[Kanese S's]

Malankazooie, on 19 February 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

Oh my, things gonna get spicy tonight. Lil' Mikey Bloomberg steps onto the debate stage for the first time. Will he step up onto a box at his podium so he can speak into the mic? Will he have the other candiates stopped and frisked as they walk onto the debate stage? (probably not, their melanin does not give them a dark enough skin tone to warrant it). If lil' Mikey Bloomberg really wants to make a statement and come off like a boss, he should step up onto that box and slam a Super Big Gulp of Code Red Mountain Dew down on the podium and then take a long, obnoxious slurp out of a garish and defiantly plastic straw and be all like 'bring it on bitches!, I'm gonna drop 3 billys on this shiznit, so why even try!"

Gods, I fucking hate Bloomberg.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'For those who didn’t receive the Fox News treatment, it appears that in at least one case, cold hard cash did the talking. Paul Pogue, a construction company owner who pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes by $473,000 and received three years probation, was issued a full pardon and clemency by the president.

According to FEC filings, Pogue’s family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct contributions and in-kind air travel to the Trump Victory Committee. Beginning in August 2019, Ben Pogue—CEO of Pogue Construction and son of Paul Pogue—and his wife Ashleigh made over $200,000 in contributions to the campaign.

In August alone, Ben Pogue donated $85,000 to Trump Victory while Ashleigh Pogue contributed $50,000 that month. The following month, Ben Pogue made an in-kind air travel contribution of $75,404.40. The couple also made several large donations to the Republican National Committee and each donated $5,600 to Donald Trump for President Inc.

On the day of their first donation to the Trump campaign, Ashleigh posted an Instagram photo of her and her husband posing with Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, at the Hamptons.

Prior to the Pogues’ sudden significant donating spree to Trump and the Republicans, the couple was not seen as big campaign spenders, having donated a few thousand dollars for Paul Ryan’s congressional campaign in 2017 and $5,400 for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s 2016 Republican presidential run.'

https://www.yahoo.co...-202715601.html

[Malankazooie]

News headline:

Intelligence community says Russia is meddling in 2020 election and trying to get Trump re-elected.

I'm flabbergasted by this. This has to be 'fake news' perpetrated by the deep state, yeah?

[Kanese S's]

Malankazooie, on 21 February 2020 - 07:04 PM, said:

News headline:

Intelligence community says Russia is meddling in 2020 election and trying to get Trump re-elected.

I'm flabbergasted by this. This has to be 'fake news' perpetrated by the deep state, yeah?

In other news, bears shit in the woods.

[Primateus]

Today, when I was in the process of waking up, a thought occurred to me. More like a nightmare, but whatever.

It honestly surprises me that Trump hasn't, yet, ordered Nuclear Weapons tests.

[Tsundoku]

Primateus, on 22 February 2020 - 08:16 AM, said:

Today, when I was in the process of waking up, a thought occurred to me. More like a nightmare, but whatever.

It honestly surprises me that Trump hasn't, yet, ordered Nuclear Weapons tests.

Well, thanks for jinxing us ...

[Aptorian]

Sanders is doing well in the primaries. Let's assume for a second he wins the presidency and the blue wave continues to unseat Republicans.

Does Sanders actually have enough support among the Democrats to realize his ideas about healthcare, debt, wages, taxes, etc?

[Terez]

Just my opinion, but I don't think he's capable of selling his policies as mainstream (even though they are); he has too much of a reputation for being an extremist, his personality and approach support that reputation, and everything he tries to pass is going to be viewed in that light.

[Aptorian]

Might we not see the same effect on the Congress and Senate that Trump has had, if you see the "Bernies" pressure their Representatives across country?

[Cause]

Bernie seems like he has a good chance of winning the democratic primary and being the presidential candidate.

Can he beat trump? Seems like he may be too extreme for most independents, some democrats and mya drive republicans out to vote in droves for trump? Not an expert but at least that’s the prevailing opinion I seem to pick up.

[Terez]

The people who left the Republican Party because of Trump (and there are a lot of them) tend to hate Bernie overall. I doubt that will be very important in the grand scheme of things but then there is the Hillary wing of the Democratic Party that still hates Bernie because of 2016. They will (mostly) vote for him if he is the nominee, though, and tbh they are more likely to show up in the general election than many of Bernie's actual voters.

Even discussing this sort of thing seems naive though. Trump is an authoritarian. I will be very surprised if he loses. He is probably doing everything in his power as we speak to make sure that he does not lose. If he breaks the law to that end, there is no one left who will stop him or hold him accountable.

[Macros]

What There's said.

Assuming he keeps enough sanity to not be put in the assylum expect Trump to try and force himself into a third term

[Terez]

No one is going to put him in an asylum either. He knows that if he loses to a Democrat, he is going to jail and he is not getting pardoned any time soon. You think he's going to let that happen? Not a chance in hell.

[Tsundoku]

Cause, on 23 February 2020 - 05:56 AM, said:

Bernie seems like he has a good chance of winning the democratic primary and being the presidential candidate.

Can he beat trump? Seems like he may be too extreme for most independents, some democrats and mya drive republicans out to vote in droves for trump? Not an expert but at least that’s the prevailing opinion I seem to pick up.

Yeah ... nah.

There's a lot more people in Trump's base than Bernie's. And a lot more who will be motivated to vote.

Americans tend to gather their skirts and have fainting spells at the mere suggestion of something vaguely social-ist. So there's that barrier.
There's too much wealth opposed to any ideas he may potentially represent as well. You can expect the nastiest and most ubiquitous ads and stories about him. It will make any previous campaign look like polite gossip at high tea.

Sadly, Bernie has the proverbial snowflake's chance in Hell. Unless partway through the election campaign something comes to light about Trump that repulses even his base. It will have to be something truly obscene though to get that lot to reverse their votes. I'm genuinely having trouble imagining what that could be. Which really says a lot about the mental and moral reputation of his rusted-on supporters. Anyone who publicly states he is Superman or was sent by God is a case for euthanasia.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 23 February 2020 - 09:40 AM

[Aptorian]

Has there been any analysis on the differences or overlap between Trump and Bernie supporters? I could definitely see a lot of Trump's 2016 voters choose Bernie in 2020. If we assume that a substantial amount of them were voting to upset the status quo because Trump was a wild card.

I see Bernie having much the same appeal to the poorest Trump supporters. Assuming Fox News doesn't hypnotize them.

[Malankazooie]

The poorest Trump voters wouldn't switch to Sanders. Even though Sanders will strengthen social programs that benefit them the most, programs Trump has been cutting, they will vote for Trump for a second term. I made this point at another time, Trump voters vote against their self interests. And I would argue that of Trump's base, the rural white poor to 9-5 working class/paycheck to paycheck are his strongest, never waiver supporters. Possibly the fence sitting voters who couldn't stomach pulling the lever for Hillary Clinton and plugged their noses as they voted for Trump the last time around could be enticed to vote for whoever the democrat is.

[amphibian]

I believe that Bernie has a much better chance than Terez and the others are giving him. However, what is going to be integral to his hypothetical success as president is whether the Democrats can get enough senators to be able to break the McConnell lock on passing any legislation. Even with a Republican president, McConnell is slowing down legislation to a point that several parts of the government are breaking down. It will get worse if the Democrats cannot win Senate elections enough to break his majority leader hold.

[Terez]

My estimation of his chances has little to do with his electability and everything to do with the fact that Trump is going to abuse his power to win.

In 2016, Bernie had a better chance of beating Trump than Hillary. Today, it doesn’t really matter who wins.

[Cause]

I agree trump will cheat, I still love the description that trump is America’s first African president. He views government as an extension of his personal power. It’s a powerful analogy for me.

However America is still not Africa. It’s possible that trump emboldened by escaping impeachment may go too far. The media here is powerful, the watchdog orgs still have teeth. The rank and file of the intel organizations remain a political appointees. Trump remains his own worst enemy. He lacks subtlety.

[Terez]

He's hollowing out the state department and the national security apparatus as we speak. He's hobbling federal law enforcement and intelligence. He's filling benches with his own appointees. He has the Supreme Court. The Republicans in the Senate are protecting him and doing everything in their power to resist attempts to tighten election security. Things are looking pretty bleak. I think our only hope is that he's too incompetent to truly rig the election in his favor, but that's a shallow hope because there are plenty of more competent people waiting in the wings, eager for the opportunity to do just that.