The US Presidency 2020

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=mariomike]]
Hope this one lasts longer than the others.
[/quote]

No you don't 

Mike Bloomberg dropped out of the race to become the 2020 Democratic nominee on Wednesday, but not before the self-made billionaire had the chance to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on his own campaign.

Bloomberg's bid for the Democratic nomination cost over $500 million — or $5.6 million per day. Bloomberg's campaign spent 70% of its total budget on advertising, according to The New York Times, but that still left tens of millions for more frivolous purchases.
https://www.businessinsider.com/things-mike-bloomberg-bought-in-failed-500-million-presidential-campaign-2020-3

Blew 500 million dollars of his own money like it was upsizing a french fry at Wendies. Crazy.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Blew 500 million dollars of his own money like it was upsizing a french fry at Wendies. Crazy.

Winning American Samoa doesn't come cheap, apparently:  priceless ...

 

[Blackadder1916]

Blew 500 million dollars of his own money like it was upsizing a french fry at Wendies. Crazy.

Well, at approximately 0.7 percent of his wealth, it is really a rounding error.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/what-bloombergs-massive-campaign-spending-would-cost-the-average-american

That’s the equivalent of the typical American, whose median net worth is $97,300, according to Federal Reserve data from 2016, spending about $860.

 

[kkwd]

Brian Williams added some unintentional comedy to the pot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_i0QrK2814

 

[OceanBonfire]

First social media content labelled as 'manipulative' comes from White House social media director Dan Scavino:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-twitter/twitter-debuts-manipulated-media-label-on-clip-of-biden-retweeted-by-trump-idUSKBN20W0AB

https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/twitter-labels-video-retweeted-trump-manipulated-doc-1pq0dw2

 

[CBH99]

Brian Williams added some unintentional comedy to the pot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_i0QrK2814

How?  Seriously...how??  :facepalm:

Like HOW do neither of them not instantly recognize the huge error, and then CONTINUE talking as if the math is correct?  My jaw literally almost hit the floor just now...how??  how how how how how??    :-[

 

[FJAG]

The Trump Presidency Is Over
It has taken a good deal longer than it should have, but Americans have now seen the con man behind the curtain.

MARCH 13, 2020
Peter Wehner
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior

When, in January 2016, I wrote that despite being a lifelong Republican who worked in the previous three GOP administrations, I would never vote for Donald Trump, even though his administration would align much more with my policy views than a Hillary Clinton presidency would, a lot of my Republican friends were befuddled. How could I not vote for a person who checked far more of my policy boxes than his opponent?

What I explained then, and what I have said many times since, is that Trump is fundamentally unfit—intellectually, morally, temperamentally, and psychologically—for office. For me, that is the paramount consideration in electing a president, in part because at some point it’s reasonable to expect that a president will face an unexpected crisis—and at that point, the president’s judgment and discernment, his character and leadership ability, will really matter.
...
That said, the president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors, most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain. These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.
...

See whole article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/peter-wehner-trump-presidency-over/607969/?utm_term=2020-03-13T14%3A59%3A10&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&fbclid=IwAR1EyLyremeGzTvUfGR1LQCbKpm37O1PzSiIYWHDnAWwdptqsQMKjx891Rs

:cheers:

 

[tomahawk6]

After he is re-elected I will repost this article to remind you of how wrong you are.

 

[Remius]

After he is re-elected I will repost this article to remind you of how wrong you are.

Yep.  A lot of his base thinks this is all a hoax.  They like the President don’t believe the science.  They also will believe him when he says he didn’t cut the White House Pandemic team or made cuts to the cdc.  It does not matter what he says and does, they’ll vote for him regardless.  But a lot of his base are of the age that is more susceptible to this pandemic.  they might not be around when the election rolls around.  But the rest will still love him for it and how he had “tremendous control” over the virus.  Moderates and fence sitters though might think twice though about voting him in. 

 

[kkwd]

  But a lot of his base are of the age that is more susceptible to this pandemic.  they might not be around when the election rolls around.

That's just ghoulish.

 

[Remius]

That's just ghoulish.

Wasn't meant to be.  The demographics don't lie.  The irony is that those that think it is a hoax are likely to catch it thinking that everything is under control because that is what they were told. 

After seeing a woman in tears when they repealed "Obamacare" because her husband was losing his coverage and had a realistic chance of dying but said it was all worth it because TRUMP.  That is what we are dealing with again. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Not a fan of POTUS45, but I'd still bet a loonie right now on him getting back in.

 

[Remius]

Not a fan of POTUS45, but I'd still bet a loonie right now on him getting back in.

Agreed.  I'm under no illusion that he does not have good chance of getting back in.  This pandemic though might test that.

 

[mariomike]

Not a fan of POTUS45, but I'd still bet a loonie right now on him getting back in.

Agree. Not so sure about Mike Pence though.

 

[Remius]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/mar/08/donald-trump-media-coronavirus-epidemic-news

This article (which I admit is a left of center publication but has a high factual reporting score,  https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/ ) certainly points out what I was saying above.  For years now we've been hearing that the media is fake news.  So why would his base, that believes in that, follow any of the advice or news being passed on about COVID-19?  It makes a vulnerable group (older people, which make up a good chunk of his base) even more vulnerable because they won't heed the advice they are being told.

It isn't pretty. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Agree. Not so sure about Mike Pence though.

Well, he wouldn't be the first of POTUS45's own picks to ... leave abruptly.

 

[Journeyman]

It isn't pretty.

Darwinism seldom is.... even when it's self-selected.

 

[brihard]

Darwinism seldom is.... even when it's self-selected.

Since we're getting pretty grim on this, it can't really be argued as darwinian if they've already reproduced as much as they're going to. The high risk groups by age are outside of the portion of the population that are still breeding.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>For years now we've been hearing that the media is fake news.

To the extent that commentators are trying to leverage the processes, regulations, and mistakes of the FDA and CDC (for example) into things to be laid at Trump's feet, the media are not helping themselves.  Another example: describing Trump's attempt to reduce CDC funding, which was thwarted by Congress, as an actual reduction of CDC funding.

If the major establishment media are not going to be rigorously accurate and truthful with facts which are easy to establish and report - and are reported correctly elsewhere, where almost anyone can read them on web sites - then of course people are going to tune out.

But a crisis can never be wasted.

 

[brihard]

>For years now we've been hearing that the media is fake news.

To the extent that commentators are trying to leverage the processes, regulations, and mistakes of the FDA and CDC (for example) into things to be laid at Trump's feet, the media are not helping themselves.  Another example: describing Trump's attempt to reduce CDC funding, which was thwarted by Congress, as an actual reduction of CDC funding.

If the major establishment media are not going to be rigorously accurate and truthful with facts which are easy to establish and report - and are reported correctly elsewhere, where almost anyone can read them on web sites - then of course people are going to tune out.

But a crisis can never be wasted.

Right; he hasn’t succeeded in cutting CDC funding, he has merely tried to repeatedly and shown his intent if he can get a Republican House of Representatives. The checks and balances between executive and legislative have held it off so far. Does he get a freebie on a terrible idea just because it’s another one of his intended policies that he has (so far) failed to achieve but keeps trying?