In fact, Trump won every voter in the country both times he ran. It’s just the Deep State rigged it so it looked like he didn’t I hope they have that on tape. I think it could be useful in an ad, don’t you?
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Inculcating hate A friend from the reddest part of my county once described how GOP candidates there rally support. In every group of voters, find out what issue pisses them off, then wedge the hell out of it. As the late Howard Phillips put it, “We organize discontent.” It’s just that on the right, wedge issues come and go (for those of a certain age) like fad products by Wham-O or their support for the U.S. Constitution. The issues are not the issue. Organizing discontent is. Tess Owen at Vice News examines the controversy du jour in Los Angeles schools. Recognition of Pride Month that touched off parent protests: This was grooming, said the protesters, many of whom were parents wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Leave Our Kids Alone.” The June 2 protest quickly turned violent. Videos show parents and their right-wing supporters brawling with pro-LGBTQ counterprotesters, beating them, and kicking them. It was hardly an isolated incident in the LA-area. Fights also broke out at two more protests in June, both outside Glendale School Board meetings.
Delay, delay, delay Mentor Roy Cohn taught Donald Trump well. Basic Rules for the Unscrupulous for defeating all enemies, according to one documentary: “Deflect and distract, never give in, never admit fault, lie and attack, lie and attack, publicity no matter what, win no matter what, all underpinned by a deep, prove-me-wrong belief in the power of chaos and fear.” Delay, delay, delay is not in there explicitly. Perhaps it is a Trumpian riff on deflect and distract. But it is by now a familiar Trump tactic. Run out the clock or else bleed out an opponent’s funds for fighting. Hard to do the latter when the opponent is the federal government. So delay, it is. Thus (Politico): Donald Trump on Monday called for a lengthy delay before he goes to trial for allegedly hoarding military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, contending that proceeding while he remains a candidate for president would make it virtually impossible to seat an impartial jury.
“I did that” Being on the field and in the game (rather than a heckling spectator) means that, even if you get politically run over sometimes, you don’t feel like road kill. Small consolation, maybe, but it’s something. And sometimes you get personal credit for the wins. Keep hope alive, Jesse Jackson might say. E.J. Dionne suggests that hope is more than a sop, but “a demanding virtue, not a sunny disposition.” Also, it’s practical, he writes. (It gets me up every morning.) Meaning it’s not naive to seek out “a rendezvous with hope“: Carol Graham, my colleague at the Brookings Institution, has made the study of well-being her life’s work as an economist.
Tick, tick, tick…. Florida man Cesar Sayoc was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2019 for sending over two dozen inoperative pipe bombs to perceived enemies of then-President Donald Trump. None exploded. No one was injured. His intended victims were lucky. Politics in the U.S. is not yet full-on blood sport, but there are days it trends that way. Taunts, red hats, belligerence and semi-autos are at any moment inches away from mayhem. People have had to go into hiding over viral accusations disseminated both by social media, propaganda outlets such as Fox News, and political figures such as Donald Trump. The right-wing media complex has yet to feel enough pain in its pocket to pull back from provoking its audience to credible threats of violence. In the case of the Jan. 6 insurrection, it was actual violence. One victim of Tucker Carlson gets a profile this morning in The New York Times: What’s known about the man — a two-time Trump voter named Ray Epps — is that he took part in demonstrations in Washington that day and the night before. He was captured on camera urging a crowd to march with him and enter the Capitol.
Why Trump is beating DeSantis It’s still a long way until the first Republican primaries but unless something changes quickly, it is looking more and more grim for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and more and more secure for former President Donald Trump. The polls in the early primary states show that Trump is still polling at least 20 points higher than DeSantis who still isn’t catching on. DeSantis appeared on Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo’s show this weekend and insisted that he’s floundering because the News Media doesn’t want him to be the nominee which isn’t true at all. If anything they were champing at the bit for a real horse race against Donald Trump because that would make excellent copy. But it is reasonable to ask why has been sinking in the polls over the last few months. The consensus among the pundit class seems to be that he’s just unlikable so the more people see of him the less they like him. I suspect there’s some truth to that. But it may just be the contrast between him and Trump, the political superstar.
Trump said over the weekend that Joe Biden is the most corrupt president in history. Uh huh. Check out his latest grift with his good pals the Saudis: The LIV Golf League’s season-ending team championship will be played at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami for the second straight year. LIV Golf League officials announced Monday that the $50 million team championship will be played Oct. 20-22 at Trump National Doral, which is owned by former U.S. President Donald Trump. The three-day team championship was originally scheduled to be played Nov. 3-5 at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. LIV Golf League officials have been working to move it back to Trump National Doral, where it was staged in the league’s inaugural season in 2022. The Jeddah event, now scheduled for Oct. 13-15, will be the final regular-season tournament. The Republicans are relentlessly investigating Hunter Biden’s alleged influence peddling from years ago. This is not of interest to them. Hmmm.
The real problem is the right’s massive case of arrested development This is enough to make me hurl. And it’s not just Elon and Zuck. With Nikki Haley being the only woman in the race, the GOP primary is also a dick measuring contest: Francis Suarez is bragging about placing sixth in an Independence Day 5K in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Vivek Ramaswamy, a former nationally ranked junior tennis player, is flexing his weekly pickup victories over former collegiate athletes at a Life Time Fitness outside Des Moines. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the muscle-bound, 69-year-old longshot Democratic presidential hopeful, went viral for doing pull-ups shirtless at a Gold’s Gym. Even Asa Hutchinson, the 72-year-old former Arkansas governor, is boasting about still playing full-court basketball. More than a month before the election cycle’s first debates, the 2024 presidential contest has careened into a kind of testosterone primary, a frenetic fit boy summer sidequest in which candidates are drawing fewer contrasts on policy and proving more keen on comparing feats of strength.
Well, it looks as though they’ve another way to perform for the cult. It’s a meaningless waste of time but it does have the benefit of degrading our democracy even further. Hunter at DKos has the story: Well, here we go again. House Republicans have been shrieking that they’re going to impeach a whole passel of top officials in the Joe Biden administration for supposed crimes that include investigating seditionist Donald Trump too much and investigating Hunter Biden too little, but every once in a while one of them remembers that Congress also has the power to simply zero out the salaries of any executive branch employees they don’t particularly like. It’s akin to a bill of attainder targeting a particular executive official’s career. Frustrated congressional cornballs have been sporadically remembering the power for years now, especially whenever some government agency does something that they really super do not like but can’t muster the legislative votes to actually change.
Nothing to see here Without comment. Plowable hail.