President Trump

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 12:29 pm

Republicans are the masters at defining their opponents in political campaigns.
Willie Horton. Swift Boat. Benghazi. Heck, go back to Congressman Nixon and his Pink Lady campaign.
The Republicans are sadistic killers in political campaigns.
The Democrats are flowers and snowflakes.

Racer Chris · Post by **Racer Chris** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 1:16 pm

JimHow wrote:Fairness and honor and truth, of course, have nothing to do with modern American politics.

Godzilla is coming, folks. Brace yourselves for a tsunami.

I don't think he has the energy.

Claudius2 · Post by **Claudius2** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:01 pm

Jim/Chris
Over here, the Nissan GT-R is called "Godzilla".
But clearly a different kind of beast.

Claret · Post by **Claret** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:01 pm

Claudius2 wrote:Jim/Chris
Over here, the Nissan GT-R is called "Godzilla".
But clearly a different kind of beast.

Nice car!

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:43 pm

I'll be glad when this campaign and pandemic are over so I can be at home less and watch CNN less and don't have to watch so many Tom Selleck reverse mortgage commercials.

Comte Flaneur · Post by **Comte Flaneur** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:09 pm

JimHow wrote:Ha I am the most left wing participant in this thread.

I’m sorry Jim, I am more left wing than you.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:21 pm

JimHow wrote:Fairness and honor and truth, of course, have nothing to do with modern American politics.

Godzilla is coming, folks. Brace yourselves for a tsunami.

On this we agree.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:19 am

Man, another pretty bad slip of the tongue today, David, "I haven't been protected... er, tested for the Covid virus..."
He literally can't put two sentences together.
I'm going to trust you the doctor to tell me he's okay, and I pray you are right, but I gotta say my eyes are telling me there's a problem here over and above his just being 78 years old....
His words seem VERY tentative.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:38 am

But does he know if Finland is part of Russia?

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:54 am

Oh Orange is much worse because not only does he too have cognitive impairment but also profound mental illnesses.
He is mentally ill, like the country that elected him.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:02 pm

Agreed again, which is why I am not reassured by the polls. I’m happy to see Biden ahead and fewer undecideds, but we haven’t seen the propaganda machine get out of first gear yet. Trump will take full advantage of Biden’s slowness and gaffes and attack him relentlessly, the media will swallow it and regurgitate it to the masses. We’ll see if the pundits have learned anything since 2016 but I doubt it. The only hope is that enough voters can see through the fog of disinformation.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 12:47 am

Just expect another nail-biter, David, where we are waiting for the votes in the corridor up through central Florida, whether there are enough outstanding ballots in Broward county, what are the suburbs in Milwaukee, western PA, Lansing, etc., producing.
Who knows, maybe we'll be able to snatch a crazy state like FL or GA or NC, but I'm not holding my breath.
In the end, it is going to come down to the usual suspects, complicated this year by voter suppression, Covid, etc., and, of course, the fascism that is Donald Trump.
Have you seen the poll site "voter monitoring (intimidation)" effort that the R's are putting on?
I'm guessing most of the Rachel Maddow snowflakes have no idea it exists.
Seriously, dudes, you have NO fucking idea what is coming.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 1:12 am

The big mistake is that the Dems are focusing on mail in voting.
This will delay the results by two weeks, which will give Orange and Fox an eternity to muck things up.
Why we can't just allow a two-week voting period and work to avoid polling lines is beyond me.
If you can't get your registration and voting done within a two week window, well, then too bad for you.
But no, the idiot Dems focus on things like mail in voting, canvassing of ballots, etc., which just plays right into the hands of the Republicans.
I mean, there will undoubtedly be instances of voter fraud, which the Republicans will obviously parlay into a complete delegitimization of the vote.
That's the way it happens in banana states, which we have basically become.
I scream and holler at the incompetence of the Democratic Party and people like Blanquito mock me as right wing, but the fact of the matter is it is the Democratic Party that has only itself to blame when fascists like Donald Trump get to rule the world.
And if you think it's bad now, wait til he steals four more years come November 3rd....

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 11:24 pm

: 2B13AB2C-B5D0-4E19-99CF-9242311BA148.jpeg (97.48 KiB) Viewed 2186 times

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 12:10 pm

I got this Newsweek story off of Peggy's Facebook page, David, i truly believe we are going to see something like this:

https://www.newsweek.com/how-trump-coul ... u69kAs4Ds8

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 3:10 pm

Scary shit indeed.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 4:13 pm

Wait til we have a spike in Covid in the fall and we can't get the usual large numbers of retirees to work the polls.
What a cluster is coming....

Chateau Vin · Post by **Chateau Vin** » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:44 pm

As of July 5, 2020 - The 2020 Presidential Electoral Map: 279 to 259

As of Aug 4, 2020 -
As of Sep 3, 2020 -
As of Oct 3, 2020 -
As of Nov 2, 2020 -

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:02 pm

I got it at 268 to 270.

I just can't bring myself to put Wisconsin in the Blue column. Arizona could end up important.

Chateau Vin · Post by **Chateau Vin** » Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:42 pm

JimHow wrote:I got it at 268 to 270.

I just can't bring myself to put Wisconsin in the Blue column. Arizona could end up important.

1. There are more dem leaning voters in WI, and I feel there would be better 2020 dem turnout in WI than in 2016.

2. Although I gave NV to dems for now, close attention need to be paid to NV in the coming months, and could flip. The casino industry is in trouble in the short term, and the predominantly latino workers (who are generally left leaning) of the casino industry will be displaced, so much so that there might be less than anticipated voter participation in the elections...

3. I will still put AZ in solid red column as of now, but interesting to see this one also in the coming weeks/months.

4. I would put FL in dem column, but I think the chances of mischief making in FL are high and need to see how the voting related stuff unfolds in the coming weeks. For now, I will put FL in red column..

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:14 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80ejAqLSMmg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ue5F57dZMU

AKR · Post by **AKR** » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:33 pm

Chateau Vin wrote:
2. Although I gave NV to dems for now, close attention need to be paid to NV in the coming months, and could flip. The casino industry is in trouble in the short term, and the predominantly latino workers (who are generally left leaning) of the casino industry will be displaced, so much so that there might be less than anticipated voter participation in the elections...

I really am not very sympathetic toward NV - it is the paragon of a whole state built around non essential activities, and often parasitic towards neighbors. They have learned little from the GFC, and kept on building casinos and poaching sports teams.

If COVID forces a radical rethink of a new victory strategy for the state, and especially Clark county, that would be long run healthy. They need to be developing more stuff like Gigafactory and less Bellagios.

I don't see the state turning red anytime soon, all the population growth is in the blue pocket.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:58 am

July 6th...

Holding firm with a How Quotient of: HQ = 59.

Orange came out of the July 4th holidays pretty even, stepping up the racist message (always big in the USA) and going Nixon model of law and order.

The GOP is running really ugly stuff right now on behalf of Suzie Collins here in Maine, a liberal poll had her down only 4 which means she's up by about 4. I can only imagine what I'd be dealing with if I'd run against Suzie, not that I would have cared, but I wonder if it would have been any worse than the onslaught that is coming Sarah Gideon's way. OMG is is this going to be awful in such an epic way.

With Suzie holding her own (I"ve NEVER thought she could be defeated by anyone other than me, as the arrogant Maine Dems are about to find out), I can't give the Maine 2nd CD electoral vote to the Dems, and so I got it still at:

269 - 270.

You guys do realize, right, that the presidential election is going to be decided right here in the second Congressional district of Maine, that's why Orange has been here no less than FOUR times in the past two elections, we haven't seen Old Joe yet, but we've seen trump signs up here outnumbering Joe's by about 5,000 to ZERO.

Good grief, the Democratic Party is so pathetic. They JUST DON'T GET IT

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:03 am

However, give me Arizona and we got something to talk about....

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 3:03 am

This is my electoral map on July 6th, this gives Orange a 270-268 victory.
If you give me the 1 vote in Maine CD-2, that ties it at 269-269, but we still don't win because it gets kicked to the House and state legislatures and we lose under that scenario.
If we win Wisconsin, we win. But I'm not counting on that because Wisconsin is the Florida of the north.
If we win Arizona, we win. Can we pull out some reverse Mark Kelly coattails?
I really like that guy.

So...
It comes down to:

Maine second congressional district
Wisconsin
Arizona

I'm not optimitic about any of the three, and thus I still have Orange at HQ 59, 268-270.

marcs · Post by **marcs** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:23 pm

you should have run against Collins it would have been great just to see BWE posts become a central campaign issue

Can Mainers trust a man who prefers 1989 Lynch Bages to Bud Light???

marcs · Post by **marcs** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:29 pm

I also wanted to work in Jim's Senate office. Every night after the floor session closed the Bordeaux would come out. Blowing the interns minds with great bottles. Rumors that I was only close to the boss because I bribed him with his favorite vintages. Lobbyists giving me kickbacks to tell them which bottles to bring as gifts ("any random classed growth as long as it's way too young"). Office would have been a legend and revived Bordeaux as the most fashionable region. Ah well...never to be.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:03 pm

Yeah, you know, as brutalized as I would have been in that campaign, I'm afraid it's getting perhaps equally rough for Sarah Gideon.
One of my biggest fears is being realized, that Sarah is a Portland liberal who can't win a statewide race.
It's going to be close but I have my money on Suzie.

Ah, what could have been:

https://www.google.com/url?client=inter ... rK0N5pKtG8

AKR · Post by **AKR** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:17 pm

Mary Trump's book is being leaked and she has concluded that DJT pursues self aggrandizement to compensate for paternal love he did not receive. She also noted that Donald criticized her father (Freddy) to win favor from their mutual, stern father -- mimicking the bullying behavior he saw. Sadly these destructive family dynamic cycles play out over generations, like repeated boot loops.

Look at how his son in law Kushner proclaimed he was going to solve the conflicts in the Mid East! Another case of thinking he can please a familial elder, yet doomed to failure.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:20 pm

This election is going to make Gore v. Bush look like cupcakes....

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/2 ... e=Homepage

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:03 am

So I buy most of my clothes from three sources -- J.C. Penney, Brooks Brothers, and L.L. Bean -- the first two of which have now filed for bankruptcy.
United is laying off, what, 34,000 in the U.S.?
Orange is stepping up his campaign on Joe and is getting out there, Joe doesn't seem to be doing much. This is reminding me of the summer of '88, when Dukakis pissed away a lead against Bush the Elder.

All in all, I'm going to hold even in my projections:

How Quotient:

HQ = 59

Electoral College Projection:

268 - 270.

stefan · Post by **stefan** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:32 am

Jim, be optimistic. When November comes around and 250,000-300,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, the American people will say "we have had enough of this idiot".

Claudius2 · Post by **Claudius2** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 1:44 pm

Stefan
Are there extensive measures against the virus there? I read the infection and death rates every day with some apprehension. Singapore has been lucky with only 26 deaths. My old country Australia has had to go into lockdown again due a spike in numbers mainly in Melbourne. The virus isn’t just going to disappear without a lot of effort across the globe as you would know but the numbers in the USA - and also in South and Central America - are alarming.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:30 pm

In light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing prosecutors to access Orange Head's tax records, I'm going to lower the How Quotient down to 55.

I'll keep the electoral college vote as it is until I learn a little more about the voter suppression dynamics in Wisconsin and a few other states.

How Quotient:

HQ = 55

Electoral College Projection:

268 - 270

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:45 pm

I'm confused by the SCOTUS headlines but I'll keep it at 55 for now.

stefan · Post by **stefan** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:55 pm

Mark, the Texas governor just recently ordered that masks be worn in stores and outside when distancing is not practical. Bars were opened, but he closed them, and restaurants are limited to, I think, 50% of full occupancy. The mayor of my city put in such orders just a few days earlier than the governor acted.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:14 pm

JimHow wrote:I'm confused by the SCOTUS headlines but I'll keep it at 55 for now.

As I understand it the bottom line is we won’t see his tax returns this year.

No absolute immunity in Vance but I’m sure he’ll raise other newer and less absolute objections to the NY subpoena that will be tied up in court for a while.

And while he’s not above the law with respect to Congress in the legislative case there’s plenty of grey in that decision about lower courts not taking adequate account of "special concerns" relating to separation of powers to keep that tied up in lower courts until after the election as well.

Compared to the raging infection rate and climbing death toll from COVID that can be laid at his feet, I doubt that his taxes would have that much impact. People have likely already priced in his financial shenanigans - it’s not new.

Comte Flaneur · Post by **Comte Flaneur** » Fri Jul 10, 2020 8:40 pm

I was on a call the other dat with Professor Matt Frieman professor of virology at the University of Maryland. He said there is so much virus circulating in the US now that it is too late to get it back under control for the back to school season and blanket lockdowns will be unavoidable in the fall. He observed that this could play havoc with the election. He didn’t say this but if that happened it would be a great opportunity for Trump.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:10 am

Yeah, we are in trouble, Comte.
The country, outside of New England, just cannot get its shit together.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Sun Jul 12, 2020 11:26 pm

Any Civid-related harbingers for the west in the Singapore vote, Claudius?