My 2019 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 2]
Welcome back to the second and final installment of our year-end awards columns! If you missed last week's column, you should probably check that out, too.
As you can see from our updated thermometer, our fundraising drive is in much better shape this week, although we're still just short of our goal, so if you can chip in to keep the lights on, that'd be great. I promise -- thank-you notes will go out this weekend!
But enough of that, let's get straight to the awards, as these columns are already long enough as is.
Destined For Political Stardom
I considered giving this award to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, but she won it last year and we already gave her Most Charismatic. Stacey Abrams was also a contender, for her response to the State Of The Union and her repeated mentions as a possible vice-presidential pick.
Serious consideration was given to Pete Buttigieg, but there are too many uncertainties with this choice. If he wins the nomination or is named someone else's veep, then the "destiny" in this award would be rather immediate, obviously. But if he isn't on the eventual Democratic ticket, then his path to political stardom would be missing a few steps. Say Pete isn't on the ticket -- so what else would he do next? It would be just about impossible for him to win a statewide race in Indiana, so that rules out governor or the U.S. Senate. He could conceivably become a House member, but that's no guarantee of political stardom. The "next steps up the ladder" available to other politicians are closed to Mayor Pete, which means about the only other thing I could see him doing would be winning the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. So while Pete is indeed a fresh young face on the Democratic scene, the paths forward for him are limited (if he's not on the ticket next year). So we decided to give him a pass.
We could look across the aisle and predict that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is destined for a second act in politics, one way or another. But giving her any sort of positive award would leave a bad taste in the mouth, we freely admit.
So instead, we're giving Destined For Political Stardom to the four freshmen House members who make up "The Squad." We'd be willing to bet that far into the future the term "Squad" will be remembered, as in: "Well it's no surprise she is such a strong voice now, remember she started as a Squad member." Much like the Civil Rights leaders who went on to reform the system from within, we'd be willing to bet the Squad continues to be the benchmark of strong voices who show the diversity of the Democratic coalition for the next generation to come. Which is another way of defining "Destined For Political Stardom," really.
Destined For Political Oblivion
So many to choose from in this category: Herman Cain, Kirstjen Neilson, and all the other former Trump buddies whose careers have been trashed by their association with the Orange One.
One thing missing from the Democratic campaign -- for the first time in an entire generation -- has been the Clintons. They used to be the kingmakers of the Democratic Party, at least up until Hillary lost (twice). Their absence is notable indeed, but "political oblivion" is a little harsh, considering their records of public service they've already chalked up.
From the campaign, a few names stand out. Beto O'Rourke may be headed for political oblivion, after his flash-in-the-pan appearance on the national stage. And Tulsi Gabbard was a strong contender for the Destined For Political Oblivion award -- although she may reinvent herself as a Fox News personality.
From the Republican side we have a whole bunch to choose from, starting with Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, who were the first and second members of Congress to publicly support Trump. They're both now officially guilty of federal crimes, which we think is entirely fitting.
We sincerely hope that all the yahoos on the Republican side during the impeachment hearings are Destined For Political Oblivion, most especially Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan.
But there's one obvious choice here, we felt. Rudy Giuliani is most definitely Destined For Political Oblivion. He was once known as "America's Mayor" and was loved by many. This is no longer true, after he reinvented himself as Trump's top legal toady -- after Michael Cohen stepped down from the post, of course. Now Rudy's a ranting, raving lunatic, as just about any of his recent television interviews prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. But this act is only going to be welcomed (even on the right) while Trump is in office. Once Trump's gone, Rudy is not going to get many bookings, unless some cable show needs some comic relief.
Rudy Giuliani took his own shining legacy, threw it into a Dumpster, poured gasoline on it, and lit the match. If the universe has any sense of justice, he is Destined For Political Oblivion in the very near future.
Best Political Theater
We had a lot to choose from here, too. Our favorite was seeing Donald Trump getting loudly booed (complete with a "Lock him up!" chant) by a crowd at the World Series.
We could have gone with House testimony, either any of the impeachment hearings or seeing Michael Cohen vent his spleen at his former boss -- that was pretty downright theatrical.
Bernie Sanders got a nomination for agreeing to a Fox News townhall, after the D.N.C. decided not to give them a debate. The moderator tried to trick Bernie with two audience questions, but much to the surprise of all, even a hand-picked Fox News audience was visibly and strongly in favor of Medicare For All. Seeing that blow up in the face of Fox was pretty priceless, we have to admit.
The State Of The Union had two theatrical moments. Nancy Pelosi's "clapback" at Trump was one of the most amusing photos from any State Of The Union ever. Even better was the way all the freshmen women -- all wearing "suffragette white" -- absolutely stole Trump's thunder. Trump had a line touting himself (of course) for creating lots of jobs for women. The Democrats then amusingly pointed to themselves as proof, since Trump had a lot to do with getting them all elected in the midterm sweep. This brought a round of laughter, and Trump's punchline (which was actually a nod to the Democratic women) fell flat immediately afterwards.
Pelosi had plenty of theatrical moments with Trump this year, in meetings held at the White House where Trump was feeling cranky and stormed out of the room. The photo of her wagging her finger at Trump was pretty awesome (as she recounted it later, this was when she was saying to him: "All roads lead to Putin with you").
Two bits of theatricality from House hearings were worthy of consideration, the first when Steve Cohen decided to have some fun with the fact that the attorney general of the United States was blowing off a House hearing. Cohen chose his metaphor and ran with it: "Cohen brought a statuette of a chicken, which he placed in front of the empty chair Barr should have been sitting in, and if that weren't enough to drive his point home, he also brought in a bucket of KFC, which he proceeded to eat from." Heh. Good times.
Even better was when Joe Cunningham questioned the head of the N.O.A.A. on the subject of how "seismic air guns" harm right whales and other ocean life. Cunningham brought an effective prop to make his point:
[Representative Joe] Cunningham reached for the air horn, put his finger on the button and turned to [N.O.A.A. administrator Chris] Oliver.
"It's fair to say seismic air gun blasting is extremely loud and disruptive... is that correct?" the congressman asked.
"I don't know exactly how loud it is. I actually never experienced it myself," Oliver replied.
So Cunningham gave Oliver a taste of the 120-decibel horn. An earsplitting sound filled the small committee room. An audience of about 50 gasped and murmured.
"Was that disruptive?" Cunningham asked.
"It was irritating, but I didn't find it too disruptive," Oliver said.
It seemed disruptive to at least one person in the room. Subcommittee Chairman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) broke into the debate to say an aide, who is pregnant, informed him that when the air horn sounded, her baby kicked.
Cunningham, who represents Charleston and other coastal cities, pressed on. What if it happened every 10 seconds for days, weeks and months, he said. He asked Oliver to guess how much louder commercial air guns are than his store-bought air horn. When Oliver didn't bite, he told him the sound from air guns is 16,000 times that of his air horn.
Nothing like bringing the right props to spice up a hearing, eh?
But our winner of Best Political Theater goes to Joe Scarborough and all the Democrats who helped him popularize the term "Moscow Mitch." Mitch McConnell, at the start of the summer, was blocking every single attempt to beef up America's election system so that it could better sustain attacks upon it -- like the attacks Russia launched in 2016. There were Democratic bills and bipartisan bills, but Mitch wouldn't consider any of them. This led to the Morning Joe bit that went viral:
[President Donald Trump] is aiding and abetting [Russian President] Vladimir Putin's ongoing attempts to subvert American democracy, according to the Republican F.B.I., C.I.A., D.N.I., intel committee. All Republicans are all saying Russia is subverting American democracy and Moscow Mitch won't even let the Senate take a vote on it. That is un-American.
Immediately, "#MoscowMitch" became a trending hashtag. This went on for weeks, and it worked amazingly well, because it obviously really got under McConnell's skin in a big way. McConnell petulantly complained about the label and Democrats, sensing an opportunity, began using it whenever referring to him.
The reason why this won Best Political Theater was because, in the end, it worked. Eventually McConnell was forced to allow election security bills to go forward, and by year's end hundreds of millions had been budgeted for it. This was a clear win for Democrats, a win for voters across the country, and an embarrassment for McConnell. Or, as we like to call him, Moscow Mitch.
Worst Political Theater
Another category with no shortage to choose from. The government shutdown which began the year was pretty bad theater all around. The impeachment hearings were pretty bad theater -- whenever any Republican opened their mouths.
The worst political theater from the impeachment saga, though, was the GOP yahoos who "stormed" the House hearing room and began posting selfies and otherwise using their phones -- inside a secure location where no such phone use is legal. Nothing like the "party of law and order," right?
But we have to give the Worst Political Theater to the entire stupidity of Sharpiegate. Seriously, this was bad from just about any angle you look.
The tweet which launched it all off:
In addition to Florida - South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already Category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!
The Weather Service -- in Alabama, mind you -- responded 20 minutes later:
Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.
This led to a weeklong festival of idiocy from Trump, the White House, and (eventually, and shamefully) federal government departments who all bent over backwards in trying to make reality fit Trump's fantasy, so he wouldn't look like the moron he so clearly is. Your tax dollars at work, folks. We wrote up the entire stupid timeline while this bad theater was still playing out, if anyone's interested in revisiting the Wonderland of Trump forecasting the weather (and then demanding the weather change when it turns out he was wrong).
Our favorite footnote is that this could even have been included in Trump's articles of impeachment. Here's the relevant federal law:
Whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast or warning to have been issued or published by the Weather Bureau, United States Signal Service, or other branch of the Government service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ninety days, or both.
Worst Political Theater by far. Cringeworthy, in fact.
Worst Political Scandal
Inviting the Taliban to Camp David on the same week as 9/11 didn't actually happen (because there are still some adults left in the Trump administration, we suppose), so it wasn't that big a scandal. If it had taken place, it would have been worthy of Worst Political Scandal, obviously.
We already gave Trump the Biggest Turncoat award for his shameful betrayal of the Syrian Kurds, although that one could have fit here, too.
In a year without Trump, we would have had to give Worst Political Scandal to the multiple blackface incidents in politicians' pasts (that yearbook photo with the K.K.K. robes was the worst example, obviously).
But once again Trump trumps everyone else, because the quid pro quo with Ukraine was easily the Worst Political Scandal. Trump tried both a carrot and a stick (an Oval Office meeting and withholding military aid) to force a foreign government into doing his dirty work for his own re-election campaign. That is, as many Democrats pointed out, one of the "worst case scenarios" (a president doing such secret deals with foreign governments) that the Founding Fathers warned us all about when they wrote the impeachment part of the Constitution. It goes beyond "collusion" and "quid pro quo" and the Republicans who are now attempting to defend the indefensible will all go down in history as sellouts to their own oath of office.
Trump is now only the third United States president to ever be impeached. That stain will remain on his legacy for all time. It was clearly the Worst Political Scandal of the year.
Most Underreported Story
Bernie Sanders's campaign?
There are a whole slew of underreported stories to choose from this year, including (but in no way limited to) all of the following, in no particular order:
Trump should be banned from Twitter for constantly breaking the rules of use.
Taxing rich people more is wildly popular with the public.
The candidate pulling as little as one-third of the primary vote could be the eventual nominee in the Democratic Party -- as Trump proved last time around for the GOP.
The end of the Clinton machine in Democratic politics.
Voter suppression continues apace in red states.
The War On Women continues apace as well.
Rick Perry was doing exactly what Trump accuses Biden of doing -- trying to muscle a crony onto the board of a Ukrainian petroleum company.
Republicans in disarray! [Sorry, couldn't resist that one...]
The legislative graveyard that is Mitch McConnell's Senate.
Trump's unprecedented stonewalling of Congress.
Trump's use of immigrant labor at his properties.
Guns killed more people than traffic accidents in America for the first time.
The strike at General Motors.
Corporations are paying only 11 percent in taxes now, and the wealthiest Americans are paying an effective tax rate of only 23 percent -- which is lower than the average for the bottom half of American households, who pay over 24 percent.
Jared Kushner is a slumlord in Baltimore, as his companies own multiple rat-infested apartment buildings.
Again, this is only a partial list. But our winner of the Most Underreported Story of the year is that the economy may be doing great for the wealthiest, but it is not doing great for much of anyone else.
The trade deficit under Trump is up, not down. The annual budget deficit is now scraping one trillion dollars, even though he promised he'd make it disappear. Manufacturing has been in a recession since the summer.
Since Trump got elected, and contrary to his boasting, 51 coal plants have been shuttered and eight coal companies have filed for bankruptcy. Steel companies are also closing plants they optimistically opened when Trump introduced his tariffs.
Possibly the worst pain is being felt out in the heartland, though, as farmers are taking it on the chin. Trump's idiotic trade war with China has destroyed many farmers' livelihoods, and will likely continue to do so for the next decade -- because once the Chinese customers have found another source, they likely won't be coming back. Farm bankruptcies are soaring, even with Trump shoveling tens of millions in taxpayer money into a futile effort to bail farmers out from the blowback of his tariff war.
Meanwhile, Trump's Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, has been rubbing salt in the farmers' wounds. At an appearance in August, Perdue tried to crack a joke: "What do you call two farmers in a basement? A whine cellar!" It didn't go over well, shall we say.
In 2013, farm income was over $120 billion. In 2018, it was only $63 billion. That's a pretty stark turnaround, and it can all be laid at the feet of Trump and his trade war with China and the rest of the world.
You'd think the media would be all over this story, since it is a tale of Trump screwing over his strongest supporters. But, alas, like all the other economic bad news, it wins the Most Underreported Story of the year.
Most Overreported Story
Whenever we don't have anything else for this category, our default fallback is always the headline "Democrats In Disarray." The media loves to write these stories whether they are true or not, which is why it is always a contender in this category.
Or there's always the weather to talk about. Literally. The weather is now national news, if anything more than a strong breeze happens upon any town anywhere (but most especially on the East Coast, where all the viewers are).
But this year we have two stories which bugged us for being overreported. Our runner-up was actually aided and abetted by the media, because they didn't just overreport it, they created it. During the first four or five Democratic debates, we got a long segment -- usually at the very start of the evening -- on each candidates' stance on Medicare For All and Obamacare and the public option.
Now, we realize that people are indeed interested in hearing the Democrats' stance on health care reform, but after the first two times it happened it was really just overkill to trod the same ground in every single debate. There are, after all, other issues to talk about. The whole thing smacked of the media goading Democrats into ripping into each other for nothing short of their own amusement. This got pretty tedious.
But for sheer volume, our winner of the Most Overreported Story was Elizabeth Warren's D.N.A. test -- which actually happened over a year ago.
The problem with this entire storyline is that the media all came to a conclusion that turned out to be wrong, and they've absolutely refused to admit this, ever since. Their conclusion? "Warren is toast -- her campaign is over before it began."
This is a non-story. It didn't play out the way the media predicted. And yet they continue to beat this dead horse even to this day. Case in point, when Warren released her plan (she's got a plan for everything, of course) to address issues important to Native Americans and then accepted an invitation to speak to a Native American group, the only thing the media could focus on was her ancestry -- even though none of the Native Americans cared. Warren answered questions from the audience, and (as one mainstream report grudgingly admitted): "She did not receive any questions about her own background." Native American leaders spoke to the gathering as well, and one of them warned the media that their continued focus on Trump calling Warren "Pocahontas" in "a racist way" was offensive. Another made a similar point, in blunt fashion:
Some media folks have asked me whether the president's criticisms of her regarding her ancestral background will hamper her ability to convey a clear campaign message. I say that every time they asked about Elizabeth's family instead of the issues of vital importance to Indian country, they feed the president's racism.
Warren spoke of creating a cabinet-level position for Native American issues, stopping pipelines on Indian land, and reversing a horrendous Supreme Court decision, Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, all issues of importance to the audience. None of the mainstream media coverage paid any attention at all. In fact, almost all of the questions they asked the attendees were about Warren's ancestry, to the exclusion of all else. The only one who correctly reported on the meeting -- to their credit -- was HuffPost, whose headline was: "Native American Forum Focuses On Elizabeth Warren's Policies, Not DNA Test."
This was not an isolated event. All year long, the media has been unrepentant over their misread of the situation one year ago. They all declared her candidacy dead, and yet the reality is that the voters do not care -- not even Native American voters. But that won't stop them from the next round of stories, if this year was any indication. For us, the Most Overreported Story was the "fake news" of how Elizabeth Warren's campaign ended with her D.N.A. test.
Biggest Government Waste
There are two clear contenders for the Biggest Government Waste this year. The first was the "national emergency" at the southern border. There was no emergency, but Trump wanted to declare one, so he did. What a gigantic waste of time and money. After declaring a national emergency, Trump went golfing.
Which brings us to the real winner, which is "Trump golfing." Over a hundred million taxpayer dollars have gone to Trump's golf outings so far (there's a running total at TrumpGolfCount.com, if you're interested). Trump has played between 100 and 230 games of golf during his presidency -- the exact number is unknown because he won't even admit when he's playing, out of shame. Trump promised, during his campaign, that he'd be far too busy to ever play golf as president. This was because Trump used to rip into Barack Obama for playing golf. But Obama mostly played on military courses, which saved the taxpayers all kinds of money in presidential security. Trump, of course, plays on his own courses. This means that the Secret Service and his whole entourage has to spend money at a Trump property, which is nothing short of blatant graft. And far from being "too busy" as president, Trump has already set new records for presidential golf outings. The millions we all pay for extra security -- to Trump's own properties, as well as all the Secret Service preparations -- was easily the Biggest Government Waste this year.
Best Government Dollar Spent
How about the salary of Ellen Weintraub, the head of the Federal Elections Commission? She released a very germane statement back in June, just after Trump had said inn an interview that he'd welcome dirt on his political rivals from a foreign country:
Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept. Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded the alarm about "foreign interference, Intrigue, and Influence." They knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not America's. Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donation from a foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Later on, in October -- when foreign election interference had moved from theoretical to proven fact -- she retweeted this message, prefaced with an image of a microphone and the words: "Is this thing on?"
Heh.
Instead, however, we're going to give the Best Governmental Dollar Spent to "investigating Trump." Bob Mueller's investigation cost tens of millions of dollars. But not really, because in actual fact Mueller's team made money for the Treasury. There were so many people found guilty of so many crimes that tens of millions more was recovered than was actually spent. The whole thing was a money-maker, plain and simple.
Likewise, at year's end, we saw Donald Trump paying a whopping two million bucks in penalties for running a sham charity that fleeced United States veterans. So that investigation paid off, as well.
In terms of reaping financial rewards, the Best Governmental Dollar Spent was on investigating Trump and his merry band of wrongdoers.
Boldest Political Tactic
This was a year with several bold tactics deployed, so it was hard to pick a winner. Nancy Pelosi's lightning-fast impeachment was pretty bold, but necessary. If she had chosen a slower route, impeachment would have dominated the next six months, rather than the presidential election.
Speaking of impeachment, Tom Steyer deserves a big nod. He put a lot of time and energy -- and tens of millions of his own money -- into the impeachment movement, and he started doing so over a year ago. What at the time seemed like a quixotic move has now become reality, so Steyer deserves credit for getting ahead of the pack on it in such a bold way.
Donald Trump has to be our runner-up in this category, because even though we certainly don't agree with him, you've got to admit that his "total stonewall" tactic was the boldest ever attempted by any president. His concept of "blanket immunity" from testimony from his aides and his refusal to turn over any documentation at all to Congress is going to set a very interesting precedent for the future, that's our guess.
But we went a little more positive, because we have to award the Boldest Political Tactic to the Green New Deal introduced by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Now, at the time, we had plenty of reservations about what was contained in the Green New Deal, because it is quite breathtaking in its scope. In fact, we still have most of the same reservations about the plan. But that doesn't stop us from also admiring the boldness in such an audacious proposal.
We see the Green New Deal as an aspirational document rather than as proposed legislation. But it certainly aspires to a lot, that much is beyond doubt. So when we considered Boldest Political Tactic of 2019, we had to admit that the Green New Deal deserved the honor.
Best Idea
There were all kinds of great ideas from the Democratic House this year, from the very first sweeping ethics-reform bill (H.R. 1, the "For The People Act") to proposals to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote to capping credit card rates to any number of other great ideas. Far from being "Do-Nothing Democrats" the House is proving to be a wellspring of good ideas that might eventually become reality if Democrats can ever flip the Senate and win back the White House.
Our runner-up for Best Idea was a general one pushed by the progressive wing: tax the rich. From Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax idea to all the other proposals to undo the Paul Ryan tax giveaway to the wealthy, the idea of taxing rich folks is now a key part of the Democratic platform. But we already gave Elizabeth Warren an award for this one, so instead we decided to look to the state level.
The legalization of marijuana in Illinois is an interesting case study for other states to consider, which is why it wins Best Idea of the year. Because of the pioneering work done by the other ten states that have legalized recreational adult usage, the concept of legalization has now become normalized. As a direct result, this has allowed other ideas to be included in the process, most of which are supported by almost every Democrat running for president.
The basic idea is not just to end the disastrous War On Weed, but to actually try to undo some of the damage done. Illinois is going to automatically expunge the record of anyone who paid a judicial price for possession in the past, and they're going to guarantee that a certain number of the permits for legal marijuana businesses go to minority-owned establishments. It is creative additions like these that make its new legalization law perhaps the best ever passed.
Also instructive was how it came to pass. The current governor, J. B. Pritzker, heavily ran on the idea of legalization and then after he won he followed through by putting a whole lot of political weight behind getting it through the legislature. This is also a model for other Democrats to follow, especially in states that don't have ballot initiatives. Being pro-weed is not the political suicide it once was, to put it as bluntly as possible.
Heh heh... he said "blunt." OK, we just couldn't resist, sorry.
Seriously, though, both the way it was used as a potent campaign issue and the way it was drafted both combined to make the new Illinois legalization law the Best Idea of the year.
Worst Idea
Howard Schultz running as an independent? Brexit?
Other than that, this category is all Trump's. Trump had plenty of bad ideas this year -- more than you could shake a stick at, in fact:
The non-existent "national emergency" at the southern border.
Naming Herman Cain to a Federal Reserve chair.
Hiring Rudy Giuliani as a private lawyer.
Space Force.
Sharpiegate.
Betraying the Syrian Kurds.
Attacking a witness on Twitter while she was still testifying on television.
And that's just a very short list which ignores hundreds of other bad ideas Trump has had this year.
Our runner-up in this category was Trump releasing the semi-transcript of his call to the Ukrainian leader. This was a really bad idea, from Trump's perspective, even if it turned out to be a great idea for citizens interested in what the president is doing in their name. But imagine how much differently it all would have played out if Trump had refused to release the transcript at the very start.
But our Worst Idea of the year was unquestionably "nuke the hurricanes." No, seriously.
To be fair to Trump, it actually happened at the very start of his presidency, but it wasn't revealed until Axios broke the news this year. We also wrote about it at the time, because we simply couldn't resist.
Trump didn't originate this incredibly bad idea, it was actually proposed at the dawn of what used to be called the Atomic Age. Nuclear bombs were going to be useful for all sorts of projects, the thinking went back then, such as excavating a canal in one fell swoop. One of these skylarking ideas was to tame hurricanes by precise placement of a few nukes.
Of course, at the time, the harmful effects of radiation and radioactive fallout were poorly understood. Not so in 2019, of course. Today the idea is just as insane as it sounds -- the concept of detonating a nuclear bomb which spews out radiation and fallout in the middle of a hurricane is now seen as downright delusional. By everyone but Donald Trump, that is.
Trump held a meeting to seriously explore the idea. So while it may not have been the worst idea of 1952 (or whenever it was first proposed), it definitely fits the bill for Worst Idea now. The most amusing part of the story came in a quote from one participant in the meeting: "You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting." After all, when the president proposes something, everyone else has to at least pretend to take it seriously. Even when it is the Worst Idea possible.
Sorry To See You Go
In a non-literal sense of the term, Californians were sorry to see Jerry Brown go, because he will doubtlessly go down in history as the state's only four-term governor (there's a new term-limits law that guarantees this).
Getting away from politics, we were saddened by the news of the death of "Grumpy Cat," although we hasten to point out that this is not the same as the cat in our logo, which was a random grumpy cat we found on the internet.
Other entertainment world deaths of note:
- Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
- Caroll Spinney (Big Bird)
- I. M. Pei
- Toni Morrison
- Tim Conway
- Peter Fonda
- Peter Tork
- Eddie Money
- Ric Ocasek
- Robert Hunter
and, as we were writing this, news of the passing of Don Imus came in.
We do have two people we have to say we are NOT sorry to see go, Jeffrey Epstein and Lyndon LaRouche. 'Nuff said.
The political world saw a number of deaths this year. The ones we're most sorry to see go:
- John Dingell
- John Conyers
- Elijah Cummings
- and, finally, H. Ross Perot
15 Minutes Of Fame
We're just going to quickly list these, as is entirely appropriate for such a category:
- Michael Cohen
- Michael Avenatti
- Michael Bloomberg (maybe)
- Mike Gravel's Twitter feed
- Julian Assange
- Howard Schultz (hopefully)
- Sean Spicer on Dancing With The Stars
- Robert Mueller
- Marianne Williamson
- Andrew Yang
- Tom Steyer
- Tulsi Gabbard
- and finally, Andrew Johnson, for being the only president who was impeached before anyone alive today was born.
Best Spin
I shamelessly included two of my own bits of political spin this year, because I really liked both of them.
The first was my suggestion for a slogan for the Democratic Party to use next year: "Do you really want this for another four years?" It works with just about anything Trump does or says. Run for the anti-exhaustion vote!
My second entry was born of my frustration out of the media calling anything progressive "far-left" or "fringe" or "out of the mainstream." The issue was universal background checks, but it could also include a whole raft of progressive ideas that poll overwhelmingly well with the public (like taxing the rich more) -- all of which I talked about last week, in the Most Stagnant Thinker award. Anyway, the line was: "Our position is not just the mainstream, it's the whole damn river."
"Moscow Mitch" was pretty good spin, but we already gave an award to it.
In the end, we had to go with a brilliant applause line we heard at Netroots Nation, from Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. It is also a campaign slogan that works for just about any Democrat running next year, and is downright brilliant in its simplicity and cadence. The winner of Best Spin was Senator Merkley, for his:
Dump Trump. Ditch Mitch. Save America.
Worst Spin
We're adding this award because we think it is necessary to distinguish the good from the bad. An example of "Worst Spin" would be: anything coming out of the mouth of Kellyanne Conway, for instance. Heh.
We have to admit we have a four-way tie in this category, all of which are interrelated. The first was "No quid pro quo," when there was all kinds of quid and quo everywhere you looked.
Mick Mulvaney admitting the quid pro quo on camera was pretty priceless:
Did [President Trump] also mention to me, in the past, the corruption related to the D.N.C. server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it. And that's why we held up the money.... We do that all the time with foreign policy.... I have news for everybody: Get over it.
The next was the idea that somehow the whistleblower was at fault for the whole crisis. I mean... what? Excuse me? The guy who called 911 anonymously is who we should focus on, rather than the bank robbery he reported in progress? It just boggles the mind, although apparently not over in Trumpland where the whistleblower has taken on epic stature as some sort of villain.
And the last one was just downright laughable -- the idea that the House was somehow being "unfair" to Trump. Our whiner-in-chief kept banging this drum even though the procedures for impeachment that were used were actually written by Republicans when they controlled the chamber. And to hear them complain about "secret hearings" and all the rest of their nonsense was also pretty ridiculous, at least for anyone who remembers the "Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!" era of Republican control of the House.
Pretty much all of the spin coming from the White House about impeachment is the winner of Worst Spin this year.
Most Honest Person
George Conway, perhaps? Or maybe all of the Republicans and four-star generals and national security experts who have been writing scathing articles and op-eds about Trump all year long, on an almost weekly basis?
In a surprise move, we're going to give Rush Limbaugh an honorable mention in this category, for admitting something that Republicans never say out loud -- that they only pretend to care about fiscal responsibility and deficits when there's a Democrat in the White House. Here's his refreshing bit of honesty, from July:
Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it's been around.... How many years have people tried to scare everybody about the deficit? The years, how many decades of politicians tried to scare us about deficit, the national debt, the deficit, any number of things. And yet, here we're still here and the great jaws of the deficit have not bitten off our heads and chewed them up and spit them out.
But our real winner of Most Honest Person this year is Justin Amash, who looked at himself in the mirror and honestly decided he could no longer call himself a Republican. He honestly admitted what Trump was doing to his party, and he was honest enough with himself to leave it. He paid a political price for doing so, but at least he can look at himself in the mirror each morning and hold his head up.
Biggest Liar
We could fit this one on a tweet. President Donald Trump is the Biggest Liar not only of the year, but of the whole damn decade. He's now topped 15,000 lies while in office, and shows no signs of slowing down. By the time the election rolls around, it wouldn't surprise us in the least if that topped 25,000 or even 30,000. From "no quid pro quo" to Sharpiegate, there is no subject too big or too small for Trump to lie about. The White House is now staffed with people who are somehow unable to see the emperor's nakedness, and instead spend all day insisting that his invisible clothes are the most splendiferous raiment on Earth. Trump is without a doubt the Biggest Liar ever to corrupt American politics.
Most Overrated
In the same vein, we considered giving the Most Overrated award to "the supposed bedrock values of the Republican Party." Remember when they staked out the moral high road and denounced anyone they deemed not ethical enough? Yeah, those were the days. Remember when they were "the party of family values"? Or when they insisted "character" was the most important thing a politician could have? Or when they were supposedly for fiscal responsibility? Or hard work? Or law and order? This all seems quaint, in the Trump era.
But in all fairness we have to give Most Overrated to the Mueller Report. Breathlessly awaited for months on end, it turned out to not be the Trump-killer that Democrats were hoping for. Mueller didn't interview any of the Trump family, he didn't bother challenging any of Trump's stonewalling, and he refused to draw the obvious conclusion from the ten instances of obstruction of justice he laid out in the second volume of the Mueller Report. His testimony before the cameras was equally as overrated, as he confined himself to essentially just reading passages from his own report. The Most Overrated event of the entire year was the release of the Mueller Report, even though now it has largely been forgotten.
Most Underrated
How about Jim Mattis as a comedian? Here he is after he left the Trump administration, with some grade-A zingers at a charity gala:
I earned my spurs on the battlefield. Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor.
I think the only person in the military that Mr. Trump doesn't think is overrated is Colonel Sanders.
Heh.
We could make the case for several Democratic politicians for Most Underrated. Joe Biden has been consistently underrated in all the horserace coverage of the campaign so far. He's the frontrunner and always has been and yet his coverage certainly doesn't reflect this standing.
Bernie Sanders is also underrated by the media and by the party machinery. Like Biden, he has also remained incredibly consistent in his support throughout the entire campaign. And also like Biden, he doesn't get nearly the amount of coverage his standing deserves. Bernie is breaking all fundraising records and the media utters nary a peep about it. Bernie's support actually went up after he had a heart attack! If that isn't being underrated, I don't know what is.
Nancy Pelosi was certainly underrated as a politician exactly one year ago. Several members of the incoming Democratic freshmen were ambivalent (at best) over Pelosi regaining the speaker's gavel. Some speculated that it was really time for her to go. At the end of the year, nobody's saying anything like that any more. Pelosi's skills at herding the Democratic cats are unparalleled and often underrated.
From the other side of the aisle, Donald Trump is also underrated by many. He won an almost-impossible race last time around and he's going to be an incredibly formidable opponent next year as well. Democrats should be wary of just writing off Trump's chances, because that didn't work out so well last time around.
But the winner of this year's Most Underrated award is: The Suburbs. Everyone talks about the voters in the cities and the rural voters, but there's real strength and real numbers living out there in the 'burbs. And the Democrats are doing a bang-up job of winning over their votes.
This was the story behind the blue wave of 2018 and then the continuing high tide of the 2019 elections. The suburbs flipped. They used to be halfhearted Republicans (in the "I'm a country-club Rockefeller Republican" sort of way) who didn't mind all the social issue nonsense from the party as long as they delivered on lowering taxes for wealthy folk. But Trump was a bridge too far for them.
In the future, someone's going to come up with a snappy name (like the "Reagan Democrats") to describe this monumental sea change out in the 'burbs. This shift could be the key to winning the 2020 presidential election, and the Democrats taking back the Senate. For all the attention on this subgroup of the Democratic Party or that one, the suburban vote is the one to really watch this time around. Because the Republican Party is underrating suburbian political strength at their own peril.
Predictions
Before we get to predictions for next year, as always we like to review our record from last year. The following list is from last year's column, where we tried to predict the outcome of 2019. So let's see how we did:
The current government shutdown will end with Trump getting zero money for his wall. It will go on for longer than anyone now expects, but in the end either Trump will just cave or the Republicans in Congress will get tired of getting beaten up over the issue and join with Democrats to override a Trump veto of a budget bill. Either way, Trump gets no wall money at all. Democrats chalk the whole thing up as a big political win.
Brexit does not happen. Teresa May fails to get a deal that Parliament and the Europeans can live with, and so when faced with the daunting prospect of a "hard Brexit," May will call another referendum at the last minute. This time "Remain" will win over "Leave," and the whole sorry exercise will come to a screeching halt. This will roil British politics, but the U.K. will stay in the European Union, and there will be no border checks in Ireland.
Under Nancy Pelosi, the House will investigate Trump within an inch of his political life. So many scandals will be uncovered that it'll be tough to count them all. At least a few of them will shock Trump's base to their core, as the Emperor's new clothes are finally revealed to all.
Trump's tax returns will be made public, one way or another. This may even launch a second independent counsel's investigation when his financial ties to Russia (including possible Russian mob money laundering) are exposed for all to see.
Bob Mueller will wrap up his investigation by questioning all of Trump's immediate family under oath. At least one of them will wind up being indicted (best guess: Donald Trump Jr.). State-level indictments of Trump's family will also be handed down in New York state. Trump will not be able to issue any pardons for state-level crimes, of course.
Trump will not wind up being impeached in 2019, but the ceaseless news of his scandals will drive his public opinion approval rating below 35 percent. Trump will refuse to believe these numbers, insisting that they are nothing more than "fake polls." But congressional Republicans contemplating running for re-election will become increasingly willing to buck the president politically (in an effort to save their own political hides).
The economy will slow considerably, but not fall into an official recession. Growth will slow, however, and the deficit will explode, as the full impact of the Trump tax cuts are made evident to all. This will rob Trump of his most favorite talking point, heading into the 2020 presidential contest.
Trump's tweets will (finally!) begin to be largely ignored by the mainstream media. Trump will fly off the handle one time too many, and people will just give up caring what idiocies he tweets in the early morning hours. OK, we realize that we're going out on a limb with this one, we admit; but sometimes you just have to give in to wishful thinking, right?
Trump will be challenged by at least two major GOP contenders in the Republican primary. This will drive him crazy, of course. Or "crazier," we should say.
The political world will become increasingly centered on the 2020 presidential race, and over 20 (!) major Democrats will decide to make a run for it. Winnowing this field will be particularly brutal, and will not be complete by this time next year.
Our predictions for the Democratic frontrunners next December: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, and Kamala Harris. Bernie Sanders will run but will be eclipsed by the other progressives in the race (who are less one-dimensional, politically, and more youthful in appearance). Beto O'Rourke will astonish many by deciding to sit the race out. Joe Biden will run, and will be the initial frontrunner (on name recognition alone), but eventually will fade as Democrats decide to pick someone new.
Let's go back to the top of the list and see which ones came even remotely true. First off was our prediction that (1) the government showdown would go on for longer than anyone expected, (2) Trump would not get any wall money, and (3) Trump and the GOP would cave, leaving Democrats the victors in this battle. All of these came true to one extent or another (it was the longest shutdown in American history, in fact), so we're going to call this one correct.
Brexit did not happen in 2019, but then again neither did a second referendum. So we're going to only claim half a point for this one. Especially since Great Britain is now on the path to actually leave the European Union early next year.
Nancy Pelosi did lead House Democrats to investigate the heck out of Donald Trump, however we have to admit that none of the resulting scandals (indeed, it was tough to keep track of all of them) made his base support waver at all. His job approval ratings are perhaps the most stable in the history of presidential polling, and this did not change over the course of the year. So we're only awarding ourselves half a point for this one, for a rolling total of two right out of three guesses.
Trump's tax returns are still not public, so we swung and missed on that one.
Mueller did not question any of Trump's family, and while New York is indeed conducting investigations and court cases, it didn't rise to the level predicted. So a clean miss for this one, too.
Trump was indeed impeached in 2019 (even if the documents haven't made it to Mitch McConnell yet), his approval ratings have not fallen much, and so far Republicans in Congress are still backing him (because they are terrified at the political retribution he can call down upon them if they buck him). So another miss here.
The economy has indeed slowed down, and the deficit did indeed explode (over $1 trillion once again). We are not in a recession, either. So we're going to award ourselves a full point for this one. But by our count, that's only three right out of seven so far.
People ignoring Trump's tweets turned out to be nothing short of wishful thinking. Sigh.
Trump was challenged by two Republicans in the GOP primary race, but neither one of them can accurately be described as "major," so we're not even going to claim a half-point for this one.
The hopefully-final tally for Democrats is that 29 of them ran for president this year. As of now, 14 of these have dropped out. So that one was pretty spot-on, for a rolling total of four out of ten.
We almost completely blew the last one, as of the four we picked to be frontrunners at this point, only one of them actually is. One of our choices (Sherrod Brown) didn't even run. Kamala Harris has dropped out, and Cory Booker is teetering on the brink of being forced to do so as well. Beto O'Rourke did indeed run, and Joe Biden is the clear frontrunner at this point because to date he has not faded in popularity much at all.
That leaves us with a 4-for-11 record, which is pretty dismal. Only 36 percent right, which is worse odds than flipping a coin. Oh, well, there's always next year, right?
Speaking of next year, let's move on to predicting what's going to happen in 2020.
North Korea's Kim Jong Un delivers his "Christmas present" on either New Year's Day or the day after. Much to the surprise of many, this comes not in the form of an I.C.B.M. test but rather with another nuclear test explosion. Trump flails in response.
Trump's impeachment trial takes place in the Senate, and at the end of it four Republicans actually cross party lines to vote for Trump's removal. However, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia also crosses the aisle, leaving the final vote at 50-50. No tiebreaker is necessary, since the requirement is actually 67 votes.
Brexit finally happens. It is not as bad as some predicted, but it's nowhere near as good as the promises made to the British public. By year's end, there are political movements calling for a vote to leave the United Kingdom in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Trump loses in the Supreme Court over his stonewalling argument, and his income taxes are finally released and made public. What he was hiding turns out to be: (1) he's nowhere near as wealthy as he claims, and (2) Russian oligarchs do indeed hold the note on enormous loans to Trump, explaining his love for Putin.
More impeachable behavior is also uncovered after Trump aides are forced to testify before House committees. But Nancy Pelosi refuses to start a second impeachment proceeding, explaining that we're too close to the election to do so.
China continues to stifle free expression in sports, using the power of their gigantic market to do so.
And let's just close the list (and this article) out with our election predictions. Elizabeth Warren surprises everyone by winning Iowa. However, Pete Buttigieg comes in second and then wins the New Hampshire primary. Bernie Sanders pulls an upset in Nevada on the strength of the Labor vote, and then Joe Biden wins in South Carolina on the strength of the African-American vote. This leaves the field almost exactly where it is before the first four primaries, with no clear winner.
On Super Tuesday, Bloomberg does better than expected, but fails to win any state. In fact, in most states he fails to even meet the 15 percent mark, which leaves him with no delegates. He drops out within weeks, but does continue to run ads to help downballot Democrats and the party in general (while refusing to endorse any of the other candidates).
Slowly, the race narrows as Pete Buttigieg drops behind. Eventually Biden picks up his share of the voters, while Warren and Sanders continue to split the progressive vote. By the convention, though, Biden will have picked up enough delegates to secure the nomination.
Biden chooses Stacey Abrams as his vice presidential pick, which shouldn't really come as a surprise. Warren and Sanders would just reinforce how old Biden is, while Kamala Harris doesn't really bring much to the table (Biden needs no boost among African-American voters, and California is going to vote blue no matter what).
In November, Biden beats Trump like a drum by absolutely crushing him in the Midwest, just as he had predicted all along. In fact, Biden's victory is so big it even precludes Trump from claiming that "the election was rigged!" (which you just know he'd do if it is even remotely close).
However, I leave everyone with a truly terrifying thought -- what will Donald Trump be like as a lame duck? He'll have three months to sit and fume about his loss, and he's already proven he doesn't care a whit about the norms of expected presidential behavior, so the sky will be the limit for what he'll occupy his time doing. One prediction: he's going to pardon not only everyone from his administration currently in jail, but he'll also issue proactive pardons for every member of his family, including himself. Of course, this won't stop any of the state-level prosecutions....
So we come not only to the end of the year, but also to the end of our yearly awards. Have a happy new year, everyone! And to end in true McLaughlin fashion, we say to all of you:
"Bye-bye!"
-- Chris Weigant
If you're interested in traveling down Memory Lane, here are all the previous years of this awards column:
2019 -- [Part 1]
2018 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2017 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2016 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2015 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2014 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2013 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2012 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2011 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2010 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2009 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2008 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2007 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2006 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Wow. You really let it rip in this one (so much so that I can imagine a certain conservative here going crazy when he reads it). Pointwise, it's perfect, and I wouldn't change a word.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be nearly as generous to you as you are on the predictions, giving you just one out of eleven (you were right about the size of the Democratic field). But you get 1500 extra points for just trying to predict this year!
And a note: HomeAlone2-gate continues. To catch everyone up, someone at Fox news noticed that the scene in which Trump gives directions to the boy had been cut from the replay, which apparently airs in Canada every year (who knew?). They wrote a story about it, which was mentioned in the comments here.
Well, then the Canadian Broadcast Company (CBC) issued their own press release, pointing out that they acquired the film in 2014, and cut it then (for time), long before Trump was President.
Our conservative backs the Fox network and their holiday workers, saying that of course they cut it because they hate Trump, and are just trying to cover their tracks! Stay tuned.
We could look across the aisle and predict that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is destined for a second act in politics, one way or another. But giving her any sort of positive award would leave a bad taste in the mouth, we freely admit.
Once again, the contrast between the old Weigantia and the new Weigantia is stark and obvious..
Weigantia pre-HHPTDS would not have hesitated to give the award to Sanders..
:(
We already gave Trump the Biggest Turncoat award for his shameful betrayal of the Syrian Kurds, although that one could have fit here, too.
If I peruse this Award from the past, would I see Odumbo as the Biggest Turncoat for doing the exact same thing??
I betcha 50,000 quatloos I wouldn't.. :(
Trump is now only the third United States president to ever be impeached.
The Democrats' own Impeachment expert says this is not factually accurate..
President Trump has not been impeached until the Articles Of Impeachment have been sent to the Senate.
Hay, don't whine to me about it. It's the Democrats' OWN EXPERT who says this..
Trump's unprecedented stonewalling of Congress.
"Unprecedented" since Barack I-HAVE-A-PHONE-AND-A-PEN Obama, you mean..
Just sayin'...
But our real winner of Most Honest Person this year is Justin Amash, who looked at himself in the mirror and honestly decided he could no longer call himself a Republican. He honestly admitted what Trump was doing to his party, and he was honest enough with himself to leave it. He paid a political price for doing so, but at least he can look at himself in the mirror each morning and hold his head up.
I am surprised you didn't award this to Rep Jeff Van Drew... :^/
"No.. Not really.. I can't back that up.."
-Dr Evil, AUSTIN POWERS, The Spy Who Shagged Me
:^/
He's now topped 15,000 lies while in office, and shows no signs of slowing down.
While I am sure it's a fun line of BS for ya to say, it's not factually accurate..
In other words, it's a LIE in itself.. :D
But in all fairness we have to give Most Overrated to the Mueller Report. Breathlessly awaited for months on end, it turned out to not be the Trump-killer that Democrats were hoping for. Mueller didn't interview any of the Trump family, he didn't bother challenging any of Trump's stonewalling, and he refused to draw the obvious conclusion from the ten instances of obstruction of justice he laid out in the second volume of the Mueller Report. His testimony before the cameras was equally as overrated, as he confined himself to essentially just reading passages from his own report. The Most Overrated event of the entire year was the release of the Mueller Report, even though now it has largely been forgotten.
Well, tickle my fanny and call me 'Giggles'... :D
There IS some semblance of pre-HHPTDS Weigantia left.. :D
Kewpie for you...
His job approval ratings are perhaps the most stable in the history of presidential polling, and this did not change over the course of the year.
Next time someone here breathlessly claims "PRESIDENT TRUMP IS LOSING SUPPORT WITH HIS BASE!!!!" I am going to make sure I pull out this lil' tidbit of fact.. :D
Trump's tax returns are still not public, so we swung and missed on that one.
I called that one dead on ballz accurate.. :D
Trump was indeed impeached in 2019 (even if the documents haven't made it to Mitch McConnell yet), his approval ratings have not fallen much, and so far Republicans in Congress are still backing him (because they are terrified at the political retribution he can call down upon them if they buck him). So another miss here.
I coulda told ya that!!..
Waitaminute.. I think I DID tell you that!! :D
Trump was indeed impeached in 2019 (even if the documents haven't made it to Mitch McConnell yet),
Which means that President Trump has NOT been impeached yet. At least, according to the Democrats' **OWN** expert...
People ignoring Trump's tweets turned out to be nothing short of wishful thinking. Sigh.
Once again... Ya'all would do well to remember that underestimating President Trump or, more accurately, underestimating President Trump's appeal to patriotic Americans is what gave us President Trump to begin with..
Not that I'll see anyone admit that... :^/
Trump was challenged by two Republicans in the GOP primary race, but neither one of them can accurately be described as "major," so we're not even going to claim a half-point for this one.
Can't fault ya for yer honesty.. :D
I'll address your predictions with my own counter-predictions in a subsequent comment.
But one prediction I made last week has already come to pass..
The Awards was nothing but a President Trump bash-fest.. :(
To be fair, there was one or two instance of the old Weigantia peeking thru.. So, I am thankful for that.. :D
Well, then the Canadian Broadcast Company (CBC) issued their own press release, pointing out that they acquired the film in 2014, and cut it then (for time), long before Trump was Preside
That's the claim.. Totally unsubstantiated nor supported by ANY facts..
I'll address one because it just caught my eye..
In November, Biden beats Trump like a drum by absolutely crushing him in the Midwest, just as he had predicted all along. In fact, Biden's victory is so big it even precludes Trump from claiming that "the election was rigged!" (which you just know he'd do if it is even remotely close).
SERIOUSLY DOOD!!??? :D
Do you HONESTLY believe that is how it's going to go down???
Gabberflasting... Absolutely GABBERFLASTING.... :D
OK.. Gotta get ready.. My first attempt to go back to work..
I'll address one because it just caught my eye..
In November, Biden beats Trump like a drum by absolutely crushing him in the Midwest, just as he had predicted all along. In fact, Biden's victory is so big it even precludes Trump from claiming that "the election was rigged!" (which you just know he'd do if it is even remotely close).
SERIOUSLY DOOD!!??? :D
Do you HONESTLY believe that is how it's going to go down???
Gabberflasting... Absolutely GABBERFLASTING.... :D
OK.. Gotta get ready.. My first attempt to go back to work..
Oh, I get it.. Yer yankin' my chain.. :D
Funny.. :D
Abolish the Police?
A dangerous new idea is inspiring some criminal-justice activists.
The latest call to action from some criminal-justice activists: “Abolish the police.” From the streets of Chicago to the city council of Seattle, and in the pages of academic journals ranging from the Cardozo Law Review to the Harvard Law Review and of mainstream publications from the Boston Review to Rolling Stone, advocates and activists are building a case not just to reform policing—viewed as an oppressive, violent, and racist institution—but to do away with it altogether. When I first heard this slogan, I assumed that it was a figure of speech, used to legitimize more expansive criminal-justice reform. But after reading the academic and activist literature, I realized that “abolish the police” is a concrete policy goal. The abolitionists want to dismantle municipal police departments and see “police officers disappearing from the streets.”
One might dismiss such proclamations as part of a fringe movement, but advocates of these radical views are gaining political momentum in numerous cities. In Seattle, socialist city council candidate Shaun Scott, who ran on a “police abolition” platform, came within 1,386 votes of winning elected office. During his campaign, he argued that the city must “[disinvest] from the police state” and “build towards a world where nobody is criminalized for being poor.” At a debate hosted by the Seattle Police Officers Guild, Scott blasted “so-called officers” for their “deep and entrenched institutional ties to racism” that produced an “apparatus of overaggressive and racist policing that has emerged to steer many black and brown bodies back into, in essence, a form of slavery.” Another Seattle police abolitionist, Kirsten Harris-Talley, served briefly in as an appointed city councilwoman. Both Scott and Harris-Talley enjoy broad support from the city’s progressive establishment.
https://www.city-journal.org/abolish-police-call-to-action
This is why it's dangerous to elect Democrats to office..
What would abolishing police mean as a practical policy matter? Nothing very practical. In The Nation, Mychal Denzel Smith argues that police should be replaced by “full social, economic, and political equality.” Harris-Talley, meantime, has traced policing’s origins back to slavery. “How do you reform an institution that from its inception was made to control, maim, condemn, and kill people?” she asks. “Reform it back to what?” If cities can eliminate poverty through affordable housing and “investing in community,” she believes, the police will become unnecessary. Others argue that cities must simply “help people resolve conflicts through peace circles and restorative justice programs.”
Democrats...
Denying reality and human nature for decades... :eyeroll:
North Korea's Kim Jong Un delivers his "Christmas present" on either New Year's Day or the day after. Much to the surprise of many, this comes not in the form of an I.C.B.M. test but rather with another nuclear test explosion. Trump flails in response.
There will be nothing coming out of North Korea for New Years..
It's all just another media hype that the Trump/America haters use to bash President Trump..
Obviously Kim is a fan of the M*A*S*H Episode THE JOKER IS WILD
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0638437/
:D
Biden chooses Stacey Abrams as his vice presidential pick, which shouldn't really come as a surprise. Warren and Sanders would just reinforce how old Biden is, while Kamala Harris doesn't really bring much to the table (Biden needs no boost among African-American voters, and California is going to vote blue no matter what).
Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Biden has some very short lists of who he would ask to be vice president, Secretary of State and Defense, Treasury Secretary and a number of other top cabinet level positions.
However, it would surprise the hell out of me if any of those people are on those lists.
How should a presidential nominee go about choosing a vice president?
I think president Obama knows very well. That goes double for Biden.
More impeachable behavior is also uncovered after Trump aides are forced to testify before House committees. But Nancy Pelosi refuses to start a second impeachment proceeding, explaining that we're too close to the election to do so.
I have more respect for speaker Pelosi than to predict she would act in such a politically weak manner as that.
More impeachable behavior is also uncovered after Trump aides are forced to testify before House committees.
Let's be factually accurate here..
There hasn't been ANY impeachable behavior found, save for what's in the fervent imaginations of Trump/America haters..
So, while the prediction that Democrats will find more behavior they THINK/WISH is impeachable, the FACT is, there won't be any more found because there hasn't been any found to date...
But Nancy Pelosi refuses to start a second impeachment proceeding, explaining that we're too close to the election to do so.
Yea, cuz Pelosi has such a GREAT track record at holding the Hysterical Left at bay, eh? :eyeroll:
Here's a 2020 prediction I think we will be seeing...
Ex-NFL star predicts 'black awakening' will give Trump unprecedented support in 2020
Former NFL player Jack Brewer once campaigned for Barack Obama but now rejects the Democratic Party after "awakening" to the way it abandoned African Americans, he said Saturday.
"For me, once I saw the policies that President Obama pushed in the back half of his presidency just -- it left a bad taste in my mouth," he said during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."
Brewer predicted that a "black awakening" would lead to President Trump garnering more than 20 percent of the black vote in 2020.
"And then I really started being awakening [sic] to what was happening with the Democratic Party -- making so many promises but then abandoning the community that I worked so hard in."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/jack-brewer-black-awakening-trump
But it doesn't go far enough..
I predict that black American support for President Trump in Nov of 2020 will approach 35%....
You heard it here first..
I predict that black American support for President Trump in Nov of 2020 will approach 35%....
Let me correct that obvious typo for ya....
“I predict that black American support for President Trump in Nov of 2020 will approach 3 to 5%....”
Much better.
I doubt Trump’s campaign could handle the repercussions that an increase in support from the black community would cause. For every one new black supporter, Trump would lose at least 10 white supremacists — which would devastate his base numbers!
Half of active-duty military personnel contacted in the poll held an unfavorable view of President Trump, showing a continued decline in his approval rating since he was elected in 2016.
Trump’s 42 percent approval in the latest poll, conducted from Oct. 23 to Dec. 2, sets his lowest mark in the survey since being elected president. Some 50 percent of troops said they had an unfavorable view of him. By comparison, just a few weeks after his electoral victory in November 2016, 46 percent of troops surveyed had a positive view of the businessman-turned-politician, and 37 percent had a negative opinion.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/12/17/half-of-active-duty-service-members-are-unhappy-with-trump-new-military-times-poll-shows/
Ouch! That has to hurt! Maybe pardoning war criminals wasn’t the smartest move?
Much better.
I am sure for your fragile delusion, it IS "much better"..
But it doesn't reflect reality..
Democrats have been hemorrhaging black American support since the Odumbo years..
Ouch! That has to hurt! Maybe pardoning war criminals wasn’t the smartest move?
What the MTimes doesn't tell you is that it's the officers who don't like President Trump..
Speaking from experience, the officer ranks are VERY politicized...
The enlisted ranks LOVE President Trump..
You might as well give it up..
There is simply NO WAY that Democrats are going to drive a wedge between President Trump and the military and President Trump and black Americans..
NO..... WAY..... :D
I doubt Trump’s campaign could handle the repercussions that an increase in support from the black community would cause. For every one new black supporter, Trump would lose at least 10 white supremacists — which would devastate his base numbers!
Facts to support??
Jeesh.. Look who I am asking for facts... :eyeroll:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/cartoons/images/2019/12/21/gary_varvel_gary_varvel_for_dec_21_2019_5_.jpg
And once again..
It's funny cuz it's true.. :D
Maybe pardoning war criminals wasn’t the smartest move?
You have a typo there.. Let me fix it for you..
Maybe pardoning war fighters WAS the smartest move?
There ya go.. Fixed..
Joe Biden says he will DEFY subpoena to testify in Trump's Senate impeachment trial because it will detract attention from the president's actions
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7832055/Joe-Biden-says-defy-subpoena-testify-Trumps-Senate-impeachment-trial.html
Oh I get it..
Guys with -Rs after their names ignoring and defying Congressional subpoenas?? BAD..
Guys with -Ds after their names ignoring and defying Congressional subpoenas?? GOOD..
Once again.. Proof positive it's **ALL** about the -D and -R....
CW said:
However, I leave everyone with a truly terrifying thought -- what will Donald Trump be like as a lame duck?
THIS is a large part of why I think(hope/pray) that the Republicans could be working with the Democrats to remove Trump from office via impeachment! Trump is most dangerous when he is lashing out because his feelings have been hurt. Angry Trump acts out of spite and fury...and as our president he could cause unimaginable damage to our nation that we have literally no way of preventing from occurring.
We know that the Senate has received intelligence briefings that the whole House was not privy to. This, too, makes sense when you realize that it’s only the top Senate Republicans that are needed to remove Trump from office. The less that know about this, the better. I am guessing the Senate was given the findings from Trump’s counterintelligence investigations... and the findings were so damning that Republicans either worked to remove him, or they faced being remembered as knowingly aiding a traitor. Only a few senior Republicans needed to be in the “know”, the rest would follow McConnell’s lead no matter what.
It would explain why Republicans have not attempted to offer any actual defenses for Trump’s actions as outlined in the AOI, instead choosing to argue (incorrectly) that the entire process has been unconstitutional. They are performing for an audience of one...keeping the man baby from realizing that his days are numbered.
It would also explain why members of the Senate have made such bold statements of devotion to protecting Trump from being removed from office prior to the trial occurring — statements that are clear ethics violations that normally would lead to investigations by the proper Congressional committees. These statements only make sense if they were done solely to assure Trump that he has nothing to worry about. I am guessing that they are stalling now just to keep Trump from fretting too much while there is nothing happening in DC to distract him.
Again, it isn’t as outlandish of a dream as it first sounds if you believe 1)that there have to be some Republican members of Congress who aren’t willing to violate their oaths of office to aid the Russian asset in the White House, and 2) that Trump’s tantrums are too great a national security risk to not have his removal from office done with surgical precision to prevent him from realizing that he is finished.
THIS is a large part of why I think(hope/pray) that the Republicans could be working with the Democrats to remove Trump from office via impeachment!
Again, let me fix it for you..
THIS is a large part of why I think (hope/pray/DREAM/FANTASIZE) that the Republicans could be working with the Democrats to remove Trump from office via impeachment!
Because that's all it is.. A twisted bigoted hate-filled fantasy..
We know that the Senate has received intelligence briefings that the whole House was not privy to.
Facts to support?? None?? Gotcha...
It would explain why Republicans have not attempted to offer any actual defenses for Trump’s actions as outlined in the AOI,
No defense is necessary.. They are bullshit charges that have NOTHING to do with ANYTHING...
Again, it isn’t as outlandish of a dream as it first sounds if you believe
Yes, Russ.. it is.. It really IS an outlandish and impossible dream..
Oh I get it..
Guys with -Rs after their names ignoring and defying Congressional subpoenas?? BAD..
Guys with -Ds after their names ignoring and defying Congressional subpoenas?? GOOD..
No! Anyone ignoring and defying Congressional subpoenas...BAD!
I don’t know what Biden was thinking when he made that statement, but he needs to correct it quickly. I heard this reported elsewhere and did not check the link to your post, but unless Biden made sure his refusal to comply was accompanied by stating he would be seeking a judicial ruling on the matter, then this is unacceptable.
Once again.. Proof positive it's **ALL** about the -D and -R....
Sure does seem that way...when are you going to call out Trump for doing this like you just did Biden? Ordering all government agencies to ignore document requests from those trying to investigate Trump and ordering government officials to ignore congressional subpoenas is NOT acceptable from anyone in office!!! Seems like someone claiming to think as independently as you would agree with that statement.
And before you whine and try to bring up Holder and the Fast&Furious documents, big difference is that the Republicans were given thousands of documents and were only denied those the agency claimed were classified or were not relevant to or that met the defined request parameters.
I don’t know what Biden was thinking when he made that statement, but he needs to correct it quickly. I heard this reported elsewhere and did not check the link to your post, but unless Biden made sure his refusal to comply was accompanied by stating he would be seeking a judicial ruling on the matter, then this is unacceptable.
A Sherman!! I am sincerely impressed, Russ..
Kudos..
And before you whine and try to bring up Holder and the Fast&Furious documents, big difference is that the Republicans were given thousands of documents and were only denied those the agency claimed were classified or were not relevant to or that met the defined request parameters.
It's not up to the criminal to decide that the prosecutors have enough evidence and they don't need to give anymore..
We know that the Senate has received intelligence briefings that the whole House was not privy to.
Facts to support?? None?? Gotcha...
Fiona Hill testified to this during the inquiry. She stated that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were informed that Trump was pushing a Russian borne conspiracy theory in his accusations against the Biden’s and Ukrainians interference in the 2016 election.
It just seemed odd at the time that our intelligence agencies gave a briefing like that just to members of the Senate, and did not inform the House Intelligence Committee. It also means that Senate Republicans calling for Biden to be called to testify during the trial are knowingly spreading Russian propaganda.
It's not up to the criminal to decide that the prosecutors have enough evidence and they don't need to give anymore..
Subject of course to a Court's determination of relevance. In the F&F case, the committee chose to impeach first, ask the Court later. When they came into office themselves, they could declassify it, which they didn't.
Biden has clear 5th Amendment rights here. His testimony (and his son's) isn't relevant. He can fight that in the Court system long past the election.
I still think Biden would make a fine witness and do his presidential campaign a lot of good.
Vice President Biden acted honourably as he always does. Why invoke his 5th Amendment rights?
Frankly, I don't think he's going to be called to testify - it would be akin to shooting oneself in the foot if you're Mitch McConnell.
Instead, Biden should speak to voters and tell them the whole story about his quid pro quo with Ukraine, contrasting it with what Trump did.
LixM [12] -
So who do you think Biden would choose for his veep? Interested minds want to know...
Michale [15] -
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office."
-Gerald Ford
So there.
[16] -
BWAH hah hah hah hah! Man, that was a bit of comic relief! Thanks, dude.
ListenWhenYouHear [17] -
Yeah, that was my reaction, too... heh.
Michale [20] -
BWAH hah hah hah hah! Thanks for the laugh, bro!
A general comment:
Michale: willing to believe any outlandish report of Obama doing anything wrong, while simultaneously believing Trump is a God-King, capable of doing no wrong at all. And yet he claims to be "non-partisan"... go figure....
Sheesh...
-CW
On an unrelated note, we're within reach of achieving our fundraising goal for the year, but still just a hint away. So for anyone reading this who has a few bucks to toss into the kitty, we would encourage you to make that donation before the end of the year!
:-)
-CW
Fiona Hill testified to this during the inquiry. She stated that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were informed that Trump was pushing a Russian borne conspiracy theory in his accusations against the Biden’s and Ukrainians interference in the 2016 election.
So, you have hearsay..
Not the actual intelligence itself.. OK..
It just seemed odd at the time that our intelligence agencies gave a briefing like that just to members of the Senate, and did not inform the House Intelligence Committee.
When you consider that the House is Democrat and the Senate is GOP... Do you REALLY find it odd?? :D
Balthy,
Subject of course to a Court's determination of relevance.
And the fact that the Democrats were afraid to get rulings from the courts is very very telling..
Biden has clear 5th Amendment rights here. His testimony (and his son's) isn't relevant. He can fight that in the Court system long past the election.
It is also inappropriate for the criminal to decide the relevance of his testimony..
Irregardless, as usual, you miss the point..
Ya'all bitch and moan when guys with -Rs after their names ignore Democrat subpoenas. Ya'all call it OBSTRUCTION...
Now a DEMOCRAT commits that same OBSTRUCTION and ya'all (sans Russ) don't say dick about it..
How come??
Liz,
I still think Biden would make a fine witness and do his presidential campaign a lot of good.
Vice President Biden acted honourably as he always does. Why invoke his 5th Amendment rights?
That is a very good.. a DAMN good question..
Frankly, I don't think he's going to be called to testify - it would be akin to shooting oneself in the foot if you're Mitch McConnell.
It all depends on which way McConnell jumps..
If McConnell wants a quick trial to get it over with, there won't be any witnesses...
If McConnell wants a full court press defense of President Trump and to rock the Democrats back on their heels, put them on the definisive, then we'll see both Bidens and probably a host more witnesses..
There are pros and cons to each plan.. The Quickie Plan has a better chance of success, but the Slap Democrats Down plan has greater rewards albeit with greater risk..
Word is that the White House wanted the latter Slap Democrats Down plan, but is coming around to the risk-averse Quickie Plan..
Time will tell...
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office."
-Gerald Ford
So there.
Yea, I have heard that.. However, the US Constitution says different..
BWAH hah hah hah hah! Man, that was a bit of comic relief! Thanks, dude.
You may be laughing now..
New polls show black support for Trump surging
https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/black-voters-donald-trump-support-1.39184208
But you may be crying come election day.. :D
Democrats have been steadily losing black American support since Obama and the Democrats kicked black Americans to the curb...
When you also consider the FACT that President Trump has done more for black Americans in 3 years than Democrats have done in 3 decades???
Well, it's no wonder that black Americans will gravitate to the President who actually CARES about them..
Facts don't lie, CW.. :D
Michale: willing to believe any outlandish report of Obama doing anything wrong,
How is that any different than ya'all believing any outlandish report of President Trump doing anything wrong??
The difference being, of course, is that I have FACTS to support my beliefs.. :D
while simultaneously believing Trump is a God-King, capable of doing no wrong at all.
Not at all.. President Trump has made some bonehead moves and I called him on them each and every time??
Pulling out of Syria.. The bumpstock ban.. etc etc..
You Democrats thought Odumbo could walk on water..
I am very cognizant of President Trump's flaws...
That's the difference..
On an unrelated note, we're within reach of achieving our fundraising goal for the year, but still just a hint away. So for anyone reading this who has a few bucks to toss into the kitty, we would encourage you to make that donation before the end of the year!
I sent you an email regarding my special circumstances...
And yet he claims to be "non-partisan"... go figure....
Compared to ya'all, I am COMPLETELY non-partisan.. :D
Which doesn't say very much.. Compared to ya'all, the Republican-Killer who shot up a baseball field was ALSO completely non-partisan... :^/
Good ta hear from ya CW..
It's fun when the GrandMaster from on high decides to come down and wallow in the muck with the peons.. :D
Biden has clear 5th Amendment rights here.
Having said the afore, you are absolutely dead on ballz right..
Biden DOES have the right to refuse to testify so as not to incriminate himself..
Biden absolutely has that right..
BUT...
But were he to invoke his 5th Amendment rights??
His campaign would be over..
So, yea.. I double dog dare Biden to take the 5th... :D
I wanna see JL vote President Trump.. :D
DH #43,
While I am loathe to even give the APPEARANCE I am speaking for CW, I have to say...
In my 15+ years of knowing CW, I have ***NEVER*** known him to mix fund-raising with commenting or commenters..
And THAT is despite the -what is sure to be- intense pressure brought about by my own "style" of commenting.. :D
One has absolutely NO BEARING on the other..
You can take that to the bank...
Chris,
I think Biden will pick his vice president based on his ability to do the job of the president and hit the ground running on day one, should that become necessary.
Biden will choose someone who he trusts completely to act on his behalf on any issue, domestic or internationally. And, I think age or gender will play no role in that selection.
I would like to see a pick on the order of a John Kerry but, I would also like to see a kind of fusion ticket with a respected (former) Republican.
There is no one mentioned in this piece who comes close to meeting those standards.
PS I also claim special circumstances, ahem.
Michale: willing to believe any outlandish report of Obama doing anything wrong, while simultaneously believing Trump is a God-King, capable of doing no wrong at all. And yet he claims to be "non-partisan"... go figure....Sheesh...
Indeed.
You know, Michale, you're not dealing with a bunch of idiots here. I wish you would stop treating us like we are.
You know, Michale, you're not dealing with a bunch of idiots here. I wish you would stop treating us like we are.
While I would use the term "idiots", it IS obvious that, for the vast majority of ya'all, ya'all let your hate override your intelligence...
You people, against President Trump are 20x worse than ya'all accused the GOP of being towards Obama..
And what says even more is that ya'all know this and don't care...
While I would use the term "idiots", it IS obvious that, for the vast majority of ya'all, ya'all let your hate override your intelligence...
That should read "While I WOULDN'T use the term "idiots",....."
My bust...
What ya'all really need to do is just calm the frak down..
President Trump is going to be re-elected.. This is a given..
Throwing sand in the gears of government only hurts the country..
If Democrats tried WORKING *WITH* President Trump ya'all would be AMAZED at what we can accomplish...
It's really that simple..
If Democrats tried WORKING *WITH* President Trump ya'all would be AMAZED at what we can accomplish.
Democrats have been trying to work with Trump, or didn't you notice the legislation that was passed on the same day that they impeached him?
But it sure ain't easy. There are 400+ matters that have been sent to the Senate where they sit on McConnell's desk gathering dust, for example.
Moscow Mitch brags about them. Calls himself the "Grim Reaper".
White House meetings have resulted in Trump grandstanding, or just leaving the room. At least once, he just changed his mind.
He doesn't understand truth, civility, or the rudimentary way that governments work, and wants desperately to hand it all to Putin.
So what's to work with, huh?
Democrats have been trying to work with Trump, or didn't you notice the legislation that was passed on the same day that they impeached him?
Oh bullshit.. Yes it's true that Democrats have gone along with President Trump here or there..
But "working with" someone means you don't badmouth them on a daily, oft times HOURLY basis..
But it sure ain't easy. There are 400+ matters that have been sent to the Senate where they sit on McConnell's desk gathering dust, for example.
For example...??? Anything that's GOOD for the country and not just good for Democrats???
White House meetings have resulted in Trump grandstanding, or just leaving the room. At least once, he just changed his mind.
OMG!!! President Trump changed his mind!!!!????
"OH MY GOD, WHAT A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!!!"
-Marisa Tomeii, MY COUSIN VINNY
Frak impeachment!!! Just take him out and SHOOT him!!!!!
You see why it's impossible to take you people seriously???
There is no low or medium with ya'all..
It's all BLARING HYSTERIA all the time..
He doesn't understand truth, civility, or the rudimentary way that governments work,
TRANSLATION: He doesn't work the way YOU want him to work..
"Elections have consequences.."
-Barack Odumbo
and wants desperately to hand it all to Putin.
Of course you think that..
Just as of course you don't have a SINGLE SOLITARY fact that supports it to the exclusion of all else....
CW:
Strangely, I have to second Don Harris' call for an address. I'm in "pure money mode" these days, so having somewhere to send it would help.
Can't you set up a post office box?
and wants desperately to hand it all to Putin.
Let's face reality.
Odumbo was 10 times the friend to Putin than President Trump has EVER been...
Odumbo would not arm Ukraine..
Odumbo let Russia walk into The Crimea...
Odumbo eased and eliminated MANY of the sanctions against Russia...
Odumbo cancelled the missile defense program for the area, at the request of Putin..
All these FACTS and more prove that Odumbo was fellating Putin...
Trump has slapped Russia down 20x harder than Odumbo..
"working with" someone means you don't badmouth them on a daily, oft times HOURLY basis..
Obama would be surprised to hear that. So you're saying that first, he needs thicker skin.
Anything that's GOOD for the country and not just good for Democrats?
Out of 400 bills? Probably. According to Mitch, it just doesn't matter.
TRANSLATION: He doesn't work the way YOU want him to work..
BINGO on that. Working with someone involves accommodation, and he just doesn't accommodate. So much so, that I imagine his hotels are terrible.
Hey, at least we've convinced him to keep the government open.
you don't have a SINGLE SOLITARY fact that supports it to the exclusion of all else..
That's funny, because there are enough clues that a mantra of Pelosi's is "all roads lead to Putin", and no one disagrees.
Obama would be surprised to hear that. So you're saying that first, he needs thicker skin.
SO, yer admitting that the GOP worked with Odumbo???
Out of 400 bills? Probably. According to Mitch, it just doesn't matter.
Probably?? So, you don't have any facts, yer just spewing..
OK..
BINGO on that. Working with someone involves accommodation, and he just doesn't accommodate. So much so, that I imagine his hotels are terrible.
You don't want accommodation.. Democrats don't want accommodation...
You and the Democrats want ANNIHILATION!! Ya'all have made that perfectly clear from the second that Trump wiped the floor with Hillary Clinton..
That's funny, because there are enough clues that a mantra of Pelosi's is "all roads lead to Putin", and no one disagrees.
Everyone who is NOT a Trump/America hater disagrees..
But you and the Dumbocrats ignore and vilify and demonize those people..
Which explains EXACTLY why we HAVE President Trump...
Ooooooo Looks like the YES IMPEACH people got a little bit o spurt..
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/public_approval_of_the_impeachment_and_removal_of_president_trump-6957.html
Run with it!!! :D See how far ya get.. :D
Just makes the eventual CRASH AND BURN that much more pleasant for those who live in the REAL world.. :D
Oh and let's not forget Odumbo's quid pro quo deal made with Putin thru Putin's lackey...
"Give me some space to win my election and I'll be more flexible for you as President...."
And, SOMEHOW, you think that President Trump is Putin's bitch!???
BBBBBBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
SO, yer admitting that the GOP worked with Obama?
Yes, they did, often to the dismay of Democrats. I don't think he realized just how perversely partisan that they could be.
So, you don't have any facts
I have the fact of McConnell shooting his mouth off.
Democrats don't want accommodation
Well they did, until it got too pricey.
you and the Dumbocrats ignore and vilify and demonize those people..
Pulleeese. The recent rash of mass murders aren't leftists, you know. Very first thing that Trump said was to villify and demonize Mexicans. Y'all throw stones from a glassy house.
I have the fact of McConnell shooting his mouth off.
Yea.. That's called hearsay.. :D
Well they did, until it got too pricey.
They NEVER did.. Democrats, INCLUDING people here in Weigantia, talked IMPEACHMENT even before President Trump took office..
So don't try that bullshit that ya'all were willing to give President Trump a chance..
Ya'all wanted his head since 10 Nov 2016...
Very first thing that Trump said was to villify and demonize Mexicans.
Not factually accurate.. But why start now, eh?? :eyeroll:
Not factually accurate..
I quote:
"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people," Trump said at his campaign announcement.
people here in Weigantia, talked IMPEACHMENT even before President Trump took office..
facts?
That's called hearsay..
Sure, if you mean that I heard him say it.
You don't understand. Republicants have been taking a beating for the last few years at the ballot box - in Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas. Many of these places, Trump went to rally the troops. And they didn't show up.
And his poll numbers never rise, much.
I think that the election is VERY winnable. We only have to keep Bernie off the ballot!
I think that I've decided on a Biden/Warren ticket.
Sounds reasonable. And unites the party, philosophically. Warren's got some strong views, but basically, she's a technocrat.
"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people," Trump said at his campaign announcement.
Of course you don't quote the entire thing because THAT makes it clear President Trump was talking about ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIMINALS..
That is how it ALWAYS is with ya'all.. You lie and bullshit and pull things out of context, just to make your bullshit case..
I think that the election is VERY winnable.
Yea.. I am sure Bob Dole supporters said the same thing against Clinton.. :D
I think it's cute.. :D
This does not mean he does not have a legitimate reason, such as feeling it is a conflict of interest because I am trying to start a political organization.
or perhaps that you've been more than a little stalker-like with a side of banana creme pie?
JL
hello, this is your friendly neighborhood stalker. would you kindly provide your home address so i can stalk you and your family in person?
Balthy,
Nah, Biden is going to go with Stacey Abrams as his VP. Actually, I think Stacey Abrams is going to be the VP choice for whoever wins the nomination! It makes sense... the Democrats want to get back the black voters who did not show up for Hillary excited to vote Democrat again, and Abrams is the person to do that. I think Biden already promised Abrams that he would only be a one term president and that he’d make sure she got plenty of experience as VP to prepare her to take over the White House in 2024.
While I think Warren would make a great VP, I honestly think she’d be better running the Treasury and implementing some of her plans to clean up the financial institutions in this country.
Of course you don't quote the entire thing because THAT makes it clear President Trump was talking about ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CRIMINALS..
It was clear who Trump was talking about; Mexicans. And Trump seemed to think that their government was sending them to the US for some reason.
Did ya notice how Trump slipped up and said:
They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.
Which makes total sense — he naturally associated himself with people that have lots of problems and that are criminals.
Mike: Everybody knew exactly who he was talking about. Don't have to surround the quote. What took everyone by surprise was the reaction. Who knew that so many republicants were sitting around waiting for permission to be racists?
Listen: I think that Abrams is better in theory, and Warren is better in practice. Even Obama seems to have figured that out.
nypoet: I think that I suggested a P.O. Box.
It was clear who Trump was talking about; Mexicans. And Trump seemed to think that their government was sending them to the US for some reason.
It's only clear to those who are hysterical with Trump/America hate...
Mike: Everybody knew exactly who he was talking about. Don't have to surround the quote. What took everyone by surprise was the reaction. Who knew that so many republicants were sitting around waiting for permission to be racists?
Yea, every Trump/America hater "knew" exactly who he was talking about.
As usual, every Trump/America hater is wrong and blinded by their hate and bigotry..
As usual, every Trump/America hater is wrong and blinded by their hate and bigotry..
You can stop saying Trump/America. They're two different things. There's Trump. There's America.
Blinded? I had no real idea who he was. All I knew was that the words he was saying were garbage.
Trump has slapped Russia down 20x harder than Odumbo..
Obama led the call for the removal of Russia from membership of the G8 in response to Crimea being invaded.
Trump is the sole person, other than Putin, calling for Russia to be added to the G7 roster despite Russia remaining in Crimea.
Obama insisted harsh sanctions be brought against Russia for their interference in our 2016 election.
Trump has continuously called for sanctions to be lifted off of Russia, told the Russian Foreign Minister that he had no problem with Russian interference in our elections, and has claimed it was actually been Ukraine that was guilty of interfering in the 2016 election — a claim that our intelligence agencies say is pure Russian propaganda!
Trump has chosen to discredit our intelligence agencies and the counterintelligence community countless times by saying that he trusts the word of Putin over their hard data and evidence showing Russia aided his campaign during the 2016 election.
When Russian ships rammed a Ukraine naval vessel and held their entire crew captive for over a year, not only did Trump remain silent, he ordered the State Dept. NOT to put out a statement condemning the Russians.
Trump is compromised. Trump hates the Ukrainians because Putin has instructed him to hate them. You knowingly support the biggest traitor in our nation’s history!
Here's a news flash for y'all …
Warren or Abrams ain't gonna be on a ticket with Biden.
Pray tell, why would anyone suggest those two???
Not that each of them have a number of admirable qualities, you understand ...
Balthasar and Russ,
Choosing a vice president is a very, very serious proposition and involves substantial analysis.
Why would you choose warren or Abrams?
[77]is missing a 'don't', just to be clear. :)
Liz,
I heard from folks back in GA right after Biden announced he was running that he’d met with Abrams (who people were at that time pushing to get into the presidential race or the Senate race) and had said he believed that the two of them would be able to beat Trump soundly. This would give her the needed national exposure and experience she needs to help her take her career to the next level, and it would give the Democrats the diversity they should be striving for on their national ballot. It was at this time that Biden supposedly first mentioned only planning to serve one term.
I think Abrams would be a great VP for whoever the Democrat’s pick as their presidential candidate. A young black female on the ticket will definitely excite more voters and hopefully increase voter turnout.. Thankfully, she is an incredible person whose record in the Georgia Legislature was very strong and she has been a leading force in battling the Republicans attempts at voter suppression.
That is simply not enough to be vice president in 2020.
I like her but she need to get more experience before anyone can consider her for their number two.
And, this one-term notion is sheer lunacy.
I'd wager that Biden met with her to give her a pep talk, as it were.
You can stop saying Trump/America. They're two different things. There's Trump. There's America.
And those who hate Trump also hate America..
Obama insisted harsh sanctions be brought against Russia for their interference in our 2016 election.
Bullshit..
He refused to even ACKNOWLEDGE the Russian interference. He was afraid it would hurt Hillary's election chances.
How do we know this?? Because he himself STATED it..
He put POLITICS before the safety of this country.
Trump is compromised. Trump hates the Ukrainians because Putin has instructed him to hate them.
Yea, you keep saying that.. But as usual, you don't have a single solitary fact that says this..
Even Democrat's Golden Boy Mueller exonerated President Trump on Russia collusion..
You sound EXACTLY like an Odumbo birther..
A broken record with not a SINGLE fact to back it up..
A young black female on the ticket will definitely excite more voters and hopefully increase voter turnout..
Well, at least you are not being sexist or racist about it.. :^/
"She's a woman and she's black.. Definitely VP material!!!"
-Russ
:eyeroll:
Thankfully, she is an incredible person whose record in the Georgia Legislature was very strong and she has been a leading force in battling the Republicans attempts at voter suppression.
You DO realize that what you are calling "voter suppression" was a law that was created and voted INTO law by Georgia DEMOCRATS!!
You do realize that, right???
3 Dead After Shooting At West Freeway Church Of Christ In White Settlement
A witness told CBS 11 News the gunman walked up to a server during communion with a shotgun and then opened fire. According to the witness, another church member — identified as a former FBI agent and part of the church’s security — shot the suspect.
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2019/12/29/2-dead-1-critically-injured-shooting-white-settlement-church/
Another Crowd-Based Mass Shooting cut short by a good guy with a gun...
So much for the bullshit claim that the "good guy with a gun" mantra is a myth...
Thank the gods we have President Trump until Jan of 2025 and a soon-to-be 6-3 Conservative SCOTUS to protect the 2nd Amendment...
Hecklers derail Biden New Hampshire campaign event: 'Quid pro Joe'
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hecklers-biden-quid-pro-joe-new-hampshire
Joe Biden is damaged goods.
There is simply no way he is going to win the election even if he does win the primary..
As far as the primary goes, I will laugh my ass off if, for all their hoity toity talk of "diversity" and such, Democrats nominate an old white guy as their candidate.. :D
It would be worth having to vote for Biden in Nov to be able to laugh at that all thru 2020... :D
Texas Republican credits church security team, change in state law after shooting
The deadly shooting inside a Texas church on Sunday prompted Republicans there to credit the changes in state law that permitted concealed firearms inside places of worship after it was revealed that the gunman was fatally shot six seconds after opening fire.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-republican-credits-church-security-team-change-in-state-law-after-shooting
SIX SECONDS!!!
SIX FRAKIN' SECONDS!!
Because there was an armed citizen, the shooting was over in ***SIX SECONDS***
And there are people who STILL believe that guns are the problem..
Those people need their heads examined..
Guns are the problem
Guns are the SOLUTION to the problem!!
It's really THAT simple..
New York Synagogue Attack: Machete-Wielding Suspect Captured In NYC After At Least 5 People Wounded In Monsey
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/12/28/stabbing-monsey-synagogue-attack/
This is the point that hysterical anti-gun zealots simply refuse to comprehend..
Even if there was a way to guarantee that bad-guys would never get any guns (an impossible task) there is still a MULTITUDE of ways a psychotic scumbag can commit mass murder..
Australia proved that beyond ANY doubt.
If you address ONLY the tool used, people will STILL die in mass murder events..
The *ONLY* way to actually have a chance to STOP the violence and the murder is address the PERSON...
Mental health is the key to addressing these mass murder events.. Concentrating on the tool used is nothing but a placebo and will actually cost more lives than it saves..
Odumbo's CDC proved that beyond any doubt..
Interesting side note..
Deaths from Crowd Based Mass Shootings are up in 2019..
194...
Number of deaths in 2019 caused by illegal immigrant criminals??
Over 10,000
Democrats and Trump/America haters sure have funny priorities.. :eyeroll:
They want to (allegedly) save 194 lives by taking away law-abiding citizens' only means of self-defense but they also want to aid and abet the brutal murders of over 10,000 Americans...
Weird...
I bet THIS is a topic we could discuss that would have a LOT of common ground... :D
The Year UFOs Became a Little More Legit
We didn’t find ETs in 2019, but the U.S. government did become a little more chatty about flying saucers.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/2019-year-in-aliens-ufos.html
Still #1 on my Bucket List...
FIRST CONTACT
I am gonna give ya'all somewhat of a break today..
I am gonna be off the grid...
Well, more accurately, I am gonna be on a different grid.
My son got me the new Modern Warfare 2019 PC game and I am gonna be hip deep in tango blood.. :D
Going dark..
"What the fuck, mate!!!???"
-Captain Price
"I thought you said 'Shoot The Hostage!!'.."
-Me
:D
OH SNAP!!!!
Obama, Trump Tie as Most Admired Man in 2019
https://news.gallup.com/poll/273125/obama-trump-tie-admired-man-2019.aspx
That's just GOTTA hurt!! :D
hehehehehehe
@don,
asking for someone's home address as a pre-condition for donating to their organization crosses a delicate line, and does not inspire trust. the legal definition of cyber-stalking is still a bit murky, but i'd wager most experts would at least consider this a step in a dangerous direction.
@cw,
i want to send you a free pie. please send your home address, phone number, social security number, bank account routing number, and favorite flavor. as it happens, i'm also a prince from nigeria.
JL
Heh.
Liz,
She would not say that Biden had not talked to her about being his running mate when asked; she only would say that she would not be running for president or the senate.
asking for someone's home address as a pre-condition for donating to their organization crosses a delicate line, and does not inspire trust.
While I would not argue the point, all things being equal, I would point out that a home address that is also a WORK address muddies the absolute-ness of your point..
I am also constrained to point out that this new-found concern for stalking rings kind of hollow considering the history of this forum...
I'm just sayin'..
Murkowski ‘disturbed’ by McConnell’s vow for ‘total coordination’ with White House for impeachment trial
https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/-Murkowski-disturbed-by-McConnells-vow-for-total-coordination-with-White-House-for-impeachment-trial-566472361.html
Couple questions I would like to ask Murkowski..
Was she just as "disturbed" when House Democrats had "total coordination" with Trump/America haters whose ***STATED*** goal was a coup against President Trump??
Question #2
Is she familiar with the STAR TREK (Old Series) Episode A PRIVATE LITTLE WAR??
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and sanctioned Russia in response to their election interference.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/29/barack-obama-sanctions-russia-election-hack
Trump was the one who tried to get the sanctions removed which resulted in Congress voting (almost?) unanimously to change it so Congress, not the President, determined when sanctions ended.
Also:
Mental health is the key to addressing these mass murder events.. Concentrating on the tool used is nothing but a placebo and will actually cost more lives than it saves..
Odumbo's CDC proved that beyond any doubt..
How did the CDC prove this? The Dickey Act still prevents the CDC from directly researching gun violence...which means you are WRONG, and either you are intentionally lying when you make such claims, or are just ignorant.
I am also constrained to point out that this new-found concern for stalking rings kind of hollow considering the history of this forum...
I'm just sayin'..
Poor little snowflake! How harsh your reality must seem...surprised you could even have surgery as most operating rooms aren’t located in a walk-in freezer.
I’m just sayin’...
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and sanctioned Russia in response to their election interference.
Long after the election was held..
In other words, it was a token meaningless gesture..
How did the CDC prove this?
The CDC determined that upwards of 1.5 MILLION times *PER YEAR*, guns were used in self-defense purposes to SAVE LIVES..
Compare that to the paltry 10-12 thousand dead from gun violence. And the majority of that number are scumbags whose passing made this country a better place...
Seems a valid trade-off to me..
Poor little snowflake!
Yea, you probably say the same thing to the young girl who was violently raped because she wore a short cut skirt and a low cut top..
"Poor snowflake.. If ya didn't put yourself out there like that, you wouldn't get violently raped.. it's your own fault.."
-Russ to 14 yr old rape victim
What a sick puppy you are...
Compare that to the paltry 10-12 thousand dead from gun violence. And the majority of that number are scumbags whose passing made this country a better place...
Seems a valid trade-off to me..
"Hay!! That thing just killed a civilian!!!"
"We project an 11% collateral casualty rate. Acceptable."
"Yea... Unless you happen to be part of that 11%"
-BLUE THUNDER
John Lott: Concealed-permit gun holders save lives — Texas church attack just the latest example
The attack on the West Freeway Church of Christ reminds us of an important truth that too many still deny:
Concealed-permit gun holders save lives. And in today’s world, they and their weapons should be welcomed in churches and other houses of worship.
Within seconds of the shooter opening fire on the Texas congregation Sunday, he was shot dead by two parishioners with concealed handgun permits, one of them a former FBI agent. Four other parishioners had their concealed handguns drawn, ready to respond. The attacker killed two congregants before he was taken down, but the death toll could have been much higher.
JAMES CARAFANO: TOP 5 WORLD HEADLINES TO WATCH FOR IN 2020 — SOME WILL SURPRISE YOU
“The citizens who were inside that church undoubtedly saved 242 other parishioners, and that might get swept aside,” said Jeoff Williams, a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety. “It was miraculous. The true heroes in all this are the people who were sitting in those pews today and responded, the immediate responders … it was truly heroic.”
“Today evil walked boldly among us,” Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said at a press conference. “Let me remind you, good people raised up and stopped it before it got worse.”
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-lott-concealed-permit-gun-holders-save-lives-texas-church-attack-just-the-latest-example
The solution to Crowd Based Mass Shootings is obvious..
More good guys with guns...
The facts speak for themselves..
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law earlier this year making it easier for people to carry guns with them into places of worship, former Vice President Joe Biden criticized the action. “It is irrational, with all due respect to the governor of Texas, it is irrational what they’re doing on the same day you see a mass shooting … and we’re talking about loosening access to have guns,” Biden said.
It’s hardly irrational. Permit holders have stopped dozens of would-be mass public shootings?in malls, churches, schools, universities and town centers. Gun control advocates raise the alarm that a permit holder will accidentally shoot a bystander or a police officer responding to reports of a mass shooting will accidentally harm a permit holder. This has never happened in a mass public shooting.
This is why it's SOOOO important that Democrats be taken far away from the levers of power..
This bears repeating...
Gun control advocates raise the alarm that a permit holder will accidentally shoot a bystander or a police officer responding to reports of a mass shooting will accidentally harm a permit holder. This has never happened in a mass public shooting.
The fear-mongering of the hysterical gun hating nuts ***HAS NEVER HAPPENED***...
In the 1.5 MILLION TIMES PER YEAR that citizens who carry have drawn their weapons to save lives, it's NEVER HAPPENED that an innocent bystander was shot by a good-guy with a gun or a good-guy with a gun was shot by police..
ONE POINT FIVE ***MILLION*** TIMES A YEAR..
and
IT'S NEVER HAPPENED..
So much for the bullshit fear mongering of the hysterical gun-hating bozos...
Number of deaths in 2019 caused by illegal immigrant criminals??
Over 10,000
What orifice did you pull that stat from? 2018 stats are available, but can’t find your stats on any government website. Strange how that stat is not even part of law enforcements UCR reporting, so once again you prove what a lying, fear-mongering shitsprayer you truly are!
How sad to be so afraid of the mythical boogie-man from Belize! Waking up every day believing that THEY are coming for you... Now go change your Depends, you stink!
2018 stats are available, but can’t find your stats on any government website. Strange how that stat is not even part of law enforcements UCR reporting, so once again you prove what a lying, fear-mongering shitsprayer you truly are!
Can you prove it's a false stat without relying on Left Wing propaganda bullshit??
No you can't..
Ergo, the FACT stands...
Gun control advocates raise the alarm that a permit holder will accidentally shoot a bystander or a police officer responding to reports of a mass shooting will accidentally harm a permit holder. This has never happened in a mass public shooting.
Just because it has not happened yet doesn’t mean it is not a concern! What has occurred is that officers have been forced to disarm and detain those citizens to rule them out as being involved. Anyone with a gun out in these scenarios will find themselves looking down the barrel of the officers’ firearm and being placed in handcuffs. This is not a quick process and what is worse is that it can delay the search for the actual shooter!
So unless you have visual contact with the actual shooter and are firing at them, do the police a HUGE favor and keep your concealed weapon CONCEALED! Don’t pull it out “just in case” you might need it!
Can you prove it's a false stat without relying on Left Wing propaganda bullshit??
You’ve never provided any evidence that it is a real stat. You are a wanna be cop who has been exposed for lying in your posts time and time again.
Just because it has not happened yet doesn’t mean it is not a concern!
Yes, that is exactly what it means..
It's called fear-mongering without ANY basis in fact.. :D
Anyone with a gun out in these scenarios will find themselves looking down the barrel of the officers’ firearm and being placed in handcuffs. This is not a quick process and what is worse is that it can delay the search for the actual shooter!
So unless you have visual contact with the actual shooter and are firing at them, do the police a HUGE favor and keep your concealed weapon CONCEALED! Don’t pull it out “just in case” you might need it
You spin a good fantasy yarn..
But you have no basis in fact, training, experience or expertise..
It's simply your hysterical Left Wingery anti-gun bullshit talking..
Just because it has not happened yet doesn’t mean it is not a concern!
It's like fear mongering over a life saving drug that can save MILLIONS OF LIVES every year, because it's MAYBE SLIGHTLY COULD BE POSSIBLE that there MIGHT MAYBE be a bad batch that COULD MAYBE SLIGHTLY POSSIBLY kill a single person.
It's moronic and it's NOTHING but hysterical hate-based fear mongering..
It's like fear mongering over a life saving drug that can save MILLIONS OF LIVES every year, because it's MAYBE SLIGHTLY COULD BE POSSIBLE that there MIGHT MAYBE be a bad batch that COULD MAYBE SLIGHTLY POSSIBLY kill a single person.
It's moronic and it's NOTHING but hysterical hate-based fear mongering..
The needs of the many.. Outweigh the needs of the few
Especially if those few are hate-filled bigoted Trump/America haters... :eyeroll:
In Pursuit of Florida Latinos, Democrats Fight Socialist Tag
https://www.voanews.com/usa/pursuit-florida-latinos-democrats-fight-socialist-tag
Dems??? Florida???
No, you're never gonna get it
Never ever gonna get it (no, not this time)
-En Vogue
:D
@m,
i am content to stay out of it, but if you're going to call me out i'd be happy to let you know how i feel about your flame war with kick. i am deeply saddened that it has happened, but i don't assign blame to any one side for the escalation.
JL
JL,
i am content to stay out of it, but if you're going to call me out i'd be happy to let you know how i feel about your flame war with kick. i am deeply saddened that it has happened, but i don't assign blame to any one side for the escalation.
So, you are saying that, in the case of a 14 yr old girl being raped because she wore a low cut top and short skirt, you wouldn't assign blame to any one side for the escalation??
What did I do that would justify stalking??
Being an annoying and arrogant prick??
Supporting President Trump??
Sharing family pics and personal anecdotes with online friends??
What was it about my actions that would justify a deep dive into my personal life and the lives of my wife, my children and grandchildren??
I am sincerely curious as to what I have done that would justify having myself and my family stalked??
You spin a good fantasy yarn..
But you have no basis in fact, training, experience or expertise..
I’ve got a helluva lot more experience and knowledge on this matter than you, that much is clear! Please tell me what I said that qualifies, in you opinion, as “fantasy yarn”? Do you think that if you pull your gun out during a possible live shooter incident that the police are going to just take you at your word that they should just keep going and ignore you because you pinky swear that you are not involved??? Really, Spanky?
And you comparing idiots like you pulling your gun out during an active shooter incident to some life-saving medicine that you can count on to work is the funniest shit you’ve said in a long time! You are much more likely to shoot yourself or another wanna-be hero than doing anything to help the situation. Even if you are able to shoot and disarm the active shooter, you will be held until they can determine whether you are involved or working with the shooter or not! Every single wanna be hero who pulls their concealed weapons out will be handcuffed and held until the whole incident plays out! By all means, test this theory out for yourself if you think I am wrong!
And FYI, the police have mistakenly shot and killed an innocent person who pulled their concealed weapon. In Birmingham, Alabama last year, a young man who had just finished up his time in the military was shot and killed when police mistook him for the shooting suspect they were looking for.
Just the fact that you claim that I am anti-gun is proof enough that you do not know what you are talking about.
@m,
You're not a 14 year old girl who was sexually violated, you're a grown ass man who made the conscious decision to participate in a mud fight. When people escalate a conflict, lines get crossed, and all parties share responsibility for the fallout.
Chris, a great column and a great way to end the year.
I would be proud to have gotten 4 out of 11 predictions! Who could have predicted that:
* Anyone would defend "Sharpiegate" and "Let's Buy Greenland" with a straight face?
* Republicans in the House of Representatives, in defending Trump shifting resources from the military budget to 'the wall' -and' denying Ukraine Congressionally-approved funds, are implicitly handing over their 'power of the purse' to the Executive branch?
* Evangelicals would find NOTHING too offensive that Trump says or does? (Though the Christianity Today editorial may -cross fingers- be a crack in the dam)
* The mass media would clutch pearls - and then quickly move to the next shiny object - at overt racism and anti-Semitism in Trump's words and actions?
* Farmers, miners, and many others who have seen little benefit from Trump's trade wars continue to stick with him (what does that say about the Democratic Party's persuasive powers?)
I'd like to add another column for next year's McLaughlin Awards: "This changes everything". Here are my nominees:
* RBG (or another liberal justice) dies
* Trump's 'early physical' was a preamble to a major health crisis (or death)
* N Korea's "Christmas Surprise" is a missile attack on an American ally
* ProPublica, or other investigative journal, publishes conclusive proof that voting machines in one of the 'swing states' was hacked in 2016.
* The 'Pee Tape' surfaces on the Internet - and shows Trump masturbating nude as the ladies pee on the mattress.
* Financial records, emails, or video are leaked, conclusive proof that several of Trump's loudest defenders are being blackmailed (by Russia? by FOX News?)
* The 'secret vault' at the National Enquirer of of 'catch-and-kill' stories is discovered and published, which even FOX News finds too putrid to defend
You're not a 14 year old girl who was sexually violated, you're a grown ass man who made the conscious decision to participate in a mud fight.
So, yer comparing the stalking of me and my family to a mud fight??
While it may not have been the rape of a 14 year old girl, stalking is a LOT closer to THAT than it is to a mud fight..
You DO realize that people have been KILLED by their stalkers, right??
Funny how you treat stalking differently depending on ideological beliefs..
DH stalking CW BAD
Kick stalking me and my family?? meh...
When people escalate a conflict, lines get crossed, and all parties share responsibility for the fallout.
Bullshit...
What *EXACTLY* did I do to Kick to justify her stalking of myself, my kids and my grandkids??
No answer??
Russ,
And FYI, the police have mistakenly shot and killed an innocent person who pulled their concealed weapon. In Birmingham, Alabama last year, a young man who had just finished up his time in the military was shot and killed when police mistook him for the shooting suspect they were looking for.
As usual, you have no cite for this claim.
Because you KNOW I would find out that yer full of shit and it didn't go down that way..
@m,
What kick did to you was not stalking. For that matter, dh didn't stalk cw either. In his case what makes it a little stalky is that cw generally leaves dh alone, so most of the attention is directed one way.
What kick did to you was not stalking.
What do you call scouring the internet for information on persons??
In his case what makes it a little stalky is that cw generally leaves dh alone, so most of the attention is directed one way.
That's a distinction, not a difference
I hope you were just using that to make a point as DH stalking CW can't be bad because it is not happening.
No, of course you weren't stalking CW.. As I said, the fact that CW's home address is also his work address makes the issue moot..
And I am sure JL was not seriously accusing you of stalking..
My point wasn't the stalking/non-stalking.. My point was the difference in attitudes of stalking based on ideological positions..
What kick did to you was not stalking
Kick herself stated that she called up "some friends" to do background checks on me and my family..
How is that not "stalking"??
Of course, I don't believe Kick HAS any friends.. She probably paid several of those FIND OUT ANYTHING ABOUT ANYBODY web sites to dig up information on me..
Again.. How is that NOT stalking??
DH simply asked CW for his address.. And you (jokingly, I know, but still) called that stalking..
How is someone not ASKING for information but actually scouring the internet to FIND information...
How is that NOT stalking??
@m,
How is that not "stalking"??
two ways:
1. kick only posted in response to provocation. when you stopped posting, she stopped trolling you.
2. kick never suggested that she was interested in contacting you or any member of your family in person in any way. she didn't go there, and gave no indication that she ever would.
1. kick only posted in response to provocation. when you stopped posting, she stopped trolling you.
And the 14 yr old girl was only raped in response to the low cut top and tight skirt she wore..
The *WHY* is irrelevant.
The *WHAT* is the point..
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization.[1] It may include false accusations, defamation, slander and libel. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, ***or gathering information that may be used to threaten, embarrass or harass.***[1]
By ANY definition, what Kick was doing was stalking...
WHY she was doing it is completely and utterly irrelevant..
2. kick never suggested that she was interested in contacting you or any member of your family in person in any way.
Not required for stalking.. She threatened to release personal or private information about me and my children if I did not toe her line..
So, what you seem to be saying is that her actions were justified because I called her some pretty nasty names..
Is that the point you are trying to make??
As I said, it's not really my point to debate the finer points of what has occurred in the past.
You have your perspective and I have the facts.. :D J/K
You feel I deserved what I (and my family got) and I just don't think that's the case...
Nasty name-calling justifies nasty name-calling in return.. No more, no less..
Escalating into cyberstalking is bad mojo.. Because that could lead to a very VERY dark place..
My only point was to show the confluence of attitudes vis a vis stalking and Party ideology...
Whether justified or not is irrelevant. The core property that defines stalking is that the attention is unequal and unrequited. You paid kick as much attention as she paid you, and when you stopped she stopped. Not stalking.
Whether justified or not is irrelevant.
Maybe to you..
But that is the basis of my entire point..
The core property that defines stalking is that the attention is unequal and unrequited.
Simply not factually accurate..
I can spend day and night calling Kick every name in the book.. She spends day and night trying to dig up personal information on me and my family to retaliate and to threaten me into silence.
You saying they are both the same is the epitome of a false equivalency..
You paid kick as much attention as she paid you, and when you stopped she stopped.
Yea?? And if person A starts yelling and cursing at person B all day and person B responds by slicing at Person A with a knife all day..
You would say that Person A paid as much attention to person B as Person B paid to Person A???
Not stalking.
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization.[1] It may include false accusations, defamation, slander and libel. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex, ***or gathering information that may be used to threaten, embarrass or harass.***[1]
The facts say different..
If you bring a knife to a gunfight it's still your own damn fault for fighting.
If you bring a knife to a gunfight it's still your own damn fault for fighting.
Shirley, you are not advocating that I am to blame because *I* didn't escalate to cyber-stalking...
But you are, of course, wrong..
I didn't bring a knife to a gunfight..
I brought my words to a flame war which was fully appropriate..
It was Kick who escalated it to a gunfight..
I don't advocate gun fights or knife fights. I also don't see evidence that kick did the more severe things you're accusing her of.
I also don't see evidence that kick did the more severe things you're accusing her of.
You mean, other than her own words that she dug up all that information on me and my children..
Actually, whenever I'm scrolling past all the flame war crap, I just think those two need to get a room already...
But, 's OK..
We're on the same page on so many different things..
It's OK when we disagree now and again.. :D
Actually, whenever I'm scrolling past all the flame war crap, I just think those two need to get a room already...
Well, CYBERSTALKING DOES include sex..
It may also include monitoring, identity theft, threats, vandalism, solicitation for sex,
While Kick hasn't gotten around to that yet, I am sure it's only a matter of time.. :D
I'd like to add another column for next year's McLaughlin Awards: "This changes everything". Here are my nominees:
* RBG (or another liberal justice) dies
Why on earth would anyone wish to make such a prediction as that. Not that it hasn't already been predicted around here before - maybe the same commenter.
For her part, RBG has a long and highly productive life ahead of her.
Hopefully, we won't see anymore of that particular kind of sentiment around here as we idealistic realists head into 2020 and beyond ...
Prediction: Trump will refuse to debate his Democratic opponent even once. He can't afford to put himself in a position of having to actually answer any questions.
I suppose that is a step us from predicting a death.
Hopefully, the quality of predictions won't be the only thing that rises around here ...
I just read this article with tantalizing - and disturbing - hints about one of my possible 'This Changes Everything' McLaughlin Awards for 2020. It's a long read, but well worth at least a perusal.
'The public learned about the targeting of VR Systems in June 2017, when The Intercept published the leaked NSA document. The document revealed that a company that makes voter registration software had been targeted in a Russian phishing campaign that was “likely” successful against at least one of the company’s employees.
...
The fact that so many significant questions about VR Systems remain unanswered three years after the 2016 election undermines the government's assertions that it’s committed to providing election officials with all of the timely information they need to secure their systems in 2020. It also raises concerns that the public may never really know what occurred in 2016.'
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/26/did-russia-really-hack-2016-election-088171