The End of Election Season
In most years when there is an election people go to a place in their neighborhood and vote on election day, but it's different now. This year election day is more like "the end of the election season." Fifty-seven million people have already voted. Any October surprise that Trump might have hoped to pull out is not going to have any effect.
They had planned to have the "Durham report" by now, documenting the shocking truth of Obamagate, remember that one? The Trump administration was investigating the Mueller investigation, and maybe also something to do with Hillary's emails. They were going to prove Obama spied on the campaign, FBI agents were biased, Steele dossier blah blah blah. Unfortunately the investigation found that everything Obama had done was legal and normal, and now they are not even going to release the report. Even William Barr could not find any way to spin this to make Democrats look bad.
Trump refused to participate in the second debate because they were going to have a mute button. So when Biden scheduled an event for that time slot, Trump scheduled something, too, for the same time. Biden was on one channel, Trump was on three, and hilariously Biden's ratings were better than Trump's -- the one measure that means something to the reality-TV frontman.
Rudy Giuliani planted a story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden, intending to convince people that Joe Biden is corrupt and makes millions under the table off foreign governments while he's doing special favors as Vice President for his own kid. But the story was discounted immediately and disproven after a few days, it was such a transparently political move that nobody paid any attention to it. Did you realize they had a press conference right before the last debate, intended to slime Hunter Biden? Trump mentioned it in the debate, other than that it had absolutely no impact, it was somebody who had worked with Biden's son and is mad at him now. And the big bombshells Trump tried to explode in the debate, referring to Hunter Biden and millions that Joe got from foreign countries, were simply duds. The accusations were false, nobody believed them, and Biden easily turned the tables on Trump, who got a well-deserved round of attaboys for acting nearly like a normal person for an hour and a half. He needed to kick butt in the debate, to rescue his campaign from crashing and burning, and he failed. He was not as obnoxious as he was in the first debate but he still looked like a noisy, ignorant liar, especially compared the the cool and calm -- and truthful -- Joe Biden.
By the way, one year ago this week Joe Biden commented on a Washington Post article about pandemic preparedness:
Do you remember last year? Businesses were open, we could go places, we even had a thing last year called "Hallowe'en." But even though everything seemed fine, somebody was concerned about our vulnerability to a pandemic and Trump's lack of preparedness for it.
Of course Giuliani's part in Borat's new movie overshadowed his political contrivances. That sure was a big grin on his face in that hotel room with that fifteen-year-old girl, pretty much proving how easy it is for the Russians or anybody else to get dirt on him. And even worse for Trump, the coronavirus decided to rampage through the red states of the Midwest in the weeks before the election, reminding everyone of his devastating failure to lead America out of the pandemic. I think we are still seeing reverberations from Sturgis. Today I see that five of Mike Pence' aides have it. We are now heading into our third wave of deaths, more every day as tragic records are shattered.
There is some tiny chance that Trump will win the election honestly. Maybe his followers will turn out and vote for him in the states he needs for the electoral college. If that happens it will be the end of one period of American history and the beginning of another as he plays out his get-rich-quick ideology for real. I don't know what liberals' response will be, I suppose some demonstrations and a lawsuit or two in front of a Trump-appointed judge.
There is a bigger chance Trump will lose, and then the question is whether it will be close or not. If it is close then we can expect every trick in the book and a year of chaos. Trump will declare the election to have been rigged and will do what he can to undermine the transition. We can look forward to rightwing militias acting out their insecurities on the streets of our cities -- did you realize that they have now found evidence of plots to kidnap governors not only in Michigan, but in Virginia and Ohio, too? We can expect these bozos to be shooting things up everywhere you look.
If it is a Biden landslide then I'm afraid Trump is going to have to exit stage left. Some speculate that he will screw things up until the end of his term and then resign and let Mike Pence pardon him. That will keep him out of prison on his federal charges, but there are some states' attorneys general watching for his protected status to lapse. I do not want to see some Biden mamby-pamby about "looking toward the future." I want to see everybody who has gone along with this criminal regime subjected to the laws of the land. This time we need to not only return to normal but to make sure this doesn't happen again.
posted by JimK at 1:42 PM
243 Comments:
Absentee and Early Voting by Youth in the 2020 Election
In several states, the number of votes cast by youth as of October 21 has already exceeded the 2016 presidential margin of victory in the state.
As of October 21, more than 3 million young people (ages 18-29) have already voted early or absentee in the 2020 elections, including more than 2 million in 14 key states that may well decide the presidency and control of the United States Senate.
As part of our analysis of young people’s participation in 2020, we’re tracking early voting—both in person and absentee—by youth. Below, we highlight early voting data for youth in states where our Youth Electoral Significance Index suggests young voters can be highly influential. We also include Texas, which is emerging as a presidential battleground and setting early voting records.
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/absentee-and-early-voting-youth-2020-election
In every state we’re tracking, the number of absentee and early votes cast as of October 21, 2020, is far higher than at the same date in 2016. That’s to be expected, given the greater emphasis on mail-in voting this year due to the pandemic. Still, the numbers are especially dramatic in a state like Texas, where at least 490,000 young people have already cast ballots. Moreover, in Florida, North Carolina, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, early votes cast by youth have already exceeded the 2016 margin of victory in each state.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday said "We're not going to control the pandemic," making very clear that the White House has given up trying to contain the coronavirus. Their only strategy at this point is praying for a vaccine.
VP Pence was a close contact with Marc Short, who has tested positive for coronavirus, yet he's not quarantining. How is campaigning 'essential work'?
"Just yesterday, President Trump said 'we are rounding the corner & it's going away,' but it's not going away even in the WH! But beyond that, the US reported 83,000 new cases on Friday and Saturday. That's the 2 highest days of the entire pandemic."
A Fox News investigation "found no role for Joe Biden" in the business dealing of his son, Hunter, the network said on Sunday.
The admission was made by Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins.
Jenkins explained that the news organization had been provided documents by Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden's former business partner.
"You're talking about a business venture with the Chinese energy company in 2017 at a time when Joe Biden was not vice president," Jenkins explained. "But Fox's review of Bobulinski's documents, which were given to us, found no role for Joe Biden in that business venture."
"There's another former business partner who says he knows of no involvement by Joe Biden," Fox News host Howard Kurtz added. "The Wall Street Journal says it also reviewed the text messages and emails, saying, they don't show either Hunter Biden or James Biden — the brother — discussing a role for Joe Biden."
Kurtz added: "My problem with this is these emails are from 2017. At that time, Joe Biden is out of office. So while it may have been unseemly — if it was true that Joe Biden was even acquiescing in a potential deal with China — he no longer has the power of the White House behind him at that time."
"That's correct," Jenkins agreed. "One thing is for sure, it's not getting the kind of attention that Fox has given it and the New York Post and others as we get close to this election."
Watch the video from Fox News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02u0iRTj_M&feature=emb_logo
Trump: Reporting On The Pandemic Should Be Illegal
October 26, 2020 Donald Trump, GOP Death Cult
Talking Points Memo reports:
President Donald Trump argued on Monday morning that it ought to be against the law for the news media to cover the pandemic ahead of the elections as the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. surpasses 225,000.
Amid his failure to address the pandemic, Trump has publicly griped several times about the media reporting on COVID-19, even going as far as calling CNN “dumb bastards” for doing so.
“You turn on CNN, that’s all they cover,” he ranted during a campaign rally in Arizona last week. “COVID, COVID, pandemic, COVID, COVID, COVID. You know why? They’re trying to talk everybody out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.”
Trump wants is calling for Joe Biden to be imprisoned and for it to be illegal to report the truth. And Wyatt and Regina Hardiman say "no, he's not dictatorial, not at all..."
This video tells us Wyatt and Regina are the zealots in a dysfunctional and destructive relationship with their leader.
We all do better when we work together.
"White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday said "We're not going to control the pandemic," making very clear that the White House has given up trying to contain the coronavirus."
actually, he clarified that they were going to "destroy" not "contain" the virus
"Their only strategy at this point is praying for a vaccine."
Prayer will help but they have also poured billions of government funding into research that will yield a vaccine in the next couple of weeks
and also all kinds of other treatment as well that is showing great success
cases are approaching the levels of the Spring
but mortality is a fraction of what it was
"VP Pence was a close contact with Marc Short, who has tested positive for coronavirus, yet he's not quarantining. How is campaigning 'essential work'?"
if going to one of George Floyd's three funerals and painting BLM on streets around the country and burning down police stations and toppling statues of Thomas Jefferson is "essential", why isn't electing a President?
""Just yesterday, President Trump said 'we are rounding the corner & it's going away,' but it's not going away even in the WH! But beyond that, the US reported 83,000 new cases on Friday and Saturday. That's the 2 highest days of the entire pandemic.""
we test more than anyone
what matters is the death rate
"A Fox News investigation "found no role for Joe Biden" in the business dealing of his son, Hunter, the network said on Sunday.
"There's another former business partner who says he knows of no involvement by Joe Biden," Fox News host Howard Kurtz added. "The Wall Street Journal says it also reviewed the text messages and emails, saying, they don't show either Hunter Biden or James Biden — the brother — discussing a role for Joe Biden."
Kurtz added: "My problem with this is these emails are from 2017. At that time, Joe Biden is out of office. So while it may have been unseemly — if it was true that Joe Biden was even acquiescing in a potential deal with China — he no longer has the power of the White House behind him at that time."
"That's correct," Jenkins agreed. "One thing is for sure, it's not getting the kind of attention that Fox has given it and the New York Post and others as we get close to this election.""
well, if Biden had taken money, that would be an extinction level event for his campaign
the point for him remains that he claims to have not met Hunter's business partners
and he clearly had
the other question is what service did Hunter provide that was worth millions of dollars
the most disturbing thing of all, however, is how the mainstream media and social media tried to bury the story
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/pa/pennsylvania_trump_vs_biden-6861.html
in latest poll, Trump is ahead in Pennsylvania
if he wins there, he will re-elected
which would only be right
Biden has done nothing to merit being elected
watching Turner Classic Movies in his basement while Trump travels the country doesn't do it
tonight, the White House is throwing a super-spreader event to celebrate, fresh off of confirmation, our newest and most brilliant SCOTUS judge
and the end of the gay agenda....
A Democrat National Committee-engineered nomination.
A press that dismisses serious questions as conspiracies, and Republicans as racists.
A campaign that scorns personal interaction and relies on technology.
A candidate who is isolated, and in some areas completely absent.
A smattering of lackluster rallies with dozens of participants.
A highly compromising laptop in the hands of U.S. intelligence.
A final-stretch Barack Obama appearance in deep-blue Philadelphia.
A Republican opponent who is packing stadiums while inspiring arts, crafts, music, and dance moves, but is behind in all major polling.
And “Saturday Night Live” skits that fail to trigger so much as a chuckle.
Does all this sound familiar? It should, because it describes Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. For a few sweet weeks after she lost, these were the topics of dozens upon dozens of public media chest-beating and garment-rending sessions.
How could they have missed such obvious signs of a rotten Democratic campaign, they asked the heavens, and not seen such clear signals of Republican enthusiasm? Today, just four years later, we’re living it all over again. So what happened to the soul searching, and how did the pundit class end up back in the exact place, trying desperately to undo history by repeating it to a tee?
After November 2016, Democrats wondered what they’d done wrong — what Her had done wrong. Had they forgotten white working voters? (Yep.) Had they sacrificed the concerns of the ordinary Americans for the luxury problems of the elites? (Yes.) Had they taken victory for granted, confident that voters would not support Donald Trump? (Mmhm.) Had they skipped Wisconsin? (Yeah, they did that).
Reporters wondered what they’d done wrong, too. The Huffington Post did a whole “Listen to America” tour of 25 cities, 19 of which were blue, and there was a general call to listen to the country and dispense with the contempt.
Where’d all that go? The short of it is more important things came up. The new president’s attorney general was a Klansman, for one. Or was he a Kremlin agent? Russia took center stage before it was traded in for Ukraine before going back to Russia again.
Somehow, four short years after the Democratic Party and their media allies publicly went through what recovering alcoholics call “a moment of clarity,” they relapsed. They are doing it all again, bit for bit, and play for play. They even brought back Black Lives Matter, that national organizer of violent racial hatred that last led to the 2016 murder of five Dallas policemen. The whole gang is back.
Few Democrats are truly excited for Joe, a candidate foisted on the faithful by a party leadership terrified of the hyper-popular radicals in their midst.
News outlets are asking the former vice president what his favorite ice cream is while issuing press releases assuring their audience they won’t cover his family’s corruption. Only Thursday night, in a strong final debate, were major channels forced to carry the allegations for more than a few dismissive moments.
Committed to pandemic street theater, Democrats have largely discarded field offices and door-knocks, relying instead on digital campaigning.
The candidate is so isolated from Americans that his own campaign staff must look away while drinking water, and he dared not even shake hands with his running mate. With few public appearances and even fewer questions, neither he nor Kamala Harris are present in the states they need to win.
When they do hold rallies, viewers are sometimes confined to their cars. Others look like bizarre music videos, with small numbers of spaced humans wearing masks in parking lots.
A highly compromising laptop once owned by Hunter Biden is in the hands of U.S. intelligence, with more and more damaging evidence of corruption emerging daily, amplified by a brazen Big Tech campaign to censor the news.
Obama, who struggles to hide his disinterest in his former vice president, made an eventual appearance, opting to hold a rally in deep-blue Philadelphia. He hopes to recreate the black support that helped him win Pennsylvania twice but failed to materialize when he visited for Her.
Although behind in all major polling, Donald Trump is packing stadiums. Trump flags, tambourines, and switchblades are sold on the side of the road, homemade mailboxes bear his likeness, skydivers and boaters wave his banner across the horizon, and teenagers try to learn his dance moves.
And once again, “Saturday Night Live” skits fail to trigger so much as a chuckle.
This Election Day could go either way, and nothing is for certain. Nothing, except for one thing: We haven’t learned a thing.
The new congregation is gathered in a barn in Lenoir City, Tenn., with a roof that has a 60-foot American flag painted on it. And they are praying for a Яump landslide.
Standing in a circle, the dozen or so men and women, young and old, lay their hands on their pastor, Ken Peters, as he raises their requests to God.
He prays that “communism and socialism and transgenderism and homosexuality and abortion will not have their way in this land.”
“Yes, Lord,” someone cries.
He prays that the nation’s “Christian roots” will remain, that the church of Jesus Christ will be a “restraining power.”
“God, this nation is a miracle for you,” Peters continues. “You rescued us, and you gave us our independence for a purpose.”
This is a Patriot Church, part of an evolving network of nondenominational start-up congregations that say they want to take the country back for God. While most White conservative Christian churches might only touch on politics around election time and otherwise choose to keep the focus during worship on God, politics and religion are inseparable here. The Tennessee congregation is one of three Patriot Churches that formed in September. The other two are near Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and in Spokane, Wash., and Peters says he is talking with several more pastors of existing churches who want to join them.
The 50 or so people in attendance may identify as born-again or just as generic “Bible-loving” Christians. Peters’s flock is not affiliated with a specific denomination, but it does have a distinct identity. The Patriot Churches belong to what religion experts describe as a loosely organized Christian nationalist movement that has flourished under President Яump. In just four years, he has helped reshape the landscape of American Christianity by elevating Christians once considered fringe, including Messianic Jews, preachers of the prosperity gospel and self-styled prophets. At times, this made for some strange bedfellows, but the common thread among them is a sense of being under siege and a belief that America has been and should remain a Christian nation.
From his lectern during the worship service, Peters rails against perceived attacks on First Amendment freedoms, decrying government mandates and calling masks “face diapers.”
Having launched the Patriot Church outside Knoxville, Tenn., on the weekend of Sept. 11, he declares that the Christian faith in America is “under attack.”
“Black Lives Matter isn’t being powered by the Holy Spirit. Antifa isn’t being powered by the Holy Spirit. They can’t save this land,” Peters says. “There’s only one organization that has a shot at saving America, and that’s the church of Jesus Christ.”
For many churchgoers in suburban Knoxville, the political boldness in worship is a breath of fresh air. They complain that social media restricts their free speech, and they fear government-mandated vaccines. And whether Яump wins or loses, religion experts believe these Americans are building powerful networks that are expected to endure long after Яump has left the White House.
Yeah well, they can’t escape the fact that they have been worshipping an immoral monster. So, let’s just call it what it really is: white nationalism.
Amy Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court by a slim 52-48 vote.
The 48 senators who voted against Barrett represent 13.5 million more people than the 52 senators who voted for her.
The danger the Supreme Court poses to democracy
An authoritarian minority of Americans is dominating the majority due to a biased electoral system and conservative corruption.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire
You can see it in Wyatt and Regina Hardiman, they openly express their desire to put gays in concentration camps and to have gays assaulted, imprisoned, or executed.
There is no moral justification for harming innocent lgbt people.
The putrid corruption of the top echelons of the American legal world did not happen in a short time.
The Federalist Society has been pushing an agenda of subverting any impartiality of Judge applicants for decades.
The twisted corruption of White House Counsel under W Bush, namely Bybee and Yoo, who gave advice allowing torture and breaches of the Geneva Conventions happened in full view of the entire legal establishment.
The spectacle of Att.Gen. Barr in withdrawing a charge against Flynn, when he already had pleaded guilty, is currently before Judge Sullivan, who sees through his sick brain.
Now Barr still corrupts his office by removing prosecutors who are doing their jobs, but not to the benefit of Trump.
Then there is the corruption and perjury of the Senators during the Impeachment Trial.
The legal system, the legal world, the rule of law, the administration of justice, the enforcing of laws have all been corrupted over a long period of time.
No one wants to stop it.
No one seems shocked by it.
But the rest of the world sees the shocking condition of American laws, lawyers, and institutions; they have all been systematically subverted.......and it has been done by the Republicans.
That is where the reform must start, with the exposure of the anti-American, anti-justice Republicans.
Amy Barrett will do all she can to keep Trump in power -- if given the chance. Let's not give her or the other Republicans on the court that chance. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!! If we win BIG they can NOT Steal the Election!!
Amy Barrett's Experience
- 2 years in private practice
- Never tried a case
- Never argued an appeal
- Never argued before Supreme Court
- Most private work involved civil cases, not criminal cases.
- 15 years teaching experience
- Never served as a judge until 2017
This woman is dangerously unqualified and was only picked because she's a corrupt religious extremist.
With their justice in place to protect Trump and big business, the only people they care about, Republicans have gone home - f*ck the people who are affected by COVID. As Trump says, it is what it is. If you're not a big donor they couldn't care less whether you live or die.
I was going to be a Trump supporter for Halloween, but my head wouldn't fit up my ass.
ACB is on the SCOTUS
the worst nightmare of TTFers has come true:
the Constitution is once again the law of the land
"There is no moral justification for harming innocent lgbt people."
no one has suggested harming innocent lbgt people
and even the guilty ones will be shown magnanimity, with special re-education camps set up to teach them how to be happy
"The putrid corruption of the top echelons of the American legal world did not happen in a short time.
The Federalist Society has been pushing an agenda of subverting any impartiality of Judge applicants for decades."
well, their mission has been to promote originalist judges
they have the same right as you to promote the philosophy they believe in
rather than corrupt, this process is exactly as our democracy is supposed to work
considering the rulings over the past year, the suggestion that SCOTUS judges are not impartial is risible
"The spectacle of Att.Gen. Barr in withdrawing a charge against Flynn, when he already had pleaded guilty,"
the prosecution of Flynn was prosecutorial misconduct
Mueller could have indicted Clapper, Brennan, and Comey for the same crime
he didn't because he wasn't concerned about breaches of law
he was pursuing Flynn in order to pressure him to disclose information
it's a common tactic and we need legal reform to eliminate it
"is currently before Judge Sullivan, who sees through his sick brain."
Sullivan is clearly partisan, and indifferent about justice
"Then there is the corruption and perjury of the Senators during the Impeachment Trial."
so, you think Adam Schiff should be prosecuted?
"The legal system, the legal world, the rule of law, the administration of justice, the enforcing of laws have all been corrupted over a long period of time."
we are a nation of rights, not laws
over-zealous enforcement was Biden's mistake in the crime bill he sponsored in the 90s, sending a generation of young blacks to long jail terms for victimless crimes
the most significant form of corruption in our legal system is the kind epitomized by Robert Mueller
"But the rest of the world sees the shocking condition of American laws, lawyers, and institutions; they have all been systematically subverted.......and it has been done by the Republicans."
actually, compared to the rest of the world, our system is close to perfect, even with its flaws
"That is where the reform must start, with the exposure of the anti-American, anti-justice Republicans."
odd thing to say
I think it must start with the exposure of the anti-American, anti-justice Democrats
"Amy Barrett will do all she can to keep Trump in power"
she has no reason to do that
she has a lifetime appointment
"if given the chance. Let's not give her or the other Republicans on the court that chance. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!! If we win BIG they can NOT Steal the Election!!"
yes, yes
every time Dems lose, it's theft
Gore whined for years, Hillary had dozens of people she said stole her election, Merrick Garland had seat STOLEN!
when Republics follow rules and win, it's not theft
not matter how much TTF whines
"Amy Barrett's Experience
- 2 years in private practice
- Never tried a case
- Never argued an appeal
- Never argued before Supreme Court
- Most private work involved civil cases, not criminal cases.
- 15 years teaching experience
- Never served as a judge until 2017
This woman is dangerously unqualified and was only picked because she's a corrupt religious extremist."
well, the American Bar Association gave her its highest rating
all her law professors and all the judges who worked beside her sing her praises
but, who are you going to believe:
Randy, an alumni of Canada's finest nuthouses
or all the American legal experts?
"With their justice in place to protect Trump and big business,"
the originalist judges will protect the Constitution
if you think the Constitution doesn't protect people, there is a process for amending it
"the only people they care about, Republicans have gone home - f*ck the people who are affected by COVID."
the Republicans have poured billions into PPE and research which is yielding results and has lowered the death rate
Biden's plan: about the same BUT HE REALLY MEANS IT!!!!!!
I don't think he scares anyone
LOL!!!!!!!
"As Trump says, it is what it is. If you're not a big donor they couldn't care less whether you live or die."
show us this Trump quote
"I was going to be a Trump supporter for Halloween, but my head wouldn't fit up my ass."
what an original comment!
your mother must be so proud
truth is gays have an obsession with people fitting things up their ass
I wouldn't be surprised if they make it a contest during pride week
ACB is on the SCOTUS
the worst nightmare of TTFers has come true:
the Constitution is once again the law of the land
"I wonder how much money Canada has paid for Randy's mental illness treatments"
the power used for the electroshock therapy alone could probably power a small city for months
The Supreme Court on Monday night voted against reinstating an order by a Wisconsin federal court judge that said absentee ballots could be counted if received within six days after the election as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. The final vote was 5-3.
The ruling came down as the Senate voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as the newest justice to the Supreme Court, solidifying the conservative majority to 6-3.
PLEASE NOTE:
THE POST-APOCALYPTICAL
FICTION SECTION
HAS BEEN MOVED TO
CURRENT AFFAIRS
"THE POST-APOCALYPTICAL
FICTION SECTION
HAS BEEN MOVED TO
CURRENT AFFAIRS"
just think how nutty a person must be to think that if homosexuality and abortion aren't considered constitutional rights, the world has come to an end
Wall Street Journal, which is probably the most reliable and quality reporting going on today, has some thoughts this morning about liberal distortion of their journalism:
Some institutions are responding better than others to the stress of political polarization, and one of the worst performers has been the press. Its broad and intense progressive partisanship is escalating into attempts to stifle information and stigmatize opposing points of view.
A case in point is the media distortion of a pair of recent reports in The Wall Street Journal. Our Kimberley Strassel wrote a detailed analysis in her Friday column about the emails and text messages of former Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski. Journal reporters wrote later that day about Mr. Bobulinski’s claims, and media partisans jumped to assert that the news story contradicted Ms. Strassel’s.
No, it didn't, as more careful analysts like Mark Hemingway have noted. The Journal news story added the fact that their examination of business records found no evidence of Joe Biden having an ownership stake in the Hunter Biden-Bobulinski company.
But Ms. Strassel never said Joe Biden did. She reported that Mr. Bobulinski provided documents supporting his claim that a stake was envisioned for Joe Biden, but that Mr. Biden ought to respond to clear the record if this wasn’t true. The news story treated the emails and texts as real, and thus tacitly confirmed that they weren’t “Russian disinformation” as Joe Biden and others have claimed.
The news and opinion sections of the Journal operate separately, and we can’t speak for our news colleagues. But our view is that Mr. Bobulinski’s documents and statements are news that the public deserves to see. This is why Ms. Strassel reported the story in meticulous fashion, and we published it. By pretending that the two stories conflict, the progressive media are attempting to say that the emails and texts should never have been reported.
This is laughable coming from the crowd that spent four years pushing the Russia-Trump collusion narrative from 2016 that was ginned up and promoted by the Hillary Clinton campaign. They spun the claims of the Steele dossier, despite no supporting evidence and no on-the-record witnesses. Yet now they claim that on-the-record statements from a former Hunter Biden associate, along with emails and texts that the Biden campaign hasn’t disputed, should be kept from the public.
All of this is relevant beyond next week’s election. If Democrats win up and down the ballot, progressives will control the commanding heights of nearly every American elite institution: Congress, the administrative state, Hollywood and the arts, the universities, nonprofits, Silicon Valley and nearly all of the media.
Yet instead of playing watchdog for the public, today’s progressive press partisans devote themselves to attacking anyone who breaks from their orthodoxy. They denounce independent voices like Ms. Strassel with their Twitter brigades, then they unleash reporters who are ideological enforcers masquerading as media critics. They can’t tolerate any opposing political view. This is why Americans in record numbers don’t trust the media, and it’s why we will keep reporting the news others won’t.
20 Republican Former US Attorneys Endorse Biden: Trump Is “A Threat To The Rule Of Law In Our Country”
The Washington Post reports:
Twenty former U.S. attorneys — all of them Republicans — on Tuesday publicly called President Trump “a threat to the rule of law in our country,” and urged that he be replaced in November with his Democratic opponent, former vice president Joe Biden.
“The President has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests,” said the former prosecutors in an open letter. They accused Trump of taking “action against those who have stood up for the interests of justice.”
The letter, signed by prosecutors appointed by every GOP president from Eisenhower to Trump, is the latest instance of Republicans backing Biden. In August, dozens of GOP national security experts signed a full-page newspaper ad endorsing Biden over Trump.
Republicans in power have closed polling stations and all other manners of access to voting to create huge line ups in Democratic leaning urban centres lasting 8 to 12 hours.
Record numbers of people are standing in these lines but there are many more that are unable to because they can't afford to take the time of work or have physical problems that prevent such a lengthy wait in line. For myself, I know I couldn't wait in line much beyond an hour and my back would give out. If the lines were 8 to 12 hours I couldn't vote.
Wyatt and Regina call this Republican corruption "smart". Evangelical christians putting themselves ahead of 70% of the population and in the process also making their own lives worse.
Religion is a divider, not a uniter. We need a united population to address serious global problems. The only way to do that is for everyone to make their highest priority maximizing the happiness for all in an equal way.
"Kimberley Strassel wrote a detailed analysis in her Friday column about the emails and text messages of former Hunter Biden business associate."
Ms. Strassel wrote an opinion piece that was placed on the WSJ editorial page for a part of the Rupert Murdock right-wing press.
It can be found here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-family-legacy-11603409528.
And it clearly says
"OPINION | POTOMAC WATCH
The Biden ‘Family Legacy’
What we learned from the text messages of Hunter’s partner Tony Bobulinski.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Oct. 22, 2020 7:32 pm ET"
WSJ reports: "Kimberley Strassel is a member of the editorial board for The Wall Street Journal. She writes editorials, as well as the weekly Potomac Watch political column, from her base in Washington, D.C."
Joe Biden released his income tax forms that show he got not one single dime from China or Russia or Ukraine, that a real reporter, not an opinion writer like Ms. Strassel, would have included in their "detailed analysis."
Rump continues to hide his income tax forms so we don't know how much money he has taken in from those countries.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday denied President Donald Trump's request that the United States replace him as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit alleging he raped a woman in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came after the Justice Department argued that the United States — and by extension the American people — should replace Trump as the defendant in a lawsuit filed by the columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The government’s lawyers contended that the United States could step in as the defendant because Trump was forced to respond to her lawsuit to prove he was physically and mentally fit for the job.
A lawyer for Carroll, Roberta Kaplan, called it a clear victory for her client.
“The simple truth is that President Trump defamed our client because she was brave enough to reveal that he had sexually assaulted her, and that brutal, personal attack cannot be attributed to the Office of the President,” Kaplan said in a statement.
Messages were left on Tuesday for lawyers for Trump and the Justice Department seeking comment.
The judge ruled that a law protecting federal employees from being sued individually for things they do within the scope of their employment didn't apply to a president.
“The President of the United States is not an employee of the Government within the meaning of the relevant statutes,” Kaplan wrote. “Even if he were such an employee, President Trumps allegedly defamatory statements concerning Ms. Carroll would not have been within the scope of his employment. Accordingly, the motion to substitute the United States in place of President Trump is denied.”..
Rump is unable to take responsibility for his own actions.
He has been a liar and a cheat his entire life.
October 23-25, 2020 - 1,500 U.S. Registered Voters
66. More Corrupt Family
Who do you think is more corrupt?
Joe Biden and his family.................39%
Donald Trump and his family...........53%
About the same.................................2%
Neither family is corrupt....................2%
Not sure if either family is corrupt.....5%
Conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have been indicted in Ohio for allegedly using robocalls in an attempt to intimidate minority voters, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley (D) announced Tuesday.
Wohl, 22, and Burkman, 54, were each charged with eight counts of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of bribery for allegedly devising a robocall scam that attempted to suppress voting in local minority neighborhoods by intimidating residents out of voting by mail.
O’Malley’s office said that the men used a voice broadcasting service to place over 67,000 calls across multiple states in the Midwest. Of those calls, more than 8,100 were sent to phone numbers in Cleveland and East Cleveland, heavily Democratic areas of the state.
The messages falsely warned voters that if they voted by mail, their information could be used to pursue old warrants, collect outstanding debts and track people for mandatory vaccines, the prosecutor’s office said.
Arrest warrants were issued for Wohl and Burkman upon indictment, and they will be arraigned in Cuyahoga County at a later date, the prosector's office said. Wohl is a resident of Los Angeles while Burkman resides in Arlington, Va. Both face up to 18.5 years in prison if convicted of the charges.
“These individuals clearly infringed upon that right in a blatant attempt to suppress votes and undermine the integrity of this election,” O’Malley said in a statement shared with The Hill. “Do not let these individuals or others like them to succeed. Exercise your right and get out and VOTE!”
The Hill has reached out to the pair for comment.
Wohl and Burkman were charged earlier this month in Michigan for allegedly attempting to suppress minority voters there with robocalls.
They were charged with one count each of voter intimidation, conspiracy to commit an election law violation, using a computer to intimidate voters and using a computer to commit conspiracy.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) said the two targeted voters in heavily Democratic suburban areas like Detroit with robocalls aimed at dissuading residents from voting in the Nov. 3 election. Her office said at the time that the attorneys general of Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York had reported similar robocalls aimed at minority voters.
Wohl and Burkman have previously promoted a number of baseless conspiracy theories or manufactured allegations against figures such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and former special counsel Robert Mueller, among others.
"20 Republican Former US Attorneys Endorse Biden: Trump Is “A Threat To The Rule Of Law In Our Country”"
that's rich coming from these deep-staters who believe winning is more important than justice
there's a reason in America have a conviction rate in the high 90s
they encourage perjury by dangling release from jail if a convict will testify as they want
they threaten the innocent children of people they target to bully them into pleading
the legal systemin America needs reform and they know Trump will deliver
"Republicans in power have closed polling stations and all other manners of access to voting to create huge line ups in Democratic leaning urban centres lasting 8 to 12 hours."
interesting how TTF seems to alternate stories about Republicans suppressing the vote with stories about record number voting
both can't really be true
"Record numbers of people are standing in these lines but there are many more that are unable to because they can't afford to take the time of work or have physical problems that prevent such a lengthy wait in line."
there is, and always has been, a mail voting option for those with disabilities
as for those who can't get off work, give me a break
some states have voting going on for six weeks
"Ms. Strassel wrote an opinion piece that was placed on the WSJ editorial page for a part of the Rupert Murdock right-wing press."
it doesn't matter what page it was on
it was clearly reporting
something you rarely find in the NY Times or Washington Post
"Joe Biden released his income tax forms that show he got not one single dime from China or Russia or Ukraine, that a real reporter, not an opinion writer like Ms. Strassel, would have included in their "detailed analysis.""
did you actually look at his return?
his tax return from 2017 shows about 10 million in income passed through from S corps
any payment from those places could easily have funneled through these entities
that's not to mention that tax returns are just what he reported to the IRS
he could be lying
not saying he did, it's just that the return doesn't prove anything
btw, if you do glance at the return, you will notice it's amended
that's because he originally over-report charitable donations and didn't report his last VP paycheck
"Rump continues to hide his income tax forms so we don't know how much money he has taken in from those countries."
actually, he filed financial disclosure forms with the FEC that reveal more than a 1040 would
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/state_president/
if Dems feel good about these polls, they aren't Dems
Trump is tied in Pennsylvania
if he wins there, you'll have four years more of the Donald
you better hop on a bus to the Keystone State and start banging on doors
your lazy, good-for-nothing candidate won't get off his arse and do it for himself
"when Republics follow rules and win, it's not theft
not matter how much TTF whines"
Can't wait till Dems take over the White House and the Senate, then start acting like Mitch McConnell.
That tune is going to change FAST!
Would you like some American processed cheese food with that whine?
LOL!
"interesting how TTF seems to alternate stories about Republicans suppressing the vote with stories about record number voting
both can't really be true"
Wrong!
Which US states make it hardest to vote?
"...At the root of these disparities is a systemic legacy in the US of suppressing voters of color. The phenomenon has been on the rise since a 2013 supreme court ruling weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the single most powerful legislation safeguarding Americans from discriminatory voting practices...."
Texas allows one board of elections drop box per county while Maryland’s most populous counties and Baltimore City will have additional ballot drop boxes to accommodate the greater number of eligible voters. Red states tend to try to limit voting and Blue states encourage it.
"financial disclosure forms with the FEC that reveal more than a 1040"
Wrong again, liar.
Here are six things tax returns show that financial disclosures do not:
1. How much a candidate paid in taxes. Financial disclosures do not include how much a candidate paid in taxes and, thus, what their effective tax rate was.
Which explains we didn't know Rump only paid $750 in taxes until September 2020 but found out thanks to the NY Times.
2. What tax breaks a candidate claimed. Financial disclosures do not list what types of tax deductions a candidate has claimed. These could range from deducting interest paid on one’s mortgage to putting a goat on a golf course to qualify for farmland tax credits.
A goat herd is helping Trump pay tens of thousands of dollars less in property taxes on his New Jersey properties
3. Whether a candidate has offshore accounts. Financial disclosures ask candidates to list assets but are not required to provide detailed information, so offshore accounts can be easily masked.
Why Does Trump Have a Chinese Bank Account?
The U.S. president has attacked Democratic nominee Joe Biden for his son’s dealings in China. But it appears Trump was himself pursuing business interests there.
4. Charitable giving. Financial disclosures do not include information on what, if anything, a candidate has given to charity.
Ahem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_Foundation#Legal_actions_and_closure
5. A more truthful picture.
Financial disclosures are reviewed by the FEC for compliance with reporting requirements, but aren't audited for accuracy like tax returns which carry fines and possible jail time for fraud. Because of that, a tax return presents less of an opportunity to inflate claims of wealth.
Rump has issues with truth and has told more than 20,000 lies
6. Numbers down to the cent. Financial disclosures report assets in broad ranges (e.g. $1,001 - $15,000; over $1,000,000), while tax returns focus on the exact dollar figure of an asset.
Rump couldn't care less about details.
Donald Trump does not read his crucial daily intelligence briefing, interrupts the CIA official who delivers it to pass on gossip from Garry Player and lashes out at 'bad' news, intel officials say
there you have it
as I suspected, Dems don't want tax returns to find out if Trump has foreign investments, as they claim
that would likely not be on a 1040
they want to attack and mock deductions and taxes paid, even though all American agree you should pay the least tax you are legally entitled to
"Financial disclosures are reviewed by the FEC for compliance with reporting requirements, but aren't audited for accuracy like tax returns which carry fines and possible jail time for fraud."
there are penalties for false FEC fillings and, since they are public, easy to catch since every reporter in America is on it
and, btw, there is no way to tell if a candidate is audited unless they tell you
"Numbers down to the cent. Financial disclosures report assets in broad ranges (e.g. $1,001 - $15,000; over $1,000,000), while tax returns focus on the exact dollar figure of an asset."
no one needs to get anything down to the cent
and personal tax returns do not ever list assets, unless they are being depreciated
"Rump has issues with truth and has told more than 20,000 lies"
you think Biden hasn't?
in 47 years in public life?
one year, he was running for President and had to quit because he plagiarized a speech
and we now know Biden lied when he said he never met Hunter's business associates
at the last debate, he claimed he never said he would ban fracking
the videotape of him doing just that is all over the internet
also, he had an affair with the wife of a large donor and is now married to her
he has lied and said they met on a blind date
right now, Biden's support seems to be collapsing
next Tuesday will be interesting
Donald Trump’s Middle East diplomacy began life with implausible grandiosity. He announced his intention not only to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but also to resolve the century-long conflict between the Jews and the Arabs.
Foreign policy experts scoffed. Better men than Trump had tried and failed to resolve the issue for the better part of a century.
To everyone’s amazement, the Trump formula — transactional, nonjudgmental and businesslike — rendered a series of peacemaking successes. The latest is a normalization agreement between Israel and Sudan. It is not a final destination, but it is an important station on the peace train.
Trump broke the news last Friday in a televised three-way conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Trump was typically exuberant. He announced that five more Arab countries were in line to join, mentioning Saudi Arabia specifically. He predicted that there would eventually be a family reunion of all Abraham’s descendants on the lawn of the White House.
In that unlikely event, Trump won’t be around to host the ceremony. It is very possible that he won’t even be in office after Jan. 20. But win or lose, he has changed the Middle East by re-establishing American economic and diplomatic credibility. That was the main factor in the peace agreements the U.S. brokered between Israel and two Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and they, in turn, encouraged Sudan to get on board.
Bibi was less biblical but no less euphoric. He called the deal an historical turning point. “We are cooperating with everyone, building a better future for us all,” he said.
Sudan is important to Israel because it is the third-largest Arab state. It is a former ally of the Iranian state. It gives Israel strategic depth along the coast of the Red Sea. And it has great symbolic value — consider the Arab League's famous “three no’s declaration” made in Khartoum in 1967: No recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel, no peace with Israel.
Netanyahu declared general enthusiasm from “most people in the world for the new rapprochement.” Not everyone is happy, though. The Jewish Democratic Council of America, an adjunct of the Democratic Party, labeled the Sudan deal “an Israel quid pro quo driven by Trump’s short-term political interests rather than the long-term safety and security of the United States and its allies, including Israel.”
I get the partisanship, but it is hard to see what electoral benefit Trump derives from this deal. Recent polling shows Joe Biden leading Trump by a margin of around 3 to 1 among Jewish Americans. If recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem didn’t win the hearts and votes of the Jewish community, it is hard to see how brokering a deal with Khartoum is going to do the trick.
Iran had the most astute reading of the deal. It accused Sudan of selling out the Palestinians in return for being taken off the U.S. list of terrorist nations and the promise of massive financial aid from America and the Gulf states.
This is both true and unremarkable. Sudan is one of the poorest and least developed of the Arab countries. It desperately needs cash and investments to stay afloat. Israel has already announced that it is sending a shipment of wheat to “our new friends.” Much greater aid will come from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
Sudan, like most Arab states, has a terrible human-rights record, though that concerns neither Trump nor Netanyahu. The American president made his hands-off policy clear in his address to the Islamic meeting Saudi Arabia convened in May 2017. Bibi’s only concern is that opposition forces in Sudan might try to destroy normalization as they did in Lebanon in 1983.
Israel’s Gulf Arab allies see Israel as influential in Washington, as well as a useful economic partner. Joint business ventures are already underway. Other Arab countries will have other motives for making peace. But the overarching impetus comes from the recognition that the U.S. is the strong horse in the region, something that was not true during the Barack Obama administration.
Clearly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and most of the other Sunni states are rooting for a Trump re-election. Netanyahu would also like to see four more years, but he isn’t saying so publicly. In their televised phone conversation, when the president fished for an endorsement (“Bibi, do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal?”), Netanyahu ducked the question and said he appreciated the help of every American working for peace.
If there is change in Washington, Netanyahu will seek to convince the new president that the old certainties of the Obama years did not work and, in any case, no longer apply. His message to Biden will be that the peace train is real and moving in the right direction
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
latest nationwide polls of likely voters show Biden with a lead of 5, 4, or 2 points
not nearly enough when so much is concentrated in two states, NY and CA
and especially considering that Biden is now losing in FL, OH, and PA
something is happening here and you don't know what it is
do you, Mr TTF?
“If we just go back about six, seven weeks ago to Labor Day we were at about 35,000 cases a day. We’re above 70,000 and just heading up.”
“We need some national leadership to tell people you got to wear masks and we’re not getting that national leadership right now.”
President Donald Trump intentionally misled the public at the start of the pandemic by downplaying the risk of the virus, while in private he acknowledged its threat. He has sent mixed messages on the need to wear masks and has held multiple campaign rallies for mainly maskless crowds since his three-day hospitalization for coronavirus treatment earlier this month.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that the U.S. is “not going to control” the pandemic, but instead would “control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.”
More than 226,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19 ― close to around 1,000 every day. It has sickened upwards of 8.7 million people nationwide.
OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) — Gabe Loiacono is the kind of voter President Donald Trump can ill afford to lose. He lives in a pivotal county of a swing state that is among a handful that will decide the presidency.
A college history professor who last cast a ballot for a Democrat more than 20 years ago, Loiacono is voting for Democrat Joe Biden because he thinks Trump has utterly failed in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“President Trump still does not seem to be taking the pandemic seriously enough. I wish he would,” said Loiacono. He said he never thought of Trump as “all bad" but added, “There is still too much wishful thinking and not enough clear guidance.”
And now the virus is getting worse in states that the Republican president needs the most, at the least opportune time. New infections are raging in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the upper Midwest. In Iowa, polls suggest Trump is in a toss-up race with Biden after carrying the state by 9.4 percentage points four years ago.
Trump's pandemic response threatens his hold on Wisconsin, where he won by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016, said Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin.
“Approval of his handling of COVID is the next-strongest predictor of vote choice," behind voters' party affiliation and their overall approval of Trump's performance as president, Franklin said. “And it's not just a fluke of a single survey.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday that among U.S. states, Wisconsin had the third highest rate of new cases for the previous seven days. Iowa was 10th.
Trump won Wisconsin's heavily blue-collar Winnebago County, which includes Oshkosh, in 2016, after Democratic nominee Barack Obama had carried it in 2012. Today, Winnebago is among the top 10 counties where new Wisconsin COVID cases are being reported, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and compiled by The Associated Press.
The trend is similar in Iowa. Blue-collar Dubuque County was among the state's 10 counties with the fastest-growing number of cases per capita over the past two weeks. Trump won the county narrowly after Democrats had carried it since the 1950s.
In Wisconsin, where polling has shown Biden with a slight but consistent advantage, approval of Trump's handling the pandemic dropped from 51% in March to 41% in October, according to a Marquette University Law School poll. That’s a noteworthy decline considering Trump’s overall approval has fluctuated little and remained in the mid-40s.
Iowans’ view of Trump’s handling of the pandemic is also more negative than positive, according to The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll and Monmouth University polls.
The race in Iowa remains very close, though Monmouth poll director Patrick Murray said Trump's poor rating in Iowa on handling the pandemic “suggests in the decision-making process, the coronavirus is top of mind and decisive.”
As Trump enters a frenzied final week of campaigning, he continues to hold mass rallies that often defy local public health rules. The campaign says supporters are merely exercising their First Amendment rights.
The president also continues to insist the country is “rounding the turn” on the virus, an assertion that has drawn rebukes from public health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease specialist...
...During his debate with Biden last week, Trump insisted of the virus, despite the spike in cases: “It will go away. It's going away.” The comments betrayed the seriousness Trump conveyed during recorded conversations with journalist Bob Woodward in February, when Trump said he “wanted to always play it down” to avoid creating a panic.
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said on CNN: " We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations.”
On Saturday night, the White House confirmed that Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, had tested positive for COVID-19, after the news of Short's diagnosis dribbled out. The vice president has showed no signs of curbing his torrid campaign schedule.
Republican pollster Ed Goeas likened Meadows' comments to “waving the white flag.”
“That’s how I read it,” Goeas said. “The only hope it seems is therapeutics will make it less of a killer and eventually the vaccine will be available to everyone. It looked to me like they were just trying to make their position sound like that was always their intent.”
COVID-19 cases also have risen over the past two weeks in Midwestern battlegrounds Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio, though not as sharply as in Wisconsin and Iowa, according to the Johns Hopkins data.
The pandemic is resonating because it touches all Americans personally and most of them economically, said Terry Madonna, director the Franklin and Marshall College Poll and veteran scholar of Pennsylvania politics.
“It's ubiquitous,” Madonna said. “Maybe it's not in your own family. But you know someone who had it. You can't get away from it in the news and in your own life.”
And voters like Loiacono say they are holding the president to account.
“The job of government is to lead in times of crises,” said Loiacono, 44, masked and standing on his front porch in Oshkosh a few blocks from Lake Winnebago. “The president has admitted he talked much more positively about it because he saw his role as being a cheerleader. And I sort of understand that, but I think it was the wrong move.”
Biden +7.1
Rump 43.5%, Biden 50.6%
“If we just go back about six, seven weeks ago to Labor Day we were at about 35,000 cases a day. We’re above 70,000 and just heading up.”
American lives matter
mortality is way down
“We need some national leadership to tell people you got to wear masks and we’re not getting that national leadership right now.”
Trump has told people to wear masks, when appropriate
that would be when you are indoors and can't stay more than six feet away from others for more than 15 minutes
"President Donald Trump intentionally misled the public at the start of the pandemic by downplaying the risk of the virus, while in private he acknowledged its threat."
the patron saint of Dems, Anthony Fauci, says of this Dem talking point that he thought the virus was serious but we could handle it
Trump took his cue from Fauci
"He has sent mixed messages on the need to wear masks and has held multiple campaign rallies for mainly maskless crowds since his three-day hospitalization for coronavirus treatment earlier this month."
he said people should be free to take their own risks
"RCP Average of polls said...
Biden +7.1"
you guys are repeating your mistake of 2016
averages don't measure momentum, which is on Trump's side, at precisely the right time
the latest poll of likely voters has Biden winning by 2 nationally and Trump ahead or time in enough swing state to win the electoral college
additionally, polling methods are biased because they assume more Democrats are registered than are, which skews their sample selection
read this: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/another-pollster-sees-a-trump-win/
Sixty percent of voters — nearly 70 million people — are projected to vote by mail nationwide during the coronavirus pandemic. Those who study absentee rejection rates estimate that 1 percent to 2 percent of those votes — potentially more than 1 million — won't count, which could make a difference in battleground states.
"The vote-by-mail ballot rejections are going to be the hanging chads of 2000," said Daniel Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Florida.
The risk of ballot rejection varies by demographics and geography. The rate of rejection tends to be higher for Black, Hispanic, female and younger voters, as well as for people who don't usually vote by mail.
Experts say it also tends to be higher in states that don't normally have a lot of absentee ballots — a category that includes the battleground states of Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All five had less than 10 percent of turnout by mail in 2016, and they will see huge increases in mail votes this fall.
President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox Business Channel’s Kennedy Tuesday night where he became enraged after being compared to Christopher Steele, the man behind the infamous, and questionable, Steele dossier. Kennedy made the comparison as Giuliani repeatedly pushed uncorroborated allegations about Joe Biden’s son Hunter, allegations that originally appeared in the New York Post. Giuliani supplied the Post with the story that most news outlets passed on due to concerns about credibility. Fox News passed on the story for those exact concerns, and it was even reported that the New York Post writer refused to put his name on it. Despite pushing unverified, salacious allegations, as did Steele, Giuliani took the comparison as a personal affront.
“Some could say that you are acting like Christopher Steele,” Kennedy said. “That you are abstracting information, and because…” “You gotta be kidding me,” Giuliani interrupted. “I was acting like Christopher Steele?” “That’s what it sounds like,” Kennedy retorted. “When you look at…” “You better apologize!” Giuliani cut her off once more. “You better apologize for that!”
From that point on, the interview was pretty much off the rails.
“What you are saying is an outrageous defamation of me. Of my reputation. Every single thing is here, and I want you to look at it and then apologize to me!” Giuliani screamed at Kennedy, later adding, “I came on your show in good faith to give you evidence that is being withheld from the American people, and I get defamed! That’s outrageous!”
Kennedy tried to move on, asking, “Are you still working on behalf of the president?” But Giuliani had had enough, saying, “I think our interview — I think our interview is now over.” “I haven’t even gotten to the part about Borat,” Kennedy responded.
Giuliani may wish he had actually ended the interview right then because Kennedy did eventually get to the part about Borat. Giuliani unwittingly became the target of one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s pranks in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which was just released last Friday. In it, Giuliani finds himself in a questionable situation with Borat’s 15-year-old daughter Tutar, played by 24-year-old Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova.
“Do you regret your interaction in the Borat movie?” Kennedy asked. Giuliani replied, “Now that’s a stupid question, isn’t it?” “No, it’s not stupid at all…” “That’s really a stupid question,” Giuliani interrupted. “I have a 15-year-old daughter,” Kennedy said. “I watched that and I was kinda grossed out by it.”
Twenty former U.S. attorneys ― all appointed by GOP presidents ― gave 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden their “strongest endorsement” in an open letter slamming President Donald Trump’s politicization of the Justice Department.
Trump “has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests in the handling of certain cases – such as the investigations into foreign election interference and the prosecution of his political associates – and has taken action against those who have stood up for the interests of justice,” says the letter signed by ex-prosecutors who served in Republican administrations from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
They also warned Trump’s leadership is “a threat to the rule of law in our country.”
Biden, the attorneys wrote, has “devoted his career to supporting law enforcement, protecting the independence of the Justice Department, and working to ensure that the federal government exercises its law enforcement powers fairly and impartially and in the interests of all Americans.”
They also hailed Biden for appearing to understand “that unity — and not division — is the key to meeting the challenges that our country is facing.”
Biden would “make every effort to unite law enforcement and the nation in the pursuit of justice – to defend the rule of law, to serve and protect all Americans, and to build a criminal justice system that provides equal justice under the law,” they added.
The letter adds to Biden’s backing from figures or groups that would traditionally be expected to endorse the GOP candidate.
In August, former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel were among 74 Republican former national security officials to sign a letter explaining why they couldn’t vote for Trump.
More than 300 military families, nearly 500 retired military officials and 500 faith leaders have also signaled their support of Biden in recent weeks.
Here's my list, skipping duplicates, of Rump emails begging this life-long Democrat for money for the past 3 days
Donald J. Trump 925% We need to CRUSH our goal
Donald J. Trump ATTN: Patriots Make 900% MORE Impact
Lara Trump Congratulations! Claim your MATCH NOW!
Donald J. Trump ONE WEEK President Trump needs YOUR support to win this thing
Donald J. Trump TODAY Get on the donor list
Donald J. Trump America love you. We need to crush our goal
Donald Trump Jr. This is our LAST CHANCE. My father needs your help
Donald J. Trump Biden called you a CHUMP. They hate us.
Donald J. Trump Biden wants to raise another $100 MILLION. We need to FIGHT BACK!
Donald J. Trump Get Out the Vote Fund. We need EVERY Patriot to vote
Donald J. Trump It's now or never.
Trump 2021 Calendar It's finally here. Get yours FIRST
Donald J. Trump 60 Minutes interview attached
Sad!
Bill Stepian, Trump Campaign Manager The most important deadline ever. Help us win by increasing your impact by 925%
some strange TTFer seems to think Trump's fundraising emails are some type of scandal
I'm a registered Dem and get them from Biden daily
they are often signed Nancy Pelosi or Jimmy Carter or Carole King or et all
today's is from Hillary herself:
"I’m making my most important ask yet:
Will you chip in $1 to elect Democrats before the final End of Month Deadline of the election?
I need you to remember what exactly is at stake in this election. Take it from me: The entire future of our nation could come down to a few ballots.
I know we can’t afford to wake up the day after the election is over with any regrets. We must do everything we can right now to defeat Donald Trump and his Republicans.
That’s why I’m asking you to put your heart and soul into the fight to elect my friends Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, defeat Mitch McConnell’s Republican Senate, and expand our Majority before our End of Month Deadline in 72 hours.
Please: Make a donation of $1 to elect Democrats.
72-HOUR DEADLINE: ALL GIFTS QUADRUPLE-MATCHED
Quadruple match your $1 >>
Thank you,
Hillary Clinton"
Joe Biden is in a world of pain with a week to go to the election and polls tightening. Every time he ventures outside his basement, truckloads of cheerful Trump supporters show up waving flags and chanting “Four More Years”.
He became so exasperated by their exuberance in Pennsylvania on the weekend that he called them “chumps”, which quickly became the new “deplorables” of 2020.
Then there is the matter of his wayward son Hunter’s abandoned MacBook, which President Trump calls “the laptop from hell” because it links Biden to his family’s influence peddling schemes overseas.
Worst of all, Biden made the mother of all electoral gaffes when he admitted at last week’s presidential debate that he would kill off, or “transition” out of, the oil industry in order to dial down the planet’s thermostat.
“The oil industry pollutes, significantly,” he said. “It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time”.
This Gillardesque comment, since amplified on giant screens by Trump at every rally, will probably sink Biden in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where he was born 78 years ago next month, and which he has tried to claim as his own.
Not only is oil and gas the lifeblood of the state, but unlike some other states, Pennsylvania hasn’t embraced early voting.
Only 22 per cent of voters had cast a ballot by the time Biden put his foot in his mouth, and you can bet his threat to their jobs will boost turnout on election day.
It probably boosted turnout at Saturday’s “Trump train”, a grassroots parade of Trump supporters who pile into pickup trucks, farm vehicles, cars and the odd Harley to drive through the Ohio valley rust belt, from Ohio to West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.
Last weekend’s road rally had doubled in size from last month to about 2000 vehicles, all festooned with Trump-Pence 2020 regalia and American flags and blaring the Village People.
Biden’s flip-flopping on fracking has hurt him as well. During primary season he was recorded saying he would ban the industry only later to deny he said any such thing.
America became energy independent last year, meaning it now produces more energy than it uses, thanks in large part to fracking in states like Pennsylvania. This is a double bonus, with cheap and abundant energy for Americans and the end of their reliance on Middle Eastern oil with its incentive for disastrous wars in the region.
Trump is the first president in 39 years who hasn’t embroiled the country in a foreign war, which wins him additional points in those parts of Middle America whose sons and daughters bore the brunt of military adventures.
It’s not just the oil states where Biden’s war on fossil fuels is electorally damaging, says Florida political consultant Albert Marko, a former pollster who advises hedge funds and predicted Trump’s 2016 victory
While most of the published polls have consistently pointed to a crushing Biden victory, Marko sees Trump repeating his 2016 performance this year.
He calculates Trump will lose the popular vote again but win the electoral college with 306 votes to Biden’s 232, scooping up the top battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona.
It’s seldom mentioned, but in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, there are 100,000 farms producing corn for ethanol, whose price is linked to oil.
Biden’s war on oil turns out to be a war on corn which would threaten the prosperity of Midwestern farmers and the rural communities which rely on them.
Trump, by contrast, has delivered policies which increased the price of ethanol by 20 per cent just in the past month.
While Fran Coombs, managing editor of Rasmussen polls, sees the numbers this year as very similar to 2016, when Hillary Clinton and Trump were neck and neck to the end.
After trailing Biden by as much as 12 points in Rasmussen’s daily national poll, Trump pulled ahead by one point yesterday. The margin of error is 2.5 per cent, but the trajectory is in the right direction.
Coombs says Florida, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina and Ohio are too close to call.
His polls find Trump is the most important issue on the ballot, followed closely by the economy.
“The level of Trump hatred is mind boggling,” he says.
As a result, the “shy” Trump vote is up, with Republicans 10-15 points less likely than Democrats to divulge their voting intentions.
Coombs suspects some Trump voters also are deliberately misleading pollsters.
Marko says the economy still is the No.1 issue for voters.
An NBC/WSJ poll earlier this month found Trump leading Biden on the “better dealing with the economy” question 48-41.
“The [Democrats’] strategy to only use COVID response against Trump’s economy was an absolute disaster … as people vote with their pay cheque and rarely ideology.
“The fear inducing lockdowns have run their course, as the public is desperate for normalcy.”
Primarily the corn kernel is used for ethanol production.
The US Department of Energy: Biomass Resources:
"...There are many opportunities to leverage agricultural resources on existing lands without interfering with the production of food, feed, fiber, or forest products. Agricultural crop residues, which include the stalks and leaves, are abundant, diverse, and widely distributed across the United States. Examples include corn stover (stalks, leaves, husks, and cobs), wheat straw, oat straw, barley straw, sorghum stubble, and rice straw. The sale of these residues to a local biorefinery also represents an opportunity for farmers to generate additional income..."
President Donald Trump signaled Tuesday that he will not take strong action against Saudi Arabia or its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The White House has been struggling to square a widespread sense that the crown prince directed the killing with a desire for Saudi support for its foreign policy priorities and the need to manage close relationships between bin Salman, the Trump administration and members of Trump's family.
In an exclamation-mark laden statement subtitled "America First!" Trump said on Tuesday that "our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event -- maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"
Speaking to the press later in the day, Trump cited the Kingdom's influence over oil prices and said, "if we abandon Saudi it would be a terrible mistake." He also said he was "not going to destroy the economy of our country" over Khashoggi by giving up arms deals to Saudi Arabia.
"It's a very simple equation for me. I'm about make America great again and I'm about America first," Trump said.
"We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Trump said in his statement. "In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran."
Less than an hour after the statement, Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden to pardon two turkeys for Thanksgiving. He did not mention the journalist's murder.
The President's statement sets up a clash with lawmakers from both parties who have called for harsh measures against Saudi Arabia and expressed deep reservations about US support for the Kingdom's war in Yemen. It once again pits Trump against his intelligence agencies and bolsters a regime that has admitted to killing a vocal critic and member of the press.
Lawmakers noted there is a cost to ignoring "our moral voice," as Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was more pointed.
"I'm pretty sure this statement is Saudi Arabia First, not America First," Paul tweeted.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said, "I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia."
President Donald Trump left several thousand of his supporters stranded at Eppley Airfield after his event in Omaha Tuesday night.
After the President boarded Air Force One and departed the state, many of the attendees, some of whom waited more than four hours to listen to him speak, stood in the freezing temperatures on a private road in the middle of the airport.
According to a Twitter account named “Omaha Scanner,” police officers located two groups of elderly Trump supporters shortly after the event ended who were struggling in the cold. One group was reportedly frozen in the cold and unable to move.
Another complaint included a call for a medic to assist a 68 year-old man who complained of hypothermia and possibly had an altered mental status.
The event itself seemed poorly planned from the beginning.
Trump’s campaign told his rally-goers to arrive at Eppley at 4:30 p.m. By then, cars were lined up for miles trying to get into the airport, and the security team was directing people in circles.
At one point, security said the South Economy parking lot where the cars were being directed to was full, and pointed people toward the north lot. Security at the north lot then directed the cars of people, who had already waited in line once, back to the South Economy lot.
The security team then told people who started parking in a cell phone lot across the street from the South Economy lot that they may be towed.
Most ignored the warning and proceeded into the South Economy lot, where they found thousands of people standing in four separate lines to get onto charter buses.
People were directed to stand in the long lines to get on charter buses that would drive them to the event. It took well over two hours to get through the line.
Once at the event, people walked a few blocks toward tents where volunteers took everyone’s temperatures.
Attendees were led through another one- to two-hour long queue to get inside the event.
Trump landed at the airport and began speaking while thousands of people were still waiting in the queue to get in the event.
Some started shouting for the line to move faster, and some began saying they needed to use the restroom and threatened to relieve themselves while waiting in line.
While Trump left the event quickly in Air Force One, attendees were stuck for hours outside in freezing cold temperatures in the dark.
Trump was visiting Nebraska to secure his standing in the state’s 2nd congressional district (largely Omaha-based), which could flip to Joe Biden next week as Nebraska awards some of its electoral votes per congressional districts.
Some Iowa politicians were on hand for the rally, which was right over the Iowa border. Sen. Joni Ernst, however, did not get a chance to speak to the crowd despite being locked in a very tight reelection race.
Dow drops over 800 points as COVID cases and election concerns rise
What’s driving the market?
Stocks came under heavy selling pressure Wednesday as Germany and France announced further restrictions on business activity in an effort to contain the rise in COVID-19 cases and the U.S. saw the number of new cases hit records.
New daily U.S. cases rose back above 70,000 on Tuesday after hitting a record above 80,000 at the end of last week. The U.S. has reported a record 500,000 cases over the past week, the New York Times reported, while the seven-day average of confirmed new cases hit a record of 69,967 on Monday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
“The market weakness is caused by the COVID-19 case increases in this country and lockdowns in Germany and probably France,” James Ragan, director of Wealth Management Research at D.A. Davidson, told MarketWatch. “The fear is that it spreads to the U.S., in terms of new lockdowns, and if that derails the economic recovery.”
Add Mike Pence and Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the lying GOPers begging me for money for Rump, the liar in chief.
"Anonymous Desperation! said...
Add Mike Pence and Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the lying GOPers begging me for money for Rump, the liar in chief."
sad, TTFers are so sad
just think how sad they will be next week
they have only a few days left to pretend...
Joe Biden wants to take one of the great American success stories of the last several decades — and drive it into the ground.
He would turn his back on the stupendous wealth represented by proven reserves of oil and gas in this country.
Rather than focusing on producing cheap, abundant energy — a key ingredient to human progress through all of human history — he would embark on the fool’s errand of trying to adjust the world’s thermostat 80 years from now.
After a 50-year effort to diminish our reliance on Middle Eastern oil, which has miraculously happened at last, Biden would force America to transition to solar and wind, industries currently dependent on Chinese supply chains.
Whereas California has embraced the radical goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2045, and has drastically increased the price of energy in the state already, Biden has seen and raised the Golden State’s gambit by embracing a goal of 2035.
All this was underlined by Biden’s statement at the end of last week’s debate that he wants to transition from oil, which constituted a gaffe only for anyone who hadn’t been paying attention to his Green New Deal-inflected energy plan.
It’s a funny time to want to kneecap oil and gas. Proven reserves of natural gas in the United States are higher than ever before, thanks to American-made technological innovations. A couple of years ago, the United States surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia in crude-oil production. In recent years, petroleum and natural-gas exports have been increasing. And, of course, the rise of natural gas has cut US carbon emissions.
This should be considered a national strength to be built on, not a national shame to be put on a glide path to extinction. Fossil fuels are tremendously useful source of energy, and no hype about renewables can obscure that reality.
In 2019, petroleum, natural gas and coal accounted for 80 percent of overall energy consumption in the United States, according to US Energy Information Administration. Renewables made up only 11 percent, and the bulk of that came from biomass (wood and biofuels) and hydroelectric. Despite being heavily subsidized, wind and solar combined were responsible for only about a third of our renewable energy.
As the Danish economist Bjorn Lomberg points out, the share of US energy that comes from renewables declined over the last century. The rise of fossil fuels were a boon to humanity, a major advance over those old renewables, wood and dung.
“Over a century and a half,” Lomberg writes, “we shed our reliance on renewable energy and powered the Industrial Revolution with fossil fuels.”
The oil and gas industry should also be prized as a source of good American jobs. Petroleum engineers make about $137,000 a year, pump system and refinery operators, $72,000 a year, wellhead pumpers, $58,000, and roustabouts $44,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The idea that we are going to transition to wind and solar painlessly is a fantasy. Germany has been spending tens of billions a year trying to make this happen. Its renewable-energy program has doubled the cost of energy, while fossil fuels still account for about 80 percent of its energy supply.
If we think eschewing fossil fuels is going to convince other countries to do the same, we are fooling ourselves. Like in the United States, the industrial takeoff in China coincided with a jump in the use of coal. China is still building coal plants at a furious clip. The Middle Kingdom has plans to add more than the current US coal-fired capacity on top of its already prodigious use of coal, which accounts for more than half of the world’s total.
The Biden plan is an assault on American ingenuity and wealth, not to mention common sense. At least after last week, no one can say he wasn’t warned.
So why is Donald going to win? Because he won in 2016 with pretty similar ratios. These last three weeks in particular the spread was about the same as in 2016. Now Donald has poured it on. His voice has never cracked, and he has been a human dynamo. Joe Biden stayed close to his basement and prayed that no more stories would come out about Hunter’s sweetheart financial deals with the Chinese and no more evidence from Hunter’s laptop about setting aside a percentage of his deals for “the Big Guy.”
Yet I have further reasons for believing Donald will win next week. In the Republican primaries more people voted for just one candidate, Donald Trump, than turned out for all the Democratic candidates. The enthusiasm for Donald is not just a matter of turnout at airports where he flies in and flies out. It can be tabulated in the electoral turnout at primaries. Throughout this race the enthusiasm for Donald has been colossal. For Joe it has been comparatively feeble. And there is more.
Last week I reported that 56 percent of people polled by Gallup in late September affirmed they were better off now, amid a painful pandemic, than they were four years ago before Donald entered the White House. Another 56 percent of Americans said the economy was the most important issue for them in the race. And still another 56 percent of Americans said they expected a Trump victory. Forgive me for jumping to conclusions, but I too am expecting a Trump victory. Apparently I am not alone. Last week Michael McKenna, who writes for the Washington Times, was equally fetched by these 56 percenters. Maybe I will not be so lonely this election day.
The only thing that could overthrow my calculations is voter fraud. There are an awful lot of blank ballots floating around out there.
In a healthy Democratic Party, Joe Biden’s primary opponents would have cared about his family’s documented habit of trading on their powerful last name, almost certainly with the former vice president’s knowledge. People can disagree over the scale of the corruption, whether it reflects only on Hunter and James or on Joe as well, but it’s unequivocal that influence peddling has been a steady pursuit for the Bidens.
Even as the corporate media downplays recent revelations about Hunter, The New York Times reported new documents from Tony Bubulinski that “show that the countries that Hunter Biden, James Biden and their associates planned to target for deals overlapped with nations where Joe Biden had previously been involved as vice president.”
“The records make clear that Hunter Biden saw the family name as a valuable asset, angrily citing his ‘family’s brand’ as a reason he is valuable to the proposed venture,” the Times noted. That name trading seems to have been explicit in some cases, as even Ben Smith of the Times tweeted on Tuesday.
Here’s part of an NBC News report from last October:
As he accompanied his father to China, Hunter Biden was forming a Chinese private equity fund that associates said at the time was planning to raise big money, including from China. Hunter Biden has acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and his partner in the fund during the trip, although his spokesman says it was a social visit.
The Chinese business license that brought the new fund into existence was issued by Shanghai authorities 10 days after the trip, with Hunter Biden a member of the board.
Hunter Biden took Air Force Two to meet with a Chinese banker who also happened to be his business partner, and 10 days later their fund’s license was approved, but we’re supposed to believe it was a “social visit”? And we’re supposed to believe the veep had no clue his son was meeting with business partners on their trip to China?
Crucially, we know Joe Biden lied about his knowledge of Hunter’s overseas business. There is, unfortunately, even some evidence he received financial benefits from it. The lie alone is reason for suspicion.
The point is that Democrats were negligent not to press this issue during the primaries. The evidence had been clearly reported by The New York Times, NBC, and other major outlets.
We’re certainly learning more now about Hunter’s work in places like Ukraine and China, but his intent to make money off the Biden name in either country was known to Democrats and media while his father was running in the primary. Curiously, however, Biden’s opponents pretty much ignored the entire story. This is incredible given that merely demonstrating Biden’s knowledge of the dealings would have been damning.
It’s also incredible given that Biden was competing against a slate of staunch, allegedly anti-establishment progressives who decried the influence of money in politics. Meanwhile, the son of their opponent, who happened to be the former vice president, was caught selling access to his father’s administration, raking in hefty sums based on this perceived ability to influence policy for a fee. Beyond being a powerful campaign attack, the issue raises serious questions about Joe Biden’s commitment to ethical conduct.
But nobody wanted to touch it. The negligence was so glaring that even Ezra Klein wrote a story last October headlined, “Sorry, but Democrats need to talk about Hunter Biden.”
is the sound your bubble will make next Tuesday.
""RCP Average of polls said...
Biden +7.1"
you guys are repeating your mistake of 2016
averages don't measure momentum, which is on ...rump's side, at precisely the right time"
If momentum is on Rump's side, why does today's RCP average of general election polls show Biden is now +7.5%?
Numbers are also going up for BIDEN/HARIS 2020 in the Top Battleground states.
GOPers made the mistakes of ignoring their own autopsy report and falling for a con man liar like Rump.
With US covid numbers over 70,000 per day, hospitalizations up, stock market numbers careening, huge voter turnout, and rump repeating his same old tired lies, it could be a BIDEN/HARRIS 2020 landslide.
It's just a jump to the left
"If momentum is on Rump's side, why does today's RCP average of general election polls show Biden is now +7.5%?
Numbers are also going up for BIDEN/HARIS 2020 in the Top Battleground states."
the race has tightened somewhat in Georgia and Florida after Biden visited
but he won't be able to keep up with Trump's energetic pace
"GOPers made the mistakes of ignoring their own autopsy report and falling for a con man liar like Rump."
an incumbent is rarely challenged
especially when he's had the success Trump has had
"With US covid numbers over 70,000 per day, hospitalizations up, stock market numbers careening, huge voter turnout, and rump repeating his same old tired lies, it could be a BIDEN/HARRIS 2020 landslide."
actually, the COVID lockdown mentality of the Dems is what's getting old to voters
COVID cases are not as significant as mortality and the Trump decision to pour billions into research rather than do an extended national lockdown has driven mortality down to a fraction of what it once was
the US has tested so much more than any other nation that cases are an unreliable stat to compare
look at positivity rates
Testing has nothing to do with hospitalizations.
Illness does.
Hospitalizations are up because more people are getting seriously sick with COVID.
Utah’s hospitals prepare to ration care as a record number of coronavirus patients flood their ICUs
With record COVID-19 hospitalizations, Wisconsin opens overflow facility
COVID-19 updates: Dallas County sees highest rise in hospitalizations since August
Florida adds 4,471 COVID-19 cases and 77 deaths as hospitalizations rise in South Florida
Get out of your bubble of bullshit and see what is happening.
"Testing has nothing to do with hospitalizations.
Illness does.
Hospitalizations are up because more people are getting seriously sick with COVID."
no one denies that
just not as much as the cases are up
and much less likely to result in death
because of the actions of the Trump administration, mortality is way down
the season has changed so, up north, and in Europe, so more cases are likely
but effective treatment is available and the vaccine will be here soon
Biden's proposals will destroy our economy
at this point, people know what to do if they want to avoid the disease
btw, because of masks and physical distancing is so widespread, the flu season is likely to be mild
Trailing in the polls and with little time left to change the trajectory or closing themes of the presidential race, President Trump has spent the final days of the campaign complaining that the coronavirus crisis is getting too much coverage — and openly musing about losing.
Trump has publicly lamented about what a loss would mean, spoken longingly of riding off into the sunset and made unsubstantiated claims that voter fraud could cost him the election. He has sarcastically threatened to fire state officials if he doesn’t win and excoriated his rival Joe Biden as someone it would be particularly embarrassing to lose to.
“If I lose, I will have lost to the worst candidate, the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics,” Trump said at an Oct. 17 campaign rally in Janesville, Wis. “If I lose, what do I do? I’d rather run against somebody who’s extraordinarily talented, at least, this way I can go and lead my life.”
The president, who said at the same rally that “we’re not going to lose, we’re going to win,” has certainly not abandoned his showman’s approach to the campaign trail. But his unscripted remarks bemoaning a potential loss — and preemptively explaining why he might suffer one — offer a window into his mind-set as he barnstorms the country in an attempt to keep himself from becoming the one thing he so derisively despises: a loser.
Trump has told rallygoers he had the presidential race won until the pandemic hit, and he has accused media outlets of focusing on the ongoing health crisis to hurt him politically.
“Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media,” he tweeted Wednesday. “They will talk about nothing else until November 4th., when the Election will be (hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be how low the death rate is, plenty of hospital rooms, & many tests of young people.”
Trump has previously complained that Biden could win the race and then receive the benefit of glowing media coverage for overseeing the implementation of Trump administration policies on the coronavirus and other issues.
The president’s comments reflect his long-running failure to shift the nation’s focus from the rapidly worsening pandemic in recent months. As he has tried to build his campaign on other themes — including cracking down on racial-justice protests, making unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Biden and attacking the former vice president over energy policy — the coronavirus has continued to dominate American lives and news headlines.
His critics say Trump’s own inconsistent handling of the pandemic is one of the main reasons it has remained a key issue in the campaign for several months. With Election Day approaching, the virus is surging across the country, with record cases in recent days and growing hospitalizations and deaths. More than 227,000 Americans have died...
Coming off the worst quarter in history, the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace ever in the third quarter as a nation battered by an unprecedented pandemic started to put itself back together, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
Third-quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the total goods and services produced in the July-to-September period, expanded at a 33.1% annualized pace, according to the department’s initial estimate for the period.
The gain came after a 31.4% plunge in the second quarter and was better than estimates from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The previous post-World War II record was the 16.7% burst in the first quarter of 1950.
Markets reacted positively to the news, with Wall Street erasing a loss at the open and turning mostly positive.
Every time the Hunter Biden laptop scandal comes up, the media says "uncorroborated"
Yet, if confirmation by one of the people in the emails and a receipt from the computer shop signed by Hunter aren't corroboration, what would be?
WASHINGTON (SBG) - A justice department official has confirmed to Sinclair Broadcast Group that the FBI opened up a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden and his associates back in 2019, focused on allegations of money-laundering and that the probe remains active.
Sinclair investigative reporter James Rosen has also spoken with a central witness in these allegations, which suggests that former vice president Joe Biden knew more than he has acknowledged about his son's overseas dealings.
Tony Bobulinksi was thrust into the national spotlight on the evening of the final presidential debate.
It was on that night the former business associate of Hunter Biden claimed Democratic nominee Joe Biden knew about his son taking payments from Chinese and Ukrainian companies and strongly suggested he got a kickback.
Bobulinksi discussed why he feels if elected, Biden would be compromised by the Chinese government and much more in an exclusive interview with Rosen.
The compromise they have is that in documents that have been well provided to the Senate, to Congress, to the Department of Justice via the FBI that CEFC was effectively loaning money directly to the Biden family.
Bobulinksi said he was first introduced to the former vice president in May 2017 by Hunter and Jim Biden in Beverly Hills, California.
He said they talked about the Biden family business plans with China, despite the Democratic nominee on several occasions denying he had any involvement, including the final presidential debate when Biden said, “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life."
During his remarks that same night, Bobulinksi displayed three phones he claimed contained evidence against the Bidens that would be turned over to the FBI.
Less than a week later, Bobulisnki was interviewed by members of the FBI for several hours, where he says they went over each piece of evidence found on the phones.
My impression was everyone in that room was aware of the sensitivity of the parties involved and potential multiple impacts to this country and every citizen living in it.
A veteran of the United States Navy, Bobulinksi held a top-secret security clearance for several years.
When asked if China may be in possession of any potential evidence that could help shed light on these claims, Bobulisnki said the country might have information on the Biden's business dealings across the entire globe.
I can only imagine to the extent that the Chinese communist party has information on the Biden family and their business dealings. Other business dealings that occurred in Romania, Khazakstan, Georgia, Monaco and the Middle East, and then obviously topping off in Russia.
Bobulinksi said he decided to speak out publicly when he heard Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and other Democrats who suggested these allegations were part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Bigfoot conspiracy theorists and flat-earthers on Wednesday sought distance between themselves and those claiming the Hunter Biden pay-for-play scandal is “Russian disinformation.”
Written off as skullduggery, the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story now entangles his father, Joe Biden.
On Tuesday night, Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s ex-business partner, confirmed in an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s vice president was deeply involved in his son’s murky dealings in China. Carlson aired more recordings between Bobulinski and the Biden family on Wednesday night.
The final week is not a cozy one for Joe Biden, as 2016’s most accurate pollsters show the presidential race at a dead heat, and President Trump climbing in key states.
At the national level, the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD)/TechnoMetrica Institute of Politics and Policy (TIPP) presidential election tracking poll on Wednesday remains around four points between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, that gap flirting with just two points last week.
IBD says Trump now leads by eleven among seniors—a marked shift from earlier polls—while Biden’s support among black voters appeared to drop 10 points overnight. Biden is running nearly six points shy of Hillary’s 85-point black vote gap.
Interestingly, IBD says Trump’s support among Hispanics and Latinos is at 36 percent—a significant bump on his 28 percent showing four years ago.
Over at Rasmussen, the president’s approval rating hit 52 percent—five points higher than President Obama on the same day in 2012.
And Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll on Wednesday found President Trump has swung back into a one-point lead with 48 percent of the vote. The same poll on Tuesday had Biden two points up.
Biden was 12 points ahead according to that same metric four weeks ago.
Despite Big Tech’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, Rasmussen found 54 percent of Americans think Joe Biden was in on Hunter’s dealings. A majority in every demographic agrees, except one—Democrats.
Those findings came before Tucker Carlson’s interview with Bobulinski on Tuesday night.
Bobulinski told Tucker Carlson he twice met with the former vice president and came forward only when detractors smeared his name with that of “Russian disinformation.”
Asked if it was clear that Hunter Biden had told his father about the dealings, Bobulinski said: “Crystal clear.”
He added: “I didn’t request to meet with Joe. They requested that I meet with Joe—and Hunter says this in writing—they were putting their entire family legacy on the line. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were dealing with a Chinese-owned enterprise . . . that had strong financial and political support from the Chinese Communist Party, that’s how they read me in on this.”
Bobulinski took matters to the TV screen only after his repeated and time-limited requests for his name to be cleared from talk of Russian disinformation
Lil Wayne said that he had a "great meeting" with President Donald Trump on Thursday to discuss the Trump administration's proposed "Platinum Plan" for Black America, just days ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
"Just had a great meeting with (President Donald Trump) besides what he's done so far with criminal reform, the platinum plan is going to give the community real ownership," the rapper tweeted, along with a photo of himself with Trump. "He listened to what we had to say today and assured he will and can get it done."
The meeting between the president and the rapper took place at the Trump National Doral Miami resort, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.
As a business mogul, Trump was an icon in hip-hop music for more than three decades and rappers, including Lil Wayne, hailed his wealth and power in hundreds of lyrics.
Lil Wayne name dropped Trump in songs like "Racks on Racks," rapping, "get money like Donald Trump."
Trump administration's proposed "Platinum Plan" for Black America, just days ahead of the 2020 presidential election
Too bad it's too little too late.
Black Americans are fired up and flocking to the polls
Georgia Sees Surge In Black Voter Turnout
'2016 was the wake-up call':' Black voters in Milwaukee turn out for early voting after turnout decline 4 years ago
NC Black voter turnout up in 2020
Early vote shows signs of Black voters' shift to mail voting
DETROIT (AP) — Every day feels like a raw wound for Omari Barksdale.
His sister, Laneeka Barksdale, died of COVID-19 in late March in Detroit — and since then, so have more than 228,000 Americans. Many were Black Americans whose communities were disproportionately devastated by the virus.
Omari Barksdale, a Black man, watched with alarm as the toll of the country’s racial injustice mounted. People of color bore the brunt of pandemic-related job losses. Police shot and killed Breonna Taylor inside her Kentucky home, and a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into George Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd gasped, “I can’t breathe,” in his final moments.
The convergence of the pandemic, joblessness and police brutality has forced the U.S. to confront its centuries-old legacy of systemic racism this year. And for Barksdale and many Black Americans, it’s turned next week’s presidential election into a referendum on the future of race relations, an opportunity to take steps toward healing or the potential of a deeper divide.
“It feels like half of me was taken away,” said Barksdale, who, in the weeks after his sister’s death, began leading a team of volunteers canvassing Michigan voters. “For many years, we’ve had this commentary about how far we’ve come, but if you look at the landscape and dynamics right now of America, we’re back in the ’50s and ’60s. The reasons for protesting are the same now as they were then: for the protection of Black lives, the opportunity for Black lives, and the understanding and value of Black lives.”
Black voters will be decisive in shaping next week’s results. Democrat Joe Biden is relying on strong turnout among Black voters in cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee to tip critical swing states in his direction. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is focusing most of his effort on last-minute appeals to his core base of white voters.
As of Thursday, more than 79 million votes had been cast in the 2020 general election, with Black voters making up almost 9% of that total, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the political data firm L2. In North Carolina, a battleground state seeing high turnout across the board, 60% of Black registered voters have already cast a ballot.
“The soul of the nation is at risk,” longtime civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview. “Another four years of Trump would completely set us back and the advancements that we’ve made towards equal rights, human rights and civil rights. It would take us 20 or 30 years, a generation, to get back what he would cement.”
The election-year reckoning is the culmination of centuries of inequity and racism that far predates Trump’s political career. But Trump has pulled at the nation’s racial divide throughout his presidency.
He blamed “both sides” for 2017 violence between white supremacists and anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, and wondered why the U.S. was admitting so many immigrants from “shithole countries” like African nations. He said four Democratic congresswomen of color should go back to the “broken and crime infested” countries they came from, ignoring the fact that all of the women are American citizens and three were born in the U.S.
Trump was criticized in September for his initial refusal to outright condemn a far-right fascist group during a debate with Biden.
“Donald Trump is an unabashed racist who not only revels in his ability to mock, scorn and create harm, he denies any culpability for the consequences,” said Stacey Abrams, a voting rights activist and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate.
“I fear for our communities if he retains the seat of the presidency for four more years. I also have a deep worry that his continued occupation of that seat would result in those who intend us harm who will feel that they have carte blanche to do so,” said Abrams, who is Black. “My deep hope is that the demographic changes in our country, coupled with the consciences of white Americans who understand that he is wrong, they will actually do what’s right.”
Trump points to criminal justice reform, opportunity zones and funding for historically Black colleges and universities as examples of what he’s done for Black Americans, but many critics argue his claims are exaggerated or undermined by his comments.
After a summer of nationwide unrest that led to millions marching in the streets of America, Trump has billed himself as a leader who will restore “law and order” — an attempt to appeal to white grievances and allay white suburban fears.
Just this week, Trump’s presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said the president wants to help Black people in America, but they have to “want to be successful” for his policies to work, a comment that recalled racist stereotypes of Black Americans.
“What we see is when racism goes unchecked and becomes institutionalized publicly and becomes a part of our administration,” said Jessica Byrd, who leads the Movement for Black Lives’ Electoral Justice Project and The Frontline, a multiracial coalition effort to galvanize voters. “We’ve seen firsthand the way that a vocal minority can become an extremist power building faction.”
Biden has his own vulnerabilities on race. He has apologized for the poor treatment of Anita Hill when she testified before his Senate committee in 1991 to accuse then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. He’s also expressed regret about provisions of a 1994 crime bill he supported that has been blamed for incarcerating a generation of Black men.
But he’s put Black voters at the center of his 2020 campaign. His presidential hopes were rescued in February when Black voters in South Carolina rallied around him, powering him through Super Tuesday wins and helping deliver the Democratic nomination.
Unlike Trump, he has acknowledged systemic racism and has pledged to address it.
“Donald Trump fails to condemn white supremacy, doesn’t believe that systemic racism is a problem, and won’t say that Black lives matter,” Biden said Tuesday in Atlanta. “We know Black lives matter.”
In the final stretch of the campaign, Black voters are organizing to make sure their votes are counted. LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, said her organization has traveled across 15 states to galvanize voters, including in rural counties and smaller cities that are often ignored.
“America is at its tipping point,” Brown said. “We’re in a perfect storm of being at the intersection of a health pandemic, an intersection of a lot of uncertainty around the political future of this country, and the economic future of this country and blatant open racism. All of that is forcing us to deal with the evils of this country that we have not dealt with, which is quite frankly sexism and racism.”
But matters involving race are not only at the forefront for voters of color. As they’ve watched several forms of racial injustice collide this year, many white Americans have been forced to grapple with uncomfortable truths about racism.
Detroit resident Colton Dale, a 27-year-old white man who is the vice president of the Grosse Pointe Democratic Club and a lifelong Democrat, said he’s had conversations with family members and co-workers who support Trump. He’s spent time trying to convince them, as well as potential voters he encounters, of the “chaos” Trump’s presidency has caused.
”I think people, even Republicans and his supporters, they know who he is, especially four years down the road,” Dale said. “I just try to draw a contrast and say that we would be living in a better and brighter America under a Joe Biden administration as opposed to another four years of Trump. People are just ready to end this nightmare.”
The Biden campaign has also spent a significant amount of time and resources to connect with younger voters, who turned out in droves over the summer to protest police brutality and racism.
For the past several months, Tylik McMillan, the National Action Network’s national director of youth and college, has focused on educating first-time voters, college students and young voters who have been disengaged with the political process about what’s at stake.
“The reality is when I step out of these doors, we’re still just Black in America, and I can be the next George Floyd. I can be the next Ahmaud Arbery. And to have a leader at the highest office not understand that racism is real in this country, it’s a problem,” said McMillan, 24.
But regardless of the election’s outcome, America will be left to grapple with the “fault lines” and fractures of racism and inequity that have been made clear.
“Nov. 3 will be a referendum on Black lives, it will be a referendum on structural change, and will be a referendum on whether, when we are experiencing all of this chaos, are we going to look to one another for solutions and embrace one another or are we going to look towards one another with fear and suspicion?” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of Working Families Party, who is also a leader of The Frontline. “The movement, now the largest social movement in our country’s history, will be the story of 2020, whatever the outcome.”
Will black Americans not only reelect President Trump, but also write a new chapter of American political history?
Yes, that’s quite a question—one of cosmos-bending proportions. And so are the figures undergirding that statement.
According to Rasmussen, black Americans plan to vote for President Trump in larger numbers than in 2016. That’s not surprising.
Yet, we are not talking just a point or two adding to that year’s eight percent total, but a whopping 31 percent.
On Thursday, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll found 31 percent of black likely voters plan to vote for Donald Trump.
That number must be an anomaly, right? A typo?
Apparently not. That figure has surged since Monday’s 27 percent finding, in lockstep with black approval of President Trump in the last week rising from 37 percent, before peaking at 46 percent, and settling on Thursday at 38 percent.
If that figure holds up—even half that figure—political history will be made. In the last ten presidential elections, the highest black vote share for a Republican was Bob Dole’s twelve percent in 1996.
Rasmussen’s national poll on Thursday found it was Biden’s turn to lead by one point with 48 percent of the vote, however.
On Wednesday, Trump had an identical 48 percent to 47 percent lead, while Biden led by two the day before. Biden led by 12 points according to that same metric four weeks ago.
Rasmussen also found the president’s approval rating remained at 52 percent—three points higher than President Obama on the same day in 2012.
At the national level, the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD)/TechnoMetrica Institute of Politics and Policy (TIPP) presidential election tracking poll on Thursday remained around four points between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, that gap flirting with just two points last week.
IBD says Trump now leads by four among seniors, solidifying a marked shift since the final presidential debate, while Biden’s support among black voters lags behind the 90 percent he needs to win. The Democratic nominee is running shy of Hillary’s 85-point black vote gap.
Interestingly, IBD says Trump’s support among Hispanics and Latinos is at 35 percent—a significant bump from his 28 percent showing four years ago.
Yet the shy vote question in that poll finds 45 percent think most of their neighbors will vote for Trump, and just 38 percent think their neighbors will mostly back Biden.
But what is most interesting in all of this polling is Rasmussen’s findings and there is no way of overstating this. If around 30 percent of black Americans vote for President Trump, black America will not only rewrite the next political chapter but rewrite the entire political book.
Even half of that figure, depending on the states in question, would condemn Democrats to sure defeat. It would mean around two million more black Trump voters than in 2016.
Robert Cahaly, chief pollster at Trafalgar, says his team, which popularized and uncovered the shy Trump voter theory, agrees with Rasmussen’s findings, and thinks recent endorsements of Trump from 50 Cent, Ice Cube, and other black celebrities, have helped unshy black Trump voters.
Of course, the reason black Americans are surging toward President Trump is because he has delivered on his promises. It might seem old-fashioned in the age of identity politics and victimology, but one’s melanin count tells us absolutely nothing about a person.
And President Trump has made good his promises to black America.
Before the pandemic, black unemployment was at a record low. Wages for black workers and all workers were rising for the fastest rate in a decade, especially for the lowest paid.
Poverty rates for black Americans and Hispanic Americans reached record lows. President Trump delivered record funding for historically black colleges. Perhaps most significantly, Trump secured criminal justice reform.
This is the same President Trump Democrats insist is a white supremacist. If President Trump is a white supremacist, he is doing an awful job.
Even left-wing CNN pundit Van Jones admits this, recently saying that President Trump “doesn’t get credit” for these achievements. People on Twitter, those who fancy themselves “allies” of black Americans, tried to cancel Jones for his heresy.
Last week, Jones appeared on Jake Tapper’s daily CNN broadcast. He said:
“I think it’s really unfortunate because Donald Trump, and I get beat up by liberals every time I say it but I keep saying it, he has done good stuff for the black community,” Jones said.
“Black college stuff, I worked with him on criminal stuff, I saw Donald Trump have African American people, formerly incarcerated, in the White House—embraced them, treated them well. There is a side to Donald Trump that I think he does not get enough credit for.”
Well, if those black vote figures hold up, President Trump will get more than enough credit.
oh please....
Maybe Trump helped blacks economically and eliminated Biden's anti-black crime bill and gave black colleges ten years of funding and fights for school choice so black kids can hope for a decent education.
But Democrats have done more important stuff, like paint slogans on street!
The United States on Thursday hit a new record for a single-day increase in coronavirus infections with nearly 90,000 new cases reported, according to data collected from Johns Hopkins University.
On Thursday, the U.S. had 88,521 new coronavirus cases, an increase of 9,540 from the number of new infections recorded Wednesday.
The Johns Hopkins University data shows that since the pandemic first hit the U.S., there have been a total of 8,947,830 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country and at least 228,656 deaths.
The university recorded 971 deaths on Thursday.
"This is the hardest point in this pandemic right now — the next two months," Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said during an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. "We can't give up our guard right now."
According to a recent analysis from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine, about 2,250 Americans could be dying every day from COVID-19 by the middle of January.
"If states do not react to rising numbers by re-imposing mandates, cumulative deaths could reach 514,000 by the same date," the IHME said in its latest forecast.
"The fall/winter surge should lead to a daily death toll that is approximately three times higher than now by mid-January,” the institute added. “Hospital systems, particularly ICUs, are expected to be under extreme stress in December and January in 18 states."
This data comes as the COVID Tracking Project on Thursday reported a new U.S. record of more than 500,000 infections recorded this week.
Twenty-five states have set a new record for cases in the last two weeks, including 17 states with record highs since last Wednesday.
According to the tracking project, hospitalizations nationally have risen to an average of almost 43,000 people, up from around 30,000 at the beginning of the month.
"Oh please, Rump's magical thinking is killing us -- especially minorities -- in record numbers that keep growing"
nothing magical about the billions Trump has poured into research that has lowered mortality and will yield a vaccine soon
as for minorities, they always do worse in crisis because they are disproportionately disadvantaged
Trump is the first President in fifty years to significantly make strides toward economic empowerment for minorities
you may not know that, but minorities do
MIAMI — Democrats are sounding the alarm about weak voter turnout rates in Florida’s biggest county, Miami-Dade, where a strong Republican showing is endangering Joe Biden’s chances in the nation’s biggest swing state.
No Democrat can win Florida without a huge turnout and big winning margins here to offset losses elsewhere in the state. But Democrats are turning out at lower rates than Republicans and at lower rates than at this point in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won by 29 percentage points here and still lost the state to Donald Trump.
One particular area of concern is the relative share of ballots cast by young voters of color and less-reliable Democratic voters. Part of the problem, according to interviews with a dozen Democratic elected officials and operatives, is the Biden campaign‘s decision to discourage field staff from knocking on doors during the pandemic and its subsequent delay in greenlighting — and funding — a return to door-to-door canvassing.
“We did not get the kind of funding for different vendors who would do that type of work until late in the campaign,” said Rep. Frederica Wilson, a party institution who represents Miami’s heavily Black congressional district.
"as for minorities, they always do worse in crisis because they are disproportionately disadvantaged"
Yes we are, by institutional racism keeping whites on top while Rump tells us "there are good people on both sides."
But as usual, Rump is lying to us.
It's the Rump side that includes racists.
That's why he blows all those dog whistles trying to get racists to vote for him.
We all hear him blow them regularly.
Polls show President Donald Trump’s support in America’s suburbs has plunged, especially among women.
So on Tuesday night, he launched a desperate appeal to those voters during a campaign event in Pennsylvania.
“Suburban women, would you please like me? Please. Please,” he said. “I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?”
Trump bragged that he made it more difficult to build low-income housing in the suburbs.
“I ended the regulation that destroyed your neighborhood. I ended the regulation that brought crime to the suburbs,” he declared Tuesday. “And you’re going to live the American dream, and that’s what you’re going to do.”
Critics have decried Trump’s constant claims of “saving” the suburbs as little more than a dog whistle vow to keep people of color out of those neighborhoods.
It's abundantly clear what he's talking about saving "your damn neighborhood" from, people of color.
Just crawl back in your bubble and quit embarrassing yourself.
White House Watch
Biden 49%, Trump 46%
Friday, October 30, 2020
Democrat Joe Biden has taken a three-point lead over President Trump in Rasmussen Reports’ daily White House Watch survey.
The latest national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows Biden with 49% support to Trump’s 46%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate, while two percent (2%) are still undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
On the last Friday before Election Day in 2016, Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton were tied at 44% each in Rasmussen Reports’ daily White House Watch.
Yesterday, Biden had a 48% to 47% lead, while Trump had an identical 48% to 47% advantage the day before. The race has been tightening since early in the month and has been neck-and-neck this week.
Rasmussen Reports has been releasing White House Watch weekly on Wednesdays since the beginning of July. But starting this week, White House Watch is being posted daily at 10:30 am Eastern.
Trump earns 79% support among Republicans. Biden has 78% of the Democrat vote and a three-point lead among voters not affiliated with either major party.
A moderator from NBC News affiliate KSNT in Topeka, Kansas, called out a local politician, and Twitter is here for it. It all started when Republican Congressman Roger Marshall, who is running for Senate, ignored the news channel’s invitations. KSNT invited both Kansas Sen. Barbara Bollier and Marshall to a debate, only to hear back from Bollier in regard to it. During the segment, the moderator clarified that Marshall was contacted not just once but multiple times.
”One candidate agreed to appear. We want to be clear that we emailed, called, and even sent a certified letter to Congressman Marshall inviting him to participate tonight but he ignored the request,” the moderator said. “And as part of that we were clear with the candidates we would have just one candidate on to answer questions if just one agreed to participate.”
She then accompanied her statement with a nice presentation slide depicting the dates Marshall was contacted, but that wasn’t all—she brought the receipts. In a bold and baus move, the moderator pulled out the receipts for the certified letters sent to Marshall on Sept. 29. She even had a tweet from Oct. 26 enlarged on the screen in which Marshall alleged he had a prior commitment on the day of the debate.
All this came after Marshall blatantly lied to KSNT’s sister station, Southeast Kansas, and said that the debate seemed like a “set up” since he was not aware of it until the day before. This moderator was not down to take his shit and called him out on live television, and people loved it.
Pulling out the receipts, she said: “Just to be abundantly clear and to be completely transparent, this right here is a receipt showing we sent Congressman Marshall a letter by certified mail on September 29. We also—Bob, as we know, had just seen the tweet that showed on Monday, whether it was Congressman Marshall or someone from his campaign, that he did say that he had prior obligations, which is why—so not sure why he's saying that he thought this was maybe some type of set up or maybe something we dropped, but definitely not the case.”
Moments after the clip was posted on Twitter, replies on how savage the moderator was flooded the thread. Check it out for yourself.
Trump says Biden is dodging. Fair. So when will Trump answer these important questions?
“THIS SHOULD be all the media is focused on,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” She was not talking about the coronavirus, health care or whether President Trump will accept the results of an election he loses, but about the possibility that Democrats might expand the Supreme Court if they won the presidency, the Senate and the House. “That’s all we should be talking about,” she insisted.
Well, no. The question of court reform is important. Though he has opposed court expansion in the past, Mr. Trump’s challenger, Democrat Joe Biden, has declined to answer clearly whether he would favor it in light of the GOP’s race to jam Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the high court just before Election Day. Mr. Biden should stop dodging the question. But this is hardly the only unanswered question to which voters deserve answers.
For example: To whom does the president owe $421 million? The New York Times only two weeks ago revealed, based on decades of Mr. Trump’s tax returns, that the president is in debt to this alarming extent. Who are his creditors? Are there Russian oligarchs or other foreign interests among them? This is an unanswered question with potentially grave implications for U.S. national security.
“His financial situation presents a significant counterintelligence risk — because the millions of dollars he owes over the next few years put his very financial solvency at risk,” wrote former acting CIA director Michael Morell and former assistant attorney general for national security David Kris in a Post op-ed. If he were not elected president, and were instead applying for a government job, “Trump would have been denied a clearance.” What policy might the president change to make him more capable of paying back these debts? What would he have to do for them to be forgiven? And when will the president make good on his pledge to release his tax forms, so Americans can see in black and white whether he lied about their contents?
These, too, are questions the media should be focused on.
Here’s another: Will Mr. Trump accept the results of the presidential race? So far he has refused to commit to this or even, when asked by Chris Wallace at the first presidential debate, to decline to incite civil unrest.
Then there’s the question of how Mr. Trump would protect people with preexisting medical conditions if, as he desires, the Supreme Court eliminates Obamacare. Or why Mr. Trump mysteriously visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last year, which he has never explained. Or why he hid the details of meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin from even his top aides.
Americans should not simply accept that Mr. Trump will never answer these and many other enormously consequential questions, let alone focus entirely on one non-answer from his challenger.
Pastor accused of paying teen boys to perform sex acts with wife, Michigan cops say
Rev. Stricjavvar 'Strick' Strickland, a prominent Kalamazoo pastor is accused of paying teenage boys, between 15 and 17 years old, to perform sex acts with his wife while he watched and pleasured himself, media outlets in Michigan report.
Evangelical conservatives like claim gays are perverts but by that standard they are just as perverted.
Some of the worst erosion of Trump's voter support has been among older voters, those with a college education and women.
Such changes could force a long-term political realignment, according to William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Clinton administration. Voters who are breaking their ties with the GOP to back Democratic challenger Joe Biden could make a temporary move permanent if they like what they see in a Biden presidency.
“This could be an extremely significant election in that regard because that would mean a shift in the plate tectonics of politics in the United States,” Galston said. “This could be a big one.”
One group of former Republicans who are giving up on reshaping the party is the Lincoln Project, which has run some of the toughest ads against Trump as well as gone after Senate Republicans on the ballot.
“There are a lot of folks who might be very interested in rebuilding the Republican Party,” said Reed Galen, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project who worked for President George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain. “We are not them.”
Galen sees the Lincoln Project as being a “coalition partner” with a Biden administration.
“If you want to get the country healthy and back to work and back to school, it’s going to take a broad-based, bipartisan, nationwide effort to make it happen,” he said. “To the extent that we can be helpful to a President Biden in that regard, we want to do that.”
The Lincoln Project gleefully tweeted recently that its 2.6 million followers had surpassed the Republican National Committee’s 2.5 million.
To get a real sense for how this election is going, you need to ignore the national polls in establishment media that have Joe Biden poised for a decisive victory.
Look, instead, at the enthusiasm on the ground for Donald Trump and the economic optimism he represents.
Try driving from Manhattan through the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania to Weirton, West Virginia, and talk to voters who have driven from three states to join a grassroots “Trump Train” car rally.
It only takes about seven hours, but the journey takes you from the capital of Trump Derangement Syndrome to a place where people proudly dress head to toe in clothing with the president’s face emblazoned on it.
Weirton, over the border from western Pennsylvania, and Steubenville, across the river in Ohio, are ground zero of the deindustrialization of America. Rusting factories on the banks of the Ohio River give the place a dystopian feel.
When steel and auto jobs were shipped off to China, despair turned into opioid addiction.
But under Trump’s “America first” policies, steel furnaces restarted, manufacturing jobs began to come back, and oil and gas boomed. A giant ethane “cracker” plant sprang up outside Pittsburgh, with more to come in Ohio and, locals hope eventually, if the greenies can be stopped, in West Virginia.
This re-energized economy, albeit with a pandemic pause, accounts in large part for the loyalty many former Democratic voters feel toward the president today.
“I support Trump because he’s pro-life, he supports the right to bear arms and because he supports my livelihood, which is oil and natural gas,” says Ohioan Jason Laster, 44, a maintenance foreman for Southwestern Energy who joined the Trump Train in Weirton.
“I just feel like he’s done great things for the country already. And, four more years, if we can get Nancy Pelosi to quit trying to impeach him, then I feel like he’s gonna do a bunch more great things.”
Ohio hog farmer Ross Miller, 39, who brought to Weirton his farm truck festooned with Trump paraphernalia including two life-size wooden carvings of the president, is confident of victory.
“He’s done everything that he said he would do when he was campaigning. So everybody’s saying, you know what, this guy did this for the first 3½ years. Let’s see what he’s going to do for another four years.”
A Biden win next week is not the impression you get from the anemic turnouts for the former VP’s occasional forays out of the basement, where a dozen people stand dutifully inside social-distancing circles or sit in cars, feebly honking their horns.
In fact, when Biden does venture outside Delaware, he’s likely to find exuberant flag-waving Trump supporters lining the route of his motorcade, drowning out his remarks with chants of “Four more years.”
A Biden win is not the impression you get from the thousands of ecstatic supporters at airport rallies the president is doing up to three times a day.
It’s also not the impression of the handful of pollsters who didn’t wind up with egg on their faces in 2016.
Fran Coombs, managing editor of Rasmussen Reports, sees the numbers this year as very similar to the 2016 presidential election, when Hillary Clinton and Trump were neck-and-neck to the end.
In its daily national tracking poll Wednesday, Rasmussen had Trump ahead of Biden by one point for the second day running, after trailing by as much as 12.
The margin of error is 2.5 percentage points, but the trajectory is in the right direction.
Coombs says polls have picked up a “level of Trump hatred that is is mind-boggling” and accounts for a high “shy” Trump vote. Republicans are 10 to 15 points less likely than Democrats to divulge their voting intentions.
Florida-based political consultant Albert Marko, a former pollster who advises hedge funds, also sees Trump repeating his 2016 victory.
He calculates the president will lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College with 306 votes to Biden’s 232, scooping up the top battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona.
Marko says the economy is the No. 1 issue for voters.
“The Democrats’ strategy to only use COVID response against Trump’s economy was an absolute disaster … as people vote with their paycheck and rarely ideology.
“The fear-inducing lockdowns have run their course, as the public is desperate for normalcy.”
An NBC/WSJ poll earlier this month found the one area where Trump led Biden was in “better dealing with the economy,” at 48 percent to 41.
With Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes key to a Trump victory, Biden blew it last week when he admitted at the presidential debate that he would kill off, or “transition” out of, the oil industry, the lifeblood of the state.
Only 22 percent of Pennsylvania voters had cast a ballot by the time Biden said that and you can bet his threat to their jobs will boost turnout.
For Laster, the comment just reinforced his mistrust of the Democrats. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have already said that one of the main agendas they’re going to have is to eliminate fracking.”
“That’s what supports this entire panhandle, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky … It’s huge on coal, natural gas and steel … and you can’t have a great America without it.”
Ohioan Bob Baker, 68, echoed the sentiment. “We need Donald Trump in here because there’s a lot of jobs on the line, especially the gas and oil Harris and Biden don’t want.”
Harley-riding Vietnam veteran Keith Moore, 64, from Dayton, Ohio, is more certain now than he was in 2016 of a Trump victory.
He is “doing a bang-up job and he’s kept us out of a war … And he keeps his promises.”
To forgotten Americans let down by politicians for as long as they can remember, the nonpolitician from Queens is the answer to their dreams.
Hillary Clinton says the thought of Donald Trump winning the election makes her “literally sick to my stomach.”
That’s an extreme reaction for a seasoned politician. Perhaps she feels physically unwell at the prospect of four more years of Trump because she knows she will have to account for the role she played in launching the Russiagate scandal.
She and her fellow swamp-dwellers would be well advised to stock up on Pepto-Bismol.
Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre has thrown his support behind President Trump, joining other athletes who have recently endorsed his reelection.
The Super Bowl champion and three-time most-valuable player announced that he was voting for Trump over Twitter on Friday morning. His endorsement comes a day after fellow former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler also signaled support for Trump, bucking the trend of other major athletes who have been vocal about their opposition to the president.
“My Vote is for what makes this country great, freedom of speech & religion, 2nd Amnd, hard working tax paying citizens, police & military. In this election, we have freedom of choice, which all should respect. For me & these principles, my Vote is for @RealDonaldTrump. #Vote,” said Favre, who is primarily known for his time with the Green Bay Packers.
Cutler, who primarily played with the Chicago Bears, shared golf legend Jack Nicklaus’s statement endorsing Trump on Thursday over Instagram, adding the caption, “Never a doubt.” Nicklaus expressed support for the president in a lengthy social media post earlier this week.
“I have had the privilege over the last 3 1/2 years to get to know our current President a little more as his term has progressed. I have been disappointed at what he's had to put up with from many directions, but with that, I have seen a resolve and a determination to do the right thing for our country,” Nicklaus said in his endorsement.
“He has delivered on his promises. He's worked for the average person. In my opinion, he has been more diverse than any President I have seen and has tried to help people from all walks of life — equally,” he added.
October 28, 2020
With just a few days left until Election Day, do Allan Lichtman’s “13 Keys” still predict a Joe Biden victory? Or have events this fall changed the way the keys turn?
Lichtman, AU Distinguished Professor of History, made headlines in 2016 when he accurately predicted that Donald J. Trump would win the race for the White House. It was considered an incredible feat, given that all other major election forecasters got it wrong.
But this time around, Lichtman’s prediction agrees with all of the other models: he says that Joe Biden will become the next President of the United States.
Lichtman bases his predictions on 13 Keys that he developed in collaboration with Vladimir Keilis-Borok, a Russian expert on earthquakes. Their 13 keys have accurately predicted every US presidential race since 1984.
To develop the keys, Lichtman and Keilis-Borok analyzed presidential elections over the past 120 years, and they based their prediction model on earthquake models. If just six of the 13 keys turned against the incumbent, they are in for a loss. Right now, Lichtman says, Trump has seven keys turned against him.
We asked Lichtman to describe how the keys are turning right now, and how the pandemic, the fight for racial justice, the economy, and other issues affect our presidential elections.
In 2016, your 13 keys correctly predicted a Trump win. In 2019, the keys pointed towards another Trump win. But that has now changed. How many keys are turned against Trump right now?
There are seven keys turned against Trump, one more than is needed to predict his defeat according to the Keys to the White House system that has correctly predicted the outcomes of presidential elections since 1984. The negative keys are:
Key 1, Mandate Key, because of Republican losses in the midterm elections of 2018.
Key 5, Short-Term Economic Key, because of an election-year recession.
Key 6, Long-Term Economic Key, because of the sharply negative growth this year.
Key 8, Social Unrest, because what is raging across the land.
Key 9, Scandal, Trump is only the third American president to be impeached by the full US House of Representatives.
Key 11, Foreign/Military Success, because of the lack of an acclaimed success abroad.
Key 12, Incumbent Charisma, because Trump appeals only to a narrow base...
Continues at https://www.american.edu/cas/news/13-keys-election-prediction.cfm
"It was considered an incredible feat, given that all other major election forecasters got it wrong."
there were actually a few places that got it right in 2016
those others are predicting a Trump victory this time, which is why you pretend they don't exist
more people voted for Trump in primaries than all the Dem candidates combined
56% of Americans think they are better off now than 4 years agp
56% of Americans think the economy is the most important issue
56% of Americans think the President will win
GDP in the third quarter has grown by more than has grown in a quarter
RCP Average of polls has Biden + 7.9
Rump 43.5 Biden 51.4
"RCP Average of polls has Biden + 7.9
Rump 43.5 Biden 51.4"
the polls at this point in 2016 had Hillary up by similar margins
she kicked back that weekend with some chablis in the hotel suite and made arrangements for the big celebration
four problems:
first, the overall margin is meaningless unless the geographic distribution is taken into account- we don't elect Presidents by national popular vote - a candidate whose support is not widespread across the land doesn't stand a good chance
two, there is an element that is embarrassed to admit, even to pollsters, that they think Trump is the best choice- he is a puerile narcissist who can't get along with anyone for more than 48 hours, tops- but there are people who still think they'll be better off with him as President and will vote for him anyway- our votes are secret
three, most pollsters assume how many people are Dems and Repubs and sample accordingly - during this volatile season, voter registration has changed this ratio daily
four, the GOP always closes strong, for reasons not entirely clear
So, Wyatt and Regina are back with a bunch of reasons why Trump is sure to win. Just like back in 2008 they had 10 reasons why McCain was sure to win and in 2012 they had a pile of reasons Romney was sure to win.
What a couple of losers.
Hahahahzahahahahahahahahahaha!
As COVID cases near 9 million, it's past time to end the catastrophic Trump presidency
Our country is living through a tragedy of unthinkable magnitude.
COVID-19 has hammered the world, but America — with 4.25% of the world’s population — has suffered a quarter of its cases and fatalities.
Other developed nations, such as Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, have suffered greatly but have now managed to control the spread of the virus. Here, though we have the world’s most advanced economy and medical and scientific capabilities, COVID continues to run rampant. On Wednesday, led by surges in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California, America officially passed 3 million cases.
It is no secret why. America’s tragedy results from the largest failure of presidential leadership in our history. Donald Trump threw out the pandemic response playbooks left by his predecessors; weakened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the virus; promised its early disappearance; fantasized about miracle cures; and then, after a series of uninformed television briefings, chose to declare victory and pronounce the problem over.
He defied the warnings of public health experts and showed contempt for social distancing and wearing masks. He has created misunderstandings and sowed division by encouraging Americans to rebel against the reasonable public health measures put in place by their governors and mayors. He's trying to end insurance coverage for millions, and on Tuesday, as America set a record for new daily cases, he began to officially withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization.
An unhinged leader at a time of crisis
If that record of misjudgment, negligence, incompetence and lying was not enough, in his recent rallies in Tulsa and Phoenix, Trump knowingly exposed thousands of Americans to disease and death so that he could receive their applause. He acts more like the leader of an apocalyptic cult than a president.
America faces the gravest possible challenge, with an increasingly unhinged leader. Along with most other Americans, I have tried to comfort myself knowing that the election is coming and that Trump is virtually certain to be defeated.
No links for your RUMP +56 trifecta of polls?
Figures.
In addition to leading in the general polls, Biden is also up in the RCP Averages of Polls in five out of six of Top Battlegrouds:
Florida
Biden + 1.2
Biden 48.4 - Rump 47.2
Pennsylvania
Biden + 3.7
Biden 49.4 - Rump 45.7
Michigan
Biden + 6.5
Biden 50.0 - Rump 43.5
Wisconsin
Biden + 6.4
Biden 50.3 - Rump 43.9
North Carolina
Biden +1.2
Biden 48.5 - Rump 47.3
Arizona
Rump + 0.6
Biden 46.8 - Rump 47.4
Mitch McConnell’s approval drops nationwide despite political win with Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has taken a hit among Americans with nearly half saying they feel worse about the senatorâs job performance over the last four years, according to a new poll.
Only 16 per cent of respondents said they felt better about Mr McConnell, a Republican senator for Kentucky, and his job performance over the last four years. This compared to 44 per cent of respondents saying they feel worse about his performance, according to an Independent poll with JL Partners.
The poll surveyed 1,002 Americans across the country from 26 October to 28 October.
Respondents were asked about how several key political figures â including Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, and Lindsey Graham â have fared in job performance over the last four years since the 2016 election.
Mr McConnell received the worst performance review in net terms compared to other political figures respondents were asked about for the poll.
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign cancelled a rally in Texas after “armed" Donald Trump supporters reportedly threatened a bus.
Dozens of trucks flying the Trump 2020 banner were filmed surrounding the Biden coach with one allegedly ramming a Democrat vehicle as they travelled down a highway.
The convoy of “Trump Trucks” have been reportedly harrassing the Democrats as vice-presidential candidate, senator Kamala Harris, completed a whistle-stop three-city tour of the Lone Star state in a last-minute bid for votes.
Ahead of the visit Donald Trump Jr urged his father’s fans to give Kamala Harris a “nice Trump train welcome” and show her “how strong Texas is. Texas is Trump country".
Local Democrats said they were forced to cancel the rally scheduled to take place in Pflugerville – a small city about 17 miles north of Austin – due to "security reasons".
Sheryl Cole, a Democrat member of the Texas House of Representatives, said she was forced to cancel a rally with the young Democrats.
"This is a first for me," said Ms Cole of the decision to scrap the event. "Unfortunately, pro-Trump protesters have escalated well beyond safe limits. Sorry to all who looked forward to this fun event," she added.
Dr Eric Sevini, volunteering for the Democrats, said that the Trump trucks had been waiting on the highway to ambush the Democrat bus.
He tweeted: “These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road. They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car.”
The Biden bus had been closely followed by Trump supporters while on the road, though Texas Democrats insist their presence didn't affect their decision to call off the downtown Austin rally.
Rafael Anchía, a member of the Texas House of Representatives, said some of the agitators had been carrying weapons.
"Armed Trump trolls harassing Biden Bus on I-35, ramming volunteer vehicles & blocking traffic for 40 mins," he said, before accusing Mr Trump's son Eric of inciting "violence".
"At least the Trump hearse is appropriate given the 200K+ Americans who have died due to his incompetence," he added, referencing a vehicle driven by Mr Trump's supporters to antagonise the bus.
Texans have already cast more ballots in the presidential election than they did during all of 2016, an unprecedented surge in a state that was once the country’s most reliably Republican, but may now be drifting toward battleground status.
More than nine million ballots have been cast in the nation’s second most-populous state, exceeding the 8,969,226 cast in 2016, according to an Associated Press tally of early votes from data provided by Texas officials.
It is the first state to hit the milestone. This year’s numbers were aided by Democratic activists challenging in court for, and winning, the right to extend early voting by a week amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trump campaign and Trump Train group have been contacted for comment.
"a bunch of reasons why Trump is sure to win"
never said Trump is sure to win
I said Biden wasn't sure to win
Biden, and most Dems, agree with me
"Just like back in 2008 they had 10 reasons why McCain was sure to win"
of course, back then, TTF acted like McCain was leading a band of white supremacist thigs
now, they act as if he was the patron saint of moderation
"and in 2012 they had a pile of reasons Romney was sure to win."
Obama misused they IRS to harass groups that opposed him in 2012
it was an extremely close election and that factor accounted for Obama's re-election
Dems are fakes and cheaters
"What a couple of losers.
Hahahahzahahahahahahahahahaha!"
don't judge Randy too harshly
everyone in the nuthouse says this, verbatim, all the time
"As COVID cases near 9 million, it's past time to end the catastrophic Trump presidency
Our country is living through a tragedy of unthinkable magnitude."
cases don't matter, deaths do
Trump has brought the mortality rate down
"Other developed nations, such as Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, have suffered greatly but have now managed to control the spread of the virus."
clearly, regardless of where Randy copied this from, the information is dated
"Donald Trump threw out the pandemic response playbooks left by his predecessors;"
Obama failed at the only pandemic he dealt with
60 million Americans were infected when he tried to stop it
he's only lucky that the flu wasn't a bad strain
"weakened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;"
the CDC is still opwrating
"refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the virus;"
he repeated what his scientific team told him
Fauci said the same thing at the time
"promised its early disappearance;"
and how did that make it worse, you moron
"fantasized about miracle cures;"
he threw out a few ideas that researchers could follow
our irresponsible media twisted his words and caused many deaths
overall, his researchers have made significant progress
"and then, after a series of uninformed television briefings,"
the briefings were helpful at the time
"He defied the warnings of public health experts"
a lie
"and showed contempt for social distancing and wearing masks."
Fauci and the Dems did this
at the beginning, Fauci told everyone masks didn't work
eventually, a couple months later, people had been taking social distancing and wearing masks seriously and the Dem governments blew it by encouraging mass protests
"He has created misunderstandings and sowed division by encouraging Americans to rebel against the reasonable public health measures put in place by their governors and mayors."
many governors and mayors, who are not health experts, have not enacted reasonable public health measures or followed the science
in DC, the mayor says people have to wear masks whenever they leave the house
that has no scientific basis
most health experts say it is very unlikely to catch the virus by touching surfaces and most local officials require establishments to sanitize the entire place daily
worst is Andrew Cuomo
he required nursing homes to take contagious individuals, causing tens of thousands of deaths
further, he didn't close the subways, a literal test tube for spreading the virus
and, though scientists said the ventilation systems of large apartment buildings spreads the virus from apartment to apartment, he discouraged people from getting utside and closed parks
The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies
Date Written: October 30, 2020
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of large group meetings on the spread of COVID-19 by studying the impact of eighteen Trump campaign rallies. To capture the effects of subsequent contagion within the pertinent communities, our analysis encompasses up to ten post-rally weeks for each event. Our method is based on a collection of regression models, one for each event, that capture the relationships between post-event outcomes and pre-event characteristics, including demographics and the trajectory of COVID-19 cases, in similar counties. We explore a total of 24 procedures for identifying sets of matched counties. For the vast majority of these variants, our estimate of the average treatment effect across the eighteen events implies that they increased subsequent confirmed cases of COVID-19 by more than 250 per 100,000 residents. Extrapolating this figure to the entire sample, we conclude that these eighteen rallies ultimately resulted in more than 30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19. Applying county-specific post-event death rates, we conclude that the rallies likely led to more than 700 deaths (not necessarily among attendees).
Link:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3722299
Texas Republicans asked the state’s Supreme Court to throw out more than 100,000 ballots that have already been cast just days before the next U.S. presidential election.
A lawsuit filed earlier this week by two GOP candidates and a Republican member of the Texas House asked the Texas Supreme Court to throw out drive-thru ballots, arguing such voting was illegal. The case is currently being handled by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston.
The lawsuit could jeopardize the votes of more than 115,000 voters in Harris County, which includes Houston, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court already smacked down multiple attempts to stop citizens from drive-thru voting. The new complaint seeks to invalidate votes that have already been cast.
“Allowing an illegal voting scheme that invites corruption and fraud is tantamount to voter suppression because legal votes will be nullified by illegal votes,” the lawsuit, filed in part by Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, said.
The lawsuit argued that drive-thru voting goes beyond what the Texas election code permits for curbside voting because the code’s “narrowly defined categories” do not include drive-thru voting during a pandemic.
“Despite the fact that the Texas Election Code restricts curbside voting to specific and narrowly defined categories of voters Defendant — using the COVID-19 pandemic as his pretext — is permitting any and all Harris County registered voters to vote curbside or drive-thru and vote in violation of the Texas Election Code,” the lawsuit argued.
The lawsuit added that 100,000 “illegal drive-thru votes” had already been cast.
Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, named as the defendant in the lawsuit, said the plan was legal and approved by the Texas Secretary of State.
“We’ll keep saying it: Drive-Thru Voting is safe, completely legal and the plan was approved by the Secretary of State. Every vote cast by registered voters will be counted,” Hollins tweeted Wednesday.
The push to invalidate the ballots ― in a state and county that have seen record-breaking turnout of early voters ― is especially alarming given that conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas signaled earlier this week that they may favor throwing out some ballots after the election. Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a similar opinion.
Abhi Rahman, a spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party, told the American-Statesman that this week’s petition was filed by “cowards.”
“They are a disgrace to our state and our country,” Rahman told the publication. “They are so afraid of losing this election because Texans are rising up.”
Austin lawyer C. Robert Heath argued in a memo prepared for Harris County that the purpose of state voting laws is to preserve the right to vote, not take it away.
“If a court or other authority were to decide to invalidate those votes, it would require ignoring or overruling more than a century of Texas law,” Heath said.
The case now goes before conservative Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court, who scheduled an emergency hearing for Monday morning, Slate courts reporter Mark Stern tweeted Saturday.
Mike Bloomberg, among other billionaires and fat cats, have been pouring money into Biden's campaign. They are starting to develop excuses why there efforts will fail:
(Bloomberg) -- Senior officials on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign are increasingly worried about insufficient Black and Latino voter turnout in key states like Florida and Pennsylvania with only four days until the election, according to people familiar with the matter.
Despite record early-vote turnout around the country, there are warning signs for Biden. In Arizona, two-thirds of Latino registered voters have not yet cast a ballot. In Florida, half of Latino and Black registered voters have not yet voted but more than half of White voters have cast ballots, according to data from Catalist, a Democratic data firm. In Pennsylvania, nearly 75% of registered Black voters have not yet voted, the data shows.
The firm’s analysis of early vote numbers also show a surge of non-college educated White voters, who largely back President Donald Trump, compared to voters of color, who overwhelmingly support Biden.
The situation is particularly stark in Florida where Republicans currently have a 9.4% turnout advantage in Miami-Dade County, a place where analysts say Biden will need a significant margin of victory to carry the state
Republican President Donald Trump has taken over the lead in Iowa as Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden has faded, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows just days before Election Day.
The president now leads by 7 percentage points over Biden, 48% to 41%. Three percent say they will vote for someone else, 2% aren't sure and 5% don't want to say for whom they will vote.
In September's Iowa Poll, the candidates were tied at 47% to 47%.
The poll of 814 likely Iowa voters was conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines from Oct. 26-29. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., said while men are more likely to support Trump and women to support Biden, the gender gap has narrowed, and independents have returned to supporting the president, a group he won in 2016.
"The president is holding demographic groups that he won in Iowa four years ago, and that would give someone a certain level of comfort with their standing," she said. "There's a consistent story in 2020 to what happened in 2016."
Another laptop tied to Hunter Biden was reportedly obtained by the Drug Enforcement Administration earlier this year.
Sources told NBC News that the device belonging to the 50-year-old son of former Vice President Joe Biden, who is now a presidential candidate, was taken into custody by the DEA in February while executing a search warrant in the Massachusetts office of a psychiatrist who was accused of professional misconduct.
That former celebrity psychiatrist, Keith Ablow, saw his medical license suspended after he faced allegations of sexually exploiting patients and illegally diverting prescription drugs. Ablow has denied the allegations and has not been charged with any crime.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not immediately return a request for comment. The Washington Examiner also reached out to the DEA for comment. Hunter Biden has struggled with substance abuse. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy in 2013 after testing positive for cocaine.
Another laptop and hard drive that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden was given to a computer shop owner in Delaware to repair last year. The hardware was never retrieved, the owner said, and they were obtained by the FBI. A copy was also given to Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has shared the contents, which include emails, photos, and other data, with the media in recent weeks.
Joe Biden and his presidential campaign have denied claims that he was aware of any foreign business dealings by his son, as is suggested in the computer materials. But neither the former vice president nor his son Hunter has denied the authenticity of the computer materials.
Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski told Tucker Carlson of Fox News this week that it was “disgusting” that his claims about Hunter and Joe Biden's brother, James, pursuing a lucrative Chinese business deal using the Biden family name were being associated with claims of “Russian disinformation” by Democrats such as Joe Biden and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
During the final presidential debate last week, Biden cited how 50 ex-intelligence officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan, signed on to a letter related to the Hunter Biden laptop story, claiming that it “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” while admitting that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.”
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said this is, has all the — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage," Biden said after President Trump brought up the "laptop from hell."
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said earlier this month that he has not seen evidence showing the laptop and emails are connected to the Kremlin. “Let me be clear: The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that, and we have shared no intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It is simply not true,” Ratcliffe said
An unparalleled four-year battle over Donald Trump’s shock election and disruptive presidency raced to a suspenseful conclusion this weekend, as the candidates blitzed an expanded 14-state battlefield with ads and rallies that presented radically divergent visions for the nation.
Democrats at all levels remained privately terrified of another surprise result. Republicans put their faith, once again, in the president’s showmanship as he mounted a final series of irreverent rally spectacles, hoping to motivate a massive late surge of turnout.
Four years ago, Trump broke through traditionally Democratic states along the Great Lakes to upend the electoral college map and preside over a Republican majority in Congress, leaving his opposition with little formal power.
Large teams of partisan lawyers prepared to litigate ballot counts should races end up close, their eyes on a series of court rulings concerning deadlines for mail-in ballots and other legal questions that could spark a drawn-out courtroom drama in the days and weeks after the voting ends.
The two candidates’ contrasting approaches to viral danger provided the starkest choice for the country, as the president blamed Democratic governors for throttling the economy by ignoring the guidance of public health leaders.
“I just want normal life,” Trump said Friday at a rally in Wisconsin, a state gripped by epidemic spread. “You do, too.”
Biden, by contrast, called for a new national effort to fight the pandemic with mask mandates and warned of a deadly winter if Trump is reelected. Biden’s campaign has refused to plan mass rallies, choosing socially distanced events, with supporters honking their approval from cars instead of applause.
Republican advisers argued that the president would have a positive effect, by projecting optimism.
“If you’re just tuning into this campaign, you see one candidate cheerfully entertaining an adoring crowd of thousands three times a day, while the other is yelling at parked cars,” Republican strategist Josh Holmes said of the advantage Trump is achieving. “You’d be forgiven if you assumed Trump was about to win in a landslide.”
Inside the Trump campaign, advisers admitted they still trailed in polls, skeptical of their chances of winning Michigan. But they think they have better shots in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and are confident about Florida and North Carolina. Arizona is close to even, two Trump campaign officials said, taking a more optimistic tone than the public polling.
The Biden campaign has been focused on getting mail-in ballots returned and turning out less frequent voters, a younger and more diverse crowd, on Election Day.
“This is exactly what we expected in a lot of ways. We have tremendous early-vote enthusiasm,” said Jenn Ridder, national states director of the Biden campaign. “The race is competitive and we expect it to narrow in the last few days.”
While Biden offered a broad message about restoring American values to national leadership, Trump’s final message, focused less on persuasion than on turning out Trump’s base, along with similar voters who sat out 2016 but have been targeted and in some cases registered to vote by a large Republican field operation. They are also counting on Democratic turnout to disappoint on Election Day, particularly among Black and Hispanic voters.
“Many observers are missing what a gamble it is for the Biden message to be 10 percent pro-Biden, 90 percent anti-Trump,” Trump 2016 campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said. “It’s mystifying that Biden has become increasingly negative and even Obama has traded in ‘hope and change’ for ‘harangue and complain.’
Looks like the Trump trolls are getting desperate and cranking on the spamulator.
I guess they don't like the electoral college maps putting Biden in the 300 range.
Can't wait to vote. Looking forward to sending the Cheeto Benito on to his next reality show: The Biggest Loser.
Trump's coronavirus response was, and continues to be, criminally negligent
Trump initially denied the coronavirus existed.
Then he said it would go away like magic. Then he said we have it under control. Then he explicitly said we should slow down testing because the numbers were making him look bad.
Then he attacked the scientists and suggested that injecting bleach might be a good idea. Then he said masks were bad and lockdowns tyrannical. Then he said we're "rounding the corner," which he's insisted over and over and over for the past eight months. Then he got COVID.
Now his chief of staff Mark Meadows admits they've just given up.
In between all that, Trump put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of securing the nation's restocking of personal protective equipment.
Kushner in turn tasked a small group of resourceless 20-somethings with personal laptops and Gmail accounts to do all the work. It didn't go well.
A recent study out of Columbia University estimated that at least half of the US death toll could have been avoided if the US had used the same COVID-mitigating policies and protocols as Canada. That didn't happen, and now 220,000 Americans and counting have died of the virus, and we couldn't escape to Canada if we tried.
As Trump said at the onset of the pandemic, in March, "I take no responsibility." To drive the point home, he's been purging inspectors general — the independent watchdogs of government — for months.
And as he says now, with the country still a COVID basket case, "The Fake News Media is riding COVID, COVID, COVID, all the way to the Election. Losers!"
Objectively, Trump is a liar, and he's incompetent, and he's caused untold destruction to his country. You'd have to be deranged to look at the available evidence and come to a more charitable conclusion.
"Looks like the Trump trolls are getting desperate and cranking on the spamulator."
yeah, you got it
we're desperately trying out the spamulator
I might turn it on again later today
I assume, since you're so sure Biden will win, you don't mind
"Can't wait to vote. Looking forward to sending the Cheeto Benito on to his next reality show: The Biggest Loser"
you haven't voted yet?!?!?!?!?
what a loser!!!!!!!!!
have fun waiting in line for hours!!LOL!!!!!!!!!
"Trump's coronavirus response was, and continues to be, criminally negligent"
People who have history of being , ahem, detained in nuthouses, tend to get sloppy with the language
no, we don't criminalize policy differences here in the greatest democracy in the world
"Trump initially denied the coronavirus existed."
no, he didn't
"Then he said it would go away like magic."
a little loose rhetoric
although, not as bad as Randy's egregious use of the term, "criminally negligent"
it some sense, it is already fading
cases are up, but mortality is down
"Then he said we have it under control."
when was that?
"Then he explicitly said we should slow down testing because the numbers were making him look bad."
he said we should slow down testing because the numbers were creating the false impression that America is worse off than other countries, causing panic and skewing sound decision-making
we have conducted five times as many tests as the country in second place, India
what good has it done?
"Then he attacked the scientists"
he only attacked scientists when they over-reached, trying to dictate policy rather than providing information
good for him
"and suggested that injecting bleach might be a good idea."
he suggested scientists looked out how bleach might be injected to localized areas to kill an infection
much like targeted radiation and poison chemotherapy is used for cancer patienst
"Then he said masks were bad"
it said blanket mask mandates were bad when they forced people to wear them in unnecessary circumstances
he's right
"and lockdowns tyrannical."
they are
and the World Health Organization agrees
the only time lockdowns work is when they are tyrannical
China welded the doors of the sick shut so they couldn't escape
it was very effective
we'd rather pursue a better way
there's no easy way to be free
anyone who thinks otherwise belongs in a nuthouse!
"Then he said we're "rounding the corner,""
as we are
mortality is down and a vaccine is imminent
"Then he got COVID."
a couple of dozen people from the SCOTUS announcement party got it
and none died
again, mortality is down
"In between all that, Trump put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of securing the nation's restocking of personal protective equipment.
Kushner in turn tasked a small group of resourceless 20-somethings with personal laptops and Gmail accounts to do all the work. It didn't go well."
it actually went great
during the peak they resisted pressure from states who wanted more than they needed, and as a result, there was plenty for all
"A recent study out of Columbia University estimated that at least half of the US death toll could have been avoided if the US had used the same COVID-mitigating policies and protocols as Canada."
speculation and "study" aren't synonymous
tell us what Canada did
"Objectively, Trump is a liar, and he's incompetent, and he's caused untold destruction to his country. You'd have to be deranged to look at the available evidence and come to a more charitable conclusion."
the Dem lockdowns have caused more damage than anything else
odd that a person with a nuthouse record would dare to call others deranged
Just got this from Joe Biden:
"Nate Silver’s latest model says Pennsylvania is the most likely state to decide who wins this election. But a brand new poll shows the race virtually TIED. It’s critically important for us to secure a lead in PA, but to do so we’ll need to expand our outreach and advertising. Everything we do to defeat Trump and the GOP up and down the ballot relies on your grassroots donations. That’s why I’m asking now: can you contribute $10 to help us win Pennsylvania and other key battlegrounds?"
He's admitting Pennsylvania is tied.
Joe, ten dollars won't save you now
it's over, Silver is right
you lost Pennsylvania when you dissed oil and gas and fracking at the last debate
America likes its energy independence
and you've lost America
Lindsey Graham says women 'have a place in America' and 'can go anywhere' if they are against abortion.
He previously similarly said black people can go anywhere in red states as long as they are conservative.
Lindsey Graham, like most Republicans believes liberals have no place in America. Republicans seek to benefit only their voters and the rest of Americans should be run out of town.
Days before U.S. election, Biden's lead widens in Rust Belt: Reuters/Ipsos poll
(Reuters) - Democrat Joe Biden's lead over U.S. President Donald Trump has widened a little in the final days of the 2020 campaign in three critical Rust Belt states that Trump narrowly won four years ago, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls released Sunday.
Biden leads Trump by 10 percentage points in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the presidential nominee is ahead by seven points in Pennsylvania. Biden has led Trump in all three states in every Reuters/Ipsos weekly poll that began in mid-September, and his leads have ticked higher in the each state over the past two weeks.
:Experts warn of ‘rapid increase’ in radical-right extremism and domestic terrorism following US election
Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms
Dozens of historians of fascism and authoritarianism have signed a letter warning that democracy “is either withering or in full-scale collapse globally”, and urging ordinary people to take action.
Related: Trump has gone a long way toward hindering democracy in other countries
“Democracy is extremely fragile and potentially temporary, requiring vigilance and protection,” the scholars wrote in the letter released on Sunday. “It is not too late to turn the tide.”
More than 80 signatories, including professors and other scholars at universities in the US, Canada, and Europe, do not agree on whether to label Donald Trump a “fascist”. The fragility of democracy worldwide, they write, will continue to be an issue “irrespective of who wins the American presidency”.
“Whether Donald J Trump is a fascist, a post-fascist populist, an autocrat or just a bumbling opportunist, the danger to democracy did not arrive with his presidency and goes well beyond 3 November 2020,” the scholars write, referring to election day on Tuesday, when Trump will face Joe Biden at the polls.
However, the historians warn, particularly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, “the temptation to take refuge in a figure of arrogant strength is now greater than ever”. They suggest citizens must be ready not only to defend democracy at the ballot box, but “if necessary, also through non-violent protests in the streets”.
“That’s the lesson, to not be complacent in moments like this,” said Jennifer Evans, a professor of German history at Carleton University in Canada and one of the lead organizers of the open letter. “This is a very dangerous time, and we all have a responsibility to prop up democracy.”
Among the many warning signs that democracy is at risk, the historians argue, are the spread of disinformation, inequality, the “politics of internal enemies” and politically motivated violence.
“We need to reveal and denounce any and all connections between those in power and those vigilante and militia forces using political violence to destabilize our democracies,” the letter urges.
Evans said she was particularly disturbed by the evidence of “the infiltration of the far right” in police and military organizations around the world, including in the US, Germany, and Canada.
Signatories to the letter include several authors who have commented on authoritarianism and fascism during Trump’s presidency, including Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University, and Jason Stanley, the author of How Fascism Works.
The radical right expects Trump to lose and they're gearing up for violence when that happens.
As David Frum said "When Republicans find they can no longer win elections they won't abandon conservatism, they'll abandon democracy.
41!
I’ve been covering American politics for a long time and I can’t remember a number that so dramatically altered the political community’s perception of a presidential campaign as that number did, last night, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
The source of the number was The Iowa Poll, which has been the gold standard for statewide polling in the United States for decades.
The number itself was the percentage of likely voters in Iowa supporting Joe Biden’s candidacy for president.
President Trump’s number was 48%, which put him ahead in the “horse race” by 7 percentage points.
There was nothing really remarkable about that, in context. Mr. Trump won the state in 2016 by nine percentage points.
What was remarkable was Biden’s 41%. What made it doubly disconcerting was the way The Des Moines Register accurately described the poll results:
“Republican President Donald Trump has taken over the lead in Iowa as Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden has faded…”
Faded! Could there be a more terrible word in the last week of a presidential campaign? Off the record, Democratic elected officials and campaign operatives and financial backers have been saying throughout the campaign that their biggest fear regarding the eventual outcome was Biden himself. They saw him as an especially weak candidate and worried that he wasn’t “a closer;” even if he was ahead going into the last week, victory could slip from his grasp.
Up until last night, Democratic elected officials and political operatives saw the presidential race standing at somewhere between a narrow Biden win and a “blue wave.” In their “blue wave” scenario, the Democrats would win both the presidency and a Senate majority and the Trump-McConnell nightmare would finally come to an end.
That was the other piece of bad news in last night’s Iowa Poll release. It showed that Republican Sen. Joni Ernst had pulled ahead of her Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield. Her lead (46%-to-42%) was within the margin of error, but it wasn’t Ms. Ernst’s lead that Democrats were focused on. It was the “faded” support for Ms. Greenfield, which almost exactly tracked the “faded” support for Joe Biden.
For Democrats, last night’s Iowa Poll was the worst possible news at the worst possible moment. It foretold close results in Wisconsin and Minnesota. It undermined the Biden campaign’s momentum and morale. And it fracked Democrats’ self- confidence.
What had seemed reasonably certain no longer seemed certain at all.
it's amazing to think the Dems are going to lose again
how stupid could one group of people be?
the judge to replace Stephen Breyer is already picked out
Why Joe Biden is Going to Win
It was a poll of a measly 814 likely Iowa voters conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines from Oct. 26-29. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
But by all means, put all your faith in those 814 likely Iowan voters speaking for the nation.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2020/10/31/election-2020-iowa-poll-president-donald-trump-leads-joe-biden/6061937002/
Biden leads all six surveys of Michigan voters released this weekend, and he tops 50 percent in four of them. He leads all five surveys of Wisconsin voters, by margins of three to eleven points. And he is ahead in five of six surveys of Pennsylvania voters released in the last two days, by margins of four to seven points; the lone exception is an InsiderAdvantage poll that has President Trump up two.
The Democratic nominee is also ahead of the Republican incumbent in three of four polls of Arizona voters and four of six surveys in Florida, two states that are essential to Trump’s path to a second term.
Trump is by no means guaranteed defeat, but he is clearly in worse position now than he was four years ago. Polls over the last weekend before the 2016 contest showed Trump trailing by slimmer margins in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and leading by a substantial margin in a state like Georgia.
This weekend's polls also showed Biden closer to or over the 50 percent mark nationally and in some battleground states, a point Hillary Clinton never managed to reach in 2016.
One significant difference: Polls tend to show Libertarian and Green Party candidates collecting higher shares of the vote than they actually end up with on Election Day.
Four years ago, support for former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee, collapsed in the final days as Trump appeared to capture much of Johnson’s support. This year, neither minor party has a candidate who has captured anything like the attention Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein received in 2016. That suggests the polls are a better reflection of reality, and less likely to miss some kind of hidden support that could break late for one candidate or the other.
Biden is building a new coalition
Biden’s lead comes from some unlikely groups — those who voted for Trump four years ago.
In key swing states and nationally, Biden leads among independents, white voters with a college degree, voters in the suburbs and seniors, all groups that favored Trump in 2016 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
Shifts among white voters with a college degree have been especially stark. In 2016, Trump led Hillary Clinton among those voters by six in Arizona, eight points in Michigan, 12 points in Wisconsin and 27 in Florida. Polls released this weekend show Biden leading among college-educated whites by three to 15 points in Arizona, 27 points in Michigan, 26 points in Wisconsin and four points in Florida.
Among independents, Trump beat Clinton in Georgia, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by margins ranging from three points to 16 points. Over the weekend, Biden polled ahead of Trump among the demographic in every survey released in those states by margins ranging from six points in an Emerson poll in Georgia to 28 points in a Muhlenberg College poll in Pennsylvania.
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom among the cognoscenti, history and current circumstances suggest President Donald Trump is going to defeat former Vice President Joe Biden — for some of the very same reasons he came from behind in 2016 to shock the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
It is understandable why conventional wisdom is getting this wrong again.
It is understandable why conventional wisdom is getting this wrong again. Trump is down in the polls, the nation’s demographics are continuing to change in ways unfavorable to Trump and Republicans, the coronavirus has wrought death and economic destruction throughout the land and Trump’s personality provokes stormy oceans of antipathy — perhaps most crucially among women and suburban voters.
But Biden and his campaign are making mistakes that will ensure little of this matters. And the polls are almost certainly wrong again. The only question is by how much.
The economy is turning around, playing to Trump’s strength. The president has made significant outreach to minorities, and a relative handful of Black voters switching from Democrat to Republican could help him secure states like Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. Not to mention that Trump — unlike Biden — is actually campaigning for the job.
Think of it. Clinton wandering around the woods near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., kicking herself for not appearing even once in Wisconsin. Meanwhile Biden is only now belatedly hitting the trail — a little. This is a risky experiment. Every modern presidential candidate has traveled as much as humanly possible — and then traveled some more. Meeting and speaking to voters — responsibly — is key. Biden is exploring the political equivalent of eating consommé with a fork.
Campaigning does not just reach voters. It imparts a sense of vigor, industriousness and sociability that people want in a leader. I don’t think Trump should be drawing so many people to celebrations that feature sardine-packed, mask-less supporters whose health is at risk. But his rallies suggest that better days are ahead — the theme of most winning presidential campaigns.
Thursday, there was a significant indicator that happy days may indeed soon be here again. The Commerce Department released the U.S. gross domestic product number for the third quarter, showing growth rate of around 33 percent. This will feed directly into Trump’s argument that he is best positioned to save the economy.
Trump complains endlessly about mail-in ballots, ignoring that they may help him. Many more Democrats are voting by mail than Republicans. But these ballots are more likely to be rejected because mistakes were made filling them out or they were late — or simply got lost.
And while the Covid-19 numbers are rising, this does not necessarily benefit Biden. Trump has been arguing that it is time to open up the economy and stop worrying so much about the spread of the virus. People have pandemic fatigue, and they are eager to go back to their regular, pre-Covid lives, even if this sometimes means endangering themselves or others.
And not only is Biden staying home, his army of volunteers and canvassers have been cooped up as well, doing outreach on their parents’ Wi-Fi instead of out seeing voters. The Biden campaign only recently emerged from the basement — with the exception of its leader — after Trump’s operatives had already spent months contacting voters on their doorsteps. Refusing to mobilize voters by showing up in their neighborhoods early and often is another likely ill-fated Biden experiment in ignoring modern campaign practice.
You also should not underestimate the vast amount of damage created by Biden’s second debate suggestion that he would eventually eliminate the oil industry. When moderator Kristen Welker asked him whether he would “close down the oil industry,” Biden answered “Yes,” he would transition from it. When Welker then asked why he would do that, he responded, “Because the oil industry pollutes, significantly.”
Although the economy may be on the upswing, the American public is still suffering, making this is a gaffe of historic proportions. Biden later walked it back, insisting, “We’re not getting rid of fossil fuels for a long time.” But his intention is clear. At the very least, the comment could well lose him Pennsylvania — where fracking has created tens of thousands of jobs.
Then there are the polls. Pollsters insist their surveys have been adjusted from 2016 to include more demographics that support Trump — though they may harbor new flaws. They are still unlikely to capture the vast enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden voters and fail to pick up the “shy Trump voters,” — people afraid to admit they back Trump — who may be shyer than ever.
The shy voter phenomenon could prove even more pronounced in 2020 than in 2016.
A bubbly volunteer calls on the phone and wants to know whom you are voting for. Do you want to admit to this person, perhaps an enthusiast of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or at least, a Taylor Swift fan, that you support the putatively racist, misogynist, greedy, white supremacist Trump? Of course not. “Biden!” You say. “Green New Deal! Leave me alone, goodbye!”
The shy voter phenomenon could prove even more pronounced in 2020 than in 2016. You could at least explain not voting for Clinton. She was unlikable to so many. Though inspiring fewer strong feelings, Biden is, at least, not as easy to despise. What’s more, Trump has been vilified for the past four years, giving voters less of an excuse to admit they’re still voting for him.
This could be particularly true for Black and Latino voters, who may not want to acknowledge supporting someone they have been told they must oppose. Expect Trump to far outpace his pathetic showing among Black voters in 2016, particularly Black men. Prior to the pandemic, Black unemployment had declined to record low levels. Trump has also signed and promoted major criminal justice reform legislation, resulting in the release of thousands of prisoners, including many African Americans.
Moreover, the polls are not as bad as they seem for Trump. At this point before Election Day, Trump is, on average, polling behind Biden in battleground states by nearly the same amount he trailed Clinton in 2016. Trump is going to win many of those battleground states again.
And, just like in 2016, the Electoral College and the presidency will follow
Those thugs in Texas looked just like ISIS caravans in their vehicles with their flags flying.
On the eve of what threatens to be the most contentious and potentially confusing Election Day in modern memory, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden retains a double-digit lead over President Trump in the final Yahoo News/YouGov poll of the 2020 campaign — a 10-point margin that’s more than three times as large as Hillary Clinton’s final polling advantage in 2016.
Yet most voters (51 percent) also expect Trump to refuse to concede if he loses the election — and more than three quarters (77 percent) worry that violence will break out in the coming days.
The survey of 1,501 registered voters, which was conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, found that 53 percent of likely voters have either already voted for Biden or plan to vote for him by Nov. 3. Just 43 percent of likely voters say they are casting their ballots for Trump.
On average, Biden leads Trump nationally by about 7 percentage points. Four years ago, Clinton led Trump byan average of 3.2 points right before the election. Clinton wound up winning the national popular vote by 2.1 points, 48.2 percent to 46.1 percent — even as a combined 77,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania put Trump over the top in the Electoral College.
Biden’s lead in the Yahoo News/YouGov survey is slightly smaller than it was two weeks ago (11 points) or one week ago (12 points). Yet the Democrat’s 10-point margin remains larger than it was in early October — and if it holds through Election Day, Biden would become the first candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984 to win the presidency by double digits. Trump, meanwhile, would become the first incumbent since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to lose by 10 points or more...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/523957-cook-shifts-eight-more-seats-toward-dems
"...in the president’s showmanship as he mounted a final series of irreverent rally spectacles"
Or as the medical community refers to them, "super-spreader events."
Biden +7 Over Trump In Final Pennsylvania Poll
Trump faces tall odds against him as the country has turned against his incompetence and corruption.
Video altered to make it look like Biden greeted wrong state
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-video-altered-58124115393828f85cd496514bba4726
It’s an awkward moment when a presidential candidate greets the audience at a rally and names the wrong state.
Fortunately for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, that didn’t happen to him this week, despite a widely shared video that appears to show him saying “Hello, Minnesota” to a crowd in Florida.
It turns out he was, indeed, in Minnesota. The video that was shared had been altered to change the text on a sign and the podium to refer to Tampa, Florida, instead of Minnesota.
What you need to know about this edited video and the falsehoods spreading around it:
CLAIM: Video shows Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden mistakenly saying “Hello, Minnesota” at a campaign event in Tampa, Florida.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The sign behind Biden in this video has been edited to add the words “Tampa, Florida” and remove the words “TEXT MN to 30330.” The podium has also been edited to add “FL” instead of “MN.” Original video from this event confirms that Biden was in Minnesota and addressed the correct state in his greeting.
right now, RCP average is Biden 6.5 nationally and 2.9 in swing states, both with down-trending arrows
those include averages over at least two weeks
the most recent poll listed, this morning by Susquehanna, has Trump ahead by 1 in Pennsylvania
you must have cherry-picked the Monmouth poll from Halloween
since then, 3 of 4 polls have Trump winning in the Keystone state
Capitol Insider: Why did DeWine (R. Gov. Ohio) ask Democrats to cancel March rallies, but not Trump now?
One week before Ohio was to hold its primary election in March, Gov. Mike DeWine said Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders should cancel rallies they had scheduled in Cleveland.
They complied.
It was the day after Ohio's first three coronavirus cases were confirmed and a state emergency declared.
Ten days before Ohio's general election, DeWine did nothing about President Donald Trump's rally in Circleville, which featured thousands of mostly mask-less people jammed together for hours.
It was the day a record 2,858 new daily COVID-19 cases were confirmed. (And by Friday, the daily number had surged to 3,845.)
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the most recent poll listed, this morning by Susquehanna, has Trump ahead by 1 in Pennsylvania you must have cherry-picked the Monmouth poll from Halloween".
Final Pennsylvania Poll Biden +7
Nope, it was released today. Which you would know if you had checked, but instead you made up a lie to try and make things look less bad for Trump.
An honest person doesn't cherry pick polls like you do, they favour the average of polls which has Biden handily in the lead in Pennsylvania. Which is not to say that Trump can't steal it with voter suppression and blocking counting all the votes. Trump can't win a free and fair election.
Get out and vote you people, this is your last chance to save your democracy and possibly millions of lives Trump will kill with Covid-19!
According to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls released on Sunday, Biden’s lead President Trump has increased a little in the final days of the campaign trail in key states that Trump won four years ago by a razor-thin margin. Biden is ahead of Trump by 10 percentage points in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the presidential nominee is ahead by seven points in Pennsylvania. Biden is ahead of Trump in all three states in every Reuters/Ipsos weekly poll that began in mid-September, and his leads have increased in each state in the last 14 days.
:)
Texas Sen. John Cornyn Uses Manipulated Video to Falsely Attack Opponent on Carbon Tax
Lies, lies and more lies.
"Why did DeWine (R. Gov. Ohio) ask Democrats to cancel March rallies, but not Trump now?"
that was before we turned the corner on COVID
a lot more people were dying then
"Final Pennsylvania Poll Biden +7
Nope, it was released today. Which you would know if you had checked, but instead you made up a lie to try and make things look less bad for Trump."
actually, at that time, the aggregator of polls I looked at had Monmouth's Halloween poll
which, strangely, had the exact same margin as today's
"An honest person doesn't cherry pick polls like you do, they favour the average of polls"
you must not be an honest person then
you cherry-picked the highest poll and didn't mention the average
here's documentation that you cherry-picked:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/pa/pennsylvania_trump_vs_biden-6861.html
so, by your own admission, you are dishonest
very dishonest
but that's nothing everyone here didn't already know
"which has Biden handily in the lead in Pennsylvania."
half the polls have Trump in the lead
you call that "handy"?
only a hardcore psycho would say that
if Biden were elected, it's doubtful he would be President in 2024
he'll either be dead, mentally unfit, or impeached and removed
I posted "Why did DeWine (R. Gov. Ohio) ask Democrats to cancel March rallies, but not Trump now?"
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "that was before we turned the corner on COVID a lot more people were dying then.
The exact opposite is true. Relatively few people were dying in march, well under 1000 a day. Now 1000 a day are dying and that number is increasing. You're lying again. Again we see Republicans demand Democrats follow the rules while they ignore them. The corruption of Republicans knows no bounds.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "you cherry-picked the highest poll and didn't mention the average"
I did mention the average and that Biden has a comfortable lead in Pennsylvania. I said one should favour the average of polls while you pretend the one poll most favourable to Trump is the only one that matters - you're lying again.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "half the polls have Trump in the lead you call that "handy"?".
Again you're lying. 6 of the 9 polls have Biden in the lead and that doesn't include the Monmouth poll from today that has Biden with a 7 point lead. Biden's average lead is 2.9% in Pennsylvannia. Its highly doubtful Trump can suppress enough of the vote and prevent enough of the vote from being counted to "win" in Pennsylvannia.
Handicapper’s Final Map: Biden 321, Trump 217
The Hill reports:
Sabato’s Crystal Ball predicts that former Vice President Joe Biden will win a commanding victory in the Electoral College on Tuesday, picking up the battleground states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, among others.
The nonpartisan election analyst blog published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics released its final projection for the 2020 election on Monday, indicating the Democratic nominee will win a number of states captured by President Trump in 2016.
Trump Loses Bid To Delay Nevada Ballot Counting
November 2, 2020 Trump Corruption, Trump Lies
The Nevada Independent reports:
A District Court judge has again blocked efforts by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and the Nevada Republican Party to delay the counting of mail ballots in populous Clark County over alleged issues with signature verification and observation plans
Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson issued the order Monday morning denying the request to halt mail ballot processing after a lengthy evidentiary hearing held telephonically last week.
The decision ensures that Clark County — by far the largest county in the state — will continue its process for counting and processing the record number of mail ballots submitted for the 2020 election, without any delays that could potentially bottleneck results on Election Night.
WH Officials Violated Hatch Act 60+ Times In October
CREW reports:
During the month of October, at least 16 Trump administration officials have violated the Hatch Act a total of more than 60 times, in an unprecedented and escalating assault on the rule of law and the democratic process.
President Trump has allowed — and encouraged — senior officials to use their government roles to take actions benefiting his re-election effort, in its final weeks and days as Americans are casting their ballots.
Beyond the 16 administration officials we identified who have committed clear violations of the Hatch Act, the White House appears to have also deployed cabinet members to swing states to tout Trump policies on the taxpayer dime, and pressured leaders of the State Department, FBI and DOJ to take actions against his political adversaries purely for his partisan benefit.
Read the full article.
The lawsuit attempting to disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in Harris County is patently wrong. All of us who believe in the core ideals of this country should want more votes counted and more voices heard. While it may be too late for this election, the Republican Party needs to return to a place where we win with ideas and persuasion rather than trying to intimidate and silence our fellow citizens. I hope all elected statewide leaders in the Texas Republican Party will stand up against these desperate tactics.
Calling a Black POTUS married 28 years to one wife with two children, no mistresses, affairs or scandals, 'the antichrist' but a white POTUS married thrice, 5 kids by 3 women, mistresses, affairs & scandals, 'God's anointed,' proves your religion is white supremacy
World offers to buy U.S. special present if it doesn’t re-elect deranged fascist
"the White House appears to have also deployed cabinet members to swing states to tout Trump policies on the taxpayer dime,"
perfectly lawful
it would be inane for an administration to not defend its policies
just like it's inane that Randy was let out of the nuthouse
"and pressured leaders of the State Department, FBI and DOJ to take actions against his political adversaries purely for his partisan benefit."
that's a lie
The Democrats are trying to steal the election
by counting all the votes we tried to suppress!
China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Japan have a population have a population of 1.9 billion people. North and South Dakota have a population of just 1.6 million
The TINY Dakotas had MORE new COVID cases yesterday than those four GIANT countries combined.
THAT'S HOW BADLY TRUMP HAS FAILED AMERICA. VOTE HIM OUT!
https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Fnews-and-politics%2F2020%2F11%2Fwomen-trump-conservatism-fail.html%3A2Zk6Xn_TnEBRQ4dP2uWFJ-GH4uE&cuid=1478235
"Five years ago, I still thought ultraconservative men did sincerely want to protect the women in their lives, however frequently they failed, from threats including those posed by bad and predatory men. Trump proved otherwise, and I find myself disgusted by that violation of the bargain all those women actually did honor. I’d witnessed so much stern political fanaticism, and it had come with an extremely high price tag—for women. The protection the men offered was theoretical, but the sacrifices the women made to sustain the ultraconservative American dream were real, and included assenting to a lower-power status in exchange for an idealistic, family-first vision of protection and respect. In practice, it frequently required jettisoning their own close friends in order to mask male misconduct. Yes, this was a trade I avoided: The nebulous benefits of gun-toting chivalry were not, in my view, worth the constant, everyday sacrifices it exacted from its female beneficiaries. I am nevertheless chilled on behalf of the women I knew to find that there was no substance to it at all. Their financial and social subjugation in this grand patriarchal bargain between the sexes was quite real, but the political framework that made it necessary was fake—for the men, it turned out to be little more than a pretext, or a binding agent, or a game. The contract was no contract at all but a rule they could make and break on a whim, and at their pleasure."
"Amy Barrett and other Republican judges are sexist and anti-woman"
yes, yes
any woman that doesn't see things the way you do is sexist and anti-woman
meanwhile, females are murdered in their mothers' womb daily and Democratic judges think their murderers have a constitutional right to do it
now, that's what TTF means by pro-woman!
"China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Japan have a population have a population of 1.9 billion people. North and South Dakota have a population of just 1.6 million
The TINY Dakotas had MORE new COVID cases yesterday than those four GIANT countries combined.
THAT'S HOW BADLY TRUMP HAS FAILED AMERICA. VOTE HIM OUT!"
what have Pakistan, Nigeria, and Japan got to do with it?
why didn't you say: "China has a population have a population of 1.4 billion people. North and South Dakota have a population of just 1.6 million
The TINY Dakotas had MORE new COVID cases yesterday than China"?
Because then you've have to admit that you prefer the government of China
America and the world's worst enemy that is aggressively utilizing modern technology to enact the perfect Orwellian state
they know how to deal with COVID: lock up infected people until they die
Author Candace Owens argued on Monday that Black voters are choosing President Trump over Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden because Black Americans “want more opportunities.”
“You want to put Biden back in office, he is the person along with Barack Obama who gave Black America more handouts. Donald J. Trump is giving us more handups,” The BLEXIT founder said on Monday, the day before Election Day.
“We don’t want more food stamps, we want more opportunities,” she added.
The interviewer noted that rappers Ice Cube, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne and Kanye West have been “vocal and outward in terms of their support for President Trump.”
She then asked Owens what she thinks is behind that.
“I think these are the pioneers,” Owens responded, adding that she spoke to other hip-hop artists, basketball players and singers who expressed their support for Trump to her in private.
“It is much bigger than you could possibly imagine behind closed doors and there is something happening,” Owens said.
And I think his voters like that about him. If he were to wrest the presidency from the Democrats even though he won fewer votes it shows dominance, and we know how much they love that.
"After four years of ignoring expertise, lying daily, and breaking both laws and “norms” with impunity, President Donald Trump headed into Election Day with a brazen pledge: that he will cheat by not counting all the ballots.
“It’s a terrible thing when people or states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over because it can only lead to one thing, and that’s very bad,” Trump told reporters traveling with him on Sunday, as he repeated his desire to end all vote counting on Tuesday night. “As soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers.”
“He’s been laying the groundwork for this for months,” said Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor and the lead lawyer for House Democrats during Trump’s impeachment over his extortion of Ukraine to help his reelection bid. “Mind-blowingly fascist.”"
Can he pull it off? I don’t know. It’s a long shot. But then his whole presidency is a long shot. So I’m anxiously huggly my shot glass tonight hoping that tomorrow night is decisively for the good guys and Trump is put back in his cage.
And then we can start to worry about what he’s going to do for the next three months to get his revenge.
You know he will:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuoRRDtdHbY&feature=emb_logo
Trump getting revenge in the lame duck transition period before he leaves office is the best case scenario.
On Thursday, rapper Lil Wayne, real name Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., met with President Trump in Florida. Lil Wayne is joining the recent slew of hip-hop artists to show support for Trump.
Lil Wayne has known Trump since appearing on the reality series Celebrity Apprentice in 2013. The two posed for a photo op after discussing Trump's new "Platinum Plan"—a $500 billion investment initiative started by the administration in September, oddly close to the November election.
The rapper shared the photo with the President on Twitter with the caption:
"Just had a great meeting with @realdonaldtrump@potus besides what he's done so far with criminal reform, the platinum plan is going to give the community real ownership."
"He listened to what we had to say today and assured he will and can get it done."
Fellow celebrity rapper 50 Cent, who renounced his former endorsement of the President, called out Lil Wayne for the photo op.
"50cent
@50cent
Oct 29
oh no �� WAYNE��♂️, I WOULD HAVE NEVER TOOK THIS PICTURE. "
As did others:
"YOUTUBE.COM/VITO
@QVitoGesualdi
Translation: I make over $400,000 a year and don't want my taxes to go up."
"Tanya Kujath
@kujath_tanya
LIL WAYNE IS A SHAME!!!"
"keith franklin
@kirbyfranko
These are the hip-hop stars whose lyrics are always derogatory toward the African Queen herself (the black woman); even though they came from one, some have wives, sisters, aunts, and some have daughters. But when there’s a black woman on the ticket, they run to the colonizer."
Gina Tomlinson
@GinaCTomlinson
Replying to
@LilTunechi
@realDonaldTrump
and
@POTUS
Riddle me this...why does he ONLY engage with Black entertainers and sports figures to discuss solutions to what plagues the Black community? Why not Black scholars, educators, legislators, corporate leaders, economists? I KNOW why, but I'll wait..."
"Rebecca Wassername
@NOLAAzzFest
Wouldn't meet with the Black Congressional Caucus but he loves Kanye and Weezy. Disrespects John Lewis and Maxine Waters openly, repeatedly. Yeah, he's using people, and they're thinking that being used is being listened to."
"K-No
@CallMeNills
Won’t be buying your music any more, Weezy. #ExFan"
"austin
@convictedloner
lil wayne cant even vote��"
"Christina Simōes-Gaffney
@GaffneySimoes
If either Trump or Lil Wayne had any intention to help the black community, they would have met with community leaders long ago. This is just another stunt and exchange of personal favors, days before the election: trump, to get black voters; and Wayne, to get public attention."
"Blackbelt Shabalala
@Blackbelt_JohnS
How quickly y'all forget: TRUMP REFUSES TO CONDEMN WHITE SUPREMACISTS AT PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE"
"brandon norris
@Tribe4L
Hes done nothing in 4 years now all of a sudden ppl think he's going to do sumn for black people - no. Why wasn't he meeting with any of y'all throughout his presidency but now it's time for election and all of a sudden he want to help, yeah OK, don't get bamboozled that easily."
I posted "the White House appears to have also deployed cabinet members to swing states to tout Trump policies on the taxpayer dime,"
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "perfectly lawful it would be inane for an administration to not defend its policies".
Its not perfectly lawful, Trump doesn't get to use government employees with other duties to push his propaganda. If Trump wants to push his policies he needs to do it with his own money, not the taxpayers'.
I posted "and pressured leaders of the State Department, FBI and DOJ to take actions against his political adversaries purely for his partisan benefit."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "that's a lie".
Every one of your accusations is a confession. Surely to god you can't be unaware of Trump calling for his attorney general to indict his political enemies. I mean how grotesquely dishonest can you be? That's not a challenge by the way.
Time and time again Wyatt and Regina accuse me of lying and I prove I'm telling the truth. They don't value honesty in the slightest. To them honesty is an impediment to their pursuit of power and gay persecution.
Republican corruption knows no bounds.
In 7 Pennsylvania counties that went for Trump in 2016 they have announced they won't even begin counting mail in ballots until tomorrow. They plan to count in person ballots today that are expected to favour Trump and when they show he's in the lead Trump will declare victory and fight in court to prevent mail in ballots from being counted which would put Biden over the top.
Of course Wyatt and Regina will defend this attack on democracy. There is nothing Trump or Republicans could do that they wouldn't defend.
"Its not perfectly lawful, Trump doesn't get to use government employees with other duties to push his propaganda. If Trump wants to push his policies he needs to do it with his own money, not the taxpayers'."
your assertion is ludicrous
find someone who hasn't been in the nuthouse that agrees with you
a government needs to communicate policies
"Surely to god you can't be unaware of Trump calling for his attorney general to indict his political enemies."
Trump has a duty to indict people who commit crimes
even Mr TTF says Biden would be "mamby-pamby" if he doesn't
"accuse me of lying and I prove I'm telling the truth"
Randy, that is a lie
"In 7 Pennsylvania counties that went for Trump in 2016 they have announced they won't even begin counting mail in ballots until tomorrow. They plan to count in person ballots today that are expected to favour Trump and when they show he's in the lead Trump will declare victory and fight in court to prevent mail in ballots from being counted which would put Biden over the top."
here's a idea: vote on election day
It may surprise the lying GOPer to realize running against another candidate is not a crime, though it might get you poisoned in Russia or murdered in front of your family in North Korea, leaders adored by Rump.
This Extensive Mashup Confirms Trump's Love for Putin
Trump’s comments on falling in love with Kim Jong Un ‘shocking and appalling,’ says conservative writer
Top Trump adviser bluntly contradicts president on covid-19 threat, urging all-out response
“This is not about lockdowns. … It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented," says internal White House report that challenges many of Trump’s pronouncements.
"A top White House coronavirus adviser sounded alarms Monday about a new and deadly phase in the health crisis, pleading with top administration officials for “much more aggressive action,” even as President Trump continues to assure [LIE TO] rallygoers that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic.
“We are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic … leading to increasing mortality,” said the Nov. 2 report from Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. “This is not about lockdowns — it hasn’t been about lockdowns since March or April. It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented.”
Birx’s internal report, shared with top White House and agency officials, contradicts Trump on numerous points: While the president holds large campaign events with hundreds of attendees, most without masks, she explicitly warns against them. While the president blames rising cases on more testing, she says testing is “flat or declining” in many areas where cases are rising. And while Trump says the country is “rounding the turn,” Birx notes that the country is entering its most dangerous period yet and will see more than 100,000 new cases a day this week.
Through a spokesperson, Birx did not respond to a request for comment.
Other health experts, including Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have warned of record surges in cases and hospitalizations as the United States records more than 9 million cases and 230,000 deaths.
“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt,” Fauci told The Washington Post late Friday, predicting a long and potentially deadly winter unless there’s an “abrupt change” — prompting Trump to suggest that he planned to fire the scientist after the election."
I posted "and pressured leaders of the State Department, FBI and DOJ to take actions against his political adversaries purely for his partisan benefit."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "that's a lie".
I posted "Surely to god you can't be unaware of Trump calling for his attorney general to indict his political enemies."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump has a duty to indict people who commit crimes"
First Wyatt and Regina accuse me of lying and when I show its true they don't admit they were wrong, they jump to saying "nothing wrong with that". That's so typical of their dishonesty. If there is "nothing wrong with that" then why'd you falsely claim I lied about it????
It is not Trump's job to decide who should and should not be prosecuted, he's supposed to be arms length away from the justice department. No past president has so interfered with the norms and rule of law by calling for his political opponents to be arrested.
"It is not Trump's job to decide who should and should not be prosecuted,"
well, it's his responsibility
and he is the one who oversees the decision
how much he delegates and how much he feels he should personally be involved in, is entirely his call
he was elected - this is a democracy
"he's supposed to be arms length away from the justice department."
the Constitution doesn't even mention the DOJ
it was created for the convenience of the President in carrying out his duties
it wasn't created to check his authority
go get a copy of "American Government for Dummies"
"No past president has so interfered with the norms and rule of law by calling for his political opponents to be arrested."
Jim above is calling for Biden to not be "namby-pamby" and prosecute Trump
sorry guys
looks like the GOP, including Susan Collins, that Maine Senator you like so much, will maintain control of the Senate
from the Presidential side, my guess is Biden will barely win
it's all down to the final count in Michigan at this point
doesn't look like any court packing or DC and Puerto Rico statehood will happen
and if Biden nominates a SCOTUS judge, we'll have to wait until the next election and let the people decide
Merrick Garland can fugeddaboutit!
"from the Presidential side, my guess is Biden will barely win
it's all down to the final count in Michigan at this point"
it's over
Biden wins 270-268
a lot of people voted and this was the choice
not much of a mandate and nowhere near the widespread coast-to-coast repudiation of Trump's handling of the coronavirus that Dems predicted
but, time to move on
let's be mamby-pamby and look to the future
Democratic veteran James Carville, speaking for many in the chattering class, had confidently predicted earlier in the week that a Biden victory would be obvious by at least 10 o’clock on Tuesday night. That didn’t happen. Trump has proven harder for the Dems to kill than they thought. Will we know soon who has won the election?
Probably not. Even if Biden ends up winning, the closeness of the race is still an embarrassment for the media-polling complex. The Nate Silvers and Matt Drudges had told us that Biden enjoyed a 90 percent chance of winning, Once again, these biased soothsayers have shown themselves to be unreliable.
The hidden Trump vote would appear to have thrown off the polls again — a phenomenon that illuminates the inhibited political ethos a punishing media has fostered in this country, where a significant swath of America quite understandably conceals its real views until it enters the privacy of the polling booth. The hidden Trump vote is a rebuke to the ruling class and its ambitions to control the minds of Americans through skewed and hectoring propaganda.
Pollster Frank Luntz has said that his industry will collapse if Biden loses. No doubt many members of it are trembling over the prospect. Again, a squeaker for Biden, should it happen, doesn’t exonerate them. As things stand at the moment, the betting odds and forecasts are rapidly changing and bear no resemblance to the polling industry’s pre-election picture.
Nor has the predicted demise of the Republican Senate come to pass. Whatever happens, this election can’t be characterized as the Blue Wave the elite had spent weeks expecting. Ironically, a Red Wave, with Hispanic voters riding it, crashed over the Democrats in Florida. That would suggest at least in one major state that the toxic identity politics of the Dems has backfired. How ironic it would be if the president, whom the Democrats have called a racist and xenophobe day in and day out for four years, should end up winning thanks to increased support from minorities unimpressed by that demagoguery. It would be an upending that Biden richly deserves. He has been utterly shameless in his race-based lying about the president, talking about saving the “soul of America” while engaged in the most cynical form of racial arson.
It also appears that the Democrats have paid some price for running so far to the left. Kamala Harris, the most liberal member of the Senate, has been a dead weight on the ticket. It would be wonderful if she ends up costing Biden parts of the Rust Belt. After having spent decades pretending to be a moderate, Biden formed a Faustian bargain with the far Left and adopted many of its radical positions. He could have moved to the middle by selecting a less extreme running mate. Instead, he threw his lot in with Bernie, Kamala, and AOC. Should he lose Pennsylvania and Michigan, it will be due to his fantasizing about a world without fossil fuels.
The closeness of the race is a tribute to Trump’s hustling finish while Biden played it safe. As Trump raced across the country and campaigned before tens of thousands, Biden restricted himself to pitiful half-events before honking cars. Biden had all the advantages, starting with a press determined to protect him at all costs. If he manages to back into the presidency, it will be due in no small part to America’s monstrously manipulative media and Big Tech tyranny, which has treated every moment of Trump’s presidency as a national emergency. Even in the early hours of Wednesday, this behemoth was still at it; Twitter’s Orwellian monitors outrageously censored one of Trump’s tweets. Biden, if he wins, will have been carried into the White House not by the people but by a press that operated for four years as a shameless opposition party to the president. It wasn’t a fair fight, and yet Trump could still win it.
It's official: Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, became the first openly transgender state senator in the nation.
McBride made history Tuesday night when she was elected to Delaware's state senate in a race against Republican candidate Steve Washington. She will replace Sen. Harris McDowell, a Democrat who is retiring at the end of his term.
"We did it," McBride wrote on Twitter Tuesday night, announcing victory and thanking her supporters. "I hope tonight shows an LGBTQ kid that our democracy is big enough for them, too."
As a state senator, she will also be the country's highest-ranking openly transgender official — and first elected official in Delaware's history.
"I don't intend on serving as a transgender state senator," McBride told Delaware's News Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, last year. "I intend on serving as a senator who happens to be transgender."
McBride ran on a progressive platform. Her campaign called for affordable health care, improving school funding, universal pre-kindergarten and increasing the minimum wage. In recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the urgency around those policy changes, she said.
McBride called the win an honor, and hopes to "meet this moment with meaningful results that make a real difference in the lives of Delawareans here in this district and around our state." Despite the national attention her campaign has received, McBride said her priority is her neighbors she will now represent in the district.
"From the start, I knew I wanted to be the healthcare and paid leave candidate," McBride told The News Journal. "Even before COVID, people were feeling that need. This has just reinforced and deepened that need. For Delawareans, for those in poverty, those struggling through the pandemic, the issues we're talking about aren't abstract."
Support for McBride has overflowed on social media. Celebrities and fellow politicians celebrate her win.
State House delegate Danica Roem, who became the first openly transgender elected official in Virginia in 2017, praised McBride, whom she calls a friend.
"Congrats to my friend @sarahemcbride and congrats to Delawareans for electing a great leader!!!!!" actress Amy Schumer, who has supported McBride's campaign since she announced her run last year, wrote in an Instagram post.
United States Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Ohio) also shared her excitement on Twitter.
"We are so very proud of you, Sarah," she wrote. "You made history tonight. And the most exciting part is it’s only the beginning."
Researchers Say Religion Makes the Gender Wage Gap Worse
We know there’s a gender wage gap: Women make less money than men, even when doing the same kind of work.
The exact amount is up for debate, depending on how you want to parse it. Explanations for the gap include how women go into different lines of work, how they might accept lower wages in exchange for other kinds of benefits, and (of course) how there exists flat-out discrimination.
But how does religion factor into that gap?
Two researchers, Dr. Traci Sitzmann (University of Colorado Denver Business School) and Dr. Elizabeth Campbell (University of Minnesota), have just published a paper in the Academy of Management Journal digging into that question, and they found that the more religious a place is, the greater its gender wage gap.
Just consider nations as a whole: In countries where at least 95% of the people say religion is a daily part of their lives, “women earned 46% as much as men.” But when religion was important to less than 20% of the population, women earned 75% of men’s salaries. (Not great. But definitely better.)
What about U.S. states? Using previously published data, Sitzmann and Campbell knew that the gender wage gap has decreased over the past decade — likely as people in power were pressured to correct the problem. But when the researchers grouped the states from most to least religious, it became clear that the more religious states had worse gaps to begin with. And over time, those states closed their gender wage gaps a lot less than the more secular states.
Sitzmann and Campbell even put a number on it: When you take into account how much of the wage gap in the United States can be attributed to religion — they say it’s about 17% — that “represents a $1,734 loss in annual wages for full-time female employees.”
More bluntly: Prayer costs women $1,734 per year (compared to men). If the trends continue at this rate, the wage gap would finally close in the least religious states by 2048… but it wouldn’t happen in the most religious states until 2129.
So why is all this happening? Sitzmann and Campbell point out that many religions are patriarchal in nature, and that mindset leads to the sort of culture that diminishes women’s contributions. Women are expected to churn out babies, then stay at home to take care of them. They are stereotypically not considered for more demanding jobs even when they have the capability of doing them well. Some religions go even further, prohibiting women from taking on those roles. (Consider also the “Mike Pence rule,” which leads certain kinds of powerful religious men to want to surround themselves with other men.)
But there’s also a way to fix this… that is, if religious leaders have any desire to do so:
Our review challenges this perspective and illustrates that all major world religions — through gender differentiation — facilitate patriarchy. In addition, the effect of religiosity does not significantly differ across religions; thus, a particular religion does not carry the effect of religiosity on the gender wage gap. Finally, our experimental results illustrate that directly espousing egalitarian values by prescribing overlapping social roles for men and women, proscribing sexual harassment, and prescribing equality in leadership development can buffer the effect of religiosity on the gender wage gap.
Rather than waiting 47 years for wage parity, organizational leaders and policy-makers can assess whether employees are paid equitably based on the value of their work, regardless of gender.
The wage gap would be a problem with or without religion. But, as usual, religion just makes things worse.
by Hehmant Mehta
Just as predicted, Trump has declared victory before all the ballots have been counted and is trying to prevent any more from being counted. Noooooo, that's not dictatorial at allllllll....
Republicans are the enemies of democracy.
"Just as predicted, Trump has declared victory before all the ballots have been counted and is trying to prevent any more from being counted. Noooooo, that's not dictatorial at allllllll...."
except that he hasn't decreed it
he says he will take it to court
arguing with lawyers in court of law is the opposite of dictatorship
you need to get that book "American Government for Dummies"
Trump has points that can be debated in court
last week, the SCOTUS failed to overturn a Pennsylvania court ruling that mail votes after election day without a postmark can be counted
the SCOTUS was tied 4-4
it won't be tied this time
relax: Trump is winning Pennsylvania anyway
This is truly funny.
Everyone associated with Brett Kavanaugh wins. A senator from Maine made the key vote putting him on the SUPREME COURT and it won her a huge victory!
Republican Sen. Susan Collins has won reelection in Maine, edging out Democrat Sara Gideon in one of 2020’s most closely watched races.
Gideon called Collins on Wednesday to concede the race and apologize for running against her, Collins said during a press conference.
Holding on to Collins’ seat marks a key victory for Republicans in their quest to maintain control of the Senate.
Collins, the most senior Republican woman in the Senate, has handily won reelection in past years, but hostile Democrats from around the country gave money to Gideon.
Collins, 67, has positioned herself as a moderate Republican. But her voting record in recent years ― including voting to pass President Donald Trump’s tax act in 2017 and to acquit him during his impeachment trial earlier this year ― has come under the intense scrutiny of her more liberal-minded lunatic constituents.
Her critical vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 following Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school drew renewed attention to Collins’ reelection bid.
Liberal activists descended on Collins’ office in Washington during the confirmation hearings, demanding the so-called moderate vote no on Kavanaugh.
Activists launched a crowdfunding campaign for Collins’ would-be Democratic challenger should the senator vote to confirm Kavanaugh, which she ultimately did. Gideon, 48, collected the roughly $4 million in crowd-sourced donations after winning the Democratic primary in July.
Collins pledged while campaigning in 1996 and 2002 that she would serve only two terms in the chamber. But with this year’s win, she’ll begin a fifth term in January.
Jokes on you. LOL!
Another funny race was in South Carolina, where voters sent Lindsay Graham back to take care of keeping the courts originalist.
"Collins pledged while campaigning in 1996 and 2002 that she would serve only two terms in the chamber. But with this year’s win, she’ll begin a fifth term in January.
Jokes on you. LOL!"
Former Governor Mark Warner also pledged to only serve two terms in the US Senate but he won his third term yesterday.
In fact Democrats have not lost a statewide election in Virginia since 2009 after the state went Republican in 11 out of 12 presidential elections from 1948 to 2004, including 10 in a row from 1968 to 2004.
In 2019, Democrats took full control of Virginia's legislature, flipping at least two state senate seats and five state house seats from Republican to Democratic candidates,
Ha ha, the joke's on who?
Trump’s Lasting Legacy? He Made It Much Harder to Be a Conservative Christian
If Donald Trump loses the election — and I know that’s still a big if — one of his lasting legacies will be the giant stain he left on Christianity. He came into office on the shoulders of white evangelicals and conservative Catholics, surrounded himself with right-wing religious leaders when he needed positive press, tear-gassed protesters for a photo op outside a church, and has tainted the reputation of those religious leaders and their faith in the process.
In a piece for Business Insider, reporter Kelsey Vlamis writes about how Trump has turned a swath of Christians away from their churches (if not the faith itself) because they couldn’t belong to an organization that supported his awful policies. The piece is light on statistics but contained some hard-hitting anecdotes like these comments from a 23-year-old devout Christian named Maria Felix:
“I have really struggled with continuing to even call myself a Christian, because I feel like I cannot continue to call myself a Christian if Trump is what Christians want to be like,” she told Business Insider.
“I just can’t be OK with the misogynistic, homophobic, racist, xenophobic, et cetera, things that spew from Trump’s mouth,” she said. “Or the people that follow him that also call themselves Christians.”
I’m as curious as anyone to know what percentage of white evangelicals — and young Christians — voted for Trump this year compared to 2016.
It’s also worth pointing out that surveys about religious demographics have shown younger people becoming less and less religious over time, but I wonder if Trump is going to accelerate that trend. If nothing else, it’s become obvious over the past four years that claiming to be religious doesn’t make you a decent person. There are proudly progressive religious leaders, but there are also those evangelicals and Southern Baptists who act like Trump is a godsend — and have excused his numerous scandals and corrupt actions — all because they see him as a vehicle for their policy agenda.
They want the judges. They don’t care who suffers in the process. And they keep lying about that. Instead of just admitting Trump is the best chance they have to stack the courts with partisan (often unqualified) hacks who will punish LGBTQ people, and women who want control of their bodies, and minority groups who want to vote without obstruction, and create the kind of “Christian Nation” they fantasize about, they act like Trump is actually good at his job. They can’t even bring themselves to say Trump is horrible but it’s a bargain they’ll take.
Those Christians like Robert Jeffress and Paula White and everyone on Trump’s unofficial “Evangelical Advisory Board” have arguably done more damage to Christian witness than the pastors who got mired in sexual abuse scandals over the past several years. To be a conservative Christian, or to attend a megachurch, will always mean you belong to an organization that failed to speak up when Republicans were committing daily atrocities.
Conservative Christians earned plenty of criticism before Trump, but with him in office, they can’t even pretend they’re victims anymore.
Far from being persecuted, we’ve all seen what they did when they had more power than ever before. They embraced a man who tore refugee families apart, put kids in cages, embraced White Nationalism, lied constantly, paid hush money to hide his affairs, and exacerbated a pandemic because they refused to listen to scientists when it came to face masks and social distancing.
They should pay a (non-violent) price for this. And young Christians, by leaving their churches and making it much harder for those ministries to survive financially, would be doing far more to advance their faith than the Trump Worshipers did in four years.
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman say Trump's not a dictator said "Just as predicted, Trump has declared victory before all the ballots have been counted and is trying to prevent any more from being counted. Noooooo, that's not dictatorial at allllllll...."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "arguing with lawyers in court of law is the opposite of dictatorship".
No, its exactly what dictators do. They want a veneer of credibility that a fake election brings so they stack the court with their lackies to rule in their favour regardless of the law or the vote count. Trump has gone through the government fired five independent Inspectors General and has stacked ever top position with people who are loyal to him and not the constitution - that's what dictators do.
Trump's going to court to try and stop the counting of validly cast votes - that's what dictators do.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Gideon called Collins on Wednesday to concede the race and apologize for running against her,"
You're not even trying to keep it plausible now. What a troll.
Research shows internet trolls like Wyatt/bad anonymous are sadists
A new study published in a psychology journal concludes that online trolling correlates with sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Here’s the abstract:
In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting styles. Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity, pointing to a common construct underlying the measures. Both studies revealed similar patterns of relations between trolling and the Dark Tetrad of personality: trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, using both enjoyment ratings and identity scores. Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism. Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism.
I've got the military, I've got the Police, I've got the Bikers, I've got the Supreme Court...I can do anything I want"
Don't forget, Attorney General Bill Barr, Mitch McConnell and all the Republican Senators argued in court that Trump is above the law, that he can do anything he wants merely by claiming its in the best interests of the country. Stop investigations into his wrongdoing, use the Justice Department to attack his political enemies, destroy the post office to prevent people from voting against him.
Republicans want a dictatorship and they've done everything in their power to destroy American democracy and bring that about.
Conservative Justices Are The Real "Judicial Activists".
If we judge "judicial activism" by some objective standard such as, say, how often they vote to strike down laws passed by the citizens' elected representatives, the more conservative justices have done so significantly more than the more liberal justices.
"[Professor Geoffrey] Stone concludes that the moderately liberal justices apply an approach in line with “the original concerns of the Framers of the Constitution and in their distinctive understanding of the special responsibility of courts in our constitutional system,” while the Court’s conservatives’ “votes cannot be explained by any consistent theory of constitutional interpretation” but are instead driven by their own policy preferences.
-------------------------------------------
Constitutional "Originalism" is a lie
The warmest friends to and the best supporters of the Constitution, do not contend that it is free from imperfections; but these were not to be avoided, and they are convinced if evils are likely to flow from them, that the remedy must come thereafter; because, in the present moment it is not to be obtained. And as there is a Constitutional door open for it, I think the people (for it is with them to judge) can, as they will have the aid of experience on their side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which shall be found necessary, as ourselves; for I do not conceive that we are more inspired--have more wisdom--or possess more virtue than those who will come after us. The power under the Constitution will always be with the people.
-- G. Washington, to Bushrod Washington, Nov. 9, 1787
Surprise!
As Election Day turned into election week early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump had a simple message for his closest political and legal advisers as they began charting a plan to challenge and temporarily halt ballot counts in several key states: give them a court fight that “they’ll never forget.”
The president’s remarks, relayed by two people familiar with them, came on the morning after an inconclusive election night, but one that seemed trending Joe Biden’s way. And for Team Trump, it was meant as a clarion call to use every possible legal resource and bit of political organizing to help re-tip the balance of the scale.
Trump told his advisers that, even if Biden were to claw the presidency away from him,he wanted them to “go down fighting” harder than they ever had before, one of the sources with direct knowledge said. By Wednesday afternoon, some semblance of that approach began to materialize.
In Detroit, pro-Trump protestes showed up at a ballot counting site demanding access to the officials and insisting that the counting be ended. In Arizona, one of Trump’s closest congressional allies, Rep. Paul Gosar, put out a “call to action” for “red blooded American patriots” to attend a rally to “protect our president” at the Maricopa County election center. In Nevada, a Trump supporter interrupted a registrar of voters press conference by declaring “the Biden crime family steals this election.” And throughout the day, the Trump campaign peppered donors and supporters with text messages and emails asking for money to help fund—what it erroneously called—an attempt by Democrats to “steal” the election.
Trump’s legal team—including George W. Bush campaign veteran Mark “Thor” Hearne—asked a court in Michigan to halt absentee ballot counts because it alleged its observers had not been granted full access to the tally, and were not permitted to watch video footage of “remote and unattended dropboxes.” It brought a similar suit in Pennsylvania, fighting to stop the tabulation on the grounds that its overseers had not been allowed within 25 feet of the counting effort.
Further, it filed to enter an ongoing Supreme Court case, hoping to convince jurists on the highest bench to overturn a state policy that would allow counties to count votes postmarked on Election Day and received as late as Friday.
Jay Sekulow, a personal attorney and confidant of Trump’s, is overseeing the Supreme Court effort.
And in the afternoon, members of Trump’s family and another one of his personal lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, were heading to Philadelphia for a “press conference,” but they made a late diversion and chose to host it at a nearby airport.
During the presser, Giuliani declared the city’s count “totally illegitimate,” citing fabricated data, contextual-less anecdotes, and manufactured rumors of illegal voters.
The effort to swarm the sites and demand access to the vote counting operations had clear echoes to what Republicans did in Florida in 2000, when a group of young operatives famously caused a scene in Florida that became known as the Brooks Brothers Riots. Those operatives insisted that they were merely pushing for transparency to ensure a valid recourt. Officials on the ground in Miami-Dade said they felt it was an intimidation tactic.
At least one of the infamous Brooks Brothers rioters is a top ally of President Donald Trump. In an interview, Matt Schlapp declined to say if he was involved in any current effort. But he defended what was transpiring in Detroit, where pro-Trump rallies demannded that workers “stop the count” on grounds that it was a matter of election integrity.
“I can just reiterate that it is perfectly appropriate for voters to highlight any voting irregularity to the officials whose job it is to make sure there is no irregularity,” said Schlapp. “And if citizens want to get involved in that process, i think that’s a positive thing, not a negative.”
But others involved in that episode said the parallels don’t actually hold up well. For starters, Biden is currently leading in Michigan, making it unclear why the Trump side would want counting stopped. Doug Heye, another member of the 2000 crew, noted: “We wanted every vote counted and counted publicly.”
Those inconsistencies didn’t seem to bother the Trump team. Even before the clock struck noon on Wednesday, top players on the president’s campaign were already starting to bet everything on an armada of lawyers. Publicly, the campaign put on a determined, cocky face, with Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien and other aides assuring reporters that they were all still confident that, as the week progressed, the final ballot counts in the critical battleground states would hand them a clean, decisive victory.
However, before the morning even ended, three senior officials on the reelection effort were already telling The Daily Beast that they were confident the president’s best, if not only, hope in locking Biden out of the White House would be if the attorneys were able to successfully intervene in enough states.
“Lawyer city,” Joe Grogan, formerly a top domestic policy adviser to President Trump, said, describing the situation on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s going to be really ugly.”
Trump just wants to fight because that’s what he does. Most of this is just instinctual. He’ll rile up the cult and get them out in the streets if he can and who knows what else he might do. But he’s also preparing to refuse to concede and if he leaves office in January without disruption, he will make himself into the president in exile. I think he sees this as a key to replenishing his coffers.
Deutsche Bank is going to call in $400,000 in loans Trump owes. He has close to $1 billion in loans coming due in the short term. Trump's financial situation is about to collapse.
Trump supporter Steve Bannon is calling for the CEO of Twitter to be arrested because they are pointing out when Trump lies on Twitter.
There's the Trump dictatorship trying to overthrow democracy.
"The power under the Constitution will always be with the people."
thanks, George
going forward, we'll remember that
when Biden tries to name a SCOTUS judge, we'll wait until the American people have a say, at the next presidential election, before we take up any nominations
it's only right!
So Trump supporters are showing up at vote counting stations and trying to intimidate the workers into stopping counting. Republicans did the same thing in Florida in 2000; where they succeeded in intimidating the poll workers and forcing a stop to the count that gave the win to Bush. Republican fascism in action.
Randy, every step of the election process is supposed to be open to both major parties for observation. Every American who ever voted knows that because they've seen it. Every voting site has representatives from both. Calling that intimidation is a lie similar to the lie pollsters have been telling us for months that Joe Biden was headed for a double-digit landslide blow-out.
Get a copy of American Government for Dummies.
The lack of a clear election night winner has left some in the media dumbfounded, after countless predictions that former vice president Joe Biden would defeat Donald Trump in a “landslide.”
CNN host Jake Tapper reassured Election Night viewers that the idea of a Democratic landslide “was always a pipe dream,” but liberal pundits, some of whom work for his own network, have for months argued that Republicans were in for a repudiation of historic proportions.
Tapper’s colleague Chris Cillizza was one of the loudest landslide predictors, repeatedly positing that the media and pollsters had learned from their failure in 2016 and were no longer discounting Republican support.
“Simply because election models missed the Trump phenomenon the first time around doesn’t mean we should ignore them entirely,” he wrote in September. “The models are updated to reflect the realignment Trump set in motion in 2016. The likelihood, then, of missing some sort of hidden pro-Trump factors in the electorate is much less.”
As the race neared, Cillizza only grew more confident. “There is now a reasonable chance that we may be looking at a major landslide up and down the ballot in two weeks’ time,” he stated last month.
Cillizza was not the only one. “I think that it’s more likely that Joe Biden will win in a landslide, than that Trump will win at all,” esteemed New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said, a sentiment shared by Times data guru Nate Cohn. “The Coming Biden Landslide,” read a September Bulwark headline.
“This is also the week that journalists and politicos in Washington began wondering about something they never expected to be thinking about this year,” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote in early October. “They are wondering if Nov. 3 won’t be a win for Joe Biden but a blowout, a landslide in a polarized country that doesn’t produce landslides anymore.” Andrew Sullivan agreed. In a column titled “Dreaming Of A Landslide,” he warned that “it’s tempting fate to mention the idea, foolish to entertain it, mad to expect it,” before going on to argue that “the possibility of a landslide is now real.”
The models backed up the pundits. FiveThirtyEight’s Election Day model gave Trump a 10 percent chance of winning. Pollsters projected confidence, arguing that the right lessons had been learned from 2016.
Top university and professional polls projected Biden leads across the board, with Republican strongholds like Texas labeled a “toss up.” Niche firms such as Trafalgar, which predicted a 2016 Trump win and showed a tight race, were derided as too heavily skewed towards the president.
The final averages, however, show many of the same problems even as Biden continues to hold the overall lead. Across nine “swing” states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin — President Trump outperformed the FiveThirtyEight polling average by approximately 4.44 points, and the RealClearPolitics average by approximately 2.78 points. Exit polls show that doomsday predictions about Trump bleeding votes from elderly and woman voters were wide of the mark.
While the race is far from over, prominent pollster Frank Luntz has said “the political polling profession is done,” after Trump’s showing, calling the lack of accurate polls “devastating for my industry.”
In a sane world, blowhards like Randy would be embarrassed how wrong their forecasts were and would slink off for a few weeks in hopes that when they came back everyone would forget how gullible they are
whether Trump emerges victorious or not, Dems are losers in 2020
the GOP has held on to the Senate and the Dems lost a net of at least 10 seats in the House
these Dem setbacks come despite the massive spending of Dems' billionaire benefactors and the onslaught of mainstream media's liberal advocacy
looks like America aren't for the Green New Deal and riots as a means to social transformation after all
you'd never have thought that from reading the "news"
As the old saw goes, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” As of this writing, the 2020 election outcome for the two candidates hangs in the balance. But whatever happens, the American people now know that the polls were a deception.
In an era during which more than 90 percent of voters committed to a decision weeks before election day, we were asked to believe Biden was up 47 percent to 42 percent in Florida. He was up six points in North Carolina, 12 points in Michigan, and eight points in Wisconsin. Days ago, the president supposedly was underwater in Ohio by four points. Did people change their minds? No, of course not.
It’s hard to know exactly when the polling process became contaminated. Were these shy voters who refused to talk to pollsters? Trump supporters seemed increasingly less “shy” as thousands thronged to impromptu public parades and rallies. But we can suspect that the polls consistently erred on the side of a President Biden for the same reason that the legacy media so clearly abuses its readers with misinformation: They’re liars. The polls are lies and the reporting on the polling is lies.
The signs have been there for months. Trump supporters knew they were being lied to. But some Biden voters suspected it. A few true liberal holdouts began nervously grumbling about the Big Tech censorship of the Hunter Biden financial scandals. African Americans, Hispanics, LGBTQ, and blue-collar workers increasingly have resisted their typecasting. Famous rappers began giving cultural permission to vote for Trump.
Like kamikaze planes splashing harmlessly in the sea adjacent to their targets, the legacy media either lied to America or themselves as they squandered the last shreds of illusionary credibility. The polls were never meant to reflect public opinion. They were always about shaping the opinion. And as the day of reckoning approached and the real opinion failed to follow the pollster’s wishful thinking, many tried to pull out of their dives, reporting a “tightening” race.
Balderdash. The opinions have not changed that much in just a few days.
Just before 1:00 a.m. Eastern time, Joe Biden addressed a honking “rally” of supporters with an upbeat assessment of the situation. He cited a likely upset in Arizona and expressed hope for a victory in Wisconsin and Michigan but cautioned that the final outcome might not be known until Wednesday or even later in the week “until every vote is counted.” Which is code for lawyers and riots to push through sketchy ballots in close races.
Biden may yet win the presidency. If he does, I will wish him well and pray for his success. But regardless, we spent the last several months in a fog of coordinated propaganda posing as polling. We were told that Americans were about to elect Biden in a Reagan-style “blue wave.” Instead, as Tuesday became Wednesday, the race revealed itself to be what we probably always should have suspected: competitive and well within reach of the president.
In the United States, 52,049 people are hospitalized and 10,445 are in an ICU.
Yesterday 18 states report a record number of patient hospitalizations
More than 1,110 fatalities were also reported, pushing the total number of deaths tallied since February past 233,000.
Meanwhile...
Australia has almost eliminated the coronavirus — by putting faith in science
SYDNEY — The Sydney Opera House has reopened. Almost 40,000 spectators attended the city's rugby league grand final. Workers are being urged to return to their offices.
Welcome to Australia, a pandemic success story.
The nation of 26 million is close to eliminating community transmission of the coronavirus, having defeated a second wave just as infections surge again in Europe and the United States.
No cases were reported on the island continent Thursday, and only seven since Saturday, outside of travelers in hotel quarantine. Eighteen patients are in the hospital with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. One is in an intensive care unit. Melbourne, the epicenter of Australia's outbreak which recently emerged from lockdown, has not reported a case since Oct. 30.
Meanwhile, in the United States, 52,049 people are hospitalized and 10,445 are in an ICU, according to the Covid Tracking Project, a volunteer effort to document the pandemic. America's daily new cases topped 100,000 on Wednesday and its death toll exceeds 233,000, a staggering figure even accounting for its greater population than Australia, which has recorded 907 deaths.
Several practical reasons contributed to Australia's success, experts say. The country chose to quickly and tightly seal its borders, a step some others, notably in Europe, did not take. Health officials rapidly built up the manpower to track down and isolate outbreaks. And unlike the U.S. approach, every one of Australia's states either shut their domestic borders or severely limited movement for interstate, and in some cases intrastate, travelers.
Perhaps most importantly, though, leaders from across the ideological spectrum convinced Australians to take the pandemic seriously early on and prepared them to give up civil liberties they had never lost before, even during two world wars.
"We told the public: 'This is serious; we want your cooperation,' " said Marylouise McLaws, a Sydney-based epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales and World Health Organization adviser.
A lack of partisan rancor increased the effectiveness of the message, McLaws said in an interview.
The conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison, formed a national cabinet with state leaders, known as premiers, from all parties to coordinate decisions. Political conflict was largely suspended, at least initially, and many Australians saw their politicians working together to avert a health crisis.
"Regardless of who you vote for, most Australians would agree their leaders have a real care for their constituents and a following of science," McLaws said. "I think that helped dramatically."
It’s bad enough that they love Donald Trump. They are also killing us. Literally:
Who Americans voted for in 2016 is a strong predictor of how they reacted to the deadliest pandemic in a century, according to a new study published in Nature.
“Partisan differences in physical distancing were linked to higher growth rates of infections and fatalities in pro-Trump counties than necessary,” the authors write.
Using the geotracking data of about 15 million people per day, the study found that counties that voted for President Trump in 2016 saw a 24% decrease in movement and visits to non-essential services between March 9 and May 29 of this year. Counties that voted for Hillary Clinton saw a 38% drop.
This partisan gap remained after factoring in variables like counties’ coronavirus case counts, population density, income, racial makeup and age makeup.
The study also found that less physical distancing was linked to higher coronavirus infection rates 17–23 days later, and an increase in fatality rates 25–31 days later.
“These results imply that Trump-leaning counties could have curbed their infection and fatality growth rates if they had distanced to the same degree as Clinton-leaning counties did,” the authors conclude.
Although the authors thought they’d see the partisan gap decrease as the pandemic got worse over the spring, it actually increased with time.And stay-at-home orders only exacerbated the gap, as they were more effective in Democratic counties.
The partisan response is likely at least partially attributable to Americans’ polarized media consumption. The study found that counties that consumed more Fox News than Democratic-leaning outlets like MSNBC and CNN had less physical distancing.
“Republican-leaning media downplaying the virus at the start of the pandemic may have signaled to Republicans that they should not take the virus very seriously, in turn potentially in part causing the observed partisan differences,” the authors write.
It seems very unlikely that this dynamic has changed since the end of May.
unsurprisingly, TTF would rather echo misleading thoughts on the pandemic than talk about the absence of the blue wave they were predicting to materialize and the complete failure of the science of polling to capture the views of Americans
"Several practical reasons contributed to Australia's success, experts say."
one of the big ones is that there is no NY, NJ, or Massachusetts down under
take those away and America looks pretty good
also, vegemite is antiviral
Democrats played by all the rules.
Republicans engaged in gas lighting and massive voter suppression to try and steal the election. And now Trump, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson falsely accuse Democrats of trying to steal the election. Straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook.
Like the dictator he is Trump is screaming for the counting of legally cast ballots to stop. This is why he appointed all those grossly unqualified right wing extremists to the court, he expects them to throw aside the rule of law and decide in his favour. Like Trump said "I have the Supreme Court".
This is what dictators do.
""Several practical reasons contributed to Australia's success, experts say."
one of the big ones is that there is no NY, NJ, or Massachusetts down under"
Au contraire!
The biggest reason they did so much better than the USA is that Australia had a leader who followed the science instead of his own magical thinking.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "TTF would rather echo misleading thoughts on the pandemic than talk about the absence of the blue wave they were predicting to materialize and the complete failure of the science of polling to capture the views of Americans"
It was a massive blue wave and the polling was dead on. When all is said and done Biden will have won the popular vote by over three million and would have won it by millions more if not for the massive multi-pronged voter suppression effort by Republicans.
The "closeness" of the electoral college shows just how close Republicans have come to thwarting the overwhelming consensus of American Democracy that Biden be president, just like happened with Hillary in 2016.
The pandemic is killing 1000 Americans a day and those numbers are going to increase. You people went nuts for four years over 4 dead Americans in Benghazi and now you're trying to gas light the public into believing the pandemic doesn't matter.
Your hypocrisy and callousness is absolutely stunning, a clear indicator of sociopathy.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said :"Several practical reasons contributed to Australia's success, experts say."
one of the big ones is that there is no NY, NJ, or Massachusetts down under"
There was no NY, NJ or Masachusetts there because their leaders didn't allow massive travel from Europe that made these places the epicentre of the infection and then ignore the problem because they liked the idea that people who wouldn't vote for them were dying.
Like Jarad Kushner said, a huge pile of them will die, that's their problem.
Not to mention that NY, NJ and Massachusetts got their pandemics under control while it exploded in red states which cause outbreaks and a second wave in most of the country.
China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Japan have a population have a population of 1.9 billion people. Red states North and South Dakota have a population of just 1.6 million
The TINY Dakotas had MORE new COVID cases yesterday than those four GIANT countries combined.
THAT'S HOW BADLY TRUMP HAS FAILED AMERICA
"Democrats played by all the rules."
Democrats conducted a coordinated propaganda campaign with professional pollsters and mainstream media to lie about the views of the public. That's distorts the views of voters and affects their decisions
for several elections, the pattern has been the same
the Dems are way ahead in the polls and suddenly the race tightens in the week before the election
in the past, the pollsters have been given the benefit of the doubt and everyone says people changed their minds
this year, when more than half the votes were cast a week before the election, that explanation doesn't suffice
even now, they are refusing to call North Carolina when Trump has clearly won
"Republicans engaged in gas lighting and massive voter suppression to try and steal the election. And now Trump, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson falsely accuse Democrats of trying to steal the election. Straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook."
you clearly have no familiarity with how Nazis operate
and, clearly, win or lose, Trump was not repudiated by a huge majority of Americans
"China, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Japan have a population have a population of 1.9 billion people. Red states North and South Dakota have a population of just 1.6 million
The TINY Dakotas had MORE new COVID cases yesterday than those four GIANT countries combined.
THAT'S HOW BADLY TRUMP HAS FAILED AMERICA"
China is not only the enemy of America, but the world
there brand of technological Orwellianism is a modern nightmare and, so far, Trump alone among world leaders has pushed back on this evil
they are the equivalent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s
and, yet, Randy thinks we should emulate their tactics to control the virus
btw, yeah, the Nazis would efficiently put down the virus too
Research shows trolls are sadistic and you can sure see the sadism in Wyatt and Regina Hardiman - pooh-poohing a death rate at 1000 a day and accelerating.
These people are truly heartless in their pursuit of dominance over 75% of the population.
"It was a massive blue wave and the polling was dead on."
you know you're delusional when even the Washington Post disagrees with you
"When all is said and done Biden will have won the popular vote by over three million and would have won it by millions more if not for the massive multi-pronged voter suppression effort by Republicans."
the pollsters said he was up by double digits not long ago
"The "closeness" of the electoral college shows just how close Republicans have come to thwarting the overwhelming consensus of American Democracy that Biden be president, just like happened with Hillary in 2016."
the pollsters were also lying about the Rust Belt swing states as well as the total vote
"The pandemic is killing 1000 Americans a day and those numbers are going to increase. You people went nuts for four years over 4 dead Americans in Benghazi and now you're trying to gas light the public into believing the pandemic doesn't matter."
around 3 million Americans die every year
why are we not shutting down over the other causes?
"Your hypocrisy and callousness is absolutely stunning, a clear indicator of sociopathy."
funny, I don't have a history of being institutionalized for mental problems, you do
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "and, clearly, win or lose, Trump was not repudiated by a huge majority of Americans".
He most certainly was!
Biden will have won the popular vote by over 3 million and would have won it by millions more of not for a massive multi-pronged and almost successful voter suppression effort by Trump. The polls were dead on, the gap between them and the results just shows how many votes Republicans stopped from being cast, counted, or delivered by a hand cuffed Post Office.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "China is not only the enemy of America, but the world"
What about Japan? What have you got against emulating their tactics? Or New Zealand? That China is a dictatorship (which is what you want for America) doesn't change the fact that they dealt far more successfully with the virus than Trump and the Republicans.
"What about Japan? What have you got against emulating their tactics? Or New Zealand?"
well, you brought up 1.9 Billion
1.3 billion are in China so that was what you were talking about
Japan has plenty of experience dealing with viruses originated in totalitarian China
they were already wearing masks before this
New Zealand is a little isolated
we did fine if you subtract NY, NJ, Massachusetts
"That China is a dictatorship (which is what you want for America) doesn't change the fact that they dealt far more successfully with the virus than Trump and the Republicans."
didn't say it did
but they used authoritarian tactics to do it
we believe freedom is more important than safety
btw, I won't comment above 200 so keep spewing your vicious deceit
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "the pollsters were also lying about the Rust Belt swing states as well as the total vote".
Your position is that pollsters forged the responses they got from asking Americans who'd they vote for. And you claim I'm mentally ill, lol.
The polls were dead on, they show the results of the massive multi-pronged Republican voter suppression effort which prevented votes from being cast, counted, or delivered by a Post Office handcuffed by Trump.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "around 3 million Americans die every year why are we not shutting down over the other causes?"
Again, the heartless callousness over more than a hundred thousand needless deaths and the gut wrenching hypocrisy by Republicans who screamed for the nation to be shut down over 4 deaths in Benghazi
I posted "Your hypocrisy and callousness is absolutely stunning, a clear indicator of sociopathy."
Wyatty/Regina/bad anonymous said "funny, I don't have a history of being institutionalized for mental problems, you do".
I've never been "institutionalized", another lie on your part. But even if I had been, that is the "ad hominem" logical fallacy - asserting that your opponent is wrong because of a personal flaw that has nothing to do with the points made.
Most sociopaths are never diagnosed and are often quite successful...because they lie and cheat - that's you two clearly. Research shows trolls like you are sadists and your behviour here certainly bears that out.
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