#Republicans just lie constantly now

[scottguy]

Article: J.D. Vance Freaks Out Over the Slightest Pushback in V.P. Debate

J.D. Vance Freaks Out Over the Slightest Pushback in V.P. Debate

[scottguy]

In the end, with Hunter Biden sitting there... willing to testify publically...

NO Republicans voted to hear his testimony openly!

Why? Because the truth is not the scandal they want to pretend it is.

Republicans don't give a damn about truth.

[qqueenofhades]

Obviously the main contrasting narrative of the Harris campaign is (rightfully, the ads almost write themselves!) prosecutor vs convict. But I keep thinking about how, in one of her first campaign speeches, she had Biden on the phone and he said something like "I'm here, I love you Kid" and she said "I love you too" and just... That compared to the Jan 6th Mike Pence situation. Like this election is about democracy over fascism but it's also about love and kindness and sincerity on the level of person-to-person relationships.

Well... yeah. As Minnesota governor Tim Walz put it when he was doing the TV rounds for Kamala the other day, the Republicans are just weird people. They are mean, petty, reactionary, focused on revenge and retribution and making people suffer, their rhetoric is about shame and violence and punishment, they are all about Who Your Enemy Is, and their drift into ever more extreme fascist positions is a reflection of that. And strongman/fascist authoritarianism is often popular during moments of chaos and upheaval in the rest of the world, because the unknown feels so scary and people keep falling for the lie that a helpful dictator strongman will turn up and make it all better. It never happens, but it is a powerful lie and it can work for several years at a time, as we have (unfortunately) seen. (And Tim Walz is definitely climbing the list of Old White Guys I Like; supposedly he is on Harris' initial VP shortlist, and while I certainly have favorites of my own, she could very much do worse.)

However, and this is why fascist movements always plant the seeds of their own destruction, this constant garbage spew of hate and vitriol never ever works forever, and usually not even all that long. Because once you spend your time destroying everyone else on your mean stupid crusade of mindless bigotry, you lose friends, you alienate the ordinary people who are more interested in having something to be FOR rather than just constantly against, and eventually you eat your own. And while it will shore up your ever-dwindling cult base, it will not be able to expand beyond the people who are already fully indoctrinated, and it will lose more people than it attracts. As I have said before, one of the key tenets of fascist movements is presenting themselves as powerful, inevitable, and almighty: just surrender to them now before We Crush You (tm) later! But they are not! They are goofy, stupid, mean, and just plain (thanks Gov. Walz) WEIRD! Nobody wants to be those guys!

So yes. With the whole fact of a party where one guy tried to get his first VP killed and now has picked another reactionary loser who is the least popular VP pick in 50 years, and the other is joyfully supporting his VP, a woman of color (after serving loyally to the first Black president, Biden has set the way for the -- knock on wood -- second, and that is also amazing), it's really easy to see the difference, and very clearly, people do. Kamala offers something to rally FOR, and that is always, always more powerful than mindless hate. Sucks to be the GOP. (As usual.)

[lizardsfromspace]

The factchecking this cycle has been so profoundly incompetent that it's finally getting some real backlash, but the extent of it really should be clear. So much of factchecking is not based in reality, but in a kind of contorted moon logic that can find true claims to be false and false ones to be true based on wildly inconsistent reasoning.

But this one really shows off some of the base assumptions of modern factchecking, and also bc it got a community note which is funny:

Let's take this one by one

The idea that quotes have any options but "he said it" or "he didn't say it". It is a binary, maybe with a third option of "it was clipped wildly out of context", but something you see constantly now is the idea that quoting someone's direct words without deceptive editing or removal of context can somehow be false

Pointlessly noting that it's from 2016, and that it's not clear if he currently believes it. What the hell does that matter to the question of if he said that in 2016? People understood that the "dig up someone's tweets from when they were 17" thing was inane, but they counter-balanced by apparently deciding that citing anything someone said more than about six months ago is Misinformation if we don't have objective evidence they would say the exact same thing now, even if there's no evidence they believe anything else. Analyzing someone's high school tweets and analyzing something the literal President said seven years ago are not equivalent

Noting that he walked it back following criticism. You see this constantly, too. Again, what does that matter to the question of if he said it? But this is just taken as a given now: if someone gets blowback and says "whoops I didn't mean it", that should be taken at face value. Effectively, Politifact is letting Donald Trump self-factcheck Donald Trump: their only evidence (and I read the article too) this is at all false is that Donald Trump said Donald Trump didn't really mean the words he said, so they must agree with the judgment of Donald Trump that Donald Trump was treated so unfairly here.

A general confusion over what factchecking is. If you're asked "did Donald Trump say this in 2016?", your sole job is to determine if he really said that in 2016. It's not to divine if he, deep in his heart, still believes it now. That's completely irrelevant.

The two guiding principles of modern factchecking are this: one, it's strongly rumored - and also, obvious to everyone literate - that the major factchecking sites have either standing orders to find equal numbers of lies on both sides, or are staffed by people who think it's their job to hold both sides equally to account (the exception is Snopes, whose writers are just terrible at their jobs). In the name of this, Donald Trump can say something on camera only for it to be judged false, while a Democratic politician can be excoriated for mildly rounding down a figure in a speech. A factchecking website once determined that saying climate change was a threat to life on this planet was a lie, because climate change won't kill all life on this planet. Politifact's lie of the year one year was a Democrat saying a Republican plan would "end Medicare as we know it", which was judged to be a lie because it wouldn't literally end Medicare completely. Figurative language needs to be scoured, comments said directly on camera need to be made fuzzy. This makes factchecking sites worthless at factchecking, because what even is this?

It's not true that Donald Trump will refuse to accept the election results, because he's merely said he won't accept, and has said if he loses, it's only because the election was fraudulent. Okay, what, do you demand that people prove he said his plans in exact words? What is the actual, functional difference between "he said he won't accept it" and "he said if he loses it's because he won and they stole it from him, and he won't commit to saying he'll accept it"? What are you talking about, who is this for? When you go to the Logic and Reason Site for Debunking & end up having to puzzle out their convoluted logic and reasoning to understand anything, the plot's been lost a bit

The other is the idea that context is exonerating. Any context at all. If they said they didn't mean it, partially false. If they walked it back, partially false. If they said it was taken out of context, partially false. If they said it a certain number of years ago, partially false. If there's a longer video, even if it shows functionally the same thing, pants on fire, five pinocchios.

Again, we have footage of Trump saying this, and the footage in the ad is unedited, and the factchecking website is declaring something that OBJECTIVELY HAPPENED WITH HARD EVIDENCE IT HAPPENED didn't really happen bc we don't know his heart, maybe he believes something different now, we simply can't know for certain. But we do know for certain. Because "false" at least used to mean "didn't happen". But factchecking sites are now on those Beyond Belief definitions of "true" and "false" I guess

But the real problem here is that they just accept anything someone being factchecked says at face value. Because, and I can't believe I'm saying this

It seems like the people paid to determine if other people are lying...have forgotten that people lie sometimes

[seriouslycromulent]

The Math Ain't Mathing

So I'm sure people are going to accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist, but the more I think about the results of this US election, the more it's clear that things aren't adding up.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm well aware of the US's long history of racism and misogyny, and it is totally possible -- in theory -- that more people voted for a moronic straight, white male who is an ajudicated grapist and convicted felon over a more-than-qualified, intelligent, results-driven woman of color for a position as leader of the wealthiest nation on earth.

I'm not saying that couldn't happen. But did it? Legitimately?

The more I think about Trump's campaign, the more fishy this result seems.

So here was a man with ...

virtually no policies (that he could talk about openly),

no ground game,

no door knocking apparatus to urge folks to get out the vote,

no phone banking,

he was constantly running out of money and had to shill products to raise more,

stole money from down ballot candidates, putting their marketing strategies at risk,

found liable for SA,

found guilty of millions of dollars in fraud,

constantly rambles and shows clear signs of being mentally unwell,

invokes violent and hateful language against specific communities as well as individuals,

bragged about being a dictator on Day 1,

had over 40 former cabinet members declare him unfit for office,

was called a fascist by his own former chief of staff,

was not endorsed by any reputable economists,

saw a flood of lifelong Republicans -- literally millions of them -- abandon their party to vote for his opponent,

has been impeached twice,

has seen sharply, dwindling crowd sizes at his rallies for the last 6 weeks,

... and somehow he won the popular vote by 5 million?

Even though he never won the popular vote in 2016? Or 2020?

Suddenly he "found" a bunch of votes from people who liked him?

Um, no.

Just no.

One of Trump's biggest failings is that he and his team tell lies like children. That is, they've never learned how to keep things believable. Like a misguided 10-year-old who is desperate to impress someone with his whopper of a tale, he always exaggerates to the point of hyperbole and insults our intelligence.

For example, he told us his rally at Wildwood, NJ, this past summer had 108,000 even though the town itself only has 80,000 residents and the venue he held the rally in only held 20,000 people.

Or how he kept insisting that American kids are going to school and somehow receiving gender reassignment surgery over a couple of days and without parental consent before being sent home.

Each lie is so over the top and grandiose it makes him look infantile while at the same time insults our knowledge of reality.

And that's exactly what this feels like.

There is no way this man won the majority of the votes and the popular vote after only winning due to the electoral college the first time and not at all the second time. More people vilify him now than they did in 2016 and 2020, and that's saying something.

There just aren't enough voters in the US to give him a clear path to victory here no matter how committed his sycophants are to white supremacy. MAGA voters are not the majority of the voting electorate.

Also the fact that the exit polling data is suspiciously similar to the same tall tales Trump's been selling for the past year about how he had a ton of support in the Latino and Black communities, despite there being no data to support it at all. He was polling damn near 0% in some majority black communities like Detroit and Atlanta.

Yeah ... no.

This math ain't mathing.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I know when something isn't adding up. And nothing about these results add up at all.

On top of that, they ran their entire campaign like they didn't care about people getting out to vote. They kept insulting different segments of the electorate over and over again, as if they didn't need the votes of single people or people without children.

Plus, we saw record voter registration leading up to the election. More people voting early in state after state, and millions of people voting for the first time in their lives. But somehow there were fewer votes cast in this 2024 election than in the 2020 election?

Hell, Georgia alone tripled its early voter turnout. So how is this election getting fewer votes than 4 years ago?!

There were historically longer lines than ever before in parts of the country that never saw long lines, and yet there were millions fewer votes counted so far this year? Are we really to believe that all those long lines and so many new voters managed to only add up to 136M versus 158M who voted in 2020?

I call bullshit!

Also, a number of folks are commenting on how quickly the states were called. In all my years of voting, I've never seen a US election turning around so fast.

Yeah, the math ain't mathing.

Sure, he could've eeked out a win via the Electoral College without the popular vote like he did in 2016, but given her momentum and the majority of the polls either favoring her or having had them tied, none of these results pass the smell test.

Meanwhile, Harris had a multigenerational, multiracial, multiethnic, multigendered coalition of enthusiastic supporters who volunteered, phone banked, door knocked, and fundraised in every state plus D.C. Her media strategy was savvy, her interviews were sharp and intelligible, and her demeanor was inclusive and congenial. Again, not putting anything past good ole American racism and misogyny, but all the data showed that her supporters were clearly larger in number and more enthusiastic than his.

Long story short --

I do believe we are witnessing the American government being hijacked and a dictator installed right before our very eyes.

[robertreich]

5 Crises Republicans Made up to Distract You

Here are five totally made-up “crises” Republicans have invented to distract from the real crises facing Americans today: the growing concentration of wealth, the worsening climate crisis, and the undermining of our democracy.

Fake crisis #1:  Anything they claim is “woke.”

Although Republicans struggle to define what “woke” even means, they’re constantly using it as a weapon to combat anything that seeks to foster tolerance and acceptance.

Pride flags? Woke!

Books about Rosa Parks? Woke!

Green M&M’s? The wokest!

Fortunately, most Americans think being informed and aware of social injustice…which is what being “woke” really means... is a good thing.

Fake crisis #2: The panic over trans people.

Trans people just want the right to exist safely as their true selves, like everyone else. And despite the lies spewed by some Republicans, there’s not a shred of evidence that they are a threat to anyone. But they’ve become easy scapegoats for the GOP, who vilify them and threaten to criminalize their very existence.

Fake crisis #3: Critical race theory

In reality, critical race theory is mostly taught in universities — like quantum physics or philosophy. It's really not taught in K-12, nor is it dangerous.

It’s merely a framework to understand the role that race and racism have played in shaping America’s laws and institutions. But Republicans have deliberately turned this obscure academic phrase into a weapon to silence any discussion of race they don't like.

Unfortunately, this includes teaching many basic historical facts.

Fake crisis #4: “Couch potatoes.”

Republicans are whipping up anger over welfare recipients supposedly abusing the system.

The reality is most people who collect benefits already hold jobs and work exceedingly hard.

Like Ronald Reagan’s claim about so-called “welfare queens”, the “couch potato” myth is a cruel racial dog whistle. In fact, the vast majority of Americans who receive government benefits are white.

We should be asking why so many jobs pay such low wages that workers need government help to get by?

Fake crisis #5: “Out of control government spending.”

Another lie. Apart from mandatory spending like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, government spending has actually fallen more than 30% in the past 50 years as a percentage of our total economy.

[9.6% in 1973  vs. 6.6% in 2022, a decrease of  31.25%]

Yes, the national debt is a problem, but in recent years, among its biggest drivers have been the Bush and Trump tax cuts, which have added nearly $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment.

All five of these so-called crises have been manufactured by the GOP. They’re entirely made up.

Why? To deflect attention from the near record share of the nation’s income and wealth now going to the richest Americans.

As the wealthy pour money into politics — largely into the GOP — they don’t want the rest of America to notice they’re rigging the economy for their own benefit, that their greed is worsening the climate crisis, and they’re undermining our democracy.

So the game of the Republican Party and their major donors is to deflect attention — to use fake crises to disguise what’s really going on.

Don’t let them get away with it.

[centrally-unplanned]

In my previous post around "ignoring election victories as events-in-themselves" we were memeing about it being a subtweet of Richard Hanania, but as I mentioned at the end it really isn't. And for a bonus reason, he doesn't make that mistake! He has a very explicit theory about "why Trump winning itself won't change the party":

This is an argument, fair enough! But I think it is a pretty bad one. The intellectual journey for this is, imo, the way that Trump beat all of his challengers in the post-2024 environment. People seemed to copy his playbook, he had halfheartedly launched a failed coup, and yet none of it was enough to beat him. It made a lot of people think, "oh, this guy is magic. No one can replace Trump"

The key weakness of this reason is that, yeah, no one can replace Trump - because Trump still exists? He was president. And he is still running for office! That is, in fact, quite normal for how loyal followers work. For them nothing has changed, why would they change? Trump's coalition is definitely not as bright as Obama's coalition so he gets a more extreme version of it, but Obama is still getting glowing reviews and polls well almost a decade out from his presidency era from typical voters. People are naturally sticky this way, it is how we work.

There certainly is more to it - Trump's 2020 lie definitely gave him a sort of narrative throughput to justify extended support for example - but you really don't need more, because this factor goes away when Trump dies. Which he will, pretty soon. And meanwhile what Trump's core wants is probably not going to go away (particularly because it is pretty incoherent). The idea that they will simply be incapable of elevating someone else to the same position is extreme Great Man Theory Brain.

A lot of this buys into this notion of 4D Chess Mastermind Trump but for political charisma, but that is silly. He is a perfectly talented politician in some respects, a charismatic guy, don't get me wrong. But he isn't like a savant; he constantly does weird, alienating shit, and is much worse this campaign as his age is showing. There just isn't any big mystery to why he succeeded (beyond the inherent mysteries of all causation): he was famous and also very committed to being a big liar who gunned for the obvious Republican weaknesses. He was happy telling a motivated base he truly understood their nativist impulses, while promising mainstream Republicans normality and his commitment to things like abortion. Shockingly few Republicans were actually willing to just Come Out And Say It like he did - like really, you can find barely anyone in 2016 who does it.

And meanwhile, Trump is not a popular politician! He isn't at 50/50 because he ran a good campaign, he ran an awful campaign. He is just up against an incredibly unpopular incumbent in a world where incumbents in every country are losing every election. Nikki Haley would have easily done better. A big part of Trump's hand-picked down-ballot candidates doing badly is that he just chose fucking awful ones because he is a dumbass. They weren't awful because they were radicals; they were bad politicians, with ludicrous weaknesses and poor skillsets. What "magic" is there to capture here? The next leading Republican politician will likely do much better than him, unburdened by all his terrible baggage and off-putting behavior.

A next leader who will be leading a party that has now been shaped and molded into one far more comfortable with authoritarianism as a solution to policy gridlock. Maybe they won't value that! Fair, I think that is possible, and even likely. Most people are just generally decent people, and voters generally find this brand off-putting. But saying that it can't happen is complete folly. And we have a laundry list of leading Republicans who have openly embraced election denial to juice those odds, and voters who love to punish incumbents for this-or-that problem of the day.

IMO this is cope, building up Trump to be something far more special than he is. Voters just like authoritarian policies sometimes, and courting that isn't magic. It alas be that way.

[yourreddancer]

Resistance HQ Bulletin 9, 11/20/24

From Meidas Touch

Ron Filipkowski

… Trump is reportedly set to appoint Ross Vought as his Budget Director. So his Border Czar wrote the section on Project 2025 on the border, his FCC nominee wrote the section on Project 2025 on the FCC, and his Budget Director wrote the section on Project 2025 about the budget. But Trump said in the campaign he has no connection to Project 2025 and doesn’t know any of the people involved.

… Surprising criticism from Rand Paul on Trump’s announced plan to declare a national emergency in order to use the military to round up and deport migrants. “I think it’s a terrible image. That’s not what we use our military for. We never have. I will not support an emergency to put the Army into our cities.”

… The updated popular vote count according to Cook Political is now Trump - 49.89%, Harris - 48.24%. Trump’s lead continues to shrink.

… JD Vance said today that the Senate just needs to confirm every Trump nominee with no questions asked since Trump “just won a major electoral victory.”

… Thom Tillis said that Republicans citing recess appointments of previous presidents like Obama is a much different situation than what Trump wants to do because none of those were Cabinet-level positions: “Not for a Cabinet-level position. That should be absolutely off the table. And quite honestly, any serious candidate .. I would have to really wonder if they would want it or be willing to accept that under a recess appointment.”

… Tommy Tuberville suggested to Steve Bannon though that they are cooking up some kind of plan to ram Trump appointments through after the new Senate is sworn in early Jan and before Trump takes office. Unclear how this would happen if a few Republican Senators refuse to vote to adjourn, but we know that Trump and his henchmen are constantly searching for ways to justify ignoring the Constitution and all established norms.

… Trump raged on Truth Social that his amazing nominees are being criticized: “This is what the Radical Left Lunatics do to people. They dirty them up, they destroy them, and then they spit them out.”

(EVERY RETHUGLIKKKON ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION)

… ABC has obtained Venmo and PayPal records showing payments of $10,000 from Matt Gaetz to two women he allegedly paid for sex. One was a minor at the time. Maybe he was just donating to their tuition out of the kindness of his heart.

… Tim Burchett responded to the House Ethics report on Gaetz getting hacked: “Can someone hack the Epstein files for American to see?” Careful what you wish for.

… Lindsey Graham met with Gaetz today in his office. Lindsey told CNN: “I fear the process surrounding the Gaetz nomination is turning into an angry mob, and unverified allegations are being treated as if they are true. I urge my Senate colleagues not to join the lynch mob.”

… Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez was asked if Gaetz would make a good AG: “It doesn't matter what I think, the president-elect of the United States thinks that he'll make a good AG. I’m not a fan of Matt Gaetz. I wasn’t a fan of his when he was here. I think he was a disruptive force when he was in the House. But Trump has faith in him.” Hell of a ringing endorsement.

… Democratic Rep. Sean Casten introduced a privileged resolution to release the Ethics Report on Gaetz to force Republican House members to vote on whether to keep it concealed, per Punchbowl news. They only need a few Republican votes.

… Meanwhile, the Senate made a formal request for the House Ethics report on Gaetz to be turned over to them so they can do their job properly.

… But the Ethics Committee voted along party lines with Republicans voting to keep the Gaetz report secret and Democrats voting to release it. After Republican Chair Michael Guest told the press that the full committee “agreed” not to release the report, Dem Rep Susan Wild flamed him, saying that was a complete lie, they all agreed not to discuss the vote, but since Guest lied about what happened she felt compelled to disclose it was a straight party-line vote.

… But GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden told CNN after that he would vote to release the Gaetz report if it was brought to the floor for a vote. So that’s one.

… Trump rolled out a new product line today - Trump Guitars. He is selling an electric Trump Guitar on is website for $1,500 and an acoustic Trump Guitar for $1,250. They have an American flag with Trump’s face on them. He is also offering signed guitars for $10,000 and promises that they will arrive before Christmas if you order now.

…

The website for the Trump guitars does NOT say where they are made, so you know what that means.

… Nikki Haley trashed Tulsi Gabbard today: “She said that Trump turned the US into Saudi Arabia’s prostitute. This is going to be the future head of our National Intelligence? She tried to cut our annual defense budget. Tulsi Gabbard defended Iran. She went to Syria for a photo op with Assad while he was massacring his own people. She said he was skeptical he was behind it. This is disgusting. Everything she said about it was Russian talking points. Every bit of it. That was Russian propaganda.”

… More from Haley: “After Russian invaded Ukraine, she blamed NATO. The Russians and the Chinese played her talking points on Russian and Chinese TV. She’s defended Russia, Syria, Iran and China. DNI is not a place for a Russian-Chinese-Iranian-Syrian sympathizer.”

…

… Attorneys for former GA elections workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss filed a motion today in court seeking to have Rudy Giulianiheld in contempt of court for continuing to repeat the same false statements about them in recent media interviews that he was found liable for.

… Comcast announced it will create a separate spinoff media company that will package MSNBC, Bravo, CNBC, SyFy, and USA Network together under the new umbrella. Most industry analysts are saying they are doing this with the intent to sell them.

… WaPo reported losing $77 million this year, and that was before 250,000 people canceled their subscriptions after Jeff Bezos pulled the plug on the planned Harris endorsement.

… Alex Jones has filed lawsuit against the Sandy Hook families and The Onion, alleging that the sale and acquisition in the bankruptcy proceeding violated acceptable rules and practices for blind bidding.

The Onion’s offer was reportedly $7 million.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

When asked at Tuesday night’s debate about his various positions on abortion, Donald Trump responded that “what I did is something for 52 years they've been trying — to get Roe v. Wade into the states,” adding that “through the genius and heart and strength of six Supreme Court justices we were able to do that.”

Later, repeating himself and expanding the comment, he said, “Look, this is an issue that’s torn our country apart for 52 years. Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote.“ That’s not true — on the front end or the back end. Although anti-abortion activists wanted Roe overturned, and while some legal scholars on the left criticized the legal reasoning of Roe, it’s simply not true that everyone was “trying” to get Roe overturned. And, just as importantly, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision did not simply send the issue “back to the states.” This is not new for Trump. He regularly turns the Dobbs decision — which overturned the Supreme Court’s ruling that there is a constitutionally protected right to an abortion — into a barrier against any federal action.

Now, it’s true that any legislation or executive action would need to point to federal authority — the Spending Clause, Interstate Commerce Clause, or the like — and that people could challenge any federal policy, but it’s just as true that Dobbs did not address, let alone resolve, any of that. Despite that, Trump constantly repeats that claim — whether its a lie or confusion matters, but for these purposes, not really — and then builds on it. It’s a false foundation, so everything that follows it is built on quicksand. “Now, I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother,” he insisted. “I believe strongly in it. Ronald Reagan did also. 85% of Republicans do. Exceptions. Very important.” OK. But that’s irrelevant, even by Trump’s own telling — because his position is that a state can go further than he claims to want and ban abortion completely, with no exceptions.

He admitted as much when he said, “[N]ow states are voting on it. … Now, Ohio, the vote was somewhat liberal. Kansas the vote was somewhat liberal. Much more liberal than people would have thought. But each individual state is voting. It's the vote of the people now. It's not tied up in the federal government. I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it. And the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it. And I give tremendous credit to those six justices.” This was a jumble of everything I explained above. And, it added in another complication, one discussed on Tuesday afternoon at Law Dork: Republican state officials are, increasingly, trying to stop “the vote of the people” — because their votes have unanimously been in support of protecting abortion rights or, at the least, opposing restrictions. Trump either just doesn’t understand what is happening, at all, or he’s intentionally lying to people. Either way, it’s not acceptable for someone seeking to be president of the United States. Of course, in June’s debate, President Joe Biden could not capitalize on that — giving a response that went from lackluster to horrifying as he turned an abortion question, somehow, into an answer about immigration-related crime.

Tuesday's debate revealed that Kamala Harris is in tune with the post-Roe world. while Donald Trump isn't.

[scottguy]

We know the bomb threats in Springfield came from MAGA nuts nationwide.

Who else would care? It was the stochastic terrorism Trump is now expert at inciting.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said a foreign actor was largely responsible, but he declined to name the country.

How convenient! It was foreigners, but I WON'T say which country or WHY.

Just like "ANTIFA" then the FBI were responsible for all the violence that was really just a normal day with tourists on January 6th.

Republicans lie constantly now. It's all they have.

[stuffydollband]

Okay just to amend this: Democratic leaders HAVE been ringing the bell on Project 2025 for a grip now. That’s just fully a lie. You can say you wish they’d do it more, that’s fair (they have their reasons based on internal polling, but it’s a fair criticism), but you can’t say they aren’t talking about it cuz they absolutely are. And the news media does talk about it. Not as much as I’d like, and as Hill so rightly says, not as much as the arbitrary bullshit about Democrats, but they do talk about it. Hill is, herself, a part of that media establishment.

There is a bigger problem here: the people. Those every day voters this post is trying to praise. We live in a country where people can’t be bothered to actually learn about these things, can’t be bothered to take an active roll in their own governance. Our society is full of people who would probably prefer the divine right of kings because it would take the expectation of participation off their shoulders. It shouldnt require every voice constantly trying to convince people Project 2025 is awful because it’s awful on its face. Undecided voters shouldn’t exist, but they do, and the really fucked up thing is that the undecided voters will mostly not be swayed one way or the other by talk of Project 2025 because they are craven, stupid, tiny people. They will vote on insane lines like “strength” and “could I get a beer with him”. They will chase autocracy because it is comfortable and easy… until it isn’t.

What’s the point of me saying all this cynical shit? Well, it’s just to say that if you think you’re a good person, if you think you’re well informed, if you think you are against fascism, you have to show up and vote for Democrats. You have to stall the villains by putting blue people in office until we can finally fix everything Republicans have ruined since long before you or I were born, which will take decades. THEN, and only then, can we have a hope of exploring a new party paradigm that doesn’t shackle far left progressives to center left liberals. The Right must be completely obliterated for that to be feasible. You have to convince your friends to do it too. The war here is not undecided voters, it’s not convincing the Right to become good, it is and has always been turning non-voters into voters. The Right knows that, you should too.

Take a look at the Supreme Court and make a choice about whether you want 2 or three more lifetime seats to go to Republicans or if, maybe, just possibly, you want those seats to go to kind, decent, just people who will help fix what’s been broken. Hate Biden if you must. Think he’s too old if you must. I disagree but I don’t care. The only thing you need to know about him is that he will pick people like Ketanji Brown-Jackson to fill Supreme Court seats, and that is enough to vote for him. If it’s not enough for you, you don’t care as much about fascism as you pretend to.

Well done, tumblr.

The more people learn about Project 2025, the more they will expose the brutal control issues within conservative patriarchal politics.

Keep up the pressure. Keep fighting the good fight.

[qqueenofhades]

Speaking of Jack Smith and the indictments, follow up questions if you feel like answering! What do you think the chances of a conviction before the 2024 elections are? And (more worryingly to me), how much will convictions matter given they don't actually stop Trump from running or potentially being elected?

I've been following the investigations pretty closely, until I figured out last night that there are no laws against running for president from prison, and nothing stopping an imprisoned president from pardoning themselves. @_@ And while no one running for president from prison has ever gotten much of the vote, I have a terrible feeling that's one of those terrible firsts Orange-kun could pull off.

The thing with all this is that it is, for America, completely unprecedented political and legal territory. As such, while we can speculate and infer from what has happened thus far and what would normally be on schedule to happen next, we simply can't be sure. As I have said and as we all need to prepare ourselves for, Trump WILL be the GOP nominee at the time of the 2024 election, and if you thought he and his deranged cultists were dangerous to American democracy before, that's nothing compared to what they would be now. Which means we have the obvious task of all working as hard as we fucking can to get Joe Biden re-elected and given back full Democratic control of Congress. That is and remains Job Number One.

Next, Trump's only play is to delay, delay, delay as long as possible, in hopes of miraculously winning and canceling all the charges against himself like a proper banana-republic Autocrat-for-Life. That is obviously a terrifying idea, so see above: need to make sure it doesn't happen. The good news is that Biden beat Trump last time and if we do our part, he can do it again. Democrats are over-performing their 2020 margins by an average of 7+ points in the last 20 special or off-cycle elections, and while this isn't a sign to think we've got it in the bag and can just relax, it also means that the electoral trends are overall much better for Team Blue than they are for the Group Of Pfascists over there, especially since state-level Republican parties are basically bankrupt after throwing away so much money on pointless Big Lie challenges. Trump and his entire vindictive fascist apparatus is, again, terrifying. But it is not genuinely popular or in the actual majority, and we need to approach it like something that can and must be defeated, and not some unstoppable demonic force.

As such, we also need to recognize that even if Trump does go on trial and get convicted on any number of things before November 2024, which is still something of a long shot just because Merrick Garland dragged his feet on this for so long, he will try every bullshit delay tactic and appeal that he possibly can, in hopes of elevating it to a Trump-appointed judge and/or SCOTUS (he will try AS HARD AS POSSIBLE to get it to SCOTUS, since like every good mob boss, he thinks he owns them and they're obliged to bail him out). We don't know the timeline on that or what the effects will be, but as I noted last night, the benchmark for "progress on holding Trump accountable" constantly shifts and doesn't seem to be acknowledged, even when we are in the realm of the unprecedented for any former American president. And yet we do continue to make progress, and as I say whenever there's a development on that front, the LAST thing we should do is pre-emptively throw up our hands, despair about how it still doesn't mean anything, or just won't work. I know pessimism is easy and hopelessness feels like our default setting; the last almost-decade has kicked the absolute SHIT out of us and I won't pretend otherwise. But nonetheless, this is still happening. We just have to hang in there and do our part.

If we do that, and trust that Jack Smith and co. do theirs (as they have been doing so far), then things will probably, in fact, be okay. We cannot ever make the mistakes of 2016 again, which is why it's so maddening that a significant minority of leftist-identifying people seem determined to do exactly that, but it's certainly not as if all hope is already lost and the indictments will be a magic wand to speed Trump back to the White House (again, God forbid). We have to keep that in mind and our eyes on the goal, so yeah. We can do it and we must, and that's about all there is to it.

[arcticdementor]

In the September debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump said something so ludicrous that many viewers must have dismissed it out of hand. “She did things that nobody would ever think of,” Trump said, while rattling off a list of some of the vice president’s most radical past positions. “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”

…

The sequence of events neatly encapsulated a pattern that has played out countless times since Trump entered American political life. Trump says something seemingly insane, to many people’s outrage and disbelief, only to have his supposed “lie” revealed to be wholly or at least significantly true. Often the specific truth revealed—that the outgoing Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team in order to gather information for what later became the Russiagate hoax, to cite another example—is in fact “crazier” than Trump’s exaggerations or garbling of the details. The insanity of the policy becomes the front line of defense against potential blowback: Who would believe that anyone would actually propose or support something so obviously at odds with public opinion and basic common sense? Trump must be a raving nutjob, just like we told you he was. The reason that this strategy has worked is because Democrats rely on all nonexplicitly right-wing media to adopt their framing of issues and cite the party’s preferred experts, which they do. The party’s influence over the country’s communications apparatus has, for the past decade, emerged into something like a political superpower, allowing it to act outside the normal bounds of American politics without suffering from political blowback.

… The same GOP staffer, who is currently working on a competitive congressional race, told me that one problem his campaign regularly faces is that aspects of Democratic governance are simply too insane for voters to find credible, even when they are documented as official U.S. government policy. “When you outline the Democratic agenda, you have to water it down, because in both polling and focus groups, people just don’t believe it,” he said. “They are critical of things like boys in girls’ sports, but they tune out stuff about schools not informing parents about transitioning their children. They just don’t believe it’s true. It can’t be.”

…

These are all demonstrable matters of fact. Yet many Americans still have trouble accepting them, because the underlying predicate—that our country is purposefully allying with a terror-sponsoring, America-hating theocracy in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, which it has already promised to use to wipe America’s most powerful regional client, Israel, off the map—seemed too insane to credit. Why would Barack Obama have put that into motion, and why would everyone else let it happen? There are plenty of conceivable answers to these question, of course. But you can’t get at any of them if the underlying reality itself is too insane to accept.

…

The idea that the radicals and thugs shutting down a bridge in your city are part of the Democratic machine is not a particularly difficult idea to wrap one’s head around, particularly following years in which we were constantly warned about the threat of supposed Trumpist “militias” like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. The problem is that the Democrats’ alignment with these thugs strikes most Americans as too bizarre and obviously destructive to be true—a thing that “nobody would ever think of.” “You cannot get people to pay attention to the idea that the Biden-Harris machine is plugged into the Democratic machine, which is plugged into campus antisemitism,” a staffer told me. “It’s not because it’s too complicated. Voters understand that the same people fund the same things. It’s just that Americans find antisemites weird. We’re not in Europe, right?”

…

Joe Biden, whatever his faults and infirmities, played an important role as a symbolic figurehead for what functioned in practice as a radical bureaucratic regime. Even as his administration pursued policies far outside the Overton window of American politics, it was difficult for anyone, let alone moderately engaged voters, to believe that “Scranton Joe,” the avuncular centrist and Irish bullshitter, believed in any of the things that his party was said to be doing. Noting the sudden success of the campaign’s transgender ads, one Trump campaign staffer told me, “We were making this attack on Biden, but it was through some sort of convoluted process because of, like, some sort of Department of Education regulation. But everyone perceived Biden as what he was—an establishment moderate. Maybe he’s had to take up some radical positions for political reasons, but no one thinks Joe Biden sincerely cares about trans rights.”

(You might call this method "the Trunchbull," after the main antagonist of Roald Dahl's *Matilda*, a school headmistress who gets away with abusing her students by doing so in such an extreme, over-the-top manner that no adult is willing to believe any child who reports it to them.)

[bllsbailey]

Biden Slides Into Series of Unhinged Rants During Detroit Remarks on Jobs

One of the things that is just so infuriating is when you look at the way Democrats and Republicans are treated in the media, in particular, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris versus former President Donald Trump. 

They are constantly telling lies and repeating hoaxes about Trump, yet the media not only doesn't call them out on it, they repeat it and spread the hoaxes without question. Then they say Trump lies. It's a constant propaganda war machine to indoctrinate the public. The good thing is now, with the rise of new and independent media, that we can push back against all this nonsense. 

Joe Biden was at it again in Detroit on Friday--that is, before he disappears on yet another weekend vacation in Delaware. He signed an executive order, while he was there, pertaining to jobs. 

Biden told that lie he's always telling about "creating" 16 million new jobs. "Fact!" he shouted, while lying: 

However, most of those jobs were recovered when people went back to work after the pandemic; he had nothing to do with it. Biden didn't "create" the recovered jobs. He spoke about the August jobs report that just came out, which was actually less than anticipated. What he didn't mention was how they've had to revise the prior job claims down, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) having to scale back the claims of jobs by 818,000. Biden also didn't mention the statistics about the loss of jobs for native-born Americans that also came out. 

READ MORE:  New Jobs Report Shows Millions of Americans Lost Jobs to 'Foreign-Born' Workers, F/T Work Yields to P/T

Stunning: BLS Announces Largest Downward Revision in Jobs in 15 Years

Then, this was pretty incredible: Was he bragging here, about spending that would make inflation worse? That's what it sounded like. Look at the crazy eyes as he ranted: 

He claimed they reduced the budget at the same time, which is nonsensical; he's driven up spending. Does he even know what he's saying? 

Biden then made a silly comment that he thought proved there was global warming, in addition to having Trump live rent-free in his brain:

Biden thinks Arizona being hot is proof of global warming. Pro tip? It gets hot in Arizona, especially in the summer. 

But he can't even keep straight in his head how to pronounce Kamala's name, so I guess we can't expect him to grasp such concepts about summer being hot: 

Remember when they said that mispronouncing her name wrong was racist? Well, I've lost count of how many times Joe has said it wrong, so I guess he has been racist those times.

Then he had this clip about the debunked, "suckers and losers" Trump story, as he tripped all over himself. He's so far gone. You can see he stopped halfway through, as he started to talk about his son:

I think he's probably been told to stop lying about his son being killed in the war."My son died!" he screamed. But he just can't stop himself from trying to shoehorn his son into falling in battle. He did slightly amend it as he added, "My... 'cause of a year in Iraq." That's deceiving the audience members, who think that means his son died in battle, especially with how he's reacting. 

Yet, Beau died of cancer in 2015, years later. Biden has tried to suggest that he died because of burn pits in Iraq, but there's no evidence to support that.  I think it's vile that he just wouldn't stop using his son this way. 

If Biden actually cared about the military, he wouldn't be checking his watch when they come home dead as he did with the Abbey Gate 13. They died because of him. He would be talking to the families and answering their questions, not blowing off their questions and holding no one accountable. But those deaths don't serve his political purpose, so they don't get his attention. 

He just keeps getting worse and more off the rails, and Kamala

bears a lot of responsibility for not being honest with the American people about his decline. You have to wonder who is really running the country because it sure doesn't seem like it's this addled man. 

[scottguy]

So many boomers think Reagan was a "great president" when he was the man who started our slide into the hell that has become the American poor and its lower middle class. (But a playground for the wealthy!)

Everything was good for middle class and poor Americans in the 40s, 50s, & 60s, *because of* GOVERNMENT and high taxes & limits on the wealthy and corporations.

But along came Reagan, who explained to us that "government" was really our problem.

The only people who feel that "government" is a problem are the wealthy and corporations they own who find that reasonable regulations (to save lives) are a nuisance because they *slightly reduce* profits.

Reagan's little joke was saying that the scariest words in the English language are, "I'm with the government and I'm here to help."

Which is really truly fucking absurd. Seriously? How does that threaten you SO badly?

Government is just people hired to help other people. Conservatives, because of 40 years of right-wing propaganda, act like "the government" is some kind of alien beings with evil intent. We would live in a jungle if it was not for human government. No one would be safe. There would be chaos.

Government, like any other human organization, isn't perfect, but *unlike* corporate America, government's only function is to help people and not, like corporations, to screw over human beings for maximum profit.

Corporations *often* choose to let workers or consumers die or get very sick because it's more profitable than addressing the problem ethically and with human decency.

The gains of middle class had made in the 40s, 50s, & 60s were all taken for granted so much that Americans assumed they would continue regardless of the administration in charge.

Hah!

People kept voting Republican and getting screwed *every single time* because Republicans have a decades long history of crashing the economy due to their ridiculous fiscal policies that favor the rich. ( It's been pointed out that Republican led states have far worse economies than any Democrat led states. If Republican policies were so amazing, wouldn't the red states be thriving right now in 2024?)

So Republicans fuck up the American economy...

and later vote in Democrats to bail the American economy out.

And then when things get good, eight years later, people think, "Let's vote for the Republicans again!! We haven't had them in a while. They can do a better job!! Just listen to them complain about the fiscal irresponsibility of the Democrats." Who cares if they've made tax cuts for the rich that they've never paid for in the budget. They say they're fiscally responsible, and that's good enough for me, in spite of all evidence to the contrary!

American utterly forget how badly things went under the previous Republican administration. Americans believe the lies of Republicans. These are the same lies people told you 40 years ago that trickle - down economics would make us all rich.

Has that happened yet?

Of course not! Because it was all a giant great-sounding lie!

Republicans have learned to criticize Democrats constantly and thus imply that they will do better.

But we've seen the sheer hypocrisy and transparency of those Republican lies now in a BIG WAY! They claim to be more ethical and more fiscally conservative and yet they support criminal Trump and give away any budget cut savings (always from programs for the poor and the middle class) to wealthy people.

Republicans don't care about freedom. They took away a woman's right to an abortion. They want to take away your birth control now. They want to ban books and censor and go against the First Amendment. They want to censor the very "free speech" they claim to champion.

Worst republicans claim to be "patriots" yet they STILL support those they encouraged to attack our our US capitol building violently with intent to murder their fellow Americans. All just because they couldn't handle their crap candidate losing the vote for president.

Republicans don't care if children starve or are injured working as child labor to increase corporate profits.

Voters can be so stupid with their "throw the bums out" policy every four to eight years because everything isn't perfect yet. Changing parties is assumed to always be automaticly good.

That political knee-jerk reaction needs serious rethinking because we vote back in people who take us the wrong direction. Republicans, not only don't make things better. They actively make things worse.

Change for the sake of change is not the answer. Look at the track record of the party you're voting for. If they didn't do good things for you in the past, why on earth would the next time be any better? Of course, they'll promise to do better because they want your vote. Politicians have been known to lie frequently.

Republicans have shown us who they truly are. They are the servants of the billionaire and oligarch class. They will throw average and poor Americans under the bus any time it's convenient to the rich. Republicans have absolutely no concerns about ethics, decency or even suppressing violence.

This is the United States in 2024. This is where the "Reagan Revolution" has left us 40 years later.

We now have one party who are nothing but human monsters. They don't even pretend to care about average Americans. They are so confident that their propaganda pumping Fox and other networks will cover for them with copious lies every evening on the TV.

Their actions prove that Republicans want to TAKE all of your freedoms. ( Except for guns since they don't care how many innocent Americans and children are slaughtered by AR15s) Americans DON'T have the inherent natural human right of safety from harm so others can have the the so-called 'freedom' to play with deadly weapons as a hobby.

How can one party, just one group of people be so backwards?

It's simple. Republicans are all just slaves to the greed & power of their oligarch masters.

Those oligarchs Republicans serve so slavishly alsobhave their private twisted religious beliefs. With their billions of dollars, they have the POWER to shove their private ridiculous religious ideas all the way down your throat. Just because they can afford to do it!

If we'd contined to tax the wealthy like we had in the past, there would be no billionaires. No one would have the kind of money and power, that, right now, too many rich, white, old billionaire men have. They have the means and the nerve to try to force their stupid religious ideas and even fascism on you.

So thanks, Ronnie, and all you asshole Republicans, for bringing our country to the brink of fascism (possibly christofascism) in the name of greed.

You Republicans all fucking suck.

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/14/2023

Fifth Place: Dean Phillips

Another day, another Democrat trying to push for somebody--anybody--to come out and primary President Biden for reasons that never make any fucking sense. Of course, Phillips is a "moderate Democrat" (read: Republican) who clearly wants Biden out of the way because of how progressive the President is--and honestly, I think Biden should welcome the hatred of people like this. I also cannot believe we live in a world where Joe Biden of all people is too progressive for some Democrats, but here we are.

Mind you, Biden is much more well liked not just among the insiders of the Democratic Party but also among the rank and file members who actually would vote in a primary. Meaning any chance of a primary against him is unlikely to be successful, but the fact that these idiots keep trying to run to Biden's right while assuming that's what the Democratic voter base wants (a large chunk of Democrats are too the left of Biden) is just sad. And that's not even getting into how Biden is seen as some sign of the status quo by these people--while they constantly want alternatives who are too his right and would more than likely continue the status quo, albeit with a younger face.

Of course, this fear about Biden being old is a totally manufactured concern by the political class. The average voter doesn't care how old a politician is--in fact, back in 2016 and 2020 the youngest voters went for Bernie Sanders, who is even older than Biden. This is all just bullshit designed to scare Biden into not running for re-election, and I am very happy he has not fallen for it.

Fourth Place: Kurt Schlichter

Speaking of primary challengers that have no chance of going anywhere, Ron DeSantis is still running for President--and Kurt over at Townhall firmly believes he'll be the nomination. You see, according to Kurt, the real reason why DeSantis isn't leading in the polls is because nobody has heard of him yet:

Remember, this is a primary race, not a Twitter popularity race. The simple fact is that the polls in July 2023 do not reflect the real situation on the ground in 2023, much less 2024 when the actual voting happens. You know who are active right now? The activists. And those aren’t polls of activists. Those are polls of regular people living regular lives who think “Yeah, I like Trump and Trump’s getting a raw deal from the scumbag prosecutors, and he’s the only guy I really know about, so I’m going to put his name down.” They haven’t had to think hard about it yet. They haven’t had to weigh the facts. They haven’t really looked at Ron DeSantis’s record – if they’re looking at Twitter, they’re going to think that he parties with Paul Ryan over at George Soros’s crash pad. That kind of dumb lie is easy to dispel, and when people see that they’ve been lied to, they’re going to look deeper to find the truth. 

You mean four years of the media shoving him down our throats hasn't been enough time for the average person to know his record? And none of this is even getting into the stupidity of assuming that people who are political enough to vote in the Republican primary also haven't taken the time to know who DeSantis is.

Mind you, more exposure to DeSantis does not seem to be helping him--if anything, the opposite seems to be the case. Remember two years ago when DeSantis was seen as the 2024 frontrunner? Some were even predicting that he'd replace Donald Trump as head of the Republican Party by the midterm elections--and that never happened. That is because people saw exactly who Ron DeSantis was, and they didn't like it.

Third Place: Ron DeSantis

A short follow up on my last entry, it seems like Ron has trouble keeping the attention of the people who already know of him. Here's some reporting from Mediaite:

Donald Trump literally overshadowed Ron DeSantis — with planes – at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, flying over the event and prompting the throngs of GOP voters to chant “we want Trump!” while the Florida governor was flipping burgers and trying to woo support.

This man seriously thinks people want him to be President.

Second Place: Karl Lake

The former Arizona candidate for Governor challenged somebody to "milk a bull" in order to prove that there are only two genders. Of course, given people aren't steer--and people assigned male at birth can produce milk if they have enough estrogen in their system, by the way--this comparison was seen as really dumb, because it is.

Winner: Merrick Garland

I talked Friday about Merrick's choice to create a special council to investigate Hunter Biden, which was little more than an attempt to appease Republicans--and said attempt has failed as many Republicans, including ones who asked for the exact special prosecutor Garland picked, are still upset with him.

So Garland has lost all Biden supporters and Biden critics--this is the most Merrick Garland move of all time.

Merrick Garland, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.