A Black Falcon Wrote:I only take issue with the bit hwere he's saying how bad a baby Trump was, I know it's a joke but that's kind of mean, babies can't help it...
So... you're agreeing that he was a terrible baby, but only differ in that you think that wasn't his fault? Fair enough.
ABF, don't try to spin a close loss as a win. That's ridiculous.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:So... you're agreeing that he was a terrible baby, but only differ in that you think that wasn't his fault? Fair enough.
I don't know if he was a terrible baby or not as an actual baby, he just never grew out of that infantile behavior and that's the problem. (Of course, if he has an actual mental issue, dementia, or something like that, to explain why he seems to have gotten even more erratic than he was when he was younger, that'd add to it as well.)
Quote:ABF, don't try to spin a close loss as a win. That's ridiculous.
It's the best finish for a Democrat in the Montana House seat since 2000, and is a 10 point improvement over the 16-point loss Democrats suffered there in November. It's disappointing of course, but it continues the trend of Democrats doing significantly better than last year, and that's a good thing. That the Democrat beat the public polling is also noteworthy -- again the best poll showed Quist losing by 8, but he lost by only 6. So yeah, it's disappointing, but it always was going to be a very difficult one to win and if these 10 point improvements continue we'll be up for a very good 2018. (Back in 2013, Republicans won special elections by margins like this I believe, leading up to their win in the 2014 congressional elections...)
The Georgia House race actually has some polls where the Dem is ahead, and both parties are spending there somewhat evenly unlike Montana where Republicans outspent Dems at least 2 to 1, so that'll be a better place to see if we can actually win one. But losing by 6 in Montana, while bad particularly to the incredibly terrible person that is Gianoforte (see: his attacking a reporter), was better than I expected -- my guess beforehand was that Quist would probably lose by 8. Ossoff I think can actually win... it'll be tough, be he can do it.
In short, the article says that Trump used to be able to speak well in interviews, but now does not, and constantly loses his train of thought mid-sentence. The conclusion is that he has suffered significant mental decline.
That is true, but the claims about Hillary were backed up with what, pretty much nothing yes? While with Trump, his language has simplified significantly (as that first link shows), he regularly loses track of his thoughts mid-paragraph, he multiple times has forgotten what he's doing in the middle of public events... I agree, those things are not definite proof that he has a serious age-related illness, proof is important and it isn't proven... it could just be a combination of stress and age and not an actual disease causing this, but the results are just as bad. All of this sure is some good evidence that something is not right. Even his on-and-off friend Joe Scarborough has been saying things on this line, recently here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1elSJ5qOVA
The thing is, it could be nothing more than him just not caring any more, so we really need to be careful of ANY claim that his mental health is in decline without evidence from a medical professional.
How are things like seeming to forget where he is examples of him "just not caring anymore"? The degradation of his language, perhaps -- iof you read that article I linked you'd see that it covers both possibilities, that it's just normal age-related stuff or something more serious -- but the odd behavior, the crazed Twitter rants, etc, you think that is likely to be just normal behavior? It's possible sure but even if it's "just" normal aging, he sure isn't what he used to be, and given that the person he used to be was pretty awful that is not good. And as he's aged he's gotten much more conservative, too.
Look, you REALLY need to consider whether or not you're engaging in confirmation bias here. That's all I'm saying. Just... try to look at it from different angles. Make a few predictions on what you'd expect to see if his mental health is deteriorating (and yes, if it's caused by age or not, it's still basically the same claim), and then see if they come to pass. If they don't, be willing to change your mind.
For one thing, his twitter posts seem to be more or less exactly what they were months ago.
Just... be careful here ABF. The temptation is high to find stuff like this, and I'm telling you, jumping on this bandwagon isn't helping anyone. Just as with Hillary, we aren't qualified to make a judgment like this. If you and the rest of the democratic party jump at this and start pushing it, but then it turns out you are wrong, what then? What does that do to the party's reputation? You can't afford to be wrong here.
Same deal with the Russia scandals. If Trump survives them, the Democrats have basically nothing left.
But then again, there isn't much of a reputation left to sully. A party that has no ability to win elections and no desire to make the changes necessary to stop losing is a dead party.
True enough, but at least with the Russia scandal, the evidence really is piling up. At this point, I'd be surprised if there isn't something going on, and it goes beyond just America if France is any indication.
I mean, I've basically got no choice. Next election, it's either the party of Trump, or the democrats. So, democrats. It's just disconcerting how much they're willing to keep to the exact same "try to appease everyone" strategy that has failed, did fail them, and will only continue to fail more and more as the sorts of people who actually want real change get fed up with the whole system. ABF, everyone that isn't a Trump supporter hates Trump at this point. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that's "neutral" on Trump. Running on the platform of "hate trump" isn't going to convert anyone. They want something they can actually get behind. There's far too many people who abstained from the last election that don't regret it. There's ZERO chance you're going to win over the most die-hard of Trump supporters. That's not going to happen.
That ridiculous advertisement where a bunch of democrats in a Denny's pretended to be republicans? You didn't actually trick any republicans with that damn thing. You just alienated any outsiders who might have considered democrats the "party of progressives". They took one look at that thing and said "well, they haven't changed a bit, have they?". I'll note that you've made no attempts at all to defend that atrocity of an ad, which I hope means you recognize just how much of a mistake it was. Yes, it was just one ad, and one that didn't even air here in Oklahoma, but when a party is willing to toss stuff like that out there, it speaks volumes about what sort of tactics they're willing to employ to win. And no, I'm pretty much sick of that "If you want to win, you have to play dirty just like them" mindset. At this point, playing dirty hasn't worked. Maybe playing clean will? When was the last time either party even ATTEMPTED that? I haven't seen it so long as I've been alive. I mean, it's worth a shot. Even if it fails, at least you can hold your heads high for once. Just... try apologizing every now and again. Say "I was wrong about X, and am sorry.". American politicians in general haven't genuinely apologized for ANYTHING (outside of affairs, months after lying about them) in far too long.
I would vote for someone who apologized and admitted they were wrong about something at this point. Like, literally the first candidate that did that. I'm not even kidding.
Okay, I used twitter as a counter-point to arguments on his mental health, so fair's fair. His latest twitter post may just be a sign of something after all...
The weirdest thing about the "covfefe" tweet isn't that he tweeted some random gibberish, presumably just as he fell asleep; at this point that isn't surprising. No, it's that afterwards both him and his press secretary are insisting that covfefe is totally actually a word, really! Oh come on, how stupid do you think people are? Not dumb enough to believe that one, clearly...
Also, this Daily Kos article points out that a recent Washington Post article says that intelligence sources told them that Trump 'may not be retaining' key classified intelligence information he has been told: "Yet there are signs that the president may not be retaining all the intelligence he is presented, fully absorbing its nuance, or respecting the sensitivities of the information and how it was gathered." My joke answer would be 'well yeah, who'd trust the CIA? Trump only retains info given to him by trustyworthy sources like Russian intelligence, after all!', or more seriously 'he's just too stupid to remember things', but 'his mind is not what it used to be' is a valid reading as well...
For me though, it's that 'Why did the Civil War happen? People don't ask that question' quote that stands out the most. Seriously, that is not a question anyone who has ever learned anything about American history would ever say. I agree, we do not know that there is anything wrong with him; it is entirely possible that there's nothing seriously wrong with him, he's just this ignorant, stupid, and hopelessly out of his league. But his behavior is so odd that it seems quite possible that that's not all that is going on.
Weltall Wrote:Same deal with the Russia scandals. If Trump survives them, the Democrats have basically nothing left.
But then again, there isn't much of a reputation left to sully. A party that has no ability to win elections and no desire to make the changes necessary to stop losing is a dead party.
The Dems won't run only on "we hate Trump" next time, no. There will also be issues, as 2016 proved that just running against Trump is not enough. For one example issue we've seen already, Nancy Pelosi recently promised that if they get in office they'll passa $15 minimum wage bill.
Also, whether or not he stays in office, I don't see how Trump fully recovers from this. What would be a best case scenario for him, an Iran-Contra like situation where a bunch of mid-level guys take the fall but the president continues on? I hope not, but that could happen... but that damaged Reagan quite a bit even though he wasn't forced out.
Yeah, that's a pretty good response to this latest bout of extreme idiocy from Trump.
Here's another one, a good article from Politico about why Trump did this. The article surely accurately says that it's not because of jobs or climate, it's just a part of his war on Obama and his legacy, and the international community who likes Obama more than they do Trump. What the article doesn't mention is the racist element of that, and that's key because it is central to why Trump hates Obama so much, but otherwise it's quite accurate. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2...ris-215218
Also... that the US won't be fully, officially out until November 2020 sure is ironic, considering what else will be happening that month... so yeah, we better win that year.
But as for Comey's testimony, it's good that he has helped build the case against Trump, but unfortunately we're still far from getting rid of him as Republicans still support him and excuse his lawbreaking and probable treason. On the former note though, apparently some Democratic members of the House and Senate are going to sue Trump for violating the emoluments clause, claiming that they have standing because, by simply violating that clause with no attempt to follow it and get consent from congress, he is denying them a vote on whether he should get a waiver on emoluments from congress as the Constitution demands. I have no idea how that'll go, but every attempt to stop Trump is valuable.
But Comey... I still feel like I don't understand what he did last year, not really. What is the real reason that he released that letter about Hillary, but refused to say a word about the ongoing investigations into Trump's camp? It is a bizarre act which is hard to explain, and while many explanations are out there all feel incomplete...
The emoluments issue is major. That's definitely something a lawsuit should come from. The issue is, the republican congress and Mitch McConnell the turtle in his "coming out of his shell" tour have come up with a strategy no one saw coming: Just... just refuse to actually consider the things you are supposed to consider. You don't have to say no if you just say nothing at all! That's how the emoluments issue has been skirted, and how Obama's court nominee got denied. What I'm saying is it should absolutely be pursued, regardless of whether or not this is going to be the thing to get Trump impeached.
By the way, does anyone know if a president that's sitting in jail gets to keep being president? I really don't know how that works.
Edit: Okay, apparently the current legal understanding is even if the president is literally killing homeless people and burying them in the white house lawn, he won't be pursued or arrested for trial for an action like that until AFTER his term, so as not to interfere with the government operations of the country.
So now Trump is apparently thinking of getting rid of Muller: https://twitter.com/judywoodruff/status/...8108145665 . That Trump could potentially do that always was one of the major drawbacks of the Special Counsel office, but while doing so would make Trump look INCREDIBLY guilty, probably lead to even more leaks, and maybe shorten this presidency Trump is stupid enough to maybe do it. I'd rather he didn't get rid of Muller, since his investigation is important and the best way to have the full truth get out there is for a full investigation to be completed, but as we saw with Comey Trump seems to think that there is some easy way to get rid of the Russia issue even though there isn't, so this would be a natural next step for our idiot president. I hope people can convince him not to, or that if he does some seirously damaging leaks come out as a result and help end this presidency...
Really either way Trump is in serious trouble, but keeping Muller probably is better overall since then we know there will be a full investigation for sure. Get rid of him and it probably happens anyway, and that blowback would be HUGE, but he's weathered so much already that he might think he can make it through that too... I hope not, but I guess we'll see one way or the other.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:The emoluments issue is major. That's definitely something a lawsuit should come from. The issue is, the republican congress and Mitch McConnell the turtle in his "coming out of his shell" tour have come up with a strategy no one saw coming: Just... just refuse to actually consider the things you are supposed to consider. You don't have to say no if you just say nothing at all! That's how the emoluments issue has been skirted, and how Obama's court nominee got denied. What I'm saying is it should absolutely be pursued, regardless of whether or not this is going to be the thing to get Trump impeached.
Refuse, deny, ignore reality, repeat, it's the mantra of this administration and most of his party now, and it's incredibly damaging to democracy particularly when not only Trump does it but his party as well as they attempt to support him.
Quote:By the way, does anyone know if a president that's sitting in jail gets to keep being president? I really don't know how that works.
Edit: Okay, apparently the current legal understanding is even if the president is literally killing homeless people and burying them in the white house lawn, he won't be pursued or arrested for trial for an action like that until AFTER his term, so as not to interfere with the government operations of the country.
Yeah, one probably-not-really-a-joke explanation for why Trump ran for president is in order to get him (fortunately temporary) immunity from prosecution for his many crimes... but in the end all it'll do is get them revealed even more publicly, I believe, so it won't work out!
So, the Senate Republicans are closing in on finishing writing their secret, but surely horrendous, health care bill... and then just like the House, they're going to ram it through without a CBO rating or any hearings, because they know people will hate it and the only chance to pass anything is to do things this way. Who cares how many people die because of this, we need to cut taxes on the rich (and kill poor people)! It's such a ludicrously evil thing to do that it's almost surprising that even today's Republican Party is doing that, but... it's not, is it. I hope things fall apart at the last minute, but it's not looking good.
Fortunately though it's sure to be a horrible bill that should give the Democrats a good boost in future elections, but that's not much comfort to anyone who loses their health care because of it...
Pin the tail on the health care bill I suppose. It's easier to sign a bill that MAY screw over everyone in your district/state than one you know for sure WILL screw them over, so let's just keep it all a secret right up until it gets voted on!
So the health care bill really is struggling in the Senate, for now at least. Huh, that's good to see. I never would trust Republicans to do the right thing, so it still could well pass, but it's promising that it's faring this badly so far and so many Republicans oppose it from both sides.
In other news though, Trump once again revealed himself to be an idiot who doesn't know anything, as at the White House meeting he ordered with the whole Senate Republican caucus Tuesday afternoon, when asked about the tax element of the health care bill (you know, the fact that it's a massive tax cut for the rich) he seemed to have no clue that there was a tax part in that bill: "A senator who supports the bill left the meeting at the White House with a sense that the president did not have a grasp of some basic elements of the Senate plan — and seemed especially confused when a moderate Republican complained that opponents of the bill would cast it as a massive tax break for the wealthy, according to an aide who received a detailed readout of the exchange." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/us/he...pence.html ... this person is actually president? Seriously? How could someone so dumb have gotten that far...
Why even bother denying such an insane conspiracy theory? I at least had never heard of this until this news, but now you wonder... :p
Seriously, of course this is completely impossible, but how does even responding to such a crazy thing do anything other than encourage conspiracy theorists?
Their main goal might be to bring attention to just how completely insane these conspiracies sound so as to discredit Infowars with their own words. I mean, this really is the most insane conspiracy they've ever had.
And, as though it needed pointing out, a child slavery ring on Mars is not economically viable.
So, our political system has devolved so badly that Mitch McConnell's current big threat to his recalcitrant Republican Senate caucus is that if they don't behave and vote for his atrocious "health care" bill... he might be forced to actually do as the Founders intended and work with the other side when you can? How is this a threat exactly, in any sane world? It'd be very interesting if that actually happened though, if only in the Senate in something that didn't pass because the House refused it, because more and more Republican Senators are opposed to the current version of the bill, and how do you make it better when Cruz and Paul are demanding you make it even worse in order to get their support, while that would drive away others in the center-right even farther?
This could all just be a smokescreen and they pass something in the end despite all this, that wouldn't surprise me, but right now I'm cautiously optimistic that maybe the Republican health-care (tax cuts for the rich) bill might actually fail.
lmao now Trump Jr.'s in hot water, dumb enough to tweet evidence incriminating himself. Wish I could be a fly on the White House wall to see Trump melting down every day about these Russian investigations.
As always, it's hilarious to see the stupid shit he tweets. "ME AND PUTIN ARE GONNA SET UP A SPECIAL ELECTION UNIT", talk about the fox guarding the hen house. I'd bet you any amount of money that Putin manipulated him to agree to that and was laughing uncontrollably that he was dumb enough to actually tweet and support it, like it was this magnificent idea. Even Trump's Republican colleagues were clowning on him for that one.
Didn't take him long to backpedal. "I NEVER SAID I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THAT WOULD HAPPEN". I legit think he's getting senile. At least he didn't double down, like he normally does on his retarded ideas.
Literally the only positive thing to come of the Trump presidency might be a shakeup of the whole system. However, people might be so desperate to go "back to normal" that they overlook typical corruption as "at least not completely stupid". That's the other possibility, that we lower the bar to the point we tolerate evil so long as it isn't stupid evil.
There's no way that it is a coincidence that right after the Trump Jr. / Russian lawyer meeting Trump started talking about "Hillary's missing emails" and such. He knew what was coming. That timing is way too good to be coincidental, I think.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Literally the only positive thing to come of the Trump presidency might be a shakeup of the whole system. However, people might be so desperate to go "back to normal" that they overlook typical corruption as "at least not completely stupid". That's the other possibility, that we lower the bar to the point we tolerate evil so long as it isn't stupid evil.
Polls show that a lot of Trump's base refuse to admit that anyone on Trump's team did anything wrong. Russian collusion? That's just fine, if it helped them win! (What, that's illegal? Bah, liberal media lies...)
This incredibly dangerous attitude is an example of how our democracy is struggling, I believe. I wonder how many would change their tune if we get to the point where there are actual prosecutions?
The only solution is to get the electorate to the polls. That means a candidate that motivates people is needed. A call to proper action and a democratic party willing to out and out say "our ways are better and yes, we really DO want to do these things, this is why they would be good". Don't try to dress it up and cut it down to make it into some half-realized idea!
So John McCain has had some surgery, and he'll be recovering in Arizona for the next week so the health care bill has been put off -- they need 50 to bring it up to the floor, and without him it's 49 for and 50 against. This is a bad sign because it suggests that McConnell thought that with him he had a good chance of winning, but the delay itself is a different story.
So on the one hand this delay because of McCain's illness, while bad for McCain and his health, might be positive for the chances of killing the bill, because it slows the momentum towards it puts off the vote and gives more time to pressure Republican Senators to vote against it. If they voted soon it was looking like maybe McConnell would win and get Obamacare repealed, because as that one article said none of the remaining 50 Republicans want to be "the bad guy" who takes down their we-hate-Obamacare crusade after so long.
But the question is, will, during this delay, some of them finally give up on the bill because of how terrible it will be, either because of pressure from governors back home, the health care industry, thinking of people on their state who will lose health care and die, etc, and come out opposed, or will it just delay the ultimate passage of this bill for a week, because what Republican actually cares about any of those things compared to a chance to pass something which will help the rich?
All year I've been thinking that there is a very good chance that the Republicans fail to pass anything and Obamacare survives, but this will definitely be the most important test of that. It could go either way.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:The only solution is to get the electorate to the polls. That means a candidate that motivates people is needed. A call to proper action and a democratic party willing to out and out say "our ways are better and yes, we really DO want to do these things, this is why they would be good". Don't try to dress it up and cut it down to make it into some half-realized idea!
That's a good idea sure, but the party faces systemic challenges here due to Republican lawmakers in so many states passing so many voter suppression laws...
... So, Senators Lee and Moran decided to be the "bad guys" who would kill McConnell's health care bill, and isn't that a relief! This was always the most likely result, as I said I've never thought this year that Republicans were definitely going to repeal Obamacare, but I was getting worried that maybe the Senate would go the way of the House and pass something awful... but at least right now it looks like that is unlikely for the moment at least, thanks to the Republican Party's impressive levels of dysfunction, both between their extremist and "moderate" wings and because of a complete lack of policy details or leadership from the idiot in the White House. We may strongly disagree with the reasons why some of those Republicans refused to back the bill -- Ron Johnson, for example, is quite upset about McConnell's secret promise to the "moderate" wing that the medicare cuts would never actually go into effect because he wants those cuts now -- but a dead bill keeps the ACA in place and while it is a deeply flawed law it IS at least better than any of the Republican's alternatives, so that's great.
Beyond that, seeing the reaction on the right as their total control of the government collapses into uselessness because they can't agree on anything is both amusing and a great sign for Democratic success in 2018 and 2020. I've said this before and I doubt that it'll ever actually be worth the damage this president has done to our democracy, but if out of it we can save our very vulnerable incumbent red-state Senators up for re-election in 2018 (who probably would almost all be doomed in a Hillary Clinton administration, particularly if Republicans held enough power to block everything as they almost certainly would) and win in 2020, a census year before redistricting... well, that would be a pretty good result, all things considered. It is also quite satisfying to see Trump's fact-free style fail at policy; the people may be stupid enough to believe nonsense and elect him, but governing is hard and he isn't able to do it.
To reference one concern of mine from the past, fortunately, things now are so bad that even if Trump was removed soon I think it'd be hard for that party to get anything done before the elections to save their House majority and such... and let's hope that their party's failure to govern and the continuing Trump-Russia revelations, and investigations, combine to keep things that way for long enough to keep any horrible legislation from passing and help Democrats win lots of seats next election despite facing the massive upwinds gerrymandering brings on us.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:I just learned a new word.
Kakistocracy - a government run by the worst or least qualified candidates
That's not a word I have heard before either, but it sure does describe America today, doesn't it... :(
On that note, not willing to take "no, you have the worst plans and it would be terrible" for an answer, the Republicans are still pushing their Senators very, VERY hard on Trump"care". It may still fail, but they're putting a lot of effort into trying to get it to pass, no matter how atrocious the bill is. Or rather, probably is; Senators apparently still have no idea which health care bill McConnell wants to vote on next week, but there'll be a vote and he wants all the Republicans (except for Collins) to vote yes, first to bring it up for debate and after that... we'll see?
I really, really hope that McConnell holds that 'bring it up for debate' vote and then loses, but sadly because Trump and the Republican leadership wants a "win" on this issue no matter the cost, this health care bill still is hanging around despite repeatedly seemingly dying.
On that note, the latest blow is that the Senate parliamentarian decided that a whole bunch of key parts of the bill, including the anti-abortion stuff, don't fit with budget reconciliation rules, so they should need 60 votes. To solve that issue McConnell has two options: have Pence override the parliamentarian, which has never been done before and would take us one step further along the road of destroying the system (so they'll probably do it anyway), or cut those elements of the bill and then have it fail because without the anti-abortion sections the right will not vote for the thing. Is he so committed to this bill that he'll actually override this decision? I guess we'll know sometime in the next week, probably. Maybe we'll even see what bill they're going to vote on!
A Black Falcon Wrote:What's this a reference to, something the Dems said at that 'unveiling our new plan' set of speeches in rural Virginia or something?
Yes. It was insipid and patronizing. Also, to the wrong audience.
Yeah,. this administration is terrible, but at least there's been some good comedy out of it. I've particularly been watching a lot of Steven Colbert's monologue and political sketches (on Youtube), all year long... he's pretty funny most of the time, apart from the occasional crude joke.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Yes. It was insipid and patronizing. Also, to the wrong audience.
Hey, at least they're trying. The Dems have a big problem with the very urban-centric nature of the Democratic electorate, and even if efforts like this are unlikely to work, they need to try! Hillary didn't do much of it and it is clear she should have done more, and we need to win a bunch of House seats in 2018 in difficult territory, so efforts like that are needed. They just need to work on that messaging...
![[Image: 170531121403-trump-covfefe-tweet-screeng...us-169.jpg]](http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170531121403-trump-covfefe-tweet-screengrab-medium-plus-169.jpg)