Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Thepersona]

Crazy that Trump still has that kind of approval rating. He is almost certainly at a 1932 time-line Hitler. And people just ignore all reality and fall in like the good Germans they are.

There's a lot of stupid people (in any part of the planet)
And to make matters worse, it seems there're a lot of religious/gun nuts in the US specifically.

[cubby]

Umm no, State of Fear was a horrible book on soo many levels.

I miss the early aughts. When hugely successful, and soft conservative authors like Crichton and Clancy thought that Eco-Terrorists were the next big threat...
Imagine making truckloads of money ... only to become more bitter and unhinged.

Or that new Tech Billionaires would be secret radical leftist eco-terrorist.... lol. The plot to 2020 makes their fiction look pretty sophomoric at this point

Horrible or not, the plot wasn't the point. His position on the future of the media was spot on.

Clancy's Rainbow Six plot, the last 150 pages or so, was good stuff.

[Zan15]

Mail in voting, without a sound way to making sure the vote is valid, is going to delay the results and also raise a lot of questions as to the validity of the votes.

Damn son .... Way to validate what everyone says about Trump supporters.

Everyone should report this as conspiracy since posting conspiracies is against forum rules

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They literally called Trump the only one to stop the collapse of western culture. What sort of darkness do you live in, for that to be the light? Are you in constant fear of antifa and rioters? Do you care that Trump’s tax cut, will defund your social security by 2023? Do you think Biden, the man behind criminal justice reform and Harris, a DA that every extreme liberal is shitting on, are controlled by rioters?

See... this is perspectives created by rhetoric. You see your self in darkness, with Trump as the light. While the DNC presented a country of light and unity, with only one man representing darkness.



We have mail in voting in several states and literally across the world. In this world of light that Trump presented, where was him talking about making mail in voting safer and not just preventing it? If Trump did so well, why does more people voting, seem like a risk?

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Dude... They literally called Trump the only think saving western culture. How is that not exactly North Korea?

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Not true... Social Security being defunded as a result of Trump’s promised tax cut, will hit him by 2023.

He willi also be impacted by cut in Medicare since that too is paid for by employment taxes. Less revenue how will his VA be paid for...?? Oh right more debt they cried about for 8 years under Obama.

Funny how much of his life depends on everyone else paying for it.

[eschatological]

I remember rainbow six. It was a meh book (why the fuck they use Ebola? A spanish flu variant would suffice).

IIRC, they aerosolized ebola, which would make it by far the most deadly disease ever. Ebola is only not as threatening as the Spanish Flu because it's actually pretty easy to prevent the spread of ebola.

Although, from everything I learned from playing Plague Inc, a low incubation and rapid mortality might not be good for an eco-terrorist plot. They'd want something with COVID's incubation/transmission, and ebola's fatality.

I always understood Clancy as a hawkish, conservative author, but I never really had that impression of Crichton, tbh. A lot of Crichton's work were cautionary tales about exploring things you had no hope of understanding or controlling. About the only one which had strong conservative themes was Rising Sun, which was very negative and xenophobic towards Japanese business culture. Most of his other books railed against corporatism and rigid thinking.

Granted, I didn't read Crichton past the 90s because I was in college and started reading the "serious" authors college asks you to read, and actually enjoying them.

[Ursus]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/media...hes/index.html

President Trump's Thursday night convention speech making the case for his reelection was lower-rated than his challenger Joe Biden's speech one week ago, according to overnight Nielsen ratings.

About 21.6 million viewers watched coverage of Trump's RNC address across nine cable and broadcast networks, down from 23.6 million viewers who watched Biden's DNC address on the same nine networks.

The totals may fluctuate slightly when final numbers are released later in the day, but Biden clearly edged out Trump.

The Democratic convention was also higher-rated than the Republican convention overall when the audience for all four days is tallied up.

Looks like Trump had about 2 million fewer television viewers for his convention speech compared to Biden. I'm just waiting for the tweet from Trump, "Democrats got millions of illegal immigrants to watch the DNC to make it look like they had biglier numbers. Sad!"

[cubby]

I remember rainbow six. It was a meh book (why the fuck they use Ebola? A spanish flu variant would suffice).

I agree overall meh, I just like the last 150 or so pages. I'm pretty sure they used it for the scare factor rather than any detailed science.

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IIRC, they aerosolized ebola, which would make it by far the most deadly disease ever. Ebola is only not as threatening as the Spanish Flu because it's actually pretty easy to prevent the spread of ebola.

Although, from everything I learned from playing Plague Inc, a low incubation and rapid mortality might not be good for an eco-terrorist plot. They'd want something with COVID's incubation/transmission, and ebola's fatality.

I always understood Clancy as a hawkish, conservative author, but I never really had that impression of Crichton, tbh. A lot of Crichton's work were cautionary tales about exploring things you had no hope of understanding or controlling. About the only one which had strong conservative themes was Rising Sun, which was very negative and xenophobic towards Japanese business culture. Most of his other books railed against corporatism and rigid thinking.

Granted, I didn't read Crichton past the 90s because I was in college and started reading the "serious" authors college asks you to read, and actually enjoying them.

They did aerosolize it - which is why it was so deadly. Also made it survive longer outside a host - the science on it was pretty believable, Clancy always had some very good researchers. The Sum of All Fears has a terrific chapter on the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Clancy's Jack Ryan series as fantastic overall for the techno-thriller genre. Clancy, however, was an absolute neo-con hawkish photo-op-with-Trump asshole. Felt giving women the right to vote was a bad call, etc. I didn't know that about him when I was a kid reading his stuff.

Crichton was very much a gentle liberal.

[Masark]

I remember rainbow six. It was a meh book (why the fuck they use Ebola? A spanish flu variant would suffice).

Because they were following on the Iranian ebola attack that happened in Executive Orders, planning to use that to drive acceptance of their fake vaccine (which was actually a vector for the disease rather than a vaccine), which would push the disease to an extinction-level event.

[Edge-]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN25O0LW

Paul told Fox News Channel he believes the group chanting his name and pushing against his impromptu police escort was paid to incite a riot. He did not say who he believes financially backed them or offer any evidence for his contention.

“I believe there are going to be people who were involved with the attack on us that actually were paid to come here and are not from Washington, D.C., and are sort of paid to be anarchists,” Paul said. “The FBI needs to investigate but the only way you can do it is you have to arrest people.”

What a fuckin snowflake. Can he not comprehend that a large portion of the country views him as a corrupt piece of shit?

[Thelxi]

The polls are looking great for Biden atm, which is a bit of a relief to see that the DNC and the first few days of the RNC at the very least did not damage Biden. No polls yet that take into account the tail end of the RNC, but I doubt that's going to move the needle much.

Trump's acceptance speech wasn't his best. He read it entirely off the prompter instead riffing which he is much better at, and lacked any new strategy; just the same old "puppet of the radical left" fearmongering, racism and xenophobia. It was also quite long and repetitive. What stood out to me was a bit of a return to the failed 2018 strategy of blasting criminal and illegal "aliens". He also peddled his miracle cure again, which is good.

This is interesting though, and it doesn't even take into account the last two days of the RNC, where the parading of black, Asian and Latino people went into overdrive.

-24% of registered black voters approve of Trump (up 9%)
-Minor increase in Latino approval

9% is pretty significant, suddenly it's a quarter, so it looks like at least the blatant pandering to black people somewhat paid off. This is pretty sobering considering it also takes into account the Kenosha protests.

[Edge-]

Remember the reports about that Trump aligned group was literally handing out cash to Black voters to try to get them to vote for Trump?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/polit...tus/index.html

A nonprofit organization started by two Trump administration allies that stirred up controversy earlier this year for holding cash giveaways in predominantly Black communities had its tax exempt status auto-revoked after failing to provide legally required forms to the Internal Revenue Service for three years in a row.

The organization, called the Urban Revitalization Coalition, Inc. and created to support President Donald Trump and his administration's policies, was started by Pastor Darrell Scott, the co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, and Kareem Lanier, who works in real estate and business development. Both Scott and Lanier lead the National Diversity Coalition for Trump.

According to public information on the IRS website, the organization's tax exemption status "was automatically revoked for not filing a Form 990-series return or notice for three consecutive years" effective May 15, 2020 and was placed on the "Automatic Revocation List" on August 11, 2020.

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https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/statu...29776860176384

Apparently Brian Kilmeade over at Fox wants to know why Biden is allowed to give an acceptance speech from "his house" but Trump isn't allowed to give an acceptance speech from "his house".

Few problems...

Joe Biden did not deliver his speech from his house. He delivered it from the Chase Center in Delaware.

The White House isn't Trump's "house", it's our house. It's the People's house. Trump's home, if we're going off of his voter registration, is in Florida.

It legitimately causes my physical pain that people like Kilmeade are paid to say such stupid, nonsensical, factually wrong stuff on national TV.

[Thepersona]

Because they were following on the Iranian ebola attack that happened in Executive Orders, planning to use that to drive acceptance of their fake vaccine (which was actually a vector for the disease rather than a vaccine), which would push the disease to an extinction-level event.

Yeah, i remember that, but even with that thing (the vaccine veing an actual vector) that would fall flat with any vaccine research and development.

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I agree overall meh, I just like the last 150 or so pages. I'm pretty sure they used it for the scare factor rather than any detailed science.

Y, im on that camp too. I still remember when they say at the end that nature is a heartless bitch (paraphrasing) and that was awesome.

[Edge-]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...eferral-404546

Let the ratfucking begin!

At least part of the federal government is preparing to implement President Trump’s plan to defer payroll taxes even before his administration finishes spelling out the details of how it will work.

The National Finance Center, which handles payroll for thousands of federal workers, said it will begin deferring Social Security taxes for “all” employees who are eligible for the initiative — apparently not giving them the option of whether to participate.

In a memo posted on its website, NFC is also telling workers that the deferred taxes will eventually be forgiven, though that is hardly certain — only Congress can do that.

“This is a deferral of the deductions, and Treasury should look to have legislation put in place so that employees do not have to pay back these deferred amounts,” reads the memo, which was first reported by the tax journal Tax Notes.

It comes as Treasury is still trying to finish guidance explaining exactly how the initiative is supposed to work.

The attacks on SS and Medicare have begun. This election is now also about saving SS and Medicare from insolvency in the next two years.

Because if Trump is able to defer or end payroll taxes for SS, it will run out of money by 2023. And seniors will suffer and die as a result.

[Rasulis]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/media...hes/index.html



Looks like Trump had about 2 million fewer television viewers for his convention speech compared to Biden. I'm just waiting for the tweet from Trump, "Democrats got millions of illegal immigrants to watch the DNC to make it look like they had biglier numbers. Sad!"

In term of TV rating, it was across the board losses for the GOP. On top of Biden's rating beat Trump, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden speeches beat Melania Trump's, and Harris pretty much squashed Pence.

[Machismo]

Remember the reports about that Trump aligned group was literally handing out cash to Black voters to try to get them to vote for Trump?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/polit...tus/index.html



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https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/statu...29776860176384

Apparently Brian Kilmeade over at Fox wants to know why Biden is allowed to give an acceptance speech from "his house" but Trump isn't allowed to give an acceptance speech from "his house".

Few problems...

Joe Biden did not deliver his speech from his house. He delivered it from the Chase Center in Delaware.

The White House isn't Trump's "house", it's our house. It's the People's house. Trump's home, if we're going off of his voter registration, is in Florida.

It legitimately causes my physical pain that people like Kilmeade are paid to say such stupid, nonsensical, factually wrong stuff on national TV.

Kilmeade is a smart person's idea of a stupid person.

[Elegiac]

In term of TV rating, it was across the board losses for the GOP. On top of Biden's rating beat Trump, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden speeches beat Melania Trump's, and Harris pretty much squashed Pence.

Considering that it's primarily old people watching this shit on television too, that's doubly damning.

[Edge-]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/n...deo-trump.html

It started with an unexpected call last week from Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump associate who oversees federal housing programs in New York.

Ms. Patton told a leader of a tenants’ group at the New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest, that she was interested in speaking with residents about conditions in the authority’s buildings, which have long been in poor repair.

Four tenants soon assembled in front of a video camera and were interviewed for more than four hours by Ms. Patton herself. They were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, three of the tenants said in interviews on Friday.

“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”

The episode represents another stark example of how President Trump has deployed government resources to further his political ambitions. Ms. Patton is head of the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and under the Hatch Act is barred from using her government position to engage in political activities.

Throughout the convention, Mr. Trump has shattered the traditional boundaries between government and politics, and the video was aired on a night when the campaign took over the South Lawn of the White House, the first time that a major political convention has occurred there.

The public housing clip was the second instance of the Trump campaign’s misleading participants in an event involving the federal government that was filmed for the Republican National Convention. On Tuesday, the convention showed a video of five new American citizens being sworn in at a naturalization ceremony by Mr. Trump. Some of the five said they did not know that they were being filmed for a political event.

Three of the four tenants in the public housing video were interviewed on Friday by The New York Times. All three said they opposed President Trump and were misled about the purpose of the video.

In which Donald Trump uses taxpayer dollars and government resources, tricking NYC tenants who do not support him or his campaign into providing campaign material without their consent.

Grifters gonna grift while people applaud the grift thinking it won't hit them one day.

[Ursus]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/n...deo-trump.html




In which Donald Trump uses taxpayer dollars and government resources, tricking NYC tenants who do not support him or his campaign into providing campaign material without their consent.

Grifters gonna grift while people applaud the grift thinking it won't hit them one day.

Most of the immigrants who appeared in the citizenship ceremony also had no idea they would be used in an RNC video. Imagine having such pathetic support among black and brown people that you literally have to con them into appearing to support you.

[D Luniz]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/n...deo-trump.html




In which Donald Trump uses taxpayer dollars and government resources, tricking NYC tenants who do not support him or his campaign into providing campaign material without their consent.

Grifters gonna grift while people applaud the grift thinking it won't hit them one day.

seeing that Alice johnson didnt get her pardon till today after the speech at the RNC (which Trump praised her for as he signed it) I wonder if she had refused to speak would she have ever gotten it.

[Ursus]

seeing that Alice johnson didnt get her pardon till today after the speech at the RNC (which Trump praised her for as he signed it) I wonder if she had refused to speak would she have ever gotten it.

It probably went down similar to his phone call with the Ukrainian president: "I can give you a full pardon, but I'd like you to do me a favor though..."

[Omega10]

America is changing.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/portland-...104536261.html

Title: Portland suffers serious street violence as far right return 'prepared to fight'

Finally, the media is reporting on the attempts of right wing groups to commit violent acts at protests and blame it on BLM, or the left in general.

Excerpts:

Last weekend a rightwing “Say no to Marxism in America” rally saw serious, widespread violence. Much of it came from rally attendees – who included members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys – and was directed not only at leftist counter-protesters, but also reporters.

Basically, there was violence at a right wing rally that, oh yeah, was basically members of the right wing directing violence at others.

One rightwing protester drew a firearm on opposing protesters. Earlier, he had fired a paintball gun into the crowd, and a local journalist was caught in the crossfire. Others appeared to be armed with firearms and knives. Some carried wooden shields with nails driven through them.

One pro-Trump protester took to a snack van with a baseball bat. Others joined in and destroyed the vehicle.

Near the peak of Saturday’s violence, a reporter’s hand was broken by a rightwing protester with a baton, and video of the incident went viral on social media. That reporter, Robert Evans, has been covering the protests since they began, for Bellingcat and other outlets.

That assailant was identified by Bellingcat on Tuesday as Travis Taylor, a Portland-based Proud Boy who has been previously observed attending violent street demonstrations in the city.

In a telephone conversation, Evans told the Guardian that the rightwing demonstrators “absolutely came prepared to fight”, were “very aggressive from the jump” and were equipped with “knives, guns, paintball guns with frozen pellets, batons”.

The right wing came ready to fight, and they did. The difference now is that they were unable to get their violence blamed on BLM.

Mainstream media attention was then diverted after the apparent resolution of the conflict over the unwanted presence of federal agents. But now the renewed presence of rightwing groups in the city has some fearing the fresh violence will continue, especially because activists say the PBB has a record of not intervening to prevent rightwing violence.

While cops will not hesitate to shoot blacks 8 to 15 to 20 times, as many times as they can, they seem to be ok with white guys who are clearly much more guilty then the black guys they shot repeatedly.

And not all locals consider the confrontation with far-right groups to be a distraction from the cause of protesting against police brutality against Black communities.

A spokesperson for Rose City Antifa, a long-established local anti-fascist network which has supported the protests downtown, wrote in an email: “Police brutality and white nationalist organizing are two sides of the same coin, and they should be addressed as such.”

It is no longer unthinkable that the police and white racist nationalists are united.

The first step is to identify the problem. Fixing it, of course, will take quite a while.