hand 'em over~!
hand 'em over~!
By Paul Steinhauser | Fox News
MANCHESTER, N.H. – One week ahead of the Democrats' next presidential nomination debate in Houston, three of the lower-tier candidates who failed to make the stage are vowing to march on and taking aim at the Democratic National Committee over the qualifying criteria.
“Look. I don’t think it matters,” billionaire environmental and progressive advocate Tom Steyer told Fox News when asked if not making the stage would set back his White House bid.
Steyer, who was interviewed as he arrived in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire, vowed that “we’ll keep going, doing exactly what I’m doing here in New Hampshire. I will keep talking to people and getting my message out.”
The philanthropist, who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager, declared his candidacy just two months ago. He jumped into the race too late to qualify for the second-round debates, which were held at the end of July.
He reached one of the two DNC thresholds to make the cut for the third and fourth round debates – campaign contributions from 130,000 unique donors. But he ended up one poll shy of reaching the other criteria – hitting at least 2 percent in four qualifying national or early voting state surveys.
Steyer, who used millions of his own money to blanket the cable news networks and the airwaves in the early voting states with TV commercials this summer, highlighted that “people are hearing my message and responding to it.”
And he blamed a dearth of qualifying polls for his failure to make next week’s debate stage, emphasizing that “they just haven’t run any polls in the early voting states.”
In his interview, Steyer also jabbed at some of the other Democratic nomination contenders over one of his key issues – climate change.
“I will declare a climate emergency on day one of my presidency,” he said.
And pointing to his rivals who “have plans that sound great,” he said it’s not enough unless they “are willing to say that.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii ended up two polls short of qualifying for next week’s debate. Unlike Steyer, the Hawaii national guard officer and Iraq War veteran was less diplomatic in her critique of the DNC.
“It’s unfortunate that we’ve seen really a lack of transparency in how the DNC is choosing which polls they would recognize as qualifiers,” she told reporters after headlining the "Politics and Eggs" speaking series in New Hampshire Thursday morning.
Looking to next week’s showdown, she acknowledged “it would have been good to be there. It’s a great platform to speak to millions of people in the country.”
She called failing to make the cut “a minor setback but it’s not one that can’t be overcome.”
Gabbard was optimistic she’d make the October primetime showdown, but added “the debate is not the only way to reach voters so really what I’m focusing on is continuing to move forward, spending time with voters here in New Hampshire. We just left Iowa and continue to bring our message to people.”
Former three-term Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, a long-shot who came nowhere close to qualifying for the debate, also blamed a lack of polling for failing to make the stage.
“There weren’t a lot of polls in August. That was part of the problem,” he told Fox News on Wednesday.
But Delaney, a multi-millionaire who’s mostly self-financing his campaign, also fell short of reaching the fundraising criteria. He called the donor threshold “a ridiculous requirement.
Delaney noted that the DNC’s “never done anything like this before. I think in many ways the Republicans did it better last time, because they let everyone debate and they had two different stages. So if you were polling better, you were on the first stage and if you weren’t polling as well you were on the second stage. At least that allowed everyone to be debating and I think that was a better approach than what the DNC is doing.”
He admitted that “it’s always better to be in the debates.”
But he downplayed the significance of the debates, saying “I was in the first two debates. It’s not clear that the debates changed anything for anyone.”
With five months to go until Iowa and New Hampshire kick off the presidential nominating calendar, Delaney said, “I do think it’s early. When I travel around here in New Hampshire, my sense is that people are just starting to dial in.”
And he emphasized “I’m planning on staying in. Period.”
Delaney did set a deadline, stressing that, “I have to do well in Iowa and I have to do well in New Hampshire. So that to me is the big deciding point in the campaign.”
Warning: The posts of this forum member may contain trigger language which may be considered offensive to some.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
By Douglas E. Schoen | Fox News
In the most contentious Democratic debate thus far, a winnowed field of 10 Democratic candidates took the stage in Houston Thursday night and sparred over hot-button issues such as health care and immigration.
Notably, this was the first time that frontrunners Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden shared the debate stage.
Warren and Biden exhibited stark differences on style, policy and vision for the Democratic Party, embodying two opposing theories of what the party should be.
This divide was apparent during an explosive debate over health care, during which Biden went on the attack against Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for the hidden costs associated with their “Medicare-for-all plans.”
Warren deflected when asked if middle-class taxes will go up to pay for “Medicare for all,” saying total costs would go down – but not explicitly stating whether taxes for middle-class families would increase.
“What we're talking about here is what's going to happen in families' pockets,” Warren said.
“This is about candor, honesty,” Biden retorted. “There will be a deductible – in your paycheck ... someone making 60 grand with three kids, they're going to end up paying $5,000 more.”
Though many were watching Warren expecting her to deliver a knockout performance, the senator fell somewhat short of that expectation. While this will likely not impact Warren’s standing in the presidential race at this early stage – which according to most polls is a close second behind Biden – she did not have the debate moment that many were anticipating.
On the other hand, the first 30 minutes of the debate during the health care discussion were arguably Biden’s best moments on the campaign trail to date. Though the former vice president’s performance was not perfect, he exhibited a much-needed display of strength and preparedness.
Aside from Biden’s generally strong performance, he compellingly and convincingly delivered his core message of restoring, protecting and rebuilding the Obama-Biden record.
“The senator says she's for Bernie. Well, I'm for Barack,” Biden said about Warren's support for “Medicare-for-all,” referencing last month’s debate, when Warren said she completely agreed with Sanders on “Medicare-for-all.”
At the previous debate, several progressive candidates took aim at former President Obama’s legacy on health care as a way to attack Biden on his record.
However, in a marked reversal, both Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris of California – who sharply criticized Obama in the last debate – praised the former president for the positive systematic changes to health care that came as a result of ObamaCare.
Indeed, if there was an absentee winner of the debate, it was Obama. Aside from Biden, one of the clearest, and most concise health care arguments came from Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who has polled consistently in the low single-digits and had yet to have a strong debate moment before Thursday night.
Klobuchar said that although Sanders may have written the “Medicare-for-all” bill, she “actually read the bill,” noting that under Sanders’ plan “we will no longer have private insurance as we know it” – resulting in millions of Americans losing their private insurance.
Similar to previous debates, the discussion of immigration had Biden on the defensive over the 3 million undocumented immigrants that were deported under the Obama administration.
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, in particular, took aim at Biden, using the moment to attack Biden for “taking credit” for positive elements of the Obama legacy and distancing himself from criticism.
“He wants to take credit for Obama's work but not have to answer any questions,” Castro said of Biden.
These attacks largely fell flat, as did Castro’s attempted jab at Biden’s age, and will surely not result in a post-debate polling spike for Castro that other candidates have experienced after attacking Biden during a debate.
“I stand with Barack Obama all eight years – good, bad, and indifferent,” Biden said in response to the immigration attacks, once again reverting to his campaign message of restoring, protecting and rebuilding the Obama-Biden record.
Aside from Castro’s attacks, throughout the entire night Sanders was the candidate who attacked Biden the most. He went after the former vice president not just on health care, but also on corporations, Biden’s vote in favor of the Iraq war as a senator, and trade.
But while Sanders was one of the more vocal candidates, he did not deliver the performance he needed to in order to pull ahead of Biden or Warren in the polls.
Ultimately, Biden’s impressive – though not perfect – performance was a much-needed display of strength and preparedness and will likely solidify his frontrunner status.
By David Rutz - Washington Free Beacon
Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D., Texas) said at Thursday's debate that "hell yes" he was going to seize AR-15s and AK-47s, the most popular rifles in America, from their owners if he became president.
O'Rourke has embraced a more radical gun control proposal than some of his fellow 2020 presidential candidates, supporting a mandatory buyback program for "assault weapons," the definition of which varies from state to state but is often used by politicians to refer to semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47.
ABC News moderator David Muir noted critics of O'Rourke's policy called it "confiscation" and asked him how it would work. O'Rourke said he was serious about seizing any weapon designed to kill people on a battlefield.
"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47," he said. "We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore."
He recently met with gun owners at a gun show, who he said were willing to part with such weapons because they weren't necessary to hunt.
"Let's do the right thing, but let's bring everyone in America into the conversation," O'Rourke said. "Republicans, Democrats, gun-owners, and non-gun owners alike."
It's a dramatic reversal from last year when he challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas). O'Rourke said anyone who had purchased an AR-15 and was using it legally should keep it.
There are an estimated 16 million AR-15s and AK-47s in the United States. The FBI found rifles, of which those guns are a small subset, were responsible for 403 murders in 2017.
These idiots are gonna get people killed.
Warning: The posts of this forum member may contain trigger language which may be considered offensive to some.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
I watched 3 minutes of this shit last night and heard Yangs statement on how much he loves immigrants because he is an immigrant and his stance would be "Come to America"..! I turned the channel before it ruined my evening and made me even grumpier.
DemonGeminiX (09-13-2019), Teh One Who Knocks (09-13-2019)
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., expressed her support for a mandatory buyback program for "assault weapons" on Monday during her appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."
Towards the end of her interview, she took questions from the audience, made up of mostly college students. One of them had pressed Harris about her stance on guns.
"Do you believe in the mandatory buyback of quote-unquote assault weapons and whether or not you do, how does that idea not go against fundamentally the Second Amendment?" Andrew from Fordham University asked.
"Great question. I do believe that we need to do buybacks and I'll tell you why," Harris responded. "First of all, let's be clear about what assault weapons are. They have been designed to kill a lot of human beings quickly. They are weapons of war with no place on the streets of a civil society. I've seen assault weapons kill babies and police officers."
The 2020 hopeful then reiterated her threat of executive order as president if Congress doesn't act on gun reform, but stressed that the "over 2 million" assault weapons currently in the streets need to be addressed.
"A buyback program is a good idea. Now we need to do it the right way," Harris continued. "And part of that has to be, you know, buy back and give people their value, the financial value of what they have and not just take things from people that have value without compensating them. We need to do it the right way."
This comes just days after former congressman Beto O'Rourke proudly declared for a gun seizure at last week's Democratic debate.
"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore," O'Roukre vowed.
I am not your prostitute..!!
Beto is at skid row today, maybe one of the homeless takes care of him
Stop.. He's just like us...Originally Posted by PorkChopSandwiches
Here is my current take. As long as it's not a ploy to get special treatment you can label yourself as you please. If someone doesn't want to call you that it's not a crime. They might just be an asshole. Individual institutions - not law courts - should mostly decide how they handle employees who are discriminatory against 'minorities'.
Muddy (09-18-2019)
You may have posted this in the wrong thread..
lost in melb. (09-18-2019)
Warren gets stumped by Colbert when pressed on middle-class tax hikes to fund Medicare-for-all
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., faced an unexpected grilling from "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert on whether or not the middle class will face a tax hike to fund Medicare-for-all.
During the interview on Tuesday night, Colbert began the exchange by referring to Medicare-for-all as her "most radical" policy position.
"You keep being asked in the debates how are you going to pay for it, are you going to be raising the middle-class taxes... How are you going to pay for it? Are you going to be raising the middle-class taxes?" Colbert asked.
"So, here's how we're going to do this," Warren responded. "Costs are going to go up for the wealthiest Americans, for big corporations... and hard-working middle-class families are going to see their costs going down."
"But will their taxes go up?" Colbert pressed.
"But, here's the thing," Warren said.
"But, here's the thing," Colbert grinningly interrupted. "I've listened to these answers a few times before and I just want to make a parallel suggestion to you that you might defend the taxes perhaps that you’re not mentioning in your sentence."
He continued by sharing his "parallel suggestion": "Isn’t Medicare-for-all like public school? There might be taxes for it, but you certainly save a lot of money sending your kids to school and do you want to live in a world where your kids aren’t educated? Do you want to live in a world where your fellow citizens are dying, even if it costs a little bit of money?”
"So, I accept your point and I believe in your point," Warren responded. "Health care is a basic human right. We fight for basic human rights, and that’s Medicare-for-all. Everyone gets covered."
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