2020 Presidential Election 4: How Much Longer?

[fraurosena]

 

[DarkAnts]

I saw this on Facebook today.

 

[fraurosena]

 

He's such a terrific businessman...

How Trump's Billion-Dollar Campaign Lost Its Cash Advantage

Quote

Money was supposed to have been one of the great advantages of incumbency for President Trump, much as it was for President Barack Obama in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004. After getting outspent in 2016, Mr. Trump filed for re-election on the day of his inauguration — earlier than any other modern president — betting that the head start would deliver him a decisive financial advantage this year.

It seemed to have worked. His rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., was relatively broke when he emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee this spring, and Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee had a nearly $200 million cash advantage. 

Five months later, Mr. Trump’s financial supremacy has evaporated. Of the $1.1 billon his campaign and the party raised from the beginning of 2019 through July, more than $800 million has already been spent. Now some people inside the campaign are forecasting what was once unthinkable: a cash crunch with less than 60 days until the election, according to Republican officials briefed on the matter.

Brad Parscale, the former campaign manager, liked to call Mr. Trump’s re-election war machine an “unstoppable juggernaut.” But interviews with more than a dozen current and former campaign aides and Trump allies, and a review of thousands of items in federal campaign filings, show that the president’s campaign and the R.N.C. developed some profligate habits as they burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. Since Bill Stepien replaced Mr. Parscale in July, the campaign has imposed a series of belt-tightening measures that have reshaped initiatives, including hiring practices, travel and the advertising budget.

Under Mr. Parscale, more than $350 million — almost half of the $800 million spent — went to fund-raising operations, as no expense was spared in finding new donors online. The campaign assembled a big and well-paid staff and housed the team at a cavernous, well-appointed office in the Virginia suburbs; outsize legal bills were treated as campaign costs; and more than $100 million was spent on a television advertising blitz before the party convention, the point when most of the electorate historically begins to pay close attention to the race.

Among the splashiest and perhaps most questionable purchases was a pair of Super Bowl ads the campaign reserved for $11 million, according to Advertising Analytics — more than it has spent on TV in some top battleground states. It was a vanity splurge that allowed Mr. Trump to match the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg’s buy for the big game. 

There was also a cascade of smaller choices that added up: The campaign hired a coterie of highly paid consultants (Mr. Trump’s former bodyguard and White House aide has been paid more than $500,000 by the R.N.C. since late 2017); spent $156,000 for planes to pull aerial banners in recent months; and paid nearly $110,000 to Yondr, a company that makes magnetic pouches used to store cellphones during fund-raisers so that donors could not secretly record Mr. Trump and leak his remarks. 

Some people familiar with the expenses noted that Mr. Parscale had a car and driver, an unusual expense for a campaign manager. Mr. Trump has told people gleefully that Mr. Stepien took a pay cut when the president gave him the job.

Critics of the campaign’s management say the lavish spending was ineffective: Mr. Trump enters the fall trailing in most national and battleground state polls, and Mr. Biden has surpassed him as a fund-raising powerhouse, after posting a record-setting haul of nearly $365 million in August. The Trump campaign has not revealed its August fund-raising figure.

“If you spend $800 million and you’re 10 points behind, I think you’ve got to answer the question ‘What was the game plan?’” said Ed Rollins, a veteran Republican strategist who runs a small pro-Trump super PAC, and who accused Mr. Parscale of spending “like a drunken sailor.” 

“I think a lot of money was spent when voters weren’t paying attention,” he added.

Mr. Parscale, who is still a senior adviser on the campaign, said in an interview that the Trump operation invested heavily in attracting donors to erase the large advantage that Democrats had built digitally after the Obama years. “We closed that gap,” he said, crediting early spending as “the only reason Republicans are even close” in terms of online fund-raising.

“I ran the campaign the same way I did in 2016, which also included all of the marketing, strategy and expenses under the very close eye of the family,” said Mr. Parscale, who was the digital director, not the campaign manager, in 2016. “No decision was made without their approval.” 

Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has overseen the campaign from his position as a senior White House aide, had posed for a Forbes magazine cover as the person who ran the 2016 campaign soon after the election.

“Any spending arrangements with the R.N.C. since 2016 were in partnership with Ronna McDaniel,” Mr. Parscale said, referring to the party chairwoman, “who I consider a strategic partner and friend.” Mr. Parscale said on Twitter that the campaign spent less than $11 million on the Super Bowl ads, after moving one of them to the post-game portion of the telecast. 

Nicholas Everhart, a Republican strategist who owns a firm specializing in placing political ads, said the $800 million spent so far shows the “peril of starting a re-election campaign just weeks after winning.”

“A presidential campaign costs a lot of money to run,” Mr. Everhart said. “In essence, the campaign has been spending nonstop for almost four years straight.”

Reining in the budget

At the top of the whiteboard in Mr. Stepien’s office are the latest numbers on the campaign budget, and Mr. Stepien has instituted a number of changes since he was promoted from deputy campaign manager. A proposal to spend $50 million in costs related to coalitions groups was cast aside. An idea to spend $3 million for a NASCAR car bearing Mr. Trump’s name was discarded. 

The number of staff members allowed to travel to events has been pared back to avoid what one senior campaign official described as “sponsoring vacations.” 

Trips aboard Air Force One, popular because they enable aides to get face time with the president — but which have to be compensated by the campaign — have been slashed. 

“The most important thing I do every day is pay attention to the budget,” Mr. Stepien said in a brief interview. He declined to discuss budget specifics but said the campaign had enough funds to win.

Most visibly, the Trump campaign slashed its August television spending, mostly abandoning the airwaves during the party conventions. In the last two weeks of the month, Mr. Biden’s campaign spent $35.9 million on television, compared with $4.8 million for Mr. Trump, according to Advertising Analytics.

“We held on to cash to make sure that we’ll have the firepower that we need” for the fall, said Jason Miller, a senior Trump strategist, who contended that airing ads during the conventions would prove a waste for Mr. Biden. “We want to make sure that we’re saving it for when it really matters, when it’s going to move the needle.”

Mr. Miller defended spending money on television ads earlier this spring and summer, calling it a “tough” decision necessary to keep Mr. Trump competitive as the nation suffered through a pandemic and its economic fallout.

“We had to claw our way back,” he said. 

One of the reasons Mr. Biden was able to wipe away Mr. Trump’s early cash edge was that he sharply contained costs with a minimalistic campaign during the pandemic’s worst months. Trump officials derisively dismissed it as his “basement” strategy, but from that basement Mr. Biden fully embraced Zoom fund-raisers, with top donors asked to give as much as $720,000.

These virtual events typically took less than 90 minutes of the candidate’s time, could raise millions of dollars and cost almost nothing. Mr. Trump has almost entirely refused to hold such fund-raisers. Aides say he doesn’t like them.

Door-knocking to win over voters

There is some disagreement in the extended Trump operation about the depth of any potential cash-on-hand shortage. Some officials believe that plenty more money will come in during the last two months from online donors and that cutting back on TV advertising in August was shortsighted. The campaign announced a combined $76 million haul with the party during the four days of its convention.

Others said the campaign had expected the low-dollar fund-raising to continue at the same pace, and were also counting on a significant number of $5,600 checks, the limit for direct campaign giving, that didn’t materialize; that was in part because they rely on in-person events, which was more difficult with the virus. 

Some party officials defended the early spending as prudent, including money devoted to the expansive ground operation and an online network of donors that was setting fund-raising records. The G.O.P. has more than 2,000 staff members across 100 offices and claims that volunteers knock on one million doors per week; the Biden campaign has forgone door-knocking so far during the pandemic.

“The Biden campaign is hoarding money and hoping that fall TV ads help put them over the edge,” said Richard Walters, chief of staff for the R.N.C. “But when a state comes down to 10,700 votes like Michigan did in 2016, we think that direct voter contact — those millions of door knocks and phone calls we make each week — is going to be critical.”

The Trump campaign has undertaken its own financial review of spending under Mr. Parscale. Among the first changes implemented was shutting down an ad campaign that used Mr. Parscale’s personal social media accounts to deliver pro-Trump ads. More than $800,000 had been poured into boosting Mr. Parscale’s Facebook and Instagram pages; those ads ceased the day after he was removed as campaign manager.

Mr. Parscale said the Facebook page was “not my idea” and the “family’s direct approval” had been sought on the program.

“I built an unprecedented infrastructure with the Republican Party under this family’s leadership since 2016,” Mr. Parscale said in a statement to The Times. “I am proud of my achievements.”

Some Trump-pleasing expenditures

Some spending choices appear devised, at least in part, to satisfy Mr. Trump, including the Super Bowl ads, which were purchased as part of an advertising arms race with Mr. Bloomberg. The two ads on game day cost more than the Trump campaign spent on local television through the end of July in four battleground states: Wisconsin ($3.9 million), Michigan ($3.6 million), Iowa ($2 million) and Minnesota ($1.3 million).

Another Trump-pleasing expense: more than $1 million in ads aired in the Washington, D.C., media market, a region that is not likely to be competitive in the fall but where the president, a famously voracious television consumer, resides.

Mr. Trump, who once joked he could be the first candidate to make money running for president, has steered, along with the Republican Party, about $4 million into the Trump family businesses since 2019: hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mr. Trump’s club at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, lavish donor retreats at Trump hotels, office space in Trump Tower, and thousands of dollars at the steakhouse in Mr. Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel.

Many of the specifics of Mr. Trump’s spending are opaque; since 2017, the campaign and the R.N.C. have routed $227 million through a single limited liability company linked to Trump campaign officials. That firm, American Made Media Consultants, has been used to place television and digital ads and was the subject of a recent Federal Election Commission complaint arguing it was used to disguise the final destination of spending, which has included paychecks to Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the partners of Mr. Trump’s two adult sons.

Millions more followed to firms tied to R.N.C. and Trump-linked officials, including more than $39 million to two firms, Parscale Strategy LLC and Giles-Parscale, controlled by Mr. Parscale since the beginning of 2017.

Mr. Parscale said that he had “no ownership or financial interest in A.M.M.C.” and that he had “negotiated a contract with the family for 1 percent of digital ad spend and after becoming campaign manager took no percentage.”

‘You have to spend money to make money’

There is little question that Mr. Parscale helped the Trump campaign construct an unparalleled Republican operation to lure small donors online. He directed a nine-figure investment in digital ads and list-building that appears to have largely paid for itself. Some of the president’s advisers believe it will continue to pay great dividends in the final weeks, pointing to the $165 million raised by the president and his party in July — more than any month in 2016. 

“You have to spend money to make money,” explained Mr. Walters, the R.N.C. chief of staff. “We have had a big increase in revenue because of early investments we made in online fund-raising and direct mail.”

Still, the costs of the G.O.P. money operation have been enormous.

Since 2019, Mr. Trump, the R.N.C. and their shared committees have spent $145 million on costs related to direct mail, almost $42 million on digital list acquisition and rentals (to expand their list of email addresses) and tens of millions more in online advertising for new donors.

Just procuring the Trump paraphernalia that supporters buy costs a lot. Two firms that make campaign swag were paid more than $30 million combined since 2019.

At Mr. Trump’s direction, the party has taken a spare-no-expense approach to donor maintenance, with the R.N.C. spending more than $6 million in “donor mementos.” The spending has gone to stationery shops, the White House Historical Association ($538,000) and the Hershey Company, the chocolate-maker ($337,000), which cover costs for items such as the White House-branded M&Ms given away by administrations of both parties.

Mr. Trump has also accumulated many costs that are unusual for a presidential re-election.

Republicans, for instance, have been saddled with extra legal costs, more than $21 million since 2019, resulting from investigations into Mr. Trump and, eventually, his impeachment trial. The R.N.C. also paid a large legal bill of $666,666.67 to Reuters News & Media at the end of June. Both Reuters and the R.N.C. declined to discuss the payment. It was labeled “legal proceedings — IP resolution,” suggesting it was related to a potential litigation over intellectual property.

There have been other squandered costs driven by Mr. Trump’s sometimes mercurial desires. He switched his convention plans twice, incurring many expenses along the way. In July, for instance, the R.N.C. made a $325,000 payment to the Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island near Jacksonville for the convention that never happened there. The party is not expected to get that money back.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

How nasty can some people be?

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Senior DHS official alleges in whistleblower complaint that he was told to stop providing intelligence analysis on threat of Russian interference"

Spoiler

A senior Department of Homeland Security official alleges that he was told to stop providing intelligence analysis on the threat of Russian interference in the 2020 elections, in part because it “made the President look bad,” an instruction he believed would jeopardize national security.

The official, Brian Murphy, who until recently was in charge of intelligence and analysis at DHS, said in a whistleblower complaint that on two occasions he was told to stand down on reporting about the Russian threat.

On July 8, Wolf said that acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told him that an “intelligence notification” regarding Russian disinformation efforts should be “held” because it was unflattering to Trump, who has long derided Russian interference as a “hoax” that was concocted by his opponents to delegitimize his victory in 2016.

It’s not clear who would have seen the notification, but DHS’s intelligence reports are routinely shared with the FBI, other federal law enforcement agencies and state and local governments.

Murphy objected to Wolf’s instruction, “stating that it was improper to hold a vetted intelligence product for reasons [of] political embarrassment,” according to a copy of his whistleblower complaint that was obtained by The Washington Post.

Murphy also alleges that two months earlier, Wolf told him to stop producing intelligence assessments on Russia and shift the focus on election interference to China and Iran. He said Wolf told him “that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien.”

Murphy said that he would not comply with the instructions, which he believed would “put the country in substantial and specific danger,” according to the complaint, which was filed Tuesday with the DHS inspector general.

The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Mr. Murphy followed proper lawful whistleblower rules in reporting serious allegations of misconduct against DHS leadership, particularly involving political distortion of intelligence analysis and retaliation,” his attorney, Mark Zaid, said in a statement. “We have alerted both the Executive and Legislative Branches of these allegations and we will appropriately cooperate with oversight investigations, especially in a classified setting.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Murphy’s complaint “outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically. This puts our nation and its security at grave risk.”

The committee has asked Murphy to testify later this month.

Murphy’s allegations track with concerns by other officials, as well as Democratic lawmakers and national security experts, that the Trump administration has tried to downplay the threat from Russia.

Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated publicly that Russia, China and Iran were engaged in interference campaigns, an assessment that drew sharp rebukes from Democratic lawmakers who said the administration was trying to equate the efforts of all three countries, when in fact Russia is the only one actively trying to help Trump by attacking his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Murphy appeared to share those concerns, stating that the analysis in the intelligence notification, which he said was eventually leaked to the press, “attempts to place the actions of Russia on par with those of Iran and China in a manner that is misleading and inconsistent with the actual intelligence data.”

DHS plays a key role in guarding against election interference, mainly by working with state and local governments to ensure that electronic voting systems are protected from hackers and outside manipulation. As part of its mission, the department has also sent unclassified bulletins to state and local authorities describing foreign interference.

Recently, DHS issued a report that Russian media are spreading false allegations that mail-in voting is unsafe, with claims that echo the baseless assertions Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr have made that voting by mail is rife with fraud.

Murphy stated that after being told to stand down on Russia in May and shift his focus, he made two classified disclosures on the matter in late May to Ken Cucinelli, the second-in-command at DHS. The second occurred after a deputies-level meeting of the National Security Council on election security.

Murphy did not provide further details on what he told Cucinelli, but described his concerns as generally having to do with “abuse of authority, willfully withholding intelligence information from Congress, and the improper administration of an intelligence program.”

Murphy was removed from his position at DHS and assigned to a management role in July, following reports by the Post that his office had compiled “intelligence reports” about tweets by journalists who were covering protests in Portland, Ore.

Murphy also made a series of allegations in the whistleblower complaint that senior Trump administration officials had pressured him to provide misleading information about suspected terrorists crossing the border with Mexico, as part of an effort to bolster the case for building a border wall.

DHS officials came under pressure from the White House and then-spokesperson Sarah Sanders to provide information on “known suspected terrorists” to support construction of the border wall during the government shutdown in January 2019, a former DHS official confirmed.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, was not party to the communications outlined in Murphy’s complaint, but said they were consistent with the pressure coming from the White House at the time.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an interesting op-ed. "Robert Kennedy’s Lesson on Political Violence That Joe Biden Needs to Learn"

Spoiler

A specter is haunting Democrats—the specter of a Donald Trump victory in November fueled by suburban voters drawn to his promise of law and order. The polls tell one story—an ABC News survey shows voters give Joe Biden much higher marks than Trump on keeping the country and their family safe, on dealing with protests, on unifying the country. But, as POLITICO noted on Sunday, Democratic strategists are starting to pick up faint but disturbing signs that college-educated suburbanites are beginning to feel concern about their neighborhoods and the value of their homes—classic signs of a “retreat to safety” sentiment that would pose a clear and present danger to the Biden campaign.

How much of this concern is well-founded? How much is unjustified panic on the part of what Biden’s team dismiss as “bed-wetters”? And, more to the point: Are there steps the Biden-Harris ticket can take, beyond the explicit condemnations of lawlessness, that could effectively assuage these concerns? The answer requires a look back into political history to a presidential campaign in which “law and order” was a dominant issue. But the most appealing message from a candidate was neither an authoritarian crackdown nor universal tolerance for protesters.

1968 was a year when disorder of every sort was a dominant presence. Nationally, violent crime had doubled since 1960. Racial upheaval had scarred the preceding three years: 34 dead in the Watts riots of 1965; 26 dead in Newark in 1967; 43 dead in Detroit that same year. In the spring of 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., 125 cities erupted in violence, with 46 dead and thousands injured. The steps of the U.S. Capitol were ringed with sandbags and gun emplacements manned by troops from the 82nd Airborne Division. On college campuses, the year saw three students in Orangeburg, South Carolina, killed by highway patrol officers; two months later, police cleared protesters out of Columbia University buildings, injuring more than 100. Add this to the frustration over a Vietnam War that was taking more than 500 American lives a week, and the sense that events were spinning out of control was palpable.

There was no doubt that this sense of lost control, of chaos, was going to be a major issue in the presidential campaign. What’s striking is how differently the three most dominant candidates in the early going met that issue.

For Alabama Governor George Wallace, running as an independent, the answer was as obvious as a mailed fist. Just as his solution to Vietnam was an overwhelming use of force, so was his answer to violence at home. Let the Alabama National Guardsmen deal with it, he said, they’d clean it up in a day or two. It was the elites, he said, living in doorman apartments and gated neighborhoods, who encouraged the protesters and protected the criminals. While Wallace’s electoral strength was clearly in the South, he had shown in 1964 that his appeal was broader, as he racked up significant votes in three Democratic primaries in Indiana, Maryland and Wisconsin.

For Richard Nixon, the message was subtler. He would be the experienced hand who could address what one of his advertising team members described as “an uneasiness in the land, a feeling that things aren’t right, that we’re moving in the wrong direction.” From his first congressional campaign in 1946, Nixon had campaigned as the face of the “forgotten Americans, the people who paid the bills, did the work, just wanted a safe home and a good school for their kids.” As Robert Kennedy’s campaign (on which I was a junior speechwriter) drove through Indiana, we kept seeing billboards with Nixon posed alongside a briefcase, with the slogan “Feel Safer With Nixon.” His major ad, featuring footage of riots and fires, was careful to distinguish between legitimate protest and lawlessness, but emphasized that the right to an orderly society was “the first civil right.”

And then there was Robert Kennedy.

By 1968, he had become a tribune for Black and brown America. He had spoken in increasingly passionate terms about poverty and discrimination. He had identified with student protesters in a 1966 speech when he repeatedly said: “we dissent … ” He had called the inner-city riots, “a cry for love.” But Kennedy, part of a family whose support was rooted in working-class politics, was acutely aware of the power of law and order. As a New York senator, he’d seen a proposal for a civilian police review board go down to massive defeat. He’d seen the toxic mix of race and crime empower politicians in Boston, Newark and Philadelphia. He was determined not to cede the issue to the right. His campaign speeches declared that “we can’t have summer after summer of lawlessness.” He reminded audiences not that he’d been attorney general, but that he’d been “the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.” In the Indiana primary, he campaigned as vigorously in the white working-class neighborhoods of Gary and Hammond as in Black neighborhoods.

He took some heat for this. The New York Times editorial board chastised him for moving to the right. Ronald Reagan and Nixon each noted that he was sounding more like them (although their speeches somehow left out the part where RFK talked about endemic poverty and a massive jobs program). But reporters began to notice an odd phenomenon: The same audiences who spoke about cracking down on demonstrators and who expressed admiration for Wallace also said they were considering voting for Kennedy.

Why? Because, the answer came back, “He’s tough. He put crooks in jail.” Indeed, as researchers later learned, a considerable number of voters who went for RFK in the May Indiana primary wound up voting for Wallace in November. It turned out that what they were looking for was someone who could end the chaos; whether that was achieved by police state tactics or an ambitious effort to deal with racial injustice was a secondary matter.

Whether Kennedy could have won over enough Wallace voters to win the White House had he been nominated, we will never know. We do know that after his death in June a majority of voters turned away from the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey—who challenged Nixon for calling for a doubling of the rate of convictions and building more jails—to those with sterner messages. Nixon and Wallace shared 57 percent of the popular vote in 1968, and a combined total of 347 electoral votes.

Of course, there are immense differences between 1968 and now. Until this spring’s spike in shootings and homicides, the nation’s violent crime rate was at a historic low. New York City, which reached a high of more than 2,200 homicides in 1990, had 350 last year. The unrest following the killing of George Floyd is nowhere near as widespread and fatal as the disorder of the late 1960s. The country is far more sympathetic to the cause of Black Lives Matter than it was even to the nonviolent campaigns of MLK, who was seen by a heavy plurality of Americans as doing more harm than good up until his death, according to a Harris poll taken early that year.

And while Nixon was running as the challenger back then, Donald Trump is the president, whose capacity to deal with the unrest has so far been found wanting.

But that does not mean there is no potential for a change in the political climate—especially if a key slice of voters comes to believe Trump’s assertion that Biden and Kamala Harris would be unable to control the most violent of the street protesters. Yes, they have been explicit in saying that looting and burning are crimes that could be prosecuted. But at least among some of their most ardent supporters, there is a measure of denial about what is happening. On Twitter, there has been a stream of pictures showing peaceful neighborhoods in Portland, Minneapolis and Kenosha, as if those pictures somehow erase the evidence of significant destruction elsewhere in those cities. There are citations of a study that showed 93 percent of protests were peaceful—which is hardly reassuring to the dozens, or hundreds of families who have had their work and their futures ruined by the remaining 7 percent of protests. Among some of Biden’s media allies there’s been an attempt to downplay what has happened—most memorably in that screen capture of a CNN reporter standing in front of a burning building as the chyron reads: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests.”

What would help is for Biden and Harris to identify the victims of destruction—many of whom are Black or brown or immigrant small-business owners—as other victims, and to assert that they deserve protection even as the work goes on in dealing with the police tactics that wound and kill people of color. (Harris took a significant step in this direction during her visit to Wisconsin on Labor Day.) They can make the point that the journey from marches to civil disobedience does not extend into setting buildings on fire or looting stores … and that the issue is not a matter of political impact, but of simple right and wrong. (Harris might even mention that as prosecutor, her job included dispensing equal justice, protecting the rights of the accused and putting dangerous criminals away.) They might even note the absolute indefensibility of a book like the recently released “In Defense of Looting.” And they can certainly call out Trump for inflaming the worst instincts of his most zealous supporters, leading to violent clashes at protest sites.

None of these steps would undermine Biden’s determination to act as a healer, to reject Trump’s increasingly outright racist appeals to his base. Indeed, Biden’s record on civil rights gives him the same space as RFK had in 1968—or that anti-communist crusader Nixon had in 1972 to go to China—to rebut Trump’s attempt to paint him as a puppet of antifa.

The key for Biden is to take to heart the lesson of history: You can be a “law and order” candidate without embracing the language of divisiveness or the tactics of a police state. What voters want to know is that you take their concerns seriously, that you neither exacerbate legitimate fears nor minimize them. And if elements of the Twitterverse assail you for acknowledging such concerns, well, that’s a price well worth paying.

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

You cannot make this stuff up.

For those of you who aren't CCR fans, here are the lyrics to "Fortunate Son".

Quote

Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
Ooh, their red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no

Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, y'all
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah

It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no
It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah, yeah
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer "More! More! More!", Y'all

It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no military son, son
It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, one
It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no, no, no
It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no fortunate son, no, no, no

 

[nausicaa]

9 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

You cannot make this stuff up.

For those of you who aren't CCR fans, here are the lyrics to "Fortunate Son".

 

This is so unbelievable some part of me wonders if this was someone in the soundbooth who doesn't like Trump trolling him. 

And to think I used to think it was bad when neo-cons would play "Born in the USA" at campaign events. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Par for the course: "Trump campaign misspells 'Nobel' Peace Prize in ad to fundraise off of his nomination, which anyone can get"

Spoiler

• The Trump campaign released an ad that incorrectly spelled the "Nobel" Peace Prize as "Noble" to celebrate his second nomination.
• A far-right Norweigan lawmaker again put forth President Donald Trump's name for the prestigious award, citing his role in normalizing ties between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
• Anyone can be nominated for the prize and hundreds are submitted every year.

The Facebook ad shows a smiling Trump with the text overlay: "President Donald Trump was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize," and a caption: "President Trump achieved PEACE in the MIDDLE EAST!"

The 2021 nomination came earlier this week from a far-right Norwegian lawmaker, who praised Trump's role in fostering negotiations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last month.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News that "all efforts that lead to peace in that region should be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize and also for Donald J. Trump."

Tybring-Gjedde previously threw Trump's name in the running in 2019 for his diplomatic efforts with North Korea.

To be sure, Trump has not secured widespread peace in the region. The Trump administration's much touted plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was immediately rejected by Palestinian leaders early this year and US troops are still deployed to Iraq and Syria.

Any head of state or member of national government can submit a candidate, and hundreds are put forth for the prestigious accolade every year. The rules also allow university professors and the directors of foreign policy institutes to submit nominees, the BBC reported.

Trump celebrated the recognition on Twitter by reposting a slate of congratulatory messages from conservatives on Wednesday morning.

The president has long wanted the prize and has previously blasted the choosing committee for having not already awarding him the honor.

His reelection team swiftly moved to celebrate the nomination news through ads, as well as campaign emails and texts to supporters for donations.

Four US presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize, with the most recent being former President Barack Obama in 2009, which Trump has also criticized.

Read the original article on Business Insider

 

[Cartmann99]

18 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Par for the course: "Trump campaign misspells 'Nobel' Peace Prize in ad to fundraise off of his nomination, which anyone can get"

  Reveal hidden contents

• The Trump campaign released an ad that incorrectly spelled the "Nobel" Peace Prize as "Noble" to celebrate his second nomination.
• A far-right Norweigan lawmaker again put forth President Donald Trump's name for the prestigious award, citing his role in normalizing ties between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
• Anyone can be nominated for the prize and hundreds are submitted every year.

The Facebook ad shows a smiling Trump with the text overlay: "President Donald Trump was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize," and a caption: "President Trump achieved PEACE in the MIDDLE EAST!"

The 2021 nomination came earlier this week from a far-right Norwegian lawmaker, who praised Trump's role in fostering negotiations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last month.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News that "all efforts that lead to peace in that region should be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize and also for Donald J. Trump."

Tybring-Gjedde previously threw Trump's name in the running in 2019 for his diplomatic efforts with North Korea.

To be sure, Trump has not secured widespread peace in the region. The Trump administration's much touted plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was immediately rejected by Palestinian leaders early this year and US troops are still deployed to Iraq and Syria.

Any head of state or member of national government can submit a candidate, and hundreds are put forth for the prestigious accolade every year. The rules also allow university professors and the directors of foreign policy institutes to submit nominees, the BBC reported.

Trump celebrated the recognition on Twitter by reposting a slate of congratulatory messages from conservatives on Wednesday morning.

The president has long wanted the prize and has previously blasted the choosing committee for having not already awarding him the honor.

His reelection team swiftly moved to celebrate the nomination news through ads, as well as campaign emails and texts to supporters for donations.

Four US presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize, with the most recent being former President Barack Obama in 2009, which Trump has also criticized.

Read the original article on Business Insider

 

We should nominate Rufus.

[Dandruff]

6 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

We should nominate Rufus.

Or Jill Rod.  She and Trump could compete for insane posts about it.

[TeddyBonkers]

I generally just lurk in this forum. Maybe someone smarter than me could explain how this is not bribing our troops to vote for Trump?

Joke's on him- my husband doesn't vote and I can't be bought with $1378.

 

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/09/11/trump-says-troops-wont-have-pay-back-deferred-payroll-taxes-if-he-wins.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599836728

[GreyhoundFan]

@TeddyBonkers -- The WaPo published a piece about this. He's trying the same across the board, not just with the troops.,  Not only is it unconstitutional, even red states are saying no. "Trump’s dubious tax gambit fizzles, as even red states balk"

Spoiler

For weeks, President Trump has waited in vain as Congress has failed to reach a deal on coronavirus relief that he hoped would include a payroll tax cut.

So he resorted to what critics derided as a gimmick: He would allow companies to defer payroll taxes through the end of the year, with the promise that the deferred taxes would later be forgiven. He even indicated he would somehow forgive the taxes without congressional authorization, despite that being patently unconstitutional.

The reaction shows how little confidence American businesses — and even some red states — have in Trump’s promise.

No major employer has thus far taken advantage of the deferral, and small businesses are also balking. Even some GOP-run states such as Arizona and Indiana have opted out.

Part of this is because they recognize that it’s essentially a loan. While they wouldn’t have to pay the tax through the end of the year, the regular tax rate would effectively be doubled early in 2021.

“Obviously it’s a delay, and you’d have to pick up in January and pay double,” Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) said this week. “Understanding that, we made the decision to forgo it.”

Unless! Unless, of course, the payroll taxes would eventually be forgiven. And Trump has sought to reassure people that this would be the case.

“If I’m victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax,” he said Aug. 8.

“When I win the election, I’m going to completely and totally forgive all deferred payroll taxes without in any way, shape or form hurting Social Security,” he added Aug. 12.

After it was noted that eliminating taxes is Congress’s territory, Trump amended his promise on Aug. 17 to include its authorization. “If Republicans win in November, we will forgive these payments in full,” Trump said.

But on Thursday night, with companies and even some Trump-backing states shunning Trump’s offer, he more explicitly suggested he would somehow make it happen unilaterally.

“When we win I, as your President, will totally forgive ALL deferred payroll taxes with money from the General Fund,” Trump said.

What’s particularly remarkable about the lack of buy-in from businesses and even these red states is that, if the deferred payroll taxes were eventually forgiven, they would already have paid them. It’s theoretically possible that Congress could do something to benefit those who still paid the taxes anyway, but Trump’s promise has been to forgive the taxes that were deferred.

In addition, even if everyone eventually gets the same tax break, companies would have forgone a benefit at a particularly crucial time of economic hardship. In other words: There’s very little reason not to defer the taxes if you think they’ll be forgiven at a later date.

Getting companies and states to buy in is also important to Trump’s gambit. If much of the American economy is suddenly faced with a sharply rising tax bill in early 2021, it would put pressure on Congress to do something about it. Without that, there would be less impetus for Congress to act.

Trump’s gamble on this, of course, has always been a thoroughly politically convenient one.

The ostensible idea was that this would help people deal with their immediate economic pain. But whatever stimulus came from the move? It would happen before the November election. And the possible ensuing pain? That would be deferred until either after Trump had already secured another four years in office or when Joe Biden would have to deal with the mess.

And there have always been myriad problems with Trump’s promise.

The first is that he almost definitely can’t do it unilaterally. Mark Mazur, the director of the Tax Policy Center, says it’s not possible. “They would need to pass legislation to accomplish this, which is Congress’s job,” Mazur said.

The second is that, if he thinks he can just do this unilaterally, why not do it now? Why connect this to being reelected? Why allow businesses and the American people to be in this kind of a tax purgatory at a time of such economic pain? That seems … unnecessary at best.

And even if we’re talking about Congress doing what Trump wants, it’s very unlikely that Republicans would take over the House, even if Trump wins, given their 36-seat deficit.

Another is that, even as Trump suggests that taking money from the general fund to forgive payroll taxes wouldn’t harm entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, it’s not clear how that’s possible.

All of which makes Trump’s promise on this look a whole lot like a political ploy. And whatever it is, it’s not having the effect he would like it to. Trump needed people to believe that he was a man of his word or — at the very least — that his tactic would force Congress’s hand. They’re understandably skeptical.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Next Twitler will say that Joe wasted taxpayer money expanding his basement or some such nonsense.

[fraurosena]

9 hours ago, TeddyBonkers said:

my husband doesn't vote

@TeddyBonkers, I hope you don’t mind me asking (and don’t answer if you do) — but why doesn’t your husband vote? Is it because he can’t, or because he doesn’t want to? If the latter, I’m curious about his reasoning.

I used to think my little vote wouldn’t make a difference and I hardly ever voted. American politics have made me do a one-eighty on that stance. Now I vote in every election there is. Because if many people believe their vote doesn’t matter, one vote can make all the difference in the world.

Trump winning in 2016 was because a lot of people chose not to vote.

With the American political system as rotten as it is, remember that Dems will on average need three times as many votes to win than Republicans do.

 

[TeddyBonkers]

@fraurosena  I don't really know why he doesn't vote. He has never been interested in politics. As an Alaska resident, it would require effort for him to request an absentee ballot. I love him, but goddamn if he doesn't do the least amount of work possible for things he doesn't care about.

 

[47of74]

Some people are really immature 

Quote

With the general election approaching, yard signs endorsing various political candidates abound in local neighborhoods throughout the tri-states, but many residents are now experiencing incidents of signs disappearing or being damaged.

Throughout the tri-state area, law enforcement and local political parties are reporting widespread instances of political campaign signs being stolen or vandalized.

The Iowa County Sheriff’s Office received seven calls in the last week of incidents involving stolen yard signs. Deputy Mike Peterson said some of those incidents involved as many as seven signs being damaged or stolen.

Steve Drahozal, chair of the Dubuque County Democratic Party, said elections can often come with yard sign vandalism and theft, and presidential elections in particular can drive people to try to remove the signs of candidates they particularly oppose.

Yeah I’m not that immature that I would mess with signs. I just prefer to salute some of them instead.  With a certain finger. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a disturbing and important read:

 

[fraurosena]

22 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is a disturbing and important read:

 

This is all the more reason to vote out every Republican from office that is up for re-election as much as possible. That way, Dems will have more sway in Congress and in the States. 

Thankfully, the Biden campaign is taking it seriously and preparing for the battle ahead:

Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting

Quote

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign is establishing a major new legal operation, bringing in two former solicitors general and hundreds of lawyers in what the campaign billed as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history.

Legal battles are already raging over how people will vote — and how ballots will be counted — this fall during the pandemic, and senior Biden officials described the ramp-up as necessary to guard the integrity of a fall election already clouded by President Trump’s baseless accusations of widespread fraud.

The new operation will be overseen by Dana Remus, who has served as Mr. Biden’s general counsel on the 2020 campaign, and Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel during the Obama administration who joined the Biden campaign full-time over the summer as a senior adviser.

Inside the campaign, they are creating a “special litigation” unit, which will be led by Donald B. Verrilli Jr. and Walter Dellinger, two former solicitors general, who are joining the campaign. Hundreds of lawyers will be involved, including a team at the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie, led by Marc Elias, which will focus on the state-by-state fight over vote casting and counting rules. And Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general in the Obama administration, will serve as something of a liaison between the campaign and the many independent groups involved in the legal fight over the election, which is already raging in the courts.

“We can and will hold a free and fair election this fall and be able to trust the results,” Ms. Remus said in an interview.

Mr. Bauer, who was general counsel on both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, said the operation would be “far more sophisticated and resourced” than those during past campaigns.

Ms. Remus and Mr. Bauer outlined a multipronged program that will include some elements common to past presidential campaigns, such as fighting off voter suppression and ensuring people understood how to vote, and some more unique to 2020, such as administering an election during a pandemic and guarding against foreign interference.

“There are,” Mr. Bauer said, “some unique challenges this year.”

The process of voting is especially complex now, as multiple states have raced to expand the ability to vote by mail because of the coronavirus. At the same time, Mr. Trump has repeatedly and falsely accused that process of being riddled with fraud, even as he himself has voted by mail in the past and Republican Party officials have encouraged supporters to cast ballots that way. Mr. Trump went even further this month when he suggested that his supporters could stress-test the system in North Carolina by voting twice — an illegal act.

Mr. Trump has dabbled in baseless questions of election fraud for years. He has suggested that dead voters helped re-elect Mr. Obama in 2012. He has made unsubstantiated claims putting the blame for his loss in New Hampshire in 2016 on voters’ being bused into the state. His White House established a voting-integrity commission that disbanded in 2018 without uncovering evidence of widespread voter fraud.

This year, as voting by mail expands, Mr. Trump has sought to sow doubt about its legitimacy, trying to draw a shaky distinction between universal mail voting and jurisdictions that allow more limited absentee balloting only when a person cannot vote in person.

“It’s going to be fraud all over the place,” Mr. Trump said without evidence in June, adding, “This will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country and we cannot let this happen.”

Biden officials say they are trying to strike a delicate balance, responding to Mr. Trump’s wild theories without spreading them further.

“A lot of what Trump and his allies would have us do is amplify their disaster scenarios,” Mr. Bauer said. “We’re not going to get caught up in alarmist rhetoric they are using to scare voters.”

“The constant return to the issue of fraud is itself a voter suppression tool,” he added.

Mr. Trump’s talk of fraud drew a notable Republican rebuke last week, when Benjamin L. Ginsberg, one of the party’s top elections lawyers for decades, wrote a scathing Washington Post op-ed article.

“The president’s rhetoric has put my party in the position of a firefighter who deliberately sets fires to look like a hero putting them out,” Mr. Ginsberg wrote, adding, “Calling elections “fraudulent” and results “rigged” with almost nonexistent evidence is antithetical to being the ‘rule of law’ party.”

Mandi Merritt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, accused Democrats of wanting to “turn our election into an out-of-control all-mail-based election” without sufficient safeguards.

“Republicans have always supported absentee voting with safeguards in place and want to make sure every valid vote is counted and our elections are free, fair and transparent,” Ms. Merritt said. “What we oppose is a rushed and forcibly implemented nationwide vote-by-mail experiment that would eliminate those safeguards, invite fraud and weaken the integrity of our elections.”

The R.N.C. said it was fighting Democratic efforts that would loosen signature-matching requirements for absentee ballots, eliminate witness requirements and allow absentee ballots to be collected and turned in by third parties, a process the Republicans deride as “ballot harvesting.”

“There is a clear difference between what Democrats are pushing this cycle and a typical absentee ballot request process,” Ms. Merritt said.

For the first time in decades, the national Republican Party can mount campaigns against allegations of voter fraud without prior court approval. There had been a court-imposed ban on voter-fraud operations since the early 1980s after courts found repeated instances of the party’s working to exclude minority voters in the name of preventing fraud.

State and local governments administer elections in the United States, but the Biden campaign is watching the federal government’s actions under Mr. Trump closely. Congressional Democrats are investigating changes at the Postal Service put in place by Louis DeJoy, a Republican megadonor installed this year as postmaster general, that could affect mail-in voting.

“I am not engaged in sabotaging the election,” Mr. DeJoy told Congress last month.

Mr. Bauer said that while every incumbent administration uses the government to showcase its accomplishments, there were unique concerns about how Mr. Trump was leveraging the powers of the federal government to his own political ends. Mr. Trump, for instance, held his convention acceptance speech on the lawn of the White House — “We’re here, and they’re not,” he declared — despite a history of past chief executives’ refraining from so explicitly using a symbol of the presidency for politics.

“The scale of Trump’s conversion of the federal government into an arm of his political campaign is truly remarkable,” Mr. Bauer said. “It is appalling and raises a host of questions of both the trashing of norms and the skirting and violating of rules.”

There are already a number of legal fights in progress in key battleground states, including Florida, where an appeals court ruled Friday that Floridians who had completed sentences for felonies would have to pay fines and fees before voting, and Wisconsin, where the State Supreme Court halted the printing of absentee ballots last week over legal challenges from third-party candidate. A ruling in Wisconsin could come as early as Monday.

Ms. Remus said the communications side of the Biden operation would encourage voters to request ballots soon, make a voting plan and cast a ballot as soon as possible.

“Just do everything early this cycle,” she summarized the message.

 

[Alisamer]

Honestly I hope most of Trump's supporters DO vote twice. Please I hope they vote twice. And are inevitably caught.

It's a felony, and they won't be able to vote ever again after that in many states. Let the stupid weed themselves out of the voting pool.

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the WaPo: "7 ways Trump and his cabal are using government to corrupt the election"

Spoiler

At a packed indoor rally in Nevada on Sunday night punctuated by spittle-spraying cheers and jeers, President Trump ran through his greatest hits: He absurdly treated the coronavirus as largely defeated. He vowed to make an issue out of Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

He claimed the “only way” he’ll lose in November is in a rigged election. And he insisted former president Barack Obama got caught “spying” on his campaign, which unleashed a chant of “lock him up!”

Quick: What do all these things have in common?

The answer: In all these cases, Trump isn’t just stating claims. He and his cronies are also corruptly manipulating the levers of your government to make them into truths, or inflate them into issues that will garner news coverage that helps him in some way, or both.

Because the crush of governmental manipulation to serve Trump’s personal and political ends is so relentless, we often focus only on isolated examples as they skate past.

But we need to connect the dots. Taken together, they tell a larger story that is truly staggering in its levels of corruption:

Rushing coronavirus treatments. The New York Times just reported that scientists inside Trump’s own government are warning that the White House is laying the groundwork to increase pressure to approve a vaccine before Election Day, “even in the absence of agreement on its effectiveness and safety.”

This manipulation is already happening: Trump pushed top health officials to approve a plasma treatment for the coronavirus without the full vetting some officials wanted, and in a way that resulted in officials wildly overstating its benefits.

Trump has explicitly tied the vaccine to his reelection timetable and has lashed out at scientists, saying they’re slow-walking the process to hurt him politically, which tells them meeting that schedule is to be a priority.

Interfering in public health messaging. Politico reports that political appointees have been relentlessly intervening to soften language in official communications from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to align them with Trump’s rosy claims about the coronavirus. They’ve had some success.

This comes even as the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to award a $250 million contract to an outside communications firm in part to package a message of “hope” about the coronavirus. Democrats are investigating whether this is a taxpayer-funded “political propaganda campaign.”

This is a reasonable fear, based on other manipulation we’ve already seen: A White House model created to support overly optimistic coronavirus death projections, and White House efforts to edit CDC school reopening guidelines to downplay risk.

Twisting intelligence to support campaign agitprop. A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower has revealed that top officials pressed for findings about civil unrest to be revised to downplay white-supremacist violence and pump up the illusion of an organized leftist domestic terror threat.

Numerous of Trump’s top law enforcement and national security officials have used their government positions to lend validation to unsupported claims bolstering that narrative, which has figured heavily in Trump’s campaign messaging.

Helping cast doubt on Russian electoral sabotage. Attorney General William P. Barr may reportedly release an interim report on his department’s ongoing “review” of the origins of the Russia investigation before the election. Barr reportedly wants the U.S. attorney doing the review to move faster.

Importantly, this is not merely about the 2016 election, or about validating Trump’s bogus “Obamagate” narrative. It’s about this election, too: Barr wants to discredit the special counsel’s findings about Russian interference in 2016. This won’t just make Trump’s last win appear less tainted. By downplaying Russian culpability, it could also facilitate another round of it now.

Limiting disclosure of knowledge of Russian sabotage. Meanwhile, Trump’s intelligence officials have announced an end to in-person congressional briefings on what they’re learning about ongoing Russian efforts to sabotage this election.

This, too, risks further facilitating those efforts, by limiting understanding of them among Congress and voters. It comes after Trump privately raged over previous steps by intelligence officials to inform Congress about them.

Meanwhile, the statements that intel officials have released about Russian interference are extraordinarily circumspect and muddy the waters with false equivalences about Chinese and Iranian efforts, which mislead the public and thus further facilitate it.

Discrediting vote-by-mail. Barr is also cranking out false public statements to discredit vote-by-mail, whether it’s falsely claiming it’s vulnerable to a massive foreign-engineered conspiracy or blatantly misrepresenting actual domestic cases of fraud.

This isn’t just about helping Trump mislead. By using his position as chief law enforcement officer to lend validity to these lies, Barr is creating cover for Trump’s coming effort to try to invalidate countless mail ballots against him, which he has already telegraphed.

Validating fake narratives about Hunter Biden. Trump’s Republican Senate allies still continue to pursue a phony investigation designed to fake-validate a series of smears about Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine.

These have been thoroughly debunked, and the Treasury Department just issued sanctions against a foreign official pushing similar narratives, calling him a Russian agent pushing Russian disinformation. (Here one part of government is doing the right thing against Trump’s Senate cronies.)

But the Senate GOP probe is plainly being pursued with the goal of releasing a report to generate news both-sides stories that cast a miasmic pall of corruption over both Bidens.

The bottom line: Trump isn’t trying to persuade a majority of U.S. voters to support him. Instead, he’s trying to get within what you might call cheating distance of pulling another electoral college inside straight even while losing the popular vote, just like last time.

He’s not there yet. But many top Trump officials and congressional allies have placed their official duties and the levers of your government at the disposal of Trump’s reelection effort, which depends on closing that gap.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Paying for people to attend a super spreader event: