There's really no point in Biden debating Trump. Trump wants to use it as reality TV where he just throw insults and made up shit because MAGA loves it. They don't care about facts either. He doesn't know how to debate, let alone have an adult conversation. 2nd graders have deeper conversations than that idiot. He's a walking sound bite with nothing but disjointed nonsense for communication.
this.
you cannot have a serious conversation with an unserious person.
there is evidence of that on this train every single day these days.
Where were all the “Truth” social live tweets? Oh, the platform crashed? Better send $5.00 or whatever you can give so that “winner” can keep telling you the “truth.” Suckers.
Trump: 'I Extend an Open Hand' to 'Disillusioned' Democrats
By Eric Mack | Saturday, 09 March 2024 06:36 PM EST
Making a call for unity, while continuing to bash President Joe Biden for his "hate-filled rant" at the State of the Union, former President Donald Trump extended a hand to "disillusioned" Democrats disenchanted with the "worst president in history."
"If you're disillusioned Democrat, today I extend an open hand — and I ask you to join us on this noble quest to saving our country," Trump told his campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday night in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform.
"Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe's angry, dark, hate-filled rant of a State of the Union Address. Joe Biden gave the most divisive, partisan, radical, and extreme speech ever delivered by a president in that chamber. It's not even close. Rather than trying to bring our country together, he tried to cling to power by tearing our country apart."
Biden's speech was "angry," too, Trump told his rally in the key battleground state of Georgia.
"You know why he's angry? He doesn't know what he's doing."
"Joe Biden should not be shouting angrily at America — America should be shouting angrily at Joe Biden," Trump said. "And we should be saying, 'Crooked Joe, you're fired.'"
Biden was widely panned for making his State of the Union a campaign speech in an election year, as opposed to focusing on America, and Trump seized on that criticism.Trump hailed his movement toward a Biden rematch in November, potentially clinching the GOP nomination in primaries as soon as this next Tuesday.
"This has been a tremendous week for our movement — we won BIG on Super Tuesday," Trump's speech began. "They call it Super Tuesday for a reason.
"And now, we are just days away from officially clinching the Republican Nomination for President of the United States of America."
Trump: 'I Extend an Open Hand' to 'Disillusioned' Democrats
By Eric Mack | Saturday, 09 March 2024 06:36 PM EST
Making a call for unity, while continuing to bash President Joe Biden for his "hate-filled rant" at the State of the Union, former President Donald Trump extended a hand to "disillusioned" Democrats disenchanted with the "worst president in history."
"If you're disillusioned Democrat, today I extend an open hand — and I ask you to join us on this noble quest to saving our country," Trump told his campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday night in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform.
"Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe's angry, dark, hate-filled rant of a State of the Union Address. Joe Biden gave the most divisive, partisan, radical, and extreme speech ever delivered by a president in that chamber. It's not even close. Rather than trying to bring our country together, he tried to cling to power by tearing our country apart."
Biden's speech was "angry," too, Trump told his rally in the key battleground state of Georgia.
"You know why he's angry? He doesn't know what he's doing."
"Joe Biden should not be shouting angrily at America — America should be shouting angrily at Joe Biden," Trump said. "And we should be saying, 'Crooked Joe, you're fired.'"
Biden was widely panned for making his State of the Union a campaign speech in an election year, as opposed to focusing on America, and Trump seized on that criticism.Trump hailed his movement toward a Biden rematch in November, potentially clinching the GOP nomination in primaries as soon as this next Tuesday.
"This has been a tremendous week for our movement — we won BIG on Super Tuesday," Trump's speech began. "They call it Super Tuesday for a reason.
"And now, we are just days away from officially clinching the Republican Nomination for President of the United States of America."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The 2024 presidential general election is here, for all intents and purposes. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are set to face off in the first presidential rematch since 1956. It’s also the first rematch between a current and a former president since 1892.
But unlike in 2020 when he was favored over Trump for the entirety of the campaign, Biden faces a rougher road this time around. Indeed, he has no better than a 50-50 shot for reelection, and fans of the current president should be aware that Trump has a real chance at retaking the White House.
Just look at the polls that were released in the past week. Surveys from The New York Times/Siena College, CBS News/YouGov, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal all gave Trump a higher percentage of the vote than Biden by margins ranging from 2 to 4 points. (KFF had Biden scoring 3 points higher than Trump.)
All those results were officially within the margin of error, but put together they paint a picture of a troubled incumbent.
It’s not just that Biden is in worse shape against his general election opponent than almost any incumbent in the past 75 years (save Trump in 2020). It’s that a lead of any margin for Trump was unheard of during the 2020 campaign – not a single poll that met CNN’s standards for publication showed Trump leading Biden nationally.
And in that 2020 race, the states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College (Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin) were each decided by less than a point. He had very little margin for error.
The state of polling today looks worse for Biden. I’ve previously pointed out that the president looks to be in a considerably worse position in Sun Belt battleground states today than four years ago.
He’s trailing by 5 points or more in the most recent polling from Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. No Democratic presidential candidate has lost Nevada since 2004.
If Biden loses all of those states, he can still win if he carries every other contest he did in 2020 — that would help him finish 270-268 in electoral votes.
The problem for Biden is that he’s behind in Michigan. The average of polls over the past six months that meet CNN’s standards for publication has him down 4 points.
In other words, the polls show Trump ahead, however narrowly, in enough states right now to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
The election, though, isn’t being held today or tomorrow. It’s being held in about eight months.
But if I were Biden, it’s not so much the “horse race” polling that would bother me. It’s what lies underneath the hood.
Americans say the top problems facing the country are either related to the economy or immigration. Trump is considerably more trusted than Biden on both issues. It’s possible that if consumer sentiment continues to improve or border crossings decline, Biden could pick up steam against Trump.
Then again, I’m not so sure. Biden is the least popular elected incumbent at this point in his reelection bid since World War II. His approval rating is hovering at or just below 40%. The two most recent incumbents with similarly low approval ratings around this point in their presidencies (Trump and George H.W. Bush in 1992) both lost in November.
A lot of Democrats like to argue that you can’t just look at Biden’s approval ratings. His opponent is unpopular too, with unfavorable ratings above his favorable ratings.
It’s a fair point, but numerous polls (including the most recent ones from Fox News, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) have Trump’s favorable ratings a few points higher than Biden’s. Again, this is very different from what we were seeing in 2020.
This means that it isn’t enough for Biden merely to win voters who dislike both men. He has to win them by a substantial margin to make up for his popularity deficit.
With eight months to go, Biden could certainly make up the gap. But unlike in most campaigns, both major-party candidates are already well defined. Less than 5% of voters aren’t able to register an opinion on Biden or Trump.
For more people to turn against Trump, Biden’s best hope may lie with the four criminal indictments against the former president. Putting aside the fact that the start dates for most of those trials are iffy, except for the New York hush money case, it’s not clear how much of a difference it would make were Trump to be found guilty in any of those cases.
A majority of likely voters (53%) said they already thought Trump had committed a serious federal crime, according to the New York Times polling. The same poll showed Trump up 4 points among likely voters.
Trump was ahead in this survey because 18% of his supporters said he had committed a serious federal crime and were still backing him. Such a statistic should be worrying to Biden supporters because if some voters think Trump committed a serious federal crime but are still willing to vote for him, what could possibly get them to change their minds?
By the same token, the Times polling found that 72% of likely voters said Biden’s age made him too old to be an effective president (compared with the comparatively smaller 53% who said Trump had committed a serious federal crime). This gap could be one of the biggest reasons Biden is having issues against Trump.
Perhaps the big question over the next eight months is whether Trump’s weaknesses will start to outweigh Biden’s. If they do, it’s probably the president’s best chance at earning another term.
again. this was compiled before the state of the union address and the biden momentum from that. believe it if you want to, but it ain't the truth.
Truth has nothing to do with what compels these people to share this content.
kind of like how they continue to conflate crowd size with voter turnout. they are not the same thing.
I mean, you could argue that crowd sizes and voter turnouts are based on empirical facts, that Republicans focus on the most convenient of them and ignore the most inconvenient facts.
On the content trolls share, they're typically not based on facts at all - they're either fabricated, or opinions from people on their side or not respected from the other side, shared as though it's common sentiment.
I suspect it comes from a pathetic, lonely life lived with no loved ones or successes to speak of, who know they will one day die alone and in the meantime, need to get their thrills before the universe forgets they once existed.
Edit: for the record, I'm of course speaking about trolls at large who engage in that behaviour. The folks on here have said they're not trolls, so this doesn't pertain to them.
Post edited by benjs on
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Washington Post Fact Checker found that in the four years of his presidency, Trump offered a total of 30,573 untruths — an average of roughly 21 erroneous claims a day.
Themes of retribution and vengeance are also central, hovering like an ominous storm cloud. In a closing riff that has become a staple of every rally, Trump promises to “demolish the deep state,” to “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists” and to “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
“We will rout the fake news media, we will drain the swamp and we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all,” he declares.
Steven Cheung, campaign spokesman, said in an email statement to The Post: “President Trump is the only one speaking the truth and he’s going to continue shoving it down the media’s throat every single day, and there is nothing they can do about it.”
Former President Donald Trump gestures at a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday, March 9,.
Mike Stewart/AP
CNN —
To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
“He thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told me. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”
Trump’s lavish praise for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán while hosting him at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, just days after all but sealing the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, shows it’s a worldview he’s doubling down on.
"The Return of Great Powers" by CNN's Jim Sciutto.
From Penguin Random House
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump said, adding, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
The former president’s admiration for autocrats has been reported on before, but in comments by Trump recounted to me for my new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” out Tuesday, Kelly and others who served under Trump give new insight into why they warn that a man who consistently praises autocratic leaders opposed to US interests is ill-suited to lead the country in the Great Power clashes that could be coming, telling me they believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.
“He views himself as a big guy,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, told me. “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”
“He’s not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite,” Kelly said. “But that’s how he envisions himself.”
Alleged praise for Hitler
Trump allegedly reserved some of his most unnerving praise for Hitler, who led Nazi Germany during World War II.
“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things.’ I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly recounted. “I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
“It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater,” Kelly told me. “But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing.”
Trump’s admiration for Hitler went further than the German leader’s economic policies, according to Kelly. Trump also expressed admiration for Hitler’s hold on senior Nazi officers. Trump lamented that Hitler, as Kelly recounted, maintained his senior staff’s “loyalty,” while Trump himself often did not.
“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to him, and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that,” Kelly recalled. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do,” Kelly told me.
When asked to respond to the allegations from the former Trump administration officials, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not comment on the substance of what they told me but stated, “John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives.”
In 2021, a spokeswoman for Trump denied allegations that the former president had praised Hitler.
‘Shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers’
Trump’s former advisers say he most consistently lavished praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bolton recalled a comment from Trump during the 2018 NATO summit. Following sometimes tense encounters with NATO leaders, Trump said his meeting with Putin, the leader of America’s great power adversary, “may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?”
“He says to the press as he goes out to the helicopter, ‘I think the easiest meeting might be with Vladimir Putin. Who would ever think that?’” recalled Bolton. “There’s an answer to that question. Only one person. You. You are the only person who would think that. The shrinks can make of that what they will, but I think it was ‘I’m a big guy. They’re big guys. I wish I could act like they do.’”
“My theory on why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is,” Kelly said. “Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing. It’s Civics 101, separation of powers, three equal branches of government. But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget. And he looked at Putin and Xi and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”
Then-President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pose at a military demarcation line separating the two Koreas in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019.
KCNA/Reuters
“Trump believed in the power of his personal charisma and diplomacy,” recalled Matthew Pottinger, his deputy national security adviser, who was deeply involved in Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim and Chinese President Xi. “He had almost unlimited faith in it. That was as true with Kim as it was with Xi — but also with allies too.”
Trump has continued to praise authoritarians in his 2024 presidential campaign.
At a town hall organized by Fox News in July 2023, Trump said, “Think of President Xi: central casting, brilliant guy. When I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist: smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There is nobody in Hollywood like this guy.”
In an interview with Fox that same month, Trump lavished praise on Putin as well, describing him as smarter than President Joe Biden. “These are smart people, including Macron of France. I could go through the whole list of people, including Putin .… These people are sharp, tough, and generally vicious,” Trump said. “They’re vicious, and they’re at the top of their game. We have a man that has no clue what’s happening. It’s the most dangerous time in the history of our country.”
Then-President Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019.
Anadolu/Anadolu/Getty Images
Trump’s affinity for authoritarians represents a defining issue for the US as the 2024 election approaches. Several of his own former advisers believe, in a second term, he would bring a fundamental shift in the US’ vision of itself and its role in the world, including potentially pulling the US out of NATO and reducing the US’ commitment to other defense alliances.
“NATO would be in real jeopardy,” Bolton told me. “I think he would try to get out.”
Many veterans of the Trump administration have a similar warning for Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion. “US support for Ukraine would end,” said a senior US official who served under Trump and Biden.
“The point is, he saw absolutely no point in NATO,” Kelly said. “He was just dead set against having troops in South Korea, again, a deterrent force, or having troops in Japan, a deterrent force.”
I love this: "In a perverse bit of reverse-reverse psychology, Biden’s political
opponents spent so many months building up his diminished capacity that
anything but a desiccated corpse would have appeared vigorous compared
to the low expectations they established. And he certainly seemed much
more on the ball than Katie Britt in her weird histrionic Republican response."
Of course, the author is right- MAGA's simply won't let it go. They hang their arguments on thin threads.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I love this: "In a perverse bit of reverse-reverse psychology, Biden’s political
opponents spent so many months building up his diminished capacity that
anything but a desiccated corpse would have appeared vigorous compared
to the low expectations they established. And he certainly seemed much
more on the ball than Katie Britt in her weird histrionic Republican response."
Of course, the author is right- MAGA's simply won't let it go. They hang their arguments on thin threads.
Their arguments are so weak they're literally blaming Biden for things that happened in Mexico 20 years ago.
I love this: "In a perverse bit of reverse-reverse psychology, Biden’s political
opponents spent so many months building up his diminished capacity that
anything but a desiccated corpse would have appeared vigorous compared
to the low expectations they established. And he certainly seemed much
more on the ball than Katie Britt in her weird histrionic Republican response."
Of course, the author is right- MAGA's simply won't let it go. They hang their arguments on thin threads.
Their arguments are so weak they're literally blaming Biden for things that happened in Mexico 20 years ago.
You can't make this stuff up.
surprised they aren't still blaming obama for stuff that happened in the 80s
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
FBI Director Christopher Wray told senators on Monday that there are “very dangerous threats” coming from the U.S.-Mexico border, including a smuggling network with "ISIS ties."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked Wray during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Monday regarding threats at the southern border, Fox News reported.
Wray responded, saying, "From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that's just on the fentanyl side."
"An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl," he added.
Rubio asked about smuggling networks moving people around the world and whether they could have ties to ISIS or other terrorist organizations.
"So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about and that we've been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that's, again, the subject of our current investigation," Wray said.
There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2023, and since fiscal year 2024 began, a record number of encounters of more than 300,000.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told senators on Monday that there are “very dangerous threats” coming from the U.S.-Mexico border, including a smuggling network with "ISIS ties."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked Wray during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Monday regarding threats at the southern border, Fox News reported.
Wray responded, saying, "From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that's just on the fentanyl side."
"An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl," he added.
Rubio asked about smuggling networks moving people around the world and whether they could have ties to ISIS or other terrorist organizations.
"So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about and that we've been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that's, again, the subject of our current investigation," Wray said.
There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2023, and since fiscal year 2024 began, a record number of encounters of more than 300,000.
seriously. tell that to the gop that scuttled their own border bill. call the people that could actually do something about it. if their heads were not so far up trump's butt groveling for his endorsement, maybe they would.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,285
I love this: "In a perverse bit of reverse-reverse psychology, Biden’s political
opponents spent so many months building up his diminished capacity that
anything but a desiccated corpse would have appeared vigorous compared
to the low expectations they established. And he certainly seemed much
more on the ball than Katie Britt in her weird histrionic Republican response."
Of course, the author is right- MAGA's simply won't let it go. They hang their arguments on thin threads.
Their arguments are so weak they're literally blaming Biden for things that happened in Mexico 20 years ago.
You can't make this stuff up.
It's almost as though they are suddenly accelerating their own demise. I can only imagine how the non-MAGA Republicans must feel about all this (of course, they have the option to change parties!)
I love this: "In a perverse bit of reverse-reverse psychology, Biden’s political
opponents spent so many months building up his diminished capacity that
anything but a desiccated corpse would have appeared vigorous compared
to the low expectations they established. And he certainly seemed much
more on the ball than Katie Britt in her weird histrionic Republican response."
Of course, the author is right- MAGA's simply won't let it go. They hang their arguments on thin threads.
Their arguments are so weak they're literally blaming Biden for things that happened in Mexico 20 years ago.
You can't make this stuff up.
surprised they aren't still blaming obama for stuff that happened in the 80s
Give them time...
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
“Imagine if Biden owed 100 million to someone he raped and Jill Biden was MIA on the campaign trail and 91 felonies were hanging over his head and he painted his face orange and named his daughter the head of the DNC and just had dinner with a dictator at his gaudy country club.”
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,285
“Imagine if Biden owed 100 million to someone he raped and Jill Biden was MIA on the campaign trail and 91 felonies were hanging over his head and he painted his face orange and named his daughter the head of the DNC and just had dinner with a dictator at his gaudy country club.”
Someone would say, "You can't make this shit up."
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
“Imagine if Biden owed 100 million to someone he raped and Jill Biden was MIA on the campaign trail and 91 felonies were hanging over his head and he painted his face orange and named his daughter the head of the DNC and just had dinner with a dictator at his gaudy country club.”
Someone would say, "You can't make this shit up."
Now imagine going back in time 40 years and telling Reagan republicans that in 2024 the GOP would be caping for Russia.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,285
“Imagine if Biden owed 100 million to someone he raped and Jill Biden was MIA on the campaign trail and 91 felonies were hanging over his head and he painted his face orange and named his daughter the head of the DNC and just had dinner with a dictator at his gaudy country club.”
Someone would say, "You can't make this shit up."
Now imagine going back in time 40 years and telling Reagan republicans that in 2024 the GOP would be caping for Russia.
I'm guessing most would flat-out not believe it!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Comments
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Good line
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Trump: 'I Extend an Open Hand' to 'Disillusioned' Democrats
By Eric Mack | Saturday, 09 March 2024 06:36 PM EST
Making a call for unity, while continuing to bash President Joe Biden for his "hate-filled rant" at the State of the Union, former President Donald Trump extended a hand to "disillusioned" Democrats disenchanted with the "worst president in history."
"If you're disillusioned Democrat, today I extend an open hand — and I ask you to join us on this noble quest to saving our country," Trump told his campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday night in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform.
"Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe's angry, dark, hate-filled rant of a State of the Union Address. Joe Biden gave the most divisive, partisan, radical, and extreme speech ever delivered by a president in that chamber. It's not even close. Rather than trying to bring our country together, he tried to cling to power by tearing our country apart."
Biden's speech was "angry," too, Trump told his rally in the key battleground state of Georgia.
"You know why he's angry? He doesn't know what he's doing."
"Joe Biden should not be shouting angrily at America — America should be shouting angrily at Joe Biden," Trump said. "And we should be saying, 'Crooked Joe, you're fired.'"
Biden was widely panned for making his State of the Union a campaign speech in an election year, as opposed to focusing on America, and Trump seized on that criticism.Trump hailed his movement toward a Biden rematch in November, potentially clinching the GOP nomination in primaries as soon as this next Tuesday.
"This has been a tremendous week for our movement — we won BIG on Super Tuesday," Trump's speech began. "They call it Super Tuesday for a reason.
"And now, we are just days away from officially clinching the Republican Nomination for President of the United States of America."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Why it will be tough for Biden to defeat Trump
The 2024 presidential general election is here, for all intents and purposes. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are set to face off in the first presidential rematch since 1956. It’s also the first rematch between a current and a former president since 1892.
But unlike in 2020 when he was favored over Trump for the entirety of the campaign, Biden faces a rougher road this time around. Indeed, he has no better than a 50-50 shot for reelection, and fans of the current president should be aware that Trump has a real chance at retaking the White House.
Just look at the polls that were released in the past week. Surveys from The New York Times/Siena College, CBS News/YouGov, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal all gave Trump a higher percentage of the vote than Biden by margins ranging from 2 to 4 points. (KFF had Biden scoring 3 points higher than Trump.)
All those results were officially within the margin of error, but put together they paint a picture of a troubled incumbent.
It’s not just that Biden is in worse shape against his general election opponent than almost any incumbent in the past 75 years (save Trump in 2020). It’s that a lead of any margin for Trump was unheard of during the 2020 campaign – not a single poll that met CNN’s standards for publication showed Trump leading Biden nationally.
And in that 2020 race, the states that put Biden over the top in the Electoral College (Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin) were each decided by less than a point. He had very little margin for error.
The state of polling today looks worse for Biden. I’ve previously pointed out that the president looks to be in a considerably worse position in Sun Belt battleground states today than four years ago.
He’s trailing by 5 points or more in the most recent polling from Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. No Democratic presidential candidate has lost Nevada since 2004.
If Biden loses all of those states, he can still win if he carries every other contest he did in 2020 — that would help him finish 270-268 in electoral votes.
The problem for Biden is that he’s behind in Michigan. The average of polls over the past six months that meet CNN’s standards for publication has him down 4 points.
In other words, the polls show Trump ahead, however narrowly, in enough states right now to win the Electoral College and the presidency.
The election, though, isn’t being held today or tomorrow. It’s being held in about eight months.
But if I were Biden, it’s not so much the “horse race” polling that would bother me. It’s what lies underneath the hood.
Americans say the top problems facing the country are either related to the economy or immigration. Trump is considerably more trusted than Biden on both issues. It’s possible that if consumer sentiment continues to improve or border crossings decline, Biden could pick up steam against Trump.
Then again, I’m not so sure. Biden is the least popular elected incumbent at this point in his reelection bid since World War II. His approval rating is hovering at or just below 40%. The two most recent incumbents with similarly low approval ratings around this point in their presidencies (Trump and George H.W. Bush in 1992) both lost in November.
A lot of Democrats like to argue that you can’t just look at Biden’s approval ratings. His opponent is unpopular too, with unfavorable ratings above his favorable ratings.
It’s a fair point, but numerous polls (including the most recent ones from Fox News, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) have Trump’s favorable ratings a few points higher than Biden’s. Again, this is very different from what we were seeing in 2020.
This means that it isn’t enough for Biden merely to win voters who dislike both men. He has to win them by a substantial margin to make up for his popularity deficit.
With eight months to go, Biden could certainly make up the gap. But unlike in most campaigns, both major-party candidates are already well defined. Less than 5% of voters aren’t able to register an opinion on Biden or Trump.
For more people to turn against Trump, Biden’s best hope may lie with the four criminal indictments against the former president. Putting aside the fact that the start dates for most of those trials are iffy, except for the New York hush money case, it’s not clear how much of a difference it would make were Trump to be found guilty in any of those cases.
A majority of likely voters (53%) said they already thought Trump had committed a serious federal crime, according to the New York Times polling. The same poll showed Trump up 4 points among likely voters.
Trump was ahead in this survey because 18% of his supporters said he had committed a serious federal crime and were still backing him. Such a statistic should be worrying to Biden supporters because if some voters think Trump committed a serious federal crime but are still willing to vote for him, what could possibly get them to change their minds?
By the same token, the Times polling found that 72% of likely voters said Biden’s age made him too old to be an effective president (compared with the comparatively smaller 53% who said Trump had committed a serious federal crime). This gap could be one of the biggest reasons Biden is having issues against Trump.
Perhaps the big question over the next eight months is whether Trump’s weaknesses will start to outweigh Biden’s. If they do, it’s probably the president’s best chance at earning another term.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
On the content trolls share, they're typically not based on facts at all - they're either fabricated, or opinions from people on their side or not respected from the other side, shared as though it's common sentiment.
I suspect it comes from a pathetic, lonely life lived with no loved ones or successes to speak of, who know they will one day die alone and in the meantime, need to get their thrills before the universe forgets they once existed.
Edit: for the record, I'm of course speaking about trolls at large who engage in that behaviour. The folks on here have said they're not trolls, so this doesn't pertain to them.
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
can't wait until friday when this ultimately and spectacularly blows up in his face again.
he is the wile e coyote of american politics.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Agonizing About Biden’s Age Is Worse Than Irrelevant
The big issue in this election isn’t oldness and it isn’t character.
.
The Washington Post Fact Checker found that in the four years of his presidency, Trump offered a total of 30,573 untruths — an average of roughly 21 erroneous claims a day.
Themes of retribution and vengeance are also central, hovering like an ominous storm cloud. In a closing riff that has become a staple of every rally, Trump promises to “demolish the deep state,” to “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists” and to “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
“We will rout the fake news media, we will drain the swamp and we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all,” he declares.
Steven Cheung, campaign spokesman, said in an email statement to The Post: “President Trump is the only one speaking the truth and he’s going to continue shoving it down the media’s throat every single day, and there is nothing they can do about it.”
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-despots-advisers-sound-alarm/index.html
Former advisers sound the alarm that Trump praises despots in private and on the campaign trail
To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
“He thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told me. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”
Trump’s lavish praise for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán while hosting him at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, just days after all but sealing the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, shows it’s a worldview he’s doubling down on.
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump said, adding, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
The former president’s admiration for autocrats has been reported on before, but in comments by Trump recounted to me for my new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” out Tuesday, Kelly and others who served under Trump give new insight into why they warn that a man who consistently praises autocratic leaders opposed to US interests is ill-suited to lead the country in the Great Power clashes that could be coming, telling me they believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.
“He views himself as a big guy,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, told me. “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”
“He’s not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite,” Kelly said. “But that’s how he envisions himself.”
Alleged praise for Hitler
Trump allegedly reserved some of his most unnerving praise for Hitler, who led Nazi Germany during World War II.
“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things.’ I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly recounted. “I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
“It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater,” Kelly told me. “But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing.”
Trump’s admiration for Hitler went further than the German leader’s economic policies, according to Kelly. Trump also expressed admiration for Hitler’s hold on senior Nazi officers. Trump lamented that Hitler, as Kelly recounted, maintained his senior staff’s “loyalty,” while Trump himself often did not.
“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to him, and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that,” Kelly recalled. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do,” Kelly told me.
When asked to respond to the allegations from the former Trump administration officials, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not comment on the substance of what they told me but stated, “John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives.”
In 2021, a spokeswoman for Trump denied allegations that the former president had praised Hitler.
‘Shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers’
Trump’s former advisers say he most consistently lavished praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bolton recalled a comment from Trump during the 2018 NATO summit. Following sometimes tense encounters with NATO leaders, Trump said his meeting with Putin, the leader of America’s great power adversary, “may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?”
“He says to the press as he goes out to the helicopter, ‘I think the easiest meeting might be with Vladimir Putin. Who would ever think that?’” recalled Bolton. “There’s an answer to that question. Only one person. You. You are the only person who would think that. The shrinks can make of that what they will, but I think it was ‘I’m a big guy. They’re big guys. I wish I could act like they do.’”
“My theory on why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is,” Kelly said. “Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing. It’s Civics 101, separation of powers, three equal branches of government. But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget. And he looked at Putin and Xi and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”
“Trump believed in the power of his personal charisma and diplomacy,” recalled Matthew Pottinger, his deputy national security adviser, who was deeply involved in Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim and Chinese President Xi. “He had almost unlimited faith in it. That was as true with Kim as it was with Xi — but also with allies too.”
Trump has continued to praise authoritarians in his 2024 presidential campaign.
At a town hall organized by Fox News in July 2023, Trump said, “Think of President Xi: central casting, brilliant guy. When I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist: smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There is nobody in Hollywood like this guy.”
In an interview with Fox that same month, Trump lavished praise on Putin as well, describing him as smarter than President Joe Biden. “These are smart people, including Macron of France. I could go through the whole list of people, including Putin .… These people are sharp, tough, and generally vicious,” Trump said. “They’re vicious, and they’re at the top of their game. We have a man that has no clue what’s happening. It’s the most dangerous time in the history of our country.”
Trump’s affinity for authoritarians represents a defining issue for the US as the 2024 election approaches. Several of his own former advisers believe, in a second term, he would bring a fundamental shift in the US’ vision of itself and its role in the world, including potentially pulling the US out of NATO and reducing the US’ commitment to other defense alliances.
“NATO would be in real jeopardy,” Bolton told me. “I think he would try to get out.”
Many veterans of the Trump administration have a similar warning for Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion. “US support for Ukraine would end,” said a senior US official who served under Trump and Biden.
“The point is, he saw absolutely no point in NATO,” Kelly said. “He was just dead set against having troops in South Korea, again, a deterrent force, or having troops in Japan, a deterrent force.”
"In a perverse bit of reverse-reverse psychology, Biden’s political opponents spent so many months building up his diminished capacity that anything but a desiccated corpse would have appeared vigorous compared to the low expectations they established. And he certainly seemed much more on the ball than Katie Britt in her weird histrionic Republican response."
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
You can't make this stuff up.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
FBI Director Wray warns of southern border smuggling network with ‘ISIS ties’
"From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told senators on Monday that there are “very dangerous threats” coming from the U.S.-Mexico border, including a smuggling network with "ISIS ties."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked Wray during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Monday regarding threats at the southern border, Fox News reported.
Wray responded, saying, "From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that's just on the fentanyl side."
"An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl," he added.
Rubio asked about smuggling networks moving people around the world and whether they could have ties to ISIS or other terrorist organizations.
"So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about and that we've been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that's, again, the subject of our current investigation," Wray said.
There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2023, and since fiscal year 2024 began, a record number of encounters of more than 300,000.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Give them time...
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Someone would say, "You can't make this shit up."
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I'm guessing most would flat-out not believe it!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©