The Debates - who won? (2 Viewers)

[Pat Hartman]

It's not just Biden/Harris that don't think we need to know their positions, that's the way Congress works also. Just remember what Pelosi famously said about the vote for ObamaCare - "we have to pass the bill to know what's in it ,beyond the fog of 'something"

It's one thing to say something like that but neither Trump, Pence, nor any moderator (and I use the term loosely) has called them on that. Someone needed to say - "So, you won't tell people your position but you want them to vote for you anyway and they'll find out what they voted for AFTER the election? Am I understanding you correctly?"

Why do the rules of Congress allow them to bring forward a multi-thousand page bill on which they must vote in two days? NO ONE can read the bill, in the time allotted, let alone digest it and evaluate its potential implications. So members of Congress vote for or against every bill based on "talking points". No wonder our government can't do anything right! The reason we are a Republic rather than a Democracy is because our representatives are charged with UNDERSTANDING what they are voting for and vote according to what is in OUR best interest, NOT theirs and they are no longer interested in understanding the bills they vote on nor are they even interested in writing them so bills are written by staff members or lobbyists.. No wonder the stock price of Insurance companies zoomed after ObamaCare passed. Guess who the bill was good for? My insurance premiums tripled but at least I had pregnancy coverage (I was ~ 63) and so did my husband. Better to be safe than sorry. So much for ObamaCare cutting costs.

 

[Steve R.]

Recently I heard references to the following: The Working Families Party People's Charter. I'm going to assume that I found the right webpage, as it seems very relevant. The reason for posting this reference is that Biden/Harris ticket has been virtually silent on what their platform really is. The media and the debate moderators refuse to ask. However, a "small crack" has opened since Biden/Harris have formally stated that they are avoiding disclosing their position concerning Supreme Court packing until after the election. Failing to publicly disclose a Biden/Harris platform is a travesty to the electorate. What would be voting for? Whether the People's Charter is, in reality, represents the Biden/Harris (hidden) platform is unknown. But it's worth examining and asking.

Never heard of the Working Families Party before. The Wikipedia link: The Working Families Party.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Biden website, which (in theory) should be more official that the People's Charter: Joe's Vision

 

[Isaac]

One thing that comforts me a little bit in regard to packing the court. I might be mistaken I've read a little bit about this and I think it's correct to say that this would have to be passed as a regular piece of legislation. Like any other piece of legislation, it would have to be supported by at least a simple majority of votes in both the Senate and the house, and then also be signed by the president the likelihood of anyone on any side finding all three components in their favor is extremely unlikely.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Everything is always talking points which are designed to skip the details because we're too stupid to understand them or to hide them because we might understand them. The media is also only about sound bites so they're no help at all. 60 minutes used to be the best in-depth coverage of important topics but they have gotten so biased and anti-Trump, I took them off my record list and I've been a regular viewer since high school and with the advent of the VCR, I've never missed a show. That means that we the people really can't trust anything we read or hear on TV. The picture I posted in a different thread recently that is a triangle that portrays who pays taxes in the US is a great example. Once you realize that only ~ 53% (it varies slightly from year to year as the tax code changes) actually pay income tax on wages or investments, you can easily see that if the tax cut were flat, the people who pay the most would get the biggest (dollar-wise) break. So the sound bite the Dems favor which says only the rich benefited from tax cuts is "technically" true but quite misleading, which is the intent. If you don't pay taxes, how would you benefit from a tax cut?? duh!!! Personally, I would have removed the deductions that only the wealthy can qualify for and added tiers of rates rather than reducing tiers. The issue with the small number of rates is that people really get hit hard when they move from one tier to another. A more graduated scale makes that transition easier. But, one of the biggest problems is that 47% of workers have no skin in the game. It's not their money. It's my money. So I would make sure that even low income people have to pay taxes (not much, but enough so they understand that it is THEIR money) too. The vast majority of the tax revenue would still come from the high income class. I just want people to see that when a politician offers them something "free", it isn't actually free since someone is going to pay for it.

Reading legalese makes my eyes glaze over so I can't get through thousands of pages of bills and figure out how they affect me. I expect my representatives and their staffs (which I also pay for) to do that for me and they are not doing it.

 

[Steve R.]

Recall this from "Dumb and Dumber".

1. The Affordable Care Act should never have passed.
2. The Supreme Court unbelievably did not strike it down.
3. The Republicans, when they finally had the votes to repeal it, McCain - out of spite - refused to vote for it's repeal.

The impossible happens.

 

[Steve R.]

Tonight we have the third (really second) and final Presidential debate. Once again the supposedly neutral Commission managing the debate has a pro-Biden bias, in both the moderator (Kristen Welker) and in the themes being covered tonight. Furthermore, some of the themes are duplicative to prior themes that have been brought up before. That, on its face, is disrespectful to the debate process where the moderators would be expected to explore issues not previously discussed.

1. COVID-19

Trump has not responded to this theme very well. This is also one of those topics that any conservative would have a hard time explaining (hard decisions versus Democratic hyper-emotionalism). The Democrats love to tout how 200,000+ people have died and it is all Trump's fault. They ignore, the corresponding deaths in other countries. The Democrats obsess on the Holly Grail of Science as if it is "settled" yet they ignore that "science" recommendations have changed numerous times and continue to evolve. Democrats ignore that the President (federal level) does not control the Covid-19 policies of the state governors (state level - separation of powers). I don't expect the COVID-19 "questions" to be asked in a fair neutral manner. --> "Mr. President please explain your failures ....."​

​

2. American families

???​

​

3. Race

Once again, Trump will (more than likely) be asked to condemn claimed White Supremacy. I hope that Trump will simply respond that this question has been asked and answered XXX times and will not respond any further. Biden will not be asked to condemn the racism and violence of Black Lives Matter. Trump should raise that issue.​

​

4. Climate Change

Another difficult theme for conservatives.​

5. National Security and Leadership

Trump should be able to pick-up some points here. Trump took decisive leadership here. The Democrats dismissed Trumps actions with the usual hyperbolic false accusations of: being dictatorial, racist, xenophobic, and misogyny. Biden has also danced around condemning the violence of antifa and Black Lives Matter and the "war" on police.​

Missing from the agenda, themes that favor Trump; foreign policy and the economy. Trump should tout his foreign policy success, such as the recent Israeli diplomatic normalization with its Arabic neighbors. On the economy, Trump had a booming economy before Covid-19, and it appears to be returning.

Biden falsely claims that he will bring the country together and that he, as President, would represent all Americans. Today, we have (once again) been brutally reminded that the Democrats have no interest in unity and continue to promote distasteful divisiveness. "The committee voted 12-0, with none of the 10 Democratic senators on the committee showing up for the vote."

Hunter Biden: This needs to be introduced as a topic. I doubt the moderator will bring it up. Even if brought up, the moderator could possibly designate it as "out-of-bounds". This morning, Maria Bartiromo asked Henry Cuellar, about what Joe Biden would say. Cuellar response (in short): the electorate is not interested. Expect continues suppression of this theme.

 

[Isaac]

Part of the difficulty with the Hunter Biden scandal is that, well, as we know, minor differences in wording or soundbites often "makes or breaks" an issue. Trump needs to come up with a way to phrase it as something other than HUNTER Biden.

The reality is the American people don't care much if Joe's son is a criminal, since having a son who is a criminal isn't a bar to being President.

What reasonable/fair-minded people WOULD care about is if Joe himself was shown to be engaged in serious, major corruption. Which of course, the emails now DO show.

The problem is that Joe's camp has been successful in painting this story as "the scandal about Hunter". (and the resulting, "Poor me, they're bad mouthing one of my sons again"). Unfortunately, that has worked to an extent. Most people haven't cared much. He very much hopes he can continue to do that, rather than focusing on what matters--that Joe was clearly using Hunter as a laundering layer to the whole process, a layer that all skilled corrupt people have.

Covid, I'm just SO sick of hearing about it. There's nothing we can do about it right now other than keep pushing for the pharmaceutical and medical science folks to get us 1) Cheap widespread effective treatments, and 2) a Vaccine, ASAP. That right there constitutes about 75% of what any leader needs to be doing right now since there isn't much else TO do. And, that is exactly what Trump has been focused on since the time that it was finally obvious it was a big deal, which wasn't for a while near the beginning.
We can all thank God we had a Republican in charge at the time when red tape / regulations needed to be relaxed perhaps more than any other time in our lives! Imagine how much longer the vaccine would take under a typical Democrat..

As far as "relief" legislation, well they've already passed multiple packages. You can only print so much IOU-money to fight a VIRUS....
And there, again!, the smartest way anyone can counteract that is to be absolutely brilliant on the economy, so we bounce back as fast as possible from the biggest, most unexpected shattering of our economy that we never imagined.
Oh wait--that's ALSO what Trump has successfully done..

And then you have to also ask yourself, Isn't the "lockdowns" the thing that trashed our economy? Some amount of it was necessary, yes.
How much MORE and LONGER lockdowns would we have had under a Democrat president? So, wouldn't the economy have been twice as bad?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Joe made it pretty clear last night that had he been president, he would have locked down the entire country even though it would have required marshal law to do so. He didn't mention marshal law though because either he doesn't know that the rights of the Federal Government are limited or he thinks that you don't know that the President can't just wave his hand and make the states comply. If the President could just wave his hand and make things happen, think about what Trump could have actually fixed Trump can't even get the people who work for him to follow orders, the deep state is so in control.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Kamala is running around cleaning up Joe's remarks on the new green deal and fracking.

 

[Steve R.]

Joe made it pretty clear last night that had he been president, he would have locked down the entire country even though it would have required marshal law to do so. He didn't mention marshal law though because either he doesn't know that the rights of the Federal Government are limited or he thinks that you don't know that the President can't just wave his hand and make the states comply. If the President could just wave his hand and make things happen, think about what Trump could have actually fixed Trump can't even get the people who work for him to follow orders, the deep state is so in control.

Biden played a deceptive "slight of hand" concerning shutting down the economy. He "refuted" his earlier (often repeated) assertions concerning shutting down the economy based on science by now revising it to say that he would not shutdown the economy. What he would do is impose "strict measures". Effectively, these "strict measures" would be the same as shutting down the economy.

I'm not sure where this occurred in the debate. While Trump was responding, the moderator (Kristen Welker) interrupted by blurting out "but you are the President!!!". It would have been great had Trump immediately responded with "I am not a dictator" and then went on to explain that there is a separation of power between the federal and state level. That many questions concerning the response of government on many issues really need to be directed to the (Democratic) governors, not the President.

Overall, concerning Covid-19, Trump did pretty well responding this time. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate that Trump did not break the false Democratic allegations that he was slow to act and had no plan. Trump correctly pointed out that the Democrats were condemning his early actions. Trump also noted that the Democrats, now -after the fact-, are proposing a supposed plan which appears to be nothing more than a plagiarized version of what Trump has been implementing. So it was quite painful to hear, after the debate was over, a focus group respondent regurgitate the Democratic mantra that Trump has done nothing and that Trump had not plan of action! Was that person even paying attention??????

 

[Steve R.]

Sometimes it takes a bit of time before partisan points surface that demonstrate that the debates are blatantly anti-Trump. On Tucker Carlson tonight Tucker played a clip where the moderator (Kristen Welker) pointed out that Trump had made a derogatory comment concerning Dr. Fauci and asked him to explain. Fair enough.

• It turns out that both Biden and Harris also made derogatory remarks concerning Dr. Fauci. These illustrative clips were shown on Tucker's show. How come the moderator never pointed out to Biden his derogatory remarks and asked him to explain?
• The video clips Tucker showed, since they spanned several months, had Dr. Fauci making inconsistent statements: like wear a mask, don't wear a mask. I don't have a problem with those types of inconsistent statements since how we approach the virus changes over time as we learn more. What I do have a problem with, is that Biden insincerously claims to strictly follow "the science" and used that "hammer" to vilify Trump, by saying that Trump has not been following "the science" and is therefore unfit to be re-elected. Seems that it is Biden, by misusing facts is the one unfit to be elected.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Who built the cages Joe? Hands down best comment of the night.
Why didn't you do it 4 years ago Joe? Another good one.

 

[Jon]

I am astonished at what a braisen liar Biden is. He says he never said anything about getting rid of fracking, yet I've just seen video after video about it! There was a similar thing about medicare, when he was arguing with Bernie. "I never said that!" Then I hear an audio where he repeatedly said what he claims he didn't say.

Does this sort of thing just not matter to voters? Don't they care that the person they want to elect lies repeatedly and intentionally?

I know members here claim that Trump lies repeatedly, but I have only seen examples like where he says Windmills might do this or that. But that is more kidding around, when slating Hillary. Yet the Left want to take Trumps casual comments as evidence of lies. It is just streching things too far. Meanwhile, Biden blatantly contradicts himself on substantiative issues and denies he wants to get rid of fracking and also his medicare comments. And lets not even get into the Hunter Biden stuff!

Adam Schiff is another example. He has sold his ethics and morals to the devil.

 

[Steve R.]

Does this sort of thing just not matter to voters? Don't they care that the person they want to elect lies repeatedly and intentionally?

Voters, are unfortunately gullible. Especially for the "shiny objects" Democrats dangle in front of them.

Memories are selective. While I have been well aware of Biden's lying concerning fracking, I had forgotten that Biden/Harris had made disparaging comments concerning Dr. Fauci. So when the moderator asked Trump to "defend" his negative comments concerning Dr. Fauci was "OK". But then, the next day, Tucker Carlson had a series of video clips where Biden/Harris made negative comments concerning Dr. Fauci, but she (the moderator) did NOT bring up those comments to ask Biden to "defend" them. Which leads me to the conclusion that he moderators have not been neutral, they have favored Biden. Thegullible public is not being told the truth.

Finally, the media is not doing its job. Virtually everyday, one sees articles in major publications that find ways to denigrate Trump. Just recently, in response to the release of Hunter Biden emails, NPR stated that there was nothing to see here so they won't be reporting on it. (Not to also mention story suppression by Twitter and FaceBook) When a story breaks, reporters are supposed to investigate, not dismiss it. Again, the gullible public has imperfect information upon which to make a voting decision.

 

[Jon]

What I don't understand is why all the moderators are Democrats. Why are there not half and half? The best solution to my mind is to have two moderators, each of which can choose 5 questions. Then, the Democrat moderator grills Trump on topics of her choosing, while the Republican moderator grills Biden.

 

[Pat Hartman]

That would be fair Jon, can't have that.

The behavior of the left and the press is so egregious that Trump is going to get some sympathy votes from people who just can't stand the complete and utter unfairness.

 

[Isaac]

I agree with several recent posts. The thing about Trump's "lying" is that oh, I don't know, maybe 95% of the time it's something totally subjective, OR hyperbole.
Like, "We got such-and-such auto plant to open back up in Michigan". Then CNN will point out that Obama started it and Trump finished it.
or
"We have the best economy in 40 years". Then everyone proceeds to dig out 50 reasons why maybe that's not true, and other people dig out 50 more reasons why it "is" true. Obviously subjective.
Or something ridiculous, like Trump will say: "Last week I condemned white supremacy". CNN will respond: "No, you denounced it".
Or, "No, because you didn't condemn the Proud Boys, which we believe are white supremacists". (Never mind that many people now see BLM as domestic terrorists, as their behavior does indeed check off quite a few of the boxes).

Joe's lies may be 'fewer' (of course, only as the ridiculous way of tallying them goes!), but they are more SERIOUS and CLEAR, like:

- I never wanted to ban fracking. (Queue 3 videos where he does want to ban fracking).
- I never talked to Hunter about any of his overseas dealing or knew his partners. (Queue a photo of Joe, Hunter + Hunter's business partners playing golf)
- I don't support the Green New Deal. (Queue his website which proclaims loud and clear that the GND is wonderful and necessary).
- I have no involvement in Hunter's corrupt schemes. (Queue a laptop of 10,000 emails saying otherwise, emails corroborated by the people cc'ed on them, a laptop that the FBI has had for over a year and been fully forensically examined, and has not charged any human being anywhere with fraud or fabrication, and about which Ratcliff says there is zero evidence of Russian disinformation, and which are confirmed by a real live human being - Hunter's former partner).

Trump engages in a lot of subjectivity & hyperbole, and some exaggeration. Joe denies multiple things that he already knows are on tape.
Who's dumber?

 

[Pat Hartman]

If you have a brain, you don't expect your president to be 100% truthful. But you also don't expect him to lie to you about things that are important and will make you make bad decisions.

So, when a reporter asks what Trump is going to do to get North Korea to finally give up their nuclear program, Trump should either tell the truth - "Do you really think that the North Koreans don't listen to our TV? Do you think that if I tell you the truth, they won't take advantage? Do you really still want me to tell you even though it would ruin my plan (you idiot)?" or tell you a lie like Clinton did when asked what he talked to Obama's AG about during their tryst on her private plane, "we just talked about our grandchildren".

However, when it comes to things that matter to me, I expect my President and my elected officials to tell me the truth unlike Obama, "If you like your plan, you can keep it, If you like your doctor, you can keep him, it will be $2500 cheaper for the average American family." That lie was a total **** and bull story. Obama knew it when he said it because the people who wrote the law told him how bad it would be for the average person and we have confirmation of that on tape. In a fair world, Obama's nose would have knocked over the camera man the lie was so egregious and damaging to the public. Then there was the lie about Fannie and Freddie being on sound footing just before they crashed and were delisted from the NYSE as told by Barney Frank of Dodd-Frank fame. And the now famous, "I never talked about my son's jobs with him."

Biden's lies are also more likely to be meaningful to people and their lives. I will not ban fracking he says to one crowd as he says the exact opposite to a different crowd. Does he really think the people are so stupid that they won't notice? It's one thing to change your mind on a policy. Just say you changed your mind and explain what prompted the switch. Being able to adjust to new facts is a good quality, not a bad one. I know Biden relies heavily on the media to cover for him but really!! He can't hold two opposite positions at the same time. I would prefer that Biden didn't lie about his background and education and grades but they don't impact me personally. They just make me think less of him.

Trump's "lies" are mostly exaggerations. Who really cares except him how big the crowd on the mall was for his inauguration? Or they're about hopefulness such as his willingness to believe what he is being told about a vaccine for the Wuhan Virus being available in the very near future. He doesn't make this stuff up. In this case, he is telling us what he is hearing from the companies developing the vaccines. He is passing along what he thinks is hopeful news.
.