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A Republic, If You Can Keep It

There is no question to anyone that watched that the Biden / Trump debate on June 27 was a DISASTER for Biden. More importantly, it was a disaster for anyone that cares about America's direction. Biden's failure to connect has placed the country closer to a point where apathy will drive the country past a point of no return.

Biden's performance in the debate was abysmal not because of some absolute objective scoring of his answers, truthfulness and clarity. He's a highly erratic "performer" from a speaking standpoint. HIs performance was ABYSMAL because Biden GOT THE DEBATE on his terms but he not only failed to CAPITALIZE on those terms, he failed to "train" for the potential PITFALLS of those terms regarding his own performance.

MUTED MICS -- Biden asked for the opponent's microphone to be muted during answers. GREAT. That eliminates the problem from prior debates where Trump simply overtalked his opponent when they WERE making points. However, that comes with a downside. If no one can hear the opponent while you are talking, then ALL THAT VIEWERS HEAR is you. If you cannot fill that time with a clear, coherent statement, the viewer can only attribute that problem to YOU. Biden was incredibly ineffective at using his uninterrupted time with his answers. In large part, that was due to the next problem.

FLOODING THE ZONE WITH @*#) -- With muted mics, it was also impossible to interrupt Trump for two minutes as he unloaded a continuous stream of vitriol and lies about weak generals in Afghanistan, immigrants bankrupting Social Security, the latest "through the looking glass" debate about Trump's "very fine people" in Charlottesville, etc. Biden and his debate team clearly prepped Biden to appear in a debate. You know, a public performance involving an intellectual battle between opposing parties involving actual facts and truthful statistics. When Trump arrived with his FLOOD THE ZONE gameplan, Biden wasn't prepared and seemed preoccupied during Trump's talk time trying to remember all of the BS he was going to refute in his turn. When Biden finally did respond in each round, what came out was a list of half-bullets Biden collected over the prior two minutes of Trump's comment, strung together with additional confusing conjunctions that took up time and resulting in NO complete thought being expressed. With zero sound coming from Trump, with nothing to distract a viewer from attributing the lack of coherent response entirely to Biden.

How should have Biden and his team prepped for this event?

First, they should not have prepped for it like a debate. The opponent has no compunction against lying about ANYTHING. Any event or fact is fair game to be distorted. As a result, you CANNOT plan to spend your talk time refuting every BS point brought up by the opponent. Instead, Biden's campaign staff should have pre-built a shortcut on his campaign website, something like:

https://joebiden.com/floodthezone

and have his campaign staff fact check Trump in real time and post actual facts linked to timestamps in the debate where Trump lied. Voters have been DYING for someone to do this anyway. This would absolutely connect with younger voters and memorialize every lie and make it shareable in social media.

The rules of the debate say you can't bring any notes to the podium and you can't communicate with campaign staff during the debate. The rules HAVE NEVER stated your campaign staff cannot update a web site in real time identifying BS stated by the opponent. Instead of reciting his fractured bullet lists, Biden could have simply started his turn by shaking his head, saying "I don't have time here to refute 2 minutes of BS in one minute but my campaign does. Check joebiden.com slash flood the zone to compare what you just heard to reality." At that point, Biden could pick ONE thing out of Trump's rant to refute as part of themes Biden should be communicating.

Some examples:

TRUMP: No general was fired after the disaster of Afghanistan.

BIDEN: The timetable to leave Afghanistan was dictated by terms the Trump Administration negotiated with the Taliban. You expressed no concern with the timetable when you agreed to it. My administration knew the American people had withdrawn their support for continuing our presence and, in that light, we stuck to the agreement.

TRUMP: He left billions of dollars worth of equipment in Afghanistan.

BIDEN: When you are evacuating a war zone that is reverting to control of the enemy you are fighting, it isn't worth the risk to the TROOPS being evacuated to spend time trying to ship back equipment that has already been in use in a war for 6 to 10 to 20 years. You destroy it in place and get your soldiers out as safely as you can. If Trump knew anything about military operations, he would know that.

TRUMP: Biden is bankrupting Social Security by encouraging millions of illegals to enter the country and sign up for benefits.

BIDEN: If they are illegal immigrants, by definition, they have no Social Security number assigned which means no Social Security benefits, either or disability or retirement, can be paid to them. But they still likely have Social Security TAXES withheld from paychecks which means they're contributing to a benefit they will never collect. You know as much about Social Security finances as you do about who pays for the tarrifs you are proposing.

TRUMP: What they’ve done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, what you have done, how you’ve destroyed the lives of so many people. When they ripped down Portland, when they ripped down many other cities, you go to Minnesota, Minneapolis, what they’ve done there with the fires all over the city, if I didn’t bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.

BIDEN: And your point? Those events occurred during YOUR administration. I've only had to deploy the National Guard to help after flooding, hurricanes and fires.

========================

But Friday morning quarterbacking is pointless.

The post-debate landscape is one in which America has a choice between two geriatric candidates with profound communication issues. One candidate cannot speak for two minutes without lying and projecting his own failures upon everyone around him, calling into question his grasp of reality. The other candidate lacks the "mental tempo" required to dodge and parry a flood of BS that has become the unified modus operandi of the opposing party and is unable to consistently organize his own thoughts and priorities and express them to combat the threat posed by the opposition.

In Biden's case, he and his advisors clearly lost sight of the difference between the skills needed to WIN or RETAIN the Presidency and the skills needed to OPERATE within the Presidency successfully. Biden's legislative accomplishments clearly indicate he has the skills required to BE President (even after a horrible debate performance) but legislative and administrative actions aren't the sole criteria for overall success. If you LOSE the White House and the opponent comes in and reverses all of your accomplishments, you have netted very little.

For America, a 2024 election that returns Trump to the White House and returns control of the Senate to Republicans will trigger long lasting changes that would unleash political conflict not seen in American history, including the Civil War. The Civil war involved profound moral conflict but 1860s America was not also being manipulated by parties and shadow organizations leveraging billions of dollars contributed by ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations seeking to extend their already-obscene shares of wealth and power.

Republicans are making no secret of their goals should they regain the White House. They are PROMISING to gut Civil Service regulations to purge independent professionals from government who are unwilling to toe an extremist party line. They are PROMISING to abuse prosecutorial powers to punish anyone they deem their enemy. The fact that such public promises have gone UNQUESTIONED by even a single sitting Republican Representative or Senator at the federal or state level means the inertia gained by such a result will be impossible to halt. Every single corrective measure enshrined in the Constitution will have been eliminated in actual form or function.

So that's the landscape in America as of June 28, 2024. Even after Biden's horrific debate performance, Trump still only likely has 40 to 42 percent support across all CITIZENS. But that measure is meaningless. Trump doesn't have to win support from 51 percent of all CITIZENS. He doesn't even have to win support from a majority of VOTERS. He only has to win a majority of electoral college votes. That means the fate of the country is still in the hands of VOTERS who do not support Trump. But what will they actually DO? Will they vote based on energy level in a contrived debate environment or results in office? Will they vote against a candidate who fumbled legitimate points about policy and vote for a candidate who aggressively lied about nearly everything but did so confidently? Will they yawn and throw up their hands with fake sophistication and stay home, allowing all branches of government to fall under the control of a party that is profoundly anti-democratic?

I won't attempt to predict the result but the odds for avoiding a bad outcome have never been lower. Profound failures have already been exposed in our checks and balances that have led to this current predicament. Those checks and balances were not designed with the assumption their use would be required on a daily, monthly or yearly basis. They were designed as circuit breakers to block what should be outlier, once-in-a-generation situations. More importantly, they were designed to be operated by people who understood and agreed with their purpose.

In 2024, America is faced with a choice between a candidate and party promising to destroy every remaining check and balance in our system and a candidate who cannot consistently, convincingly articulate why that would be such a profoundly bad outcome for individual citizens and the survival of the country to engage voters to avoid that outcome.

A republic, if you can keep it, indeed...


WTH

It was a brutal debate for Biden, no doubt. Trump was pathetic as well.

Trump was ripe to be verbally annihilated so many times, it should have been easy work
for someone quick on their feet ( but that is not Biden, at this point in time ).

The BS coming out of Trump's mouth was staggering. He is so smug and arrogant, and he's not
real bright, either.

You raised a # of times Trump could have been ripped to shreds, here is another:

When Trump was bragging about his golf game, all Biden had to say was that he was too busy
for golf, as he was running the country, unlike the hundreds of times Trump golfed during his 4 years. And Trump's golf outings came at a steep cost to the taxpayers, as a full contingent of Secret Service agents had to be deployed with Trump. And Trump most certainly gouged the taxpayers for the lodging of the SS agents when on his extended vacays on his golf properties. Or Biden could have reminded Trump about the book Rick Reilly wrote about Trump and golf, titled "Commander in Cheat". Trumps nickname from the caddies that had to work with him was Pele, because he was always kicking his golf ball out of trouble. Cheat at golf as he cheats at everything.

Many more fat pitches that Trump lobbed up. Stormy Daniels: Trump claims he didn't have sex with her. Biden easily could have mentioned the $130k hush money payment, and then launched into a rant about the "catch and kill" crew Trump payed to hush this and other sexcapades of Trump. On any Trump mention of Covid, bring up the "ingest bleach" as a solution comment he made on national TV that led to idiots actually drinking bleach. On any of the border comments Trump made, bring up Trump being behind killing bipartisan legislation to improve the border situation.

So many missed opportunities.


I have talked to my friends, all are still voting against Trump ( voting for Biden ), so no changes there. But the independents will determine this election, and Biden sure did not help himself with them.

Dear God, WTH, I wish YOU were the head of the NYT / WAPO / CNN editorial board. The punditry panicking and howling for a "new candidate" NOW is just so out of touch with any kind of realistic scenario, that it's "not even wrong."

FC

I understand the perception that Trump lies on many fronts. But he also shares some accurate points as well.

What I don't understand is the implication that Biden is truth full on most things. Biden lies take the form of using others to make inaccurate statements to deflect them from himself. The ;atop Russia hoax could not be a more obvious lie. This lie may not have originally come from Biden, but he was happy to restate it as fact. It clearly demonstrates the Democrats willingness to lie for the supposed " greater good" of defeating Trump. I think the more recent example of this, the 16 "nobel prize economist" letter (more crap from supposedly experts) shows that they continue the same playbook of lying to support their guy. Luckily or maybe because the elevation of the poor debate performance, this looks likely to have less impact. Biden's lies take other form. Supreme court and government funding law has clearly directed Biden stop his shenanigans with forgiving student loan debt. Yet he announces new program at least once a month vie executive orders. This is clearly not within the spirit of the current laws of the land. This is important lie, which in contract and my opinion far greater than Trumps petty lies. Add immigration to the same pattern. Biden's actions on immigration clearly are in contrast to enforcing the laws of the land. Yet you are happy to point out Trumps lies and yet you seem to overlook these. Which again I bring these up because they have far greater impact on the welfare of the good old USA. But let's look at lies in the debate. Biden, no one died in the military on my watch. Lie. And again a far more serious lie. Border control love me. Lie. Biden won't visit the Border, and accused on of them of whipping people crossing the border! An absurd lie at the time! Claimed vets love him. Also untrue. Biden stepped on the scale in Ukraine requesting the firing of a government official or he would hold back funds. We have this on video, not hearsay. Far more serious than anything Trump may have done. I will add his public comment about the young person that killed 2 during the riots. The kid was found innocent and should sue Biden for defamation when he leaves office. As usual Biden never apologizes for any of the shit he accuses others for when he is wrong. Biden is a lousy person IMO.

You "the democrats" need to get off your high horse and taking points and admit they both lie constantly!!! The question is which one will make America better on the major issues. I prefer neither, but if I have to pick/stomach one it will be Trump. Biden is a true cancer in my opinion. He needs to go.

Ok, I'll take one: I think the more recent example of this, the 16 "nobel prize economist" letter (more crap from supposedly experts) shows that they continue the same playbook of lying to support their guy. Luckily or maybe because the elevation of the poor debate performance,

So what's the lie? Your haven't shown us any lie at all. You've merely called it crap and stated "they continue the same playbook of lying". And the letter came out ahead of the debate, so your statement, "Luckily or maybe because the elevation of the poor debate performance," appears mistaken on the timing.

So because you don't explain why the letter is a lie, are we to think there was no letter when there absolutely was a letter? Am I to think you are lying about a lie? Too much effort for too little.

Biden lies take the form of using others to make inaccurate statements to deflect them from himself. The stop Russia hoax could not be a more obvious lie.

Russian efforts to stir up domestic dissent amid the 2016 election were identified by the FBI in roughly mid 2016. In my opinion, Obama declined to publicly respond for fear it would be perceived as helping Clinton so he limited his actions to private back-channel communications to Putin which had no effect. Investigations after 2016 confirmed much of the social media trolling was originated by a firm called Internet Research Agency which was formed in 2013, operated out of St. Petersburg, Russia and was owned / controlled by Yevgeny Progozhin, one-time ally of Putin until they had a parting of the ways and Putin shot his plane out of the sky after a bizarre failed coup attempt. Sixteen people working for IRA or associated with it were indicted by the DOJ under the Trump Administration in February 2018 for the coordinated Russian interference efforts in the 2016 election. If Russian interference was a hoax, why did the TRUMP Administration DOJ indict sixteen people?


Biden's actions on immigration clearly are in contrast to enforcing the laws of the land.

Biden's actions (or lack thereof) regarding immigration are a reflection of the current laws governing immigration and the lack of appropriate funding of both border patrol and immigration court resources to handle the volume of cases created by economic strife in nearby countries. He has even tried using executive orders in areas where the letter of the law was vague to address specific issues only to have the orders rejected by courts. Democrats worked with a Republican from one of the most conservative states to devise fixes that had not been considered in 20+ years of prior political wrangling only to have the proposal axed by Trump to preserve immigration strife as a negative issue. The epitome of cynicism

Biden stepped on the scale in Ukraine requesting the firing of a government official or he would hold back funds.

This alleged incident occurred in March 2016 in the final year of the Obama Administration. Both American and European officials were pushing the Ukrainian government to remove prosecutor Viktor Shokin because he was not prosecuting ANYONE in the Ukrainian governemnt for corruption amid rampant corruption. And for those not clear on recent Ukrainian political history, current Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was not President at this time. Biden didn't devise a plan to withold funding to pressure the prosecutor to drop an investigation into Burismo that employed Hunter Biden. He communicated a ploy devised and approved by President Obama and coordinated it with similar communication from European counries and the IMF to trigger Shokin's removal. No investigation of Burisma was underway.

In contrast, Trump explicitly witheld aid the US Congress voted to give Ukraine for defense in order to pressure Zelenskyy to publicly state that Huner Biden was under investigation ("you don't have to find anything, just announce that he's under investigation and we'll handle the rest") in order for Trump to use it domestically to tar Joe Biden, who was already appearing as the top Democratic candidate likely to face Trump in 2020.

Biden, no one died in the military on my watch.

Here is what Biden said in the transcript: And the military – you know, when he was president, they were still killing people in Afghanistan. He didn’t do anything about that. When he was president, we still found ourselves in a position where you had a notion that we were this safe country. The truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any – this – this decade – doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like he did.

Literally, the US military has enlisted personnel dying SOMEWHERE every month, certainly every year, even when we are not at war, due to training accidents. Biden's statement above parsed a single word at a time is literally not true. We have TROOPS that DIE across the WORLD. However, what Biden intended to say but mangled is that the US has no troops explicitly deployed in an declared war anywhere in the world for the first time since 2001 after launching the war in Afghanistan. A botched statement? Absolutely. A lie? Absolutely not.

Supreme court and government funding law has clearly directed Biden stop his shenanigans with forgiving student loan debt. Yet he announces new program at least once a month vie executive orders.

This concern is legitimate but it doesn't involve lying. The Department of Education controls the administration of student loan programs and evaluation of institutions whose students obtain student loans. Efforts to write down or write off student debts are partially due to investigations over the last ten to twenty years into "diploma mill" operations (DeVry tech school, University of Phoenix, and yes, Trump University) whose operations reflected a pattern of loading up students with loans who entered "curriculums" that didn't remotely resemble college level material or had virtually no track record of helping "graduates" obtain meaningful jobs. In the cases of DeVry and University of Phoenix, loans for these bogus "degree" programs added up to hundreds of millions dollars. The Federal Trade Commission began investigating these operations and sued them for fraud and decisions started coming out between 2019 and 2022. After these operations lost these fraud cases, the Department of Education used discretion in its operation of student loan programs to discharge debts racked up for tuition at these schools.

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/education-d...

These write-offs were COMPLETELY legitimate. Efforts to EXTEND write-offs to students at "normal" colleges who wound up $80,000 in debt after obtaining a degree in basket weaving science justify more scrutiny. One can argue students at more "mainline" schools should have been smarter and should have known taking out $80,000 in loans to get a degree that typically lands a job that pays $20,000 per year is NOT a good financial decision. That's a legitimate concern and a legitimate argument for not widening the program to these borrowers. On the other hand, what has become apparent over the last 15-20 years is that mainstream colleges to some extent have been equally manipulative with their "customers." Tuition rates have risen far faster than inflation yet salaries after graduation have barely kept up with inflation except in a few sexy tech fields.

This is where the discretion of Dept of Ed comes into play along with pandemic relief. Many of the ex-college students with $80,000 in loans were working in jobs well below the target they had when they racked up the bills. These were the very jobs -- menial service jobs -- first decimated during shutdowns in 2020 and were slow to come back in 2021 as vaccinations returned things to normal. The DoE initially provided interest-free deferrals of payments for those who lost their job. At some point, it became clear that many borrowers were taking such a cash flow hit due to the pandemic that they were being set back YEARS financially by the pandemic. At that point, the idea of forgiving the loans entirely was pushed, subject to some criteria.

THIS IS THE POINT OF CONTENTION. And I for one understand that contention. Is this a giveaway to idiots who should have been smarter about taking out loans? Maybe. Is it sending a message to future borrowers they don't need to be more careful because the government will bail them out? Maybe. But from an economic standpoint, the wisdom of such a program is more gray and less black and white. If you are operating an economy that experienced a square wave DROP in activity that is immediately imposing cash flow problems for millions of apartment renters and their landlords, what avenues are available for reducing that shock? What avenues are most effective at getting the dollars to the points in the economy where they will be spent and trigger the iterative "add-back" into economic activity with a minimm of waste and fraud? And while considering all those avenues, if you are aware of a longer pattern of colleges over-selling the value of their degree and collecting inflated tuition rates in an exploitive fashion, maybe some of that damage can be unwound by writing off some of those loans. If you want to argue such a plan looks or is politically opportunistic, what about the Paycheck Protection Program, which was initiated in 2020 during the Trump Administration that dropped roughly $938 BILLION dollars into "small businesses" to help them retain employees to avoid more of a cashflow contraction in the economy. Per wikipedia,

The program was criticized for its exorbitant cost, costing approximately $169k - $258k per job saved, and that the majority of benefits flowed to small-business owners, their creditors and their suppliers rather than to workers.[4] It is estimataed that only 25% of the funding allocated went to jobs that would have been lost.

I don't see any politician or state Attorney General objecting to loan forgiveness also pushing to investigate the hundreds of thousands of small business owners who pocketed PPP money while still laying off employees or not being eligible for it in the first place.



WTH

The lie is it is a planted letter to sway the vote. Similar to the laptop expert letter. Neither of the letters are based on a serious review of the information at hand! They were orchestrated to sway the election outcome. Which ironically is what Trump has been convicted of via the Stormy Daniel's payments.

How could the Stormy' Daniels payment have a greater impact than the lying (no debate needed on this conclusion) "51 experts" on the Laptop. Which clearly if any of them had actually investigated before they responded they could not have come to the conclusion that it was Russia interference.

Where is the Nobel prize experts analysis and modeling that justifies their comments on inflation. Where is the work! This of course assumes that economists even without a grudge to challenge Trump have any real predictive powers, which I doubt. I enjoy listening to Larry Summers most weeks on Bloomberg Wall Street Week. I would certainly consider him an expert. But the facts are that he is as wrong on his interpretations of the data more than he is right. Economic forecasting is a very soft science and for 16 people to agree on such short notice clearly indicated that they are more interested in capping Trump at the knees than providing useful insight to America.

I would add the following"

How many of the 16 are worth $1 BB, if they are so insightful. Trump is.
How about $100 MM? Not likely. How about $25 MM, which trump may make in a good month.
To be frank, I am tired of self ascribed experts who live in a fake academia world claiming to have valuable insight.

By the way I am probably wealthier than any of them. Just good old fashioned blocking and tackling. No expert advice needed.

The lie is it is a planted letter to sway the vote.

Since that was what those letters are supposed to do, how is that a lie? The letter is based on the reputation of the economists that signed the letter so there isn't any required analysis to be put forth. This is an endorsement letter, not a 400 page analysis of the economics involved. The statements they think his policies are better are all that is needed, nothing more, and not a lie.

Have a good day. :)

You live in a double standard world. You pick and choose what suits your view.

The 51 intelligence experts lied. not other way to spin it!

The recent economist are no different. They are not parsing a seasoned evaluation of the facts. They are building a no Trump sign.

Believe what you wish.

But this time they picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.

Trump was likely to win even without the recent debate. You may want to check out the current betting odds and start looking for housing in Canada.

He's back.

One other point.

I am not a Trump fan.

If the democrats propose a more middle of the road democrat, I might even vote for them. By the way, I live in California and Newson is not an improvement over Biden. I just dislike Biden, the person and his policies.

Many feel this way about Trump. Understandably so.

But in the end we must choose someone that will not screw up America any more than it is. I have lived through the past 3+ year of Biden. I don't want to live through 4 more!

If the democrats propose a more middle of the road democrat, I might even vote for them.

Do you have an example of a more middle of the road Democrat that you would vote for?

"What I don't understand is the implication that Biden is truth full on most things. Biden lies take the form of using others to make inaccurate statements to deflect them from himself. The ;atop Russia hoax could not be a more obvious lie. This lie may not have originally come from Biden, but he was happy to restate it as fact. It clearly demonstrates the Democrats willingness to lie for the supposed " greater good" of defeating Trump. I think the more recent example of this, the 16 "nobel prize economist" letter (more crap from supposedly experts) shows that they continue the same playbook of lying to support their guy. Luckily or maybe because the elevation of the poor debate performance, this looks likely to have less impact. Biden's lies take other form. Supreme court and government funding law has clearly directed Biden stop his shenanigans with forgiving student loan debt. Yet he announces new program at least once a month vie executive orders. This is clearly not within the spirit of the current laws of the land. This is important lie, which in contract and my opinion far greater than Trumps petty lies. Add immigration to the same pattern. Biden's actions on immigration clearly are in contrast to enforcing the laws of the land. Yet you are happy to point out Trumps lies and yet you seem to overlook these. Which again I bring these up because they have far greater impact on the welfare of the good old USA. But let's look at lies in the debate. Biden, no one died in the military on my watch. Lie. And again a far more serious lie. Border control love me. Lie. Biden won't visit the Border, and accused on of them of whipping people crossing the border! An absurd lie at the time! Claimed vets love him. Also untrue. Biden stepped on the scale in Ukraine requesting the firing of a government official or he would hold back funds. We have this on video, not hearsay. Far more serious than anything Trump may have done. I will add his public comment about the young person that killed 2 during the riots. The kid was found innocent and should sue Biden for defamation when he leaves office. As usual Biden never apologizes for any of the shit he accuses others for when he is wrong. Biden is a lousy person IMO."

Wow. You really need to get better sources of information. Way better. the ones you are using are taking advantage of your utter ignorance on a bunch of topics and making you look foolish. You used to be so much better than this. What happened to the clear thinking Gator I used to know?

You touched upon about 8 topics in your paragraph and demonstrated ignorance on all of them. Let's just take the first one. The "Russian Hoax". Take the time and go read the source material. Go read the Mueller report. There is no way a rational person could read the Mueller report and then come away thinking that it is a hoax that the Trump campaign was not in contact with Russian Intelligence. There is all sorts of evidence listed in the report that makes clear connections between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign.

Seriously, educate yourself. Do your homework. You could pick any of the numerous topics you mentioned in paragraph of yours that I quoted and we can get into a more detailed discussion if you like, but it will quickly become apparent that you are being taken advantage of by the sources you use. Go ahead. pick one.

Normally if you didn't mind looking like the ignorant fool I would say that is your right. However, in this case it is affecting all of us. Democracy requires an informed populace. You sir are not doing your part. You are letting the rest of us down. If you want America to be a better place then do your part and educate yourself on the political topics.

Wow. You really need to get better sources of information. Way better. the ones you are using are taking advantage of your utter ignorance on a bunch of topics and making you look foolish. You used to be so much better than this. What happened to the clear thinking Gator I used to know?

Gator is a perfect example of what the lying right wing media has done to our electorate.

I have lived through the past 3+ year of Biden. I don't want to live through 4 more!

I agree! With the stock market at an all time high and unemployment at a 50 year low, wages climbing faster than inflation and the American economy growing at a pace it hasn’t in 40 years, it’s a nightmare!

Thank goodness we have right-thinking Americans to put “Adultery” on the walls of kindergarten classes and stopping women from controlling their own bodies. Next thing you know they’ll want their own credit cards!

I have to admit I’m not totally sure about this “Chevron” thing; asking Congress to write laws to cover every little thing in a complicated world is just asking for trouble. Look how they’ve screwed up, well, everything. Now we’re going to make them do more? And at a time when they have done less than at any time in history? Seems odd.

But other than that, good show. These past three+ years have been a total nightmare. Whew. Glad it’s almost over.

I have to admit I’m not totally sure about this “Chevron” thing; asking Congress to write laws to cover every little thing in a complicated world is just asking for trouble. Look how they’ve screwed up, well, everything. Now we’re going to make them do more? And at a time when they have done less than at any time in history? Seems odd.

I remember some Dope saying "Boom, there goes the administrative state". Wonderful news! No need for regulations of any kind; no need for consumer protections; no need for any kind of pesky environmental rules. Free for all! Libertarians wet dream come true.

Hey, you cannot have a large complex modern nation without a competent civil service. And the answer is definitely not to privatize everything unless you really want a corrupt oligarchy to rule.

Yes,

Joe Manchin.

I'm glad you all are enjoying bashing me. Let's say it is justified?

So just to be clear.

The prevailing view is Biden is a boy scout and Trump is a chronic liar. Does that sum things up pretty good.

So lay just take a deeper dive on simple events that I believe are not in dispute: By all means please update where I am wrong.

1) Hunter laptop. Was it Russian disinformation or real? (Keep in mind that this is potentially Joe Biden's son's laptop, so he should really know from day 1). I would also add that we have a document from 51 experts confirming that the laptop is Russian disinformation (not just unknown origin, but pointing it in the direction of our so called nemesis like a James Bond movie? Apparently they jumped the gun. Or had no intention of wanting to know the truth. Is this not 100% resolved as of today? What do you know, it is Hunter's laptop! Of course the contents are still being hidden by the current administration? What a shocker, but nobody still argues that it was Russian disinformation anymore. Do you?

2) The border is closed! Is it closed or not? Gee the simple fact that more people have crossed the border in the past 3.5 years than in any time of our history would be in stark contrast to that statement. Yet Biden and his administration have claimed this from day 1 that the border is closed. Seems at least out of step if in fact not a direct lie! But of course that can't be because Biden is of such high moral stature, not!

3) Supreme Court reversed Biden's attempt to waive student loans. Biden continues to implement programs to waive student loans. Don't we have laws that only congress can approve funding? Seems like Biden is the unlawful player. Maybe Trump to if given the chance, but clearly Biden is sidestepping the intent of the law. I would add if I were cynical, Biden is attempting to buy votes! Also illegal. By the way, I have a real problem with people attending private universities and taking on massive debts to lay their bill at the feet of the general population who may have chose a more prudent path! I don't see it as the individual student or their families fault. They are under informed. I see it has the fault of our government policies. FYI, go Florida Gators.

4) Now we have the most recent letter from the 16 experts on Trump policies vs Biden policies regarding inflation? It must be true? Of course this is not so clear to evaluate. But what do we know. Trump was president for 4 years and presided over low inflation for the whole period. Biden has been president for 3.5+ year and has presided over the highest inflation over the past 40 years. Now I admit Covid muddies the water here. So I won't try to conclude either way. But to definitively state that Trump policies are worse or more inflationary requires a lot of imagination.

Now please point out my logic flaws.

Don't just broadbrush me as uninformed as you usually do. Be specific, I can take it.

Now please point out my logic flaws.

Don't just broadbrush me as uninformed as you usually do. Be specific, I can take it.

There aren't any, and your facts are correct.

You witnessed a giant Brain-Breaking moment on Thursday. Not Biden's, theirs. For years these same folks have been by turns lied to and engaging in lying themselves. Any sympathy level should be set to Zero for these people.

" Now please point out my logic flaws."

You left out, " my son has done nothing wrong ! "

Failed to file taxes for several years.

Forgot to report millions, perhaps tens of millions in income over several years.

Tony Bobulinski was reimbursed for his expenses incurred while working for team Hunter. Tony claims he met and talked business with Joe, who is lying ?

How have Hunter and his family treated his daughter with Lunden Roberts, who they refuse to acknowledge ? What trump did with Stormy is boy schout camp compared to what the Biden family , that does nothing wrong , has done to that poor child.

Enjoy the show bro, great laughs !!

Yes,

Joe Manchin.

Joe Manchin isn't a Democrat anymore, he's an Independent. Are there any other Democrats you would vote for?

Here's the letter which you stated was a lie with no support. If you want to, you can go find the non-partisan researchers referenced in the letter (bolded for you to see) and then give us a detailed explanation of why they are wrong and that this letter is a lie, but so far you have just made unsupported statements. I'm not doing any work at all beyond this, the onus is on you, and if all you give us is hot air, everyone will see that. Ball is in your court. Is it possible you meant something other than it's a lie?

Sixteen Nobel Economists Sign Letter About Risks to the U.S. Economy of a Second Trump Presidency

We the undersigned are deeply concerned about the risks of a second Trump administration for the U.S. economy.

Among the most important determinants of economic success are the rule of law and economic and political certainty. For a country like the U.S., which is embedded in deep relationships with other countries, conforming to international norms and having normal and stable relationships with other countries is also an imperative. Donald Trump and the vagaries of his actions and policies threaten this stability and the U.S.’s standing in the world.

While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s. In his first four years as President, Joe Biden signed into law major investments in the U.S. economy, including in infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and climate. Together, these investments are likely to increase productivity and economic growth while lowering long-term inflationary pressures and facilitating the clean energy transition.

During Joe Biden’s presidency we have also seen a remarkably strong and equitable labor market recovery—enabled by his pandemic stimulus. An additional four years of Joe Biden’s presidency would allow him to continue supporting an inclusive U.S. economic recovery.

Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets. Nonpartisan researchers, including at Evercore, Allianz, Oxford Economics, and the Peterson Institute, predict that if Donald Trump successfully enacts his agenda, it will increase inflation.

The outcome of this election will have economic repercussions for years, and possibly decades, to come. We believe that a second Trump term would have a negative impact on the U.S.’s economic standing in the world and a destabilizing effect on the U.S.’s domestic economy.

Signed,

George A. Akerlof (2001)
Sir Angus Deaton (2015)
Claudia Goldin (2023)
Sir Oliver Hart (2016)
Eric S. Maskin (2007)
Daniel L. McFadden (2000)
Paul R. Milgrom (2020)
Roger B. Myerson (2007)
Edmund S. Phelps (2006)
Paul M. Romer (2018)
Alvin E. Roth (2012)
William F. Sharpe (1990)
Robert J. Shiller (2013)

Gator1984: By all means please update where I am wrong.

1) Hunter laptop. Was it Russian disinformation or real? (Keep in mind that this is potentially Joe Biden's son's laptop, so he should really know from day 1). I would also add that we have a document from 51 experts confirming that the laptop is Russian disinformation (not just unknown origin, but pointing it in the direction of our so called nemesis like a James Bond movie? Apparently they jumped the gun. Or had no intention of wanting to know the truth. Is this not 100% resolved as of today? What do you know, it is Hunter's laptop! Of course the contents are still being hidden by the current administration? What a shocker, but nobody still argues that it was Russian disinformation anymore. Do you?

You're wrong.

From the letter:

It is for all these reasons that we write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.

Information operations, which are also known as influence operations, include the collection of tactical information about an adversary as well as the dissemination of propaganda in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent.

They did not suggest that it was a disinformation campaign.

Also, please note that you are wrong in suggesting they claimed to know with certainty that it was a Russian campaign.

Again, from the letter (which you did not seem to actually read):

We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.

In short, you're completely wrong.

The letter: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-...


Gator 1984: Don't we have laws that only congress can approve funding? Seems like Biden is the unlawful player.

No, it seems like you're uninformed here, as well.

The Biden administration is using programs within the Department of Education's existing authority like Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which has already been lawfully in place in statute and regulation for nearly 15 years, as a way to forgive some borrowers' loans.

Other existing loan forgiveness programs include total and permanent disability discharge; borrower defense to repayment discharges for defrauded borrowers; closed school discharge for borrowers whose school closed abruptly; and teacher loan forgiveness.

Still others received relief via an income-driven repayment plan which applied to people who have worked for 20 or more years but never received the debt forgiveness they were entitled to.

I'll let someone else address your other two points.

Here's the letter which you stated was a lie with no support. If you want to, you can go find the non-partisan researchers referenced in the letter (bolded for you to see) and then give us a detailed explanation of why they are wrong and that this letter is a lie, but so far you have just made unsupported statements. I'm not doing any work at all beyond this, the onus is on you, and if all you give us is hot air, everyone will see that. Ball is in your court. Is it possible you meant something other than it's a lie?

I'm not characterizing it as a blatant lie. Just that it exists to sway the vote. It is at best an educated guess, but hardly a predictive fact. There are so many variables in economics and to try and characterize a specific outcome to a few of those variables lacks a fair characterization of their efforts. If they were to characterize their hypothesis as just that, a hypothesis, and offer other possible outcomes for one to ponder, I might give it a little more credence. But as it is, as I suspected, just a bunch of high level gibberish and the majority of economic forecasts fall short even when well reasoned with detailed models, which these clearly lack. That is my point here. Don't be fooled by the appearance of non partisan to sway greater acceptance. It typically doesn't meet the standard. It is just another attempt to sway the uniformed vote. But this time it has been swallowed up by bigger headlines. Likely making this letter a non event.

I will add, if it was so easy to determine how to get maximum GDP, improved productivity, with low inflation, everyone would be doing it. That is why it is a soft science. It is basically trial and error. I would add that Trump's first attempt at this worked out pretty well on all fronts for the economy until Covid hit. By the way, look how many times in the past 24 months, the head of the Federal reserve (an experts amongst experts) has been surprised by the economies behavior. At least he shows some humility along the way. I am sure if Trump wins and your 16 experts are proven wrong, we will never hear from them again. Now Powell is a true non-partisan as he has openly served both parties.

Let me add a few more points on the letter.

Economics is as much an art as a science. Making definitive projections is basically irresponsible in my opinion.

That being said. Different policies and actions may have different results depending on other variables at the time. Including where you may be in the economic cycle.

So again, my main point is be a little less firm in your predictions, you are almost always going to be somewhat if not totally wrong when it comes to economics.

That is why we have very few wealthy economists. It is more than a joke. That is the one fact in all of this.

Here is what you said, I think the more recent example of this, the 16 "nobel prize economist" letter (more crap from supposedly experts) shows that they continue the same playbook of lying to support their guy.

You said they were lying, and you've now seen the letter with their references - so without researching their references you couldn't know it was a lie, but just assumed for your political convenience.

All the talk about variables, etc, means nothing since you put forth no effort to understand what they considered.

So it appears you fibbed about their lying and think you can artfully BS your way through this. Sounds normal.

While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s. In his first four years as President, Joe Biden signed into law major investments in the U.S. economy, including in infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and climate.

Together, these investments are likely to increase productivity and economic growth while lowering long-term inflationary pressures and facilitating the clean energy transition.

During Joe Biden’s presidency we have also seen a remarkably strong and equitable labor market recovery—enabled by his pandemic stimulus. An additional four years of Joe Biden’s presidency would allow him to continue supporting an inclusive U.S. economic recovery.

This is the argument from the letter you are referring to.

Maybe I am stupid or possibly blind. They don't appear to have applied a lot of elbow grease into their analysis/statement! It looks like a simple line of reasoning beginning with Together-see above. Why will these investment have that effect? or will they.

Have you been following these investments so far. The green investments, which they refer to do not appear to provide any productivity or inflation reducing benefits. In fact, many are well below expectations. I will point out that rural charging never got off the ground! Complete failure. EV rollouts are causing enormous losses for our homegrown auto companies. Ford is losing $100 K + per car. GM big losses but less than Ford. Where are the productivity gains in this? Can you please explain to me how Green initiatives lead to lower inflation and higher productivity.

Most of the infrastructure projects have yet to be rolled out. How do you quantify the economic benefit of these without organizing these by type and evaluating them which they appear to not have done.

The letter as I pointed out before is a total fluff piece.

You would make a great politician. The government screws up everything they touch. Why should these projects be any different.

These comments above are even more bogus than I originally thought.

It will be profit focussed businesses that save the day as always.

The post-debate landscape is one in which America has a choice between two geriatric candidates with profound communication issues.

In Biden's case, I think the debate displayed something more serious than a "communication" problem. At a minimum, Biden appeared to be exhibiting symptoms of "sundowning." It may have been an even more serious situation, perhaps an afib episode (Biden has afib). (My mother-in-law, who worked well into her 80s, had afib, and my wife said that Biden's behavior showed symptoms her mom would display when she was having an episode.)

For citizens deeply concerned about the future of democracy in America (as I am), this is not a matter of "having Joe's back." It's about how to defeat Trump. According to polls, something like 2/3 to 3/4 of voters are of the view that Biden is not medically fit to serve four more years. Many Democratic leaders and officials agree with them. They're also worried about the down-ballot repercussions of Biden wipeout.

I think it's unlikely that Biden can turn this around. I think he has maybe a couple of weeks, max, to do so; and if there's no clear evidence that he's succeeding, party leaders and donors will ask Jill to convince him to hang up his spurs and spend his remaining years with his family.

Then what? Kamala cannot win. I think that says more about America than it does about her, but there it is. Newsom has a lot of baggage. There are a number of Dem Governors and Senators, past and present, who would be solid candidates--e.g., Michael Bennet, Jay Inslee, JB Pritzker, Tim Walz, maybe Gretchen Whitmer.

There are a number of Dem Governors and Senators, past and present, who would be solid candidates--e.g., Michael Bennet, Jay Inslee, JB Pritzker, Tim Walz, maybe Gretchen Whitmer.

And in snap polling about match ups with Trump, all continue to lose by roughly the same margin - low 40's percent to the democrats and high 40's percent to Trump. All losers.

Which is why I'm looking really outside the box. Invite Kinzinger or Liz Cheney to become independents and go up against Trump. Hard core never trumpers will still vote for them instead of Trump, and they might peel away some disaffected with Trump who are voting for him anyway because they're never going to vote for a Democrat.

If you're going to throw a hail mary, throw a real HAIL MARY and not some half-assed last minute swap that isn't any better than Biden.

--Peter

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