358 Comments

Cumulative? The "cumulative" inflation rate from 1980 is 280.65%. Pointless point.

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Harris should excoriate Bret Baier and Fox News during the interview for spreading election fraud lies, though they'd probably edit that out since it will be pretaped.

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Weird question: At the PA Townhall/DJ insanity where several people fainted reportedly from the heat, why does Trump in a full wool suit not collapse from the heat or even break make-up runny sweat? Does he have AC blowers onto the stage?

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founding

The magnificent women of America are vastly outperforming men on the ramparts of democracy because we have already had so much taken from us by trump: our bodily sovereignty, our equality under the law. We are smarter, stronger, and more courageous than men because we have always had to be--now more than ever. When we fight, we win.

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When we vote, we win.

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So four in ten young men say women’s gains have come at their expense. Well that is because for some odd reason the richest and greatest country in the world has convinced them it is a zero sum game when it need not be. Or else they are simply looking to shift blame. On the other hand, the relentless redistribution of wealth to the top means less pie to for the rest of us to divie up.

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this is off topic but why can't the GOP find candidates in the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan from within their states Wisconsin senate candidate is from California, the Pennsylvania candidate is from Connecticut, and the Michigan candidate is from Florida. and the senator from Alabama lives in Florida. Can't the GOP find local candidates to run?

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Kelly, Mattis, McMasters and Milley are all cowards.

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Milley has made his feelings known through the Woodward book. I feel this is a good way to express his vote without violating any preconceived notion of the military staying neutral.

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Well maybe if Charlie Sykes, Tim Miller, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez and Sarah Longwell didn't lie about democrats wanting to defund the police then we might not be in this mess. They never ever admit to their complicity. Sykes is one of the people most responsible for keeping Ron Johnson in the Senate. They helped create this mess and now sit around wondering what happened. They should all take a long look in the mirror.

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They have and the reflection motivated them to found The Bulwark.

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I think they all have.

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“It’s up to the women…”:

Here’s a great interview (below is taken from transcript of the podcast)

“The interview is of Valerie Hudson, who teaches international affairs at Texas A&M University and has an article in New York Times titled, What You Do to Your Women, You Do to Your Nation” and Zoe Marks, who teaches public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School. Zoe has an article in Foreign Affairs that she co-authored with Erica Chenoweth, titled “Revenge of the Patriarchs, Why Autocrats Fear Women.”

From Deep Dish on Global Affairs: What You Do to Your Women, You Do to Your Nation., Mar 30, 2023

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-dish-on-global-affairs/id1169079758?i=1000606648456

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It's a smart move, IF, she intensely prepares as she would for a debate. Also, she needs to sit down with Buttigieg and learn how to handle herself on Fox.

In particular, she needs to fully prepare direct answers on the economy/inflation, immigration and what she would be differently than Biden. The undecided swing voters, and soft Trump voters, tell us that the first two issues are key to why they might/will vote for Trump.

She can flip the script on the economy, as Biden/Harris have a much better record on the economy than Trump has. On immigration, there are some details on how the issues on the border have changed over the course of the past 10 years, that are real drivers to the problem. Yes, these are not simple issues, but assuming that the voters are not sophisticated enough to have a level of understanding, could lead to a Trump victory.

Economy:

While it’s true that we have seen about 20% inflation under Biden, during that same period the EU and UK have seen about 22% inflation and Canada has seen about 19%. Clearly, Biden did not cause our inflation, unless you can explain how he somehow also created it in those other western economies. What we have experienced under Biden, that the other economies have not seen, is 60-year record low unemployment (27 consecutive months under 4%, with one month at 3.4%) and very strong GDP growth. Given that inflation was unavoidable, our economy has performed far better than anybody could have imagined. Our economy is the envy of the world and has defied economist’s expectations (no recession, nor runaway inflation that would require a number of years of 6% unemployment in order to tame), while inflation is now down to about 2.5%. None of Harris’ policy proposals pose any risk of getting our economy off track. Trump merely inherited a rapidly improving economy, and kept it going for his first three years. Behind the scenes, however, he did damage, he ballooned the debt, even without covid spending, and lost a trade war with China. China countered his tariffs by diversifying their supply chain for hogs and soy beans. Permanently hurting out ranchers and growers. His economic policy proposals will be inflationary and greatly depress our GDP, and will drive up the debt even further. Clearly, he will not be able to keep our economy on track.

Immigration:

Border ‘encounters’ under Trump were twice that in Obama’s second term. By that metric, either Trump was much worse on immigration than Obama, or something has been changing at the border over the years.. Twenty-five years ago, over 90% of the ‘encounters’ at the border were from Mexico, now Mexicans make up less than 30%. Clearly the demographics have changed. This demographic change, couple with our outdated asylum laws, is the cause of our “crisis” at the border.

The evolving demographic change is due to the increasing political, economic and civil unrest in the southern hemisphere countries and correlates well with increases under both Trump and Biden. When you track the monthly ‘encounters’ rate against the start-finish dates of Trump’s draconian executive orders, you will see that they were minimally effective. The Langford bill would have addressed some the needed reforms to our asylum laws in addition to the increased resources. Biden’s EO, unlike Trump’s, has been effective in reducing the numbers, though EO’s are only band-aides and can be overturned by the courts.

Harris’ proposal to implement the Langford bill will make significant progress on solving our border issues. Trump has no proposal to address the southern border (other than possibly more ineffective draconian EO’s), and only proposes mass deportations. Besides are the chaos in trying to implement this, it will be crushing to our economy.

Differences from Biden:

Point out that we now have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight. Every human look back at just about every decision they've made and recognize that we would tweak this or tweak that, in order to get an even better result. So, I’m not going to go back here and pick at this or that. I will tell you what I will do the exact same as Joe. It is his decision making process. For any issue, you want to consult with your expert advisors. Whether it be your military, intelligence and national security advisors, or economist on economic policy, or medical advisors. You listen to their input and ask them questions, in a sort of Socratic method, in order arrive at a course of action. The final decision will be based upon what is best for the country and American people. Selfish and political concerns, should not enter into the final decision.

This may sound obvious, but this is not the process that Trump employs in his decisions making process. His decisions are based upon selfish reasons. He doesn’t listen to his advisors and his decisions are not sound. This is why national security and military experts who worked in his administration, are now warning us of the danger he poses in a second term.

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Not "we have seen" inflation, but "we saw" inflation. It plummeted as precipitously as it rose post Covid. And we are at about 2.5% today.

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the 20% is the cumulative inflation for that period of time, not the rate at any one point in time. Thus, 'we have seen' is more appropriate, IMO. I actually thought about this wording when making the post.

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Women have always been a civilizing influence on men, even if they have been largely unsuccessful so far.

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NBC News not mincing words today.

"Trump's bizarre music session reignites questions about his mental acuity."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-bizarre-music-session-reignites-questions-mental-acuity-rcna175464

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Just heard an early voter in GA say, "To me it came down to sanity vs. insanity."

That's it in a nutshell, isn't it?

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Oct 15·edited Oct 15

Cheung is a really spot-on central casting pick by the diaper don. Telegenic and smart!

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Cheung is Oddjob without the charm.

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Cheung is Oddjob with a comprehensible vocabulary. Pity he is with Trump.

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1st day of early voting in GA. Waiting in line. About 90 minute wait and worth every moment!

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