2020 Presidential Election 5: Talk About An October Surprise

[fraurosena]

Oh, Lindsey. It's exactly what your party has been doing for decades.

As the Dutch saying goes: As the innkeeper is, he judges his guests.

 

[formergothardite]

Trump is coming to NC again today. Like we aren't having enough Covid issues without him continuing to come here. He is skipping the large, more liberal town of Charlotte and instead is hitting a smaller, more conservative city called Gastonia which is outside of Charlotte. One of my long time friends lives in a neighborhood pretty close to where Trump will be holding his rally and she is all stressed out because they are expecting close to 30,000 people to show up for this and she is terrified it will cause Covid to spread like wildfire through her community. Local churches are providing parking and shuttling people to the rally from what I understand. 

 

[Alisamer]

4 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Trump is coming to NC again today. Like we aren't having enough Covid issues without him continuing to come here. He is skipping the large, more liberal town of Charlotte and instead is hitting a smaller, more conservative city called Gastonia which is outside of Charlotte. One of my long time friends lives in a neighborhood pretty close to where Trump will be holding his rally and she is all stressed out because they are expecting close to 30,000 people to show up for this and she is terrified it will cause Covid to spread like wildfire through her community. Local churches are providing parking and shuttling people to the rally from what I understand. 

LOL I hope somebody told him he'll have to take a smaller plane. While I haven't been out to the Gastonia municipal airport since I was a little kid, I highly doubt they can land a 747 there. And I notice he's basically landing, speaking, and leaving all from the same place, it looks like. Which makes sense, because he's openly stated that he thinks his fans are "disgusting". 

In fact, the smaller jet the White House uses for the vice president and first lady is still too big to land at Gaston. They only have a 3771' runway. There's only one jet based on the field (and I'd bet it's privately owned, as are the majority of planes there). I wonder if they'll land him at Charlotte in Air Force One and fly him in on a chopper? I doubt he'd fly in a smaller private jet without his 24/7 Fox News access and full staff. 

And I really hope he doesn't take a motorcade there, because I'm likely to be on the road around that time and the last thing we need is that mess right during rush hour. I'd love to see Air Force One land, though - Air Force 2 came right over me once and it was awesome, even though it was during Bush 2 so I wasn't a fan of who was on it.

This looks like it's out on the far, more rural end of the city. There are pockets of nice neighborhoods out there, but a lot of that area is pretty "redneck and proud of it" in a city that is already a punchline for being "backward". 

Edited October 21, 2020 by Alisamer

[formergothardite]

11 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

LOL I hope somebody told him he'll have to take a smaller plane. While I haven't been out to the Gastonia municipal airport since I was a little kid, I highly doubt they can land a 747 there. And I notice he's basically landing, speaking, and leaving all from the same place, it looks like. Which makes sense, because he's openly stated that he thinks his fans are "disgusting". And that's the more rural end of a city that is already a punchline for being "redneck".

In fact, the smaller jet the White House uses for the vice president and first lady is still too big to land at Gaston. They only have a 3771' runway. There's only one jet based on the field (and I'd bet it's privately owned, as are the majority of planes there). I wonder if they'll land him at Charlotte in Air Force One and fly him in on a chopper? I doubt he'd fly in a smaller private jet without his 24/7 Fox News access and full staff. 

And I really hope he doesn't take a motorcade there, because I'm likely to be on the road around that time and the last thing we need is that mess right during rush hour. I'd love to see Air Force One land, though - Air Force 2 came right over me once and it was awesome, even though it was during Bush 2 so I wasn't a fan of who was on it.

This looks like it's out on the far, more rural end of the city. There are pockets of nice neighborhoods out there, but a lot of that area is pretty "redneck and proud of it" in a city that is already a punchline for being "backward". 

My friend says she heard that he is landing in Charlotte and coming in on a helicopter. And yes, parts of that particular city are known for being real redneck and proud of it. There are some pockets of more liberal people, but it is few and far between from what I understand.  I figured he is going there instead of a bigger city like Charlotte because he won't have to deal with any protests. Probably also why he would take a helicopter instead of a car, I bet if he drove through Charlotte or some of the more liberal towns surrounding Charlotte he would be faced with protests. 

If I am understanding it correctly people are being brought in on busses from SC. There seems to be at least one sensible city council member who has been trying to convince people that this is a bad idea because of Covid. P

If anyone is in that area, they can celebrate Trump by purchasing some really awkward looking Trump cookies. 

Spoiler

 

[clueliss]

Um - that's not good.  For Trump.  Biden's ahead in Kansas (granted I don't trust polls)

 

[GreyhoundFan]

30 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

If anyone is in that area, they can celebrate Trump by purchasing some really awkward looking Trump cookies.

Ew. I wonder if they are orange flavored.

[Okie_Bokie]

I hang out on the Rodrigues forum and haven't been here in this section before.  This seems like an appropriate place to post this.  I did an FJ search and didn't find this, so I hope it's not old news that everyone except me knew already. 

There is an extension you can add to Firefox and Chrome that automatically replaces all pictures of Trump with pictures of kittens.  Make American Kittens Again!  MAKA!  It sometimes takes a second or two load, but no more of that smug mug and the dumbass fist bumps Trump does.

Firefox:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/make-firefox-kittens-again/

Chrome:  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/make-america-kittens-agai/klchnmggepghlcolikgaekpibclpmgcm?hl=en

I love it.  Even though it only works ~95% of the time, it's still an improvement.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Okie_Bokie
typos galore

[Loveday]

Former president Obama is speaking right now in Philadelphia, campaigning for Biden. I'm not ashamed to say that when he first appeared I got a little teary-eyed, and the tears just won't quite go away. It's so good to hear from him again. 

[formergothardite]

Trump doesn't look well and pronounced Gastonia very oddly. Why is he talking about going to the hospital for colds? 

[Audrey2]

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Trump doesn't look well and pronounced Gastonia very oddly. Why is he talking about going to the hospital for colds? 

Probably for the same reason he said people need photo id to buy breakfast cereal  (42.000 years ago, or it has just felt like his presidency has gone on that long).

Seriously, I think his marbles are rolling away from him faster and faster.

[WiseGirl]

 

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by WiseGirl
Whoops

[Alisamer]

3 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Trump doesn't look well and pronounced Gastonia very oddly. Why is he talking about going to the hospital for colds? 

I only watched enough to see how he pronounced “Gastonia” lol! It did sound odd, but then I hate his voice so I didn’t expect better. 

For the record it’s gas-tone-yuh. Slight emphasis on the “tone”, and the “yuh” is pretty short. It’s three syllables. The one time he’d have done well to slightly slur a word and he missed it!

Also when the announcer started speaking I had to check I hadn’t accidentally found some 80s Hulk Hogan match instead. 

I probably know some of those morons in the crowd. We aren’t all that stupid and brainwashed here, I promise! 

[formergothardite]

7 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I only watched enough to see how he pronounced “Gastonia” lol! It did sound odd, but then I hate his voice so I didn’t expect better.

I think what made it jump out as odd is that he repeated it several times pronouncing and each time pronouncing it slightly differently. And the first time he pronounced the gas part as gus. I have a feeling he didn't have a clue where he was and was just trying to read the name off the prompter. 

7 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I probably know some of those morons in the crowd.

One of my cousins was in that crowd. I checked her FB last night and she didn't get a good view, it was very hot, she got sunburned, she thought she was going to pass out at some points during the day, but it was worth it all just to hear his voice in person.  And the comments were filled with people saying that they wish one day they could see him in person too. This is cult level stuff.  I really think they will do anything for him. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Twitler probably would have kicked the young man instead of hugging him.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I just read that the clip in the post above is from an event with Parkland shooting victim families. The young man had lost his father in the shooting.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Daily 202: Obama’s 10 deepest cuts against Trump in Philadelphia"

Spoiler

In 2004, Illinois state legislator Barack Obama delivered his breakout speech at the Democratic National Convention inside the arena where the NBA’s Boston Celtics play. “I’m LeBron, baby,” Obama told a reporter just before he went onstage. “I can play on this level. I got some game.”

Sixteen years later, the former president stood on a makeshift stage in a parking lot outside Lincoln Financial Field, where the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles play, and showed he’s still got some game. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Obama’s first 2020 campaign event for his former vice president, Joe Biden, was a drive-in rally. 

“Presidents up for reelection usually ask if the country is better off than it was four years ago,” Obama said. “I’ll tell you one thing: Four years ago, you’d be tailgating here at the Linc instead of watching a speech from your cars.” As dozens of cars honked with approval, Obama continued: “The only people who are truly better off than they were four years ago are the billionaires who got his tax cuts.”

Calling it “the Linc” was the sort of localized touch that Obama’s speechwriters used to always pepper into his remarks but which President Trump, who usually lacks message-discipline and struggles to stick to any script, almost never bothers with. 

I’m not sure which cliche football metaphor best describes Obama’s performance on Wednesday night in Philly: Was he a free safety catching pick-sixes? A quarterback connecting with Biden in the end zone? A defensive end sacking the other team’s quarterback? A coach giving a pep talk during a timeout in the fourth quarter?

Whatever position he was trying to play, most of his lines on Wednesday night felt fresh. Obama has not been ubiquitous on the stump this year as a result of the pandemic, and he’s kept a low public profile since his Democratic convention speech in August. He was biting, and did not hide his anger, but he used humor to deliver his most devastating zingers. He was also plainly defensive over his own record. Here are Obama’s top 10 daggers from his 36-minute speech:

1) Shredding Trump’s covid-19 response 

“Donald Trump isn’t going to suddenly protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself.”

Eight months into the pandemic, new cases are rising again in most of the country, at least 220,000 Americans are dead and more than 100,000 small businesses have closed. Another 787,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, according to data released Thursday from the Labor Department, and another 345,440 made claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which is for gig and self-employed workers. The total number of people on unemployment right now is 23.1 million.

Obama noted that South Korea identified its first case on the same day as the United States, and their per capita death toll is 1.3 percent of America’s. “They’ve got a government that is actually paying attention,” he said.

2) Teeing up a contrast between Trump and Biden

“Joe is not going to screw up testing. He’s not going to call scientists idiots. He’s not going to hold a superspreader event at the White House.”

Obama has taken to referring to his eight years in the White House as “the Obama-Biden administration,” which is the phrase that Biden used throughout the primaries. He emphasized that his administration, which kept a 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa from getting out of control in the United States, took a series of steps to help the next administration prepare. 

“We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook that would have shown them how to respond before the virus reached our shores,” Obama said. “They probably used it to prop up a wobbly table somewhere. We don’t know where that playbook went.”

3) Highlighting a double standard 

“Can you imagine if I had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection? You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would have called me ‘Beijing Barry.’”

Obama said he thinks that he paid more than $750 in federal income taxes when he was a 15-year-old scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. He highlighted recent New York Times reports that the president paid just $750 in personal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and that he maintained a secret bank account in China.

4) Connecting the dots 

“Joe knows that the first job of a president is to keep us safe from all threats, foreign, domestic or microscopic. When the daily intelligence briefings flash warning signs about a virus, a president can't ignore them. He can't be AWOL. Just like when Russia puts bounties on the heads of our soldiers in Afghanistan, the commander-in-chief can't be missing in action.”

There have been so many damning revelations about Trump over the past few months that it’s easy to lose track. Obama drew attention to the alleged Russian bounties paid for the murder of our Marines, as well as the Atlantic story about negative comments Trump has reportedly made about members of the military. And the AWOL line was an allusion to Trump avoiding service in Vietnam. “Joe Biden would never call the men and women of our military suckers or losers,” Obama said. “Who does that? He knows these heroes are somebody's children, somebody's spouse, somebody's dad or mom.”

Trump has denied making any of these statements. He has also said that the U.S. intelligence, which includes evidence of money transfers, relating to Russia trying to get the Taliban to kill our troops was not strong enough to raise the issue with Vladimir Putin during any of their recent phone calls.

5) Effectively employing mockery 

“You'll be able to go about your lives [if Biden wins] knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world or that Navy SEALS didn't actually kill bin Laden. Think about that. The president of the United States retweeted that! Imagine! What? What?”

Trump defended this retweet during his NBC town hall last week. “I do a lot of retweets,” the president said. “Frankly because the media is so fake and so corrupt, if I didn't have social media … I wouldn't be able to get the word out.” To which NBC’s Savannah Guthrie replied: “The word is false.” 

Speaking in Philadelphia, Obama often sounded more bemused than angry by this kind of behavior from Trump. Obama ripped his successor for saying “not much” when he was asked what he would have done differently about responding to the pandemic. Obama asked: “Really? Really?” It was reminiscent of the “really?” refrain on “Saturday Night Live.”

That was a reminder that Obama has a once-in-a-generation political talent for this kind of humor. 

Obama also spoke to the deep sense of fatigue that many Americans feel after four years of nonstop drama from Trump, whom he likened to a “crazy uncle.” The former president argued that these kinds of retweets wouldn’t be acceptable from a high school principal, yet people routinely defend Trump and say that’s just the way he is. 

6) Trolling Trump

“Donald Trump likes to claim he built this economy, but America created 1.5 million more jobs in the last three years of the Obama-Biden administration than in the first three years of the Trump-Pence administration. How you figure that? … Now, he did inherit the longest streak of job growth in American history but just like everything else he inherited, he messed it up.” 

Taking a dig at Trump for not being self-made was one of several moments when it seemed like Obama was trying to get into the president’s head. He also suggested the president is lazy and noted that Trump could be the first president since Herbert Hoover to see net job loss while in power. 

Obama also said that Americans are tuning out of Trump’s reality TV show. This seemed to be a reference to the ratings being higher for Biden’s town hall last Thursday on ABC than for Trump’s town hall at the same time on NBC. “His TV ratings are down, so you know that upsets him,” Obama said. “This is not a reality show. This is reality.”

About an hour after he finished talking in Philadelphia, Trump went after his predecessor in North Carolina. Trump, who was a registered Democrat until 2009, became popular on the right by embracing birtherism and suggesting falsely for years that Obama was really from Kenya. “There was nobody that campaigned harder for crooked Hillary Clinton than Obama, right? He was all over the place,” Trump said at his rally. “I think the only one more unhappy than crooked Hillary that night was Barack Hussein Obama.”

7) Personnel is policy

“When Joe and Kamala are in charge, they're not going to surround themselves with hacks and lobbyists. … That, more than anything, is what separates them from their opponents.”

Obama made the case that all of Trump’s antics distract most people from “the truly destructive actions that his appointees are doing all across the government,” which directly affect people’s lives. In his extended riff, the former president attacked Andrew Wheeler, David Bernhardt, Eugene Scalia, Betsy DeVos and Seema Verma – though not by name. 

“The Environmental Protection Agency that's supposed to protect our air and our water is right now run by an energy lobbyist that gives polluters free reign to dump unlimited poison into our air and water. The Labor Department that's supposed to protect workers and their rights right now is run by a corporate lobbyist who's declared war on workers. … The Interior Department that's supposed to protect our public lands and wild spaces … right now is run by an oil lobbyist who’s determined to sell them to the highest bidder. You've got the Education Department, that's supposed to give every kid a chance, being run by a billionaire who guts rules designed to protect students from getting ripped off by for-profit colleges and stiff-arms students looking for loan relief in the middle of an economic collapse. The person who runs Medicaid right now is doing their best to kick people off of Medicaid, instead of sign them up. Come on.”

? Highlighting promises not kept 

“They keep on promising, ‘We're going to have a great replacement.’ … It's been coming in two weeks for the last 10 years. Where is it? Where is this great plan to replace Obamacare? They've had 10 years to do it. There is no plan!”

Protecting the Affordable Care Act is a central part of the Democratic closing argument. It was the focus of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing last week. Obama poked fun at Trump’s well-known penchant for saying that he is going to release a detailed plan to address some problem “in two weeks.” This has happened several times around health care. But no detailed plan ever materializes.

“They've never had one,” Obama said. “Instead they've attacked the Affordable Care Act at every turn, driving up costs and driving up the number of uninsured. Now, they're trying to dismantle your care in the Supreme Court, as we speak, as quickly as they can in the middle of a pandemic with nothing but empty promises to take its place. It's shameful.” 

9) Defending his own record 

“Listen, listen: I understand why a lot of Americans can get frustrated by government and can feel like it doesn't make a difference. Even supporters of mine, during my eight years, there were times where stuff we wanted to get done didn't get done and people said, ‘Well, gosh, if Obama didn't get it done, then maybe it's just not going to happen.’”

People who have talked with him say Obama is acutely sensitive to, and annoyed about, some of the critiques that were leveled at him by the more liberal candidates during the Democratic primaries this cycle. When he’s talked about his legacy lately, he often seems to come at it with a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. Wednesday night was no different.

“Look, government is not going to solve every problem, it's true,” he explained. “Every elected official is going to make some mistakes. This is a big complicated country and the system's designed so that change happens slowly. It doesn't happen overnight.”

Obama said he had “firsthand experience” with Republican obstruction and the way “special interests” tried to “stop progress” before making a case that voters need to work within the system, “The fact that we don't get 100 percent of what we want right away is not a good reason not to vote,” said the onetime community organizer. “It means we've got to vote and then get some change and then vote some more and then get some more change, and then keep on voting until we get it right.”

10) Connecting protesting to voting

“We've seen Americans of all races joining together to declare in the face of injustice that Black lives matter – no more, but no less – so that no child in this country feels the continuing sting of racism. … We can’t abandon those protesters who inspired us. We’ve got to channel their activism into action.”

This was an interesting way to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement. That he felt compelled to say Black lives do not matter any more or less than any other kinds of lives reflected the first Black president’s continuing cautiousness in talking about race. 

After all, it was in Philadelphia where Obama delivered the most important speech of his 2008 presidential campaign on this very subject. Trying to win the Pennsylvania primary, Obama delicately addressed racial inequality and responded to the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had presided over his wedding to Michelle Obama. Speaking on Wednesday, Obama did not mention the landmark speech at the National Constitution Center. But he did harken back to 12 years ago, and he closed with a twist on one of his catchphrases from that election. “Honk if you’re fired up,” Obama told the people in their cars. “Honk if you’re ready to go.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[clueliss]

I'm not sure why I'm shocked here considering it's 2020 and the entire universe has lost its mind - but someone threatened to kidnap Biden & Harris.

 

[fraurosena]

 

[clueliss]

So Beth Moore on twitter reference John Piper saying something about the election.  I just now did a google search.  Piper, I think, retired and the Beth tweet  thread indicated that perhaps he feels free to speak his mind now.

 

Quote

https://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/john-piper-is-making-it-clear-why-he-probably-wont-be-voting-for-trump/

 

[fraurosena]

Wow.

 

[Becky]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Wow.

 

If this is true, I am truly heartened and it is the first thing to really give me hope!  

[Alisamer]

Oh hey! Did you see the Republican Party posted the priorities for trumps second term?

Not a parody. As best I can tell.

[GreyhoundFan]

Pete had a great response to the stupid Repug priorities:

 

[fraurosena]