stevenkesslar

I didn't say I'm not worried. I am. Especially about Trump winning in 2024, if we have a recession. I said I think this SCOTUS ruling is "mostly good news" for the Gays. I stand by that. Clarence Thomas, and his fact-hating wife, are two very good reasons to be devoted to Our Mother Of Perpetual Worry. The ruling I feel far worse about is the affirmative action ruling. Not requiring a bigot to bake my wedding cake won't stop me from getting married. You made the same good point, @Pete1111. Let the bigots lose my business. I used to be a Catholic. They lost my loyalty over this fight. But ending affirmative action will literally close college doors to minorities, including some groups of Asian American minorities. By the way, most polls suggest that a majority of Americans support ending affirmative action in college admission, too. There's no question that, writ large, SCOTUS is now the voice of the reactionary right wing. And we should be worried. Because they are trying to push the nation to the right. Hopefully, like with gutting abortion in 2022, it will be one reason voters seek balance in 2024 by electing Democrats. But it is definitely time to organize, organize, organize. All that said, they're not taking same sex marriage away. Clarence Thomas, the hypocrite, for sure would if he could. He can't. There's a quote I absolutely love, from Jeb Bush, stated around when we won the SCOTUS war: "It’s thousands of years of culture and history is just being changed at warp speed. It’s hard to fathom why it is this way,” Jeb Bush said. He's right. He doesn't get it. Clarence Thomas still doesn't get it. But I love that quote. I feel like, "I did that. We did that. My friends, like Thalia, did that." It was not the battle of the year, or even of our lifetimes. It was the battle of the millennium, or civilization, as Jeb said. And we won. And we won without buying guns and firing bullets. We won by opening our hearts. That doesn't mean it could not be taken away, if we stop organizing. But it does mean we know how to win an incredibly tough fight. We should be, and are, proud of who we are. I wanted to start a debate about the SCOTUS ruling. I think the polls are correct, and useful. They make it clear there is some balance, which we should seek to understand. On the one hand, the polls suggest most people don't want to treat to The Gays unfairly. If the Gays want to fall in love and spend their life with their partner, they should be able to, just like The Straights. A majority of every demo now support that, including Blacks - who some people incorrectly blamed the Prop 8 defeat in 2008 on. Even Republicans are now 50/50 on the question of same sex marriage. Independents and Democrats are wildly in favor of it. But, on the other hand, I think a majority react against the idea that people (conservatives) are going to be forced to do things that go against their personal and religious beliefs. At core, it's the same thing as The Princess Ad. Fear mongering that The Gays are going to impose their values - dangerous values - on our kids, or on us. DeSantis has the public on his side on most of his anti-LGBTQ crap in Florida. I would bet money they poll tested Don't Say Gay and they crafted it specifically to put Ron on the side of a fight he knew he could win. Both in terms of knowing he had the votes in a Ron-O-Rama Republican state legislature, and in terms of saying things most people actually agree with. To prevent @Mavica from trashing me for caring about what moderates think, again, I won't post lots of polls. But even Democrats with kids are worried about this stuff being taught in elementary schools. So Ron read the polls and focused on that. Pretty much the same thing that happened in California in 2008. Dave Fleischer, one of our national LGBTQ organizing gems, spent a few years dissecting polls and focus groups on that disheartening loss. It was white Democrats, largely in the Bay Area, that shifted in the final weeks of the infamous same sex marriage campaign. The fear mongering was most effective in flipping the votes of parents who were worried about their kids somehow being indoctrinated. Unfortunately, Florida is now Homophobia Central in the US political debate. Tim Gill and the Gay mafia, who helped turn states like Colorado around, need to send in friendly warriors like Thalia and Dave and focus on Florida for a decade or two. And, if they are going to be effective, they need to start by listening. I'll wind my rant down by posting a point/counterpoint: Ron DeSantis, and Dave Fleischer. I find Dave's video to be really empowering and heartwarming. It is the kind of thing that clearly needs to happen in Florida. I know it worked in California. And, by the way, this stuff IS happening in Florida. Conservatives went nuts registering voters and using Spanish language media and basically flat out fear mongering about The Gays and The Socialists. So face to face messaging and organizing was happening. But on the right, using fear. That's how they turned Miami, a Democratic fortress, around. That said, the polls clearly show that DeSantis won by 60 % because about that percentage of Florida voters saw him as a competent Guv who did a good job on the hurricane and a good job on the economy. I think he is blowing it by running for Culture Warrior In Chief. I mean, how in God's name do you make Donald Trump look like a liberal when it comes to being a bigot? But that is what DeSantis is doing. Ugh! https://twitter.com/DeSantisWarRoom/status/1674899610379116546?s=20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmlfnr151rI God bless Dave. I don't need a poll to tell me that if you showed a group of moderate swing voters these two videos, they would be turned off by Ron's almost cruel attack on The Gays. And they would be touched by Dave's message of opening hearts and minds, and tolerance. Since @Mavica made it about me, me, me, I reflected on that. I think the problem for me is that I lived TOO MUCH. I spoke to Dave once, about 25 years ago, when I was interviewing for a job to run a campaign to win a Gay rights ordinance in Miami, which Thalia told me about. I was just coming out, and Gay South Beach and circuit parties were of course a magnet. I could have gotten the job, probably. But I figured taking a hard job so I could party in South Beach was a bad idea. I took a different job that involved spending four years putting together two statewide coalitions in Oregon that demolished Enron's effort to fuck up electricity, like they did in California. We won permanent rate-based streams of funding for renewables and low-income weatherization and energy assistance, which has made Oregon a leader on those issues for decades. Meanwhile, sadly, that Gay rights fight in Miami in 1997 lost when hundreds of Christian conservatives stormed a City Council meeting. Same old, same old. Bless Anita Bryant's heart. I made good choices, in retrospect. But my key decision was in 2000 I gave up a very successful organizing career to be a male escort, which basically involved having lots of fun and sex all over the world. So some of this is I like posting about politics so I get to pretend I made different, and arguably better choices. But I have no regrets. 2008, 2009, and 2010 were fun. Instead of being a paid organizer, I got to be the bestest little Gay volunteer while people like Thalia, the top level consultants, came in and helped us organize. I had a blast. And we eventually won. On the topic of LGBTQ organizing, goods news. Will Rollins, a nice young Gay guy who almost took out a conservative Republican in my California House district in 2022, recently announced he wants a rematch in 2024. So there's a 50/50 chance he could win. It will take about 10,000 votes, and lots of messaging and door knocking. Turns out The Gays are good at that. Game on. 😊

Duh! No shit. Polls suck. Everybody knows that. Except me, I guess. By the way, love that "sad" icon. It's almost like it's not a Steven Kesslar post if @Mavica doesn't trash it. I missed you, buddy. Where ya been? But, yeah. What kind of loser would fixate on polls and shit? You clearly understand it makes little sense to care about anybody's opinion other than your own, @Mavica. And most things worth saying can truly be said in a brief one sentence put down. But I give you credit. You said in a different post you actually listened to Brian Tyler Cohen for four minutes. That's a long time for a guy who mostly posts in bumper stickers. Sadly, truth be told, there are other losers like me. Like my friend Thalia. So I'll tell you a verbose story relevant to this thread, and my point. She worked for Basic Rights and Marriage Equality for years. And she's the kind of loser that NOT ONLY pays attention to lots of polls. She'd actually do these focus groups and shit. Like, really? How strange! How sad! What could you actually learn listening to like six fucking people? Why fixate on that shit? Live a little! Anyhoo, long story short, because she's been at the center of the Gay mafia for a very long time, they did seemingly crack the code. What they learned through lots of polls and focus groups (WTF? focus groups? such bullshit!) and years of trial and error was this. Intellectual appeals to concepts like "fairness" and "basic rights" were not sufficient to move people in the middle on issues like same sex marriage. What they learned is the most successful arguments came from the heart. And often involved referencing people moderates know who are Gay. You might not be for same sex marriage because it is fair that Gays have the same rights as Straight people. But you might be for it because you love your Gay nephew, who has a sweet boyfriend he wants to marry. Stuff like that. There's a flip side, which goes to the subtle difference in those polls I posted above. So if we want to win TODAY, as opposed to in 2015, we might want to care what people think. Which I am fully aware you don't particularly care about, since you know your opinion. Who needs polls? Anyways, the strongest argument our opponents had, which is exactly what killed that key 2008 referendum on same sex marriage in California, was the idea that The Gays want to shove our values down children's throats. If not outright prey on them. Hence, the Princess ad. How do I know this? I get around a lot. I've traveled all over the world and met LGBTQ leaders from all over the world, mostly as an activist volunteer. But the relevant thing to this specific point is for years, as a volunteer, I led volunteer teams who went door to door in California to persuade people to vote for same sex marriage. Here's a good bumper sticker for you: "Values start at home." Or a sentence: "No one wants to take parents' rights to teach their children their values away." I know it will shock you that I am passionately opinionated when it comes to fighting for stuff like same sex marriage. So, I kind of know what I think. And feel. And I have for a long time. But it does turns out other people's opinions matter, and can be changed. Who knew? Certainly not you! How Marriage Equality Supporters Beat The "Princess" Ad I know this is a stretch for you, @Mavica. My sense is you like to hang out in Florida, bitch about how Democrats keep losing, and post bumper sticker size ideas. God bless you. But don't be surprised if you keep losing in Florida. That article is long, detailed, and about -ugh! - polling. The good news is that you can simply watch several 30 second YouTube ads embedded in the article, about The Gays and values. They are from various states where we actually won same sex marriage by using these ads. If you could tolerate four minutes of Brian Tyler Cohen before shutting it off, you'll be fine with a few minutes of how we won statewide campaigns. If I had to identify one moment and one message that turned the tide, and turned lots of losses into lots of victories, this was it. By 2015, when SCOTUS and our excellent legal eagles won The Big One, The Gays - meaning vast armies of volunteers like me - had laid the groundwork by getting a majority of the country on our side. SCOTUS justices actually cited public opinion in explaining what helped turn the legal tide. Funny story about globe trotting Thalia I can't top, even though I have been all over the world. She's so good at this messaging, polling and organizing stuff that they recruited her to Ireland. Months after we won the SCOTUS fight, they won same sex marriage at the ballot in Ireland. Using the messaging and organizing techniques that Thalia taught them had worked in the US. She was my organizing partner in crime for years on several big fights in Oregon and California. So I know the bag of tricks. Interesting story about one of the Gay community leaders she worked with. This guy, Leo, was against same sex marriage when he started his political career on a local Council in 2010. He came out in 2015, around the time she persuaded him to help lead the fight to win same sex marriage. He's now Prime Minister Of Ireland. Who knew people could be persuaded, and change? (Polls say at one point he was the most popular PM in Irish history. But who the fuck follows polls?) So thanks for your advice, @Mavica. I appreciate it. But I do get around, and have all my life. You might try to get out around Florida a bit more. And maybe talk to people, especially moderates, with other opinions. Maybe you can help turn your state's losing streak around.

An interesting example of how this works in practice. And how nuanced it is. Overall, I take this to be mostly good news for The Gays. Supreme Court limits LGBTQ protections in dispute over services for same-sex weddings Every poll I have seen documents that the overturning of Roe V. Wade, and maybe a broader perception that SCOTUS is becoming a foot soldier for the far right, is leading to the highest level of disapproval of SCOTUS since polling started. The Gallup poll that comes from shows that after SCOTUS legalized same sex marriage in June 2015, their standing actually went up. The prior Gallup poll, from Sept. 2014, showed slight disapproval of SCOTUS, 44/48. By July 2015, right after their pro-LGBTQ marriage decision, that flipped to modest approval, 49/44. As the article in my first post notes, even people who call themselves conservative tend to think more liberally than 20 or 40 years ago on some of these really deep issues. That said, here's what survey says about the narrower issue of who wants to, or has to, bake Gay weddings cakes. (Hint: don't ask for one in Chechnya, or maybe even Moscow these days.) I can live with this. If the new reality is that bigots don't have to bake Gay wedding cakes, we'll survive. Hell, I wouldn't even invite them to the wedding. Of course, this does open the door for Gay bakers to say they personally object to baking cakes for Catholic weddings. Since the Catholic Church is a terrorist organization that discriminates against and oppresses Gays. Even though a lot of the Catholic leadership is, ahem, Gay!!! But my reading of that poll is that people mostly want tolerance. This is a great example of how minor changes in words can change polling results. Here's another poll from Pew on the exact same topic, with somewhat different results: My interpretation is that the phrasing in the first poll leans toward the idea, under "freedom of speech," that people shouldn't be forced to do things that conflict with their personal or religious beliefs. A clear majority of Americans, including a substantial minority of Democrats, are with the majority of SCOTUS on that. Politics 101 says Democrats should not be pushing issues that unite Republicans and divide Democrats. The second question puts a bit more stress on the idea that same sex couples should be treated the same as everyone else. That splits the country right down the middle, if it means in practice some bigot has to bake me a cake. I think The Gays won the same sex marriage war in part by pushing the idea of tolerance. When you have a winning hand, you keep playing it.

I never said she looked ugly. If you think she's ugly, that is your opinion. I think a murderous war criminal slaughtering innocent kids is uglier. I think his murderous patron, Murderous Vlad, who he has now betrayed, is uglier. Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. But that's just my opinion. By comparison, Trump is a beautiful angel. He doesn't slaughter kids. He just gets fat playing golf and eating KFC. But who am I to judge? I'm just an ugly old queen. 😉

Great. So you like the way a scary war criminal who slaughters kids look. And you don't like the way a transgender health leader who protects trans kids looks. Can we just agree to disagree on this one?

Thanks for the assist, @Latbear4blk. And thanks for finally answering the question a few posts later, @Moses. So, basically, the problem with Rachel Levine is you don't like the way she looks. You tell me. Which leader looks less healthy to you? (And does it matter if they commit war crimes, or just look wrong?) But since the subject of the thread is indicting Trump, how healthy does that guy look?

Not sure I get the point? The problem with Rachel Levine is .....? She is transgender. She has defended transgender kids and their families. That's probably a bridge too far for many Republicans. But the problem that my "own camp" should have is?

So there's been a lot of talk about the one year anniversary of the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Hard to believe it's less than 20 years since one US state legalized same sex marriage. And less than a decade since it was legal for us to marry nationally. Of course, from a global perspective, it's still illegal to breathe while being Gay in a number of countries. Let alone have sex as a Gay man legally. I recall when SCOTUS gave same sex marriage the okay in all 50 states I worried that it was inviting a quick and huge backlash in states like Mississippi. As someone who spent a few years volunteering to raise money and go door to door for same sex marriage, I was actually surprised how conservative I felt. Particularly given that the barriers - legal and also public opinion - seemed to fall like dominoes But now the growing conservative reaction is loud and clear. Oh, for the good old days when everybody just loved Will and Grace. Starbucks workers at 150 stores go on strike over Pride decorations It's a sign of the times that when I saw that headline, it was not immediately clear to me whether it meant Starbucks employees (like some NFL players) were complaining about having to wear Pride flags or something. Or whether Starbucks itself was retreating from pro-LGBTQ policies. Happily, the article says some LGBTQ activists are concerned that in some (red state) parts of the US, Starbucks appears to be letting local stores basically decide, "Don't say Gay. Or at least don't decorate with Gay stuff." Arguably, that's what can be viewed as "tolerance" these days. I had to check, out of curiosity. Chechnya, of all places, has a fake Starbucks. It's not 100 % clear whether that's because the real Starbucks left, like they left Russia. Or whether Starbucks would never locate in a rabidly anti-LGBTQ place like Chechnya, anyway. The other headline that led to this post is this. I'm posting both the headline and the key Gallup poll results below. Are liberal social activists driving voters to the GOP? The poll didn't literally ask, "Are The Gays going too far?" But it's a safe bet that things like saying Gay in Florida, or whether we really need a federal law to stop The Gays from coming for your children, and mutilating their sex organs, is central to these shifts for many people. The obvious good news, from an LGBTQ perspective, is that for the first time in this century (or all polling history) liberal social attitudes began to be equal to or greater than conservative ones. Right around when same sex marriage prevailed. But conservatism is having a comeback, as Gallup reports. It's still less of a comeback than when Obama was elected, statistically. But right now the wind is not at our backs. Here's what I view as the core challenge, from the article above: So my question is simple: Have The Gays gone too far? The premise of that op/ed is that many "activists" have shifted away from "persuasion to change hearts and minds" in favor of "in your face activism that demonizes those who have reservations or questions." Fair point. It's also fair to point out that the number of conservative leaders who seem to be intolerant, and are willing to demonize The Gays again, including as pedophiles and perverts, is growing. Should we be on defense, or offense, or both?

Exactly. It's worth noting that while that was happening a Democrat scored a grand slam on Fox News, explaining the successes of the fourth largest economy in the world. But that wasn't Biden. It was my Guv, Gavin Newsom. 😍 It's also worth noting that every Democrat that matters is rallying around Biden/Harris. Whereas I think you are right. The knives are out for Trump among most if not all of his primary competitors. So Christie will be the one who keeps gradually testing the limits of how far others, like DeSantis and Pence, can go. Thanks, Chris. Almost everyone agrees it doesn't help you in a general election when you keep being called an indicted criminal, and a liar. This will be the drip drip drip election in two important regards. There will be a constant drip drip drip of new facts and probably new indictments against Trump that won't help him. I can't prove it. But the constant drip drip drip of Hillary's emails, and the Comey Comet of FBI chatter about Hillary's emails in the week before the 2016 election, almost certainly hurt Hillary. I suspect the drip drip drip of the J6 hearings in 2022 helped Democrats in the midterms. So the drip drip drip about Trump trying to get Georgia Republicans to lie to steal an election, and lying to his own lawyers about keeping nuclear secrets at Mar A Lago, will be constant knife wounds. Even if it's not quite a machete up Trump's ass. The other relevant drip drip drip that is almost a certainty for Biden is that by November 2024 inflation will keep dripping down. It's already gone from 9-ish to 4 %. Which is way lower than [name a large country in Europe, or Canada, or Mexico]. A majority of Americans have been saying all year it feels like we are in a recession. I assume that's in large part due to the sting of inflation. Unemployment is 3.7 %, compared to 6.7 % in Nov. 2020 when Biden was elected. That's not a recession. So if inflation keeps drip drip dripping down that may help Biden with perceptions about the economy. The drip drip drip I think we can almost count on NOT happening is the slowly widening cesspool of how Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe as Veep. Or POTUS. Or whenever Rudy and Trump thinks he did. Trump really is that stupid. So is Hunter Biden. Joe Biden isn't. He has proven that he knows how to play in the influence peddling lines for over half a century. It may be a blessing we're talking about Biden's $5 million bribe in Summer 2023. It will be hard for Republicans to keep this going until Fall 2024. Biden's disapproval rating spiked from a not good 51 % earlier this year to 55 % in May. I figured that was mostly about Americans not liking to talk about a potential debt crisis. His disapproval is now about half way between those numbers, at 53 %. One thing I read that makes sense is that the main purpose of Republicans saying "Biden took a $5 million bribe" a lot is to drive his poll numbers down. That works if you have the constant drip drip drip of Hillary's emails or Donald's indictments. I don't think it works if all you really have is Hunter Biden being a clown.

Hunter Biden Got a Sweetheart Deal and Everyone Knows It. We Have a Two-Tiered Justice System | Opinion So are Republicans really going to do this, to entertain Democrats and help Biden, for the rest of 2023 and 2024? Really? Is that really how desperate they are to force Americans to eat shit every day until next November? Is their thirst for party suicide so acute (with the exception of traditional Republicans with names like Sununu and Christie and Barr - and maybe 1 in 4 actual Republican voters) that they want to kill themselves with bullets even before the pillow fight with lightweight and senile Joe Biden begins? Please, bring it on! So I'll get two things out of the way. First, Hunter Biden is a piece of shit. Period. Sorry, Joe. I voted for you. And I will again in 2024. But I have to say it. Your one living son is a piece of shit. I'd be happy to see the little entitled brat in jail. And, btw, did you read what he said about your "cunt" of a wife, Jill, in those texts? What a piece of shit! I decided to resurrect this old thread from pre-2020 because I was loud at the time that Hunter was serious enough baggage for Joe that maybe it should have been disqualifying. But, we now know, it wasn't. Being a socialist was disqualifying for Bernie. Bernie made Joe look so much better by comparison on Super Tuesday. So don't be shocked if Trump does the same, again, in 2024. Second, the polls say very consistently that most voters view Joe Biden as too old, rather than too criminal. Donald is the one they really tend to see as too criminal. Including many Republicans. But I quoted @TotallyOz above because this really should have been settled back in 2019 or so. Like Oz, I was singing the praises of Elizabeth Warren back then. Had she been nominated, historian and always correct Presidential election predicter Alan Lichtman would argue any Democrat (even a woman!) would have beaten Trump in 2020. If she were running again, we would not be worried about her age. Or her alleged corruption. Or even her recipes!!! So I was a Warren fan boy. In part BECAUSE Joe was old in 2019, too. But I am a realist. It is what it is. Joe is the guy. Even if he dropped dead tomorrow, Kamala would be the girl. And, whatever you think of her, every single poll shows she'd do worse than Joe in 2024. At least as of now. So, Joe's the guy. Even loudmouths like Gavin Newsom, who I'm sure would like to be POTUS, get that. So with those two stipulations, I can't believe Republicans want to dig their hole even deeper by forcing even more shit into the mouths of Americans every day. Isn't lying about the 2020 election enough? Isn't lying about raping or sexually harassing women enough? Isn't Trump lying about his taxes enough? Isn't Trump lying to the FBI, the DOJ, and even his own lawyers enough? He has gotten away with murder his whole miserable criminal life. And he knows he could shoot a cop in the middle of Fifth Avenue, or the US Capitol. And his ardent followers would blame the crime on the dead cop Trump killed. So really? Really? We're now going to have 15 or so months of this shit shoved into our mouths every day? About how we have two different systems of justice? And how Donald Trump is an even bigger victim than Jesus Christ? Really? And The Mighty MAGAttes still wonder why Republicans like Christie and Sununu say Republicans lost everything they could have won in 2020 and 2022 because of this miserable, lying, criminal narcissist? To their credit, Christie and Sununu and Barr believe in the power of conservative ideas to win. What does MAGA believe in? That crime should not be punished? That Newsweek article above is the mildest version of the crap being served in every right wing blog around. The hard core version is that Biden needs to be impeached, immediately. Because he is obviously guilt of bribery. Apparently MTG got the memo. Of course, Republicans in swing districts and swing states may lose their seats over even more divisive lies in 2024. But, like those Republicans are saying, who ever accused MTG of being a team player? Or even of being factually correct? The massive factual gap between Republicans saying "Lock Her Up" in 2016 and saying "Stop Persecuting Trump" in 2024 is entertaining for Democrats like me. I love irony. And it really does suggest they don't have any strategy, or logic, or facts, on their side. And this just deepens the hole. 62 % of Independents just said in a CNN poll that because of these indictments, Trump should step aside now. How does whining about being persecuted help Trump with that 62 %? Trump doesn't want to go to jail. But when a US Attorney Trump appointed while POTUS decides not to send Hunter Biden to jail, Trump whines. How does that help win the 62 % that want him to go away now? How does it even pave the way for Trump to get pardoned when he is found guilty, too? Whatever people think about whatever "deal" Hunter should have gotten for owning a gun while being a drug addict and cheating on his taxes, Republicans are now on record as being against political "deals." Which is odd. Since they seem to want the mother of all political deals for Trump. They want a pardon. Or, better, let's just pretend he won in 2020 and never lied about, or lost, anything. Had Trump cooperated with the Feds like Hunter Biden did, he might well have gotten a slap on the wrist rather than an indictment. And he still might get a plea deal. And even if Trump pleads innocent, and is found guilty, most Republicans still want to let him completely off the hook with a pardon. And the logic of saying that, when they want both Hillary and Hunter locked up, is ........... ? The good news for Trump is that this probably increases the chances that Americans, including Democrats, feel that no matter how criminal he is, we just shouldn't lock Trump's criminal ass up. He was POTUS, after all. Maybe we just lock him in Mar A Lago, with lots of documents to sort through. The deal with Hunter is also implicitly bad news for the Republican case against Senile Criminal Joe Biden. I mostly believe Jamie Raskin. Who claims that by the time Barr and Trump parted ways over Trump's lies and criminality in 2020, Barr's DOJ and Trump's FBI had investigated all the Burisma Bullshit sufficiently enough to decide there was nothing other than Hunter's legal influence peddling there. Back in 2019 I posted a great Atlantic article on Page 1 of this thread about how legal influence peddling sucks. I still feel that way about Hunter. Most people do. But if we are going to punish him, how do we punish Ivanka? Like for all those patents she got in China while Daddy was POTUS? Or Billion Dollar Baby Jared, whose Saudi patrons have invested billions in him after he did them four years of policy favors? What punishment does Jared deserve? Hopefully nothing involving bone saws! If Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe, and Bill Barr felt the claim was based on anything other than the flimsiest of allegations - or FBI forms reporting hearsay - it is hard to imagine he would have kicked it out of Trump's DOJ. Even to a Trump-appointed US Attorney. But, Barr says he did in fact punt all that stuff to a Trump-appointed US Attorney for "further investigation." We all just learned the results of that investigation. Would a Trump-appointed US Attorney sweep a $5 million bribe to Hunter and The Big Guy under the rug? I doubt it. So, again, Republicans just seem to want to dig their hole deeper before 2024. But, hey. Go ahead, MTG. Impeach Biden, anyway. No one ever accused you of having good political judgment. Or facts. Being the excellent propagandist that Sean Hannity is (at least when he's not with Gavin Newsom, who rebuts all his BS in rapid fire fact telling), Sean knows that one of the best things Republicans have going for them is that 57 % of Americans think Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe. I find THAT almost impossible to believe. Only because it has been so clear, for decades, how the Biden variety of DC legal influence peddling works. Arguably, even his sister did it, by being a paid campaign chief or top adviser. For sure his brothers peddled influence. Bro Jim will even state the obvious. That having the last name Biden doesn't hurt. Hunter just took it too far. But even he didn't go far enough, or resist in the way Trump did, that got him slammer time. His Mom is probably right. Hunter has poor judgment. But all of this strongly suggests that Joe Biden's political judgment is good. And he is an expert at keeping his ass well within the legal lines. The thing that worked for Republicans about Hillary and her emails is that even she admitted she had all those emails. And that same poll Hannity quotes above documents that even half of Democrats, including me, feel Hillary obstructed justice by acid washing her emails. Meanwhile, lawyers will spend the next year with a constant drip drip drip of facts, facts, and only facts documenting how Trump lied to the FBI, lied to his own lawyers, lied to his own J6 followers who are headed to jail, and lied to the American public in general about losing an election. And asked other Republicans to lie with him. So at some point Republicans are going to need proof of Biden's $5 million bribe. As Joe himself said, "Where's the money?" So far, they have nada. Maybe Bill Barr is a crappy lawyer. And maybe the Trump-appointed US Attorney who just gave Hunter what Trump views as a slap on the wrist sucks, too. But none of this suggests that there is any evidence whatsoever of Joe Biden taking a $5 million bribe. I know this whole long post focuses on 1000 % negative crap. So I'll end with the opposite: an optimistic rant by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Which is connected to my main points. I think Arnie is right that people are hungering for something better than this. And more unifying. Which may be a reason most Independents want neither Trump, nor Biden. But, if that is the choice they have, wanting to get beyond the lies and constant divisiveness will probably help Biden again. Like it seems to have in 2020 and 2022. We'll see. But I'd bet on Arnie being right about Trump. I don't have Arnie's good looks or box office mojo. But, like him, I'm good at math. He's right that having the conservative base - or at least the ones who will subordinate raw politics to principles and facts - is just not enough. You need Independents, too. What does it tell us that 62 % of Independents (and 85 % of voters who are NOT Republicans) want Trump to drop out now?

Barr has been surprisingly refreshing to listen to. For many liberals he is still kind of a fascist himself. But what is helpful about him right now is he is bending over backwards to say there is something called "the law". And it is not the same as politics or partisanship. And this idea that the law means one thing for Republicans, and another thing for Democrats - which is what Republicans are having a huge pity party about - is just not the truth. Period. The law is the law. And Trump's former AG knows something about the law. Period. That probably explains Barr being precise in saying that whatever would have to be proved in court on J6 is not the same as what has to be proved about Trump obstructing justice with the military and nuclear documents. I'm not a lawyer. But I suspect Barr is on target in arguing that it would be hard to prove in court that Trump wanted a violent riot. Or he specifically wanted people to beat the shit out of cops. Or he specifically wanted them to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. Or even that he specifically wanted some kind of revolution. To use Barr's words, as much as I view lying about losing an election and trying to subvert democracy as the bigger crime, it is probably legally correct that none of what Trump did on J6 makes him "toast," legally. Whereas on obstructing justice by keeping military and nuclear documents, Trump is "toast," as Barr said. A lawyer like him would probably know. In @Lucky's defense, the indictment he was referring to is Bragg's case. One can certainly argue that, in retrospect, all it did was draw support to Trump and help him raise money. Kudos to Paul Ryan and John Bolton, two more lifelong conservatives who are loudmouths about this. Ryan on CBS just referred to the Bragg case as "petty." But he made a big point about how Trump fucking with the government to treat military and nuclear secrets as his own personal records is just wrong. And illegal. Bolton pointed out that the DOJ or anyone should put pressure on NYC and Bragg to let the other indictment (or maybe indictments?) go first, since they take precedence. My theory, which Ryan and Bolton and Barr are all reinforcing, is that each indictment is like a nail in the coffin. While the J6 and Georgia "find me 11,780 votes" indictments may not be as clean legally, they sure seem to be like more horrific offenses, and huge nails, to me. And to most Independents, according to I think every poll. I'll add RCP's AB Stoddard as another right of center thinker who says very clearly, "Enough! This man is a fucking spoiled brat. We should not feel sorry for him. How long are we going to tolerate this total bullshit? It's abusive. I hate it." She almost says it that bluntly. I hope Republicans get their way regarding the double standard with Hillary Clinton. There's three very important things we know about Hillary, if we want to be fair and avoid a double standard. First, the bumper sticker of Election Year 2016 was, "Lock Her Up!" Taken literally, it is okay for me, as a Democrat, to follow that standard and argue Trump is guilty before proven innocent. So he should be locked up immediately. Second, Clinton was not indicted. But her emails were talked about all year in 2016. Let's just assume for purposes of being fair that Clinton's emails and obstruction were the same as Trump's legally - which they are not, of course. The point is, assuming it's the same thing, we of course need to talk every fucking day about how Trump is now a total piece of shit - a murderous traitor and scumbag - that needs to be locked up. Now! Just like Hillary was in 2016. Fair is fair. Third, few people realize this, but Hillary lost the election in 2016. (She actually won the popular vote by the millions. But most Democrats - unlike most Republicans - respect The Constitution.) So if the fair and uniform standard is that in the final week before the 2016 election the FBI was biting huge pieces of Hillary's ass off, that is what they should do to Trump. Rip his fat ass apart. And be precise. Who care's about 2023? If we are being fair, the FBI needs to make sure it drives a seriously fucking sharp machete straight up Lock Him Up Don's law breaking ass IN THE WEEK BEFORE PEOPLE VOTE IN 2024. Neither Comey, nor the FBI, said their intent was to make sure Hillary lost in 2016. But she did lose. And Hillary and I both agree that the machete they drove up her ass IN THE WEEK BEFORE PEOPLE VOTED IN 2016 was probably the fatal nail in her coffin. So, if we are being fair, we need to save the best for last. We need to make horrific charges against Trump. Hopefully not even based in fact, like Comey's October surprise in 2016. Fair is fair. Republicans who whine about double standards perhaps don't know that Hillary lost in 2016, thanks to the FBI. Or maybe that is the double standard. Perhaps what they really mean is that it's okay that what Hillary did maybe cost her the Presidency in 2016. But in 2024, we want Trump to be above the law, unlike Hillary. I'll leave it to conservatives like Bill Barr and Paul Ryan and John Bolton to help the MAGA True Patriots to figure that shit out. 😯 Good luck, guys. Speaking of Hillary, I think the real danger here is that, in the weird world of politics, this does the opposite of what it did in 2016. In 2016 all the allegations involving national security and breaking laws definitely hurt Hillary. The polls showed it, and she lost the election. If there is something similar, it is what Paul Ryan just argued. Republicans would have won the Senate and more House seats but for Trump in 2022. He argued that Trump is the one candidate who will hand the election, and the Senate, to Biden in 2024. Because these are all nails in his coffin. But he also noted that politics in never linear. So in some weird way, the danger is that a majority of Americans actually feel sorry for Trump. Because he is right. He is simply be persecuted. And the majority of fair-minded Americans know it. The polls, and the 2020 and 2022 election results, suggest the exact opposite. Barr is saying loud and clear Trump broke the law. And, thus, is "toast." But who knows? Trump and MAGA are sure hoping that people feel sorry for our poor little rich juvenile delinquent. Stranger things have happened. I'll be very broken record about this. In the end, I think it's the economy, stupid. Or, a bit more precisely, it's the recession, stupid. As of yesterday one bullish stock talking head said we are on the verge of an expansion. And the S & P will end 2023 at 4800. Meaning by Election Day 2024 we will be well into all time highs. Mike Wilson, the Bear In Chief at Morgan Stanley, says the S & P ends 2023 at 3900. Which one is correct, and the implications on the economy and inflation, probably matters more to Biden than Trump's indictments. Happily, most talking heads - bull or bear - premise their arguments on the idea that by next Fall inflation will be back to "normal." Wilson thinks that will hurt corporate earnings, and the S & P. Because the free ride for big corporations being able to crank up profits to record levels based on COVID is over. Not his exacts words. But if he's right, that may actually help Biden.

There's a lot of Democratic and media types using the word "toast" to describe Trump these days. It's interesting that Trump's former AG is using it as well. On Fox News, no less. I think Barr realizes that when the history books are written, he doesn't want to go down as a Watergate-style co-conspirator. It's also worth reviving this headline from May 2020, when Barr actually was the Attorney General. And wanted to prove he was no Rudy Ghouliani: Barr says it's unlikely Justice Department will investigate Obama or Biden "The legal tactic has been to gin up allegations of criminality by one's political opponents based on the flimsiest of legal theories," Barr said. That's months after Barr had been fact checking Ghouliani's Biden bribery allegations. And one month before the FBI memo was written memorializing what is basically hearsay. Jamie Raskin claims the matter was closed in 2020. Barr disputes that and says they sent the stuff to Delaware for further investigation. Either way, Barr's words on Biden in 2020 speak for themselves. Just like his words on Trump today. I think we can be sure that if in Summer 2020 Trump's Justice Dept. had actual evidence that Joe Biden had accepted a $5 million bribe, Barr would have been arguing that Biden was ............................ what's the word? .............................."toast." Instead, Trump is toast. And Biden is President. Case closed, hopefully. You didn't even have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out. 😉

Be my guest. Post all you want about Chasten. The Poitico article is longer than most of my longest posts. And well written. Can't get enough of Chasten, @Lucky? 😉

Because, @Mavica is hopefully correct about this: As I said above, I hope he is right. But everything in politics is relative. If the economy is booming and inflation is a low single digit in 17 months, another reason to vote for Biden/Harris. If we're in a recession, another reason to vote for Trump. I would not bet on how that plays out. Although, it's worth noting that with this second indictment the betting pools just lowered Trump's odds of winning the Presidency. Maybe they know something. I keep going back to Alinsky's maxim: the action is in the reaction. So, yes, the true and pure MAGA minority will be for Trump. They will defend every toxic lie. That's part of the reaction. But that's a majority of the Republican Party, which is a minority. They can't win an election based on their true and pure version of lies and pus. And, for some strange reason, many Republicans and Independents don't like to swallow huge buckets of pus. That's the other part of the reaction. And the more clear it is that, yup, these are lies and this is pus and pus is disgusting and this is disgusting shit you really don't want to swallow ................... geez, who knew? The less people want to swallow it. Because, really, it is pus. The theory and interpretations about 2022 @Mavica may be referring to is that Democrats did a good job targeting certain swing Senate and House races, and outspent and organized Republicans in them. I posted a very long ass essay from a well known poli sci prof that argued just that, somewhat convincingly. That could help explain why Democrats (other than Max Frost) didn't do so well in Florida. They focused on seats they thought they could win. Like in Georgia and Arizona. Which they won. That said, I don't fully buy it. At least in blue states and purple states, the pattern was amazingly clear. If you were a generic conservative for conservative stuff, including DeSantis, you tended to do well. If you swallowed the Trump pus and spewed pus-filled lies about election bullshit, you lost. Even in red states, like Kentucky this year, the pure MAGA candidates that spewed election lies tended not to do so well in Republican primaries. Which underscores the point. Conservatives, running as normal conservatives, did pretty well in 2022. They should have, given that the opposition party usually does do well in midterms. In particular, DeSantis did really well in Florida, compared to 2018. Most likely because he was perceived as handling the hurricane well, with something like 2 to 1 approval among Floridians in polls. So there is no reason to think DeSantis, running as a conservative in a general election, would do badly. Especially if he's running against President Recession or President Inflation. As a Democrat. I'd never vote for either Trump or DeSantis. But I would feel a lot better about the risk of a conservative like DeSantis winning than I would about a pus-filled liar and rapist and democracy killer like Trump winning. I'd of course rather see the Republicans nominate Tim Scott or Nikki Haley. But who's kidding who? They barely register in the polls. For 2024, the Republicans will nominate some version of a MAGA White guy. Period.

Chasten Buttigieg Has Grown Up. So Has His Hometown. A touching portrayal of Chasten. And, indirectly, the changes in Michigan and the whole world since he was a kid. I'll add one thing. Like Michelle Obama and a minority of other highly respected political spouses, one thing that works well for him is that he seems to honestly just feel his way through things. In a way that we, especially Gay men, can relate to. And, like Michelle, he always goes high. It's exciting to think someday he could be the First Gentleman. 😊

Great. What do we know? Or are you assuming people can read your mind? 😉 I tend to agree with Republican analysts who feel generic conservatives did well. (Kemp killed Abrams and Abbott killed Beto by convincing margins, for example.) And would have done better (in swings states like Georgia and Arizona) if Trump had not tainted so many candidates with his lies. Okay, let's clear this up. I'm dumb, and try to hide it by being verbose. So you're probably right. It's really dumb ass to think a recession could cost someone the Presidency, right? That said, Alan Lichtman, who actually does write books, has guessed every Presidential election right in advance since 1984. In 2019 he was pretty clear that, without spelling it out, Trump was on track to win in 2020. By the time he actually made a prediction in August 2020, he said Trump would lose because three things had changed in the last year: 1) long term economic growth tanked, 2) there was a recession, (both due to COVID), and 3) mass social unrest. So, basically, Lichtman predicted correctly that the economy would be the key nail in Trump's coffin. It was. So dumb ass as it sounds, I'm worried about a recession now being the nail in Biden's coffin that gets Trump elected. If Harris were the nominee, it would be worse. She would not be the incumbent, presumably. And just getting her nominated would be a huge party fight. And she wouldn't be the nominee, anyway. Because every single poll shows that in an open fight with Kamala and Hillary and Pete and Bernie all running, Biden would win again. Just like he did in 2020. In terms of Biden being blamed for things, well ... what is he not being blamed for? He's being blamed for being too old, for starters. Including by over 2 in 3 Independents, who think he can't handle the job. Trump has now been indicted twice, with a third indictment likely on the way. And he's almost as old as Biden. So while I view it as wildly ironic, Trump supporters don't seem to blame Trump for any of his crimes. Meanwhile, people do blame Biden for being too old. And inflation. And the economy. And other things. Hope you're right .... or not. Because that statement can be taken two ways. If it's a replay of 2020 in the sense that people just want Biden more than Trump, you're right. I know I do. But I'm in the minority that approves of the job Biden is doing. And that does think he clearly can handle the job. Again, how many huge bipartisan laws has he signed now? How many big laws did Trump sign, other than his partisan deficit swelling giveaways to billionaire campaign donors? If it's a replay of 2020 in the sense that people want a change, because they don't like the track we are on, Biden loses. In November 2020 about 60 % of Americans said we were on the wrong track. Now it's 65 %. That's scary. Again, hope you're right. And at the end of the day people say that even if they feel the economy sucks, Trump sucks worse for all kinds of reasons. I sure feel that way. But I wouldn't be too confident about it. It was actually right about now in 1983 that supposedly one term Reagan broke out of a crappy approval rating in the high 30's, because the economy was improving. By the end of 1983 his approval rating was back over 50 %. And the economy, and stock market, were on a tear. He, and the S & P 500, never looked back until he won in a landslide in November 1984. If we dodge the recession, and the economy is better in a year, I feel confident about Biden. If we instead get mired in a recession (the majority of Americans say this feels like a recession now) I'm not as confident. But to the main point in my post. I assume we agree that swallowing the pus of Trump's democracy-killing lies and bullshit and indictment spree is going to be hard for lots of Independents. Even if they feel Biden is too old. And inflation really bothers them.

I like the way these indictments are coming down. Whether by design or coincidence, they started with the weakest links in the chain. Not that infidelity, sexual harassment, and payoffs to shut people up about them are nothing. Trump allegedly keeping top secrets illegally is a bigger deal. But not as bad as, "Oh, fuck democracy. I'll just lie about losing a Presidential election and start a riot at the Capitol. Beat the shit of some cops, maybe, too. And infest the entire body politic with lies, lies, lies, and hate, hate, hate, and my own super sucky pus. Who cares, anyway?" The pus-swollen sore just keeps growing bigger. So I'm fine with multiple tries at lancing the infected boil from our democracy. No one knows, or ever will know, how Democrats beat the red wave last Fall. But we do know that anyone who looked like a principled conservative did well. I'd include Kemp, Sununu, DeWine, and also DeSantis on that list. DeSantis has never said Trump won the 2020 election. Meanwhile, all the MAGA spawn that spouted Trump Lies and Trump Pus went down uniformly. Except in red states or districts where Trump Lies are like Gospel and Trump Pus is like Holy Water. So thrice married Trump will be running in 2024 probably thrice indicted. And the whole thing about lying about the election and starting a riot and beating the shit out of some cops will be at the center of the debate. I still think that if there is a recession, Trump probably wins. There are even worse things than lies and pus, I guess. But this makes it harder for moderates and independents to hold their nose and open their mouths and swallow four more years of Trump Lies and Pus. Meanwhile, how many bipartisan deals has Senile Old Joe signed into law while Trump lies and oozes pus?

I'm posting this here since it relates to how Biden/Harris does in 2024. These are articles about two studies that bode well for Democrats in 2024. They both suggest that Democrats were able to stop a red wave in 2022 through effective mobilization of their voters where it really mattered. If they did it in 2022, they can do it again in 2024, presumably. Why the 2022 midterms broke for Democrats and what that means for 2024 As a former community organizer, it's not hard for me to believe the idea that organizing and mobilization made a difference where it really mattered. This is consistent with what Senate campaign head Gary Peters said both before and after the midterms. His focus was on face to face voter contact, he said. It may have helped that Democrats were weak at that in 2020, compared to Republicans, because of different perceptions about COVID and human contact. That problem was apparently solved in 2022. It would also fit with this theory that Republicans, who did lots of organizing and voter registration under the leadership of Ron D, got the red wave in Florida that skipped the Rust Belt. It will always be a mystery to me why our first and only Community Organizer In Chief, Barack Obama, let the DNC and party machinery collapse on his watch. Lots of people think that helped drive the destruction of state and local Democratic benches in Obama's time. Or was it just the overall reaction against Democrats in 2010 and 2014, that nothing could have stoppedd? Mystery At The Midterm: What Happened To The Red Wave? That academic, who makes me look concise by comparison, provides lots of evidence that Democratic money, mobilization and organizing made a huge difference in the key swing states. His main argument is that there was a red wave. But Democrats built a breakwater that stopped it in most of the places that mattered. Campbell, the author, dismisses much of the conventional wisdom about 2022. Like the idea that there was national reaction against Trump. Or that a youth blue wave countered the older MAGA red wave. That matters a lot for 2024. I personally have a hard time believing Trump was NOT the toxic horse that derailed the GOP cart. Basically by shitting all over the wheels with his democracy killing lies and democracy raping bullshit. What was particularly interesting about 2022 is that all the relatively "normie" conservatives that did not drench themselves in Trump's bile did well. DeWine, DeSantis, Sununu, Kemp. Meanwhile, pretty Kari Lake showed up to the Guv's Ball all fashion forward, drenched in Trump's vomit. Voters rejected her, and most of the other pus-covered election deniers. Geez. Why could that be? Same trend seemingly just played out in Kentucky, where a few more election denying turds were flushed down the toilet in Republican primaries. But then, I'm biased. 😯 We'll learn more in 2024.

Got it. I read stories from every site mentioned so far.. Politico is my go to site every day. Since it's all politics, all well written, and all well reasoned given my point of view. Real Clear Politics is my other go to site every day precisely because it offers a "Bernie to Bannon" perspective. It used to be viewed as more or less truly independent. Since MAGA times it has taken a right turn. As a lefty, that is why I like it. They'll post articles from lots of left wing places like In These Times or The Nation, but also even more right wing pieces on the same subjects. So you get a lot of different perspectives, if you want them.

Holy Lucky lottery ticket, Batman! I think the race is over. And neither Biden nor Trump will win. Randy Rainbow is throwing his weight, and his show tunes, behind Guv Meatball. I think that gets Ron the Gay vote, the Fashion vote, and the Broadway vote. That's a majority, right? 😉

I know this is a thread about third parties. And part of your point is the Democrats need to moderate to win. Especially in states like Kentucky. So I thought the results of the primaries in Kentucky and elsewhere were encouraging, as Politico reports it: The Republican Party is an interesting mess. David Cameron, a McConnell protege, is exactly the kind of face I hope the Republican Party keeps building: normal, multi-racial conservative capitalism. I'm glad he put Crazy Rich Croft to bed. Just like the "normal" Republican Secretary of State put another Trumpy sounding election denier to bed. That said, Cameron apparently thinks he has to run on a culture war agenda about trannies and churches. And somehow Trump endorsed the right person in this race. While DeSantis somehow managed to reinforce the idea that he is the very conservative guy, kind of mean, kind of a bully, who backs losers. When it seems like he would want to be the competent Guv, like Beshear, who handles disasters well and wins. Mostly, I like where my Democratic Party is. Beshear knows his limits in Kentucky. I think Biden knows his limits in a political environment where Kentucky doesn't matter to his re-election chances in 2024. But Pennsylvania does. Speaking of which, Democrats kept the Pennsylvania House and elected a pragmatist as the likely first female Mayor in Philly. I was surprised the "Black progressive" won in Chicago. But he was running against a White kind of conservative. I think Philly is a good example of the tug of war Democrats are having between "progressive" and "pragmatic" voices. I'm biased. But it seems clear there is room for both. And we need both to win. In the case of Philly, the "Black pragmatist" who wants more cops on the street won. If the goal is to win and govern, I'd rather be Beshear than Cameron. And I'd rather be Biden than Trump or DeSantis. To make this book length, I of course have to add one more point. So I'll repeat that I'm not sure about third parties. I watched an interview of Allan Lichtman a few weeks ago on some radio show. He pointed out, no surprise, that nominating Biden is the best chance Democrats have to win in 2024. Because he is the incumbent. And he will prevent a bloody intra-party fight, like the Republicans will likely have. Lichtman did not mention it. But a strong third party candidate would be a third potential nail in Biden's coffin. So Lichtman's model, which he used to predict every POTUS race since 1984 correctly in advance, says that you need 6 nails out of 13 for Biden's coffin to be nailed shut in 2024. Him being the incumbent, with no party war, and no strong third party candidate, would eliminate three of those nails. Lichtman said it's too early to predict 2024. But the four things he is watching are the long term economy, whether there is a recession, and whether there is a military success and/or a military failure. In other words, important stuff. Not polls or bullshit. Not "age." He did predict, I'd bet correctly, that "age" will turn out to be a lot of useless noise. Just like it was for Reagan in 1984.

And here I always thought HE was "The One." So this is arguably a bit off topic. But Biden's approval ratings have something to do with whether Biden will win in 2024. They have tanked in Rasmussen in the last week. Granted, Rasmussen tends to be biased toward Republicans. But, biased or not, they have a daily rating you can compare apples to apples. Biden Approval Index History Back in Summer 2022 when inflation peaked Biden often had a -30 approval index on Rasmussen. Meaning the difference between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove. The most recent rating that bad was July 22, 2022 when 49 % strongly disapproved and only 18 % approved, for a -31 approval index. As recently as April 11, 2023 Biden was down to - 9, meaning 31 % strongly approved and 40 % strongly disapproved. Presumably the easing of inflation has a lot to do with that. That's the first time since Summer 2021 Biden's negative approval index was as low as a single digit. So he seemed to be recovering. As of today, it's -27, with 48 % strong disapproval and only 21 % strong approval. That down from -12 just a week ago! It has to be the debt ceiling/default scare. The polls I've seen say Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of reducing the deficit. Which would seem to favor McCarthy. But they are also overwhelmingly against linking deficit reduction to default. Which would seem to favor Biden. So who knows? When McCarthy just said "they want a default more than they want a deal" he's implicitly saying that he's willing to hold the US hostage to getting a deal. There's no snap poll that measures how people react to statements like that. But there are polls saying THAT is exactly what most Americans don't want. It is hard for me to imagine Biden, McCarthy, and McConnell allowing a default to occur. If only because it would make all of them, and many others, look like shit. If there is some debt reduction deal my guess is that, along with the continuing reduction in inflation pressures, it will gradually add momentum to Biden's case for a second term.

Sad, but true. I could write a book about this. But I'll do the greatest hits. My Dad was a Reaganite conservative. We really enjoyed talking about politics, for the most part. Even though I'm a lifelong liberal. One of the lines I used with one of my nieces recently, who is about as conservative as my Dad, is that while we disagreed about many things we shared the same values. Which were his values, of course, which I learned from him. My Dad and I both happened to adore Democratic Senator Bill Proxmire from Wisconsin. My Dad never met him, but loved his populist Golden Fleece Awards poking fun at stupid and wasteful government projects. I met Prox repeatedly and worked with his staff on the Senate Banking Committee. Because he was the father of the Community Reinvestment Act, our main national anti-redlining law. My Dad was the one who taught me the value of owning a home. Proxmire was the one who got a controversial law passed that has made it easier for Blacks to get mortgages to buy homes. I won't go on. You get the picture. Most of my life I spent lots of time in the US Capitol, the Oregon State Legislature, or various City Halls. And it wasn't like rocket science to get along, find common ground, and cut deals with the conservatives you disagreed with. I blame this on Trump. He is playing divide and conquer to win. So far it has only really worked once, in 2016. Hopefully Republicans learn decisively in 2024 that's it's just a bad way to play the game. But @Latbear4blk is absolutely correct that Trump is more the symptom than the cause. I was fine with CNN exposing what Trump's base is really like. You couldn't miss the ugliness. To me, it was horrifying. I've mentioned a few times that one of my brothers, who is a McCain conservative I 'd say, voted for Trump in 2016. He told me if he voted in 2020 solely based on the economy, he would have voted for Trump again. In 2020 he called me almost proud to inform me that he voted for Biden, because he decided Trump was a "megalomaniac." He lives in a rural area. He told me he told one of his conservative neighbors he voted for Biden. He said the neighbor said, "Get the hell off my lawn." I do think this may be Biden's secret weapon, including in 2024. And the flip side of the age issue. He actually believes what he says about respecting your opponents, and compromise. I think moderate people get that about him, and like it. So right now, I suspect when you put the politics mostly aside, Biden and McConnell and McCarthy agree they are all on Team USA. And we can't have a default. And we need to do something about the debt. Trump is the one saying on CNN, "Why not default?" I'm actually confident, or at least hopeful, that a majority of Americans will prefer Biden against Trump again, old and sometimes wise as he is, because of things like this.

I hit the like button about one minute into that video. Because I agree 1000 % with Anderson Cooper. I agree 0 % with Brian Tyler Cohen on this one - even though I do agree with him most of the time. But I like the video, and thanks for posting it. This is the debate we need. To me, it boils down to this. A conservative friend of mine used to repeatedly tell me this axiom of his. He thought what defines conservatives is that they debate things. And if you disagree, you disagree. What defines liberals, at least educated ones, is that if you don't agree with them it's just because they didn't explain it well enough. So they just have to explain it to you again. I never agreed with my friend. But Bryan Taylor Cohen appears to be that kind of educated liberal in this rant. He doesn't trust people to figure it out for themselves. If we ever needed proof that the American people could figure it out for themselves, the 2022 midterms provided a really good argument. In a year that should have been a broad reaction against Biden, principled and honest conservatives did just fine saying conservative things. But democracy-trashing and dishonest Trump spawn were all sent back to the hell they came from. That's democracy. God bless it. Cohen's argument that the media helped Trump win by giving him a platform in 2016 makes no sense. If that's true, why did Trump lose after the media gave him an even bigger platform for the next four years? Could it be because people actually paid attention to what Trump was saying and doing? And said we need to get rid of this abusive loser? Cohen seems to be implicitly arguing for censorship. He seems to think if we ignore 70 million or so Americans, they will go away. I think we know by now that they won't go away. And that censoring them only plays into their politics of anger and grievance. Let them call smart women nasty. In 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022, that just helped Biden win the smart women vote. I think only media types would pat themselves on the back by thinking the media has that much power, either way. I'm with historian Lichtman. It's the economy, stupid. Were it not for COVID, Trump probably would have won in 2020. The COVID economy was what put the final nails in his coffin. But we can only hope, if Republicans nominate Trump, and even if the economy is weak next year, that a long and deep debate will bring moderates and Independents to where John Meacham is, and wants America to be. Defeating this abusive and lying loser has to be the most important thing on the agenda. That is the debate this CNN town hall opened. Is it possible that is the debate they wanted to start?

Not that I've never led a thread off topic. But let's return to our regularly scheduled crisis in American democracy, okay? Great article, @pitman. I'm always one for calling out right-wing billionaires. (Did I mention I think we should raise their taxes, too, to reduce the deficit? But, being a bipartisan guy, I'd say let's tax left-wing billionaires more, too. But there I go again, hijacking a thread about Trump and CNN to talk about taxes on fat cats.) I'm fine with saying it's the media, stupid. But I'd take that sentiment and go the other way. Compared to a generation ago, the media has gotten way more partisan. CNN led the way, along with Fox. All through US history, of course, there have been slanted and even toxic media sources. But I do think right now the media itself is helping to divide us. They build money making silos, and encourage us to stay in them by telling us what we want to hear. Which, in the case of Fox, was a bunch of lies, as we all just learned. Kudos to CNN for proving they can spout just as many lies. Even if it was indirectly through Trump, and the CNN moderator fact checked him. Reich is 1000 % correct that the media needs to hold Trump accountable for his lies, and venom about women, and democracy-bashing. Had I edited his essay, I would have suggested Reich point out that Kaitlan did that, exceptionally well. To me, that is exactly what made it so scary. The truth didn't matter. Go ahead. Call her a "nasty woman." To me, it did feel like it could have been Hitler saying, "nasty Jew!" With the crowd ready to smash the windows with glass. Not that they aren't the kindest "patriots" around, who can't get a fair trial anywhere. That said, we should all fear what comes next. I'd like America to stew over that. John Meacham, as I noted above, put it very well in historian talk. It's basically the same point @Riobard made above in psychology talk. This is a pathology. And it is deeply rooted. And hopefully a majority reacts the way Meacham said he did, personally. It is almost more important than anything else that we stop this. Now. As much as it is the media, stupid, I'll be the one to keep saying broken record that it is fundamentally the economy, stupid. Morning Joe likes to point out that in the recent bad-for-Biden ABC/WaPo poll that has triggered the Democratic inside the Beltway bed wetters, we also learned that 56 % of Americans think Donald Trump should face criminal charges in "investigations of whether he tried to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election." What is bad for Biden, and what Morning Joe does not mention, is that in the same poll 54 % of Americans say Trump did a better job handling the economy when he was POTUS than Biden has in his term "so far." Emphasis on the words "so far." Morning Joe did say that when voters are talking about Trump, Democrats win. When voters are talking about Biden, Republicans win. I'll paraphrase to argue that if Americans care most about the economy, Trump would win today. If Americans care most about how Trump is a convicted, impeached, and indicted loser and liar and abuser, Biden would win today. We know Democrats did amazingly well last Fall, when inflation was higher than today. And when even more voters than today said the economy was on the wrong track. So that gives us a window into how Americans voters may weigh these important things. It's almost as if people voted as if eliminating some pathology, or perhaps some pathological liar, was more important than anything else. Meacham 1, Pathological Liar 0. Stay tuned. If Donald Trump is not senile, he should be. Only a senile old fool would go on CNN and insult suburban women in .................. how many ways? He should have been talking about the economy, stupid. Not how Kaitlan is a "nasty woman." Then again, maybe not: Q1 2017 to Q3 2020: GDP per capita growth from $54,866 to $56,479 = 2.5 % growth for Trump's term up to Election Day 2020 Q1 2021 to Q1 2023: GDP per capita growth from $57,882 to $60, 470 = 4.5 % growth for first half of Biden's first term Even a senile old fool would realize that whatever senile fool brought us 4.5 % growth is better than the senile fool that brought us only 2.5 % growth. At least up to the point where voters decided to fire this abusive and lying loser. Could that be why President Trump, who is no fool, failed to explain how the economy did better under him? The interesting question is why voters feel Trump did better on the economy, when GDP has grown faster under Biden. And unemployment under Biden is at a record low, and lower than it was under Trump. But I guess that would take a whole book to explain. I just can't think of one word - or one GIF - that would explain it. 😉