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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#252851: Aug 23rd 2018 at 4:40:45 AM

Hopefully November.

Of and a weird note for the senate, the Dem candidate for Wyoming’s senate seat came within a point of winning the same constituency (as a house candidate) in 2006, so if the dems over perform 2006 the seat could be in play.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#252852: Aug 23rd 2018 at 4:42:19 AM

Honestly, the target here is not the Republicans as a whole. By all polls, about 35% of voter and I'd say about two thirds of the party as a whole are lost causes and wouldn't consider Trump differently if a flaming rosebush would tell him that he has Melania speak russian and wear a Putin mask in bed.

These are the sort of zealots who'd celebrate crucifying Jesus the day after he returned for not preaching what they think he said.

Nah, the Target is the Republican voter demographic that is not in these 35%. And the target is not necessarily to get them to vote Dem but vote anything but Republican (or not at all).

Also, doing this is *not* the job of the Democratic party. Their job is to mobilize their side and give Mueller the cover to do his job. And Mueller doing his job is what will have the most likely effect on the above 15%-ish

Edited by 3of4 on Aug 23rd 2018 at 1:44:34 PM

"You can reply to this Message!"
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#252853: Aug 23rd 2018 at 4:50:54 AM

Frankly, this is part about what I think the Democrats should be doing when playing hardball.

Flat out go after politicians supporting Trump who are engaged in illegal activity and get them taken out of play.

Because...again, they are kicking puppies and crushing flowers. If you need to level grind to get to Trump, do it.

Get those exotics and purples.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#252854: Aug 23rd 2018 at 5:08:47 AM

They already are, it's what the investigation is for.

There's no point in being nasty with rhetoric about it. It's impossible to tear Republicans down. All that does is entrench them further and make them even more likely to turn out to vote.

The only thing to do is build Democrats up and build our message up.

Oh really when?
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#252855: Aug 23rd 2018 at 5:26:03 AM

Re: Hawaii: Actually there's people hoping the islands get flattened and no aid is forthcoming because one of the state's Senators called Trump out.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#252856: Aug 23rd 2018 at 5:29:49 AM

Not to mention Hawaii being where the first Muslim Ban got spiked, among others.

"You can reply to this Message!"
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#252857: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:15:55 AM

Republicans exposed as a bunch of criminals and how evil they are is tearing them down.

:)

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#252858: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:16:12 AM

In which case it would result in even more unpopularity and electoral consequences, as the second part of my post said.

Yes, I saw. But you and I are discussing different things. You're discussing rationality. I'm discussing Trump's behaviour and instincts.

We know he's had staff who have talked him out of certain irrational inclinations in the past, so I'm sure his staff would talk him down from this kind of inclination, too.

But would he have the inclination in the first place? I'm willing to bet he would.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252859: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:18:47 AM

[up]That's fair.

I think yes you're certainly right that Trump would want to leave them hanging, and unless he's talked out of it he probably would do it without hesitation.

I can't really say how likely it is or isn't, he does crazy things but for all we know his people could talk him out of doing worse.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#252860: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:23:00 AM

Yes. My observation was mostly drawn from how Obama (and anything Obama is connected to) seems to make him extra crazy.

His staff have apparently been talking him down from removing Obama's security clearance, so there is that.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#252861: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:39:09 AM

According to Spiegel, who watched Trump on Fox and Friends, El Cheeto thinks the market is gonna crash if he's getting impeached.

"You can reply to this Message!"
Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#252862: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:49:46 AM

Y'know, there's something fascinating about that tweet to me, in that it's evidence of a mindset that I consider to be completely alien.

Consider, for a moment, the question of why he'd even bring that up. It's not like it's a hot button issue with the voters, or like he has any ability to influence how it goes. He brought it up totally of his own accord, basically to nothing other than signal his racism in a way that a layperson won't catch but similarly racist people will understand.

Which, of course, is textbook dogwhisling, but Trump here can't even be said to have to cynical political motivation usually ascribed to that- he's already pretty much got the Racist Vote locked down; politically speaking, dogwhisling does him no further good.

So the conclusion we draw from this is that he's doing this because he's proud to be a racist. He considers the fact that he thinks the amount of melanin in your skin determines your worth as a person to be one of his good qualities. That's a mindset I cannot comprehend.

There is another possibility. When I read that tweet, the first thing I thought of was something that happened in Britain several years ago regarding Trump and how he does business.

When Trump was trying to get his golf courses set up in Scotland, there were pesky homeowners living on the some of the land he wanted to own (their homes were going to ruin the view from parts of the golf course).

He tried to get the government to forcibly evict the homeowners. He was using a tactic I believe in the US is called something like 'eminent domain'? No such equivalent exists in the UK, so he couldn't do it, and he couldn't bribe government officials to do it (although he certainly did try).

One of the reasons he was unsuccessful in this attempt wasn't simply because the UK has no such law, but because as soon as wealthy individuals start petitioning governments to engage in Scottish land grabbing by evicting people, the history of the Highland Clearances gets raised very quickly — it may have happened a couple of centuries ago, but it's a political hot potato to this day.

As a result of his failure, Trump built a massive wall between his property and the homes. Not only did this block golfers' views of the residents, but it damaged the residents' previously unbroken views of the coastline. This was done out of pure spite.

So when I see that tweet, my first thought is that he's wondering how that process can be brought into US law to further his own business land acquisitions (which are usually for golf courses). Think of Eminent Domain taken Up To Eleven (it is actually something Trump has long wanted).

While this would have the obvious impact of disproportionately hitting minorities and poor people, that wouldn't be the primary purpose (land grab for personal gain would be the primary reason). So, racist outcomes and pride in racism would be additional features and not a bug.

That was my initial thought about that tweet.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 23rd 2018 at 2:56:46 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Snipertoaster from Mind Your Business (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: If it's you, it's okay
#252863: Aug 23rd 2018 at 6:52:24 AM

In the Fox and Friends interview, El Naranja Grande has basically threatened a market collapse if he gets impeached, because without his thinking *snickering*, people would be miserable.

Ignoring the fact that he's now all of a sudden talking about impeachment, for some reason I find him threatening a market collapse to be very funny.

[up][up]Bollocks, beat me to it.

Edited by Snipertoaster on Aug 23rd 2018 at 3:07:21 PM

We can choose to be better.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#252864: Aug 23rd 2018 at 7:03:42 AM

Who cares about the stock market, the democracy of the US itself is under threat. Even if there are some short-time drawbacks, it will be worth it in the long run.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#252865: Aug 23rd 2018 at 7:06:03 AM

[up][up][up] You forgot Compulsory Purchase Orders. It's the same idea, so it's not that the government couldn't forcibly have bought all the property.

Edited by RainehDaze on Aug 23rd 2018 at 3:05:33 PM

Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#252866: Aug 23rd 2018 at 7:23:02 AM

[up]Actually, I believe CPOs (or Trump's insistence that CPOs = eminent domain) were the core problem that contributed to his failure. Trump was trying to convince the local authorities to use CPOs the way he uses eminent domain in the US, but CPOs and eminent domain aren't directly comparable; the CPOs could not be used the way Trump wanted them to be used.

That's not to say CPOs can't and haven't been abused; it's that Trump couldn't do it via his understanding of eminent domain. I believe this is where the bribery attempts came in, IIRC. But nobody wanted a Highland Clearances row, and his people really couldn't prove public need (they'd already pushed the boat getting the environmental approval over the heads of scientific objection, so they'd pretty much hit the wall on pushing and abusing regulations as it was).

Trump's method of using eminent domain has been reported on before. Here's an article from 2015; it's worth reading directly because of the useful links so I'm only going to quote the bit that connects (in my mind) to his recent tweet.

Donald Trump’s history of eminent domain abuse

Both the Kelo case and Trump’s efforts to benefit from eminent domain exemplify a longstanding pattern under which that power is used to take land away from the political weak and transfer it to influential private interests. In the long run, as cities like Detroit have learned, such assaults on property rights undermine development far more than they promote it.

Edited to add:

Here's an article from 2016 about the golf course issue (which started in 2006, and is still going today). It doesn't go into detail about the CPO battle and just mentions it in terms of eminent domain (presumably because it's a US newspaper rather than a British one), but it does have these two quotes (bold emphasis mine):

In Scotland, Trump Built a Wall. Then He Sent Residents the Bill.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has already built a wall — not on the border with Mexico, but on the border of his exclusive golf course in northeastern Scotland, blocking the sea view of local residents who refused to sell their homes.

And then he sent them the bill.

Mr. Trump later fell out badly with Mr. Salmond (whom he now calls “mad Alex” and a “has-been”), first because he refused to evict residents by eminent domain and then over his plans to install offshore wind turbines a couple of miles from Mr. Trump’s golf course.

“If Scotland doesn’t stop insane policy of obsolete, bird-killing wind turbines, country will be destroyed,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter in 2014.

At a parliamentary inquiry about renewable energy in 2012, Mr. Trump warned that Scotland would get into “serious trouble” if it continued to build wind turbines. Asked what evidence he had, he said, “I am the evidence.”

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 23rd 2018 at 3:56:13 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#252867: Aug 23rd 2018 at 8:03:39 AM

A little preview of today's What The Fuck Just Happened Today:

One of the jurors in Paul Manfort's trial claims just one holdout juror prevented Manafort from being convicted on all 18 counts. Paula Duncan, who identifies as a Trump supporter, said the single holdout juror could not come to a guilty verdict on 10 of the charges, leading Judge T.S. Ellis III to declare a mistrial on those 10 counts.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/403197-manafort-juror-one-holdout-prevented-ruling-on-all-18-counts

https://www.newsweek.com/paul-manafort-jury-holdout-trump-latest-1086699

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/403197-manafort-juror-one-holdout-prevented-ruling-on-all-18-counts


What I find interesting here is that the Trump supporter was not the holdout.

From the Hill article:

Duncan identified herself as supporter of President Trump and said she had hoped Manafort was innocent. But, Duncan said, she was convinced of Manafort's guilt after seeing four full boxes of evidence from special counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team.

Duncan said deliberations were heated, evening bringing some jurors to tears.

Though Duncan said the jury was not political in its conviction, she said she was skeptical of prosecutors’ intentions, which she implied were political.

I included the Fox News link since they're the ones who conducted the original interview, making them a primary source (and ironically so)

Edited by sgamer82 on Aug 23rd 2018 at 9:04:47 AM

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#252868: Aug 23rd 2018 at 8:05:54 AM

Asked what evidence he had, he said, “I am the evidence.”
I AM THE LAW!!!

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#252869: Aug 23rd 2018 at 8:19:42 AM

Fox News poll: support for Mueller probe up 11% since July.

Currently at 59% approve, 37% disapprove.

July was at 48/40.

June was 55/37.

My read on that is that having some actual trials and convictions of high-profile suspects boosted confidence from people who, as months and months passed with "nothing happening" - actually quite a bit has happened but very little of it was a Definitive Victory that you can put a stamp on - may have started to lose faith that there was ever a real fire under all this smoke.

That's the problem with investigations like this: they're far longer than your average person's attention span. Even when moving at an unusually fast rate, people start to misinterpret the sheer quantity of time needed for investigation as meaning that they've been looking for months and haven't found anything.

Big headline moments like "MANAFORT CONVICTED", meanwhile, serve to remind people that there is some good work being done here.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 23rd 2018 at 9:23:58 AM

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Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252870: Aug 23rd 2018 at 8:49:42 AM

[up]Very astute, I think you're undoubtedly correct that the average person just doesn't have any context for the normal length of this kind of investigation and thus their attention flagged as seemingly nothing happened.

Which makes the timing of this news so wonderful, the more that keeps it in the public eye before the midterms the better. Hopefully we get even more convictions and other clearly damning things from it.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#252871: Aug 23rd 2018 at 9:05:04 AM

I do think that the media's eagerness to report every scrap and bread crumb about the investigation doesn't help matters, because it feeds into that narrative that "nothing's happening". These scraps go into the pile of mounting evidence against Trump, but people want to see action taken now when they see it in headlines.

So, to the lay person, they see

  • News reports documents that Trump is a racist! "THIS COULD BE VERY BAD FOR TRUMP"
  • Trump continues being President.
  • Life goes on.
  • News reports an email that Trump colluded with Russia! "THIS COULD HAVE DIRE CONSEQUENCES FOR TRUMP"
  • Trump continues being President.
  • Life goes on.
  • News reports an interview with someone who said that Trump was directly involved in crimes! "THIS COULD BE A HUGE BLOW TO TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY."
  • Trump continues being President.
  • Life goes on.

If the President commits a crime, people expect to see an immediate response. Because these scraps just add to the general investigation and don't, say, result in an immediate Impeachment hearing and/or Trump being walked out of the White House in handcuffs, people may lose confidence that there was anything really there at all.

At worst, reporting "TRUMP DID A CRIME" and then weeks passing without a legal response occurring may even lead people to falsely conclude that the initial report was "Fake News", just like Trump keeps saying they are. "If it was real news, someone would have arrested him."

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#252872: Aug 23rd 2018 at 9:36:11 AM

And yet some of the same people are perfectly willing to believe in the National Enquirer alternate universe where Hillary is apparently serving a life sentence for her email server.

Edited by speedyboris on Aug 23rd 2018 at 12:35:07 PM

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#252873: Aug 23rd 2018 at 10:30:24 AM

Trump is railing against Sessions again, inadvertently admitting the only reason he got the AG job was because Sessions toadied up to him during the election.

Interestingly, Lindsay Graham said the best time to get rid of Sessions would be after the election. No warnings about Republican revolt to protect the evil elf.

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#252874: Aug 23rd 2018 at 11:00:15 AM

Just as a heads up: Pence is at JSC talking about the Space Force.

Also, Sessions: "I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in... While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced."

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#252875: Aug 23rd 2018 at 11:10:20 AM

[up] as much as I hate to admit it, that is a good response.


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