I wouldn’t say Trump won the debate, or that it strengthened his position.

More the debate weakened Biden’s position strictly in regards to people’s view on his age and health.

Trump still said some pretty awful things. He lied plenty, but some of those awful things he took credit for, and if Biden was on his game that night, he would have in the past at least, demolished Trump. Problem being he missed those openings, and sometimes changed topics mid sentence from a strong point, to topics that people see as Biden’s weak points. (like abortion -> immigration)

Biden’s biggest enemy at this debate were unforced errors. Based on his performance at his rally the following day, and during past state of the unions when MTG and others are heckling him, he was clearly off his game, and I can only wonder what the debate would have been like if it was in the morning/afternoon instead of of late at night (or some other condition that got him back on his game).

It’s great his performance improved so much the next day, but that won’t be seen by many people. The debate was seen by millions, including many that normally wouldn’t be reached. This was his opportunity, and he sort of blew it. Reaching those people in another form with the modern media environment and media consumption will be difficult.

If Biden continues to run, those who consider abortion, democracy/avoiding fascism, or freedom a top issue, will still vote for him. I will still vote for him.

If he steps down, and Gavin Newsom steps in as the democratic candidate, I’ll vote for him. (granted he isn’t part of the Primary, and there are pledged delegates for others, but those people have either already dropped out, or would get crushed by Trump).

On the CNN side, my biggest complaint was the mics were not indeed cut at the end of each persons time. If I was undecided, I wouldn’t want to listen to two old men bicker, I’d want to actually hear their opinions and viewpoints.

They let it slip to some back and forth with both mics active at the same time on occasion. If they can’t manage that, then they shouldn’t get to host any presidential debates in the future. Luckily the next and last debate for this election is not them; we’ll see how ABC does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKBFdy4q85w

Short video of him guesting to review some political ads, after his endorsement announcement.

Not surprised at all it is something the Trump administration was doing considering his rhetoric on the pandemic in general, and China. Awful all around.

You’re right, my ad blocker was making it look like an image. My bad. Basically a video of missiles being launched from land, air, and sea in mass.

Was hoping to see the video in the article, but just screen caps.

Was under the impression that Taiwan would likely use thousands of Ukraine style drone boats to sink the Chinese fleet.

Instead all I see is screenshots of missiles the size of cities raining down. I assume it’s a perspective issue, but those missiles are unrealistically large.

I keep hearing ‘sanctions arent working’.

And every now and then I see things about them working; it’s almost like sanctions are a long game that don’t immediately show all the results in want within 3 months, and you need to keep them up long term. That said, of course when some don’t comply with those sanctions, it will permanently alter the landscape as the sanctioned try to work around them. Russia’s movement toward the Yuan, and reliance on China and N. Korea are not going to be undone anytime soon, if ever.

Pre-Ukrainian invasion, 1 USD was ~78 Russian Rubles. Now, that 1 USD is valued at 92 Rubles. After the start of the war, the Ruble lost a lot of value immediately, but appears to had gained value for a few months, and has steadily decreased in value as the sanctions drag on, and seem to have semi-stablized at a much lower value than going into the war. As a generalization, it appears looking back to 2003 (max on the chart i’m looking at), as Putin’s leadership drags on, the Ruble has steadily decreased in value (in 2003, it only took about 30 Ruble to value 1 USD). Looking at other major economic powers in the world is like looking at an inverse chart, where their currencies have increased in value against the USD consistently.

Is that an economist url?.. yeah, no, not clicking that.

Typically the “financial type media”, are full of political opinion instead of focusing on finance. Very often bad takes, and over the years, I’ve learned they just aren’t worth a click, and my time.

I do use passphrases, but I combine with randomness.

I memorize one random 8 character string to use with something more memorable.

Then when I need more security, or I feel that random 8 character string is no longer safe (password leak/hacked), I memorize a new 8 character string.

Then I combine them.

Then I memorize a new 8 character string and mix it in.

It’s a process built up over years that ingrains into memory. Sometimes I forget the order, or if i added spaces, or did no spaces. Luckily, as long as I am sure of the discrete segments, I can remix them to recreate until it works (in a reasonable time).

My last addition was when I made the move from Lastpass to another password manager, after their endless bad news.

We are talking about two very different things.

The reply I responded to was about student debt forgiveness. Forgiveness does not equal payment suspension.

Yes, his post was threaded a couple down from yours, but neither my post, nor the post I responded to mentioned payment suspension. Your reply should probably be up a post or two.

Trump and republicans of course want the people to pay every penny, plus interest of student debt. Biden kept loan payment suspensions up for years, which is far longer than I expected. Biden is getting debt forgiveness to the people, and a large number of them, and it is making a difference. I don’t think anyone thought he would accomplish a fraction of what he has gotten done; I can only imagine what he can get done if people give the Dems a majority in the Senate and House.

With the republicans trying to shutdown the government for their political circus, Biden has done a good job of picking his battles, and making them look like fools. It’s clear the current Republican party is incapable of governing.

Biden’s biggest problems are:

-he is old (which, yeah, obviously), and the media (both sides) does nothing but talk about how Biden is old. - but starting with the State of the Union, he is showing that he is mentally still there, and plenty capable of holding office.

-The media just loves Trump. he gets views, so they won’t stop talking about him. They don’t give Trump the same kind of scrutiny they do any other politician.

-Biden has a Gaza problem - if Gaza wasn’t an active issue, he’d probably be doing a lot better. He has spent so long ensuring Israel receives the support it needs to continue to exist in the middle east, and they have a place after the Holocaust, that he just can’t adjust to the horrible crimes their government are committing. I understand he will never not supply their Iron Dome and other defensive measures, but that doesn’t mean he cant restrict Israeli weapon sales to just that.

-he doesn’t talk about his accomplishments in office, and the media doesn’t cover it, so the general populace doesn’t think he has done anything. He has done plenty - in the general election campaign, they are starting to advertise these things.

People still don’t know that he continued backing Rail workers helped get them a deal, they just remember he kept the supply chain open.

Many student loans have been forgiven. He can’t do forgiveness as broadly as he’d like, the GOP is fighting him on that, but he continues to fight for it and is getting more. My own mother is in her 60s and has another 10+ years on her student loan - but I am hopeful his student loan forgiveness will reach her - she has applied and right now it is just a waiting game (information over the past year has been very confusing regarding what to do and when).

I only ever hear the media talking about the negative aspects of Biden, so of course he is going to lose supporters. I just happen to follow political news more closely than the average person, so I am aware of the positive things he has done as well. Hopefully he gets the message out; Trump was awful, but he isn’t losing support - people staying home and skipping this vote because Biden isn’t ideal, is how we get Trump back in office.

When he was the senator, he pushed forward a lot of bad policies we are stuck with to this day. Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act and Anti-Drug Abuse Act are only a couple of bad laws he’s helped advance while in the Senate.

His age is not of concern for me either. I’ll vote for him, because the alternative is Trump. But if the country weren’t under the threat of MAGA, Fascism, Nazis, and white/Christian Nationalists, and there were other reasonable options, I probably would vote for someone else.

I did watch the state of the union address, and Biden did a wonderful job overall.

There were a few word stumbles, and his stutter came out at a point; but I know I couldn’t give an hour long plus speech, and not stumble several times. There was one spot he stopped mid-sentence to respond to a heckle, which will probably be clipped, but I cant remember the exact words.

Republicans need to learn to just shut up during his speeches and not heckle. He is on the ball, and at his best when responding to their heckling, it makes him look good, and he gets concessions out of them every time.

Gaza was probably the toughest segment he tackled in the SOTU; primarily that he repeated several things I’ve heard to be false, but may well be stuff that either stuck in his memory hard, or the US intelligence community has more information than the media I’ve seen, and could be accurate.

Overall, he did look energetic, intelligent, and delivered on a lot of the messaging for what his office had helped accomplish, that people generally don’t hear about.

If your issue with Biden is his age, or you think his office hasn’t done much of anything, I suggest you watch. If your issue with him is Gaza… likely nothing he does is going to placate you, and this address won’t change that. He clearly is for a two state system, and not anti-Palestinian, but also is anti-Hamas, and is well aware of Hamas tactics of blending in with civilians, and using them as a shield (which isn’t new, it has been how they operate for a long time prior to the current conflict).

Awesome. Thanks for the info.

I would also have concerns of if congress only requires 50% of the vote or not, but as things stand, we at least have enough who support NATO and view Russia as an adversary, that it is unlikely.

But house republicans have proven over and over they are weak. They cave to pressure on Trump when he isn’t even president.

To use one of Trumps phrases, Republicans got a ‘sweetheart deal’ on immigration and the border, and they gave it up over pressure from Trump to not fix the border issue if he isn’t in office. Every day the border crisis continues is on Trump, and republicans hands (I want to say house, but even the Senate caved to him).

I feel like when he was in office before, I recall him wanting to pull out of NATO then.

I hope we have legislatively done everything we can to ensure whoever the president is, is not able to unilaterally pull out of alliances, and membership in the UN, and WHO, without first getting congressional approval as well, and any such action would be null, and void without such approval.

We were a joke on the world stage when Trump was in office, and lost the trust of much of our allies. We are finally taken seriously on the world stage again, and not laughed at for our president, but we have not fully regained that trust; it is there now, but the world now see’s weather they can trust us at any given moment is depending on elections every 4 years at minimum, and our current congress is even swayed by the whims of a former president that isn’t even in office.

The trust, standing, and soft power the USA lost from Trump’s time in office, may never return to what it once was.

I feel like Little Bobby Tables has grown up, and should now be Robert’); DROP TABLE loans;–

To preface, I disagree with the death penalty in most cases.

It may seem a strange idea, but as long as the death penalty is a thing, I wonder if there is an opportunity to instead of killing the person, provide the option (after serving a sufficient term for ‘punishment’ and/or ‘rehabilitation’) of instead killing the person’s citizenship; as an alternative, if they have dual citizenship, allow the other country the option to take their citizen back in, drop their US citizenship, and permanently make them ineligible from regaining citizenship; and in cases of only US citizenship (because you aren’t allowed to make someone ‘stateless’), allow another nation to sponsor the individual by granting them citizenship (should the person accept) and taking them in.

The other country in such a case would be responsible for whatever further ‘punishment’/‘rehabilitation’ they feel is appropriate before re-integrating them into society. There’s only a couple thousand death row inmates in the US currently.

I’m not saying other nations will be jumping to take in murderers, but with the high number of false convictions in the US, and risk of executing innocent people, some nations with a high moral standard, may be willing to take some people in if given the opportunity.

Just a random thought that occurred; if it is extremely crazy sounding, I don’t know. But the US is basically a prison nation with plenty of innocent people being convicted of crimes all the time, it may be nice for there to be another option.

Edit: Treason, and crimes against the nation, is one of those things that probably shouldn’t be allowed such an exception, because you are just sending someone who ‘committed treason’ to a place they can continue to act against your nation, that’s just not a smart thing to do.

Before Oct 7th… ummm… the economic pain for bankers caused by forgiving student loans? Inflation did suck for a while, but the Biden admin walked a tightrope with almost guaranteed recession below, and managed a soft landing to avoid recession (which honestly, everyone was expecting a recession). The Biden admin has a long list of things they actually have done, just their PR sucks (Biden tends to quietly work to accomplish stuff in the background, and not throw a victory parade for every little thing they do. Not that I want him to do that, I consider it tacky, but Trump does it constantly and gets all the media attention, so hopefully that changes for the duration of the elections).

Even with what is happening in Gaza, Biden and the Biden administration are not ‘pro-murder Palestinians’.

Bibi isn’t going to listen to anyone unless made to, this is an ambition of his.

What I would say the Biden admin, AND CONGRESS, are guilty of, is not being heavy handed with Bibi and Israel. They have no actual power to stop it, but they do have the power of influence by enforcing our standard policies for military aid; ie: condition continued aid on not murdering Palestinian civilians/make (and show) great effort to specifically target Hamas… if not, stop selling weapons/providing aid to Israel (beyond maybe the Iron Dome).

I do want someone younger for President, but if it’s Biden v. Trump, I’m voting Biden. The Gaza situation sucks, Israel has gone too far, and is rightfully being viewed as the villain here, but not being able to control the leader of a foreign nation isn’t reason to be ANTI-Biden, and let fascists/authoritarians come into power.

The world suddenly acting like Biden should have ultimate control over foreign leaders is a weird new twist I did not expect. Israel has long been an important ally and partner; we do need to be firmer/heavier handed, but not so much as to turn a partner/ally into an enemy, unless absolutely necessary. Ideally, Israelis would take care of removing Bibi from power on their own.

I don’t want Newsom as president.

I’m done with him as governor. It’s not an all bad policy thing, I view the CPUC in bed with utility providers with unlimited energy rate hikes, as very much a Newsom thing.

Every single CPU Commissioner was appointed by Newsom. Yes it needs Senate approval, but he is the one who chooses who to appoint, and the senate approves it.

PG&E’s rate just went up again upon CPUC approval to $0.42/kWh

https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/residential-electric-rate-plan-pricing.pdf