US Presidential Election 2020

Cody montana · 01-08-2020 11:03am

everlast75 wrote: »

Funny. He's not concerned about Facebook.

Or Russian interference in the election.

pixelburp · 01-08-2020 11:09am

everlast75 wrote: »

Funny. He's not concerned about Facebook.

Of course not, it's plainly obvious Trump is acting out of spite but I don't object to the intention just because the motive isn't pure. At least Facebook has been subject to investigation and hauled into hearings. They've been forced to address their issues. Chinese companies and investment has effectively been allowed a carte blanche to operate, and manipulate at leisure. CoVid had thrown into light our over reliance on the country and TikTok should be subject to the same suspicion of intent as we've given Twitter and Facebook. Though an immediate ban is petulant when rather it should be hauled into the light and shown as the China sock puppet it appears to ve

paul71 · 01-08-2020 12:02pm

Suspicion of Chinese motives and questioning their human rights record is probably the only area of policy of the Trump administration that I personally would not condemn.

briany · 01-08-2020 12:25pm

Trump could end up being the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic party. He's managed to make Joe Biden look like the cool guy who'll save America and restore dignity instead of the impossibly old and bland corporate Democrat that he would have been seen as in any normal election cycle. And I think the Democrat party will subtly push the message that Trump is not what happens when you let a Republican into office, but what happens when you let a lunatic in, and that stands as much as a message to the fringe of their own party as it does to the deplorables. Hillary's probably wishing right about now that Nancy Pelosi would have run in 2016...

StringerBell · 01-08-2020 1:23pm

paul71 wrote: »

Suspicion of Chinese motives and questioning their human rights record is probably the only area of policy of the Trump administration that I personally would not condemn.

He's not exactly consistent in it tbf (particularly the human rights part) but the broken clock analogy comes into play and sometimes even when it's not for very good motives he ends up on the right side of an argument.

paul71 · 01-08-2020 2:52pm

StringerBell wrote: »

He's not exactly consistent in it tbf (particularly the human rights part) but the broken clock analogy comes into play and sometimes even when it's not for very good motives he ends up on the right side of an argument.

Thats a fair statement. The Chinese have been guilty of ethnic cleansing of a muslim population for several years now and he has basically been silent on it, however the same can be said of our own and other Eu countries and the UK.

Water John · 01-08-2020 2:57pm

paul71 wrote: »

Thats a fair statement. The Chinese have been guilty of ethnic cleansing of a muslim population for several years now and he has basically been silent on it, however the same can be said of our own and other Eu countries and the UK.

Ah stop, where have Ireland, EU or UK, ethnicly cleansed any place?

paul71 · 01-08-2020 3:05pm

Water John wrote: »

Ah stop, where have Ireland, EU or UK, ethnicly cleansed any place?

You misread what I said. I said we have been silent on Chinese Ethnic cleansing.

Water John · 01-08-2020 3:10pm

We know in conversation Trump actually praised XI on his detaining in camps of the Muslim minority.

paul71 · 01-08-2020 3:13pm

Water John wrote: »

We know in conversation Trump actually praised XI on his detaining in camps of the Muslim minority.

I did know not that, but nor am I surprised by it.

Brian? · 01-08-2020 3:30pm

paul71 wrote: »

I did know not that, but nor am I surprised by it.

He want really praising them afaik, he simply said he agrees with their actions towards the Uighurs.

I think that's because he has no idea what was actually going on.

Manic Moran · 01-08-2020 3:48pm

Whether the TikTok ban is an attempt to suppress opposition votes or not does not make the underlying concern false. Folks should not be supporting TikTok just because Trump wants it gone, which may well be the limit of some analysis. TikTok security has been questioned for a while, and not just by the Government (DoD and DHS have banned it for months https://threatpost.com/tiktok-banned-by-u-s-army-over-china-security-concerns/151480/ ). India have banned it, both the Democrat and Republican National Committees have banned it on their systems ( https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/dnc-warning-tiktok/index.html ), Wells Fargo Bank has banned it, https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/11/21320935/wells-fargo-bans-tiktok-devices-amazon-pompeo , Amazon "Accidentally" banned it, then unbanned it...https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/technology/tiktok-amazon-security-risk.html

From the NYT article:
TikTok has long been a concern of American intelligence officials, who fear the social networking app is a thinly veiled data collection service. Over the past six months, security researchers have only furthered those concerns with a series of discoveries.

Last month, a researcher uncovered that TikTok had the ability to siphon off anything a user copied to a clipboard on a smartphone — passwords, photos and other sensitive data like Social Security numbers, emails and texts. The researcher began posting the findings on the online message board Reddit.

The researcher, who goes by the handle Bangorlol, also said that TikTok was capturing data about a user’s phone hardware and data on other apps installed on the phone. Many of these abilities are found in other apps, but TikTok’s developers had gone out of their way to prevent anyone from analyzing the app, the researcher said.

“This was very concerning and very rare,” Oded Vanunu, who leads research into product vulnerability at the Israeli security firm Check Point, said about the findings. “There’s been a lot of fear and speculation about this app, but the recent findings are raising big questions.”

Overheal · 01-08-2020 6:15pm

Susan Collins using this lobster worker to bash her opponent for PPP hypocrisy.

https://twitter.com/projectlincoln/status/1289542670671437831?s=21

Did you get that?

https://twitter.com/reportingfromny/status/1289550379948990464?s=21

Turns out this man is a fellow Republican politician. The ad makes no disclosure of this.

briany · 01-08-2020 7:25pm

Brian? wrote: »

He want really praising them afaik, he simply said he agrees with their actions towards the Uighurs.

I think that's because he has no idea what was actually going on.

I'd really have to wonder if Trump would flatly condemn the Chinese on the Uighur issue if it was explained to him in detail, live on air. Too many in his base who wouldn't object to American Muslims being similarly interned in 're-education' camps. This is the same man who was supported by his base in trying to impose a blanket travel ban from certain Muslim countries.

Overheal · 01-08-2020 9:20pm

briany wrote: »

I'd really have to wonder if Trump would flatly condemn the Chinese on the Uighur issue if it was explained to him in detail, live on air. Too many in his base who wouldn't object to American Muslims being similarly interned in 're-education' camps. This is the same man who was supported by his base in trying to impose a blanket travel ban from certain Muslim countries.

Biden could make him flip flop in one of the debates if he gives a strong enough answer to the moderator - which to be fair would be the first time Trump bothered to listen to the issue yes?

TomOnBoard · 01-08-2020 9:36pm

Overheal wrote: »

Biden could make him flip flop in one of the debates if he gives a strong enough answer to the moderator - which to be fair would be the first time Trump bothered to listen to the issue yes?

I forsee a car crash debate for Trump if he gets any kind of hard questioning based on his record. Biden needs to simply hold it together and deal in simple pithy facts, and Trump will be faced with having to moan and bluster to the debate moderators which will really expose him. He'll be whining 'like a little bitch' (to quote the vernacular) by the end of Round 1...

Can't wait!!! Bring it on!!!

pixelburp · 01-08-2020 9:45pm

Seeing that he can't follow and loom over a small woman on stage, wonder what or how Trump will try to alpha male bullshít his way at the debates. At first blush, he could play up to his CoVid Belligerent base and attempt to shake Bidens hand. Make a show of trying anyway, watch others reel or step back? Which reminds of all those early doors meetings with world leaders when he played those stupid physical power moves (the yanking handshake, pushing past others in a crowd. Simpler times)

briany · 01-08-2020 9:55pm

TomOnBoard wrote: »

I forsee a car crash debate for Trump if he gets any kind of hard questioning based on his record. Biden needs to simply hold it together and deal in simple pithy facts, and Trump will be faced with having to moan and bluster to the debate moderators which will really expose him. He'll be whining 'like a little bitch' (to quote the vernacular) by the end of Round 1...

Can't wait!!! Bring it on!!!

Oh, these debates are going to be some of the best TV of the year, even without an audience. Even, and this is probable, without the two being in the same physical space.

Trump can no longer brag about his wonderful economy as his terrible leadership during the Covid epidemic has helped put paid to that. He can't even talk about how wonderful things will be under his presidency as he has four years of evidence behind him. He has to defend his record before moving on to saying how great his second term would be, despite him so far lacking even a basic direction for that second term.

So all that's really left as it stands is just to throw flailing haymakers at Biden and talk about how corrupt he believes the electoral process to be.

BonnieSituation · 02-08-2020 3:51am

They will both have to be in the same venue or it won't work at all.

The lack of crowd, as seen in the Biden-Sanders debate, makes for a much better experience for us all and will completely rattle Trump.

I can't wait.

Overheal · 02-08-2020 4:09am

BonnieSituation wrote: »

They will both have to be in the same venue or it won't work at all.

The lack of crowd, as seen in the Biden-Sanders debate, makes for a much better experience for us all and will completely rattle Trump.

I can't wait.

I'm actually rewatching one of the Hillary Trump debates. Trump comes off stronger in the beginning because Hillary doesn't take control of her time, he constantly shouts over her answers, moderators don't step in and she lets him get away with controlling the debate, wholesale. Biden can't accept those kinds of interruptions, he just shouted Hillary down - and it worked, she was constantly on the hip. She thought the high road would work with the voters, it didn't. Especially his attacks on NAFTA and the manufacturing 'devastation' in states like Pennsylvania - which he won by surprise. She didn't offer up any lasting rebuttal to his attacks, uncivil as they were.

Biden can't use that playbook he's got to bark just as loud or louder, he's got to clapback, even if it's a bunch of "malarky" gaffes, it would be better than what happened to Hillary, she was not prepared for this style of debate. At all. He has to swing.

Here's his debate with Palin, the last time he really had a one up debate with an ideological opponent. Now, Palin is a soft target, and the outcome was a widely popular meme, but folks still owe it to themselves to look back on this all in retrospect.

edit: theres not much in the Palin debate - but the few times on the back end of the debate where Hillary or Lester Holt try to interrupt Trump - he doesn't let them he just shouts 'wait a minute wait a minute' etc. and any debate with Trump will be a flurry of him interrupting, lying, and trying to dominate both Biden and the Moderator by bellowing through the microphone.

Fr Tod Umptious · 02-08-2020 4:52am

Overheal wrote: »

I know it’s said every election but this might be different.

Then again, how many 18 yr olds etc actually have any reception at all for politics, really. I don’t think I’d be as political as I am without living abroad and being castigated in school for Bush’s wars etc - my siblings are all far more politically ambivalent and didn’t leave the country like I did or have the same experiences.

This is an interesting point.
We here in Ireland have a tendency to lecture Americans and to a certain extent the British about their political choices.
We always seem to know better than them, even though we ourselves are not immune to making poor voting decisions.
I was always one to castigate the American people until I actually lived there and realised it was far more nuanced than RTE or The Irish Times made it out to be.

But getting back to the youth vote, I still think the older, mainly white, small c conservative vote in the rust belt will be a bigger determinate of the outcome than the youth vote.

Cody montana · 02-08-2020 12:11pm

I see they are projecting 250 thousand deaths by November.
Utter incompetence and total lack of leadership.

briany · 02-08-2020 1:23pm

Cody montana wrote: »

I see they are projecting 250 thousand deaths by November.
Utter incompetence and total lack of leadership.

> It's Chy-na's fault

> It's the governors' fault

> It's Fauci's fault

> It's testing's fault

And who knows what other scapegoats Trump will come up with to deflect blame. If pressed, he may just say what he's probably thinking - "250,000 is a tiny percent of our population, and I've heard that many of those were old or already ill anyway. This is yet another attack on me by the lamestream media."

Cody montana · 02-08-2020 3:03pm

briany wrote: »

> It's Chy-na's fault

> It's the governors' fault

> It's Fauci's fault

> It's testing's fault

And who knows what other scapegoats Trump will come up with to deflect blame. If pressed, he may just say what he's probably thinking - "250,000 is a tiny percent of our population, and I've heard that many of those were old or already ill anyway. This is yet another attack on me by the lamestream media."

“He could have killed millions, he only killed hundreds of thousands”

02-08-2020 3:12pm

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

[/b]

This is an interesting point.
We here in Ireland have a tendency to lecture Americans and to a certain extent the British about their political choices.
We always seem to know better than them, even though we ourselves are not immune to making poor voting decisions.
I was always one to castigate the American people until I actually lived there and realised it was far more nuanced than RTE or The Irish Times made it out to be.

But getting back to the youth vote, I still think the older, mainly white, small c conservative vote in the rust belt will be a bigger determinate of the outcome than the youth vote.

The problem is that all nuance is lost because of the 2 party system. In Ireland our poor decisions (in my eyes at least) tend to come from referenda, while the multi-party system protects general elections to an extent.

Overheal · 02-08-2020 6:15pm

Cody montana wrote: »

“He could have killed millions, he only killed hundreds of thousands”

KELLYANNE: “the president saved tens of billions of American lives when he canceled most but not all of the travel from China when he did”

Manic Moran · 02-08-2020 7:25pm

Cody montana wrote: »

I see they are projecting 250 thousand deaths by November.
Utter incompetence and total lack of leadership.

Yes, but it's the idiots not doing the simple things like wearing masks and not going to gatherings which are causing the US's troubles.

I don't know if there is a Western nation where there is such mass non-compliance for such simple and effective requirements. It doesn't take a Presidential Declaration to get folks to physically distance and wear face coverings. As the Surgeon General observed, even though he wants everyone to wear a mask, there is no possibility in the US legal system for a federal mandate to do so. Where such authorities exist, there is often either a very casual attitude to the problem, such as Florida's leadership, or there is such a crackdown such as in Michigan that there's mass non-compliance. But even at that, the majority of State leaderships are doing the right thing, but we're still failing.

Our experience around here and from others I talk to around the country is mainly that the real problem is not people making a political statement about their freedoms or anything else like that, despite the attention that special crowd of idiots is receiving in the press. It's normal, apolitical folk who just want to go enjoy the local grape harvesting, visit friends, hit the beach or bars, and think that the statistics are such that they'll be safe and it won't hit them. You won't believe the frustration my wife is having with her circle of other moms because we're keeping the kid at home whilst all the others seem to be completely flouting any distancing requirements and their kids are doing social interactions, normal development etc, and it's just lengthening the amount of time that we're stuck in the house.

Whatever the failings of the Federal response to COVID, there is only one person to point the finger at as to why we're on track for a quarter million deaths. John Q. Public. And as long as John Q. Public refuses to look at themselves in favour of the shiny lovely target of Trump, we're not going to get out of this until a vaccine shows up, or we all get herd immunity, and the numbers will continue to get worse.

Igotadose · 02-08-2020 7:39pm

Manic Moran wrote: »

Yes, but it's the idiots not doing the simple things like wearing masks and not going to gatherings which are causing the US's troubles.

The #IMPOTUS actions give them license to behave badly. If he had embraced and encouraged mask wearing in April, say (and aggressively handled the potential shortage of PPE via the DPA), the US would be in as good shape as the rest of the Western world, bar the UK who handled it almost as badly.

It's really simple - if the #IMPOTUS had led for once in his life, people would have followed. When at one of the first task force pressers he was asked, "What do you tell people who are worried about this virus" and he replied "That's a very nasty question," that was it. The direction (i.e., chaos) was set.

It's entirely on Trump. Really.

I don't know if there is a Western nation where there is such mass non-compliance for such simple and effective requirements. It doesn't take a Presidential Declaration to get folks to physically distance and wear face coverings.

FFS it takes leadership. Rwanda did better at this.

Whatever the failings of the Federal response to COVID, there is only one person to point the finger at as to why we're on track for a quarter million deaths. John Q. Public. And as long as John Q. Public refuses to look at themselves in favour of the shiny lovely target of Trump, we're not going to get out of this until a vaccine shows up, or we all get herd immunity, and the numbers will continue to get worse.

Nope, the buck stops with the #IMPOTUS. He set the tone, he managed the pandemic, and this is the result. Mayhem. Blaming the public is blaming the victim. American's are on average poorly educated and informed, but know enough to follow an assertive lead by the President. Not this guy, unfortunately.

eire4 · 02-08-2020 7:42pm

Cody montana wrote: »

I see they are projecting 250 thousand deaths by November.
Utter incompetence and total lack of leadership.

They are back up to over a 1,000 dead most days now so it will certainly be well over 200,000 by election day given they are at 158,000 now on August 2 pretty much bang on 3 months till election day.

Manic Moran · 02-08-2020 9:14pm

Igotadose wrote: »

American's are on average poorly educated and informed, but know enough to follow an assertive lead by the President. Not this guy, unfortunately.

It's not a matter of education or informed. These people all know what they're supposed to do, they just aren't doing it. It's not so much a matter of intelligence or knowledge, as a total lack of self-discipline.

"Oh, I'm quarantining" "Bullcrap. You were at a party yesterday. You even posted about it on Facebook. No, I don't care that it was the only time you left the house in the whole week, one party a week isn't self-quarantine"

That's the idiocy I'm dealing with around here, and I'm gathering that I'm not exactly alone in this.

US Presidential Election 2020

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