SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[The Romulan Republic]

Joe Biden calls Angela Merkel Margaret Thatcher
https://twitter.com/BetaODork/status/11 ... 5443403778

How the hell is he still running, dude's falling apart on national stage.

Because the DNC can't shake the "successful politician that wins election=(usually) old white Christian male" mindset. That, and he's Obama's VP, OBVIOUSLY he must succeed Obama.

Also, the running disaster that was Clinton's campaign has probably spooked the DNC into running a safe mode candidate.

The thing is, in a lot of ways, Biden is basically Hillary with a dick- he's an out of touch "establishment" Centrist with a lot of baggage who seems to be running a very low-energy campaign focussed more on dinners with big donors and getting support from party insiders than with engaging with voters.

That said, it should be noted that Biden does not enjoy the solid lock on DNC support or the starting "presumptive nominee" status that Clinton had. Nor, on the plus side for Biden, has he had a thirty year Republican hate campaign run against him to undermine his electabillity.

Anyhoo, new poll shows several leading Democrats including Bernie, Biden, and Warren winning Texas- the striking thing is that Bernie does the best there of all of them, with a six-point:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... texas-poll

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I only saw about the middle half of tonight's debate, but it pretty much solidified my dislike of Biden, now to the point of outright fear about his ability to beat Trump, and really raised my respect for O'Rourke. I am now definitely rooting for a Warren/O'Rourke ticket. Didn't much change my view of anyone else.

I wish people wouldn't focus so much on Castro going after Biden's mental state- there's much more significant shit here, and Castro nailed Biden very well later on his constantly cloaking himself in Obama's legacy, but only when its convenient.

[MKSheppard]

Well, I only saw about the middle half of tonight's debate, but it pretty much solidified my dislike of Biden, now to the point of outright fear about his ability to beat Trump, and really raised my respect for O'Rourke. I am now definitely rooting for a Warren/O'Rourke ticket. Didn't much change my view of anyone else.

Bob the Fake Mexican at least put to bed the old canard "nobody's coming for your guns".

[FaxModem1]

Here's the full third Democratic Primary debate:



I think we can really put the Democratic candidates into three categories:

1. Hey everyone, there's a problem, and I'm not going to talk about it.
2. Hey everyone, there's a problem, and this is the solution.
3. Hey everyone, there's a problem, and this is the unrelated solution.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I only saw about the middle half of tonight's debate, but it pretty much solidified my dislike of Biden, now to the point of outright fear about his ability to beat Trump, and really raised my respect for O'Rourke. I am now definitely rooting for a Warren/O'Rourke ticket. Didn't much change my view of anyone else.

Bob the Fake Mexican at least put to bed the old canard "nobody's coming for your guns".

First of all, considering the fact that since the debate, a far Right Christian pastor has gone on-air saying that a vision from God told him a second civil war was coming, that he thought it would be started by a confiscation of guns, and that Christians need to form militias to defend their communities, and that another far Right individual sent out a threat specifically targeting Beto O'Rourke, comments like this basically pouring gasoline on the fire are in extremely poor taste.

As for O'Rouke, his position on confiscating assault weapons is probably at least partly a product of the fact that a bunch of people in his home city were just murdered by a white supremacist terrorist for the crime of living while Latino. He's trying to protect his community, just like gun rights advocates claim they're doing. But there is no real, serious push for a general ban on civilian firearm ownership in the US, or for mass confiscation. The specter of Democrats coming to take your guns as part of a despotic takeover is a bogeyman manufactured by Right-wing propaganda (the same people who incite and defend the white supremacist terrorists and militias those guns are actually arming).

Because it is from the far Right, not the Left, that the main threat of despotism in America is coming, and those guns are not being used to protect our freedoms, but to murder minorities and other innocents. It isn't liberals defending the "right" of the President to commit obstruction of justice with impunity. It isn't liberals calling the press the enemy of the people. It isn't the Democratic candidates inciting violence against their opponents at rallies, or floating the idea that they should get more than two terms. So any talk about needing guns to protect against despotism from the Right rings very, very hollow.

And yet despite that, nobody in the Democratic Party actually wants to violate the 2nd. Amendment, even if we interpret it differently, or to abolish it (which would be entirely legal if done through a Constitutional Amendment). Nobody serious, anyway. What the vast majority of Americans-on both Left and Right-want is reasonable regulations of guns, just like we have of any other potentially dangerous tool or industry. People might argue over some of the details, but despite the high level of political polarization, the country is broadly in accord on this issue. And because the vast majority of Americans want it, sooner or later they WILL get it. And it will be Constitutional, because the Second Amendment refers to the right to bear arms specifically in the context of a "well-regulated militia", not "anything goes", and there is extensive legal precedent supporting regulation of firearms beyond what we are currently doing nationally. There is going to be a gun control bill, and it is going to pass Congress, and right now, it will be a fairly moderate bill, with things like stronger background checks that have strong bipartisan support from the public if not from Congress. But if gun advocates continue to reject any regulation whatsoever, if they continue to treat even the suggestion of meaningful regulation as an existential threat justifying threats of violence and civil war, and if the bodies of children continue to pile up as more and more Americans experience a mass shooting or love someone who has, then that desire for moderation will fade. Its already fading. Not because gun control activists hate your freedoms, but because they are sick of seeing their children die, and getting no response but "thoughts and prayers".

If gun lobbyists are determined, either by action or inaction, to spill the blood of your countrymen to block reform that the vast majority of the nation supports to prevent something that is killing your fellow Americans by the thousands every year, and refuse any compromise whatsoever... ask the Confederacy how that ended for them. The North wasn't planning to abolish slavery. Lincoln wasn't planning to abolish slavery. Only to limit its spread and its power in free states. But because the South viewed any compromise on slavery as an attack on their way of life, they started a civil war to subvert the will of the majority in order to defend their "right" to keep slaves. The end result was that after a great deal of needless misery and death, the victorious Union abolished slavery utterly from American soil (excepting as a punishment for a crime, anyway).

Right now, there is no widespread support for banning firearms. But if gun advocates keep blocking any attempt at reform, sooner or later the 80 or 90% of the country that doesn't agree with you that unlimited gun rights are more important than childrens' lives will push it through anyway, and the longer it takes and the more it costs, the less willing they'll be to compromise when they do. There's no serious push for a Constitutional Amendment to abolish the Second Amendment now, but if this shit goes on for another decade or two, you better believe that there will be.

My honest, sincere advice to gun advocates, as someone who does not believe that the Second Amendment should be abolished, is this: make a fair deal now, because your window of opportunity for doing so is rapidly closing.

[TimothyC]

The specter of Democrats coming to take your guns as part of a despotic takeover is a bogeyman manufactured by Right-wing propaganda (the same people who incite and defend the white supremacist terrorists and militias those guns are actually arming).

Former Rep. O'Rourke literally said that he wants to come and take semi-automatic weapons.

My honest, sincere advice to gun advocates, as someone who does not believe that the Second Amendment should be abolished, is this: make a fair deal now, because your window of opportunity for doing so is rapidly closing.

I go back to what I asked in the "Is gun compromise possible" thread from six months ago. What is on the table to give to the pro-RKBA side? 'Cause if all you are offering is "We won't take all of your guns now", that's not compromise. That's a salami sliced surrender.

[The Romulan Republic]

The specter of Democrats coming to take your guns as part of a despotic takeover is a bogeyman manufactured by Right-wing propaganda (the same people who incite and defend the white supremacist terrorists and militias those guns are actually arming).

Former Rep. O'Rourke literally said that he wants to come and take semi-automatic weapons.

Yes, and I addressed that in my last post. He's one fairly minor candidate, likely lashing out in part because his home town just got shot up by a white supremacist, and even still, he is only talking about confiscating a particular type of firearms, not a general ban on private gun ownership. Keep in mind also that any smart negotiator starts out asking for more than they're going to get, as any bill will get watered down on its way through Congress. And that is the very Left-ward fringe of what is politically credible in a Democratic primary, much less on the national stage.

My honest, sincere advice to gun advocates, as someone who does not believe that the Second Amendment should be abolished, is this: make a fair deal now, because your window of opportunity for doing so is rapidly closing.

I go back to what I asked in the "Is gun compromise possible" thread from six months ago. What is on the table to give to the pro-RKBA side? 'Cause if all you are offering is "We won't take all of your guns now", that's not compromise. That's a salami sliced surrender.

That's a slippery slope fallacy, the same one all the fear-mongering about the Democrats coming to take your guns is based on: the idea that any regulation means an inevitable slide to a complete ban, and thence straight to dictatorship (despite all the other "democratic" nations that have strict gun laws). As a logical fallacy, it can't really be argued against, except by pointing out that its a fallacy.

What is there for us to "give" you? You already have a guaranteed right to firearm ownership. You already have a country with massive amounts of privately owned firearms and very little regulation. You already have half of Congress in your lobby's pockets, and a generally friendly Supreme Court and President. You hold all the cards except the support of the majority, and are asking us to give you still more before you will "compromise". I don't think its you that's being asked to surrender under the guise of compromise.

Let me turn the question around: What regulations on guns are you willing to accept? And what sort of concessions would you like to see in return?

[The Romulan Republic]

A Nazi Sedition Party (formerly Republican Party) lawmaker from Texas tweeted a death threat to O'Rourke after the debate. Twitter has taken it down, and the O'Rourke campaign has referred it to the FBI:

https://thedailybeast.com/briscoe-cain- ... dy-for-you

A Republican Texas lawmaker has told Beto O’Rourke “my AR is ready for you” after the Democratic presidential candidate pledged to ban and confiscate AR-15 rifles during Thursday night’s TV debate. Twitter quickly removed Briscoe Cain’s post, saying that it violated the company’s terms and conditions on threats of violence. O’Rourke’s campaign labeled the tweet a “death threat” and told The Guardian it had been reported to the FBI. Posting a screenshot of the tweet, O’Rourke’s campaign said: “This is a death threat, Representative. Clearly, you shouldn’t own an AR-15—and neither should anyone else.” Cain, 34, mocked Twitter users who called his comment a threat of violence, telling one: “You’re an idiot.”

How long will we tolerate a party of terrorists running this country?

[The Romulan Republic]

Its ridiculous. Guns enjoy a level of protection that no other product in America does, and yet the gun advocates are acting like they're the victims of this huge persecution and are about to be crushed underfoot, demanding that we make more concessions to them or even threatening murder and civil war.

It is frighteningly like the run-up to the Civil War, where the South had a Constitutionally-protected property "right" (in that case, slaves) which was actively harmful to the country, but on which they refused to compromise to any degree and considered any compromise to be a despotic attack on their basic rights which could only be met with violence.

That did not end well for anyone, least of all the South.

[TimothyC]

As for O'Rouke, his position on confiscating assault weapons is probably at least partly a product of the fact that a bunch of people in his home city were just murdered by a white supremacist terrorist for the crime of living while Latino.

This isn't the first time he's held this position however. So no, this isn't a response to the El Paso shooting. It actually makes less repugnant to me, but doesn't change the nature of his position.

Let me turn the question around: What regulations on guns are you willing to accept? And what sort of concessions would you like to see in return?

You're getting better at this. What am I willing to accept? A form of universal background check that can't be used as a backdoor to registration lists:

Swiss-style universal background checks:
Yup, the big enchilada. Gun rights people often worry that UBCs will turn into the government tracking (and later confiscating) everybody’s guns, so this system staves off those fears while still making absolutely sure that every gun buyer is checked. It’s modeled closely on Switzerland’s system. Here’s how it works:

1. Any gun buyer can log into the NICS background check system and enter their personal information. The system gives them an ID number that expires in 1 week. (For reference here is ATF Form 4473, the background check form.)
2. The buyer can then buy firearms from any legal seller. They have to meet face-to-face (or ship the gun to a licensed dealer for the buyer to do the check with), and the buyer shows the ID number. The seller enters that number and the buyer’s identification info into the NICS system, and the system returns just one word: “approved” or “denied”. If the check is approved, they can proceed with the sale.
3. The system doesn’t collect any information at all on the items being sold/transferred (type, make, model, quantity, etc.) — its only job is to run a comprehensive check on whether the buyer is legally allowed to purchase firearms. After one week, when the ID number expires, the system doesn’t retain any records. (That information is already archived for 20 years on the Form 4473 for all gun shop sales, and that would stay the same.) The system collects no information about the seller, as it’s designed to work perfectly without knowing the seller’s identity.
4. Transfers between family members are exempt. Non-commercial firearm loans of up to 14 days are also exempt — this is just to accommodate a situation where, say, two people are on a backcountry hunting trip and one needs to lend the other a gun during the trip. They need some way to do that without committing a felony.

I'm also accepting improvements to red flag laws, and moving bump stocks to the Machine Gun registry.

As for what I'd like for that, Similar to what got posted on the site I linked above, I'd want a reasonable national concealed carry reciprocity that protects travelers followed by suppressors moved back down to Class I firearms from their current Class II designation. I also want to see SBRs (short barrel rifles) un-banned and a re-opening of the Machine Gun Registry (production new transferable machine guns have been banned for 28 years).

[Lonestar]

That's a slippery slope fallacy, the same one all the fear-mongering about the Democrats coming to take your guns is based on: the idea that any regulation means an inevitable slide to a complete ban

Let me ask you something: Let's say that tomorrow all semiautomatic rifles were banned and everyone successfully turned them let's say. Waved a magic wand and it happened.

When the next shooting happens with a handgun, is there any doubt in your mind that calls for a handgun ban will follow?

How about if someone does a Washington Navy Yard and uses a pump action shotgun? Some media outlets literally called it a "law enforcement style shotgun".

Or someone uses a bolt action to re-enact the Beltway sniper? How often is a traditional hunting rifle called a "sniper rifle" in the media because it has a scope attached?

Come on, I want you to write out "oh no there totally won't be a shifting of goalposts".

What is there for us to "give" you? You already have a guaranteed right to firearm ownership. You already have a country with massive amounts of privately owned firearms and very little regulation. You already have half of Congress in your lobby's pockets, and a generally friendly Supreme Court and President. You hold all the cards except the support of the majority, and are asking us to give you still more before you will "compromise". I don't think its you that's being asked to surrender under the guise of compromise.

You know extraordinarily little if you seriously thing there's nothing to be given. Couldn't think of even one thing, huh?

National concealed carry?

Removal of silencers from the NFA?

repeal of the Hughes Amendment?

tying the age of antiques to 100 year after manufacture rather than 1898?

Let me turn the question around: What regulations on guns are you willing to accept? And what sort of concessions would you like to see in return?

UBC(if done in a way to avoid a registry)

adding violent misdemeanors to prohibited persons lists.


I would like to see national concealed carry and removal of silencers from the NFA

[houser2112]

Its ridiculous. Guns enjoy a level of protection that no other product in America does, and yet the gun advocates are acting like they're the victims of this huge persecution and are about to be crushed underfoot, demanding that we make more concessions to them or even threatening murder and civil war.

It reminds me of the Christians crying "persecution!" every time someone puts forth the crazy idea that Christians shouldn't be put on a pedestal. I wonder if there's any overlap between those groups? /s

It is frighteningly like the run-up to the Civil War, where the South had a Constitutionally-protected property "right" (in that case, slaves) which was actively harmful to the country, but on which they refused to compromise to any degree and considered any compromise to be a despotic attack on their basic rights which could only be met with violence.

This part of my comment may be moot depending on what you meant by the scare quotes, but I don't think I'd go so far as to say that slavery was a Constitutionally-protected right, at least not to the extent that firearms were. The only two mentions I know of are:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

(Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.)

It acknowledges they exist, and says some things about how the government should see them, but I don't think it rises to the level of affirmative right, like firearms with the 2nd Amendment.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's a slippery slope fallacy, the same one all the fear-mongering about the Democrats coming to take your guns is based on: the idea that any regulation means an inevitable slide to a complete ban

Let me ask you something: Let's say that tomorrow all semiautomatic rifles were banned and everyone successfully turned them let's say. Waved a magic wand and it happened.

When the next shooting happens with a handgun, is there any doubt in your mind that calls for a handgun ban will follow?

How about if someone does a Washington Navy Yard and uses a pump action shotgun? Some media outlets literally called it a "law enforcement style shotgun".

Or someone uses a bolt action to re-enact the Beltway sniper? How often is a traditional hunting rifle called a "sniper rifle" in the media because it has a scope attached?

Come on, I want you to write out "oh no there totally won't be a shifting of goalposts".

The thing is, this is still a slippery slope fallacy, wherein the assumption seems to be that the current demands for regulation will inevitably just be stepping stones to a total ban. That isn't really the case, any more than banning heroin is a stepping stone to banning alcohol.

The underlying assumption here seems to be that people who supports banning certain types of guns are dealing in bad faith, and secretly conspire to ban all private firearm ownership. That's not fair, and its frankly ridiculous coming from a group that on the national stage enjoys vastly disproportionate political power right now.

Are there people who will "shift the goalposts", as you put it? Yeah, probably. But they'll be a decided minority. A total ban doesn't have to follow from what is being asked for now.. Even a lot of Democrats genuinely do not want a full ban on firearms. Try selling that in bluest-of-the-blue Vermont, for example, and see how far you get. On the other hand, if the pro-gun side keeps digging their heels in, and the body count keeps piling up, the more hostile the national mood is going to become toward firearm ownership. I believe that a fair compromise is possible right now, but the window for one is likely rapidly closing.

You know extraordinarily little if you seriously thing there's nothing to be given. Couldn't think of even one thing, huh?

National concealed carry?

I'd prefer open-carry, to be honest (with restrictions for certain areas, like airports and government buildings, and a right for private businesses and institutions to choose to ban guns on their property).

Concealed carry makes it too easy for criminals to carry concealed arms.

Removal of silencers from the NFA?

Again, what purpose do silencers serve except to facilitate crime? You don't need a silencer for home defense, surely?

repeal of the Hughes Amendment?

Need to do more research before I get back to you on that.

tying the age of antiques to 100 year after manufacture rather than 1898?

That sounds reasonable to me, though I'm not sure what the full legal consequences of such a change in definition would be.

UBC(if done in a way to avoid a registry)

adding violent misdemeanors to prohibited persons lists.

How about certain psychiatric conditions, and persons who have not committed violent acts but have made threats?

I would like to see national concealed carry and removal of silencers from the NFA

I don't think you and I are going to see eye to eye on the silencers, though you're welcome to try and make your case.

How would you feel about open-carry instead of concealed carry?

[TimothyC]

The thing is, this is still a slippery slope fallacy, wherein the assumption seems to be that the current demands for regulation will inevitably just be stepping stones to a total ban. That isn't really the case, any more than banning heroin is a stepping stone to banning alcohol.

The underlying assumption here seems to be that people who supports banning certain types of guns are dealing in bad faith, and secretly conspire to ban all private firearm ownership. That's not fair, and its frankly ridiculous coming from a group that on the national stage enjoys vastly disproportionate political power right now.

Are there people who will "shift the goalposts", as you put it? Yeah, probably. But they'll be a decided minority. A total ban doesn't have to follow from what is being asked for now.. Even a lot of Democrats genuinely do not want a full ban on firearms. Try selling that in bluest-of-the-blue Vermont, for example, and see how far you get. On the other hand, if the pro-gun side keeps digging their heels in, and the body count keeps piling up, the more hostile the national mood is going to become toward firearm ownership. I believe that a fair compromise is possible right now, but the window for one is likely rapidly closing.

We had this discussion six months ago, and the only difference is now we've had a major democrat blow a hole in the line "No One Wants To Take Your Guns".

It feels like a ratchet that has only gone one way. I'll refrain from embedding they "I want all of my cake back" image.

You know extraordinarily little if you seriously thing there's nothing to be given. Couldn't think of even one thing, huh?

National concealed carry?

I'd prefer open-carry, to be honest (with restrictions for certain areas, like airports and government buildings, and a right for private businesses and institutions to choose to ban guns on their property).

Concealed carry makes it too easy for criminals to carry concealed arms.

Concealed carry also makes it harder for criminals to identify who is carrying in a particular environment.

Removal of silencers from the NFA?

Again, what purpose do silencers serve except to facilitate crime? You don't need a silencer for home defense, surely?

Here you automatically presume that silencers serve no valid purpose, which is patently false, and fits into the earlier narratives that from the pro-RKBA side that the anti-RKBA side isn't talking in good faith.

I'm going to quote The Path Forward on Guns directly here:

So what do silencers do? Well, apart from an explosion or a rocket launch, a gunshot is quite simply the loudest sound in the human world. It is deafeningly, dangerously loud, around 165 debicels. Decibels are a logarithmic scale, so every 10 dB is 2x as loud. A jackhammer is 115 dB. A jet airplane taking off 25 yards away is 130 dB. The OSHA standard for sound that will instantly damage your hearing is 140 dB. Guns are another 4-6x louder than that OSHA cutoff.

A silencer lowers a gunshot to about 130 dB. Contrary to what you see in movies, that’s still 3x louder than a jackhammer. Extremely loud, but just quiet enough to not instantly damage your hearing. Gunshot detection systems like ShotSpotter still pick up silenced gunshots, because they listen for sound signature in addition to volume. Silencers are the only way to avoid hearing damage in situations where there’s no chance to put on hearing protection — that's why in countries like Norway and New Zealand, silencers are completely unregulated and it’s considered unsafe to hunt without one.

This proposal is much more modest than that: simply change silencers from a Title II firearm to a Title I firearm. Instead of putting them in the same legal category as grenade launchers, put them in the same category as handguns — available to adults who pass a NICS background check, denied to those who don’t.

Furthermore, we've had this discussion before about two years ago. Silencers (or suppressors) reduce the volume by an order of magnitude, but they do not turn a canon blast into a mouse fart.

Furthermore, just so you get this - right now it takes about 7 months to get your tax stamp for a silencer. Not because of some super-duper background check (it only takes about 3-4 months to get a machine gun transferred and the background check for silencers is the same as for handguns), but because of the backlog of applications.

repeal of the Hughes Amendment?

Need to do more research before I get back to you on that.

The Hughes Amendment to the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act banned the production of new, transferable [in this instance, transferable means they can be bought by anyone who can pass the higher level ATF background check, and this must happen prior to the transfer, and details of where machine guns fall can be read here], automatic weapons in the United States. Remember that automatic weapons have had a requirement for a tax stamp and registration since 1934, and only a vanishingly small handful of crimes have been committed by users of lawfully registered automatic weapons (something like two or three in the last 35 years, and one of those was a cop shooting an informant with his police issued weapon).

tying the age of antiques to 100 year after manufacture rather than 1898?

That sounds reasonable to me, though I'm not sure what the full legal consequences of such a change in definition would be.

The ATF has a good rundown on what is an antique firearm here

For the purposes of the National Firearms Act, the term “Antique Firearms” means any firearm not intended or redesigned for using rim fire or conventional center fire ignition with fixed ammunition and manufactured in or before 1898 (including any matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap or similar type of ignition system or replica thereof, whether actually manufactured before or after the year 1898) and also any firearm using fixed ammunition manufactured in or before 1898, for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade.

UBC(if done in a way to avoid a registry)

adding violent misdemeanors to prohibited persons lists.

How about certain psychiatric conditions, and persons who have not committed violent acts but have made threats?

I personally get exceptionally squeamish about removing rights from people without significant due process protections.

I would like to see national concealed carry and removal of silencers from the NFA

I don't think you and I are going to see eye to eye on the silencers, though you're welcome to try and make your case.

How would you feel about open-carry instead of concealed carry?

I would rather allow people who have concealed carry permits to be able to transit states like New York and New Jersey without worrying that they are going to be sent to jail like Shaneen Allen, a black single mother of two who spent over a month in jail because she had a legal Pennsylvania concealed carry permit in New Jersey. Now, Miss Allen was eventually pardoned by Gov. Christie, but are you going to sit there and say she should have been in jail in the first place?

[The Romulan Republic]

Some new polling shows Warren and Biden pulling far ahead of everyone else:

https://cnbc.com/2019/09/17/biden-warre ... -poll.html

POINTS
In a new NBC/WSJ poll, Joe Biden draws 31% compared to 25% for Elizabeth Warren. At 14%, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders trails Warren by a double-digit margin while 15 other candidates receive support of 7% or less.
Biden builds his edge on dominance among three chunks of Democratic primary voters. He commands 49% among African-Americans, 46% among senior citizens, and 42% among moderate and conservative Democrats.
But after months of steady progress, Warren boasts formidable strengths of her own. She leads Biden by roughly two-to-one among liberals and Democrats under 35.

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, holding distinctly different advantages, have separated themselves from the crowded Democratic presidential field, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.

In the survey, conducted after the third in the Democratic Party’s series of debate, the former vice president draws 31% compared to 25% for the Massachusetts senator. At 14%, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders trails Warren by a double-digit margin while 15 other candidates receive support of 7% or less.

Biden builds his edge on dominance among three chunks of Democratic primary voters. He commands 49% among African-Americans, 46% among senior citizens, and 42% among moderate and conservative Democrats.

But after months of steady progress, Warren boasts formidable strengths of her own. She leads Biden by roughly two-to-one among liberals and Democrats under 35, breaks even among whites, and holds a double-digit edge among those seeking large-scale change in the post-Trump era. That last group represents a majority of the Democratic electorate.

Moreover, Warren now holds a clear edge in enthusiasm. Fully 70% of Democratic primary voters describe themselves as enthusiastic or comfortable about her candidacy, more than for either Biden or Sanders.

As a result, 45% of Democratic primary voters call Warren either their first or second choice. That compares to 41% for Biden, 29% for Sanders, 19% for South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and 14% for California Sen. Kamala Harris.

“Warren becoming a broadly acceptable choice is a very significant development in a multi-candidate field,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducts the NBC/WSJ poll with his Democratic counterpart Peter Hart. The telephone survey of 506 Democratic primary voters, conducted Sept. 13-16, carries a margin for error of 4.36 percentage points.

Hart cautioned against assuming that the shape of the race has hardened. Past nomination fights, including Barack Obama’s battle against Hillary Clinton in 2008 and John Kerry’s against Howard Dean and others four years earlier, have shown a propensity for late-breaking developments.

“We’re at September,” the veteran pollster said.

What’s clear so far is the most of the jampacked Democratic field has little to show for the first nine months of 2019. Aside from Biden and Warren, only Sanders has consistently held a substantial, devoted following.

“The race isn’t getting broader,” McInturff observed.

The Sanders constituency remains concentrated among Democrats under age 35. He draws 33% of their votes, compared to 25% for Warren.

The self-styled Democratic socialist also receives 19% among liberal primary voters, the same share Biden receives, while Warren commands 36%. Now competitive across the board, she stands in first or second place among all subgroups.

After her strong debate early this year, Harris has gone backward. After receiving 13% in July, she now draws 5%; the share of Democratic primary voters enthusiastic or comfortable with her candidacy has ticked down to 48% from 52% in March.

Buttigieg, the leading fundraiser among candidates in the second quarter of 2019, remains at 7% support. Matching Harris, 49% of primary voters say they’re enthusiastic or comfortable about his candidacy.

Of the rest, maverick entrepreneur Andrew Yang has ticked up to 4%. That outpaces Sens. Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar with 2%.

Seven others – former Reps. Beto O’Rourke and John Delaney, current Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, billionaire executive Tom Steyer, Sen. Michael Bennet, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and former Obama Cabinet member Julian Castro – draw just 1%.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and Rep. Tim Ryan don’t even register.

Post-debate polling shows Warren running close behind Biden, and now in a commanding lead over Sanders.

This should, like polling in general, be taken with a grain of salt (I've seen other polling that has Warren only barely ahead of the Bern), but it looks like Warren has emerged as the clear challenger to Biden at this point in the race.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, this isn't good news for Gropin' Joe:

https://businessinsider.com/biden-berni ... ace-2019-9

Over the past several weeks, three candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have distinguished themselves as frontrunners: Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Yet, at the close of the September primary debates, there are still a total of 18 candidates in the race, most of whom have virtually no shot at becoming president. Biden is polling at an average of roughly 30%, Warren at 19%, and Sanders at 18%, according to an aggregation from RealClearPolitics. The next-closest candidate, Kamala Harris, is stuck at 7%.

The hanger-on candidates are basically real-life statistical noise, making it harder to discern who's actually likely to win the primary race by detracting polling points from their opponents in the lead.

So: What if we just got rid of them? How would things shake out between Biden, Bernie, and Warren?

Thanks to the unique way Insider conducts its polls, we can test exactly that. Unlike most polling organizations, Insider/Surveymonkey's poll asks would-be voters which candidates they would be happy with if they were to become president, rather than naming just one candidate. Using that data, we ran a mathematical model that analyzed what it would look like if we eliminated every candidate except for the top three and re-allocated those voters to Biden, Sanders, and Warren.

If we Thanos-snapped Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, O'Rourke, Yang, Klobuchar, Castro, Bennet, Bullock, Delaney, Gabbard, Ryan, Williamson, Steyer, and De Blasio out of existence, here's what the field would look like, according to the polls we've conducted this summer:

For Biden, we'd have a situation where 30% of his fans would like him and him alone, 37.4% percent deciding between him and Sanders or him and Warren, and a third of his supporters fine with all three.
That's compared to a current situation where 16.1% of those satisfied with him are satisfied with him alone, 15% have him as one of two choices, and 18% have him as one of three candidates they're satisfied with.
For Sanders, we'd have 24% of his backers liking him alone, 42% supporting either Warren or Biden, and a third liking all three.
Right now, 15% of his supporters like him alone, 18% of them like him and just one other person, and 19% like him and two other people, with the remaining supporters deciding between four or more. Those numbers are better than Biden's.
For Warren, 15% of her fans would approve of her and her alone, which is three times her current level but still half of Biden's lockdown rate. 51% of them would be satisfied with her and one other person, and a third would approve of all three.
As of now, only 5% like her and her alone, 12% like her and one other person, and 19% like her and two others.
It's also important to note that some things don't change. As of now, overall, Warren is known and satisfactory for 45% of Democrats, about 46% of respondents know of Sanders and would be satisfied with him, and 47% would be fine with Biden. Those numbers are the same whether you've got three contenders or 19.

In that sense, the three of them are in a near-tie. But the differences from what the race looks like now compared to what it would be like if it were just the three of them are telling.

Warren and Sanders would catch up to Biden
Biden is the clear beneficiary from such a large group. While he stands to gain some voters from other people dropping out, our polling shows that his supporters are remarkably loyal. Compared to other candidates, few voters would be satisfied by having anyone other than him as the nominee. His numbers roughly double, but in our Thanos'd universe the increase isn't enormous.

Sanders and Warren, though, both surge. Most of the remaining voters would be happy with either of them as the Democratic nominee. The two of them seem to have the biggest opportunity to pull supporters in and grow their base.

The sharp increase in Warren's numbers, in particular, is revealing.

One reason she's perceived to be the beneficiary of a lot of dropouts is because a lot of voters like Warren and someone else. The thinking goes, that makes her the main beneficiary of a lot of other people dropping out of the race.

While this is true, that alone won't put her in front of Biden and Sanders. Each of the top three needs to eliminate at least one of the others if they want a clear shot at winning. The only way to win is to slay a giant.

This whole experiment entirely unfair, of course. While we can be certain that DeBlasio or Delaney won't be president, Harris, Booker, Yang, and Buttigieg are still hanging in there. Even if they're struggling to pull in two digits, it's still early, and history shows that candidates from the back of the pack can make it to the finish line.

And as it stands, 6% of people who said they were Democratic primary voters who are not satisfied with anyone in the field. In our Thanocracy, where we reduce the options to three, that figure triples to 18%. There's still room for the lower-polling candidates to persuade voters.

But if Warren and Sanders want to catch up to Biden, perhaps their strategy shouldn't be to try to take him down in debates. Instead, it may be a better move for either of them to sweep away all the hanger-ons who seem less likely every day to make it to the White House. If they're itching to give Rep. Tim Ryan a flogging, it can only help them.

And if Biden wants to coast to victory, he should be in no hurry to pick off his lesser opponents who don't pose a clear threat to him anyway. Chances are, if they drop out of the race, their supporters would go to another candidate anyway.

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. Total 1,090 respondents collected September 6 to September 7, 2019, a margin of error plus or minus 3.07 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.

In short, Biden has loyal supporters, but once the small fry start dropping out, they're likely to mostly go to Warren or Sanders. As the field narrows, expect Biden's lead to vanish as Warren and Bernie overtake him.

[FaxModem1]

May I just note that fan culture has become so common that "Thanos snapped the other candidates" is a thing in a political news article.

[The Romulan Republic]

May I just note that fan culture has become so common that "Thanos snapped the other candidates" is a thing in a political news article.

Well, I've compared the current administration to Hydra on more than one occassion.

Sadly there's no Captain America in this timeline.

[LaCroix]

Again, what purpose do silencers serve except to facilitate crime? You don't need a silencer for home defense, surely?

That is a Hollywood myth related stupid meme.

A gun (even just a pistol) without silencer is " pop your eardrums" loud. Loud enough that your ears will ring for hours if you fire one in your home. Maybe even cause permanent hearing damage or loss by a single shot.
A silencer takes that down to "Jackhammer tears up the road right next to me" noise. Not a fait "pooot" - a "omygod this is loud, it hurts" kind of "boom".

A very well silenced gun is like 120-130 db. 80db noise from machinery (eg loud vacuum or lawnmower) means it is advisable to wear hearing protection if there is long-term exposure. 90 is twice as loud (heavy traffic - lorrys passing by), 100db again twice of that - that's where chainsaws, car horns, and angle grinder noise are found. No hearing protection will fuck up your hearing in very short time.
110 db is pain threshold. (again twice as loud as a chainsaw)
Silenced gun - 120-130db. 2 to 4 times louder than pain threshold.

A silencer does not facilitate crime, because the gun is still so fucking loud everyone in 5 blocks distance will hear it, and you still should wear hearing protection when using it, but it most likely will not rupture your eardrum when fired inside a room.

So actually, yes - unless you want to have to put on hearing protection when you have to look for a potential burglar (which means you can't hear him, anymore) YOU ABSOLUTELY WANT A SILENCER FOR HOME PROTECTION.

[His Divine Shadow]

I have several suppressors, in Finland the only law is you need to have a gun permit, then you can own any suppressor even if it doesn't fit your gun. This is after they made the law more strict.

I can say how loud they are depends on what you are shooting with, caliber and action on the gun. With a .22lr pistol or rifle and a suppressor you can fire without ear pro, it's almost movie style quiet, with a bolt rifle it is movie style quiet. I can shoot my suppressed ruger mk3 without any problems.

Going up to a .223 rifle (semiautomatic) that I also have a suppressor for, it feels somewhat loud when you shoot it, don't want to go without ear pro anymore, but move 50 meters away and listen to someone else shooting it and it's amazing how little sound it makes.

Also used to have a 9mm suppressor and if you used subsonic loads it was almost quiet enough that you did not need ear pro, but not quite.

Anyway suppressors are great because they protect peoples hearing. The crime angle is overblown made up stuff.

[Elheru Aran]

The purpose of suppressors, for most people anyway, is hunting and ear protection. Note that it is still strenuously recommended that one wears ear protection even with a suppressor on; it simply helps mitigate the sound somewhat. Insofar as hunting goes, suppressors don't affect bullet velocity enough to matter for killing a deer or whatever, but they do cut down on the racket enough that you can be considerate towards other hunters (whose targets might spook from the noise) and residents who may be nearby. People who live in rural areas get used to hearing gunshots at the start of deer season, but it'd be nice if they weren't -quite- so obtrusive at five in the morning...

[Lonestar]

The thing is, this is still a slippery slope fallacy, wherein the assumption seems to be that the current demands for regulation will inevitably just be stepping stones to a total ban. That isn't really the case, any more than banning heroin is a stepping stone to banning alcohol.

Jesus Christ dude, you can't just spout "nuh uh it's a fallacy!" like it's a damn Harry Potter spell, especially when we have actively seen it play out in what could be best described as natural experiments.

The underlying assumption here seems to be that people who supports banning certain types of guns are dealing in bad faith, and secretly conspire to ban all private firearm ownership. That's not fair, and its frankly ridiculous coming from a group that on the national stage enjoys vastly disproportionate political power right now.

Do you really think that the absolute loudest anti-RKBArs in the US aren't also for opposing ownership of other types of firearms? Ignore the soccer moms who think that little jimmy's school is going to get shot up. I'm talking the mirror of the no-limits RKBA people.

Why on earth would I go "huh, they are gonna stop with the rifle(all rifles, not just semiautomatics) that kill fewer people than fists, I can trust that they would stop there when the next shooting uses a handgun(which most shootings do) or some jackass kills 16 people w/a bolt action after climbing a clocktower"?

Are there people who will "shift the goalposts", as you put it? Yeah, probably.

If, tomorrow morning, all semiautomatic rifles were banned in the US and we had a shooting with handguns, followed with copy cats(say, Eliot Rogers style in CA, complete with low cap mags) what would your response be?

"oh well I promise we'd stop so we'd stop"?

or

"Oh shit something needs to be done, America has such shitty gun laws why can't they be like, uh, Finland"?

How about if it was with a manually fed shotgun?

I'd prefer open-carry, to be honest (with restrictions for certain areas, like airports and government buildings, and a right for private businesses and institutions to choose to ban guns on their property).

Concealed carry makes it too easy for criminals to carry concealed arms.

(1)Your argument is that open carry is less disruptive than concealed carry walking around?

(2)Your argument is that criminals, who can't pass the permitting process, will just...not carry conceal?

Again, what purpose do silencers serve except to facilitate crime? You don't need a silencer for home defense, surely?

(1)Guns are loud, even a silencer brings it down to "only" about the noise of a mechanical jackhammer
(2)If you have private land it's less disruptive to your neighbors
(3)If you hunt with dogs, it's less damaging to the doggy ears
(4)Guns are louder indoors, so, yeah, actually it would be helpful for home defense. Tinnitus sucks.

Need to do more research before I get back to you on that.

But not anything else before you comment, eh?

UBC(if done in a way to avoid a registry)

adding violent misdemeanors to prohibited persons lists.

How about certain psychiatric conditions,

we already do

and persons who have not committed violent acts but have made threats?

GVROs? How would you manage it for not being abused?

So if you're in San Francisco, and you have a NRA sticker on your car, according to the CLEO you're a member of a "domestic terrorist organization". How do you manage that?

How would you feel about open-carry instead of concealed carry?

Open carry should be legal and largely is, recall that hunting is basically open carry, as is transport of firearms. I've done it. I'll note that in your scenario I'm not gaining anything in most states, even in most strict carry regime states. So that falls flat on the "compromise" bullshit.

That said, open carry as executed is usually brandishment.

Let's say you and I are neighbors. You're having a party. I show up at your door, knock, and when you open it you see me with a pistol open hosltered. For the sake of argument, let's say we're in a liberal carry regime state(which are most states) and there is no real reason to have been prevented from conceal carry unless you're a prohibited person. I then say "hey can you keep the volume down".

In that scenario, what purpose do you think there is with me open carrying a firearm over? Just for the hell of it?



By the way, be cognizant that you basically poo poo'd "giving" anything, even though you claimed that there was nothing to give. You didn't even entertain "giving anything". This, by the way, really fucking supports the bad-faith negotiation hypothesis, unless you're running with the "I have altered the deal, pray that I do not alter it further" school of jurisprudence.

[The Romulan Republic]

Given that you just posted in another thread to the effect that you believe murder and political violence would be justified to protect your gun "rights", I care not one hair on Trump's wrinkly ballsack what your view is any more. Nor will I debate with someone who is going to lie to justify their position. I listed multiple points that I would be willing to consider conceding- you then claimed I "poo poo'd" any compromise, because, I suspect, to you there is no acceptable middle ground between "no restrictions on firearms whatsoever" and "dictatorship". Ergo, no compromise I or any other Democrat could offer would be meaningful.

I will happily discuss possible compromises on guns with a reasonable person. I will not engage in polite conversation with a liar, nor with a seditionist.

Talk to me about compromise when your starting position isn't "Murdering people is justified if they don't give me what I want."

[The Romulan Republic]

https://latimes.com/politics/story/2019 ... ch-el-paso

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — Beto O’Rourke was angry, standing with his back to the wall.
He compared President Trump to a dictator and the country to Germany in the days before its dark descent into Nazism.

“If we fail to connect the dots, then we will lose America,” the Democratic presidential hopeful told reporters as he stood before the faux adobe of a Mexican grill in this rural outpost in central Iowa. “We will have fascism in the United States, as hard as that is for many people to believe. It is happening right now, every day, during this administration.”

O’Rourke entered the presidential race with an exuberant burst, but he’s fizzled since: His fundraising has been mediocre, debate performances uninspired, poll numbers cringingly low.

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After a pause following the mass shooting in his native El Paso, the former Texas congressman is now attempting to relaunch his campaign with a focus on gun violence, immigrant rights and the dangerous toxicity, he says, that oozes from the White House.

It may be his last stand.

O’Rourke promises to follow an unconventional path, as he did in his near-miss 2018 Senate campaign, away from the usual early-voting states and rutted tracks of his many competitors. “To those places,” he said, “where Donald Trump has been terrorizing and terrifying and demeaning our fellow Americans.”

His road tripping has so far taken him to a gun show in Arkansas, a Mississippi town torn by an immigration raid, a shelter for homeless veterans in Missouri and, in Oklahoma, the scenes of a 1920s massacre of African Americans and the 1995 bombing of a federal building by domestic terrorists.

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“It certainly feels like the right thing to do,” he said, grinning broadly after hosting a recent roundtable discussion on gun control at the Iowa Capitol, “and so I’m doing it with all that I’ve got.”

There is, of course, no shortage of Democrats willing to vilify the president. Other White House hopefuls also support stiffer gun laws and a more humane immigration policy, the tent poles of O’Rourke’s refashioned candidacy.

What sets him apart, in this particular moment, is the sense of bearing personal witness: To the massacre of former constituents targeted at a Walmart because they were Latino; to the notion of sister cities — El Paso and Ciudad Juárez — living in peaceable harmony along the U.S.-Mexico border. “Three million in this little river valley,” he rhapsodized at a stop in Des Moines, “in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.”

Terrible as it was, the tragedy in El Paso has provided O’Rourke a chance for a do-over and some saw in his initial response — raw, anguished, profane — glimmers “of the Beto we knew” from 2018, as several put it. Amanda Allen, who followed his Senate campaign online, was intrigued enough to come see the candidate when he stopped by Des Moines’ Grand View University.

Beto O’Rourke
Beto O'Rourke visits the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.(Chris Landsberger / Oklahoman)
“That’s different from what a lot of folks are doing,” Allen, 33, said of O’Rourke’s trips to Arkansas and Oklahoma, deeply red Republican country. “I think he’s one of the most thoughtful candidates and most self-reflective and clearly he’s been doing some thinking these past few weeks.” (Still, she said it’s too early to commit.)

What also sets O’Rourke apart is his age, a relatively young 46, and kinetic energy.

In person there’s a physicality absent from his desultory performance on the debate stage or TV’s political chat shows. The veins bulge in his neck as he stabs and karate chops the air to make a point, his body bobbing and swaying like a jacked-up marionette.

Even in Iowa, which casts the first votes of the 2020 campaign and is aswarm with candidates, O’Rourke strayed from the usual route. His visit to River Bend made him, by local accounts, the first presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter to go door-to-door in the neighborhood north of downtown Des Moines, which is poorer and blacker than most of the city.

Some candidates treat campaigning as an obligation, as though it were a school assignment they must grudgingly complete. O’Rourke is like the kid who asks for extra homework.

After 10 minutes speaking to the Iowa Labor Council in Altoona, he spent even more time talking to young activists he spotted on the way out of the convention hall, a dozen in fire-engine red T-shirts who came to wave signs calling for a $15 minimum wage and posed for several boisterous group shots with the candidate.

After door-knocking and then dinner at a Des Moines soup kitchen, he addressed a crowd of 50 or so inside a community services office, continued the conversation with passersby on the sidewalk, then dashed over to engage gawkers watching from the entryway of an apartment house across the street.

We're not going to write anyone off or take anyone for granted. That's why we went door to door in Des Moines—listening to and learning from those we want to fight for and serve. Big thanks to the supper club who invited us inside for good food and even better conversations. pic.twitter.com/C4FaoPVTqK— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 21, 2019
O’Rourke’s political celebrity grew from his Senate run, when he raised an astonishing $80 million and turned in the strongest statewide performance of any Texas Democrat in nearly three decades. Inevitably, there were calls to try again in 2020, which O’Rourke spurned in favor of a long-shot run for president.

The calls resurfaced, more beseechingly, after the Aug. 3 killings in El Paso — “Beto, come home,” the Houston Chronicle editorialized, “Texas needs you” — and he once more rejected them, emphatically.

“That would not be good enough for this community,” he said before leaving to resume campaigning. “That would not be good enough for this country.”

Days later, when he addressed Iowa’s labor convention, it seemed a perfect chance to unveil his plan to boost wages and spur union organizing. Instead, he spoke with heated passion of El Paso’s mass shooting, painting Trump as an accomplice of the rage-filled gunman.

The fact the killer was fueled by “fear and hatred and racism,” which O’Rourke traced to the White House, “is important for all of us to know,” the Democrat said to polite silence, “if we are going to not accept it simply as an act of evil, or a force of nature or something we cannot prevent.”

He released his labor agenda the following day, in a written statement issued without fanfare or public discussion, which, O’Rourke conceded, was unusual.

“The temptation for any candidate is to enumerate a dozen or more policy points that you’re going to deliver for that given constituency that is in front of you,” he told reporters. “But what was on my mind and in my heart was what has just happened in El Paso.”

Beto O’Rourke
Beto O'Rourke unveiled his pro-union platform a day after speaking at the Iowa Federation of Labor convention.(Charlie Neibergall / Associated Press)
His time in Iowa lasted only about 48 hours and while aides say O’Rourke plans to return often enough to compete, he insists he won’t camp out in the earliest-voting states, which include New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, the way others candidates have.

The risk is ceding those states — and any shot at the Democratic nomination — by spurning voters accustomed to the lavish attention that comes with their privileged spot on the political calendar.

Chuck Brooke, for one, said he needs to meet a candidate before he’s comfortable giving his support.

“Seeing them on television is fine,” the 74-year-old retiree said over chips and salsa as he awaited O’Rourke’s arrival to discuss immigration with locals at Marshalltown’s La Carreta Mexican Grill. “But you like to be able to sit across from them and have them look you in the eye.”

Customs may be changing, though, as a new generation of Iowans, incited by Trump’s presidency, get politically involved.

“They’re not used to decades of caucus-pampering,” said Sean Bagniewski, 36, the Democratic chairman in Polk County, which takes in Des Moines and surrounding areas. Just a chance, or two, to see a candidate in person may be enough, he suggested, for younger activists who want a candidate to show their wherewithal by campaigning elsewhere around the country.

“If you completely abandon Iowa, they’ll be furious,” Bagniewski said. “But they’ll be furious if you spend too much time in Iowa.”

O’Rourke will have at least a few more months to pursue what amounts to his political science experiment; a coveted spot on the Democratic debate stage in September and October assures him that much.

“I see part of my responsibility in calling attention to this,” O’Rourke said of the line he draws between Trump and bigotry and bloodshed, and he views his travels as a means of shining a spotlight.

Before leaving Marshalltown he made a point of reading aloud the message printed on his luncheon receipt. “Immigrants make America great,” it said. “They also cooked and served your food today.”

Looks like Beto O'Rourke has no fucks left to give about saying the "politically convenient" things.

A cynical person might conclude (as this article seems at times to imply) that he is simply making a last-ditch effort to draw attention to his campaign. But I'd like to believe that he has at least enough humanity to be genuinely affected by things like a white supremacist terrorist shooting up his home town.

Either way, he is doing something that I wish more Democrats would do- saying loudly and clearly that what is happening now isn't business as usual, and that business as usual isn't going to cut it. He isn't realistically going to be the nominee, and I'm not sure I'd want him to be the nominee- but we need someone on the stage saying these things, to keep the rest of them honest.

We need more candidates with spines. Perhaps my biggest fear is that we'll end up with a nominee who, if Trump cheats his way to "victory" or refuses to step down following defeat, will "concede" to the fascist for the sake of bipartisan. What I'm seeing here is a man who maybe won't.

[His Divine Shadow]

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-bi ... s-elected/

Former Vice President Joe Biden assured rich donors at a ritzy New York fundraiser that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he is elected.

Biden told donors at an event at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan on Tuesday evening that he would not “demonize” the rich and promised that “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change,” Bloomberg News reported.