Election 2020

[Kinser79]

(04-30-2019, 05:40 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-30-2019, 12:28 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(04-30-2019, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-30-2019, 09:00 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(04-22-2019, 11:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: Scandal only counts if people can be scandalized.  Trump has managed to make scandal into a social game by playing it in the press as theater with lines that change at every performance.  10 years from now, we may look back and be embarrassed.  But, for now, hoi polloi thinks it's all fun and games.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps more accurately, PBR only sees what he wants to see and believes only things that he wants to believe like everyone else does.

It is a fact that Mueller found nothing on the President worthy of further investigation.  He couldn't find much dirt on his cronys either (and yes all presidents have those--don't let PBR try to persuade you otherwise) other than a ten year old money laundering charge (that cost more to investigate than they will ever recover) and he hired a dumbass as a lawyer once, oh and his tenants might have some scandals (seriously do we drag the local slum lord out and try and lynch him cause his tenants are smoking the crack in the stair well?  No.).

Mueller did what he was supposed to do: he investigated interference by the Russians, and referred the rest to other offices.  That hardly qualifies as an exoneration.  Several career prosecutors have stated unequivocally that they have successfully prosecuted others with much less than the incomplete info in Mueller's report.

Yes.  And Muller found nothing because it is virtually impossible for a foreign power to hijack the decentralized system the US uses. Exactly how Obama said it couldn't be hijacked before the first Tuesday in November in 2016.  Since it can't be both hijackable and not hijackable either Obama lied or he told the truth until it became politically expedient not to.

Obama was wrong for once.

Only once? I think Obama was wrong about a lot of things. The unhackablity of the US election isn't one of them, unless somehow Putin managed to trick millions of people to vote for his guy. Interestingly most of the ads the Russians bought were not so much for Trump as opposed to Clinton (who was grossly unpopular anyway with anyone who wasn't a committed Dimocrat anyway--that is to say someone who would vote for the Dem even if they ran Adolf Hitler).

Quote:Maybe he did not want to create a panic, and maybe he did not want to kick the hornet's nest. He believed that

(1) Trump would lose,
(2) by supporting Trump, Putin put himself in a position in which he would have to be 'rescued' by the Hillary Clinton administration
(3) the accusation that a nominee for President would collaborate with a foreign power was impossible even for him to convince Americans of its possibility.

I'm not in the habit of attempting to read the minds of retired politicians. I suggest you not get into the habit either. The only person who knows what Obama was thinking at the time was Obama himself.

That being said...Many thought Trump would lose but those same people don't seem to understand the Presidential election is more like the world series than any game of that series. Its the number of games you win not the number of runs in each game.

As for Putin needing to be rescued by a Clinton administration that is hilarious. She was openly calling for war with a nuclear power. I'm unsure if she is deranged or if that passes for red meat for the Dims these days now that Russia is run by a non-communist.

Three is the most likely because it is the most believable and also true. The election system in the US is run and administered on a local level. So if one was to high jack a congressional district (but why would you want to?) a few thousands ballots stuffed into the box could do the trick. On the Presidential level, you'd need agents in every county of every state of the country.

BTW I don't give a shit about Vince Lombardi he's not relevant to the topic at hand and doesn't demonstrate any point what so ever. I suppose you're attempting to appear to be intelligent again. Why bother? I already know you aren't.

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Quote:And yet there aren't any indictments.  Personally I don't care what some random prosecutor has to say; unless they are directly involved with they don't know the details and thus do not know what the situation is.  

What???????

Some random prosecuter being a talking head on the tee-vee doesn't know anything more than the Congress critters do. Simple as that. And you can get a jury to convict anyone of anything if you're persuasive enough. Honestly the trial by jury is perhaps one of the worst systems of justice imaginable--well except the others that have been tried.

Quote:News programs have always had rather old audiences. Series television is made for people in the 18-49 age group, as people over 50 have usually either established their brand-name loyalties or are so capricious that they never will establish brand-name loyalties. Over 50? If one is in an upper-income group one might be a market for large-volume life insurance policies, brokerage services, long-distance travel, and high-end automobiles. That explains why golf is on television despite small audiences. No other television audience has people who would think of buying million-dollar insurance policies or going on a second honeymoon to Vienna -- and I don't mean Vienna, Virginia. Golf is not where one advertises detergents, mass-market beer, fast food, or sodas -- let alone used cars, payday loans, or rip-off vocational schools.  

Did you naturally miss my point or did you have to work at it? My point being that the only people that actively watch that drivel on the cable news are old and largely irrelevant. Younger people consume news as well but they do so using other mediums. It would be akin to complaining about the conservative news papers if you're Truman right when Television comes out.

Quote:  His name is William Weld. He was Governor of Massachusetts  a couple decades ago. Because most Presidents are current or former Governors or Senators, Vice-Presidents, or Cabinet officers, I consider him a serious challenger. I do not consider him a joke. Primary challenges indicate significant dissent within his party, and the opposition party can usually exploit such dissent.

He isn't a current politician--hint "A couple decades ago". He is a joke and he won't hold the South which the Republicans absolutely must hold to win. Probably because he's a Blue State Yankee and yes that still matters. You should see my arguments there not being a unified American culture. Being from Mass-of-two-shits might not mean anything in Michigrim, but in Georgia it very much does. Hell in Florida it does even with our tons of transplanted Yankees down here. (Hint they are mostly New Yorkers and Jersians and can't stand New Englanders).

Quote:I consider this a solid key for the GOP because even if the Grim Reaper should pay a visit to your idol, Mike Pence would be the incumbent and I would reasonably expect him to run for re-election. The last three Presidents got re-elected, which demonstrates that incumbency is an asset.

Incumbancy is an absolute asset. Typically the incumbent is re-elected unless they seriously mess things up. Since Trump isn't, and Pence isn't likely to should something unfortunate happen to Daddy 2020 is shaping up to be a red wave that will sweep away the blue wave of 2018.

Funnily enough I saw bigger blue waves in a Tampax commercial than in that election.

Quote:Libertarian, Constitution, Reform, Taxpayers'... I can easily see an anti-Trump conservative running on such a Party or forming his own.

If you see that then you must be taking LSD. Trump was a member of the Reform party himself and has carried a large part of their platform to the GOP. The LP is a joke. If you can see an actual conservative forming his own party then who is it? I'm not seeing that pop up.

Quote:I can imagine many usual conservatives disliking Trump for hurting their economic interests (farmers and ranchers are a significant bloc in some states). Sure, Trump gave farmers and ranchers a piddling tax cut but gave them a trade war that reduces their income (cuts to income taxes do not compensate for lost revenue) and tariffs that make much of what farmers buy more expensive. Tariffs are taxes. Trump's foreign policy is unconventional, to say the least -- and even reckless.

Trump's foreign policy is unconventional but it is getting results. Good results--IE China shaping up so the WTO (of which the US is a major contributor will list them as a Market Economy so they can have full membership finally), and pushing the Koreas into negotiations so we can finally draw down waste of tax payers money.

Are tariffs taxes? Yes. Will it be good for the country? Yes. We're already seeing import substituion happening and that is good as it does provide other people with decent jobs so they can buy those products that the farmers and ranchers would otherwise sell abroad. The US is self-sufficient now and historically has been unless you count bananas and coffee/tea.

I wonder if I mention his name if he'll show up, but Rags has often called or Artarky in this country. I'm not so extreme, but at minimum I would say tariffs and quotas are necessary so as to ease the tax burdens on the working people who actually pay the income taxes.

Quote:That is what people were saying in the summer of 1929, too. The leading indicators aren't so great now -- increases in inventory stock and an inverted yield curve.

I'm going to require sources for this. The Labor Department is convinced that we have nearly fully employment unless the workforce participation rate increases substantially.

Quote:It is hard to outdo the economic growth coming out of a recession that threatened to become a full-blown depression. I thought that Trump had no chance to make a positive out of this, and even if he has been lucky so far, he cannot get faster growth than what happened under Obama.

Obama said that the days of 4% GDP growth were over. Every year since 2017 when Trump took office GDP has been in the 3.5-4% range. Twice the rate of Obama's 1-2% growth yields.

Simple fact. Deregulating and cutting taxes works. Just ask Hayek.

Quote:  Lichtman does not judge what those changers are. This key would be positive if the President successfully outlawed homosexuality, undid the 1964 Civil Rights Act, gave the Interstate Highway system to foreign profiteers, nationalized several industries, or started a persecution of people for their religion. Foreign policy is in another key.

Outlawing homosexuality would be a return to the status quo ante...nothing new really, and also unenforceable without creating a totalitarian state which Americans simply don't have the stomach for. The rest is just nonsense that wouldn't happen here. It goes against the long standing traditions of Americans generally and their sensibilities have to be taken into consideration given we're a representative republic.

Quote:  Lichtman explains that polite dissent such as the Tea Party Movement is not the sort of social unrest that topples a Presidency, and I would say the same of the Women's March on Washington, Black Lives Matter, and many other anti-Trump causes.  The Long Hot Summers of the 1960s and anarchist or Bolshevik violence going into the 1920 election are.

Antifa is not polite dissent. They aren't just holding signs they are causing riots wherever they go. But they are rioting in Blue States and in the Blue Cities of those states and represent the furthest left segments of those Blue Cities in those Blue states. The egg is on the Democrat's faces for their actions.

Quote:I draw the line on repeated terrorist activity associated with causes. Isolated terrorism may suggest a lone
 kook or cell, as with Ted Kaczynski or with the KKK violence associated with "Bombingham". Racist violence has resulted in deaths in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Poway (note well: antisemitism is racist above all else). One Trump supporter was caught mailing bombs to Democratic political figures and Democratic-friendly celebrities.

Are there racists on the right? Yes. Are their kooks and terrorists on the Right? Yes. Are they organized? No. Antifa is organized and is a real threat to American Democracy.

Quote:The Trump administration has not handled these events well.

I didn't realize that local law enforcement was the responsibility of the President. I thought that is what we had sheriffs for.

I'm not going to continue with the keys with you because you simply degenrated into your usual sillyness and I have more pressing matters to attend to...like a Hot Ham and Cheese sandwich.

Quote:Trump is doing what he can to ensure that he be a one-term President.

We'll see about that come 20 January 2021. Remember it was also said he'd never be president either.