2020 US presidential election

CBarca wrote:I think Freeza was exaggerating

He said that we should study putting UV light inside of the body and suggested that we should study injecting disinfectant into our body.

It was maybe the most batshit crazy thing he's said since the beginning of his presidency. He's so fucking stupid, it's often difficult to believe just how stupid he is. People portray him as a moron and it's because he actually legitimately is not a smart person. There isn't an individual on earth over the age of 6-8 that would consider injecting disinfectant into their body as something that could cure them of a virus

He isnt even qualified to comment on that. Leave that shit to the health minister ffs.

Art Morte wrote:Trump is an ideas guy. He likes to throw ideas in the air without really thinking about them. There isn't anything wrong with that per se. But for any sane human to even entertain the idea of injecting disinfectant into the body is totally incredulous. I struggle to understand how a person's mind even goes there.

Agree in principle. The problem though is that this is a very dangerous thing to do as POTUS, given how influential the position has made him. People look to the POTUS during times like this for leadership so when people see him riffing like this, that influence is at work. His supporters worship him so I truly do not put it outside of the realm of possibility that they will believe him when he says stuff like this, even if he's just spitballing.

He'd simply be labeled nuts if he wasn't President. Now, he's not only nuts, he's potentially endangering lives given the level of influence he has, even if that wasn't his intention.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/tara-reade-biden-video-207670

Tara Reade scandal seems to be going nowhere

BarrileteCosmico wrote:https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/tara-reade-biden-video-207670

Tara Reade scandal seems to be going nowhere

So where do you think this is going to lead to? That 1993 call to Larry King does give Reade's claim some credibility, imo. I'd say something happened for sure, whether or not it was sexual assault, I don't know.

It would end him if he were running against anyone else, tbf

Hopefully the party rebels and names Cuomo in the convention

BarrileteCosmico wrote:It would end him if he were running against anyone else, tbf

Hopefully the party rebels and names Cuomo in the convention

I agree with you on that there needs to be a stand made against behavior like this and that a different candidate should be put up.

But I don't think allowing the party to decide that over the American people is right. You could argue that the American people haven't had a choice (Cuomo never ran), or that this wasn't public knowledge. I don't think those arguments are wrong or unfair (the first one might be...since the people did choose Biden over a number of other candidates).

But it still sets a dangerous precedent that the party, and not the people, decide.

That goes down another rabbit hole (the party basically does decide most of the time), but that's beyond the scope of this conversation

Perhaps, but these are extraneous circumstances where important information about a candidate was not disclosed until after he was elected the nominee. The only mechanism the party has to deal with it is a rebellion in the convention, as undemocratic as it may seem. And then anyone is on the table.

Where is all this Cuomo hype coming from? Is it the few good quotes criticising Trump and having fun with his brother on TV and he's supposed to be president? He hasn't exactly handled this crisis well. New York should've closed down way earlier.

Also sounds like an utter elitist prick

A reporter asked Gov. Cuomo what he’d say to New Yorkers who want to go back to work because they’re running out of money, to which he replied, “economic hardship doesn’t equal death”

“You want to go to work? Go take a job as an essential worker” he added https://t.co/BgwoOZsQRy pic.twitter.com/WxGQxtg49p

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 22, 2020

Cuomo has done a very good job.  CDC and WHO dropped the ball and nobody knew coronavirus had been in the US, and NY specifically, for months!  We found out about it maybe being here in a few people early March or late Feb.  Now the data shows that it's been in NYC since December...

Nothing he could do better.  You don't shut down a city like NY unless you have hard cold data and facts, not inuendo. Besides, airports and air travel are federal, not state. Governors have no power to block travel/transportation in any way.

Given the Mayor wasn't doing anything (Di Blasio is a shitshow), Cuomo had to step in.   Remember that SF and LA shut down early because their mayors did it and the state lagged by a couple of weeks.  They had the cruise ship issues that forced them to take those actions (nothing like that in NY) + NYC is a very different place than both LA and SF.

For New Yorkers to absolutely love Cuomo... and it's unanimous...  over 80% of the state loves how he's handled the situation...  you have to be doing something right.  This is a state full of cynics.

Great job by the governor.  He stepped into a leadership vacuum both at the federal and local level.  It would have been a complete disaster otherwise.

As a side note... anyone who decides to drink bleach because Trump said it might be something worth investigating deserves everything that's coming to them. Call it Darwinist. But if you're this level of stupid, humanity won't miss you.

Freeza wrote:Where is all this Cuomo hype coming from? Is it the few good quotes criticising Trump and having fun with his brother on TV and he's supposed to be president? He hasn't exactly handled this crisis well. New York should've closed down way earlier.

Also sounds like an utter elitist prick

A reporter asked Gov. Cuomo what he’d say to New Yorkers who want to go back to work because they’re running out of money, to which he replied, “economic hardship doesn’t equal death”

“You want to go to work? Go take a job as an essential worker” he added https://t.co/BgwoOZsQRy pic.twitter.com/WxGQxtg49p

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 22, 2020

Cuomo is the only reason there is a NY right now. De Blasio was telling people that there is no evidence of people to people transfer, that it was perfectly safe to go outside, etc. Completely dismissed it even in the middle of March iirc. New Yorkers hate De Blasio more than Trump right now. Cuomo stepped in, forced him to set up emergency hospitals all over, forced the stay at home order, etc. Basically without Cuomo this would be 20x worse. Hence the hype.

Cuomo has done well but many other governors have too. Overblown. Let's nominate DeWine too while we're at it.

Would he be better than biden? Sure. But he was no better than the field of candidates we got.

Anyway the most accurate serology test to date has come in with respect to New York and NYC. Widespread + decent amount of positive numbers mean we can have a bit more faith in the results than the ill fated santa clara study. Indicates between 10-20x the amount of undetected as detected. New York City at 20% infected.

Makes two things clear:

1) if we're going to go for herd immunity, we have a LOT of pain to go.

2) if we decide to try and forego herd immunity, this thing is going to take a looong time to go away.

Because right now, we're nowhere near herd immunity in our most drastic scenario

You're discounting when Coronavirus came to NY (December), the unique circumstance of NYC and the sheer numbers he had to face.

Other places in the US don't have the population density or the international travel of NY... it's by magnitudes of difference, not percentages. You also need to convince New Yorkers... they won't do something just because the government tells them.

FYI, this was NYC today (Brooklyn) and I loved every second of it.  Street markets are opening up and there's nothing the police can do about it.  People predominantly wore masks and used gloves when touching things.  Felt human again:

This is a controversial take, but just as Republicans believe everyone should have an ID specifically for voting, I believe one should have to be able to prove themselves intellectually competent enough to vote. They need to be able to prove an understanding of the issues, where they fit in, and the ability to think critically when voting at all levels. If they are unable to prove they have this ability, they should not be permitted to vote. How this is determined, that's up for debate, but given how many absolute idiots are in Congress, it proves their voters are even bigger idiots, which proves the need for something like this. I firmly believe that we got Trump largely because of people, who can't think critically, voting for him. They voted for him based purely on emotion, namely anger and resentment. It's generally how we get bad politicians on both sides of the aisle, but it goes doubly for Republicans.

@McLewis...  not only is what you're suggesting against the 15th amendment of the constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it as clear as it gets.  Not only that, it's wrong to block anyone, whether you agree with their education level, politics, frame of reference, etc., from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

All of wall street and main street (business owners) voted for Trump (or at least 80% of them).  It had everything to do with economics.  These are some of the most educated people in the world, let alone the US.  Even more interesting, a majority of Bernie Sanders voters chose Trump and will likely do so again this time...  reason being is that Bernie's trade ideas are very much in line with Trump's.  Nothing about establishment dems' ideas appeal to Bernie voters.

Biden needs to define his policies and they cannot be in line with 2016 ideas. The world has shifted. If anything, the US sentiment is shifting even more to isolationism and protectionism. He needs to accept this and adjust.

So basically, it's not more against the constitution than what republicans are already doing to prevent people from voting?

Freeza wrote:So basically, it's not more against the constitution than what republicans are already doing to prevent people from voting?

You mean voter purging?  That's on the voter.  You need to change your mailing address to one where you get your mail.  It's actually a law that you need to go to the DMV and update your state ID or Driver's license with your correct address within 6 months of changing.

If the states send a verification letter to the voter roll and that letter comes back as "undeliverable"...  you (the voter) need to get that fixed.  Otherwise, you cannot vote.  It's actually a very significant way to mitigate against voter fraud. Back in the 70s and before, the mafia used to influence elections by using names of people who recently died and cast votes on their behalf, as an example. Kennedy beat Nixon this way, if you're into history. So it's a very necessary law.

This is a case of the voter not complying with voter registration regulations.  It just so happens that the Republicans realized that most of those "undeliverable" mailings happen with likely dem voters... so they're making sure to enforce the law to the letter in places where they can.  

Very different.  I would argue that NOT doing this is against the law.

McLewis wrote:This is a controversial take, but just as Republicans believe everyone should have an ID specifically for voting, I believe one should have to be able to prove themselves intellectually competent enough to vote. They need to be able to prove an understanding of the issues, where they fit in, and the ability to think critically when voting at all levels. If they are unable to prove they have this ability, they should not be permitted to vote. How this is determined, that's up for debate, but given how many absolute idiots are in Congress, it proves their voters are even bigger idiots, which proves the need for something like this. I firmly believe that we got Trump largely because of people, who can't think critically, voting for him. They voted for him based purely on emotion, namely anger and resentment. It's generally how we get bad politicians on both sides of the aisle, but it goes doubly for Republicans.

qualified voting will just lead to the under representation of the lower classes and minorities, which would likely favor Trump btw.

Tbh I think it's outrageous that you can vote in the US without an ID

McLewis wrote:This is a controversial take, but just as Republicans believe everyone should have an ID specifically for voting, I believe one should have to be able to prove themselves intellectually competent enough to vote. They need to be able to prove an understanding of the issues, where they fit in, and the ability to think critically when voting at all levels. If they are unable to prove they have this ability, they should not be permitted to vote. How this is determined, that's up for debate, but given how many absolute idiots are in Congress, it proves their voters are even bigger idiots, which proves the need for something like this. I firmly believe that we got Trump largely because of people, who can't think critically, voting for him. They voted for him based purely on emotion, namely anger and resentment. It's generally how we get bad politicians on both sides of the aisle, but it goes doubly for Republicans.

Trust me, you're not the first one who has thought about this. But the idea, even though it sounds appealing on paper, it actually brings more harm than good, and more importantly it wouldn't have changed the course of your last election even if you had applied it and I'm going to explain why.

First of all, the right to vote is a fundamental right that any citizen who hasn't done any crime must have. If you start giving the government ways to prevent its people from voting, the day that a corrupt leader takes over, they will use them to silence the opposition and whoever dares to criticize them. That's a dangerous situation to be in.

Now about the people who voted Trump. You can't generalize and lump all of them in the same box of ignorance, racism and stupidity. Sure, some of them are. But some of them are also actually pretty well-educated and know exactly what they are doing.

I'm sure you already know much more about the US than I do, but as an outsider, I completely see why he got elected, and it has nothing to do with him or his campaign. The damage of the outspoken minority of the radical left has led many Americans to feel extremely angry, resentful and suffocated in their own country with many of their fundamental rights being under threat, mainly free speech.

Trump was just a consequence (or rather a direct, albeit extreme response) from those people to bring their country back to a lesser PC-centered one.

See, you're a pretty well-educated guy, but you fail to see something that someone of your intellect should be able to grasp in a split second. Most people don't rely on their political knowledge to pick their candidates. They give more importance to ideologies and political affiliations. Because I'm pretty sure, even if I gave the democrats the perfect candidate, if he or she happens to be walking under the Republican umbrella, I guarantee you many of them wouldn't vote for her or him (same thing for many Republicans btw).

So even if you hypothetically educated the entire American population, many votes would still remain where they are in the ballot box.

And finally, don't underestimate the power of charisma in swaying people's votes. One of the main reasons the left lost the last elections is because they failed to replace Obama with an equally likable and charismatic candidate.

Trump shouldn't be this difficult to beat, but the left keeps on sending him lambs expecting them to magically appear as wolves. Send him someone like Obama and they would wipe off the floor with him.

Also, you have to silence the outspoken radical leftists. They are doing more harm to you than your rivals. Many people are fleeing your party because of their whining, eccentricities and their ability to find racism when there's none.

If most democrats were like you, Trump wouldn't have gotten elected.

sportsczy wrote:@McLewis...  not only is what you're suggesting against the 15th amendment of the constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it as clear as it gets.  Not only that, it's wrong to block anyone, whether you agree with their education level, politics, frame of reference, etc., from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Why should anyone be allowed to vote when we know time after time that they (poor, white voters largely) vote against their own interests and for people who are literally trying to ensure they don't receive the aid they need during this pandemic? Is it because of the fact that they were born here and have legally inherited this right? Sure that's the legal argument. What's the moral or even ethical argument though? I'm not advocating for only high IQ people to vote. I'm advocating for people who are well-informed of the issues to vote and those, who aren't, stay home and let those of us who care about these issues make sure the right people are in Congress, in Governor's mansions and in the White House to do something about them.

And Republicans have been salivating at the mouth to repeal the 15th amendment every since Johnson (as racist as they come) passed it out of pure expediency. It was put into place to guarantee the right to vote to colored people who were very well informed on the issues of the day, but were barred or discouraged from voting due to their skin color by racists. These demographics are as well informed now as they were then. People of color have shown themselves to be extremely competent and consistent voters. This is why they form the heart of the Democratic base. This is why Trump did poorly with them in 2016 and has continued to do poorly with them throughout this term.

@those who responded to me - I'm completely aware of the the hurdles to enacting what I expressed, which makes it unrealistic. I just needed to vent my frustration.

rincon wrote:Tbh I think it's outrageous that you can vote in the US without an ID

It's outrageous that you even have to register to vote. Should be automatic once you turn 18.

rincon wrote:Tbh I think it's outrageous that you can vote in the US without an ID

yeah agreed, but also in the US they use ID suppression to suppress voting. Imagine a country that purposely makes it hard for you to get a government issued ID...

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

rincon wrote:Tbh I think it's outrageous that you can vote in the US without an ID

yeah agreed, but also in the US they use ID suppression to suppress voting. Imagine a country that purposely makes it hard for you to get a government issued ID...

Organized crime issues caused this....like severe organized crime issues.

It's absolutely justified.  And having had to get IDs in multiple states and, recently, from returning to the US from Europe after almost a decade with an expired ID... it's not that hard.

All you need to get an ID is an original social security card (to validate identity) and proof of address (lease or utility bill).  That's it.  It's much much much harder in France.  It took me weeks over there.  It took me less than 2 hours in the US.