People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows -- US Politics September 2020

"lol everyone thinks she's an idiot" who? Barrett or Feinstein?

depends on how you define 'idiot' but Barrett is not one, by my definition (unlike, say, Nunes, or Kristi Noem, or Jim Jordan, or Sarah Palin).

Until you understand this, you only have further to fall.

I'll be the doomy Narrator this time. We don't yet understand this and we haven't yet arrived at our days of reckoning.

These debates are going to be bizarre and unnerving and meaningless and meaningful and lots else. Putting aside that I'm not quite sure what the concept means--a moderator can't follow-up with "That's simply not true"? Does that count as fact-checking?--I think I agree with the no-fact-checking by moderators, though.

http://www.cnn.com/2020/09/27/media/wallace-fact-check-reliable/index.html

Fact-checking Trump at this point, I just don't know if there's a person left on the planet where that makes a difference one way or the other. And besides grinding everything to a halt, the fact-checking would--how could it not?--fall so disproportionately against Trump, you give his cult exactly what they're looking for re proof of a rigged debate.

Which they'll claim anyway, so whatever.

I dunno, clem. Chuck Todd looked crestfallen when he saw the polls and realized interest in the debates is at an all-time low. The "persuadables" are below three percent.

Chuck Todd looked crestfallen when he saw the polls and realized interest in the debates is at an all-time low.

I saw this this morning; he was basically pleading with his panel of talking heads to reassure him that his/their theater criticism still mattered. (It doesn't.)

I'm surprised there's even 3% who haven't made up their mind--really? Your vote is still up for grabs?

No frame of reference for what these debates might be like. Trump-Clinton was bizarre enough.

I think you're right -- it IS below three percent.

HRC "won" (whatever that means) her three debates; nothing changed.

It is not a bad article - but Klein remains remarkably credulous. "Democrats are now considering reforms that are, from the standpoint of democratic governance, overdue, but that were, from the standpoint of Senate traditions and mores, unthinkable: eliminating the filibuster, adding DC and Puerto Rico as states, even changing the composition of the Supreme Court." - none of that is happening.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, September 26, 2020 1:36 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

"None of that is happening" = they're not considering it? (Whether those reforms will actually happen is another matter, and Klein has long been frustrated with Democrats' inability to recognize the need for such reforms.)

I think debates sometimes matter, and for different reasons: 1960, 1976, 1992, 2008. I wouldn't dismiss their importance altogether.

People are already voting. Undecided and third party polling is tiny. They might matter but it’s less likely than ever that they will.

Also no one watches tv

I don't want to watch these debates, but afaict Trump has declined significantly since the last set. Perhaps so has Biden, but at least Biden began his decline from a position of coherence, Trump is now notably even more imcoherent. I'm not sure how he counters anything. It will just be his predictable word salad. Flights from China! Water flow! Religion! Socialism/antifa! Judges! Seems pointless to me.

do you cognitive declind?

*decline

Is that the name of a dance? Looks like I somehow misspelled incoherent, despite correcting an initial typo, so ... yes, I am declined

I wonder if those 2016 debates--especially the one right after the Hollywood Access tape (the first?)--would have been different without the albatross of Bill Clinton. Maybe Hillary would have directly confronted him, summoning forth every bit of disgust within her. BC made that more difficult, if not untenable, and she no doubt thought the clip itself made anything more unnecessary.

Cognitive Decline? Isn't that one of the B-52's 16 dances?

I'll try watching the debates, and I'm sure I'll regret it.

thread title

None of that is happening" = they're not considering it?

I don’t know who’s considering what - Warren would 86 the filibuster and Bernie would pack the court and so on, but Schumer doesn’t want to eliminate the filibuster, no one in the moderate and elderly part of the Senate wants to pack the court, and there’s no chance they admit two new states on a 51-49 party line vote.

People are scaremongering about the Court if the GOP regained power but they’d be much quicker to create East, West and Central Dakota if they hold all three bodies again.

so... the NYT has Trump's tax paperwork now, do i got that right?

Here's the piece:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html

and there's the tax returns

JUST IN: 7th Circuit stays district court injunction allowing Wisconsin ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if received up to 6 days later. No list or count of judges backing the order. No rationale given. Earlier: https://t.co/wuiUGyzIhd pic.twitter.com/6d2HRVSIEO

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) September 27, 2020

and there's the tax returns

― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, September 27, 2020 4:46 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

How long have you been waiting to post that, qualms?

If I could I'd buy you a beer right now.

Can someone post a salient chunk of that NYT story for those of us out of stories

congrats qualmsley, you spoke it into existence

He paid $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017. That’s the story that makes sense to most people. All the stuff about losses is too complicated.

raymond i may be able to retire from ILX now altogether

I think the debates will matter a little bit it’ll be the opposite of 2016; we all know what Trumps gonna say, he’s obviously gonna lie a bunch and make no sense most of the time, while Biden needs to convince that tiny section of persuadable voters that he’s competent, so as long as he does okay and doesn’t say anything stupid I think it’ll be considered a win

Soooo....takeaways from the tax returns are A) he’s paid no taxes and B) he’s massively underwater? How the fuck is a United States President who’s lined his pockets with federal government money for FOUR YEARS $400 million in debt?

i'm out of clicks too and i want to read about the losses :(
relatedly, is there a trick to the nytimes? no more incognito mode. i guess i have to delete cookies. i don't want to give them money.

xpost It's because he's smart.

Paywall Bypass for Chrome works if that’s your browser

Old lunch other. Trumpian spin: Because he's smart and has used the chapter laws cleverly to minimize his tax liability while he cleans up on profits for dodgy stuff like licensing his name to be on buildings owned and managed by someone else?

Just tryna save some time. The Trump spin is already on record; no one's mind will be changed by any of this.

Those who think he's a charlatan and a loser still think so.

Those who think he's a genius at manipulating the system still think so.

Congrats, I guess, to people who think this was going to be a game changer. So sorry to be the one to tell you that it won't be.

Old lunch OTM

that's what i need, thanks xxp

Tips re reading NYT articles: I'm using Chrome on a MacBook. I open the link to the article in an incognito window and very quickly (like, within 10 seconds) hit the ESC key. That stops the page from loading, but the text will already be there; you just won't see any of the pictures or graphics.

Right now, Trump's response is "fake news, fake news"--he says he's paid lots of taxes.

If he's ever forced to move past that--he may not be--I expect his response will be the same one he had in the one Republican debate in 2016: no one knows how to game the system better than I do, and that's the guy you want in charge. It was, truthfully, probably his best debate moment: when he said (paraphrase) "I gave money to that guy, and I gave money to that guy too, and I could call them up and get them to do whatever I wanted."

I have to agree with YMP: not sure any of this will mean anything.

Obviously it’s gonna mean very little for the election but I’m starting to get very curious what’s going to happen to Trump once he becomes a civilian. He has to repay nearly half a billion in the next four years!!

I will let more detail oriented folks suss out the, well, details, but remarkably, Trump seems to be such a terrible businessman that even as a crook, despite being rife with corruption and conflicts of interest, despite being the goddamn president of the United States, his incompetence still puts him unfathomably deep in the red.

it will definitely mean nothing, i am just interested in taxes tbh

Well, I think it depends on if and how much he broke the law doesn't it? And if he is indeed 300 million in debt, that won't go away when he's no longer president, in a couple of months or in 4 years.

But, Josh, it's strategic redness. He's smartly understating his income so as to reduce his taxes! Which is what any smart, winning businessman can and should do.

Anybody who doesn't game the system in this way is just not smart.

Yeah it’s abundantly clear now how this dude managed to not only lose money in the casino business but also in real estate during the 90s, when practically everyone was making bank. Hilarious that the guy who ran on his business acumen turned out to be arguably the worst businessman who ever lived

lol If he's such a bad businessman, then how has he lost hundreds of millions of dollars? You have to be a great businessman to make hundreds of millions of dollars to lose!

heh, I missed the detail that supposedly he reported $70,000 in hair care as an expense.

tbf Trump writing his hair care off as a loss makes perfect sense.

Ha that would be a good prepared debate zing