Octopus Overlords

Defiant wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 4:21 pm

malchior wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 3:59 pm

Defiant wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:47 pm The electors of the Electoral College get to decide who to vote for.

Ehhh. Not quite. In 32 states they'll be bound by the 'faithless elector' laws of their state. The SCOTUS just confirmed this. In others, they *might* have more freedom to act. In any case, the electors in most states are pretty much ceremonial now.

OK, in that case, they vote for the dead nominee for President and the living VP candidate for Vice President, and come inauguration day, the VP fills in for the dead Presidential candidate.

Maybe.

No one knows. That was the gist of my point. It'd be chaos and Trump is in deep shit. Who knows what they try to argue in front of a court. Especially since Trump is being chased by everybody.

Octavious wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 5:32 pm Talk about desperate. Biden should agree if he provides his tax returns.

Seriously, though the NY Times got their hands on all but the last 2 years. He paid $750 in 2016 and 2017. Tax reform cost me...checks notes...about 6 times that in the *delta* of the change from the year prior due to the loss of SALT, etc. So fuck that. I'm in a hang him by his feet from a light post mood again.

$750 to the US. ~$150K to India and the Phillipines.

He reported paying taxes, in turn, on a number of his overseas ventures. In 2017, the president’s $750 contribution to the operations of the U.S. government was dwarfed by the $15,598 he or his companies paid in Panama, the $145,400 in India and the $156,824 in the Philippines.

Mr. Trump’s U.S. payment, after factoring in his losses, was roughly equivalent, in dollars not adjusted for inflation, to another presidential tax bill revealed nearly a half-century before. In 1973, The Providence Journal reported that, after a charitable deduction for donating his presidential papers, Richard M. Nixon had paid $792.81 in 1970 on income of about $200,000.

The leak of Mr. Nixon’s small tax payment caused a precedent-setting uproar: Henceforth, presidents, and presidential candidates, would make their tax returns available for the American people to see.

Biden lead remains steady in WaPo/ABC poll:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

Biden leads by 10% in head to head race with Trump, but only 6% with third party candidates. Kind of strange that the other parties pull all their votes from Biden and none from Trump though.

Economist has Biden at 85% odds of Electoral College victory, down from his high of 93% but up from his recent low of 83%:

https://projects.economist.com/us-2020- ... /president

GA and OH are now toss up states, along with NC, and AR. PA, FL are competitive lean Democratic, TX is competitive, leans Republican. Map looks tougher and tougher for Trump.

malchior wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 5:34 pm

Octavious wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 5:32 pm Talk about desperate. Biden should agree if he provides his tax returns.

Seriously, though the NY Times got their hands on all but the last 2 years. He paid $750 in 2016 and 2017. Tax reform cost me...checks notes...about 6 times that in the *delta* of the change from the year prior due to the loss of SALT, etc. So fuck that. I'm in a hang him by his feet from a light post mood again.

$750 to the US. ~$150K to India and the Phillipines.

He reported paying taxes, in turn, on a number of his overseas ventures. In 2017, the president’s $750 contribution to the operations of the U.S. government was dwarfed by the $15,598 he or his companies paid in Panama, the $145,400 in India and the $156,824 in the Philippines.

Mr. Trump’s U.S. payment, after factoring in his losses, was roughly equivalent, in dollars not adjusted for inflation, to another presidential tax bill revealed nearly a half-century before. In 1973, The Providence Journal reported that, after a charitable deduction for donating his presidential papers, Richard M. Nixon had paid $792.81 in 1970 on income of about $200,000.

The leak of Mr. Nixon’s small tax payment caused a precedent-setting uproar: Henceforth, presidents, and presidential candidates, would make their tax returns available for the American people to see.

Did anyone expect anything different?

https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/stat ... 63937?s=21

Isn’t Parscale still like 2nd in command of the Trump campaign? Or was he cut loose after the demotion?

EDIT: yep, he’s still the campaign’s digital operations guy.

Latest reports are that he has been taken to a hospital.

Meltdown! We can only hope when Trump loses by a landslide, he barricades himself in the oval office and can be heard whimpering, "It was rigged! It was rigged!"

Then his creditors will start picking at the remains.

Holman wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:57 pm
Latest reports are that he has been taken to a hospital.

Hmmm, wonder why he wasn't killed by a few dozen rounds of 5.56 blind-fired into his house. Wait, oh right...

Biden Store



$7.50 for 2

Holman wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:57 pm https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/stat ... 63937?s=21

Isn’t Parscale still like 2nd in command of the Trump campaign? Or was he cut loose after the demotion?

EDIT: yep, he’s still the campaign’s digital operations guy.

Latest reports are that he has been taken to a hospital.

Thoughts and prayers.

Isgrimnur wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 10:43 pm Biden Store



$7.50 for 2

What's sad is the deplorables will just say it proves what a smart businessman he is. With a net worth of -$421,000,000.

Holman wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:57 pm https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/stat ... 63937?s=21

Isn’t Parscale still like 2nd in command of the Trump campaign? Or was he cut loose after the demotion?

EDIT: yep, he’s still the campaign’s digital operations guy.

Latest reports are that he has been taken to a hospital.

He's no Lewandoski.

Yeah, he's probably never hit a bicycle kick in his life.

Can't even find the tax stuff on the front page of Fox anymore. Hilarious...

Octavious wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:50 am Can't even find the tax stuff on the front page of Fox anymore. Hilarious...

What do you mean anymore? Was it ever up there in the first place?

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:52 am

Octavious wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:50 am Can't even find the tax stuff on the front page of Fox anymore. Hilarious...

What do you mean anymore? Was it ever up there in the first place?

They had the story up briefly last night. Of course it started with Trump denying the accusations as false.

Forbes reporting on what Parscale may be wanting to kill himself over:

Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign of Laundering 170 Million

LawBeefaroni wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:28 pm

malchior wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 5:34 pm Seriously, though the NY Times got their hands on all but the last 2 years. He paid $750 in 2016 and 2017. Tax reform cost me...checks notes...about 6 times that in the *delta* of the change from the year prior due to the loss of SALT, etc. So fuck that. I'm in a hang him by his feet from a light post mood again.

$750 to the US. ~$150K to India and the Phillipines.

Did anyone expect anything different?

To be honest, I did expect there to be a shitload of entanglement with Russian enterprises.

That said, very little of the rest was any different than I'd have expected.

On Trump's suggestion of drug testing:

“Vice President Biden intends to deliver his debate answers in words. If the president thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in a Sunday statement to Politico. “We’d expect nothing less from Donald Trump, who pissed away the chance to protect the lives of 200K Americans when he didn’t make a plan to stop COVID-19.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... st-debate/

I know reality is different than TV, but I wouldn't be upset if this turned into a Bartlet vs. Ritchie debate.

I truly have no idea what to expect from this debate. Aside from the fact that both candidates are very, VERY old....Trump was barely coherent 4 years ago, and time has not improved things. How do you debate someone who doesn't seem to understand any of the issues at play, and sometimes lacks any tether to reality at all?

I expect it to be Biden mostly speaking directly to the American people and making a case for his presidency, while Trump babbles his typical word salad and lies incessantly.

I don't see Trump coming out aggressively against Biden - he hasn't done really done it much at all this campaign season except at his rallies, and even then it's been mostly personal attacks since he can't get him on substance.

Biden is the perfect guy to show the necessary restraint. A lesser man might feel the need to attack Trump, but he need only slip in a word or two on taxes and Covid19, and it will enrage Agolf Twittler. Trump could take off his shoe and pound it on the podium and his deplorables will still say he won the debate. Leave it to the Lincoln Project for the final word.

Trump will try to goad Biden into getting angry. Barring that, he'll try to just ridicule him so his base gets more meme worthy material. The best thing Biden can do is stay calm, treat Trump like a child and use humor to throw him off. Trump likes to be the entertainer and if he sees another getting the laughs or whatever, it will enrage him, I believe. And when Trump gets mad, that's when the gaffes start.

One article by the guy who played Trump in mock debates with Clinton proposed that Biden should pre-empt Trump by telling the audience what Trump is going to do beforehand. IE - my opponent is going to make false statements, he's going to attempt to change the subject, etc. The reasoning being that Trump is going to try to bully and intimidate, and Biden has to make sure he doesn't spend the debate playing defense. He can short-circuit Trump's playbook by exposing it from the outset.

It being Trump and it also being 2020, I predict that all the predictions are wrong and we get something totally unexpected, yet obvious in retrospect.

YellowKing wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:07 pm One article by the guy who played Trump in mock debates with Clinton proposed that Biden should pre-empt Trump by telling the audience what Trump is going to do beforehand. IE - my opponent is going to make false statements, he's going to attempt to change the subject, etc. The reasoning being that Trump is going to try to bully and intimidate, and Biden has to make sure he doesn't spend the debate playing defense. He can short-circuit Trump's playbook by exposing it from the outset.

That would be a great tactic and I really hope he does it.

YellowKing wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 2:25 pmI expect it to be Biden mostly speaking directly to the American people and making a case for his presidency, while Trump babbles his typical word salad and lies incessantly.

Wholeheartedly concur.

If Biden bothers to address even one of Trump's lies, Trump wins. His whole strategy is to keep people reeling and swatting at invisible pixies while he strolls by laughing.

The only thing I might accept from Biden before he launched into his own answer would be an eyeroll towards Trump and a twirling of his finger around his ear before he began speaking.

From watching news recently, one thing to consider is that Trump might not be on his game for the first debate, because incumbent presidents often do (relatively) poorly in the first debate for reelection. Obama did, Bush did, Reagan did. That may be a combination of it being the first time they're directly up against someone as equals since becoming President, or it could be that they're so focused on defending their performance as President.

That said, Trump will probably just ignore what's being asked or said and just attack (Biden, Democrats, the debate moderator, who knows) and I don't think he'll even bother to defend his administration.

YellowKing wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 9:28 am Forbes reporting on what Parscale may be wanting to kill himself over:

Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign of Laundering 170 Million

2020 is a tapestry of hypocrisy. There is video of Parscale getting tackled -- unnecessarily mind you -- and the right is *pissed*. Apparently the police report says he ignored 5 commands to get on the ground. Even if that was true, he is talking to someone else and random commands are coming in from behind him. You can't expect him to orient on it.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/ ... 7807935495

The other tactic I've seen the pundits float (sorry, have been reading a lot of debate speculation) is that Biden should make this a referendum on Trump's performance so far. The interview I saw framed it as Biden playing the role of prosecutor and make the viewing public the jury. The thinking here is that the debates may be the first time a Fox viewer steps outside their bubble, and exposing Trump's actual performance may in some way persuade those who haven't fully drunk the Kool-Aid.

I feel a bit hesitant for this to be Biden's only play, because I'm not 100% on board that the "I'm not Trump" strategy in and of itself is the right way to go. But he'll certainly have plenty of opportunities to expose Trump's record, and he can and should take advantage of those when possible.

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:55 pmThere is video of Parscale getting tackled -- unnecessarily mind you -- and the right is *pissed*.

Well, it's nice to know that I'm still not on the right, cause I don't find that egregious at all. If you've reached the point where your spouse is telling the police that you're a danger to yourself and others, then you've reached the point where anything less than your Sunday best is going to draw a reaction from the cops. It's not like they beat his ass or anything....they just took him to the ground and secured him.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:01 pm

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:55 pmThere is video of Parscale getting tackled -- unnecessarily mind you -- and the right is *pissed*.

Well, it's nice to know that I'm still not on the right, cause I don't find that egregious at all. If you've reached the point where your spouse is telling the police that you're a danger to yourself and others, then you've reached the point where anything less than your Sunday best is going to draw a reaction from the cops. It's not like they beat his ass or anything....they just took him to the ground and secured him.

He is talking to an officer who somehow isn't reacting. His hands are in full view. Roid-rage officer comes out of nowhere yells some commands in quick succession and then escalated force unnecessarily. It's pretty cut and dry. It's nice they didn't pump 6 shots into him but it was not needed.

YellowKing wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:59 pm The other tactic I've seen the pundits float (sorry, have been reading a lot of debate speculation) is that Biden should make this a referendum on Trump's performance so far. The interview I saw framed it as Biden playing the role of prosecutor and make the viewing public the jury. The thinking here is that the debates may be the first time a Fox viewer steps outside their bubble, and exposing Trump's actual performance may in some way persuade those who haven't fully drunk the Kool-Aid.

I feel a bit hesitant for this to be Biden's only play, because I'm not 100% on board that the "I'm not Trump" strategy in and of itself is the right way to go. But he'll certainly have plenty of opportunities to expose Trump's record, and he can and should take advantage of those when possible.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:01 pm

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:55 pmThere is video of Parscale getting tackled -- unnecessarily mind you -- and the right is *pissed*.

Well, it's nice to know that I'm still not on the right, cause I don't find that egregious at all. If you've reached the point where your spouse is telling the police that you're a danger to yourself and others, then you've reached the point where anything less than your Sunday best is going to draw a reaction from the cops. It's not like they beat his ass or anything....they just took him to the ground and secured him.

Yeah, no problems with that. He was non-compliant. Dude, you're going to be detrained and probably arrested. Trying to talk your way out won't work. The longer it goes on, the more chance he becomes a threat. They did what the had to do given the circumstances.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:12 pm detrained

No ticket!

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:12 pm

Little Raven wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:01 pm

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:55 pmThere is video of Parscale getting tackled -- unnecessarily mind you -- and the right is *pissed*.

Well, it's nice to know that I'm still not on the right, cause I don't find that egregious at all. If you've reached the point where your spouse is telling the police that you're a danger to yourself and others, then you've reached the point where anything less than your Sunday best is going to draw a reaction from the cops. It's not like they beat his ass or anything....they just took him to the ground and secured him.

Yeah, no problems with that. He was non-compliant.

What is the time frame for compliance? He makes no motion. He is literally stock still. Why? Because he hadn't had a moment to even process what was happening.

Dude, you're going to be detrained and probably arrested. Trying to talk your way out won't work. The longer it goes on, the more chance he becomes a threat. They did what the had to do given the circumstances.

What was the threat? I couldn't disagree in stronger terms that this was reasonable. Again he is talking to an officer -- this is his body cam -- some guy randomly appears out of the corner and yells commands at him and he is non-compliant because he didn't move like a military cadet? That is not how human's process information.

Edit: In the end I think this is why we have the problem in the first place. The police have conditioned us to accept behavior that is not acceptable in most other advanced nations.

And this wasn't even my point. It is ironic that the right is up in arms about this but wishes it on BLM/libs/etc. If you have a problem with this, then you should have a problem with all these type of incidents.

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:26 pmEdit: In the end I think this is why we have the problem in the first place. The police have conditioned us to accept behavior that is not acceptable in most other advanced nations

It's a consequence of the 2nd Amendment. In most "advanced" nations, the police can be reasonably certain that the worst thing your average person is likely to have on them is a knife. That's simply not the case here, and police have to be MUCH more vigilant and decisive as a result.

Little Raven wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:34 pm

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:26 pmEdit: In the end I think this is why we have the problem in the first place. The police have conditioned us to accept behavior that is not acceptable in most other advanced nations

It's a consequence of the 2nd Amendment. In most "advanced" nations, the police can be reasonably certain that the worst thing your average person is likely to have on them is a knife. That's simply not the case here, and police have to be MUCH more vigilant and decisive as a result.

They are trained to be. They don't have to be. There are other ways.

And yet our armed forces follow stricter rules of engangement.