Master-Debater131

Jets Fans: Were going to be good this year! We have a HoF QB and a fantastic defense! We are so happy! Football Gods: Absofuckinglutely Not

Except thats exactly what he is doing. He isnt running a campaign in the true sense of the word, hes running a shadow campaign. Hes campaigning without actually launching a campaign. His entire strategy is to build an image as the guy who can step in if Biden cant run. Hes holding events, having fundraisers, visiting key states, having media appearances, and doing everything a candidate does with the exception of actually launching a campaign. Everyone recognizes that Biden has lost a step and is in serious mental decline. Frankly, hes probably got no better than a 50/50 shot at actually surviving to the 24 election. Newsom realizes this and is doing everything he can to be the first option if Biden either cant, or isnt around to, run next year.

Thats absolutely a valid reason to hate the Raiders.

I think its pretty obvious who would step in if Biden isnt the nominee, Gavin Newsom. Hes been running a shadow campaign for months. Hes making a calculated bet that if Biden were unable to run in 24 hes would become the default nominee. Kamala is not going to be the nominee because she would get just crushed by any GOP candidate, even Trump. Newsom is clearly positioning himself as the "fall back" option for if/when Biden cant run in 24.

Good. He absolutely should be in jail for a very long time with what he did. This feels like a good time to also bring up that we still dont know who was in Maxwells customer book.

Ahhhhhh, what a nice morning it is.

No one wants Joe Biden to run again, even his own party. This shouldnt be a surprise either. He is not a good President. Biden is currently polling below Trump at the same time in their presidencies. The entire poll is nothing but a bloodbath for Biden. His age is clearly a liability, and its no surprise either. He consistently looks like hes about 1 breath away from keeling over and dying on stage. Hes reminding everyone of Grandpa when Grandpa lost his mind. On the issues, hes losing badly. The most important issue is always the economy and his numbers there are atrocious. Again, no surprise. The economy is not good and people feel it every day. "Bidenomics" have been a complete failure and people know it. Only people on his payroll or the most partisan of democrats think the economy is working in peoples favor. Everyone else is looking at Biden with general contempt for his economic policies. Head to head polls are largely useless with our electoral system, but they are instructive. Right now Biden is within the margin of error of every potential GOP candidate except for Nikki Haley. She has a clear lead on Biden right now which is very interesting. For Biden though this is another bad sign. If hes within the margin of error of Trump he is in deep deep trouble. Trump is back in the news in a big way for being arrested, and Biden cant even get clear of him. Conventional wisdom has been that Trump is unelectable and Biden would cruise to reelection against him, but thats changing. Polling is consistently showing that Biden is an extremely weakened president and his support continues to weaken. If the GOP were smart they would nominate someone who doesnt have the baggage that Trump has and have a much easier path to victory. But even if they dont, Trump really does look like he has a shot at beating Biden thanks to just how weak Biden is. Im going to sick with an earlier prediction. I dont think either Biden or Trump are on the ticket next year. Trump may be "occupied" and Biden is going to get the boot or simply not make it to the election next year.

Yes hes still way ahead, and there were other polls that showed a softening as well. The biggest thing with the Emerson poll is its Trumps favorite. He routinely said its the best and the one people should look at. So naturally hes been bashing it the last few days. Been funny to watch actually.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4174521-trump-drops-6-points-in-post-debate-gop-poll/ Trump drops 6 points in post-debate GOP poll "Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley saw the largest boost, with her support jumping from 2 percent to 7 percent after the debate. The poll found Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 12 percent, up 2 percentage points from before the debate. Former Vice President Mike Pence got 7 percent support in the poll, up from 3 percent before the debate." This helps answer one question. By not being there Trump did lose support. Hard to say if this will be a lasting trend or if it will force Trump to the debate stage at some point. But it is encouraging to see that the Trump bubble isnt quite as impenetrable as thought.

Now that we are a few days removed from the debate, and past the immediate spin, its time to look at how they did. I dont think there was a clear winner in the debate. Everyone had their moments, and everyone had a moment of weakness as well. DeSantis probably was the strongest up there because he didnt take the bait from Trump-Light (Vivek) and focused on his record. Thats one of his greatest strengths and something that he needs to focus on. Even when the moderators tried to bring up Trump he avoided the topic and said what so many people are thinking, its time to forget about the orange turd and 2020 and focus on 2024. That was a fantastic line. His whole repeated navy seal thing was cringe though, I doubt we see much more of that. Vivek was nothing more than Trump-Light. Right down to his mannerisms. He did have a few good moments, but his constant attacking and total failure on the Ukraine question really seemed to turn a lot of people off. The general commentary since the debate is that hes going to fade quickly now. Christie is partially why hes going to fade. His "chat GPT" comment was probably the zinger of the night and absolutely is going to stick. He clearly was out to do as much damage to Trump as possible. He might have done that as well. Some of his lines were pretty clearly aimed at Trump and got serious applause from the crowd. It was amusing that he got asked a UFO question as well. Pence had a few great moments as well. When he talked about January 6th he clearly stated that Trump wanted him to violate the constitution and he refused to do so. Nikki had a few of her own great moments. She really leaned into the "im a woman" thing and identity politics. Thats not a bad thing for her at all. Her foreign policy strengths really showed when she thoroughly beat down Vivek. At the end of the day though Im not sure a whole lot is fundamentally going to change. Trump is still way out ahead in the polls. So unless that changes, or people are just lying to the pollsters, then Trump still is the front runner. Theres probably going to be some changes to everyone elses numbers, but so far Trump has remained pretty stuck where he is. Its pretty depressing to see that to. You saw actual policy debate on the stage without Trump. Something so many conservatives want to get back to having. But the MAGA morons have a death grip on the nomination right now and would rather get crushed in 24 with Trump than win with literally anyone who was on that stage.

Ukraine is really doing some great stuff these days. Theyve started to push back the Russians on a few fronts, and are taking out some high value targets. Multiple Russian AAs have been blown up in the last few days. If Ukraine can keep that up they may be able to start using air support. Throw in teh F-16s that they should get sometime next year and we could see a pretty dramatic swing in this war. Theres also reports that Russia is about to conscript another 450k men. If true thats another sign that they really are in deep trouble.

TO THE BUNKER!!!! - Putin probably

Oh yea, Putin is going for a decapitation move of Wagner today.

Tinfoil hat time. The US knew that Russia was going to do this, which is why we issued the "GTFO Belarus" notice a few days ago. Knowing that Belarus is currently crawling with Wagner forces we wanted people to get out for when this happens because there is no way to know how Wagner forces are going to react. They may turn around and start heading for Russia, cause chaos in Belarus, or just sit around unsure of what to do. Theres also all those Wagner troops in Russia and Africa. Wonder what they are going to do now.

Sure looks like Putin just took out the leadership of Wagner.

Bold of everyone to assume he runs I mean that literally. Theres zero chance he can actually run.

So its Debate Day for the GOP. Most of the top candidates will be there. Trump, being the coward that he is, wont be. Or maybe hes busy trying to stay out of jail, either way he wont be there. DeSantis is going to take center stage tonight and likely is going to take a lot of attacks. The real question is going to be if anyone other than Christie goes after Trump. So far none of the candidates are really going hard at Trump. Thats an odd strategy considering they need to take him out in order to win the nomination. Unless they are counting on him being "busy" and unable to accept the nomination. Trump himself is releasing a recorded interview with Tucker Carlson tonight on Twitter. Im sure it will score a ton of views and hes going to say that its proof that the debates dont matter. That whole "you can watch it whenever you want, or during commercials" thing wont really matter to him. Going to be an interesting day for the GOP.

Solid reference in the meme. Hes not wrong either. this is going to be Hillary all over again.

Key paragraph: ":“Do not travel to Belarus due to Belarusian authorities’ continued facilitation of Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, the buildup of Russian military forces in Belarus, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, the potential of civil unrest, the risk of detention, and the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens residing in or traveling to Belarus,” the State Department wrote in its warning." Two things, first, how hasnt this already happened? second, sure seems like the US is thinking Belarus is about to fuck around. Question is going to be who delivers the "find out".

The storm doesnt appear to have been as bad as predicted, but theres still some serious flooding out there. Palm Springs appears to be the worst hit. Oh and there was a 5,1 earthquake outside of LA while all this was going on.

As expected, its weakening as its heading north. Right now the middle of the prediction cone has it making landfall in Baja and then skirting up the coast, hitting both TJ and San Diego with some serious force. Its winds have died down a bit, which is good, but its still carrying just a ton of moisture. Theyve already asked everyone on Catalina island to evacuate because of the anticipated effects when the storm starts to hit. Timing still looks like its going to have its biggest impact tomorrow.