I (sort of) said I wasn't going to fact check Donald Trump's speech on Thursday night, and I'm not. I promise!
Oh, who am I kidding? The thing is, Trump's speech wasn't just his usual string of garden variety lies and exaggerations. He said some genuinely weird stuff that I assumed were lies, like everything else he says, but I wasn't sure. I finally got curious enough to check them out, but once I started they turned out to be endless. As a result the following list is long, but even at that it's not complete. After a while I just gave up on some of his weirdness because I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. I wonder if any of his fans realize that his standard stump speech is simply an invented fantasy from beginning to end?
Anyway, here it is:
They also gave up Bagram [in Afghanistan], one of the biggest bases anywhere in the world.... And you know who has it now? China has it now.
There were rumors back in 2021 about the Taliban giving China access to Bagram, but it never happened.
Russian warships and nuclear submarines are operating 60 miles off the coast in Cuba. Do you know that? The press refuses to write about it.
Last month a Russian sub visited Havana for a few days. It was nuclear powered, but carried no nuclear weapons. It was widely reported.
Israel has an Iron Dome. They have a missile defense system. Three hundred forty-two missiles were shot into Israel, and only one got through a little bit.... We’re going to build an iron dome over our country, and we’re going to be sure that nothing can come and harm our people.
Iron Dome, which protects Israel from short-range missiles, was largely funded by the US and some of it was co-produced by the US. In short, we already have it and it's deployed in the Red Sea (among other places), which is why all 342 of those Iranian missiles and drones were shot down. As for a bigger version, a la Ronald Reagan's SDI, that's for ICBMs, not short-range missiles. We've continued working on that since the '80s, but the technology remains problematic.
We’re going to get to the bottom of it. You remember [Biden] said we’re going to find a cure to cancer; nothing happened. We’re going to get to the cure for cancer and Alzheimer’s and so many other things. We’re so close to doing something great. But we need a leader that will let it be done.
We are nowhere near cures for cancer or Alzheimer's. This has nothing to do with political leadership and there is nothing to get to the bottom of.
We have to produce massive amounts of energy.... A.I. needs tremendous — literally, twice the electricity that’s available now in our country, can you imagine?
No. There are various forecasts, but none of them are anywhere near this. Goldman Sachs, for example, projects that AI will consume about 1% of US power by 2030.
We also left behind $85 billion dollars’ worth of military equipment [in Afghanistan], along with many American citizens were left behind. Many, many American citizens.
We didn't "leave behind" anything. The Afghan military was armed by the US over the course of 20 years, and after our withdrawal the Taliban took ownership of those weapons. Their value amounted to about $7 billion. As for the evacuation, we rescued 6,000 US citizens, about 90% of the total in country. The remainder mostly declined to leave, but we have nonetheless brought home several hundred in the two years since. No one knows how many remain—or whether they even want to leave—but it almost certainly amounts to less than 100-200 people.
We defeated 100 percent of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, something that was said to take “five years, sir, it’ll take five years, sir.” We did it in a matter of a couple months.
By the time Trump took office ISIS was about two-thirds defeated. It took two more years to finish the job.
The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country.... They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.
There is no evidence this is happening.
Our crime rate is going up, while crime statistics all over the world are going down.
No. Crime in the US has dropped during every year of the Biden administration.
The other countries weren’t accepting [MS-13 gang members] back. And I called up and I said tell them that we’re not giving them economic aid any more.... And the next day I was called by everybody, I couldn’t take all the calls.
“Sir, sir, what’s the problem?”
I said, “You won’t take your killers back that you sent in caravans into America. You won’t take them back.”
“Well sir, if you’d like us to, we would give very serious consideration to doing that.”
In 24 hours, they were being taken back. For years and years when I first came in, they said President Obama tried to get them to go back and they wouldn’t accept them.
I can't even fact check this. Deporting gang members has been a bipartisan priority for decades. It's true that in 2019 Trump cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and later restored it, but that was related to his "safe third country" policy, not deportation of gang members.
Probably the best trade deal was the deal I made with China where they buy $50 billion of our product. They were buying nothing. They buy $50 billion worth.
The agreement was for $200 billion and China never made good on it.
Right now as we speak, large factories, just started, are being built across the border in Mexico. So, with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything.
To the extent this is happening, it will be done under the terms of the USMCA treaty, which Trump calls "the best trade deal ever made."
They want to raise your taxes four times. Think of it.... This is the only administration that said we’re going to raise your taxes by four times what you’re paying now. And people are supposed to vote for them?
This bears no relation to reality. Nobody has any plans to quadruple taxes on anyone, or anything even close to that.
Americans are being squeezed out of the labor force and their jobs are taken. By the way, you know who’s taking the jobs, the jobs that are created? One hundred and seven percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.
When Joe Biden took office the employment level of native born workers was 123 million. Today it's 131 million. That's an increase in the employment rate from 56.5% to 59.4%.
We’ve suffered the worst inflation we’ve ever had.
It's the fifth worst in the postwar era and it lasted only two years. The CPI has been barely above 3% for the past year.
Inflation has wiped out the life savings of our citizens, and forced the middle class into a state of depression and despair.
No it hasn't.
I told China and other countries, “If you buy from Iran, we will not let you do any business in this country, and we will put tariffs on every product you do send in of 100 percent or more.” And they said to me, Well, I think that’s about it. They weren’t going to buy any oil.... And [Biden] took off all the sanctions, and they did everything possible for Iran and now Iran is very close to having a nuclear weapon, which would have never happened.
Chinese oil purchases from Iran increased under both Trump and Biden. Iran is close to having a nuclear bomb because Trump unilaterally pulled out of Obama's nuclear treaty, which had limited Iran's ability to enrich uranium.
We’ve got Right to Try.... They’ve been trying to get that approved for 52 years, wasn’t that easy.... So I got everybody into an office.... We got them to sign an agreement. They agreed to it, where they’re not going to sue anybody.... We’re saving thousands and thousands of lives. It’s incredible.
Trump is talking about a bill that allows terminally ill patients to try new drugs that are still in testing. It's true that Congress passed a right-to-try bill under Trump, but (a) most states already had right-to-try laws, (b) the FDA already approved 99% of all requests from terminally ill patients anyway, and (c) best estimates suggest that only a tiny number of people have ever used the law.
"Oh you have to take him seriously, not literally."
Look, he could say that Biden turned the sky green with poisonous pink polka dots, and his followers would nod their heads vigorously and insist that it's so, because (1) he's just saying Democrats are Bad and He and his cult are Good in the thousandth different way, and (2) they know it's a lie but it entertains them to hear and repeat it because they CAN say it and it makes the Democrats mad. It's like the kid saying neener-neener to the teacher and all his little friends cracking up.
And the Good
GermansRepublicans go along with it, because something something Immigrants something Tax Cuts something Uppity Wimmin something.Ladies and Gentlemen, your contemporary Republican Party.
????????????????????
Voilà.
i was was thinking, "... the aristocrats!"
This is pretty much it. Them bad, us good. I’m the best, he’s the worst. The details don’t matter, it just makes them feel good. He just rattles off, he doesn’t remember the details of what he’s talking about. It’s like a kid wildly exaggerating where 10 becomes 1000 because 10 doesn’t really sound impressive enough. He has been doing this his whole life and at this point the numbers probably get converted unconsciously, he actually hears it as his own exaggeration.
(2) they know it's a lie but it entertains them to hear and repeat it because they CAN say it and it makes the Democrats mad
It’s more than “entertains”. Trump gives them permission to be their worst. To be rude, to punch down, to scapegoat, and to revel in those forbidden pleasures - like teenage boys driving too fast.
This. Exactly as they said of Mussolini. He enables.
Evil and corruption are always pulling in the same direction while everyone else has their own ideas, whereby evil and corruption can give an impression of order to the authoritarian mind while the real world will seem like anarchy, so conservatives preferably vote for evil and corruption.
And if you can't make any sense out of what the guy is blathering on about you focus on what you think he's talking about and the little parts of it that matter to you, strength, certainty, confidence and getting away with your fuck you attitude.
Sure everything he says is untrue, delusional, or both but he says it loudly and doesn’t stutter so he’s more qualified.
Oh, and he kisses fire helmets (so much better than calling the widow).
probably made him feel yung again, like when he'd polish roy cohn's helmet.
Read the NYTimes on the helmet kiss, then think back on how the Times reported on Al Gore kissing his wife (available in the archive).
didn't they all but call algore a closeted homosexual doing an overdramatic hetero buss to make him look butch?
Trump is incapable of telling the truth from a lie at this point. His mind is mush. So he tells whatever story he can remember and knows his audience will eat it up. And the national press ignores this because their corporate overlords want money from sales. We are in a very dangerous place as a country, and I hope someone has a clue how to dig us out. But my optimism is waning every day.
+1000
This is quite a big story which the media is not covering.
It’s not just that the media is not covering it. It looks like a deliberate choice has been made to just leave Trump’s crazy lies and obvious mental deterioration alone and focus solely on Biden’s being old and in decline. I think the assumption by the media brass is that Trump’s going to provide huge ratings and sales during his presidency. The media stars just want to keep their cushy jobs and they assume (wrongly, I think) that their status makes them sacrosanct.
I think the preemptive taking “Morning Joe” off of the air was the bosses sending a very clear message to the producers and media personalities to leave Donald Trump alone.
There’s occasional “fact checking” but never in real time and the media doesn’t put Trump on a delay to facilitate fact checking.
It appears so transparent that I cannot fathom a different state of affairs.
After extending a few months, Biden's military executed (quite well) the Trump/Pompeo negotiated surrender to the Taliban.
Yep. The media has let it slip completely down the memory hole that cutting and running from Afghanistan was TRUMP'S IDEA! In fact, to seal the deal, he released 5000 high-value Taliban prisoners. And he initially even wanted to invite the negotiators to ink the deal at Camp David ON SEPTEMBER 11, before someone pointed out to him that that may be slightly bad optics.
He essentially left Biden with a fait accompli, the only way out of which would have been to reinvade Afghanistan with a massive force to continue propping up the government and army and getting more Americans killed while doing little to stave off the inevitable. And he made the right decision not to do that.
I think the assumption by the media brass is that Trump’s going to provide huge ratings and sales during his presidency, but mostly because they know Biden has every intention of raising their taxes and closing loopholes in the tax and Trump not only won't, he'll defund the IRS and any other agencies that constrain their (bad) behaviour.
I have a theory that an uncomfortably large number of people are quietly in agreement with scaling back the size of government and deporting illegals, many of them are owners of media outlets.
You are correct, but they are stupidly shortsighted. The richer one is, the more one will feel a shrinkage of the labor force personally. The rich are the primary consumers of personal services because they can purchase them for even trivial things.
If the figure of ten million illegal immigrants in the US is accurate, that's three or four percent of the workforce, essentially all of the unemployed. Wages will skyrocket, as any tradable good does when its demand exceeds its supply
And no "new factory" can be built to take up the slack for eighteen years.....
Some of the ten million undocumented people are underage and aren’t part of the workforce now. So your “3-4 percent” claim needs adjustment downwards. Still your point remains valid: throwing out even 1.5-2% of the current workforce will raise the cost of labor for everyone else.
the thirteen year old overnite meat packing plant workers piece.
Aside from all his other massive flaws, the man is also EXHAUSTING. I recall that one of my first emotions when Biden took office was, surprising to me at the time, one of relief. My God, please make him stop!
This, a 1,000 times, this. I've listened, maybe the last 10 years to 1A's weekend roundup. I used to love it because it would do a bit on China, Europe, Middle East, etc.
When Trump came it turned 2/3's of the show into Trump time. He'd do crazy shit here. He'd do something crazy for the international part.
I hated it, and it was EXHAUSTING.
Thank goodness so many reasonable centrist Democrats have kept the country focused on dumping Joe. No time to focus on anything else.
You forgot the "/s" for those of us who don't catch on very fast. Even Vance wants Biden to resign. Hah, ha. I wonder what chess game he is playing?
mike johnson won't allow a vote on a new vp, & president harris won't be president of the senate on january 6, 2025.
if gop gets senate control this november, dairyqueenhead grassley will lead the counting of electoral votes.
The rules of drama and storytelling dynamics suggest that there will be at least two major surprises between now and November. Yes, this is the lives of a billions of people who are impacted but at the end of the day Trump only cares about ratings and this is all a big show to him.
Thank goodness so many reasonable centrist Democrats have kept the country focused on dumping Joe
Still bitter? Just let it go. I too was wrong in defending the concept of a Biden candidacy until a few days after the debate, when I saw the light. We all make mistakes.
And yes, I agree: Joe wouldn't have bowed out absent the pressure, and we'd be fucked right now as a country if he were still the nominee.
I'm glad President Biden has done the right thing. He'll quite correctly go down in history as a truly excellent leader. And yes, of course there's some sadness tinged with the good-bye: would that he had become the nominee in 2016...
But make no mistake: the Ezra Kleins and Nate Silvers of the world were clear-eyed about the situation, and we owe them some gratitude.
Iron Dome?
The US is 441 times larger than Israel and on its own continent with nonthreatening neighbors on two sides and oceans on the other two.
Israel has 632 miles of borders plus 273 miles of shoreline.
The US (not counting Alaska) has 7479 miles of borders and 3458 miles of ocean shoreline.
You'd only place it where the mortars are hitting... c'mon think strategically.
The one place where this MIGHT make sense is Guam and the Mariana Islands. A lot of defense assets a very short shot from North Korea
Good point. The more serious threat though for Guam (and Okinawa) is China, which has a lot more and more accurate missiles than the North Koreans and a lot of hypothetical scenarios for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan posit a Chinese first strike against US bases there, which are the primary locations for logistical support and land-based air power in the region.
I would expect that we have a LOT of anti-missile systems there in place, because while the US military is insanely expensive, by and large they are not fools.
After extending the deadline a few months, the Biden military executed the Trump/Pompeo negotiated surrender to the Taliban.
Trump’s comments on Afghanistan contain too many falsehoods to list, so I’ll just point out that Trump’s agreement with the Taliban called for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Trump is the person who decided to give up Bagram, even though he’s now trying to blame Biden.
Thank you Kevin. This is a great example of how your blog is nothing less than a public service, every day.
Funny how the "public service" didn't include demanding Trump drop out of the race unlike every article he makes about Biden.
that would disappoint kd's sensible conservative lunching buddies.
On the contrary, Kevin wrote a piece on how the 14th amendment shouldn't disqualify Donny.
the gop supremes were beyond stupid for turning back the colorado gop voters who brought the challenge.
if trump were disqualified, rather than being a 46-45 (percentage) race between trump & biden, it would be a consistent 5 point lead for de santis or 7-8 point lead for Haley.
the roberts courtesans would get pretty much the same unitary executive but none of the cantankerous, erratic drama of the first four trump years. (& that will be even worse, this time.)
None of this is new? He's been saying this shit, and shit just like it, forever.
one thing a guess i should understand but really don't - why is biden's age an issue in the MSM but trump being a well-documented liar is not?
i get that they don't want to do 24/7 fact checks on his bullshit, but why isn't 'trump is a lying sack of shit' a narrative the same way biden's age is a narrative (or 'her emails' for that matter?)
calling out individual lies isn't the same as presenting it as a narrative worth discussing in its own right
where are the headlines saying 'why is trump such a lying sack of shit', or 'why do republicans love a lying sack of shit, but hate democrats who tell the truth?'
it seems like an interesting topic for the MSM colloquy, but it never seems to rise to that level, let alone be discussed in any sort of sustained basis like 'her emails'
i take that back, i *do* understand why the don't: because the R's would release a shitstorm of criticism if they did
i guess the thing i don't understand is how the MSM rationalizes it in their own minds
do they literally have internal editorial meetings where they say 'yeah, can't say that since it would unleash a R shitstorm?'
are they really that craven? or do they have some slightly more sophisticated rationale that lets them sleep at night?
Yes, they really are that craven and sycophantic.
perfect example; here's a current nytimes headline establishing a narrative:
Russia Punishes Those Who Seek the Truth
have they *ever* had this as a headline:
Trump/maga Punishes Those Who Seek the Truth
Why is Trump’s willfully mishandling national-security secrets not an issue perpetually in the media?
because the documents were analog, not on email.
i saw no server, wiped or otherwise, in the maralago wc.
The media isn't interested in Biden's age per se, any more than it's interested in Mitch McConnell's. It's interested in drama and conflict. Since literally nobody in the Republican Party objects to Trump being off his head, or wants to replace him because of it, it's not newsworthy. The moment a Democrat suggested Biden was too old and the party should replace him despite him winning the primary effectively unopposed, however, the media was off to the races. They could almost see the website traffic exploding.
Nailed it.
'Russia Punishes Those Who Seek the Truth' isn't exactly click-baity and they had no problem running that
It is not obvious to me why the Democratic party doesn't come out after each of Trump speeches with a fact-sheet on the lines of what kevin did here, preceded by a "summary-statistics" like:
26 Plain lies (0.3 per sentence)
16 Imbecilic statements (0.2 per sentence)
...
And a graph showing the change in performance over time.
Fact checking Donald Trump is like trying to fill an olympic sized swimming pool with an eye dropper. I'm not even sure it's worth the effort. If you're not in the cult you don't need it, if you are you won't believe it.
Unfortunately, this is true.
It is my impression that t-Rump takes in one word and they all rattle around inside his empty brain and when he blathers, those words all spill out willy nilly as there are no neural connections in his empty brain. Thus we have his trash.
Trump has the mind of a toddler. He reacts to shiny objects. Think of a toddler watching TV commercials on Saturday morning cartoons. (Do they still have those?) Everything he sees he wants.
You really don’t know? America is a disaster and he will make it great again. Just like in 2019/2020 when everything was already great and before democrats fucked it up.
"The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country.... They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums."
I have seen a suggestion that he can't distinguish between asylum seekers (looking for safety) and insane asylum residents (the mentally ill). That could account for this.
This is by far the best explanation I've seen as far as trump personally is concerned, but I think the general idea is an old anti-immigration smear going back at least to Franklin's time-- "dregs of the earth,"etc etc.
And of course Vance took it to the next level by implication with his "blut und boden" theme (just underlining that I'm sure it sounded better in the original German).
the mariel boatlift piece.
Well, while we’re on the subject of deporting immigrants, I’d like to suggest several who could and should be immediately arrested and sent back “home”. Specifically, Melanie Trump and her “anchor baby” Barron. And maybe while we’re at it, we could also arrest and deport the “anchor babies” of one of Trump’s earlier wifes, namely, Don Jr,, Eric, and Ivanka. Sauce for the goose, as it were.
Don't forget Melania's father of questionable political history. Her parents benefited from chain migration as her husband was declaring he'd end it. And anchor babies weren't the issue as much as Ivana's coming to the US by a marriage of convenience to s professional skier, as stated in her autobiography, while Melania - who changed both gven & family names - provided false information on her application, & "earned" money prior to being legally authorized to do so. The Drumpf, Kushner, & Knavs families have dishonesty in common.
The donor class views Biden as a clear, present, and imminent threat to their fortunes and their way of life, so of course they've directed the MSM to do something about it and to do it quick.
The Chinese immigration problems is…
The global footprint of criminal groups from China has expanded along with China’s economic and geopolitical presence around the world. North America’s fentanyl crisis thrust China-linked criminal networks and their expanding international connections, such as with the Sinaloa Cartel, to U.S. policy forefront. However, the scope of organized crime from China extends far beyond global drug trafficking and money laundering. Internationally, Chinese criminal groups engage in poaching and wildlife trafficking, cybercrime, and elaborate fraud and scams, also featuring people trafficking and enslavement. Long experienced in illegally bringing people to the United States and Canada, criminal networks from China have intensified activities at the U.S.-Mexico border.
So… whatcha gonna do about that? Nothing. It’s like you all imagine immigrants are nice liberals just waiting to lend a hand.
It is surprising how far off mainstream opinion is about Alzheimer's. A near "cure" should emerge for Alzheimer's during the next presidential term. 95% slowing of Alzheimer disease progression over 18 months for patients on trial treatment was reported at CTAD 2023 at the Donanemab symposium for those 2.1 years before the average patient in the reported disease model in Trailblazer-2. This slowing has also been reported to continue out until at least 30 months and counting. Similar slowing has been reported for both Lecanemab in Clarity and for Aducanumab in Emerge and Engage. Treating even that 2 years early apparently can nearly stop dementia progression with monotherapy mabs. Additional orthogonal treatment approaches could likely add marginal benefit. The Ahead clinical trial with Lecanemab should report out in the prevention setting in a few years and this might definitively achieve a "cure" in the sense of preventing meaningful progression into clinical dementia for pre-MCI patients.
The fact check then does checks out. Alzheimer's disease realistically could be "cured"/prevented during the next presidential term.
There is a big difference between “cures” and “prevention.” Preventing future people from getting Alzheimer’s is awesome, but we’ll still have the hundreds of thousands of people currently with Alzheimer’s to take care of for the next 3-4 decades. And from what you describe, it doesn’t even prevent the disease from happening, it simply slows it down (perhaps dramatically, although the longest time period you mention is 2 years and Alzheimer’s patients can live for 30+ years post diagnosis).
In other words, it becomes like HIV now: we can prevent it by giving PrEP drugs to people at risk of catching it… we can delay its progression in destroying the immune system for people who catch it today… but we still can’t “cure” it and thus it’s still better if people do everything they can to not catch it at all. That’s not as good as a cure would be, where you wouldn’t have to worry at all about catching it because a few weeks later you’d be free of it.
Not trying to pooh-pooh your optimism but cures, prevention, delaying progression of a disease and having no effective treatment at all are all very different medical outcomes for a disease, ranked from best to worst… and it sounds like Alzheimer’s has only moved from 4th to 3rd place in that ranking now.
This is hilarious.
Crime in NYC continues drop in Caban’s first year, though critics say that has come at a cost.
Of course critics say that. ????
https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/07/20/crime-in-nyc-continues-drop-in-cabans-first-year-though-critics-say-that-has-come-at-a-cost/
Trying to see the world through MAGA eyes, difficult but not impossible, I think this is what I would see. Politics are corrupt. Neither party is honest about what it promises big donors. Bernie Sanders and to some extent Obama were different but credit-card-company Joe isn't, let alone Hillary. The statistics politicians come with hide something. Amidst all that sleaze, there is One Man who at least is clear about being full of shit. His lies are (a) not important, (b) clever and used only to win, and (c) about the past while he is honest about the future. Re (c), I think a lot of people roared when he was asked if he was going to be a dictator and replied "only on day one".
I think Dems made a big mistake in thinking they didn't have to clean their own house since it would suffice to point to the mess in Trump's. The Establishment which in primaries anointed Clinton over Sanders, Biden over Sanders (with Clyburn's help) and then Biden over everyone is not trusted. And look at the optics of the developing story: Biden refused to drop out under pressure from elected officials but might do so under pressure from big donors.
It's too late for some serious housecleaning because, as AOC pointed out, the election is not in four months, voting starts in two. Which is why I'm in favor of letting Pelosi handle things now. But I think both Dems and the GOP have a serious problem, and neither is perceived to be the child who may cry that the emperor has no clothes.
Thank you. It is so rare for commenters on this site to actually try to put themselves in the shoes of the other side.
To the extent that people do that here, they draw some caricature of the other side that makes them look evil/insane/stupid, which does no good for anyone.
I’m not obligated to put myself in the other side’s shoes if the other side is morally depraved in some way. For example, I have refused to see things from the Catholic Church’s point of view ever since it became known that they enabled hundreds of thousands of children to be raped by priests. They forfeited the right to demand that decent people “see things from their point of view” when they did that. Lots of other groups fall into this too: the KKK, the Nazis, etc. all of whom I’m sure have (in their minds) “legitimate” points of view on other topics besides the ones that gave them notoriety that I just dismiss immediately because of their depravity. (The Nazis developed amazing infrastructure! The KKK built strong economies in the South!) And when the GOP “lost” thousands of children they took from their parents at the border, they lost any ability over me to “see things from their POV.” Fuck the GOP and their monstrosities.
the staring into the abyss piece.
(odds are, rural hobo has been looking at his jean-marie le pen & marine le pen pinup posters too long.)
I’m personally opposed to letting Pelosi handle the situation. What she apparently wants is some kind of “speed dating” two week primary season followed by hoping that Biden’s delegates will actually vote for the anointed person.
I have to question why Pelosi, the political class, and the party’s big-money donors want to step over the sitting vice president but I find the idea to be both repugnant and very much open to manipulation. And it’s basically a recipe for disaster.
Please. That stupid conspiracy theory that Clinton and Biden were somehow handed their nominations by some cabal of Establishment insiders, instead of by actually getting lots more votes, is a lefty fantasy, not MAGA. MAGAts believe that socialist, ungodly Democrat pols represent the socialist, ungodly Democrat rank and file.
On the contrary, I think that when MAGAts want to stick it to libs, they mean liberal elites. And I don't think they follow the Dem nomination process very closely, just that they think it smells. They probably think the same of the GOP process except when it comes to Trump. Whom the Establishment didn't want in the beginning.
if hillary had the ability to rig a presidential primary. presumably she would have dine it in 2007-08, when memory of her husband's economic boom was fresher & the white house was in year 8 of opposite party rule.
her chances of winning the whole thing would have been much better than her trying to be george h.w. bush to barack's reagan.
?!??! Uh, in the primaries the VOTERS actually had a say. And I agree the MAGAts think his lies are "not important," but one has to wonder then what they DO think is important, and how they will know what he really thinks?
Oh wait, they do. He wants to round up 20 million immigrants. And turn the Justice Department into his own personal Department of Vengeance. And drastically reduce the personal autonomy of women. And that's before we get to his attitudes about race. THAT's what they know and love about him.
But no, it's incumbent on Democrats to "clean house." Democrats who brought us, y'know, health care coverage for 25+ million people, the best economy since Clinton, and relief from student debts (something nobody over about 40 understands), not to mention continued focus on voting rights (something else the Felon would destroy), sustainable energy (ditto) and clean air and water (ditto again). Yeah, Dems are definitely the problem.
No, I will not put myself in their shoes, because they stink. And no amount of bringing bleach into the body is going to change that.
Well said.
If you find it inexplicable that Donald Trump lies so easily, it's because you're asking the wrong question. You're seeing a pathological narcissist who's completely lost touch with reality. Truth in any objective sense doesn't exist for him. There is only one truth: Donald Trump is the smartest and greatest at everything. EVERYTHING. All that you see flows directly from that. If someone thinks something he says is not true it's only because they're not as smart as he is and don't see what he sees. The crowds give him the validation he needs, so anything he says that gets them pumped up is "true".
What I find inexplicable is that so many people are taken in by him. But history is replete with examples, so I really shouldn't be surprised.
the uncle on the faculty of mit piece.
" I wonder if any of his fans realize that his standard stump speech is simply an invented fantasy from beginning to end?"
That's not what I wonder or care about. I wonder how history is going to rhyme this time.
Oh, I'm sure at least a few in the "progressive" camp would very much like to seriously increase taxes on the very very rich. Especially in the area of inheritance and/or wealth/unrealized gains. MoJo's Michael Mechanic comes to mind..
I'd be one of those who would seriously raise inheritance taxes. I'm strongly for rewarding people for their contributions to society by both praising AND paying them.
I understand that loving parents want to prepare their kids for life as well as they can, so any educational or "enrichment" assistance should be free and encouraged. But once the child is over twenty-six any transfer except for medical treatment should count against a lifetime maximum of maybe $20 million including death legacy.
When the survivor of a couple passes everything in the estate over $20 million per child should go into a dedicated trust fund from which an equal grant is made to each young person when they reach twenty-six.
That's what I think. We don't need a hereditary oligarchy.
If course we can disagree on the limit, but whatever it is it should be indexed.
Unless I missed something, Michael Mechanic will not be dictating tax policy in the next democratic admin. The “nobody has any plans” Kevin is talking about is pretty clearly and heavily implied to mean “nobody with a realistic chance of getting into the White House or heading a cabinet there has any plans to quadruple taxes…”
In a country of 330m you can find someone arguing for or against anything, including the earth is flat and rich people should have everything they own seized. The existence of people with Far Out There beliefs needs to be balanced against the power those people have to make their beliefs reality. In the case of quadrupling taxes, the adherents of that belief (including your cherry picked pundit Michael Mechanic!) have approx 0% chance of making their beliefs become reality in our existing duopolistic political party system, so everyone else shouldn’t care at all about it.
the nutpicking piece.
Succinctly illustrating the expectations of people thinking another four years of re-doubled efforts at destroying the United States, and human civilization, won't be so bad vs the reality of Donald Trump,
https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1814768919594381405
the ketchup piece.
It maters not one bit that Trump lies, dissembles, goes on WTF tangents, whatever. He's got the pulse of his peeps under his thumb. This is authoritarianism - truth only matters as just another 'thing' to manage in pursuit and aggrandizement of power. The only way to fight Trump's shtick is to just rip him to shreds as a human being - humor won't do it, none of the usual Dem strategies will make even a dent. This is not easy, but not brain surgery either. Merciless, like you're a prosecutor taking a apart a psychopathic murderer. Because that's what he is.
I agree. Trump is morally degenerate and a lifelong criminal who cares only about money. Democrats should be shouting that from the rooftops 24/7.
Once upon a time most of Trump's lies had some connection to reality. They tended to be gross exaggerations, or distortions, rather than outright fiction. But lately, he just makes stuff up. For example, trade with China isn't a secret. The value of US exports of goods to China went down in 2018, and down again in 2019. They recovered somewhat in 2020, but still not to the level of 2017. Exports under Biden, on the other hand, were significantly higher in each of his first three years in office. https://www.statista.com/statistics/277679/total-value-of-us-trade-in-goods-with-china-since-2006/