The attack that Walz let Minneapolis burn is an attack that can be defended against.
I'm not convinced of this, at all.
Even if we stipulate that Gov Walz can retrospectively justify whatever he did well enough, talking _about_ the George Floyd riots is death for the Democrats, no matter what in particular is being said about them.
Same with inflation, same with Israel, same with border migrations, same with Covid-inspired closing schools, same with anything really.
Either Kamala Harris has to show way more personal and policy depth than she ever has before, or the Harris campaign is going to be all about coconut memes and JD Vance has sex with a couch.
Trump is such a political wildcard, and American politics, aside from a few back bench nutters in the House, isn’t usually equipped to deal with his like.
Is this misthreaded?
My prior comment was about Kamala, and fwiw one of bigger under-radar stories of this cycle is that DJT is the least wildcard-y now than he's ever been since he rode down the golden escalator.
18 months ago or so, I was at least a little bit bullish on Biden because I anticipated a lot of gut-level last-yard resistance to voting for Trump. It's a significant accomplishment for the Trump campaign to make that go away.
The Demos may win the Presidency this cycle but if they do, that won't be why.
My main thing is that I think at some point the Harris campaign will need to take a risk or two.
Yeah, this is an interesting one. At the moment it's not at all clear who's leading and who's likely to be leading in a month or so if there aren't any new significant developments. If I had to come down on one side or the other I'd rather be Trump here, but that's purely a guess, and I've both overestimated and underestimated Trump before.
If I'm right, this would tend to support your idea that the Harris campaign will have to take a couple of chances.
But there's more. In particular, I think you've got to look at not just the size of the downside but the nature of the risk involved. In this case, it's Kamala. When spotlight has been on her, she's shown herself to be pedantic, vapid and too closely tied to Left cultural enthusiasms. Basically, she's a walking empty soundbite.
The question is, is that really all there is, or can develop and grow a little bit, is it just coconuts and brats and memes all the way down? If the answer is yes, the campaign ought to find a way to showcase that.
If the answer is no, and I think that's what most people are afraid of, the Harris campaign has to thread a needle. Specifically the cost of losing the news cycle if much higher than a normal campaign and Walz is probably the best choice to address that.
Not the end of the world but she should’ve picked Shapiro. This sounds paradoxical but I think the more ‘safe’ she plays it the more risk she runs of a last minute defeat. The term you’d hear in football is ‘playing not to lose.’ And we all know what that strategy leads to often enough in the 4th quarter.
"The last time Harris and Walz teamed up was when he allowed rioters to burn down half of Minneapolis and then she raised money to bail them out." - Twitter
You mean I didn't concretely address your dissatisfaction with the modern GOP, specifically in the context of it's tendencies toward monarchism and the Southern Strategy?
You don't say.
You haven’t actually made any points other than saying some folks are “libs” that you haven’t defined, you’ve ignored all citations, examples,.....
Yeah, but no. Whatever ill can be said about me, I am not incoherent, and I have written plenty here.
And you are either pretending to be oblivious or you actually are oblivious, like the teenage drug dealers Samuel L Jackson shoots at the beginning of Pulp Fiction.
If you are looking for a substantive response to your issues with the Republicans, you can start here:
"Republican voters are going to, _legitimately_, take the offices and implement the policies they are due, based on their demographic and intellectual power, and how well they campaign.
And there’s nothing about the OP that changes any of that."
This is where we have to agree to disagree, I suppose. While I have not heard any mainstream offline liberals refer to conservatives/Republicans as fascists recently, I’ve heard pretty much every other part of that from mainstream liberal sources ranging from NPR to members of Congress to the sitting president.
Yeah, probably.
Though, I think there are some undertones where we agree more than it's apparent at the surface view.
Hopefully the Dems will come up with a strategy that’s less “The other guys are really bad,” and more, “Here’s what we want to do,” but it’s the Dems, who seem convinced that they are a perpetual opposition party even when they’re in power, so…
Like here. This is right.
This version of the Democrats has to be the most intellectually barren major political party I can ever recall.
Orange Man Bad is their only coherent thought, in a world where nobody else is panicking about the Orange Man any more.
You might be inclined to give them a pass because the whole drama about Biden hypothetically dropping out has sucked out all the oxygen for anything else. But the Demos had this problem long before the debate.
The economist Tyler Cowen recently posted on his blog about a "vibe shift" consisting of 20 things or so breaking in favor of the GOP. Tbh, it's probably worth a separate post here. But it is shocking, or at least surprising, just how completely flatfooted the libs and Demos are to the major cultural currents going on in America now.
Regarding the point about what's mainstream and what's not, I still think I'm right. It might help to clarify things to differentiate between nasty epithets against us and being able to successfully organize to disempower us on the basis of the epithets being true.
The NPRs of the world aren't doing that, and for the most part they're not trying very hard.
Maybe things will be different when the fascists take over and the OP gets arrested, but frankly I'm not holding my breath for any of that.
It is true that my politics are outside of the mainstream (I don’t know the OP, so I can’t compare our politics), but it is very mainstream now to treat the current manifestation of the American Right as hostile to democracy, as authoritarian, as nationalist, as racist and xenophobic, etc.
Eh, not really. There's a lot of mainstream libs who would like to propagate that, but they don't, because
1. They don't believe it themselves.
2. It's not politically effective.
3. They especially don't believe the followup arguments the OP makes. And in particular they don't want to expose themselves as anti-democratic, anti-pluralist, anti-American in the way the OP does.
So for now at least, the OP stays fringe.
Which for me at least is kinda the point. I don't really care that much what he thinks about us. We can be xenophobic, racist, fascist, whatever.
What I do care about is that if he does think that, it's not an actual real thing, it's just his particular brand of fringe Left bullshyt.
If it were up to me, I would hope the OP would come off that particular brand, but frankly I don't need it and it's not that important.
Republican voters are going to, _legitimately_, take the offices and implement the policies they are due, based on their demographic and intellectual power, and how well they campaign.
And there's nothing about the OP that changes any of that. And in fact, it wouldn't change any of that even if the OP were true.
The one thing I’m stuck on in this reply is its reliance on the number of voters, as though the number of voters were a sign that something is, or is not, fascism.
Well yeah, it be like that.
On one hand, we have the collective opinion of the citizens and voters, the fundamental source to legitimately act in the name of the greatest Republic under the sun.
On the other hand, we have one random lib talking out of his asss.
It's absolutely diabolical to pretend, as the OP does, that this lib brainstorm is just as compelling as the voters' choice. Or God forbid, even more compelling.
"Well you didn't actually show that it's unfair to say the GOP is fascist."
Yeah, that's right. Ironically enough, this is the sort of situation where the wokes are actually right. It's not my job (or GOP's job collectively) to do the lib's intellectual and spiritual work for him for free.
So if the OP (or you for that matter) actually wants to represent this pov legitimately, first of all you should be talking to the voters instead of a group masturbation exercise among libs.
And second, he (or you) should Do The Work to formulate an opinion based on a legitimate frame of reference that Real American voters will engage with.
And to that end, I think you're already several steps ahead of the OP. I mean, I don't follow it all that close but from my memory you have quite a bit of self-awareness that your political intentions are Left-fringy, idiosyncratic and out of the mainstream.
Whereas the OP also has fringe-Left politics (maybe the same as yours maybe not, you can speak to that) but seems to genuinely expect that we should be marching to his drum.
No, fcuk that sideways. he needs to get back in line before he hurts himself, or us.
Accountability? What do you mean by that? You don’t like what I said in the article and rather than cite any specific point or policy, you just say “libs are in judgement”. What does that even mean?
Try reading again, I explained it well enough the last time.
We, the citizens and voters, we have some important decisions to make in the fall.
We will or at least can be taking a look at you, as lib, and everything you bring with that. Your intentions, your resumes, your history, your political associations, etc, etc. If the voters like what they see from you, they might vote your people into power. If they don't, the other team will probably win. But win lose or draw, _you_ are accountable to _us_. That's what democracy is about.
What's important is what we think about you. What _you_ think about _us_ is not topical.
Cosplaying by citing history, precedent, and the results of republcian actions?
Actually, I think it's more likely that you're a sociopath over a cosplayer, but eh, could go either way I suppose.
Or is it more important to be passive in the face of persecution to maintain decorum?
It's not a matter of decorum, it's about a very fundamental level of accountability. Specifically, I am one of millions of American citizens and voters, you a lib activist/organizer, not _as many_ of them but still lots and lots.
But whatever the numbers, the fundamental reality is this: we, the citizens and voters of America, sit in judgment of you, the lib activists, and not the other way around.
If you want America to reinstall VRA pre-clearance, liberalize abortion policy, increase EPA regulatory actions against the private sector, (whatever was in the laundry list of the OP), it's your job to convince the American people that's what we ought to do.
Of course, the strong likelihood is that this November, my team is going substantially and deservedly asskick your team. But even that is kind of ancillary, nobody knows for sure the outcome of an election in advance.
What we do know is this: if we do win in November, it's not us who has to adapt to the new way of doing things in America, it's you.
Oh come on. I mean yeah, Joe's comment is a drive-by one-liner snarkshot and those are not valuable commodities by any stretch.
But Christ, the OP is a cosplayer or a fcuking sociopath. For whatever reason if he can't abide the political intentions of his neighbors or his fellow Americans, that's his problem not theirs.
At this point, Biden is a sure loser if he's still on the ballot come Election Day. For Trump winning back the White House, Biden staying in the race is the best option. The American people are not going to vote for a candidate who cannot be trusted to safely operate a motor vehicle.
For Demos to win the White House, it's best if Biden quits and Kamala is the nominee. She's horrible, and will probably lose as well, but you gotta figure at least she's got a puncher's chance. In a vacuum, Demos would be better with an open primary and find a nominee outside the top tier of contenders. But you really can't organize that in a week or so and hope all the players will play nice.
For the America, it's probably best if it's Kamala as well. If Demos keep on keepin on with Biden, post-Election is going to be hatefest on Biden. Like RBG x10. If it's Kamala (or anybody else) and she gets thumped just as bad as Biden would have we might just create a world where Demos are capable of blaming themselves.
The court basically said that he is immune from prosecution at all times, because they include ‘literally any orders to his department heads’ as, itself, part of his official duties as president.
No, I think you might be overlooking the part about the difference between absolute immunity and presumptive immunity.
Trump talking to department heads is presumptively immune from prosecution. There is, at least according to Trump v US, the possibility that the presumption can be overcome.
Legal powers can be used in illegal ways, in fact that’s the entire risk represented by abuse of office. And the Supreme Court has rendered such prosecutions nearly impossible.
Certainly more difficult than Demos want in Trump's case. though maybe not impossible. The point being that a hypothetical (or concrete) prosecution is not the holy of holies. There are other priorities, higher ones in this case, for what seems to me to be obvious reasons.
And to be frank, if it were a Democrat violating the law I very much doubt you’d have trouble seeing that.
That's right, I wouldn't and I don't. President Biden should obey the law, especially as it pertains to collecting payments for student loans and enforcing our immigration, border security and visa policies.
The law, and the Constitution ought to be a constraint on all actors of our system. And to a large extent they were for most of our history. Lib has created a world where it's okay if you can get away with it, especially as it pertains to Demo Presidents evading, circumventing or defying Congress.
The idea of criminally prosecuting the presumably former President, while it's always been at least theoretically possible, was never intended to be the main guardrail for us anyway.
Finally, since I don't think anybody else has mentioned it, and unanticipated by me at least, that one plausible outcome of Trump v US is that the Bragg NY guilty verdict will be thrown out.
In fact, the judge in the case has already pushed back the sentencing date based on the propensity of the judicial system to overturn the guilty verdict before sentencing happens.
Part of the majority decision in Trump was that (former) Presidents are immune from prosecution for their official acts, _and_ furthermore official acts of the President can't be entered as evidence against him in _any_ criminal case. Well, the Bragg team did just that. And in a letter from Trumps lawyers to the judge, Trump's lawyer serendipitously cites an assertion from the prosecution team that the now-tainted "evidence" was "devastating" to Mr Trump's defense (LOL!! libs!).
Well, what happens now? In any other case, the prosecution could hope to save the day based on an argument of harmless error in appeals court. And that is still a thing here.
But in addition, there's another wrinkle which I haven't heard anybody else mention. The theory of harmless error is about the right of a defendant to receive a fair trial. But the framework of Trump v US is not about that. It's about immunity.
By admitting the evidence at trial, in the framework of Trump v US Trump has already suffered the irreparable harm he shouldn't have to suffer. It'd be really funny, to me at least, is that because the harm has already occurred and can't be mitigated, the conviction stands. It's a question of first _and last_ impression, which I don't think you see too many of.
Btw, none of this is intended to be at all predictive. At this point, the Bragg case is a total crapshoot. I mean, there's so many things in play at some point the verdict will be vacated. As to how, that's anybody's guess.
From my perspective, The Appeals Court was clearly correct – a government official’s power is defined by the law – be it common, statutory or constitution. Therefore an illegal act cannot be an official act. If Trump wants to claim that holding him accountable represents an as-applied constitutional violation, let him try that argument on appeal.
No no. This is exactly where CJ Roberts sez, "Pay attention lib, you might just learn something."
In the text of the Constitution and design of our governance emanating from it, the President has specific roles and responsibilities that other people don't have. Eg he is supposed to faithfully execute the laws, issue letters of marque and reprisal, establish post offices, whatever.
In fact, letters of marque and reprisal is a great example. Issuing one is almost certainly a crime if done by anybody other than the President. Therefore, for the President to be the President, anybody who purports to prosecute the (former) President for crimes supposedly unrelated to the legitimate exercise of his office, must show, a priori that the conduct at issue is not an official act of his office.
The idea that officeholders should be free of the worry that their decisions may have adverse consequences down the road is one that is antithetical to the ideals of a free people. Public servants should absolutely be concerned their actions might land them in court, and possibly prison.
Yeah yeah.
In order to maintain the capacity in any context to act as a nation with one clear intent, the United States (or any other country really) must have an executive with the responsibility to define and implement that intention.
And for the same reason that executive (in our case, the President) must have the the freedom to act according to his own judgment when acting in his official capacity. That's why, at least some of the time, he is immune from prosecution. That's what we found out on Monday.
But, in the context of your comment, it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to be a nation-state, we don't have to act with one intent, we can be just a hodgepodge of people who live here. But whatever can be said in favor of that, it is not the design of the United States laid out in the Constitution.
It's also worth mentioning for those who care, that the libs are or ought be invested in the unity of the United States at least as much as we are (maybe more). Certainly most libs favor the unity of the federal government in terms of creating and maintaining things like Medicare or the EPA.
Just because this decision benefits Trump doesn't at all mean it's the wrong decision.
A more principled scotus wouldn’t have taken this case. This reads almost like an advisory opinion on a matter not yet ripe for review.
No, CJ Roberts is right on this one. Jack Smith is trying to prosecute Trump regarding conduct for which Trump is presumptively immune from prosecution. In order to defeat Trump's presumptive immunity, Jack Smith (or some other prosecutor) has to win a finding that the conduct at issue is not part of Trump's exercise of the office.
Jack Smith has not won any such finding, or even made an attempt to that end.
There's no way Trump can be prosecuted until that happens, and there's nothing more that needs to happen before the Supreme Court issues a timely opinion.
You keep saying that, but my birth certificate, my passport and my every decade background check by the FBI seem to find otherwise.
Yeah, you are (I presume) an American citizen with an American passport. Good for you.
So even if you an American, you're not a real American. You don't have any loyalty to compatriots who are political adversaries. And therefore the things you say are likely to be wrong or corrupt in situations where that wouldn't be the case for an apolitical person.
Or in this case, the fact that you're oblivious to the reality that the real Americans hold the Democrats accountable, not Trump, for the actions of BLM and CDC and the like.
So the lockdown orders issued in Mississippi by a … checks notes … GOP Governor were somehow orchestrated by Democrats?
Well, yeah.
Without knowing anything in particular about Mississippi's timeline for the virus, when were the lockdowns put in place? How long were they there for? Were the public schools closed and if so for how long?
What were Fauci, CDC, teacher's unions, etc, saying at the time? How do these answers compare to analogous answers for blue states?
The voters have already internalized, at least in a vague way, the answers to these questions.
If these answers aren't especially good for the Democrats, and they're not, it's up to your team to persuade the voters otherwise.
But as things stand, you're not even attempting to communicate on the voters' wavelength, so shouldn't be surprised to find out that you're not getting any traction and you're well on your way to losing the election, at least at the Presidential level.
Right, because in your distorted fantasy world the blue states, and blue counties in red states, are not real Americans.
Blue states and blue counties obviously have their fair share of problems, maybe including lack of loyalty sometimes. But for now, at least, I am corresponding with you, Philip, and whatever the problems with the blue states are, _Philip_ is not a real American.
That aside – lockdowns were imposed in red states on the advice of a red administration.
Philip, people already know who was responsible for lockdowns and BLM and George Floyd riots. GOP really hasn't even expended any effort to argue the point, or needed to. Maybe that will change as the campaign goes on if the Demos find an angle to push on.
Which again, if you were situated differently, you would know why your prior comment about Trump's watch doesn't hold water.
Most of the time political accountability is invoked in a shorthand back-of-the-envelope way as to what happened when such and such a person was in office.
But, that's most of the time. There's no law that says it has to be that way, and this is an exception for the reasons I've been writing about.
Reasons that most people intuit, and you would intuit as well if you had better motives than you in fact do.
Why would democrats need to def[e]nd things that occurred on TFG’s prior watch?
Because Black Lives Matter, the virus lockdowns and the like are either a product of the Democratic party directly, or more likely, cultural actors associated with them.
It's the sort of thing real Americans pick up on right away.
But Trump also isn’t going to run away with any election either.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "run away with", but I maybe, probably disagree?
Reagan-Mondale margins are out, but Clinton-Dole or Bush-Dukakis are well within play here.
The reality is, Trump just isn't scaring anybody any more. Not that people like him (though some do), it's just that there's no panic in the idea that he'll go back to the White House.
And the Democrats have lost interest on anything other than Orange Man Bad. Among other things, they would have to substantively defend things like the lockdowns and the George Floyd riots, and they don't want to do that.
Frankly, Joe Biden is lucky to be doing as well as he is in the polls, and I don't expect him to stay there.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Tim Walz announced as Kamala Harris’s running mate”
Not good, for similar reasons. But, just like the Harris analogs it may have to be done, depending on circumstances.
"
I'm not convinced of this, at all.
Even if we stipulate that Gov Walz can retrospectively justify whatever he did well enough, talking _about_ the George Floyd riots is death for the Democrats, no matter what in particular is being said about them.
Same with inflation, same with Israel, same with border migrations, same with Covid-inspired closing schools, same with anything really.
Either Kamala Harris has to show way more personal and policy depth than she ever has before, or the Harris campaign is going to be all about coconut memes and JD Vance has sex with a couch.
"
Is this misthreaded?
My prior comment was about Kamala, and fwiw one of bigger under-radar stories of this cycle is that DJT is the least wildcard-y now than he's ever been since he rode down the golden escalator.
18 months ago or so, I was at least a little bit bullish on Biden because I anticipated a lot of gut-level last-yard resistance to voting for Trump. It's a significant accomplishment for the Trump campaign to make that go away.
The Demos may win the Presidency this cycle but if they do, that won't be why.
"
Yeah, this is an interesting one. At the moment it's not at all clear who's leading and who's likely to be leading in a month or so if there aren't any new significant developments. If I had to come down on one side or the other I'd rather be Trump here, but that's purely a guess, and I've both overestimated and underestimated Trump before.
If I'm right, this would tend to support your idea that the Harris campaign will have to take a couple of chances.
But there's more. In particular, I think you've got to look at not just the size of the downside but the nature of the risk involved. In this case, it's Kamala. When spotlight has been on her, she's shown herself to be pedantic, vapid and too closely tied to Left cultural enthusiasms. Basically, she's a walking empty soundbite.
The question is, is that really all there is, or can develop and grow a little bit, is it just coconuts and brats and memes all the way down? If the answer is yes, the campaign ought to find a way to showcase that.
If the answer is no, and I think that's what most people are afraid of, the Harris campaign has to thread a needle. Specifically the cost of losing the news cycle if much higher than a normal campaign and Walz is probably the best choice to address that.
"
"The last time Harris and Walz teamed up was when he allowed rioters to burn down half of Minneapolis and then she raised money to bail them out." - Twitter
On “Voting for Republicans is Voting for Fascism”
You mean I didn't concretely address your dissatisfaction with the modern GOP, specifically in the context of it's tendencies toward monarchism and the Southern Strategy?
You don't say.
Yeah, but no. Whatever ill can be said about me, I am not incoherent, and I have written plenty here.
And you are either pretending to be oblivious or you actually are oblivious, like the teenage drug dealers Samuel L Jackson shoots at the beginning of Pulp Fiction.
If you are looking for a substantive response to your issues with the Republicans, you can start here:
"Republican voters are going to, _legitimately_, take the offices and implement the policies they are due, based on their demographic and intellectual power, and how well they campaign.
And there’s nothing about the OP that changes any of that."
"
Yeah, probably.
Though, I think there are some undertones where we agree more than it's apparent at the surface view.
Like here. This is right.
This version of the Democrats has to be the most intellectually barren major political party I can ever recall.
Orange Man Bad is their only coherent thought, in a world where nobody else is panicking about the Orange Man any more.
You might be inclined to give them a pass because the whole drama about Biden hypothetically dropping out has sucked out all the oxygen for anything else. But the Demos had this problem long before the debate.
The economist Tyler Cowen recently posted on his blog about a "vibe shift" consisting of 20 things or so breaking in favor of the GOP. Tbh, it's probably worth a separate post here. But it is shocking, or at least surprising, just how completely flatfooted the libs and Demos are to the major cultural currents going on in America now.
Regarding the point about what's mainstream and what's not, I still think I'm right. It might help to clarify things to differentiate between nasty epithets against us and being able to successfully organize to disempower us on the basis of the epithets being true.
The NPRs of the world aren't doing that, and for the most part they're not trying very hard.
Maybe things will be different when the fascists take over and the OP gets arrested, but frankly I'm not holding my breath for any of that.
"
Eh, not really. There's a lot of mainstream libs who would like to propagate that, but they don't, because
1. They don't believe it themselves.
2. It's not politically effective.
3. They especially don't believe the followup arguments the OP makes. And in particular they don't want to expose themselves as anti-democratic, anti-pluralist, anti-American in the way the OP does.
So for now at least, the OP stays fringe.
Which for me at least is kinda the point. I don't really care that much what he thinks about us. We can be xenophobic, racist, fascist, whatever.
What I do care about is that if he does think that, it's not an actual real thing, it's just his particular brand of fringe Left bullshyt.
If it were up to me, I would hope the OP would come off that particular brand, but frankly I don't need it and it's not that important.
Republican voters are going to, _legitimately_, take the offices and implement the policies they are due, based on their demographic and intellectual power, and how well they campaign.
And there's nothing about the OP that changes any of that. And in fact, it wouldn't change any of that even if the OP were true.
"
Well yeah, it be like that.
On one hand, we have the collective opinion of the citizens and voters, the fundamental source to legitimately act in the name of the greatest Republic under the sun.
On the other hand, we have one random lib talking out of his asss.
It's absolutely diabolical to pretend, as the OP does, that this lib brainstorm is just as compelling as the voters' choice. Or God forbid, even more compelling.
"Well you didn't actually show that it's unfair to say the GOP is fascist."
Yeah, that's right. Ironically enough, this is the sort of situation where the wokes are actually right. It's not my job (or GOP's job collectively) to do the lib's intellectual and spiritual work for him for free.
So if the OP (or you for that matter) actually wants to represent this pov legitimately, first of all you should be talking to the voters instead of a group masturbation exercise among libs.
And second, he (or you) should Do The Work to formulate an opinion based on a legitimate frame of reference that Real American voters will engage with.
And to that end, I think you're already several steps ahead of the OP. I mean, I don't follow it all that close but from my memory you have quite a bit of self-awareness that your political intentions are Left-fringy, idiosyncratic and out of the mainstream.
Whereas the OP also has fringe-Left politics (maybe the same as yours maybe not, you can speak to that) but seems to genuinely expect that we should be marching to his drum.
No, fcuk that sideways. he needs to get back in line before he hurts himself, or us.
"
In a better world, more Republicans would have won in 2022 than actually did.
Maybe it will happen again this year. If it does, it will be because the voters made a mistake. But mistake or not, it's still their mistake to make.
"
Try reading again, I explained it well enough the last time.
We, the citizens and voters, we have some important decisions to make in the fall.
We will or at least can be taking a look at you, as lib, and everything you bring with that. Your intentions, your resumes, your history, your political associations, etc, etc. If the voters like what they see from you, they might vote your people into power. If they don't, the other team will probably win. But win lose or draw, _you_ are accountable to _us_. That's what democracy is about.
What's important is what we think about you. What _you_ think about _us_ is not topical.
"
Actually, I think it's more likely that you're a sociopath over a cosplayer, but eh, could go either way I suppose.
It's not a matter of decorum, it's about a very fundamental level of accountability. Specifically, I am one of millions of American citizens and voters, you a lib activist/organizer, not _as many_ of them but still lots and lots.
But whatever the numbers, the fundamental reality is this: we, the citizens and voters of America, sit in judgment of you, the lib activists, and not the other way around.
If you want America to reinstall VRA pre-clearance, liberalize abortion policy, increase EPA regulatory actions against the private sector, (whatever was in the laundry list of the OP), it's your job to convince the American people that's what we ought to do.
Of course, the strong likelihood is that this November, my team is going substantially and deservedly asskick your team. But even that is kind of ancillary, nobody knows for sure the outcome of an election in advance.
What we do know is this: if we do win in November, it's not us who has to adapt to the new way of doing things in America, it's you.
"
Oh come on. I mean yeah, Joe's comment is a drive-by one-liner snarkshot and those are not valuable commodities by any stretch.
But Christ, the OP is a cosplayer or a fcuking sociopath. For whatever reason if he can't abide the political intentions of his neighbors or his fellow Americans, that's his problem not theirs.
Bad faith indeed.
On “Joe Biden Interview with George Stephanopoulos “I’m still in good shape””
At this point, Biden is a sure loser if he's still on the ballot come Election Day. For Trump winning back the White House, Biden staying in the race is the best option. The American people are not going to vote for a candidate who cannot be trusted to safely operate a motor vehicle.
For Demos to win the White House, it's best if Biden quits and Kamala is the nominee. She's horrible, and will probably lose as well, but you gotta figure at least she's got a puncher's chance. In a vacuum, Demos would be better with an open primary and find a nominee outside the top tier of contenders. But you really can't organize that in a week or so and hope all the players will play nice.
For the America, it's probably best if it's Kamala as well. If Demos keep on keepin on with Biden, post-Election is going to be hatefest on Biden. Like RBG x10. If it's Kamala (or anybody else) and she gets thumped just as bad as Biden would have we might just create a world where Demos are capable of blaming themselves.
On “Sleepwalking Towards Another Trump Presidency”
"She's so fcuking bad."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl1-nwD9ows
On “A Semi-Short Explainer of Presidential Immunity Decision”
No, I think you might be overlooking the part about the difference between absolute immunity and presumptive immunity.
Trump talking to department heads is presumptively immune from prosecution. There is, at least according to Trump v US, the possibility that the presumption can be overcome.
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Certainly more difficult than Demos want in Trump's case. though maybe not impossible. The point being that a hypothetical (or concrete) prosecution is not the holy of holies. There are other priorities, higher ones in this case, for what seems to me to be obvious reasons.
That's right, I wouldn't and I don't. President Biden should obey the law, especially as it pertains to collecting payments for student loans and enforcing our immigration, border security and visa policies.
The law, and the Constitution ought to be a constraint on all actors of our system. And to a large extent they were for most of our history. Lib has created a world where it's okay if you can get away with it, especially as it pertains to Demo Presidents evading, circumventing or defying Congress.
The idea of criminally prosecuting the presumably former President, while it's always been at least theoretically possible, was never intended to be the main guardrail for us anyway.
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Finally, since I don't think anybody else has mentioned it, and unanticipated by me at least, that one plausible outcome of Trump v US is that the Bragg NY guilty verdict will be thrown out.
In fact, the judge in the case has already pushed back the sentencing date based on the propensity of the judicial system to overturn the guilty verdict before sentencing happens.
Part of the majority decision in Trump was that (former) Presidents are immune from prosecution for their official acts, _and_ furthermore official acts of the President can't be entered as evidence against him in _any_ criminal case. Well, the Bragg team did just that. And in a letter from Trumps lawyers to the judge, Trump's lawyer serendipitously cites an assertion from the prosecution team that the now-tainted "evidence" was "devastating" to Mr Trump's defense (LOL!! libs!).
Well, what happens now? In any other case, the prosecution could hope to save the day based on an argument of harmless error in appeals court. And that is still a thing here.
But in addition, there's another wrinkle which I haven't heard anybody else mention. The theory of harmless error is about the right of a defendant to receive a fair trial. But the framework of Trump v US is not about that. It's about immunity.
By admitting the evidence at trial, in the framework of Trump v US Trump has already suffered the irreparable harm he shouldn't have to suffer. It'd be really funny, to me at least, is that because the harm has already occurred and can't be mitigated, the conviction stands. It's a question of first _and last_ impression, which I don't think you see too many of.
Btw, none of this is intended to be at all predictive. At this point, the Bragg case is a total crapshoot. I mean, there's so many things in play at some point the verdict will be vacated. As to how, that's anybody's guess.
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No no. This is exactly where CJ Roberts sez, "Pay attention lib, you might just learn something."
In the text of the Constitution and design of our governance emanating from it, the President has specific roles and responsibilities that other people don't have. Eg he is supposed to faithfully execute the laws, issue letters of marque and reprisal, establish post offices, whatever.
In fact, letters of marque and reprisal is a great example. Issuing one is almost certainly a crime if done by anybody other than the President. Therefore, for the President to be the President, anybody who purports to prosecute the (former) President for crimes supposedly unrelated to the legitimate exercise of his office, must show, a priori that the conduct at issue is not an official act of his office.
Jack Smith has shown no such thing.
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Yeah yeah.
In order to maintain the capacity in any context to act as a nation with one clear intent, the United States (or any other country really) must have an executive with the responsibility to define and implement that intention.
And for the same reason that executive (in our case, the President) must have the the freedom to act according to his own judgment when acting in his official capacity. That's why, at least some of the time, he is immune from prosecution. That's what we found out on Monday.
But, in the context of your comment, it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to be a nation-state, we don't have to act with one intent, we can be just a hodgepodge of people who live here. But whatever can be said in favor of that, it is not the design of the United States laid out in the Constitution.
It's also worth mentioning for those who care, that the libs are or ought be invested in the unity of the United States at least as much as we are (maybe more). Certainly most libs favor the unity of the federal government in terms of creating and maintaining things like Medicare or the EPA.
Just because this decision benefits Trump doesn't at all mean it's the wrong decision.
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No, CJ Roberts is right on this one. Jack Smith is trying to prosecute Trump regarding conduct for which Trump is presumptively immune from prosecution. In order to defeat Trump's presumptive immunity, Jack Smith (or some other prosecutor) has to win a finding that the conduct at issue is not part of Trump's exercise of the office.
Jack Smith has not won any such finding, or even made an attempt to that end.
There's no way Trump can be prosecuted until that happens, and there's nothing more that needs to happen before the Supreme Court issues a timely opinion.
On “About Last Night: Debate Debacle Edition”
Yeah, you are (I presume) an American citizen with an American passport. Good for you.
So even if you an American, you're not a real American. You don't have any loyalty to compatriots who are political adversaries. And therefore the things you say are likely to be wrong or corrupt in situations where that wouldn't be the case for an apolitical person.
Or in this case, the fact that you're oblivious to the reality that the real Americans hold the Democrats accountable, not Trump, for the actions of BLM and CDC and the like.
Well, yeah.
Without knowing anything in particular about Mississippi's timeline for the virus, when were the lockdowns put in place? How long were they there for? Were the public schools closed and if so for how long?
What were Fauci, CDC, teacher's unions, etc, saying at the time? How do these answers compare to analogous answers for blue states?
The voters have already internalized, at least in a vague way, the answers to these questions.
If these answers aren't especially good for the Democrats, and they're not, it's up to your team to persuade the voters otherwise.
But as things stand, you're not even attempting to communicate on the voters' wavelength, so shouldn't be surprised to find out that you're not getting any traction and you're well on your way to losing the election, at least at the Presidential level.
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Blue states and blue counties obviously have their fair share of problems, maybe including lack of loyalty sometimes. But for now, at least, I am corresponding with you, Philip, and whatever the problems with the blue states are, _Philip_ is not a real American.
Philip, people already know who was responsible for lockdowns and BLM and George Floyd riots. GOP really hasn't even expended any effort to argue the point, or needed to. Maybe that will change as the campaign goes on if the Demos find an angle to push on.
Which again, if you were situated differently, you would know why your prior comment about Trump's watch doesn't hold water.
Most of the time political accountability is invoked in a shorthand back-of-the-envelope way as to what happened when such and such a person was in office.
But, that's most of the time. There's no law that says it has to be that way, and this is an exception for the reasons I've been writing about.
Reasons that most people intuit, and you would intuit as well if you had better motives than you in fact do.
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Because Black Lives Matter, the virus lockdowns and the like are either a product of the Democratic party directly, or more likely, cultural actors associated with them.
It's the sort of thing real Americans pick up on right away.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean by "run away with", but I maybe, probably disagree?
Reagan-Mondale margins are out, but Clinton-Dole or Bush-Dukakis are well within play here.
The reality is, Trump just isn't scaring anybody any more. Not that people like him (though some do), it's just that there's no panic in the idea that he'll go back to the White House.
And the Democrats have lost interest on anything other than Orange Man Bad. Among other things, they would have to substantively defend things like the lockdowns and the George Floyd riots, and they don't want to do that.
Frankly, Joe Biden is lucky to be doing as well as he is in the polls, and I don't expect him to stay there.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.