Who do you tip to win the US presidential election

[Ted Striker]

My votes:

1. Angela Merkel
2. Jacinda Ardern
3. Sanna Marin
4. Morgan Freeman
5. Bill Pullman

[Elok]

I don't even know what the bounty thing you're referring to is, and it's been two days, so I imagine the news hasn't exploded all that well? Anyway, Nice Senile Man seems likely to trounce Nasty Senile Man, barring something remarkable happening in the next few months.

EDIT: Looked it up. Trump did nothing about something where he should have done something. Not sure what the something would have been in this case. Bad, but it hasn't gone big in the conservative sphere AFAICT and I doubt it will persuade anyone to move. Guardian, NYT et al seem quite excited but that's a given.

[Ted Striker]

Liz Cheney is even asking questions. Maybe Vader will throw the Emperor off the balcony to save Luke.

[Berzerker]

She's a neo-con, Daddy's little girl

[Uncle Sparky]

Those Evil Finns

[Ted Striker]

LOL. That's pretty awesome. You can't beat the Finns at the Internets.

[Jon Miller]

EDIT: Looked it up. Trump did nothing about something where he should have done something. Not sure what the something would have been in this case

I don't know, couldn't he just not be best buds with Putin for a few months? Or refrain from acting in Russia's interests for a few months?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/u...g7-russia.html
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/p...ut-of-germany/

Or just be someone that we can trust to further US national interests when Russia is involved?
https://www.businessinsider.com/trum...avoided-2020-7

JM

[Uncle Sparky]

Well, over 62,000 Americans have died from COVID 19, and they hope to get the infection rate up to 100,000 per day. I suspect it will work like a national tontine: whoever is still alive and uninfected election day will be president!

[Jon Miller]

Elok, I like you and your book. Why do you seem unconcerned about our president putting Russian interests above American interests (I will agree that he probably puts his own interests above both Russian and American interests)?

"Donald trump’s blind spot for Russian aggression might seem like a stale fact of American political life by now—were it not that the aggression keeps getting worse. The latest example, according to an intelligence leak to the New York Times, which has since been widely corroborated, was a Russian scheme to pay bounties to Islamic militants in Afghanistan in return for killing American soldiers. A possible attempt to derail the peace deal signed between America and the Taliban in January, the scheme may have been behind the killing of three us marines last year.

Evidence of it is reported to include testimonies from captured militants and half a million dollars retrieved by Afghan agents. There are reported to have been initial doubts about the intelligence’s reliability. But it was nonetheless thought solid enough to be included in Mr Trump’s daily intelligence briefing dossier in late February. It was discussed in an inter-agency meeting at the National Security Council in March. Possible American reprisals for the alleged plot are said to have been drawn up—ranging from raising the issue with Russia to slapping sanctions on it. Yet the matter appears to have ended there.

Mr Trump claims to have known nothing about any of this, his gatekeepers having ruled the intelligence too flaky to be worth his time. His spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, did not deny that it had been included in his daily brief. (Having thus implied the well-established fact that Mr Trump does not read his intelligence briefings, she uttered the memorable defence: “The president does read.”) Mr Trump subsequently upped the ante, calling the alleged bounty plot “just another hoax”. However by then members of Congress from both parties had been briefed on the evidence and ruled it worrying enough to warrant further investigation. As The Economist went to press, the Gang of Eight—which includes the congressional leaders of both parties and their foremost representatives on the House and Senate intelligence committees—were awaiting an additional briefing from Gina Haspel, the cia director.

What explains Mr Trump’s softness on Russia? According to his former national security, John Bolton, the president “repeatedly objected to criticising Russia and pressed us not to be critical of Russia publicly.” Even if Mr Trump had not known about the alleged bounty scheme, the alacrity with which he sought to rubbish it this week is in itself remarkable. There is no good explanation for this weakness. Yet at least two things can be said of it with certainty.

First, it has already made a nonsense of the administration’s decision to place Russia alongside China as a “revisionist power” in its 2017 National Security Strategy. Sceptics warned from the start that elevating the threat of a country with an economy smaller than Canada’s to this degree made no sense. And to be thus aggrandised could only delight, and probably embolden, Russia—as seems to have happened. It has celebrated its “revisionist” status in all manner of needling and worse ways: including assassinations in nato allies, stepped-up cyber operations, sabre-rattling jet flights off the coast of Alaska. And instead of pushing back hard on this misbehaviour—which his administration unwittingly encouraged—Mr Trump has downplayed and denied it, while meanwhile lobbying for Russia to be readmitted to the g7.

Second, the damage this is doing to us democracy is significant. Half of Americans think their president is a shill for the Kremlin. The other half think Russia isn’t so bad after all. This is an even bigger win for Mr Putin than whatever his killers were up to in Afghanistan."

https://www.economist.com/united-sta...rican-soldiers

JM

[Dauphin]

Whilst you are right due to the rider “over”, saying 62,000 begs a question.... did half the dead recover and I didn’t notice?

[Uncle Sparky]

I am assuming the GOP dead will still vote on election day.

[Jon Miller]

Whilst you are right due to the rider “over”, saying 62,000 begs a question.... did half the dead recover and I didn’t notice?

Maybe 62k 'real' Americans?

JM

[Dauphin]

I'm sure the Brazilian joke can be recycled, as well as the equivalency joke.

Mr Trump: Are we still number one in Kung Flu deaths?
Advisor: Yes, Mr President, we have twice as many deaths as the 60,000 Brazilian deaths.
Mr Trump: How many noughts is a Brazilian?

Fox News: Mr President, I know you are watching, 30,000 Mexicans, that's equivalent to 1,000 Americans, have died from Coronavirus. In Russia, 10,000 have died, that's the equivalent to 20,000 Americans.

[Elok]

Elok, I like you and your book. Why do you seem unconcerned about our president putting Russian interests above American interests (I will agree that he probably puts his own interests above both Russian and American interests)?

Well, I don't think it really changes anything. I already knew Putin was and is a gangster, and putting bounties on our troops sounds like his kind of game. Trump is somewhat defensive about Russia, but the simpler explanation is a combo of his brainlessly reactive nature and Putin saying nice things about him that one time, rather than him being compromised or a paid stooge or anything else sinister. It's entirely possible he didn't read or remember the initial briefing. He's certainly been fairly inert on COVID and a host of other things, so Occam's Razor. The bounty news still hasn't made a splash, that I can tell, outside of liberal and NeverTrumper circles which hated him anyway. At this point, it probably won't. Bleeeeeehhhhhh.

I might vote for Kanye. God help me.

[giblets]

Please God I hope Kanye is allowed into the presidential debate

[-Jrabbit]

Not going to happen. (Actually, I guess we've shown that literally anything can, somehow, happen...)

[Jon Miller]

He won't even be on the ballot of most (all?) states. So I very much expect him not to be, and he shouldn't be (despite how entertaining it might be).

JM
(basically, he is too late to be an independent or Green or Libertarian, so ... )

[Elok]

You cannot with a straight face tell me that mental stability or cognitive function are hard requirements for the presidency anymore. He's missed the ballots on a lot of big states so it would be extremely hard for him to win, but ... I have to say, I think better of him than I do of Biden or Trump.

(he'll probably change his mind)
(but God only knows, this year)

[-Jrabbit]

He's obviously just spoilering for his buddy 45. Isn't that obvious?

[Elok]

If so, that's a high-risk strategy; I could see Kanye siphoning significant votes away from Trump, possibly more than he would from Biden.

[Jon Miller]

The people who are around a candidate matter. Bush had standard Republicans. Obama had standard Democrats. Biden will have standard Democrats.

Trump initially had a various factions which included standard Republicans. Since then he has forced everyone to become Trumpists or to leave. Not only that, but the ones who were on the outside but part of the standard Republicans have been particularly poorly behaved as far as corruption is concerned. And the ones who were not really part of the standard Republicans have been disastrously corrupt (see Trump family).

I do not expect anything good to come in with Kanye, even though I may personally like him better than I like Biden (and I can not even use like in the same context with Trump).

I use to be interested and even favor outsiders (Bernie was attractive in part due to his outsider nature, and I voted for him in 2016 and 2020, I have voted for Green and similar candidates before, although not for president). Now I do not favor outsiders for president. In fact, some of the reason I still voted for Bernie this year is that I was convinced that he could play well enough with Democrats not to be a disaster when governing. Some of the reason I supported Bernie more than Yang in 2019 was that I thought that Bernie could play well with Democrats and I was not sure about Yang.

JM
(Now some of the Bernie supporters do not play well with Democrats, but that hasn't been the case with Bernie.)

[ZEE]

Berzerker had the best poast in this thrade and I agree with him 100%