in the country — is not on the national Democrats’ target list.

Republicans currently hold 220 seats in the U.S. House, a narrow majority of the 435-seat chamber. Democrats control 211 seats, while four spots are vacant.

Right now, the House is divided by just one or two votes, with Republicans clinging to the slimmest of majorities. The Democratic Party is similarly fighting to keep control of the Senate, where it has a one-seat majority.

The New York Times (Attachment Five) described the types of races to watch that could decide control of the House.

These include several California seats in districts that Mr. Biden swept, in some cases by double digits, in the last presidential election, others in New York, Arizona and even Nebraska’s 2nd... where Don Bacon, a Republican and the incumbent, is a perennial Democratic target in this swing district around Omaha.

Republicans will try to capture Democrat Marcy Kaptur’s Ohio seat, nominating a youthful Derek Merrin, who was elected Mayor of Waterville at 21.  Other Dem. to Rep. flips might occur in Maine. Pennsylvania and Alaska.

George Santos put Long Island’s district on the map with his fraudulent résumé, congressional histrionics and remarkable ouster from the House. A solid victory by Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, in a special election to replace Mr. Santos has convinced many handicappers that the seat will remain in his hands this November. But Republicans won it in 2022 with Mr. Santos, and eight of them have lined up ahead of the primary on June 25 to try to take it back.

Polls by 270towin (Attachment Five) see Democrats increasing their lead while 538 (Attachment Six) and Cook (Attachment Seven) call the election too close to forecast.

Axios (9/3, Attachment Eight) predicts that control of the House “may come down to six races in California.”

The four main PACs  devoted to House races — two Republican and two Democratic — have said they're planning to spend nearly $73 million on ads in California.

Some Democratic-leaning Latino voters, especially in the Central Valley, don't have strong ties to the Democratic Party, making the races even more unpredictable, says Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno.

"The main reason they have leaned Democratic" is because of the party's pro-immigrant stance, but now issues in agriculture, such as access to water, are top priority — and many see Republicans as owning that issue, he adds.

 

THE SENATE

Thirty-four Senate seats are up for election in November, but the balance of power in the chamber will likely be decided by seven of the most competitive races, according to the most recent ratings by the Cook Political Report.

The three most competitive races are for seats currently held by Democrats, including in Michigan, where four-term Senator Debbie Stabenow is retiring. Democrats cannot lose any of these tossup seats and still hold on to their majority without making up the difference in a more difficult contest.

(New York Times, 9/6, Attachment Nine)

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who was recently convicted of corruption, resigned from the Senate on August 20, leaving a vacancy until the chamber returns from its summer recess in September. The race to fill the seat in the new Congress is rated as Solid Democratic.

CNN’s ten Senate seats most likely to flip include nine currently held by Democrats (or independents who caucus with them). And assuming Republicans flip West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring, the GOP just needs to win the White House or pick up one more Senate seat to win the majority.

“That’s a tough landscape for Democrats,” notes CNN (Attachment Ten).

While Biden was still a candidate, his recent struggles had raised questions about whether the list of Senate GOP targets would grow – a source of enthusiasm for attendees at the Republican National Convention.

The Republicans’ top pickup should be in West Virginia where nominal donkey Joe Manchin is retiring.  Other potential Republican gains are in Montana, Ohio, Nevada and Arizona... where Kyrsten Sinema was also frequently jumping to the side of the GOP but is now retiring.  Extremist Kari Lake would be a prize catch for the Republicans’ far right.

The tenth and last most likely flip is iconic elephant Ted Cruz where Dallas-area Rep. Colin Allred (no relation to feminist lawyer Gloria).

The Old Republican National Review agrees that the GOP stands an excellent chance of taking the Senate, no matter how the Presidential race goes.

Conservatives are rightly concerned that Donald Trump may lose to Kamala Harris. They should not be worried about the Senate, however. “The lineup of states with competitive Senate races, combined with the current polling and historic relationship between presidential and Senate outcomes, means the GOP has a near lock on winning Senate control,” claims the NR.  (Attachment Eleven)

 

GOVERNORSHIPS

270towin (Attachment Twelve) predicts that Republicans will hold all but one of their 27-23 seat majority.  (See attachments and website here)

The Center for Politics (Attachment Thirteen) also states that, with the exception of North Carolina, New Hampshire and Washington, the United States states would continue to be ruled by incumbents.

NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, despite a relatively comfortable win in 2020 (3 points is a practical landslide by state standards today), personifies the MAGA wing of the Republican Party better than any other statewide official in North Carolina. “While this helped endear Robinson to the grassroots, he is known for making comments on issues ranging from education to guns to LGBT issues that are, at a bare minimum, provocative and divisive.”

Democrats’ financial advantage has almost certainly played into state Attorney General Josh Stein’s lead in horserace polling to replace retiring Democrat Roy Cooper. According to a rolling average tracker from Carolina Forward, Stein has an aggregate lead of nearly 7 points in polls taken over the last 45 days. Still, given North Carolina’s inelasticity—double-digit wins, for either side, are relatively rare—CFP thinks “some of Stein’s leads are overstated.”

They also tabbed New Hampshire and Washington as states “up for grabs”.  (See many charts and graphs in Attachment, interactive maps here)

 

OTHER DOWN-BALLOT RACES – STATE LEGISLATORS

Among the state legislative campaigns Republicans controlled 54.83% of all state legislative seats nationally, while Democrats held 44.25%. Republicans held a majority in 56 chambers, and Democrats held the majority in 41 chambers. (The State House and Senate in Alaska operate under weird multipartisan regulations.)

State government trifecta is a term to describe single-party government, when one political party holds the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

As of September 10, 2024, there are 23 Republican trifectas, 17 Democratic trifectas, and 10 divided governments where neither party holds trifecta control.

See state-by-state rules and regulations, party primary results and discourses upon Hawaii, Idaho, Oklahoma and West Virginia at Ballotpedia – as also, “competitiveness” indices.  (Attachment Fourteen)

In the previous election cycle, Democrats gained control of four chambers: the Michigan House and Senate, Minnesota Senate, and Pennsylvania House. Additionally, in Alaska, a bipartisan governing coalition comprised of Democrats and Republicans won control of the Alaska Senate. Republicans previously controlled all five chambers.

 

Politico (Attachment Fifteen) prophesied that five states were most likely to flip their legislative chambers in November.

“All across the country, from Arizona to New Hampshire, the parties are spending tens of millions of dollars because of what state capitals have become: proving grounds for their agendas.

“Democrats are rallying around protecting reproductive rights and improving affordability in housing, child care and education. Republicans are working to tie down-ballot candidates to President Joe Biden, warning of high inflation rates, immigration challenges and limited choices for parents in educating their children.

Politico’s Liz Crampton identified the favoured five (into which oodles of money are being poured) as...

ARIZONA

“Democrats believe Arizona is their best shot at flipping chambers this cycle, and they’re targeting pickup opportunities in five districts around Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, and at least three more in rural and southern Arizona.

“The party is leaning into abortion messaging, bolstered by a state Supreme Court ruling in April that revived a Civil War-era law banning all abortions without exceptions. The state Legislature quickly moved to repeal that unpopular law, but Democrats are targeting the Republicans who voted against doing so.”

MICHIGAN

Republicans are “salivating” over the opportunity to regain control of the Michigan House, partially reversing Democrats’ prized victory from the 2022 midterms when the party flipped the whole Legislature. Democrats hold a 56-54 advantage in the state House and 20-18 advantage in the state Senate, but the upper chamber is not up for election this year.

“Republicans are framing themselves as a necessary check on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who they argue is pushing Michigan to be too much like liberal California as she eyes her own national ambitions.”

MINNESOTA

Democrats are looking to defend full control of the state Legislature, “another major win from the 2022 midterms.” All 134 state House seats are up for grabs.

There’s also the possibility of another Senate vacancy that could compromise Democrats’ majority: Some party officials, including Walz, are calling for the resignation of Sen. Nicole Mitchell, who was arrested in April for felony burglary. Yet Mitchell has resisted those calls, and her legal proceedings will take place in July.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Republicans are defending slim majorities in the state House and Senate — making New Hampshire a top target flip for Democrats hoping to break the Republican trifecta.

“The open gubernatorial race — GOP Gov. Chris Sununu isn’t running for reelection — has the potential to drive out more voters in November, giving either party a coattails push.”

Abortion is likely to be a critical issue.

PENNSYLVANIA

“This is the only state Legislature that is split down the middle: Democrats hold the House by one seat and Republicans hold the Senate by six seats. Pennsylvania is another presidential battleground and features a competitive U.S. Senate race that could have down-ballot effects.”

Democrats are encouraged by the recent elections of statewide officials like Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman. After Democrats took the House in 2020 by flipping 16 seats, they passed gun safety rules, LBGTQ+ protections and an increase to the minimum wage. But those proposals stalled in the GOP-run Senate.

INITIATIVES

Abortion will also be at issue in ten states where voters are being solicited to establish a constitutional right to abortion.  (New York Times, Attachment Sixteen)

“Most of the ballot measures would amend a state constitution to re-establish the right the Supreme Court established in Roe v. Wade: access to abortion until viability, when the fetus can survive outside the uterus,” explains Kate Zernike, usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. After that, the state could limit or ban abortion, except if a medical provider says it was necessary to protect the mother.

“Democrats have another motivation for the initiatives: to drive turnout for Kamala Harris and the party’s congressional candidates, especially in battleground states like Arizona and Nevada.”

For abortion rights groups, the ballot strategy may be near its end. Only 17 states allow citizens to put amendments in front of voters. If the groups succeed in November, there will be only three states among those — Arkansas, North Dakota and Oklahoma — that ban abortion.

Abortion was also on the mind of Time’s Chantelle Lee, who wrote that the ten states with measures on the ballot broke the previous record of six in 2022 for the highest number of abortion-related ballot measures in a single year.

Polling indicates that the majority of Americans support abortion rights—an Associated Press/NORC poll conducted in June found that roughly 61% of adults think their state should let people obtain a legal abortion for any reason. Fourteen states have banned abortion in almost all circumstances and eight others have banned it at or before 18 weeks’ gestation.

“The disconnect between what the majority of Americans want and the laws on their books in those states have sent people to ballot initiatives,” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Lee.

Time added its own takeaway on each of the ten states... largely concurring with the NYT that at least some measures were put on the ballot so as to enhance turnout for Harris/Walz

Nebraska is unique in that it is the only state to have two dueling abortion amendments on the same ballot since the Dobbs decision in 2022. 

One of the initiatives, which organizers called “Protect the Right to Abortion” in their petition filing, would enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability—or later if needed to protect the health of the pregnant person—in the state constitution. The other, which backers called “Protect Women and Children” in their petition filing, would amend the state constitution to include a ban on abortion in the second and third trimesters, with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, or incest.

 

The Congressional elections will certainly be affected should, as presently seems likely, a Republican “poison pill” attached to the 2024-5 Federal budget might result in yet another government shutdown at the end of September, lasting hours, days or, perhaps until after the election.

How this will affect the voters, most of whom will be angered as critical services disappear, is anybody’s guess.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has a plan: Extend current funding through next March, avoiding a Christmas-time standoff or a messy spending fight ahead of a contentious election. 

But to get to that, wrote Riley Beggin of USA Today, Johnson is also proposing Congress pass a bill that would require people to prove they're citizens in order to register to vote. It's a proposal that President Joe Biden has vowed to veto, arguing it's already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections – thus it’s a non-applicable appendix, but one which, Democrats fear, would make it harder for Americans to register.

“Now the question is will we attach it to a funding mechanism in September?” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who sponsored the bill, on the War Room podcast earlier this week. “I believe we should, President Trump believes we should, Mike Johnson appears ready and willing to do it.”

“Demanding outrageous partisan poison pills is a nonstarter,” Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., responded. “We’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends.”

If lawmakers are unable to fund the government by the end of this month, all federal agencies except those that are "essential" – including U.S. Postal Service, Medicare and Social Security – will stop work, according to Time.

“Even Capitol Hill is not spared: While lawmakers continue to work and receive pay through a government shutdown, tens of thousands of congressional staff will go without a paycheck for the duration.

“Other consequences of a total government shutdown include furloughs for federal employees, delayed government food assistance benefits and national park closures.

“Air traffic controllers will continue working during a shutdown, along with customs and border agents. Passport applications may be halted, though. And without pay for working controllers or training for new FAA employees, the airline industry and travelers could still feel the impact.”

 

In addition to a government shutdown that could further anger the already-angry voters by Election Eve, massive sums of money from donors big, small and tiny are flowing into the party treasuries and are already flowing out in the form of obstructive and obstreperous advertising.

There have already been a few unpleasant surprises for the Republicans.  The son and putative heir of the Murdoch media empire has given up on The Donald and endorsed Trump, and now the ultra-wealthy and ultra-right wing Koch Network has pulled its donations to Trump.  First its donor octopus “Americans for Prosperity” responded to complaints about the Jan. 6th Capitol riot by backing Nikki Haley.  Now, it’s closing its pockets to Djonald UnFunded and closing its ears to his vain entreaties.

Instead, reported Time’s Philip Elliott (Attachment Nineteen) its money is still flowing to down-ballot Republicans... AFP having already spent $78 million on federal races to date.

A popular song voices praise for “money, guns and lawyers” and, the dueling donor class has its equals in the courts and in the streets.  The same Capitol insurrection as spooked even the Koch empire has been called the “defining moment of Donald Trump's presidency, if not the past decade of politics at large” by Rafi Schwartz of The Week (September 4, Attachment Twenty) and, once again, “the specter of violence once again looms large over an electorate still grappling with the legal and political fallout of Jan. 6.”

"Almost no one considered the U.S. a serious candidate for post-election violence until recently," political scientist Barbara Walter said at The New Yorker. But in the past decade, it's become "impossible to ignore that America has all the characteristics of a country at risk" including the "exact type of political system — presidential (actually, dictatorial), winner-takes-all — that is most vulnerable." 

The Week’s scenarios are twofold.

If Donald Trump wins in November, there are "two components" of potential violence to watch out for, said right-wing extremism expert David Neiwert at The American Prospect. "One is the immigrant front" as has been previously seen in border states, where militia members are "rounding people up and serving them up to the Border Patrol" but on a national scale. The other is "Three Percenters, militias, the Proud Boys, who have all been gearing up" to attack protesters gathering to demonstrate against a Trump electoral victory. Conversely, if Kamala Harris wins, the risk of violence comes when bad actors "show up at ballot-counting centers, as well as at any other sort of body involved in counting and certifying the votes."

With the possibility of violence looming no matter the electoral outcome, "people should be getting ready; they should be talking to local and statewide law enforcement," said Neiwert. Stakeholders in the upcoming election, "including government, the private sector, and civil society," should begin exploring "countermeasures at the motive, means, and opportunity levels" to help diffuse the threat of, and perhaps even mitigate any outbreaks of, political violence, agreed the Council on Foreign Relations.

IE: buy guns, lots of guns, bombs and drones and ammo, too, and prepare for civil war.

 

Trump’s latest best bro, billionaire (trillionaire, say e-con-mystics, by 2027) Elon Musk is anticipating civil war, too... but in Europe.

Germany has just elected its most far-right government since World War II and France nearly replaced Macron with Marine LePen.  Hungary is fascist, Poland is very, very nervous.

But, as a Canadian... hence, a subject of King Charles, more or less... Musk has been following the latest wave of neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant marches, social media posts and violent attacks which escalated after far-right groups claimed on social media that the person charged with carrying out a horrific stabbing attack that left three children dead was a Muslim asylum seeker. The online disinformation campaign stoked outrage directed at immigrants.

The suspect, who has since been named as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was born in the UK, according to police.  (CNN, 8/7, Attachment Twenty One)

But false claims about the attack — Britain’s worst mass stabbing targeting children in decades and possibly ever — spread rapidly online and continued garnering views even after the police had set the record straight.

“Musk’s Musk’s decision to amplify the anti-immigrant rhetoric highlights the role that false information spread online is playing in fomenting real-world violence — an issue of growing concern to the UK government, which vowed Tuesday to bring those responsible for the riots, as well as their online cheerleaders, to justice.

“Later on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man in Leeds, northern England, became the first person to be charged with using “threatening words or behavior intending to stir up racial hatred” online, according to the UK Crown Prosecution Service. The charges related to “alleged Facebook posts,” Nick Price, the director of legal services at the CPS, said in a statement.”

Elon’s up-and-down tenure with X has raised objections with both squeamish netizens, governments and the police who have attempted to stifle unmutual behavior (from political and social partisans to nativist and immigrant activists to plain, apolitical school shooters just looking for fun) by cracking down on what, in America, might be called the First Amendment.  (There is no British equal, hence, fewer restraints on the authorities.)

It does not help matters, contended Time’s Hanna Ziadi, “that Musk himself has promoted incendiary content on X, a platform that European regulators last month accused of misleading and deceiving users. If he can do it, why not others?”

X has unblocked the accounts of agitators ranging from Trump himself to far-right figureheads like Tommy Robinson, who has published a stream of posts stoking the UK protests while criticizing violent attacks.

In 2018, before Musk bought Twitter, as X used to be known, Robinson was banned from the platform for violating its rules governing hateful “conduct.”

The UK government this week vowed to prosecute “online criminality” and has pushed social media companies to take action against the spread of false information.

“Social media has put rocket boosters under… not just the misinformation but the encouragement of violence,” said UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

The UK’s Online Safety Act, adopted last year, creates new duties for social media platforms, including an obligation to take down illegal content when it appears.

It also makes it a criminal offense to post false information online “intended to cause non-trivial harm.”

But the legislation is not yet in effect because the regulator in charge of upholding it, Ofcom, is still consulting on codes of practice and guidance.

Despite the threats from government authorities, Musk continues to host and post controversial statements and manifestoes... eight times in the past ten months according to NBC.  (Rival broadcaster CBS, August 17th, Attachment Twenty Two)  “And his posts usually include a specific prediction: He thinks that Europe in particular is headed toward a “civil war” due to the arrival of refugees from other continents. 

Musk’s rhetoric is unheard-of for a corporate executive speaking in public, contends Peacock Person David Ingram, “but the prediction of a civil war has become a frequent talking point among some far-right activists who view a civil war in Europe or the U.S. as not only unavoidable but also as something to be welcomed.” 

“What you’re seeing in these calls for civil war is a white supremacist clarion call. It is a dog whistle,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. 

Musk has stopped short of issuing a call to arms and has not mentioned the race or religion of refugees arriving in Europe, but Lewis said that Musk doesn’t need to be explicit to get his message across. He said he sees similarities between Musk’s posts and the language in white supremacist chat rooms where commenters are obsessed with changing demographics. 

Ingram took a sly dig at the MuskRat with a capsule biography calling him “(o)ne of the world’s wealthiest people.”

One of???

Musk repeated his forecast four times in October, writing that mass migration “lays the groundwork for civil strife, if not war”; that Europe “is trending towards civil war”; that Europe “is headed for civil war”; and again that it is “trending towards civil war.”

“Yep, ready cocked n loaded,” one X user responded to Musk last year, referencing firearms. 

Musk used similar “war” language when talking about immigration Monday with Trump in a live joint event on X. 

“We don’t have a secure border, and we have people streaming over. It looks like a ‘World War Z’ zombie apocalypse at times,”  he told Trump. He was apparently comparing immigrants to zombies and referring to a 2013 action movie starring Brad Pitt, not to George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”, Simon Pegg’s “Shaun of the Dead” or Shawn Fain or Sean O’Brien – referenced in last week’s DJI.

August has been a hot month, both climaktik and politik. 

The uprisings actually began at the close of July following the fatal stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in Southport, a town in northwest England, carried out by what social media called “a Muslim immigrant.” The violence first erupted on July 30, near the scene of the stabbing, with hundreds of masked people gathering to throw bricks and rocks at a Southport mosque.

On Aug. 1, an English judge revealed that the suspect, Axel Rudakubana, 17, was born in Cardiff, Wales, and is not Muslim. The online campaign of false information continued, however. On Aug. 3, Musk, a “free-speech absolutist,” performed the online equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, writing, “Civil war is inevitable” under footage of a chaotic street scene someone had labeled “the effect of mass migration and open borders.”

Immigration was also a factor in the victories of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which came first in Sunday’s election in Thuringia with nearly 33% of the vote and a close second in Saxony with almost 31%.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday urged parties to avoid collaborating with the far right, given the AfD’s record gains, the decline of the Social Democrats and his own coalition suffering a heavy defeat a year before a general election.

GUK, however, refutes the notion that Germany or any other country in Europe is going to revive the jackboots and swastikas, torchlight rallies and concentration camps of eighty years’ past – despite at least one panic-stricken commentator announcing that “there’s only one way to keep Germany’s far-right AfD at bay... Address the concerns it exploits” with “constructive debate on sensitive issues”.

Is this, perhaps, a strategy to bore the neo’s to death?

Traducing history from the Crusades to the Teutonic Knights to Martin Luther (no king, just a House of Hohenzollern) GUK’s James Hawes (9/7. Attachment Twenty Five) postulates that there always have been an East and West Germany... dating back to hundreds of years before the Wall and reaching forward after the Wall’s fall to the present... and the future.

“(T)he colonial mindset always long outlasts any real danger,” contends Hawes, tossing in a little family history.  “Ask anybody in Northern Ireland. That, in a nutshell, is why the German East always voted differently to the German West – and still does. We are not talking about rationally addressable “concerns”, but a political and cultural division deeper than the Mason-Dixon line in the US, and far older.

The AFD, or whatever comes after, “no longer has the muscle to wreck everything and its politics will no more spread to the Rhineland (let alone the rest of NATO) than New York will adopt West Virginia gun laws, because Germany still has the biggest firewall of all: the East-West divide.”

 

History can be a tricky monkey.  The Guardian’s gimme money paragraph warns that, “from Elon Musk to the Murdochs, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different.”

No sooner was the ink dry and the pixels perfected than James Murdoch upset the donkey cart by endorsing Harris.  OOPS!

Well, if not Germany, how about America?

The day after Hawes calmed democracy’s fears of a civil war and rightist revolution, another GUKster, Ben Makuch, charges that extremism has its best chance of success in the good ol’ U.S. of A. where former President Trump’s escalation of anti-immigration rhetoric (culminating in a man eat dog apocalypse) that Djonald and DJay Dee are now promoting is “an effort to recruit new supporters and spread their extremism to broader audiences.”

Springfield Ohio, ground zero to not only Vice seeker Vance but an influx of Haitian immigrants and the concomitant nativist reaction saw two separate hate groups recently descending on the town... rallying with masks and uniforms and threatening the approximately 20,000 dog-eating Haitian immigrants that have arrived in the town since the pandemic.

“In 2023, tensions among local residents flared up after a bus crash involving a Haitian driver helped make the Rust-belt town a flashpoint in anti-immigration debates.  And last month, Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group led by ex-US marine Christopher Pohlhaus, marched in Springfield waving swastika flags (with at least two members carrying rifles) and yelling anti-Black and racist epithets at a jazz festival.

There are more factions of Springfield Nazis than there were of Republicans chasing Donald Trump before the RNC... Patriot Front, another adjacent neo-fascist group and the neo-Nazi Active Club (a sort of racist, mixed-martial arts collective), used the summer tensions in Springfield to recruit new members, too.

And, again, we have Mister Musk... hosting posters of disinfo about “32 armed Venezuelans” taking over a Chicago building on the X account Libs of TikTok, a known purveyor of dangerous, rightwing propaganda and once the subject of a Twitter suspension when the company wasn’t under the ownership of Musk.

“It’s not surprising to see the far right agitating over a fake story about Venezuelan immigrants taking over an apartment complex in Aurora,” GUK reasoned . “It falsely holds that there is an orchestrated plan, often blamed on Jews or globalists, to replace white people in their home countries.”

Mixed with Trump’s brand of politics, Beirich said, the “lie is seen as true and an existential threat for white supremacists, which is motivating this anti-immigrant activism”.

But experts in civil wars believe that that Musk is out of his depth on the subject. (CBS, Attachment Twenty Two, above)  They consider it very unlikely that Europe will experience a civil war due to immigration, “and they also said Musk appears to greatly overestimate the power and organization of people arriving in Europe.” 

Finally, on that topic, last Thursday’s TIME solicited a pair of Governors, Spencer Cox (R-Ut), Wes Moore (D-Md) and Harris Poll CEO Will Johnson to compose a treatise on how not all Americans are right or left-wing extremists; rather most share a commitment to “basic values” and find common-sense solutions to the challenges we face.  (Attachment Twenty Seven)

Democracy thrives on disagreement, debate, and dissent—and that will not change. But our great American experiment requires universal commitment to the process of healthy disagreement, competition, and bargaining. As Constitutional scholar Yuval Levin wrote recently, “unity does not mean thinking alike; unity means acting together.”

“By working together,” say the pollster and the Governors, “we can rediscover how to disagree without being disagreeable.”

 

Attached to the attachments are Peanut Galleries from CNN and the National Review.

 

 

Our Lesson: September Second through Eighth, 2024

 

Monday, September 2, 2024

Dow:  Closed

It’s Labor Day.  Also, Baby Safety Month.

   After the Hamas bait, switch and execution of seven hostages, cowardly and/or traitorous mobs in Israel, U.S. and the West escalate street demonstrations, now being met with escalating police force.  Autopsies indicate that they were shot two or three days before discovery.  Hostage families urge surrender and call for outster of PM Netanyahu but he replies: “What sort of message does that send to Hamas?”

   At home, Labor Day protests are subdued by hostage disaster, subsumed by wars and weakened economy.  After summertime negotiating victories, strikes break out against communications, ports and hotels in eight cities (which are, coincidentally, those with the highest rents in America).  Workers say: “One job should be enough.”

   Politicians exclaim their support for labor, even Republicans.  Harris and Walz are doing lightning bus tours of battleground (or “purple states”) with the Veep praising the middle class, scolding the rich and ignoring the poor.

   A dismal travel week is ending with gridlock on roads and in the air.  The pattern of record heat in the West, flooding in the East and tornadoes in between shows no sign of letting up.  The “out of order” syndrome extends ino space where stranded astronauts are told to wait until February and report hearing “strange noises”.

 

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Dow:  40, 936.93

Israel has chosen the flashpoint of the dispute with Hamas as being the Philadelphi Corridar on the border between southern Gaza and Egypt.  More anti-Netanyahu protests break out at funerals for the hostages; the PM holds firm asking, again, what Hamas thinks of the discredited and disposed-of cease fire deals... “they will just take more hostages.”  Poor ol’ Tony Blinken shuttles through the MidEast with no respect and no results.  President Joe, distancing himself from Bibi, promises to propose his own solution... soon.

   In a related assault, a Turkish mob attacks two American sailors off Izmir... Turkish police prevent a massacre.  The Young Turks express sympathy for Hamas, hatred of Jews.

   14-year-old gunslinger shoots 13 in Winder, Ga, between Athens and Atlanta.  Four die... two students, two teachers.  Motive unknown, but the shooter, Colt Gray, was said to be fascinated with accounts of killers and criminals on social media.  In a bad week for kids, a 15 year old is run over and killed by a school bus, a babysitter beats a child to death after he pees his pants, and an eleven year old is charged for a double murder in Chicago.  Also: four adults killed on the Chicago subway.

   Trump holds a rally in which he exclaims his hate... for mosquitoes. That’s an issue he can win on!

 

Wednesday, September 4, 2024 Dow:  40,974.97

While Israel deals with protets and terrorists, that other war... Ukraine... is going well for the good guys over the Russian border, bad further north as Mad Vlad’s minions advance, shelling homes and hospitals, killing dozens.

   Trump, Harris, President Joe and most of the civilized world agree that the killings in Winder are a bad thing.  A senseless shooting by a “monster” Djonald EnRaged says.  Some folks enraged by the Ex are taking him to court.  After winning his Immunity case before his own Supremes and gaining a postponement of Stormy conviction sentencing until after the election from Judge Marchan, he now faces lawsuits by families of writer Isaac Hayes for using “Hold On, I’m Coming” and from gadfly E. Jean Carroll.

   There’s no relief from Mother Nature... floods soak the South while Phoenix now reports 100 consecutive days of 100+ days and triple digits recorded all the way to the Canadian border (114° in Burbank, CA and 102° in Portland, OR)..  And an unwelcome comeback... wildfires.

 

Thursday, September 5, 2024

Dow:  40,755.75

The American Medical Association warns that America faces a shortage of doctors as a result of aging out and high education costs. 

   Bipartisan legal issues ensnarl Hunter Biden, who decides to plead guilty on his tax charges so as to stop the harassment of his family.  He faces 17 years.  The FBI and DOJ round up a parcel of Russian spies – some working for media outlets like Tass and Russia Today, others insinuated into the Trump campaign.  Strange Mad Vlad endorses Harris because of her “infectious” laugh, but observers mostly agree that he’s lying and wants his old pal Trump back in office.

   With all of the astronauts resigned to four, five, maybe six more months stuck in space, an empty Starline detaches from the ISS and returns home.  Despite the issues it experienced on its flight up to the ISS, reported Space.com, Starliner's uncrewed landing performed as expected, with the spacecraft touching down precisely as NASA and Boeing had designed for its delayed return. "If we'd have had a crew on board the spacecraft, we would have followed the same back away sequence from the space station, the same deorbit burn and executed the same entry. And so it would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, during a post-landing press conference. But, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

 

Friday, September 6, 2024

Dow:  40,345.41

Colin, father of Colt Gray, is arrested for collectin guns and gifting the boy with an AK-15 for Christmas.  With police still interroraging Master Colt, Kamala seizes the opportunity to make a gun control speech.  Another school shooter in Joppatown, Maryland kills a classmate.

   Man in Monterey, California arrested for killing 81... animals including goats, ducks, rabbits, parakeets and a pony named Lucky.  But the Wild Kingdom strikes back... family dog kills a four year old. Golden eagle strikes down Norwegians.  And big cats... tigers, cougars... come out of the wild and wander through streets and schools.  One escapes from a Mexican zoo near the border and crosses over, inspiring J. D. Vance to blame Harris, Biden and the cat ladies.

   Weak economic week finds job growth lower than expection.  Dozens more cheap stores for people who can’t even afford them close... Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Doller.  Lumber Liquidators liquidates itself because people aren’t building or repairing houses anymore.  Even the Dow falls... tired of waiting for the Fed to do something.  

 

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Dow:  Closed

It’s Barbie’s 65th birthday.  She’s eligible for Social Security.

   Barbie... er, Kamala... Harris says that Trump and Vance want to kill or at least slash Social Security, and Medicare, too, as part of their maniac manifesto “Project 2025”.  She promises to talk about herself next Tuesday, but also about Djonald UnBurdened’s rich father while touting her latest endorsements... the Cheneys (Dick and Liz), sons of John McCain and Rupert Murdoch.  Trump counters with the support of the Fraternal Order of Police and promises to back the blue.

   Police in Tel Aviv and IDF soldiers fire live ammo into Gaza war protesters and kill an American.  They claim the crowd was throwing rocks at them.  ISIS wannabee busted at the (Canadian) border after telling friends on social media that he planned to kill Jews.  The “friends” were FBI agents.

   Boeing Starliner returns safely to the New Mexico desert but without the crew, still stuck in space.  They express anger at having to hire people to mow their lawns.

 

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Dow: Closed

Cops flood Highway I-75 in Kentucky after a known but escaping shooter kills five at random.  They call the scene a “madhouse”.  With madboy Colt and maddad Colin Gray locked up, mommy says she tried to notify authorities that something was wrong with the boy and warns of an “extreme emergency”, but they kissed her off.

   Family of American protester gunned down in Tel Aviv protest her murder and call for justice... promptly (sort of) delivered by a truck driver who kills three at the Jordanian border.

   The weather keeps misbehaving as wildfires return to San Bernardino under 100° temperatures while, in the Gulf, Francine becomes a tropical storm and is predicted to grow into a hurricane and hit New Orleans.

   Sports brings disappointment: American Jessica Pegula loses to Belarussian Aryna Sabalanka while Jannik Sinner trounces Taylor Fritz.  Northern Illinois upsets Notre Dame in college football as the full NFL season begins after KC begins its quest for a Superbowl three-peat by downing the Baltimore Ravens by the length of a toe.

 

In the depressed and somewhat dreary days, post holiday, the anemic jobs report... however beloved by the Federal Reserve... had its impact on the Don and, with the sinking American revenues from exports, overcame a Dow that was hoping for further rate cuts.  Most Americans, all of those without investments, were back to work, disgruntled and many were still sweating amidst a heat wave that never seems to end and a hate wave that signified numerous “thems” on whom to blame their discontent.  Even the beginning of football season didn’t do much to lift the dark and dolorous mood blanketing the country like wildfire smoke.

 

 

 

THE DON JONES INDEX

 

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

 

Gains in indices as improved are noted in GREEN.  Negative/harmful indices in RED as are their designation.  (Note – some of the indices where the total went up created a realm where their value went down... and vice versa.) See a further explanation of categories here…

 

ECONOMIC INDICES 

 

(60%)

 

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS by PERCENTAGE

SCORE

OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS

 

INCOME

(24%)

6/17/13 revised 1/1/22

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

LAST WEEK

THIS WEEK

THE WEEK’S CLOSING STATS...

 

Wages (hrly. Per cap)

9%

1350 points

7/24

  +0.50%

9/24

1,527.74

1,527.74

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   30.14

 

Median Inc. (yearly)

4%

600

8/26/24

  +0.023%

9/8/24

673.80

673.95

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   39,677 688 697

 

Unempl. (BLS – in mi)

4%

600

7/24

    -2.38%

9/24

530.50

543.13

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/    4.3 4.2

 

Official (DC – in mi)

2%

300

8/26/24

   +0.29%

9/8/24

220.98

220.32

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      7,262 285 306

 

Unofficl. (DC – in mi)

2%

300

8/26/24

   +0.21%

9/8/24

228.29

227.92

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      13,951 984 4,013

 

Workforce Participation

   Number

   Percent

2%

300

8/26/24

 

   +0.0006%

   +0.001%

9/8/24

299.78

299.78

In 161,271 272 273 Out 100,241 247 252 Total: 261,519 525

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   61.667

 

WP %  (ycharts)*

1%

150

7/24

  +0.16%

9/24

151.43

151.43

https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate  62.70

 

OUTGO

(15%)

 

Total Inflation

7%

1050

8/24