Kamala Harris and the RFK assassination

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 4:29 PM, Chris Barnard said:

So, the use of marketing/propaganda isn't fair if your political party loses? That's very democratic of you. 

You are adept at practicing amnesia, I see.

Allow me to remind you of what you wrote earlier:

Look at the news networks backing Hilary, you think the dems weren’t doing everything they could to smear Trump? 
 
This baseless assertion is debunked by the fact that the networks clearly favored Trump — giving him billions of dollars in free air time, burying the Russian-hack and Steele Dossier stories, and harping relentlessly on Hillary’s  e-mails. .

Nice to see you acknowledge the fact that the networks conducted a pro-Trump marketing/propaganda campaign.

And you haven’t reverted to Obama-bashing, which was your original intent.

Good show, Chris.

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Cliff Varnell said:

You are adept at practicing amnesia, I see.

Allow me to remind you of what you wrote earlier:

Look at the news networks backing Hilary, you think the dems weren’t doing everything they could to smear Trump? 
 
This baseless assertion is debunked by the fact that the networks clearly favored Trump — giving him billions of dollars in free air time, burying the Russian-hack and Steele Dossier stories, and harping relentlessly on Hillary’s  e-mails. .

Nice to see you acknowledge the fact that the networks conducted a pro-Trump marketing/propaganda campaign.

And you haven’t reverted to Obama-bashing, which was your original intent.

Good show, Chris.

 

No, you're just trying to make some bizarre case that is frankly baffling. Every election ever has been rife with propaganda from all sides. You didn't know? You thought "The News" was an honest, unbiased collection of actual events in the world that day, told by neutrals? You think CNN and Co at presidential; briefings are doing Trump favours politically? What fantasy are you living in Cliff?

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 5:12 PM, Chris Barnard said:

No, you're just trying to make some bizarre case that is frankly baffling. Every election ever has been rife with propaganda from all sides.

But that’s not what you claimed.  You claimed the networks were for Hillary, when they were clearly for Trump.

You claimed that people were tired of Obama, but as Sandy showed Obama had a 59% approval rating.

You seem baffled by your own baseless assertions.

Quote

You didn't know? You thought "The News" was an honest, unbiased collection of actual events in the world that day, told by neutrals?

Amnesia again.  You claimed pro-Clinton bias where the opposite held sway.

Quote

You think CNN and Co at presidential; briefings are doing Trump favours politically? 

Now you are discussing the Trump occupation of the White House.  We *were* discussing the 2016 campaign, remember?

Quote

What fantasy are you living in Cliff?

Living happily ever after with Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

But that’s not what you claimed.  You claimed the networks were for Hillary, when they were clearly for Trump.

You claimed that people were tired of Obama, but as Sandy showed Obama had a 59% approval rating.

You seem baffled by your own baseless assertions.

Amnesia again.  You claimed pro-Clinton bias where the opposite held sway.

Now you are discussing the Trump occupation of the White House.  We *were* discussing the 2016 campaign, remember?

Living happily ever after with Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

 

Ah ok, so they all helped Trump get elected because they liked his TV show and then immediately turned on him the moment he got in office. That makes more sense now. Thanks for clearing that up. 🙂I can see why the others ignore you Cliff, i'm out. 

[Cliff Varnell]

10 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Living happily ever after with Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Here’s one for the parents of Kamala Harris:

 

[Joe Bauer]

On 8/14/2020 at 1:55 PM, Chris Barnard said:

That’s purely hypothetical though. If you had chosen a set period of time for Hilary in the 2016 run, polls would say she was almost certain to be elected and she wasn’t. All those people who were couldn’t be bothered to participate in polls, suddenly turned up to vote and Hilary lost. 
 

With your table there are factors with skew that poll. For example of the people who voted for Eisenhower in an election are deceased for example. Its not a multi-varied analysis, which is really needed to produce conclusive results. 
 

Using the same logic, this doesn’t prove Obama is the worst, post WWII either:

Worst President since World War II:

1. Barack Obama (33%)
2. George W. Bush (28%)
3. Richard Nixon (13%)
4. Jimmy Carter (8%)
5. Lyndon B. Johnson (tie) (3%)
5. Ronald Reagan (tie) (3%)
5. Bill Clinton (tie) (3%)
8. Gerald Ford (tie) (2%)
8. George H. W. Bush (tie) (2%)
10. Dwight Eisenhower (1%)
11. Harry S. Truman (tie) (<1%)
11. John F. Kennedy (tie) (<1%)

 

It would be rational and enlightening to have this poll:

Most Personally Corrupt President Since WW II?

Nixon would probably be number 1, simply because there are still enough respondents who lived through and remember Watergate or have a general U.S. history knowledge of this hugely covered, reported and written about event.

Include even a major A list film with two of our biggest box office stars of the day in the lead roles...Hoffman and Redford.

Watergate was such an unprecedented, hugely involved executive branch criminal affair that was so far reaching and implicating of even more blatant criminal act abuses of power ( Pentagon Papers just one of these ) that 25 of Nixon's highest ranking staff and other connected and directed cronies ( the Plumbers ) went to prison!

LBJ's corrupt background was in many ways deeper and more lifelong than Nixon's, yet this reality has been purposely and successfully hidden from the standard public historical record. An amazing long term feat of historical record controlling power.

Trump's personal long term corruption is being more and more exposed with every new insider tell-all book ( a never ending stream and more than any other President while in office ) with most becoming best sellers so it's now widespread main stream knowledge. 

There is so much dirt on Trump being blown up into the public awareness wind it's becoming a virtual dust storm event. So in your face real it's now beyond denial or down playing.

As bad as Trump is in this category as well as Nixon, my number one would still be LBJ.

With a suspicion of his foreknowledge and cover-up efforts regards JFK setting him apart in this regards imo.

Clinton rounds out the top 4 imo. Russ Baker's Bush family expose may influence others in this poll.

A list with this specific theme is at least as important as those general theme others imo. 

Would love to see some forum member "Most Corrupt President" picks and the order in which they place them and why.

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 5:38 PM, Chris Barnard said:

Ah ok, so they all helped Trump get elected because they liked his TV show and then immediately turned on him the moment he got in office.

You bet! He immediately started conducting himself in a hateful manner — lying about the size of his inaugural crowd, banning Muslims, overturning tax breaks for FHA mortgage holders, promoting a Russian asset to National Security Advisor and then firing him.

Bad guys make compelling television.

Quote

That makes more sense now. Thanks for clearing that up. 🙂I can see why the others ignore you Cliff, i'm out. 

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

It would be rational and enlightening to have this poll:

Most Personally Corrupt President Since WW II?

Nixon would probably be number 1, simply because there are still enough respondents who lived through and remember Watergate or have a general U.S. history knowledge of this hugely covered, reported and written about event.

Include even a major A list film with two of our biggest box office stars of the day in the lead roles...Hoffman and Redford.

Watergate was such an unprecedented, hugely involved executive branch criminal affair that was so far reaching and implicating of even more blatant criminal act abuses of power ( Pentagon Papers just one of these ) that 25 of Nixon's highest ranking staff and other connected and directed cronies ( the Plumbers ) went to prison!

LBJ's corrupt background was in many ways deeper and more lifelong than Nixon's, yet this reality has been purposely and successfully hidden from the standard public historical record. An amazing long term feat of historical record controlling power.

Trump's personal long term corruption is being more and more exposed with every new insider tell-all book ( a never ending stream and more than any other President while in office ) with most becoming best sellers so it's now widespread main stream knowledge. 

There is so much dirt on Trump being blown up into the public awareness wind it's becoming a virtual dust storm event. So in your face it's now beyond denial or down playing.

As bad as Trump is in this category as well as Nixon, my number one would still be LBJ.

With a suspicion of his foreknowledge and cover-up efforts regards JFK setting him apart in this regards.

Clinton rounds out the top 4 imo.

A list with this specific theme is more important than the general theme others imo. 

Would love to see more forum member "Most Corrupt President" picks and the order in which you place them and why.

That's a great idea. LBJ is certainly up there, I do wonder how much will come out about Bill Clinton in future decades. If Russ Baker's Bush family book is to be believed, thats some history. 

[Cliff Varnell]

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Thanks Cliff.

Thank you, Sandy.

[Cliff Varnell]

Biden by 11%.  No wonder the Trumpers are so cranky.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/kamala-harris-is-already-helping-bidens-campaign-with-key-voting-groups-key-poll/

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-oozes-a-lack-of-confidence-since-biden-picked-harris-as-his-running-mate-columnist/

Edited August 14, 2020 by Cliff Varnell

[James DiEugenio]

BW: 

Maybe if Obama had been a true outsider, and started doing things that pissed off Right Wing war mongers (myself included at the time) we would have seen the apoplectic rants and Coup attempts by Neo-Con string pullers back then, that we are currently witnessing now.

The lack of a cohesive effort to get rid of Obama extra-Democratically, or to rally around Romney in any meaningful way, is almost a testament to Obama's membership in the Club, which includes most of the Presidents, and their Election day, counter-party rivals, back to JFK.

I think this is a pretty good description of why Obama was a disappointment.  Because he was African American, because he promised Hope and Change, because he was a good speaker, and because everyone was sick of W and many Dems did not want to continue Clintonism, he won the nomination and election.

There were two things that put me off about Obama.  First, I have a friend who lives in Illinois and watched his career from the start. He told me that there were two "tells" about him.  First, all of those controversial issues which he managed to avoid voting on in the state senate; second, when he ran against another African American for congress, he got bombed.

In support of this, the late Jerry Policoff told me that Obama had attended meetings of Rubin's Hamilton Project.  And, in fact, many people from that group went into the White House after Obama was elected.  That was a good indication that Obama was not going to launch a restructure or a New Deal in the face of the 2007-08 economic crash.  What he was going to do was a bailout and stimulus package.  As I have addressed this before, what this resulted in was 1.) Concentrations of wealth that were even worse than before, and 2.) Huge budget deficits  that did not begin to stabilize until 2013, but were still as bad as W's even then. And an accumulation of long term debt.  In other words that is what the public got for using their money to rehab Wall Street from their own corruption and insatiable greed. Again, in retrospect, the non recourse loans were predictable. Socialism for the rich. And JP Morgan, who really started the whole thing with the invention of derivatives, benefited perhaps the most.  And no one was indicted.

Jerry told me one other thing about Obama.  He said, from what he had heard, Biden and Kerry wanted to promote him as a counter to Jesse Jackson.  Biden especially did not want another Jackson involved in Democratic presidential politics again. This helps explain both Biden as VP, and Biden and Obama's choice of  Kamala Harris. 

Edited August 14, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

Meanwhile, outside the bubble of Obama-bashers, Donald Trump has declared his intention to cripple the postal service for the express purpose of denying millions the right to vote.

It’s a brazen attack on the American people by a scumbag who aspires to one man rule.
 
https://www.salon.com/2020/08/14/forget-ads-speeches-poll-numbers--this-election-will-be-determined-by-whether-trump-can-steal-it/

As predicted, the habitual Obama-bashers give Trump a pass.  

[James DiEugenio]

I should add there was one other disappointing point about Obama.

One of his talking points was that he would have voted against the Iraq War, and he did make a good speech against the invasion at an anti war rally.

But yet today, I think we all know that the Iraq invasion was something that was manufactured, created, fabricated by certain people in the executive branch and then ramrodded through congress with all kinds of pressure.

The cost of that war to Iraq  cannot be calculated.  The invasion and the occupation were a disaster not just for the US and Iraq, but it helped expand terrorist groups in the  Middle East.

Should there not have been investigations of how and why this was done?  Should not people have been called to account for such a debacle? Not a whiff of this from Obama.  After all his wife is buds with W.

Edited August 14, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

6 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I should add there was one other disappointing point about Obama.

One of his talking points was that he would have voted against the Iraq War, and he did make a good speech against the invasion at an anti war rally.

But yet today, I think we all know that the Iraq invasion was something that was manufactured, created, fabricated by certain people in the executive branch and then ramrodded through congress with all kinds of pressure.

The cost of that war to Iraq  cannot be calculated.  The invasion and the occupation were a disaster not just for the US and Iraq, but it helped expand terrorist groups in the  Middle East.

Should there not have been investigations of how and why this was done?  Should not people have been called to account for such a debacle? Not a whiff of this from Obama.  After all his wife is buds with W.

As predicted...

[Cliff Varnell]

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/08/trump-proves-biden-right-on-usps-funding-mail-in-ballots/

In late June, Joe Biden claimed President Donald Trump “wants to cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots.” At the time, we wrote that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had no evidence of Trump’s ulterior motive — but now he does. 

In an Aug. 13 interview, Trump admitted that he opposes a coronavirus pandemic relief bill crafted by the House Democrats because it includes funding the U.S. Postal Service and state election officials — funding that Trump said is needed to allow the Postal Service to handle an expected surge in mail-in voting.

Maria Bartiromo, the host of “Mornings with Maria” on Fox Business, asked Trump “what specifically are [the Democrats] pushing for that is causing this breakdown in any deals.” The president singled out two provisions in the  HEROES Act, or the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act. 

Trump, Aug. 13: They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money basically. They want $3.5 trillion — billion dollars for the mail-in votes, OK, universal mail-in ballots, $3.5 trillion. They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. Now, in the meantime, they aren’t getting there. By the way, those are just two items. But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.

The bill, which passed the Democratic-controlled House in May with only one Republican vote, includes $3.6 billion for states to pay for “contingency planning, preparation, and resilience of elections for Federal office,” according to a summary of the act. It also contains $25 billion for USPS to replace revenues “forgone due to the coronavirus pandemic.”

Hours after his interview with Bartiromo, Trump said he wouldn’t veto the bill if it includes money for the Postal Service and state election planning — but he repeated his statement about the agency being unable to handle mail-in ballots without it.

“But if the bill isn’t going to get done, that would mean the Post Office isn’t going to get funded, and that would also mean that the three and a half billion dollars isn’t going to be taken care of,” he said at an Aug. 14 press briefing. “So I don’t know how you can possibly use these ballots, these mail-in ballots.”

The perpetually cash-strapped Postal Service has been hurt by COVID-19. Earlier this year, the Postal Service had asked Congress for, among other things, $25 billion in emergency appropriations and $25 billion in loans from the Treasury Department.

At a June 23 virtual fundraiser, Biden accused Trump (at about 1:13:00 into the video) of undermining democracy and urged viewers to register to vote and volunteer to be poll workers. Biden then added this about mail-in ballots (at 1:14:10): “Making sure we tell the American public what the president is doing, saying he wants to cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots.”

It was true at the time — and even more so now — that the president has engaged in a repetitive and misleading campaign against the expanded use of mail-in ballots for this year’s elections.

But it is equally true that the president for years has criticized the Postal Service for losing money and has insisted that it should increase fees for packages, repeatedly singling out Amazon. The Postal Service has been caught up in the president’s feud with Amazon’s CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post — which the president frequently targets in tweets for its news coverage.

And, despite Trump’s criticisms of the Postal Service’s years of red ink, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which the president signed March 27, provided two forms of relief: deferred payments of the employer share of Social Security and the ability to borrow up to $10 billion from the Treasury Department.

On July 29, the recently appointed postmaster general — Louis DeJoy, a Republican fundraiser and Trump ally —  announced that the Postal Service had reached an agreement with Treasury to access the $10 billion borrowing authority, which DeJoy said “will delay the approaching liquidity crisis.”

As we wrote at the time, we found no instance of Trump saying he wants to thwart the Postal Service’s ability to deliver mail-in ballots, and the Biden campaign didn’t provide us with any. Biden appeared to have conflated the two issues — Trump’s criticism of both the Postal Service and mail-in-ballots — to accuse the president of wanting to “cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots.”

But that’s moot now. Trump provided Biden with the evidence that he earlier had lacked. 

What we don’t know is if denying the Postal Service additional funding “means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it,” as Trump said. 

The Postal Service has repeatedly said that funding issues will not prevent mail carriers from making their appointed rounds throughout the 2020 election.

“Regarding our role in elections, our current financial condition is not going to impact our ability to deliver election and political mail this year,” Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer told us in late June.

More recently, the postmaster general said at an Aug. 7 board of governors meeting that the USPS can handle the expected increased volume of mail-in ballots. 

“Although there will likely be an unprecedented increase in election mail volume due to the pandemic,” DeJoy said, “the Postal Service has ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on-time in accordance with our delivery standards, and we will do so.”

DeJoy made those remarks even after it was reported that he had instituted cost-cutting measures that will result in mail delivery delays.

In a July 10 memo to all employees, the Postal Service directed mail carriers to begin and end their routes on time — even if it means leaving behind some unsorted mail at processing and distribution centers — because “late trips” and “extra trips are no longer authorized or accepted.” The memo said late and extra trips cost the agency about $200 million a year in additional costs.

“One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that — temporarily — we may see mail left behind or mail on the workroom floor or docks (in P&DCs), which is not typical,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Federal News Network.

Whether these temporary changes have an impact on the delivery of mail-in ballots also remains to be seen. As we have written before, about a quarter of ballots cast in the 2018 general elections nationwide were by mail, according to the Election Assistance Commission. But some states — including key swing states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have had low volumes of mail-in ballots in past elections.

But we do know at this point that Biden’s earlier remarks that Trump “wants to cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots” have been confirmed — by the president himself.