BarryLaverty Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 With 4 more years of Trump? Disaster on every level and in every way. Opinion Trump’s America in 2024 President Trump at the final presidential debate on the campus of Belmont University on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Opinion by Editorial Boatd Oct. 23, 2020 at 2:39 p.m. CDT MANY PEOPLE may find it hard to understand, but just over a week before the election, some voters remain undecided. To them we would say: A vote for a second Trump term is a vote for an America in decline and an American democracy in danger. At best, the demise would be gradual — a descent into diminished prosperity, constricted opportunity for your children and grandchildren, waning influence overseas and continued erosion of democratic norms at home. This is not a matter of conjecture; it is a judgment based on President Trump’s record and promises. What are the sources of U.S. prosperity — of our ability to generate and enjoy more than 15 percent of the global economy with just over 4 percent of the world’s population? They include a predictable rule of law; a professional civil service; a position as global leader that lets us help set the rules and have the U.S. dollar accepted as the only true international currency; and high, if not world-leading, standards of health care and education. Also key has been a broadly shared commitment to fairness and equal opportunity, even if we argue ferociously about how to translate that commitment into policy. We have prospered, while other developed nations have begun to stagnate, by attracting talented, entrepreneurial and ambitious immigrants from all over the world. Our commitment to freedom has allowed immigrants and native-born alike to contribute to the fullest extent of their abilities. Mr. Trump would undermine all of those strengths. He replaces rule of law with presidential whim, picking and choosing corporate favorites and twisting the criminal system to favor his friends. At an accelerating pace, he is politicizing, corrupting and sapping the morale of our government — our foreign service, our health and scientific agencies, our keepers of statistics. Many will hesitate to invest — to build new factories or create new jobs — if law and governmental power become unpredictable, wielded to reward cronies and punish the disfavored. He craves the approval of autocrats who wish our country ill while abandoning and insulting allies; the latter will not stand by and take his abuse for four more years, while the former will exploit his credulity. Already the United States finds itself humiliatingly isolated on issues like relations with Iran. As Mr. Trump fulfills long-held ambitions to undermine alliances with Europe, Japan and South Korea, the United States will be further enfeebled; China, increasingly dominant; the world, ever less stable. He is in court seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, so that no one with a preexisting health condition could be sure of obtaining insurance; tens of millions of Americans could lose access to health care.He pretends to object only to undocumented immigration, but he has cut legal immigration in half. The most talented scientists and computer engineers of the next generation are choosing Canada, Australia, China — anywhere but Donald Trump’s America. That America, in Mr. Trump’s vision, is one in which groups are pitted against each other, not encouraged to cooperate. States and cities with Democratic-leaning populations are enemy territory. He is contemptuous of any movement for equal justice and friendly to white supremacists. He has named 56 men and women to the nation’s highest courts—the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts. Not a single one is Black. In Mr. Trump’s America, science and truth are treated with contempt. With his mangled response, the novel coronavirus has claimed more lives here than in any other country, and the pandemic and its accompanying recession could drag on long into a second Trump term. The contempt for science likewise shapes Mr. Trump’s utter failure to respond to climate change. The Earth is ailing; the damage from four more years of regression could be irreparable. In Mr. Trump’s America, political rivals are traitors who must be prosecuted and jailed. Congressional oversight is an inconvenience that can be ignored and, eventually, suppressed. Journalists seeking to report on his administration are enemies of the people. He welcomes foreign interference to help his campaign, undermines confidence in the election and threatens not to accept its results. If he remains in power, fairly or fraudulently, there is no reason to believe that in a second term Mr. Trump will not act on his authoritarian impulses. His incompetence in government, though real, will be no protection; he has shown himself, in the past year, increasingly adept at evading the checks and balances we thought the Constitution guaranteed. Finally: Mr. Trump has proven himself, in the covid-19 catastrophe, incapable of leading in crisis. What if the next virus is far more deadly — which health experts say is entirely possible? What if the next emergency involves a risk of nuclear war, given Mr. Trump’s abject failure to rein in the nuclear programs of Iran or North Korea? Can anyone trust him to manage such a challenge, atop an administration from which he has hounded almost all knowledgeable and experienced officials? As we’ve written before, we believe former vice president Joe Biden well-suited to be president. You, undecided voter, may be less sure; maybe you disagree with some of the policies he espouses — that’s fine. We would simply ask you to weigh your concerns about the unknowns of a Biden presidency against the certain dangers of a second Trump term. On the one hand, a tax, a minimum wage, an energy policy you might not like; on the other, the demise of U.S. democracy, prosperity and global leadership. It shouldn’t be a hard call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
President Trump at the final presidential debate on the campus of Belmont University on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Opinion by Editorial Boatd Oct. 23, 2020 at 2:39 p.m. CDT MANY PEOPLE may find it hard to understand, but just over a week before the election, some voters remain undecided. To them we would say: A vote for a second Trump term is a vote for an America in decline and an American democracy in danger. At best, the demise would be gradual — a descent into diminished prosperity, constricted opportunity for your children and grandchildren, waning influence overseas and continued erosion of democratic norms at home. This is not a matter of conjecture; it is a judgment based on President Trump’s record and promises. What are the sources of U.S. prosperity — of our ability to generate and enjoy more than 15 percent of the global economy with just over 4 percent of the world’s population? They include a predictable rule of law; a professional civil service; a position as global leader that lets us help set the rules and have the U.S. dollar accepted as the only true international currency; and high, if not world-leading, standards of health care and education. Also key has been a broadly shared commitment to fairness and equal opportunity, even if we argue ferociously about how to translate that commitment into policy. We have prospered, while other developed nations have begun to stagnate, by attracting talented, entrepreneurial and ambitious immigrants from all over the world. Our commitment to freedom has allowed immigrants and native-born alike to contribute to the fullest extent of their abilities. Mr. Trump would undermine all of those strengths. He replaces rule of law with presidential whim, picking and choosing corporate favorites and twisting the criminal system to favor his friends. At an accelerating pace, he is politicizing, corrupting and sapping the morale of our government — our foreign service, our health and scientific agencies, our keepers of statistics. Many will hesitate to invest — to build new factories or create new jobs — if law and governmental power become unpredictable, wielded to reward cronies and punish the disfavored. He craves the approval of autocrats who wish our country ill while abandoning and insulting allies; the latter will not stand by and take his abuse for four more years, while the former will exploit his credulity. Already the United States finds itself humiliatingly isolated on issues like relations with Iran. As Mr. Trump fulfills long-held ambitions to undermine alliances with Europe, Japan and South Korea, the United States will be further enfeebled; China, increasingly dominant; the world, ever less stable. He is in court seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, so that no one with a preexisting health condition could be sure of obtaining insurance; tens of millions of Americans could lose access to health care.He pretends to object only to undocumented immigration, but he has cut legal immigration in half. The most talented scientists and computer engineers of the next generation are choosing Canada, Australia, China — anywhere but Donald Trump’s America. That America, in Mr. Trump’s vision, is one in which groups are pitted against each other, not encouraged to cooperate. States and cities with Democratic-leaning populations are enemy territory. He is contemptuous of any movement for equal justice and friendly to white supremacists. He has named 56 men and women to the nation’s highest courts—the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts. Not a single one is Black. In Mr. Trump’s America, science and truth are treated with contempt. With his mangled response, the novel coronavirus has claimed more lives here than in any other country, and the pandemic and its accompanying recession could drag on long into a second Trump term. The contempt for science likewise shapes Mr. Trump’s utter failure to respond to climate change. The Earth is ailing; the damage from four more years of regression could be irreparable. In Mr. Trump’s America, political rivals are traitors who must be prosecuted and jailed. Congressional oversight is an inconvenience that can be ignored and, eventually, suppressed. Journalists seeking to report on his administration are enemies of the people. He welcomes foreign interference to help his campaign, undermines confidence in the election and threatens not to accept its results. If he remains in power, fairly or fraudulently, there is no reason to believe that in a second term Mr. Trump will not act on his authoritarian impulses. His incompetence in government, though real, will be no protection; he has shown himself, in the past year, increasingly adept at evading the checks and balances we thought the Constitution guaranteed. Finally: Mr. Trump has proven himself, in the covid-19 catastrophe, incapable of leading in crisis. What if the next virus is far more deadly — which health experts say is entirely possible? What if the next emergency involves a risk of nuclear war, given Mr. Trump’s abject failure to rein in the nuclear programs of Iran or North Korea? Can anyone trust him to manage such a challenge, atop an administration from which he has hounded almost all knowledgeable and experienced officials? As we’ve written before, we believe former vice president Joe Biden well-suited to be president. You, undecided voter, may be less sure; maybe you disagree with some of the policies he espouses — that’s fine. We would simply ask you to weigh your concerns about the unknowns of a Biden presidency against the certain dangers of a second Trump term. On the one hand, a tax, a minimum wage, an energy policy you might not like; on the other, the demise of U.S. democracy, prosperity and global leadership. It shouldn’t be a hard call.
Sportsfanatic1 Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 Under Biden © Getty Images While the coronavirus pandemic has impacted our way of life, it is thankfully still true that no one U.S. senator can make law in America. Most legislation, as infrequent as it occurs these days, is still the result of arduous negotiation and steadfast determination. But what if, for the moment, we consider what the world might look like if the vote of one senator prevailed above all others and he or she was able to single-handedly decide the direction of our country (a little “Twilight Zone” music here). Since Joe Biden is the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and has influence on what policies do prevail, it is worth looking at his 35-year history in the U.S. Senate, before he became Barack Obama’s vice president, to see where this country would be if we lived in America according to Joe Biden. First and foremost, America under President Reagan’s leadership may not have broken the back of the Soviet Union as decisively. According to the ratings of the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), a group I chair, then-Sen. Biden (D-Del.) opposed the major backbone of Reagan’s defense buildup. In 1984 and again in 1987 and 1989 — and every year from 1993 through 1998 — Biden voted against funding for almost every single missile defense program. But he did not stop there. He consistently voted to cut defense and specific funding for the Trident missile (1973, his first year in the Senate), Titan missiles (1982), cruise missiles (1983), MX missiles (1984) and … well, you get the picture. So, while presidential campaign rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was correct in saying that Biden voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in 2003, folks may have gotten the impression that Biden was some kind of defense hawk. But you can see that’s far from the truth. Secondly, it wasn’t just the former Soviet Union that Biden apparently did not view as a threat but also the Chinese government. It was just weeks ago (May 2) when Biden said: “China is going to eat our lunch? C’mon, man …You know, they’re not bad folks.” “Not bad folks?” Tell that to the millions of ethnic Muslims and Tibetans who have been ethnically cleansed by China’s government, or the religious faithful who have been silenced and seen religious images in their places of worship replaced with the visage of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Biden’s America also would be one where we still would be beholden to OPEC’s decisions on oil production and would have missed the energy boom of modern U.S. production of fossil fuels. Before the reforms led by President Reagan, government attempts to decide on the allocation of both of these goods had led to gas rationing and long lines at the pump. (The federal government literally mandated when you could fill up your tank.) Biden saw fit to maintain government-mandated scarcity and voted to overrule Reagan’s deregulation orders which, in reality, helped reduce energy prices for Americans. While Biden’s preference for government control was insufficient to stop the advancement of America’s energy independence in the 1980s, the fervor for socialism among today’s congressional Democrats would provide Biden ample opportunity to re-seize control. Thirdly, Biden’s America would not cut taxes or index the tax code for inflation, which has saved millions of middle-class taxpayers from being taxed at the top brackets. According to the ACUF ratings, Biden’s opposition to cutting taxes was monolithic, save for a single outlying vote: He made an exception in 1996 to help Bill Clinton’s reelection as president. Fourthly, America remade in Biden’s image would lack medical savings accounts that allow the self-employed to save funds for medical expenses, tax-free. Although educational savings accounts are okay with Mr. Biden, the same program to help those who have a hard time with health insurance is a “no-no.” The fifth and final demonstration is Biden’s approach to legal abortion. Even his top cheerleader, the New York Times, has said, “his back and forth over abortion (has) become a hallmark of his political career.” A politician who touted his Catholicism, especially early in his career, Biden in 1982 voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to allow individual states to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that prevented the states from making abortion illegal. Biden called it “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a U.S. senator.” It never passed the Senate and, in the following year when the vote came up again, Biden flipped his position and voted against it. I guess it was too “difficult” to defend the right of his constituents in Delaware to define their own abortion regulations. How about federal funding of abortion? For his entire Senate career, he supported what became known as the Hyde Amendment, named for Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), a staunch pro-life advocate. A rider attached to every congressional appropriations bill, it prevented taxpayer funds from being used to perform almost all abortions. This position was tossed over the side when Biden started campaigning for president in 2019, saying, in reversing his long-held support for Hyde, that he made “no apologies for the last position.” The only thing consistent about Joe Biden and the rights of the unborn is that his flip-flops always end with a more extreme pro-abortion position. Now, he even believes that parishioners of the Catholic Church to which he belongs must pick up the abortion tabs for pro-choice America. And to that, the congregation said: “C’mon, man.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
© Getty Images While the coronavirus pandemic has impacted our way of life, it is thankfully still true that no one U.S. senator can make law in America. Most legislation, as infrequent as it occurs these days, is still the result of arduous negotiation and steadfast determination. But what if, for the moment, we consider what the world might look like if the vote of one senator prevailed above all others and he or she was able to single-handedly decide the direction of our country (a little “Twilight Zone” music here). Since Joe Biden is the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and has influence on what policies do prevail, it is worth looking at his 35-year history in the U.S. Senate, before he became Barack Obama’s vice president, to see where this country would be if we lived in America according to Joe Biden. First and foremost, America under President Reagan’s leadership may not have broken the back of the Soviet Union as decisively. According to the ratings of the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), a group I chair, then-Sen. Biden (D-Del.) opposed the major backbone of Reagan’s defense buildup. In 1984 and again in 1987 and 1989 — and every year from 1993 through 1998 — Biden voted against funding for almost every single missile defense program. But he did not stop there. He consistently voted to cut defense and specific funding for the Trident missile (1973, his first year in the Senate), Titan missiles (1982), cruise missiles (1983), MX missiles (1984) and … well, you get the picture. So, while presidential campaign rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was correct in saying that Biden voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in 2003, folks may have gotten the impression that Biden was some kind of defense hawk. But you can see that’s far from the truth. Secondly, it wasn’t just the former Soviet Union that Biden apparently did not view as a threat but also the Chinese government. It was just weeks ago (May 2) when Biden said: “China is going to eat our lunch? C’mon, man …You know, they’re not bad folks.” “Not bad folks?” Tell that to the millions of ethnic Muslims and Tibetans who have been ethnically cleansed by China’s government, or the religious faithful who have been silenced and seen religious images in their places of worship replaced with the visage of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Biden’s America also would be one where we still would be beholden to OPEC’s decisions on oil production and would have missed the energy boom of modern U.S. production of fossil fuels. Before the reforms led by President Reagan, government attempts to decide on the allocation of both of these goods had led to gas rationing and long lines at the pump. (The federal government literally mandated when you could fill up your tank.) Biden saw fit to maintain government-mandated scarcity and voted to overrule Reagan’s deregulation orders which, in reality, helped reduce energy prices for Americans. While Biden’s preference for government control was insufficient to stop the advancement of America’s energy independence in the 1980s, the fervor for socialism among today’s congressional Democrats would provide Biden ample opportunity to re-seize control. Thirdly, Biden’s America would not cut taxes or index the tax code for inflation, which has saved millions of middle-class taxpayers from being taxed at the top brackets. According to the ACUF ratings, Biden’s opposition to cutting taxes was monolithic, save for a single outlying vote: He made an exception in 1996 to help Bill Clinton’s reelection as president. Fourthly, America remade in Biden’s image would lack medical savings accounts that allow the self-employed to save funds for medical expenses, tax-free. Although educational savings accounts are okay with Mr. Biden, the same program to help those who have a hard time with health insurance is a “no-no.” The fifth and final demonstration is Biden’s approach to legal abortion. Even his top cheerleader, the New York Times, has said, “his back and forth over abortion (has) become a hallmark of his political career.” A politician who touted his Catholicism, especially early in his career, Biden in 1982 voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to allow individual states to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that prevented the states from making abortion illegal. Biden called it “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a U.S. senator.” It never passed the Senate and, in the following year when the vote came up again, Biden flipped his position and voted against it. I guess it was too “difficult” to defend the right of his constituents in Delaware to define their own abortion regulations. How about federal funding of abortion? For his entire Senate career, he supported what became known as the Hyde Amendment, named for Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), a staunch pro-life advocate. A rider attached to every congressional appropriations bill, it prevented taxpayer funds from being used to perform almost all abortions. This position was tossed over the side when Biden started campaigning for president in 2019, saying, in reversing his long-held support for Hyde, that he made “no apologies for the last position.” The only thing consistent about Joe Biden and the rights of the unborn is that his flip-flops always end with a more extreme pro-abortion position. Now, he even believes that parishioners of the Catholic Church to which he belongs must pick up the abortion tabs for pro-choice America. And to that, the congregation said: “C’mon, man.”
mellon Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 To The Undecided Voter: What Would America Be Like in 2024? Venezuela.....if Biden wins 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HearEmaGrowlin Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 In 2024, we’ll all be wealthier if Trump wins the election. We’d expect more soldiers to be home than we have had in many years. The Middle East would have more peace than it’s seen in many years and we’d still not be at war with North Korea. Maybe we’d have some sensible folks running California, Michigan, Minnesota and New York by then too. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trashyhound Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 Why didn't Joe get that done in his previous 8 years? I personally have made more money, paid less taxes, and my insurance cost went down in the last 4 years. The prior 8 years the exact opposite was true. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TTman7 Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 By 2024 under Joe & the Ho? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osup116 Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 In Real News - Sudan signs peace accord with Israel Thanking President Trump for his leadership. Not bad for someone who does not support his allies. He is going to have so many Noble Peace awards his neck might break from the weight 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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