And Sleepy Joe Will Get The Credit: US Politics January 2021

^^ this, sorry for not being clear

gotcha - well yeah that goes without saying.

tbh i don't even get how it would work. The Veep takes powers immediately, but the President gets them back if he disputes it with his own letter, unless the original complainant resubmits the claim within 4 days.

so during those 4 days after the Prez has sent the letter, do the powers go back to the Prez now, or stay with the VP? What about the 21 day 'trial' period, are powers with the VP and only go back to the Prez after the trial, or vice versa?

just impeach the fucker. we have experience with that (except for conviction)

If pence doesn’t want the 25th it doesn’t matter what they do. It’s never going to be the 25th.

Always winter, never Christmas.

There had been plenty of warnings. Plenty of time to prepare. Plenty of money to do it. But twice the Capitol Police turned down offers of assistance - once three days before the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol and again as the mob descended on the building. https://t.co/WbCrkhN5xd

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 7, 2021

Jesus. Three days.

If Pence balks at the 25th or stalls, then impeach. And hurry up! Time's a' wasting. Start tomorrow.

Should be resignation of course but nonetheless

Missouri megadonor David Humphreys calls for @HawleyMO to be censured. Scoop from @RudiKellerMI and @MO_Independent https://t.co/Bt9cL9LtlH

— Bryan Lowry (@BryanLowry3) January 8, 2021

Humphreys is a huge player in Missouri politics https://t.co/u0RQLvVa0s

— Alex Isenstadt (@politicoalex) January 8, 2021

internet forum dorks like us are allowed to opine "ehh it'll be a minor skirmish". not the fuckin Capitol police.

fairly bad when the former intelligence community all write an open letter saying "this thing might happen" and they ignore it and waive any help.

To be fair the American intelligence community isn’t known for being good at its job.

Re: 25th, I think unperson, Neanderthal, and lagoon are on to the key issue.

Absent a clear answer about whether acting secretaries count as Cabinet members, it's literally impossible to determine what a majority of the Cabinet means.

The entire Cabinet should resign, Trump in a haze selects me as the head of the Department of ILX 1Thread and then thanks to my majority and sole vote of one he's out. Simplicity itself.

Which is why we have to take our shoes off at airports but a bunch of fascists high on milk and corn syrup can parade through the capitol building like a bunch of Nazi toddlers.

That was re: Milo's post.

somehow I didn't know there was still a portrait of john c. fucking calhoun in the capitol https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07whowerethey-9/07whowerethey-9-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp

so the new trump twitter video looks and sounds maybe ACTUALLY deep-fakey to me? I haven't heard him sound that clear in tone for years and i'm fairly sure I've _never_ heard him talk at that length without any break in character. I just don't think he's capable of that, much less in this moment.

the twitter video definitely has a lot of suspect jump cuts

He’s dead imo

He’s John-John

I remember how Trump used to mockingly say he could fake being presidential better than anyone. That video--real or not; no idea--must be his most wholehearted attempt ever at doing so (even in SOU addresses, there'd be lots of self-glorification and ridicule). I'd give him about a 6.0, basically my last-x-movies rating for things where I get to the end and shrug.

the thing about the "i can fake being presidential" statement is that he is, as in so many things, utterly delusional about that. He NEVER seemed presidential at any point. He seemed like he was TRYING at multiple times but he definitely didn't get within spitting distance of that video. Not when he came down the escalator and not at any point since. There's no halting tone as he reads the teleprompter, there's not the trailing sibilance of his dentures ungluing, there's not the pauses while his addled brain buffers, there's no nervous looking down or fumbling with his hands. Just direct eye-to-camera contact and regular steady cadence. I genuinely don't think he's been capable of it for years and almost certainly not now.

They probably had to painstakingly record it one sentence at a time with many minutes between takes. I would love to see the outtakes from this.

The deep state is clearly holding him captive & editing out his next instructions.

Yeah, after my gf came to the same conclusion I did once she saw the video, I'm cashing all my 'does not generally espouse, further, or even tolerate discussion of bullshit conspiracy theories' chips and declaring that shit a deepfake (or some digitally-manipulated cousin thereof). It's too fuckin' weird on almost every level.

i just rewatched it and his eyes are not scanning a teleprompter. are you telling me that you think he actually MEMORIZED this speech, then delivered it smoothly and verbatim? i honestly consider that far less likely than the use of a deepfake.

I don't want to go so far as to say it's a deepfake but there are several places in the video that seem trimmed, or tightened. hard to say really since there is, indisputably, at least one blatant edit, and this is the guy who sharpied a hurricane map so it's not like it's above him

(also the static background doesn't help matters)

(xposts) I hadn't read your post yet when I posted..."I've never heard him talk at that length without any break in character"--that's exactly what jumped out at me, that he got from start to finish without inserting lots of derisive asides, eye-rolls, non sequiturs, and self-glorification. So maybe it is fake. Even it's genuine, though, it's robotic, and far from the masterful presidential fakery he always promised.

to be clear: i'm not suggesting he's dead or that this is being done without his approval. i just flat out don't believe that was genuinely him. And that's fuckin' scary.

who tried to do what now pic.twitter.com/ZT7qBzsqGc

— Adam Sternbergh (@sternbergh) January 8, 2021

To protect AND serve!

My moneys on Boeing’s take, it’s him but they got him tranqed up on some of the stuff he had after his COVID days and it took take after take after take for each single line reading that required still more editing.

Boring’s take, autocorrect.

yeah its just stitched together w uncanny software prob

He pretty much always throws lots of really really really unnecessary modifiers into his speech even when reading from a teleprompter (as if to show those wiseacre writers how much more erudite he is speaking extemporaneously), it's true. But not here.

his cadence and emphasis was so weird, walkenesque

Trump's speech basically the white racist version of the scene in Straight Outta Compton where Dre has to teach Eazy to rap one line at a time

Plausible deniability to the believers? Would someone actually make their own video look weird so they can claim it's fake later?

he was going for the faux-retro vibe like Snoop in Sensual Seduction

like 0:11 for instance is kinda weird

fuck I sound like a q

yesterday, i would've told you it's pretty clear what the the distinction between a deepfake and a digitally re-edited piece is; now i dunno

i'd hazard that when the administration to the president of the united states does it because the commander in chief is incapable of speaking coherently, the semantics of the situation aren't particularly important

this is like the final boss of the gaslighting

It's like a hostage video, where the hostage has to declare death to America or something and does it in a flat, unreal voice to signify he knows it's bullshit.

^this exactly what I was thinking

I mean, I hesitate even going down the deepfake road because that's apparently an avenue some of his followers are taking atm to explain away his treachery but if it talks like a deepfake and eerily-yet-imperfectly Imagineers your body language like a deepfake...

i strongly recommend not rewatching this btw, i barely made it through twice! it just seems obviously fake.

i'm not trying to serve a hot take or build a conspiracy theory or win internet points and I'm not a genius so I assume I _can't_ be the only person on the internet who has noticed this? Anybody wanna link to others with the same obvious interp?

it's not just you

no way are they savvy enough to do that

I agree though something is really off with that video. I hate to be one of those "new tone" idiots but it almost feels like he's genuinely scared about something his legal people told him and is dropping the "Donald Trump" character for a brief moment. He talks like someone who got pulled over with drugs in the car. It's freaking me out about as much as this one documentary I watched that had a cameo by Gilbert Godfreid where you can actually hear his real voice. I'm genuinely unsettled by it.

by "that" I mean assemble a fake looking video as some kind of signal

Y'all trippin

frogs, not trying to be mean spirited, but do you think the "Donald Trump character" is something that he can actually turn on and off? That there's a rational controlled person under there and this is a persona that he plays because the MAGAs like it, like the Phil Hartman Reagan sketch? I mean... he is who he is. There's no facade or planning or grand scheme or routine at play. He's incapable of doing it! A genius with infinite patience would be by now! He cannot "turn it off and be normal," at his absolute best, he can maintain a joyless recitation for ten minutes or so and then wander away. It's not that this is out of character, it's not HIS character, like at all.