People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows -- US Politics September 2020

Only 30 days this month for the Big Guy to figure out a way to invoke The Munsters!

https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/styles/1200x680/public/wire/legacy/dark-shadows-jonathan-frid-barnabas-collins.jpg

JOIN ANTIFA!

just read the headline "Don’t Just Focus on Election Day. Treat All of October as Election Month."
can I please be put into a coma

SCOOP: Trump campaign official Jason Miller was paid $20,000 a month for “podcast & radio” work with Bannon’s nonprofit currently under investigation, according to court documents. He was ducking child support at the time. Me @Salon https://t.co/uBT8oXBE5d

— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) September 1, 2020

Jason Miller resembles the offspring that would result if John Travolta achieved congress with a beaver

lmao I read that then looked at the picture

saturday night beaver

loool, lock thread. It can only go downhill from that.

Seriously, just start over.

https://i0.wp.com/31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3rjgeGVv91rrgd02o2_500.gif?ssl=1

Really wanna hear more about the planes full of thugs in black with all kinds of gear.

I think I've heard enough about that to believe it's true.

Anyway.

While one should always be alert to the possibility of systematic polling errors in either direction, this (alleging that polls are biased by 5-6 points against Trump because of shy Trump voters) is completely insane.https://t.co/ESIk22qjZl pic.twitter.com/AcWwaWojD9

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 1, 2020

here's a potential discussion topic to kick off what's sure to be a very normal and quiet month of September, 2020.

josh marshall has been bringing up the issue of how the biden administration will (or will not) hold the trump administration accountable for what happened. he thinks that 1) the scale of corruption is so huge, we need an audit. not in the form of house investigations or trials or litigation, but just an accounting of what has happened. and 2) if we don't plan for this audit now, during these months, it won't happen.

june 30: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/biden-should-commit-to-and-trump-should-be-warned-the-cover-ups-end-in-january
july 22: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/folks-the-executive-branch-needs-an-audit
september 1: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/accountability-should-be-on-the-ballot-now

here's a bit from today:

But the issue is less plans – there are a lot of ways to go about it. The issue is the will, laying the groundwork now and doing some planning in advance. As I’ve noted many times now, the mix of reconstruction, on-going catastrophe and politics will be so overwhelming in a possible new Biden administration that this kind of accounting and audit will almost certainly fall by the wayside if there isn’t a clear plan and set of commitments going in. Yet I see little concrete evidence of it two months out from the election. I have actually thought of putting together some basic, general text to use for getting commitments from members of Congress and political leaders, even though that’s a bit outside my comfort zone at this point in the site’s history and my role in it.

Some think that planning in advance is either bad karma (you’ll jinx it) or shows a certain presumptuous: focus on winning. Don’t get ahead of yourselves. But this seems wrongheaded on a few fronts. It is part of the accountability. You say what you plan to do in advance, just as you do with more traditional public policy. Most specifically, the public should know that accountability for corruption is on the ballot. Restoring constitutional government is on the ballot.

But what are we talking about? I would say a firm commitment to institute an orderly review of public corruption and law breaking under the previous administration using first and foremost the records of the government of the United States. This isn’t all that’s required. Far from it. But a new administration will inherit the books, as it were, the records of the US government. Yes, there is likely to be some document destruction and some things will have gone intentionally unrecorded. But governments are records producing machines. It’s simply not possible not to create a fairly ample record. There are no privilege issues by definition because the holder of the relevant privileges is the current leader of the executive branch. That’s where to start.

anyway, what do you all think? if/when we get to a biden presidency in jan 21, what do you want his administration to do re: the trump nightmare?

an audit is the best you can expect I think

1) the scale of corruption is so huge, we need an audit. not in the form of house investigations or trials or litigation, but just an accounting of what has happened. and 2) if we don't plan for this audit now, during these months, it won't happen.

i should say, that's my own (really brief) summary of what he thinks, and it's not complete. for example, marshall doesn't say that there should NOT be trials and litigation, etc, just that at bare minimum we need a commitment from biden and democratic leadership to audit the trump administration's activities in the first place

trying to reduce multiposts on the same topic in the 9th month of 2020, sorry, but one more thought. i think this bolded part is really important:

Some think that planning in advance is either bad karma (you’ll jinx it) or shows a certain presumptuous: focus on winning. Don’t get ahead of yourselves. But this seems wrongheaded on a few fronts. It is part of the accountability. You say what you plan to do in advance, just as you do with more traditional public policy. Most specifically, the public should know that accountability for corruption is on the ballot. Restoring constitutional government is on the ballot.

The Obama administration's disinterest to Bush corruption hurt him more than he thought. If Both Sides do it, then you vote for the Outsider.

Also:

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s support has eroded among key groups of voters who backed him in 2016 — a major reason why he continues to trail former Vice President Joe Biden and a prime motivator for the president’s reelection strategy of emphasizing violent disorder in the nation’s cities.

Trump’s decline among parts of his 2016 base is a chief finding so far from the USC Dornsife Daybreak Poll, which tracked voter preferences daily four years ago and is doing so again this year. Overall, Trump has lost support from about 9% of voters who backed him in 2016, the poll finds.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-09-01/trump-slipped-among-key-groups-backed-him-2016

The poll shows no major shift in the race during the last two weeks, belying much speculation that the back-to-back national political conventions and violence in Portland, Ore., and Kenosha, Wis., might have changed what has been an unusually stable contest.

During the Democratic convention, Biden gained 2 percentage points and Trump lost 2 points; Trump then regained some of that ground during his convention, a week-by-week comparison of the poll’s tracking shows.

An audit and/or investigations obviously need to happen, AND they need to pass or tighten up a lot of laws to make clear that the shit Trump's gotten away with in terms of mining the office for financial gain is really and truly illegal (because clearly we can't rely on the emoluments clause).

But I sort of doubt much of that happens, especially not if the Senate doesn't flip. There will be a lot of tut-tutters warning that focusing on Trump will make the Democrats look vindictive and just rile up the right.

I know this gets brought up every week but the fact that people legitimately believe this man is a strong and capable leader is baffling to me, how are all his voters not extremely embarrassed by this

It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate - FAKE NEWS. Perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another Party!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2020

(fwiw I don't think anyone is actually reporting he had a bunch of strokes)

He sounds like a newspaper comments section in the form of a garbage bag filled with rotten mayo

Meanwhile, a local Republican office-holder on my Facebook feed is posting the thing about how antifa.com takes you straight to Biden's campaign page, and she clearly does not understand that this is an internet prank. (Nor do the people commenting on it.) Oh Boomers.

anyway, what do you all think? if/when we get to a biden presidency in jan 21, what do you want his administration to do re: the trump nightmare?

I think a huge difference is that unlike past former presidents, Trump will not go gently into retirement. He will propel himself right back into the public eye, as a businessman, as a TV star, as an obnoxious asshole at every turn. Except that he will do it as a heavy scrutinized citizen, which is to say, he (and his family) will doubtless commit more crimes but likely get caught this time as it happens, and be at the mercy of courts everywhere without a Get Out of Jail Free card. So yeah, it would be nice to get an accounting of all the shit he did in office, but primarily to ensure new laws, rules and stopgaps to make sure it doesn't happen again. As for his own criminality and malfeasance, Trump Inc. will have nowhere to turn and few allies to turn to.

yeah I'm curious how the GOP treats him after his term is over. I mean they don't *really* like him do they?

Meanwhile, a local Republican office-holder on my Facebook feed is posting the thing about how antifa.com takes you straight to Biden's campaign page, and she clearly does not understand that this is an internet prank. (Nor do the people commenting on it.) Oh Boomers.

unless someone intervened, shit like this would get all the way to some senate investigation led by chuck grassley, trying to figure out whether it's true that people can own websites, and asking the tough questions, like what is a website and how does it change?

But their voters do!

xpost

The Obama administration's disinterest to Bush corruption hurt him more than he thought. If Both Sides do it, then you vote for the Outsider.

imo it hurt The Democratic Brand, not O himself, but otherwise otm

There's a few toads like Matt Gaetz that seem similar enough to Trump that I believe actually like him. For the most part he's the devil's bargain they've signed to achieve their nefarious ends.

whatever happened to gaetz's cuban teenage "son"?

He pulled off the mask to reveal he's really Falwell's catamite.

the important thing is that matt gaetz can't say racist things, on account of it being impossible due to his racist son. and actually, YOU'RE the racist

sorry, second "racist" was supposed to be "cuban". i don't know if his son is racist, but he probably is

Even if GOP dicks want to appease their own base (what an apt term), there's not much they can do to protect Trump out of office. Citizen Trump and his family are sitting ducks, and they know it.

remember when we would've all been shocked at "your favorite President, me"?

sad in a Ms Piggy accent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n0HkwWpjR8

at bare minimum we need a commitment from biden and democratic leadership to audit the trump administration's activities in the first place

this doesn't sound like the kind of bipartisan healing that the DNC promised us

biden promised light, not darkness, so an audit fits in well with that imagery

president did not have a series of mini-strokes tells story about imaginary antifa super soldiers on a plane with his imaginary friend https://t.co/trCi3ntN0J

— kilgore trout, non mini-stroke haver (@KT_So_It_Goes) September 1, 2020

"Rioters, looters, a guy fucking an alligator...in short:

MONEY PLANE!"

I've seen a lot of Con Air jokes.

anyway, what do you all think? if/when we get to a biden presidency in jan 21, what do you want his administration to do re: the trump nightmare?

― The GOAT Harold Land (Karl Malone), Tuesday, September 1, 2020 11:14 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this platform was the best argument for putting warren on the ticket:

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/restoring-integrity-and-competence-to-government-after-trump-1fda0e1cc4c5

re: "i did not have a series of strokes", seems like trump's people should remind him what happens when you ask people "don't think of an elephant".

thanks for that warren link, caek. i hope biden is amenable to her plan, and it's heartening that so much of it seems like it can be accomplished, if the will is there.

even with her plan, though, so much of it seems to ride on this aspect:

-*Establish a Justice Department Task Force to investigate corruption during the Trump administration and to hold government officials accountable for illegal activity.
Donald Trump has run the most corrupt administration in history. He was impeached for withholding foreign aid in an effort to try to benefit his re-election campaign. He has enriched himself and his business through the power of his office. And there are public reports of potentially illegal corruption in every corner of his administration. If we are to move forward to restore public confidence in government and deter future wrongdoing, we cannot simply sweep this corruption under the rug in a new administration. That’s why I will direct the Justice Department to establish a task force to investigate violations by Trump administration officials of federal bribery laws, insider trading laws, and other anti-corruption and public integrity laws, and give that task force independent authority to pursue any substantiated criminal and civil violations. I have also committed to establishing a task force to investigate accusations of serious violations by immigration officials during the Trump era.

it's going to take a lot of political will (or integrity, or courage?) to do this properly.

The choice of AG is going to be pretty crucial. You have to start with an assumption that Republicans/QAnoners will see any and every effort to investigate the Trumps as further evidence of the Justice Department's ongoing conspiracy against him. Need somebody smart enough to work the politics of it and resilient enough to take the heat. Not sure that person exists.

I hear Robert Mueller might be available to investigate the Trump administration's wrongdoing.

warren should be AG (if she's done running for president, because i assume being AG in the present climate is not a good electoral career move)

Yeah, she's got enough DGAF to do it and to tell Biden to back off if he tries to rein her in. Also why he might not choose her, of course. (This may just be fantasy football, but at least it's fun to think about.)

Sadly, Bob Barr's career won't suffer a bit for his having been Trump's footstool. He'll be living in a mansion, smoking fat cigars and raking in money until he dies. Or is sent to prison.

I misread that as "fartstool," and even though I don't know what that would be, it seemed right.

Btw I'll be honest, I don't see the point of questioning Asshole's physical health. If he's too unhealthy to be president then maybe he'll die, which is good. Mental health is more of a concern, especially considering the point where he started from.

It doesn't help that it seems like he's been having mini-strokes in public for the last few years.

I see though this new thing comes from him stumbling on stage on Friday?

pic.twitter.com/iti6ysnV7t

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) September 1, 2020

Is he an organ donor? Maybe we could lie and tell him he has to donate them all now, while he is alive

Being someone whose own father has had a series of mini-strokes that has made him barely able to speak, i wish the gen public didn't go "lol stroke" every time he wobbles.

(Not that i don't make the occasional stroke joke, but every time his knee bends we get pointless speculation on his health from internet hacks.)

it's one of the most annoying things in the entire world

see also the ongoing discussion of biden's senility

our president can't even function! no, that's not true, the it's the opposing candidate that can't even function!

*meanwhile, the president and democratic candidate clearly function on the tv screen in the background*

JOE BIDEN LITERALLY HAS NO IDEA WHERE HE IS, HE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORDS HE SAYS MEAN, HE IS JUST GUESSING AND GETTING REALLY LUCKY OVER AND OVER, HIS STREAK WILL END SOON

no you are wrong, it is the president who does not understand time and space and reality, he is the one who is just making up the words and getting lucky. i know a student nurse and they told me that every single doctor on earth understands that

Not sure where this belongs, but Jacob AWOL

Well it finally happened https://t.co/0qS4t0JKVK pic.twitter.com/FbG4Il9XdB

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) September 1, 2020

xpost

Yeah it would be enough to just stipulate that I wouldn't get in a car that either of them were driving and leave it at that. They are old men showing physical and mental signs of being old men, we are all aware.

And I promise not to get offended if somebody calls me an old man if/when I am their age.

It's annoying but it would probably be less of a thing if the two dudes running for president weren't a collective 415 years old.

Damn, why didn't I think of Jacob Awohl as a dn?

I mean, people of all ages trip, it happens

tbrr a commercial airline filled with shadowy black antifa boogeymen sounds like a great comedy premise

* Boogeypeople

Solid-Snakes On a Plane.

Money, money, money

Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to report a record-breaking haul of donations for August, raising more than $300 million between his campaign and his shared committees with the Democratic Party, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The sum would shatter past monthly records as small donors have poured money into Mr. Biden’s coffers, especially since the selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, and big contributors, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, have given checks that can be as large as $721,300.

In a sign of the financial momentum behind Democrats, ActBlue, the main site that processes donations to the party, reported the second-biggest fund-raising day in its history on Monday, with more than $35 million donated. A majority of Mr. Biden’s August total came from online grass-roots donors, according to another person familiar with the figures.

The people familiar with Mr. Biden’s fund-raising did not know the exact final figure for the month of August, or how much higher than $300 million it would be.

Act Blue should save up and buy Disney.

I somehow missed the President's extended monologue last month on the use of soup as a deadly protest weapon. "Big bags of soup." https://t.co/f5Tpsk7D9u pic.twitter.com/sCjGDzbWzv

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) September 1, 2020

"Big Bags of Soup" for September Thread Title.

....you wish to replace the existing title?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcR0TFbAgFvcB2bVUPdv9bxduvo8_QZbmHkldw&usqp=CAU

Pundits trying to freak out..

On its face, the assumption that moderates and independents might flock to Trump feels consistent with what we learned about white voters and racial resentment in 2016. And the race is tightening up in nearby Minnesota, fueled by demographic tensions between the cities and their outstate counterparts and rising cultural tensions in the wake of the George Floyd protests. But in Wisconsin, the prediction that those put off by the protests will embrace Trump hasn’t yet been supported by the polling or in conversations with pollsters and operatives here.

It’s true that support for Black Lives Matter has fallen in Wisconsin. The Marquette University Law School Poll, often referred to as the “gold standard” in Wisconsin polling, found in late June that 59 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin had a positive view of Black Lives Matter, while 27 percent had a negative one. It also found voters had positive views of the protests by a 61-36 split. Six weeks later, though, the poll found support for Black Lives Matter had dropped to 49-37 and 48-48 for the protests.

But that shift doesn’t necessarily mean voters are embracing Trump’s calls over the summer for law and order. Not only did the head-to-head matchup with Joe Biden hardly budge, but the president’s handling of the protests continued to be one of his weakest points with Wisconsin voters, even more so than how he’s addressed the Covid-19 pandemic. In June, 30 percent of Wisconsin voters approved Trump’s handling of the protests. In August, 32 percent did—hardly any movement at all.

i guarantee that this is unimplementable and unenforcable

So the federal government appears to have just issued an eviction moratorium for nonpayment of rent through the end of the year for any renter making less than $99,000 https://t.co/ctNXUnrhhX

— Liam Dillon (@dillonliam) September 1, 2020

here's the full story:https://t.co/xKARlNDmR1

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) September 1, 2020

Not sure we needed the tweet around that link :P

Sounds like a good thing?

a good thing like the measures many governors have passed, but just like those measures, it's merely kicking a can down the road because once the moratorium ends, the landlords will just ask for all of the missed months payments at once and then threaten eviction when they can't pay.

fortunately the county my mother lives in has some kind of rent assistance program that will cover her for three months (and her two sons who are relatively well off), but scares me to think if some other measures aren't enacted, like a MONTHLY stimulus payment (which won't happen), a reinstatement of the unemployment enhancement (possibly), or anything that restores lost income, we're still likely to have an eviction crisis.

Not sure we needed the tweet around that link :P

you didn't need the tweet explaining the 40 page PDF of legal language?

or you wanted the bloomberg link posted as just a link?

it's a fake thing. it's completely unenforceable (there are states). it's the same deal as the last set of relief measures he put forward (literally none of which have been implemented nationally).

he's really leaning into this "i did not have a series of strokes" thing huh. truly the mind of a child.

Sounds pretty much like the conversation I had with my 8 year-old earlier today..

"Did you get yourself a snack?"

"I didn't spill the water all over the counter!"

"I didn't ask that?"

President @realDonaldTrump tours what Biden will do to America. pic.twitter.com/vrY9VXuMaX

— Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) September 1, 2020

Trump fast forwarded through all the Ghostbusters dialogue to get to the action.

“THEY HAVE THESE CANS... AND THEY SQUEEZE THEM AND SPINACH COMES OUT! AND THE SPINACH MAKES THEM STRONG! LIKE BATTLESHIPS! AND THEN THEY... THEY PUNCH! PEOPLE GO FLYING! I HEARD IT FROM A GUY. BIG. IN THE MILITARY. NAVY. TEARS IN HIS EYES. NAME WAS BLUTO.” https://t.co/6pqGLMBkT3

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) September 1, 2020

The only part of that that made me laugh was realizing that each word he barfs out brings us one word closer to his last.

He looks so crazed as he says that! Wtf

The underrated part there is his belief that bricks are too heavy to throw.

This is the ultimate macho man Alpha of Ben Garrison's fantasies.

a lot of stuff here I didn't catch up with, but the report of 'strokes' happened on twitter and was in fact fake; someone retweeted the story about Pence being put on standby (which is completely normal) while he went to the hospital (why? no one knows) and said "confirmed he had strokes!" and people like Judd Apatow retweeted it everywhere and hardly anyone deleted these tweets when they were informed that the link said nothing of the sort, because people are fucking dumb.

In other dumb news: Pelosi photographed inside a hair salon in SF. Salons are closed. She claims she thought it was legal. WTF lady. You are not helping.

There needs to be counter-op of, like, Louie Gohmert forcing open a Golden Corral.

btw, did he ever come back covid19?

_from_

sorry, don't call it a comeback

one can only hope he died with a whimper, but I suppose he didn't

not only did he come back, unfortunately, but I saw a picture of him convalescing with a mask.

I thought London Breed announced that there would be a re-opening of hair salons in SF today

Video of me watching strong early markey returns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0IQCLQDfKw

Huge relief: Markey wins big in Mass.

A tragedy for the Kennedy family

there is a reopening of hair salons in SF, but outdoors only.

Markey is a good guy these days so it’s cool he won but it’s extra cool because this is a huge show of strength by aoc/justice democrats/sunrise, and so should frighten (and hopefully push left) the melts.

anyway, point being, it's another 'here's my $5k refrigerator filled with ice cream". apparently the salon owner let this happen so she could video it and leak it to Fox News and make a big deal. She could have stopped it and told the person who rented the chair from her that she wouldn't allow it. But Pelosi should have fucking known better. Like, know what the laws are in the area you represent, moron.

A tragedy for the Kennedy family

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Tuesday, September 1, 2020 6:24 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Could be worse, knowing their luck.

what is a melt in a US political context?

At the moment, the Kennedy/Markey district map seems to indicate that the biggest predictor of Kennedy turnout is proximity to Rhode Island.

Something something corrupt old money something something

xpost To the limited extent that I understand the term, I'd wager it's any ostensibly left-leaning pol who bets against and/or undermines the efficacy of more progressive candidates?

I think it’s just been adopted from the ukpol threads where it is generally used as a pejorative for centrists

That’s what I meant by it, yes.

Basically this

Not a single patient should be forced to fight off medical bankruptcy in the midst of a global health pandemic without a lawyer by their side.

— Rep. Joe Kennedy III (@RepJoeKennedy) May 8, 2020

Like I’m not sure this claim is actually true, but this thought must cross a few incumbents minds over the next year or two

Ed Markey winning is amazing because it shows incumbents with imperfect records that if they just work with young left wing activists they can beat back the toughest possible primary challenge.

— Aaron (@BobbyBigWheel) September 2, 2020

Congratulations to noted ilx curmudgeon ed markey.

I see that Kennedy lost big time in my hometown Brookline aka the birthplace of JFK.

eat it pelosi

Haha fuck you mr kennedy

BREAKING: Senator Collins clarifies her position on President Trump. "Yes, I said that I wouldn't endorse him but that doesn't mean I don't fully support him." https://t.co/fcWokcwMHR

— PAULUS V (@PAULUSV3) September 1, 2020

Eat shit, horrible person

What would you even do if such a chicken-livered waste of space was your grandma

Probably dye your hair turquoise and start vaping but maybe that’s just me

it still kind of astounds me the total disregard for legacy these people have

like, you're OLD AMD RICH, why are you humiliating yourself like this?

AND

Very sorry for denigrating chickens’ livers in my above post, not my thing but iirc my grandma enjoyed them on the reg

The thing this really tells us about collins is that (as we know) she’s always been a pandering front-runner fair-weather bullshit peddler who believes in nothing (as we know) and isn’t about to change just because she’s losing (thank fucking god for that)

The entire population of republican senators are sharts in human form

You have to be some kind of loser to lose a race in Massachusetts with the last name Kennedy. Fuck that lightweight.

The gasbag Buttegieg fanboy on my Facebook friend list is very upset about Kennedy's loss

I'm restraining myself from going onto his page and making fun of him but it's very hard

The entire population of republican senators are sharts in human form

I dunno, sharts are short lived and usually only end up making a mess for the sharter.

Clearly you've never seen Shartnado.

or witnessed a middle schooler have to do the mile run after sharting on the way out to the track

Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May let out a shart when the Poopbane blooms
And the autumn Moon is bright.

The Susan Collins article is a) from July and b) doesn't include the (made-up) quote in that tweet.

mold a new reality
closer to the shart

shart! shart!
let it all out!
these are the shorts I can do without
come on
i'll do the laundry with you
come on

(sorry)

(more of a shart-positive perspective)

https://www.newsweek.com/florida-boat-parade-trump-carlos-gavidia-1529086

Our big ‘boaters’ can’t stop themselves from committing felonies, they’re just too beautiful.

you might say they're gonna go down with the ship

The Commission on Presidential Debates on Wednesday announced the four moderators for this year’s presidential and vice-presidential debates.

“Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace will moderate the first debate, which is scheduled for Sept. 29 at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page will moderate the vice-presidential debate, which will take place at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 7.

The second presidential debate, which will take the form of a town hall meeting, will be moderated by CSPAN senior executive producer and political editor Steve Scully. The debate is scheduled for Oct. 15 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami.

The third and final presidential debate will be moderated by NBC News White House correspondent and “Weekend Today” co-anchor Kristen Welker. It is scheduled for Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville.

i just realized that i have zero memory of the 2016 debate between tim kaine and pence. makes sense

it was the one where pence kept crinkling his face and shaking his head while smiling sadly at kaine's certain eternal perdition iirc

heheh, yeah that sounds about right.

harris v pence may be interesting, just because it will be an opportunity for harris to point out the trillions of terrible things the trump administration has done, without trump himself being there to interrupt and distract.

The only VP debate I remember is 2004 because John Edwards's sliminess oozed through the screen.

i remember joe biden vs paul ryan, 2012, because biden kicked his ass and it felt good

The only time Biden's rancid Insta-Guffaw worked spectacularly as a weapon.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbrbetWRy01rg2rf7o1_500.gif

That is, I don't doubt, the first time anyone had laughed at Mr. Serious Budget Guy, privately or public, in his life.

Never discount the likelihood of a sexual humiliation fetish.

I think was Bentsen-Quayle that put the veep debates on the map. Since then we've come to expect "I knew Jack Kennedy" zingers, though we rarely get them.

Cheney's "I'm the President of the Senate and I've never even met you before tonight" to Edwards was an attempt at that--a lie, but an attempt.

Don't forget the 1984 Veep debate though:

Geraldine A. Ferraro's campaign manager said today that off- color remarks by Vice President Bush and others in his campaign ''have gone beyond decency.'' The aide asked for an immediate apology.

The remarks by the campaign manager, John Sasso, were the sharpest reaction thus far from Mrs. Ferraro's campaign staff to the Vice President's use of a locker-room vulgarity in a private conversation with a longshoreman while campaigning Friday in Elizabeth, N.J.

Mr. Bush's remark, which was picked up by a television microphone, was that ''we tried to kick a little ass last night'' in the Vice-Presidential debate Thursday. Mr. Bush has sought to pass the comment off as an ''old Texas football'' expression.

1984. god, that quote reads like something out of the gilded age now.

a locker-room vulgarity in a private conversation with a longshoreman

Never discount the likelihood of a sexual humiliation fetish.

would be a good thread title honestly

Small President Humiliation

Lol at the idea of apologizing for that quote

whoa https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/biden-staggering-monthly-cash-haul-407712

On the day of the debate, for example, Bush’s press secretary said Ferraro was “too bitchy,” for voters, while Bush’s wife, Barbara, also got in the mix.

From the New York Times:

Mrs. Bush, while bantering with reporters on Monday, characterized Mrs. Ferraro as a ”four-million-dollar - I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich.” Mrs. Bush later apologized and said she had not meant to suggest Mrs. Ferraro was ”a witch.”

As much as it pains me to say it, well played Mrs. Bush.

Clinton outspent Trump too, don't seek comfort there imo xps

don't seek comfort there imo xps

I would rather Biden raised more money than trump

ok

Political types know that when a voter gives even a few dollars to a campaign that voter starts to feel much more invested in the success of the candidate and is almost 100% certain to cast their vote for them, too. It'd be nice to read he got 70 million $2 donations, but reality doesn't work like that.

hmm, a debate moderated by a woman of color. if Trumps actually makes it to the third debate, I definitely predict that's the one where he admonishes the mod for asking such a nasty question and then storms off stage.

cool

BREAKING: The Trump administration has put Fatou #Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) and one of her top aids, on the sanctions list historically reserved for war criminals and international terrorists.https://t.co/iUaeH4Hxmm pic.twitter.com/PXdguvRq5L

— Michel Paradis (@MDParadis) September 2, 2020

...? wtf

i don't recall hearing anything about trump and the icc - is this just an early shot fired by trump because he assumes he'll be pursued by the ICC after his administration ends?

the guy’s foreign policy chops are just outstanding, just bold move after bold move, it’s just like Scott Adams was telling us all along

but trump talking about low-flow toilets or tweeting "covfefe" gets lots more attention

Don't forget the soup cans. Probably a closet Warhol fan.

she's investigating possible war crimes in afghanistan

you might say they're gonna go down with the ship

they won't put their hands up and surrender
there will be no white flag above their door

part of the reason i posted that biden donations thing (forgot to finish the thought because brain is mush) is to point out that he has more money than he needs, and if anyone on this thread is looking for someone to donate to then:

1. it's probably too close to the election for a donation to jessica scarane (delaware primary for us senate vs. a melt) to make a difference, but

2. if you can afford it, send a few dollars to this https://www.futurenow.org/givesmart/. these are vetted candidates running against republicans (no primaries of democratic incumbents) running in races where the campaign budget is low (so $10 helps) and the state context is such that an extra vote in the statehouse is worth a lot. basically there is no better place to donate right now imo.

also i donated last night and 1/8 of the candidates has already phoned me to say thanks so it's very sweet.

You could also donate it to people who actually need it unlike some politician who will fuck you over to stay in office for a few more years.

https://www.nationalbailout.org/

i missed this scumbag move from steve scalise:

I speak with a computerized voice — think Stephen Hawking. It’s a result of ALS, the neurological disease I’ve had since 2016. And of all the painful parts of this entire ordeal, which has now almost completely paralyzed me, one of the worst is the way the disease has robbed me of my natural voice.

Last week, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise tried to use my computer-assisted voice to rob me of my agency, too. In a video aimed at Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, shared his team’s manipulated footage of an interview I conducted with Biden to make it appear I had said words that I never uttered, in an effort to distort Biden’s views and harm his electoral prospects.

Scalise eventually scrubbed the video from his Twitter feed after being criticized for the manipulation, but the ominous lessons of the episode remain: the ability to use technology not only for good but to mislead and manipulate; the willingness of those with political agendas to resort to such disinformation and propaganda; and the way in which America has cleaved into two separate information universes, with a conservative media ecosystem amplifying falsehoods that then take root.

The entirety of the Scalise video painted a bleak picture of the country, with cleverly spliced scenes designed to make major cities look like places of anarchy and violent chaos. That’s already disingenuous; protesters demanding an end to centuries of racial violence have largely been peaceful. But what made it so remarkable wasn’t just that Scalise twisted the truth about Black Lives Matter. His video went a step further, altering a question I had asked Biden about law enforcement to make it sound as though Biden had agreed to defund the police. I’m in favor of defunding the police, so I wish that were the case. But Biden has been clear that isn’t his position.

Now, I am of course grateful I can still speak, even if very slowly, using eye-gaze technology: A camera tracks the movements of my eyes on a screen-based keyboard, and then the resulting text is converted into speech by a synthetic voice generator. But because of my Hawking-esque voice, it’s particularly easy for others to manipulate what I say. Scalise’s team just went the extra mile in seeming to find the exact voice generator I use when they whipped up the extra words meant to damn Biden. (Scalise’s team denies this.)

Scalise has since conceded the video “shouldn’t have been edited” in an interview on Fox News — even as he attempted to claim there was an underlying truthfulness to the message. That isn’t the same as an apology to me, or, more important, the more than 2 million people in this country who communicate using assistive technology like I do.

stuff like this barely even registers right now. i think one hallmark of this era is that there is no accountability. whatever remained of it is fucking GONE

I heard somebody talking about it on something from last night. I think it was chris Hayes definitely sounded like a creepy thing to try to get away with.

xxp

the word "also" in your own post so i assume you concede the obvious response.

i've donated far more to https://www.givedirectly.org/covid-19/us/ than i've ever donated to any politician), but how's the view up there?

yeah I've been donating to both civilian-specific funds/friends or family directly/vetted charities at about the same clip as politicians. politicians usually get like...$20 from me tops (though Jaime Harrison I did set up a monthly contrib)

the three major polls that dropped today (according to RCP) moving in an encouraging direction - +8, +8, +11. Fox News poll also shows him maintaining in battleground states. 538 bumped him up slightly to 70 in 100 odds.

So you're saying we're doomed?

Axios, not exactly the most Dem friendly site, said the numbers were unchanged.

lol actblue is down

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-encourages-north-carolina-residents-vote-twice-test-mail-system-n1239140

If it means their ballots get thrown out, cool.

"President Trump encourages supporters to vote absentee-by-mail early, and then show up in person at the polls or the local registrar to verify that their vote has already been counted," Trump campaign official Tim Murtaugh said. "It’s amazing that the media can go from insisting that voter fraud doesn’t exist to screaming about it when President Trump points out the giant holes in the Democrats’ voting schemes.”

*bloodcurdling scream*

yes

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/joe-biden-post-dnc-polls-408087

via hoos

Brilliant work by @wallacetim & @k3blu3 using satellite imagery to map the colours of US neighbourhoods (from grey city centres to green rural expanses) onto voting patterns https://t.co/ZAkJHS1oWs pic.twitter.com/FPZTN20EBk

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) September 2, 2020

not seeing the remarkable insight there besides some cool mosaics

Biden is up *8* points in a *Fox News* poll of *Wisconsin* conducted *immediately after the RNC* and prediction markets have the race as a toss-up. https://t.co/ChRiIfdYtH

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 2, 2020

I realize Republicans for Biden probably won’t move any voters, because most Republicans are pure-Trumpists, but some of these are surprising to me. Snyder and Trott are not RINOs. They are conservative Republicans. https://t.co/faZnCeWT9S

— Ben Yelin (@byelin) September 3, 2020

That hyphen surprises me.

Fox News polls are surprisingly good, they’re not Rasmussen

That hyphen surprises me.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, September 3, 2020 8:51 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol, this is the Alfred content I need.

2. if you can afford it, send a few dollars to this https://www.futurenow.org/givesmart/. these are vetted candidates running against republicans (no primaries of democratic incumbents) running in races where the campaign budget is low (so $10 helps) and the state context is such that an extra vote in the statehouse is worth a lot. basically there is no better place to donate right now imo.

also i donated last night and 1/8 of the candidates has already phoned me to say thanks so it's very sweet.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, September 2, 2020 3:59 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks caek, this seems like a really good program and I donated to it too.

cuomo sucks but gotta give him props for strongly hinting at physical violence toward the president

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Wednesday night issued a fiery rebuke of President Donald Trump’s move to cut federal funding from New York City and other Democrat-run cities.

“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” Trump said during a press call, according to Politico. “Forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York.”

When TPM asked Cuomo’s press office if the governor was threatening physical violence against Trump, Cuomo spokesperson Jonathan Sterne highlighted the governor’s clarification in the call in which he told reporters, “My comment about the President’s bodyguards in New York City, all I’m saying is that he is persona non grata in New York City, and I think he knows that.”

“And he’ll never come back to New York because New Yorkers will never forget how gratuitously mean he has been to New Yorkers and how many times he has tried to kill the city that gave him his start and that birthed him,” Cuomo said. “That’s what I meant.”

“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” Trump said during a press call, according to Politico.

CUOMO said that, not Trump.

sorry, that's a TERRIBLE mistake in the original

Jesse Helms nodding and smiling in hell

My favorite thing in the morning is to think of Jessie Helms smiling.

*chugs a warm beer*

“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” Cuomo said during a press call, according to Politico. “Forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York.”

he has the NYPD ffs

look, trump's stance on vote by mail is very simple. he clarified things a lot this morning:

“Based on the massive number of Unsolicited & Solicited Ballots that will be sent to potential Voters for the upcoming 2020 Election, & in order for you to MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED, SIGN & MAIL IN your Ballot as EARLY as possible,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “On Election Day, or Early Voting, go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do).”

Following his advice, he said, would ensure “THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED, it hasn’t been ‘lost, thrown out, or in any way destroyed.’ ”

His tweets came shortly after a television appearance in which White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted that Trump was not calling on voters to break the law.

“The president is not suggesting anyone do anything unlawful,” McEnany said during an appearance on Fox News. “What he said very clearly there is make sure your [mail-in] vote is tabulated, and if it is not, then vote.”

...uh, and what about people in states like NC which will continue collecting ballots for several days after the election (since the state accepts ballots postmarked up to the day of the election)? many people will procrastinate and wait til the day before the election to get it in the mail. and then trump tells them to go to the polling location the next day to confirm that they received the mail-in ballot (which obviously they will not have, at that point), and if they don't, they need to vote in person so "THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED"?

good fucking lord. once again, i can't tell if he's really just that dumb and ignorant or if he's doing this on purpose because he knows it will CREATE voter fraud (in his advantage), and his supporters are so fucking stupid that they won't understand that he created it

both?

Two things: one, a sneery own-the-libs "well, if THEY say there are safeguards in place, let THEM prove it!" and two, the id-on-legs "chaos - any chaos - is good for me because it buys me time."

god I wish the MSM would just report this for what it is. "Trump encourages widespread voter fraud". There.

The deeply-entrenched MSM deference to presidents will never be remedied until the ownership of the MSM changes radically. Or capitalism dies.

It is true that in non-capitalist countries the MSM defers to someone other than a President often

good fucking lord. once again, i can't tell if he's really just that dumb and ignorant or

It's generally pretty safe to stop right there.

My finest contribution to Urban dictionary.

https://i.ibb.co/nQ7CnPs/Screenshot-20200903-163002.jpg

Not yet available in search but when it is i hope he sees it when he vanity Googles his name

+A gaetz zing

i was a happy family man with a job i loved, but then i started gaetzing and immediately got fired and now my family won't speak to me

family court judge says the viral video of me gaetzing at the Chuck E Cheese after being asked to leave several times by management is admissible. so basically I’m fucked

my mom and I moved in with this guy and after they split up I decided to stick around. He does tend to overdo it with the gaetzing but he’s got an awesome hairline and we get box seats for the Nats.

Good looking out caek I’m sending that link to my angriest friends who still have income

can I just say I hate this Nancy Pelosi story so much. it is the top performing story on Facebook right now BY FAR and apparently all they're talking about on Fox News. of all the dumb shit Republicans do this sort of obviously fake concern trolling is probably my least favorite

but also she's dumb as hell and the "salon owner owes me an apology" thing is doubling down on the dumbness.

it’s always important to milo that the democrat is the most wrong person

'Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course' is milo's very own 'no homo'.

Btw Joe Biden Also Sucks, Of Course.

'We Suck Noticeably Less Than Our Competition' has kept many a business enterprise flourishing.

yeah not defending Nancy but holy shit you'd think this was the most important story on the planet right now

I encourage Pelosi to keep doing dumb shit, so the Trump campaign can continue forgetting it's not running for reelection against Nancy Pelosi.

and i said what about nancy pelosi
fox news said i think i remember that speaker
as i recall i think we both really hated her
and i said well that's the one thing we've got

hell of a URL

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

god, just to say some of that shit out loud where other people can hear it...it really goes to show you how money and power allow for behavior that's completely indistinguishable from severe mental illness.

funny how Hillary's "deplorables" comment got like a month of coverage and this story will be forgotten in 15 minutes

well i dunno, this similar accusation, but with more evidence to back it up, almost certainly lost him the election in 2016

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/gold-star-families-attack-trump-over-comments-about-ghazala-khan-n620671

that Atlantic article by Goldberg is otm

it’s always important to milo that the democrat is the most wrong person

It’s unfortunate that you missed the day in school where they taught the meaning of “also.”

still infuriating that shit like this would instantly end the career of literally any politician in the country except for the goddamn president

It would be okay if it normalized not genuflecting toward the troops.

it’s important to milo that people don’t forget troops are actually bad not good

actually, that IS important tbf

One need only look at the military to cop pipeline to see that.

I think it's maybe possibly possible (just maybe) to curb uncritical over-veneration of the armed forces without calling POWs and veterans losers. Possibly. Just imagine.

Without veterans, how would we staff CrossFit gyms and domestic spying operations?!

The systemic overfunding of troop activities and troop-adjacent programs is probably suboptimal.
Troops themselves are just young people, often disadvantaged, looking for a steady career. They work hard and sometimes they get hurt bad or die.

everything and everyone is bad.
lock thread.
nuke forum.
walk away.

Nothing will happen to him. He got away with McCain, the purple heart thing, bone spurs... he could piss in Arlington cemetery and not dip in the polls.

it’s important to milo to treat vets with the same level of respect that trump does

who among us hasn't taken a leak there. sometimes a slurpee has to re-emerge

I think it's maybe possibly possible (just maybe) to curb uncritical over-veneration of the armed forces without calling POWs and veterans losers. Possibly. Just imagine.

Probably! And if one was a politician or adjacent, it would be important to do so. Messaging and all that.

That doesn't describe anyone itt, though.

I'm a politician

sadly I got primaried by a more evolved being

Some of us have relatives buried in military cemeteries, you fucking asshole.

So do I.

If that's going to be the boundaries of acceptable opinion, though, shit's gonna get weird when we start accounting for people with beloved cop uncles and Republican grandpas.

when 18, 19 year-olds who are disproportionately poor and brown die because they joined the military, that to me is good, because I am very wise.

'The military' contains multitudes, from purely amazing and admirable people to some of the worst assholes you can imagine. The USA's big military problem is funding every big, shiny weapon system the DoD asks for and they will never, ever stop asking for whizzier gadgets. The consequence is we get troop carriers that can go 70 mph over rough terrain, do backflips, shoot 10,000 bullets a second, cost $50 million each and can be blown up by an IED rigged from an old artillery shell and a cell phone. And the troop carrier doesn't even have AC.

when 18, 19 year-olds who are disproportionately poor and brown die because they joined the military, that to me is good, because I am very wise.

This is a myth IIRC - the military is disproportionately middle-class. The poor are under-represented and the ethnic makeup isn't much different from the country as a whole.

I don't think anyone wished death on them, though?

‘Who gives a shit’ is pretty different from that actively wishing death IMO. Veterans took a job with pretty sweet benefits, end of story, end of the extent we should care about them.

Like, meatpackers play an actual important role in American society and have never committed war crimes.

anyway, let's enjoy the big fella grouse about paper straws (so 2018!) and marvel as his steel trap mind recalls the names of fast food restaurants

TRUMP: "They want to ban straws. Has anybody ever tried those paper straws? They are not working too good. Right? I said, I have had a couple meals at McDonald's, etc, over the years. Wendy's. A friend of mine owns Wendy's, I will give it a plug. Right? Burger King." pic.twitter.com/0lNygt7oHM

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 3, 2020

fuck him, paper straws are awesome

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military

Most services (the big ones) are less white than the gen pop and “middle class” is a broad term.

If that's going to be the boundaries of acceptable opinion, though, shit's gonna get weird when we start accounting for people with beloved cop uncles and Republican grandpas.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z)

I'm not sure what this means

I'm not sure what this means

'I have family who were veterans how dare you not be nice about them' is just as applicable to uncle-cops (as we've literally seen on ILX) and Republican grandpas?

The same as well with using demographics as a trump card - the NYPD and LAPD are majority-minority. But you know, fuck 'em.

Grffivfcgjbfgddtvkikoojgddgsfvujvvdtgjnholbpppgcssaewcghbfft

here are the boundaries of acceptable opinion afaics. when you find that certain opinions are 'unacceptable' please feel free to tell all ILX that you disagree with them, but there are boundaries on how disagreeable you may be in expressing this. DJP is aware of this and stays in bounds.

Grffivfcgjbfgddtvkikoojgddgsfvujvvdtgjnholbpppgcssaewcghbfft

― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Thursday, September 3, 2020 8:20 PM bookmarkflaglink

-Ronald Reagan, Iran Contra trial

I always imagine milo typing these not so deep thoughts sitting on his tailgate, eating a sandwich. Why do i think this???

He should try a California burrito instead.

-Ronald Reagan, Iran Contra trial

― Neanderthal, Thursday, September 3, 2020

I've listened to the hours of Reagan testimony on YouTube; that's what it sounds like

xp Vile

Look I have a full bladder and live near a civil war cemetery—somebody’s grandpa is getting pissed on

somebody’s grandpa is getting pissed on

That's OK. It's safe to say all the grandchildren of civil war vets are dead, too. You wanna talk about someone's great-great-great-grandpa, then you're back in the land of the living for sure.

Aimless, I believe there are people still collecting Civil War spousal benefits.

Also, I will honestly say that I don't understand how someone could lack both empathy, nuance, and class analysis as much as Milo does upthread.

Nuance and class analysis being one thing, obviously (lol, whatever I hope he gets banned).

I have no idea what you think I said but "without veterans, how would we staff CrossFit gyms and domestic spying operations?!" is not exactly wishing ill on anyone AFAICT.

And lol "class analysis" only if you buy into the mythology of the military. Troops are not some poor downtrodden group forced into waging war with no other choice. They're an all-volunteer force of primarily middle-class people who use it as a alternative route to prosperity. It's a job, just like being a cop and no more worthy of respect or adulation for it.

You're doing the thing you do often in these threads where you shift the goalposts wildly to serve whatever point you're making right now while pretending you didn't make a different point earlier. To hearken back: a link was posted to a story about Trump saying disgusting shit about military veterans and POWs, followed by this exchange

still infuriating that shit like this would instantly end the career of literally any politician in the country except for the goddamn president

― frogbs, Thursday, September 3, 2020 5:47 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It would be okay if it normalized not genuflecting toward the troops.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Thursday, September 3, 2020 5:49 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Which seemed to indicate that you felt Trump's means justify the theoretical end of troop veneration. So hopefully you see why people might take issue with that, regardless of what direction you try to steer the conversation afterwards.

Looking at the numbers, your analysis is shit, since the class numbers available are based on neighborhood income levels rather than individual household levels and also in today's day and age, 53,000/year is middle class in maybe like 5-8 states where the cost of living is low af. I've known a lot of vets (through IVAW and other groups), and all of them grew up in trailers or in the barrio, and all of them got royally fucked in the head and heart and body by the US military apparatus.

If you aren't on the side of people who are being used as cannon fodder by an imperialist government, and instead are throwing potential allies in class struggle out with the MIC, then your ideology is shit and you are shit

If you voluntarily join an organisation whose primary purpose is killing people, and which has a massive and obvious history of war crimes, then whatever your socioeconimic or educational or age-related reasons, I feel pretty free to judge you and find you wanting.

Ah yes, because every kid grows up knowing about US war crimes and is desperate to pull a Lynndie on some hogtied Iraqi. Gtfoh

ILX is definitely not known for offhand sarcasm - as I would hope most people not looking for offense could tell since it was a response to frogbs's "end the career" post, which was specifically about how Trump is immune to the standard rules of proper behavior.

Would you like a full paragraph instead of a one-liner? I don't care what Trump did or didn't say, he's a monster and anything he said rather than did wouldn't hit the top 20 acts of evil he performed that day, but failures of veneration of the troops "end(ing) the career of literally any politician" is fucked up and weird and not something anyone should wish for. The US military is a force for evil, from killing innocent people abroad to draining our finite resources at home and going to work for it does not ennoble anyone.

Tribalism has pushed liberals into good ol' natsec consensus hawkishness on American imperialism around the world and that is ultimately a terrible thing. If Trump being a boor and an oaf got the other side to end their slavish devotion (because of that same tribalism), good - but it won't. Because see above, he's immune to the standard rules of proper behavior.

It's amazing how 6.9 million people turn 18-years old each year and don't sign up to be drone pilots.

No one is forced into the military, we haven't had a draft in almost five decades. It's a choice.

So is posting on here. You could not.

Like if you honestly believe that then you have a warped sense of the limited choices many people have on offer.

I'm no fan of the military but these are some blinkered-ass opinions re: the complicity of oft-undereducated 18-year-olds in the atrocity of war.

I don't know about y'all but I was pretty much a dumbfuck at 18, and if I hadn't grown up in a military family, I don't know that I would've thought enough about the military to have dismissed it as an option.

Troops are not some poor downtrodden group forced into waging war with no other choice. They're an all-volunteer force of primarily middle-class people who use it as a alternative route to prosperity. It's a job, just like being a cop and no more worthy of respect or adulation for it.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Friday, September 4, 2020 2:19 AM (thirty-six minutes ago)

trump was ridiculing the deaths of american soldiers who died in world war I, most of whom were drafted. they were literally "forced into waging war with no other choice."

Like if you honestly believe that then you have a warped sense of the limited choices many people have on offer.

I graduated high school and spent the next three years working 55 hour weeks waiting tables instead of killing people, then worked construction for 12, but please tell me more about opportunities and choices.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/04/18/recruits-to-americas-armed-forces-are-not-what-they-used-to-be

But for the millennial soldiers, reared in an age of American swagger, the opposite is true. Their median family income is more than $73,000, compared with $66,000 for civilians, and recruits are most likely to come from families in the middle of the wealth distribution, with median wealth of $87,000, almost $10,000 more than civilians. Blacks, overrepresented among the poor, and a disproportionately large veteran presence in the 1979 cohort, as Mr Chomsky noted, have dwindled as a share of recruits. Separately, as the armed forces shrank in size and grew choosier, recruits tended to be cleverer (measured by a cognitive skills test) than their civilian peers. Indeed, among the poorest recruits it is the cleverest—not the drop-outs or deadbeats—who are likeliest to sign up.

worth mentioning that the one thing other than the Access Hollywood tape that really hurt Trump in 2016 was the time he went after a Gold Star family

And so all of the dudes that I know who would back up what I'm saying don't exist, only articles from a free-market conservative publication and your own warped perspective.

This fucking guy lol

Is the FP functionality broken while that poll is running?

Asking for a friend.

I'm sure you know many people who fit your description - that doesn't make them the norm. Perhaps, given the group you identify them as coming from, troops who fit that background are more likely to come out disillusioned - you don't meet all the ones who flipped a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan into years working as PMCs (I know several of those FWIW).

You're going to have to explain how the Economist's politics impeach those numbers, which mirror the information from upthread.

I graduated high school and spent the next three years working 55 hour weeks waiting tables instead of killing people, then worked construction for 12, but please tell me more about opportunities and choices.

If you're gonna ride, ride the high horse. Gahdamn.

Depending on what restaurant you worked in, you mighta been waiting tables and killing people

milo gave the restaurant patrons regular cholesterol screenings and Immodium doses on his own dime, iirc.

I don’t see that as a high horse, table got presumptuous about background and that seemed pretty ironic.

folks, milo is a troll.

this is why my phone already knows that whenever I type “it’s important” a good suggestion is “to milo”

the dude doesn’t believe in shit

xpost I mean there are like a couple dozen weak points to exploit but just for a start: have you heard of ROTC?

Yeah, I don't know why I'm doing this.

Anyway the real deal is that the Goldberg story is blowing up and the Trump camp is sweating about it

xpost I mean there are like a couple dozen weak points to exploit but just for a start: have you heard of ROTC?

...yes? I'm guessing you mean "are you accounting for people who joined ROTC to pay for college"?

Which means that someone was willing to enter into a leadership position in the military to get ahead in life - less or no student debt, guaranteed job and benefits, etc.. That's pretty much exactly what I refer to in terms of it being a choice?

I believe there are people still collecting Civil War spousal benefits.

The US Civil War ended 155 years ago. A drummer boy could have been maybe 15 years old, therefore born no later than 1850, 170 years ago. Any spouse that veteran could have married would most likely be at least 15 years old. Therefore, if such a Civil War veteran married this hypothetical 15 year old when aged 80, the marriage would have been in 1945, with the bride born in 1930 and now aged 105. The odds against this scenario seem staggering, but not utterly impossible.

However, for a grandkid of that veteran to be alive today, it would require that our 15 year old bride be successfully impregnated by her 80 year old spouse soon after the marriage, making the grandkid 90 years old today, further compounding the improbability. Finally, for the proposed pissing scenario to be true, we must posit that the ilxor 'Boring, Maryland' happens t live next to very cemetery where that original civil war vet is buried, further compounding improbability to the ends of what this universe can deliver.

At this point my rational mind stops wondering if such a thing could be true and my capacity for belief is reduced to a point smaller and less energetic than a Higgs Boson.

Can we just start a "Milo and his Broadbrush - Change my mind" thread to silo this shit

That’s a nice thought.

judging by Trump's twitter feed right now I think he actually knows how bad this is

He's gonna offer up Eric as tribute to the Coast Guard or something.

Ah yes, because every kid grows up knowing about US war crimes and is desperate to pull a Lynndie on some hogtied Iraqi. Gtfoh

If you don't know an army is for killing people then I don't think you can be helped.

If you don't know that US military and its admirers are still living off the high of defeating Hitler and safeguarding FREEEEEDOM throughout the world then…

xxxxxxxpost
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/last-person-receive-civil-war-pension-dies-180975049/

In a 2018 White House planning meeting for such an event, Trump asked his staff not to include wounded veterans, on grounds that spectators would feel uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. “Nobody wants to see that,” he said.

clearly only a war-crazy neoliberal hawk could possibly object to this perfectly acceptable behavior

the army isn't just for killing people

A TikTok video shows U.S. soldiers deployed to Syria asking locals if they've recently seen their favorite porn star around 😬 https://t.co/skooW15oF1 pic.twitter.com/5DM8ijucaK

— Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) September 3, 2020

Thanks Bnad. I knew I'd read something about it but was too pissed off at Milo to go search.

Glad Trump camp is shitting themselves over this. It feels like something that could stick just enough and at the right time that it turns more folks who might have been wavering away from him.

Obviously his die-hards will simply dismiss it as fake, but tbh I enjoyed a perverse thrill at the notion of Republican voters having to examine their America Fuck Yeah Troop worship because their big wet boy is Never Wrong.

Every once in a while I check out Ask Trump Supporters, and this story in particular warranted a visit. Go figure, a lot of the responses (last night) were along the lines of "unattributed sources? BS." And then someone said the AP backed up the claims, and the Trump Supporters said "oh, so, the Atlantic can be BS but anonymous sources in the AP is somehow better?" And so on. The point being, or a point being, is I have no idea why no one has agreed to go on the record with this story years after the fact. Maybe they still work at the WH? But why did the story about an event years ago come out now? If it is someone that has stuck around this Asshole for years, but only decided to tell this story now ... why? Why not just come forward and give it the weight of an attributed name? FWIW, a couple of the Trump Supporters on the page did say if true, the story is disgusting and indefensible, but etc.

Obv. I fully believe the story, which is totally in character. Trump is such a worthless pos that in his bizarro world the idea of him not saying or doing something like this is much less likely than the story being true. This came right after the story of him no longer meeting the return of dead soldiers for vain/dickish/venal reasons, and the WH afaict didn't push back on *that* one.

do the people on pro-trump reddit ever have any comments on reddit posts like this? i guess every single one of the things in that post was a lie, too

(for those who don't click, it's like a list of 10000000000000000000s of "insensitive" things trump has said about military, generals, POW/MIA, etc)

obviously most of the people on Ask Trump Supporters are long gone, just long gone, in terms of reality. but i wonder if maybe it would break through to the "couple of the Trump Supporters on the page did say if true, the story is disgusting and indefensible, but etc."

Are there any recent demographics on the various branches of the military? Anecdotally, it seems the Air Force and maybe Marines are whiter and more middle class than the Army and Navy?

I can't wait until after the election, should he lose, when the press keeps reporting on all of his batshit tweets as if he were still president and him and his supporters still dominate 90% of the news.

Yeah, he and his family are not going anywhere. Just wait for four years of "maybe I'll run again, we'll see..."

From the little I care to analyze the Ask site's users, many of them just don't care what Trump says about anyone or anything. Many of them don't even like Trump. They just really like the 2nd amendment or really hate abortion. And even when quotes are attributed they tend to move the goalposts. Otoh, they recognize that when every last Trump Fart is blown up into a scandal, then the real scandals tend to have less impact, though their own ideas of what constitutes a scandal is apparently different than mine. I suppose they have one point, that if Trump is a piece of shit, and everything he does is shitty, then hearing people deriding his shittiness as such, day in day out, gets a little exhausting (I mean, no kidding; the first thing Biden should do is nothing, for at last a week). Hence the more seemingly reasonable people on the forum at times don't even try to defend him. Their take, afaict, is yeah, he's a piece of shit. So? I don't vote for presidents based on their personalities, perceived intelligence, or whatever. It's a disturbingly, destructively cynical position to take, and one that Trump Inc. definitely takes advantage of. I'm not sure what the solution is to cynicism that runs that deep, any more than the solution to what makes anyone want to carry around a machine gun.

whaddya gonna do when someone weighs supporting a catastrophically idiotic and incompetent president with 250K deaths (excess mortality) and counting on his watch, VS ....i want to have a gun

Glad Trump camp is shitting themselves over this. It feels like something that could stick just enough and at the right time that it turns more folks who might have been wavering away from him.

I feel like this story is definitely going to hurt his standing among the people he needs most. as much as people love to claim that nothing can possibly hurt his rock-solid support there have been a few things that have noticeably caused his poll numbers to drop, in 2016 the big ones were Access Hollywood & insulting the gold star family - both instances where even Republicans felt the need to distance themselves. that said all that support comes right back in 2-3 weeks as they find ways to rationalize it so idk if this'll have much effect on the election, though obviously the Biden campaign is gonna hit this real hard

Every once in a while I check out Ask Trump Supporters, and this story in particular warranted a visit. Go figure, a lot of the responses (last night) were along the lines of "unattributed sources? BS." And then someone said the AP backed up the claims, and the Trump Supporters said "oh, so, the Atlantic can be BS but anonymous sources in the AP is somehow better?" And so on. The point being, or a point being, is I have no idea why no one has agreed to go on the record with this story years after the fact.

it helps to have a highly politicized DOJ that is more than willing to end the careers of anyone who says anything bad on the record

Yeah, he and his family are not going anywhere. Just wait for four years of "maybe I'll run again, we'll see..."

nope it's going to be Ivanka that runs

the entire family is *the runs*

If Trump loses, it's hard for me to imagine anyone in that family trying a political run. First because why would they? Being rich and not running for office is a lot more fun. Second because I think that brand will be electorally tarnished. I suppose Ivanka or Eric could move to a red state and make a run, but I'm not sure they'd actually be welcome.

Sorry if there's a better place for this, but—
I'm in NYC, can't vote, but have a car, and thinking seriously about driving people to the polls in... Georgia? Virginia? Pennsylvania..?
Has anyone here done this or have any recommendations for well-run orgs that are doing it?

my mom has done this in (western) pennsylvania; i'll try to find out what the org was

That seems like a great idea!

republicans and conservatives didn't care at all about his very prominent comments on mccain, the khan family, etc. here's like the first 1/15th of that list i mentioned somehwhere earlier, #onethread

says Americans who died in war are "losers" and "suckers."

“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers” he said about a U.S. military cemetery

called John McCain “a fucking loser” when asked to lower flags to half staff

called President George H.W. Bush a loser for being shot down during WWII

“That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?” Trump said of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

asked his staff to not include wounded veterans because amputees make him uncomfortable

“I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Trump said to Gen. John Kelly about dead veterans, while visiting Kelly’s son’s grave at Arlington

Trump knew since Mar 2020 that Russia paid bounties to kill American troops. On July 29, Trump defended Russia arming the Taliban against the US saying the US once did the same thing

In May '20, the White House ended National Guard deployments one day before they could claim benefits

The Trump admin seized 5mil masks intended for VA hospitals. Kushner distributes these masks to private entities for a fee, who then sells the masks to the government

Trump fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after he warned superiors that COVID19 was spreading among his crew

After Iran's retaliatory strike, 109 US troops suffered brain injuries. Trump dismissed these as "headaches"

On July 20, 2017, in room 2E924 of the Pentagon, Trump told a room full of Generals, "You’re a bunch of dopes and babies"

Said 26,000 military sexual assaults were to be 'expected' bc America lets women serve

Invited the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11

Claimed that his military budget made up for his lack of military experience

Claimed if a Humvee was hit by an IED, soldiers "go for a little ride upward & they come down."

Pardoned multiple war criminals, which betrayed the men of the 1st Platoon who helped convict him for violating long standing military values, discipline, and command (May&Nov, 2019)

Trump mocked Lt. Col. Vindman for his rank and uniform. He threatened said purple heart officer resulting in the Army providing him pr--------

it goes on and on. after all that, why does him adding another line item to that list make a difference?

what if he said the Confederacy was a bunch of losers

well i saw the tweet yesterday from a Trumper saying that their dear lead was sent by god and many of them believe that, so there really is nothing you can tell them at all that will change their stance on him.

You've got to admit, if a religious person believed Trump was sent to bring about the Rapture, It's hard to argue with that.

Every Hegelian worth their salt knows you can't have Christ without the Antichrist. *taps head*

math checks out

"god used many flawed men to serve his needs throughout the bible"

i heard some true believer say this the other day somewhere

if I were the religious sort I would think that a man who embodies every one of the seven deadly sins would be a sign I should reject that person, but I suppose it can also be a test of faith, a la Job. religion is funny that way.

Like, God is testing me to trust his will by sending the shittiest person in the world to lead us!

"Thou shalt own the libs" is left out of a lot of versions of the Old Testament, but not the good ones.

this is just fucking stupid as fuck these these crackpots are being more legitimized by the day

Here’s the photo she posted: https://t.co/psgZSVV8Tw pic.twitter.com/60bXKMDacP

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 4, 2020

My favourite of God's books is The Prince.

In a masterpiece of bad timing, today Stars and Stripes was ordered to cease publication by the end of the month.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/04/trump-and-stars-and-stripes-attacking-american-icon-column/5706859002/

.@JoeBiden answering a question on QAnon conspiracy, Biden says: "I’ve been a big supporter of mental health. I’d recommend people who believe it should take advantage of it while it still exists under the Affordable Care Act."

— Karine Jean-Pierre (@K_JeanPierre) September 4, 2020

nice!

a lot of the responses (last night) were along the lines of "unattributed sources? BS."

You don't get to whine about anonymous sources when your whole cult is called "QAnon."

— ben schwartz (@benschwartz_) September 4, 2020

re: Marjorie Greene

AOC should tweet this back:

https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/4cYAAOSwBpteaZ6E/s-l225.jpg

remarkably good answer from Biden there

wau, I didn't expect that kind of A+ acerbic response from him

a good response but presumably one they've had prepped for ages

kind of in line with this one:

Townsend, a 30-year-old from Clio, Mich., asked the candidates if they would protect his “baby” -- the Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle he cradled in his arms.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson gave a standard answer about the need to improve screening of gun applicants. But Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who said that he sponsored an assault weapons ban, was not so sanguine.

“I’ll tell you what, if that’s his baby, he needs help,” Biden said of Townsend. “I don’t know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun. I’m being serious.”

Probably had to pre-tape his responses 10 years ago because of his incurable brain damage.

But tbrr, it's true that Trump's press conferences are more improvised. No studious practice of party talking points for him, no sir!

^^ I remembered that exchange, so, Simon, I tend to think he's kept this sort of thing in his quiver forever because he's Authentic Scranton Joe.

who's gonna be the secretary of qanon de-programming?

The BuzzFeed copy desk just announced that they will no longer call QAnon a "conspiracy theory," instead labeling it a "collective delusion": https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/drumoorhouse/qanon-mass-collective-delusion-buzzfeed-news-copy-desk

lol

They should call it a flaming bag of bullshit, for accuracy's sake

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-law-and-order-message-isnt-resonating-with-most-americans/

But tbrr, it's true that Trump's press conferences are more improvised

I wouldn't pick either of 'em for my trivia squad.

but at least Trump can think for himself

imagine being "Q". Assuming you're not mentally deranged too, how shocking would it be to have so many ppl truly believing the bullshit you spouted on a messageboard, the President being asked about your bullshit and not even dismissing it as bullshit, etc etc

like Lamont Cranston "Q" revels in the power to cloud people's minds.

http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Q-Star-Trek-Omnipotent-John-de-Lancie-a.jpg

imagine being "Q". Assuming you're not mentally deranged too, how shocking would it be to have so many ppl truly believing the bullshit you spouted on a messageboard, the President being asked about your bullshit and not even dismissing it as bullshit, etc etc

lol @ the suggestion that Jim Watkins may in fact be mentally sane.

Q is a bit bashful and self-effacing about all the wonderful success he's had

I watched that Biden press conference and was surprised to find his zings at least didn't *seem* canned, he seemed to be forming them in real-time and with feeling

lol the "press conference" was just them denying what he said.

After reading denials of the Atlantic story from one current staffer (Derek Lyons) and one former staffer (Dan Walsh), Kayleigh McEnany leaves the room without taking any questions.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 4, 2020

well, that settles it then!

then she dropped the mic and Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" came on over the PA

"Can we play the Pelosi video again?"

Fwiw Biden is now favoured (rather than slightly favoured) to win the election according to 538:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

May it remain so.

It changes from favoured to slightly favoured at 70%. It’s been switching between those since it went live a month ago which gives the impression it’s changed a lot but ... it hasn’t.

Ah, I hadn't realized.

What a nightmare of shitty data-viz their model page is, too. Quite a shocking lapse of judgement on their part. And that godawful fox?

interesting if true

Fox News (!!!) confirming the Atlantic story now https://t.co/hIJMZKwtH2

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) September 4, 2020

The Deep Media has infiltrated Fox News.

@JenGriffinFNC
: This former official heard the President say about American veterans: “’What’s in it for them? They don’t make any money?’ It was a character flaw of the President: he could not understand why someone would die for their country, not worth it.”

trump otm ?

Trump would be wise to start driving his base away from FOX now, so he can hit the ground running with a big audience as OAN majority owner/windbag in January

Second term Trump will reform the military so they get a cut of spoils like a Roman legion.

or citizenship like in Starship Troopers

Thread:

This WP story about how Bill Barr confidently, even pugnaciously, told CNN viewers about a massive mail-in ballots fraud incident in Texas that never happened, is a reminder of some other things like that. /1 https://t.co/K9Q2aBngKI

— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) September 4, 2020

is this good

The Chair of the @FEC — the head of the only government agency dedicated to enforcing election law — is actively promoting the President’s re-election campaign on social media. pic.twitter.com/He7YwZDxnO

— Adav Noti (@AdavNoti) September 2, 2020

Thousands of Trumper Vietnam vets slowly coming around to the view that yes, they were suckers

They got a letter from the President the other day. They opened and read it. It said they were definitely not suckers

damn you PK, I just spent a whole two minutes writing this -

got a twitter from the president the other day
opened it, read it, said they were suckers
he wanted votes from the army or whatever
picture fox giving a damn, he said "loser"

I think you win that one, tbh, Camaraderie, because it scans.

early bird gets the worm, also I'm not at all happy with the last line

Vietnam vets slowly coming around to the view that yes, they were suckers

Sadly, the Selective Service System did not care one way or the other. Not everyone had a tame doctor who'd invent some bone spurs for you.

not creepy at all!

President Trump is moving to revamp federal agencies’ racial sensitivity trainings, casting some of them “divisive” and “un-American,” according to a memo by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In the two-page memo, OMB Director Russell Vought says that Trump has asked him to prevent federal agencies from spending millions in taxpayer dollars on these training sessions. Vought says OMB will instruct federal agencies to come up with a list of all contracts related to trainings involving “white privilege“ or “critical race theory,” the memo states.

The memo was released on Friday.

It also tells all federal agencies to identify all methods possible to cancel contracts that involve teaching that America is an “inherently racist or evil country.”

Trump's push to amplify racism unnerves Republicans who have long enabled him

“The President has directed me to ensure that federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions,“ the memo states.

Just our president doubling down on the popularity of racism yet again. Two months left before Election Day, so he has plenty of time to place lots more heavy bets of racism saving the day. By mid-October he wants every BIPOC person in the USA feeling worse than they did on November 9, 2016.

Has "un-American" ever been used by someone who wasn't a dipshit?

There have been sporadic attempts to flip the meaning of un-American to apply it to undemocratic ideas like racial prejudice or classism, but that bit of rhetorical jujutsu has never had much, if any, effect.

It changes from favoured to slightly favoured at 70%.

I posted about that on FB a couple of days ago. I know it means absolutely nothing, but if you're running thousands of simulations and 69% of them point towards one guy winning, to me that's not "slightly favoured." "Slightly" shouldn't kick in until it drops to somewhere around 55-60%.

That "slightly" is pure CYA, induced by the critical buffeting 538 got in 2016.

That's how someone responded to my post--that Nate Silver, like many people, had been spooked by 2016.

I don't know, though; he came out of that election as one of the few forecasters who wasn't shocked by the result, who'd given Trump a decent chance (about the same 30%, I believe). And as his own site often points out, polling for Biden is meaningfully ahead of where Clinton was. He just doesn't strike me as someone who thinks "the data clearly says this, but I'll throw in a 'slightly' just in case."

I was wondering if it was maybe in deference to the thing that's harder to gauge, possible interference, either internal or external.

There’s a literature on what probabilities people assign to words like likely, probably, favoured, etc. A lot of it comes out the CIA actually. Which should tell you that it’s probably not worth worrying too much about the specific word they’re mapping a number to.

It’s probably not worth worrying about the numbers either (except to the extent they tell you what the polls are saying, which is not what is going to happen, but is not nothing).

It's a subject that interests me because, teaching grade 6 for many years, I always started probability off with a number line where I got the kids to assign words to their numerical equivalents--certain, likely, very unlikely, etc. I think it went something like this: 15% = very unlikely, 35% = unlikely, 65% = likely, 85% = very likely. (There was no "slightly likely.") But 70% would have simply been "likely," which to me translates as "favoured."

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol8no4/html/v08i4a07p_0001.htm

Lloyd Braun: "Is it just me, or is that a lot of reading?"
Jerry: "That's a lot of reading!"

I see all my words in there somewhere, I've just got to figure out if I was using them correctly.

hi everyone. i had a long night of the soul last night, and wrote this up. so this is by me.

The road to political sanity may run through a bridge game in Atlanta: four women playing together for years, two Democrats, two Republicans — one of whom is quiet about how she voted last time, the other a fervent supporter of the president.

In 2020, the bridge game went online. And conversation about politics went off limits.

Until a funny thing happens, when the quiet Republican asks whether everyone had seen the latest Trump sound bite. The two Democrats clench and look to change the subject. But then the proud Trump supporter allows, to everyone’s surprise, that she cannot abide the incumbent president and his crew any longer.

What’s the wise response? Pause, ponder, weigh the possibilities.

Whether it’s your friend or someone in your family, or anyone with whom you’ve been at partisan odds these past four years, the temptation is to fire back that “You voted for him, you wanted him, cheered for him, you funded and fueled him, and now you have regrets?” There must be penance and flagellation, expiation in exile, bread-and-water rations, a vow of abstinence from Fox News.

Or you can gently affirm them in a way that welcomes them back to the fold without rebuke. A celebration of the prodigal returned, because anyone can be wrong, even profoundly and flamboyantly wrong, and there is no way forward without finding a way to leave what’s past behind. Yes, reconciliation would be easier if they said, “Gee, I was so blind about him, I can’t believe I fell for his gaslighting, I’d do anything to undo my vote but I’ll work to my last breath to help defeat him this time.”

But that’s a lot to expect and, besides, that is not how people convert. Maybe alone, in the dark of night, they reckon with their judgments and quietly whisper to themselves, “How could I be so stupid?” But by daylight, they face the fear of being cast out of their tribe or abandoned by all sides. You can brand them with a scarlet T and scorn them forever, or you can recognize that flaunting your righteousness is not just shallow, it is also shortsighted. Especially with voting imminent in some states, when wobbly voters will test what the future will look like if they switch sides.

No one will ever be persuaded to your cause if you deride their character and dismiss their dignity. Neither burning at the stake nor reform school has much chance of working on individuals who wandered away from the traditional GOP, into MAGA America and now find themselves in the wilderness. Pride and denial make the journey back rocky. Smooth the path for them. Suck it up. Let it go. We have work to do.

I’m not advocating mercy for the Republican officeholders who have enabled a lawless president for 3½ years, even those who, when his polls dip occasionally show some spine. Far too much damage has been done to U.S. security and our social fabric to absolve those who mock Trump in private but massage him in public. They have contaminated the GOP, and it falls to principled conservatives to clean their own house.

But how we judge our public leaders, and the standards we hold them to, is different from how we treat each other. Trump succeeded by salting our wounds; it took the worst president in history to bring out the worst in us, with the help of a media ecosystem that profits from political poison. As it is, too many politicians love to make us hate each other, and too many of us find comfort and company in our shared derision. But if we can close the gap, maybe we can talk.

Which brings us back to the bridge table, and the social value of strategic silence. “Taking it in stride seems like the most generous move,” one of the Democrats says. Surely this quest for clarity, and charity, must start with our family and friends, who we know in all their complexity: yes, maybe I’ve heard you sound like a homophobe or make sexist jokes, but I also know you’ve adopted special-needs kids and work as a volunteer firefighter.

There’s no room for complexity on Twitter, and it has all but vanished from our politics, which grow ever more virtual and, therefore, unpracticed with real people. But complexity is where progress incubates, where compromise lives, where hope resides.

btw, the name of my article is "How should we respond to our former Trump-loving friends (who make up about 0.00000001% of the country)"

Being from a bridge playing family probably made me appreciate that write up all the more. Thank you.

FYI - there is an opinion piece with a nearly identical name in this morning's Washington Post. Regardless, that's some great writing. Thanks for sharing.

Challop on ice to go: I’m worried that people are kinda maybe forgetting a little bit how awful all republican pols are with all the focus specifically on trump

have people’s beliefs actually changed, they’re just embarrassed by the man

great post, btw, karl

The percentage of Republicans in Congress who duck into an elevator, plead ignorance, or simply refuse to say a word, when accosted by journalists for comment on the latest outrageous Trump action or pronouncement has risen to near 100%. It feels like three years ago about half of them would attempt some sort of serious-faced tut-tutting or cautious distancing. Now they are in it up to their nostrils and are full time never-say-die enablers.

FYI - there is an opinion piece with a nearly identical name in this morning's Washington Post. Regardless, that's some great writing. Thanks for sharing.

hey they ripped me off! bezos is going down, i'm suing.

i posted that op-ed in jest, but i do respect the place it comes from. i used to be in that place. like this part:

Surely this quest for clarity, and charity, must start with our family and friends, who we know in all their complexity: yes, maybe I’ve heard you sound like a homophobe or make sexist jokes, but I also know you’ve adopted special-needs kids and work as a volunteer firefighter.

but yes, imagine that the homophobia extends to a lifelong effort to deny the humanity of LGBTQ+ people, or that the sexist jokes are actually just the outermost layer of something that has a core of belief that men have divinely-enforced dominion over women. what happens when you start with the people you know the best, and have the most empathy for, and realize that they're a REAL piece of shit, and the deeper you dig the less empathy you feel? really, in a terrible twist, the less empathy they deserve, truly?

obviously not everyone has wannabe neo-nazis in their family, but i feel like my overall experience has similarities with the GOP and their supporters right now, or rather over the last 10+ years (at its most acute phase - i understand the origins of this shit in the 60s and beyond). people used to talk about how a bunch of white people lost their minds when a black man became president. i always kind of took that as a figure of speech, but a bunch of white people really DID lose their minds when a black man with an arabic sounding name was put in charge, and was easily reelected. for those people, at least, my level of empathy is ZERO, permanent ZERO, permanent FUCK YOU for all time, and that especially includes family, because i understand more than anyone how many chances they've had

Good post, Karl.

As the only outright Dem in a family whose gerontocracy still worries about the Democrats forcing young women to cut sugar cane like Castro did (not Joe Biden; they acknowledge he's a nice man duped by AOC and Sanders), I despair too, but I've heard, more than once since August, a couple relatives disparage "how the government is treating us" under COVID. Last week my father floored me when he admitted he wished "Washington" would pay parents a living wage for taking care of their kids should the kids need to stay at home.

"You realize that's a New Deal-type solution," I said.

"That's right," he said quietly.

xp

yikes, sorry! always fun to unload on dad in public for the millionth time. but i guess my halfassed point is just that the washpo sucker's bridge game is going to get real rowdy in 2024 when the "former Trump-loving friend" who finally found the courage to squeak out the possibility that trump might have done some bad things, in month 43 of 48 of his first term, somehow finds themselves really drawn to Tom Cotton or Ivanka or Scott Adams or whoever else has the best plan to punish their supposed persecutors. "i thought after trump that she had finally seen the light! and we welcomed them back without even criticizing them for supporting our white supremacist president until month 43 of the 48 hellish months of trump's first term! i'm so surprised that she's doing this again! oh well, that's the fourth trick, your turn donna"

The next Republican President after Trump's gonna be a football coach. Probably college but maybe Bill Belicheck.

Ditka

a family whose gerontocracy still worries about the Democrats forcing young women to cut sugar cane like Castro did (not Joe Biden; they acknowledge he's a nice man duped by AOC and Sanders), I despair too

truly, *hugs*

WASHINGTON — Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s transition team has signed a memorandum of understanding with President Donald Trump’s General Services Administration to begin planning for a potential handover of power.

Biden’s team signed the memo with the General Services Administration Thursday, according to the agency. The document is required under the Presidential Transition Act and formalizes how the federal government will go about assisting Biden’s transition team ahead of Election Day.

Formal federal support for presidential transition teams was first put into practice in 2012 in an effort to ensure presidential candidates are prepared to assume the White House should they win the election.

In 2016, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had offices and staffs in the same building preparing for a transition ahead of Election Day. Nearly all of Trump’s plan was subsequently shelved after he won the White House.

For the first time, the 2020 memo includes a pledge by Biden’s team to devise and publish an ethics plan to be implemented should he win on Election Day. That requirement was put into the place in a 2019 amendment to the transition act.

idg why bad-mouthing the military is sticking to trump *now*? he's been saying the same shit all along, going back to mccain and the khan family and how the army guys ambushed in niger 'knew what they were getting into' etc

Because he's targeting the military profession in its entirety now.

Oh 2020paws...

Multiple boats in distress, sinking at Trump Boat Parade on Lake Travis https://t.co/fAc9yHKiuz

— Lee Santos (@TxHopsfarmer) September 5, 2020

idg why bad-mouthing the military is sticking to trump *now*?

Maybe because a succession of small scratches will erode the effectiveness of Teflon? Or maybe the prominence of this story in the media has no relation to whether it is *sticking to Trump* any better this time than it did before, when the media gave it plenty of play.

pom otm, this story proves his disrespect is systemic rather than targeted at a few individuals

Dissing a glaring political rival and brown-skinned war heroes is fine, as is sneering at dead losers (because they died, you see), but when you pull a 'no military lives matter', shit starts to hit the fan.

From Twitter notoriety to direct-mail stardom in just ten weeks. pic.twitter.com/0S3RzATkcs

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) September 5, 2020

Lol Gaetz is just epic. Maybe I should give Ehr some more money

idg why bad-mouthing the military is sticking to trump *now*?

I've been pondering the same thing the past 24 hours, and I think

Or maybe the prominence of this story in the media has no relation to whether it is *sticking to Trump* any better this time than it did before, when the media gave it plenty of play

might be a reasonable interpretation--i.e., it's not going to appreciably change many votes.

But--I don't know if anyone's ever studied this, or even how you would--it may have value as one of those distractions that pop up in the last couple of months. I'm sure Trump's side would rather not be wasting time with denials and saving Stars and Stripes when there's so many other lies to be lied.

it might not “change votes” per se but my gut tells me it might drive down right wing turnout

Rough waters on Lake Travis as hundreds of boats in Trump boat parade. Several swaamped. #Statesman @bobphoto pic.twitter.com/DPpKKhgljF

— bobphoto (@bobphoto) September 5, 2020

Already posted, yo.

better photo, though

True.

That Photo for September Thread Title.

Drain the swaamp

https://lh4.ggpht.com/-gWV2MSK4odI/T4yLpd1STpI/AAAAAAAASrw/o1JupStPATA/s72-c/Titanic0001_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg

swamp the drain

someone should start a thread to merely catalog the number of bootlickers

U mean boatlickers

It would be easier to catalog the non-bootlickers

The Texas Boats sinking thing has appeared on Fox news already, somebody shared it on Facebook.
Would have thought it might be something they'd try to bury or at least not highlight.

Not going to post this in the containment thread because I know it doesn't mean much, but there were a lot of Trump signs....and a surprising number of Biden signs on our drive through small-town PA today to go hiking.

We all know that outside of Philly and PGH all of PA might as well be Kentucky, but it was an interesting time getting to the trailhead

A bunch of Trump supporting boats sank and right wingers are accusing left wing terrorists of creating the waves that sank the boats pic.twitter.com/WLCJWcoGIq

— Wild Geerters (@classiclib3ral) September 5, 2020

WHO DID THIS #Dumbkirk pic.twitter.com/m55ClejJ10

— (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ 137 (@Bitterwhiteguy) September 5, 2020

Looks like the boat version of the car accident in John Prine's Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore.

Your 12 Trump Flags Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore

https://i.imgur.com/UlqId9y.jpg

Omg

HAARP in action!

Ok so plenty of people joking about HAARP being used to sink Trump boats but guys, I think some people are serious... pic.twitter.com/h9Rmk0PhRR

— Sir Eccles (@sir_eccles) September 6, 2020

One thing that's weird about the military flare-up is how much time the media is spending on corroborating everything. I realize they want to remain tethered in facts and reality, but I'm not sure such due diligence is necessary at this point; no one doubts the truth of any of it, except people for whom corroboration won't matter.

NEW: In upcoming book, Michael Cohen writes Donald Trump's disdain for Obama was so extreme he hired a "Faux-Bama" to participate in a video in which he "ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him." He includes this photo: https://t.co/LGrqsUUrY2 pic.twitter.com/otwYW8VSmQ

— Pervaiz Shallwani (@Pervaizistan) September 6, 2020

OH MY GOD

jeeeeeeeeeeezus

just impeach him again, seriously. who cares if it works. just impeach the living fuck out of him. flag post on his presidency, everyone, ban the filibuster, reduce FP threshold to 2, jfc

https://t.co/8E0bOt5ahP pic.twitter.com/DjdYDq3H8s

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) September 6, 2020

lmaoooooooooooo

What a petty little bitch.

Who's the actor? I want to check his IMDB page and see if he was properly credited. (There's a tiny part of me that believes work is work and is reluctant to criticize.)

Here's the video. This was a subplot in 2012 that was pretty well known, but since Trump was just Trump-the-TV-guy at the time, it's understandable that people missed it. https://t.co/GIxiH54ati

— Philip Bump (@pbump) September 6, 2020

I wish left twitter would turn off the Lathe of Heaven.

vcb0424
5 years ago
Am I the only one who thinks that this may have filled in the BLANKS of the Romney candidacy at the end of the race??? If it was even possible to counter the ballot box stuffing of the stolen election by localities to get the right electoral votes...at least this could have helped. Way to go GOP. Stupid #RINO

i thought everyone already knew about this? i'm pretty sure this is the same 2012 video i have in my own clip archives.

here's a short twitter length video clip. i also just uploaded the full 3:42 long video here too: https://t.co/QtmCH1xM5ghttps://t.co/81Yu1crwtf pic.twitter.com/O610NmZMB7

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) September 6, 2020

Amazing he never tweeted out that video.

I know trump is predictable but that is still very funny

Is it really, though?

Because no, it really isn't.

It’s an inside joke

I mean the p4reene thing not the video

sheesh

It is incredibly funny that this didn't make the cut for the 2012 GOP but Clint Eastwood yelling at a chair did.

^^Probably the real reason Trump ran, aside from Racism.

Sorry, Simon, I've seen way too many 'you gotta admit, this particular instance of Trump vomiting words is totes hilar' shit of late and jumped to conclusions.

no worries!

look, i know the corporate media had a rough 2016, but i'm sure that the major networks took a serious audit of their past wrongs and won't make the same mistakes this time around...oh no.

We're left with this dilemma: Jeffrey Goldberg, who authored The Atlantic piece insists the story is true. President Trump insists the story is false. Both of those views can't be right, writes Chris Cillizza https://t.co/dXfqFJFWLz

— CNN (@CNN) September 5, 2020

say what you will about the media -- most of it true, i'm sure -- but cillizza still stands out for his astonishing stupidity and uselessness. an intern could write this shit for a lot less money

I say we let goldberg and trump duke it out

i almost admire him for being so uniquely terrible at his job

Slizz hate-reads probably get CNN more clicks than anything else

Who's the actor? I want to check his IMDB page and see if he was properly credited. (There's a tiny part of me that believes work is work and is reluctant to criticize.)

― clemenza, Saturday, September 5, 2020 10:16 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Pareene's 2012 Salon piece led me to a Mediaite article where the actor is identified as Kevin Michel. He's not on IMDB. Since his social media accounts are now devoted to his self-published book about the power of the subconscious mind, I'm guessing that the Obama impersonation was just something he did for a few extra bucks back then.

just your periodic reminder that Chris “Ivanka is Such a Boss” Cillizza once bragged on Twitter that he makes 8 figures

Trump will literally steal the art off the walls of his hotel room.

After Donald Trump’s planned trip to a French cemetery for fallen Marines was canceled in November 2018, the U.S. leader had some extra time on his hands in a mansion filled with artwork. The next day, he went art shopping -- or the presidential equivalent.

Trump fancied several of the pieces in the U.S. ambassador’s historic residence in Paris, where he was staying, and on a whim had them removed and loaded onto Air Force One, according to people familiar with the matter. The works -- a portrait, a bust, and a set of silver figurines -- were brought back to the White House.

...

The story unfolded like this: While in Paris with other world leaders to commemorate the centennial of the end of World War I, Trump stayed at the official residence of U.S. Ambassador Jamie McCourt, the palatial Hôtel de Pontalba. The mansion, in Paris’s chic 8th arrondissement, dates to 1842. It has served as a flagship of the State Department’s “Art in Embassies” cultural diplomacy program, and is open to tours.

The president’s planned visit to the Belleau Wood cemetery was canceled when rainy weather grounded the presidential helicopter, according to a redacted email the White House released to rebut the Atlantic story. The U.S. Secret Service ruled out a motorcade for the 56-mile drive, according to two people familiar with the matter.

That left Trump with about six hours of free time in the ambassador’s residence.

The next day, Trump pointed out a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters, and insisted the pieces come back with him to Washington.

McCourt, the ambassador, was startled, but didn’t object, according to people briefed on the incident. Trump later quipped that the envoy would get the art back “in six years,” when his potential second term in office would be winding down.

The art, worth about $750,000 according to one of the people familiar with the episode, was loaded aboard Air Force One while Trump visited another cemetery before the flight back to Washington.

...

Trump’s move prompted some hair-pulling and a furious exchange of emails back home between the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations and White House officials who organized the art transfer. Ultimately, because the art is U.S. government property, the move was deemed legal.

My boat sank in Lake Travis pic.twitter.com/EOsLk7sA9L

— Brent Terhune (@BrentTerhune) September 5, 2020

Shut up, it was insured

SS MAGARITAVILLE

One couldn't write a more hilariously stupid statement in parody... "A bunch of nautical terms happened... I'd be flying my flags at half mast if they weren't at the bottom of the lake."

Well, it *is* parody. He's a comedian and has a bunch of videos like that.

Was gonna say........

I’m guess there’s no point in parodying these people anymore

I guess

haha, really did fool me at first, up until "A bunch of nautical terms happened"

I want to call cillizza 'sillyzilla' all the time but I also know that's like a trump-level insult.

anyway I abhor that guy. I'm so tired of clicking on an 'analysis' on CNN and finding out that he wrote it, where he vomits words for 20 paragraphs, says a bunch of obvious shit, and comes to no conclusions. Buzzfeed listicles are of more value and I don't have to look at his laughing face at the top of them.

It's not even a conscious misreading but it always scans as 'Clitzilla' to me.

Chris Cilizza reminds me of local clowned sports reporter Mike Bianchi, in that he says some things you agree with (but this is not impressive as they are fairly obvious things) but then he concern-trolls leftist readers in a shit attempt to create the illusion that he's impartial in a way none of them are.

that and the way he writes as if he's the first to cross the finish line where in reality, thousands of people got there hours earlier which is why it's so empty that he thinks he won.

I'm just waking up, someone smarter rewrite that in a way that makes me sound witty, I'll pay you in boxes of Nerds

xxp lollll

https://files.cults3d.com/uploaders/13382474/illustration-file/90aa9a4a-cfb0-4cf2-8659-a80e706b7eda/20200312_111822_medium.jpg

oh dear Gorn

now will never be able to read that any other way

tbf it was a killer Blue Oyster Clit song

that's Clït to you

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/louis-dejoy-campaign-contributions/2020/09/06/1187bc2c-e3fe-11ea-8181-606e603bb1c4_story.html

Louis DeJoy’s prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates — money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.

seems like this guy might not be on the level

Anyway, as hilarious as this is, maybe not great for the country that another figure with a crucial election security role will almost definitely go to prison if Trump doesn't win!

— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw) September 6, 2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D%27Souza#Campaign_finance_violation,_felony_guilty_plea,_conviction,_and_pardon

“Trump held a meeting at Trump Tower with prominent evangelical leaders, where they laid their hands on him in prayer. Afterward, Trump allegedly said: ‘Can you believe that bullshit? Can you believe people believe that bullshit?’”

- Michael Cohen https://t.co/mnZcYafpzN pic.twitter.com/ulStycHBvi

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) September 6, 2020

when he's right, he's right

COVID makes those photos even more uncomfortable

maybe they'll all die

Cohen also depicts Trump as being crude toward women, including inadvertently commenting on Cohen’s then-15-year-old daughter as she finished up a tennis lesson: “Look at that piece of a--,” Trump said, according to Cohen. “I would love some of that.”

Wait til his supporters find out he said things like this

The bigger scoop would be all the evangelical preachers who said the same thing as they were leaving.

i walk through the garden alone
that 15 year old I would bone

Remember the revenge porn kid in Kansas? He's still around:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhPmcF8XgAMY-fa.jpg

Looking forward to Glenn Greenwald's next fawning interview with him.

"ok ok you got me, I was abusive, but in a DIFFERENT WAY THAN IS BEING DESCRIBED IN THE MEDIA"

every time that guy opens his mouth it gets worse. he needs to be run out of town.

That kid showcases all the hallmarks of a true POS.

Afterward, Trump allegedly said: ‘Can you believe that bullshit? Can you believe people believe that bullshit?’”

I've always thought this was literally his one saving grace--not the hypocrisy or ridicule of others, of course, but his lack of all religious conviction. (Not a principled atheism or anything, just a 100% attachment to himself and to things.) And why I believe Palin would have been even more dangerous as president if it ever came down to a Cuban Missile-type crisis. (Something like COVID, who knows?)

"Saving grace" might be the wrong phrase--not implying that supersedes Everything Else.

Speaking of Greenwald...

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/05/journalisms-new-propaganda-tool-using-confirmed-to-mean-its-opposite/

But if one looks at what they actually did, at what this “confirmation” consists of, it is the opposite of what that word would mean, or should mean

What is increasingly wrong with this person’s brain? The opposite of “comfirm” would be “disprove” or “refute.”

Obviously what these add’l media are “comfirming” is the existence of the original sources—that they were not made up out if whole cloth. They are “confirming” the original reporting.

iow Goldberg reported that four highly placed sources *said* Trump said these things

Real psycho stuff. Too optimistic to think he’s going to end up running to the right of Texas in 2024?

1/2 This needs to happen:

“The feds should focus on the LARPing middle class SJWs and the dedicated Marxist cadre and use RICO, conspiracy, and other federal charges to take them out and lock them up....” https://t.co/8ouBgj2ep2

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 6, 2020

2/2 “...When little Ashleigh from the suburbs realizes that she’s looking at 5 yrs in fed prison instead of heading back to Evergreen State to finish her Bolivian 13th Century Trans Dance degree, the lawyer daddy buys her will get her to sing like a canary about her commie pals.”

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 6, 2020

Charming.

That said, Bolivian 13th Century Trans Dance sounds pretty bangin.

Did I read this week that Barr is presently doing just this—looking at RICO to prosecute what they think is “Antifa”?

Even those whose charges have been dropped in PDX are being slapped with federal charges, yes.

I mean, I don't think all, but many.

But under RICO? If so it’s hilarious that they basically imagined Antifa as an organization in the first place and now are going to additionally invent some structure around it to prosecute...

I guess by hilarious I mean horrifying but also hilarious

Haven't read the complaints, will do some research.

They should go after the Tooth Fairy is what they should do

But Will Graham already killed him

I saw a comment somewhere, probably in regards to those tweets, about how Cruz has realized he's basically peaked politically, so he's decided to burn out his remaining career playing to the bigoted uncle demographic.

It seems like they might be trying to build a case for conspiracy at a later juncture, but no one who has been charged just yet is facing such charges, at least in PDX.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909245646/review-of-federal-charges-in-portland-unrest-show-most-are-misdemeanors

These people actively conspire together on social media to utilize their First Amendment rights. They trade tips about how to neutralize the force that is used against them while pursuing those rights. They also corruptly organize medical assistance for people who have been tear-gassed or maced by law enforcement. Often, when told to disperse from areas where their exits are blocked by police cordons, they either attempt to break directly through police lines or else fail to comply altogether. This lawlessness and criminal depravity must end!

Firing Barr is going to bring me such joy

that will be enormously fucked up and p much necessitate combing Twitter and FB for ppl who posted “yeah, let’s go March”

Speaking of people who've peaked politically, there's a Times article talking about the Trump campaign that quotes Newt Gingrich for some reason...and Gingrich says in order to win re-election, Trump must "turn Biden into McGovern."

Why do political journalists act like anyone other than political journalists gives a fuck what Newt Gingrich has to say about anything? I understand why Gingrich thinks a reference to George McGovern is relevant — because he's old and his brain is broken. But are reporters' brains so broken that they, too, think talking about George McGovern matters to anyone in 2020?

Not to defend Newt Gingrich, but I just see that as shorthand--like swiftboating, or Willie Horton, or whatever--for common ploys still used today. I don't think McGovern himself matters.

in order to win re-election, Trump must "turn Biden into McGovern."

Gingrich is an idiot, but I hope he's 100% correct about this. Most voters were only vaguely familiar with McGovern prior to 1972. He was a senator from South Dakota for crying out loud and had a weak national presence. McGovern ran against Dick Fucking Nixon, who was Machiavelli compared to Trump. McGovern blew his convention bump via the Eagleton fiasco and was struggling to unify a totally fractured party on the biggest issue of the day, Vietnam.

The chances that Trump could convince US voters that Biden is dangerously far to the left of center are more or less impossible. Biden is not really vulnerable to being totally redefined as a flaming socialist.

oof that Cruz tweet. curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on the TOWN HALL (do not recommend) piece and boy it is some psycho shit. every once in a while it’s interesting (/horrifying) to peek in the kitchen where the harder edge of the mainstream (ffs) right is cooking their dope

Biden is not really vulnerable to being totally redefined as a flaming socialist.

You would think, but it won’t be for lack of trying. I’m seeing a number of ads with Joe and AOC’s faces side by side.

AOC isn't a flaming socialist either, tbf.

No argument from me there.

Biden 51%, Trump 43% in Wisconsin - according to Rasmussen.

They will try--they do every election, no matter who the Democrats run. But that was--for better or worse--the trade-off a lot of primary voters made: a lukewarm vote for Biden because it would be extremely difficult to turn him into McGovern.

"he's a doddering old weirdo" wasn't the most original attack line ever but it was at least more credible than "he's going to let the commies in"

like, buddy, I wish.

Also going to guess that the Democrats, from now until the end of time, will try to turn every Republican nominee into Trump.

As they should, tbh.

if the nominee is cruz advocating for charging protesters with 5 years in federal prison unless they renounce their 13th year degree in bolivian trans dance from evergreen college, or whatever, they won't have to do much extra work to turn him into trump

(xpost) Sure. Nixon replaced Hoover, now Trump has replaced Nixon. The Republican go-to still seems to be half-McGovern, half-Carter.

All Obama

when will Van Buren get his due?

https://cdn.britannica.com/s:800x450,c:crop/03/172703-138-068E96AB/overview-Martin-Van-Buren.jpg

The Little Magician!

For Trump's 35%, yes--I don't know if that works past that. Which leads to another category: the Guy from the Other Party You Can Stand to Praise. The Democrats, weirdly, seem to be okay praising Reagan; I wish they'd stick to Eisenhower. Most Republicans seem to have to go back to FDR, although Kennedy gets mentioned a lot too--Clinton, sometimes. Obama should slide into that Reagan category after a few years, but he won't, because he'll never not be black.

not sure you could get away with calling someone the red fox of kinderhook these days

I agree with Cruz that we should prosecute LARPers

Looks like Trump is given up on AZ

Trump campaign going dark in Arizona, cancels planned TV blitz https://t.co/vIosufYgEf

— Josh Mankiewicz (@JoshMankiewicz) September 6, 2020

Why would Ted Cruz want to disrespect Civil War LARPers re-enactors like that?

1. With @ShaneGoldmacher, a deep look at how the Trump campaign spent money for the last 3.5 years, as some officials say cash-on-hand is going to be much less than it should be in the final stretch before September. https://t.co/TgAwsBaJRT

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 7, 2020

Republican President Donald Trump, accused by Joe Biden of putting lives at risk in his handling of the coronavirus, on Monday called his Democratic rival “stupid” and demanded an apology for what Trump called anti-vaccine rhetoric.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump/trump-calls-biden-stupid-demands-apology-for-challenging-him-on-vaccines-idUSKBN25Y21S

Twitter meltdown coming in 4...3...2...

Biden to @abc27News on Trump and his campaign's suggestion he's "lost a step"

"Look at how [Trump] steps and look at how I step. Watch how I run up ramps and how he stumbles down ramps, okay?" pic.twitter.com/7eJdXm0DKn

— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) September 7, 2020

biden is better dressed than trump. his suits actually fit.

treeship breathed a sigh of relief when Off-The-Rack Bernie lost the nom

Who knew that in these Teflon times the one thing to stick is Rampgate?

I would love nothing more than for Trump to be baited into racing up and down ramps until he trips and falls and breaks something.

The debate are just gonna be an American Gladiators-esque competition of climbing novelty ramps.

Here Comes The GOPstepper.

Honestly, since Trump has thrown so much distraction chaff and so much petty pointless bullshit out there, I won't be sad if what ultimately takes him out is something stupid like "can't walk on ramps" or "is rumored to have said Things About TROOPS" that throws him off.

There are lots more substantive issues, WAY more obvious illegality, and loads more heinous things he's done and said - and those have pretty much not registered in terms of his approval numbers, his national poll standing, or the electoral-college picture. If you look at aggregated averages he's pretty much where he always has been, despite various ups and downs.

So yeah, partly, "lol nothing matters." But also, why should he not be brought down by the sort of trivial zing he's trafficked in himself for so long?

Uh the whole “thinks our troops are idiots” thing ain’t exactly trivial, that shit would end anyone else’s career on the spot

how weird, all this ramp talk has made me realise that the animal Asshole reminds me of most is a huge white chicken I once had

XP

https://frinkiac.com/gif/S04E22/627909/637286.gif?b64lines=

Newly renovated Rose Garden now under repair https://t.co/T0FDcKX26F

— Kate Bennett (@KateBennett_DC) September 8, 2020

I beg your pardon

I beg your pardon
I never promised you a Rose Garden
we’re building the Wall in this yard and
it’s gonna rule so hard man

looooool

a source with knowledge of the garden troubles told CNN.

That source? Bill Walton.

I beg your pardon
I never promised you a Rose Garden
we’re building the Wall in this yard and
it’s gonna rule so hard man
make this White House great again

ftfm

Went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share old memories and make America great again
When I got to the garden party, all the plants were dead
They didn't feed them water, they poured Gatorade instead

To frogbs - apologies for "trivial." My take on the tRoOpS stuff is that the current story is "OMG he said THAT?" vs. the flat denial from Trump and "*yawn* anonymous sources - bullshit" from Trumpers.

As long as the SHOCKA story can be waved away with plausible deniability, it's back to square one: if you heard the "losers/suckers" language and think "yeah, I believe he said that," you're already on team anti-Trump. If you read it with Trumper lenses on, you'll just see unsourced FAKE NEWS. So it's just the same boring tribal dance.

I do think there's a somewhat notable chunk of the country who's in between those, doesn't like Trump but tolerates him for SC judges or whatever, those people are the reason his approval rating keeps bouncing from 39-44% and yeah "fuck the troops" is definitely something that'll swing those people

that said it'll be mostly forgotten in a few weeks but still. Trump's path to victory right now is a razor thin margin, he can't afford to lose anyone right now

A+ Neanderthal

xp also tbh a whole lot of right-wingers don't really "support the troops" in any serious way, it's just something they use to beat up liberals with. They're not going to beat up Trump with it because that's not the point.

yeah, there have been reports of Trump making fun of Pence for his pro-life beliefs and religious people seemingly dgaf

The entire GOP is just Storemare shouting at Bridges in the tub, basically.

the GOP:

https://cdnimg.webstaurantstore.com/images/products/large/102661/2068992.jpg

christ

DOJ is now arguing that when Trump said "she's not my type" he was ... acting in his official capacity & within the scope of his employment as President.

This is truly grotesque--they're saying that misogyny is the President's official duties/within the scope of his job. https://t.co/LOjKDCgXDa

— Leah Litman (@LeahLitman) September 8, 2020

"whats the only way I can escape this lifetime of lawsuits, rape cases, and people who I owe money baying for my blood... I know! I'll become President!"

Not really even joking tbh.

https://nyti.ms/3m7hkma

I think this is a cogent piece suggesting what the messaging could look like in a push for electoral reform. I hadn't even heard of this interstate compact idea before.

The National Popular Vote bill will take effect when enacted into law by states possessing 270 electoral votes (a majority of the 538 electoral votes). As of July 2020, it has been enacted into law in 16 jurisdictions possessing 196 electoral votes....

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state-status

this does not seem at all out of reach

eh John Roberts will save us

frightened by the decent odds that we will actually be counting on that

I'm shocked. Aren't you?

Trump admitted to Bob Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger of the coronavirus. "I wanted to always play it down," the president said. https://t.co/v2T8zwNSpX

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 9, 2020

but...that would mean he's putting his own political standing ahead of the life and happiness of his constituents?????????

Shut the front door!

The scales, they have fallen from mine eyes.

Trump added that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un thought Obama was “an asshole.”

Trump also boasted to Woodward that Kim “tells me everything,” including a graphic account of Kim having his uncle killed.

first read I thought he meant Kim having Trump's uncle killed

lol he recorded it

Trump tells Woodward he played down the threat of the coronavirus.
"I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic."

He also tells Woodward that "plenty of young people" are vulnerable -- different from his public message pic.twitter.com/fJZUZtJTIv

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 9, 2020

"it's a deepfake, these AI people, they do....amazing, terrible things. Someone ought to look into these terrible things they're doing. Making recordings that...they didn't happen, they just....things that didn't happen, they're making these recordings".

we're lucky that trump has no idea what AI or deepfakes are, because otherwise he would definitely be blaming everything on that by now

shit, you and I may have just unwittingly told him

(he lurks here, u know)

yeah but he just looks at the pictures. anything we write in text is completely invisible to him

all he sees on this thread are some pictures of him, some of biden, and the occasional arby's roast beef with lite mayonnaise on it

full article is worth c+ping imo, there's tons of outrageous quotes

President Trump’s head popped up during his top-secret intelligence briefing in the Oval Office on Jan. 28 when the discussion turned to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China.

“This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”

Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, agreed. He told the president that after reaching contacts in China, it was evident that the world faced a health emergency on par with the flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

Ten days later, Trump called Woodward and revealed that he thought the situation was far more dire than what he had been saying publicly.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear, and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control. It would be several weeks before he would publicly acknowledge that the virus was no ordinary flu and that it could be transmitted through the air.

Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.

The book also includes brutal assessments of Trump’s conduct from former defense secretary Jim Mattis, former director of national intelligence Daniel Coats and others.

The book is based in part on 18 on-the-record interviews Woodward conducted with the president between December and July. Woodward writes that other quotes in the book were acquired through “deep background” conversations with sources in which information is divulged and exchanges recounted without sources being named.

“Trump never did seem willing to fully mobilize the federal government and continually seemed to push problems off on the states,” Woodward writes. “There was no real management theory of the case or how to organize a massive enterprise to deal with one of the most complex emergencies the United States had ever faced.”

Woodward questioned Trump repeatedly about the national reckoning on racial injustice. On June 3, two days after federal agents forcibly removed peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square to make way for Trump to stage a photo opportunity outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Trump called Woodward to boast about his “law and order” stance.

“We’re going to get ready to send in the military slash National Guard to some of these poor bastards that don’t know what they’re doing, these poor radical lefts,” Trump said.

In a second conversation, on June 19, Woodward asked the president about White privilege, noting that they were both White men of the same generation who had privileged upbringings. Woodward suggested that they had a responsibility to better “understand the anger and pain” felt by Black Americans.
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“No,” Trump replied, his voice described by Woodward as mocking and incredulous. “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”

As Woodward pressed Trump to understand the plight of Black Americans after generations of discrimination, inequality and other atrocities, the president kept answering by pointing to economic numbers such as the pre-pandemic unemployment rate for Blacks and claiming, as he often has publicly, that he has done more for Blacks than any president except perhaps Abraham Lincoln.

In another conversation about race, on July 8, Trump complained about his lack of support among Black voters. “I’ve done a tremendous amount for the Black community,” he told Woodward. “And, honestly, I’m not feeling any love.”

They spoke again about race relations on June 22, when Woodward asked Trump whether he thinks there is “systemic or institutional racism in this country.”
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“Well, I think there is everywhere,” Trump said. “I think probably less here than most places. Or less here than many places.”

Asked by Woodward whether racism “is here” in the United States in a way that affects people’s lives, Trump replied, “I think it is. And it’s unfortunate. But I think it is.”

Trump shared with Woodward visceral reactions to several prominent Democrats of color. Upon seeing a shot of Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California, now the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, calmly and silently watching him deliver his State of the Union address, Trump remarked, “Hate! See the hate! See the hate!” Trump used the same phrase after an expressionless Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) appeared in the frame.

Trump was dismissive about former president Barack Obama and told Woodward he was inclined to refer to him by his first and middle names, “Barack Hussein,” but wouldn’t in his company to be “very nice.”

“I don’t think Obama’s smart,” Trump told Woodward. “I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.” Trump added that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un thought Obama was “an asshole.”

“Rage” includes the first-reported excerpts of letters Trump exchanged with Kim, and quotes Trump in his interviews with Woodward using expletives to defend their pen-pal relationship. Even as U.S. intelligence chiefs warn that North Korea is unlikely to ever surrender its nuclear weapons and that Trump’s approach is ineffective, the president told Woodward he is determined to stay the course and dismissively says the CIA has “no idea” how to handle North Korea.

“I met. Big fucking deal,” Trump told Woodward, waving off criticism of his three face-to-face meetings with Kim. “It takes me two days. I met. I gave up nothing.”

Foreign affairs experts say Trump gave up much — including by postponing and then scaling back the U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea that had long angered North Korea, as well as by granting Kim the international stature and legitimacy the North Korean regime has long craved.

Trump told Woodward he evaluates Kim and his nuclear arsenal like a real estate target: “It’s really like, you know, somebody that’s in love with a house and they just can’t sell it.”

Kim welcomed Trump’s overtures with over-the-top prose in letters. Kim wrote that he wanted “another historic meeting between myself and Your Excellency reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.” And he said his meetings with Trump were a “precious memory” that underscored how the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.”

In another letter, Kim wrote to Trump, “I feel pleased to have formed good ties with such a powerful and preeminent statesman as Your Excellency.” And in yet another, Kim reflected on “that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency’s hand at the beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day.”

Trump was taken with Kim’s flattery, Woodward writes, telling the author pridefully that Kim had addressed him as “Excellency.” Trump remarked that he was awestruck meeting Kim for the first time in 2018 in Singapore, thinking to himself, “Holy shit,” and finding Kim to be “far beyond smart.” Trump also boasted to Woodward that Kim “tells me everything,” including a graphic account of Kim having his uncle killed.

Trump did not share his letters to Kim — “those are so top secret,” the president said — though Woodward writes that Trump sent Kim a copy of the New York Times featuring a picture of the two men on the front page. “Chairman, great picture of you, big time,” Trump wrote on the paper in marker. (Trump falsely boasted to Woodward, “He never smiled before. I’m the only one he smiles with.”)

Trump reflected on his relationships with authoritarian leaders generally, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”

In the midst of reflecting upon how close the United States had come in 2017 to war with North Korea, Trump revealed, “I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.”

Woodward writes that anonymous sources later confirmed that the U.S. military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the sources were surprised Trump had disclosed it.

The book documents private grumblings, periods of exasperation and wrestling about whether to quit among the so-called adults of the Trump orbit: Mattis, Coats and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

Mattis quietly went to Washington National Cathedral to pray about his concern for the nation’s fate under Trump’s command and, according to Woodward, told Coats, “There may come a time when we have to take collective action” since Trump is “dangerous. He’s unfit.”

In a separate conversation recounted by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, “The president has no moral compass,” to which the director of national intelligence replied, “True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

Woodward describes Coats’s experience as especially tortured. Coats, a former senator from Indiana, was recruited into the administration by Vice President Pence, and his wife is quoted as recalling a dinner at the White House when she interacted with Pence.

“I just looked at him, like, how are you stomaching this?” Marsha Coats said, according to Woodward. “I just looked at him like, this is horrible. I mean, we made eye contact. I think he understood. And he just whispered in my ear, ‘Stay the course.’ ”

Pence was the president’s one constant booster publicly and privately in Woodward’s book. When Coats considered resigning because of Trump’s handling of Russia, Pence urged him to “look on the positive side of things that he’s done. More attention on that. You can’t go.”

Mike Pence hopes four years of subservience to Trump will lift his political future

The loathing was mutual. “Not to mention my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals,” Trump told White House trade adviser Peter Navarro at one point, according to Woodward.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted by Woodward as saying, “The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots,” which Woodward interprets as a reference to Mattis, Tillerson and former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn.

Kushner was a frequent target of ire among Trump’s Cabinet members, who saw him as untrustworthy and weak in dealing with heads of states. Tillerson found Kushner’s warm dealings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “nauseating to watch. It was stomach churning,” according to Woodward.

Kushner is quoted extensively in the book ruminating about his father-in-law and presidential power. Woodward writes that Kushner advised people that one of the most important guiding texts to understand the Trump presidency was “Alice in Wonderland,” a novel about a young girl who falls through a rabbit hole. He singled out the Cheshire cat, whose strategy was endurance and persistence, not direction.

The book charts the Trump administration’s failings and missteps on the pandemic, including the decisions and actions of Pottinger, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci and others.

Fauci at one point tells others that the president “is on a separate channel” and unfocused in meetings, with “rudderless” leadership, according to Woodward. “His attention span is like a minus number,” Fauci said, according to Woodward. “His sole purpose is to get reelected.”

In one Oval Office meeting recounted by Woodward, after Trump had made false statements in a news briefing, Fauci said in front of him: “We can’t let the president be out there being vulnerable, saying something that’s going to come back and bite him.” Pence, Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller tensed up at once, Woodward writes, surprised Fauci would talk to Trump that way.

Woodward describes Fauci as particularly disappointed in Kushner for talking like a cheerleader as if everything was great. In June, as the virus was spreading wildly coast to coast and case numbers soared in Arizona, Florida, Texas and other states, Kushner said of Trump, “The goal is to get his head from governing to campaigning.”

Woodward writes that Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested former president George W. Bush speak personally with Trump about global vaccine efforts, but that Bush demurred.

“No. No,” Bush told Graham, according to Woodward. “He’d misconstrue anything I said.”

In their final interview, on July 21, Trump vented to Woodward, “The virus has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault.”