All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tami]

THIS. The convention usually has the prospective First Lady talk about the candidate, and sometimes one other family member might speak kindly about them. Bush in 2000 and 2004 didn't march every member of that LARGE family, that is a political dynasty, out to herald W as keynote speakers. One or two? Normal. SIX? F***ing sad.

Donald Trump fills the night with family members because A) he loves hearing his own surname and B) he can't find anyone else to say anything nice about him.

By the way, this RNC is likely to be a s***show considering 2016 was on so many levels. The only thing it did "right" was turn the evening into a witch rally to get the crowd all lathered up to scream "LOCK HER UP", which isn't as likely to work when there's no crowd present, and they have f*** all except the attempted Ukraine-gate stuff that blew up in their face and led to Trump being impeached. And, y'know, people weren't brainwashed for three or four decades to hate Joe Biden, and nothing has stuck yet.

There is a slight chance that Tiffany might pull a Ted Cruz (2016). Unlikely since the money would stop flowing, but then again she might be the only Trump, outside of Mary, who sees the writing on the wall.

Longshot, I know.

[Ragged Maw]

Twitter Link



It's now being called a cemetery or mausoleum

Maybe she made a deal with Khrushchev's ghost to troll the Kennedys posthumously.

EDIT: I wouldn't be surprised, though, if some kind of blueprint detailing where and what genus/species of flower or tree gets planted was left behind by the lady. So it could be restored after the Trumps leave.

[Tami]

How fascist is President Trump? There’s still a formula for that.

In October 2016, I asked how fascist Donald Trump was as a presidential candidate, comparing his campaign with the movements in Italy and Germany using a four-point scale. I awarded Trump "Benitos" for how closely his campaign resembled those movements. A few weeks before his election, Trump earned 59 percent of possible Benitos, which made him "the most dangerous threat to pluralist democracy in this country in more than a century" — but not a genuine fascist. As a candidate, Trump was an amateurish imitation of the real thing.

Four years later, we can assess how fascist Trump has been in power. I have expanded the scale to include new criteria that were not relevant before he took office: governance, consolidation of power and various policy arenas. Instead of a possible 44 Benitos, as in 2016, the maximum is now 76. Does Trump earn more than 59 percent on his record in the White House?

So where does Trump's administration stand as he is nominated for a second term? He earned 47 of a possible 76 Benitos, or 62 percent. He remains the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War, but his exercise of power only partly resembles that of real fascists. He still faces checks and balances in Washington. He hasn't shut down rival parties or uncompliant media.

He has not directed the armed might of the state against citizens on anything like the scale used by Mussolini, let alone Hitler. He does not have his own obedient "squadristi" eager to beat up foes, even if plenty of his followers advocate (and sometimes indulge in) violence against minorities and Trump's opponents. He has not arranged the murder of prominent political opponents. The cult of violence is integral to fascism but far less central to Trump. He is not ruling like a genuine fascist.

But he has shown pronounced fascistic leanings. In the right circumstances — a crisis he could manage triumphantly, a more sympathetic military — perhaps he would try to extend his rule beyond whatever the voters allow him and convert the United States into a repressive, racist dictatorship. Or perhaps stage phony elections that hand the reins to Ivanka and Jared. At least a few members of Congress would probably support him, just as many parliamentarians voted to give Mussolini and Hitler emergency powers. Those lawmakers did not know at the time just where fascism might lead. We have a clearer idea.

[worstblogever]

There is a slight chance that Tiffany might pull a Ted Cruz (2016). Unlikely since the money would stop flowing, but then again she might be the only Trump, outside of Mary, who sees the writing on the wall.

Longshot, I know.

My memory of 2016's Trump family speeches were...

Don Jr.: "DAD IS SUCCESSFUL AT BIZNESS, GOOD DAD. HILLARY GO TO JAIL."
Ivanka: Ten minutes of fawning, ingenuine, vapid praise.
Eric: "I AM ALSO A TRUMP."
Tiffany: "My dad, um... called me when my friend died? So that's a good thing he did."

I don't expect it to be much different, except that Don Jr. has become more of a conspiracy theory peddling s*** heel, and Eric is getting coached by his wife Lara to be the same.

Well, one difference... odds are even these silver-spoon-implanted peckerwoods are going to go out there and pretend like their dad, and possibly their whole family don't deserve to get the resentment they do for being such a bunch of entitled, selfish d***bags.

[Kusanagi]

I used to say Republicans and Democrats lived in different countries, I'm officially upgrading to different realities.

75% of Republicans say the US is in a better place than 4 years ago.

Yes with the Pandemic, protests and economic recession.

[Tami]

I used to say Republicans and Democrats lived in different countries, I'm officially upgrading to different realities.

75% of Republicans say the US is in a better place than 4 years ago.

Yes with the Pandemic, protests and economic recession.

57 percent of Republicans think 176,000 coronavirus deaths (and counting) is acceptable.

[GindyPosts]

I used to say Republicans and Democrats lived in different countries, I'm officially upgrading to different realities.

75% of Republicans say the US is in a better place than 4 years ago.

Yes with the Pandemic, protests and economic recession.

It's acceptable to them due to them having a Republican in the White House. Ignoring the incompetence and corruption of said Republican, of course.

Look, I'm not gonna say Biden will be one of the best presidents ever, but if he gets elected, if you compare him to Trump, I don't think he would have a high bar to clear as far as not screwing up.

[InformationGeek]

WBE, please profile this jerk for Democrat of the Day. Just... wow.

In all seriousness, feminism hasn’t got a chance so long as Donatism remains on the march. The progressive circular firing squad has done more to uphold the status quo than conservatives could have ever dreamed of.

I will be releasing a press release in the morning resigning 1/2

[Jack Dracula]

Twitter Link



It's now being called a cemetery or mausoleum

She took out all the trees and tall shrubs which might provide cover from a sniper.
Totally not on purpose.

[Tami]

WBE, please profile this jerk for Democrat of the Day. Just... wow.

You know, I can see why he is upset. But, as someone who has some inside info on political campaigns, I also know that anyone considering running for public office should follow the adage, know thyself better than your political opponents (and news media) will know you.

Everyone has a few skeletons, of varying degrees of significance. If he had taken the time to meet with experienced members of the local Democratic Comunity, if he had asked for advice, he might have realized that this was not his time.

He also might have understood that politics is cut-throat and at times dirty. I'm guessing he was idealistic, and nieve, and obviously inexperienced, and in over his head.

Did he have a campaign manager? If he did, that person did a really poor job. If not, and I know of would-be politicians who choose to do it all on their own, then that was a mistake.

[Malvolio]

THIS. The convention usually has the prospective First Lady talk about the candidate, and sometimes one other family member might speak kindly about them. Bush in 2000 and 2004 didn't march every member of that LARGE family, that is a political dynasty, out to herald W as keynote speakers. One or two? Normal. SIX? F***ing sad.

Donald Trump fills the night with family members because A) he loves hearing his own surname and B) he can't find anyone else to say anything nice about him.

By the way, this RNC is likely to be a s***show considering 2016 was on so many levels. The only thing it did "right" was turn the evening into a witch rally to get the crowd all lathered up to scream "LOCK HER UP", which isn't as likely to work when there's no crowd present, and they have f*** all except the attempted Ukraine-gate stuff that blew up in their face and led to Trump being impeached. And, y'know, people weren't brainwashed for three or four decades to hate Joe Biden, and nothing has stuck yet.

That's probably why Jared isn't being given a prime time slot. He didn't change his last name to Trump.

BTW, maybe Tiffany was cut out of the will and this is her attempt to get her father to put her back in the will.

[InformationGeek]

You know, I can see why he is upset. But, as someone who has some inside info on political campaigns, I also know that anyone considering running for public office should follow the adage, know thyself better than your political opponents (and news media) will know you.

Everyone has a few skeletons, of varying degrees of significance. If he had taken the time to meet with experienced members of the local Democratic Comunity, if he had asked for advice, he might have realized that this was not his time.

He also might have understood that politics is cut-throat and at times dirty. I'm guessing he was idealistic, and nieve, and obviously inexperienced, and in over his head.

Did he have a campaign manager? If he did, that person did a really poor job. If not, and I know of would-be politicians who choose to do it all on their own, then that was a mistake.

I'm not sure if he had a campaign manager... but he was accused of harassing his opponent's campaign manager, so there is that.

[Tami]

I'm not sure if he had a campaign manager... but he was accused of harassing his opponent's campaign manager, so there is that.

Someone should have stepped in long before the primary and had a sit-down with him.

[worstblogever]

WBE, please profile this jerk for Democrat of the Day. Just... wow.

Oh, I have him lined up for April 1st, for sure.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Maine Governor Paul LePage, who in our original write-up, we noted was a was elected in 2010 after he made the campaign promise to “make Obama’s life a living hell”, but instead seems to have only enacted that promise upon the people of Maine. When he’s not threatening to blow up local newspapers or call in airstrikes against them, he’s meeting with a society of 9/11 Truthers and joked about hanging Democratic members of the state legislature. This is a man so heartless that he’s advocated for child labor laws to be changed so children as young as twelve can be put into the workforce, and so insane he once warned that microwaving plastics could result in hormonal changes in children increasing their estrogen levels and making them grow little beards (really). LePage has also told the heads of the local NAACP they could “kiss his butt”, referred to the IRS as “the new Gestapo”, and accused the Majority Leader of the Maine State Senate of “giving it to the people without providing Vaseline”.

And, in bour second profile on Paul LePage again proved interesting, as he provided us with new things to talk about like trying to illegally quarantine a nurse who returned from Africa after helping stop the Ebola Virus outbreak there, and then turned around to blame illegal immigrants for spreading HIV, Hepatitis C, and tuberculosis without any foundation in reality, at all. LePage then made a promise to “veto everything that crosses his desk” and wasn’t joking, vetoing 100 bills consecutively, if they did not have veto-proof majorities without any consideration for their content. At the end of that streak, LePage hosted the media at a press conference with a squeaky toy of a pig, and standing in front of a Christmas tree, promising to veto hundreds of things in the state budget passed by the Maine state legislature. The legislature, in turn, passed the budget with a veto-proof majority, so he couldn’t do a thing about it, except continue embarrassing himself. Which, his bold "veto everything" stance became even more hilarious when LePage forgot how vetoing bills works, and left for vacation without properly vetoing 65 that were hitting his desk that he had said he would block the Democratic legislature from passing. The catch was, he only had a certain number of days to veto them, and after the deadline passed, all 65 laws went into effect. Governor LePage also visited a local school, saying he’d like to shoot a newspaper’s editorial cartoonist. He told the joke… to the cartoonist’s father. Oh, and there was all the talk of Paul LePage getting impeached, after he threatened to cut funding to a school in the state because they had offered a high-paying job to a political rival of LePage’s, House Speaker Mark Eves. When a reporter, Paul Merrill asked LePage about it, he was actually stupid enough to brag about it. Even many Maine Republicans were participating in impeachment talk, after that. LePage even took the time to write a petty letter back to a constituent who asked him to resign in July, and told her “all of Southern Maine is corrupt”(yes, half the state) and “not going to happen”. Three weeks later, he just offered to leave office if enough people wrote to ask him to, and claimed that only four people had asked him to.

Paul LePage continued to be one of the craziest, if not THE craziest governor in the United States and in our third update, we had to bring up moments like how he tried to illegally block the relocation of Syrian refugees into his state by the federal government, laying on plenty of Islamophobic fear-mongering, even invoking 9/11 as his reasons against it, and warning that immigrants from there could bring “hepatitis C, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV” and “the ‘ziki fly” (which isn’t actually a real insect). LePage also got really racist while trying to play up fears of drug dealers, warning of “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” who wouldn’t just come to sell heroin, but “half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave." (After a few days, he admitted that he was referring to African Americans, but that it wasn’t harmful because Maine is “95 per cent white”.) LePage’s rhetoric about drug dealers at least stopped being racist, but no less insane, as he called for public executions for drug dealers. By guillotine! Well, that and he advised the citizens of Maine to help combat the drug trade by becoming gun-toting vigilantes and to “Load up and get rid of the drug dealers.” Paul LePage also endorsed Donald Trump for president, and started questioning whether or not Sen. Ted Cruz was eligible to be president (making him a Birther, two-fold). LePage even botched an attempt to humanize himself, effectively “cutting in line” at an adoption center ahead of the general public to adopt a dog a day rather than leave it for its intended adopter, a sexual assault victim who had been waiting for the day the dog could be adopted to take in as an emotional support dog. The shelter admitted it broke its own rules for LePage (and considering his history of holding petty grudges when he doesn't get his way, it's sort of easy to understand why). LePage also refused to support keeping the drug naloxone readily available in hospitals and emergency services to treat overdoses, by citing an example of a high school student who had overdosed on three separate occasions with naloxone only to keep on using drugs to prove it doesn't help do anything but allow addicts to continue using drugs, undeterred. Over the course of the next few weeks, after the school said he made up the story of the student, and yet he continued to insist it had happened. State officials soon also came forward to contradict LePage, and prove he made it up, and LePage never could name the mystery student addicted to heroin who came back from the dead three times.

After the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Gold Star parent Khzir Khan was outspoken in criticizing Donald Trump for his bigotry, and Trump embarrassed himself by slandering the Khan family, with some of his surrogates even attacking their deceased son, Humayyan. Almost a month later… Paul LePage decided to be one of the elected Republicans to get on the bandwagon, calling Khzir Khan a “con-artist”. A day after attacking a Gold Star parent, Gov. LePage leaves a voice mail for a Democratic lawmaker, calling him a “c***sucker” in an unhinged voice mail to respond to claims that he is a racist. And then, at the end of the phone call, LePage gives him permission to make the insane rant public.

By October 2016, Gov. LePage was calling on Donald Trump to use “authoritarian power”, because it’s a good idea to say that to a proto-fascist. He responded to Civil Rights Hero and Congressman John Lewis’ criticisms of Donald Trump by telling him to thank “Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Ulysses S. Grant” for furthering racial equality. (Lewis, through a spokesman, politely asked LePage to check his history.)

In August 2017, LePage becomes the latest Republican to run to the defense of Confederate monuments, in spite of his state being the farthest in the continental U.S. from the Mason-Dixon line, comparing their removal to… what else? Removing a 9/11 Victims Memorial. And in June 2018, LePage says he “probably” would not certify the primary results in Maine’s 2018 elections, because he didn’t feel the new primary rules that were voted upon on a ballot measure by his own citizens were “constitutional”. The courts, of course, had already ruled that they were. Paul LePage survived as governor only because the process of impeachment in Maine is designed to be nigh-impossible to pull off outside of flagrant criminal activity. Term limits ended his embarrassing tenure after 2018, but he occasionally threatens to run for U.S. Senate in Maine, something we hope we never actually see happen.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Max Linn, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine in 2018, who we only need to talk about briefly in this profile, since it’s a short story. Linn was proud to be a “Trump Strong” Republican, even in the face of the Blue Wave coming. Of course, considering he was registered as a Democrat when he was thinking about running for Governor of Florida back in 2006, and when he ran for Congress in 2010, maybe he’s just an opportunist. It’s still pretty sad to see someone who a decade ago was on the (D) side of the ballot saying that he not only wanted to build Trump’s stupid border wall, but that he would use his “own two hands” to do so. But no, we’re doing a quick profile on Max Linn because he got caught faking signatures to get his name on the ballot to run for U.S. Senate in Maine, and then kept trying to campaign anyway after the fact. He is unlikely to get a second chance as a candidate after that little bit of fraud. As such, we’ll set aside his profile at this time, and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 905-45, since this was established in July 2014.