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

anyway, what do you all think? if/when we get to a biden presidency in jan 21, what do you want his administration to do re: the trump nightmare?

― The GOAT Harold Land (Karl Malone), Tuesday, September 1, 2020 11:14 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this platform was the best argument for putting warren on the ticket:

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/restoring-integrity-and-competence-to-government-after-trump-1fda0e1cc4c5

re: "i did not have a series of strokes", seems like trump's people should remind him what happens when you ask people "don't think of an elephant".

thanks for that warren link, caek. i hope biden is amenable to her plan, and it's heartening that so much of it seems like it can be accomplished, if the will is there.

even with her plan, though, so much of it seems to ride on this aspect:

-*Establish a Justice Department Task Force to investigate corruption during the Trump administration and to hold government officials accountable for illegal activity.
Donald Trump has run the most corrupt administration in history. He was impeached for withholding foreign aid in an effort to try to benefit his re-election campaign. He has enriched himself and his business through the power of his office. And there are public reports of potentially illegal corruption in every corner of his administration. If we are to move forward to restore public confidence in government and deter future wrongdoing, we cannot simply sweep this corruption under the rug in a new administration. That’s why I will direct the Justice Department to establish a task force to investigate violations by Trump administration officials of federal bribery laws, insider trading laws, and other anti-corruption and public integrity laws, and give that task force independent authority to pursue any substantiated criminal and civil violations. I have also committed to establishing a task force to investigate accusations of serious violations by immigration officials during the Trump era.

it's going to take a lot of political will (or integrity, or courage?) to do this properly.

The choice of AG is going to be pretty crucial. You have to start with an assumption that Republicans/QAnoners will see any and every effort to investigate the Trumps as further evidence of the Justice Department's ongoing conspiracy against him. Need somebody smart enough to work the politics of it and resilient enough to take the heat. Not sure that person exists.

I hear Robert Mueller might be available to investigate the Trump administration's wrongdoing.

warren should be AG (if she's done running for president, because i assume being AG in the present climate is not a good electoral career move)

Yeah, she's got enough DGAF to do it and to tell Biden to back off if he tries to rein her in. Also why he might not choose her, of course. (This may just be fantasy football, but at least it's fun to think about.)

Sadly, Bob Barr's career won't suffer a bit for his having been Trump's footstool. He'll be living in a mansion, smoking fat cigars and raking in money until he dies. Or is sent to prison.

I misread that as "fartstool," and even though I don't know what that would be, it seemed right.

Btw I'll be honest, I don't see the point of questioning Asshole's physical health. If he's too unhealthy to be president then maybe he'll die, which is good. Mental health is more of a concern, especially considering the point where he started from.

It doesn't help that it seems like he's been having mini-strokes in public for the last few years.

I see though this new thing comes from him stumbling on stage on Friday?

pic.twitter.com/iti6ysnV7t

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) September 1, 2020

Is he an organ donor? Maybe we could lie and tell him he has to donate them all now, while he is alive

Being someone whose own father has had a series of mini-strokes that has made him barely able to speak, i wish the gen public didn't go "lol stroke" every time he wobbles.

(Not that i don't make the occasional stroke joke, but every time his knee bends we get pointless speculation on his health from internet hacks.)

it's one of the most annoying things in the entire world

see also the ongoing discussion of biden's senility

our president can't even function! no, that's not true, the it's the opposing candidate that can't even function!

*meanwhile, the president and democratic candidate clearly function on the tv screen in the background*

JOE BIDEN LITERALLY HAS NO IDEA WHERE HE IS, HE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORDS HE SAYS MEAN, HE IS JUST GUESSING AND GETTING REALLY LUCKY OVER AND OVER, HIS STREAK WILL END SOON

no you are wrong, it is the president who does not understand time and space and reality, he is the one who is just making up the words and getting lucky. i know a student nurse and they told me that every single doctor on earth understands that

Not sure where this belongs, but Jacob AWOL

Well it finally happened https://t.co/0qS4t0JKVK pic.twitter.com/FbG4Il9XdB

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) September 1, 2020

xpost

Yeah it would be enough to just stipulate that I wouldn't get in a car that either of them were driving and leave it at that. They are old men showing physical and mental signs of being old men, we are all aware.

And I promise not to get offended if somebody calls me an old man if/when I am their age.

It's annoying but it would probably be less of a thing if the two dudes running for president weren't a collective 415 years old.

Damn, why didn't I think of Jacob Awohl as a dn?

I mean, people of all ages trip, it happens

tbrr a commercial airline filled with shadowy black antifa boogeymen sounds like a great comedy premise

* Boogeypeople

Solid-Snakes On a Plane.

Money, money, money

Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to report a record-breaking haul of donations for August, raising more than $300 million between his campaign and his shared committees with the Democratic Party, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The sum would shatter past monthly records as small donors have poured money into Mr. Biden’s coffers, especially since the selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, and big contributors, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, have given checks that can be as large as $721,300.

In a sign of the financial momentum behind Democrats, ActBlue, the main site that processes donations to the party, reported the second-biggest fund-raising day in its history on Monday, with more than $35 million donated. A majority of Mr. Biden’s August total came from online grass-roots donors, according to another person familiar with the figures.

The people familiar with Mr. Biden’s fund-raising did not know the exact final figure for the month of August, or how much higher than $300 million it would be.

Act Blue should save up and buy Disney.

I somehow missed the President's extended monologue last month on the use of soup as a deadly protest weapon. "Big bags of soup." https://t.co/f5Tpsk7D9u pic.twitter.com/sCjGDzbWzv

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) September 1, 2020

"Big Bags of Soup" for September Thread Title.

....you wish to replace the existing title?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcR0TFbAgFvcB2bVUPdv9bxduvo8_QZbmHkldw&usqp=CAU

Pundits trying to freak out..

On its face, the assumption that moderates and independents might flock to Trump feels consistent with what we learned about white voters and racial resentment in 2016. And the race is tightening up in nearby Minnesota, fueled by demographic tensions between the cities and their outstate counterparts and rising cultural tensions in the wake of the George Floyd protests. But in Wisconsin, the prediction that those put off by the protests will embrace Trump hasn’t yet been supported by the polling or in conversations with pollsters and operatives here.

It’s true that support for Black Lives Matter has fallen in Wisconsin. The Marquette University Law School Poll, often referred to as the “gold standard” in Wisconsin polling, found in late June that 59 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin had a positive view of Black Lives Matter, while 27 percent had a negative one. It also found voters had positive views of the protests by a 61-36 split. Six weeks later, though, the poll found support for Black Lives Matter had dropped to 49-37 and 48-48 for the protests.

But that shift doesn’t necessarily mean voters are embracing Trump’s calls over the summer for law and order. Not only did the head-to-head matchup with Joe Biden hardly budge, but the president’s handling of the protests continued to be one of his weakest points with Wisconsin voters, even more so than how he’s addressed the Covid-19 pandemic. In June, 30 percent of Wisconsin voters approved Trump’s handling of the protests. In August, 32 percent did—hardly any movement at all.

i guarantee that this is unimplementable and unenforcable

So the federal government appears to have just issued an eviction moratorium for nonpayment of rent through the end of the year for any renter making less than $99,000 https://t.co/ctNXUnrhhX

— Liam Dillon (@dillonliam) September 1, 2020

here's the full story:https://t.co/xKARlNDmR1

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) September 1, 2020

Not sure we needed the tweet around that link :P

Sounds like a good thing?

a good thing like the measures many governors have passed, but just like those measures, it's merely kicking a can down the road because once the moratorium ends, the landlords will just ask for all of the missed months payments at once and then threaten eviction when they can't pay.

fortunately the county my mother lives in has some kind of rent assistance program that will cover her for three months (and her two sons who are relatively well off), but scares me to think if some other measures aren't enacted, like a MONTHLY stimulus payment (which won't happen), a reinstatement of the unemployment enhancement (possibly), or anything that restores lost income, we're still likely to have an eviction crisis.

Not sure we needed the tweet around that link :P

you didn't need the tweet explaining the 40 page PDF of legal language?

or you wanted the bloomberg link posted as just a link?

it's a fake thing. it's completely unenforceable (there are states). it's the same deal as the last set of relief measures he put forward (literally none of which have been implemented nationally).

he's really leaning into this "i did not have a series of strokes" thing huh. truly the mind of a child.

Sounds pretty much like the conversation I had with my 8 year-old earlier today..

"Did you get yourself a snack?"

"I didn't spill the water all over the counter!"

"I didn't ask that?"

President @realDonaldTrump tours what Biden will do to America. pic.twitter.com/vrY9VXuMaX

— Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) September 1, 2020

Trump fast forwarded through all the Ghostbusters dialogue to get to the action.

“THEY HAVE THESE CANS... AND THEY SQUEEZE THEM AND SPINACH COMES OUT! AND THE SPINACH MAKES THEM STRONG! LIKE BATTLESHIPS! AND THEN THEY... THEY PUNCH! PEOPLE GO FLYING! I HEARD IT FROM A GUY. BIG. IN THE MILITARY. NAVY. TEARS IN HIS EYES. NAME WAS BLUTO.” https://t.co/6pqGLMBkT3

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) September 1, 2020

The only part of that that made me laugh was realizing that each word he barfs out brings us one word closer to his last.

He looks so crazed as he says that! Wtf

The underrated part there is his belief that bricks are too heavy to throw.

This is the ultimate macho man Alpha of Ben Garrison's fantasies.

a lot of stuff here I didn't catch up with, but the report of 'strokes' happened on twitter and was in fact fake; someone retweeted the story about Pence being put on standby (which is completely normal) while he went to the hospital (why? no one knows) and said "confirmed he had strokes!" and people like Judd Apatow retweeted it everywhere and hardly anyone deleted these tweets when they were informed that the link said nothing of the sort, because people are fucking dumb.

In other dumb news: Pelosi photographed inside a hair salon in SF. Salons are closed. She claims she thought it was legal. WTF lady. You are not helping.

There needs to be counter-op of, like, Louie Gohmert forcing open a Golden Corral.

His wife, Candice Parscale, also released a statement on Wednesday denying that her husband was physically abusive toward her after telling police days earlier that Parscale was responsible for several bruises on her body, according to a police report.

"The statements I made on Sunday have been misconstrued, let it be clear my husband was not violent towards me that day or any day prior," she said, according to Politico.

A police detective at the scene wrote in a report that after asking Candice Parscale about bruises on her body, she "stated Brad Parscale hits her."

Another police officer noted the incident as well in a police report, writing, "While speaking with Candice I observed several bruises on both arms (photographs were taken and uploaded into evidence), which she advised occurred a few days ago, during a physical altercation with Bradley, which she did not report."

you know, why doesn't someone start up a newspaper that only publishes POSITIVE news!? i bet that would sell like hotcakes

Not sure if this goes here but obviously a trump taking point by this racist person

A Texas woman explains why she doesn't want affordable housing in her neighborhood. I think this clip is @jbouie and @GeeDee215 bait https://t.co/RrglpXg66A pic.twitter.com/fZzloORRe7

— Almaqah (@_Almaqah) October 1, 2020

good morning!

Cos they don't understand polls and odds?

https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/polls-werent-far-2016-they-arent-wrong-now-either

Many forecasters (other than Sam Wang) had Trump with 15-35% odds to win on election day. If the average person is told their loved one has a 15-35% chance of dying from a disease, they freak out. They hear that Trump has a 15-35% chance of winning, they heard AHH SHIT, IT'S OVER!!!

I'm not going to be revisionist, many of us (other than k3v and a few others who were rightfully skeptical) treated it like a slam dunk because a) we believed the narrative that Trump couldn't win, b) he had done several things in the previous month that would end the average campaign, and c) maybe we were naively faithful that America couldn't possibly vote this lunatic in. Early voting also looked promising.

But...we (me especially) were wrong.

― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Wednesday, September 30, 2020 8:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

If you are interested in understanding how and why humans are absolutely horrible at estimating probabilities (as well as understanding a host of other biases and heuristics), I highly recommend Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, which deals with prospect theory. It is very, very dense, but was utterly fascinating to me: https://readingraphics.com/the-prospect-theory-fourfold-pattern-of-influences/

October October. What's the thread title.

"Will you shut up, man?" might feel fresh for at least another 9 to 12 hours

the sentiment will be relevant at least until the end of the month

New thread created.

Not sure if this goes here but obviously a trump taking point by this racist person

A Texas woman explains why she doesn't want affordable housing in her neighborhood. I think this clip is @jbouie and @GeeDee215 bait https://t.co/RrglpXg66A pic.twitter.com/fZzloORRe7
— Almaqah (@_Almaqah) October 1, 2020
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Thursday, October 1, 2020 7:55 AM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

worth noting: her house is ugly as fuck

"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020