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

I'll miss you all, but it's the only way to be sure

https://medium.com/@tony_schwartz/the-psychopath-in-chief-aa10ab2165d9

"CEO, The Energy Project. Author. The Art of the Deal ghostwriter now speaking out. Passionate about transforming the way the world works. Craves depth"

nothing new, and yet, still pretty good. if a friend emerged from a cave for the first time since 2014 and wanted a quick summary of wtf is going on with the trump and the world, it would be a good intro

so that's a whole Medium post just saying "GO BACK TO YR CAVE"

so this executive order, isn't this just more likely to get Twitter to ban people for posting mis-info rather than just fact-checking them?

maybe we'll get Trump ban!

that's assuming the twitter dudes have spines/aren't generally fine with the trump project overall

lol yes I should specify that in my mind the percent chance rose from 0.0000000000003% to 0.014%

All over the World the CoronaVirus, a very bad “gift” from China, marches on. Not good!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020

The President's take on the virus that's killed 100,000 Americans and counting: Not good!!

Pennsylvania House Democrats are in an uproar after finding out that state Rep. Andrew Lewis (R) only told the Republican caucus about his positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

No members of Republican leadership filled them in either.

Lewis announced on Wednesday that he had made a full recovery from a mild case of the novel coronavirus.

“I immediately began self-isolation protocol and contacted the House of Representatives, and our caucus Human Resources department,” he said in a Facebook post. “My last day in the Capitol was Thursday, May 14.”

He said that every staffer and lawmaker who had possibly been exposed was informed and told to self-isolate for two weeks.

Democrats say that was not the case.

“That Democrats who had contact with him were not notified is not just a political stunt – this is beyond the fkn pale!” wrote Rep. Summer Lee (D) on Twitter. She said that some of Lewis’ Republican colleagues refused to wear masks on the floor for the week between when the GOP caucus found out and the Democrats did.

“From day one we had Republican colleagues unapologetically trivializing and politicizing this pandemic,” she added. “They have shown a callous disregard for the lives of people in my community.”

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pennsylvania-house-democrats-andrew-lewis-keeping-covid-diagnosis-a-secret

After leaving office Trump should launch a Twitter alternative that is fair to him, and boost OANN or whatever news outlet he feels is fair to him, and all his disciples can confine themselves to those channels and leave the rest of us in peace.

brb, gonna see if I can register TweetRump.com and OANalNews.com

last 4 approval polls that have come in have been sharply swung in the "disapprove" direction, including Rasmussen....

he seems to teeter between 44% - 46% approval the last few weeks, like he's ping-ponging based on the news cycle

This is pretty thoroughly depressing.

he seems to teeter between 44% - 46% approval the last few weeks, like he's ping-ponging based on the news cycle

I'm not talking about per poll, I'm saying his AVERAGE teeters between teh two.

i know how fucking polls work

I look at the weighted poll averages every few days, and every time I think it's FINALLY going in the right direction, I end up disappointed.

There are fluctuations, but the overall pattern has been one of stagnation: locked-in tribal trench warfare.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html

https://i.ibb.co/tZyPvvp/poll.jpg

xpost

exactly

I'm not talking about per poll, I'm saying his AVERAGE teeters between teh two.

i know how fucking polls work

Lol at the red box being significantly different to the rest of that chart.

Have you considered day trading/working for the people who make the IHME model?

This is pretty thoroughly depressing.

― DJI, Thursday, May 28, 2020 1:32 PM (

good morning!

Ugh I couldn't get all the way through that. Weird that the word "abortion" only appears once.

Need to run a cubic-fit on those approval numbers IMHO

I read a goodly portion of that Medium article by the Art of the Deal ghostwriter that Karl linked to, then I started skimming, and then I quit reading. Because reportage of Trump's words and actions have super-saturated the media for five years now and the only people who haven't decided Trump is a lying, cheating, conscienceless sack of shit are those who can rationalize away his transparent awfulness by using industrial strength fact-erasure techniques.

This puts such a strain on the rationalizing facilities of some of the weaker-minded that the results amount to self-hypnotism. Watching highly suggestible contingent who believe in QAnon is like watching a gaggle of your neighbors up on a stage, scratching, strutting and cackling, because a hypnotist told them they were chickens. It is sad.

you mean Sad!

his followers are bots, no one clicks links on twitter, or bit of both

Fascinating.

Hour ago, POTUS tweeted @dallasnews story.

Already has 10k RTs and 29k likes. Countless replies.

And yet nary a blip in our visits. Is only the #3 story in realtime traffic.

Am I to believe that these news-hungry followers get all they need from hedline & Tweet? pic.twitter.com/kKHLEg0Dbv

— Mike Orren (@mikeorren) May 28, 2020

Am I to believe that these news-hungry followers get all they need from hedline & Tweet?

yes

yep, pretty easy to believe
also, bots

"Why in God's name did Democrats even consider giving President Donald Trump — the man they recently impeached for abuse of power — more unaccountable surveillance powers?" https://t.co/I4406GtMei

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 28, 2020

https://theweek.com/articles/916596/trump-budding-autocrat-shouldnt-democrats-limit-surveillance-powers

short answer: bcz president

Schiff doesn't seem to actually believe his case against Trump. There is no possible justification for granting a corrupt, election-cheating president — one who appointed a dishonest stooge as the nation's chief law enforcement officer — the power to root through anyone's browser history without a warrant. Indeed, all the enormous powers of the surveillance state (which accomplish little or nothing of value) are exceptionally dangerous in the hands of Trump, and Democrats should be working frantically to scale them back. So far it appears we have gotten lucky in that Trump doesn't appear to grasp what these powers are for or how he might exploit them fully, but that situation is not guaranteed to hold.

twitter doesn't deliver traffic, i think everybody knows that by now!

right but you'd think if 80m people see a link, at least a few hundred might click it accidentally. his followers have to be like 98% bots for a CTR like that.

surely these bots are capable of generating clicks as well as RTs

but why would they if they're programmed solely to amplify trump's tweets?

This is in the text of Trump's executive order targeting social media companies pic.twitter.com/2gUxvrMapn

— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) May 28, 2020

I've read more coherent and compelling YouTube comments

what's funny is the only "fact-checking" tags I've seen on FB is for liberal memes/news.

granted, none of it was improperly tagged (it was legit "fake news"), but

amusing that Trump doesn't seem to know or care about the pejorative connotation of "bull in a China shop", which is used to describe him in his latest ad. I get the "hilarious" pun they're attempting in the copy but come on

lol

Moments after Tucker Carlson delivers a rant straight from The Daily Stormer about how black protesters are the real racists and that Minnesota is purposely letting race riots happen, progressive icon Glenn Greenwald happily shows up for his regular appearance on the show. pic.twitter.com/6EH46feZxK

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 29, 2020

oh look its lord haw haw

A protestor (at an overwhelmingly peaceful protest) in downtown Louisville has made off with the hand of the King Louis XVI statue pic.twitter.com/vnkq1xWvgQ

— Eric Crawford (@ericcrawford) May 29, 2020

what's the background on that cnn crew getting arrested in minnesota?

(there used to be a handy mon-fri 30 minute uk / us news roundup on uk tv but it's been replaced by bob ross during the lockdown)

Oscar Jimenez?

They arrested a journalist covering the George Floyd protests, while the officer who killed him still walks free. pic.twitter.com/BmJTMIioxN

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) May 29, 2020

grammar, dammit.

that is fucking insane

live on national television