US Elections 2020 (geopolitics, informed debate, no ad hominems)

Biden

14 (66.7%)

Trump

7 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Voting closed: November 02, 2020, 06:25:59 pm

[TechTalk]

Why should I?  Its far too entertaining.  Comedy gold.

Great! I'll post whatever news I find interesting and you react however you like. If you're amused, how nice for you. Everyone's happy.

[Alan Klein]

Well, if they traveled twelve times as much, then maybe they did twelve times as much sinister stuff. Bears looking into. Maybe some computer repair guy has all of their laptops, to sort of give us a running start.

The Trumps took more trips than the Obamas because the Trump's kids are married and have their own children.  It's a pretty big family that has business interests throughout the world that they have to manage. (around 500 businesses). All of them require Secret Service protection all the time especially when they travel as required by law to protect the president and US government against threats due to kidnapping and other crimes to his family.  The Obamas only had two minor children who were with them all the time.  I don't think they were doing business with Chinese bankers or Ukrainian oil companies. So less agents were required and less cost to run the operation.

But the point about the Bidens, is that Hunter used his father's travels on AF2 to meet and ingratiate himself with foreign leaders and business people to exact fancy high paying no-show jobs and deals he would not have gotten without his father being there.  That's the issue.  It's amazing how perceptive people are about Trump and his kid's business but can't see similar or worse issues with the Bidens.  I wonder why? 

[Alan Klein]

You missed the point. The point isn't Republican or Democratic. Either party can have bad actors among such large nationwide organizations.

The point is regarding smear tactics... Before you swallow the bait, it's best to know the nature of the worm.

You mean like the Russian collusion gambit?

[Alan Klein]

Since the topic of disinformation has come up now and then, I thought I'd point out this interesting podcast from the BBC's Trending program, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszvsd.

They provide some specific examples of disinformation campaigns that had been financed and organized by entities outside the US over the last few years. The mechanics of doing that are interesting in and of themselves. They go on to give examples of how disinformation campaigns have changed recently to more home grown operations.

They gave one example of how face creation AIs can be used to set up fake accounts on social media.

Sooner or later some people are going to start promoting the idea of limiting free speech to control all the lying. I hope adequate tools for dealing with this cancer can be found before going that dark road.

The left wants to control free speech that's otherwise truthful if it doesn't match their view of the world.  Same with opinions they disagree with.  They'd make Pravda proud.

[Alan Klein]

If you don't like the news, you can always change the channel.

After watching CNN to see what the opposition is thinking, and getting too nauseous listening to corrupt so-called journalists, I do switch to another channel.  Usually it's the Western channel that plays old cowboy movies where it's simple to see the truth and know the good guys from the bad.  Quite a relief.

[TechTalk]

You mean like the Russian collusion gambit?

Exactly. Like Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort passing internal Trump campaign information to a Russian intelligence officer during the 2016 election.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/senate-report-former-trump-aide-paul-manafort-shared-campaign-info-with-russia

"Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort passed internal Trump campaign information to a Russian intelligence officer during the 2016 election, a new bipartisan Senate report concludes.

The findings draw a direct line between the president's former campaign chairman and Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.

Manafort, who was later convicted for financial fraud crimes, briefed Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik on the campaign's polling data and how the Trump campaign sought to beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

Manafort's connection with Kilimnik was a "grave counterintelligence threat," the report reads, adding that it found evidence the Russian intelligence officer may have been linked to the Russian government's efforts to hack and leak Democratic Party emails.

The findings are part of the Senate Intelligence Committee's fifth and final bipartisan report investigating Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. This volume is primarily focused on counterintelligence threats and the wide range of Russian attempts to influence both the Trump campaign and the election.

The report builds on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation — and while it was consistent with the Mueller Report, it in fact goes further."

Much more at NPR story linked above

[TechTalk]

I do switch to another channel.  Usually it's the Western channel that plays old cowboy movies where it's simple to see the truth and know the good guys from the bad.  Quite a relief.

As long as you're aware that they're actors in a fictional play and you're not watching a historical documentary, no harm in that.

[Alan Klein]

Exactly. Like Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort passing internal Trump campaign information to a Russian intelligence officer during the 2016 election.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/senate-report-former-trump-aide-paul-manafort-shared-campaign-info-with-russia

"Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort passed internal Trump campaign information to a Russian intelligence officer during the 2016 election, a new bipartisan Senate report concludes.

The findings draw a direct line between the president's former campaign chairman and Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.

Manafort, who was later convicted for financial fraud crimes, briefed Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik on the campaign's polling data and how the Trump campaign sought to beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

Manafort's connection with Kilimnik was a "grave counterintelligence threat," the report reads, adding that it found evidence the Russian intelligence officer may have been linked to the Russian government's efforts to hack and leak Democratic Party emails.

The findings are part of the Senate Intelligence Committee's fifth and final bipartisan report investigating Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. This volume is primarily focused on counterintelligence threats and the wide range of Russian attempts to influence both the Trump campaign and the election.

The report builds on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation — and while it was consistent with the Mueller Report, it in fact goes further."

Much more at NPR story linked above

Good try.  No.  I was referring for all the gullible people who bought the Democrat political claim that Trump colluded with the Russians.

[Alan Klein]

As long as you're aware that they're actors in a fictional play and you're not watching a historical documentary, no harm in that.

Thanks.  I'm glad you approve.

[faberryman]

How did Biden get us into Iraq?  Was not this a decision by the Bush II administration?

Gosh, and I was wondering how Biden got us into Vietnam. We learned last week that he got out of going because he had childhood asthma. It is not clear to me how at the same time he was getting out of going there he was getting us in. I thought by that time we had already been there for a decade. Maybe if we could find his old laptop, we could scavenge his hard drive for incriminating emails, and perhaps some chid porn and videos showing him sexually abusing underage Chinese girls. Wait...were laptops and emails even invented then? I guess we’ll just have to factor in time travel. The government has been investigating time travel at a secret underground base in the desert in Nevada for years. I saw a show about in on TV. This is starting to look like an open and shut case, so let’s just go with it. If anyone asks us if we have evidence to support our claims, we’ll just tell them that we are not going to do their research for them. That sounds pretty reasonable.

[TechTalk]

Good try.  No.  I was referring for all the gullible people who bought the Democrat political claim that Trump colluded with the Russians.

Are you sure you're not thinking of all of the gullible people who bought the constant lies from Trump and those associated with the campaign claiming that they hadn't talked with any Russians while they actually were meeting with some who lured them with an offer of dirt on Hillary and the campaign manager was meeting with a Russian Intelligence officer? Or maybe you were thinking of all of the gullible people who bought the Trump lies about not having any business dealings in Russia while in reality he was working on a Trump Tower Moscow deal right up to the election.

[faberryman]

Are you sure you're not thinking of all of the gullible people who bought the constant lies from Trump and those associated with the campaign claiming that they hadn't talked with any Russians while they actually were meeting with some who lured them with an offer of dirt on Hillary and the campaign manager was meeting with a Russian Intelligence officer? Or maybe you were thinking of all of the gullible people who bought the Trump lies about not having any business dealings in Russia while in reality he was working on a Trump Tower Moscow deal right up to the election.

I haven’t read the Mueller report in a while so I may be a little hazy, but I thought they concluded that Don Jr. and the others were too stupid to collude with the Russians. As to the second, I thought they concluded that they didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump colluded with the Russians, but that they did have sufficient evidence to prove that he and others lied about it. Apparently, it’s not illegal to be stupid or a liar, depending on who you lie to like the FBI or Congress, or at least current DOJ policy is that you can’t indict a sitting president for being stupid or a liar. I mean it was probably more complicated that, but that’s the gist of my takeaway.

[JoeKitchen]

Are you sure you're not thinking of all of the gullible people who bought the constant lies from Trump and those associated with the campaign claiming that they hadn't talked with any Russians while they actually were meeting with some who lured them with an offer of dirt on Hillary and the campaign manager was meeting with a Russian Intelligence officer? Or maybe you were thinking of all of the gullible people who bought the Trump lies about not having any business dealings in Russia while in reality he was working on a Trump Tower Moscow deal right up to the election.

And yet, no evidence was ever found of wrong doing on Trump's part. 

[faberryman]

And yet, no evidence was ever found of wrong doing on Trump's part.

It kind of depends on what you mean by “wrong doing”. And I don’t think no evidence was found. I think they found evidence, but determined they probably didn’t find enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So it was more a question of burden of proof. I once read that a lot of guilty guys go free because the prosecutor thinks he probably didn’t find enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did it. So the issue a lot of times is not whether he did it, but whether he hid his tracks well enough so that the prosecutor can’t meet the burden of proof.

And then of course there is the whole thing about DOJ policy not to indict a sitting president even if you do have enough evidence he is guilty. A lot of people think Mueller blew it by not rethinking that idea. Some people say oh we can’t change DOJ policy, but at the same time they say we can change Roe v. Wade. I usually say that they might want to give that some more thought. They rarely take me up on it. Wouldn’t want to have to think. It’s too taxing.

[JoeKitchen]

It kind of depends on what you mean by wrong doing. And I don’t think no evidence was found. I think they found evidence, but determined they didn’t find enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So it was not so much a question of burden of prove. I once read that a lot of guilt guys go free, because the prosecutor cannot find enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it. And then of course there is the whole thing about DOJ policy not to indict a sitting president.

$48M, 18 angry Dem lawyers, dozens of FBI agents, 3 years, etc., etc., etc. 

If Trump was guilty, they would have found something considering.  They did not.  Face it, you were hoodwinked. 

[Jeremy Roussak]

It only has about a week and a half to go!!!  What will we do?  I guess move over to Kevin's site where there is actual good photo content.

Nothing prevents you from visiting both. I do.

Jeremy

[Robert Roaldi]

If Trump was guilty, they would have found something considering.  They did not.  Face it, you were hoodwinked.

Sort of like with the Bidens, Clintons, Obama, etc.

In any case, they found a lot wrong and it was a good thing to expose it all. They found nothing indictable for Trump, but isn't that a good thing for the country. It might mean that the "deep state" isn't all powerful. 

[faberryman]

If Trump was guilty, they would have found something considering.  They did not.  Face it, you were hoodwinked.

If we have learned one thing from that whole debacle, it is not to go down that same rabbit hole with Hunter Biden. Wouldn't want to waste two years and $48 million just to find out it was all a hoax, and we were hoodwinked. What do you think we are? Stupid?

[Alan Klein]

If we have learned one thing from that whole debacle, it is not to go down that same rabbit hole with Hunter Biden. Wouldn't want to waste two years and $48 million just to find out it was all a hoax, and we were hoodwinked. What do you think we are? Stupid?

What goes around comes around.

[Craig Lamson]

Great! I'll post whatever news I find interesting and you react however you like. If you're amused, how nice for you. Everyone's happy.

No one ever suggested you do otherwise.  Are you feeling insecure?