Pompeo was promised that the Saudi's would catch and punish the bad guys.

That's it. We're all good now, right?

There's a shitload of information about who was in the building, and their ties to the Prince, but we're just gonna skip past all that, because they told us it wasn't them.

Here's a nice chart of Obama vs Trump performance from inauguration to May of following year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.951a926b38b8

I don't think this is a fair comparison as Obama caught the bottom of the GR (and kudo's to Obama and GWB, their policies, and their teams that pulled us out of it) but nevertheless it shows Obama doing much better than Trump.

Obama had a 148% increase over his 8 years which is pretty impressive. Who knows what Trump will end up with but I wouldn't put that out of reach with 8 years (party affiliations aside, I think we can all root for this goal).

Stock Market Performance by President | MacroTrends

Getting back to RM comment on what the difference is ...


I'm not sure who the "they hated him" is but assume its the low-middle class based on CU's post but I infer the answer is "because he's black".

Obama got a good share of the low-middle class votes in 2012 vs Romney. For < $50K, Obama got 60%. For $50-$90K, Obama got 46%.

How Groups Voted in 2012 - Roper Center

That's not a statistical fallacy. Using a date when he wasn't in office to start your statistical analysis is shady. Obama didn't take office on 1/1 when the Dow was at 9,034. He took office on January 20 when the Dow was at 7,949. I wonder why you would credit him for an 1100 point drop when he wasn't in office.

If you want to compare time periods, the Dow was up 50% in the same time period when Obama took over. In the same time period of January 20 to October 17 of the following year, here are the annualized returns.

Obama:

Dow - 21.4%
S&P - 24.8%
NASDAQ - 36.6%

Trump
Dow - 16.4%
S&P - 13.0%
NASDAQ - 20.2%

Now if you want to get real picky since we're talking about 401K plans, the S&P is much more important. Most 401Ks are invested heavily in index funds which typically track the S&P for their purchases.

Regardless, there isn't a metric you can find at this point where Trump's stock market performed better than Obama's. For what it's worth I don't think either President has that kind of power over the markets, but you're the one arguing that's what voters care about.


I'm not saying it's the only reason. Just that the whole "economic anxiety" argument is garbage. The markets were incredible under Obama. There isn't a person with a 401K as you said that could be upset with those results.

But a large part of his campaign was around race. He is a racist and white nationalist and it's not a coincidence that a lot of those same people were hired for jobs within the White House. It's not a coincidence that he focuses heavily on rhetoric that plays toward that demographic.


I have a pretty clear understanding of their motivation. Not all of it's race. Sometimes people are just angry at the world for their failures. They want to be join a movement with an angry man who will pick a common enemy (minorities, women, liberals) to blame and start yelling (this goes for both sides).

Democrats lost because Clinton wasn't an inspiring candidate. She didn't get enough people to care enough to vote. And she ran for President in a country that uses an outdated system created by people who didn't trust the people to vote and didn't view many of them as equal humans.

Policy and results matter little to the electorate. We've seen this for decades. The more charismatic candidate wins. Look at every election dating back to the 70's and the more charismatic candidate won regardless of party or policy. Trump's a moron con man but he's a charismatic one.

Are you saying sensitivity to name calling exceptionally acute now? I think your point is true, being labeled is enraging, just think it is inevitable. Last week I did a lecture in my US History class about how the 1884 presidential election basically came down to the backlash of a preacher calling Democrats the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion"


Well it is an epidemic, but yes it is very much a white rural thing. https://www.businessinsider.com/maps...crisis-2017-10
"Out of the 82 counties with exceptionally high opioid death rates, 77 voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, and most were in rural parts of the country.
Economic regression, unemployment, and the associated social decline are correlated with high rates of drug use in white counties."
(By the way, the lone blue spot in California is Clear Lake, or as everyone calls it, The Red Neck Rivera)


I think they massively failed under educated, rural-ish white folk. The recovery left them behind. This article and map show a near perfect correlation between Trump county victories/flips and places where generational upward mobility is lowest. U.S. Kids Far Less Likely To Out-Earn Their Parents, As Inequality Grows : The Two-Way : NPR

But most importantly, they experienced huge increases in healthcare costs (in some part due to the toothless Obamacare implementation). Here's a great article on a Penn couple that voted for Trump: Two years ago, when they first signed up for insurance on the exchange, they were paying $530 a month for a plan they liked, Abra says. The price rose a little for 2016, but the options for 2017 went up a lot — about 30 percent on average in Pennsylvania.
"We have one for $881, one for $938, one for $984, like the deductibles are — look, these are insane," Abra said, as she checked the exchange website for monthly premiums. "The one that we would be stuck with would be the silver. This is $881.50, and our deductible would be $7,000." Trump Promises On Health Insurance Appealed To Family Struggling With Cost : Shots - Health News : NPR

Counterpoint: People really don't care that much about the health care policy as much as they say they do.

For instance, if price is an issue, why continue to elect Governors who rejected Medicaid expansion in their state? Why elect representatives who stonewall bills that would lower health care costs for those people? It literally cost their constituents billions. It made it harder for that demographic you cited to get health care.

I get electing a person who comes in and says they'll make health care cheaper. But he hasn't. In fact he's done the opposite. There doesn't seem to be much of a plan either. But he isn't losing support from his base over this. So again, do they really care about policy here? Was health care cost really the reason they pulled that lever and will they now change in the next election?

Why do you even bother making statistical arguments when you so very clearly use misleading or outright incorrect numbers? This isn't the first time you've done this. Before you tried to pass off the demographics of a single county as being meaningful for an entire congressional district and tried to use employment numbers from 2008 against Obama.

Are you hoping that people won't notice the discrepancy and you'll get away with your argument or are you just lazy? I mean, why even include the 1/1/09 date when everyone in here is aware (or at least I thought they were) that inaugurations don't happen on New Year's Day?

Agree, and I think the result is this issue cannot be counted on to turn out votes the way it did in 2016. Thus, my main point that the razor thin margins in swing states has all but disappeared.

Back to the Saudi thing for a bit. It looks like they started cutting up his body while he was still alive.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/w...dismember.html

Bernie wing of the party here.

I still love Warren, but between her endorsement of Hillary and this unbelievably short-sighted DNA testing thing, I don't know that I'm comfortable supporting her.

Booker never appealed to me and I was *really* turned off by his and Harris's grandstanding during the Kavanaugh hearings.

I'm still on the Bernie train, but outside of him, I'm just not seeing anyone who I'd enthusiastically support. Everyone has disqualified themselves or was a general meh or nah reaction to begin with.

I do have the hope that this election will usher in some genuine progressives who can be viable candidates for the future, but unless Bernie wins the nomination, 2020 looks like the same unenthusiastic general election feeling I've had in every election of my voting lifetime (bar Nader, who I enthusiastically voted for to try and get the Green Party started on the path to maybe being a viable third party).

My issue with Bernie supporters (in general, not you) is they were 100% for Bernie and lost interest in the election when he lost the primary. If progressives want good progressive presidential candidates then they need to show up and get progressives in local and state positions. Then continue to show up as those candidates move into national politics. Otherwise they're just going to sit around bitching that there's no good progressive candidates while watching the baby boomers continue to put people in office at all levels.

I lost most of the respect had for the Bernie movement when his subreddit spent the month leading up to the election trying to convince itself that Trump better aligned with their beliefs than Hillary.

Harris would probably be a great candidate to attack Trump in debates, but I'm not sure she's electable. 2016 made it clear women have more working against them in a general election than Obama did in '08.

Its still early. I'm confident a couple of candidates will stand out by the time we really start looking at 2020. If Dems stop whining about the presidential candidates and show up they may see real change as the senate map is far more favorable in 2020 and a second straight election of getting strong local and state candidates in office would make a big difference for the future.

The thing about Warren is that she's basically a female Bernie who has actually gotten stuff done.

Now she's a bit too left for me, but I just don't really get why Bernie supporters would be anti-Warren. I can understand if they think she's not inspiring enough (she comes across like the professor she is), but on the policy aspects, not much difference between her and Bernie - aside from the fact that she is willing to work within the party and sometimes he isn't.

I can promise you it isnt an intent to deceive or hope people dont notice. Maybe its lazy maybe Im just not as smart of a debator as you guys. Outside of this single thread, in the balance of my life I typically avoid political conversations. As a business owner and an employer they do me no good. There will always be someone who disagrees with me and that only serves to hurt my business.


That aside the point I was trying to make, albeit poorly I suppose, is the one of perception.


First let me concede and agree that I personally dont think Obama, Trump W Bush, Clinton or really any President of the last 50 years had much direct personal impact on the stock market. However, that doesnt mean that there isn't a perception, among many voters, that they do. There are voters whose vote will be won based on perception of the market surge.



We can start to break down graphs and argue the "artificial valley" around Obama's inauguration and how much of that was attributable to concerns over him as a candidate and how much were other unrelated market factors.



But none of that was the key point I was trying to argue. The key point I was trying to make was Rainmaker''s ascertion that "poor people" dont care about markets. That their support of Trump was because they were racists. (Which makes one wonder about the motivation of minority poors but I digress) and then the doubling down to say




You make an assumption here that only people who are angry and failures vote for Trump. I bristle at this notion because I voted for him, and am neither angry nor a failure nor am I a racist.


I think this same dismissal of the entire base is what lead to Hillary's undoing. I think its foolish to discount the views of so many people. I think instead of thinking that Trump's bluster, arrogance and abrasiveness are the reasons he was elected, I think what should scare the left if that if he had run on the same platform and actually acted "Presidential" it could have been a much, much wider margin. I dont think you give enough credit to how many Rs were turned off by Trump's behavior.


Now you transition over to the populace vs EC argument and you start a whole other conversation. You start to get into a construct argument of state sovereignty and the initial ideal of the Union at the writing of the Constitution as opposed to how it operates today. If you think that all citizens of the US should follow a common set of laws and regulations then certainly popular vote seems much more logical. However if you believe that the federal government should be an umbrella to encompass 50 distinct and different localized governments then you have a different viewpoint.



I wish I were a better written communicator. Its not a strong suit of mine I readily admit. I'm an engineer not a writer...if we were sharing a pint and having this conversation I feel like Id be much better able to express the points Im trying to make. But in written word I fumble in my brain.



The perspective that I have is fairly unique. I came from poverty. Without a lot of government assistance programs Im likely not alive today. Ive also watched the degradation from being saved by the system to becoming dependent upon the system...and I have grown to wonder if that is human nature at its most slovenly or if that is manipulation and control by other humans at their most evil. If the system is designed to create dependency. Today I am an evil rich person. I'm a business owner multiple times over. I employ a considerable number of folks. Despite paying well above industry average, to the point of being ridiculed for paying too much, the vast majority of my work force are low age earners on the global scale. Because we represent a high price product my customers are generally very, very affluent. I am on the board of a local bank. We started a Faith shelter two years ago that I interact with daily. I just try to listen and learn from all these different viewpoints and ...I dont know. Im venting now.


I just believe we are all pretty common. The poor on either side of the race aisle live so similar but they cant see it. The trailer parks around are littered with 4wd trucks heavily modified and in many cases worth a multiple of the home they are parked in front of. Drive over to the projects and its the same thing. The modifications are different, but its the same financially ignorant decisions. Its throwing money into a depreciating asset. Both sides boom their music at max capacity because they have some core message they want to force the world to hear. The messages are different but the human motivation is the same. A desire to force your voice, to be heard, to be unable to be ignored. Then in the suburbs you have the closet racists and white guilts who are the same embodiment of the two previous groups just maybe a tad more matured and reserved in their expression. Yet here we sit arguing about minutia and not fixing a damn thing.


Whatever. Now Im depressed. Have fun. I'll keep my ignorant opinions to the college football threads from now on.

Eh, I vote you stay on, its good to get a variety of opinions. This thread definitely lean liberal so friction is expected. Many people have been wrong on something, most concede it, and move on to the next topic of the day.

As far as being called "names", insulted, ad hominem snipe attacks etc. ... just give it back in kind. They'll expect it.

.

I'm arguing that if you care about the markets, seeing your 401k nearly triple in 8 years should make you ecstatic.


This is not my intent and I'm not specifically talking about Trump and Trump voters.

The left does the same thing. They aim to villianize white men in many cases. Or the police. Or any comedian who makes an off-color joke. They also want to point to a group and say "your problems are because of them!".

It's a time honored tradition in politics. I just think it's gotten to an extreme in this country. Too many people are basing their votes on some perceived enemy that has been lined up as an excuse for their lot in life. Policy doesn't matter anymore. Just carving up the electorate into groups and hating those who are not like us.


I just think it's a dumb way to elect a leader. States have immense power through the Senate and their own local government. The person who represents all of the people should be chosen by the majority.

It is something Trump and I agree on.

The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/polit...ggi/index.html

I'm guessing half the world's intelligence services know what they talked about.


Using WhatsApp

Here we go again. Let's hope its not a cluster like last time.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...border-n921286

I was more concerned that he used raw numbers over percentage gains. But yes, cherry-picking dates isn't very good either.

President Trump tells his Cabinet to cut the fat



Monday morning appt scheduled with the Saudi's in Istanbul.

So is this one bullshit like the last caravan?

Don't know if its bullshit but it could turn out to be real-shit.

Some Mueller news in MSM.

Hope Manafort has given Mueller some good stuff. Sounds as if its coming to a head soon after mid-terms.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/polit...iet/index.html

This x1000.

I have always said that the politician or political party that finds a way to get poor whites and poor minorities on the same page will be an unstoppable force, and only then will you start to see real change in the U.S. A lot of people forget that when Martin Luther King was assassinated, it was years after the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. He started to look at the bigger picture: getting poor people of all races together and involved. He was planning a Poor People’s March. As important as the Civil Rights Movement was, a Unified “Poor Rights” Movement would have been an absolute gamechanger. You would have seen things like universal health care, progressive taxes on the rich, etc., come up in the 1970s.

Precisely because it would be a gamechanger, though, it will never happen. Both Democrats and Republicans have too much to gain from keeping the poor and lower-class divided among racial lines.

EDIT: When I said Democrats and Republicans, I meant the politicians themselves.

Pat Robertson:


I'm pretty sure Jesus would have some issues with this line of reasoning.

I wouldn't put it beyond Trump to close the border and/or bully Mexico some other way. Sure it'll disrupt a bunch of stuff but it'll be a great rallying cry for the GOP (in addition to another report on Trump wanting to send troops to the border).

I'm sure there is an explanation but it does seem weird to me that Mexico will allow 3,000 Hondurans en-masse to come into their country without having a visa or the like. Maybe some sort of free work/travel treaty? or they just can't/won't enforce their borders.

Regardless, not good timing for the Dems re: mid-terms. I doubt they are going to win any more/new voters over this issue whereas it likely galvanize the Trump and GOP supporters.

https://www.apnews.com/9919ff5a85e248d5aa96718027821aca

Them being Wahabist should have been enough. Being very likely complicit in the murder of a US citizen would have him screaming if it was a Democratic president. What a hypocrite.

SA is a valuable frenemy (beyond whatever ties it has to Trump & Kushner) for now (until Elon really gets going!) but someone like Robertson should have said "its very troubling if true, let see how it plays out".

I just don't understand how anyone could possibly care about the arms deal if you aren't some executive at Raytheon.

Now that you mention it, clusterbombs would be a viable & reasonable option to invasion.

Hey man I'm all about Trump if he wants to fuck Saudi Arabia up. Like yard sign all in.

My MIL mentioned a name in a conversation about where my wife and I may have been registered for our wedding that I don't think I've heard in about 15 years - Service Merchandise. I mean, you're old when you can say you were registered at SM!

I looked it up, and they went under around the turn of the century (2000, not 1900), although apparently the son of the founding family brought the name back for an online-only presence. I had no clue that website existed until today.

That's bringing back some old memories. Wasn't it all mail-order? Or big on layaway? I remember getting my first CD player from there in the early 90's.

They used be the big corner tenant at my hometown mall.....wonder how that mall is doing these days.

Circuit City is another one that went online-only, I guess because they feel the brand name has value.

Ah hell, I thought I was in the Random Thoughts thread... sorry.

I used to buy my Trump fuck up Saudi Arabia dolls there, I guess.

FWIW ... bought my HP 12C calculator there (still have it, works great with new batteries every 5 years or so).

I rather just have the wall and immigration reform. No collateral damage or lawsuits that way.

Now that I mentioned it, what's up with the wall? Apparently something is going up?

Video shows border wall construction underway in Texas | TheHill

It hasn't gotten funding. He may want a wall, his voters may want a wall, but the big money donors don't. So I doubt it happens.

I really don't have an issue with the wall outside of the cost (and there are better ways to tackle illegal immigration). And I was told Mexico was going to pay for it so I'm not sure why we need to fund it. But it isn't happening under this political system.

Exactly, win win. You get to watch 100’s of children napalmed and parents won’t have to be worried their children will be separated from them. Imagine the amount of security and patriotism that you would feel...

Trump this morning. I have no idea what this is about.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for invaders, plain & simple. I've long proposed a bounty system.

It ought to be a capital offense, as should aiding & abetting it.

God knows why I'm bothering to reply... but...

if you would like to outlaw Asylum seekers, and all forms of brown people immigrating, I think you're pretty gross (and i know that you don't care and think i should also be killed for my opinions as they are a threat to the state, so again, why am I bothering? I don't know, I'm a moron). But seeking legal immigration and requesting asylum as a refugee are currently legal, and we have government officers at legal points of entry into the United States who deal with this and who make decisions on the validity of such requests for asylum. Until recently this could even be done without separating children from their parents as a form of punishment for daring to want to find safety in the greatest country in the world! So... invaders?

Yes, what part of my reply suggests I do not understand your desire?

You want to see women and children rounded up and publicly killed. That seeing dying children will finally be the reasonable response you wanted for years. I imagine the images of the Syrian children poisoned proved that your idea is not that far fetched.

You've stated that you have a very negative existence, sleeping, waking up getting thought the day, etc. I assume carry out this killing may be the Final Solution to all your personal problems.

As way of extending an olive branch, I'll share some of the bio's of my students that you can hunt down:

Jose, came here at 3. Mom works night as janitor, home alone at night! Even though he can go to a four college he decided to work and continue at Community College and transfer so that he can support is his older sister as she is finishing up at Cal Poly.

Jorge, came here at 6. He and his mom escaped and alcoholic father. He is doing an internship at Standford, very interested in heart medicine.

Jocelyn, came her 3 years ago. She was smuggled across to escape the incest in her family. She lives with her aunt, who is legal, sorry.

Jacklyn. Will be easy to catch. She has sever asthma, her mom was afraid to take her to the doctor when she was young, so has serious issues. She is a great babysitter and is already taking child development classes.

Finally, Jacinta. You might not to do much. Her father was just deported after 11 years here. She and her mom are currently homeless. My guess is any day now she will drop out of school (which she excels in) and work full time.

No problem - aiding and abetting!

I have absolutely no business judging anybody's happiness, but I too am struck by the fact that Jon's two most public attributes are his distinct lack of enjoyment and his passion for intolerance. I'm sure they're totally unrelated.

To be fair to Jon, there is a emphasis on "brown" people on this board which lends to calling/implying Jon is a racist.

I'm pretty sure he would feel the same for yellow, black, and white if they were doing the same ... its just seems that brown people are in the news all the time nowadays.

So I don't view him as a racist, he's just an ultra-nationalist.

(Jon, feel free to tell me I'm wrong).

Jon has a 10+ year history of advocating for the genocide of people from other races and religions that he believes to oppose the most minor of threats to his own preferred group. He is openly and unashamedly a bigot, he consistently expresses disdain towards many other races. I don't think he would even feel insulted by me making the statement.

So the first person to be charged with interference in the upcoming mid-term is a Russian woman who likely will never be arrested:


Russian woman charged with political interference in next month's midterm elections - Los Angeles Times

Looks like Khashoggi was killed in a fist fight. Thank you Saudi Arabia for getting to the bottom of this. This shows why you're the chair the of UN Human Rights Council. Pat Robertson will be proud

/sarcasm

Saudi Arabia admits Jamal Khashoggi killed in Istanbul consulate | Jamal Khashoggi News | Al Jazeera

I'm still confused.

It looks as if its Bloomberg/Businessweek vs rest of world right now.

Apple's Tim Cook calls for Chinese chip story retraction - BBC News

You have no idea what happened prior to the fight that may have justified the killing. It was probably a situation where the killer was in fear for his/her life.

All 15 of them, even.

If they could, they'd just make it illegal for some people to vote.

Wtf, why does Trump always gotta be a stooge. Do the Saudis have piss tapes on him too?

Free Ubers to the polls

Looks as if Mexico is taking Trump's threats seriously. The new policy seems to be reasonable vs before of just com'on through.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/ameri...der/index.html

Here's the place where I disagree; even with all of that, his approval ratings are still quite bad. With the economy doing as well as it is they should be in the 60s. The fact that they are where they are indicates something is dragging them down. Fundraising for the midterms is literally going harder for the Democrats than it ever has in modern American political history. There's almost always a bump to party that's out of power but every projection I see, the polling data, the special elections results all point to this being a historically big wave that way as well.

In other words, there just isn't any evidence that the plusses are enough. Trump has some things on his side with the incumbency and the economy, but what the data really supports is that as good as those things are his negatives are far outweighing them. It'll help him some when(assuming it happens) the Democrats take over the House again because then they'll need to govern in a disciplined manner(no sign of that happening that I can see) or take some blame for not doing it. Based on the data out there so far, the '20 Dem candidate doesn't need to be inspirational or transcendent. They just need to be the slightest bit better than Hillary and not do anything colossally stupid. That really should be an exceptionally low bar that most potential candidates can clear.

Obviously anecdotal here... but I am a Libertarian voter for the past 10+ years that will be voting McCaskill for Missouri Senate just because of Trump's handling of his presidency. Not sure what I will do for president in 2020 I guess it depends who they go with...

Decent candidate: Democrat
No better than Trump: Libertarian
Sanders: Trump :)

Oh and here is probably an example of how not to campaign for Senate. So a guy comes door to door last weekend stumping for the local Democrat for State Senate and McCaskill for US Senate. Instead of just sending him on his way I give my "panerd 2 cents" on the 2016 election and how I will probably vote McCaskill in this election because of how bad Trump sucks. Fast forward to a few days ago and I get a text from "The guy you talked to on your porch asking if I have been keeping up with the latest in Saudi Arabia etc"

1) I didn't give him my phone number and I thought since I don't have a home phone that my cell number was in no way linked to my street address. Power of the machine I guess?

2) Who in the world (even most ardent Dem or Repub supporter) wants text messages from some stranger?

3) Very tinfoil hatish but almost seems like it would be a good Republican strategy to bug people via text posing as Democrats to piss them off. Again who wants texts from a stranger about anything?

My own fault for talking I guess but don't know who would greenlight texting people who didn't ask to be texted.

It's so bizarre to me that door to door campaigning and phone banking are things in 2018, but I guess they must work if people do them.

Personal contact is supposed to be the best way to get people to vote.

That's pretty much me as well. I've voted for Coffman, the Republican in Colorado's 6th every time before this year. I like him, think he's a good rep. Still voting for the Democrat this year though as Trump needs some kind of check.

Same. I have always voted across party lines as I look for moderate candidates and overall I am probably in the neighborhood of 55/45 republican. Straight Dem this mid term, which will be first time ever I have voted one party across the board in an election.

I just really want to see some checks and balances amidst the chaos and in all honesty, with the Dems in control of at least one branch, I can envision some more republicans finally standing up to Trump when he crosses the line or spews one of his lies or baseless rants.

I'll always vote the Idaho Republican AG, I know what he's all about and he backs it up, and I'll vote for incumbent competent unoffensive Republicans who only have a token non-qualified Dem challenger (which happens sometimes in Idaho statewide races). So that means I'm about a 90% Dem voter now. And Idaho is definitely becoming a little more liberal every year, at least in the Boise metro area and pockets like Sun Valley and and Moscow - which together make up about half the state's population. I won't vote for the Trump party anymore unless there's a specific compelling reason too.

My only fear is the Democrats (and Republicans I guess also) misunderstand a lot of the no Trump votes and try to initiate some "mandate" and lead to Trump being reelected for 4 more years in 2020.

As Brian Swartz touched on, Trump has a lot going for him right now with the economy. Usually a president in an economy like this would be incredibly popular. Instead Trump is sitting with an approval rating around 40. He's a recession away from seeing a complete collapse in support and the likelihood of a recession before the 2020 election is probably somewhere in the ballpark of 60%.

I just don't see him being reelected outside of some major unforeseen event that swings his approval ratings up into the mid 50s. I think turnout in 2020 is going to be like nothing we've ever seen and Trump's most lasting impact will be as a boogeyman to scare people into voting.

Re: 1) Both parties have voter lists for things like door knocks and phone banks. He was probably working off a list when he came to your door and then followed up with you.

Re: 2) He shouldn't have done that outside of a formal text campaign by the candidate, but most campaigns and non-profits are finding texting to be 4-5x more effective than door knocking, e-mailing or phone calling.

Re: 3) see above.

My wife and I both got postcards from volunteers for a state assembly race. I knew campaigns were doing this, but I didn't realize they were targeting state races as well as national.

Beats me if Russia has really violated the treaty but suspect the main target is China and continuing to keep up/maintain/extend lead vs China.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/20/polit...sia/index.html

I'm always worried we might not have enough nukes.

I was browsing SEA news and read about the US Build Act. Don't know all the details but its a good start to counter/duplicate what China is doing.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1MD2HJ

Happening more and more with GOP folks.

I appreciate the instant gratification doing something like this but am against it. Not because I don't think they deserve it (some do, not sure about McConnell tbh) but because of the precedence.

I can easily see how many Dems will be harassed over a meal when they eventually come to power, and it can easily expand past dinner shaming to other personal-in-public activities. Things can easily get escalated and really get ugly.

If I was McConnell and like, without bodyguards or secret service protection, I would be carrying.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/20/polit...ors/index.html

It's fucking stupid, but when the president is up there talking about how assault is the cool thing to do and how you get respect is there any other message that says that it's not the right thing to do?

Yeah, in an ideal world people would rise above, and it is definitely something that shouldn't happen.

But at same time it's not surprising - Trump has set the tone, what did he expect? Hopefully things settle down, but unfortunately I have my doubts tbh

Based off the Republican political add I just saw during the early football game it's only going to get worse, that was seriously the most ludicrous thing I have ever seen.

I'm guessing celebrity politicians were more protected in decades past. Maybe we had an odd era of political civility in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but I'm sure there were plenty of famous politicians who would have been harassed if they ventured to unfriendly places.

Wagner in PA did a Facebook live stream where he told our Gov to put on a catcher's mask cause he was going to step on his face with golf spikes on

The number of wanna-be Trumps over the next few election cycles is going to painful to watch.

So the murder of the Saudi journalist just gets worse and worse. Cut off his hands, injected him with something, put him on a meeting table, and dismembered him. :(


Meanwhile the attempts of the Saudis to cover up what happened gets worse and worse-video out showing a member of the security team who participated in the murder arriving at the consulate and then coming out after it was over, dressed in the journalist clothes and fake beard. He then wandered through a park and a restaurant until the video showed he changed clothes, and then threw something in a dumpster afterwards.

The fat geriatrics acting like tough guys is pure cringe.

Do we really think that this is going to be the thing that changes the overwhelming trend of "nothing matters" here? A non-American, who has neither white skin nor an American-sounding name, murdered by another country, happening somewhere else, and the worry is that our POTUS isn't reacting with the right amount of outrage?

Really... this is going to be the thing that tips people? Makes them wake up from the spell they've been under, or gets them to come out and actually vote? Really?

Just doesn't pass the smell test, and he knows it. People don't care, at least not for long. He'll whimper about a mirage tax cut, or talk about gays, or some other half dozen things on the days leading up to the midterms, and this will be gone for all intents and purposes.

Yeah, I just recently read about a study that said just that. Personal contact and texting gets much better results. They did say, though, it takes a more long term approach, with canvassers working the same area over a longer period of time than the average campaign can do/afford. It was very interesting study, and my guess will lead to more money spent on community organizers and professional canvassers that will be hired out to candidates.

I dunno, this one has legs. Familial tax fraud schemes died in about 3 days. This is going on 16 days or something

This is familiar to people - it's basically the weekly subject of a 48 Hours/Dateline NBC/20-20 episode, or 98% of Investigation Discovery or Oxygen channel programming.

Quoting to be able to repost for the next this.

Hey, you know who else was a nationalist?


For context:


https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...-a-nationalist

Tax fraud is hard stuff. I mean he's probably smart for doing it because it's so hard, so that's good, right? Good for them for beating the system. It's always trying to keep the man down. And yeah, who really cares about a guy who doesn't look like a real american. Clearly, he wasn't smart enough.

I guess Mexico wasn't able to stop the caravan. It'll keep on happening so the US better get a coherent, coordinated policy in place.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/23/over...chterm=caravan

Is this really a big threat to the US right now? I get that it's dominating the R stump speeches, but is this as big of a threat as, oh, not vaccinating your kids? Flu shots?

Heard snippets of Trump talking about a middle class tax cut. Not enough details to really discuss the pros & cons but something to watch out for to see if it develops.

Trump is like Santa Claus right now, promising/handing out free candy.

Trump's mystery tax cut puzzles Washington - POLITICO

Deficit wasn't ridiculous enough already, let's completely blow it up.

It sounds like he just made it up on the fly. I wouldn't read much into it. He's been lying pretty hard lately and is maybe nervous about how the midterms will go.

Assuming there are no terrorists in the bunch (hah!), taken in isolation, probably not a "big threat".

But long term, if the US welcomes this group of 3,000-7,000 economic refugees, you don't think there will be many more that will come encouraged with the success of this group? And then the question is how many is too many.

IMO, its a valid question on how the US wants to deal with these caravans e.g. holistic immigration reform (all for expanding the guest worker program), the wall, unauthorized/illegal immigration etc.

Probably, but its nice to dream.

The US has always "dealt" with it. trump is acting like there's never been any policy in place for them. Like every president before just opened the gates and said welcome home. That's not an accurate representation at all.

Why would a terrorist march for 1200 miles when they could just as easily start much closer to the border?

Only 10-15%, at most, will reach the border and they will all get turned away. It's a bullshit story, but for some reason the media runs after whatever frisbee Trump throws out there.

I'm genuinely surprised at how the Right has gone full post-modern.

And they continue coming haphazardly so whatever plans we have may have tactically dealt with a particular caravan/event but does it address the broader picture?

It would be good if we came up with a holistic immigration reform plan. I had hopes but Trump's immigration reform plan seems to be just keep the undesirables (his definition) out and threaten to kick out the unauthorized.

It would be good to come up with a plan to address the southern brown people and also the yellow, black, other brown people, and definitely the highly educated all-color people.

This. The last "dangerous" caravan ended up being a couple hundred people who applied for asylum and were rejected or accepted accordingly. This is just appealing to the baser instincts of, well, his base.

All they have to do is come in on a student visa like the 9/11 hijackers.

If only Trump and the Republicans had enough people in place to outvote the Dems for all the brilliant plans they no doubt have for every pressing and non-pressing issue. Things will change after this elections! Down with Mexicans!!!!

I can think of two Scottish "terrorists" who would walk 500 miles. And then 500 more. Just to fall down at the Border Control Point door.