The All Things Political Topic - Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex

[Keyrock]

I don't know if I've done it here, but I've criticized Biden for refusing to debate the other democratic candidates. I will similarly criticize Trump for refusing to debate the other republican candidates. That said, from a purely strategic standpoint, Trump can afford to not debate because his lead is so overwhelming. As @PK htiw klaw eriFpointed out, barring a felony conviction disqualifying him from running, Trump is almost certainly winning the nomination, and comfortably so. This may turn into an audition for VP and thus a contest of who can defend Trump the best. it's being hosted by Fox News so they're probably going to get tossed a bunch of softballs rather than get asked hard questions about important policies, but that's how these things often go.

[Malcador]

On 8/21/2023 at 1:41 PM, HoonDing said:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/21/saudi-arabia-mass-killings-migrants-yemen-border

Luckily for Saudis they killed people no one cares about.

[Gromnir]

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23925061-govuscourtsflsd6486541290?responsive=1&title=1

To be sure, the Messino court “decline[d] to create a per se rule against excluding evidence
to remedy a conflict of interest,” id. at 830 (citing United States v. Diozzi, 807 F.2d 10 (1st Cir.
1986)), but Nauta has not identified any case, and the Government is unaware of one, in which a
court has excluded evidence to avoid a conflict on facts remotely similar to this case, where the
Government put Mr. Woodward on notice long ago about potential conflicts, and he is now seeking
to affirmatively use those conflicts to gain a tactical advantage at trial by excluding highly
incriminating evidence to the benefit of not only his own client but also a co-defendant (Trump)
whose PAC is paying his legal fees. The Court should not countenance this maneuver. 

jack smith, in most polite way possible, suggesting defendants and judge cannon is talking out their seeming collective kiester. 

when the mar-a-lago documents case got started, we tried to give aileen canon the benefit o' the doubt, but such deference did not last long as her rulings from the bench evidenced either unconscionable bias for a defendant or gross incompetence regarding knowledge of the law. time suggests cannon's curious behaviour were an alchemy o' both bias and incompetence. 

and the hits keep coming. judge cannon is giving the appearance o' acting as an advocate for trump. when the appellate court rejected her reasoning for appointing a special master and denying the government access to evidence seized during a warrant search which even trump's attorneys were not arguing was improper, they chastised her rather forceful. unfortunate, judge cannon thus far appears to have learned nothing from her earlier appellate rebuke. 

is possible judge cannon digs in and forces another appellate intervention on the appropriateness o' a garcia hearing for which there is no real support for the defendant's position. a second predictable brutal rebuke from an appellate court might be enough to get aileen removed from the case. alternatively, judge cannon might grant the doj request thus avoiding another appellate showdown, thus allowing her to continue to wreck havoc from the bench. 

cannon also canceled a hearing regarding a protective order to address the multiple defendant's ability to view  classified and national secret documents and artifacts as part o' discovery. cannon did not reschedule the hearing. canceled. wtf? the government cannot release documents until there is some kinda protective order decision and so discovery is effective stopped... indefinite. 

the dominant voice in our head is a cynic and am thinking the garcia stoopid and the protective order hearing is a sign o' things to come.

am a bit curious to see how cannon deals with the garcia hearing 'cause we don't see any way the 11th circuit finds for the defendant and another blistering appellate rebuke o' cannon could be justification for jack smith to seek her removal from the case. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

pretty sure even people really care about this kind of thing doesn't know what most people on this list do

Internationally, people ought to know Mike Pence at minimum since he was VP to Trump and was prominent in the post election incidents. And for his uncanny resemblance to a character on Sealab2021.

Otherwise, decent chance of recognising Haley and DeSantis. Christie too maybe, especially if you like Nyoo Joizee bridges.

[Gromnir]

aside, seeing as how more than 50% o' rfk jr's campaign money is coming from republican mega donors, am thinking he deserves a spot on the debate stage, although he may not meet the minimum number of individual contributors requirement. regardless, republicans is spending a whole lotta dough on a sham candidate and am thinking they deserve to have their contribution recognized.

reverse side o' the same coin, if democrats continue to fund extremist republican candidates in the belief those candidates may win primaries but will lose against moderate democrats in a general election, am thinking those democrat funded "republican candidates" should likewise appear to debate democrats, although am not sure any 2020 national office republican saw more than 50% funding come from democrats, so is not exact an apples-to-apples comparison with rfk jr.

am kidding but am nevertheless thinking it is kinda contemptable behaviour to intentional promote perceived unelectable candidates. the extremist candidates such as rfk jr and the host o' gibbering election denial and anti-abortion lunatics who got mowed down in the midterms, is set up to undermine electable moderate candidates and there is no doubt the scheme has proven effective.  however, am thinking it is hypocritical to condemn the extremism o' your political adversaries if you is spending millions o' dollars promoting your opponent's most fringe challenging candidates regardless o' the efficacy o' the stratagem.

in any event, am thinking it would be fun to see who 'tween vivek ramaswamy and rfk jr could abase themselves to the qanon element most effective on a national stage. am suspecting giorgio tsoukalos' head might explode if he watched those two metaphorical race to the bottom in their effort to embrace far-fetched pseudo-logic.

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

8 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Asa Hutchinson is a former governor of Arkansas.

I thought that was Ender from the 2013 movie

[Keyrock]

2 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I thought that was Ender from the 2013 movie

That's Asa Butterfield. If I had a butterfield I would grow a garlicfield next to it and then I would get them both drunk one night and 9 months later I would have all the garlic butter a man could want.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

aside, seeing as how more than 50% o' rfk jr's campaign money is coming from republican mega donors, am thinking he deserves a spot on the debate stage, although he may not meet the minimum number of individual contributors requirement. regardless, republicans is spending a whole lotta dough on a sham candidate and am thinking they deserve to have their contribution recognized.

reverse side o' the same coin, if democrats continue to fund extremist republican candidates in the belief those candidates may win primaries but will lose against moderate democrats in a general election, am thinking those democrat funded "republican candidates" should likewise appear to debate democrats, although am not sure any 2020 national office republican saw more than 50% funding come from democrats, so is not exact an apples-to-apples comparison with rfk jr.

am kidding but am nevertheless thinking it is kinda contemptable behaviour to intentional promote perceived unelectable candidates. the extremist candidates such as rfk jr and the host o' gibbering election denial and anti-abortion lunatics who got mowed down in the midterms, is set up to undermine electable moderate candidates and there is no doubt the scheme has proven effective.  however, am thinking it is hypocritical to condemn the extremism o' your political adversaries if you is spending millions o' dollars promoting your opponent's most fringe challenging candidates regardless o' the efficacy o' the stratagem.

in any event, am thinking it would be fun to see who 'tween vivek ramaswamy and rfk jr could abase themselves to the qanon element most effective on a national stage. am suspecting giorgio tsoukalos' head might explode if he watched those two metaphorical race to the bottom in their effort to embrace far-fetched pseudo-logic.

HA! Good Fun!

I'm imagining taking this idea to its most extreme logical conclusion: a future where all the Democrat voters run the Republican primaries, and all the Republican voters run the Democrat primaries, with each group voting for the absolute worst candidate possible to try and outdo the other side to make their own look more palatable. Cue everyone wondering why all our candidates are always so bad.

Well, that seemingly happens a lot of the time anyways, but it'd be even worse.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

13 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm imagining taking this idea to its most extreme logical conclusion: a future where all the Democrat voters run the Republican primaries, and all the Republican voters run the Democrat primaries, with each group voting for the absolute worst candidate possible to try and outdo the other side to make their own look more palatable. Cue everyone wondering why all our candidates are always so bad.

Well, that seemingly happens a lot of the time anyways, but it'd be even worse.

I'm personally more worried about stuff like this than obvious spoiler candidates like RFKJR. It's not an exaggeration to say that Cotham is the reason why the North Carolina legislature has bypassed the Governor's veto to restrict abortion and curtail LGBTQ rights, and she explicitly ran in opposition to how she voted.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I'm personally more worried about stuff like this than obvious spoiler candidates like RFKJR. 

kp says he ain't worried 'bout rfk jr candidacy today, but am thinking such shows startling lack o' imagination and/or equal limited recollection o' history. the last couple Presidential elections has come down to tens o' thousands o' votes in a handful o' battleground states. in the case o' rfk jr, republicans ain't hoping rfk jr wins a democratic primary, but if he peels off a few thousand independent and democrat votes from an unpopular guy like biden in georgia or pennsylvania, will anybody be shocked? how many votes did trump ask for raffensperger to find in georgia? 11,780? some o' you is too young to recall, but you shoulda' learned in school that bush beat gore 'cause o' less than five hundred total votes. in a nation o' hundreds o' millions, a few hundred votes in florida determined the Presidency.

kari lake, on the other hand, were the situation which had to have democrats thanking God/Satan/Xenu/Cthulhu that she didn't win. democrats pumped millions into her campaign believing she were unelectable, and their plan ultimately worked as something like 40k arizona folks who voted for republicans down ballot did not vote for kari lake. however, lake only lost by 17k votes and her rhetoric has steadily become adopted as the norm as 'posed to exceptional by arizona republicans. 

those who fail to learn from history...

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

kp says he ain't worried 'bout rfk jr candidacy today

Yes, I'm more worried about someone like Cotham flipping a Democratic seat to Republicans without an election (and presumably without a mandate) and thus delivering them more power and influence. I live in a state that has been controlled by Republicans for most of my memory and in recent years it has slid from solid red to slightly purple tinged, a trend that will continue or accelerate over the coming years as the cities explode and the small towns decay. The prospect of making gains in the legislatures or even capturing them and/or the governor's mansion only to lose it because someone elected flips parties (and positions they ran on) is not a pleasant one, doubly so given the track record of Texas Republicans the last several legislative sessions. And as more of a feelz factor, I think it sucks to restrict reproductive freedom and curtail LGBTQ rights anywhere and that is what Republicans are gunning for right now.

RFKJR is kooky in exactly the wrong ways to pull voters away from Biden the way Nader did Gore back in 2000, given who his fans are RFKJR seems more popular with Trump voters or disgruntled libertarians than anyone that'd vote for Joe. I'm not sure if it's projection of their own ideas or just not knowing what dem voters like but RFKJR is a very bad horse to bet on for Republican donors, but I guess when you've got as much money as they do funding him is like the equivalent of getting a steak for someone closer to the median income. Frankly democrats have more to worry about the hurdles set up to make voting harder after 2020 than they do RFKJR spoiling the election for Biden, the reduction of drop boxes in areas that are heavily favored to Biden would probably peel off more votes than a guy who thinks....whatever RFKJR does.

[Gromnir]

21 minutes ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

RFKJR is kooky in exactly the wrong ways to pull voters away from Biden the way Nader did Gore back in 2000, given who his fans are RFKJR seems more popular with Trump voters or disgruntled libertarians than anyone that'd vote for Joe.

cotham is an extreme limited state politics scenario and while a legit concern is not gonna be part o' some broad national scheme or strategy. again, did some folks already forget 2020? in spite o' the democrat handwringing over the overturn o' roe, one o' the reasons there were no red wave in the mid terms is 'cause o' a broader public rejection o' the Court's dobbs decision and the perception republicans were to blame for taking from americans an important fundamental right. 

however, am gonna concede rfk jr is more popular with undereducated conservatives than the vast majority o' people who voted for biden last cycle, but this so ain't 2000 and you give voters far too much credit in any event.

first, tribalism is far different today than it were at the turn o' the century. core trump voters are not leaving him for any reason, not pu$$y grab, january 6 or four indictments. more disappointing is the recognition most republicans is similar gonna vote trump just so long as he is the gop candidate. one thing which hasn't changed since 2000 is that conservatives vote. incumbents always need be concerned with a spoiler but the problem is magnified for democrats. libs, particular young democrats, underrepresent and if you give 'em any reason to be ambivalent, bored or distracted, there is a good chance they will let you down.

second, rfk jr mentioning bobby and jack every chance he gets is calculated. conspiracy minded independents may be the most animated supporters o' rfk jr, but rfk jr is gonna garner more than a few democrat votes for no reason other than recognition o' his last name. you serious think those republican mega donors would be contributing to a candidate who claims additives in drinking water is resulting in a spikes o' feminization in young boys and masculinization in girls if not for the kennedy name?

on this message board we act as if facts and issues is important, but the reality is that for an all too large % o' the population, issues and facts is secondary... perhaps tertiary concerns. people need serious listen to interviews with real voters. 

aside, the main reason we believe rfk jr is a relative non factor at the moment (things can change) is 'cause while democrats is terrible at voting, trump is loathed. 

Nikki Haley calls Trump ‘most disliked politician in America’: ‘We can’t win a general election that way’

am not a nikki fan, but she is correct about trump. am having observed more than once trump is the only republican candidate am confident democrats will vote against, though desantis is fighting hard to achieve same boogieman status.

but again, is only august o' 2023 and depending on the economy, hunter biden silliness or any number o' as yet unknowns could change the calculus for voters and then the kennedy name might be just enough to swing things in battleground states.

at the moment, there is an equal if not greater opposite cotham effect at work in the US as the republican anti-woke nonsense and doubling down on the weaponization of the doj narrative is so not helping at-risk gop seats. democrats is gleeful cornering at-risk republicans, forcing 'em to public take a stand on such idiocy as "defund the fbi," knowing such is no-win for most gop candidates. 

the first wave o' jim crow legislation were a reaction to the not unreasonable fear o' southern democrats (times change, eh?) that an increasing educated and voting black minority would hurt the established power structure in many southern states. blacks represented 30% of the population in alabama in 1960 and the percentage were decreasing yearly, but exaggerated fears o' the threat to traditional values a voting black populace were used to bring about a reactionary wave. extremism o' those in power increased as the perceived threat to their power became more evident. 

the new jim crow in texas, and the rest o' the south, is all too familiar, but while it retains a racist core, the change which republicans choose to resist is inextricable linked to inevitable economic changes that mirror what california experienced decades past. every year texas shifts more towards a service based economy with an emphasis on tech. 

expect republicans in georgia, north carolina and texas to become more reactionary in the coming years. is why we study history. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps while perhaps suffering from a bit o' oversimplification, voting and abortion laws in texas is ideal subject matter for exploration via a crt approach. is natural and predictable for the dominant demographic group, once they recognize a legitimate threat to their power, to double-down and attempt to reverse cultural and economic trends by means o' passing increasing draconian legislation.

 

[Keyrock]

I didn't watch the whole debate because part of it overlapped with rasslin' and I have my priorities straight. Anyway, from what I saw, if the goal was to suck up to Trump in a strategic effort to secure the VP nod then Vivek Ramaswamy came out the winner. Here's probably still got the taste of shoe polish in his mouth. He went with the Trump-esque approach of throwing barbs at everyone else in the room and making BOLD claims. He doesn't have Trump's comedic chops, though.

[Bartimaeus]

I thought this was generated by an AI, but apparently it's real.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I thought this was generated by an AI, but apparently it's real.

none o' this should be funny, but with trump, the ludicrous is normal.

is not difficult imagining trump standing in front o' a bathroom mirror, practicing his mugshot. 

...

if in 2015 you had told us we would still be wasting oxygen on this buffoon in 2023, we woulda' dismissed the notion w/o a second thought, and that mistake is on us.  is not shocking to us that disaffected working class whites glomped onto a political snake oil salesman's platform o' outrage and grievance, but am still baffled an incompetent b00b managed the trick particular w/o the presage o' a war or crisis (economic or otherwise) which ordinary accompanies the rise o' a demagogue. 

whatever.

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

 

[Pidesco]

Hey, did you know Inmate No. P01135809 selected 1/3 of the current Supreme Court? Wild.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Pidesco said:

Hey, did you know Inmate No. P01135809 selected 1/3 of the current Supreme Court? Wild.

True but I doubt Trump understood why he appointed certain people to the SC, he was advised by well informed Conservatives who he should nominate 

The real understanding of the political and ideological views  of that type of  candidate is not Trumps strong point 

Edited August 25, 2023 by BruceVC

[HoonDing]

215 POUNDS????

[Keyrock]

11 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I thought this was generated by an AI, but apparently it's real.

That's a pretty good mugshot, I wouldn't put it past Trump to have done it as a troll. I give it a 6.5/10 on the mugshot scale. For reference here are some 10/10 mugshots:

[uuuhhii]

28 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

That's a pretty good mugshot, I wouldn't put it past Trump to have done it as a troll. I give it a 6.5/10 on the mugshot scale. For reference here are some 10/10 mugshots:

did that guy use silver witness me spray before doing some crime

[Gfted1]

No, he was huffing paint to get high.

[Gromnir]

56 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

did that guy use silver witness me spray before doing some crime

a fan of mad max preparing to do something monumental stoopid?

HA!  Good Fun!

[LadyCrimson]

Trump definitely practiced in the mirror for 24 hours beforehand. Either that or he's constipated.

He's also now another person that makes me immediately think of the blue eagle (or whatever he was) from Muppet Show.

[Chilloutman]

you can have mine mugshot