Voter Who Grilled Trump at ABC Town Hall: I Broke Down And Cried After
Posted By Ian Schwartz On Date September 18, 2020
CNN: Ellesia Blaque, who lives with the the chronic medical conditions sarcoidosis and neurosarcoidosis, asked President Donald Trump about his healthcare plan at an ABC town hall. She tells CNN's Brianna Keilar about the experience and how she reacted to Trump's answer. #CNN #News
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KEILAR: President Trump, taken to task at his town hall over whether he is going to protect pre-existing conditions in his still- unannounced health care plan.
An undecided voter who suffers from the chronic medical condition sarcoidosis, demanded to know if Trump would keep the same insurance protections as Obamacare. So she asked Trump point-blank, what was he going to do to protect people like her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELLESIA BLAQUE, SUFFERS FROM SARCOIDOSIS AND NEUROSARCOIDOSIS: Should pre-existing conditions -- which Obamacare brought into -- brought to fruition, be removed?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No.
BLAQUE: Without -- please stop and let me finish my question, sir. Should that be removed? Within a 36- to 72-hour period without my medication, I will be dead. And I want to know what it is that you're going to do to assure that people like me -- who work hard, we do everything we're supposed to do -- can stay insured.
It's not my fault that I was born with this disease. It's not my fault that I'm a black woman, and in the medical community I'm minimized and not taken seriously. I want to know what you are going to do about that.
TRUMP: So first of all, I hope you are taken seriously, I hope you are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Ellesia Blaque is joining us now to discuss this moment. She is an assistant professor of African literature at Kutztown University. You were obviously very firm there, and very clear in the question that you had to ask the president. Tell us what your reaction was to the answer that you got back.
BLAQUE: The answer that I received from the president actually broke my heart and made me extremely angry. In fact, when I -- when the event concluded and I left Constitution Hall, I sat on one of the walls and I broke down and I cried.
Because he did not address the question at all. What he did was, he took what I said about Obamacare, and flew with that in order to chop Barack Obama and the ACA to shreds, and to attempt to chop Joe Biden to shreds because he was one of the most important people in creating the Affordable Care Act.
For the record, I do not get the ACA. I'm insured by the State of Pennsylvania because I work for the State of Pennsylvania. And even though it is very expensive for me because I'm a single income, I have no children, but I have a single income and it's expensive to live where I live, with all the medications, the copays and the testing, et cetera -- and I get quite a bit.
That's not my complaint. My complaint and my problem is that as sick and disabled people who have diseases we cannot control, we were born with and are stuck with for life, we are thrown away like trash. We are treated like he treated me. He fluffed me off like soot on the bottom of his $3,000 pair of shoes, and I resent it.
We have a right to live, we have a right to life and we have a right to be treated equally within the medical community and among insurance companies.
Without the pre-existing condition rule, insurance companies are going to revert straight back to LOMA (ph) one through 10, and they're going to put a morbidity date on my life, which I have already passed. And I will be uninsured again.
KEILAR: Ellesia, you were there for this whole town hall, and you watched the president answer your question and others. Did you get the impression that he understands how health care works?
BLAQUE: No, not at all, not at all. He repeats himself redundantly about how Obamacare is a disaster. But he never talks specifics. Because I can tell over the last three and a half years that I've paid very close attention to this man, he does not read.
And he does -- if he does read, he's not reading thoroughly and he's not reading the way I read, with a notepad and a highlighter and taking notes so that I know what the little, persnickety details are about what it is that I do read, because that's where the most important information is. And he doesn't do that.
And he also comes from a position where he needs nothing. He can gain anything he wants at any given time from the day he was born. I was born into West Oak Lane, Philadelphia by a wonderful single mother who raised her kids without a welfare check or food stamp, and a grandmother who helped us out and told us we can be better than what -- into what we were born.
And I have done everything that I possibly can to do that. And people like that should not be thrown away. People with diabetes shouldn't be thrown away because they have diabetes.
KEILAR: No, certainly I think many people connect with you on that point.
I wonder, going into this, were you undecided? Obviously you have a lot of concerns with the president right now. Were you undecided, and where are you now?
BLAQUE: My indecision wasn't about whether to vote for Trump or Biden, that wasn't the indecision. The indecision was whether to vote or not. For the first time in my life, I did not -- since I was 18, I didn't vote in the primaries, I just sat in my car, disgusted. And so I didn't vote in the primaries.
And with everything that has taken place over the summer, I have just -- I've sat in my car and just cried because I can't believe all these people are dying, all these black people are being shot, all this disrespect between Americans on the street. It doesn't make sense to me.
And politicians, I don't care who they are -- Democrats, independents, Republicans -- they don't seem to, you know, really care about us on the block. They don't care about the people who are actually living it. They don't live it, they're beyond it because they're politicians, they get good paychecks, they have excellent health care, their jobs are secure.
That's not how it works where I live. I live right around the corner from Reading, Pennsylvania. I lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I'm from Philadelphia. That's not the way it works where we live. We have to struggle. We -- I become a professional to rob Peter and pay Paul because I'm so overtaxed because my tax bracket is in the middle, where I pay for the rich and I pay for the poor and there's nothing left for myself, OK?
And they don't care about that. They don't care that there are millions of people who are suffering, trying to figure out how they're going to pay rent or being evicted. It is of no fault of their own that they lost their job, and that they can't get another one in their field.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll Friday, September 18, 2020
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 53% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-six percent (46%) disapprove.
And then on top of that, trump trying to get rid of diversity training and claiming schools are teaching kids to hate this country is straight up trash.
That is a direct appeal to white nationalists and supremacy.
Ya know, the kind of people who find tucker Carlson and Laura ingraham enlightening and credible.
Trump demands 'patriotic education' in U.S. schools Children must be taught that America is “an exceptional, free and just nation, worth defending, preserving and protecting,” he said.
By NICOLE GAUDIANO 08/31/2020 08:12 PM EDT
President Donald Trump said Monday that the nation must restore “patriotic education” in schools as a way to calm unrest in cities and counter “lies” about racism in the United States.
Trump blamed violent protests in Portland, Ore., and other cities in recent months on “left-wing indoctrination” in schools and universities, while accusing his Democratic presidential challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, of giving “moral aid and comfort” to vandals.
“Many young Americans have been fed lies about America being a wicked nation plagued by racism,” Trump said during a news conference. “Indeed, Joe Biden and his party spent their entire convention spreading this hateful and destructive message while refusing to say one word about the violence.”
Trump’s solution: Children must be taught that America is “an exceptional, free and just nation, worth defending, preserving and protecting,” he said.
Democrats are unable, he said, to control a “radical left, crazy movement."
“The only path to unity is to rebuild a shared national identity focused on common American values and virtues of which we have plenty,” he said. “This includes restoring patriotic education in our nation's schools, where they are trying to change everything that we have learned.”
Decisions about curriculum are made at the state and local level, and Trump's second-term agenda does not detail his path for achieving that education focus.
Shortly before becoming a candidate in 2015, Trump decried the idea of American exceptionalism. But the GOP 2016 platform, which will remain in place for 2020, describes the concept as “the notion that our ideas and principles as a nation give us a unique place of moral leadership in the world.”
Biden’s response: “I urge the President to join me in saying that while peaceful protest is a right — a necessity — violence is wrong, period," Biden said in a statement responding to Trump's remarks. "No matter who does it, no matter what political affiliation they have. Period. If Donald Trump can't say that, then he is unfit to be President, and his preference for more violence — not less — is clear.”
Hitler immediately made changes to the school curriculum. Education in "racial awareness" began at school and children were constantly reminded of their racial duties to the "national community". Biology, along with political education, became compulsory. Children learnt about "worthy" and "unworthy" races, about breeding and hereditary disease. "They measured their heads with tape measures, checked the colour of their eyes and texture of their hair against charts of Aryan or Nordic types, and constructed their own family trees to establish their biological, not historical, ancestry.... They also expanded on the racial inferiority of the Jews". (4)
As Louis L. Snyder has pointed out: "There were to be two basic educational ideas in his ideal state. First, there must be burnt into the heart and brains of youth the sense of race. Second, German youth must be made ready for war, educated for victory or death. The ultimate purpose of education was to fashion citizens conscious of the glory of country and filled with fanatical devotion to the national cause." (5)
The Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, claimed that the idea that history teaching should be objective was a fallacy of liberalism. (6) "The purpose of history was to teach people that life was always dominated by struggle, that race and blood were central to everything that happened in the past, present and future, and that leadership determined the fate of peoples. Central themes in the new teaching including courage in battle, sacrifice for a greater cause, boundless admiration for the Leader and hatred of Germany's enemies, the Jews." (7)
Hitler appointed the loyal Bernhard Rust as Minister for Education. Rust lost his job as a schoolteacher in 1930 after being accused of having a sexual relationship with a student. He was not charged with the offence because of his "instability of mind". Rust's task was to change the education system so that resistance to fascist ideas were kept to a minimum. (8)
This is just another example of why both sides suck.
Republicans
Protect all unborn children, none of them should be murdered. Oh but screw the old and the sick they don't deserve to live. We encourage killing them off.
Democrates
Protect all people (Even those here illegally) Free health care for all, oh but screw all of those not born yet, murder as many of them as y'all want, as a matter of fact we encourage that.
This is just another example of why both sides suck.
Republicans
Protect all unborn children, none of them should be murdered. Oh but screw the old and the sick they don't deserve to live. We encourage killing them off.
Democrates
Protect all people (Even those here illegally) Free health care for all, oh but screw all of those not born yet, murder as many of them as y'all want, as a matter of fact we encourage that.
Republicans: the party of forced hysterectomies... - the party of kids in cages - the party of kids disappearing in the night - the party of splitting up families and kidnapping babies - the party of forcing kids back to school during a pandemic - the party of economy over life - the party of defund schools - the party of defund kids food and healthcare programs - the party of only wealthy/white kids matter - the party of it's ok if cops and gun toting thugs kill black kids - the party of making heroes out of cold blooded murdering white kids
The republicans can stick their fake ass morality up their ass.
I find this to be one of the better 'forecasting' sites. All they do is use math and statistics to run models. It's normally pretty good. The "snake" graphic on the page about 1/2 way down is really kind of interesting.
Currently Ohio is showing light red - NC, Ax, PA, Fl all light blue. I think it may all come down to NC, AZ and PA.
i don't post late night guys, but at this point, the mockery that trump and supporters truly deserve is something i just can't deliver as good as they can.
THROW LONG is going to tell you how the General Election could end in a tie and why I think it's at least 10% likely, (barring how I expect the democrats to cheat and steal up to around 5 states 40 days afterwards of course, Of Course of course. )
No matter how the liberal media are lying to us there are only a few battleground states, and there is a real chance this could end up tied.
If you look at who states voted for in the last several elections, and if it tightens down much like it did in 2016, 2008, (The map is really telling, told me Virginia loves Rinos' like McCain and Romney, who knew), well that's establishment, and Biden is establishment, soo, even if 2016 mostly repeats, We get 4 battleground states, important, to see how real close to a statistical tie this is.
We come to this with Trump having 259, needing 11 to reach 270 to win. Biden with 222 needing 48 to win, In this scenario, Trump gets 1 vote out of a Maine district the other 3 go to Biden just like the Trump, Hilary split in 2016.
There are 4 battleground states, Minnesota, 10 votes, (which is closer than normal but historically Democratic, easy to see a democtatic win by a small margin
Wisconsin, 10 votes, closer than normal, historically democratic but went for Trump in 2016, easy to see Trump winning this one, by a small margin.
Pennsylvania, 20 votes, it's a battleground state, but in this scenario Biden needs to win it, if Trump wins Penn, it's over as he only needs 11, but historically, it's not out of possibilities that Biden gets this one by a small margin.
and Michigan, 16 votes, which went Repbulican in 2016 but by the smallest margin of any state if I recall correctly, So it's not out of possibilities to think it could go for Biden.
Now, Two states give votes to each district and 2 for the winner, Maine, and Nebraska.
In this scenario, needing 270 votes to win, Trump is sitting at 269, Biden at 268, and the 1 district of Nebraska could go to Biden giving a 269-269 tie.
With mail in ballots, different rules per each state, and known election fraud cases in the past, and the FBI saying mail in voting is dangerous for fraud, (per the Sean Hanity show), and consider, Ohio had something like 600K mail in ballots in 2016, yet as of early Sept, was saying in this Covid year, there were already 1.7million, mail in ballot requests, (so nearly 3 times as many)
Considering that that is just for One State, the idea that we will know who won the election by even 3pm the day after the election is unlikely, yet
with the possibility to pay postal workers to hide ballots, or use known deficits to fradulantly add fake ballots after the fact, with the stakes so high,
I mean how can I believe that a democratic party that never accepted the 2016 election results, with Russian collusion accusations, impeachment accusations, all the constant attacks, unwarranted even, that they are going to suddenly avoid a little voter fraud because of rules?
So, in spite of the OH Lt Gov, trying to tell me Ohio makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat, there is little anyone can do to convince the other 49 states will be as genuine in their results. So much so, that I'm already pretty sure this will be By Far, the Least Genuine Election on a national level, in my Lifetime, And given the cheating in the past, that is really saying something.
For what it's worth here is how this scenario has the other states going. Pretty historically obvious.
Biden, Hawaii(4), Wash,(12), Oregon(7), California(55), Nevada(6), Colorado(9) New Mexico(5), Illinois,(20), Virginia(13), Wash.DC,(3), Maryland(10), Delaware(3), New Jersey(14), New York(29), Connecticutt(7), Rhode Island(4), Massachusetts(11), Vermont(3), New Hampshire(4), and Maine(3 for Biden 1 for Trump).
Trump, Alaska(3), Arizona(11), Utah(6), Idaho(4) Montana(3), Wyoming(3) North Dakota(3), South Dakota(3), Nebraska(4+1-undecided), Kansas(6), Oklahoma(7), Texas(38) Louisiana(8), Arkansas(6), Missouri(10), Iowa(6) Mississippi(6) Alabama(9), Tennessee(11), Kentucky(8), Indiana(11), Ohio(18), West Virginia(5), North Carolina(15), South Carolina(9), Georgia(16), Florida(29).
269-269
Honestly I'd rather see the Dems win it outright than with what I'd be pretty sure was fraud long after the day.
But Of Course I want to see Trump win, Thank God! Trump is president, again, and not any democrat.
I didn't know giving women a choice was "encouraging" it?
The last 30 years of Democrats' and planned parenthoods' cooperation and actions is pretty well documented, including the intimidation of religious objection to abortion, by funding withholding on an individual level.
It’s so funny watching conservative clowns donate to the NRA KNOWING they have received money from Russia and had spies all up in the organization.
But, I expect nothing less from anti-American losers, who falsely claim they’re patriots.
I think how I heard Micheal Bloomburg is going to buy 100 Million dollars worth of Ads in the state of Florida in support of Biden. I wonder what he thinks he is buying, for that kind of money he is going to want something in return. Talk about anti-American
GC. I'm struggling with why 60 minutes television show, a tool of the insiders or deep state, would tell me that mail in ballot requests would be 6-1 democrat in one place and 2 of 3 in another.
Wrong! I'm not struggling, what I'm struggling with how they are obviously lying, it goes against such conventional wisdom.
My convention wisdom, and BS meter, says there is no plausible reason why mail in requests would be more democrats, OR republicans,
GC. I'm struggling with why 60 minutes television show, a tool of the insiders or deep state, would tell me that mail in ballot requests would be 6-1 democrat in one place and 2 of 3 in another.
Wrong! I'm not struggling, what I'm struggling with how they are obviously lying, it goes against such conventional wisdom.
My convention wisdom, and BS meter, says there is no plausible reason why mail in requests would be more democrats, OR republicans,
EXCEPT CHEATING!
Because Democrats in general aren’t denying COVID. trump honks are willing to stand shoulder to shoulder in line and mouth breathe on each other.
GC. I'm struggling with why 60 minutes television show, a tool of the insiders or deep state, would tell me that mail in ballot requests would be 6-1 democrat in one place and 2 of 3 in another.
Wrong! I'm not struggling, what I'm struggling with how they are obviously lying, it goes against such conventional wisdom.
My convention wisdom, and BS meter, says there is no plausible reason why mail in requests would be more democrats, OR republicans,
EXCEPT CHEATING!
As Portland said, I see no one besides hardcore Trump supporters demanding in person voting. Mail in votes has always been a thing. Smart people are using it more now as a precaution. I have never voted mail in, but I will this year. And I'm not a Democrat or Republican at this point in time.
GC. I'm struggling with why 60 minutes television show, a tool of the insiders or deep state, would tell me that mail in ballot requests would be 6-1 democrat in one place and 2 of 3 in another.
Wrong! I'm not struggling, what I'm struggling with how they are obviously lying, it goes against such conventional wisdom.
My convention wisdom, and BS meter, says there is no plausible reason why mail in requests would be more democrats, OR republicans,
EXCEPT CHEATING!
If you don't like those numbers, I have some more you won't like.
Republicans almost always request more early ballots in Florida-Dems have requested more than 700,000 more than republicans.
The Dems have a 3 to 1 advantage in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
The Dems have a lead of requested ballots in New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa.
The most striking example is Pennsylvania where 175,000 Dems who sat out 2016 have requested ballots, more than twice the Republicans
I didn't know giving women a choice was "encouraging" it?
The last 30 years of Democrats' and planned parenthoods' cooperation and actions is pretty well documented, including the intimidation of religious objection to abortion, by funding withholding on an individual level.
Yet it was people from the religious right who killed abortion doctors and blew up abortion clinics. Dr. David Gunn, Doctor Barnett Slepia, Dr. George Tiller.
Woman Who Shot Wichita Abortion Doctor, Bombed Clinics In the 1990's Released From Prison
THROW LONG is going to tell you how the General Election could end in a tie and why I think it's at least 10% likely, (barring how I expect the democrats to cheat and steal up to around 5 states 40 days afterwards of course, Of Course of course. )
No matter how the liberal media are lying to us there are only a few battleground states, and there is a real chance this could end up tied.
If you look at who states voted for in the last several elections, and if it tightens down much like it did in 2016, 2008, (The map is really telling, told me Virginia loves Rinos' like McCain and Romney, who knew), well that's establishment, and Biden is establishment, soo, even if 2016 mostly repeats, We get 4 battleground states, important, to see how real close to a statistical tie this is.
We come to this with Trump having 259, needing 11 to reach 270 to win. Biden with 222 needing 48 to win, In this scenario, Trump gets 1 vote out of a Maine district the other 3 go to Biden just like the Trump, Hilary split in 2016.
There are 4 battleground states, Minnesota, 10 votes, (which is closer than normal but historically Democratic, easy to see a democtatic win by a small margin
Wisconsin, 10 votes, closer than normal, historically democratic but went for Trump in 2016, easy to see Trump winning this one, by a small margin.
Pennsylvania, 20 votes, it's a battleground state, but in this scenario Biden needs to win it, if Trump wins Penn, it's over as he only needs 11, but historically, it's not out of possibilities that Biden gets this one by a small margin.
and Michigan, 16 votes, which went Repbulican in 2016 but by the smallest margin of any state if I recall correctly, So it's not out of possibilities to think it could go for Biden.
Now, Two states give votes to each district and 2 for the winner, Maine, and Nebraska.
In this scenario, needing 270 votes to win, Trump is sitting at 269, Biden at 268, and the 1 district of Nebraska could go to Biden giving a 269-269 tie.
With mail in ballots, different rules per each state, and known election fraud cases in the past, and the FBI saying mail in voting is dangerous for fraud, (per the Sean Hanity show), and consider, Ohio had something like 600K mail in ballots in 2016, yet as of early Sept, was saying in this Covid year, there were already 1.7million, mail in ballot requests, (so nearly 3 times as many)
Considering that that is just for One State, the idea that we will know who won the election by even 3pm the day after the election is unlikely, yet
with the possibility to pay postal workers to hide ballots, or use known deficits to fradulantly add fake ballots after the fact, with the stakes so high,
I mean how can I believe that a democratic party that never accepted the 2016 election results, with Russian collusion accusations, impeachment accusations, all the constant attacks, unwarranted even, that they are going to suddenly avoid a little voter fraud because of rules?
So, in spite of the OH Lt Gov, trying to tell me Ohio makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat, there is little anyone can do to convince the other 49 states will be as genuine in their results. So much so, that I'm already pretty sure this will be By Far, the Least Genuine Election on a national level, in my Lifetime, And given the cheating in the past, that is really saying something.
For what it's worth here is how this scenario has the other states going. Pretty historically obvious.
Biden, Hawaii(4), Wash,(12), Oregon(7), California(55), Nevada(6), Colorado(9) New Mexico(5), Illinois,(20), Virginia(13), Wash.DC,(3), Maryland(10), Delaware(3), New Jersey(14), New York(29), Connecticutt(7), Rhode Island(4), Massachusetts(11), Vermont(3), New Hampshire(4), and Maine(3 for Biden 1 for Trump).
Trump, Alaska(3), Arizona(11), Utah(6), Idaho(4) Montana(3), Wyoming(3) North Dakota(3), South Dakota(3), Nebraska(4+1-undecided), Kansas(6), Oklahoma(7), Texas(38) Louisiana(8), Arkansas(6), Missouri(10), Iowa(6) Mississippi(6) Alabama(9), Tennessee(11), Kentucky(8), Indiana(11), Ohio(18), West Virginia(5), North Carolina(15), South Carolina(9), Georgia(16), Florida(29).
269-269
Honestly I'd rather see the Dems win it outright than with what I'd be pretty sure was fraud long after the day.
But Of Course I want to see Trump win, Thank God! Trump is president, again, and not any democrat.
On RCP polling this morning they basically have it as Biden with 222 and Trump with 125 with 191 toss ups.
Out of the toss-ups Biden needs 48 to 270
Of those toss up states that RCP has listed, in the latest polls at this point in time, the lead for Biden in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona are between about 6-10.6 points, well outside the margin of error. That would give Biden another 43 electoral votes to 265.
That basically means that trump would have to win all of the following:
Pennsylvania-Biden is leading there-average just outside margin of error
Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Texas-within margin of error-Biden has a small lead in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina and trump has a lead in Georgia, Iowa and Texas. But the fact that Iowa and especially Texas have moved out of trumps corner to toss up is amazing. Even in South Carolina-the last 3 polls are trump ahead by 4-6%. They could also move that state to toss up
and then there are a couple small states left like New Hampshire, Maine CD2 and Nebraska CD2-Biden is leading in NH and Maine.
And make no mistake, there is lots of early voting already happening and a large majority of the voters (over 90%) already have their mind made up who they are voting for. The last 2 polls from Quinnipiac and Monmouth state that only 3% of registered voters are undecided
I didn't know giving women a choice was "encouraging" it?
The last 30 years of Democrats' and planned parenthoods' cooperation and actions is pretty well documented, including the intimidation of religious objection to abortion, by funding withholding on an individual level.
Yet it was people from the religious right who killed abortion doctors and blew up abortion clinics. Dr. David Gunn, Doctor Barnett Slepia, Dr. George Tiller.
Woman Who Shot Wichita Abortion Doctor, Bombed Clinics In the 1990's Released From Prison
So you call having access to abortion "encouraging it"? Hmmm...
Even if you listed a thousand examples of people killing abortion Dr's, those examples don't and wouldn't refute the point I made, that planned parenthood and the democrats have forced catholics and the like to have their forced union dues and the like, have to pay for abortions, it's all very dubious on the part of the left, and it's been known and discussed for a Long time, and it has Nothing to do with abortion DR's being killed.
Your polls are all Monty Python Penguined It's known they only poll known democrats.
If Biden loses New Hampshire he is Monty Python Penguined.
A real count of the voters, 1 vote for 1 voter, would undoubtedly elect Trump, I'm convinced of that.
Yet, with democrat cheating, I expect, helped by the deep state, they will force a lie on the country, in spite of the will of the voters, and I'm thinking it won't be the first time.
Put it this way, I'll explain it,
Say Barney the dinosaur, I'll name it, represents 100 votes.
Now Barney the dinosaur, didn't care about politics because they didn't believe the System could even work for them, and therefore they didn't vote, all 100 of em.
Then lets say, over the years, the democrats, see that Barney the dinosaur didn't vote, yet, they keep losing elections by 53 votes.
So the democrats say, we'll request mail in ballots for Barney the Dinosaur, all 100 of them, then on election day, the democrats lose the vote by 79 votes
But because the democrats are in control of the deep state, the 100 requests never really went to Barneys' 100 houses, and because BArney didn't care, barney is none the wiser, Barney thinks He or she just didn't vote, 100 times.
So, After the vote, The democrats are in a room, where the 100 Barney the dinosaur ballots' requested' never got filled out, are laying blank on one side,
The count of the ballots showing the democrats lost by 79 votes is on the other side of the room,
And there is a pen in the middle to start filling out ballots,
What do you think is going to happen.
OHH they are alllll democrat votes found in the "mail"
" there aint going to be none republicans found, ... "how many do you need" , "how many do you need to make the election outcome change?" That many plus a few may show up, because,
Why make them waist time filling out more, fraudulent ballots, then necessary.
If this wasn't going on, then the number of mail in ballot requests, would match right down the line, 50-50 of the number of type of people who would normally show up at the voting booth.
Joe Biden sees Jeff Sessions' granddaughter, reaches to touch her, and Jeff Sessions swats Biden's hand away before he can touch her.
He is so, so creepy.
He is creepy and a good reason for him not to be POTUS - I'd much rather have a REAL American President that boasts of grabbing girls vaginas without their consent than this creepy old dude. Or a real man who walks around girls changing rooms at pageants. Or has affairs with porn stars while his wife is pregnant. Less creepy and much more manly
Yet, with democrat cheating, I expect, helped by the deep state, they will force a lie on the country, in spite of the will of the voters, and I'm thinking it won't be the first time.
Serious question - is there any line of anti-Democratic rhetoric that they feed you that would make you question them? I think you need a broader and more reputable source of information.
You'd much rather have a party that records people without their knowledge on a Bus,
and Pulls people before Court interrogation on made up accusations, found to be unfounded, then later convicts the person for "lying", after they ask them so many messed up questions from so many different angles they eventually stumble on a mix up.
Joe Biden blasts Bernie in pitch to Wisconsin voters: 'I beat the socialist' 'Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career,' Biden said
Your polls are all Monty Python Penguined It's known they only poll known democrats.
If Biden loses New Hampshire he is Monty Python Penguined.
A real count of the voters, 1 vote for 1 voter, would undoubtedly elect Trump, I'm convinced of that.
Yet, with democrat cheating, I expect, helped by the deep state, they will force a lie on the country, in spite of the will of the voters, and I'm thinking it won't be the first time.
Put it this way, I'll explain it,
Say Barney the dinosaur, I'll name it, represents 100 votes.
Now Barney the dinosaur, didn't care about politics because they didn't believe the System could even work for them, and therefore they didn't vote, all 100 of em.
Then lets say, over the years, the democrats, see that Barney the dinosaur didn't vote, yet, they keep losing elections by 53 votes.
So the democrats say, we'll request mail in ballots for Barney the Dinosaur, all 100 of them, then on election day, the democrats lose the vote by 79 votes
But because the democrats are in control of the deep state, the 100 requests never really went to Barneys' 100 houses, and because BArney didn't care, barney is none the wiser, Barney thinks He or she just didn't vote, 100 times.
So, After the vote, The democrats are in a room, where the 100 Barney the dinosaur ballots' requested' never got filled out, are laying blank on one side,
The count of the ballots showing the democrats lost by 79 votes is on the other side of the room,
And there is a pen in the middle to start filling out ballots,
What do you think is going to happen.
OHH they are alllll democrat votes found in the "mail"
" there aint going to be none republicans found, ... "how many do you need" , "how many do you need to make the election outcome change?" That many plus a few may show up, because,
Why make them waist time filling out more, fraudulent ballots, then necessary.
If this wasn't going on, then the number of mail in ballot requests, would match right down the line, 50-50 of the number of type of people who would normally show up at the voting booth.
Its really hard to even understand what you are trying to say.
But I will try to answer about the polling. Because polling changes over time, I use an average of the polls that are used by RealClearPolitics and 538. For example, On Wisconsin, I think I said Biden was up by 6. That was an average of 9 different polls that were taken in the last 3 weeks-All of the polls were Biden up between 4 and 10 points. Some of the polls used are NY Times, CBS, CNN but also Yougov, Fox News and Rasmussen-so it is quite consistent, and a pretty good sampling-and all were outside the margin of error +/-3%
I actually think it would be smart for Biden to distance himself from Bernie. Most Americans don't want socialism. Well, most working Americans don't want socialism. So, this is a smart move by Biden's camp.
I actually think it would be smart for Biden to distance himself from Bernie. Most Americans don't want socialism. Well, most working Americans don't want socialism. So, this is a smart move by Biden's camp.
He made some unity task force with Bernie back in July. I think he is trying to play both sides.
GC. Bloomburg pays off 20 millon dollars worth of Felons fines which would allow 31,000 fellons ability to vote. Has also pledged 100 million to adds in Florida.
So uneventful, it doesn’t even deserve its own thread.
except it does deserve it's own thread because that was the reason Trump tried to coerce Ukraine to do his bidding and why Trump withheld funds that were already appropriated ... oh, sorry, I was forgetting. #factsdontmatter
Biden wants you to believe economy will be strong if he wins, here's why he's wrong Democrats are rewriting history, celebrating the Obama record on the economy as if these were the salad days for America
The Democrats are rewriting history, celebrating the Obama record on the economy as if these were the salad days for America. In Washington parlance, that is called "misremembering." The reality is that the Obama tax-and-regulate agenda led to the weakest economic recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
Last week, the Census Bureau released its economic report -- the gold standard of measuring the finances of American families.
In President Donald Trump's first three years in office, real median family income for Americans rose by more than $6,400. In Obama's EIGHT years in office, the increase in incomes was closer to $4,000. Black Americans made more income gains in three years under Trump than eight years under Obama.
But Biden's agenda is to return to a regulation binge -- in banking, finance, environment, consumer affairs and health care.
The rumors are swirling that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading Biden economic policy adviser and confidant, could be Treasury secretary or regulatory czar.
The radical Warren policy proposals that Biden has now adopted, including entirely carbon emission-free electricity (with a loss of up to 5 million blue-collar jobs) and the strictest financial regulations ever. Stocks and retirement portfolios could take a beating.
For example, Warren and many Biden economists are advocating adding to the Fed's current dual mandate of promoting stable prices and maximum employment. Now they want a mandate that will use the Fed monetary policy to equalize incomes. How? By printing money? Forcing companies to pay a superminimum wage?
Retirement savings of American mom-and-pop investors and financial traders of all shapes and sizes could be at risk if independent analyses of credit rating agencies are compromised by government mandates. The Biden Democrats want the feds to intervene in these bond ratings to promote social justice, environmentalism and other goals that may be worthy but that steer retirement and other investment funds away from the highest returns.
Trump wants health care freedom that gives patients and doctors more say of what kind of insurance they can buy and what kind of procedures are best for them. Biden wants to double down on the Affordable Care Act, which has driven up health costs and prohibited Americans from purchasing more affordable health plans.
The costs of all these "consumer protections" fall hardest on the lowest-income families. Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago estimates that the Biden regulatory stranglehold and his ban on fracking would reduce the incomes of the poorest households by about 15%. The average household would see losses of about 4% by going back to the Obama regulatory regime.
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders has suggested that the Biden administration would be the most progressive and radical in history if it takes office. He may be called "Lunch Bucket Joe," but for blue-collar America, the Biden agenda would be a real blow to the wallet.
What a terrible article. It's full of hysterical paranoia. It's as bad as those crazy articles about the United States being similar to Nazi Germany.
I don't know if anyone else [on this board] feels this way, but when I read such propaganda, I actually have an opposite reaction than the one the author wants me to have.
Agreed. They use crap like this to get on their almighty soap box and shove their opinions down our throats. I'm so sick of the extremists on both sides.
FBI warns disinformation campaigns may target 2020 election results
Americans should look to state election officials for trusted results in November, the agency warned.
Americans should look to state election officials for trusted results in November, the FBI said Tuesday, as bad actors may try to sow chaos while votes are still being counted.
In a public service announcement with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI cautioned that certifying the results of the U.S. election could take weeks and that "Foreign actors and cybercriminals could exploit the time required to certify and announce elections' results."
One potential scenario the agency warned of is hackers' defacing websites to indicate false election results, causing chaos and confusion without affecting vote tallying systems.
Hackers widely believed by analysts to be associated with Russian military intelligence have carried out such operations in Eastern European countries in recent years. During Ukraine's 2014 presidential election, Russian hackers defaced an official Ukrainian government website to display false results, leading to days of uncertainty over the true winner.
The government warning does not cite domestic actors as potential sources of disinformation, despite evidence of at least one domestic troll farm in the style of Russia's Internet Research Agency that inflamed U.S. political tensions ahead of the 2016 election.
It does, however, point specifically to state and local election officials as "trustworthy," but it does not mention federal officials. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made false claims about voting by mail to indicate that it is an invalid process, particularly regarding states with Democratic election chiefs, like Colorado and Michigan.
Judge denies Eric Trump's request to delay deposition until after election The president's son must be deposed by Oct. 7. ByAaron Katersky September 23, 2020, 4:05 PM • 4 min read
Judge Arthur Engoron has ordered President Donald Trump's son to appear for a deposition by Oct. 7, denying Eric Trump's request to wait until after the election.
Engoron said the argument to delay providing testimony was "unpersuasive" because "neither the petitioner nor this court is bound by timelines of the national election."
The New York Attorney General's Office on Wednesday had sought to compel testimony from Eric Trump as part of an investigation into whether the Trump Organization improperly inflated certain assets to obtain tax benefits it otherwise would not have been entitled to receive.
Eric Trump had offered to sit for a deposition after Election Day, citing a busy travel schedule on behalf of the campaign, but he "will no longer be able to delay his interview and will be sitting down with investigators in my office no later than Oct. 7," said New York Attorney General Letitia James. "To be clear, no entity or individual is allowed to dictate how or when our investigation will proceed or set the parameters of a lawful investigation."
"The mere ground of personal inconvenience isn't a basis to delay compliance," Colangelo said during a video hearing before Engoron.
An attorney for Eric Trump, Alan Futerfas, said the proposed delay resulted from a change in attorneys so the president's son is represented by counsel separate from the company.
"There is a massive amount of material that is involved in this investigation," Futerfas said. "We need time to go through these materials. We need time to prepare our client."
Futerfas also reminded the judge about the approaching election: "Eric Trump is a vital and integral part of that, and he's traveling just about seven days a week."
During the same hearing, Colangelo said the Trump Organization was improperly withholding about four dozen records from investigators and he balked at the company's claim the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege.
"There's no evidence they relate to a legal purpose and in about 44 of them they were copied to a third party and the privilege is waived," Colangelo said.
"We've been very cooperative with the attorney general throughout the investigation," said Trump Organization attorney Lawrence Rosen.
The Trump campaign is reportedly 'discussing contingency plans to bypass election results' The Week Brendan Morrow ,The Week•September 23, 2020
President Trump's campaign is discussing "contingency plans" that would involve bypassing the result of November's election, reports The Atlantic.
The report delves into possible scenarios if Trump apparently loses the 2020 presidential election but doesn't concede, noting that although we're used to electors being selected based on the popular vote, "nothing in the Constitution says it has to be that way." Citing Republican Party sources, The Atlantic says that Trump's campaign is "discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority."
The campaign would reportedly assert that this step was necessary due to claims of supposed voter fraud, which experts have noted is extraordinarily rare, ahead of the "safe harbor" deadline to appoint 538 electors on Dec. 8.
"Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly," The Atlantic reports. "The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires."
A Trump campaign legal adviser who spoke to The Atlantic said that in this scenario, "the state legislatures will say, 'All right, we've been given this constitutional power. We don't think the results of our own state are accurate, so here's our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state." Lawrence Tabas, chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, also told The Atlantic he has discussed the direct appointment of electors with the Trump campaign, saying, "I've mentioned it to them, and I hope they're thinking about it too." The Trump campaign said it is "fighting for a free and fair election."
This potential scenario is just one part of the broader piece in which experts warn "conditions are ripe for a constitutional crisis."
If he legit loses on the 3rd, he should step down. However, we all know what the dem's will do if it's close..........they'll take a week, 2 weeks, a month, or more saying "we haven't counted all the mail in ballots yet", or "Russia rigged the mail in ballots"
That's why mass mail in balloting is idiotic imo.
If masks work, in person voting should be the norm for the vast, vast majority. If masks don't work, why are we wearing them?
I'm calling it right now: If Hiden loses, the dems won't quit protesting, probably trying another impeachment, whining away for the next 4 years.
I'm calling it right now: If Hiden loses, the dems won't quit protesting, probably trying another impeachment, whining away for the next 4 years.
It will be more than that. It's probably the biggest reason why gun and ammo sales are off the charts.
The sad thing is that so many of us want to unite and be peaceful. But, there are too many that won't embrace that notion and the media is feeding them on a daily basis.
I've tried. I mean.........really tried. Countless others have as well. All that work is being wasted by selfish folks who only see things from their eyes.
It's highly unlikely the election results are known on November 3rd. Several state Supreme Courts, such as PA, have ruled that votes postmarked, but received within 3 days after the election are to be counted.
Some states do not even begin to count the mail-in and absentee ballots until the day of election.
Our republican Secretary of State has repeatedly stated the safety of mail-in voting.
If in-person voting is mandatory, than the Election Day should be a National Holiday.
Trump is the one already signaling the election will be a fraud and sowing doubt and hinting at litigation.
If there was evidence of widespread voter fraud by mail, I could rationalize the point. There is not. The Trump Administration had the opportunity to present to the PA Supreme Court evidence of wide spread, mail-in voter fraud as they claimed and was unable to do so, hence mail in voting stood.
I do agree with your first point, that yes, Trump should step down in the event of a loss on Election night. If the race is close it should not be called on election night.
Ohioans alone have already requested over 2M absentee ballots.
If you are thinking Civil War, well, that can't happen.
A Civil War is fought between fairly equal sides who are equally qualified to do battle.
There are 150 million Americans who love this Country so an organized group of radical blue haired kids wearing their sisters pants are in no way equal to that fight.
If you are thinking Civil War, well, that can't happen.
A Civil War is fought between fairly equal sides who are equally qualified to do battle.
There are 150 million Americans who love this Country so an organized group of radical blue haired kids wearing their sisters pants are in no way equal to that fight.
Then why are republicans so afeard of BLM and ANTIFA. You won't talk like that when they come to your house...
If you are thinking Civil War, well, that can't happen.
A Civil War is fought between fairly equal sides who are equally qualified to do battle.
There are 150 million Americans who love this Country so an organized group of radical blue haired kids wearing their sisters pants are in no way equal to that fight.
Then why are republicans so afeard of BLM and ANTIFA. You won't talk like that when they come to your house...
We only fear the effects these domestic enemies will have on our great Nation.
Says the guy who disappeared for a week over me jokingly saying I was going to dox him. You are the only enemy of the state/people I see bro. I studied Hitler's rise to power too.
A large batch of mail, including several mailed-in ballots, were discovered in a ditch along a Wisconsin road on Tuesday.
Fox 11 reported the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office said three trays were found in a ditch early in the morning.
The mail was found “near the intersection of highways 96 and CB, near the Appleton International Airport” and was turned over to the postal service.
“The United States Postal Inspection Service immediately began investigating and we reserve further comment on this matter until that is complete,” spokesman Bob Sheehan told the news station.
The postal service did not disclose how many ballots were included in the trays.
The sheriff’s office told the Washington Examiner that it was “mail going to the post office.”
In 2016, a postal employee was caught on surveillance camera dumping mail, including a real estate firm’s mailers, into a dumpster behind a pizzeria in Lee County, Florida.
At the time, the postal service insisted such incidents are “rare,” though NBC 2 found during that fiscal year, there were 493 arrests and $31.1 million in fines for “mail theft, delay, and destruction.”
In 2014, ABC 9 reported a mail carrier was captured throwing away trays of mail in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“People are missing out on bills, they’re missing out on letters. It could just be anything, anything important and necessary,” one resident told the news station.
“I’m a little saddened by it,” a man said. “You rely on the postal system and now they failed you.
Wasn't Trump just in Wisconsin? And he warned you about it then they were suddenly found? lol, some Trumpian post office worker probably trying to rig the election.
I doubt many who support Trump bothered to listen to the NPR podcast I posted about Kleptocracies. But it's beyond ironic that Trump supporters are talking about how one side is going to react to the outcome of the election ... and about whether one side or the other is "like" Nzi Germany / Hitler.
Trump is spending an ENORMOUS amount of time and effort and energy into falsely suggesting the outcome of the election might not be legitimate. He is spending an enormous amount of time and energy spreading the seeds for not accepting the election results.
For any sane, rationale person, that would raise all sorts of alarms. But 'Trump Fan' simply wants to parrot what he says. smdh.
I've said it many times - if Obama had done a tenth of the Bullcrap that Trump has, "Repblicans" would have lost their ever living minds.
No candidate will ever entertain anything having to do with losing.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll Sponsored by Whatfinger News – The largest Drudge Report alternative Thursday, September 24, 2020
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday, sponsored by Whatfinger News – The largest Drudge Report alternative, shows that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance.
You act is if any of them care. They don't. They don't care if trump refuses to leave even when he loses. They don't care that he's already said he will try to take it to the SCOTUS if he loses. They simply do not care about our democracy, our election process or who actually wins or loses. All they care about is maintaining power.
They will follow their Pied Piper anywhere without question. Even if it means destroying democracy as we know it. Just read this board and their reaction to Trump saying he will not agree to a peaceful transfer of power even if he loses.
Fears mount over Russian and Chinese hackers targeting the 2020 U.S. presidential election
-On Sept. 10, Microsoft warned that the Russian military intelligence unit that had attacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was back.
-This time, the company warned, the threats would be more sophisticated and target consultants, staff members, and other entities associated with both Democratic and Republican campaigns.
-According to Specops Software, the United States has experienced more cyberattacks from hostile actors than any other nation, with 156 incidents classified as “significant” between May 2006 and June 2020.
Absentee ballots. How easy is it to cheat? I don't know, but I do know this, I have a p.o. box for my business. I've had it for 17 years. On occasion, I get junk mail addressed to the person that had the p.o. box prior to me.
Today, in MY box, was a request for an absentee ballot, addressed to a different name, but MY p.o. box number. (as with all the other junk mail I get addressed to this person, I gave it to the mail clerk).
Might be best if this investigation was turned over to the FBI and Chris Wray.
U.S. Attorney: Military Ballots, Cast for Trump, Found Discarded in Pennsylvania
Joshua Caplan
24 Sep 2020
Several military ballots cast for President Donald Trump have been recovered after federal authorities opened an unspecified investigation regarding mail-in ballots in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Pennsylvania said in a Thursday statement:
On Monday, September 21, 2020, at the request of Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis, the Office of the United States Attorney along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Scranton Resident Office, began an inquiry into reports of potential issues with a small number of mail-in ballots at the Luzerne County Board of Elections.
Since Monday, FBI personnel working together with the Pennsylvania State Police have conducted numerous interviews and recovered and reviewed certain physical evidence. Election officials in Luzerne County have been cooperative. At this point we can confirm that a small number of military ballots were discarded. Investigators have recovered nine ballots at this time. Some of those ballots can be attributed to specific voters and some cannot. All nine ballots were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.
It is presently unclear how many ballots were discarded.
The development comes as U.S. Postal Service officials are investigating trays of mail discovered in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. In a statement, the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office said the three trays were found at 8 a.m. near the Appleton International Airport. A USPS spokesman confirmed to FOX 11 that the mail included absentee ballots.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, the sheriff’s office said the “mail going to the post office.”
“The United States Postal Inspection Service immediately began investigating and we reserve further comment on this matter until that is complete,” USPS spokesman Bob Sheehan said.
On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the Postal Service must prioritize election mail.
“The right to vote is too vital a value in our democracy to be left in a state of suspense in the minds of voters weeks before a presidential election, raising doubts as to whether their votes will ultimately be counted,” stated U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.
“Conflicting, vague, and ambivalent managerial signals could also sow substantial doubt about whether the USPS is up to the task, whether it possesses the institutional will power and commitment to its historical mission, and so to handle the exceptional burden associated with a profoundly critical task in our democratic system, that of collecting and delivering election mail a few weeks from now,” the judge added.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned of voter fraud associated with voting by mail, though he has expressed support for obtaining an absentee ballot if a person was in another state or had a medical condition
“We’re not going to destroy this country by allowing things like that to happen. We’re not destroying our country,” Trump has said. “This has more to do with fairness and honesty and, really, our country itself.”
“People take them where they force people to vote,” he previously warned. “They harvest … They take many, many ballots, and they put them all together, and then they just dump them, and nobody has any idea whether they’re crooked or not.”
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President Trump has criticised plans to expand postal voting in November's presidential election, claiming "there's tremendous fraud involved".
But Ellen Weintraub, commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, has said: "There's simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud."
--------------- What evidence is there of fraud? President Trump has said: "You get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody's living room, signing ballots all over the place."
Critics say people could vote more than once via absentee ballots and in person.
But numerous nationwide and state-level studies over the years have not revealed evidence of major, widespread fraud.
--------------------------------
But the rate of voting fraud overall in the US is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.
A Washington Post review of the 2016 election found one proven case of postal voting fraud.
And a voter fraud database collated by Arizona State University between 2000 and 2012, found 491 cases of postal ballot fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes.
Oregon has held postal elections since 2000 and has only reported 14 fraudulent votes attempted by mail.
These Trump commercials I'm getting while trying to watch the Jags/Dolphins game on my phone are awful. The self aggrandizement is... sad, horrible, pathetic.... It's hard to pick a single word to describe how headshakingly bad it is. Thanking yourself in a commercial you're paying for, come on now.
But Ellen Weintraub, commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, has said: "There's simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud."
I'll tell everyone one thing, I can say unequivocally, There is simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that leaving millions of vehicles running, with the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked causes vehicle theft
But! I'm dang sure aware that the USPS itself demands that if the Postman leaves the seat! The ignition turns off and the key goes too.
But Ellen Weintraub, commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, has said: "There's simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud."
I'll tell everyone one thing, I can say unequivocally, There is simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that leaving millions of vehicles running, with the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked causes vehicle theft
But! I'm dang sure aware that the USPS itself demands that if the Postman leaves the seat! The ignition turns off and the key goes too.
They held a Trump initiated and Trump hand picked lead commission into the notion of voter fraud which is what we've heard from Trump NON-STOP .... and the commission found:
NOTHING NADA ZIP UNSUBSTATIATED PROPAGANDA NIL ZERO SWEET FANNY ADAMS ZILCH NOT A THING BUPKIS
But if you repeat those lies and fake narrative enough - I am CERTAIN lots of Trump faithful will soon believe it to be truth.
President Trump has criticised plans to expand postal voting in November's presidential election, claiming "there's tremendous fraud involved".
But Ellen Weintraub, commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, has said: "There's simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud."
--------------- What evidence is there of fraud? President Trump has said: "You get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody's living room, signing ballots all over the place."
Critics say people could vote more than once via absentee ballots and in person.
But numerous nationwide and state-level studies over the years have not revealed evidence of major, widespread fraud.
--------------------------------
But the rate of voting fraud overall in the US is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.
A Washington Post review of the 2016 election found one proven case of postal voting fraud.
And a voter fraud database collated by Arizona State University between 2000 and 2012, found 491 cases of postal ballot fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes.
Oregon has held postal elections since 2000 and has only reported 14 fraudulent votes attempted by mail.
-----------------------
Ellen Weintraub seems to be a die-hard Democrat who's trying to run the FEC like it's her own personal fiefdom.
Unfortunately, while Weintraub’s tweets and interviews might make for good soundbites and clickbait, they are harming the legitimacy of the institution she purports to serve. Commissioners are meant to be independent and neutral arbiters of campaign finance law. Yet Weintraub’s statements indicate that she has prematurely judged matters that could come before the FEC, and that she radically rejects any legal perspective other than her own. Not only that, she risks misleading the public about what the FEC does and what campaign finance law really says. Not surprisingly, Weintraub’s activities are causing consternation and confusion in several quarters, including on Capitol Hill, and people are starting to ask questions, including about her possible misuse of government resources for ideological and political purposes.
Weintraub has used her position at the FEC to take on the president of the United States. She repeatedly challenged his allegations of voter fraud in 2016 in New Hampshire and, in the context of discussing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, questioned the legitimacy of the Electoral College. The FEC has no authority over either of these issues. Weintraub nonetheless used her official title and Commission letterhead in her public attacks on the president, which made it look as if she was acting on the agency’s behalf and with other commissioners’ support, neither of which was true. By creating these false impressions, Weintraub risked both misleading the public about the FEC’s role and undermining the public’s confidence in the agency.
Trump isn't playing by the rules and is fearmongering baselessly. I don't have a problem with what she did. It's not any different than the crap Nunes and others tried to do with investigations and commissions into the FBI and Biden etc ... all of which turned out to be LIES.
The article is posted at the link but here's what Trump said that created the response...
Quote:
“Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” Trump said. “The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who knows it better than anyone else? The Democrats know it better than anyone else.”
Can Trump supporters really not see what a danger he is to our democracy?
For anyone even still questioning WHY Trump wants to undermine mail in voting and "get rid of the ballots", it's not complicated....
Quote:
Biden voters twice as likely than Trump supporters to vote by mail in November, survey finds
Trump isn't playing by the rules and is fearmongering baselessly. I don't have a problem with what she did. It's not any different than the crap Nunes and others tried to do with investigations and commissions into the FBI and Biden etc ... all of which turned out to be LIES.
Historians and election experts warn Trump is behaving like Mussolini and despots that the US usually condemns
John Haltiwanger 13 hours ago
President Donald Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election. Historians and experts on fascism warn that Trump is behaving like the dictators the US is often leading the way to condemn on the global stage. "This is the way dictators come to power," historian Michael Beschloss warned in an MSNBC appearance on Thursday.
President Donald Trump is refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, threatening to shatter a tradition that lies at the heart of the democratic process in the US. There are serious concerns among scholars that Trump is putting America's democracy in mortal danger.
Combined with Trump's relentless disinformation campaign, celebration of violence against journalists, and incitement of armed militias, historians and election experts warn that the president is mirroring the behavior of despots that the US generally leads the way in condemning before the world.
"I've been an election observer in broken authoritarian countries, and let me tell you: Trump's behavior would be swiftly and unequivocally condemned by all international election monitors if it was happening elsewhere. He is behaving like the despots past presidents condemned," Brian Klaas, a political scientist at the University College London, tweeted on Friday.
When asked whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power earlier this week, Trump suggested ballots would be thrown away.
"We're going to have to see what happens," Trump said when asked whether he would accept the final results of the election. "Get rid of the ballots and...there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation."
Trump has given the country myriad signs that he will not concede under any circumstances, placing the US on the precipice of a political crisis the likes of which it has never experienced before. The president has repeatedly pushed the bogus assertion that the expanded access to mail-in voting for the 2020 election — a move designed to protect vulnerable people amid a pandemic — will lead to widespread voter fraud.
Top experts on democracy have been warning for years that Trump exhibits authoritarian tendencies. But their consternation appears to have ramped up significantly as Election Day draws closer and Trump essentially signals that he plans to do whatever it takes to stay in power.
'This is the way dictators come to power' MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday asked historian Michael Beschloss if he could provide another example of a US president suggesting an election "ought to be disregarded."
"You want to go into history to look for something like this? Go into Italian history and look at Mussolini. This is the way dictators come to power," Beschloss said in response, comparing Trump to the fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
"[Trump is] telling you what he intends to do. And we've got to make very sure that in the next five and half weeks and after, that we do not get into a situation where...Donald Trump announces that he's won and puts us in a situation where our democracy is being stolen minute by minute. This is not a drill," Beschloss added.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian who's written extensively on Mussolini, agrees with Beschloss that Trump's behavior mirrors that of the Italian fascist dictator. She noted that Mussolini was not immediately a dictator, but gradually consolidated power.
"The clearest parallel is that Mussolini was prime minister of a democratic coalition government from 1922-1925. During that time, he slowly chipped away at democratic institutions, insulting the press, using violence against the left, joking that he would be in office for 20 years, establishing a militia and a legislative body (the Grand Council) loyal to him," Ben-Ghiat told Insider.
"[Mussolini] bought off elites with privatizations of major industries and by ending worker and peasant strikes. In 1924, to consolidate power, he had a law passed that drew accusations of fraud but gave him a majority. He had his main opponent, Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, killed for accusing him of fixing the election and for threatening to reveal his financial corruption — and then he declared dictatorship in 1925 to escape a special investigation," Ben-Ghiat added.
David I. Kertzer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Pope and Mussolini," told Insider that comparing Trump and Mussolini does "a disservice" to the Italian leader given he "read newspapers every day in four languages, followed policy issues closely, played the violin and loved classical music, and was not particularly interested in lining his own pocket (although there was no lack of corruption in his regime)."
"What the present moment in American politics does make me appreciate more is how Italy, a parliamentary democracy, could so quickly become a dictatorship," Kertzer added.
Kertzer noted that Mussolini said "people were like sheep" and "craved being followers," adding, "Like Trump, he had very little in the way of strong ideological beliefs himself, and knew the power of emotional rather than rational appeals, and of the power of repeating simple, emotionally powerful yet substantively empty phrases (Make America Great Again)."
To Kertzer, the most striking parallel between Trump and Mussolini is that similar to the Italian fascist dictator, the president has enjoyed strong support from religious leaders despite not having "a religious bone in his body."
"Mussolini could solidify his dictatorship only by reaching a deal with the pope and gaining the support of the Church hierarchy, in a totally amoral exchange: he would give the Church leaders what they wanted (ending separation of church and state, religious instruction in schools etc) and the religious leaders would throw their support behind him," Kertzer said.
Recent research suggests the US is heading toward autocracy under Trump Trump has spent the past four years eroding democratic norms and institutions at an astonishing rate.
A project that monitors the health of democracy across the world, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), in its 2020 findings said the US has become more autocratic in the Trump era. V-Dem measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy — including freedom of expression, free and fair elections, and levels of government corruption, among many others — and the project involves over 3,300 scholars and other experts worldwide.
"The United States – former vanguard of liberal democracy – has lost its way," V-Dem's 2020 report said, adding that the US "is the only country in Western Europe and North America suffering from substantial autocratization."
Over the course of the past week, Trump at rallies repeatedly applauded an incident in which a journalist was struck with a rubber bullet fired by police during a protest, prompting laughter and cheers from supporters.
Last month, a caravan of Trump supporters drove into Portland with the sole purpose of antagonizing anti-racism protesters. Their presence in the Oregon city led to clashes that turned deadly. Trump referred to them as "GREAT PATRIOTS!" as he simultaneously condemned those protesting against racism and police brutality.
The president in recent months has moved from joking about removing term limits to suggesting he's "entitled" to a third term because he was impeached.
Mary Trump, the president's niece, on Thursday warned that Americans should take her uncle's election threats seriously. She said Trump would go "farther than you can possibly imagine" to stay in power because he's afraid of potentially facing prosecution for tax fraud and obstruction of justice after becoming a private citizen again.
"We have no idea how bad this is going to get," Mary Trump said.
I think I could put a group of 10 year olds in a room alone and they could come up with better voting protocols than what the political parties have come up with here in the U.S.
Seriously, to all you Dems and Repubs, where do you think all this system manipulation to control the election outcome leads to in the long run? Are you all trying to lay the ground work for armed conflict and bloodshed? Because it is starting to seem that way.
How a Pledge to Dismantle the Minneapolis Police Collapsed
[The New York Times] Astead W. Herndon
MINNEAPOLIS — Over three months ago, a majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to defund the city’s police department, making a powerful statement that reverberated across the country. It shook up Capitol Hill and the presidential race, shocked residents, delighted activists and changed the trajectory of efforts to overhaul the police during a crucial window of tumult and political opportunity.
Now some council members would like a do-over.
Councilor Andrew Johnson, one of the nine members who supported the pledge in June, said in an interview that he meant the words “in spirit,” not by the letter. Another councilor, Phillipe Cunningham, said that the language in the pledge was “up for interpretation” and that even among council members soon after the promise was made, “it was very clear that most of us had interpreted that language differently.” Lisa Bender, the council president, paused for 16 seconds when asked if the council’s statement had led to uncertainty at a pivotal moment for the city.
“I think our pledge created confusion in the community and in our wards,” she said.
The regrets formalize a retreat that has quietly played out in Minneapolis in the months since George Floyd was killed by the police and the ensuing national uproar over the treatment of Black Americans by law enforcement and the country at large. After a summer that challenged society’s commitment to racial equality and raised the prospect of sweeping political change, a cool autumn reality is settling in.
National polls show decreasing support for Black Lives Matter since a sea change of good will in June. In Minneapolis, the most far-reaching policy efforts meant to address police violence have all but collapsed.
In interviews this month, about two dozen elected officials, protesters and community leaders described how the City Council members’ pledge to “end policing as we know it” — a mantra to meet the city’s pain — became a case study in how quickly political winds can shift, and what happens when idealistic efforts at structural change meet the legislative process and public opposition.
The pledge is now no closer to becoming policy, with fewer vocal champions than ever. It has been rejected by the city’s mayor, a plurality of residents in recent public opinion polls and an increasing number of community groups. Taking its place have been the types of incremental reforms that the city’s progressive politicians had denounced.
In the meantime, “defunding the police” has become a talking point for state and national Republicans looking to paint liberals as anti-law-enforcement. It has been a thorn in the side of Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, even though he rejects the idea. And it has ignited a power struggle in Minneapolis that has, in some cases, pitted moderate against progressive, young against old, and white against Black.
I posted this here because it's clear that the knee-jerk reactions that rely on emotions rather than logical thinking is bound to fail. The Dems are whacked out of their mind right now. It's time to reorganize the party and get back to the policies that made it successful.
if you wasn't, then i apologize. i was the only one who actually commented, so i took it as that.
mental health is something i try not to criticize people for. now, i got army buddies that have mental health problems as well, so we we crack jokes on each other and such, but i think you understand that dynamic.
i dunno the dudes story, but i do know we do a piss poor job addressing mental health problems in this country. we have too many people who go untreated, and unfortunately after a while, it just boils over.
and i want to be clear; im glad the cops didn't go into the spot guns blazing.
i think its odd how certain people get shot, while certain people don't.
I wasn't cracking on you. At all. And I do understand that dynamic. Maybe not as well as you, but I get it. I have my issues too, bro.
And I even agree w/you on how blacks will get shot and whites won't in similar situations. It's BS!
The mental health thing is something that is important to me. I hate that those w/mental health issues are made fun of and their problems are dismissed by most of society.
yea its important to me to, from the overall health of the country.
the VA has this PTSD program, and one of the bad things they do (amongst a lot of bad things) is that they tend to lump all PTSD/depression patience together in the same group.
what i mean by that is this: they give us this binder full of information and surveys and such. and while filling out the surveys, they ask these questions that don't apply whatsoever, but scared the crap out of me.
and one of those questions is: After sexual assault/rape, did you feel worthless?
bruh......that completely changed up how i view my own situation. that was something that i will just NEVER know what it feels like.
no matter what went down, at the end of the day, we all volunteered to join the military. i joined in 2006. we was at the PEAK of two different war fronts. it was inevitable that something was gonna happen, so whatever i'm dealing with, i always have to remember that i ultimately put myself in that situation.
women don't put themselves in that situation to get raped. they are completely powerless in that event. they literally have their empowerment over their own bodies TAKEN from them.
that STILL makes me view my own mental health issues as a freaking joke, which is probably why im in and out of the program, cause i can't take it seriously anymore. it makes me want to wrap my daughters in bubble wrap for the rest of their lives.
It would be great to have a thread about that, but I get why you might not want to go there because so many people are still whacked when it comes to mental health issues. But educating folks is a good thing.
If you do start a thread about it.........I'll have your back big time. Even if I have to get suspended, I will shout down anyone who messes w/you.
Anyways..I found 100 reasons to vote for #JoeBiden that don't mention Trump.
1.) $15.00 federal minimum wage 2.) Reinstate DACA – allowing new applicants to apply 3.) 12 Weeks federal paid family leave 4.) Universal Pre-Kindergarten/Childcare for ages 3 and 4 5.) Tuition free college for those with household income less than $125,000.00 6.) Allow student loans to be relieved in bankruptcy 7.) LGBTQ+ Equality Act in the first 100 days in office 8.) Rejoin the Paris Climate Accords 9.) Decriminalize cannabis use and expunge convictions 10.) Eliminate cash bail system 11.) Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences 12.) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales 13.) Restore the voting rights act 14.) Create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention. 15.) He’ll triple funding for Title I Programs 16.) Appoint the first Black Woman to the Supreme Court of the United States 17.) Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) 18.) Ensure the US achieves a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050 19.) Protecting biodiversity, slowing extinction rates and helping leverage natural climate solutions 20.) Develop a plan to ensure that America has the cleanest, safest and fastest rail system in the world, for both passengers and freight 21.) Expand the safety net for abuse survivors 22.) Confront online harassment, abuse and stalking 23.) End the rape kit backlog 24.) Address the deadly combination of guns and domestic violence 25.) Change the culture that enables domestic violence 26.) Support the diverse needs of survivors of violence against women 27.) Protect and empower immigrant women 28.) Lead the global effort to end gender-based violence 29.) End capital punishment 30.) End federal private prisons 31.) End all incarceration for drug use alone and divert individuals to drug courts and treatment 32.) Invest in public defenders’ offices to ensure defendants’ access to quality counsel 33.) Expand and use the power of the US Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices 34.) Reform qualified immunity for officers 35.) Ban choke-holds/neck restraints by police 36.) Launch a national police oversight commission 37.) Stop transferring weapons of war to police forces 38.) Free access to COVID testing for all with national testing board 39.) Double drive through COVID testing sites 40.) 100,000-strong COVID contact tracing workforce 41.) Guarantee first responders have priority access to PPE 42.) Emergency paid leave for anyone who gets COVID or needs to take care of a loved one 43.) Free housing for health care workers to quarantine 44.) Ramp up large scale manufacturing of as many vaccine candidates as necessary 45.) Nationwide vaccination campaign to guarantee fair distribution 46.) Ask every American to wear a mask 47.) End the mismanagement of the asylum system, which fuels violence and chaos at the border 48.) Surge humanitarian resources to the border and foster public-private initiatives 49.) End prolonged detention and reinvest in a case management program 50.) Rescind the un-American travel and refugee bans, also referred to as 'Muslim bans.' 51.) Order an immediate review of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for vulnerable populations who cannot find safety in their countries ripped apart by violence or disaster 52.) Ensure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel abide by professional standards and are held accountable for inhumane treatment. 53.) Revitalize the Task Force on New Americans and boost our economy by prioritizing integration, promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, increasing access to language instruction, and promoting civil engagement. 54.) Convene a regional meeting of leaders, including from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Canada, to address the factors driving migration and to propose a regional resettlement solution 55.) Raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. 56.) Requiring a true minimum tax on ALL foreign earnings of United States companies located overseas so that we do our part to put an end to the global race to the bottom that rewards global tax havens. This will be 21% — TWICE the rate of the Trump offshoring tax rate and will apply to all income. 57.) Imposing a tax penalty on corporations that ship jobs overseas in order to sell products back to America. 58.) Imposing a 15% minimum tax on book income so that no corporation gets away with paying no taxes. 59.) Raising the top individual income rate back to 39.6 percent. 60.) Asking those making more than $1 million to pay the same rate on investment income that they do on their wages. 61.) Tackle the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women 62.) Ensure tribal nations will have a strong voice and role in the federal government 63.) Restore Tribal lands and safeguard natural and cultural resources 64.) Joe will dramatically increase funding for both public schools and Bureau of Indian Education schools. 65.) Invest $70 billion in Tribal Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions. 66.) Ensure full inclusion of people with disabilities in policy development and aggressively enforce the civil rights of people with disabilities. 67.) Guarantee access to high-quality, affordable health care, including mental health care, and expand access to home and community-based services and long-term services and supports in the most integrated setting appropriate to each person’s needs and based on self-determination. 68.) Expand competitive, integrated employment opportunities for people with disabilities. 69.) Protect and strengthen economic security for people with disabilities. 70.) Ensure that students with disabilities have access to educational programs and support they need to succeed, from early interventions to post-secondary education. 71.) Expand access to accessible, integrated, and affordable housing, transportation, and assistive technologies and protect people with disabilities in emergencies. 72.) Advance global disability rights 73.) Double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in our schools so our kids get the mental health care they need 74.) Invest in our schools to eliminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts, and rich and poor districts 75.) Improve teacher diversity 76.) Support our educators by giving them the pay and dignity they deserve. 77.) Invest in resources for our schools so students grow into physically and emotionally healthy adults, and educators can focus on teaching. 78.) Ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability. 79.) Provide every middle and high school student a path to a successful career. 80.) Start investing in our children at birth. 81.) Double funding for the State Small Business Credit Initiative. 82.) Expand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding 83.) Improve and expand the Small Business Administration programs that most effectively support African American-owned businesses. 84.) Increase funding for the Minority Business Development Agency budget. 85.) Make sure economic relief because of COVID-19 reaches the African American businesses that need it most 86.) Reserve half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less 87.) Help families buy their first homes and build wealth by creating a new refundable, advanceable tax credit of up to $15,000 88.) Protect homeowners and renters from abusive lenders and landlords through a new Homeowner and Renter Bill of Rights. 89.) Establishing a $100 billion Affordable Housing Fund to construct and upgrade affordable housing 90.) Fully implement Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 Plan to help all individuals living in persistently impoverished communities 91.) Expand access to $100 billion in low-interest business loans by funding state, local, tribal, and non-profit lending programs in Latino communities and other communities of color and strengthening Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) 92.) Expand broadband access to every American. 93.) Protect and build on the Affordable Care Act to improve access to quality health care in rural communities. 94.) Expand access to high-quality education in rural schools. 95.) Transform our crumbling transportation infrastructure – including roads and bridges, rail, aviation, ports, and inland waterways. 96.) Expand bio-based manufacturing to bring cutting-edge manufacturing jobs back to rural America. 97.) Strengthen antitrust enforcement 98.) Introduce a constitutional amendment to entirely eliminate private dollars from our federal elections 99.) End dark money groups 100.) Ban corporate PAC contributions to candidates, and prohibit lobbyist contributions to those who they lobby" - David Ferree via Sterling Powers
I hope he has plans to pay for a lot of that stuff. Did he get that list from Bernie? I also see more than a few reasons there NOT to vote for him. Especially this one:
"12) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales"
I hope he has plans to pay for a lot of that stuff. Did he get that list from Bernie? I also see more than a few reasons there NOT to vote for him. Especially this one:
"12) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales"
Once carbon emissions are eliminated and we can't burn wood for heat, we'll be reduced to living with the, it takes a village scenario, to provide ourselves with a little power.
Anyways..I found 100 reasons to vote for #JoeBiden that don't mention Trump.
1.) $15.00 federal minimum wage
Well you blew that one with your very 1st reason.
In small towns all over this country $15.00 bucks an hour will cause a lot of people to lose jobs, as well as devastate those on fixed incomes who will see inflation take off. It will also force some companies out of business.
I hope he has plans to pay for a lot of that stuff. Did he get that list from Bernie? I also see more than a few reasons there NOT to vote for him. Especially this one:
"12) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales"
Plans to pay for it? You mean like Trump and republicans with their 2-3 trillion deficit increase under Trump BEFORE the pandemic? #DoubleStandards
Once carbon emissions are eliminated and we can't burn wood for heat
That's an interesting reality you've invented there...
What did I invent? You want zero carbon emissions. Burning wood emits more CO2 than fossil fuels per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated or per unit of heat generated.
What did I invent? You want zero carbon emissions. Burning wood emits more CO2 than fossil fuels per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated or per unit of heat generated.
Yeah - the main goal of the Democratic party is to outlaw campfires
What did I invent? You want zero carbon emissions. Burning wood emits more CO2 than fossil fuels per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated or per unit of heat generated.
Yeah - the main goal of the Democratic party is to outlaw campfires
Your main goal is power over everyone. Everything else is just a means to achieve it.
I hope he has plans to pay for a lot of that stuff. Did he get that list from Bernie? I also see more than a few reasons there NOT to vote for him. Especially this one:
"12) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales"
Plans to pay for it? You mean like Trump and republicans with their 2-3 trillion deficit increase under Trump BEFORE the pandemic? #DoubleStandards
Here we go with the "Trump does it too" crap. I don't support that BS either. The republicans have been spending like drunken sailors. They took it to a new level under W, especially with the auto industry bailouts and that's when I quit voting for them in the presidential elections.
I hope he has plans to pay for a lot of that stuff. Did he get that list from Bernie? I also see more than a few reasons there NOT to vote for him. Especially this one:
"12) Outlaw all online firearm and munition sales"
That would be terrible if there were any truth that Biden would attempt to do that, but he won't. There are other things on that list Biden would never do. See, he's not AOC or Bernie and looking on his own web site proves that.
I just get rather amazed at the comments sometimes. Republicans get into office and run the debt up like crazy. Then all of a sudden, when they think a Democrat is going to do the same thing they're all, "They better have a way to pay for it!"
Trillions in the pocket of big business and all of the loopholes they use to get out of paying their fair share seems far less concerning to some than when you start talking about using some of that same money helping the average or poor. Yes, it's simply amazing to me.
Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign Of ‘Laundering’ $170 Million Andrew Solender Andrew SolenderForbes Staff Business I cover politics and the 2020 election TOPLINE The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group, filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission Tuesday accusing the Trump campaign of “laundering” $170 million through numerous companies, some with connections to former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Lexington, Kentucky LEXINGTON, KY - NOVEMBER 04: Brad Parscale, campaign manager for U.S. President Donald Trump, ... [+] GETTY IMAGES KEY FACTS “The Trump campaign and Trump Make America Great Again Committee disguised nearly $170 million of campaign spending by laundering the funds through firms,” the complaint claims.
It adds that the firms are “headed by Trump’s recent campaign manager, Brad Parscale, and/or created by Trump campaign lawyers.”
The complaint alleges that the Trump campaign paid millions of dollars to campaign-connected vendors without reporting those payments to the FEC, specifically honing in on American Made Media Consultants (AMMC), a firm created by Parscale, which has been paid over $106 million, making it the campaigns largest vendor.
AMMC was ostensibly created to circumvent media buyers, but the complaint points to FCC records that show the campaign has used media buying firm Harris Sikes to place some of its ads, alleging the campaign is “failing to report payments to the firms and is instead using AMMC as a conduit for its payments to the firms.”
The complaint also points to an app called Phunware, which Parscale has said was created and is “directly owned” by the campaign, but which has never appeared in the campaign’s spending reports because, as the complaint alleges, it was paid through AMMC.
Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh denied the charges made in the complaint, telling Forbes, “The campaign reports all payments to AMMC as required by the FEC. The campaign complies with all campaign finance laws and FEC regulations.”
CRUCIAL QUOTE By failing to report payments to the campaign’s true vendors and employees, the Trump campaign and Trump Make America Great Again Committee have violated, and continue to violate, federal law’s transparency requirements,” the complaint asserts, adding that such activities “undermine the vital public information role that reporting is intended to serve.”
KEY BACKGROUND Parscale was named as Trump’s campaign manager in February 2018 but was replaced in that role by Bill Stepien earlier this month. Parscale’s firms have long been the object of media scrutiny for receiving large sums from the Trump campaign and for Parscale maintaining a lavish lifestyle well beyond the means of most presidential campaign managers.
CHIEF CRITIC "Voters have a right to know how campaigns are spending money to influence elections," CLC founder and President Trevor Potter, a Republican and former FEC Chair, told CNN. "This scheme flies in the face of transparency requirements mandated by federal law, and it leaves voters and donors in the dark about where the campaign's funds are actually going."
NEWS PEG The allegation comes amid reports that the Trump campaign also moved millions in campaign funds to Trump’s private business interests. Forbes’ Dan Alexander and Michela Tindera reported earlier this month that the Trump campaign has pushed nearly $7 million towards Trump’s businesses since the president entered office.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR The complaint asks the FEC, which regulates campaign finance, to “conduct an immediate investigation” and “seek appropriate sanctions for any and all violations, including civil penalties sufficient to deter future violations.”
However, even you gotta admit that the timing is suspect of this guy wanting to commit suicide, and now this report dropping.
I’m hoping it’s a coincidence, but.....
I just started skimming this forum. I really haven't been reading the individual posts because they all say the same things depending on the poster. It's so important that they win an argument and there are very few true conversations. It always digresses into character attacks, as if that makes their opinions more valid.
Anyway........I saw you made that post to me, but I missed something. What are you referring to? Are you saying his attempted suicide wasn't due to mental illness? You can PM if you want.
I saw your post was more about attacking other posters than actually making a point about the topic. I mean if we're here to comment about what we noticed.
It's all you do anymore. You sound more and more like Pokapornstar every day.
He doesn't make any valid points either while he attacks everyone else.
Parscale is being accused oy lying to congress, laundering $170M from the Trump campaign and was recently demoted.
It sounds like a guy that is under extreme stress and falling apart in the face of all the pressure. Turns out, he was beating his wife as well.
More on the story...
He only hires the best.
Can we just toss the scumbag in the Oval to the curb with the rest of the trash... aka... the rest of his sycophant administration? Enough already. He’s human garbage. His appointees are human garbage. What an embarrassing chapter this is in US history. My God our great grandchildren’s generation will read about all this and gasp that there were citizens dumb enough to vote for him once... let alone some will have done it twice. Unreal.
One guy is leading by example during a pandemic that has killed 205k. The other is packing his brain dead supporters together like illegal immigrants in a connex, during a pandemic that has killed 205k.
thats exactly what you're doing. you're praising the president for packing people into an arena during a pandemic that has killed 205k of your FELLOW americans, just so he can stand on stage and rant like like an old senile man that you call Biden all the time.
thats just hot garbage. straight up disgusting. both from Trump and for you supporting it.
So you are ok with 205K people dead because it's just .5% or whatever and Trump lying about it means nothing to you? Trump cheating on his taxes means nothing to you? You are ok with Trump doing whatever... I called that.
You sound like a battered wife. He can cheat with his Russian girlfriend as long as he says he loves me... He's a good man...
GOP LADIES, when you and your daughters hide on prima nocta, don't tell your husbands where you'll be hiding!
What did I invent? You want zero carbon emissions. Burning wood emits more CO2 than fossil fuels per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated or per unit of heat generated.
Yeah - the main goal of the Democratic party is to outlaw campfires
Biden and Trump however want to keep the Campfire girls around
Anyways..I found 100 reasons to vote for #JoeBiden that don't mention Trump.
1.) $15.00 federal minimum wage
Well you blew that one with your very 1st reason.
In small towns all over this country $15.00 bucks an hour will cause a lot of people to lose jobs, as well as devastate those on fixed incomes who will see inflation take off. It will also force some companies out of business.
2020 U.S. Elections September 29, 202010:23 AM Updated 20 minutes ago U.S. intelligence reports warn of extremist threat around election
By Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke, Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. security officials are warning that violent domestic extremists pose a threat to the presidential election next month, amid what one official called a “witch’s brew” of rising political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns.
FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos say threats by domestic extremists to election-related targets will likely increase in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election.
Those warnings so far have largely remained internal. But New Jersey’s homeland security office took the unusual step of publicly highlighting the threat in a little-noticed report on its website last week.
“You have this witch’s brew that really hasn’t happened in America’s history. And if it has, it’s been decades if not centuries,” said Jared Maples, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, which published the threat assessment.
Nationwide protests in recent months over racial justice and police brutality have been largely peaceful, but some have led to violent confrontations, including between extremist factions from left and right.
The United States is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, high unemployment and a contentious presidential election in a polarized political climate.
President Donald Trump last week declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election to Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump has sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election because of his concerns about mail-in voting, which Democrats have encouraged during the coronavirus pandemic.
Documented cases of mail-ballot fraud are extremely rare and election experts say it would be nearly impossible for foreign actors to disrupt an election by mailing out fake ballots.
A recent internal FBI bulletin warned that domestic extremists with varying ideologies would likely pose an increasing threat to government and election-related targets in the run-up to the election, according to a person familiar with it. The bulletin was first reported by Yahoo News.
An FBI spokeswoman said the agency “routinely shares information with our law enforcement partners in order to assist in protecting the communities they serve,” but declined to comment on the specific document.
A DHS memo dated to Aug. 17 said ideologically driven extremists and other actors “could quickly mobilize” to engage in violence related to the election. The document, also first reported by Yahoo News, was confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with it.
The memo said that lone offender white supremacists and other lone offenders with “personalized ideologies” pose the greatest threat of deadly violence.
A DHS spokesperson directed Reuters to early September remarks by acting Secretary Chad Wolf, in which he said that the department “has taken unprecedented actions to address all forms of violent extremism, to specifically include threats posed by lone offenders and small cells of individuals.”
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Trump and his top officials have not so far publicly highlighted any threat by violent extremist groups to the election.
Trump officials have pointed the finger at left-wing anarchists and anti-fascists during protests against police brutality and racism over the summer, but federal court records provide little evidence showing those arrested for violent acts had affiliations to far-left groups.
Last week, the top two DHS officials acknowledged in congressional hearings, however, that white supremacists have posed the most lethal domestic threat to the United States in recent years.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said during congressional hearings earlier that his month that his agency was conducting investigations into violent domestic extremists, include white supremacists and anti-fascist groups. He said the largest “chunk” of investigations were into white supremacist groups.
White supremacist, anti-Semitic, anti-government, and related ideologies were tied to 77 percent of 454 alleged domestic extremist murders in the past decade, according to data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York City-based anti-hate advocacy organization, and presented at one of the congressional hearings last week.
National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot told Reuters that Trump’s highest priority is “protecting the U.S. from all threats, both foreign and domestic” when asked if the president had addressed the election threat publicly.
Maples, the New Jersey homeland director, said his agency did not issue a pre-election threat assessment in 2016, but that it was necessary this time around.
“We want our allies and folks across the state to recognize that we need to be thinking about this,” he said.
The New Jersey report outlines three possible scenarios for the November election: a quick election outcome, a protracted process where determining a winner takes months and a legal battle that eventually goes to the Supreme Court.
Each of the scenarios could lead to extremist violence, with the possibility of deadly confrontations between protesters and targeted violence toward police officers, the assessment concludes.
The agency’s report says the extremists will likely be “anarchist, anti-government, and racially motivated,” but does not say which groups pose the greater threat.
The domestic extremist threat has always been present, but is getting more attention this year, according to Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association, which represents state-run “fusion centers” staffed by federal, state and local public safety personnel who monitor threats and facilitate information sharing.
“We have always had threats during the national election cycles from violent extremists, including terrorist organizations,” he said. “With current events, it is more in the spotlight than ever.”
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, said in a June report that the outcome of the election could incite violence by the far-right or far-left.
“If President Trump loses the election, some extremists may use violence because they believe - however incorrectly - that there was fraud or that the election of Democratic candidate Joe Biden will undermine their extremist objectives,” the report reads. “Alternatively, some on the far-left could resort to terrorism if President Trump is re-elected.”
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, said in a June report that the outcome of the election could incite violence by the far-right or far-left.
“If President Trump loses the election, some extremists may use violence because they believe - however incorrectly - that there was fraud or that the election of Democratic candidate Joe Biden will undermine their extremist objectives,” the report reads. “Alternatively, some on the far-left could resort to terrorism if President Trump is re-elected.”
Gee - wonder why there are some Trump supporters that feel - incorrectly - that if Trump loses it must be due to fraud????
Barr and Trump both doing their best to ensure the country is even more divided after the election. Scumbags both.
How does that change that there are over 200,6000 dead from the virus and counting? Why are you trying so hard to minimize more deaths of Americans than our last five wars combined?
I guess the numbers you wish to promote mean more than all those corpses somehow. And somehow you think gathering all those people, indoors, without masks makes Trump great?
That taking the proper precautions to try and lower the death count is now a bad thing? Only in the world of Pocapornstar is promoting the death count rises a good thing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, the Russian state news agency TASS reported Thursday. Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the nomination did not come from the Kremlin.
According to TASS, a group of Russian public figures led by writer Sergey Komkov submitted the nomination, which was sent to Oslo on September 10.
"If this decision is made" — to award Putin the prize — "great, if not, it's no problem as well," Peskov said. Vladimir Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
The nomination comes as one of Putin's most prominent critics, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is recovering from poisoning with a Soviet-era nerve agent. Independent laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden have confirmed that he was poisoned with Novichok, a toxin that has also been used against other opponents of the regime. The Kremlin has flatly rejected the claim that Navalny was poisoned in Russia.
President Trump has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. His nomination was submitted by a Norwegian lawmaker, who nominated him in 2018 as well.
Last week, Presidents Trump and Putin were among those "honored" with the Ig Nobel Prize for Medical Education — a tongue-in-cheek award bestowed on them and other world leaders "for using the Covid-19 viral pandemic to teach the world that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can."
The real joke is that it is only important to you and Donald. Donald feels inferior because Obama won a nobel and he has not. The rest of us are just laughing at Donald and people like you.
Hell I thought it was ridiculous that Obama won the award, I would absolutely think it has become "just another political farce during the Trump ERA" if Trump or Putin were to win.
I can't even understand Time Magazine giving somebody like them a cover story or man of the year award. Imagine being so driven by profit that you promote the likes of Putin. SAD.
Anyways..I found 100 reasons to vote for #JoeBiden that don't mention Trump.
1.) $15.00 federal minimum wage
Well you blew that one with your very 1st reason.
In small towns all over this country $15.00 bucks an hour will cause a lot of people to lose jobs, as well as devastate those on fixed incomes who will see inflation take off. It will also force some companies out of business.
LOL. Ok boomer.
Hey if you don't like it that only means it's good.
GOP Sen. Tim Scott calls for Trump to correct his Proud Boys comments: 'If he doesn't correct it, I guess he didn't misspeak'
Brendan Morrow ,The Week•September 30, 2020
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is calling for a correction from President Trump after he refused to condemn white supremacists and told the Proud Boys to "stand by" during the first 2020 presidential debate.
Scott, the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, reacted Wednesday to Trump during Tuesday's presidential debate not condemning white supremacists when asked to do so and telling the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, to "stand back and stand by." Scott said he believes Trump "misspoke" but that he should correct the remarks.
"I think he misspoke in response to Chris Wallace's comment," Scott said, per CNN. "He was asking Chris what he wanted to say. I think he misspoke. I think he should correct it. If he doesn't correct it, I guess he didn't misspeak."
When Wallace asked Trump during the debate if he would be willing to condemn white supremacists and tell them to "stand down," Trump said he's "willing to do" so. But Trump then asked Wallace "who would you like me to condemn," and when former Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Proud Boys, Trump said, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by."
Trump campaign press secretary Hogan Gidley on Wednesday told CNN the Proud Boys is a "reprehensible group" and that Trump wants them "to get out of the way." Trump, however, has yet to offer a clarification of his remarks, and White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah told Fox News there isn't "anything to clarify" about what he said.
Trump faced criticism for his failure to specifically condemn white supremacy and the Proud Boys including on Fox News, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who helped the president prepare for the debates, on Wednesday told Good Morning America that "the next opportunity" Trump has to "clarify that answer," he "should do that."
Compared to 2016 Turnout (focusing on swing-y states):
14% of Virginians 13.3% of Wisconsinites 11.3% of Minnesotans 6.7% of North Carolinians 3.6% of Floridians 3.9% of Georgians
have already voted. Probably more ballots are already in the mail as well.
A lot of votes are being locked in as we speak -- and if there isn't another debate until the end of October (seems likely at this point) - a lot is going to be locked in already.
You'd think that so many Military leaders and close (former) Trump allies and people who worked in his administration wnad who worked right along side Trump all coming out and saying they will vote for Biden would be a red flag.
Let's look at the confusion and chaos being perpetuated by Trump at polling locations....
First.... Trump told his supporters to go to polling locations to monitor the election.
"I am encouraging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that's what has to happen — I am urging them to do it,"
"There was a big problem, in Philadelphia they went in to watch, they're called poll watchers, very safe very nice thing — they were thrown out, they weren't allowed to watch," he said, adding, "You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things."
Actually, there are guidelines and requirements in most every state to be a poll watcher. In the case he described, that person was a part of the campaign and was not a registered poll watcher.
He is trying to crowd the polls with his supporters which are against the rules in almost every state. They would not be registered poll watchers. They would not know the rules or guidelines of being a poll watcher and this would make social distancing and an orderly election nearly impossible. By law it would be required that they be forced to leave the polling locations. Can you just imagine the scene this will create?
But then again that's his goal.
Second... Trump asked his supporters to go to the polls if they sent in mail in ballots. To see if their ballot had been counted. And if not to vote again.
“NORTH CAROLINA: To make sure your Ballot COUNTS, sign & send it in EARLY. When Polls open, go to your Polling Place to see if it was COUNTED. IF NOT, VOTE! Your signed Ballot will not count because your vote has been posted. Don’t let them illegally take your vote away from you!”
The fact of the matter is, votes can not be counted until election day in North Carolina. They can enter them into the system to be ready to count, but the actual counting of votes in North Carolina can not be counted until election day.
So he is actually telling people to commit voter fraud by voting twice.
Once again this will serve to have the polls flooded with his supporters asking questions about something that means nothing.
There are no limits to which he won't go to in order to create chaos and uncertainty in this election.
You're aware that we won't know who won the election until late November more than likely, right? Maybe later.
Just heard today that INdiana is allowing til Nov. 13 to count mail in ballots. I would assume some, maybe many more states , will do the same thing.
This election will go down, mark my words, as the biggest fiasco election ever.
But, trump didn't tell people to go to the polling stations, to my knowledge. His son did. But, as you said, it's illegal.
And voter fraud? I thought there was NO threat of that with mail in ballots? That's what the libs have said for years.
But, listened to an attorney today describe what would happen if you got a mail in ballot, but voted in person. In theory, it would be caught.......later. Suggested you take a mail in ballot to the polling station IF you vote in person, or better yet, take it to the county election office and WATCH them mark it null and void.........so as to discourage the possibility of voting twice. This was in regards to some people being told to just turn in their absentee ballot at the polling place if they voted in person. As in, rather than hand a valid absentee ballot to some stranger, vote in person, then find out your absentee ballot was marked and sent in also.
But, we can stand in line at Wal Mart, or any other store, yet standing in line to vote ???
I agree, postmark date is normally the trigger. Some states require postmark by 5 days before the election or drop off at a polling location or voter registration office.
It seems you care more about the method used in "packing the court" than the actual packing of it.
Who says? You? You don't know me. Personally I also think Mitch, Schumer, Pelosi are also disgraces and need to be dismissed immediately. Do you agree?
You're aware that we won't know who won the election until late November more than likely, right? Maybe later.
I know it and you know it. Maybe Trump should know it too? But he won't agree to not claim victory before the election is certified.
Quote:
This election will go down, mark my words, as the biggest fiasco election ever.
From Trump's mouth to your ears.
Quote:
But, trump didn't tell people to go to the polling stations, to my knowledge. His son did. But, as you said, it's illegal.
He most certainly did. I quoted it for you but here it is again with the source. Jr. was simply parroting his dad.
Quote:
"I am encouraging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that's what has to happen — I am urging them to do it," Mr. Trump said during the chaotic inaugural debate held in Cleveland, Ohio.
And voter fraud? I thought there was NO threat of that with mail in ballots? That's what the libs have said for years.
When the president tells his supporters to vote twice, he is telling them to commit voter fraud. People who vote once, even by mail are not committing voter fraud. This isn't complicated.
Quote:
But, listened to an attorney today describe what would happen if you got a mail in ballot, but voted in person. In theory, it would be caught.......later. Suggested you take a mail in ballot to the polling station IF you vote in person, or better yet, take it to the county election office and WATCH them mark it null and void.........so as to discourage the possibility of voting twice. This was in regards to some people being told to just turn in their absentee ballot at the polling place if they voted in person. As in, rather than hand a valid absentee ballot to some stranger, vote in person, then find out your absentee ballot was marked and sent in also.
So you refuse to deal with the fact that what Trump told his supporters is a crime by instead talking about what "some lawyer" said?
Quote:
But, we can stand in line at Wal Mart, or any other store, yet standing in line to vote ???
Not my issue. I'm going to use the early voting process and vote in person. What I won't do is sit here and attack a legal process to vote which has been proven to work well in several states already for years now by coming up with some conspiracy theory to make preemptive excuses why the candidate I support will lose.
Trump is ahead because the polls are trash ... we need every man woman and child of voting age to go to the polls if you are healthy and low risk .... and VOTE VOTE VOTE. Do not believe the polls!!
the fix is in... Gonna need armed lefty multiracial militia ANTIFA to go monitor GOPer poll ballot counting... locked and loaded.
I would encourage you to go to the link and watch the video associated with this article
Black Paramilitary Group Marches Through Downtown Lafayette Storyful Storyful•October 5, 2020
Around 400 members of the black paramilitary group NFAC – Not F***ing Around Coalition – marched through downtown Lafayette in Louisiana on October 3, to protest the fatal police shooting of Trayford Pellerin in August.
This footage, recorded by Ben Myers for The Advocate, shows armed group members arriving at Parc Sans Souci.
The Advocate reported a 26-year-old man was arrested after a gun accidently went off in the park before NFAC members arrived.
No injuries were reported and the march ended without incident, the report said.
NFAC leader John Jay Fitzgerald Johnson, known as Grandmaster Jay, addressed a crowd of demonstrators, urging black community members to unite, The Advocate reported. Credit: Ben Myers/The Advocate via Storyful
Biden Officially Under Investigation in Ukraine, According to Report
Biden Officially Under Investigation in Ukraine, According to Report AP
Former Vice President Joe Biden is now a criminal suspect in Ukraine in a case involving his son Hunter and Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer, according to an OAN report
Biden, the Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has been formally listed in a criminal case for the crime of firing Ukraine’s former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in exchange for dropping an investigation into his son Hunter, who was a board member at Burisma from 2014 to 2019.
“Shokin formally called for an investigation into his firing back in February of 2020, claiming the Ukrainian government at the time released Shokin of his post in exchange for one billion dollars in loan guarantees promised by Biden,” reports Chanel Rion of One America News Network. “But at the time Shokin called for this case back in February, the courts named one of the defendants as an ‘unnamed American,’ an individual widely understood to be Joe Biden, Obama’s Ukraine point man. But Biden was never formally named.”
“Now the courts have ruled it is improper to seal Biden’s name and that there is sufficient evidence to proceed with an investigation, the ruling cannot be appealed”, according to OAN
Shortly we'll hear: "OAN". Or, 'bias'. Or all kinds of smatter, totally ignoring the facts of the matter.
You two are hilarious! Yes Breitbart TV is a suck source BUT WHO CARES! The truly laughable thing is that Trump is under multiple criminal investigations with actual legit investigators! If you think Rudy didn't grease a couple palms to makes this crap happen, you are even nuttier than I thought you were and that is a HIGH bar.
The airline industry, for one, needs some cash to keep limping along a little while longer. Reducing routes and delaying work on planes is only saving them so much money.
Well don't you know that conventions and gatherings in every town are back to normal? That motels and hotels are full, Disney didn't just lay off tens of thousands of workers and the airlines are back to normal?
The airline industry, for one, needs some cash to keep limping along a little while longer. Reducing routes and delaying work on planes is only saving them so much money.
I can agree with this. But that's not what the stimulus talk is about.
They probably mean "GET/REQUEST" in HTTP parlance -- which is individual pings to the server asking for information (usually people loading a new webpage, or trying to load/reload a form that is hosted on the server).
I don't think they mean 1.1M individual ballot requests.
Why does the economy need more stimulus? There aren't many places shutdown because of the virus.
This just seems like begging for the sake of begging.
11 million people are still out of work. That might have something to do with it.
Who are these people and why are they out of work?
What exactly are you getting at? Do you want an 11-million row list or something? 'Rona has touched every single corner of our economy. When things were kicking off, people stopped spending. Any sector that required a customer to show up somewhere and be around other people to spend money has been decimated. Whenever that happens, people get laid off. It's not that hard to understand.
Why does the economy need more stimulus? There aren't many places shutdown because of the virus.
This just seems like begging for the sake of begging.
11 million people are still out of work. That might have something to do with it.
Who are these people and why are they out of work?
Healthcare givers. Restaurant workers and owners. Service industry workers. Sport Stadium workers. Bus transportation and terminal workers. Airline workers and pilots. Airport security folks. I really could go on for hours. They’re all out of work because this administration has failed by playing down the virus. They are still downplaying the virus. They failed to get this under control and closed down too late and opened too early. Not nearly enough testing. And refusing to wear masks. Big fat trump..big fat failure.
If you're out of work around here, it's because you don't want to work, or think you're too good for the job.
Sauder Woodworking - even accepting part time people. Sauder Manufacturing. Arrow Tru Line Haas Door Napoleon Lynx Campbell Soup Miller Brothers Construction (highest paying - minimum of $50 grand first year) Bil-Jax (grandpa's old company) Allied Molded
So many more. Granted, most are manufacturing jobs.
Not a single one starts off less than $12.50 an hour. No experience needed Most offer pay raises after 30 days, as well as full benefits. Most, end of year one, you're at 15 to 16 an hour, and trust me, overtime is available. All you could want. (at most of them)
But, they all require passing a drug test, AND showing up for work. Allied even gives a bonus of $1 per hour for just showing up and working for 40 hours a week.
Why does the economy need more stimulus? There aren't many places shutdown because of the virus.
This just seems like begging for the sake of begging.
11 million people are still out of work. That might have something to do with it.
Who are these people and why are they out of work?
Healthcare givers. Restaurant workers and owners. Service industry workers. Sport Stadium workers. Bus transportation and terminal workers. Airline workers and pilots. Airport security folks. I really could go on for hours. They’re all out of work because this administration has failed by playing down the virus. They are still downplaying the virus. They failed to get this under control and closed down too late and opened too early. Not nearly enough testing. And refusing to wear masks. Big fat trump..big fat failure.
You can't go on for hours. That is a really small segment of society.
Bars/Restaurants open here full blast and have been for months.
Stimulus checks are just a political game at this point. The country doesn't really need it. I expect it to end after the election.
Why does the economy need more stimulus? There aren't many places shutdown because of the virus.
This just seems like begging for the sake of begging.
11 million people are still out of work. That might have something to do with it.
Who are these people and why are they out of work?
Healthcare givers. Restaurant workers and owners. Service industry workers. Sport Stadium workers. Bus transportation and terminal workers. Airline workers and pilots. Airport security folks. I really could go on for hours. They’re all out of work because this administration has failed by playing down the virus. They are still downplaying the virus. They failed to get this under control and closed down too late and opened too early. Not nearly enough testing. And refusing to wear masks. Big fat trump..big fat failure.
You can't go on for hours. That is a really small segment of society.
Bars/Restaurants open here full blast and have been for months.
Stimulus checks are just a political game at this point. The country doesn't really need it. I expect it to end after the election.
Many ARE out of work. Because their states shut down pretty much everything. Cause of covid. And then the people complaining say Trump should've shut the country down, and blame for not...yet turn around and say people can't work cause of the state shutdowns, and that's Trump's fault.
So, we have "blame trump for not shutting things down, killing the economy" or "trump killed the economy by shutting things down" Ad nauseum.
Trump gets blamed for everything and anything because, you know, he beat hillary. That's the bottom line.
Why does the economy need more stimulus? There aren't many places shutdown because of the virus.
This just seems like begging for the sake of begging.
11 million people are still out of work. That might have something to do with it.
Who are these people and why are they out of work?
Healthcare givers. Restaurant workers and owners. Service industry workers. Sport Stadium workers. Bus transportation and terminal workers. Airline workers and pilots. Airport security folks. I really could go on for hours. They’re all out of work because this administration has failed by playing down the virus. They are still downplaying the virus. They failed to get this under control and closed down too late and opened too early. Not nearly enough testing. And refusing to wear masks. Big fat trump..big fat failure.
You can't go on for hours. That is a really small segment of society.
Bars/Restaurants open here full blast and have been for months.
Stimulus checks are just a political game at this point. The country doesn't really need it. I expect it to end after the election.
The food service and hospitality industry was the largest segment of society hit the hardest. And are the poorest.
I don’t need a stimulus check either and really it’s not just about that. I personally know dozens of people needing more hours at work and are scrambling to get work at multiple jobs now. But some people don’t have those worries and look down on those that do. Pffft trump supporters.
Why does the economy need more stimulus? There aren't many places shutdown because of the virus.
This just seems like begging for the sake of begging.
11 million people are still out of work. That might have something to do with it.
Who are these people and why are they out of work?
Healthcare givers. Restaurant workers and owners. Service industry workers. Sport Stadium workers. Bus transportation and terminal workers. Airline workers and pilots. Airport security folks. I really could go on for hours. They’re all out of work because this administration has failed by playing down the virus. They are still downplaying the virus. They failed to get this under control and closed down too late and opened too early. Not nearly enough testing. And refusing to wear masks. Big fat trump..big fat failure.
You can't go on for hours. That is a really small segment of society.
Bars/Restaurants open here full blast and have been for months.
Stimulus checks are just a political game at this point. The country doesn't really need it. I expect it to end after the election.
Many ARE out of work. Because their states shut down pretty much everything. Cause of covid. And then the people complaining say Trump should've shut the country down, and blame for not...yet turn around and say people can't work cause of the state shutdowns, and that's Trump's fault.
So, we have "blame trump for not shutting things down, killing the economy" or "trump killed the economy by shutting things down" Ad nauseum.
Trump gets blamed for everything and anything because, you know, he beat hillary. That's the bottom line.
Ok. I will retract my statement. Instead I will say:
Georgia has had an open economy for months and we are fine.
We also have minimal covid.
All the haters who bashed our Govenor/State can go suck one.
If you're out of work around here, it's because you don't want to work, or think you're too good for the job.
Sauder Woodworking - even accepting part time people. Sauder Manufacturing. Arrow Tru Line Haas Door Napoleon Lynx Campbell Soup Miller Brothers Construction (highest paying - minimum of $50 grand first year) Bil-Jax (grandpa's old company) Allied Molded
So many more. Granted, most are manufacturing jobs.
Not a single one starts off less than $12.50 an hour. No experience needed Most offer pay raises after 30 days, as well as full benefits. Most, end of year one, you're at 15 to 16 an hour, and trust me, overtime is available. All you could want. (at most of them)
But, they all require passing a drug test, AND showing up for work. Allied even gives a bonus of $1 per hour for just showing up and working for 40 hours a week.
I don't know about anyone else on this board but I couldn't get one of those jobs. I have no idea how to do a job like that. Why would they hire me?
I can say, hey, there is a shortage of doctor's (there is) anyone who needs a job can just call up a hospital and get hired (they can't). At least not with out 8 additional years of education.
Unemployment spiked up to about 15% around May. Since then, it's been trending back down. It's not hard to imagine (it shouldn't be, at least) that there is a significant portion of people that have been unemployed for a majority of that time. Certain areas have been hit very hard by 'rona, and recovery is slower. Those people that have been out of work will need relief. Additionally, this round of stimulus WOULD, in fact, help the airline industry continue to employ pilots, attendants, etc. I would hope you could imagine how people, right now, don't want to get into a cramped metal tube to breath in everyone's else's exhaled air.
If we were talking about your county, then yes. I would agree with you.
We are (or were) talking about unemployment across the entire US. Obviously (I would think) what's going on in 1 county has VERY little influence on the numbers for the nation as a whole.
Georgia is also in the top half of new cases/day. So yeah, not doing that bad, but also not doing that great, either.
The county next to me, which I spend a lot of time in, had less than 10 cases today/yesterday.
Your virus drama is a bit overblown and exaggerated.
You Still can’t leave your state without quarantining for 14 days. The potus who paid $1400 taxes in 10 years and caught the virus, maybe spreading it didn’t have to.
If we were talking about your county, then yes. I would agree with you.
We are (or were) talking about unemployment across the entire US. Obviously (I would think) what's going on in 1 county has VERY little influence on the numbers for the nation as a whole.
There is unemployment due to the virus. And unenployment in general.
I'm thinking it's not really due to the virus.
The stimulus will stop after the election. You'll see.
A lot of lazy asses need to step up and get a job.
And if the rest of the country looks as good as us then Covid is an eye roller.
Mine's from the Johns Hopkins Project, which is the go-to source for Covid-statistics....
Mine is from the local government. Which have the ultimate stats.
If effectively living under a rock and refusing to acknowledge that there's a whole world outside of the 50-mile or so area that you stay is working for you, then 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Hats off to you.
But I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain something to someone that won't pull their fingers out of their ears or open their eyes. BTW, I'm posting from Cincinnati, OH (outside of your area of operation, so to you it basically doesn't exist). A major employer is GE Aviation, who was already struggling before basically all of their orders/work was effectively canceled. Most (but clearly not all) can imagine what happened next, in terms of employment. Similarly, UC Health (hospital system) has been furloughing a VERY large portion of their non-medical staff, due to budgeting.
Guess What! Mail in Ballots already fumbled in Ohio!
Ohio, Columbus, lead story, Franklin county officials, election officials, sent out the wrong ballots, and nobody knows how many. "the number could be significant" (known, 230,000 voters requested absentee ballots n Franklin Co.)
Board of elections has confirmed. ^
Apparantly, the problem comes when, stuffing the ballots into the envelopes, things like, (one suburb),Dublin local resident given Urbancrest's, (a different suburbs),local issues to vote on,.
Side note: Ohio's "early", "in person" voting, has started today, but the "mail in" "mailed out" ballots have already been flubbed up.
Mail in Balloting, Who Knew! I'm sure, expanding this all across the nation will go as smooth as a razor blade sliding board.
All those TV shows? Camera operators, lighting, sound engineers, grips, make-up artists, carpenters, set designers, even post-production/editing... literally thousands are out of work. Major symphony orchestras are shut down. Which means ticket offices are closed. Stage hands sit at home. Ushers, too. Valets. And nearby restaurants are still required to hold less than 50% capacity.
My bunch (and those associated with us) are extremely lucky in that our employment is guaranteed through this season with no loss of income, which offsets a good potion of our operating costs. A private benefactor stepped in to cover the lost income from tix sales. We were promised (and contractually held to) that all players would get work, which has really complicated life for our programming director. Due to social distancing protocols, we can seat no more than 40 players onstage. That means no large-scale works. Nothing later than early Beethoven. No Brahms, no Mahler, no Tchaikovsky... you know, the most popular of the Big Boys. These seasons are planned at least 2 years in advance, and so Programming spent the entire Summer revamping every single performance on our Masterworks series. I'm playing about 1/3 of my normal monthly schedule, because players are being rotated in & out of the lineup. Our hall holds 1730. Tix sales are limited to about 500 per gig.
Here's another wrinkle: our Music Director is Québécoise, and can't get here for rehearsals or performances because the US/CA border is closed. It's his second full year, and was supposed to be the season that allowed him to put his stamp on our new
Which means that those studios are working with skeleton crews. And the other 2/3 of their colleagues are still waiting to go back to work. Which still means out-of-work people.
And your soap (whichever it is) was shut tf down for more than 3 months because EVRYONE WAS SHUT TF DOWN.
But keep working at that bone of yours, even thought there's no meat left on it.
It's a bone you've been gnawing on all afternoon at this web address. To pretty poor effect, given all the info/data/clapback that's landed backatcha your doorstep.
I'm glad you are weathering this better than others, but understand this: people ARE suffering and in need of assistance. Those checks (remember them? the whole reason you've been going toe-to-toe in this thread?) need to go out. Neighbors up the street need them more than I, but that need is real. The fact that I'm not suffering doesn't keep me from understanding (and empathizing with) those who are.
As for my first CoVid check: donated to charities/political causes. Jose Andres' World Kitchen, Get Mitch (or die Trying), Adopt A State, several local/state candidates. Oh yeah- used a little of it to pay off a refrigerator.
I've lived my American Dream. Time to help others achieve theirs.
Politicians have been fighting for better opportunity, more wages, better benefits, etc. for those who are self-employed. Many have gone a step further and proposed more legislation to help out small business owners in this time of need. It keeps getting knocked down.
You deserve my tax money more than a corporate movie theater chain does.
Politicians have been fighting for better opportunity, more wages, better benefits, etc. for those who are self-employed. Many have gone a step further and proposed more legislation to help out small business owners in this time of need. It keeps getting knocked down.
You deserve my tax money more than a corporate movie theater chain does.
It would be nice for this to happen considering that small business owners are the largerst employers in the country.
But we get the least respect. So I'm not holding my breath.
Politicians have been fighting for better opportunity, more wages, better benefits, etc. for those who are self-employed. Many have gone a step further and proposed more legislation to help out small business owners in this time of need. It keeps getting knocked down.
You deserve my tax money more than a corporate movie theater chain does.
It would be nice for this to happen considering that small business owners are the largerst employers in the country.
But we get the least respect. So I'm not holding my breath.
Politicians have been fighting for better opportunity, more wages, better benefits, etc. for those who are self-employed. Many have gone a step further and proposed more legislation to help out small business owners in this time of need. It keeps getting knocked down.
You deserve my tax money more than a corporate movie theater chain does.
It would be nice for this to happen considering that small business owners are the largerst employers in the country.
But we get the least respect. So I'm not holding my breath.
Quit griping.
I'm not griping because I have no employees. But I know a lot of small businesses that are struggling.
My bunch (and those associated with us) are extremely lucky in that our employment is guaranteed through this season with no loss of income,
Good for you, and I mean that.
However, for some of us, that is not the case. Our incomes HAVE been affected, in large ways. I would be one of them.
I have always understood that from the start- and truly do feel for you, in this crazy time of Life.
In fact, you are exactlythe poster child for the point I've been trying to make to Eve tonight. I can't think of another poster on this board who more deserves to be helped by my tax dollars:
Honest, hard-working, self-made small business owner who is waylaid through no fault of his own... and is doing his level best to survive a problem that was never caused by anything he did wrong.
This very situation is the epitome of Christian charity ("small c"), insofar as I was always taught. A neighbor, a fellow citizen is hurting. I can help. Some of my money will help him to stay on his feet. Others like me (and him) chip in their fair share... because some day down the road, we'll all need each others' help.
This is what I was raised to believe- and live.
I'm the kind of American citizen who never has a problem with paying into the pot for all of us. Not ever. I can't take my money with me when I die, but I do have a choice in how I spend my money while I'm here.
It's why I never bitch, moan or complain about the taxes I pay. I routinely vote for levies that help schools, roads, infrastructure, even though I know that a certain mount of my money goes to waste. I'm not stupid, gullible or naïve. I'm lazy.
If I were to give/donate/contribute in the kind of targeted way that would suit me, I'd spend all of my free time researching causes, prioritizing my contribution stream, and distributing my own hard-earned precisely where I'd want it to go. Know what that makes me sound like? The kind of "Elite" that you and I could never be.
Ultra-riche have entire staffs who are dedicated to this type of pursuit. Someone like You or me has only the infrastructure available to commonfolk... and that means, the system we've always been part of: the democracy/representative republic- complete with the clunky, inefficient, corruption-laden elements that are embedded so deeply within its fabric.
I'm a Working Class Joe. I make less per hour than the plumber/electrician who comes to fix what I'm unqualified to, when my house needs more than I can give it. I'm not a corporation, consortium or billionaire. My only choice is to contribute to The Community Pot that sustains You and me in times of need... as inefficient, corrupt and lame as it is.
_________________
Situations like yours are exactly why I feel no shame, when fellow PP Dawgs try to b#slapp me with the "Socialist" moniker.
I take pride in the fact that I willingly CHOOSE to contribute and participate in my society- with my words, my efforts, my votes, and my money. It is how I was raised (by patriots, teachers, scientists and clergy), and how I will always honor those fine people who taught me how to be a daily follower of Christ's most important teachings.
I want you to get on the other side of this crisis alongside me, arch. Healthy, whole- and ready to move on. That outcome is the only one I can find acceptable.
I willingly do what I can. My Parents (and extended Family) will allow nothing less of me.
My bunch (and those associated with us) are extremely lucky in that our employment is guaranteed through this season with no loss of income,
Good for you, and I mean that.
However, for some of us, that is not the case. Our incomes HAVE been affected, in large ways. I would be one of them.
I have always understood that from the start- and truly do feel for you, in this crazy time of Life.
In fact, you are exactlythe poster child for the point I've been trying to make to Eve tonight. I can't think of another poster on this board who more deserves to be helped by my tax dollars:
Honest, hard-working, self-made small business owner who is waylaid through no fault of his own... and is doing his level best to survive a problem that was never caused by anything he did wrong.
This very situation is the epitome of Christian charity ("small c"), insofar as I was always taught. A neighbor, a fellow citizen is hurting. I can help. Some of my money will help him to stay on his feet. Others like me (and him) chip in their fair share... because some day down the road, we'll all need each others' help.
This is what I was raised to believe- and live.
I'm the kind of American citizen who never has a problem with paying into the pot for all of us. Not ever. I can't take my money with me when I die, but I do have a choice in how I spend my money while I'm here.
It's why I never bitch, moan or complain about the taxes I pay. I routinely vote for levies that help schools, roads, infrastructure, even though I know that a certain mount of my money goes to waste. I'm not stupid, gullible or naïve. I'm lazy.
If I were to give/donate/contribute in the kind of targeted way that would suit me, I'd spend all of my free time researching causes, prioritizing my contribution stream, and distributing my own hard-earned precisely where I'd want it to go. Know what that makes me sound like? The kind of "Elite" that you and I could never be.
Ultra-riche have entire staffs who are dedicated to this type of pursuit. Someone like You or me has only the infrastructure available to commonfolk... and that means, the system we've always been part of: the democracy/representative republic- complete with the clunky, inefficient, corruption-laden elements that are embedded so deeply within its fabric.
I'm a Working Class Joe. I make less than the plumber/electrician who comes to fix what I'm unqualified to, when my house needs more than I can give it. I'm not a corporation, consortium or billionaire. My only choice is to contribute to The Community Pot that sustains You and me in times of need... as inefficient, corrupt and lame as it is.
_________________
Situations like yours are exactly why I feel no shame, when fellow PP Dawgs try to b#slapp me with the "Socialist" moniker.
I take pride in the fact that I willingly CHOOSE to contribute and participate in my society- with my words, my efforts, my votes, and my money. It is how I was raised (by patriots, teachers, scientists and clergy), and how I will always honor those fine people who taught me how to be a daily follower of Christ's most important teachings.
I want you to get on the other side of this crisis alongside me, arch. Healthy, whole- and ready to move on. That outcome is the only one I find acceptable.
I guess I missed the point you were trying to make somewhere. But, me, you, Arch. We are all in the trenches. We all have to support each other, and go hard in the paint to support our neighbors.
I am tired of "liberal" being used as an insult. Liberalism gave you the vote. Liberalism gave you equality. Liberalism gave you freedom of speech. Liberalism gave you your inalienable rights. Liberalism is the enemy of tyrants.
----------------------------------------------
Jesus was probably the biggest liberal hippie to ever exist. It is sad to see so many who claim to love and worship Jesus refuse to actually follow his teachings, yet claim they are Christians.
I know this to be true, because he and I are 'face-up-front' tailgate bros. He only (reluctantly) drank a shot of Wild Turkey because I'd brought along a 4-pack of brass shot glasses... and dragged him into a group toast, which I shared with him and 2 other Tailgate Dawgs. Browns won that game over the Seahawks, 9-6.
He's a good guy, who sees politics from a 180° POV opposed from me (and most possibly, You).
Jester: You and I are new friends. arch and I have been old friends for almost 2 decades. I ask you to talk with him in the same manner that you've seen me address him in this thread.
America needs Good People, if She is to move beyond 2020.
Arch is already one of those people. It's our responsibility to find a way to talk to American patriots like him.
_______________
So tell us, Eve: are you the kind of American who thinks that those of us who fall upon Hard Times should be left to our own devices for survival- or are You the kind of American like me who wants to see friends like Our Boy Arch survive this crisis?
You are either one or the other. 2020 is not a year for fence-sitting.
I've heard you complain about taxes on here. You almost lost it over the UK vat tax thing a couple years ago. Or maybe that was some restriction, I can't remember, but you have complained about taxes here too.
Okay, When patience isn't a strong point, you go to the house and poach the keyboard from there, bring it out to the office, and 'boom', back in business.
But I'll be buying a new keyboard tomorrow. Computer in the house is rarely used, but it'll be my luck that tomorrow wife will use it.
My bunch (and those associated with us) are extremely lucky in that our employment is guaranteed through this season with no loss of income,
Good for you, and I mean that.
However, for some of us, that is not the case. Our incomes HAVE been affected, in large ways. I would be one of them.
I have always understood that from the start- and truly do feel for you, in this crazy time of Life.
In fact, you are exactlythe poster child for the point I've been trying to make to Eve tonight. I can't think of another poster on this board who more deserves to be helped by my tax dollars:
Honest, hard-working, self-made small business owner who is waylaid through no fault of his own... and is doing his level best to survive a problem that was never caused by anything he did wrong.
This very situation is the epitome of Christian charity ("small c"), insofar as I was always taught. A neighbor, a fellow citizen is hurting. I can help. Some of my money will help him to stay on his feet. Others like me (and him) chip in their fair share... because some day down the road, we'll all need each others' help.
This is what I was raised to believe- and live.
I'm the kind of American citizen who never has a problem with paying into the pot for all of us. Not ever. I can't take my money with me when I die, but I do have a choice in how I spend my money while I'm here.
It's why I never bitch, moan or complain about the taxes I pay. I routinely vote for levies that help schools, roads, infrastructure, even though I know that a certain mount of my money goes to waste. I'm not stupid, gullible or naïve. I'm lazy.
If I were to give/donate/contribute in the kind of targeted way that would suit me, I'd spend all of my free time researching causes, prioritizing my contribution stream, and distributing my own hard-earned precisely where I'd want it to go. Know what that makes me sound like? The kind of "Elite" that you and I could never be.
Ultra-riche have entire staffs who are dedicated to this type of pursuit. Someone like You or me has only the infrastructure available to commonfolk... and that means, the system we've always been part of: the democracy/representative republic- complete with the clunky, inefficient, corruption-laden elements that are embedded so deeply within its fabric.
I'm a Working Class Joe. I make less than the plumber/electrician who comes to fix what I'm unqualified to, when my house needs more than I can give it. I'm not a corporation, consortium or billionaire. My only choice is to contribute to The Community Pot that sustains You and me in times of need... as inefficient, corrupt and lame as it is.
_________________
Situations like yours are exactly why I feel no shame, when fellow PP Dawgs try to b#slapp me with the "Socialist" moniker.
I take pride in the fact that I willingly CHOOSE to contribute and participate in my society- with my words, my efforts, my votes, and my money. It is how I was raised (by patriots, teachers, scientists and clergy), and how I will always honor those fine people who taught me how to be a daily follower of Christ's most important teachings.
I want you to get on the other side of this crisis alongside me, arch. Healthy, whole- and ready to move on. That outcome is the only one I can find acceptable.
I willingly do what I can. My Parents (and extended Family) will allow nothing less of me.
Back to the thread.
Yes, things have been tough for me this year. Most people can say that. This will be my worst year in 17 years. I don't blame anything......other than covid, and people being laid off and doing exactly what we did:cutting back on spending.
I can also look at my 17 complete years being self employed and realize "you had a best year, and you had a worst year. All the others were somewhere in between."
Just as every other business has experienced.
I've never divulged what I do for charity, because I don't do it to get kudos from anyone. I do it because I can. That ability is narrowing right now, no doubt.
I did spend ..........well, it doesn't matter. Let's just say in the last 2 days I've spent more time on church issues than I have on work. That doesn't make me a good person, I know.
I pay my taxes, as the IRS is one thing that scares me. I, according to my cpa, overpay every year. Which is bad, but nice also as it allows me to some years not even have to pay the first quarter since the over payment covered it.
I, as you, am a working class Joe. I'm a sweating my ass of working class Joe. Not high paid. Owning a tiny business does not mean you're rich.
As long as I can make a living doing what I do, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I pay my taxes. I donate my time. I donate my work. The last 2, not because I have to, but because I CAN, and WANT to.
I am, however, sick and tired of being called a racist, simply because of who I voted for. Being called a racist, by people that have never met me, and trust me, never will.
Eh, I'll be done here. My new keyboard (from the house) is doing its job too well.
Okay, When patience isn't a strong point, you go to the house and poach the keyboard from there, bring it out to the office, and 'boom', back in business.
But I'll be buying a new keyboard tomorrow. Computer in the house is rarely used, but it'll be my luck that tomorrow wife will use it.
SMH Have you not learned anything from me over the years Arch?
Leave the keyboard in the house. Then when your wife uses it you can blame her for breaking it
Keep the keyboard! Use it to type during a Browns loss. Should provide good reading.
Along those lines, I stumbled on the thread about the computer auto-transcription of one of Shurmer's post-game press conferences. I laughed at it just as hard as I did when I read it the first time.
When trump talks about the 2020 election and the high risk for cheating, fraud and the rigging of the election he is right. This election is going to be the most fraught in history to have its results manipulated.
Where he is lying is that he claims it is going to the democrats behind this when he well knows that it is actually him and his campaign the is driving attempts to rig the election.
Trump campaign discussing plans to appoint its own state electors, no matter the results: report Salon Roger Sollenberger ,Salon•October 6, 2020
Trump campaign officials and legal advisers are reportedly preparing to appoint their own state electors as a way to secure victory in a contested election, a move that would precipitate an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The country will in all likelihood not know the outcome of the presidential election on Election Day. It is likely, given a raft of threatening public statements from President Trump, that he will reject unfavorable results.
The president is not directly elected by the people — the official votes are cast by electors on behalf of the voters in their states. Though states have historically chosen their electors by popular vote, the Constitution does not mandate that, saying only that a state shall appoint its electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."
Every state has allowed its voters to make the call in every election since the late 1800s. But in 2000, the Supreme Court held in Bush v. Gore that the states "can take back the power to appoint electors."
According to a Sept. 23 article in The Atlantic, campaign advisers to Trump, in conjunction with Republican state leaders, are preparing to test this theory. Sources in the Republican Party, at both state and national levels, say that the campaign is considering a plan to "bypass" the popular vote results and install its own electors in key battleground states where the legislatures are controlled by Republicans.
Republicans control both legislative bodies in the six closest battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Of those six, both Arizona and Florida have Republican governors.
After the national election, the plan goes, the Trump campaign would cry foul about rampant fraud and demand that state legislators ignore the ballot tabulations and choose their electors directly. If the campaign can sustain doubt or confusion about the ballot count, legislators will feel more and more pressure to take up the responsibility before the Dec. 8 deadline when electors' names are sent to Congress for verification.
The Atlantic reported that a Trump campaign legal adviser said this effort would be framed as protecting the will of the people.
"The state legislatures will say, 'All right, we've been given this constitutional power. We don't think the results of our own state are accurate, so here's our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state,' " the legal adviser told the outlet. The adviser said that by extending long windows for mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, Democrats have exposed the tabulation process to allegations of inaccuracy and fraud.
"If you have this notion that ballots can come in for I don't know how many days — in some states a week, 10 days — then that onslaught of ballots just gets pushed back and pushed back and pushed back," he said. "So pick your poison. Is it worse to have electors named by legislators or to have votes received by Election Day?"
When The Atlantic asked the Trump campaign about plans to circumvent the vote and appoint loyal electors, and about other strategies discussed in the article, the deputy national press secretary did not directly address the questions. "It's outrageous that President Trump and his team are being villainized for upholding the rule of law and transparently fighting for a free and fair election," Thea McDonald said in an email. "The mainstream media are giving the Democrats a free pass for their attempts to completely uproot the system and throw our election into chaos." Trump is fighting for a trustworthy election, she wrote, "and any argument otherwise is a conspiracy theory intended to muddy the waters."
Three Pennsylvania Republican leaders told The Atlantic that they had already talked about appointing electors directly, and one of them — the chair of the state's Republican Party — said he had discussed the possibility with the Trump campaign.
"I've mentioned it to them, and I hope they're thinking about it too," Lawrence Tabas said. "I just don't think this is the right time for me to be discussing those strategies and approaches, but [direct appointment of electors] is one of the options. It is one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution." He said that if the voting process "has significant flaws," then people could "lose faith and confidence" in the system.
Jake Corman, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania Senate, said that if the count draws on for too long, the legislature will have to choose electors. "We don't want to go down that road, but we understand where the law takes us, and we'll follow the law," he said.
That road could lead to a scenario where six battleground states have competing sets of electors, each authorized by different branches of the state — one by the Republican legislature, one by the Democratic governor. Even in Arizona and Florida, where Republicans fully control the government, an independent set of Democratic electors could try to certify their own votes for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in an effort to kick the final call up to Congress.
This almost happened during the 2000 Florida recount: Republican Gov. Jeb Bush certified electors for his brother, George W. Bush, before the recount had been settled. The Gore campaign was ready to assemble its own group of Democratic electors to cast rival ballots, but after the Supreme Court ruled against Gore, he conceded — just days before the Electoral College convened.
Given this plan, The Atlantic reports, it's possible that mirror-image state electors could turn in competing sets of votes, submitted "to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate" — who, by the way, is Vice President Mike Pence.
The contest at that point gets very complicated, but plays out in one of three ways: If Democrats take the Senate back and hold onto the House, then Biden wins; if Republicans hold the Senate and flip the House, a less likely scenario, then Trump wins; but if Congress remains divided after the election, the Constitution does not offer a solution.
As Constitutional scholar Norm Ornstein told The Atlantic, "Then we get thrown into a world where anything could happen."
I guess he will tell us where it's safe and where it's not. Until and unless he loses states where he said it was safe. Then he'll say it was rigged in those states. It's like, what he does.
Democrat Cal Cunningham Affair Upends 2020 Senate Race
Sean Moran
7 Oct 2020
Democrat Cal Cunningham’s affair in North Carolina has upended the U.S. Senate race and may have far-reaching implications beyond his battle with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).
On Wednesday, Cunningham dodged questions about the affair for which he is now under investigation by the U.S. Army Reserves.
That comes after revelations this week caused him to abandon a fundraiser and a town hall event, and just before scheduled fundraising events with national Democrat stars Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) set for Wednesday night. Booker and Duckworth have not returned requests for comment on what they think of the burgeoning scandal.
Tuesday night, National File— which broke the original story of sexually explicit text messages between Cunningham and a mistress— published more texts between the mistress and a friend in which Cunningham’s mistress suggests she is in possession of nude photographs of the would-be Democrat Senator.
The scandal has upended the race and roiled the highest levels of the Democrat Party in North Carolina and nationally, as even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s PAC snubbed the one-time rising star Cunningham in a fundraising email sent out after the scandal broke by not including him in it.
Despite the reports, Rachel Petri, Cunningham’s spokeswoman, said in a statement on Tuesday the Democrat intends to move forward with his campaign.
Petri said:
Cal will participate in this process, but it does not change the stakes of this election or the need for new leaders who will fight for the issues North Carolinians care about instead of caving to the corporate special interests – which is exactly what Senator Tillis has done in his years in Washington.
The Cunningham scandal could upend the North Carolina Senate race in favor of Tillis. Tillis represents a pivotal seat in the hotly contested fight for the control of the Senate majority. An East Carolina University (ECU) poll released in the days after the scandal first broke found that Tillis now leads Cunningham.
Tell me these aren't the words of a wannba dictator. Right out of their playbook, arrest all your political opponents. How is anybody not afraid of this guy and what he is trying to do?
‘Where are all of the arrests?’: Trump demands Barr lock up his foes Politico By Kyle Cheney ,Politico•October 7, 2020
‘Where are all of the arrests?’: Trump demands Barr lock up his foes Donald Trump mounted an overnight Twitter blitz demanding to jail his political enemies and call out allies he says are failing to arrest his rivals swiftly enough.
Trump twice amplified supporters’ criticisms of Attorney General William Barr, including one featuring a meme calling on him to “arrest somebody!” He wondered aloud why his rivals, like President Barack Obama, Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration.
“Where are all of the arrests?” Trump said, after several dozen tweets on the subject over the past 24 hours. “Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Long term sentences would have started two years ago. Shameful!”
By early afternoon, Trump was letting loose his frustrations in an all-caps missive that seemed aimed at nobody in particular.
“DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN - GOT CAUGHT!!!” Trump tweeted.
The day-long run of tweets and retweets marked the most frantic stretch of Trump’s public activity since he left the presidential suite at Walter Reed Medical Center and returned to treatment at the White House. They also underscored the degree to which Trump remains fixated on his grievances over the Russia probe, and often on obscure aspects of that investigation that are unintelligible to all but its most careful followers.
Since late Tuesday, Trump has vowed to declassify all documents he claims will show improper activity by Obama and his intelligence advisers — before quickly reversing himself and suggesting he had already done so “long ago” — and repeatedly cited Russian intelligence services’ claims that Clinton “stirred up” the Trump-Russia collusion scandal that has dogged his presidency.
The Trump administration has never held a firm position on whether the president’s tweets constitute direct orders; various tell-all books have described how top officials learned which of his instructions — lawful or otherwise — to ignore and which to accommodate. Courts have at times treated Trump’s tweets at official statements. But on other occasions they’ve been brushed off as political banter that lacks the force of law.
Trump’s Twitter feed tends to be a realtime barometer of his offline moods and whims, however — and themes he hits on repeatedly over 280 characters tend to surface in conversations he holds in private.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment about whether Trump had ever directly asked Barr to order the arrest of his rivals or if his tweet suggesting as much had veered into territory that Barr once said made his job “impossible.”
In past interviews, Barr has signaled that he has no intention of prosecuting senior Obama administration officials, though he has cast doubt on the motives behind the Russia probe and launched an investigation into its origins.
The review Barr ordered has disappointed Trump in recent weeks as the U.S. attorney tapped to lead it, John Durham, has signaled he might not pursue the kinds of high-profile prosecutions the president and his allies are demanding. Durham’s deputy in the review, veteran Justice Department prosecutor Nora Dennehy, recently quit the faltering effort and returned to the private sector.
“NOW THAT THE RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS GOT COUGHT [sic] COLD IN THE (NON) FRIENDLY TRANSFER OF GOVERNMENT, IN FACT, THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN AND WENT FOR A COUP, WE ARE ENTITLED TO ASK THE VOTERS FOR FOUR MORE YEARS,” Trump declared late Wednesday morning. “PLEASE REMEMBER THIS WHEN YOU VOTE!”
Trump’s tweet barrage was particularly jarring when set against the political backdrop. Biden has widened his lead over Trump in recent polls, as the president’s support has eroded among women, seniors and other voting blocs that helps him scratch out a victory in 2016. Trump flummoxed his allies Tuesday by summarily shutting down — also via Twitter — negotiations over a coronavirus stimulus bill, only to backtrack hours later by calling on Congress to pass more targeted measures.
But Trump has made clear that he remains focused on punishing perceived enemies regardless of the political cost. While recovering at Walter Reed Monday morning, his chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News that Trump had kept busy that morning in part by directing the declassification of documents related to the Russia probe — a set of files he claimed were conclusive proof that Clinton had concocted the notion that his campaign team had ties to Russia even though the Senate Intelligence Committee and the special counsel’s team had rejected the allegations as unverified.
In releasing them, Trump’s own hand-picked intel chief, John Ratcliffe, acknowledged the documents, sourced to Russian intelligence, might have been “exaggerated” or even “fabricated” to deflect from their culpability in the election interference effort.
Tell me these aren't the words of a wannba dictator. Right out of their playbook, arrest all your political opponents. How is anybody not afraid of this guy and what he is trying to do?
‘Where are all of the arrests?’: Trump demands Barr lock up his foes Politico By Kyle Cheney ,Politico•October 7, 2020
‘Where are all of the arrests?’: Trump demands Barr lock up his foes Donald Trump mounted an overnight Twitter blitz demanding to jail his political enemies and call out allies he says are failing to arrest his rivals swiftly enough.
Trump twice amplified supporters’ criticisms of Attorney General William Barr, including one featuring a meme calling on him to “arrest somebody!” He wondered aloud why his rivals, like President Barack Obama, Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration.
“Where are all of the arrests?” Trump said, after several dozen tweets on the subject over the past 24 hours. “Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Long term sentences would have started two years ago. Shameful!”
By early afternoon, Trump was letting loose his frustrations in an all-caps missive that seemed aimed at nobody in particular.
“DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN - GOT CAUGHT!!!” Trump tweeted.
The day-long run of tweets and retweets marked the most frantic stretch of Trump’s public activity since he left the presidential suite at Walter Reed Medical Center and returned to treatment at the White House. They also underscored the degree to which Trump remains fixated on his grievances over the Russia probe, and often on obscure aspects of that investigation that are unintelligible to all but its most careful followers.
Since late Tuesday, Trump has vowed to declassify all documents he claims will show improper activity by Obama and his intelligence advisers — before quickly reversing himself and suggesting he had already done so “long ago” — and repeatedly cited Russian intelligence services’ claims that Clinton “stirred up” the Trump-Russia collusion scandal that has dogged his presidency.
The Trump administration has never held a firm position on whether the president’s tweets constitute direct orders; various tell-all books have described how top officials learned which of his instructions — lawful or otherwise — to ignore and which to accommodate. Courts have at times treated Trump’s tweets at official statements. But on other occasions they’ve been brushed off as political banter that lacks the force of law.
Trump’s Twitter feed tends to be a realtime barometer of his offline moods and whims, however — and themes he hits on repeatedly over 280 characters tend to surface in conversations he holds in private.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment about whether Trump had ever directly asked Barr to order the arrest of his rivals or if his tweet suggesting as much had veered into territory that Barr once said made his job “impossible.”
In past interviews, Barr has signaled that he has no intention of prosecuting senior Obama administration officials, though he has cast doubt on the motives behind the Russia probe and launched an investigation into its origins.
The review Barr ordered has disappointed Trump in recent weeks as the U.S. attorney tapped to lead it, John Durham, has signaled he might not pursue the kinds of high-profile prosecutions the president and his allies are demanding. Durham’s deputy in the review, veteran Justice Department prosecutor Nora Dennehy, recently quit the faltering effort and returned to the private sector.
“NOW THAT THE RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS GOT COUGHT [sic] COLD IN THE (NON) FRIENDLY TRANSFER OF GOVERNMENT, IN FACT, THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN AND WENT FOR A COUP, WE ARE ENTITLED TO ASK THE VOTERS FOR FOUR MORE YEARS,” Trump declared late Wednesday morning. “PLEASE REMEMBER THIS WHEN YOU VOTE!”
Trump’s tweet barrage was particularly jarring when set against the political backdrop. Biden has widened his lead over Trump in recent polls, as the president’s support has eroded among women, seniors and other voting blocs that helps him scratch out a victory in 2016. Trump flummoxed his allies Tuesday by summarily shutting down — also via Twitter — negotiations over a coronavirus stimulus bill, only to backtrack hours later by calling on Congress to pass more targeted measures.
But Trump has made clear that he remains focused on punishing perceived enemies regardless of the political cost. While recovering at Walter Reed Monday morning, his chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News that Trump had kept busy that morning in part by directing the declassification of documents related to the Russia probe — a set of files he claimed were conclusive proof that Clinton had concocted the notion that his campaign team had ties to Russia even though the Senate Intelligence Committee and the special counsel’s team had rejected the allegations as unverified.
In releasing them, Trump’s own hand-picked intel chief, John Ratcliffe, acknowledged the documents, sourced to Russian intelligence, might have been “exaggerated” or even “fabricated” to deflect from their culpability in the election interference effort.
Republican experts are in agreement: The 2020 election is not rigged Jon WardSenior Political Correspondent,Yahoo News•October 7, 2020
Republican voting experts have overwhelmingly rejected President Trump’s claims that the 2020 election is going to be rigged, giving firsthand accounts to Yahoo News that frame the president’s rhetoric as a form of disinformation.
Two of the most experienced and talented election lawyers in the Republican Party — including one who was an adviser to Vice President Mike Pence until recently — told Yahoo News that Trump’s claims are not based in reality.
Multiple Republicans who oversee elections in different states said the same.
“The idea that a massive conspiracy could be undertaken that could actually change the result of a governor’s race or U.S. Senate race — or certainly a presidential race — is a very far-fetched idea and beyond, really, the realm of possibility,” Frank LaRose, the Republican secretary of state of Ohio, said in an interview.
Michael Adams, the Republican secretary of state of Kentucky, echoed that expert opinion.
“You’re not going to see widespread fraud in a presidential or a Senate or a governor’s race. It’s just not feasible,” Adams said in a separate interview with Yahoo News.
Adams is an election law attorney who has advised Republican campaigns across the country for more than a decade. In 2017, he became an election law adviser to Pence through his PAC, the Great America Committee. Adams contacted Yahoo News Wednesday to say he was no longer an adviser, but did not say when that relationship ended.
Benjamin Ginsberg is one of the Republican Party’s other top election law attorneys. In fact, he has been one of the GOP’s foremost operatives when it comes to navigating the law in the world of politics. Ginsberg oversaw the party’s legal campaign to win the 2000 presidential election during the recount in Florida. He has advised four of the last six Republican presidential nominees.
Ginsberg retired on Aug. 31 from law practice, and began speaking out a few days after that to warn America about the danger of Trump’s false claims of a rigged election.
In an interview, Ginsberg described Trump’s sustained verbal assault on the integrity of the American election as unprecedented in American history.
“For the first time, a president of the United States is saying our elections are rigged and fraudulent,” Ginsberg said. “And I’ve been looking at polling places for 38 years as part of my duties and passion for the Republican Party doing well in elections. We’ve been looking for fraud. And I know what evidence is available, and there’s not anything like enough evidence to make the bold assertion that our elections are rigged and fraudulent.”
“It is a perilous thing for a president of the United States to be saying,” Ginsberg said.
And Kim Wyman, Washington state’s top election official, described how two major components of American elections are big obstacles to cheating: decentralization and accountability.
“We have a very decentralized election system that has over 10,000 election officials just like me who are either appointed or elected. They answer to their voters. They answer to their constituents,” said Wyman, a Republican who is Washington’s secretary of state.
“We’re very committed to making sure we have an accurate and fair election. States are working right now to make sure we’re balancing access and security so voters can have a safe voting experience and people can have confidence in the results,” Wyman said. “That’s what our profession is, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Asked specifically about Trump’s claims of a rigged election, Wyman said: “I would categorically disagree with the president on that claim.”
Cheating and fraud do happen in elections on a small and localized scale, but not on a statewide or national scale. (Yahoo News is tracking incidents of mistakes, malfeasance or fraud in this election.) And the wrongdoers are usually political insiders — not voters. That’s the consensus view not only of Republican voting experts, but also of the nation’s top law enforcement officials.
“We have not seen, to date, a coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in congressional testimony on Sept. 17. “[We] certainly have investigated a voter fraud committed by mail. It’s typically been at the local level.”
In that testimony, Wray said his greatest concern is “the steady drumbeat of misinformation” about the integrity of the election. “I think Americans can and should have confidence in our election system and certainly in our democracy,” Wray said. “But I worry that people will take on a feeling of futility because of all of the noise and confusion that’s generated.”
Wray and top officials from three other federal agencies — all of them tasked with preventing foreign interference in elections, and with prosecuting any cases of fraud — released a video statement on Oct. 6 to fight back against this “noise and confusion.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about efforts to hack our elections over the last four years, and some of you might be wondering whether the 2020 elections will be secure,” said Chris Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency. “Well, I’m here today to tell you that my confidence in the security of your vote has never been higher.”
They don't care what he does. They don't care that he's saying things only a dictator would say. They don't care how many Americans deaths he has caused with his bumbling of Covid. They don't care that he fully understands that when he Tweets things like "Liberate Michigan!" the fringe of his supporters use that as a call to arms..... And Trump knows it.
Look at those facts and tell me who really doesn't care about America.
Republican experts are in agreement: The 2020 election is not rigged Jon WardSenior Political Correspondent,Yahoo News•October 7, 2020
Republican voting experts have overwhelmingly rejected President Trump’s claims that the 2020 election is going to be rigged, giving firsthand accounts to Yahoo News that frame the president’s rhetoric as a form of disinformation.
Two of the most experienced and talented election lawyers in the Republican Party — including one who was an adviser to Vice President Mike Pence until recently — told Yahoo News that Trump’s claims are not based in reality.
Multiple Republicans who oversee elections in different states said the same.
“The idea that a massive conspiracy could be undertaken that could actually change the result of a governor’s race or U.S. Senate race — or certainly a presidential race — is a very far-fetched idea and beyond, really, the realm of possibility,” Frank LaRose, the Republican secretary of state of Ohio, said in an interview.
Michael Adams, the Republican secretary of state of Kentucky, echoed that expert opinion.
“You’re not going to see widespread fraud in a presidential or a Senate or a governor’s race. It’s just not feasible,” Adams said in a separate interview with Yahoo News.
Adams is an election law attorney who has advised Republican campaigns across the country for more than a decade. In 2017, he became an election law adviser to Pence through his PAC, the Great America Committee. Adams contacted Yahoo News Wednesday to say he was no longer an adviser, but did not say when that relationship ended.
Benjamin Ginsberg is one of the Republican Party’s other top election law attorneys. In fact, he has been one of the GOP’s foremost operatives when it comes to navigating the law in the world of politics. Ginsberg oversaw the party’s legal campaign to win the 2000 presidential election during the recount in Florida. He has advised four of the last six Republican presidential nominees.
Ginsberg retired on Aug. 31 from law practice, and began speaking out a few days after that to warn America about the danger of Trump’s false claims of a rigged election.
In an interview, Ginsberg described Trump’s sustained verbal assault on the integrity of the American election as unprecedented in American history.
“For the first time, a president of the United States is saying our elections are rigged and fraudulent,” Ginsberg said. “And I’ve been looking at polling places for 38 years as part of my duties and passion for the Republican Party doing well in elections. We’ve been looking for fraud. And I know what evidence is available, and there’s not anything like enough evidence to make the bold assertion that our elections are rigged and fraudulent.”
“It is a perilous thing for a president of the United States to be saying,” Ginsberg said.
And Kim Wyman, Washington state’s top election official, described how two major components of American elections are big obstacles to cheating: decentralization and accountability.
“We have a very decentralized election system that has over 10,000 election officials just like me who are either appointed or elected. They answer to their voters. They answer to their constituents,” said Wyman, a Republican who is Washington’s secretary of state.
“We’re very committed to making sure we have an accurate and fair election. States are working right now to make sure we’re balancing access and security so voters can have a safe voting experience and people can have confidence in the results,” Wyman said. “That’s what our profession is, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Asked specifically about Trump’s claims of a rigged election, Wyman said: “I would categorically disagree with the president on that claim.”
Cheating and fraud do happen in elections on a small and localized scale, but not on a statewide or national scale. (Yahoo News is tracking incidents of mistakes, malfeasance or fraud in this election.) And the wrongdoers are usually political insiders — not voters. That’s the consensus view not only of Republican voting experts, but also of the nation’s top law enforcement officials.
“We have not seen, to date, a coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in congressional testimony on Sept. 17. “[We] certainly have investigated a voter fraud committed by mail. It’s typically been at the local level.”
In that testimony, Wray said his greatest concern is “the steady drumbeat of misinformation” about the integrity of the election. “I think Americans can and should have confidence in our election system and certainly in our democracy,” Wray said. “But I worry that people will take on a feeling of futility because of all of the noise and confusion that’s generated.”
Wray and top officials from three other federal agencies — all of them tasked with preventing foreign interference in elections, and with prosecuting any cases of fraud — released a video statement on Oct. 6 to fight back against this “noise and confusion.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about efforts to hack our elections over the last four years, and some of you might be wondering whether the 2020 elections will be secure,” said Chris Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency. “Well, I’m here today to tell you that my confidence in the security of your vote has never been higher.”
I don't believe I'm contagious because I feel good?
The craziness coming out of his mouth the past few days is too much to look up and source for someone who wouldn't hear it anyway.
Invoking the 25th isn't possible. But I think when history looks back on this moment they'll understand why it was brought up and will wonder why it took this long.
Confused by the tax talk in the veep debate? Here's the lowdown Shane Murphy Fri, October 9, 2020, 1:39 PM EDT·6 mins read
The running mate debate on Wednesday was a lot easier to follow than the previous week’s interruption-filled slugfest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
However, when it came to the issue of taxes, you’d be forgiven for being a bit confused by the back and forth between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris.
The veep and his challenger presented conflicting information on how their running mates’ tax plans will affect everyday voters.
“They’re going to raise taxes on every American,” Pence said, referring to the Democratic ticket.
“Joe Biden has been very clear, he will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year,” Harris shot back.
To cut through the clashing claims, we thought it might be helpful to provide a quick breakdown of the candidates’ respective tax plans — and the potential impacts on low- and middle-income American taxpayers. You might want to be ready to consult with a tax pro, no matter who wins.
Donald Trump’s plan
Although the president has not yet issued an official term tax plan — which he has often referred to as Tax Cuts 2.0 — he has stated that he intends to preserve and expand upon the overhaul of the tax code he signed into law in 2017.
Here’s where he stands on some of the biggest tax issues that affect regular Americans:
Individual tax rates. The 2017 tax overhaul shrank the top tax rate from 39.6% to 37%, and President Trump hasn’t said anything about a further reduction. His administration has suggested a new plan could include a 10% tax cut for middle-income Americans. The president’s 2017 revisions to the tax code provided minimal changes for taxpayers with more modest incomes.
Tax credits. So far the president has not proposed any significant changes to the child tax credit or the child and dependent care credit, which helps families recoup some of their child care expenses. The maximum child tax credit is currently $2,000 per child, and the maximum child and dependent care credit is $1,050 per child under the age of 13 or $2,100 for two or more children aged 13 or younger.
Retirement. Trump has floated the idea of combining and simplifying IRAs and 401(k)s into a single Universal Savings Account; contributions into the account would be taxed, but earnings would grow tax-free. Whether he’ll pursue this change is still unclear.
Education. The president has temporarily suspended federal student loan payments, with interest rates frozen at 0%. Payments are currently set to resume on Jan. 1, 2021, leaving some borrowers scrambling to refinance their student loans or pay them down before they find themselves on the hook again.
Payroll taxes. In August the president issued an executive order allowing employers to stop collecting Social Security taxes from workers from Sept. 1 through the end of the year. (But employees are required to make up the taxes in early 2021.) For 2020 the payroll tax is 6.2% each from an employee and employer on wages up to $137,700, and 12.4% on the net income of self-employed individuals. Mr. Trump has suggested that if he is elected, the pause on payroll taxes could become permanent.
Corporate tax rates. The 2017 tax law replaced the graduated corporate tax structure with a flat rate of 21% and eliminated the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT), which had limited certain credits and deductions so corporations would pay a minimum amount of tax. There’s no indication that the president wants to change the corporate tax rate from 21% or reinstate the corporate AMT.
Joe Biden’s plan
While the details of Trump’s official tax program are still cloudy, former Vice President Biden has laid out a plan that stands in stark contrast to the changes enacted in 2017.
Individual tax rates. Biden has pledged to restore the top tax rate to its previous level of 39.6% but prevent anyone earning less than $400,000 a year from seeing a tax increase. The former vice president’s plan also would require taxpayers whose incomes exceed $1 million to pay the same rate on their investment income that they do on their wages. If you're concerned about your taxes potentially going up under a Biden administration, you'll want to sign up with a financial planning service. These days, you can find them operating online.
Tax credits. Under Biden’s proposal, the child tax credit would increase from $2,000 to $3,000 per child, or $3,600 for children under six. The child credit also would be made fully “refundable,” which means if the credit reduces a household’s tax below zero, you receive the negative amount in cash. Currently, households must earn at least $2,500 a year for the credit to be refundable.
Retirement. The Biden plan would attempt to equalize the tax benefits for contributions to 401(k)s and other retirement plans across the income scale, which could have a significant impact on high-income taxpayers. The details of this change have yet to be announced.
Education. The former vice president’s tax plan would provide additional tax relief on student loan debt and add more leniency to the current debt forgiveness and payment-deferral rules. Biden has pledged to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt for all borrowers, and forgive all undergraduate federal student loan debt from public colleges for anyone earning less than $125,000 a year. He also intends to forgive the balance of an outstanding student loan debt after 20 years without imposing any tax liability.
Payroll taxes. Biden’s plan would impose Social Security taxes on all earned income over $400,000; currently, the tax is applied only to wages up to $137,700. Incomes between $137,700 and $400,000 would remain untouched by the tax under the former vice president’s plan.
Corporate tax rates. Mr. Biden’s tax plan would raise the flat rate on corporate taxes from 21% to 28% and reinstate the corporate alternative minimum tax on any profits exceeding $100 million. It also would require all corporations to pay a 15% minimum tax on their book income, and double the amount of tax on foreign income earned by U.S. companies’ overseas operations.
The big picture
When you step back and examine each of the candidates’ tax plans — or at least, what we currently know about them — the fundamental difference is in who stands to benefit the most.
Under President Trump’s plan, high-income taxpayers and corporations would see the largest tax reductions and benefits, though there is a promise of a 10% tax cut for middle-income earners.
With former Vice President Biden’s plan, the highest-earning individuals and companies would see tax increases, while low- and middle-income tax rates would remain roughly the same. However, those taxpayers would be entitled to additional tax credits and expanded deductions.
Trump says in bizarre Fox News rant that California has to ration water because it poured its supply into the sea to 'take care of certain little tiny fish'
A man tests positive for Covid. Is admitted to a hospital. He is given a cocktail of drugs. The latest and greatest available.
Leaves the hospital within days. Does not go into quarantine. No information is given about when he last tested positive or negative.
Now he claims to feel better. Says he may never have had it. That is was a blessing from God. And does not "think" he is positive and says he is cured.
Well all that sure makes me feel good. Just amazing that 34 and counting from the administration has tested positive.
And these are the people in charge to protect the American Public.
Forget the 25th. He should be escorted from office and exiled. Unless prosecuted for all the wrongs he has committed.
I am not a Democrat or Republican. I just want sanity.
A qualified, intelligent, articulate, wise person of good intent. A person who wants to do good for all America's citizens.
Biden is good enough. Nobody is a perfect candidate.
Waking up one morning and having trump gone is a day I will cherish.
I'll share a piece of information that could be of interest to you. (You listening, 40'?). There are 620,000 eligible voters living in Canada and there are both Dem and GOP groups trying to get their vote. They cast their ballot in different states - New York, Michigan, Florida, Cali, etc. This election affects a broader band than just your country's borders...
Suckers!
