Biden lets his inner Fascist show

President Joe Biden sparked fury Tuesday night by suggesting Donald Trump should be in jail just 14 days out from the presidential election.

'We gotta lock him up', the 81-year-old president said at event in New Hampshire.

Biden appeared to realize what he said, and tried to correct himself by saying 'we need to politically lock him up. Lock him out. That's what we have to do.'

It comes after Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris takes care to try to shut down 'lock him up' chants that have popped up at her campaign rallies.

She routinely says to leave the matter up to the courts.

The chants clash with her campaign based in part on preserving democracy and long and order from what she calls the Trump threat – and is similar to the 'lock her up' chants at Trump's 2016 rallies that Democrats continue to call out.

Trump has long centered his own campaign around contesting the criminal cases against him, and accuses rivals of practicing 'lawfare' against him.

He faces sentencing in September after his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, which could technically land him in jail, although many experts say the first-time white collar offender is likely to avoid doing jail time.

His son, Donald Trump Jr., teed off on Biden's comments.

'They're not even hiding it. The lawfare against my dad was always about election interference!' he posted on X.

Trump's own campaign rhetoric has included multiple threats to go after people he calls the 'enemy from within,' including Senate candidate Adam Schiff.

He experienced a poll and campaign donation bump during his New York hush money trial, and has railed against 'deranged' special counsel Jack Smith bringing charges against him related to his January 6 election overturn effort.

Biden, who only occasionally jumps on the campaign trail after committing a string of gaffes, made the comment after saying Trump was talking about abolishing the Education Department.

'This is a guy who also wants to replace every civil servant. Every single one. Things he has a right under the Supreme Court ruling on immunity to be able to if need be ... to actually eliminate, physically eliminate, shoot, kill someone he believes to be a threat to him. I know this sounds bizarre. [If]I said this five years ago you'd lock me up - you gotta lock him up,' he said.

'Politically lock him up,' he added.

Although Trump has repeatedly railed against his political opponents and threatened to use the machinery to government to go after them, he hasn't spoken about being able to kill people who are a threat to him.

He continues to try to turn the Democrats' own rhetoric against them.

'If we lose this election, we may not have a country anymore,' he said at his Doral golf club on Monday. 'They say we may never have an election again in this country. This is where we’re going,' he said.

Democrats have raised increasing concern about whether Trump will once again declare victory and refuse to accept the results of the election, as he did in 2020.

He was coy once again when asked at a suburban area McDonald's drive-thru Saturday whether he would accept the election results no matter the outcome.

'Yeah, sure, if it’s a fair election,' Trump said. 'I would always accept it. It's got to be a fair election,' he said.

He continue to call for a win that is 'too big to rid' – implying his rivals will cheat without offering evidence.

'We gotta lock Joe up,' a former Biden aide quipped to Axios, noting that the statement was politically unhelpful.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called on the Harris campaign to condemn Biden's 'disgraceful' remark.

'Joe Biden just admitted the truth: he and Kamala’s plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent President Trump because they can’t beat him fair and square. The Harris-Biden Admin is the real threat to democracy,' she said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13989643/Joe-biden-kamala-harris-donald-trump-lock-up.html

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Tulsi Gabbard announces she is joining the Republican Party and stuns Trump

Former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced she is joining the Republican party Tuesday night.

Taking the stage before thousands in Greensboro, North Carolina, Gabbard cemented her conversion from Democrat to Republican.

'It is because of my love for our country and specifically because of the leadership that President Trump has brought to transform the Republican Party that I'm proud to stand here with you today and announce that I'm joining the Republican Party,' she proudly declared.

She continued: 'I'm joining the party of the people, the party of equality, the party that was founded to fight against and end slavery in this country.'

Gabbard said that the GOP and Trump were 'the party of common sense and the party that is led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace.'

The two then embraced on stage in front of a screaming audience.
Former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced she is joining the Republican party Tuesday night. The gesture surprised Trump who embraced her on stage shortly after she made the announcement

In 2022, she announced she was leaving the Democratic party to become an Independent.

She then announced in August that she was endorsing former President Donald Trump and promised to do everything she could to secure his election.

Regaining control of the mic after Gabbard's announcement, Trump said he was stunned by the announcement, which he had not known was coming.

'Thank you very much, Tulsi, that's great wow,' Trump said seemingly stunned.

'That was a surprise,' he continued, calling the gesture a 'great honor' and a 'beautiful speech.

The former president called her a 'woman that everybody loves' who has 'so much common sense'.

'Boy you are popular' he told her in front of the crowd as she brought her on stage.

Gabbard said the Democratic Party is now 'completely unrecognizable'. She was a member for more than 20 years.

She ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 and ended up endorsing Joe Biden when she dropped out.

The former congresswoman called Kamala Harris 'anti-freedom' and 'pro-censorship' and slammed her recent foreign policy moves.

'She is anti-freedom, she is pro-censorship, she is pro-open borders, and she is pro-war,' Gabbard said of Harris.

'Without even pretending to care about peace, as President Trump talked about, she has shamelessly embraced the endorsement and support of warmongers like Dick Cheney, and Liz Cheney,' she added.

Gabbard, a National Guard veteran, ran for president in 2019. She clashed memorably with Harris as they fought for the Democratic nomination, eventually won by Joe Biden.

She campaigned on a platform that decried U.S. involvement in the Middle East, saying it made the nation less safe, and directed blame at both Republicans and Democrats.

In 2019, she was the only lawmaker to vote 'present' during the highly partisan first impeachment of Trump.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13990183/tulsi-gabbard-donald-trump-north-carolina-rally.html

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In markets, bets are on a Trump victory

With less than two weeks to the US election, financial markets are flagging a victory for Donald Trump.

From betting markets to Trump Media shares and cryptocurrencies, the “Trump trades” have kicked up a gear.

That’s despite Vice President Kamala Harris having a narrow lead over Republican nominee Trump in national polling, although reports of early voting in swing states expected to decide the presidency suggest Trump and his fellow Republicans are faring better than at the same stage of previous elections.

In the betting markets, PredictIt has Trump clearly leading Harris. His price (which equates to the odds of winning the presidency) is US58¢ against her US45¢. Polymarket shows an even bigger margin, with Trump’s odds of winning 63.7 per cent and Harris’ 36.4 per cent, although four big wagers totalling $US30 million ($45 million) might have something to do with that.

Trump’s agenda is more radical than Harris’ and would have a bigger impact on financial markets, making his prospects easier to track from an investor point of view.

His trade policies – baseline tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all imports, a 60 per cent tariff on imports from China and threats of a tariff of up to 200 per cent on imports of cars from Mexico – would reverberate through global markets and the world economy.

Most of the bets being made by investors seem to be reasonably conservative. Broadly, however, they do predict a Trump win.

Trump would maintain his 2017 tax cuts, set to expire next year. They favoured companies and wealthy households, and Trump has indicated he wants to reduce their tax rates even further.

He has promised to cut regulation, free up the energy sector, slash government spending and detain and deport millions of illegal immigrants. He’s also said he wants influence over the Federal Reserve Board’s decision-making, or at least some input.

Beneficiaries from his policies would, at face value, include executives and shareholders across corporate America, the energy sector, pharmaceutical companies, big tech, private prison operators (someone has to oversee the detention of the immigrants), and cryptocurrencies, where the Trump family recently launched a venture.

The prospects of a Trump win, at the macro level, would most likely show up in currency, bond and share markets. His policies are likely to generate a big increase in government debt and a spike in US inflation that would drive up longer-term interest rates and the US dollar, while the tax cuts would be enthusiastically greeted by sharemarket investors.

The US dollar has strengthened more than 3.5 per cent this month against America’s major trading partners’ currencies. The yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds has increased from 3.7 per cent to 4.2 per cent, the term premium (the extra yield required to compensate for holding longer duration bonds) has blown out significantly, and the US sharemarket has risen 2.5 per cent over the same period.

The sharemarket’s response is interesting. Trump’s tax cuts and his deregulatory agenda would be positive for companies and their investors. But most economists agree that his trade and immigration policies would be inflationary and hit consumers hard, particularly low-income households, and have a materially adverse impact on the US economy.

Yet maybe those are viewed as potential longer-term threats when set against the near-term benefits of his tax cuts.

At a more granular level, energy stocks are up almost 3 per cent so far this month, while shares in the two biggest private prison operators – Geo Group and CoreCivic – are up 21 per cent and 11.2 per cent, respectively.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/in-markets-bets-are-on-a-trump-victory-20241023-p5kkj3.html

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