Apr 4, 2020 2:10:01 GMT mikec said:

Apr 3, 2020 3:40:01 GMT c said:

In theory.  In practice the party is still split so the sooner they just announce Biden is the pick the better.  Pretending Bernie still has a chance and letting things drag on is not good for anyone.  Assume Bernie locked them in place as he will likely sue if they just declare Biden the pick without waiting for primaries.  

This should make it twice that Dems lose then claim gross incompetence as the reason.  Cumeo is looking like the 2024 person right now.

Meh. You’re worrying too much on this. They’re not going to just declare Biden the winner, because everyone already knows he will be. Nobody cares right now and won’t for at least another month or two until coronavirus is over, which will be when the primaries end and Bernies done. There’s too much else to think about than for anyone to get all caught up in a primary race that’s basically over. They can’t even do campaign events, they’re both so old they shouldn’t be leaving their homes again until the Summer at least.

And every time someone loses gross incompetence is the excuse.

Feeling pretty good about this take today.

Took him long enough. Super Tuesday showed he had no path to the White House.

The virus really has been exposing Joe's weaknesses hard. He has like no role whatsoever in this crisis outside of continuing to prop up a system of healthcare that does not work. I mean do not hear much from Joe through the noise. Meanwhile Warren is still pitching ideas and Cumeo's stock is rising daily. Think it is clear if Dems lose this time it is from running the wrong person.

Apr 8, 2020 16:26:18 GMT c said:

Took him long enough. Super Tuesday showed he had no path to the White House.

The virus really has been exposing Joe's weaknesses hard. He has like no role whatsoever in this crisis outside of continuing to prop up a system of healthcare that does not work. I mean do not hear much from Joe through the noise. Meanwhile Warren is still pitching ideas and Cumeo's stock is rising daily. Think it is clear if Dems lose this time it is from running the wrong person.

It is also extraordinary bad luck for the Dems, because Obama and Biden's slow response to Swine-flu leaves Biden without an attack vector here.

Swine-flu was extremely overblown though as it was basically a normal flu with a scary name. Mortality rates were nearly the same for the regular flu, which does not get a national response. There only were 3,433 confirmed deaths from it in the US, with a possible 10k in the US.


Not sure how they fucked it up. Vaccine was enter mass production within days of the US outbreak and available nationwide within weeks, Obama treated it as a pandemic from the start and declared a public health emergency and plans were drawn up for worst case scenarios.

Comparing how Obama and Trump handled these pandemics is really strange if you feel Obama did a worse job given Trump literally claimed this was a democratic hoax, then said it was contained and would go away with the warm weather. Now he is promoting a drug with dangerous cardiac side effects that is not even really effective at treating the illness because he has financial ties to the company involved. People are literally dying from the use of hydroxychloroquine when if untreated they may have survived.  Just the side effects of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine have a higher mortality rate than covid itself.

I mean the Swine Flu response was fun to meme for GOP folks for a while, but it’d really be hard to argue it was nearly as flat-footed as this response.

I think Biden would be making a mistake right now to try to steal the news cycles right now, because he is going to fade away for awhile. That’s ok, there’s lots of time between here and then. Just keep collecting Trump moments you can make ads out of later of him going against doctor recommendations and him saying you shouldn’t vote by mail even though he gets to, etc.

Apr 8, 2020 18:52:51 GMT mikec said:

I mean the Swine Flu response was fun to meme for GOP folks for a while, but it’d really be hard to argue it was nearly as flat-footed as this response.

I think Biden would be making a mistake right now to try to steal the news cycles right now, because he is going to fade away for awhile. That’s ok, there’s lots of time between here and then. Just keep collecting Trump moments you can make ads out of later of him going against doctor recommendations and him saying you shouldn’t vote by mail even though he gets to, etc.

Not even sure that is the way to go.  Attack ads seems to do nothing to Trump popularity.  I say target people's wallets.  Find a way to get people money and many on the fence will vote just to reap the rewards.  Do not really see any other way Biden can win.  Fuck my facebook feed is full of people saying we are running two rapist against each other and my friends are hard left.  Far left is not going to unify and Bernie supporters for Trump is already starting again with Trump embracing it this time.  Only a fraction will go but many hard left will likely not vote or vote third party.  Trump's base will vote with enthusiasm something I just do not see Biden supporters doing.  Will have to see how things play out but this still seems like a coin toss, which is insane since it should have been an easy win.

Eh, enthusiasm for a candidate is overblown on this one, because plenty of people will be plugging their nose when they vote for either guy. Biden is wildly more liked than Hillary was four years ago and she barely lost. I don’t really get wound up on Twitter liberals or the “Bernie for Trump” folks, because crazy people exist and they’re not the average.

If I vote I'll likely just give it to Trump now that Bernie's out. May also sit out, either way Biden ain't getting one from me. Then again my city is the typical welcome mat that mentions "I say merry christmas" so it's not like a democrat has a shot.

Apr 8, 2020 19:24:44 GMT mikec said:

Eh, enthusiasm for a candidate is overblown on this one, because plenty of people will be plugging their nose when they vote for either guy. Biden is wildly more liked than Hillary was four years ago and she barely lost. I don’t really get wound up on Twitter liberals or the “Bernie for Trump” folks, because crazy people exist and they’re not the average.

That kind of is the problem though.  Hillary lost decisively.  Popular vote doesn't really matter nationally and she would have needed at least three more states to close the gap.  Biden is not likely going to get much time to campaign and Trump's approval ratings are up and his disapproval ratings are down.  Given Trump will be able to claim victory over this pandemic right before the election does not bode well for Biden.

Papa Trump setting plans into motion to start mining the moon.

Apr 8, 2020 19:34:18 GMT c said:

Apr 8, 2020 19:24:44 GMT mikec said:

Eh, enthusiasm for a candidate is overblown on this one, because plenty of people will be plugging their nose when they vote for either guy. Biden is wildly more liked than Hillary was four years ago and she barely lost. I don’t really get wound up on Twitter liberals or the “Bernie for Trump” folks, because crazy people exist and they’re not the average.

That kind of is the problem though.  Hillary lost decisively.  Popular vote doesn't really matter nationally and she would have needed at least three more states to close the gap.  Biden is not likely going to get much time to campaign and Trump's approval ratings are up and his disapproval ratings are down.  Given Trump will be able to claim victory over this pandemic right before the election does not bode well for Biden.

Decisively?

She lost by a tiny amount in states that most Dems will win.

By like 90 electoral votes. So even taking two or three of those states still would have lost. Not sure if Biden has that wide of appeal in battleground states. Obama coming off the bench it looks like so maybe he can give a hard rub.

Apr 9, 2020 0:27:30 GMT c said:

By like 90 electoral votes. So even taking two or three of those states still would have lost. Not sure if Biden has that wide of appeal in battleground states. Obama coming off the bench it looks like so maybe he can give a hard rub.

Pennsylvania - Trump wins by 44,000 votes.
Wisconsin - Trump wins by 23,000 votes.
Michigan. - Trump wins by 11,000 votes.

That’s three of the six states that Obama, Kerry, Gore, and Bill Clinton won, going Democratic every year since 92. Hillary flips half those voters (39,000 people), she wins by 20 electoral votes.

So the most despised Democratic candidate in three decades was less than 100,000 strategically placed votes from being president.

Hillary had multiple routes of winning with two or three Obama states that she lost. She was just the worst. (I btw think Hillary was unlikable but also probably would’ve been a good President. I think the opposite of Biden generally.)

Lincoln Project hammering Trump with attacks ads. Goes without saying they are backing Biden with the goal to push Trumpism out of politics so traditional republicans can reclaim the party. No clue if they will gain power for the election but there is a definite growing number of Republicans no longer willing to support Trump and will take Biden over him as their views align more with Biden than their own candidate. Concerns of this group are that politics are becoming corrupt and that despite a great economy, the system of who is profiting is dangerous long term to republican interests. A lot of Bush / Reagan republicans are backing this group.

I really don't understand the point of this election, it seems to clear cut what's going to happen.

Wife seems like she finally woke up to politics and the election process the other night once Bernie dropped out.

I told her I was so out on all of this, at least for this go-around, and might just vote for Trump this time to have some plausible deniability if he ever rounds up the opposition prior to running for his third term. Wife was a little upset by my mindset.

But seriously... it's like the Dems don't even care, and Trump has a Ted Nugent Strangehold on the Republic Party, and if we're stuck with one or the other because of this dumb two party system... well, what's the fucking point?

The world is insane, the idea that Trump, Biden or even Sanders were the best the USA had to choose from, I don't think so.

Lately I have been thinking about the fake news claim, and while it is often used to dodge valid criticism, there is a lot of truth in it.

Lately I see a growing group of people talking about MMT
The world is moving past truth, past rules to a new version of itself with no tether, it's literal insanity.
Where everyone is right and everyone has everything because the truth is harsh and offensive.

Honestly, I'm getting to the point where I wonder if the Confederates or anti-Federalists before them had it right all along where instead of the united USA we'd have all been better off as just separate states. I mean, Europe seems to be making that idea generally work. Maybe an American Union to counterbalance the European Union. Something that maybe eases or facilitates interstate interactions, but each state country is left to govern itself and is free to leave at any time?

Just let New England and The West Coast join Canada and all problems are solved

The concern for this election should be the GOP opposed all attempts at election security and a lot of people already bought into the Biden sexually assaulted that staffer story despite her ties to Russia. I been playing with this thing a bit and it shows that Russia is clearly dominating the fake news accounts again with a focus of discrediting Biden so they can keep Trump another four years.

github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors/

Also this is a great site to monitor fake news and where it is spreading from and to who.  Wanted to work with these people if I was able to do a PhD.  Went so far as to email them and shit before my health crapped out.


hoaxy.iuni.iu.edu/

Now more are worrying about the Russian interference angle of the Biden accusations, Bernie endorsed Joe to unify the party again.

Also Trump starting the latest dangerous game, he is claiming he, and not the governor of the states, determines when the governors reopen.  

"For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect."

He followed up with this scary statement:

“I like to allow governors to make decisions without overruling them, because from a constitutional standpoint, that's the way it should be done. If I disagreed, I would overrule a governor, and I have that right to do it. But I'd rather have them — you can call it ‘federalist,’ you can call it ‘the Constitution,’ but I call it ‘the Constitution.’ I would rather have them make their decisions."

While he can decide to keep them closed, he cannot decide to open them.  Also he pretty much is straight out saying his power is above the constitution's.  Neither of these views his party historically supports.  For anyone else this would have ended an president right then and there.  Pence later said Trump has absolute authority during this crisis.  Implying again that the constitution does not matter.

Civil War 2, babay!!~

I tend to believe the lady accusing Biden. She has some people she told, she had a generally believable story, the way she revealed it and the reasons she hadn’t said more were plausible, etc. The mitigating factor for me is that though Joe is definitely touchy-feely in your bubble inappropriate, this kind of stuff has never really been suggested before.

But boy the weird Russia subplot is weird.

The only people she told the finger in the vagina story to are dead though and cannot verify it.  She claims she told her brother who verified some parts of the story but he will not go on record with it.  Everyone else said that they did not hear about that until she went public. Her own story from three months ago to now has started to change, and is different from what it was years ago. The NY Times did a good breakdown of it:

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/us/politics/joe-biden-tara-reade-sexual-assault-complaint.html

When you get into her social media stuff things get even weirder.  

Here is the timeline that someone put together from her old posts.  She was likely truthful about him touching her neck then radicalized shortly after.   Up until 2017 she praised Biden openly.  She scrubbed a lot of this from her social media, which makes it look even weirder.


medium.com/@eddiekrassenstein/evidence-casts-doubt-on-tara-reades-sexual-assault-allegations-of-joe-biden-e4cb3ee38460

She gives four reasons in 10 years for why she left Biden's staff.  One was to work in Cali for the governor, one was she left disillusioned with American imperialism, one that Joe blacklisted her and then she was fired.  If her story is not consistent there why should we expect it to be consistent in regards to the rest?  What will her story be in another 3 months?  

Here is the timeline laid out clear:

December 1992 — August 1993 — Tara Reade worked as a Senate aide in Joe Biden’s office.

2009 — Reade commended Biden for actions he has taken against domestic violence.

2017 — Reade repeatedly attacked Putin and Russia on Twitter for election interference and for Russian legislation that legalized domestic violence.

2017 — Reade repeatedly praised Joe Biden through tweets, retweets and “likes” on Twitter. On multiple occasions she boosts him for his work on helping end sexual assault.

2018 — Reade claims she liked Russia since she left Washington DC (Over a decade ago), and praised Putin and Russia over and over again. She also directly praised Putin for his treatment of women in multiple articles.

January of 2019 — Reade first begins talking about her sexual harassment allegations against Joe Biden on Twitter.

March, 2019 — Reade continues to praise Putin.

April, 2019 — Reade comes forward with her original allegations against Biden, but says his actions were NOT “sexualization,” but rather compared his actions toward her as being demeaning and treating her like a “pretty” lamp that is thrown away when it’s too bright. She also claimed that her story was not “a story about sexual misconduct.”

September 2019 — Reade calls on Joe Biden to be investigated for his dealings with Ukraine.

January, 2020 — Reade continues to praise Vladimir Putin on Twitter.

March, 2020 — Reade comes forward again, this time claiming that Joe Biden did sexually assault her in 1993.

March, 2020 — Reade tells Vox News that she started liking Putin and Russia in 2018 after “watching Noam Chomsky,” but no longer likes Putin after finding out about domestic violence in Russia.


Most damning is in the article that was written in Russian using all masculine terms as Russian is a gendered language. 



Speaking of weird, looks like Trump is bringing the Authority to reopen the US economy.  See he is not a dictator, he is just joining The McMahon family.

The Times story you linked to documents a friend she told in 93 who is alive, a friend she told when Biden was nominated VP, and her brother, all of whom confirm she told them some of the details.

And ever-changing statements of support from women that were abused by a man in power isn’t unusual. I don’t read the praise of Biden as proof of anything.

I was watching the apr 13 White House briefing. It's easy to find on YouTube, it's like 2 hours. And boy is it some amazing stuff. First of all, the president of the USA is doing multiple hour press briefings on a daily basis! That is just so wow, does he not have better ways to spend his time? In this particular press conference near the beginning the president aired a clip showing highlights of other politicians praising him. He later said that White House employees spend 'less than two hours' producing it. White House employees were paid to produce a highlight video on how great the president is, and then aired it during the press conference. And then the president spent something like 30 minutes arguing with the journalists saying how mean they are to him. It was insane!

I love it when they have the debates, a candidate tears another to shreds in the debates..then they have to stop their campaign and endorse said candidate. It’s like watching Raw when people are suddenly faces again.

---

Today in my life as God Emperor of the US, Trump is threatening to adjourn congress to make recess appointments so his picks do not need to be voted on. So far this has never been done.  Mitch has been very insistent on vetting everyone and so far has not allowed himself to be in the position to have this happen to him.

For Tara Reade neither her brother or anonymous friend will go on record with the penetration comment. Her brother just said he recalls her telling him about being touched the under the clothes, which could have referred to under the neck of the shirt. The "friend" being contacted will not do anything on the record and appears to be several people one of which also tells the media that she is not to be believed.  Neither the "friend" or the brother wishes to go on record, which is a massive red flag since if this is a false accusation opens them up to legal actions.

If the only thing in her story changes that changed was the abuse, I would understand.  But when the non-important details change there are serious concerns.  If it was just Joe touched me on the shoulders then grabbed the inside of the leg and I did not report it because I was ashamed or something it would be a different story.  But to lead with Joe touched my neck because I was an object to him not even worth sexualizing then shift to he tried to bed me by penetrating me digitally is a move too far that does not make sense in any narrative.  

Why we have the duty to give the benefit of the doubt, we also have a duty to screen out false claims, and this clearly seems far more likely to be a false claim during a time when false claims are very likely against Biden.  We need some form of verification and no verification is coming.  To support this would be to give into Russian influence a second time.

Apr 16, 2020 1:12:37 GMT c said:

For Tara Reade neither her brother or anonymous friend will go on record with the penetration comment. Her brother just said he recalls her telling him about being touched the under the clothes, which could have referred to under the neck of the shirt. The "friend" being contacted will not do anything on the record and appears to be several people one of which also tells the media that she is not to be believed.  Neither the "friend" or the brother wishes to go on record, which is a massive red flag since if this is a false accusation opens them up to legal actions.

If the only thing in her story changes that changed was the abuse, I would understand.  But when the non-important details change there are serious concerns.  If it was just Joe touched me on the shoulders then grabbed the inside of the leg and I did not report it because I was ashamed or something it would be a different story.  But to lead with Joe touched my neck because I was an object to him not even worth sexualizing then shift to he tried to bed me by penetrating me digitally is a move too far that does not make sense in any narrative.  

Why we have the duty to give the benefit of the doubt, we also have a duty to screen out false claims, and this clearly seems far more likely to be a false claim during a time when false claims are very likely against Biden.  We need some form of verification and no verification is coming.  To support this would be to give into Russian influence a second time.

If you will see the other side, this is the problem with the current climate.
CNN rushes out all of the Trump accusers, some so laughably delusional they had no place on TV and furthers the fake news narrative.
When Biden is accused it is a beat-up and a Russian subplot.

Men in power are the lowest form of life, can we just agree to that?
The idea that Trump or Biden raped anyone is stupid.
Did they exert their power and influence to get women to do things they weren't comfortable doing.... Undoubtedly.
That makes them Scum of the earth, the kind that we should expect from any man (or even woman) that is driven by the desire to hold power.
It does not make them rapists though.