2020 US Election

[EdamAnchorman]

FFS, I hope he loses magnificently.

[may be rude]

 

[Nebraska]

nice timing

[EdamAnchorman]

12 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

 

IMO that's the perfect response for him to have about any question regarding Trump.  It's so obvious that these kinds of questions are designed to stir the pot and create clickbait headlines, and it's sad that journalists do that kind of stuff.  It's part of the reason why we are so polarized right now.

Edited December 2, 2021 by randomsummer

[EdamAnchorman]

18 hours ago, zero said:

another washed up celeb TV show hack is jumping into the ring. Dr. Oz running for senate on the R ticket:

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/30/1060185002/tvs-dr-oz-enters-pennsylvanias-crucial-senate-race-on-the-gop-side

wonder who'll be the next contestant to enter into the clown show, a.ka. American politics. can't we just scrap all this and start again? I don't think the current set up is working very well.

I hope he is forced to use his full name on the ballot because his bread and butter will have to come from rural, backwoods Pennsylvanians, and I'd love to see the mental gymnastics when a lot of these good ol' boys place their checkmark next to a dude named Mehmet Cengiz Öz.

[may be rude]

1 hour ago, randomsummer said:

IMO that's the perfect response for him to have about any question regarding Trump.  It's so obvious that these kinds of questions are designed to stir the pot and create clickbait headlines, and it's sad that journalists do that kind of stuff.  It's part of the reason why we are so polarized right now.

yeah journos there were fishing for a dramatic response. but it's a big deal that trump seems to have deliberately exposed biden to covid 1 month before the election. getting biden's reaction is fair. i view this as traditional journalism, not clickbait. maybe if we weren't still trying to wake people up from their trump trance, it would be less relevant. dude tried a coup, and i want more coverage of that. that includes this. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by trying to be less rude

[EdamAnchorman]

28 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

yeah journos there were fishing for a dramatic response. but it's a big deal that trump seems to have deliberately exposed biden to covid 1 month before the election. getting biden's reaction is fair. i view this as traditional journalism, not clickbait. maybe if we weren't still trying to wake people up from their trump trance, it would be less relevant. dude tried a coup, and i want more coverage of that. that includes this. 

Yeah after I thought about it more, I came to the same conclusion that this was a big deal and it was a fair question.

But then I thought of what the response from the right would be if Biden gave a reasonable answer, and it would probably be to attack / ridicule him making the point lost.

Perhaps it's better that the journalists find a way to get the important information out there (that Trump knowingly exposed Biden) in a way where Biden can also get in a dig at Trump that doesn't allow for an inflammatory response from the right.

[chenGOD]

15 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

 

Toasty mic drop.

[chenGOD]

36 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

t's a big deal that trump seems to have deliberately exposed biden to covid 1 month before the election.

If you look at the position of the podiums on stage for the first debate, they are clearly more than 6 feet apart. So is it assholish of Trump? Sure, but is it important news, not really.

[may be rude]

17 minutes ago, chenGOD said:

If you look at the position of the podiums on stage for the first debate, they are clearly more than 6 feet apart. So is it assholish of Trump? Sure, but is it important news, not really.

hard disagree. debate means vocalizing maskless for 90 minutes, sometimes heatedly. biden's lucky he didn't get covid, and it's a testament to the ventilation system.

 

it's a huge deal. like, you're breaking my brain rn. i'm not cool with trump exposing his opponent to covid, deliberately. especially 1 month before the election. and in the context of an overarching coup campaign, there's no making excuses. this is just dark, despotic, heinous stuff.

 

we in the states could have ended up living in a post-democracy america. the guard rails were savaged. nothing was a given. at many points the game could have gone differently.

Edited December 2, 2021 by trying to be less rude

[zero]

2 hours ago, randomsummer said:

I hope he is forced to use his full name on the ballot because his bread and butter will have to come from rural, backwoods Pennsylvanians, and I'd love to see the mental gymnastics when a lot of these good ol' boys place their checkmark next to a dude named Mehmet Cengiz Öz.

haha good point. maybe he'll legally change his name to "Doctor Oz" to keep the backwoodians from finding out at the polling station he's actually a muslim terrorist, thus forcing them to do something incredibly stupid like voting for a dem...

[chenGOD]

37 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

hard disagree. debate means vocalizing maskless for 90 minutes, sometimes heatedly. biden's lucky he didn't get covid, and it's a testament to the ventilation system.

 

it's a huge deal. like, you're breaking my brain rn. i'm not cool with trump exposing his opponent to covid, deliberately. especially 1 month before the election. and in the context of an overarching coup campaign, there's no making excuses. this is just dark, despotic, heinous stuff.

Maskless at a distance well past the recommended minimum for social distancing, with proper ventilation. Risk of infection was minimal, and we can assume that Biden would have received the same treatment that Trump got.

When compared to the other crimes Trump has been accused of (the deliberate part will be very hard to prove in court by the way, and since you need to have the mental component for a crime to be committed...), this is not a big deal, and there are much more serious things to go after Trump. Like I said, is it douchey and something to be not cool with, absolutely, but it is not a big deal compared to the numerous other crimes Trump is accused of.

 

[may be rude]

2 hours ago, chenGOD said:

Maskless at a distance well past the recommended minimum for social distancing, with proper ventilation. Risk of infection was minimal,

i disagree, given the duration and it being a debate. 

 

2 hours ago, chenGOD said:

we can assume that Biden would have received the same treatment that Trump got.

i'm not sure what you mean by this.  i can say that biden submitted himself to the debate's mandated testing, while trump coincidentally got himself out of it by being late. but i'm not sure what you're getting at.

 

2 hours ago, chenGOD said:

the deliberate part will be very hard to prove in court by the way, and since you need to have the mental component for a crime to be committed...

i agree, and i am not guessing. there are now multiple indicators that make it look as though trump did it deliberately.

 

2 hours ago, chenGOD said:

When compared to the other crimes Trump has been accused of ([...]), this is not a big deal, and there are much more serious things to go after Trump.

exposing biden to covid 1 month before the election ranks up there with the worst. it's not ok for a president to knowingly expose an opponent to a potentially lethal contagion. that is fucked up shit.

 

2 hours ago, chenGOD said:

Like I said, is it douchey and something to be not cool with, absolutely, but it is not a big deal compared to the numerous other crimes Trump is accused of.

we're not talking about you going to the bar with covid. yeah that would be "douchey" and you would be an "asshole." in pre-vax times, it could cause people to die who wouldn't have, otherwise, but society allows it. but here we are talking about the president knowingly exposing his opponent, who is susceptible to severe symptoms due to his age and lack of vaccines at the time. and in this case the president was in the midst of a months long coup campaign (starting months before the election, with his subversion of confidence in election legitimacy).

 

isolated from context, i guess you could characterize it as just douchey and assholish. but the incident is not isolated from its context, in reality. if he weren't planning to attempt to stay in power regardless of the election results, it would be different. but he was planning to attempt to stay in power regardless of the election results. and that means that his knowingly exposing biden to covid can be viewed as akin to political violence. exposure to a pathogen is not usually viewed this way, but in some contexts, it can be. knowingly exposing someone to a pathogen can be murder. 

 

if i videotaped a confession that i planned to deliberately expose an unvaccinated person in their 70s to covid, that would be reckless endangerment. if i did that to win an election, it would be an extremely immoral and criminal way to win an election. 

 

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/is-it-a-crime-to-intentionally-get-someone-sick.html

Edited December 2, 2021 by trying to be less rude

[chenGOD]

9 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

 

11 hours ago, chenGOD said:

Maskless at a distance well past the recommended minimum for social distancing, with proper ventilation. Risk of infection was minimal,

i disagree, given the duration and it being a debate

 

I mean, he didn’t get infected because of the social distancing and proper ventilation and airflow, so I’d say the risk was mitigated. 
 

 

9 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

11 hours ago, chenGOD said:

we can assume that Biden would have received the same treatment that Trump got.

i'm not sure what you mean by this.  i can say that biden submitted himself to the debate's mandated testing, while trump coincidentally got himself out of it by being late. but i'm not sure what you're getting at.

I mean Biden would have received the same expensive treatment that Trump got when Trump got COVID-19.

9 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

11 hours ago, chenGOD said:

the deliberate part will be very hard to prove in court by the way, and since you need to have the mental component for a crime to be committed...

i agree, and i am not guessing. there are now multiple indicators that make it look as though trump did it deliberately.

I guess I should have asked for this first to avoid any confusion on my part. Can you link to some?

 

9 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

exposing biden to covid 1 month before the election ranks up there with the worst. it's not ok for a president to knowingly expose an opponent to a potentially lethal contagion. that is fucked up shit.

 

The numerous counts of actual treason, money laundering for foreign entities, using the office of the president for personal gain while in office and of course involvement in the attempted coup I’d say rank higher. 

 

9 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

exposure to a pathogen is not usually viewed this way, but in some contexts, it can be. knowingly exposing someone to a pathogen can be murder.

The link you provided doesn’t say anything like that (and yes it can be a crime), but again the key here is knowingly. Theoretically, if anyone were to attempt to prosecute him for it, they’d probably go with wilful blindness as opposed to actual knowledge, but again, it would be difficult to prove, precisely because of the mitigation measures in place already. 
It would be an interesting trial though, could the organizers of the event be charged as accessories? Reckless endangerment? 

 

9 hours ago, trying to be less rude said:

the incident is not isolated from its context

Not in the court of public opinion for sure, but in a court of law, it would take a hell of an argument to prove the pattern of criminality. 
We need an actual lawyer. LOL Alzado where are you??? Does it work like beetlejuice, if I say his name three times will he appear?

LOL Alzado, LOL Alzado, LOL Alzado!

Edit: for the record, I think trump is a despicable waste of oxygen, but I think that whatever DA office is going after him should concentrate on the more serious and/or easier to prove charges. 

[may be rude]

22 hours ago, chenGOD said:

On 12/2/2021 at 12:34 PM, trying to be less rude said:

On 12/2/2021 at 10:41 AM, chenGOD said:

the deliberate part will be very hard to prove in court by the way, and since you need to have the mental component for a crime to be committed...

i agree, and i am not guessing. there are now multiple indicators that make it look as though trump did it deliberately.

I guess I should have asked for this first to avoid any confusion on my part. Can you link to some?

 

tuesday there's a debate, thursday he says he has covid, and friday he is hospitalized. we later learn he was very sick at the time when he was hospitalized, having difficulty breathing, and asking if he was going to die. covid has an incubation period of 2-14 days, and breathing problems don't usually develop until days 5 - 10.

that alone was suspicious. it looked like he would have had it before the debate. but he should have caught it with his supposedly frequent testing. 

his doctor while he was at walter reed was overtly restricted from answering certain questions such as whether trump showed signs of pneumonia. when asked questions about the phase of disease, the doctor made clear that he was prevented from disclosing the timeline of the progression of the disease.

seemed like trump told his doctor not to say anything about pneumonia or when he got it.

press continually asked when his last negative test was, and they never answered. kaley maceneny, trump himself, when asked, they would act weird and give strange, vague, generalized responses about how trump is tested all the time. they never said when his last negative test was.

so, given the original timeline just plainly being strange, and the doctor acting like he's hiding stuff about the timeline, and trump administration being unable to say when his last negative test was, it was looking fishy.

the picture of his illness pointed to trump contracting covid at least a few days before the debate. but how would he not know? his own story is ridiculous. he doesn't know when his last negative was? how do you not know when the last negative was? the only reason you wouldn't say is if the answer was bad, and you know that records are kept of those kinds of things and they're hard to tamper with. this is how they would act if they were hiding the fact that he was neglecting to test, or that there was an earlier positive.

well, now we learn that there was an earlier positive. mark meadows is now saying that a few days before the debate, trump tested positive. then he says he took another test which was negative. curiously absent is mention of any other subsequent tests between the positive and the debate, only 1. and now trump releases a statement saying "a test" showed he was negative before the debate. interesting, just 1. that doesn't even make sense. 1 subsequent negative wouldn't be enough to demonstrate the positive as false. you would need multiple. but here we have meadows specifically stating one and trump specifically stating one.

it's all consistent.

just looking at the picture, it looks like he got a positive before the debate, then got a negative real quick (somehow...) and then didn't get tested again until 2 days after the debate, when it was revealed that hope hicks had it and was exposed to trump.

and it's not even like you can point to trump's side of the story and say "maybe he's telling the truth." for one thing, his story was effectively "i don't know or won't say when the last negative was." and, from nbc:

“The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News," Trump said. "In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate.”

is he supporting his claim by pointing to the single subsequent negative? that's the plaintext reading. he specifcally does not say multiple subsequent negatives.

Edited December 4, 2021 by trying to be less rude

[Rubin Farr]

lol

[Rubin Farr]

They’re got a billion dollars, and some fancy Office diagrams, but the SEC doesn’t sound impressed

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000119312521348593/d242442dex992.htm

[ignatius]

8 hours ago, Rubin Farr said:

They’re got a billion dollars, and some fancy Office diagrams, but the SEC doesn’t sound impressed

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000119312521348593/d242442dex992.htm

People are laughing at Trump’s new company

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/people-are-laughing-at-trumps-new-company-214853729.html

Quote

 

Trump’s new media company, called the Trump Media & Technology Group, may suffer the same amateurish delusions. An “investor presentation” the company recently filed with the Securities and Exchange commission is provoking guffaws among business analysts, with laughable evasions and barely any business strategy. “It does feel like every public action by this company is designed give the impression that it is a joke,” Bloomberg analyst Matt Levine wrote on Dec. 7.

The oddest part of the TMTG presentation is the “technology team” listed on Slide 21. The company has apparently filled 30 important jobs already, but it only lists these team members with a first name and last initial. The chief technology officer is “Josh A.” “Steve E.” is VP of engineering. One of the senior mobile developers is “BJ.” Are these real people or stand-ins? We may never know: As a footnote explains: “personnel subject to change.”

Assuming the merger goes through, it will allow DWAC investors to buy shares at a discount to the market price, then sell them right away, essentially guaranteeing a profit. But that isn’t necessarily good for the stock, or the company. Investors who want to cash out right away—and have negotiated the right to do so—have no stake in the prospects of the business itself. The investors might even think the real opportunity is cashing in on the initial hype, rather than longer-term profitability.

The TMTG investor presentation is vague about how exactly the company will make money. It points out that Trump’s following on Twitter before the platform banned him in 2020—89 million followers—is more than one-third of Netflix’s entire subscriber base, as if TMTG could rival Netflix out of the gate. But that’s apples and oranges. One account on Twitter—free to the account holder and followers alike—is nothing like a Netflix account in which users pay a monthly fee to access a deep library of content.

 

the whole thing sounds like a grift in the making. a way to be shareholders, suck out the capital as stock gains, then dump the company. devin nunes will be president of it. the article includes more fishy details but i didn't want to post the whole thing

[Rubin Farr]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

People are laughing at Trump’s new company

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/people-are-laughing-at-trumps-new-company-214853729.html

the whole thing sounds like a grift in the making. a way to be shareholders, suck out the capital as stock gains, then dump the company. devin nunes will be president of it. the article includes more fishy details but i didn't want to post the whole thing

You would think any new company involved with Trump would immediately be under increased scrutiny by SEC and other regulators for fraud and money laundering 

[zero]

21 minutes ago, Rubin Farr said:

You would think any new company involved with Trump would immediately be under increased scrutiny by SEC and other regulators for fraud and money laundering 

well man, the term "think" has lost a significant amount of value from when it first joined the lexicon way back in them Greek days. I mean I would "think" that millions of American citizens would not fall for donnie's swindling ways, and would know better than to elect the king grifter president. but yeah, we didn't exactly nail that one down...so the fact that don dada is going to keep on keepin on with his out-in-the-open grifts AND get away with them, does not surprise me one bit. how in tf karma does not get this guy, I have no clue. he should have been taken out long long ago by some nefarious Brighton Beach ruskie hitman, but he has magically dodged everything thrown at him thus far. I have to think there is some small amount of props he is owed due to his survival skills. but ffs life would be so much better without him or his ilk in the positions of power they occupy. and not to be too much of a downer, but I really don't know if any of us can handle the epic level shit show that will be coming in the year 2024...

[Rubin Farr]

Heard a good description of what Fox News & other right wind media outlets spout, resentainment. Feed on the anger and hatred of the viewer, while ratcheting it up increasingly. I’m hoping sooner or layer FN gets sued for the results of its hate speech.

[EdamAnchorman]

2 hours ago, Rubin Farr said:

I’m hoping sooner or layer FN gets sued for the results of its hate speech.

They'd have to say / publish something pretty egregious.  I mean, if the president can incite an insurrection and get away scot free, there's no way anything FN is doing now can stick to them.

[Rubin Farr]

3 hours ago, randomsummer said:

They'd have to say / publish something pretty egregious.  I mean, if the president can incite an insurrection and get away scot free, there's no way anything FN is doing now can stick to them.

If someone like Tucker incites someone to violence, even unintentionally, that could open them up to lawsuits if the felon said they were driven or inspired by him.

[zero]

12 minutes ago, Rubin Farr said:

If someone like Tucker incites someone to violence, even unintentionally, that could open them up to lawsuits if the felon said they were driven or inspired by him.

nah man, the lawyers got this stuff so fubar'd that none of those guys are gonna be held accountable for shit. they can also use donald's favorite go to - "I was just joking," like he did so many times when he got called out on saying things that were questionable, and possibly illegal.

[ignatius]

the only accountability these people will face is when some lunatic on the right or left gets his squirrel brain hopped up on th eidea of violence and tries to murder one of them. 

or all foxnews viewers age out and die and there's no market to replace them and fox goes down the toilet. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by ignatius