24

Bang on the money...

" It's this type bullshit that also plays directly into the whole "both sides are exactly alike" bullshit that is so frequently spewed here in the comments section and serves to "turn off" a large portion of the electorate and plays nicely into the "lesser of two evils" bullshit that is bandied about ad nauseam during elections in order suppress turnout."

The question that needs to be addressed is, why?

How can it be a winning political platform to bullshit, obfuscate and annoy the fuck out of people to the end that they resign themselves to more of the same by inaction?

I can't get behind that in any way as a political reality.

A democratic system that it tolerates "Obamagates" for no other reason that a black president brilliantly cleaned up the mess of a white one, needs a coup de grâce and a reboot.

Sometimes I imagine what Washington, Madison, Henry etal would make of Trumpian era political tactics...I'd like to think they'd include a president/arsehole amendment...You can't be both at any one time.

LL&P

I get all that obvious shit, it's white noise.

I can assure you that I do not fail to read between the lines of your posts... nor would I ever. Rest assured that not everything I post is meant specifically for the person to which it is addressed on Line 1. I hear you.

I'm determined to be as blunt as a 'see you next Tuesday'...

One of my nicknames is "ice pick."

All of America and it's collateral interests are essentially in the hands of a truculent adolescent.

You inadvertently omitted "greedy," "indebted," and "owned."

I'm not delusional where Trump is concerned, his schtick is laughingly transparent and ultimately doomed to implode under its own weight.

You err on the side of giving Americans too much credit, and I can say this because I am one of them, although certainly not one of the "rube reds," just to be clear.

His peculiar strain of nihilism, mixed with his monumental failure to embrace autodidacticism was simply a rung too high. Trump has now redefined 'a stable genius' to now mean someone can dodge shit in tight places...

I believe the "stable genius" verbiage is an homage to Trump's heretofore unseen levels of presidential horseshit. Bring a shovel; it is so thick there must be a pony in there somewhere.

By the by...I only watch FOX NEWS now, I can't take the truth anymore. It's far too depressing :/

Heh.

It is likely that his psychopathic nature has made him quite good at using projection to make it tougher for his victims to make their accusations believed.

Trump's projection is the equivalent of a 5-year-old hitting his sibling and then running to a parent and claiming "he hit me" when he knows better. Accuse them of what you're guilty of before they have a chance to accuse you. It's this type bullshit that also plays directly into the whole "both sides are exactly alike" bullshit that is so frequently spewed here in the comments section and serves to "turn off" a large portion of the electorate and plays nicely into the "lesser of two evils" bullshit that is bandied about ad nauseam during elections in order suppress turnout.

While impressive, I think it may be less a product of Trump’s intelligence than just a product of Trump’s natural instincts for survival.

Believe Trump when he starts talking like a "mafia Don" and explaining that he knows all about "rats"... because he's one of them.

17

I get all that obvious shit, it's white noise.

I'm determined to be as blunt as a 'see you next Tuesday'...

All of America and it's collateral interests are essentially in the hands of a truculent adolescent. I'm not delusional where Trump is concerned, his schtick is laughingly transparent and ultimately doomed to implode under its own weight. His peculiar strain of nihilism, mixed with his monumental failure to embrace autodidacticism was simply a rung too high. Trump has now redefined 'a stable genius' to now mean someone can dodge shit in tight places...

By the by...I only watch FOX NEWS now, I can't take the truth anymore. It's far too depressing :/

LL&P

I admit, watching him saying those words like a sulking 6 yo felt really good....until I realized that I was watching a performance piece! That was EXACTLY the message Trump wanted us to remember... when he wanted the DOJ to investigate a former President for committing horrible crimes, the official response was that the DOJ does not do that!

What Barr and Trump both know for a fact is that agencies in Bill Barr's Department of Justice are currently and definitely will investigate either a sitting or former President of the United States. Remember that Barr has himself personally been actively touring the world and investigating Barack Obama and multiple persons in his administration in an attempt to rewrite the Russia investigation on behalf of Trump and has used his muscle as United States Attorney General to reframe particular results of said investigations and apply the brakes to other aspects still at issue.

Any attempt by Trump to have Barr openly investigate the President and Vice President of the former administration that he's already been busy investigating in an attempt to serve Trump's interests brings attention to Barr's efforts, wouldn't you say?

Meanwhile, Trump keeps flailing miserably in his attempts to blame political ideology and Democrats for the ongoing investigation into Trump and his campaign that was actually ordered by people in his own administration that were appointed by Trump himself and headed primarily by Republicans... the counterintelligence investigation goes on to date while Barr works tirelessly on behalf of Trump to thwart said ongoing investigation.

The bastard is trying to set precedent that the DOJ will not investigate past presidents for crimes committed while they were in office!

"Precedent" is set by jurists in a court of law via decisions and/or verdicts. There is nothing Trump could do to set a precedent that any president could not be investigated by a current/future Department of Justice and the agencies thereunder that wouldn't involve the Supreme Court, and I cannot even see the current SCOTUS setting such a precedent as that. Temporarily halt a particular investigation? Sure. Eliminate investigation of potential criminal acts entirely? *shakes head*

This explains why Trump refuses to offer up any specifics about what he is claiming Obama supposedly did when he says that “Obamagate” is “The biggest political crime in American history, by far!”.

Any specificity on Trump's part regarding to what he's referring as "Obamagate" would invite scrutiny. The accusation Trump is making regarding "Obamagate" is akin to his previous declarations that he "sent a team of experts to Hawaii to investigate Barack Obama and you won't believe what they're finding." What they're finding, of course, is never discussed because there are no investigators who are looking for anything. The accusation of crime is all that's required. Same shit, different day. #Distraction

Bottom line: We do not conduct criminal investigations on former Presidents for crimes they committed while in office!!!

Yes... yes, we do. That's Trump's Mueller problem that Barr has been working hard trying to alleviate and hasn't slowed down yet.

We all assumed that Obamagate was just one of Trump’s distractions to take the focus off of his mishandling of the pandemic, but we were wrong.

We weren't wrong, but you are definitely correct that Trump tries to frame everything in terms that are "black and white"... "opened or closed"... "with us or against us." Trump is trying to use the pandemic to force voters to choose sides. His side.

I am also sure you have not failed to notice that Trump is flailing in his attempts to run the same campaign he ran in 2016. #SSDD

I do not know if it is Trump who is the mastermind or someone like a Karl Rove -type person....but someone is very good at planning ahead for ways to fend off being accused of committing crimes that Trump has accused others of committing. It is likely that his psychopathic nature has made him quite good at using projection to make it tougher for his victims to make their accusations believed.

While impressive, I think it may be less a product of Trump’s intelligence than just a product of Trump’s natural instincts for survival.

That is some pretty advanced three dimensional chess you are accusing him of. Do you really think he is capable of this level of play?

The issue is moot. Trump's handlers and agents are capable of this level of play, and make no mistake when I tell you that Trump is compromised and has no choice but to perform as he's instructed.

So to recap: Trump is bought and paid for via bribery on multiple front; think back about the actions he's taken during his presidency that were in no way in the best interests of the United States or her People and come to terms with the fact that Trump is owned.

Were you as surprised by Barr’s public announcement that the DOJ would not be used for partisan purposes to go after Obama and Biden as I was... at first? Barr’s claim that the DOJ would never be used to settle political scores sounded a little strange considering his time in office thus far, but was a welcomed surprise.

Then I saw the footage of Trump learning that Barr had refused his wishes, and how shocked Trump appeared...he was downright crestfallen as he mumbled something along the lines of, “Well, if it was me they would be investigating it!” Trump seemed genuinely hurt by Barr’s statement. Barr had just embarrassed Trump, and Trump reacted as he always does...he sulked. NO! WAIT!!! That is NOT how Trump responds when someone that works for him disagrees with him or publicly refuses to do as Trump instructed. Trump’s fragile ego runs to Twitter to bash the person! So how did Barr get away with humiliating Trump in such a public way? It does not make sense...until it does.

I admit, watching him saying those words like a sulking 6 yo felt really good....until I realized that I was watching a performance piece! That was EXACTLY the message Trump wanted us to remember... when he wanted the DOJ to investigate a former President for committing horrible crimes, the official response was that the DOJ does not do that!

The bastard is trying to set precedent that the DOJ will not investigate past presidents for crimes committed while they were in office! This explains why Trump refuses to offer up any specifics about what he is claiming Obama supposedly did when he says that “Obamagate” is “The biggest political crime in American history, by far!”.

He doesn’t want us thinking in specifics — Trump just wants us to remember that he is accusing the President that he replaced of committing the “biggest political crime in American history” and that as serious as that claim is, the DOJ refused to investigate the former President and Vice President!

Bottom line: We do not conduct criminal investigations on former Presidents for crimes they committed while in office!!!

We all assumed that Obamagate was just one of Trump’s distractions to take the focus off of his mishandling of the pandemic, but we were wrong. Trump did the same thing in 2016 with his claims that the elections were rigged. Everyone believed it was being said in preparation of him refusing to accept the election results — and everyone argued why it was important to accept the results of the election and why accusations of interference should be brushed aside as non-serious conspiracy theories. That was exactly what Trump was hoping for. He knew that the elections were in fact being rigged...just not the way everyone assumed he was talking about.

Trump wrote in a tweet earlier, in reference to Michigan's intention to conduct their 2020 presidential voting via mail-in ballotting..."This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!"

I think it's a great tweet myself. What better way to show the citizens of Michigan your concern for their life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and basic "general welfare" than by threatening to withhold the federal funding that supports health care/Medicaid, education, transportation, etc. for Michigan voters, their families, and fellow Michiganders?

Nothing says "I care about Americans" quite like insisting they put their lives in danger in order to safely exercise their right to vote, wouldn't you say?

/sarcasm off

I'm sure it will not surprise you in the least, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar and all-around uninformed dipshit. It is not illegal to vote absentee in Michigan, but these are the kind of lies Trump spews on a regular basis in order to undermine democracy in America. The Michigan Secretary of State did not mail out absentee ballots, she mailed out applications for absentee ballots to all persons in Michigan that are already registered to vote, giving all voters -- regardless of Party -- the opportunity to vote by mail if they choose. In fact, she didn't do anything that her Republican counterparts in multiple other states haven't already done and indeed the RNC in multiple states has been doing for quite awhile now (but only to registered Republicans, naturally).

In another tweet, Trump also similarly threatened to withhold federal funding to Nevada because their Secretary of State, a Republican, is attempting to expand voting by mail in Nevada. Interestingly, in Nevada, the Republican Secretary of State is also being sued by Democrats for Nevada Republicans' efforts to close almost all of Nevada's in-person polling places for the June 9 primary and force voters to mail in their ballots.

So to recap: Donald Trump is a liar and a threat to democracy and now openly interfering with 2020 elections via Twitter threats of withholding federal funding of the People. If you're okay with Trump's attempted blackmail of your elected officials, ask yourself how you'd feel if President Obama threatened to withhold aid to your state unless your elected officials performed to Obama's satisfaction.

Our democracy is under attack, Americans; time to clue in to that fact.

There's your problem America, right fucking there.

This abhorrent politicization of an epidemic, hitherto unknown in the brief history of the 'social media age', has created monsters. Trump, the Cuny, has set the tone again, to your shame.

"Dempanic"...Seriously? Outdoing yourself in idiocy, once again, is that how you wish to be remembered, CRS?... No matter, it's rare the musing's of 'mountain' folk leaks beyond the next aiguille, so at least the stupidity of such utterances becoming contagious is as close to nill as not worth mentioning. You can do better.

Trump has, is and, will continue to be your greatest obstacle in achieving physical and mental stability. You squabble and snipe at one another at every political level. That has to stop.

Illegitimi noncarborundum... An obvious, yet apt Americanism of the simplest sentiment. Don't allow this dimwitted creature to swamp your better judgment with his political cuckold of cash and sense, his political future isn't worth your honour.

As it passed, Trump himself voted, via mail-in ballot, in his new found domicile's most recent state election. So I guess one State's mail-in election is valid, while the other's is "illegal"...

Just so you know.

LL&P...(so long as you don't live in a swing state)

But at this point, I'll take what good news there is. And seeing America's curves bend downwards compared to the rest of the world -- is good news indeed.

Which gave it whole new meaning. Sorry, again ...

So sorry to hear about that. Guess I'm pretty lucky -in my region only 1000 cases and 100 deaths. But 80% of those deaths are in long term care facilities and retirement homes. So very sad. Sadder still, for some, the deaths wherever they are don't matter. :(

Stay well!

--

A focus on the US is appropriate here. The rest of the world isn't handling their response anywhere near as badly.

Elizabeth wrote,

… and to Hell with the rest of us out in the world.

Um, this is not a blog about Canada nor the rest of the world, so I don't understand what you've got your panties all bunched up over.

[5]

C. R. Stucki wrote,

For those of us smart enough to live in the mountains, it's never been a pandemic, only a Dempanic.

Yeah, a million and a half confirmed cases and pushing 100,000 dead with no reality based end yet in sight, and you're still spouting that Trumpanzee nonsense? BTW I live at 7200 feet and I'm still wearing a mask after San Bernardino County lifted the requirement. Why? Because, unlike your Cheetogod, I actually give a damn about somebody besides myself.

Sorry, quote-marks not meant to imply that I doubt you have dead relatives. The words were simply a direct quote from your [6].

Not to worry! Your "dead relatives" are the lucky ones. I'm pretty sure that being dead is preferable to living in NYC.

i'm so sorry our dead relatives have been such an inconvenience for you.

JL

And for this, we cause massive unemployment and genuine hardship all around.

… and to Hell with the rest of us out in the world.