The Conversation -- March 17, 2024
Biden Is So Old Mean. Juliegrace Brufke of Axios: "House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said GOP leadership should reconsider how they invite presidents to give the State of the Union address, citing President Biden's 'divisive' speech.... Emmer argued Biden's remarks were a 'hyper-partisan' campaign speech, telling Axios the president should not be invited to address Congress next year if he's elected to a second term.... The Minnesota Republican said he's bullish on former President Trump's odds of defeating Biden in November, but felt Biden's speech should have had a more unifying tone.... Emmer is not the first Republican to float blocking Biden from giving the annual speech, with multiple members having sought to prevent the president from speaking this year." ~~~
~~~ As digby writes, "You really can't make this stuff up[.]" MB: Really, Biden should be more like Trump, who has every elected and wanna-be-elected Republican cowering in fear that s/he, perhaps inadvertently, will get on the his wrong side & be subject to one of Trump's career-ending insults.
Historian Timothy Snyder on Substack explains dictatorships to stupid people: "Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman.... The vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing.... Another pleasant illusion is that the strongman will unite the nation. But an aspiring dictator will always claim that some belong and others don't.... An American strongman will measure himself by the wealth and power of other dictators. He will befriend them and compete with them. From them he will learn new ways to oppress and to exploit his own people.... Dictatorial power today is not about achieving anything positive. It is about preventing anyone else from achieving anything. The strongman is really the weak man: his secret is that he makes everyone else weaker. Unaccountable to the law and to voters, the dictator has no reason to consider anything beyond his own personal interests." Read on. Send to dimwitted friend or relative.
Francesca Ebel & Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: "On the final day of a presidential election with only one possible result, Russians protested Vladimir Putin's authoritarian hold on power by forming long lines to vote against him at noon Sunday -- answering the call of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who had urged the midday action before dying suddenly in prison last month. Preliminary results affirmed that Putin would claim a landslide victory and extend his rule to at least 2030 with another six year term. Russia's Central Election Commission, which routinely bars any real challengers from running, reported late Sunday that Putin had received 87.34 percent of the vote with half of ballots counted.... The 'Noon Against Putin' protest, with voters forming queues outside polling stations in major cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk, was a striking -- if futile -- display of solidarity and dissent and it undercut the Kremlin's main message: that Putin is a legitimate president commanding massive support." The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Who knows? If Trump is still alive in 2028, we may have to show up at a "Noon Against Trump" as a last resort. Hell, as much as a normally try to avoid long lines for anything, I just might show up at my polling place at high noon on Nov. 5, 2024. Even if I am against Trump 24/7.
Jason Samenow & Kevin Ambrose of the Washington Post: "Exceptionally warm March weather propelled Washington's cherry blossoms to their second-earliest peak bloom in more than a century of records Sunday, reflecting the growing influence of human-caused climate change on the famed trees. 'PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! Did we say PEAK BLOOM?!,' the National Park Service wrote on X at 4 p.m. Sunday. 'The blossoms are opening & putting on a splendid spring spectacle.' Sunday's peak bloom at the Tidal Basin, about two weeks earlier than normal, tied with 2000 as the second earliest on record; only the March 15, 1990, bloom came sooner in observations that date to 1921." The Hill's report is here.
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Presidential Race
The New York Times has decided to report that one candidate is a vicious, unhinged loon: ~~~
~~~ Anjali Huynh & Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump, at an event on Saturday ostensibly meant to boost his preferred candidate in Ohio's Republican Senate primary race, gave a freewheeling speech in which he used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, maintained a steady stream of insults and vulgarities and predicted that the United States would never have another election if he did not win in November.... For nearly 90 minutes outside the Dayton International Airport in Vandalia, Ohio, Mr. Trump delivered a discursive speech, replete with attacks and caustic rhetoric. He noted several times that he was having difficulty reading the teleprompter.... The former president opened his speech by praising the people serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Mr. Trump ... called them 'hostages' and 'unbelievable patriots,' commended their spirit and vowed to help them if elected in November....
"He asserted, without evidence, that other countries were emptying their prisons of 'young people' and sending them across the border. 'I don't know if you call them "people," in some cases,' he said. 'They're not people, in my opinion.' He later referred to them as 'animals.'... [At another point he said,] 'Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a blood bath for the whole -- that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a blood bath for the country.'... Mr. Trump issued vulgar and derogatory remarks about a number of Democrats.... Mr. Trump called Mr. Biden a 'stupid president' several times and at one point referred to him as a 'dumb son of a --' before trailing off." ~~~
~~~ Henry Gomez & Emma Barnett of NBC News: "Ohio's Republican Senate primary was already a mean-spirited and mudslinging affair, careening viciously toward a tight and bitter finish. And then Donald Trump came to town. The former president touched down for a Saturday-afternoon rally to boost Bernie Moreno, who despite snagging his endorsement three months ago has failed to distance himself decisively from his GOP rivals. Trump was on the attack, whipping the crowd into a frenzy against state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians. Dolan's emergence as Moreno's strongest opponent, accentuated in the last week with endorsements from Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman, has reinforced distinct battle lines: MAGA vs. Ohio's old-guard conservative establishment, which pales as moderate in comparison to Trump's politics.... If Moreno wins, Trump can take credit for carrying an inexperienced candidate to victory. If Moreno loses, Trump will face questions about the value of his endorsement in tough races, in this case the first competitive 2024 Senate primary in which he picked a favorite."
Michael Scherer & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The Republican Party's new chairman, Michael Whatley, declared in a Thursday memo that the party would keep open its early-voting program, called Bank Your Vote, and not shutter any of its bricks-and-mortar community centers, contradicting comments by top party officials earlier in the week.... Party officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity..., said Friday that the shift in announced plans was a result of the fast pace of the takeover of the Republican National Committee at the start of the week. Much of the senior leadership has either left in recent weeks or been fired, and dozens of lower-level staffers were asked to reapply for their jobs."
Rebecca Picciotto of CNBC: "Creditors want to force Rudy Giuliani to sell his $3.5 million Florida condo to help pay his significant debts, according to a court document filed on Friday. The former New York City mayor filed for bankruptcy protection in December, citing myriad unpaid debts including a $148 million payment to two Georgia election poll workers who he falsely claimed had tampered with the 2020 election ballots while he was serving as a lawyer for ... Donald Trump. In response to Friday's filing, Giuliani's counsel said the request to sell the Florida condo is 'extremely premature.'"
Debra Kamin of the New York Times: "American homeowners could see a significant drop in the cost of selling their homes after a real estate trade group agreed to a landmark deal that will eliminate a bedrock of the industry, the standard 6 percent sales commission. The National Association of Realtors, a powerful organization that has set the guidelines for home sales for decades, has agreed to settle a series of lawsuits by paying $418 million in damages and by eliminating its rules on commissions. Legal counsel for N.A.R. approved the agreement early Friday morning, and The New York Times obtained a copy of the signed document. The deal, which lawyers anticipate will be filed within weeks and still needs a federal court's approval, would end a multitude of legal claims from home sellers who argued that the rules forced them to pay excessive fees."
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Ukraine, et al. Robyn Dixon, et al., of the Washington Post: "Ukrainians in territories occupied by the Russian military are being forced to vote in the Russian presidential election under the watch of heavily armed, masked soldiers who are accompanying election officials going from house to house, knocking on doors as they seek to compel participation. The staging of the election in occupied Ukraine is a violation of international law and Russia was condemned in a statement at the United Nations on Friday by Ukraine and 55 other nations for its 'manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.' Yevheniia Hliebova, head of Novomykolaivka village military administration in Kherson region, who has left occupied territory, described it as an 'election at gunpoint. That is, violence.'... ome Ukrainians who were being collared by election teams were asked to fill out ballots in front of pro-Kremlin election workers and soldiers -- violating the principle of a secret ballot, a core tenet of democracy." MB: On the bright side, at least they're not like American Republicans, who prefer to suppress the vote. Plus, it's way easier to vote, if there is only one candidate you can choose without being shot dead.
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Reader Comments (9)
The Donald says that there will be a bloodbath if he loses the election.
Does he mean that he's going to throw ketchup at all of us who didn't
vote for him? Is Heinz on the stock market?
Isn't the FBI supposed to get involved when someone proposes a
bloodbath, or another civil war?
Looks like I have a lot of questions today.
It's Sunday and the urge to sermonize overwhelms....I'll use this headline as my text and make it a very short one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-disinformation-2024-social-media.html
The way I read it, it's one more proud proof that on every front, Republicans are winning the war against morality. In the name of profit, they have become the anything goes party.
Lying? Cheating? Violence? All OK.
They've successfully rewritten that old saw about all being fair in love and war: Maybe for them all's fair in hate and war, unless the only love that counts is love of money and power.
Ala Hobbes, they have become nasty and brutish. I'd add my St. Patrick's Day wish that they are also short.
@Forrest Morris: You're making a very good point about that "bloodbath" remark. Here's a guy out on bail awaiting trial on, say, 88 felony counts, and he sweeps into town promising a bloodbath if voters don't pick him. If I were sheriff, I'd make a big show of hauling him in for questioning in one of those grim little interview rooms, where I would grill him for hours and get up in his face the way the cops do on the teevee shows.
"What kinda organization you got, buddy, that's gonna do all this damage?" Oh, the Trump organization? Oh, the Republican National Committee? The Congress? The fucking Congress?
"Ever done anything like this before?" Oh, I see you're under indictment here for attacking the Capitol of the You-nited States. What are you, a Putin-loving commie? A Hitler-crazed Nazi? Oh, okay, your dad was a Nazi kinda guy and got arrested 100 years ago for taking part in a similar riot. Runs in the family, huh?
You're gonna stay here overni -- oh, wait, it's the weekend. You're gonna cool your heels in our little jail cell while we wait for the D.A. to write up some charges Monday. Might take till Tuesday to get a judge.
"Got bail?" Oh, you're fighting paying your bail in a couple of cases where you lost big back in New Yawk City? Well, welcome to Vandalia, Ohio, pal, where we don't take jack-shit from outside agitators. Take him away, Joe Bob. And don't rough him up too much the way you like to do. I mean, not too much.
A Times writer, in a piece linked above, describes Trump’s most recent hate and lie filled screed in which he promised blood in the streets unless he was elected, as a “freewheeling speech”. Freewheeling? Seriously? How about dangerously psychotic? Freewheeling makes it sound easy going, positive, almost avuncular. Synonyms of freewheeling: casual, self-confident, breezy, affable. Does “My thugs will kill people if I don’t win!!!” sound AFFABLE??
Later on his speeches are described as “discursive”, another SAT word designed to mislead the reader into thinking that Trump simply moves quickly from one topic to the next, when it’s really a rambling, babbling, disconnected nutcase ranting disjointedly for hours. On its own, in the right context, discursive is a fine word, but here it seems to intentionally smooth out what’s really happening, which is a rabid dog howling about killing people.
Discursive, my ass.
And I don’t really care that later on the piece does include more accurate depictions of a standard Trump hate and violence fest. It’s like describing his rallies as barn burners, which I’ve seen frequently. Sure, if you mean burning the barn with people locked inside.
Fuck sake. .
Then…an NBC news story, also linked above, concludes with this bit of befuddlement:
“If Moreno wins, Trump can take credit for carrying an inexperienced candidate to victory. If Moreno loses, Trump will face questions about the value of his endorsement in tough races, in this case the first competitive 2024 Senate primary in which he picked a favorite.”
Where have these people been? Have they not been paying attention?
No, no, no, no, no! Trump won’t face any questions, hard, soft, Rick solid or wafer thin. No one questions Trump. About anything.
If this mutt loses, Fatty will simply declare the election rigged and use it as more proof to the MAGA mob and his political sycophants that democracy is terrible and untrustworthy and voting—in Democratic areas— must be made next to impossible.
Pay attention!
If I was a conspiracy theorist I would point out that 88 is neo nazi code for heil hitler. Hopefully Trump's bloodbath looks like the end of this Ted Lasso scene.
My parents had an Olds 88, back in the day. It probably weighed
8,000 pounds and got 6 miles to the gallon.
Pianos have 88 keys, 36 black and 52 white. I don't play but listen to
lots of piano music.
My old army buddy in San Francisco signs his letters '88' which he
says means goodbye, or something like that.
Forrest,
I don’t know where it came from, but 88 does seem to have some connection to goodbye, farewell, get gone, see ya later, etc.
In high school, our football coaches ended our practices with what they called 88 and Out the Gate. Basically, we’d line up in groups of five guys and on a whistle sprint like hell the length of the field, all the way out the gate, to the locker room.
It was a great thing to hear, after a particularly grueling practice, “Okay, line it up. 88 and out the gate.”
I think I won’t be saying that if that fat shit loses. It’ll be more like “Burn in hell, you slimy bastard.”
Why does anyone read anything the "vaunted" NYT publishes? I'm serious. Those writers have not a clue about how horrible they are. They think smoothing it all out is sophisticated. Or something.
Seriously. There is no point to pay any attention, since they have gone off the deep end with no swimming lessons. (Except a couple-- you know which ones.). Apparently the publisher is on the take or something--
It's all nonsense. And the Mango Moron needs a long rest, maybe in Russia. I hear Siberia is lovely this time of year. If only it weren't so serious...