2020 Presidential Election thread

[Muda69]

Let's start off with this nugget:  

Will Pennsylvania Be the Florida of the 2020 Election?

https://reason.com/2020/09/22/will-pennsylvania-be-the-florida-of-the-2020-election/

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Imagine this scenario: incumbent President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are running neck and neck as results roll in on election night. Trump is once again losing the popular vote but winning enough states to give him a shot at a second term—and, as the night wears on, it becomes apparent that Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes may prove decisive.

The race is so close—in 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by less than 50,000 votes—that pundits are already raising the prospect of a recount, but there are numerous complications. Hundreds of thousands of mailed-in ballots that arrived at county election offices in the weeks before Election Day are only starting to be counted. More mail-in ballots will be delivered on Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday. They will all be counted. Conservative media makes hay out of reports that Democratic state officials have ordered counties not to reject mail-in ballots that have mismatched signatures. As the days pass and the results tip toward Biden, allegations of voter fraud fly around social media, the president tweets angrily about Democrats stealing the election, and lawsuits are filed. It seems almost certain that the whole thing will end up before the Supreme Court.

Gulp.

There is no shortage of nightmare scenarios surrounding the 2020 presidential election. For the most part, however, there is little reason to get worked up about crises that may come to pass—that goes for both Republicans who fear mass voter fraud and Democrats worried by the possibility that Trump will refuse to leave the White House if he is defeated. Neither the Postal Service nor Russian agents are likely going to steal this election.

But if there is a nightmarish, chaotic ending to what's already been one of the most unpredictable campaign seasons in American history, there's a good chance Pennsylvania will be at the center of it. And there's a good chance that two under-the-radar decisions made earlier this month by the state's election officials and its Supreme Court will be the reason why.

On September 15, the Pennsylvania Department of State issued new guidance telling counties not to reject mailed-in ballots solely because of mismatched or missing signatures. That clarification was made in response to a lawsuit that was triggered by the fact that more than 26,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during Pennsylvania's primary election for signature issues. Now, counties will flag those ballots and give voters a chance to appear in-person to verify their ballots.

Then, on September 17, the state's Supreme Court ordered counties to accept mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after the November 3 election, as long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day. But there's a potential wrinkle. Ballots "received within this period that lack a postmark or other proof of mailing, or for which the postmark or other proof of mailing is illegible, will be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day," unless there is some evidence to suggest that they were not, the court wrote.

Both decisions are driven by a desire to avoid accidentally disenfranchising some voters who cast their ballots by mail. As I've written before, in-person voting reduces common mistakes that voters sometimes make—like voting for too many candidates or failing to sign a ballot—that are more likely to happen with absentee ballots. This year's equivalent of the 2000 presidential election's Florida recount, which hinged on "hanging chads" and ultimately required the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, is likely to be the very inexact science of trying to determine whether a signature on an absentee ballot matches the one on a voting roll.

With these new rules on the books, "Pennsylvania voters can cast their vote without fear that their ballot could be rejected solely because an election official—who isn't trained in handwriting analysis—thinks their signatures don't match. Voting should not be a penmanship test," said Mark Gaber, director of trial litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, one of several voting rights nonprofits that had sued the state over the signature-matching issue. Those lawsuits were withdrawn after the Department of State issued new guidance earlier this month.

"Obviously the changes are disconcerting and do nothing to help voters but do open it up to fraud," Ray Zaborney, a Pennsylvania-based Republican campaign strategist, tells Reason. "But, like anything else, each campaign will have to adjust to the changes, but the partisan nature of the court should be chilling for everyone."

Even before those changes were made, Trump's campaign (and the president himself) has argued expanded use of mail-in voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be ripe for fraud. That's not true. In fact, studies show that absentee and mail-in ballots are no more vulnerable to fraud than in-person voting and that increased rates of mail-in balloting do not skew elections toward either Republicans or Democrats. When the Trump campaign tried to sue Pennsylvania earlier this year over its mail-in voting rules, it alleged voter fraud but couldn't produce any evidence to support the claim.

Still, rewriting parts of the state's election protocol just weeks before the election carries the stench of political favoritism—particularly when it is all being done by a Democratic administration and a state Supreme Court with a Democratic majority. (Judges in Pennsylvania are technically nonpartisan but are elected in partisan contests.) The perception of partisan politics shaping election rules could undermine the legitimacy of the election's outcome if it all comes down to Pennsylvania.

And it definitely could. The latest forecast at FiveThirtyEight predicts that Pennsylvania is the most likely "tipping-point state"—that is, the state that puts either Biden or Trump over the all-important 270 electoral vote threshold. "In fact, Pennsylvania is so important that our model gives Trump an 84 percent chance of winning the presidency if he carries the state—and it gives Biden a 96 percent chance of winning if Pennsylvania goes blue," writes election analyst Nathaniel Rakich.

If chaos unfolds in Pennsylvania in the days after November 3, however, save some blame for the state's Republican-controlled legislature, which has stubbornly refused to consider a number of simple changes that could have smoothed out problems in the state's election laws. Maybe the most important of those changes is a proposal to allow county officials to open and count mail-in ballots before Election Day—something that all but a few states allow and that could speed up the process of determining a winner.

Instead, it's almost certain that—barring a shockingly large landslide—Pennsylvania won't be able to declare a winner in the presidential race on election night, and probably not for days or even weeks afterward. If the state's 20 electoral votes could swing the election, all of America might be wondering why Pennsylvania made such a mess of things.

Republicans, Democrats, the state legislature, the state Supreme Court, and Gov. Tom Wolf will all share the blame if Pennsylvania becomes this election's Florida.

Yep, it may be Christmas or early January before this presidential election is decided.  But maybe by then it will be too cold in much of the country for the rioters on either side of the uni-party to get out and do some damage.

 

[Muda69]

Carter vs. Reagan: The Last Semi-Intelligent Presidential Race

https://mises.org/wire/carter-vs-reagan-last-semi-intelligent-presidential-race

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Presidential campaigns in the United States tend to be discouraging affairs, even if one is not a libertarian who has zero expectations that anything good can come from American elections. The old saw that insanity consists of doing the same thing repeatedly and somehow expecting different results applies to presidential campaigns as well as to anything else.

For whatever reason, Americans (and especially the American media) seem to believe that the process by which voters select presidential candidates some day will produce a Marcus Aurelius (or some other philosopher king) as opposed to the final race we have between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, neither of whom will resurrect memories of orators like Daniel Webster or Frederick Douglass. Instead, it will be a race in which observers watch to see who commits the most malapropisms.

Recent presidential campaigns have not been assuring when it comes to actual content being discussed on the campaign trail. Part of that problem is that no matter how “intelligent” or sound a policy initiative may seem to be, in the end government agents are not caretakers of an economy or possessors of great powers; instead, they tend to be hacks, and no matter how much adoring media (on all sides of the ideological spectrum) tries to make their favored candidates out to be philosopher kings, in the end the best outcome we can hope to have is that they not do too much economic and social damage.

The last election gave us the forgettable lines of “Lock her up” and “Why am I not 50 points ahead?” Before then, we had Bill Clinton asking voters to “help me build a bridge to the twenty-first century” and saying “We’re going to invest in education and the environment.” In other words, we hear slogans devoid of content, and we realize that one of the persons uttering something inane actually will occupy the White House.

The last presidential campaign in my memory that produced anything close to having substance happened four decades ago when incumbent Jimmy Carter ran against Ronald Reagan. Interestingly, the media had written off Reagan, a former governor of California known better for his B-movie acting career in Hollywood, as an intellectual lightweight, someone lacking an intellect worthy of the presidency. (Perhaps one should ask the question of whether the modern American presidency is worthy of someone with intellect in the first place.)

While it is not difficult to find the telltale gaffes and wrongheaded statements in any presidential campaign, nonetheless the Carter-Reagan race stood out, because it was the last presidential campaign in which serious economic concepts were discussed. Even though Carter had enacted a number of grievous economic policies during his time in office (perhaps the worst being the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978), nonetheless he also had dismantled or was in the process of dismantling huge swaths of New Deal business regulation, a deregulation process that still pays huge dividends today. Carter also began the process of removing price and allocation controls on oil and gasoline, although he accompanied oil deregulation with the infamous Windfall Profits Tax on oil companies under the mistaken belief that deregulation would quickly raise prices that would significantly boost profit margins—something that didn’t happen, as deregulation led to falling fuel prices.

Carter’s errors notwithstanding, his administration through its massive deregulation efforts in passenger air, railroads, trucking, telecommunications, and banking and finance was in itself a supply-side initiative that more than rivaled Reagan’s moves to drop the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent and to better promote “the private sector.” Unfortunately for Carter and the Democrats, the president was virtually silent about what would be his most important and longest-lasting accomplishments.

In part, Carter’s reluctance to tout his substantive accomplishments seemed to reflect his inability to connect with the Ted Kennedy–led “liberal wing” of the Democratic Party, as Carter had turned back Kennedy’s primary challenge (but with Kennedy humiliating Carter at the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1980). Although Kennedy had been instrumental in the passenger airline deregulation initiative, his 1980 campaign was geared toward a program of massive price controls, regulation, and social democracy. Since much of Carter’s deregulation essentially undid many of the business and finance cartels created by the New Deal, and since Kennedy had geared much of his own campaign toward promoting what could be called a second New Deal, using his presidential campaign to take victory laps for his legislative success seemed out of the question.

Furthermore, Carter initiated the “wage-price guidelines” in an attempt to calm the double-digit inflation rates that plagued his administration, although to his credit he resisted demands from Kennedy and the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) to impose mandatory wage and price controls. None of these initiatives stopped inflation and, again to his credit, Carter appointed Paul Volker as Federal Reserve chairman and Volker’s relatively tight money policies ultimately helped tame the inflation beast, at least in the early 1980s.

So, Carter entered the fall race with at least some economic successes—although the dividends from deregulation would be long-term and could not be seen right away—while Reagan at least was talking a much better game of free markets than any of his predecessors had done, at least since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. Furthermore, Reagan's embrace of “supply-side” policies invoked the memory of Jean Baptiste Say and his contention that the source of demand was not government demand-side policies but rather what people produced. While Say never wrote, “Supply creates its own demand,” nevertheless the Reagan camp was not wrong when it called for measures to reduce regulatory and tax burdens on producers, as the government’s Keynesian policies were creating havoc with inflation.

What is more important is that people actually were debating whether Keynesian policies were effective or harmful, something that is in contrast to the Barack Obama campaign in 2008 calling for Keynesianism to be resurrected. No campaign since Reagan-Carter in 1980 has even mentioned Say or, for that matter, any other economist of note.

This is not to say that the Reagan-Carter campaign resembled an old-time Oxford debate. The Carter camp tried to resurrect memories of Lyndon Johnson’s portrayal of Barry Goldwater as a bomb-throwing madman, and they floated a number of Reagan’s old quotes about Social Security and the minimum wage, as though Reagan were going to abolish both things without congressional approval (which would be politically impossible).

Reagan, on the other hand, accused Carter of being weak on communism in general and on the USSR in particular. Like so many people caught up in the rancid politics of the Cold War, both men—but especially Reagan—saw the Soviet Union as an entity that would last for generations, despite the fact that the once mighty Evil Empire was only a decade away from collapsing. Carter at least stuck with a foreign policy based upon noninterventionism and promotion of human rights, something that Reagan portrayed as weakness but in retrospect was a major accomplishment, especially given the military ventures of the United States beginning with George H.W. Bush’s Gulf War. Unfortunately, at the time Carter’s achievement was portrayed as failure.

There also was the infamous Iranian Hostage Crisis. Carter had given into bad advice (against his own instincts) and allowed the deposed shah to receive cancer treatment in New York City in the fall of 1979. While he was there, Iranian militants invaded the US embassy in Tehran and took more than fifty Americans there as hostages. Carter approved an ill-fated rescue attempt the following spring which resulted in the deaths of eight US servicemen, something that made Carter look even more out of his element.

To the credit of both campaigns, the hostage issue was not overtly placed front and center and Reagan was reasonably restrained in his statements, even though the issue itself really was the proverbial elephant in the living room. If one wished for the hostages to come home safely, then American responses were limited, especially since Iran had experienced an Islamic revolution that was thumbing its nose at the diplomatic niceties of the “civilized” world. In the end, the hostages came home safely right after Reagan’s inauguration.

At the time of the campaign, the usual criticisms were uttered (“They aren’t talking about The Issues” or “We are tired of the mudslinging”), but the 1980 presidential campaign, in retrospect, at least had its intelligent moments. Although it is unfortunate that Carter’s own Democratic Party members did not see the value of economic deregulation, nonetheless Carter’s initiatives probably were as significant a boost to the economy as any president has accomplished since 1980.

No president is able to live up to the promises made in a campaign, but there is no doubt that at least some of the issues debated in the fall of 1980 were substantive and certainly would seem to have depth, especially when compared to the vapid and utterly shallow contest between Trump and Biden. At the time, many of us expressed our disappointment with Carter and Reagan; would it be that we had anything today close to what we had forty years ago.

Yep, sliding further and further into the parody United States of America depicted in the film Idicocracy.

 

[Muda69]

Trump won’t commit to peaceful transfer of power if he loses: https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-voting-elections-voting-fraud-and-irregularities-8bb28627b03474a3a5ce2454ae3d1639

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday again declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the Nov. 3 presidential election.

“We’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said at a news conference, responding to a question about whether he’d commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”

It is highly unusual that a sitting president would express less than complete confidence in the American democracy’s electoral process. But he also declined four years ago to commit to honoring the election results if his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, won.

His current Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, was asked about Trump’s comment after landing in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday night.

“What country are we in?” Biden asked incredulously, adding: “I’m being facetious. Look, he says the most irrational things. I don’t know what to say about it. But it doesn’t surprise me.”

Trump has been pressing a monthslong campaign against mail-in voting this November by tweeting and speaking out critically about the practice. More states are encouraging mail-in voting to keep voters safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The president, who uses mail-in voting himself, has tried to distinguish between states that automatically send mail ballots to all registered voters and those, like Florida, that send them only to voters who request a mail ballot.

 

Trump has baselessly claimed widespread mail voting will lead to massive fraud. The five states that routinely send mail ballots to all voters have seen no significant fraud.

Trump on Wednesday appeared to suggest that if states got “rid of” the unsolicited mailing of ballots there would be no concern about fraud or peaceful transfers of power.

“You’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer frankly,” Trump said. “There’ll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control, you know it, and you know, who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.”

In a July interview, Trump similarly refused to commit to accepting the results.

“I have to see. Look ... I have to see,” Trump told Chris Wallace during a wide-ranging July interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”

The Biden campaign responded Wednesday: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

The American Civil Liberties Union also protested Trump’s remarks. “The peaceful transfer of power is essential to a functioning democracy,” National Legal Director David Cole said. “This statement from the president of the United States should trouble every American.”

Trump made similar comments ahead of the 2016 election. When asked during an October debate whether he would abide by the voters’ will, Trump responded that he would “keep you in suspense.”

He's trolling, like he's done during most of his presidency.

 

[Muda69]

At Pentagon, fears grow that Trump will pull military into election unrest: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/at-pentagon-fears-grow-that-trump-will-pull-military-into-election-unrest/

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Senior Pentagon leaders have a lot to worry about — Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Iran, China, Somalia, the Korean Peninsula. But chief among those concerns is whether their commander in chief might order U.S. troops into any chaos around the coming elections.

President Donald Trump gave officials no solace Wednesday and Thursday when he again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins the election, and Thursday, he doubled down by saying he was not sure the election could be “honest.” His hedging, along with his expressed desire in June to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to send active-duty troops onto American streets to quell protests over the killing of George Floyd, has incited deep anxiety among senior military and Defense Department leaders, who insist they will do all they can to keep the armed forces out of the elections.

“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in written answers to questions from House lawmakers released last month. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law, U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process.”

But that has not stopped an intensifying debate in the military about its role should a disputed election lead to civil unrest.

On Aug. 11, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, both retired Army officers and Iraq War veterans, published an open letter to Milley on the website Defense One. “In a few months’ time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your constitutional oath,” they wrote. “If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order.”

Pentagon officials swiftly said such an outcome was preposterous. Under no circumstances, they said, would the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff send Navy SEALs or Marines to haul Trump out of the White House. If necessary, such a task, Defense Department officials said, would fall to U.S. Marshals or the Secret Service. The military, by law, the officials said, takes a vow to the Constitution, not to the president, and that vow means that the commander in chief of the military is whoever is sworn in at 12:01 p.m. on Inauguration Day.

But senior leaders at the Pentagon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they were talking among themselves about what to do if Trump, who will still be president from Election Day to Inauguration Day, invokes the Insurrection Act and tries to send troops into the streets, as he repeatedly threatened to do during the protests against police brutality and systemic racism. Both Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper opposed the move then, and Trump backed down.

The concerns are not unfounded. The Insurrection Act, a two-century-old law, enables a president to send in active-duty military troops to quell disturbances over the objections of governors. Trump, who refers to the armed forces as “my military” and “my generals,” has lumped them with other supporters like Bikers for Trump, who could offer backup in the face of opposition.

Defense Department officials have privately discussed the possibility of Trump trying to use any civil unrest around the elections to put his thumb on the scales. Several Pentagon officials said that such a move could prompt resignations among many of Trump’s senior generals, starting at the top with Milley.

The Air Force chief of staff, General Charles Q. Brown, the officials said, would also be unlikely to salute and carry out those orders. In the days after the killing of Floyd in police custody, Brown released an extraordinary video in which he spoke in starkly personal terms about his experience as a Black man in America, his unequal treatment in the armed forces and the protests that gripped the country.

“I’m thinking about protests in my country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, the equality expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that I have sworn my adult life to support and defend,” Brown said. “I’m thinking about a history of racial issues and my own experiences that didn’t always sing of liberty and equality.”

.....

 

[swordfish]

Sling enough mud, maybe something will stick......Has now become "SLING MORE MUD, MAKE IT UP IF WE HAVE TO, NOTHING IS WORKING ON THIS GUY YET"

[Muda69]

Tax bombshell reveals Trump's image is a sham: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/politics/donald-trump-taxes-election-2020-joe-biden-debate/index.html

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It was the moment when Donald Trump's "Art of the Deal" fabulism, billionaire tycoon bluster and populist standard-bearing for forgotten Americans was revealed to be what it always looked like: a sham.

 

A stunning New York Times exposé of the President's tax returns Sunday revealed a pitifully inept businessman and a serial tax avoider crushed by massive debts that could expose him to conflicts of interest given his position as President and power to help undisclosed lenders.

 

Trump refused to talk about his tax returns and blasted the Times report as "totally fake news" on Sunday. But the article portrays the anti-elite crusader who rails against a corrupt system as actually using its loopholes to avoid paying any federal taxes at all in 10 of 15 years beginning in 2000 by writing off his own staggering losses.

 

In 2016 and 2017 each, Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes -- far less than many Americans who are working hard amid a deep recession to stay afloat. Trump took huge deductions -- including $70,000 to take care of his hair -- and also appeared to write off hundreds of thousands of dollars paying his daughter Ivanka as a consultant to the Trump Organization, according to the Times report. The story also reveals the extent to which Trump's status as President is being used to shore up his losing ventures — for example his hotel in Washington, DC, and his golf resorts.

 

"This is a con man in the White House," presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told CNN Sunday, referring to a President who shattered convention by refusing to release his tax records to the public while running for office.

 

Tony Schwartz, who penned Trump's book "The Art of the Deal," said even he was surprised by the "sheer brazenness" of Trump's behavior, remarking to CNN's Anderson Cooper that it revealed the "kind of mind that would think 'I can get away with paying no taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars in income.'"

 

The publication of the deeply reported article, based on more than two decades of his tax information obtained by The Times, comes just two days before the first presidential debate and 37 days before an election in which he is trailing Democrat Joe Biden. It poses a grave challenge to a presidency that we now know Trump may need to preserve to outrun creditors with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans soon coming due.

 

It leaves the President facing multiple questions about his morals, behavior — and patriotism since he appears to be paying more in taxes to several foreign nations than he is to Uncle Sam. The reporting also raises the possibility that Trump's deceptive accounting, already the focus of several investigations in New York, could open him up to serious legal issues when he leaves office.

 

The Times report, for instance, says that the President has been battling the Internal Revenue Service for years over whether losses he claimed should have resulted in a staggering tax refund of $73 million.

....

Interesting timing of this story by the NY Times...............

[Muda69]

White men backing Trump say they can't be swayed

https://www.thehour.com/news/article/White-men-backing-Trump-say-they-can-t-be-swayed-15601302.php

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SANDUSKY, Ohio - The parade of boats was decked out in flags and banners screaming support for President Donald Trump, led by a barge that had been used in previous summers for bikini-tops-optional parties on Sandusky Bay but was now laden with 10 cannons and a crane holding up a 22-by-15-foot American flag. It flapped in the wind as the cannons fired.

There were motorcycles and pickup trucks on the shore, and an antique military plane in the sky. Trump flags seemed to far outnumber American ones; at least one Confederate flag flew among them. The dozen or so men firing the cannons wore red hats embroidered with Trump's name and praise for the president. They shouted strings of excited obscenities as they marveled at the hundreds of boats behind them.

"There are still people coming to get into the parade!" exclaimed Shaun Bickley, 54, the barge owner who organized the parade and would later change into a black tank top with "Trump 2020" and an expletive written around an American-flag skull. "Man, do you see all of these people."

"Act like we're being fired on!" yelled Jeff Karr, 59, who dropped out of high school to join the Ohio National Guard and spent 36 years in the military, including the Army Reserve, with two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Another volley of explosions sounded.

Blue-collar men such as Bickley, Karr and their buddies on the barge are the core of Trump's base of support, and their enthusiasm for the president has only deepened since they first voted for him, even as Trump has driven away some voters, especially college graduates and women. As illustrated by the masculinity-oozing boat parade, the Trump Party is largely a party of men - especially White men without college degrees and especially those over the age of 40.

A majority of White men have long sided with Republican presidential nominees, and they voted for Trump at about the same rates as in previous years, according to exit polls - but Trump won the votes of White men without college degrees by the highest rate in at least 36 years, or as long as comparable exit polling has existed. Four years into a tumultuous presidency, these men consistently give the president his highest approval ratings, and polls show they're happier with the economy and the direction of the country than White women or voters of color.

Their connection with Trump is cultural and emotional as much as political, closely intertwined with their lives and identities. His enemies are their enemies, his grievances are their grievances. They live by the rules he lives by: that concepts like White male privilege or structural racism and sexism are to be scoffed at, that the working-class, Christians and Trump supporters have been victimized, that it's OK to be moved to tears by a love for the country and its president but that liberals are crybabies and snowflakes. They pride themselves on being self-made, and see Trump, whose life has been nothing like their own, as a once-in-a-lifetime leader.

Bickley, who owns two marinas and a shoreline construction company, gets frustrated by the suggestion that White men such as him were born more powerful, or with advantages.

"There's 8 billion of us on the planet. There's only 780 million White people. ... So I'm personally really tired of hearing that I'm a majority, that I'm a superpower White privilege kid," Bickley said. "My mom and dad had nothing. ... I have been working my whole life.

"Now, here I am, 54, and I've got a lot of stuff. ... Somebody says: 'Look at all of this stuff you have, you must have been privileged.' Oh really? Really? I've been working since I was 10."

Bickley says that while he's now "on the top of the food chain," he remembers the years he spent as a lowly worker, making other people millions of dollars. He thinks Trump has that same mentality. Trump's strategy for winning re-election relies on finding more White men who support him but didn't vote in 2016, as well as pulling in more votes from Black and Latino men.

"The people who love Trump can't be swayed by anything," Bickley said. "If you love Trump, you're all in. There's nobody on the fence. You're in."

Those on the barge on the Saturday before Labor Day are labeled as "White working-class men" by journalists, political strategists and university researchers - people in professions that some of these Ohio men don't consider real work, as they define it: the sort that's physical and might get your hands dirty. That's the work most of them have been doing since they were children and will continue to do until they die.

Many have done well for themselves without a college diploma, and they're living a version of the American Dream that involves owning a boat and a truck to haul it.

Bickley has deep experience organizing large events on the water. For many summers, he hosted the Sandusky Bay Barge Party, which featured live music and bikini-clad women dancing around stripper poles. Bickley likes to circulate a video compilation of women's jiggling bodies from these parties, set to an off-color song.

He lost his enthusiasm for it in 2015 when his father - a Navy veteran, former police officer and Democrat - died. He started paying attention to the Republican presidential primary and gleefully watched as Trump trounced established politicians - especially former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

"So in typical Bickley fashion, I started liking Trump a lot," he said.

For much of his life, Bickley was an independent, although he mostly voted for Republicans, even during the decade that he worked at a quarry and was involved with a union. He's staunchly conservative on nearly all issues except for those related to the environment, on which he's aligned with liberals, worried about factory pollution and the health of the nation's waterways. This is one area where he says he hasn't studied Trump's record.

Bickley loves that Trump puts "America first," especially when that offends the educated elites. He supports building a wall along the southern border and forcing immigrants who arrive legally to learn English. And he agrees with Trump "constantly backing our men and women in blue," although he says he has had a few run-ins with law enforcement himself.

Someone on Facebook recently suggested that Trump hasn't accomplished much and Bickley responded, in part: "46 days away to your absolute pain. Perhaps you could stick a red hot fork in your eye. Or better yet, cut off your little buddy in despair."

Even as Bickley's businesses have prospered, he still considers himself blue-collar. He recently added an image of Trump's profile to the window of the back seat of his white SUV, so that it looks like he is chauffeuring the president around town.

"Sometimes my wife will be like: 'More attention? You just need more attention, Shaun?' " he said of his wife of 31 years.

There was something about Trump that transcended both political parties - which is also a big reason Karr voted for him after voting for Obama in 2008 and Ron Paul in 2012.

Karr retired from the Army a few years ago, disgusted with most politicians, military leaders, government contractors and federal workers who he said put their pursuit of wealth and power above all else, including keeping their word. For years, he has struggled with serious digestive issues that he believes were caused by burn pits in the Middle East, and he was frustrated by Veterans Affairs doctors who seemed unable to accurately diagnose him or ease his pain.

Sometimes, he said, he feels like the United States has become a nation of victims, even when they're not - a feeling that has become especially strong amid protests over racial inequality.

"These guys that say: 'We didn't get a chance,' " he said. "No, you didn't take a chance."

Karr says that racism should not be tolerated, but that he doesn't think the nation's problems are as bad as the media claims. Slavery was terrible, Karr said, "but that was then and this is now, and we can't go in a negative direction."

Trump and Biden have squabbled over who could best serve blue-collar workers, but Bickley and Karr rolled their eyes at the notion that Biden understands them. As they see it, Biden has spent his entire career in elective office with a generous salary, posh benefits and opportunities to become wealthy. Trump's right to call him weak, they said. Although Trump was born into a wealthy family, they see him as someone who knows how to build a business and understands the pressure of trying to make payroll.

Bickley said he feels bad that Biden's son Beau died of cancer. As a father of three, he can't imagine the pain of losing a child. But he's taken aback that Biden has used that pain "as a political crutch." He assumes campaign staffers suggested doing so.

"He should have punched them in the mouth and said: 'No, we're not going there. That's painful,' " Bickley said.

Amy Grubbe, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party for Erie County, where Sandusky is located, says her volunteers don't even bother trying to win over the men who voted for Trump in 2016.

"People tend to go down with the ship. ... That hardcore group, they're going to be flying Trump flags at their funerals 30 years from now," said Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, whose eastern Ohio district is heavily blue collar. While Ryan said he is confident Biden will win Ohio, he has little hope of converting Trump's strongest supporters. "They're all in with him, and there's no way to change their minds."

The issues Trump has chosen to highlight are, like his cultural positions, attractive to his White male supporters. His focus on law and order, seen by many as a way to scare some suburban women and seniors into voting for him, has also excited and rallied the men who already love him and are willing to follow him anywhere, including into an actual battle.

"We'll grab my AR and head for Washington and join the police force if they think they're going to riot and destroy Washington - not under my watch. I will die shoulder-to-shoulder with the cops," said Karr, the veteran who has three grown sons. "There ain't no way I am going to accept lawlessness in this country."

He and Bickley say Trump is right to refuse to accept any blame for the coronavirus and the nation's resulting economic problems. Yes, people are getting sick, they said, but they do not believe the death toll is really as high as some claim.

Bickley and Karr blame the pandemic on China and credit Trump for blocking many foreign travelers from China and other countries. Bickley says he spent thousands of dollars stocking up on food and protective gear. When Trump touted the lifesaving potential of hydroxychloroquine, Bickley ordered 90 pills online, along with a bunch of Z-Paks and some zinc pills, also touted by the president. Although federal health officials have strongly warned against using the medications to treat covid-19, especially without the oversight of doctors, Bickley is confident that they work.

"I'm not letting anybody on my team die," he said.

Karr nodded and added: "He's a friend who cares."

"I'm a friend who can get (stuff)," Bickley said with a laugh.

In July, Bickley's 32-year-old son-in-law became sick and tested positive for the coronavirus. Soon his 27-year-old daughter was also sick. Bickley offered them the medication, but they declined, suggesting that it was "quack science." The two quickly recovered, he said.

At the boat parade, those on the barge wore headphones or earplugs to protect their hearing against the cannon blasts, but they did not wear masks.

Two weeks after the parade, Bickley was invited by the Trump campaign to sit in the bleachers directly behind the president as he spoke at a rally in Swanton, Ohio, just outside of Toledo. He brought along Karr and some others and wore jeans with rhinestones on the pockets and ostrich skin boots. Because they would be in view of television cameras, the campaign asked the group to put on masks. Most of the thousands who gathered outside did not.

As Trump took the stage and marveled at the sprawling crowd before him, Bickley and Karr did the same. Trump assured the crowd that polls showing a tight race in Ohio were "fake," which is exactly what Bickley and Karr have been telling people. Trump debated aloud if he should nominate a woman to the Supreme Court or a man, as he did with his first two nominations - the sort of joke that Bickley and Karr say the media always takes too seriously.

"I don't want to make the men too angry," Trump said as the crowd laughed. "It will be a woman. Is that OK? I don't want to have a problem with men."

Trump gave himself credit for saving millions of lives and tens of millions of jobs amid the pandemic. He promised to continue to build up the military, the power of which he said he's not afraid to use on American soil. He told the crowd that he is "the only thing standing between you and chaos," and he warned "suburban men and husbands" that if Biden is elected, "you're not going to have your dream very much longer."

Trump left the stage to the recorded sounds of the Village People telling men everywhere that "there's no need to feel down ... there's no need to be unhappy."

Bickley said afterward that the sound system near their group wasn't working properly, so they couldn't always understand what Trump was saying. But they applauded anyway.

"We could see what he saw. We could feel what he felt. We could see the laughter and the joy and the excitement," Bickley said of their front-row seats. "So the couple times I couldn't hear him, that was OK, I knew I was supposed to clap. I don't know what I was clapping about, but I clapped."

 

[swordfish]

Do you think that Joe "Clap for that, you stupid bastards" Biden will actually show up to tomorrow's debate?

[DanteEstonia]

10 hours ago, Muda69 said:

White men backing Trump say they can't be swayed

https://www.thehour.com/news/article/White-men-backing-Trump-say-they-can-t-be-swayed-15601302.php

 

Good for them.

[Muda69]

Trump camp seeks extra debate rule: Third party inspectors to look for electronic devices in candidates' ears: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-third-party-inspect-ears-electronic-devices

Quote

 President Trump is asking for an additional ground rule ahead of Tuesday night’s first presidential debate between himself and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Fox News has learned that the president’s re-election campaign wants the Biden campaign to allow a third party to inspect the ears of each debater for electronic devices or transmitters. The president has consented to this kind of inspection, but Biden has not, so far, sources said.

Over the last several weeks, the former vice president's campaign has also requested two breaks -- one every 30 minutes -- to break up the 90-minute commercial-free program. But that request has been denied by their Trump counterparts, Fox News is told.

A Trump campaign source told Fox News that "our guy doesn't need breaks. He gives 90-minute speeches all the time."

And the source says that the negotiations are still on-going for Tuesday's night's debate -- as well as the remaining two showdowns between Biden and Trump.

Fox News is reaching out to the Commission on Presidential debates – the bipartisan organization that for more than three decades has organized and produced the debates – for a response to the requests from the two campaigns.

The debate – the first of three between Biden and Trump -- kicks off at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday and is being hosted by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. The showdown’s being moderated by "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace.

Sounds like Sleepy Joe needs a couple of pick-me-ups during the debate..................

 

[Muda69]

[Muda69]

Tuesday's Debate Demonstrated That Donald Trump Wants This Election To Become a Chaotic Mess

https://reason.com/2020/09/30/tuesdays-debate-demonstrated-that-donald-trump-wants-this-election-to-become-a-chaotic-mess/

Quote

Near the very end of Tuesday's mostly unwatchable debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, there was actually a single important moment that could have ramifications on and beyond Election Day.

By now, it's no secret that the outcome of this year's presidential election might not be known on November 3. Due to the abnormally high number of mail-in and absentee ballots that are expected to be cast this year—and compounded by the fact that several states, including some important swing states, are not allowed to start counting those ballots before Election Day—there will likely be a large number of completely legitimate votes that won't be counted in the hours immediately after polls close. If the election is close, how the two top candidates act in the immediate aftermath of an uncalled contest will be crucial to securing the legitimacy of the election.

With that in mind, debate moderator Chris Wallace asked both candidates on Tuesday night if they would urge their "supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest" and pledge that neither would declare victory until the results were final.

Trump immediately rejected the premise.

"I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully," he said, before spiraling off into a tangent about how some of his supporters were "thrown out" of polling places in Philadelphia earlier today. "You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia," Trump said.

Fair enough. But in this case, it doesn't look as devious as the president is trying to make it sound. City commissioners in Philadelphia have denied that anyone was unfairly tossed from election offices processing mail-in ballots, according to the local CBS affiliate.

Later in the same answer, Trump accused Democrats of cheating because of reports that "they found ballots in a wastepaper basket three days ago…and they all had the name 'Trump' on them."

Again, there's a bit of truth here. The FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police are investigating an incident in which nine ballots were apparently discarded in a Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, election office. At this point, it remains unclear whether those ballots were discarded for legitimate reasons. But Trump and his supporters have seized on the fact that at least seven of the votes were cast for the incumbent president as proof of malfeasance.

All of that only makes it more important for Trump, Biden, and everyone else to keep their shit together for the next six or eight or 10 weeks. But Trump's ultimate goal is not allowing law enforcement to determine the truth about whether those nine ballots were legitimately discarded. He'd much rather use the incident as a wedge to raise questions about the legitimacy of the entire election.

As Wallace dutifully pointed out, there were more than 31 million mail-in votes cast in the 2018 election—more than a quarter of all votes. As Biden pointed out, there are five states where elections are now conducted almost entirely by mail—and he could have pointed out that at least one of those vote-by-mail systems, in Colorado, was implemented by a Republican. No matter how many times Trump tries to claim otherwise, it is simply not true that more mail-in voting will disadvantage Republicans.

Biden's response to the same question from Wallace was exactly what you'd hope to hear from a national leader. "Yes," he said, he would wait to declare victory until the race was certified. "No one has established at all that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots," he added. "I will accept [the outcome]."

But it matters that Trump won't say he trusts the process, and it matters that he won't tell his supporters to wait for the results to be counted. It matters that he seems willing to turn everything into a conspiracy directed against him.

"This is not going to end well," Trump said at the very end of his tirade.

It might turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

After trying to watch this 'debate' for about 20 minutes I'm more convinced than ever that Mr. Trump is nothing but a narcissistic buffoon.  He needs to be voted out of office, and not by sleepy Joe Biden.

 

 

[swordfish]

(IMHO) There will be no movement in voter's attitudes from the debate last evening.  I think that was the goal of the Trump campaign.  I think the Republican Campaign knows the polls as advertised are very inaccurate and his goal was to continue to be as bold and arrogant as always while jabbing Biden with known truths such as Hunter's  misdeeds and the former VP's 47 years in DC.  I think both bases stayed put last night which may have been the President's goal.  

I think Biden had the number 750 engrained in his head trying to point at the tax issue trying to get pinned on Trump.  If Trump would have pointed out that the reason his accountants had such easy work getting his deductions was the fact that the former VP and Senator for 40 years had his hand in making those laws that he (Biden) now wants to change I think that may have been a good point to drive home.

If you disliked the former VP, you really do today, and the same for the President.  But if you supported the President (or the VP) you most likely do even more this morning.

I think the real loser was the moderator.

[swordfish]

Clarification:

Joe Biden:  The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward"

**Moments later**

Chris Wallace:  Do you support the Green New Deal?

Joe Biden:  No, I don't support the Green New Deal.

[Muda69]

5 hours ago, swordfish said:

(IMHO) There will be no movement in voter's attitudes from the debate last evening.  I think that was the goal of the Trump campaign.  I think the Republican Campaign knows the polls as advertised are very inaccurate and his goal was to continue to be as bold and arrogant as always while jabbing Biden with known truths such as Hunter's  misdeeds and the former VP's 47 years in DC.  I think both bases stayed put last night which may have been the President's goal.  

I think Biden had the number 750 engrained in his head trying to point at the tax issue trying to get pinned on Trump.  If Trump would have pointed out that the reason his accountants had such easy work getting his deductions was the fact that the former VP and Senator for 40 years had his hand in making those laws that he (Biden) now wants to change I think that may have been a good point to drive home.

If you disliked the former VP, you really do today, and the same for the President.  But if you supported the President (or the VP) you most likely do even more this morning.

I think the real loser was the moderator.

So you had no issues with Mr. Trump complete lack of debate decorum?  Sorry, that isn't being "bold and arrogant", it is being a jerk.  Plain and simple.

And please explain why the moderator was a loser?  If anything the American people were all losers, at least those who watched or at least attempted to watch.

 

[TheStatGuy]

5 hours ago, swordfish said:

Clarification:

Joe Biden:  The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward"

**Moments later**

Chris Wallace:  Do you support the Green New Deal?

Joe Biden:  No, I don't support the Green New Deal.

 

7 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Tuesday's Debate Demonstrated That Donald Trump Wants This Election To Become a Chaotic Mess

https://reason.com/2020/09/30/tuesdays-debate-demonstrated-that-donald-trump-wants-this-election-to-become-a-chaotic-mess/

After trying to watch this 'debate' for about 20 minutes I'm more convinced than ever that Mr. Trump is nothing but a narcissistic buffoon.  He needs to be voted out of office, and not by sleepy Joe Biden.

 

 

He will be voted out of office.. Don't worry. 

[swordfish]

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

So you had no issues with Mr. Trump complete lack of debate decorum?  Sorry, that isn't being "bold and arrogant", it is being a jerk.  Plain and simple.

And please explain why the moderator was a loser?  If anything the American people were all losers, at least those who watched or at least attempted to watch.

 

SF had problems with both candidates all evening.  And yes it was arrogance, because DJT is arrogant.  You call him a jerk, so be it.  You were OK with the moderator?  He lost control within minutes of the start of the debate.  My post mainly was to say I don't think anyone on the fence will have been moved from last night's performance......

[Muda69]

1 minute ago, swordfish said:

SF had problems with both candidates all evening.  And yes it was arrogance, because DJT is arrogant.  You call him a jerk, so be it.  You were OK with the moderator?  He lost control within minutes of the start of the debate.  My post mainly was to say I don't think anyone on the fence will have been moved from last night's performance......

How exactly did the moderator lose control?  What would you have done instead to reign in both candidates, but especially Mr. Trump?

And narcissistic arrogance is not a preferred presidential trait. Frankly the wide support for such a trait just shows the overall cognitive decline of the American electorate.

 

[TheStatGuy]

6 hours ago, swordfish said:

(IMHO) There will be no movement in voter's attitudes from the debate last evening.  I think that was the goal of the Trump campaign.  I think the Republican Campaign knows the polls as advertised are very inaccurate and his goal was to continue to be as bold and arrogant as always while jabbing Biden with known truths such as Hunter's  misdeeds and the former VP's 47 years in DC.  I think both bases stayed put last night which may have been the President's goal.  

I think Biden had the number 750 engrained in his head trying to point at the tax issue trying to get pinned on Trump.  If Trump would have pointed out that the reason his accountants had such easy work getting his deductions was the fact that the former VP and Senator for 40 years had his hand in making those laws that he (Biden) now wants to change I think that may have been a good point to drive home.

If you disliked the former VP, you really do today, and the same for the President.  But if you supported the President (or the VP) you most likely do even more this morning.

I think the real loser was the moderator.

Polls are very inaccurate? 

Polls were pretty spot on in the 2018, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2008, 2006, 2004 and 2002 elections.

Clinton was predicted to win by 3.2 percent, she was in the margin of error and won the popular vote by 2.1 percent.  Clinton was in the average margin of error in a few states and lost a couple of those. 

The polls weren't wrong. You just don't understand how polls work. 

Serious question. You hate regular people that cheat the system but why aren't you mad that Trump is doing the dame damn thing but has the money not to do that. 

 

Trump beating home about Hunter Biden is stupid. Biden could just as easy attack trumps older 3 kids and probably do just as much damage or even more.

 

I think Biden being senile or dementia should be put to bed.. Last night clearly showed he isn't senile or has dementia.

I think both bases stayed put and that's the presidents goal? Really? When you debate it isn't about holding down your base, it's about winning over the undecideds.. Trump attacking Biden's dead son really didn't help him or the fact he didn't denounce the proud boys or any bad group didnt help him among the Undecideds. 

[TheStatGuy]

3 hours ago, Muda69 said:

How exactly did the moderator lose control?  What would you have done instead to reign in both candidates, but especially Mr. Trump?

And narcissistic arrogance is not a preferred presidential trait. Frankly the wide support for such a trait just shows the overall cognitive decline of the American electorate.

 

Chris Wallace was basically asked to baby sit two kids. One kinda got out of hand and the 2nd was out of control the whole entire time. 

I Don't think the moderator did bad at all. 

3 hours ago, swordfish said:

SF had problems with both candidates all evening.  And yes it was arrogance, because DJT is arrogant.  You call him a jerk, so be it.  You were OK with the moderator?  He lost control within minutes of the start of the debate.  My post mainly was to say I don't think anyone on the fence will have been moved from last night's performance......

Really? You don't think an undecided person liked it when Trump didn't dismiss the proud boys? Or liked it when Trump went after Beau Biden?

[swordfish]

16 hours ago, Muda69 said:

How exactly did the moderator lose control?  What would you have done instead to reign in both candidates, but especially Mr. Trump?

And narcissistic arrogance is not a preferred presidential trait. Frankly the wide support for such a trait just shows the overall cognitive decline of the American electorate.

 

Then vote for someone else.  We already know you will.  

12 hours ago, TheStatGuy said:

Chris Wallace was basically asked to baby sit two kids. One kinda got out of hand and the 2nd was out of control the whole entire time. 

I Don't think the moderator did bad at all. 

Really? You don't think an undecided person liked it when Trump didn't dismiss the proud boys? Or liked it when Trump went after Beau Biden?

Chris Wallace specifically asked him to "condemn white supremacists and militia groups".  Biden piped up "The Proud Boys".  

The President DIDN'T "go after" Beau Biden.  He "went after" Hunter Biden.....Which Joe didn't answer to, nor did Chris Wallace.  Nobody (the President included) denies Beau Biden served in the military and died a tragic death, but for the former VP to bring up a debunked story that DJT called those who died in war "losers and suckers" meant "game on" to Trump and he hit back.

[Muda69]

32 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Then vote for someone else.  We already know you will.  

And I honestly implore you to not vote for either uni-party candidate.

 

[Muda69]

Debates commission plans to cut off mics if Trump or Biden break rules: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/presidential-debates-rules-changes-cutting-microphones/

Quote

The commission that oversees the general election presidential debates said Wednesday it will be making changes to the format of the remaining two debates. One key change it plans to implement: Cutting off the microphones of President Trump and Joe Biden if they break the rules, according to a source familiar with the commission's deliberations. The plans have not been finalized and the commission is still considering how it would carry out the plan.

 

The Commission on Presidential Debates is responding to Tuesday's face-off between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, which was marred by frequent interruptions by the president and mud-slinging.

In a statement following the presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, the first of three scheduled in the run-up to the general election, the commission said the event "made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues." 

"The CPD will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce those measures shortly," the organization said. "The Commission is grateful to Chris Wallace for the professionalism and skill he brought to last night's debate and intends to ensure that additional tools to maintain order are in place for the remaining debates."

An informed source told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell the commission will spend the next 48 hours determining new guidelines and rules for the second debate. The organization is working on all possible solutions, but the source said that "we are going to be making changes."

At the top of the list is controlling the two candidates' microphones and their ability to interrupt one another and the moderator. The campaigns will be informed of the rules, but the source said the rules will not be subject to negotiation.

For the next debate, which is a town hall, there will be only 15-20 people in the hall asking questions.

Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, criticized the commission for the forthcoming measures.

"They're only doing this because their guy got pummeled last night," he said in a statement. "President Trump was the dominant force and now Joe Biden is trying to work the refs. They shouldn't be moving the goalposts and changing the rules in the middle of the game."

Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager for Biden's campaign, said the former vice president is ready for the next contest in Miami.

 

"He'll be focused on answering questions from the voters there, under whatever set of rules the Commission develops to try to contain Donald Trump's behavior," she said in a statement. "The president will have to choose between responding to voters about questions for which he has offered no answers in this campaign — or repeating last night's unhinged meltdown."

....

The chaos of the first debate raised questions as to the effectiveness of the additional two scheduled for October. The second presidential debate is slated for October 15 in Miami, followed by the third and final debate set for October 22 in Nashville.

 

One change I would like to see is this commission allowing 3rd party candidates, who are on at least enough state ballots to garner 270 electoral votes, debate with the uni-party candidates as well.

[Muda69]

[Muda69]