US Politics: The Killing Hoax

[Jeor]

Anyone else worried about the massive fundraising gap between the Biden and Trump campaigns?

CNN has the difference pegged at nearly $200m. Now I know there are lots of reasons for this - Trump's obviously been the Republican nominee for a lot longer, whereas Biden has only just come into the picture (and the deal struck with the DNC will help a lot).

And there may be some merit to Biden just laying low, avoiding gaffes, and letting Trump implode in public, forcing Republicans to continue to defend him. Sort of the equivalent of a counterattacking ploy in soccer, where you sit deep and defend, waiting for your opponent to make a mistake and then strike.

But in what is sure to be a disrupted and disjointed election campaign, I'm sure the Democrats would feel more comfortable if they had a sizeable war chest to deploy. You just know Trump and the Republicans are going to flood the airwaves and the internet with all manner of things, and the Dems will need to have the resources to hit back.

[DMC]

32 minutes ago, Jeor said:

Anyone else worried about the massive fundraising gap between the Biden and Trump campaigns?

No.  Hillary outspent Trump nearly 2 to 1.  Bloomberg just spent a billion dollars in 100 days for American Samoa.  Since Obama smashed public financing, fundraising in presidential contests have reached ludicrous and consequently pointless levels.  Campaign spending has diminishing returns.  I'm much more worried about the ability to get organizations up in swing states in order to get out the vote, which is generally more important to the Democratic nominee - and especially so in presidential contests.  Plus Biden is hardly "laying low" on the fundraising front - he raised $46.7 million in March and the DNC added $32.6 million.  

If anything, it's the Republicans who should be concerned about getting outraised almost across the board in both the House and the Senate.  Even some of their vulnerable House incumbents are on the ropes:

Quote

More than a half dozen endangered Republican incumbents were outraised by a Democratic challengers last quarter, including Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.).

“The nightmare scenario for Republicans is that Democrats have enough money that they can be on offense,” said one veteran GOP consultant. “A lot of that has to do with how much pressure we can put on Democratic incumbents, and so that’s why recruiting failures anywhere are not ideal.”

It would actually clearly be much wiser for GOP donors to start reallocating and focusing on congressional races as Trump is certainly going to have enough money.  But, good luck with that.

[Jeor]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

If anything, it's the Republicans who should be concerned about getting outraised almost across the board in both the House and the Senate.  Even some of their vulnerable House incumbents are on the ropes.

Ah, that's more reassuring.

While Dems should keep the House, the Senate is crucial and Dems need to thread the needle there to get control.

A Biden presidency would move the needle on that (breaking 50-50 ties) but if he wins and doesn't get the Senate, he's going to be severely gridlocked. Conversely, if Trump manages to hang on, the Dems grabbing the Senate (and retaining the House) would make a huge difference in limiting the damage he could do. The Supreme Court is already stuffed, but imagine what would happen if Trump wins again and the Republicans narrowly retain the Senate (the latter being the likeliest possibility). No way RBG holds on for another 4 more years.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Wonder if this will change anything or if Democrats will still pretty much shrug this story off.

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/04/24/tara-reade-biden-video-207670?__twitter_impression=true

 

Yeah, the Democratic party doesn't strike me as capable of figuring out how to alter course. Our champions of women will keep ignoring this. I can't vote for Biden at this point.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm much more worried about the ability to get organizations up in swing states

Try the whole country. Traditional campaigning is essentially fucked. For example, if a canvasser came to a regular person's door, do you think they'd answer? Would anyone want to even go door to door? And that means rallies are gone. And so on and so on. 

This has the potential to be a disaster.

 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Traditional campaigning is essentially fucked. For example, if a canvasser came to a regular person's door, do you think they'd answer? Would anyone want to even go door to door? And that means rallies are gone. And so on and so on.

Yeah, they're already preparing for it.  I've gotten three texts from different organizations in Florida giving me information on how to vote by mail - and one letter in the mail from an organization in Pennsylvania (even though I'm not registered).  One of the texts actually woke me up this morning.  Bastards.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah, they're already preparing for it.  I've gotten three texts from different organizations in Florida giving me information on how to vote by mail - and one letter in the mail from an organization in Pennsylvania (even though I'm not registered).  One of the texts actually woke me up this morning.  Bastards.

I've oddly never held the title of field organizer before, but many of my roles have been overlapping. The more I think about it, the more I groan. Just for example, I've trained thousands of volunteers before, be it canvasing, phone banking, rallies, parades, debates, etc. How do you train volunteers? How do you even recruit people? I get that there are ways, but everything is going to be so strangled.

ETA: I'm going to go try the new Japanese Whiskey I bought. 11:30 is close enough to noon.

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, Jeor said:

Anyone else worried about the massive fundraising gap between the Biden and Trump campaigns?

CNN has the difference pegged at nearly $200m. Now I know there are lots of reasons for this - Trump's obviously been the Republican nominee for a lot longer, whereas Biden has only just come into the picture (and the deal struck with the DNC will help a lot).

And there may be some merit to Biden just laying low, avoiding gaffes, and letting Trump implode in public, forcing Republicans to continue to defend him. Sort of the equivalent of a counterattacking ploy in soccer, where you sit deep and defend, waiting for your opponent to make a mistake and then strike.

But in what is sure to be a disrupted and disjointed election campaign, I'm sure the Democrats would feel more comfortable if they had a sizeable war chest to deploy. You just know Trump and the Republicans are going to flood the airwaves and the internet with all manner of things, and the Dems will need to have the resources to hit back.

I mean, Trump started raising money from the day after his inauguration. It was always going to happen. In today's media world, not sure it's going to matter that much when the Dems will still spend a ridiculous amount of money. Also, Trump uses donor money to pay for legal bills and line the pockets of himself and his buddies. They'll end up spending the same.

[Ran]

5 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Biden is done.  It's all over for him.  Going to take most of you until he gets replaced to get behind the idea, but I'm sure most will fall in line.  If that link is about the CNN call from Reade's mother, it's obviously a Democrat insider tipping that out now.  No one connects those dots decades later.  Some senate staffer realized at the time that was Reade's mother, and just lined up the kill shot.  So this is almost certainly an inside job, I'd say.

The full transcript of the episode isn't out there, but from someone who found and read it, the episode and it's guests were talking about the ugly side of politics and what role that the high-pressure work had in the suicide of Vince Foster (as a side note, amazing that 27 years later, he's just a "White House counselor")

https://twitter.com/FliedGaff/status/1253816484293300224

And I guess I have to say that, first, this doesn't fit what Reade described -- her mother says nothing about sexual assault or anything like that, and as others point out, 1) the mother says that all her daughter can do about her situation is go to press... but 2) didn't Reade say her mother insisted she go to the police?

These things don't jive. IMO, it sounds like she had a problem with other staff members and that out of respect for Biden -- which implies the problem she had had nothing to do with him -- she felt she couldn't do much that wouldn't have just caused problems for him, and this seems to fit her earlier accounts of her time as a staff member rather better than the somewhat varying account she has given over the past year.

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

13 minutes ago, Ran said:

The full transcript of the episode isn't out there, but from someone who found and read it, the episode and it's guests were talking about the ugly side of politics and what role that the high-pressure work had in the suicide of Vince Foster (as a side note, amazing that 27 years later, he's just a "White House counselor")

https://twitter.com/FliedGaff/status/1253816484293300224

And I guess I have to say that, first, this doesn't fit what Reade described -- her mother says nothing about sexual assault or anything like that, and as others point out, 1) the mother says that all her daughter can do about her situation is go to press... but 2) didn't Reade say her mother insisted she go to the police?

These things don't jive. IMO, it sounds like she had a problem with other staff members and that out of respect for Biden -- which implies the problem she had had nothing to do with him -- she felt she couldn't do much that wouldn't have just caused problems for him, and this seems to fit her earlier accounts of her time as a staff member rather better than the somewhat varying account she has given over the past year.

 

 

What about the Access Hollywood Bus tape, where Biden bragged about sexually assaulting woman, or his e-mail server. Or how he undermined an FBI investigation against him, by firing the FBI director.  Or how he broke campaign finance laws to pay hush money to a porn star and playboy model. Biden is so done.

[Jace, Extat]

9 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

What about the Access Hollywood Bus tape, where Biden bragged about sexually assaulting woman, or his e-mail server. Or how he undermined an FBI investigation against him, by firing the FBI director.  Or how he broke campaign finance laws to pay hush money to a porn star and playboy model. Biden is so done.

When you take it all into consideration, it's almost like he needs to be stopped or something. 

[Zorral]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus

Quote

 

[....]
Trump did not specify where the idea of using disinfectant as a possible remedy for Covid-19 came from, and the source for his notion remains obscure. But the Guardian has learned that peddlers of chlorine dioxide – industrial bleach – have been making direct approaches to the White House in recent days.

Grenon styles himself as “archbishop” of Genesis II – a Florida-based outfit that claims to be a church but which in fact is the largest producer and distributor of chlorine dioxide bleach as a “miracle cure” in the US. He brands the chemical as MMS, “miracle mineral solution”, and claims fraudulently that it can cure 99% of all illnesses including cancer, malaria, HIV/Aids as well as autism.

Since the start of the pandemic, Genesis II has been marketing MMS as a cure to coronavirus. It advises users, including children, to mix three to six drops of bleach in water and drink it.

In his weekly televised radio show, posted online on Sunday, Grenon read out the letter he wrote to Trump. He said it began: “Dear Mr President, I am praying you read this letter and intervene.”

Grenon said that 30 of his supporters have also written in the past few days to Trump at the White House urging him to take action to protect Genesis II in its bleach-peddling activities which they claim can cure coronavirus.

On Friday, hours after Trump talked about disinfectant on live TV, Grenon went further in a post on his Facebook page. He claimed that MMS had actually been sent to the White House. He wrote: “Trump has got the MMS and all the info!!! Things are happening folks! Lord help others to see the Truth!”

Paradoxically, Trump’s outburst about the possible value of an “injection” of disinfectant into the lungs of Covid-19 sufferers came just days after a leading agency within the president’s own administration took action to shut down the peddling of bleach as a coronavirus cure around the US.
[....]

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/us/politics/trump-election-briefings.html

Quote

Democrats raised substantially more money than Republicans did in the first quarter in the most pivotal congressional races, according to recent campaign finance reports. And while Mr. Trump is well ahead in money compared with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democratic donors are only beginning to focus on the general election, and several super PACs plan to spend heavily on behalf of him and the party.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

19 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

When you take it all into consideration, it's almost like he needs to be stopped or something. 

That's so judgemental.

I thought Jaceland moved beyond the point of moral judgements and is a mere place of hedonistic happyness with free range kids, caged ICE agents. A place in which the dead eyes of Ivanka start to glow look like a beard from Jared's face starts to grow. And impossible Utopia, or an Utopia of the impossible.

[Ran]

A little more of the transcript, both from the start of the episode and then the continuing discussion after the phone call

https://twitter.com/FliedGaff/status/1253813651372249089/photo/1

 

[Bael's Bastard]

6 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Biden is done.  It's all over for him.  Going to take most of you until he gets replaced to get behind the idea, but I'm sure most will fall in line.  If that link is about the CNN call from Reade's mother, it's obviously a Democrat insider tipping that out now.  No one connects those dots decades later.  Some senate staffer realized at the time that was Reade's mother, and just lined up the kill shot.  So this is almost certainly an inside job, I'd say.

Nah, she previously stated her mom called into Larry King, but didn't know the date. There's millions of losers who do nothing with their time except look for this stuff. And the quote from the mother, doesn't explicitly corroborate sexual harassment or assault, just claims she had problems with an unnamed senator, and didn't go to the media out of respect for him.

[mcbigski]

51 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Nah, she previously stated her mom called into Larry King, but didn't know the date. There's millions of losers who do nothing with their time except look for this stuff. And the quote from the mother, doesn't explicitly corroborate sexual harassment or assault, just claims she had problems with an unnamed senator, and didn't go to the media out of respect for him.

I hadn't heard where she said her mom had called.  Still, that's way more data lining up than Blasley Ford or the other rando chick who claimed spiked punch rape parties with Kavanaugh.  Personally, I don't think Believe All Women is a good idea, just from an incentive point of view, but I'm definitely inclined to believe when there is also corroborating evidence.

(I'm trying to come up with an X for Believe All X categorically and I really am coming up short.  Any suggestions people?)

[Zorral]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boogaloo-facebook-pages-coronavirus-militia-group-extremists_n_5ea3072bc5b6d376358eba98

This sort of thing has been going on since Nixon, getting going seriously after the debacle of Vietnam, and then more so with every military quagmire the US charged into.  High school kids and college guys participate all on their own.  It's gotten crazier and crazier and more expansive with every increased in border patrol funding, particularly in Southern California and Texas. Hunting immigrants for fun is called boogalooing, which tends to not get reported, though it was, particularly in the 1980's, and when it really took off with the vast number of deportations and the vast increases in funding by Clinton and Obama.  Again, reading Greg Grandin's book is highly recommended to give all the sources and facts.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/31/the-end-of-the-myth-by-greg-grandin-review

"Amid The Pandemic, U.S. Militia Groups Plot ‘The Boogaloo,’ AKA Civil War, On Facebook
Extremists are promoting anti-government violence on Facebook during the coronavirus pandemic. The social media giant appears to be doing little about it."

[Guest]

Biden and the Democrats need to address these allegations seriously, not necessarily because he will need to beat the charges to win the Presidency, but mostly because if they don't, they'll have proved themselves to be cynical frauds, who astroturfed the Time's Up movement to score political points when it suited them, but dropped it like a hot potato when it didn't.

The elephant in the room I haven't seen addressed anywhere is that Al Franken was forced to resign for charges that were both fewer and less severe in nature than those leveled against Biden, not to mention that Franken's first (and most damning) accuser had every bit the same credibility problems that Reade does. Yet not only is no one calling for his resignation, barely anyone is willing to discuss it at all.

So...square that circle for me.

[Jace, Extat]

12 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Biden and the Democrats need to address these allegations seriously, not necessarily because he will need to beat the charges to win the Presidency, but mostly because if they don't, they'll have proved themselves to be cynical frauds, who astroturfed the Time's Up movement to score political points when it suited them, but dropped it like a hot potato when it didn't.

The elephant in the room I haven't seen addressed anywhere is that Al Franken was forced to resign for charges that were both fewer and less severe in nature than those leveled against Biden, not to mention that Franken's first (and most damning) accuser had every bit the same credibility problems that Reade does. Yet not only is no one calling for his resignation, barely anyone is willing to discuss it at all.

So...square that circle for me.

You're naive, welcome to politics?

[Guest]

Just now, Jace, Basilissa said:

You're naive, welcome to politics?

No, I'm not naive. I'm just pointing out they're showing their true colors, and progressive supporters should remember that when Democrats speak with their forked tongues.