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Fox News Slams CNN For Providing Biden Each Question Seconds Before He Answered It

 

WASHINGTON—Expressing outrage that the network’s moderators would stoop so low on a nationally televised town hall, Fox News pundits slammed CNN Friday for providing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden each question seconds before he answered it. “Biden’s responses to CNN’s questions clearly show that he’d been tipped off as to what the question was going to be at least several seconds beforehand when it was being asked—how is that fair?” asked Tucker Carlson Tonight host Tucker Carlson, echoing the criticisms of several other conservative media outlets that Biden was given an unfair advantage by getting to hear the entire question before replying. “Seriously, I thought these people learned their lesson after what happened in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, but it’s absolutely clear from the way Biden listens to their questions and responds that he had listened to their questions before responding. This is the kind of bias we have in the media right now. You know that if Donald Trump was at the town hall instead they would make him answer the question before it was asked.” Fox News pundits additionally slammed CNN for unfairly giving Biden’s campaign advance notice about the town hall’s format, location, and the fact that it was being nationally televised.

 

https://politics.theonion.com/fox-news-slams-cnn-for-providing-biden-each-question-se-1845108668

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All that debate did was confirm to me that while I felt my choices in 2016 were godawful - they were not as bad as my choices in 2020.

 

It's unbelievable how bad that debate was.

 

At one point in the debate I was wishing Trump would just shut up and stop interrupting so much that I mentioned it to my wife.

 

Me:  He's interrupting WAY too much.  Like - this is hard to watch.

Wife:  Joe Biden looks weak.

Me:  That doesn't bother you?!

Wife:  I like that he's taking it to him.

 

Somehow, impossibly, my three-decades-of-voting-Democrat wife is now more conservative than I am. 

I am probably going to join my fellow Vote Giant Meteor 2020 friends and vote Libertarian again.

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This is one of the great lies that Donald Trump has sold to too many Americans: that being loud, being rude, being a bully, not showing any dignity or self-control or respect, is being strong.

 

I don't know if you have any children, ScottishFox, but I have to wonder if your wife would have thought they were being strong when they were little if they behaved like that. :whistle:

 

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4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

This is one of the great lies that Donald Trump has sold to too many Americans: that being loud, being rude, being a bully, not showing any dignity or self-control or respect, is being strong.

 

I don't know if you have any children, ScottishFox, but I have to wonder if your wife would have thought they were being strong when they were little if they behaved like that. :whistle:

 

No, no, no, no. That's how the boss is supposed to act.

 .....

 

Kind of a non-sequitur here, but would anyone mind circulating a call for resumes? We seem to be short staff at work again.

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5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

This is one of the great lies that Donald Trump has sold to too many Americans: that being loud, being rude, being a bully, not showing any dignity or self-control or respect, is being strong.

 

Indeed:

 

Quote

“A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.”

 

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1 hour ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

No, no, no, no. That's how the boss is supposed to act.

Literally was comparing Trump's 'run america like a business' to my last job to a friend.  A friend who was fired for disagreeing with the boss from that job.

 

51 minutes ago, Starlord said:

As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy, than to create -  Spock

People like Trump because he's destroying what they view as the current corrupt government.  Trump is really good at destroying things.

 

But it's really easy to destroy things.  That's not an exceptional or valuable quality.

 

It's easy to end up with an even more corrupt government by destroying a current government.  Literally happens all the time...

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2 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

It's easy to end up with an even more corrupt government by destroying a current government.  Literally happens all the time...

 

I'd say it's all but implicit.  The destruction and rebuild both provide cover ;  they're such wide-scale, overarching circumstances that the little stuff can go unnoticed.

 

Which is why Trump thrives on creating chaos, and why he loves having people reacting to his moves...so he can sneak smaller stuff through the cracks, and so his opponents can't focus.

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Getting away from the daily outrages (but relevant to understanding them), I'll recommend the PBS series "Hacking Your Mind," about how we make decisions, how we are manipulated, and how we can resist manipulation.

 

One of the stranger (and more depressing) bits of research reported on: Humans are apparently the only animals to wired for superstition. The experiments involve opening a box to get a treat. The experimenter does various irrelevant things before flipping open the box, such as wiggling a handle that isn't connected to anything. Dogs, chimpanzees, and other animals ignore the extraneous actions and just open the box. Human children carefully repeat whatever nonfunctional ritual acts the experimenter performs. (Oh, and gaming application: An alien race that has a strong "irrelevance filter" might appear subtly but deeply alien, without being unplayable or a bluff by the writer/GM.)

 

Dean Shomshak

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22 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

If those are required, then what's the point?  
Say you had a mute button.  What's gonna happen?  Trump is gonna bombast, blast, and/or lie.  Biden is going to be forced to waste his time countering Trump's BS.  The actual amount of policy elucidation will still be VERY small.

Debates aren't about policy. There isn't enough time. They are about assessing the mind and character of the candidates: How they behave, how they express themselves, what matters to them. Sure, Trump is going to bluster, boast, insult and lie. But if he keeps getting muted because he can't resist trying to talk over Biden, while Biden presumably is better at following the rules and taking his turn, well, that says something. Nothing we didn't already know, but it might be emotionally persuasive for the few people who haven't made up their minds: Biden can control himself, Trump can't.

 

(Trump said Hillary Clinton should be in jail. I think Donald Trump should be in a playpen.)

 

Dean Shomshak

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2 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

Literally was comparing Trump's 'run america like a business' to my last job to a friend.  A friend who was fired for disagreeing with the boss from that job.

 

People like Trump because he's destroying what they view as the current corrupt government.  Trump is really good at destroying things.

 

But it's really easy to destroy things.  That's not an exceptional or valuable quality.

 

It's easy to end up with an even more corrupt government by destroying a current government.  Literally happens all the time...

 

He certainly knows how to take a big fortune and turn it into a little one....

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9 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Debates aren't about policy. There isn't enough time. They are about assessing the mind and character of the candidates: How they behave, how they express themselves, what matters to them. Sure, Trump is going to bluster, boast, insult and lie. But if he keeps getting muted because he can't resist trying to talk over Biden, while Biden presumably is better at following the rules and taking his turn, well, that says something. Nothing we didn't already know, but it might be emotionally persuasive for the few people who haven't made up their minds: Biden can control himself, Trump can't.

 

(Trump said Hillary Clinton should be in jail. I think Donald Trump should be in a playpen.)

 

Dean Shomshak

 

If they haven't figured that out by now, with Trump, they never will. 

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It's the 'signed' stimulus checks all over again - Food assistance comes with signed Trump letter

 

To politicize this, says Joel Berg, chief executive of Hunger Free America, a nationwide anti-hunger nonprofit organization, “is absolutely outrageous. It essentially blackmails nonpartisan food charities into aiding Trump’s reelection campaign by threatening more Americans to go hungry if these food boxes are not distributed. This move by the Trump Administration is illegal and immoral.”

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There's been a lot of talk on how the presidential debate commission could fix the problems of the debates since the campaigns themselves have to approve changes.

 

This is my take on what changes to make and how to get the campaigns to agree to the changes.

 

Have the candidates in isolation booths. If one candidate tries to speak during the other candidate's time, cut of the microphone AND the feed of what the other candidate is saying. So the punishment would be not being able to speak over someone (which isn't a punishment) plus not having any idea what he should be responding to (which is a HUGE punishment).

 

Don't show the debate live. Do it on a two hour time delay. The candidates don't have access to their campaign staff or the media during the delay or during the broadcast. The campaign staff doesn't have access to the debate footage until it is aired.

 

As the debate is aired, the fact-checking is superimposed over the face of the candidate as he is saying whatever isn't strictly true. The fact-check includes links so the viewer can go read the truth for themselves.

 

That plan fixes the candidates talking over each other and the candidates telling lies.

 

If a candidate doesn't want to debate under those terms (being polite and telling the truth), don't have a debate and instead air a townhall on every network, sponsored by the presidential debate commission, featuring only whichever candidate was willing to debate.

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On 9/30/2020 at 12:23 PM, unclevlad said:

 

Maybe.  I skipped it.  I think my brain actively chose to reject that it was gonna happen because it figured it was going to be a horror.
Looked at the recaps...a very common theme was, if it's going to be that kind of debacle, what's the point of having them?

 

On 9/30/2020 at 1:53 PM, DShomshak said:

Ten minutes into the debate, my brother said in disgust, "This is a farce." 45 minutes in, I decided there was no point in continuing to watch the farce, because it was truly not funny.

 

What burns me most is that to his loyal base, Trump's bullying, blustering, talking over Biden and Wallace probably looked "STRONG!" I am sure that right-wing media are gloating that Trump ate Biden's lunch, and Wallace's too.

 

I don't think there's any point in watching the remaining two debates unless the moderator is given a mute button to use on interruptions.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

The point is this:

 

I will submit, as an apriori premise, that the majority of people’s minds are made up. I will also acknowledge, via point A, that they are fighting for the margins. If you agree to those two points, then the conclusion I’ve drawn is this: We must have two more debates. it is the only way to actively demonstrate the material differences in plan, in approach, in demeanor between the two in real time. It’s the only time that both of them are ‘putting themselves out there’ and fighting for votes. 

 

Well. One is fighting for votes, the other is fighting to get you to NOT vote, including bull horning for fascist groups who represent a material national security threat to start poll watching. Interesting note, SCOTUS told the GOP 30 years ago they couldn’t poll watch in the manner they intended. That restriction lifted this year as its time expired. Because 2020. Go figure. 

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1 hour ago, archer said:

There's been a lot of talk on how the presidential debate commission could fix the problems of the debates since the campaigns themselves have to approve changes.

 

This is my take on what changes to make and how to get the campaigns to agree to the changes.

 

Have the candidates in isolation booths. If one candidate tries to speak during the other candidate's time, cut of the microphone AND the feed of what the other candidate is saying. So the punishment would be not being able to speak over someone (which isn't a punishment) plus not having any idea what he should be responding to (which is a HUGE punishment).

 

Don't show the debate live. Do it on a two hour time delay. The candidates don't have access to their campaign staff or the media during the delay or during the broadcast. The campaign staff doesn't have access to the debate footage until it is aired.

 

As the debate is aired, the fact-checking is superimposed over the face of the candidate as he is saying whatever isn't strictly true. The fact-check includes links so the viewer can go read the truth for themselves.

 

That plan fixes the candidates talking over each other and the candidates telling lies.

 

If a candidate doesn't want to debate under those terms (being polite and telling the truth), don't have a debate and instead air a townhall on every network, sponsored by the presidential debate commission, featuring only whichever candidate was willing to debate.

 

Trump is already stating he won't go along with any debate rule changes.  I'm trying to decide whether this is a bad thing or not.

 

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Sometimes I wonder if we should mix things up, debate-wise.

 

Like, what if there was one fewer debate, but there was an event where they had to write essay responses to questions, (no staffers ghostwriting)

 

Or a board game. Last election some pundit defended Trump saying Americans didn't want a President who could win a game of trivial pursuit.  I thought, I wouldn't mind watching that.

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17 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

All that debate did was confirm to me that while I felt my choices in 2016 were godawful - they were not as bad as my choices in 2020.

 

It's unbelievable how bad that debate was.

 

At one point in the debate I was wishing Trump would just shut up and stop interrupting so much that I mentioned it to my wife.

 

Me:  He's interrupting WAY too much.  Like - this is hard to watch.

Wife:  Joe Biden looks weak.

Me:  That doesn't bother you?!

Wife:  I like that he's taking it to him.

 

Somehow, impossibly, my three-decades-of-voting-Democrat wife is now more conservative than I am. 

I am probably going to join my fellow Vote Giant Meteor 2020 friends and vote Libertarian again.

 

Here’s where I potentially veer into trouble, but I’ll make it plain: Any vote that is not for Biden, is a vote for Trump, mathematically speaking. It’s not enough to want to vote Trump out, nor is it sufficient to vote for an alternative, non major party (i.e., Democrat). Your vote is part of the group vote that determines how your State votes and pushes the electoral college. 

 

I am not telling you how to vote; I am telling you how you should vote if you want Trump out of office. Because we are in a democratic republic, and not a democracy, your best tactical option, regardless of personal opinion, is to vote Biden. Everyone who identifies as a member of  the current Republican Party is going to vote a straight red ticket, so bear that in mind. This is a “first past the post” system. If you vote an alternative party, you’re only weakening the Democratic position, not the Republican. This is the battle for the margins I was speaking of earlier; if that display pushes you to not vote for either of them, then it counts as a win for Trump. It’s kind of like a pass in football; there’s three options, and only one of them counts as a success; the other two — incomplete and interception — are both bad. Relative to a democratic, or at least, non-Trump point of view.

 

...I think I said that without triggering anyone. 

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1 minute ago, Thia Halmades said:

 

Here’s where I potentially veer into trouble, but I’ll make it plain: Any vote that is not for Biden, is a vote for Trump, mathematically speaking. It’s not enough to want to vote Trump out, nor is it sufficient to vote for an alternative, non major party (i.e., Democrat). Your vote is part of the group vote that determines how your State votes and pushes the electoral college. 

 

I am not telling you how to vote; I am telling you how you should vote if you want Trump out of office. Because we are in a democratic republic, and not a democracy, your best tactical option, regardless of personal opinion, is to vote Biden. Everyone who identifies as a member of  the current Republican Party is going to vote a straight red ticket, so bear that in mind. This is a “first past the post” system. If you vote an alternative party, you’re only weakening the Democratic position, not the Republican. This is the battle for the margins I was speaking of earlier; if that display pushes you to not vote for either of them, then it counts as a win for Trump. It’s kind of like a pass in football; there’s three options, and only one of them counts as a success; the other two — incomplete and interception — are both bad. Relative to a democratic, or at least, non-Trump point of view.

 

...I think I said that without triggering anyone. 

 

Problem is I want better choices.  I feel like my options are belladonna or ricin.

 

I don't want these options.  I want good ones.

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Just now, ScottishFox said:

 

Problem is I want better choices.  I feel like my options are belladonna or ricin.

 

I don't want these options.  I want good ones.

 

And I want to go back to the office without risk of getting a life threatening illness; I want my daughter to grow up in a world that doesn’t involve fascism. I want a leader who isn’t bull horning for racism, and who at least at the basic level, can get through 5 sentences without lying. 

 

I want a pony.

 

The options are what they are. I get it. But. This is the system. These are the current rules. We have to play by those rules and we have to play to win. The only way to achieve that, currently, again, from a non-Trump point of view, is to vote Biden/Harris or, preferably a straight blue ticket. Again. Hope I did that without triggering anyone.

 

If you want to change the system, then elect people who will fight for ranked voting, so we can get away from the first past the post/wasted vote mechanic (no offense meant to the intent of your vote, as much as the way votes are tallied). So in a ranked system, you could put Libertarian first, then Democrat, and when the LIbertarian is mathematically eliminated, your vote moves to the next viable candidate. However, that won’t happen in a Trump/GOP administration. Shoot, it might not happen in a Biden/Harris administration, but Maine did it. Which means your State can do it and enough States do it, then Federal law will change.

 

Separate thought, but I thought a valid point, considering.

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10 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

Literally was comparing Trump's 'run america like a business' to my last job to a friend.  A friend who was fired for disagreeing with the boss from that job.

 

People like Trump because he's destroying what they view as the current corrupt government.  Trump is really good at destroying things.

 

But it's really easy to destroy things.  That's not an exceptional or valuable quality.

 

It's easy to end up with an even more corrupt government by destroying a current government.  Literally happens all the time...

 

When people say “run America like a business,” — and I saw another post on this but was too tired to reply — they do not mean ‘yell at people because they didn’t do their job.’ That’s not how you run a business. A business is about the people in it. Those of us who want to see America run like a business mean things more like this:

 

* Quarterly & Annual targets, with the appropriate accountability

* SMART goals

* Reasonable transparency for our taxes

* The construction of a new, uniquely American culture; Amazon holds people accountable, we should as well

 

And so on. If there’s yelling, that’s because the manager is a [redacted], because if that [redacted] happened in my work place? Pfft. It would be a call to HR and a bunch of meetings and suddenly I’d have a new manager.  Running America like a business means proper accounting of resources, resource management, goals, stretch goals, etc. Stop wasteful spending, cut budgets to force people to find new solutions, etc. 

 

I recognize that this is not a broad opinion, it could just be mine and that of a few people, but I did want to debunk the difference between “managing a store,” which has its own challenges, and the actual requirements of running and growing a full business.

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