monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

It is, it took over the spot vacated by The Weakest Link. While Ann Robinson was foul rude and nasty, Alexander and Richard are really nice.

Schumer would announce intention to expand. Votes in Senate and House then signature by Biden. As I understand it, that's all that would be required.

Thus the potential problem is preventing any Senate Dems from voting against the bill.

I always had a little sneaker for Ann

I never liked her, long before the Weakest Link she was on the screens over here. She used to present Points of View, a BBC programme that dealt with people complaining about the BBC.

A voting line in Philadelphia

Let's hope.

Someone I know on a different discussion board recently died suddenly. Not from COVID as far as I know, although I don't really know for sure.

It'd suck if a meteor took us all out just before the election.


As far as the election goes, I see a range of potential outcomes:

a) Trump is reelected and my prediction is correct. 20+ years of Republican rule.

b) Trump is reelected but my prediction is wrong. A Democrat will win in 2024.

c) A repeat of Ford/Carter/Reagan. Trump loses election due to the witch hunts. Biden is a weak president in the wake of the witch hunts and will be defeated in 2024 by a strong Republican. The Republicans hold the White House from 2024 to 2036.

d) Biden is elected. There is no 20 year period where one party dominates. He will serve eight years and then another Republican will be elected.

e) Biden is elected. The Democratic Party holds the White House for 20+ years.


I think "E" is unlikely. Mr. Biden is not revolutionary enough. You only get 20+ years of rule by the same party if you elect someone revolutionary like Jefferson, Lincoln, or FDR. My prediction of 20+ years of Republican rule was based on how revolutionary Mr. Trump is.

"A" and "C" seem to be the most likely outcomes IMO.

Putin rejects Trump's criticism of Biden family business

Putin said on Sunday that he saw nothing criminal in Hunter Biden’s past business ties
with Ukraine or Russia, marking out his disagreement with one of Trump’s attack lines
in the U.S. presidential election.

Putin appeared less friendly towards Trump in remarks broadcast by Russian state TV
on Sunday. In what may be seen by some analysts as an attempt to try to curry favour
with the Biden camp, he took the time to knock down what he made clear he regarded
as false allegations from Trump about the Bidens.

“Yes, in Ukraine he (Hunter Biden) had or maybe still has a business, I don’t know.
It doesn’t concern us. It concerns the Americans and the Ukrainians...”

Not should, "will" rot in hell!!!👺

Here is an interesting article comparing the Biden nepotism to the Trump nepotism! Guess which one is more damning?

https://www.vox.com/21527215/hunter-biden-jared-ivanka-eric-don-junior

"
Nepotism and the 2020 election, explained
Joe Biden isn’t the only candidate with family in question in this campaign.

By Matthew Yglesias@[email protected] Oct 26, 2020, 2:00pm EDT

It has been clear for over a year that Team Trump’s main plan for running against former Vice President Joe Biden was to try to gin up a scandal related to Biden’s son Hunter’s work in Ukraine.

It was clear from President Trump’s efforts to coerce the Ukrainian government into launching a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden over this, which ended with his impeachment. That, in turn, led Trump to back away from the issue, for a while.

But this October, Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post have used a hard drive they say a computer repair store in Delaware gave them to revive the story. They don’t have evidence that Hunter’s influence was why a Ukrainian prosecutor got fired. But the laptop does contain evidence (yet to be authenticated) that Hunter had wide-ranging business interests, and no particular qualifications as a business partner other than his father being vice president.

It is true that on basic anti-nepotism grounds, Joe Biden is far from an ideal candidate. He certainly falls short of the standard set by several modern presidents.

But Trump himself stands out from his predecessors as particularly bad on the corruption front. Not only does he still own and profit from businesses involved in dealings with foreign nationals, he has several adult children and in-laws who have business careers that are enmeshed with his political fortunes.

To assess nepotism as an issue in the 2020 campaign requires a comprehensive look at the two candidates’ approaches.
"
Details are very revealing and ultra believable. You gotta read the rest of the story. I walk away thinking, "What else?"

This is the way to get votes.......?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/jared-kushner-black-americans-grappling-inequality-racism-complaining-n1244788
"
To Jared Kushner, Black Americans' grappling with inequality, racism is 'complaining'

Kushner said Trump's policies "can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about, but he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful."

White House adviser Jared Kushner described Black America's issues with inequality and racism in the country as "complaining," during an interview Monday on "Fox & Friends."

"The thing we've seen in the Black community, which is mostly Democrat," he said, "is that President Trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about, but he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful."

Kushner's words appear to blame Black Americans’ disproportionate lack of wealth, job opportunities, health disparities and other inequalities on a lack of drive — suggesting the problem is that Black Americans don’t “want” success enough. However, his comments do not address the roots of systemic racism.

“This dismissive approach to the issues that Black voters care about is indicative of Trump’s callousness and disregard for the lives of Black people," Democratic National Committee National Press Secretary Brandon Gassaway, said in a statement. "We cannot afford another four years of a White House that does not take our voices seriously and tells us to be grateful for whatever scraps are leftover from the bargaining table. We need leaders who not only value our input but prioritize and act upon it. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are those leaders, and Black voters will continue to show up to the polls in record numbers to ensure that Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and this failed administration get the message.”

Shortly after the clip aired, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany released a statement: “It’s disgusting to see internet trolls taking Senior Advisor Jared Kushner out of context as they try to distract from President Trump’s undeniable record of accomplishment for the Black community. From criminal justice reform and record HBCU funding to record low Black unemployment and record high income increases, there is simply no disputing that President Trump accomplished what Democrats merely talked about. Those who have worked with President Trump have seen success on these joint objectives, unlike with previous failed Democrat politicians.”
....................
"

So do we like Putin now? Is he more believable than he was when he denied aiding Trump's election?

He will not lack for company.

Lest we soon forget, the IMPEACHED President of the USA is badly losing the bid for a 2nd term!!!!!!!

I’ll believe it when I hear the election called on 11/3 for Biden on all outlets. Until then, it’s all just speculation.

Biden did say they built the largest voter fraud organization there is. It better be, because Trump is going to get a lot of votes.

What did you bet on Killary?

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
Edited by Bandy X. Lee. M.D., M.DIV.

Trauma, Truth, and Trump
How a President Freezes Healing and Promotes Crisis
by Betty P
Teng, M.FA., L.M.S.W.

PP. 220-233
A colleague who treated New Yorkers in the month following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center said the reactions he has seen in his patients to Trump's election and presidency are far worse. " the difference is, the attacks of 9/11 were finite and enabled by an outside source," he observed. "Trump was elected by those among us, and his aggression feels incessant and never ending."

I am a psychotherapist - - specifically, a trauma therapist who treats at a major Hospital a New York City adult survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and childhood sexual abuse. My job is to have some clinical understanding of trauma and how it impacts individuals and knowing how to treat the subject getting effects. Yet I was baffled. How could a non violent event such as the peaceful election of a president generate a trauma response? Whatever one's political leanings, one could not equate Trump's win with an actual physical attack or a natural catastrophe.
Or could one?

Indeed, in the months since November, psychotherapist nationwide have reported an unprecedented focus on politics in their sessions, and a surge of new patients seeking help with a high anxiety and stress they feel in reaction to Trump steady stream of extreme tweets and impulsive actions. Indeed, from the confusion and worry caused by his disastrous immigration travel ban; is irrational accusations that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower; and his sudden military actions against Syria and North Korea, President Trump appears more concerned with drawing attention to his power through creating crises rather than resolving them.

It is inevitable that such destabilizing behavior in ones who holds the most powerful leadership position in the world will heighten anxiety and fear in not only the previously traumatized, but the untraumatized as well.

... how the election and actions of a president such as Donald Trump could cause a large swath of American citizens to feel traumatized or re-traumatized. It is important to remember that Trump's ascendance to the White House is unprecedented and incongruous. We are in uncharted territory. How a New York City real estate magnate and reality television celebrity who had no previous legal, legislative, government, or foreign policy experience could become president of the United States is a circumstance many still find it difficult to comprehend. If we agree that the skills of a U.S. president are as crucial as that of a heart surgeon - - whose professional judgment and expertise can mean life or death for his patients – then it is terrifying to see that the American body politic has, in Donald Trump, a cardiac surgeon who has never set foot inside an operating room. He is a doctor who has no knowledge of, and arguably no interest in, the inner workings of the American government's heart. It, therefore, makes sense that his lack of qualifications and his insensitivity to the complexities and impact of his role would Inspire great anxiety, if not panic, and those of us whose lives depend on his care - - regardless of political affiliation or trauma history.

When we consider how many Americans experience, personally or intergenerationally, the traumas of slavery, immigration trauma War, natural disaster, and genocide, we start to understand on another level how it is that Donald Trump, a wholly unqualified president who neglects history, highlights divisions, and make impulsive decisions, would foment unrest in us all.

Context is key; if Trump were not president of the United States, his ravings would simply be those of an arrogant, unmindful, loudmouth reality TV celebrity who compulsively seeks attention by cultivating shock and outrage on both ends of the political spectrum. The "no press is bad press" boorishness of his actions would find traction only on reality TV and in tabloid and gossip pages that, before the 2015 - 2016 election cycle, were the main sites trafficking in a Trump's badly self-promotional broadcasts. While it is beyond the scope of this essay to delve into the social, economic, political, and demographic circumstances that allowed Trump to more from entertainment persona to leader of the Free World, it is important to note aspects of our current technological climate, which combined with Trump's now-central role as US president and his narcissistically compulsive personality, to keep the American public fixated on his toxic behavior and stuck in a state of chaotic, meaningless crisis.

Trauma and Truth
Looking through the lens of trauma treatment, it is of particular concern that we find ourselves in a perfect storm where we have, as our US president, a narcissist fixed on broadcasting his own unilateral and inconsistent versions of reality and a climate driven by internet media channels that produce information so quickly that they privileged falsehoods over truth.

When a world leader as powerful as the President of the United States insists on there being "alternative facts" derived from a reality only he knows, this is alarming and destabilizing for us all. Democracy and the rule of law are threatened without an agreement between government and its citizens on the objectivity of truth and reality. A breakdown in this agreement puts the definition of truth and reality into the hands of those with the most social, political, and/or economic power. In history, this has supported the severe wrongdoings of Institutions intent more on preserving their power then on protecting individual rights.

From your article:

She is also a quack trying to make a diagnosis when not seeing a patient in a clinical setting. A disgrace to her profession.

Didn’t bet any money on HILLary. I don’t gamble. I was pretty cocky though.