2020, contd. (IV)

Trump campaign zeroes in on a new threat: Elizabeth Warren
ALEX ISENSTADT | 06/15/2019

The president's team is about to go after a candidate he had left for dead.

...Trump aides and their allies at the Republican National Committee, who initially believed their money and manpower were better focused elsewhere, are digging up opposition research, deploying camera-wielding trackers, and preparing to brand Warren as a liberal extremist.

...she could pose a serious threat in a general election. Warren’s disciplined style, populist-infused speeches, and perceived ability to win over suburban female voters, Trump advisers concede, has raised concerns...Warren has a more coherent message and a more passionate liberal following than Biden, whose support they see as soft...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/15/donald-trump-elizabeth-warren-2020-ele...

Trump Warns of Epic Stock Market Crash If He's Not Re-Elected
Ros Krasny | June 15, 2019

Ramps up fear factor as 2020 campaign set to officially start
Dow Jones’ performance under Trump so far has been middling

“If anyone but me takes over,” Trump told his 61 million Twitter followers on Saturday, “there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before!”

...As Trump kicks off his re-election campaign, the chances of a recession starting in the U.S. within the next year have risen to 30% from 25% a month ago, according to a June 7-12 survey of economists conducted by Bloomberg News. Recent figures have shown slowing job gains, and Trump’s tariff threats are weighing on business sentiment. The rising U.S. budget deficit and national debt have also raised alarm bells.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-15/trump-warns-of-epic-stock-mar...

Orlando Sentinel announces endorsement for whichever Democrat takes on Trump In 2020

Hours before President Trump is set to kickoff his 2020 reelection campaign in Orlando, the city’s largest news organization announced they are endorsing whoever challenges Trump in the general election regardless of who it is.

“We’re here to announce our endorsement for president in 2020, or, at least, who we’re not endorsing: Donald Trump,” the Orlando Sentinel said in its Tuesday staff editorial. “Because there’s no point pretending we would ever recommend that readers vote for Trump.”

After nearly three years, the paper’s editorial board said it has seen enough.

“Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies,” they said. “So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.”

>3 2wonderY:

"So many lies--from white lies to whoppers--told out of ignorance."

What? Do the paper's editors mean that, had he been better-informed, Trump would not have told lies "out of ignorance"?

Speaking of ignorance, a lie is a deliberate falsehood, told with knowledge of its falsity. If one misstates fact out of ignorance, we call this "an error," a "mistake."

True enough, then: no one can ever accuse Hillary or Bill Clinton of having told so many lies "out of ignorance." They were well aware of the falsity of every lie, just as they uttered it.

LOL!

Trump's critics make themselves look like the morons which, in fact, they are.

Voters interested in progressive ideas are beginning to split between Sanders and Warren.
Republicans

Are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders the same? The debate, explained.
Sanders and Warren: two candidates with similar policies and fundamentally different politics.
Tara Golshan | Jun 18, 2019

...much as they agree, there are policy and governance areas where the two notably diverge. Warren has shown support for reparations for descendants of enslaved people, Sanders said he was opposed to direct payments, however, like Warren, said he would sign a bill to research the idea as president. Warren is for ending the filibuster in the Senate, Sanders has warned against it. And when it comes to health care, the policy issue Democratic voters consistently list as their top priority, Warren and Sanders don’t have the same convictions.

Warren has co-sponsored Sanders’s single-payer proposal, but on the campaign trail keeps her talking points on universal health care; she speaks about Medicare-for-all more in terms of expanding public options for health care, rather than eliminating private insurance altogether. It’s in stark contrast to Sanders, who takes every opportunity to explain and advocate for single-payer health care, making the case that the incentives cannot be truly in the interest of the patients unless private insurance is out of the equation.

Another is foreign policy. The two have taken the lead on establishing a progressive approach to foreign policy on the road to 2020; however, as the New Yorker’s Osita Nwanevu writes, “Sanders’s critique of American foreign policy generally runs deeper and goes back farther.” As often pointed out by the Sanders-supporting contingent in this debate, Warren, who has made a point to target Pentagon corruption on the campaign trail, herself has been seen as a champion for defense contractors in her own state of Massachusetts, where giants like General Dynamics and Raytheon are major employers and hold billion-dollar defense contracts with the federal government.

All said, to a more casual political observer, their takeaway messages can sound very similar. Sanders likes to say, “At the end of the day, the 1 percent may have enormous wealth and power, but they are just the 1 percent. When the 99 percent stand together, we can transform society.” And Warren says she’s in a “fight to build an America that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and the well-connected.”

...fundamental difference in how Sanders and Warren see themselves on the ideological spectrum.

Warren is a social democrat. Sanders is a democratic socialist. The difference between the two is best explained by how Warren and Sanders convey their skepticism toward capitalism, said Sheri Berman, a political scientist with Barnard College, who has written extensively on the history of the left.

“Both Sanders and Warren have put forth a slew of policies a couple of election cycles ago would have been seen just far ahead of where the Democratic Party was,” Berman said. “If you believe in capitalism and you believe it has gone a little off the rails in the last generation, but it remains the best system to maintain economic growth and democracy, then Warren is the better candidate for you.”

“Or do you believe that capitalism is inherently unjust, inherently unstable?” Then Sanders is the right fit, Berman said...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/18/18678000/elizabeth-warren-bern...

#5--I think Sanders recent democratic socialism speech was kind of a self-inflicted wound. Mind you I don't mind what he was saying at all but I think lots of people are going take speeches like that the wrong way. I don't know if he felt a need to respond to the negativity to his campaign from the likes of Delaney and Hickenlooper but really he needs to ignore people like that altogether. They're not really a threat unless he makes them into one.

It's still really early. He has a shitload of activists and volunteers and no problem raising money out of small donations. He's had a hard time getting traction in the polls but there are a couple caveats--regarding Biden--I think his support is soft and dependent on major donors and corporations. Biden doesn't have the street level activists or volunteers. The other caveat I have is with polls themselves--a lot of which are dependent on people with landlines which under represent people more inclined to vote for him and Warren.

Warren and Sanders are kind of splitting the leftier vote--Biden is dominating so far more moderate towards center right voters. Biden does have a lot of skeletons in his closet and he's going to get grilled on this harder and harder and I wonder if he's going to hold up. I guess we're going to see.

Warren continually rolls out great policy proposals. She's smart as a whip. Will she start connecting more?

When was the last time the US had two Democrat candidates anything like these two (aside from Sanders last time)? The real push should be to get the two running together.

What I really don't want to see is a ticket with Sanders and some moderate Democrat for VP. With Sanders age, or an assassination (a real possibility with the way Trump has been hyping the "they're going to steal the election meme"), what would be the point of electing Sanders if we end up with the status quo.

Kamala Harris: https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/standards-palestinians-civilians/?utm_source=rss&...

Civil servants, take note:

Donald Trump team threatens to lay off employees if Congress doesn't eliminate agency
David Jackson| June 19, 2019

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's administration is threatening to furlough or lay off up to 150 employees at the Office of Personnel Management if Congress does not agree to eliminate the federal agency or find a new way to pay for the positions.

Members of Congress who oppose the administration's plan to kill off OPM and move its functions elsewhere called the plan an effort to intimidate lawmakers and contend it is an attack on federal workers' rights...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/19/donald-trump-team-may-la...

#9--really weak.

But anyway Sheldon Adelson bankrolls both Netanyahu and Trump and Sheldon Adelson wanted us to nuke Iran years and years ago. Nothing has changed with Sheldon Adelson apart from now Sheldon Adelson is getting what he's always wanted because he's got people in place who will do what he wants.

Cory Booker Proposes Clemency for Thousands of Nonviolent Drug Offenders
Nick Corasaniti | June 20, 2019

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey on Thursday announced a plan to offer clemency to more than 17,000 inmates serving time for nonviolent drug-related offenses on the first day of his presidency, an expansive use of executive power that would be the broadest clemency initiative since the Civil War.

The plan, which draws heavily on previous legislation he has introduced and passed as a senator, takes pains to address the vast racial inequalities wrought by the so-called war on drugs. It focuses on those serving sentences for marijuana-related offenses, as well as those with disparate sentences because of old distinctions between crack and powder cocaine.

It also addresses inmates whose sentences would have been reduced had the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Mr. Booker and signed by President Trump late last year, been applied retroactively...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/politics/booker-drugs-clemency.html

Two takes on Elizabeth Warren:

Nicholas Kristoff
Why I Was Wrong About Elizabeth Warren

Warren has become the gold standard for a policy-driven candidate, and whether or not she wins the Democratic nomination, she’s performing a public service by helping frame the debate.
…
Warren’s proposals might or might not succeed, but they are serious, based on work by top scholars. She is a believer in a market economy, regulated to keep it from being rigged, and in corporations that contribute to the well-being of all. And while she’s no expert on foreign policy, her instincts on avoiding war with Iran and showing concern for Palestinians seem good ones.

Frank Bruni
Elizabeth Warren Aced the First Democratic Debate

During the first hour, Warren was crisper than most of her peers. She was clearer. I didn’t always like what she said. But she said it well, leaving no doubt about the direction in which she’d pull the country and giving voters a fair amount of detail, within the crushing constraints of time, about the map that she’d use to travel there.
…
Like Sanders, she has welded herself to progressive ideals, such as an end to private insurance, that could be grave general-election liabilities. Like him, Warren divides the country neatly into villains and victims. Like him, she has sharp edges that she doesn’t worry about smoothing. And she clings to no word more tightly than “fight.” Warren got the last word on Wednesday night, and finished her remarks with this promise to struggling Americans: “I will fight for you as hard as I fight for my own family.”

But is there ample hope for healing in her message? Is it too potentially divisive, too morally stark? And is the best adversary for Trump a livid warrior or a happy one? Even as Warren impressed me, she left me with these questions. They’re big ones, because nothing matters more than limiting this president to one term by presenting him with the toughest foe.

I have respected EW for a while. She has plans worked out, what to do and how to pay for them. No other candidate is as well prepared.

The surest way for the Democrats to lose the next election is to worry excessively about whether their candidate can beat Trump and forget about the issues.

What "Democrats" proved in the last presidential election was that they didn't even understand what, for great swaths of the general public, "the issues" were. And we have no evidence of their having gotten any better idea of what they are since then.

Apparently, Democrats are, on one hand, going to raise, (i.e. level up, the standards of living for all but the wealthiest-- a most worthy goal, that--and, at the same time, on the other hand, make virtually every lower-earning or unemployed Mexican man, woman (and their children) de facto citizens of the United States by importing them to be residents.

That, of course, ought to be very interesting--because impossible.

Yesterday's Evening Standard (London) carried, on page one, the photo of the Mexican father and daughter drowned as they tried to cross the Rio Grande from Matamoros to Brownsville, Texas. The photo carried the cut-line text, "The picture that shames America."

No. Rather, the shame belongs to Mexico.

16: You really should stop posting when you are drunk.

>17 StormRaven: You really should stop with your cliches. It embarrasses you. And you should respond when you make false accusations and are called on it. They discredit you.

A New Racist Campaign Against Kamala Harris Is Taking Shape
Craig Silverman & Jane Lytvynenko | June 28, 2019

“Seeing the tweets declaring that Kamala isn’t black enough because her parents are from Jamaica and India, I had an immediate flashback to the 2008 campaign.”

Not long after Sen. Kamala Harris challenged Joe Biden’s record on race during part two of the first Democratic debate last night, a barrage of tweets questioned her race and US citizenship. While these claims erupted into national prominence last night, in part due to a quote-tweet from Donald Trump Jr., falsehoods about her have long been simmering in fringe conspiracy and neo-Nazi circles.

Just as Barack Obama’s US citizenship and background became a full-fledged conspiracy theory — promoted at the time by Donald Trump — Harris has also been targeted with disinformation questioning her race and legitimacy as a US citizen. Obama birther conspiracy theorists and prominent neo-Nazis, including Andrew Anglin, have questioned her eligibility to run for president, and she’s been labeled an “anchor baby.”

In fact, Harris was born in Oakland to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, and is eligible to run for president...

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/kamala-harris-black-citizens...

There is no candidate that doesn't have a few skeletons in the closet--some though have a lot too many. Biden has been collecting for a long time.

MSNBC and CNN are on this campaign to discredit anything remotely resembling a medicare for all plan. Joe Scarborough might be anti-Trump but even so he's a former republican congressman from Florida and his sidekick Mika--her father went to the Kissinger school of foreign diplomacy. These people can't entirely be trusted nor the likes of a lot of others associated with these networks. I find their commenting on medicare for all to be disingenuous and one sided. This notion that people are in love with their health insurance is a crock and it's also fear mongering because in the way they've been parsing it people will be stuck with no medical coverage and/or have their taxes raised without remarking about having their insurance premiums erased. They're doing the work of the health care industry that regularly gouges the consumer--limits choices, raises rates at a whim and denies coverate whenever possible and makes medications that people need unaffordable. It's all about corporation profits over people. Joe Scarborough is rich enough that he doesn't have to worry about being cleaned out because of a health event or even two or three--same with the likes of Chris Matthews, Stephanie Ruhle etc. etc. 98.5 % of the rest of public does though.

>19 margd: Good god, who is more of the politicos than Harris?
And why are all these assholes running? What does Beto O'Rourke or Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar or Biden or these other fools have to offer? Beto is too late--Obama beat him to the cool candidate slot. Biden is too Hillary. Booker and Klobuchar are too slender. Sanders and Warren have serious heft, and maybe Harris does as well. Tulsi Gabbard is weighted down by her Indian connections. After Trump, someone perceived as running for people and not self-glorification might be refreshing. Warren still seems the only one I can trust. Bernie needs to be huddling with her, as I have said, figuring out what he needs to hear before lending his support. Oh, and Mayor Pete? What made that guy decide to run for President of the United States?

#21--I don't have an issue really with people like Booker, Harris, Gabbard, Inslee running really. Booker has a couple issues like reparations that's worthy of discussion--Harris has a realizable shot, I like Gabbard's anti-war message and Inslee's pushing the climate change issue. If a candidate has something worthwhile to say--stay in by all means.

OTOH Beto should run for Texas Senator--he has a chance to win that and it would be useful if he did. He's useless in this. People like John Hickenlooper, Swalwell or the guy from Montana who all think it's very important to get Republicans to vote for them. The Montana guy bragging it up that he can win because he's won in a Red State which only says to me he went really far to the right to do it. Hickenlooper sees everything through the prism of a micro-brewery businessman and Swalwell's cabinets picks are going to be half and half democrats and republicans. I mean really? WTF! Maybe we'll have another round of Mnuchin and Chao. Biden's kind of working that same message and they'll call themselves progressive to boot. Klobuchar, Bennett and Gillibrand have no traction and aren't really offering very much--I think they'll all drop out before too long. All the people mentioned in this paragraph are really weak on health care and climate change so IMO they should GTFO.

NRA meltdown has Trump campaign sweating
ALEX ISENSTADT | 07/03/2019

...With the Chamber of Commerce and Koch political network withdrawing from their once-dominant roles in electing conservatives, Republicans worry that three organizations that have long formed the core of their electoral infrastructure will be effectively on the sidelines.

The predicament has so troubled some Republicans that they are calling on the famously secretive NRA to address its 2020 plans. Within the past week, senators have privately expressed concerns about the group to National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Todd Young...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/03/nra-guns-trump-campaign-1395970

#23--from what I've been hearing though Trump has been raising lots of cash--that though is apart from Senate and House republicans who aren't doing nearly as well and really I don't see him or his campaign sharing with them--so at least a larger number of them might be out of luck.

So Trump $ will sway R primaries? R moderates, such as they are, won't have a chance?

I don't think there's such a thing as an R moderate really. Look at Joe Scarborough--when he was in Congress he was kind of a fire breathing conservative for his time--he really hasn't changed but now a lot of people look at his MSNBC show and think he's a moderate or a voice from the middle. The question to me is who is willing to follow Trump over the edge. The way it looks right now most of them will but somehow I think Captain Trump has other things in mind than going down with his ship--if need be the rest of his crew can though.

Yeah, "moderate Republicans" is bullshit. Your average Democrat is your "moderate Republican". It boggles my mind that even after three years of Trump--and longer, probably since Reagan--anyone would give this vile company, this party of murdering, thieving, raping, lying, dollar-worshiping-at-the-expense-of-all-else scumbags the time of day.

Wake up already. You've been landed into a fascist dystopia by these people and they've got you right where they want you.

I should have said Rs with a spine. Justin Amash is sure no moderate, but he has a spine. I can respect him for that.

There weren't a whole lot of Republican moderates back in 2008 when Obama came into office. The tea party movement targeted each and every one of them and wiped them out. They're gone. Amash is a libertarian--I can give him enough credit that he actually believes in something and has a mind of his own but he's the only one that has really defied the leadership and he is a pariah now and everyone knows it. It's funny too that back in the 70's Richard Nixon of all people twice went to congress--even made a nationally televised speech with the aim of giving full health care coverage to every living soul in the United States. The thing that's happened over the last 40 + years is as democrats try to take over the middle ground from the Republicans they move them more to the right so the middle ground moves more towards the right. That's why staking out positions is important--your people know what you stand for and you move into the middle territory without at least considering why. It's also why people in other countries say we have no viable left political party--it's because as the Republican Party has gone further to the right the Democratic Party follows right behind.

The thing with the Republicans now though is they've come to the point where they've almost fully embraced fascism. Trump rallies are pretty much all about waving the flag and roaring about others whether they're Muslims or Hispanics or whatever. They are the lifeblood events right now of the Republican party. No matter what stupid shit he says they cheer him and they feed off each other's energy. It's a picture of American that everyone around the globe can see and unfortunately there are people all over encouraged by it too.

Anyway his wall does nothing for anyone--it's just an expression of hate--compare it to Nixon wanting to give everyone health care. That's how far the Republican party has fallen.

Nixon did country favor of leaving and more or less keeping still after his disgrace. He had some honor, at least.

Also, "President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970 and it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order." (Wikipedia)

What have the Rs come to that Nixon looks so good in comparison?

____________________________________________________

ETA: speaking of Justin Amash, as sun rises on Independence Day:

Justin Amash: Our politics is in a partisan death spiral. That’s why I’m leaving the GOP.
Justin Amash | July ,2019 6:00 am

Justin Amash, an independent, represents Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District in the House... (His father immigrated from Palestine.)

George Washington was so concerned as he watched political parties take shape in America that he dedicated much of his farewell address to warning that partisanship, although “inseparable from our nature,” was the people’s “worst enemy.” He observed that it was “the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”

Washington said of partisanship, in one of America’s most prescient addresses: “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. …

“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

True to Washington’s fears, Americans have allowed government officials, under assertions of expediency and party unity, to ignore the most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism and the rule of law...

...The founders envisioned Congress as a deliberative body in which outcomes are discovered. We are fast approaching the point, however, where Congress exists as little more than a formality to legitimize outcomes dictated by the president, the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader...

...No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/justin-amash-our-politics-is-in-a-partis...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amash might run for president as independent?

Amash quits Republican Party
Brandon Conradis - 07/04/19

...Amash has fueled speculation in recent weeks that he's planning to mount a third-party challenge to Trump, whom the Michigan lawmaker has repeatedly criticized in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on 2016 election interference.

...in June, Amash insisted he had no interest in playing "spoiler" in the 2020 election, saying that if he runs, he intends to win.

Asked at the time if he had made a decision on a third-party presidential run, Amash said, "I haven't ruled anything out."

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/451662-amash-leaves-republican-party

The idea that the Democrats can work with the Republicans is a loser. Mitch McConnell won't budge an inch for them and trying to appease that party 'to get something done' will keep anything actually worthwhile from being done. I don't know why the Democrats are so worried about winning back Trump voters from 2016 when all they have to do is win most everybody else. This is at least party why when Joe Biden says he can work with republicans or Eric Swalwell talks about having a half and half cabinet of republicans and democrats or when Scarborough gets Hickenlooper to go after anyone or thing that can be termed 'socialist'--these are all losing ideas. It's taking your own base's wants and desires for granted and making your oppositions more important.

Mitch McConnell would hold up the next Supreme Court justice 3 and a half or even 6 and a half years if he can get away with it. He doesn't care about right/wrong or anything else except his own power and he's not the only one they have like that. What Lindsey Graham says one year he completely contradicts another if it suits his purpose. Biden--work with them?--that's a pipe dream--the only thing Biden will accomplish are Mitch McConnell goals.

Saw a great bumper sticker last week.

ANY FUNCTIONING ADULT -2020

>32 morningwalker: nice

In a single day, Trump shows his 2020 cards
ANITA KUMAR 07/11/2019

The president is sending his base a clear message: He’s still fighting even if his policies stumble.

...In 12 hours on Thursday, through speeches and on Twitter, Trump stepped directly onto some of the most volatile fault lines that could rev up his fiercest supporters: immigration, the Pledge of Allegiance, social media bias, unfair trade with China, big banks, Iran, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference, impeachment and, of course, individual Democratic candidates for president...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/11/donald-trump-media-census-2020-1409401

#34--funny thing about executive orders--if you don't have the funding to pay for them then they're pretty much worthless. Watching Donald and Barr blustering over their voter repression census question failing in the courts all I could think was bullshit and more bullshit. 'Yeah--this executive order is a better way to do it anyway'. Sure--so why didn't you do it that way in the first place then?--fuckheads. The answer is because it's really not but rather than admit they lost they felt the need to gaslight their supporters that they're still going to win.....and here's Barr like a total kiss ass and tool thanking and congratulating Trump over and over again like the sycophant he is.

The gift that keeps on giving (to Trump), "The Squad" v. Pelosi:

racist Trump has opportunity to defend Pelosi against being racist

narcissist Trump generates headlines

criminal Trump diverts headlines from child abuser/protector, migrant holding conditions, Iran, etc.

candidate Trump exacerbates divisions in opposing party AND finds new bogie women for his mysogynistic, nationalistic, racist base

_________________________?

ETA: candidate Trump and allies take out the communist, anti-Semitic epithets

Bah.

The State of the Democratic Primary

34 contd. Yikes!! Presidency past. Presidency present. Presidency future???
Watch video clips of Trump's N.C. rally last night at https://twitter.com/atrupar:

Aaron Rupar @atrupar (vox) | 12h12 hours ago (July 17, 2019 ~7 pm)

Trump begins his speech by saying it could be a long one because he has "nothing to do." Good gig if you can get it.

Trump gloats over Wednesday's failed attempt to impeach him, thanks the Democrats who voted against his impeachment

Trump tries to goad the crowd into booing the "fake news" but in an unusual twist they don't really take the bait this time

It's July 17, 2019 and Trump is still out here reminiscing about the 2016 election

Trump's human backdrop in North Carolina is very white but there are a lot of women

TRUMP, echoing someone in the crowd, refers to the Mueller probe as "bullshit." The crowd goes wild.

TRUMP praises himself with some hyperbole: "Nobody in their first two and a half years has done anywhere close to what we -- not me -- what we have all done."

Trump says that "all" the world leaders who visit him in the White House, "including dictators ... start off by saying Mr President, I would look to congratulate you on the incredible economy you have created, the greatest anywhere in the world by far."

Trump, alluding to Democratic congresswoman of color, says they "want to demolish our constitution, weaken our military, eliminate the values that built this magnificent country." The crowd boos them loudly.

Trump mentions Ilhan Omar, and the loudest boos of the night break out. Trump's speech is then interrupted by a protester*.

"He goes home now to mommy and he gets reprimanded and that's the end. 'Sorry mommy. Sorry mom. Didn't mean to embarrass you, mom,'" Trump says.

Trump fans eventually break out in "send her back!" chants directed toward Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee who serves in Congress who Trump viciously smeared.

Trump on AOC: "I don't have time to go with three different names. We'll call her Cortez. Too much time. Takes too much time."

Trump suggests migrant detention camps really aren't that bad because they have air conditioning and are "clean." (There's video evidence they are not clean.)

TRUMP: "Tonight I have a suggestion for the hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down. They never have anything good to say. That's why I say 'hey, if they don't like it, let them leave. Let them leave. Let them leave!'"

TRUMP on Elizabeth Warren: "Pocahontas is gaining a little bit because we probably used the 'Pocahontas' a little bit too early, but that's okay, we will bring it out of retirement very soon." #BeBest

Republican candidate Greg Murphy claps into the microphone like a madman

Trump's brain short circuits when he tries to say "ninth congressional district"

Trump pushes an egregious lie: "The Democrats want to spend more money on health care for illegal immigrants more than the citizens of the United States."

Trump dehumanizes & pushes gore pore about MS-13, including mimicking how they purportedly stab people.

"These are sick people. When I called them 'animals' Nancy Pelosi said, 'how dare he use that name?' ... these are savage beasts."

TRUMP: "Hey Bernie, let me save you a lot of time and effort, Bernie. You missed your time. It got taken from you four years ago, Bernie. Not doing too well ... but you've gotta hand it to him, he's up there ranting & raving like a lunatic."

Trump then mockingly mimics Sanders

TRUMP on Brad Parscale: "He just told me our poll numbers are through the roof ... he just told me that so I'll take that. I mean, we are a year & a half away, but we're doing well."

Trump says this with a straight face: "The Democrats' vision on healthcare is deception and disruption ... patients with pre-existing conditions are protected by Republicans much more so than were protected by Democrats who can never pull it off."

While (again) trashing Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas," Trump reveals that he's still hopelessly confused about how fractions work.

"She then went out and got that test. 1000/24th! ... 1000/24th ... 1000/24th."

(He has it backward.)

TRUMP: "You know, it's interesting with women. So, women want to have strong military protection. They want to have strong borders. They want to have strong law enforcement. They want to have great education ... why wouldn't they want Trump more than anybody else?"

Trump spends a couple minutes "joking" about staying in office for longer than two terms.

TRUMP: "If we don't win in 2020, everything that we've done, seriously, everything we have done -- your 401ks, it will crashing down like a stack of cards ... it can disappear very very quickly."

Trump tells a complete BS story about a businessman who doesn't like him personally but supports him anyway because he's such a great president. If a guy at the bar talked to you like this you'd slide down a couple stools.

Trump complains that he has no friends: "I lost all my friends! They've tightened up. They've choked. They can't breathe. Because people have such respect for the office of the president."

LOL -- Trump starts talking about "apprenticeships and job training," while leads to him talking about The Apprentice, which leads to him trashing Arnold Schwarzenegger -- and then he abruptly says, "I proudly signed 4 bipartisan human trafficking laws." #StableGenius

TRUMP: "A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism ... frankly, the destruction of our country." 😳

Trump tells a "sir" story about a general and mentions how the general is good looking and is straight out of "central casting"

“Send her back!” Trump’s rally in North Carolina was an orgy of bigotry

Here's Trump praising a "beautiful baby" adorned with a Qanon* logo during same rally in which his fans serenaded one of America's first Muslim congresswoman with "send her back!” chants.

Classy, normal stuff.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Protester unfurled blue banner "Keep America great" and was removed.

** QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory social media platform detailing a supposed secret plot by an alleged "deep state" against U.S. President Donald Trump (wikipedia)

Is the GOP speeding up its demise during this deplorable Trump era?
Unintended consequences are closing in on the dinosaur party ~ the
elephant is already dead!

It's less a demise than a transformation, if that... and it seems to have finished a while back, at least around the time even a war criminal like Dumbya found it necessary to distance himself from the monster.

This week's events have indicated that in 2020 Americans are going
to be voting for the kind of country they want their future family
members to grow up in ~ one filled with hate and discord or one
where people co-exist and thrive.

#41--to thrive we are going to have to spread the wealth out a lot better than we have. Even with Trump out of the picture there are powerful entities that are dead set against that. One of the smartest things we could do is cut military or military industrial complex expenditures down radically--at least 50%. Make corporations and the superwealthy pay taxes again. This would go a long way towards paying for things the population actually needs.

2020 election cast of characters

Trump ~ the pimp
GOP reps ~ the prostitutes/human pretzels
GOP voters ~ the satisfied customers

Everyone else: has to clean the pissed-on mattress with a single cotton swab and a travel-size contact lens solution

A strategy perspective for Ds from David Duke races:

Tim Wise @timjacobwise | 9:17 AM · Jul 21, 2019
https://twitter.com/timjacobwise

1/ If the Dems blow this election it will not be because they were "too far left on policy" or because they "weren't left enough." It will have little to do with policy at all. They are making a mistake caused by traditional consultant theory that does not apply here...

2/ And by listening to influential pundits in liberal media who also don't get the unique nature of Trumpism, relative to normal political movements & campaigns...this election is NOT going to be won by talking about all your "great plans" for health care, jobs, education, etc..

3/ And the reasons are several...Let me begin by saying that I have experience confronting the kind of phenomenon we see in Trumpism, and far more than most. Any of us who were involved in the fight against David Duke in LA in 90/91 know what this is and how it must be fought...

4/ So before explaining what the Dems are doing wrong right now, a little history...In 1990, white supremacist David Duke ran for U.S. Senate in LA, and in 1991 for Governor. He lost both times but both times he won the majority of the white vote (60 and 55% respectively)...

5/ I was one of the staffers of the main anti-Duke PAC at the time & ultimately became Assistant Director. In 90, even though our Director Lance Hill, myself & a few of our founders wanted to focus on Duke's bigotry, ties to extremists and appeals to white racial resentment...

6/ ...after all, that WAS the issue--it was a moral struggle against racism--we had mainstream Democratic consultants who warned us against focusing too much on it. They said that "played into Duke's hands" and allowed him to set the agenda....

7/ So sure, we could discuss his ties to Nazis & such, but we shouldn't make a big deal out of his contemporary racist appeals, per se, bc "lots of voters agree" with those appeals...they even encouraged us to talk about utterly superfluous shit like Duke paying his taxes late..

8/ Or Duke avoiding service in Vietnam, or Duke writing a sex manual under a female pseudonym (yeah he did that)...although Lance held firm that we needed to talk mostly about racism, we did end up talking about some of that other stuff too, sadly...

9/ I say "sadly" because doing that normalized Duke as a regular candidate. Attacking his generic character or bill paying habits (or even discussing his inadequate plans for job creation, etc) treated him like a normal candidate. But he was/is a NAZI...

10/ And none of his voters were voting 4 him bc of jobs, or tax policy or support for term limits, etc. And none were going to turn on him over late tax payments, Vietnam, etc. Indeed throwing that stuff out there & downplaying the elephant in the room (racism) seemed desperate..

11/ It allowed people to say "well if he's really this racist, white supremacist, why are they talking about all this other stuff?" It actually undermined our ability to paint him as the extremist he was/is. And as a result, the threat he posed was not clear enough to voters...

12/ And this didn't just allow him to get votes he might not have gotten otherwise; it also depressed turnout among people who almost certainly disliked him but didn't think he could win or would be all that big a deal if he did. In fact I recall convos with "liberals"...

13/ ...Who said they weren't going 2 vote bc after all Duke's Dem opponent was just a shill for the oil and gas industry, and that was just as bad, blah blah fucking blah...because some lefties can't tell the difference between corporatist assholes and actual literal Nazis...

14/ But we bore some responsibility for that because we got suckered into playing this conventional game and "not playing into his narrative." Anyway, Duke gets 60% of the vote, black and white liberal turnout is lower than it should have been and Duke gets 44% of vote...

15/ In the Governor's race we dispensed w/ all that bullshit. We talked about Duke's ongoing Nazism and the moral/practical evil of his racist appeals. We discussed how that moral evil would have real world consequences (driving tourists and business away, rightly so, from LA)..

18/ To flip Duke voters would require that they accept the fact that they had previously voted for a monster, and people are loath to do that. Our goal was not to flip them, but to DRIVE UP TURNOUT among the good folks, many of whom stayed home in 90...

19/ And that is what happened. The concerted effort of the anti-Duke forces (not just us), challenging Duke's "politics of prejudice," and making the election about what kind of state we wanted to be, drove turnout through the roof...

20/ 28,000+ registered on one day alone, between the initial election and runoff (which Duke made bc of the state's open primary system), with tens of thousands more overall: most of them, anti-Duke folks...

21/ When it was over, Duke had gotten 65k more votes than in 90, but his white share went to 55 (from 60) and overall to 39 (from 44) because the anti-Duke turnout swamped him...So what does this have to do with 2020 and Trump? Do I really need to explain it?...

22/ First, trying to flip Trump voters is a waste of time. Any of them who regret their vote don't need to be pandered to. They'll do the right thing. Don't focus on them. That said, very few will regret their vote. They cannot accept they voted for a monster or got suckered...

23/ Duke retained 94% of the folks he got the first time out (and got new people too), as Trump likely will. So forget these people--or at least don't wast time tailoring messages to them. And policy plans for affordable college don't mean shit to them, nor health care...

24/ Their support for Trump was never about policy. It was about the bigotry, the fact that he hates who they hate...Second, as for the "undecideds." ...Not many of these but seriously? If you're still undecided at this point about this guy...

25/ Then there is almost no way to know what would get you to make up your mind...I doubt it's a plan to deal with Wall Street though, or infrastructure, or tax policy...

26/ If anything, I would say crafting an argument that this is an existential crisis for the nation--and making it about Trump's bigotry and who we want to be as a country, would be far more effective in inspiring them to make up their minds...

27/ And what I know for a FACT is that this message--that Trumpism is a threat to everything we care about and love about this country--is what will inspire the Dem base to vote...and THAT is what this election is about...

28/ I'm not saying the Dems don't need policy ideas, but focusing on wonky, look-how-much-I've-thought about-this stuff is not going to move the needle in 2020...

29/ What the left never understands is: we need to stop approaching elections like the goddamned debate team, and start approaching it like the right does, like the cheerleading squad...

30/ The right knows psychology and we know public policy and sociology...great. The latter does not win elections...

31/ People who say the Dems should ignore Trump's race baiting because its some genius political strategy calculated to distract us, are idiots. He is no genius. And if you downplay it you NORMALIZE him. If you make this about policy, you NORMALIZE him. He is a racist...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 9:44 AM - Jun 15, 2019
The Trump Economy is setting records, and has a long way up to go....However, if anyone but me takes over in 2020 (I know the competition very well), there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before! KEEP AMERICA GREAT

______________________________________________________________

Democratic candidate Warren sees U.S. economic downturn; urges quick steps
Reuters | July 22, 2019

...In a statement, Warren said “warning lights are flashing” and the chances of a downturn are “high and growing.”

The U.S. economy has been expanding for 10 years, the longest on record, with low unemployment and inflation, and a strong stock market.

Nevertheless, Warren labeled the U.S. economy “precarious” amid high household and student debt. She warned that an increase in interest rates could “plunge families over a cliff.”

The Massachusetts lawmaker noted that corporations are holding a growing number of high-risk loans and the country is experience a downturn in manufacturing.

As an antidote, Warren called for a $2 trillion investment in environmental research, manufacturing and exports over the next decade to revitalize the industrial base. She estimated such investment would create more than 1 million jobs while also addressing climate change issues.

To help insulate the U.S. economy from potential shocks, Warren called on federal regulators to abide by steps to stop banks from issuing risky corporate loans. She also urged the Trump administration to stop encouraging the UK to leave the European Union unless a firm Brexit strategy is in place...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-warren/democratic-candidate-warr...

The Trump era is the modern-day version of the Hitler era.
An American leader doesn't have to look, sound or act like Hitler to be evil in this day and age ~ he can be a charming life-long con man.

>45 margd:

It's useless, as one can see even in the microscopic example in this group, barring one or two exceptions. There are the Trumpists, people who positively love Trump's misogyny and racism, natural-born fascists, and they are a problem of one kind. But then there are the white male shits and their handmaidens who think of themselves as "the left" but don't really believe women and non-whites are people and can't compute misogynistic and racist attacks as serious problems, even when they see them deployed as the most powerful tool for mobilizing the masses. Just like the Germans didn't care about the attacks on the Jews. That's not politics for white men, only what concerns the white man's belly and ego is worthy of concern. "It's the economy, stupid." Jews can go hang, women can go hang, blacks can go hang, gays and the trans can go hang--only what affects the white male baby in the strictest sense of its self- and culture-inflated ego is important. Only the white male baby is a human being.

They saw and heard Trump attack and humiliate women, blacks, Mexicans, over and over again, in the crudest terms, in most blatant ways, everything short of him actually raping or shooting someone right in front of them.

And they didn't care. Not then, not now, and I don't see why that shit would change come November.

Reminder from January 2017:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/247510#5909202

Yes, he started with wanting to ban "undesirable" refugees and Muslims and now he IS going after US citizens.

>47 Molly3028:

“Of course, they didn’t call it fascism. They painted it red, white, and blue, and called it Americanism.”

Keeper of the Flame, 1942

49: Reading through that thread two years later really drives home what mendacious sleazebags the cohort of "conservative" posters on the site truly are.

>51 StormRaven:

You'll have noticed how they find it in themselves to accommodate Trump from one stage to another... at first X is tolerable, but Y unthinkable, then Y is not so bad, but Z looms as another "threshold"--but nothing is a real obstacle anymore.

#45--I would circle 22--trying to pander to Trump voters would be a terrible way to go.

>48 LolaWalser:

"And they didn't care. Not then, not now. And I don't see why that shit would change come November*."

Well, exactly! What's the point, really, of one's pointing out a puddle of puke on the sidewalk when, alas, one, herself, provokes others to puke?

You need a case, a brief, a compelling argument for why Trump, as puke, is any worse than the puke you and yours represent.

But you don't have these and, to borrow your observation, "I don't see why that shit would change" between now and November. Now that really is a fucking shame.

______________________________

* i.e. November, 2020.
(LOL!) from the annals of "The Soothsayer's Guide to Modesty"

54: I see that the drunk racist drug-addled unemployed homeless man is once again screaming incoherently on a street corner.

Managing and Mitigating Foreign Election Interference
Arya Goel, Diego A. Martin, Jacob N. Shapiro | Sunday, July 21, 2019

...Twitter and Facebook were by far the most popular platforms for these kinds of coordinated inauthentic behaviors. Of the cases we identified, about 83 percent used Twitter as a tool, while about 50 percent used Facebook.

...Having learned lessons from the 2016 U.S. presidential election, governments in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom have taken measures to protect their electoral processes. France, for example, successfully combined voter education, retaliatory threats, and proactively countering propaganda and leaks in its 2017 election.

...This is what victory in this fight will look like: not an end to FIEs, but their gradual marginalization by the combination of internet platform self-policing (sometimes in order to protect their businesses) and government actions that raise the expected costs for attackers. As others have argued eloquently and at length, the evidence suggests that a collective response that integrates actions by the government, the private sector and civil society groups will make it harder and harder for foreign nations to interfere and shape the politics of their adversaries.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/managing-and-mitigating-foreign-election-interferenc...

______________________________________________________________________

Democrats paint McConnell as 'lead opponent' to election security in new report
Maggie Miller | 07/23/19

...details what the Democrats see as steps taken by McConnell since 1999 to resist election security and voting reform efforts.

“For years, Sen. McConnell has fought to increase the impact of dark money and corporate spending in our elections,” the Senate Democrats wrote. “But now, after reportedly fighting efforts to expose Putin’s interference during the 2016 elections, Senator McConnell is blocking bipartisan reforms that would secure our elections from foreign interference.”

...McConnell noted that “Congress will...resist...any efforts to use the failures of the past to justify sweeping federalizations of election law, as some on the other side have consistently sought to do.”

...McConnell has so far not brought up House-passed election security and voting reforms bills, including the For the People Act and the Securing America’s Federal Elections (SAFE) Act.

Republicans have also blocked efforts by Senate Democrats to push through other election security bills by unanimous consent, including one that would require backup paper ballots and provide election security grants to states, and another that would require campaigns to report offers of illegal foreign assistance to the FBI.

...The Senate did pass legislation last week that would make it a federal crime to hack into voting systems, and also passed a bill earlier this year that would deny visas to those who meddle or are suspected of trying to meddle in U.S. elections...

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/454405-democrats-paint-mcconnell-as-lead-opp...

What if we lose confidence in election outcomes?
Putin smiles, for one.

Russia Targeted Elections Systems in All 50 States, Report Finds
David E. Sanger and Catie Edmondson | July 25, 2019

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Thursday that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia in 2016, an effort more far-reaching than previously acknowledged and one largely undetected by the states and federal officials at the time.

...bipartisan report...findings were so heavily redacted at the insistence of American intelligence agencies that even some key recommendations for 2020 were blacked out.

...the first volume of several to be released from the committee’s investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference — came 24 hours after the former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III warned that Russia was moving again to interfere “as we sit here.”

...intended largely to search for vulnerabilities in the security of the election systems.

...“Russian cyberactors were in a position to delete or change voter data” in the Illinois voter database. The committee found no evidence that they did so.

...While the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings were bipartisan, they came on a day when Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, moved again to block consideration of election security legislation put forward by Democrats...long opposed giving the federal government a greater hand in an institution of American democracy typically run by the states...argues that Congress has already done enough — passing $380 million worth of grants for states to update their election systems and supporting executive branch agencies as they make their own changes. Some administration officials have suggested that the issue is not getting enough high-level attention because President Trump equates any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory.

... a cascading intelligence failure, in which the scope of the Russian effort was underestimated, warnings to the states were too muted, and state officials either underreacted or, in some cases, resisted federal efforts to offer help.

...“Russian intentions regarding U.S. election infrastructure remain unclear.” Moscow’s intelligence agencies — chiefly the G.R.U., Russia’s main military intelligence unit — may have “intended to exploit vulnerabilities in the election infrastructure during the 2016 elections and, for unknown reasons, decided not to execute those options.”

...it might have been cataloging options “for use at a later date” — a possibility that officials of the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. said was their biggest worry.

...Russian officials had requested to send election observers to polling places in the 2016 election — just as the United States often seeks to send observers to elections in foreign nations, including Russia.

...the most efficient way to alter votes was with physical access to the machines or computers rather than programming them with ballots.

...ranged from the concrete — ensure a paper trail for voter machines and paper backups for registration systems — to the strategic, like adopting a doctrine of how to deter different kinds of cyberattacks.

...suggested holding “a discussion with U.S. allies and others about new cybernorms,” ...debate inside the administration over how much the United States itself is willing to forgo the option of using its own cyberabilities abroad.

...Some states...appear not to have the money to fix a voting machine infrastructure that has no paper backup to its balloting process, making a truly reliable audit impossible.

Other states still have highly vulnerable registration databases...

...Even (fall 2016), the report makes clear, the agencies did not understand the scope of the Russian effort.

...(cybersecurity coordinator) position at the White House has since been eliminated by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser.

...“states...should purchase more secure voting machines. At a minimum...a voter-verified paper trail...states should remain firmly in the lead on running elections.”

The states say they do not have the money to conduct a replacement program by November 2020.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html

>57 margd: "What if we lose confidence in election outcomes?"

Who cares about confidence in the elections' "outcomes", "margd", when you've lost confidence in the electorate itself! ?

You see, marge, you don't respect the electorate when the "outcome" of its ordinary practices goes against your personal prejudices' desires. So your "confidence" in those "outcomes" is clearly predicated on their aligning with only what you happen to approve.

If you had the sense to recognize the irony of your posting "What if we lose confidence in election outcomes?", you'd have a heart-attack laughing your ass off.

#58--the idiocy of this post of yours shouldn't go unremarked. If we were going by what the electorate had to say--the candidate with the second most votes is the candidate who won--so no the majority of the electorate did not vote for Turnip--he won on the technicality of an electoral college that overrides the actual plurality of voters. This by the way is how the Republican party manages to gain power in the last couple decades--not by majorities of votes but by targeting where and who the votes come from--that is why also the need on their part to keep the vote as suppressed as possible--because they do not represent--what's more they know they do not represent the views of a majority of the population. It is why a good many of them are not too fussy either about getting help from out of country actors but it's not just the Russians who have an ability to hack into our elections--one would think the North Koreans, the Chinese, Israel and Iran are capable of the same and they all would have good reason to--especially now and especially because Mitch McConnell and his Senate republicans are intent on blocking any kind of fix to the system.

I suppose a quid pro quo argument could be made though that the United States has long been interfering with the elections of other nations spanning the globe and this is just chickens coming home to roost. That is just a tangential issue to what you're talking about but one I would think worth one day having a discussion about in this forum--not necessarily with you though.

The ghost of Roger Ailes is living in the FOX News complex. Getting Trump re-elected is its #1 goal. It is living rent-free in the heads of the FOX News celebrities he developed. WWRD? must play constantly in their minds.

Trump and his 35% base are soul mates ~ those voters will NEVER turn against him. Another 10-12% are happy with their economic conditions. He could very well win another term. I hope the happy campers are saving some of the loot they are earning ~ last in means first out when the coming recession hits the companies they work for.

( Snowflake trigger-warning: You may need your Trauma-Pillow.)

"What Were Robespierre's Pronouns?"

Welcome to America, your new home. Let's begin to learn our new home's language: An immigrant could learn to speak English if they want to, right?

62: The U.S. has no specific language and never has. Attempts to define a "national language" for the country have always been racist in nature.

#63--that is true and in actual fact much of the Southwest was Mexican territory in towards the middle part of the 19th century which is enough reason for many people in that region to still speak Spanish. The oldest Americans of all--Native Americans had/have their own languages. So English as a language wasn't here first.

The disrespect for other languages and cultures isn't just racist though--it's also anti-intellectual. People wanting to wallow in their ignorance and make it into a virtue. There is also their fear of others and this goofy need to feel superior.

The GOP wants to distribute more of our money up to the rich. Are the rich going to be buying food, clothes and other goods in your neighborhood?

Clara Jeffery @ClaraJeffery (Mother Jones) | 10:36 PM · Jul 31, 2019

Listen if a Democrat other than Inslee wins, they should create a Department of Climate cabinet position and put him in it.

Michael Moore speaks the truth about the "mythical voter", the fucking white dickhead the Democrats lost sixty years ago anyway (and why? Because fucking white dickhead overwhelmingly vote fascist no matter where, because they ARE misogynist racist white supremacist):

"The working class are WOMEN, the working class are PEOPLE OF COLOR, the working class are YOUNG PEOPLE."

https://youtu.be/JWqGY5T8mTA

The electorate going to the polls in the US next year will be 70% female, PoC, young (and/or, combos thereof).

White dickhead dinos still haven't got the message they are dead as a dodo. Ideologically speaking.

All that's left to the creeps is Nazi zombification.

When someone describes themselves as 'working class' anymore my ears perk up because when I hear that I'm hearing someone separating him/herself from the always aspiring people who want everyone to know they're 'middle class' or something above. To say you're working class is almost to say I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty--also saying that I'm not looking down on somebody just because they're poorer than I am--to see solidarity and the potentiality of other working people no matter race, creed or gender. I rarely hear anyone saying they're working class though and I think it's a shame. We need to find commonality and community---not just think we're in this world by ourselves just for ourselves.

Another thing to think about is the fight for a living wage--because anyone that works a 40 hour work week should be able to afford to live a fairly decent life--to buy a home--to raise a family if they feel like it anyway. And the idea of the $15 is just a first stage--because as things continue to rise that will have to too. It's also why we need a government run health care system that wipes out the parasitical health insurance companies--that brings Big Pharma to heel once and for all. That caps profits at every level and doesn't bury anybody like happens today just because they can't afford to ever get sick or have an accident. So to correct things we're going to have to attack the wealthy and entities like major corporations that pool it.

Anyway since Michael Moore's first film Roger and me we've had a couple generations worth of watching the life go out of the eyes of people who've had their livelihoods taken away from them and in that case it was so GM and its investors could make a killing and killing is the right word but it's also like cannibalism--the rich eating the lives of ordinary people. And that film as it happens was much about Moore's hometown of Flint Michigan and the residents of that unhappy city these days are being poisoned by a water system that no one can find the money to fix because it's not one of the nicer, richer, whiter communities. Go figure.

Class seems to have lost some connotations and gained other. Once upon a (medieval?) time, it seems to have had the solidity of caste, but now there's stability only at the very top and the bottom--everything in-between fluctuates.

What are even the markers of (working) class? In my father's youth, "working class" would have meant a manual worker, no school or elementary; at most, for skilled workers, some vocational school or apprenticeship. If you had a university diploma, you were middle class, or headed there.

But what happens to the notion of "class" in a society like the current American one, where the burger flipper may have a PhD, the plumber or car mechanic draw a six-digit income, where the "precariat" doesn't suffer so much from unemployment as overemployment (two and three jobs just to make ends meet), and even the "middle class" can go bankrupt overnight due to a medical bill?

I think Moore is calling attention to the masses of people--mostly women, people of colour, young people (and/or)--doing nowadays the majority of the "manual" work, which is nowadays the menial, service, low-paying work.

There's been a major "shittification" of jobs across the board too. Perhaps more salient on the "upper" end actually. Scouring toilets was always scouring toilets. But teaching, white collar jobs--those used to guarantee at least survival if not enrichment.

This certainly sounds like Trump practice. Wondering if this represents a campaign policy ~

El Paso says Trump campaign owes over $500,000 for February rally

The El Paso Times reported in June that the Trump campaign had owed the city about $470,000 for services it provided to him during his campaign rally. The invoice included assistance from six city departments, including the fire, health, aviation and police departments.

"It shows a lack of concern for the community and the taxpaying voters of El Paso," city Rep. Alexsandra Annello told the newspaper at the time. "President Trump has in many ways, over the last year, put a financial burden on this community and has yet to show us the respect we deserve. It is clear that our borderland is not a priority of the president."

huh

from June

Why the Trump campaign won’t pay police bills

But when Lebanon City Hall sent Trump’s campaign a $16,191 invoice for police and other public safety costs associated with his event, Trump didn’t respond. Trump’s campaign likewise ignored Lebanon officials’ follow-up reminders to cover the sum — one rich enough to fund the entire police force for nearly two days in this modest city of 21,000, between Dayton and Cincinnati.

The bill remains unpaid.

“There’s a lot of benefit when a president comes here: economic benefits, more visibility for our community,” Lebanon Mayor Amy Brewer said. “But I would hope and believe the Trump campaign would pay its bills. It’s our taxpayer dollars.”

The red ink Trump poured on Lebanon’s thin blue line is no anomaly.

At least nine other city governments — from Mesa, Arizona, to Erie, Pennsylvania — are still waiting for Trump to pay public safety-related invoices they’ve sent his presidential campaign committee in connection with his political rallies, according to interviews with local officials and municipal records obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Some invoices are three years old. In all, city governments say Trump’s campaign owes them at least $841,219.

Must Trump pay?

That depends on who you ask. The cities are adamant Trump should pay up. But in many of these cases, there are no signed contracts between the municipal governments and the Trump campaign. The cities dispatched police officers to secure Trump’s events because they believe public safety required it — and the U.S. Secret Service asked for it.

>71 2wonderY: and a bit more

Trump’s MAGA Rallies Cost Big Bucks and Cities Are Stuck Footing the Bills

President Trump’s campaign rallies are racking up big bills, and he’s reportedly not paying them.

A new investigation from NBC News and the Center for Public Integrity found the Trump campaign owes city governments across the country upwards of $800,000 for police and public safety costs from his events.

The largest invoice to date comes from El Paso, Texas, where the president held a campaign rally in February. Trump still owes the city $470,417 for the event, the invoice shows.

Some invoices date back to 2016, before Trump was elected president. His 2016 campaign skipped out on municipal public safety bills from Green Bay and Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Tucson, Arizona; Burlington, Vermont and Spokane, Washington, according to the report.

Another five cities, including El Paso; Mesa, Arizona; Billings, Montana; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Lebanon, Ohio, are owed a combined $629,015.88.
…
The Trump campaign could face legal troubles for stiffing the bill.

According to the Federal Election Commission, “A political committee shall report a disputed debt … if the creditor has provided something of value to the political committee.”

Trump’s campaign has not reported any debts to municipal governments or their respective police departments, which is likely a violation of federal campaign finance laws, election law lawyers told NBC News.

Democratic lawmakers have taken issue with the president not paying his bills, too. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chairwoman of the Committee on House Administration called Trump’s actions “outrageous,” and added that “taxpayers deserve to know to what extent they are subsidizing the president’s political activities.”

I don't see why he should pay. The anti-Trump hordes never pay the police for their demonstrations, and those are much more devastating.

>74 RickHarsch: Why should someone agree to pay what they agreed to pay. Good point.

ETA: and if you've been paying attention, anti-Trump protesters, as did anti-Obama protesters when arrested have had to pay dearly.

There's nothing in evidence to say that Trump agreed to pay anything. It's basically just the local PD deciding they're owed for keeping the city safe on the day of the event, something they're supposed to do anyway.

And even if he had agreed, Greece agreed to pay its creditors and this whole board rallied around its secret right to stiff them later so...

So it's okay to be a cheap prick.

#70--it's terrible. A sin. Young adults come out of college massively in debt and most can't find work in their field of study and find themselves working in low paying jobs--no benefits. It's happening everywhere and a lot of those young adults are becoming 30 and 40 year old's. Women and minorities are targeted for lower wages more than white men--that's an established fact. We're creating a world in which more than half of our population can't afford to live on their own, can't afford to buy a home--a car loan is even a really, really big deal. A good many young people really can't afford to have relationships that means having and bringing up children. I have two kids of my own who are heading towards 30--one with a geology degree--the other with a physics and the first spends half her year working at Best Buy and the other half as a temporary for the US Forestry Service and the second is doing part time retail work--neither has a sexual partner at this point--not that that matters all that much--many of their friends minus the ones who are gay are in the same boat and a good % of the earnings they're making goes to paying off debt. 20/30 years ago people their age would be buying houses and getting married. They weren't in debt up to their eyeballs before they even got started. Now that's the norm.

This is what comes from a trickle down economy--this is what comes from trade deals that benefit the already rich and corporate interests at the expense of the population. This is what happens with all their deregulation and all their tax cuts being targeted to only benefiting the rich. The Bush tax cuts--followed by the investment bank collapse of 2008--followed by the baling out of the banks--followed by the Bush tax cuts being made permanent during the Obama administration followed by the Trump tax cuts---every single one of these events benefited those that already have so much at the expense of everyone else. We're starving our young of opportunity to further bloat the fortunes of the 1%.

.......and then we have the over 1000 overseas military bases and all the money going into the military industrial complex and all the money that goes into fighting wars all over Northern Africa and then these clowns (including the Biden's) say--'how are you going to pay for this? or that? so we can't afford medicare for all--we can't afford fixing student debt and forget about climate or reparations--can't afford any of that.

It's a deliberate mismanagement of the economy going on by those with the political power and IMO the United States is waging economic warfare against its own population and both major political parties have played a part in it.

Cities should not get stuck with the costs incurred when Trump is entertaining his deplorable cult followers.

>76 RickHarsch: : it's not being a cheap prick to be thrifty. Mr Trump did not become a billionaire by throwing money away.

>78 Molly3028:: funny how every spending should be socialized except protecting people who aren't illegals exercizing their lawful political rights (a very dubious protection at that).

>79 Kuiperdolin: By all accounts trump became a millionaire by taking money from his daddy, getting enormous breaks from NYC and other governmental breaks AND by bilking people out of money. He is a cheap prick, yes, but far worse than that. Thrifty? Are you thrifty? Are you a billionaire?

>79 Kuiperdolin:

Mister Rump gets his income from theft, graft, bribes and other 50 shades of grubby, sub-mafioso villainy. Nice role model you got yourself there. Looking forward to the launching of the Rump fashion line in orange jumpsuits--I may even buy a few to gift.

>77 lriley:

Yes, it's terrible what's happening with the younger generations in the US (and as I've read in the UK--apparently there's been a great increase in adult children having to live with their parents due to rising costs of living).

It's downright insane how the US has allowed the young to be crippled in the name of profit.

Some reason for optimism in 2020: young female voters.

Spring Breakers: Young Voter Edition feat. Allana Harkin | Full Frontal on TBS

One of the bigger reasons for optimism for me--the two progressive groups--Our Revolution--run by Nina Turner and Justice Democrats. Several of their elected congresspeople overlap between the two groups--but they come down right now to Sen. Sanders of Vermont and 12 serving democratic house members that include Ocasio Cortez-NY14, Ilhan Omar-Mn 5, Rashida Tlaib-Mi13, Ayanna Pressley-Ma7, Pramila Jayapal-Wa7, Raul Grijalva-Az3, Ro Khanna-Ca17, Tulsi Gabbard-Hi2, Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia-Il4, Jamie Raskin-Md8, Deb Haaland-NM1 and Veronica Escobar-Tx16.

Among those who were also Our Revolution in 2018 were Andrew Gillum who came close to winning Governor of Florida, Stacey Abrams who was robbed of Governor in Georgia via corrupt and systematic voter repression, Ben Jealous (former NAACP leader) who ran for Maryland Governor and Dennis Kucinich who lost running for Ohio Governor.

Democrats don't like to see their own being primaried but they have a lot who are deserving of it. Justice Democrats are looking to primary several democrats in 2020.

Marie Newman is after Dan Lipinski's Il3 seat. Lipinski is anti-abortion, anti-medicare for all, anti-green new deal.
Alex Morse the mayor of Holyoke Mass is after Richard Neal's Ma1 seat. Neal is chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee. He takes lots of corporate cash and his committee has come up short in getting Trump's tax returns.
Cori Bush--a nurse is after Lacy Clay's Mo1 seat.
Jamaal Bowman is after Eliot Engel's NY16 seat. Engel another conservative dem has spent a lot of his time labeling both Omar and Tlaib as anti-Semites. AFAIC he can go fuck himself.
Morgan Harper is after Joyce Beatty's Oh3 seat.
Jessica Cisneros is Henry Cuellar's Tx28 seat. Cuellar is one of the most conservative democrats and helped republican Will Hurd to narrowly defeat his democratic opponent in 2018.

Kara Eastman is after Republican Don Bacon's Ne2 seat.
Betsy Sweet is running against Susan Collins (notorious for her Kavanagh vote) for her Maine Senate seat.

There will be others.

...of note as well McKayla Wilkes is trying to primary Steny Hoyer--another very conservative Democrat in Md5. Hoyer is the No. 2 behind Pelosi.

This basically is the rundown for the most part of what the left is up to in the house and Senate. There are a few others that could fall into this category like Elizabeth Warren depending on how anyone decides they want to define left. Warren does have some excellent policy proposals. There's Sherrod Brown Ohio senator too.

I expect this group to grow in the next election though and I think Stacey Abrams for one is going to be a force to reckon with in the future.

The anti-Trump hordes never pay the police for their demonstrations, and those are much more devastating.

You got any evidence to support this claim other than "you pulled it out of your ass"?

>83 lriley: I'm not aware that Tulsi's in the Justice Democrats. I know Our Revolution backed her up last year after she lost a lot of DNC-leaning contributors because of her 2016 endorsement of Bernie, but I don't know how supportive they'll be even congressionally now that she's running for POTUS herself. She does have some serious primary opposition for next year back in the Second District. I'm close to the FEC max-out for her presidential primary, but I think I can get a second max-out for the congressional primary if she decides to fight back against this Kahele guy. Seeing as I'm from Pennsylvania, I can't give her any volunteer congressional work like I'm doing presidentially, but at least I can help financially. I just hope her other presidential supporters do likewise.

Of course, I'm sure Grandma Nancy won't be applying the "incumbent protection rule" back in Hawai'i Second!

>85 CurrerBell: She's to cosy with Modi for me.

Trump's 35% appear to be card-carrying members of the Trump
Crime Family cult. Another 10-12% are clamoring to become
members of the cult.

>86 RickHarsch: Not sure how Tulsi's position varies significantly from Obama's.

>86 RickHarsch: Not sure how Tulsi's position varies significantly from Obama's.

Obama is a war criminal, so I would look elsewhere for character comparisons. (I'm just referring to bombing Pakistan and assassinating a US citizen in Yemen and his son in two separate drone attacks...the list goes far beyond, but these are well-documented and demonstrably criminal.)

Or I could say how does your friend (first name basis?) compare to Warren, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez?

Something else that maybe should be talked about when choosing the Democratic candidate. Who are more likely to prosecute Trump and his conspirators and who possibly might pardon? This would be another thing by the way that bothers me about Biden---this need to be conciliatory to the other side. Maybe his AG would get the green light to prosecute but maybe not. Maybe worker's friend Joe would parse it as a moment to celebrate and bring everybody together. No one of consequence was ever prosecuted for the illegal Iraq invasion--just saying.

I'll just let Johnstone do her polemicist thing.

MSM Smears Sanders For Saying MSM Smears Sanders
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/msm-smears-sanders-for-saying-msm-smears-sand...

eta Topically relevant: https://fair.org/home/sidney-embers-secret-sources/

#92--the so-called left media outlets like NYTimes, WaPo, MSNBC and CNN are really centrist. I don't think there's much doubt that their favorite right now is Mr. Biden. Mayor Pete is another of their creations. They're comfortable with them. Sanders is the 'socialist' and there is a real campaign going on in the main stream media outlets to portray all of that negatively. It's worse now actually than it was 3 years ago when I guess it seemed more novel.

'How you gonna pay for it'? all the time. They can find it for war though whenever they want. They have no problem bailing out banks or giving rich people and corporations tax breaks. They find money then--they find it for themselves and their own kind. Basically when the populations wants or needs something that's when it gets too expensive and I can understand this from the republicans who represent the rich but the democratic party lost its way and some of them are still lost.

Bernie's going to have to figure a way to fight through it though--if he doesn't then it well be someone else the democrats nominate. I'm just hoping it ain't Joe.

>93 lriley: Has anyone addressed Biden's most recent disaster here? https://www.romper.com/p/joe-bidens-poor-kids-comment-is-why-we-must-consider-ou...

#94--he has speaking blunders like that all the time though and it's not just recent. Part of his problem is he's not that strong on policy and shifts with the political winds and he wings what he says a lot. He wants to be Obama lite.....but we can't just slough off the past 2 and a half years and there's no point going back 4 years with a lesser and older Obama wannabe. I think it's pretty clear by now that compromising with the likes of Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham to 'get things done'---those days are over. Those people can go to hell.

Trump’s obsession with crowd sizes, explained
Zeeshan Aleem | Aug 17, 2019,

Trump’s latest tweets about his New Hampshire rally continue his obsessions with crowd size and with bolstering his image as a popular politician.

...By using social media, (Trump) can block out the noise and the media narratives about how he is one of the least popular presidents in modern history, instead showing with seemingly irrefutable photographic evidence that he commands a large, enthusiastic following.

That enthusiasm is important: It is a crucial part of generating voter turnout — enthusiasm helped Democrats win the House in 2018 — and it’s going to be especially crucial for Trump’s reelection chances in 2020.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/17/20809989/donald-trump-obsessio...

The Twittler wanks off to Triumph of the Will.

So anyway for the rally in Portland Oregon organized and attended by right wingers--Trump singles out anti-fa protesters and threatens to name anti-fa as a terrorist organization yet not one negative word from him for any of the white supremacist groups that were there. One can only assume (again) that in his eyes these would be Nazi's are just fine as they are or good people.

I'll add that I've never heard of a single person associated with or supportive of Anti-fa who has gone on a killing rampage--shooting up Wal-mart's and bars or gay nightclubs. They don't seem obsessed with 2nd amendment rights or having assault weapons with bump stocks or murdering or deporting Latino's.....but they're going to be the terrorists. How fucked up is that?

Anthony Scaramucci says he's putting together coalition to stop Trump in 2020

"I'm in the process of putting together a team of people that feel the exact same way that I do. This is not a 'Never Trump' situation. This not just screeching rhetoric. This is -- OK, the guy is unstable. Everyone inside knows it, everyone outside knows it. Let's see if we can find a viable alternative," Scaramucci told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day."

The typical Trump cult follower/voter appears to be in their 40s or 50s. They appear to have barely graduated from high school ~ why work for a grade of 70 when 60 was a now a passing grade was probably their montra. Now, they are barely surviving in a global economic world and they have decided a life-long con man is their only salvation. I was a teacher at that point in time, and I rued the day 60 became a passing grade. I believe the seeds for the Trump era where planted in the 80s.

GO Scaramucci and those GOPers who still appreciate the party's Lincoln roots!

Scaramucci has never hit me as anything but a self-serving opportunist. I wouldn't trust anything he supports. I believe he is only looking for air time.

>101 mamzel:

It takes a con man to bring down a con man! And, hopefully, a
Trump economic slump will help the cause.

>102 Molly3028: Whatever it takes, but let's not wish for more misery for the little guy, no matter how deplorable.

>102 Molly3028: From your lips...

#100--FWIW I didn't do very well in High School and I'll be 62 soon. I literally walked out of or skipped hundreds of classes before it all was over....and yet no truant officer ever came after me and no one ever called my parents or knocked on their door--at least none that I know of. Well it was the 70's and I guess I fell between the cracks. Those years weren't happy years for me though either. College/University was always out of the question. My parents weren't going to pay for it and I wasn't interested.......and I wholeheartedly detest Trump. But anyhow one day on my motivation I did start reading a lot and I've never stopped. I also agree with the sentiment that people like Scaramucci shouldn't be trusted--the old adage that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' is not a good idea. Trump needs to be gone and if it comes down to it I might even vote for someone I don't like--like Biden but that doesn't mean I'm ever going to like Biden and I certainly wouldn't vote for him twice because he's pretty awful.

Trump accuses Jewish Democrat voters of 'great disloyalty'
BBC | 8/21/2019

...Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr Trump said: "I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

The remark was denounced by a number of Jewish American groups, which said it called on an established anti-semitic trope that accuses Jews of being more devoted to Israel than to their own countries....

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49417157

Trump critics eye GOP primary race, even if defeating him seems ‘preposterous’

a list?

Joe Walsh
Bill Weld
Mark Sanford
Jeff Flake
John Kasich

The anti-Trump movement inside the Republican Party — long a political wasteland — is feeling new urgency to mount a credible opposition to Trump before it’s too late. With state deadlines for nominating contests rapidly approaching in the fall, potential candidates face pressure to decide on running within the next few weeks. So far, only former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld has declared that he is running, but he has struggled to gain traction.

Graphic: Factory woes grip swing states that flipped for Trump in 2016
Jason Lange | 8/22/2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A slowdown in U.S. manufacturing is hitting jobs in states that flipped to Donald Trump in the 2016 election and that will be key to the Republican president’s re-election prospects in 2020.

...The blow is falling more heavily on big manufacturing states in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast, regions that have shed factory jobs in droves since the 1980s even as manufacturing expanded in Southern states where wages are often lower.

In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, factory employment is falling, while hiring is weaker in Ohio and Iowa than in the rest of the country.

Payroll growth in Michigan’s factories has been similar to that of the rest of the rest of the country, although it showed signs of weakening this week when United States Steel Corp said it would lay off hundreds of workers in the state.

Together, those states account for five of the six states that voted for former Democratic President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 and for Trump in 2016. Trump won the states after pitching himself as a business-savvy pragmatist who would put American jobs first. All are considered swing states in 2020. Trump only narrowly won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-manufacturing-jobs-graph/graphic...

People who want to attack Jews/Synagogues/etc. have no way of
knowing (or don't care) whether they are Dems or GOPers. Trump
placed a bullseye on the backs of ALL American Jews.

David Frum @davidfrum | 9:24 AM · Aug 22, 2019:
GOP internal polls must be showing that the Senate likely also to be lost in 2020

Ezra Levin @ezralevin | 9:16 AM · Aug 22, 2019:
HOLY MOLY. Mitch McConnell just wrote an NYT op-ed urging Dems to keep the filibuster, and threatening them if they scrap it. This is how you know it's a *really* good idea to scrap it - Mitch is scared.

Mitch McConnell: The Filibuster Plays a Crucial Role in Our Constitutional Order
Democrats who want to change Senate rules for temporary political gain will rue the day, as they have before.
Mitch McConnell | Aug. 22, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/opinion/mitch-mcconnell-senate-filibuster.htm...

Faithless elector: A court ruling just changed how we pick our president
The decision could give a single elector the power to decide the outcome of a presidential election — if the popular vote results in an apparent Electoral College tie.

Pete Williams | Aug. 21, 2019

A (three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver) ruled late Tuesday that presidential electors who cast the actual ballots for president and vice president are free to vote as they wish and cannot be required to follow the results of the popular vote in their states.

The decision could give a single elector the power to decide the outcome of a presidential election — if the popular vote results in an apparent Electoral College tie.

...It hasn't been much of an issue in American political history because when an elector refuses to follow the results of a state's popular vote, the state simply throws the ballot away. But Tuesday's ruling says states cannot do that.

The decision, from a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, is a victory for Micheal Baca, a Colorado Democratic elector in 2016. Under state law, he was required to cast his ballot for Hillary Clinton, who won the state's popular vote. Instead, he crossed out her name and wrote in John Kasich, a Republican and then the governor of Ohio.

When voters go to the polls in presidential races, they actually cast their votes for a slate of electors chosen by the political parties of the nominees. States are free to choose their electors however they want, Tuesday's ruling said, and can even require electors to pledge their loyalty to their political parties.

But once the electors are chosen and report in December to cast their votes as members of the Electoral College, they are fulfilling a federal function, and a state's authority has ended. "The states' power to appoint electors does not include the power to remove them or nullify their votes," the court said.

Because the Constitution contains no requirement for electors to follow the wishes of a political party, "the electors, once appointed, are free to vote as they choose," assuming that they cast their vote for a legally qualified candidate.

A total of 30 states have laws that bind electors, requiring them to cast their votes for whichever candidate won that state's popular vote. But the laws are weak, providing only nominal penalties for what are known as "faithless electors" who fail to conform to the popular vote.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1952 that states do not violate the Constitution when they require electors to pledge that they will abide by the popular vote. But the justices have never said whether it is constitutional to enforce those pledges.

...Tuesday's ruling...applies immediately to the six states of the 10th Circuit: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

...The federal court ruling conflicts with a decision from Washington state's Supreme Court in May, which said electors must follow the results of the popular vote. "The power of electors to vote comes from the state, and the elector has no personal right to that role,” the court said.

...the nonprofit Equal Citizens...will appeal the Washington ruling to the Supreme Court.

...If the Supreme Court chooses to take up the dispute, it would have time to rule on the issue before the Electoral College meets in December 2020 to cast the formal vote for president.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/faithless-elector-court-ruling-just-c...

Trump Has Told Friends That Gutting Medicare Could Be a Fun “Second-Term Project”

While Republicans do not expect Trump to push for cuts while campaigning for reelection, they’ve apparently encouraged him to do so should he win a second term—a proposition to which President “I’m not going to cut Social Security, I’m not going to cut Medicare” has reportedly been receptive.

The Trump loyalists in the White House appear to be experiencing a Stockholm-Syndrome-type situation.

>114 proximity1: Margd does not specialize in posting bullshit, so I posted a flag.

Trump's words of warning: "I always find a way to win." Take him seriously

Trump and his allies know that the 2020 presidential election is their opportunity to turn Trumpism from a fascistic aberration into America's new normal. They will steamroll the opposition to achieve that goal.

This will surely be one of the most important elections in American history. The American people have an opportunity to vote Donald Trump out of office. This is a critical moment where alternative possibilities and futures can be won or lost for the country.
…
(quoting Robert Kuttner): If the Republicans win another election in 2020, the supposedly exceptional United States will become more like other nations that display the forms of democracy but little substance. In such nations the incumbent party is effectively the permanent government. The opposition gets to make noise but not to take power. A corrupt alliance between the governing party and its supporters in the corporate plutocracy sustains the incumbent regime.
…
The would-be or actual dictator's threats must always be taken seriously. This is especially true in a failing democracy like the United States, whose political norms are based on assumptions that the president and the country's other elected officials are reasonable people with some respect for the rule of law and democratic traditions.

In a country where fascism has been so quickly normalized, many people have already forgotten that the United States is in a declared state of national emergency. As the Brennan Center's Elizabeth's Goitein warned last year, Trump could, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.

This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down.

As FEC Nears Shutdown, Priorities Such As Stopping Election Interference On Hold
Heard on Morning Edition (3:36) | August 30, 20195:00 AM ET

...The (Federal Election Commission's) vice chairman, Matthew Petersen, announced his resignation earlier this week, to take effect at the end of the month. With Petersen gone, the FEC will be down to three members and won't have a quorum.

In addition to collecting campaign finance data, the FEC investigates potential campaign finance violations, issues fines and gives guidance to campaigns about following election law — but not without a working quorum of at least four commissioners.

...The FEC has been in the midst of strengthening disclosure and transparency requirements for online political ads of the sort that Russian operatives used to manipulate voters in 2016.

...President Trump nominated Republican Trey Trainor to serve on the commission, but the Senate has not yet acted on the nomination. ...

...The FEC is not the only government agency unable to act because of a lack of a quorum. The Merit Systems Protection Board, which investigates allegations of violations of federal personnel practices, including the Hatch Act*, hasn't had one for over two years.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755523088/as-fec-nears-shutdown-priorities-such-a...

* The Hatch Act of 1939 (amended in 2012)prohibits employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president, vice president, and certain designated high-level officials, from engaging in some forms of political activity. (Wikipedia)

Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to firm owned by Trump's campaign manager
Vicky Ward | August 30, 2019

A company that President Donald Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, says he owns has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the President's flagship political action committee, which is barred from coordinating with the campaign.

Federal Election Commission records indicate that Red State Data and Digital (founded just days after it was announced that Brad Parscale would become Trump's campaign manager) has received  $910,000 from  America First Action,  the super PAC formed in 2017 to support the Trump-Pence agenda and  fellow Republican  candidates.

... Larry  Noble, the former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission and a CNN contributor. "One would hope a watchdog agency would investigate allegations of coordination." ...the FEC has been "lax" about enforcing coordination rules.  The FEC was further weakened by the resignation of one of its commissioners this week, reducing the number of sitting commissioners to three and thereby stripping it of its power to enforce campaign finance laws. Federal law requires four or more commissioners to approve new rules or take actions to punish those who violate election law...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/30/politics/pro-trump-super-pac-paid-thousands-to-fi...

chuck @46mingo | 2:50 PM · Aug 31, 2019

That works for me.
President WARREN,
Vice President OBAMA

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first blush, VP Obama sounds like a Poutine power grab, but a twice-elected President running as VP is not prohibited.
Why relive last Administration through Biden if you can have the real thing via the vice presidency?
(Eat that, bigots and birthers. Rs probably already thought of two-term President fr Veep, but a Trump-Bush ticket?)

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Vice_President_of_the_United_States

ETA_________________________________________________________________

What if Joe Biden wins? It could mean long-term trouble for Democrats
Sure, the former veep is "better than Trump." But his presidency could sabotage the Democratic Party's future

Paul Rosenberg | August 31, 2019

...There are at least four main arguments against the supposed safety of electing Biden in 2020.

First, Biden’s fundamental political orientation of New Democrat “normalcy” has been utterly discredited by the election of Donald Trump... : it's based on a fantasy of responsible Republican and conservative behavior that recent history has demolished.

Second, within this orientation, Biden's specific record is particularly bad...mass incarceration, the militarization of local police, the perverse incentives of civil-asset forfeiture, disparate sentencing for crack cocaine...the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings...his less-remembered role in tanking the nomination of Lani Guinier to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice under Bill Clinton.

Third, Biden’s once relatively sound foreign policy judgment has eroded over the years, as he has become increasingly influenced by center-right conventional wisdom in Washington...

Fourth, politics is like riding a bicycle, in that stability comes from change: Stand still and you fall down...

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/31/what-if-joe-biden-wins-it-could-mean-long-term-...

119--it would probably get her more votes but I really don't think Obama would be a good fit as VP for Warren. People get just too caught up in their nostalgic predilections. Barack had his time--we should let it go. And honestly if Barack is her VP I suspect she's going to be second guessed a lot and FWIW the Obama I liked the best is the 2007 version--candidate Obama who kind of ran from the left and not President Obama who governed from the center and I'd rather not Warren follow in those same footsteps. She's kind of running from the left and she should stick by those who get her over the finish line. I wouldn't be surprised if she asked Sanders and I wouldn't be surprised if Sanders says no and stays where he's at. It might be cool if she asked another woman---say Warren/Omar would be pretty cool or Warren/Tlaib.

It's a dreadful idea, embarrassing, cringe-inducing. But it goes to show that people just can't let go of the "moderate" illusion and the complementary notion that Warren and Sanders are somehow wild red commies who can't be let to run loose. That there is generally some need for same old, same old more than for real progress.

A self-fulfilling curse.

#121--I agree and personally I like Sanders better--he's further left than Warren IMO. That said though--Warren beating Trump would be really delicious. Warren loathes Donald and if she gets the nomination she will work the entire country to win. She is smart and she is dogged and she won't take victory for granted. Donald will freak as soon as he figures it out that he'll lose to this woman he's been baiting for years. A Warren AG and DOJ will turn over every rock to send Donald away to the big house for the rest of his life. She'll go after his kids too--well except for Barron. I don't see any pre-pardons like Obama did with GWBush. If Donald loses to her he better get himself a cyanide pill.

Sanders has to throw his support behind Warren. It's the right thing to do.

#123--it's way early still. He's got a lot of small donors and activists committed to him besides. So no--he shouldn't....at least not yet...not when you have lots of people who've committed their energy to your campaign--you just don't toss that away. Pundits are making lots of noise for sure but that's only par for the course.

I think he could manage, find a way, bring it up gradually, begin discussing how much they have in common...

the legal question of whether former president Barack Obama, as a supposed elected VP of the U.S., could, if necessary, succeed to the office of the president is interesting and, I think, not settled, to say the least. My hunch is that even if B.O. could be elected V.P., he couldn't assume the office of president legally given the term limits in the 22nd Amendment--

strictly construed, it only prohibits the election to the office of the president of the same person more than twice.

"Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

"Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress."

But I think federal courts would and probably should interpret this to mean that, in effect, as the amendment probably ought to have been written in the first place,

"No person shall be eligible to serve in the office of the President for more than two elected or appointive terms totalling, at most, eight years."

Though, personally, I oppose this sort of prescribed-in-law term-limit if there's to be one, it ought to be practically consistent and coherent.

For goodness sake, may that man never again occupy any important office of public trust, elective or appointive. Enough is enough!

"Chaos voters"

The Trump Voters Whose ‘Need for Chaos’ Obliterates Everything Else

Last week, at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, the winner of the best paper award in the Political Psychology division was “A ‘Need for Chaos’ and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies.”

The paper, which the award panel commended for its “ambitious scope, rigor, and creativity,” is the work of Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen, both political scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark, and Kevin Arceneaux, a political scientist at Temple.

It argues that a segment of the American electorate that was once peripheral is drawn to “chaos incitement” and that this segment has gained decisive influence through the rise of social media.
…
Petersen, Osmundsen and Arceneaux find that those who meet their definition of having a “need for chaos” express that need by willingly spreading disinformation. Their goal is not to advance their own ideology but to undermine political elites, left and right, and to “mobilize others against politicians in general.” These disrupters do not “share rumors because they believe them to be true. For the core group, hostile political rumors are simply a tool to create havoc.”

>127 2wonderY:

Yawn. (& file under: "trivial bullshit")

Read some history.

Trump is a MAJOR political-party elected official, not "Pigasus" or "Nobody for President".

You lost the 2016 presidential election for cause. Maybe it's time you took these causes into serious consideration instead of continuing to try and define your opposition as only understandable as demented malcontents and social deviants "beyond the pale".

Pathetic.

American Political Science Association : "where thoughts go to die unnoticed."

>128 proximity1: What an unpleasant and inutile post.

>117 margd: , contd. As 2020 election looms, FEC loses quorum--to law firm that specializes in helping rich people and corporations influence elections in secret...

He didn't make at as a judge, but now this former FEC commissioner is switching sides
Chris Hayes | Sept. 5, 2019

...Matthew Petersen, the failed judicial nominee, essentially shut down the FEC heading into the 2020 election to join a law firm that specializes in helping rich people and corporations influence elections in secret...

https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/he-didn-t-make-at-as-a-judge-but-now-this-for...

Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul
LEX ISENSTADT | 09/06/2019

...Four states (South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas) are poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses (this weekend), a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.

...parties of an incumbent president seeking reelection have a long history of canceling primaries and note it will save state parties money. But the president’s primary opponents (Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld ) who have struggled to gain traction, are crying foul, calling it part of a broader effort to rig the contest in Trump’s favor.

The cancellations stem in part from months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Trump campaign. Aides have worked to ensure total control of the party machinery, installing staunch loyalists at state parties while eliminating potential detractors. The aim, Trump officials have long said, is to smooth the path to the president’s renomination and ensure he doesn’t face the kind of internal opposition that hampered former President George H.W. Bush in his failed 1992 reelection campaign.

...Arizona...did not hold a Democratic presidential primary in 2012, when Barack Obama was seeking a second term, or in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for reelection. Kansas did not have a Democratic primary in 1996, and Republican officials in the state pointed out that they have long chosen to forgo primaries during a sitting incumbent’s reelection year.

South Carolina GOP Chairman Drew McKissick noted that his state decided not to hold Republican presidential primaries in 1984, when Ronald Reagan was running for reelection, or in 2004, when George W. Bush was seeking a second term. South Carolina, he added, also skipped its 1996 and 2012 Democratic contests.

...Perhaps the closest comparison to the present day is 1992, when George H.W. Bush was facing a primary challenge from conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. Several states that year effectively ditched their Republican contests, including Iowa, which has long cast the first votes of the presidential nomination battles...

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/06/republicans-cancel-primaries-trump-cha...

#131--from 1980 to 2016 Ronald Reagan was the standard bearer of the Republican party--during his presidency and afterwards the icon its membership would sing hosannas to but no longer.....

Now it is the party of Mr. Trump--he has hijacked the party and hijacked the standard that use to have Reagan's puss on it. Reagan's legacy is no longer the directional compass of the Republican Party. There were many who would have made Ronald a God but almost nobody of import in their party really cares about him anymore. They've all thrown in their lot with Donald. Trump is the God of the Republican Party and they're going to have to live with his legacy come hell and high water and they're going to get a lot of both in the near future.

David Plouffe @davidplouffe | 4:43 PM · Sep 5, 2019:

You think this is a guy (or narcissistic sociopath if you prefer)
who will accept election results he doesn’t like
when he goes to the mattresses on Alabama?

I've decided to view the Trump era from outside of the box. I prefer
to believe that it is all part of fate's plan for us. Trump, a life-long
con man, had to defeat HRC in order to become president and
destroy the modern-day GOP and NRA. An outsider was needed for
this to work. The next step, of course, is his defeat in 2020. The
nation, world and planet cannot afford another four-year Trump term.

Jeff Hauser, of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic Policy and Research, published an opinion piece today in the Daily Beast.

Trump’s Going to Manipulate the Government to Stay in Power

The power of an incumbent president to aid re-election by abusing the executive branch has in the past been limited by a few powerful forces: Presidential integrity; the fear of a scandal emerging in the media; and the prospect of aggressive congressional oversight.

Due to forces outside their control, the Democratic nominee won’t be saved by the first two “norms based” options. And as a result of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s strategy of not “focusing on Trump,” the president has every reason to scoff at the prospect of aggressive congressional oversight, up to and including a genuine “go big” effort at impeachment.

Combined, these elements must force us to consider a truly horrifying series of questions: Does President Trump have the means, motive, and opportunity to tilt the 2020 election? The answer, unfortunately, is yes, yes, and yes. And it behooves Democrats to understand that now, before it is too late.

>135 2wonderY: RE: "Trump’s Going to Manipulate the Government to Stay in Power"

Oooooooooooooo! Cue Star Wars'*



The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) !

Then yawn, turn over and go back to sleep.

_________________________________________________________________

Strange. When the Clintons--basically all of them, of course, but Hillary herself in the lead-- flagrantly operated behind, next to and in front of the scenes to manipulate the outcome of the presidential contests--starting, most importantly, in the party primary and caucus processes--I recall no similar concern at all expressed on your part.

It would seem, from an impartial review of the evidence, as that is drawn from your own posted comments, that you simply didn't give a good goddamn about such stuff--until now, that is, that the matters relate to Donald Trump, whom you clearly despise.

There were no such "it behooves Republicans to understand that (i.e., namely, that, as you'd asked about Trump, so, similarly about Mrs. Clinton and family, "Does former First-Lady, former New York U.S. Senator and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have the means, motive, and opportunity to tilt the 2016 election? The answer, unfortunately, is yes, yes, and yes." ) now, before it is too late" back then that I saw.

A "series of questions" which, when they relate to Donald Trump, you describe just above as "truly horrifying" got not a word of expressd concern here from you when the matters related to Hillary Clinton.

How about that little datum! Hmm?

So, if Republicans, reading your comment, snort with laughter and notice that your concern is apparently strictly partisan in character and, therefore, they shrug it off with a "Where's the fire?, mister" what can you say to them? : "You'd have to be a Democrat to see my point" ?

LOL!

No wonder so many Trump supporters see and hear hair-on-fire comments from Trump's opponents and laugh them off as patently partisan crap.

You and others like you do Trump's re-election-work for him!

___________________________________

* Star Wars (TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved)


Democrats: This,Our Hero, Our Leader ---



Democrats: This Our Enemy , Our Enemy's Leader ---



Note well the key differences!

Robert Reich's warning to pay attention to state elections in 2020:

Robert Reich: The Secret GOP Plan to Keep Power

I'm losing hope, truth be told... everywhere I see people sawing through the branches they're sitting on...

Hillary herself in the lead-- flagrantly operated behind, next to and in front of the scenes to manipulate the outcome of the presidential contests--starting, most importantly, in the party primary and caucus processes--I recall no similar concern at all expressed on your part.

Given that this is a lie that you fabricated, it shouldn't be surprising that 2wonderY wasn't concerned.

Once again, you're just lying. As usual you provide all of the insight one would expect of a drunk unemployed homeless person screaming on the street corner.

>138 StormRaven: The lawyer...Everybody is lying. I can see it in the courtroom: "You're lying! You're lying!" "Bailiff!"

"Given that this is a lie that you fabricated...." as opposed to the lies you can buy custom wrapped.

Exxon Mobil Is Funding Centrist Democratic Think Tank, Disclosures Reveal
Kate Aronoff | September 6 2019

The Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank that grew out of the party’s pro-business wing in the 1980s and ’90s, received $50,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2018 via its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation (a first)...

...As climate concerns spike around the U.S., the company is still plenty opposed to environmental regulations and the lawsuits being lobbed its way from climate-vulnerable communities and attorneys general, who are each calling into question Exxon’s rule in fueling both the climate crisis and misinformation campaigns about it...rebrand as a good-faith actor in the climate fight with paeans to carbon capture technology, low-carbon fuels (algae!), and carbon taxes that also conveniently exempt it from some of the lawsuits and regulations it’s most worried about. The decades of climate denial Exxon helped fund — and now the Trump administration — have dragged the national debate on climate change so far into the gutter that there are influential liberals willing to give the company credit simply for not denying the science.

This all dovetails well with a centrist approach to climate politics that’s long sought common ground with industry and harbors both temperamental and ideological opposition to big, confrontational proposals like the Green New Deal. The upshot is that they’ve started to sound a lot alike. Carbon capture, R&D, and carbon pricing — while not mutually exclusive with the Green New Deal framework that the Sunrise Movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others have begun to flesh out — have reliably been wielded as a cudgel by establishment types against calls for more sweeping action.

...$50,000 is not an enormous amount of money either for PPI or Exxon Mobil. But it may well signal a shift in the fossil fuel industry’s relationship to climate politics.

For years, Exxon Mobil prolifically funded climate denier groups like the Heartland Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Under pressure, the company pledged to stop funding deniers in 2007, although it kept bankrolling politicians who deny the reality of the climate crisis. Exxon also still support right-wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which received $970,200 from Exxon between 2008 and 2018.

...Throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, PPI strategic adviser and Clinton White House insider Paul Bledsoe has commented frequently about the dangers of candidates being too hard on fossil fuels. “Joe Biden and other moderate candidates must emphasize that the market is already phasing out coal over time, but that their climate policies still allow a role for natural gas as a low-carbon transition fuel for some time,” he told the Washington Examiner in August. “This distinction is crucial to success in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.” In a New York Times piece about Biden’s critics on the left, Bledsoe said, “Indulging in ideological purity is great until you actually want to solve the problem.”

“Happily,” he wrote in a February Forbes op-ed attacking the Green New Deal, “there is no need to eliminate fossil fuels in the next decade or require only renewable energy or guarantee public sector jobs to meet our climate goals.” We might never find out what Exxon Mobil’s money got up to at PPI last year. If its experts keep sounding like Bledsoe and Goldberg, though, it’ll probably keep coming.

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/exxon-mobil-progressive-policy-institute-cli...

Rs are not only cancelling state primaries, they aren't sharing polling data on Trump with local candidates: RNC is "all in" with Trump!

Eric Umansky @ericuman | 1h 9/11/2019:

A remarkable example of how the GOP has become Trump.
The RNC gives local candidates all sorts of data on voters in their area, *except it has been removing polling about Trump.*
That way they can't see if Trump is polling poorly in their area.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Myths of the “Genius” Behind Trump’s Reelection Campaign
Peter Elkind with Doris Burke | Sept. 11, 2019

...Republican consultants say the Trump information is being withheld for two reasons: to discourage candidates from distancing themselves from the president, and to avoid embarrassing him with poor results that might leak. But they say its concealment harms other Republicans, forcing them to campaign without it or pay to get the information elsewhere.

Indeed, RNC “voter score” documents from 2018 include a wealth of voter information for a given district, including attitudes toward the major parties, state elected officials, local candidates, critical issues and even Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. There is no data on Trump. To the contrary, according to one GOP expert, 2016 Trump information previously made available was conspicuously withheld starting in mid-2017.

“There has been a major decision to lock down the Trump voter scores,” says a former national GOP data official, who was repeatedly blocked from obtaining the information. He calls this “Trump-first mentality” at the RNC “outside the norm” and a “major hindrance” to the success of down-ballot candidates...

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myths-of-the-genius-behind-trumps-reelect...

GOP to swing-state voters ~

Thanks for coming out in 2016 and voting for a life-long con man and crime family boss. Our country needs your valuable input. Please repeat your uneducated actions again in 2020. Trump and Putin are counting on you.

Dems to swing-state voters--

"Some people did something." (per Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-MN.)

" 'Some people did something'? "

Got that now?

On election-day, 2020 or as you prepare to mark your primary-election ballot at the polling place or mark your general-election absentee-ballot, remember the remark, "Some people did something", and who made that remark and the circumstances of her making it.

"Democrats" such as that-- "Some people did something"-- ? Fuck them.

_________________________________________________________________

...

“Donald Trump is the emblematic figure of this new type of obscene populist Master, and the usual argument against him – that his populism (worry for the well-being of the poor ordinary people) is fake, that his actual politics protects the interests of the rich – is all too inadequate. The followers of Trump do not act ‘irrationally’, they are not victims of primitive ideological manipulations which make them vote against their interests. They are quite rational in their own terms: they vote for Trump because in the ‘patriotic’ vision he is selling around, he also addresses their ordinary everyday problems – guaranteeing them safety, a permanent job, et cetera.

“When he was elected president, I was asked by a couple of publishers to write a book which would submit the Trump phenomenon to a psychoanalytic critics, and my answer was that we do not need psychoanalysis to explore the ‘pathology’ of his success – the only thing to psychoanalyze is the irrational stupidity of the left-liberal reactions to it, the stupidity which makes it more and more probable that Trump will be re-elected. To use what is perhaps the lowest point of Trump’s vulgarities, the left has not yet learned how to grab him by the pussy.

“Trump is not winning just by shamelessly bombarding us with messages which generate obscene enjoyment at how he dares to violate the elementary norms of decency.(*) Through all his shocking vulgarities, he is providing his followers with a narrative which makes sense – a very limited and twisted sense, but nonetheless a sense which obviously does a better job than the left-liberal narrative. His shameless obscenities serve as signs of solidarity with so-called ordinary people (‘you see, I am the same as you, we are all red under our skin’), and this solidarity also signals the point at which Trump’s obscenity reaches its limit. Trump is not totally obscene: when he talks about the greatness of America, when he dismisses his opponents as enemies of the people, et cetera, he intends to be taken seriously, and his obscenities are meant to precisely emphasize by contrast the level at which he is serious: they are meant to function as an obscene display of his belief in the greatness of America.” …

__________________________
—Slavoj Žižek, (The Spectator (USA)) “Trump will be re-elected because of left-liberal stupidity” — Through all his shocking vulgarities, he is providing his followers with a narrative which makes sense (5 September, 2019)

* In the poor construction above, Žižek really meant and intended to write what should have been better expressed this way:


“Trump is winning—and not just by shamelessly bombarding us with messages which generate obscene enjoyment at how he dares to violate the elementary norms of decency. Through all his shocking vulgarities, he is providing his followers with a narrative which makes sense – a very limited and twisted sense, but nonetheless a sense which obviously does a better job than the left-liberal narrative." (emphasis added)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1172330589468315648

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action @jewishaction | 10:06 PM · Sep 12, 2019

This is the ad @ABC allowed to run during tonight's #DemDebate: right-wing propaganda depicting @AOC set on fire, burning into images of skeletons.

This is right out of the white nationalist playbook. No news network should be profiting off such hatred.

0:18 From CPD Action
https://twitter.com/i/status/1172330589468315648

As Elizabeth Warren said:

Lifestyle Changes Aren’t Enough to Save the Planet. Here’s What Could
Michael E. Mann | September 12, 2019

...We don’t need to ban cars; we need to electrify them (and we need that electricity to come from clean energy). We don’t need to ban burgers; we need climate-friendly beef. To spur these changes, we need to put a price on carbon, to incentivize polluters to invest in these solutions.

There is a long history of industry-funded “deflection campaigns” aimed to divert attention from big polluters and place the burden on individuals.

...The bigger issue is that focusing on individual choices around air travel and beef consumption heightens the risk of losing sight of the gorilla in the room: civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy and transport overall, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of global carbon emissions. We need systemic changes that will reduce everyone’s carbon footprint, whether or not they care...

This is why we really need political change at every level, from local leaders to federal legislators all the way up to the President...

https://time.com/5669071/lifestyle-changes-climate-change/

"We don’t need to ban burgers" ...

LOL!

This is typical of La-La-Land liberal fantasies.

No need to "ban burgers"? Well, as the planet not only approaches 7.5 billion people, but, moreover, an increasing part of this population is entering socio-economic strata where, unlike before, they can begin to afford to purchase cheap poultry, pork and, especially, fresh beef, there are really only two avenues open:

impose by law limits on beef and other high-end foodstuff or allow the "market" to determine who may (afford to eat) diminishing supplies of fish, poultry, pork and beef.

Thus, the price of a pound of fresh beef can rise to levels which prohibit all but a relatively small number of wealthy people to legally obtain and consume it routinely. For everyone else, it either vanishes from their diet or it becomes a "caviar"-like luxury item eaten only at very special occasions.

Thus, such people might enjoy a burger when there's a graduation party or a wedding celebration or at Christmas, etc. Other than such special occasions, they'd never even consider a genuine beef-burger.

Raising more and more "eco-friendly" beef is a contradiction in terms. At some point, the resources required to produce a ton of beef shall put too great a strain on the available natural resources and at that point the supply of beef is going to level off no matter what the market-price may be.

" European white truffles can sell for as much as $3,600 a pound, making them and their fellow fungi the most expensive food in the world. One two-pound truffle recently sold for more than $300,000. All of which has brought organized crime into the truffle trade, creating a black market and leading to theft of both truffles as well as the highly valued truffle-sniffing dogs.

...

"Just a couple of shavings of black truffles from France - known as black diamonds - can cost hundreds of dollars in a restaurant in Paris. White truffles from Italy can cost more than three times as much.

"Truffles are a fancy, delicious delicacy - some say an aphrodisiac - and, ounce for ounce, the most expensive food in the world. If you go to France and Italy, as we did, you learn quickly that truffles are under siege because they're becoming scarce. They're being trafficked like drugs, stolen by thugs and threatened by inferior imports from China." ...

And yet, for a very fortunate wealthy segment of the population, truffles are something they can enjoy as often as they like. Hundreds of USD or Euros or Pounds sterling for a dish containing truffles is nothing to their dining budget. They don't even have a "dining budget" as they can afford to eat as much as they want of anything they like; the price is not a factor--unless, for their own idiosyncratic reasons, they're penny-pinchers.

Recession Already Grips Corners of U.S., Menacing Trump’s 2020 Bid
Shawn Donnan | Sept 9, 2019

The president’s trade wars are creating a scenario similar to 2016.

...After two boom years the picture has changed for America’s factories. Battered by rising uncertainty and the damper it has put on capital expenditures, slowing export markets, a stronger dollar, and higher input costs due to tariffs, U.S. manufacturers are making less than they did a year ago.

...Nationally, the U.S. has not yet seen a collapse in factory jobs. But in politics, timing and geography matter. Almost all of the gains in manufacturing employment came in the first two years of Trump’s presidency, and things have gone into reverse in swing states like Pennsylvania, which lost more than 8,000 manufacturing jobs in the first seven months of this year.

Trump is also more exposed politically to a manufacturing downturn than any Democratic rival. Nationally, manufacturing accounted for almost 12% of the jobs in counties that voted for Trump in 2016 vs. less than 7% in those that supported Hillary Clinton, says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In battleground states the divergence is starker, with factory jobs accounting for more than 21% of employment in Trump counties. “...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-09/a-manufacturing-recession-cou...

Coincidence that this happened after whistle blower on urgent matter?

After Resisting, McConnell and Senate G.O.P. Back Election Security Funding
Carl Hulse | Sept. 19, 2019

WASHINGTON — Facing mounting criticism for blocking proposals to bolster election security, Senator Mitch McConnell on Thursday threw his weight behind a new infusion of $250 million to help states guard against outside interference in the 2020 voting.

Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, has been under regular attack from both Democrats and a conservative group for refusing to allow the Senate to vote on various election security proposals, some of them bipartisan, despite dire warnings from the intelligence community that Russia is already trying to replicate the elaborate meddling campaign it carried out during the 2016 presidential contest.

...The money was quickly approved by the Appropriations Committee later Thursday...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/us/politics/mcconnell-election-security.html

julianzelizer @julianzelizer (Princeton U, CNN) | 9:23 AM · Sep 21, 2019

At the same time the whistleblower story fuels the pressure for impeachment,
it is also keeps the discredited Biden/Ukraine allegation circulating in the media ecosystem.
The dynamic brings back memories of how the Clinton email story unfolded in 2016.

ETA_____________________________________________________

Here we go: deny, divert, downplay--and smear:

Trump Claims Media Ignoring Biden-Ukraine, Tweets Video of Journalists Covering the Story
Daniel Politi | Sept 21, 2019

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/trump-tweets-video-media-covering-bi...

ETA_____________________________________________________

Ukraine could badly damage both Donald Trump and the Democrats
Jonathan Turley, opinion contributor — 09/21/19

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/462445-ukraine-could-badly-damage-both-d...

ETA_____________________________________________________

Trump tries to move Ukraine scandal's focus toward Biden
CHRISTIAN VASQUEZ | 09/21/2019

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/21/trump-ukraine-biden-1507048

Trump has to know that if he were not to be re-elected then SDNY for one is going to be knocking on his door the day he leaves office. He also knows that there is no way that he'll come close to getting 50% of the electorate to vote for him. He got 46.1% in 2016 and he's less popular now and FWIW has never really got close to 50% approval and he will almost certainly be up against a democratic nominee who will be more popular and less controversial than Hillary Clinton. He will not win states he did not win last time around. He will lose some states he did win. Turnout promises to be heavier and that never bodes well for the Republican party and it won't this time either.

To stay out of jail he has to win again and the only way that happens is by gaming the system by suppressing the vote, by getting help from outside actors and he'll still probably need the electoral college system again. That's why this shit with the Ukraine--he also knows that Republican politicians will circle their wagons around him because for one thing their own fates are tied to his. He has stuffed the courts with judges and has an attorney general in place will disregard the law to protect his sorry ass. Even so there are less than 14 months now until election day and his shit stinks to high heaven.

All that said Nancy Pelosi cannot continue to stall impeachment proceedings. This thing with Biden on top of everything else is too egregious. He is going to pull more and more shit like this if he doesn't get called for it. Trump has committed multiples of criminal acts before and during his time as President and needs to be held accountable. Pelosi's standing in the way. Even if the Senate doesn't convict him---he'll be stained by impeachment.

One advantage to a defeated Trump prosecuted by SDNY et al. over an impeached Trump, convicted by Senate or not, is that a court can shut him the hell up. Impeached or defeated, he will not make a graceful exit.

Welcome to the Trump century. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have
gained great wealth while carrying out their mission to install a
resentment epidemic into our political system. A major DJT
health issue is the only thing that will save the world from a
second term.

"A major DJT health issue is the only thing that will save the world from a
second term."

LOL!

Could be--since, after all, obviously, when it comes to actually reasoning with people, making a case, convincing them that your point of view is not sheer self-serving bull-shit--there, you're just sitting holding nuthin' in your cards.

"Resentment"!? See: " 'Woke'-movement." It reeks of resentment.

Trump is a case of the American body-politic "puking" its guts up; and the the reason it needs to do that, unpleasant though it is--- that need is down to the repulsively harmful consequences of the thinking of people like you. We're going to continue to puke up this crap that infests your thinking until we get it the fuck out of our system.

Rx.: The Madness of Crowds ( Bloomsbury Continuum (2019), 288 pages ) by Douglas Murray
__________________________________________

...

... "It was inevitable that some pitch would be made for the deserted ground. People in wealthy Western democracies today could not simply remain the first people in recorded history to have absolutely no explanation for what we are doing here, and no story to give life purpose. Whatever else they lacked, the grand narratives of the past at least gave life meaning. The question of what exactly we are meant to do now--other than get rich where we can and have whatever fun is on offer--was going to have to be answered by something.

"The answer that has presented itself in recent years is to engage in new battles, ever fiercer campaigns and ever more niche demands. To find meaning by waging constant war against anybody who seems to be on the wrong side of a question which may itself have just been reframed and the answer to which has only just been altered. (Sic) The unbelievable speed of this process has been principally caused by the fact that a handful of businesses in Silicon Valley (notably Google, Twitter and Facebook) now have the power not just to direct what most people in the world know, think and say, but have a business-model which has accurately been described as relying on finding 'customers ready to pay to modify someone else's behaviour.' (2) " ...

__________________________________________

https://www.amgreatness.com/2019/09/21/another-week-another-pseudo-scandal/

https://nypost.com/2019/09/21/goodwin-comey-and-baquet-united-against-trump-have...

One of the real questions I have about 2020 is why Trump wants to kill all the republican primaries. Personally I think he's afraid of facing off against Bill Weld or Joe Walsh--not because he's going to lose to them but either one of them will bloody him up because neither of them are going to back off like a Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. They're going to go right at him because both of them are blunt and neither will back off an inch to Trump's bully game. Donald loves the campaign thing but he wants it to be all about himself and with no resistance and that's pretty much what he has with the current crop of elected republican politicians who are nothing but a bunch of craven and cowardly suck ups.

To give kudos to another republican or former republican Justin Amash he made an offer to Nancy Pelosi to lead her party to impeach Trump. Maybe Nancy should let him do it. To be clear Amash has courageously stood alone against his party and against friends and family back in his own congressional district to make his point. Someone needs to fight the fight.

Wall Street Democratic donors warn the party: We’ll sit out, or back Trump, if you nominate Elizabeth Warren

“You’re in a box because you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, ‘I want to help the party, but she’s going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump,’” said a senior private equity executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity in fear of retribution by party leaders.

Burn Wall Street and turn those profiteering pigs into bacon.

Elizabeth Warren has had an ongoing war with a number of Wall St. execs over the years--particularly the big banks but also big Pharma. Anyone can go to youtube and find numerous battles she's had with Fed chairs and mega-bankers and she's bloodied them up pretty good--it's a real pleasure in fact to watch some of that.....so I'm not surprised these assholes would rather Trump than her.

Anyway some advice---cash out your accounts with Citibank, Chase Manhattan and Wells Fargo. Fuck them anyway. Put your money in a credit union instead.