2020 Election Commentary

[oggsmash]

I find it strange that people are suddenly McCain supporters who I have a feeling never had a kind word to say about him before.  I guess if a hero to you is a guy who bombs peasants... 

Can we not go back to referring to Vietnam War vets as baby-killers and the like, OK?

You said baby killers... so stop saying it?

[TNMalt]

Trump's rally in Georgia was full on crazy. Good account of the crazy train here.
https://thebulwark.com/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia/
And Trump could never comprehend military service. He doesn't understand decisions that don't benefit him.

[oggsmash]

Trump's rally in Georgia was full on crazy. Good account of the crazy train here.
https://thebulwark.com/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia/
And Trump could never comprehend military service. He doesn't understand decisions that don't benefit him.

  The problem is his kind of crazy is contagious.  I do doubt a guy who was already running business before he was finished with high school has little understanding of basically being a drone for people who tell you where to go, what to do, when to line up for shots, etc.  This is not a slag on anyone who has served in the military, it is the absolute truth.  You are essentially property when you enlist.

[Tubesock Army]

Trump's rally in Georgia was full on crazy. Good account of the crazy train here.
https://thebulwark.com/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia/
And Trump could never comprehend military service. He doesn't understand decisions that don't benefit him.

  The problem is his kind of crazy is contagious.  I do doubt a guy who was already running business before he was finished with high school has little understanding of basically being a drone for people who tell you where to go, what to do, when to line up for shots, etc.  This is not a slag on anyone who has served in the military, it is the absolute truth.  You are essentially property when you enlist.

"Running Businesses" lmao. There's little evidence of Trump being successful in business. He inherited hundreds of millions and pissed it away. His lack of understanding the military mindset has nothing to do with being a Captain of Industry and everything to do with being a narcissistic sociopath.

[oggsmash]

Trump's rally in Georgia was full on crazy. Good account of the crazy train here.
https://thebulwark.com/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia/
And Trump could never comprehend military service. He doesn't understand decisions that don't benefit him.

  The problem is his kind of crazy is contagious.  I do doubt a guy who was already running business before he was finished with high school has little understanding of basically being a drone for people who tell you where to go, what to do, when to line up for shots, etc.  This is not a slag on anyone who has served in the military, it is the absolute truth.  You are essentially property when you enlist.

"Running Businesses" lmao. There's little evidence of Trump being successful in business. He inherited hundreds of millions and pissed it away. His lack of understanding the military mindset has nothing to do with being a Captain of Industry and everything to do with being a narcissistic sociopath.

How many people has he employed for how many years?  I know several people who inherited a bunch of money.  Most of them never did a thing.  As for narcissist sociopaths, that is pretty much any national level politician, so he has plenty of company.   There are also a few of those in the military as well. 

[jeff37923]

Trump's rally in Georgia was full on crazy. Good account of the crazy train here.
https://thebulwark.com/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia/
And Trump could never comprehend military service. He doesn't understand decisions that don't benefit him.

I love the byline about the guy who wrote that....

Tim Miller
Tim Miller is The Bulwark's writer-at-large. He was previously political director for Republican Voters Against Trump, communications director for Jeb Bush 2016, and spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

No possible bias to see here....

[jeff37923]

Trump's rally in Georgia was full on crazy. Good account of the crazy train here.
https://thebulwark.com/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia/
And Trump could never comprehend military service. He doesn't understand decisions that don't benefit him.

  The problem is his kind of crazy is contagious.  I do doubt a guy who was already running business before he was finished with high school has little understanding of basically being a drone for people who tell you where to go, what to do, when to line up for shots, etc.  This is not a slag on anyone who has served in the military, it is the absolute truth.  You are essentially property when you enlist.

"Running Businesses" lmao. There's little evidence of Trump being successful in business. He inherited hundreds of millions and pissed it away. His lack of understanding the military mindset has nothing to do with being a Captain of Industry and everything to do with being a narcissistic sociopath.

Well, he did vastly improve the American economy after the Obama Administration's doldrums....

[Shasarak]

The only breathing problem of George Floyd I was aware of was recovering from Covid-19, which he reportedly informed the police arresting him of. I was aware that he had criminal convictions although not in much detail but he had apparently turned his life around since release from prison in 2013. He allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill at a store and it seems possible that, having lost his job because of the pandemic, he committed that crime but also possible that he was unaware the bill was counterfeit. Do you think that any of this justifies killing George Floyd?

One of the side effects of over dosing on Fentanyl is breathing problems and or death.

[rawma]

  Right leaning people do not have a problem believing anything.

Very, very true. And that's most of the problem right there.

[Shasarak]

  Right leaning people do not have a problem believing anything.

Very, very true. And that's most of the problem right there.

So what do you expect the Police to do, shoot the Fentanyl out?

[Kael]

Well, he did vastly improve the American economy after the Obama Administration's doldrums....

Unemployment rate (Obama): 5.3% decrease
Unemployment rate (Trump): 1.2% decrease (excluding the pandemic, of course)

GDP rate (Obama): +2.5%
GDP rate (Trump): +2.6% (excluding pandemic)

Debt ratio (Obama): 76.4%
Debt ratio (Trump): 79.2% (excluding, pandemic)

Trump's sizable debt increase (due to 2018 tax cuts) more than wipes out any GDP gains during that time.

The pandemic numbers will make all his legacy numbers look even more horrible, naturally.

[Shasarak]

The willingness on the right to believe just about anything is much greater, but the left is not immune to false information.

The right will believe just about anything and on the other hand even they cant gag down the stuff people like CNN put out.

[Kael]

Well, he did vastly improve the American economy after the Obama Administration's doldrums....

Unemployment rate (Obama): 5.3% decrease
Unemployment rate (Trump): 1.2% decrease (excluding the pandemic, of course)

GDP rate (Obama): +2.5%
GDP rate (Trump): +2.6% (excluding pandemic)

Debt ratio (Obama): 76.4%
Debt ratio (Trump): 79.2% (excluding, pandemic)

Trump's sizable debt increase (due to 2018 tax cuts) more than wipes out any GDP gains during that time.

The pandemic numbers will make all his legacy numbers look even more horrible, naturally, but he did a great job riding Obama's coattails, so I'll give him credit for that.

[oggsmash]

  Right leaning people do not have a problem believing anything.

Very, very true. And that's most of the problem right there.

After "russian agent", russian collusion, and the dossier, I think you have about zero room to talk about the other end.  You might even say, the MASSIVE bias from the media may be the reason no one believes anything anyone says who has a different ideological perspective.  I would say THAT is the problem.

[rawma]

Part of the problem is that the media have become utterly unreliable, and I'd argue worse so on the left, which I used to follow more than the right. Most leftists seem oblivious to it, while right-wingers are so aware of it that they are skeptical to anything that doesn't "feel right" to them, because they are constantly being lied to (and by Republicans too by the way). I have debated people on a left-leaning forum, and they had no clue that Trump supporters had been murdered in the protests, that George Floyd had breathing problems before he was put on the ground, or that he had previously committed armed robbery of a pregnant woman. Or indeed that the Democrats, in trying to expose Russian collusion had been going after an informant for CIA, i.e. he was helping the US intelligence against the Russians. That was actually when the collusion story fell apart, but most leftists don't know that it ever did.

The willingness on the right to believe just about anything is much greater, but the left is not immune to false information.

Trump supporters killed at protests? I was aware of one in Portland, and that the perpetrator was later shot by police (and that Donald Trump extolled this as a good and even intended result). I was unaware of the one in Denver on October 10. There have been more killings of BLM protesters, and the murderer in Kenosha became a hero of Trumpies.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled

The only breathing problem of George Floyd I was aware of was recovering from Covid-19, which he reportedly informed the police arresting him of. I was aware that he had criminal convictions although not in much detail but he had apparently turned his life around since release from prison in 2013. He allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill at a store and it seems possible that, having lost his job because of the pandemic, he committed that crime but also possible that he was unaware the bill was counterfeit. Do you think that any of this justifies killing George Floyd?

Your last comment about collusion investigations compromising a CIA informant, or even just that the collusion story fell apart, is going to need some links.

Do I think that justifies killing George Floyd? Of course not. I'm not so sure he was actually killed though. The initial video released was cut to show only the worst possible case for the police officers.

Cue the conspiracy theories. George Floyd, crisis actor? Autopsy says homicide. Bad luck for Chauvin that he happened to kneel on a guy's neck for over 8 minutes while somebody else was killing him.

But I won't miss a guy who forced himself into a pregnant woman's house and threatened her with a gun.

I won't miss a president who is responsible for the unnecessary deaths of two hundred thousand Americans. At least George Floyd served the time for his wrongdoing.

I believe that the whole case should be investigated, with all the info, unlike the hysterical reactions based on incomplete info, trial-by-mob guilty-by-association some people seem to prefer.

It has been investigated, and the investigation has resulted in charges against the officers. It was the catalyst for a lot of protests, but there's a long history of disparate treatments of blacks. Previous incidents that might have prompted the same level of widely supported protests may not have simply because there wasn't the same strong direct evidence, or maybe this was just the last straw. Riots after Rodney King was beaten would have been seen very differently without the videotape of that beating. I'm OK with people not waiting until there's an absolutely saintly victim with hours of video from every angle for hours before and after the event.

Meanwhile leftists convince themselves that such a case happening to a white man would lead to a greater outrage. Well, similar things have happened to white people before, and nobody gave a shit. USA is not a racist country, it's a race-hysterical country. As a side note notice also the hysteria surrounding the "smirking kid" vs the Native American with the drum. I watched the same video as everyone else and saw absolutely nothing newsworthy happening.

I think leftists believe that the same thing wouldn't usually happen to a white man in the same situation. Rarer cases wouldn't lead to the same outrage; prosecuting the officers responsible for a white victim would probably satisfy most people. Again, it's not a single incident; it's the systemic racism that causes this to happen over and over to blacks.

Funny thing about the killings is that the right-wingers doing the shooting tend to look more like self defense (see Kenosha) while killings by lefties look more like straight up executions (Portland), even when seeing greatly cut down videos of the events, but again let's hope we get some thorough investigations and trials. Leftists being more violent at protests is something I have observed first hand though. They seriously need to clean up the garbage among their ranks.

Repotedly the Denver case started with the victim slapping an unlicensed security guard who then shot him. The other right-winger killed was part of a group that repeatedly sought to clash with protesters; there is little evidence of how the altercation proceeded.

Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from another state with a gun he couldn't legally own. Unlike with George Floyd, police ignored the white teenager when witnesses told them he had shot people. The first degree murder charges seem very appropriate. Those protests were prompted by the shooting of Jacob Blake, shot 7 times with little more justification than a knife being subsequently found in his car.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/27/facebook-posts/no-jacob-blake-did-not-brandish-knife-gun-kenosha/

The "Russian collusion" guy's name is Carter Page.

Any link to the collusion story falling apart? The Horowitz report found serious misconduct in the FISA applications. Of course, the DOJ under Barr altered Peter Strzok's notes in the Michael Flynn case.

The report found that the FBI had a legal "authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication" to ask for court approval to begin surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The Russian collusion had relatively little to do with Carter Page; look rather at the prosecutions of Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and others and the Senate Intelligence report. There's credible evidence for Russian collusion and no credible evidence for any inaccuracy in the presidential election outcome.

  Right leaning people do not have a problem believing anything.

Very, very true. And that's most of the problem right there.

After "russian agent", russian collusion, and the dossier, I think you have about zero room to talk about the other end.  You might even say, the MASSIVE bias from the media may be the reason no one believes anything anyone says who has a different ideological perspective.  I would say THAT is the problem.

Yes, the other side of the problem is the right-leaning believing nothing, no matter the evidence for it.

The common element is not belief or disbelief; it's the disconnect from evidence.