AmeriKKKa's case of Rusted Limpballs is terminal.

Did ya hear that SPD dropouts? The government of Nigeria will welcome you with open arms. Take your gun boners global!

Listen, I believe that Donald Trump is evil incarnate, but you do have to give the devil his due. He's selling a shit sandwich, but boy, he's doing a helluva good job doing it.

He's out there campaigning, looking like the man, establishing the narrative—the heck with the pandemic. His campaign is running out of money, but he can use the news media to get his message across. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's holed up doing his debate prep and surrendering the news cycle to him.

The reality is that a significant portion of American voters are just naturally drawn to the candidate who comes across as stronger and more charismatic, and Trump is completely claiming that terrain.

Oh, and how nice of Barack Obama to finally arouse himself from his slumber and deign to do a little campaigning for his buddy Joe. After only, what, a few tens of millions of votes have been counted. I guess one could push back that it's not really Obama's campaign to wage. Then hey, maybe he doesn't need to campaign at all?

C’mon, take a couple hours and watch Citizen Kane.

@ 3,

It's truly pathetic that this nation's spiteful, loser neckbeards look at a bullying, lying, hysterical, racist, sexist, train wreck failure like Tr666p and think that he somehow represents manhood. And they believe that women are too emotional to hold office, jeezus.

No wonder the country is circling the drain.

He and his loathsome GOPnazi sycophants are the embodiment of deceitful, phony cowards that aren't even shit on the shoes of men of integrity.

As for Obama, he was the best president in our lifetimes, and he abandoned us to cash in on his presidency.

A doctor has a duty to render aid if she sees someone drop on the street, but Obama ignored our pleas for leadership for years.

No one is coming to save us--we have to save each other. Vote all the GOPnazi ratfuckers out, and then browbeat the Democrats into doing what's right.

The cnbc (and other) reports of 62% tax rates is lazy reporting. The report adds tax rates on different income types, as if all income is taxed.
The Biden marginal rate increase is from. 37% to 39.8% - that is. 2.8%.

@7 I would argue Obama earned a vacation. Eight years of nonstop racism, vitriol and obstruction thrown at him and he handled it all with dignity and class and no scandals or crimes committed. I wish he had been a more forceful president in retrospect, but whatever. Much like RBG, if the fate of our nation rests on the shoulders of one person only, then that's a pretty shitty nation.

@6 Citizen Kane is worth seeing precisely once for its cinematic innovations. That's it.

That Tiffany Trump video was great, thanks for sharing. Back when she was in perpetual hiding, I was always under the impression that she possessed a tiny bit of decorum, maybe even feeling a bit of dignified shame at the behavior of the rest of her family. Or otherwise that she was perhaps like that hideously disfigured third Olson twin that the LAPD discovered a few years ago.

https://tinyurl.com/y4z9got4

Is actually kinda refreshing to know she's just another idiotic and vile, vain bumbling dumbass like the rest of the clan. Hope she starts making more public appearances..

blip @10, you're representing how a reasonable person reacts to Trump's rallies within the context of COVID-19. But that's not necessarily how a plurality of swing state voters react to just the sound bites outside the context of COVID-19.

And the reality is that lately Trump has been making a dent in Biden's national and battleground state polling leads, and a similar phenomenon happened in 2016. With all the early voting this year, it's likely too little, too late, but by the same token, this year Trump just has to get close enough in the ballot counts to be able to stage a judicial coup.

Also, just because Donald Trump is distinguishing himself as the worst president in American history doesn't mean Joe Biden is entitled to run a mediocre campaign.

@16: Not as much as 2016, but it's a lie to say that they're 'poorly attended'.

“...that depend on hoards of tech workers...”

hordes

It's ironic that Pope Francis is now more supportive of same sex unions than most of the Catholics on the Supreme Court.

"the highest-profile display yet of the federal government seeking to hold a major drugmaker responsible for an opioid addiction and overdose crisis linked to more than 470,000 deaths in the country since 2000."

Any word on the status of King County's lawsuit against the same plaintiff? King County alleges the opioid epidemic Purdue Pharma created has resulted in most of King County's homeless population being addicted to opiods. It sounds like the federal ruling should help King County in getting some aid to our homeless opioid addicts.

@18: "Look. I still think he’s probably gonna win. But it has nothing to do with his rallies.

"Why? Easy: He’s the incumbent. Stupid people are his base and stupid always double down. And. He gets free media coverage. That’s it."

I agree with you about the power of incumbency. The way the natural dynamics of American presidential elections work, it's almost impossible to the defeat an incumbent. And I agree with you about the free media coverage, but that's exactly why Trump's rallies are such a great thing for him. They allow him to get his message out there unfiltered through free media.

@24, you're absolutely right that Biden is doing a lot of things right. That doesn't forgive him for the things he's failing to get right. And the one thing I'm failing to see from him is a sense of energy and momentum. Yes, obviously there's the pandemic. If he trounces Trump in the debate and then has a great finishing kick, I'll be glad to say my concerns are unfounded.

The things that kinda set me off to post my comment @3 were:
A. Trump's just dominating the airwaves in recent days.
B. The polls are tightening, and how do we know this tightening is not the 2016 tightening or not tightening just enough that a Supreme Court with ACB can steal this election for Trump?
C. If Obama wanted to go out and campaign for Biden, why did he wait until now?

@26.C - Are we sure the Biden campaign didn't want him to campaign earlier? Politics with former presidents can be finicky.

RE: Citizen Kane

It's a good movie, and has held up somewhat ok over time (not as well as some other gems from its era though... here's looking at you Casablanca), but honestly, most of its accolades come from innovations that are now commonplace.

Anyone watching Citizen Kane today for the first time will say "I don't get why this is rated the best movie of all time" and rightly so. The directing and editing that were unheard of at that time are now textbook for every film made nowadays.

Still, story-wise alone, Citizen Kane isn't bad, and I'd recommend any semi-serious film buff watch it. But if you miss it, not a big deal.

If that 62.6% is legit in CA, that would still not even put them in the Top 10 world wide. Sweden takes the cake at 76%.
https://taxfoundation.org/taxing-high-income-2019/

@26 What's your evidence the "polls have tightened"?

Its not showing up in the 538 aggregations: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

And @8 -- If you don't click the link, the US is at 47% currently when you roll in sales, ss, state, payroll, etc....

Top marginal rate was 91% during the grim, communist dark ages from 1954-1963.

Thing is, you're never going to get Jeff Bezos with income tax. Does he even draw a salary? You can only sheer that sheep with capital gains. We need some new kind of tax for these billionaire ghouls.

@30, "Trump’s best day of polling since the debate:"
https://www.nytimes.com/section/upshot

Plus, and this has to be taken with a grain of salt:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Orignially the capital gains tax rate was 40%.

And that was it.

Now, compared to a new West Seattle Fossil Fuel Car Infrastructure Bridge, which costs $100,000,000 per mile, that's a fair chunk of change.

Trump used all of his campaign funds as a personal ATM and those he didn't were spent by his former campaign manager ($40 million). Why would anyone give him another dime? And if the GOP thought Trump was going to win, McConnell would pass a huge stimulus bill to buy off the rest of the voters for the Senate. All that being said, Trump is clearly still doing everything possible to steal the election.

Postmaster Louis DeJoy has pulled all USPS Police off duty
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/20/1988202/-BREAKING-DeJoy-Pulling-All-Postal-Cops-Off-Duty-2-Weeks-Before-Election

There's only one reason to do that. They're going to destroy mail in ballots and don't want the Postal Police interfering.

And they've been doing this:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/20/1988039/-From-coast-to-coast-the-Trump-administration-is-locking-Democratic-leaders-out-of-USPS-facilities

Never underestimate the desperation of a man facing the rest of his pathetic, deranged life in prison.

@33 I think maybe the NYT's headline is a more accurate summary: "best day of polling since debates". Which isn't the same thing as "polls tightening". Take a sampling of variable values and one of them will be greater than the others.

If that turns into a trend and the trend persists, then you can say "polls are tightening".

Agreed on the capital gains comments, but it's also important to consider that most Billionaires money is wrapped up in company ownership (stock). You can only tax these folks on their salary, or if they are selling stock. So you can't tax Bezos on $220B, you can only tax him on his salary and what he decides to sell off in a given year. If he sells too much, his net worth plummets because investors will get spooked. So let's say he makes $1 in annual salary and sells about $100M per year in stock, he's paying a maximum of 20% on those gains ... That's all you can get out of him.

Well, it's better than $0. Also, you might want to have a wealth tax for carrying costs.

@41 who decides what is reasonable? right now the competition for labor is the biggest component of wages and if that is failing what is the right answer?

@46: Your grudge against wealth and inequality will never be reconciled to your satisfaction. You need to accept the two as dynamics of a free society and the imperfections of the human condition.

Once you do that, I think you'll start to see better ways for making a positive impact in the world.

@56: Great. That's your opinion. Other historians have said FDR or Reagan. So let's be objective.

@59: What about First Lady?

@76

You're a fucking joke, Feebs. Everything you've posted here has been discredited as bullshit. You have zero credibility. Fuck off forever back to your imaginary Heartland. You're not welcome here. Enjoy November 3 asshat.

@80: like many of those
who take trumpf's advice
he just up and disappeared.

but like the trumpf Plague
he's not going anywhere.
so it's Whack-a-Rat
we play.

So the Sacklers get to keep a shit ton of money (as does the Purdue Pharma) and no one goes to prison. I mean Purdue paid the Sacklers,what, $13 billion? So who knows how much Purdue made in profit. They purposefully and with malicious intent sold a drug, telling everyone they sold it to that it was not addictive, knowing full well that it was, and as a result created who knows how many addicts and caused who knows how many deaths. But hey, $8 billion paid out and of course the drug is still being sold and addicts are still being created and deaths are still occurring...sounds about right...I mean capitalism am I right?