US Politics, May 2020 — I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.

Nobody wants to come here now because Covid-19.

With the possible exception of thousands of asylum-seekers from Central America forced back into Mexico to await hearings that the Trump administration is ensuring they will never get. Probably not so many Norwegians, Trump's favorite non-shithole-country immigrants, clamoring to get in right now.

xpost np rob, that makes sense!

XP Well, yeah.

In the early days of the pandemic, Dan Crenshaw and other water carriers/boot lickers were citing the new travel bans (and other immigration hurdles, like THE WALL) as ways to stop/contain the spread, but they've all since moved on to other talking points.

I HOPE ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS WILL READ AND STUDY THIS. 100% CORRECT. SLEEPY JOE WILL NEVER GET YOU THERE. HE NEVER HAS IN THE PAST. I WILL & HAVE!!! https://t.co/j15DLun4KV

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2020

They're reemerging from the slime pit of 2016: first, Kayleigh McEnany, now Katrina Pierson. Calling Jeffrey Lord.

Heard new infrastructure plan includes building a pyramid to pharaoh twoscoop in vegas. biggest. ever. real stone. classy.

fucktons of manual labor involved. possible guest worker visas! it’s lifetime employment, no bennies, one-way agreement with bulletproof ndas.

you’d think republicans would be all over infrastructure because it gives them a chance to shovel money directly from the taxpayer to all their developer/contractor friends

It would probably be a win for them, but they shut it down in the Obama years also, they can't allow anything that benefits both parties.

Yeah exactly, it’s actually too on the nose to write a bill that specifically calls out red states by name as the only beneficiaries, so better to write nothing at all

disagree. nothing is too on the nose for these jackals. optics mean nothing, principle means nothing. so i dgi.

It would never get past the house if it only called out reliable red states because it would leave too many rural GOP congresspeople hanging. So it’s too on the nose and impossible to squeeze through the legislature.

The only way to make it work is compromise, and at least one side would rather just burn shit down.

you’d think republicans would be all over infrastructure because it gives them a chance to shovel money directly from the taxpayer to all their developer/contractor friends

they've found ways to do that without making their developer friends actually spend the money on building anything.

besides, making it look like government is capable of improving anything is against the creed

golf (exercise)

http://www.cnn.com/2020/05/25/politics/trump-threatens-charlotte-republican-convention/index.html

I would think you'd gladly call his bluff. I know a convention, under normal circumstances, is worth tens of millions in tourism, but unless you think all of this is miraculously gone by August, that won't be anywhere near the case this time. I'd jump at any chance to get it moved somewhere else.

Man, Pence's response is master class in oleaginous kiss-assery.

of course he has to add in some total fucking nonsense like "we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard" about a facility that's already home to an NBA franchise. unless the RNC is planning on leaving behind some three-point shooters and draft picks, then maybe we can talk.

we'll build a new arena using corpses as the foundation

I would think you'd gladly call his bluff. I know a convention, under normal circumstances, is worth tens of millions in tourism, but unless you think all of this is miraculously gone by August, that won't be anywhere near the case this time. I'd jump at any chance to get it moved somewhere else.

Apparently Charlotte was the only city that put in a bid in the first place. So...

Oh I hope he moves it to a state where they let him pack thousands and thousands of republicans in tight to a confined space in August.

and then seal it shut shortly before the end of the convention so they can't get out and infect other people.

Apparently Charlotte was the only city that put in a bid in the first place. So...

If you're a Democratic governor, that might even increase the temptation to call his bluff. If he has nowhere else to go, you'll force him to publically recant (and, no doubt, concoct some preposterous rationale for doing so).

"As we have no intention of easing precautions whatsoever, we understand totally why the president will need to relocate. With all respect to the president and the Republican party, we will not contest this."

bold ignorance

"I love the Great State of North Carolina, so much so that I insisted on having the Republican National Convention in Charlotte at the end of August," Trump said in a series of tweets. "Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood & unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed full attendance in the Arena. In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space."

shutdown mood

hey cooper why can't you guarantee there will be no virus in two months? why? why?

i mean virus is just gonna have to cooperate, we can't wait forever for it to go away.

issuing Executive Order to order virus out of country in 30 days

In retrospect Trump should have simply built a wall that viruses couldn't get through. On him, really, for failing to do so. Sad!

just wait a few months, he'll start claiming the hurricanes will blow the virus away

"opts for..." Like he had enough self-control to make some other choice?

"disruption strategy..." Yeah. Like the scorpion's strategy is to disrupt the frog.

"Democrats say..." So you don't say it, public health officials don't, but his opponents say: bad choice for a pandemic. pic.twitter.com/FF8E74krcE

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) May 25, 2020

naglfap

obviously trump will move the convention to one of his own properties

Or Chuck E Cheese

Mar a Cheeso

TOTAL EXONERATION for feinstein and two other assholes

The Justice Department’s investigation into Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-NC) pre-coronavirus stock trading activity continues, despite dropping similar stock sale probes into three other senators.

According to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday, federal prosecutors are informing attorneys who represent Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) that the Justice Department is closing its investigations into their trading that began two months ago.

Figured it'd be hard to prove without a smoking gun (written communication of some sort). Public knew about the virus in January, so they could've sold stocks based on "that" information.

the DOJ investigation, day 1, behind the scenes:

- seems like we're going to have bring Burr down, people are really pissed about what he did.
- maybe we can bring down Feinstein as well? might be a silver lining...
- no, because if we bring her down, we'd have to bring Inhofe and Loeffler down as well.
- ah shit, yeah. that would be bad for the team. ok.
- alright, let's just wait 2 months and then declare the investigations over
- sounds good. btw can you forward me that integrity training link again, i have to take it by the end of the week, bullshit

xpost yeah, i think you're right, not withstanding my DOJ speculative fiction. i'm surprised they were even able to pressure Burr enough to stand down from his committee chair.

sure would be nice if sitting members of congress were barred from owning stocks. seems like a blatant conflict of interest, almost every day

they've been able to get away with this because they're using third parties to handle their portfolios - of course, what's a blind trust, anyway? /axlrose

Long way off--may not even happen--but in a debate, when Biden goes after Trump on the pandemic, he should zero in on Russia's low death total. It'd force Trump to either acknowledge that the Russian number is likely phony, or he'd have to defend the disproportionate comparison.

way to 5D chess for my taste

*too

I'm sure the nuances of the corner he'd been painted into would be wasted on Trump anyway--he'd just make some crazy thing up on the spot.

No one cares about Russia or Russia’s death toll.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-for-some-reason-compares-coronavirus-death-toll-over-98000-to-swine-flu-under-20000-214326646.html

lol bruh

The bar chart in the middle of that article is so bad that it is really good, haha

No one cares about Russia or Russia’s death toll.

That wouldn't be the point. But as KM's link indicates, such a comparison would be wasted on Trump anyway (if you were trying to corner him into an untenable position). And I doubt Biden's the guy to do it anyway. His own words will be enough to worry about.

SHOCKING NEWS: DOJ drops all insider trading investigations into Burr, et.al.

I take that back, Burr still being investigated but Loeffler, Inhofe & Feinstein all dropped.