In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
NPR is doing daily podcasts until the election. Today’s coverage included the “Poll sampling email from 2008” that Trump is citing. Trumps threats to sue all his accusers and weaponizing nasty women. 21 minutes and a good summary of what is going on, plus some jokes.
The most amusing part is that Trump is talking about an email about polls from 2008 like it is today.
I can't tell if Trump is going with that story because he's a moron that genuinely thinks like his supporters or he knows it's bullshit but goes with it because he knows his supporters eat it up. Though I'm starting to think that the distinction between a moron and the perfect illusion of a moron is insignificant.
I think he believes everything he spouts is true and correct and, once said, he will never accept any evidence that contradicts it. That's why his strategy is still turning out non-voters, even when that isn't what won him the primaries, and why he didn't open field offices or change up his strategy after the primaries. That's the only way to explain his behavior because the "perfect illusion of a moron" theory falls apart when there are much more optimal ways to be the illusion of a moron than his chosen tactics.
NPR is doing daily podcasts until the election. Today’s coverage included the “Poll sampling email from 2008” that Trump is citing. Trumps threats to sue all his accusers and weaponizing nasty women. 21 minutes and a good summary of what is going on, plus some jokes.
The most amusing part is that Trump is talking about an email about polls from 2008 like it is today.
I can't tell if Trump is going with that story because he's a moron that genuinely thinks like his supporters or he knows it's bullshit but goes with it because he knows his supporters eat it up. Though I'm starting to think that the distinction between a moron and the perfect illusion of a moron is insignificant.
My opinion has always been he is guy of average intelligence that has deeply invested his identity in proving to others that he is exceptional. And that means claiming that he knows better than everyone else in the world.
You can see in during the debate when he talks about his finances or any details about his business. He sounds like every small business owner trying to act like their business experience is the key to open door the world has to offer. That its value is beyond measure and all other experience is worthless in comparison.
NPR is doing daily podcasts until the election. Today’s coverage included the “Poll sampling email from 2008” that Trump is citing. Trumps threats to sue all his accusers and weaponizing nasty women. 21 minutes and a good summary of what is going on, plus some jokes.
The most amusing part is that Trump is talking about an email about polls from 2008 like it is today.
I can't tell if Trump is going with that story because he's a moron that genuinely thinks like his supporters or he knows it's bullshit but goes with it because he knows his supporters eat it up. Though I'm starting to think that the distinction between a moron and the perfect illusion of a moron is insignificant.
I think he believes everything he spouts is true and correct and, once said, he will never accept any evidence that contradicts it. That's why his strategy is still turning out non-voters, even when that isn't what won him the primaries, and why he didn't open field offices or change up his strategy after the primaries. That's the only way to explain his behavior because the "perfect illusion of a moron" theory falls apart when there are much more optimal ways to be the illusion of a moron than his chosen tactics.
Is there evidence of this (the bolded part)? I've been hearing that the whole idea of non-voters voting for Trump is in large part a myth. Basically there's little/no evidence that white men are registering to vote in higher numbers than normal. But the articles/data on that were from before the deadlines.
There exists an ever growing population of people who might be considered "politically active" yet will not vote come November 8. I think a lot of Trump fans fall into this category, and his campaign's reliance on a disavowal of the mainstream suggests that some of his most die-hard fans will disregard the nuts and bolts of voting itself for the same reason.
On October 26 2016 00:15 farvacola wrote: There exists an ever growing population of people who might be considered "politically active" yet will not vote come November 8. I think a lot of Trump fans fall into this category, and his campaign's reliance on a disavowal of the mainstream suggests that some of his most die-hard fans will disregard the nuts and bolts of voting itself for the same reason.
I mean, we've all seen a lot of people thinking "Yeah, well, I was never really sure to begin with. I was just hoping someone would turn this whole political scene on its head."
We've even seen a lot of that here at TL. People start chest pounding when they think there's gonna be some kinda "revolution", then they go back to being cynical and patting themselves on the back as soon as it looks like the train may indeed have brakes.
I also think there are a great deal of people who still fundamentally believe in a lot of what Trump is saying, but no longer consider him their messenger or they are skeptical of the idea of actually voting for him. "I fully support Trump giving the establishment the finger. But I won't be voting for him" kinda deal
Even though 2016 appears to be the year of painful, public disqualification from higher office, you may be forgiven for not noticing the extraordinary implosion of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. After all, the Trump surrogate and White House Transition chair has benefitted from his early endorsement of the Republican presidential nominee in unusual fashion: Christie’s power in the Grand Ole Party has decreased, rather than increased. The likelihood of a plum position in the Trump administration—Attorney General, perhaps, since Christie was spurned as the Republican running mate—is decidedly dim, what with the presently apocalyptic predictions about November 8th.
Instead, Trump’s gift to Christie has been shadow: the top Republican’s national meltdown has obscured that of the one-time rising Republican star and sitting New Jersey governor. But make no mistake—Christie’s is a fall of epic proportions, precipitated by an unfathomably petty revenge plot. The contrast of the two, the top-heavy-ness of the fallout compared to the insignificance of the initial transgression, would be comic, were it not so tragic. Remember that in November of 2012, Governor Christie had a 72 percent approval rating. Today, it stands at 21 percent.
While most of America has been busy digesting a nearly-daily intake of sexual assault allegations, paranoid screeds about a rigged election, and a wildly vituperative back and forth between party elders and their Republican leader, Governor Christie’s political career has been quietly, steadily unraveling.
There are some who will point to the governor’s early and eager embrace of Trump as the beginning of his political demise (others may point to his wife’s obvious disdain for the man for whom her husband was putting his reputation on the line), but the ongoing trial of Christie aides Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni for their roles in the Bridgegate scandal has revealed a culture of craven and unusually vindictive acts (even for New Jersey pols). The testimonies are devastating to Christie’s political ambitions.
Most damning, three of his top aides (former Deputy Chief of Staff Kelly, former strategist Mike DuHaime and the prosecution’s star witness, former Port Authority official and one-time Christie henchman, David Wildstein) have now testified under oath that Christie knew of the lane closures—ones that would strand thousands of motorists on the George Washington Bridge—in advance. Prosecutors have maintained that the lanes were closed by Kelly and Baroni as retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, who refused to endorse Christie during the governor’s reelection campaign, and whose residents were most affected by the obscene traffic delays, (the defense teams have maintained their clients’ innocence against nine charges of corruption and fraud).
WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump used small donors’ money to buy nearly $300,000 worth of books from the publisher of his Art of the Deal last month, continuing a pattern of plowing campaign money back into his own businesses.
The Oct. 15 Federal Election Commission filing for Trump Make America Great Again Committee does not specify which books in particular were purchased, but the committee’s own website suggests it was Trump’s 1987 business bestseller.
“I’ve signed an out-of-print, hardcover copy of ‘The Art of the Deal’ just for you, because I want you on board with Team Trump!” Trump wrote in an Aug. 2 fundraising email, which went on to offer the book for a minimum donation of $184.
Trump’s statement calling the book “out-of-print,” repeated on the committee’s website, however, is false. The Art of the Deal had a new paperback edition printed last October, and the hardcover is currently in print and available from Random House and retail booksellers. Barnes and Noble, for example, sells it for $22.35.
The Trump Make America Great Again Committee is a joint fundraising operation between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. An RNC spokeswoman referred a question about the books to the Trump campaign, which did not return phone calls and emails requesting comment over a period of days. Random House representatives also did not respond to Huffington Post queries.
While a second joint Trump-RNC committee concentrates on large contributions, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee focuses on small-dollar donations using online and direct-mail fundraising. As of Sept. 30, 77 percent of all the money it raised came from donors who have given less than $200.
According to the committee’s Oct. 15 FEC filing, it paid Penguin/Random House $91,866 on Aug. 30, $98,975 on Sept. 1, and another $98,975 on Sept. 22. The purpose for all three was listed as: “Collateral: Books.”
The publishing house has printed five titles by Trump, including How to Get Rich and Think Like a Billionaire. The biggest seller, though, was The Art of the Deal, which was published in 1987 but has remained in print ever since. Trump frequently boasts about it in his campaign speeches, and it is the only one mentioned on the Trump fundraising website.
At the standard bulk discount offered by publishers, Trump’s fundraising committee could have purchased some 17,000 copies of the hardcover edition. Under a typical publishing contract, that quantity would generate over $70,000 in royalties, which Trump would have to split with his co-author.
According to Trump’s financial disclosure statement filed in May, Trump received between $50,000 and $100,000 in royalties for that title over the previous year.
The Daily Beast previously reported that Trump spent $55,000 in money from his own campaign to buy copies of his latest book, Crippled America, which was published by Simon and Schuster. Copies were distributed to GOP delegates attending the summer convention in Cleveland.
The purchase of books is just the latest example of Trump using donors’ money to purchase goods and services from his own businesses and generating personal profit for himself.
On October 26 2016 02:01 ImFromPortugal wrote: Former Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey sounds off about the balloting equipment provided by a company tied to the billionaire
According to at least a dozen fringe political blogs, Clinton already has this election bagged: Her friend George Soros, they claim, will rig the election through his electronic voting firm Smartmatic. Last week, that rumor went so viral that one concerned voter petitioned Congress to convene an emergency session on it. Nearly 25,000 people have since signed on, all apparently unaware that Soros does not own Smartmatic.
It’s easy to see how this one spun out of control, because there is a (tenuous, mundane) connection between Soros and the London-based technology company. The company’s actual owner, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, sits on one of the boards of the Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic organization founded by Soros. But OSF has 22 boards, with dozens of members between them. And Soros has never worked for or had an ownership stake in this specific firm, Smartmatic. Even if he had, it’s pretty much beside the point, since Smartmatic will not be in use in the United States during the 2016 elections.
Ultimately, this is a big distraction from the real problem with American voting machines — the fact that many are old, outdated and subject to error/attack. If you want to petition Congress for something, maybe try asking them to allocate funds for voting technology improvements.
It is nice to see that the thread has become its own fact checker for garbage youtube videos that fail to understand reality. You folks are part of good works, keeping TL’s sort of grounded in reality.
A federal judge has approved Volkswagen's $14.7 billion settlement over the carmaker's vehicle emissions scandal. The process of compensating affected U.S. car owners is beginning now, with the first buybacks expected to happen within the next few weeks.
Under the terms of the deal, Volkswagen agrees to either buy back or repair vehicles involved in the scandal. That means paying as much as $10.033 billion to owners. In addition, the carmaker has come to an agreement with the United States under which it will pay nearly $5 billion in environmental remediation.
The tentative deal was announced in June. On Tuesday, it was approved by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who found it was "fair, adequate, and reasonable."
It's the largest civil settlement in automaker history, and the largest false advertising case the Federal Trade Commission has ever seen.
Under the terms of the agreement, the court notes, funds to compensate owners have to be made available within 10 days of this final approval, and the buyback program must begin immediately.
Volkswagen says the claims process for arranging buybacks or modifications has already started. Documents already submitted by owners are being reviewed, according to the settlement website, and once approved, buybacks or repairs will be scheduled within 90 days.
A spokeswoman for the carmaker says the company expects the first transactions to take place around mid-November.
Affected owners have until Sept. 1, 2018, to submit a claim.
The cars in question were sold as being "green" diesel vehicles with low emissions, but in fact had been set up to drive differently during emissions tests — so they appeared to have lower emissions than they really had.
On October 26 2016 02:34 biology]major wrote: Trump really needs to capitalize on Obamacare failing, it's a golden opportunity
It's a desaster, really, a desaster. It is very sad. So sad. But he will get rid of it, in 30 days after he becomes president. And then there will be a new plan. A great plan. He knows great people, with great knowledge. The greatest people. They have great plans. And then, everything will be great. Even ISIS.
EPT
