[Tsundoku]

I bet it will be a surprise to Joe as well. I'm seriously worried about his mental state and by association the Dems chances of getting rid of Trump and his vile band.
His choice of running mate is going to be more important than any other US election I can recall. He says he won't go a second term if he wins, but I doubt he could make it through a first term.

OK people - who are your preferred VP noms for Joe?

[Aptorian]

The expectation is that he has to pick a black woman to fulfil various democrat minority quotas. Recently there was footage of Biden having Kamela Harris name singled out on some note (probably planned to gauge public response), so she's likely the front runner.

Edit: If you speculate that Biden is a one term president, then long term planning would have the democrats lining up their next presidential candidate as VP to get them the necessary clout. And it has to be somebody who fits their modern values. So it's likely either Harris or Elizabeth Warren.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 01 August 2020 - 06:20 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

I honestly don't think America is civilised or advanced enough as a society to cope with having someone who is both female and not white as president. Look how they tore down everything they claimed to stand for just because a black man was successful...

[Tsundoku]

I'd like to see Warren because I think she's great. But she has age against her, and she couldn't even win her own state in the Primary.
While I'm not too sure about the diversity thing Apt mentioned, I've also heard it floated about elsewhere so won't discount it. Can't really discount anything in these unprecedented times.

KH strikes me as being tough AF, but I'm not too sure of her politics and sadly I think Simmo might be right. I hope we're wrong if she gets the nod though.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 01 August 2020 - 09:42 AM

[Terez]

Tsundoku, on 01 August 2020 - 09:40 AM, said:

she couldn't even win her own state in the Primary.

I wish people would stop making a big deal about this. By the time it got to Massachusetts, people were already worried about "splitting the vote" and that they might get stuck with Bernie. Doesn't mean they don't think Warren would do a good job; they just went with Biden as the "safe" option. (PS: I should probably mention that the reverse is also true, maybe even moreso. Many people who love Warren as a senator just thought Bernie had a better chance of getting the nomination, so they voted for him.)

There are no actual quotas in the Democratic Party. A lot of black voters don't even like Kamala Harris and it's mostly white people who are pushing her as the woman of color option. Other black women who are being considered include Stacey Abrams (who got cheated in the latest Georgia gubernatorial election), Val Demings (a Florida rep and former cop), and Karen Bass (a California rep).

This post has been edited by Terez: 01 August 2020 - 10:18 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Postal Service may close offices, cut service ahead of election

Manchin, union leader demand explanation from new postmaster, who seeks "operational pivot"

The U.S. Postal Service is considering closing post offices across the country, sparking concerns ahead of an anticipated surge of mail-in ballots in the 2020 elections, U.S. Sen Joe Manchin and a union leader said Wednesday.

[...] The possible cutbacks come as DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump who took control of the agency last month, moves to eliminate overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers, potentially causing a delay in mail deliveries.'

https://www.marketwa...QQOg3kdhZYJ9C_8

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 August 2020 - 04:46 PM

[Malankazooie]

Oh deary me. Trump all butthurt about what went down in TikTok to ruin his Tulsa white nationalist, neo nazi rally. So he angry now, folds arms in pouty consternation and is going to ban it. The BTS Army / Kpoppers are going to respond I'm guessing.

Also, funny side note: On the hourly news run down on NPR News, the person called it "tick tack."

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 01 August 2020 - 04:44 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Trump [...] suggested the election should be postponed and insisted that it be called on election night, "not days, months, or even years later!"

But while Trump can't move the election, he's doing everything he can to discredit its results and make it as hard as possible to vote by mail, even as his rhetoric has made mail voting a much more popular option for Democrats than Republicans.

That's created a toxic situation where Democrats are increasingly likely to vote by mail in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, while Trump and the GOP dig in against reforms that could help states' and counties' rickety and underfunded voting systems avoid disaster on Election Day. And it means in a close election, local failures in mail voting and U.S. Postal Service snafus could easily trigger a national crisis.

It will take days or weeks for a number of states to count up their ballots and determine who's won in close contests. That's normal — states that regularly vote by mail in large numbers, like Arizona and California, always take weeks to count their ballots. But there are just more states doing it this year, which gives Trump the chance to lie that the election is being rigged against him.'

https://www.vice.com...-day-into-chaos

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 August 2020 - 05:09 PM

[Aptorian]

While, the Trump adminstration mostly do it for all the wrong reasons, I applaud all attempts at thumbing your nose at China. We're in a cold war with them few acknowledge. Anything that monitors your activity and shares information coming from China should be avoided like the plague.

[ArchieVist]

Tiste Simeon said:

I honestly don't think America is civilised or advanced enough as a society to cope with having someone who is both female and not white as president. Look how they tore down everything they claimed to stand for just because a black man was successful...

I'm just an uncivilized and unadvanced American so I'm going to need some help here. How many female non-white prime ministers has Great Britain had? Or Canada? Or Europe?

Give me a break.

Barack Obama was a popular two term black president despite the GOP media machine. Bill Clinton got similar treatment (without the racial element) back when the machine wasn't quite so fine tuned. And people forget that Trump received three million FEWER votes than Hillary Clinton. If the US didn't have an antiquated electoral college system, it would have had its first female president in 2016.

[Tiste Simeon]

Oh yeah Britain isn't much better and your know my thoughts on our system is you had read any of my posts in the relevant threads, but I can see it happening in a bunch of other countries without too many issues. The US though? White supremacy and misogyny are entrenched in a system designed to keep the same people in power.

[Macros]

I dunno Tiste, chances of a black PM are pretty fucking low in Britain.

we had a female PM sure, posh as fuck, privileged elite Tory scum.

[Tiste Simeon]

As I said. We're not much better. Look at the abuse the likes of David Lammy and Diane Abbott get. Scum the lot of them. I mean London voted for a Muslim mayor so maybe there's a little bit of hope but I dunno.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Trump on Monday set September 15 as the deadline for TikTok to find a US buyer, failing which he said he will shut down the app in the country. In an unusual declaration, Trump also said any deal would have to include a "substantial amount of money" coming to the US Treasury.

"Right now they don't have any rights unless we give it to them. So if we're going to give them the rights, then ... it has to come into this country," Trump said. "It's a great asset, but it's not a great asset in the United States unless they have approval in the United States."

Asked in a subsequent press briefing whether the money for the Treasury should come from Microsoft — which is pursuing a purchase of TikTok — or TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance, Trump said the US should get a significant portion of the deal "either way."

"Whether it's Microsoft or somebody else, or if it's the Chinese — what the price is, the United States could — should get a very large percentage of that price. Because we're making it possible," he said.

Trump described his proposal as being similar to a lease between a landlord and a tenant, adding that TikTok owes the US for its success.

[...] The President's requirement that some of the money from the deal go to the US Treasury doesn't have a basis in antitrust law[...] "This is quite unusual,
this is out of the norm," Kimmelman said. "It's actually quite hard to understand what the president is actually talking about here. ... It's not unheard of for transactions to have broader geopolitical implications between countries, but it's quite remarkable to think about some kind of money being on the table in connection with a transaction."

[...] "This is a purchase that wouldn't be necessary but for the Trump administration's hostility to Chinese ownership of any tech companies," said Mark Lemley, director of Stanford University's program in law, science and technology, adding that there isn't "much real evidence" that the app's Chinese ownership presents a security threat.'

https://www.cnn.com/...sury/index.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 August 2020 - 01:21 AM

[Cause]

I thought it was actually considered a real security threat, same as huwei 5g.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 04 August 2020 - 02:57 AM, said:

I thought it was actually considered a real security threat, same as huwei 5g.

'US officials have provided little evidence for their claims about TikTok aside from pointing to its country of origin. [...] The company stresses that it stores data on Americans users in the US and that none of it is subject to Chinese law. (TikTok’s Privacy Policy states, however, that it may share user data with a “parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group.”) [...] “We use multiple external third parties [and] internal security teams to test and validate and beat on our product on a daily basis to look at potential vulnerabilities.” [...]

Mobile security experts say TikTok’s data collection practices aren’t particularly unique for an advertising-based business, and largely resemble those of its US-owned competitors. “For the iOS app available to Western audiences, it appears to collect very standard analytics information,” says Will Strafach, an iOS security researcher and creator of the privacy-focused Guardian Firewall app. That includes things like a user’s device model, their screen resolution, the operating system they use, and the time zone they’re in. “Most data collection by apps concerns me, I don’t like any of it. However, in context, TikTok appears to be pretty tame compared to other apps,” he says.

Dave Choffnes, a computer science professor and mobile networking researcher at Northeastern University, wasn’t able to assess the Android version of TikTok firsthand, but relied on an analysis posted to Reddit, which many of TikTok’s critics have cited. Based on that, Choffnes says TikTok appears to be “in the same league” as other social media apps, which often collect extensive data about their users, including their precise location.

[...] In addition to user data it automatically collects, TikTok also has a vast trove of information about what videos millions of Americans are watching, and what topics they may be searching for on the platform. It’s become an important venue for political speech and activism, and some researchers worry the Chinese government could use it to sway public opinion or censor topics it doesn’t want discussed. “The average user, if they’re concerned about TikTok, should be far more worried about potential censorship than they should be about espionage,” says Justin Sherman, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s cyber statecraft initiative.

[...] TikTok is far from the only tech firm in the US with ties to China. Tencent, the company behind WeChat, is a large investor in Reddit, for example. “The slippery slope is exactly the reason we should be very skeptical of this, because it just sends us down into this spiral of distrust,” says Kuo. “If we do this, then what else is fair game?”

A better solution, some experts say, would be to institute robust rules for protecting people’s privacy and preventing data misuse by companies, regardless of which country they happen to be from.'

https://www.wired.co...-security-risk/

[Aptorian]

Man, this New Zealand Herald interview with Donald Trump. Whoooo boy. And it's on film.

https://www.nzherald...jectid=12353763

Lincoln Project has content for weeks with this interview.

Here's some of the conversation:

Quote

Swan: "I've covered you for a long time. I've gone to your rallies, I've talked to your people. They love you, they listen to you, they listen to every word you say. They hang on to your every word. They don't listen to me, or the media, or Fauci, they think we're fake news. They want to get their advice from you. And so when they hear you say, 'Everything's under control, don't worry about wearing masks,' these are people – many of them are older people, Mr President. It's giving them a false sense of security."

Trump: "Well what's your definition of control? Under the circumstances, right now, I think it's under control."

Swan: "How? 1000 are dying a day."

Trump: "They are dying, that's true. And it is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague that beset us."

Swan: "You really think this is as much as we can control it? 1000 deaths a day?"

Trump: "I'd like to know if somebody – first of all, we have done a great job. We've got the governors everything they needed. They didn't do their job – many of them didn't, some of them did. We had good and bad and we had a lot in the middle. But we had some incredible governors – I could tell you, right now, who the great ones are and who the not-so-great ones are. But the governors do it."

To be fair Trump, this sort of attempt to shift the blame for a bungled crisis to someone else is pretty standard stuff from a politician.

Anyway, a short time later, the President brought up his favourite excuse for the scale of America's outbreak.

Trump: "You know, there are those that say you can test too much. You do know that."

Swan: "Who says that?"

Trump: "Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books."

Swan: "Manuals? What manuals?"

Trump: "Read the books. Read the books."

Swan: "What books?"

Trump: "What testing does-"

Swan: "No, I'm sorry, who says-"

Trump:

"Let me explain. What testing does, it shows cases. It shows where they may be cases. Other countries test – you know when they test? They test when somebody's sick. That's when they test. And I'm not saying they're right or wrong. Nobody's done it like we've done it. We've got absolutely no credit for it. But we've come up with so many tests. The only thing we have now is, some people have to wait longer than we'd like them to."

Swan: "It's a big problem."

Swan tried to move on to another subject, but Trump felt he had more of value to say.

Trump: "Excuse me, one thing I would say about testing. Because we test so much, we show cases. So we show many, many cases. We should tremendous numbers of cases. I know you're smiling when I say that, but-"

Swan: "No but, come on. I've heard you say this, but-"

Trump: "Other countries don't test like we do, so they don't show cases."

Swan: "Just a couple of points on that. I wasn't going to continue on the testing, but you said it. So, we're testing so much because it's spread so far in America, and-"

Trump: "We're testing so much because we had the ability to test, because we came up with – Jonathan, we didn't even have a test. When I took over, we didn't even have a test."

Swan: "Why would you have a test? The virus didn't exist! How would you have a test?"

Trump: "I was going to say, there was no test for this new – we didn't have a test, because there was no test."

Swan: "Of course!"

Trump: "And in very short order, we got one test, we got another test."

Swan: "It was broken, the first one."

Trump: "Many of those tests are now obsolete, because you know, it's called science, and all of a sudden something's better. But because we tested so many people, 55-60 million people, very soon, we get cases. You test, some kid has even just a little runny nose, it's a case. And then you report many cases. So we look like we have more cases than massive countries, like China – which by the way, doesn't report, as you know."

Swan: "I don't put any stock in China's figures."

Trump: "The point is, because we are so much better at testing than any other country in the world, we show more cases."

Swan: "The figure I look at is death. And death is going up now. It's 1000 a day."

Trump: "If you look at death – take a look at some of these charts."

The President reached over and picked up a few sheets of paper.

Trump: "Here's one. Well, right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories. We're lower than the world."

Swan: "Lower than the world?"

Trump: "Lower than Europe."

Swan: "In what? In what?"

Swan: "Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of population. That's where the US is really bad. Much worse than Germany, South Korea, et cetera."

Trump: "You can't – you can't do that."

Swan: "Why can't I do that?"

Trump: "You have to go by, you have to go by – look. Here is the United States – you have to go by the cases. The cases of death."

Swan: "Why not as a proportion of population?"

Trump: "What it says is when you have somebody, where there's a case, the people that live from those cases."

Swan: "Sure. It's surely a relevant statistic to say if the US has X population and X percentage of death of that population, opposed to some-"

Trump: "No, because you have to go by the cases."

Swan: "In South Korea, for example – 51 million population, 300 deaths. It's like, it's crazy compared to other countries."

Trump: "You don't know that. You don't know that."

Swan: "I do. You think they're faking their statistics? South Korea?"

Trump: "Ahhhhh, I won't get into that, because I have a very good relationship with the country. But you don't know that. They have spikes."

Swan: "Germany, low 9000s?"

Trump: "Here's one right here, United States. The number of cases – have a look. We're last. Meaning we're first."

Trump was brandishing another chart at this point.

Swan: "Last? I don't know what we're first in."

Trump: "Take a look, it's cases. And we have cases because of the testing."

Swan: "I mean, 1000 Americans are dying a day. But I understand, on cases, it's different."

Trump: "No but you're not reporting it correctly, Jonathan."

Swan: "I think I am."

That, mercifully, was the end of the discussion about coronavirus.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 04 August 2020 - 12:21 PM

[QuickTidal]

That is the rant of a dementia-addled brain.

His brain LITERALLY thinks that "more cases" is because "more testing" and less testing would mean less cases and thus less people dead.

Like this is honestly where his brain is at. It cannot make the connection between the cases and deaths because it's already made the connection between cases and testing.

You won't get a satisfying answer about this out of him because the organ with which these thoughts come from is diseased in a way that makes such a thing impossible.

I'm not sure why more people don't see this. The red flags are ALL present, and explain everything he currently does that seems insane or evil...

[Gorefest]

Very painful. It baffles me how he doesn't seem to grasp simple concepts like absolute versus relative numbers, and statistical comparisons. Surely he must have someone on his staff who can explain to him which of these statistics actually matter and why? Although I assume they already did and they were the statistics that painted the US in a bad light, so Trump undoubtedly asked for statistics - regardless of relevance - that show the US more positively to Americans who don't bother to look any further than the headlines. How is this man still allowed to give interviews so close to the election date?

[Terez]

He can't have rallies, so interviews and press conferences are his best chance to go and be dominant with the fake news. His core voters don't understand simple concepts either so it works for them, while the rest of us are left shaking our heads as always.

He is definitely losing a lot of ground in the middle with people who voted for him but don't really feel like they can defend him anymore. And his internal polls probably show him that, or at least, they show his campaign that (he doesn't like bad news and might not get internal poll briefings very often). So he and they are doubling down on election sabotage to make up for it.