#11

As usual, totally false on a number of fronts.

I find the overconfidence of liberals on this site disturbing.

I don't see any "overconfidence" on this thread. I see the factual reporting of trends and polls which are only snapshots of now, not what will happen on election day.

What you see are people that are hopeful America is ready to put Donald Trump in its rearview mirror, once and for all. But I don't see anyone who isn't fully cognizant that what looks promising today could again turn into a nightmare at any time through November 5th.

It's all coming down to getting Harris voters to the polls in key states in greater number than Trump's. Nothing else really matters, but it is much more heartening to feel positive about this race than to be immersed in dread and worry about Trump repeating his 2016 outcome.

Tough night last night as Connecticut throttled the Fever by 24 in Game 1 of the best of 3. Fever need to win Wednesday night or their season will end in New England.

Unfortunately, Indiana teams have a long history of seeing their seasons ended by teams from New England be they Patriots, Celtics, UConn Huskies, and now possibly the Sun.

Trump supported banning TikTok, only to reverse course after chatting with Jeff Yass, a billionaire hedge fund manager - and prospective campaign donor - who has a multibillion-dollar stake in ByteDance, TikTok's parent corporation. Something similar appears to have happened with the cryptocurrency industry.

Trump also started hedging on some of his immigration policies around the time he met with wealthy corporate executives at a Business Roundtable meeting.

A few months earlier, Trump publicly suggested that conservatives should give up on their opposition to Anheuser-Busch shortly before he attended a fundraiser hosted by an Anheuser-Busch lobbyist.

Perhaps most importantly, Trump abandoned his long-time skepticism about cryptocurrencies after having some chats with prospective donors at Mar-a-Lago.

Former president Donald Trump offered enthusiastic support for vaping on Friday, promising to protect the industry following a private meeting earlier in the day with a leading vaping lobbyist. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he "saved Flavored Vaping in 2019" and would "save Vaping again!"

Of particular interest was the process through which Trump changed his mind. Trump's new position "is consistent with the recent financial support he has received from the tobacco industry." It also came "just after a meeting with the head of the Vapor Technology Association, which describes itself as the leading vaping trade association, representing more than 100 members of the industry."

Trump isn't saying, "I'll change my position in exchange for money," he's instead effectively saying, "Since I don't care about governing or public policy anyway, I'll just align my beliefs with the preferences of wealthy people and prospective donors who have my ear behind closed doors."

#24

I live in one of the cities on the list. During Covid in late 2021, I purchased my 2 bdrm condo on a 30 yr mortgage at 3.3%. My mortgage started at $1061 (including homeowner's insurance and tax escrow) and after 2 1/2 years is down to $931 due to lower taxes and the removal of mortgage insurance because of rapid appreciation. My unit appraised for $100,000 more than the amount I owe after only 30 months. If I were to rent this unit, the current market price would be $2200-$2500 per month.

My daughter moved in with me in 2021 and then bought her own suburban house in the summer of 2023 since her mortgage - even at double my own rate - still left her payment hundreds less than lessor rental apartments in this market.

I hope younger people are able to take advantage of the current bifurcated markets in many cities around the country and invest in their futures by owning instead of renting.

I'm no Dem fanboi, but people need to stop throwing out the baby with the bathwater, stop cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Uh oh.... Isn't that the equivalent of saying "Laura Mohr, Laura Mohr, Laura Mohr" out loud?

Now you've done it! Prepare to reap the whirlwind. ; ^ )

On the campaign trail, Trump has said that immigrants are "animals" and "not human," and implied that millions are crossing the border each month; publicly available data show that the real number has never exceeded 200,000 a month this year. When Vance took to X to declare that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors' pets, and Trump repeated the lie in a nationally televised debate the next day, those of us who have studied the United States' history of dehumanizing immigrants felt as if the clock had turned back 150 years, to when the same specious claim was used to justify vigilante violence against Chinese Americans, and laws including the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Trump and Vance's claims, along with other copycat assertions meant to imply that nonwhite immigrants are inherently immoral, such as the one about "Haitian prostitutes" aired at a Springfield city-commission meeting, have surfaced throughout American history. This summer, a survey ... found that nearly a quarter of Americans now believe that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" and that "many immigrants are terrorists." More than a third of respondents said that "millions of undocumented immigrants illegally cast votes in our elections."

American voters have consistently indicated that they want order at the southern border, yet many economists agree that the large amount of immigration the U.S. experienced in recent years is a major reason the economy bounced back from the COVID-related downturn faster than that of any other nation in the world[EM]. This complex picture of immigration and its implications calls for the hard work of policy making and statesmanship. Again and again, misinformation and fearmongering have only made things worse.

When your life....

Non citizens cannot vote in federal elections in California or any other state.

When you life and safety depends upon staying in the shadows, why would anyone not here legally risk everything just to cast 1 vote in any particular election? If you have enough willpower and fortitude to traverse thousands of miles on foot, voting in an American election as a non-citizen is the LAST thing on your mind, since avoiding crossing the law is the FIRST.

#28 | Posted by BellRinger

Would you rather have states ignore the "millions" of undocumented adult drivers, never finding out who they are, where they live, or if they're even proficient enough to drive, forcing them to operate illegally and without insurance - driving up rates for everyone else?

Every state should offer licenses for all their residents who drive regardless of their citizenship status. It confers no special rights other than protecting everyone else on the road. Why would anyone have a problem with that?

This has changed the composition of the party. While many decent people remain - and represent the hope for future reform - Trump's Republican Party has become a magnet for eccentrics and conspiracy theorists of all stripes.

Indeed, Trump in his diabolical shrewdness knows how to build and maintain his own base. He's shed the Republican Party's traditional commitment to life. He'll sprint away from any policy or principle that he believes might cost him power. At the same time, he watches his crowd roar when he demonizes immigrants (MAGA's true north star) and he sees "red-pilled" young men rally to his side when he punches hard and never backs down.

Leaders don't simply enact policies; they dictate the cultures of the institutions they lead. We've all experienced this phenomenon in our workplaces, churches and schools. I've compared the cultural power of a leader to setting the course of a river. Defying or contradicting the leader's ethos is like swimming against the current - yes, you can do that for a time, but eventually you get exhausted and either have to swim to the bank and leave, or you're swept downstream, just like everyone else.

Trump has set the course of the Republican Party's cultural river for more than nine years. Fewer and fewer resisters remain, and they're growing increasingly exhausted and besieged.

When you encounter people advocating that Americans use democracy as a weapon for use against itself, you've likely identified those influenced by or susceptible to hostile foreign actors hoping to destroy America from within.

He has said he'll offer plum jobs to major donors like Elon Musk, promised favors to oil executives, bragged to the wealthy about the tax cuts he can deliver

So Trump is blatantly offering "free stuff" to those already wealthy if they promise to give his PACs lots of money to benefit him directly.

May I ask where is all the outrage from the righties that call championing policies which offer benefits to those at the lowest rungs of our society as nothing more than the attempt of advocates to "buy their votes"?

Just how are hundreds of millions of dollars spent on negative campaign ads to influence the votes of these same people not the same thing, only worse since this attempt comes with a promised reward of government access/influence and largess from lowered taxation should their President and GOP-controlled Congress become re-elected?

...with their eyes and wallets ...

I don't know the life of a traveling nurse,

The travel part is kind of a misnomer. My daughter wants to be a pediatric/NICO ER nurse and there are only 2 hospitals left in Indy that haven't shuttered these departments due to them not being profitable as others. And the one she worked for doesn't train their personnel for the responsibilities they expect them to take.

So she decided to take contracts for 3-6 month increments in other cities. The benefit is the living/per diem that hospitals pay which is non-taxed income. She keeps her house here, and leases it out to other nurses working in Indy for more than her mortgage amount, so she pockets quite a bit of money for a 26 year old.

I think one of my cards (likely Chase Sapphire) will reimburse for TSA Global Entry, but I already purchased it when I got my passport years ago. The way I travel internationally, the only place it's ever been markedly faster than the regular lines was in Philly when an ice storm caused rebooking of my return from Cancun.

Usually flying back into Indy, Cincinnati, or through Charlotte from Mexico, it's only my single flight going through customs, so the longest wait is for the baggage to reach the carousel, not dealing with the customs agents checking re-entry paperwork and credentials.

"He just thinks he operates in his own world," Fred Wertheimer, a veteran of decades of fights over campaign finance and government ethics, told HuffPost. "What he's doing is incredibly brazen in both asking for large amounts of money and telling people what he's going to do for them in return."

"Bottom line, I've never seen anyone do what he's doing," Wertheimer said.

"He has and always will be a con man who's really only looking out for himself and whatever helps him to obtain power," said Tiffany Mueller, the president of the Democratic campaign finance group End Citizens United. "All his promises went out the window. Instead of draining the swamp, he brought the swamp to him and his properties and cashed in."

Elon Musk and other wealthy conservatives are funding America PAC, which is focused on turning out GOP voters in swing states. Trump's official super PAC, MAGA, Inc. is airing attack ads targeting Harris with more than $100 million from Timothy Mellon, a somewhat reclusive banking heir with far-right politics. And Miriam Adelson, the widow of gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, is pouring tens of millions into Preserve America, another super PAC targeting Harris with attack ads.

[I]n public, Harris has not been nearly as obsequious to large donors, save for a decision to trim back a Biden proposal to increase taxes on capital gains. Donors, for instance, have openly pushed for Harris to fire Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan if she's elected president. But Democrats close to Harris have suggested such a push has only made it less likely that Harris will oust Khan, a progressive who has chilled mergers and acquisitions with an aggressive approach to antitrust.

I think the cash benefits alone are more than that.

I'm well aware. Since I don't travel internationally - except to the Yucatan peninsula for vacations - I have the top-tier Southwest card, since they fly almost everywhere I need to go direct from Indianapolis. And that includes $75 cash back, and 4 reimbursed boarding upgrades each year ($40 each) that exceed the annual cost of the card at $149.

My daughter started working as a traveling nurse last year and I had her get the same card. I spoke to her yesterday and she's visiting her brother and sister and their families in Salt Lake City for the weekend. I asked her how much her flight was and she said "$12. And I've got over 100K points too," due to the opening bonus offer she took advantage of.

It makes you wonder what has yet to be revealed about the national and international damage caused by Trump's corruption and degeneracy.

The part that shocked me was Lev's revelation that he disparaged the then US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as a problem in Ukraine - something he admits that he simply made up on the spot since he had no relationship nor interactions with her. He said she was an Obama holdover hostile to Trump and within the space of a few minutes, Trump told his advisors to get her out of Ukraine and replace her. Even Lev was astonished that Trump would act so impetuously without even asking anyone to confirm what Lev had just make up on the fly. And all of this was caught on tape secretively by Igor his buddy.

And this explains how Lev led Trump and Rudy into Trump's first impeachment. Had the tape been a part of the impeachment case, it would have been extremely hard for Republicans to justify such a snap judgment - made without a shred of evidence that Yovanovitch had done anything wrong.

And I've yet to see someone who is pro-Palestinian who is not at the same time anti-Israeli.

That only proves you choose to see what you want, not what's there. The vast silent majority in America are precisely that, and anyone calling themselves Christian or religious should be as well.

It shouldn't be that hard to understand the difference between terrorist front organizations and the millions of Palestinian people forced into destitution because of the innocent have no way or power to rid them from their midst inside Gaza. And it's equally not that hard to support Israel when defending and fighting said terrorist organization's personnel, yet decry them for the indiscriminate death and casualties of innocent children and all others not engaged in terrorism who've been rendered homeless and stateless in the course of Israelis defending themselves.

The goal of destroying Hamas without destroying the Palestinian people is as impossible as our former obsession with winning the war on global terror. Two wrongs never make a right.

#16

That's rapidly changing ...... due to the popularity of CC and the other rookies this season who're changing the game in the ticket revenue department as well.

And let's be completely clear here on why Trump lies like he does and why he abhors moderators fact checking him on the spot.

He is a master at the Gish Gallop fallacy technique, where one tells so many lies or mistruths in a back-and-forth debate that the other person will spend all of their time responding to what he said, instead of getting their own points and viewpoints across to the audience. It puts Trump's opponent at a disadvantage and him in the dominant position of basically controlling what's being addressed.

Again, this is why fact checking Trump is the equivalent of shining natural sunlight on a vampire. As you saw if you watched the debate, he immolated on live tv.

#86

Just happened upon this:

11