Fox News (among many other outlets[*]) is reporting: Biden wins presidency, Trump denied second term in White House:
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has defeated President Trump, denying him a second term after a bitter campaign and dramatic, prolonged vote count in battleground states that sparked a flurry of lawsuits.
The Fox News Decision Desk projected Saturday that Biden will win the state of Nevada and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, giving the former vice president the electoral votes he needs to win the White House.
[...] "I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris," Biden said in a statement. "In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America."
He added: "With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation."
Biden's campaign announced that the president-elect and Harris, his running mate, will speak at an event in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware at 8 p.m. ET.
Joseph Biden would become the 46th President of the US; U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, the 49th Vice President.
Also at: NY Post, CBS News, ABC News, CNN, CNBC, and USA Today.
IMPORTANT: There are still votes to be counted, a recount has been requested in one state, and there are numerous court challenges launched by the Trump campaign. Further, nothing is official until the actual vote by the Electoral College.
See Also:
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @12:26AM (45 children)
Huh? Trump didn't do anything to stop the exporting of jobs or the wars we're already in. He could have ended the wars, but he didn't.
The election process that Trump tried (and is trying) to sabotage? He first tried sabotaging the USPS, and then constantly cast doubt on absentee ballots all the while. So, Trump doesn't support a fair election process.
(Score: 0, Troll) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 08 2020, @12:48AM (25 children)
I look forward to the new war in Syria, Comrade. Glad to be on the right side of history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @02:58AM
Don't be a fool
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday November 08 2020, @06:38AM (9 children)
As the AC says, they won't be going into Syria. They'll be going into Iran.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @09:35AM (5 children)
C'mon! Dick "Dick" Dick Cheney is on his second decade on a stolen young man's heart, and his daughter does not qualify for a Wyoming fishing license for another two years, so the chance of the "Projection for aNew Amercian Centoblast" taking over again, is rather slime. Wolfowitz is still trying to get oral sex, so actual military action is not in his portfolio. And The most Clinton ever did, was a cruise missile attack on Al Quaida bases in Afghanistan, which is about what Trump did in Syria. So what was your point, again? If Trump attempts to flee to any country, we should declare a hot pursuit, legal under the current laws of armed conflict? Or, are you just an asshole Republican warmonger? Reagan: Grenada. Bush, GW, Panama. Clinton? Not so much. GW? Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, and Florida. Republicans are less invasive? Not. Eisenhower: Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador. And, a left over, Cuba. Yeah, Trump is only like that because of bone spurs and being traumatized by a Miltiary Academy his father sent him to, after he caught him with a switch-blade. True! Look it up.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 08 2020, @01:25PM (4 children)
With Grenada, the US was invited in by its head of state.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 09 2020, @02:05AM (3 children)
Grenada's head of state was dead when America invaded. [wikipedia.org]
No surprises there then.
Reagan claimed the new airport runway could be used by the Soviets to refuel military aircraft heading to Central America, despite that making no sense, and also being a lie.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @03:58AM (2 children)
Grenada's head of state was its governor general. As such, he's the one with the right to call elections, but the government used its usurped power to prevent the election.
That's when he (in exile) called on the US to invade.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 09 2020, @08:28PM (1 child)
It took me a little while, but you're right:
Reagan took very little convincing as he was always happy to kill some Communists. Margaret Thatcher was pissed off however. Not that Reagan cared what she thought.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday November 12 2020, @01:11PM
Perhaps that's why he chose Reagan?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday November 08 2020, @07:23PM (2 children)
Not likely: Towards the end of Obama's administration, the US secretary of state John Kerry had done a lot to cool down tensions between the US and Iran, and Joe Biden was working in that White House helping him do that. Both Biden and the Iranians know that doing so worked out just fine for both sides of that. The people who got butthurt about the US *not* attacking Iran were the Israelis and the Saudis, but their interests shouldn't be driving US foreign policy.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 11 2020, @06:01AM (1 child)
The people who got butthurt about the US *not* attacking Iran were the Israelis and the Saudis, but their interests shouldn't be driving US foreign policy.
Republican voters completely disagree with you. Defending Israel at all costs, no matter what Israel does, seems to be one of the Republican Party's platform planks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 11 2020, @08:21PM
For the Republican base at least, it's not really "defend Israel no matter what Israel does". The real story there is that they want Israel to conquer the remainder of what they believe are the Biblical borders Israel and have all Jews move there, because that's a pre-requisite for the Second Coming of Jesus (in which all those Jews will be slaughtered and sent to Hell). And barring that, the Republican base also wants Israel to just kill as many Muslims as they can because they think all Muslims are evil and need to be killed.
A lot of this was also motivating the Republican base's support of the Iraq War. From their point of view, 800,000 dead Iraqi civilians is a good start.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Sunday November 08 2020, @10:23AM (13 children)
Bush sr and jr invaded Afghanistan and Iraq (twice). Don't blame the lefties!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Sunday November 08 2020, @11:47AM (6 children)
Nobody is blaming the lefties. They are blaming the MIC, which both USA parties are now kowtowing to. I didn't like him, but Trump was the last politician who wasn't controlled by them. I fully expect that within two years the USA (and lapdogs like us in Oz) will be invading Iran.
Not happy Jan.*
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2akt3P8ltLM
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @03:57PM (1 child)
> They are blaming the MIC, which both USA parties are now kowtowing to. I didn't like him, but Trump was the last politician who wasn't controlled by them.
Try a search for:
Trump connections to military industrial complex
The pattern I see is typical Trump lies on the surface, but plenty of connections slightly behind the curtain. For example,
How Trump Got Played By The Military-Industrial Complex
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-military-industrial-complex_n_5f89cbbcc5b69daf5e12d23b [huffpost.com]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday November 08 2020, @10:13PM
The fact that he was "played by them" would indicate that he was not one of them. There is a difference between a politician doing deals to locate pork in key states and someone who would kill thousands to millions of soldiers and Iranians for profit.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 09 2020, @02:09AM (2 children)
America is not invading Iran, with or without help from Australia.
Iran is nothing like Iraq. Any president that asked the joint chiefs or whoever to get a plan going would be talked out of it.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday November 09 2020, @02:54AM (1 child)
I hope AU and NZ don't go, but with or without us I expect the yanks to.
The neocons want to. The Israelis want them to. The Saudis want them to. Trump didn't want to start a war, and his unexpected win over Clinton derailed the MIC's plans. I expect Biden to go along with them.
"Anyone can go to Baghdad; real men go to Tehran."
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 09 2020, @08:16PM
That seems to be largely true, which is good.
I still think wiser heads will prevail and the US will not invade Iran, because it would be worse than Vietnam, and the result would be the same, and the military will be well aware of that.
New Zealand would definitely not send troops, and I don't think Australia would either.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday November 09 2020, @09:02AM
> I look forward to the new war in Syria, Comrade.
My mistake - I took Comrade to be a reference to communism, as in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comrade [wikipedia.org]
but I could have been over-interpreting.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @04:02AM (5 children)
The first invasion of Iraq was under UN auspices to liberate Kuwait, which had just been invaded by Iraq. Bush withdrew when this mission was accomplished because
(1) he had no UN mandate to go further
(2) There was no viable exit plan if he *had* gone further.
The second Bush, presumably to outdo his daddy, went and did the second invasion, which got mired in exactly the way the first Bush had predicted.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday November 09 2020, @08:15PM (4 children)
I think it's significant that the key people who were involved in making the Iraq War happen (Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Powell) were all involved in the Gulf War as well. And I don't consider it an accident that the most hawkish of the lot were the guys that had never gotten anywhere near actual combat before. So I don't think it was W trying to outdo his daddy as much as the guys behind desks who like to get people killed halfway around the world getting mad that the Gulf War didn't end with a complete conquest of Iraq.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday November 12 2020, @01:09PM (3 children)
I have read that the day the second Bush took office he asked his advisors, "Can't we do something about Iraq?"
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 12 2020, @02:19PM (2 children)
More damning is the document Rebuilding America's Defenses [cryptome.org], written by the Project for a New American Century, a pro-war group that included Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld. Released in the year 2000, before Bush had become president and well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Which among other things suggests attacking Iraq the moment there's some sort of national crisis.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday November 12 2020, @04:54PM (1 child)
It's a very interesting document, but I don't see where it suggests "attacking Iraq the moment there's some sort of national crisis". The closest I see to it is this quote, from the section "Guarding the American security perimeter today – and tomorrow – will require changes in U.S. deployments and installations overseas."
Perhaps I just haven't found that advice, or perhaps it's in another document?
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 12 2020, @06:42PM
Once you take that out of bureaucracy-speak, what they're saying is that they want to control the Persian Gulf region (which, at the time meant replacing both Iraq and Iran with US-friendly governments), and they want to "resolve" the conflict with Saddam Hussein at first opportunity. Guys like this like to use technical-seeming language to advocate for monstrous acts, because it helps disguise what they're doing.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by qzm on Sunday November 08 2020, @04:20AM (6 children)
He pulled out troops from all over the middle east, and started to get actual agreements between countries.
Unlike Mr Peace Prize before him, who increased the troops and drone bombed weddings..
He also tightened up H1B rules hugely - probably one side of why all the big tech firms (who hate paying going rate wages..) are so against him.
You may not like him, but the fact that he actually DID things is hard to argue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @09:08AM (1 child)
The most things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @09:36AM
I mark them troll, when they lie, since we have no mendacity mod.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @11:49PM
And yet we're still in the 7+ wars overseas that we were in when he came into office. He could have pulled us out, but he didn't. Obama also played with the troop levels; that means nothing.
And we also saw massive numbers of jobs exported under his administration. That never stopped.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 09 2020, @02:20AM (2 children)
Drone strikes make everyone look bad, so let's not talk about them, ok? [bbc.com]
Like everything about Trump, what he said he did was probably a lie.
What he DID was play golf. A lot of golf, and you should be angry about the amount of money that cost you. [trumpgolfcount.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2020, @09:16PM (1 child)
But he promised he wouldn't play golf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0NZt_-eB9o [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 10 2020, @12:14AM
So he lied? Wow, who would have seen that coming?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @12:40PM (11 children)
Sadly, not starting any new wars makes him a better President than any of the 21st century. For all the moaning about his covid response, he's probably still caused fewer deaths than either Obama or W.
Literally, the only reason he doesn't appear to have been reelected is that he didn't lean in hard enough on the populist tones he struck in 2016. The people look at Trump and his antics, including the covid-19 response, and were still eh not sure which way to go. That's a damning indictment of how horrible Biden is going to be. The racist moron that wrote the crime bill and just expected various people of color to show up to vote for him without doing any work at all to earn those votes and just assumed that the left wing would show up to vote for him despite the fact that he was planning to stock his entire cabinet with Republicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2020, @04:36PM
Trump had dropped more bombs than Obama, and Obama dropped more than Dubya etc as nauseum.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday November 08 2020, @09:42PM (4 children)
The entire Vietnam War claimed 58,300 US lives. COVID has already racked up over 230,000 in the US in the past 9 months. Only a fool would claim that every COVID death is Trump's fault, however conservative estimates place the number of deaths that could have been avoided if the US followed the same basic procedures as many other Western countries at approximately 90%. On that measure it's worth "moaning" about Trump's COVID response, considering it's killed 2-3 x Vietnam's body count of US soldiers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2020, @03:01AM (3 children)
The Vietnam war killed an estimated 1,353,000 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties [wikipedia.org]
Of course, brown and yellow lives don't matter do they? And you call republicans racist.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Mykl on Monday November 09 2020, @06:08AM (2 children)
Actually that was my exact point - brown and yellow lives don't matter to Republicans (and now it seems Democrat lives don't matter to them either).
But let's play your game anyway. Vietnam lasted for 10 years, so let's average 135,300 lives per year lost of all colors. That's 100,000 less per year than have been lost to COVID in the US alone, and we're only 9 months in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2020, @01:23PM
"The entire Vietnam War claimed 58,300 US lives."
You are the one claiming that only US lives matter.
Even if only by inference you are claiming that the other 1,295,000 people killed don't matter.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 09 2020, @01:36PM
I have to agree. You're the only one making that point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @04:05AM (3 children)
What Trump failed to do was drain the swamp.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday November 09 2020, @01:51PM (1 child)
Everybody gets this wrong. He drain the swamp - INTO the government.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @05:05PM
I see.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 10 2020, @02:15AM
It was a pipe dream to begin with even if he meant every word. The whole place is a swamp. I mean, most politicians are lawyers for fuck's sake.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday November 09 2020, @09:35PM
Assuming we're making presidents all directly responsible for US military casualties during their presidency: There were a total of approximately 49,000 US combat deaths in the last 2 decades. Most of them were during the George W Bush administration due to him starting 2 wars. According to this Congressional Research Service report [fas.org], Obama's military deaths was highest in 2009 and declined throughout his presidency. Under Trump, military deaths went up shortly after he entered office and remained higher than they had been in 2016.
And if you're talking about the civilian casualties in the areas where the US is fighting: According to the UN [un.org], there have not been significant differences in civilian casualties in Afghanistan between Obama and Trump. If you look at Iraq [iraqbodycount.org], the Obama administration killed approximately 60,000 civilians there, which is definitely more than the 19,000 or so killed under Trump, but it's also worth noting that under the Obama administration there was a war between Iraq and ISIS with Iraq getting significant support from the US and it would be pretty easy to argue that without US action ISIS casualties would have been higher, whereas by the time Trump took over ISIS was mostly a non-threat. As for Yemen, there have been substantially *more* US drone strikes there under Trump than under Obama.
Even if you add all those up, and pretend that Trump didn't kill anybody overseas, Obama's casualties abroad still come in under the 240,000 or so Covid deaths in the US alone. And you could also make an argument that Trump's Covid (non-) response influenced similar decisions from other governments such as Brazil and the UK, which has also killed more people.
So I'm going to have to rate this "dubious".
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin