Friday Talking Points -- The Clown Parade Continues
The circus has come to town, and performing in the center ring this week was the teeny-tiny clown car which disgorged a continuing parade of clowns, each more outlandish than the last.
Or, to put things another way: get ready for lots more circus/clown metaphors in the very near future. It's really the only possible way to describe Donald Trump selecting his cabinet. But we'll get to the individual clowns in a moment, because first we've got to take a broader view of what Trump's up to here.
One of the hallmarks of the first Trump administration was not so much having big, public fights with Democrats, but rather having big, public fights within his own party. Trump's picks -- especially the most ridiculous ones -- are a huge gauntlet thrown down at the feet of the newly-Republican Senate and the new GOP Senate majority leader. Even before John Thune was chosen, Trump was issuing threats that the incoming majority leader had better support "recess appointments," if he know what was good for him.
Which leads us to a little constitutional review. The process for filling the cabinet (and plenty of other top jobs in any administration) is that the president nominates someone, the Senate investigates them and holds confirmation hearings, and then they vote whether to confirm the person or not. Here's how the Constitution puts it:
[The president] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.
Since this document was written when the fastest possible communication and/or transportation was basically limited to the speed at which a horse could run, they decided to provide another option, however. Back then, Congress wasn't in session year-round, and getting everyone to Washington was a major undertaking for many of them. So the Founders provided an alternative:
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Meaning, if Congress isn't in town, the president can still fill vacancies -- but these people will only hold their jobs until Congress is over (after the midterm elections for the incoming Congress right now, or in other words until the end of 2026).
However, for the past two decades, Congress basically never goes into recess. Oh sure, they flit off on vacation for weeks on end (let's not even talk about August, shall we?), but both houses of Congress hold pro forma sessions once every couple of days, where one of them (usually a representative or senator in near proximity to D.C., so as to not interrupt anyone's vacation time too much) gets up in front of a totally empty chamber. He or she gavels proceedings officially into session and then immediately gavels it back out again, turns the lights out, and goes home until the next time they've got to fake being in session (a few days down the road). This was done specifically to prevent a president (one of the opposing party, initially) from making recess appointments, since the chamber never officially goes into recess -- it merely keeps temporarily adjourning. This is a rather ridiculous legal fiction, but it's how things regularly happen now.
Barack Obama tried to defy this convention and make a recess appointment anyhow, but the Supreme Court ruled, in essence, that there was no official recess, therefore there could be no legal recess appointment. Congress would have to recess for around 10 days, the court said, before it would be considered a valid recess.
Trump wants this power back, even though he will have a pliant Republican majority in both houses. And he's threatening to make it happen on his own, if the new Senate majority leader doesn't knuckle under. Because there's another clause in the Constitution which addresses his powers that could soon become relevant:
[The president] may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses [of Congress], or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.
Call it an end-run to the initial end-run of recess appointments. This is an obscure clause in the Constitution and is not regularly used at all, but that's not going to matter one whit to Trump. So Trump can nominate anyone he feels like, then if the Senate balks at confirming them Trump can tell them to go into recess (so he can appoint the nominee anyway) -- and if the Senate balks at going into recess, then Trump can essentially force this to happen himself even without their consent.
This is the gauntlet Trump has thrown down in front of them, even before he dared them to be disloyal by nominating the most god-awful people imaginable to some of the most powerful positions in his administration. Trump is taunting the Senate Republicans, in other words: "Defy me and I'll do it anyway... and then I'll probably devote my life to destroying you."
So Republican senators who are sane enough not to want the likes of Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, and R.F.K. Jr. running the country have a choice to make. Do they: (A) shoot down the nominee in the hopes of Trump withdrawing their name and making a less-insane nomination; (B) urge their leadership to just go into recess -- which would mean they wouldn't even have to vote on the odious nominee at all; or (C) force Trump to use an archaic clause of the Constitution that could precipitate a real Constitutional Crisis?
As you can see, for a Republican who is sane enough to balk at voting for total clowns, option (B) might start looking pretty good. That way, you don't tempt Trump's rage too much (by having to actually cast a vote against Trump), and at the same time if the nominee goes on to crash and burn in spectacular fashion, you can just wash your hands of the whole thing by saying: "Well, he was recess-appointed -- the Senate had nothing to do with it."
It's a power struggle and a blame game, all wrapped up into one. And at this point, nobody knows how it is all going to work out. But we suppose the safe money would be on "all the Republicans do exactly what Trump wants anyway," knowing how supine the entire party has become before the majesty of their Dear Leader.
Moving along to the individual clowns, one has to wonder if the chief lightning rod in all of this isn't really meant as some sort of feint. Donald Trump (no matter what he thinks in his own mind) is not known for playing three-dimensional chess. But he could have been talked into this scheme, because the decision was reportedly made on an airplane ride with the guy whispering in his ear.
When the plane landed, Trump announced to all and sundry that Representative Matt Gaetz (R - Gomorrah) would be his nominee for attorney general. Our personal reaction was: "What, was Bill Cosby not available?" What followed was rather odd, however, since Gaetz then immediately resigned his House seat. We later found out that this was done to preclude the House Ethics Committee from releasing a report (which probably would have happened today) detailing its investigation into Gaetz for (among other things) having sex with an underage girl and showing nude photos of his girlfriends on the House floor, apparently to anyone he bumped into. So the report would have made for some lively reading, that's for sure.
But Gaetz resigned before they could vote on releasing the report. So the House has no jurisdiction over him at all anymore. Which means they have to decide whether to release the report anyway, possibly send the report over to the Senate committee which will hold the confirmation hearing, or just bury the report forever. It should come as no surprise that they are leaning towards tossing the whole report down the memory hole.
Before we get to the Republican reaction to this nomination (which is also some lively reading), we do have to wonder if it is Gaetz playing some 3-D chess here. Reportedly, Gaetz has his eye on making a run for the Florida governor's office. If this has been his true ambition all along, then it certainly would make for an easier campaign if that pesky sex-and-drugs-and-depravity report was buried, wouldn't it? Resigning from the House might have been his only real goal this week, in other words, to avoid a possible expulsion or censure. To avoid all of that, Gaetz may have made a bargain with Trump to gracefully withdraw his name from consideration later, rather than force Trump to make good on his recess appointment threat. This would have the effect of leaving the report buried and clearing the way for Gaetz to make his governor's run.
From Trump's point of view, this would have some benefits as well. Once Gaetz withdrew his nomination, Trump could then appoint someone completely legally odious, but far better than Matt Gaetz -- say, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, for instance. Senate Republicans would probably fall all over themselves in relief to vote for such a candidate, and the crisis would be averted. Also, the drama around the Gaetz appointment would serve to lessen the drama surrounding some of his other woefully unqualified nominees. Kind of a win-win for Trump as well as Gaetz, when looked at this way.
Time will tell, of course. Maybe Trump will just force the Senate out of session and recess-appoint Gaetz after all. Who knows?
But moving on to the Republican reaction to all of this. We are going to save the best of these for the Talking Points, which this week is entirely devoted to Republican/conservative reactions to the appointment of Matt Gaetz. This builds to a big finish, an excerpt of an article written by Ben Domenech which starts off with: "Matt Gaetz is a sex-trafficking drug-addicted piece of shit," and ends with: "The man is absolutely vile. There are pools of vomit with more to offer the earth than this STD-riddled testament to the failure of fallen masculinity." This is coming from a rightwing member of the media, mind you.
As for the rest of the picks, Michael Waldman (president of the Brennan Center for Justice) summed it all up best with: "These are so appalling they're a form of performance art."
This strikes to the essence of the matter, since a second Trump presidency -- just like the first -- will essentially be performance art from beginning to end.
The week started off calmly enough, with Trump naming the first woman to be his White House chief of staff (the woman who just ran his campaign), and Senator Marco Rubio to be secretary of State. These were Trump loyalists, but also considered serious people who could easily be confirmed for the jobs.
Then Trump got creative. He named Stephen Miller and Tom Homan to head up his immigration policies, which means it wasn't just campaign rhetoric, they will indeed start rounding people up as soon as they can manage. Kristi Noem was nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, which also fits in with this plan.
He nominated two very pro-oil guys to deregulate everything in sight: Doug Burgum to Interior and Lee Zeldin for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Then came the real fireworks. Trump nominated, in quick succession, A Fox News host to run the Pentagon as the secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard to run all the intelligence services, Matt Gaetz as attorney general, and R.F.K. Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
None are remotely qualified for these jobs, it bears pointing out. All seem to have significant (and highly embarrassing) baggage. In a world with sane Republicans running the United States Senate, none of them would have a snowball's chance in Hell of being confirmed. But, as we all know, we don't live in that world.
It was reported today that Trump's pick for Defense, Pete Hegseth, had a sexual assault complaint lodged against him with the police a few years ago. So there's that -- and it's only been a few days. Wonder what else might shake out in the coming days....
Tulsi Gabbard is a total nutjob who has cozied up to the enemies and adversaries of America in multiple ways. She has zero -- that's zero -- experience with intelligence matters. And yet she's been nominated to be the director of national intelligence. Because Trump also liked her performances on Fox News, assumably.
And R.F.K. Jr. is in a class by himself, when it comes to nutjobbery. He stands out from the clown crowd as King of the Clowns. In fact, his looniness is so well-known that we don't even have to run it all down again, right? Brain worm? Taking roadkill home for fun (and dinner)? Vaccine conspiracy theorist? These all ring a bell? Thought so....
If confirmed, Bobby Junior will be in charge of not just all those departments responsible for fighting pandemics and other deadly diseases, he will also be in charge of Medicare and Medicaid. And Obamacare. Those should be frightening thoughts. He's already threatening mass firings and plenty of fringe ideas for the nation's health.
And we're not done yet. Trump has only filled somewhere around half of his cabinet. There are other important jobs to fill (like secretary of the Treasury, just for one) that he's still mulling over. Which means next week might be as appalling as this one was.
One thing worth mentioning before we move on, here. Trump is a master at flooding the zone. He is such an unrelenting firehose of scandal and idiocy and bomb-throwing that it winds up diluting each one of them. You might describe this tactic as: "There's only so much outrage to go around." Just when the media and sane Republicans were all reacting in shock and horror to Tulsi Gabbard's nomination, Trump nominated Gaetz. In the ensuing frenzy (of more shock and horror), Gabbard was all but forgotten. This is the way it works. By week's end, people are only concentrating on the worst of Trump's excesses. All the smaller-bore ones then sneak through unscathed, at least for the time being.
Our advice to everyone is to get used to it. Because this is going to be what the next four years is like. Come Friday, we won't even remember the scandals from Monday, or the previous weekend. They will be lost in time, paling in significance to the newer outrages.
Trump knows this tactic works for him. His focus is on winning each day's news cycle (no matter what he has to do to achieve this), and it makes it exhausting to keep up. So as we said, get used to it (all over again).
We have to hand this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award to Representative and now Senator-Elect Ruben Gallego, for defeating Kari Lake in the Arizona Senate race. Lake, true to form, has not conceded the race yet, and there may be a recount.
Assuming it doesn't change anything, though, Gallego will enter the Senate to replace Kyrsten Sinema, which will be a welcome relief for Democrats everywhere.
But we are giving the MIDOTW award to Gallego not for running a winning campaign and not for replacing a corporatist Democratic obstructionist, but simply for beating Kari Lake. The Republican Senate is going to be hard enough to take as it is, but at least now we won't have to put up with her craziness on a regular basis.
[Congratulate Representative and Senator-Elect Ruben Gallego on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]
This is a holdover from the election. Which is actually good news, since it means no Democrat really did anything massively disappointing this week.
The blame game in the Democratic Party is not over yet, not by a long shot. There will be some sort of autopsy of the 2028 election and what it means for the party going forward, and our guess is that plenty of fingers will be pointed during that process.
But one thing has stood out in all of this that we find we fully agree with. Because we don't primarily blame Kamala Harris or Joe Biden for Donald Trump's win, instead we apportion the lion's share of the blame to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
He was appointed to the job as a consolation prize for having his Supreme Court nomination ignored by Mitch McConnell, plain and simple. But he was never a good fit for the job, being primarily a judge, not a prosecutor.
Garland just flat-out failed, when it came to dealing with Donald Trump. Garland waited two years (!) before really even beginning an investigation into Trump, and that wasted time proved to be fatal to any effort to hold him accountable. It took Liz Cheney and the rest of the January 6th committee to shame him into it, in fact.
Imagine, if you will, an alternate world where Jack Smith had been appointed special counsel a couple months after Garland took office. Trump could have tried all his delaying tactics and his endless appeals, and the Supreme Court could have done what it could to protect him and all of that -- and there would still be two years left to go. Trials could have actually happened before the next presidential election. Trump could have been tried and convicted and imprisoned by now.
Or not -- there's no guarantee what a jury will do. But at least we would have had the time for it all to have actually happened, instead of it being interrupted by the election. And that is all Merrick Garland's fault, plain and simple.
So for denying justice by aiding and abetting Trump delaying justice, we have to say not just for this week but for the entirety of President Joe Biden's term, Merrick Garland was our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week. Or possibly ...Of The Past Four Years.
Either way, history won't be kind to Garland, that's our guess at this point.
[Contact Attorney General Merrick Garland via the official Justice Department contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]
Volume 775 (11/15/24)
We're going all in on Matt Gaetz reactions for this week's Talking Points, all from Republicans and conservatives. In fact, we had an embarrassment of riches to choose from, so we didn't even include Republicans commenting on whether Gaetz would actually be confirmed or not (Senator Susan Collins: "I'm certain there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing"... Representative Max Miller: "I think he has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate"... Senator Thom Tillis: "I'm sure it'll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing"... et cetera.).
We also didn't have room for the many Democratic reactions to the picks, but we have to include at the very least the funniest one, from Representative Eric Swalwell:
To the president, I say, "No, seriously, who is your pick for attorney general?"
But it's one of those weeks where all Democrats really needed to do was to stand back and watch the Republican Party attack each other. So here are the best Republican reactions to the nomination of Matt Gaetz to lead the Justice Department (that investigated him for sex-trafficking an underage teen).
Unserious
We begin rather sedately, with Senator Lisa Murkowski's reaction to the news of the Gaetz nomination:
I don't think it's a serious nomination for the attorney general.
She later added, less sedately:
If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I'm waiting for George Santos to be named.
Worst ever!
Next, here is John Bolton, who served as Trump's national security advisor in his first term. Bolton was initially interviewed after the news of Tulsi Gabbard's nomination, where he called it the "worst cabinet-level appointment in history." When the Gaetz pick was announced, Bolton had to revise and extend this remark.
With [Donald Trump's] announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence, he's sending a signal that we have lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence. Up until a few hours ago, I would have said that was the worst cabinet appointment in recent American history. Of course, since Matt Gaetz's nomination, he clearly has taken the lead on that score.
What'd I just step in?
Representative Max Miller went for a gooey sort of metaphor:
[Matt Gaetz] is literally worse than the gum on the bottom of my shoe
Ty Cobb knocks it out of the park
Ty Cobb, who also used to work for the Trump administration (as White House attorney), had a few things to say as well.
[Donald Trump nominating Matt Gaetz] is just a shocking event, and intentionally so. I mean, he's a disrupter, Trump is. But Matt Gaetz is just simply unqualified, both academically, professionally, ethically, morally, and experientially.... He has no business of being in this conversation.... Just not a serious choice.... [His nomination is a] "Fuck you!" to America.
You've got to be...
Representative Mike Simpson had perhaps the most-quoted reaction to the news, which he obviously had just heard. It's a sort of double-take, since he seemed to realize in the middle of his answer what the possible ramifications could turn out to be, which makes it all the more amusing. When asked by a reporter if he thought Gaetz had "the character and experience to be attorney general," Simpson "stared at them incredulously, waited six seconds to answer, and then said with a laugh:"
Are you shitting me, that you asked that question? No. But hell, you'll print that and now I'll be investigated.
It is to laugh?
As a counterbalance to the Federalist Society meeting in Washington, the rival Society For The Rule Of Law held an event this week. Former Representative Barbara Comstock addressed the gathering, calling the Gaetz nomination "absurd" and mentioning both him and Tulsi Gabbard said Trump was filling his cabinet with "Putinists and pedophiles." But that wasn't the best line of the night. George Conway had a joke for the crowd that we've heard others (on late-night comedy) also make, because it's such an obvious one. Here's how Conway put it:
[Matt Gaetz] couldn't make it here tonight because he had a hot date. It's called a "recess appointment."
Tell us what you really think, Ben!
Our pièce-de-résistance this week comes from Ben Domenech, who was described by HuffPost as: "a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, [who] has gone from wunderkind blogger to a regular Fox News guest, as a co-founder of The Federalist and editor-at-large of The Spectator World." Sterling conservative cred, in other words. He reacted to the news of the Gaetz nomination on Substack, in a post titled: "Matt Gaetz Is A Vile Sex Pest And Any Senator Who Votes For Him Owns That." As expected with such a title, Domenech does not hold back or mince his words in any way whatsoever. The whole thing is absolutely breathtaking to read, in fact. Here is just the first paragraph, to give you a taste (which we present completely unedited, although we were indeed tempted to correct a few grammatical nits):
I realize that we are occasionally given to hyperbole about the untoward nature of politicians, but let me be clear: Matt Gaetz is a sex trafficking drug addicted piece of shit. He is abhorrent. His eyes are permanently rimmed with the red rings of chemical boosters. In person, he smells like overexposed Axe Body Spray and stale Astroglide. The fact that he boasted on the floor to multiple colleagues in the House of Representatives of his methods of crushing Viagra and high test Red Bull to maintain his erection through his orgiastic evenings is perhaps the least offensive of his many crimes against womanhood and Christian faith. The man has less principles than your average fentanyl addicted hobo. He likes them underage and he's not ashamed about it. Matt Gaetz isn't just your average extreme Florida MAGA Man, he's a hypocritical ass with the worst Botox money can buy, pursuing an ever-thinner nose and higher cheekbones at every opportunity like a Real Housewife gone mad for fillers. Every Republican in Washington has an opinion about Matt Gaetz, and 99 percent of those opinions are "Keep Matt Gaetz away from my wife/daughter/friend and anyone I care about." He is a walking genital, warts included as a bonus. If I was merely attempting to count the number of women I know who have had bad experiences with Matt Gaetz, I would run out of fingers and toes. If you vote for him to be the Attorney General of the United States, you don't just need your head examined, you need to be committed to a mental institution. The man is absolutely vile. There are pools of vomit with more to offer the earth than this STD-riddled testament to the failure of fallen masculinity.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground
maybe Rocky and Bullwinkle will save us.
"There are pools of vomit with more to offer the earth than this STD-riddled testament to the failure of fallen masculinity."
Thanks. It doesn't get much better than that, coming from a well-credentialed and respectable conservative Republican.
It seems like Trump's entourage of trusted people around him is quite small and very fruitcakey...
Re: MIDOW
As a registered voter of AZ, I am proud to have done my small part in Gallego's victory. His election win is especially satisfying since, with Trump winning AZ's electoral college votes, it means at least some voters "split" their vote.
However, it is deeply troubling that Kari Lake received almost 50% of the vote. She is a deeply-flawed candidate, who turned off too many Republicans. This SHOULD BE a warning to Democrats to prepare for a more capable Republican opponent the next election.
The Democratic Party has to figure out how to convince voters to NOT treat their vote as a sign of "team loyalty". When even the most damaged candidate receives so many votes simply because she has an "R" after her name, Democrats have their work cut out for them.
Two other winners are also merit a MIDOW for flipping their district from "red" to "blue".
'George Whitesides has defeated three-term GOP Rep. Mike Garcia, flipping a long-coveted Los Angeles area House seat to the Democrats’ column.
...
Whitesides, the former CEO of Virgin Galactic, delivered his own aerospace bona fides and a strong fundraising performance. He was aided by millions of dollars in spending from Democratic outside groups, a stark contrast from 2022 when they pulled out of the pricey Los Angeles media market in the closing weeks of the campaign.'
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/11/george-whitesides-wins-los-angeles-house-seat-00187088
The second winner who also merits a MIDOW for flipping her district from "red" to "blue".
'Democrat Janelle Bynum has defeated Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), flipping back a congressional seat that Democrats had previously held for years.
...
Bynum will also make history with her win: she will be the first Black member of Congress from Oregon.'
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/janelle-bynum-defeats-lori-chavez-deremer-oregon_n_672922e6e4b0266a34585d1b
...we are giving the MIDOTW award to Gallego not for running a winning campaign and not for replacing a corporatist Democratic obstructionist, but simply for beating Kari Lake.
That's great!
Now, what is to be done about the entire corporatist and war-hawk Democratic party?
Whine, whine, whine, whine..
Ya'all LOST... Get over it..
"Elections have consequences"
-Barak Hussein Odumbo
Ya'all whine and cry about President ELECT Trump's officials picks??
Like Biden did any better.
s.hdnux.com/photos/72/00/46/15206827/4/1920x0.jpg
pbs.twimg.com/media/F7sk7xaXEAAcFI3.jpg
Democrats pick unqualified looney tunes like ^^^^ THOSE morons.
Ya'all have ZERO moral or ethical foundation to talk about officials picks..
:eyeroll:
Liz,
Now, what is to be done about the entire corporatist and war-hawk Democratic party?
Haven't you heard??
The Democrat Party are absolutely fine with their message..
Democrats think that Americans LOVE their message. LOVE their policies...
Yea, I know.. It's utterly moronic and completely against the facts and reality..
But it's what Democrats think... :eyeroll:
And Democrats keep deluding themselves as to the REAL reasons why they got their asses creamed on 5 Nov... :D
The left’s comforting myth about why Harris lost
Progressives need an accurate autopsy of Kamala Harris’s campaign, not an ideologically convenient one.
America elected Donald Trump, not only won a second lease on the White House, but America did so with a considerably great plurality of the popular vote — while Republicans took control of both congressional chambers.
Meanwhile, conservatives have consolidated their grip on the Supreme Court, slashed the Democrats’ advantage with Hispanic voters, and fortified the GOP’s strength with the non-college-educated electorate, realignments that threatened the Democratic Party’s capacity to wield federal power.
In the face of this calamity, Democrats must develop a clear-eyed understanding of how they got here and chart a plausible path back to the country they want to live in.
Answering those questions will require Democrats to analyze their predicament with open minds. If we seek ideologically comforting explanations for the party’s problems — rather than empirically sound ones — the coalition will march deeper into the wilderness.
The problems you Democrats face is that a clear, concise, logical and rational autopsy of ya'all's devastating decimation will require that ya'all accomplish the ONE THING that Democrats refuse to do.
Look in the mirror and admit that ya'all COULD be wrong..
Until ya'all can do that, ya'all will be doomed to reliving over and over again the very definition of insanity..
Doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result..
:eyeroll:
Do ya'all know WHY Matt Gaetz is the PERFECT choice for AG and Tulsi Gabbard is the PERFECT choice for DNI??
Because ya'all and your Democrats are so hysterically against them.. :D
Anyone that is THAT bad for Democrats is obviously very VERY good for America... :D
But, even if it is just President ELECT Trump playing 12D Chess while Democrats are playing tiddley winks, that's fine too..
Just watching hysterical Democrats' heads explode is worth the price of admission.. :D
Here is the DEFINITIVE reason why Democrats got their asses handed to them in 2024... :D
http://mfccfl.us/Left.jpg
This explains why MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Liberal Democrats voted for President Trump... :D
And ya'all only have yerselves to blame.. :D
What should the fillibuster be replaced with?
Short answer: proportional representation in the House.
Also-fairly-short answer: It should be replaced with a difference in how the House and Senate are elected. Any difference that makes them actually be different in who gets over-represented, who gets under-represented, and who goes effectively unrepresented because their side simply lost the most recent election. Ideally, no one would be completely unrepresented. The Senate would represent who won pluralities in that state in two of the last three elections, exactly as it does now. But the House would represent everyone equally.
Long answer: There are tons of other possibilities besides proportional representation for how to make the chambers different, and tons of versions of proportional representation. As long as they're different, you've got checks and balances. But if the difference is trivial, the checks and balances won't be very effective. And as long as both chambers are elected by winner-take-all plurality vote, the differences will be trivial. For a completely specific answer, let's go with the following version of proportional representation for the House:
Candidates are still nominated district by district, but a party can choose to run some or all of the same candidates in as many districts as they choose. Voters rank not only the candidates but also a "none of these candidates" option. Candidates have party affiliation shown on the ballot. The total number of votes in the state is divided by the number of House seats the state has, and that number is called the threshold number. The number of first-choice votes for each candidate is tallied statewide. Ballots with "none of these" as first choice are counted as negative votes for the last choice candidate. Any candidate having at least the threshold number of first-choice votes is elected. (There usually won't be any. In a single-seat state, electing a candidate at this step would require unanimity.) Whenever a candidate is elected, their votes over the threshold are transferred to the next-lower candidates in the voters' rankings, as fractional votes. The first-choice candidates are removed, leaving the second-choice candidate as the new first choice and so on down the list. (Remember, the idea is to represent everyone equally. Excess votes beyond what a candidate needed are wasted votes. That means those voters are under-represented.) If not all of the state's seats have been filled (and they won't be, because unanimity is impossible at the scale of a whole state), the total number of votes is re-tallied with the fractional votes counting as fractional and the negative votes counting as negative, The new vote total is divided by the number of seats remaining, to get a new threshold. If the new total is negative, candidates are eliminated at subsequent steps instead of elected. At the next step, the first-choice votes are tallied by party. Within each party, candidates are ranked by number of first-choice vote, producing a party list. Each party that has at least the threshold number of votes elects candidates starting from the top of its list (or eliminates candidates, if the votes are negative), until it gets to the whole-number multiple of the threshold that it got. Then elected (or eliminated) candidates are removed from the lists where they appear as first (or last) choice, the excess votes are turned into fractional votes, and the whole cycle is repeated until all seats are filled.
One thing worth mentioning before we move on, here. Trump is a master at flooding the zone. He is such an unrelenting firehose of scandal and idiocy and bomb-throwing that it winds up diluting each one of them. You might describe this tactic as: "There's only so much outrage to go around." Just when the media and sane Republicans were all reacting in shock and horror to Tulsi Gabbard's nomination, Trump nominated Gaetz. In the ensuing frenzy (of more shock and horror), Gabbard was all but forgotten. This is the way it works. By week's end, people are only concentrating on the worst of Trump's excesses. All the smaller-bore ones then sneak through unscathed, at least for the time being.
Our advice to everyone is to get used to it. Because this is going to be what the next four years is like. Come Friday, we won't even remember the scandals from Monday, or the previous weekend. They will be lost in time, paling in significance to the newer outrages.
In other words, President ELECT Trump is using Democrat hysteria AGAINST the Democrats... :D
12-D Chess indeed.. :D
Dan,
Also-fairly-short answer: It should be replaced with a difference in how the House and Senate are elected.
In other words, the filibuster will never be replaced.. :D
Let's hear from a Democrat's Democrat... A Liberal's Liberal...
"Talk about doubling down on what got you fucked in the first place. Even the one concession I've heard a few people on the losing side offer that liberals should stop saying that Trump voters are stupid comes with a kind of unspoken parentheses 'We know they are stupid, just don't say it.' I got bad news for you, Democrats They don't have a monopoly on stupid.
You wear ‘Queers for Palestine’ t-shirts and masks two years after the pandemic ended. And you can't define a woman. I mean ‘person who menstruates.’ You're the teachers' union education party and you've turned schools and colleges into a joke.
Democrats have become like a royal family that, because of so much incest, has unfortunately had children who are retarded. And the same thing can happen to ideas if they are also conceived in an atmosphere of intellectual incest. Maybe take the clothespins off your noses and actually converse with the other half of the country. Stop screaming at people to get with the program and instead make a program worth getting with.
The reason why I'm so mad at the Democrats is because, as a voter, the issues that were important to me were democracy and the environment. And now there's no one to champion or defend either of them because you Democrats, with your aggressively anti-common sense agenda and shitty exclusionary attitude, blew it. You've lost everything: House, Senate, White House, Supreme Court, and left us completely unprotected and ready to be violated."
-Bill Maher
That's what you Democrats don't get... Ya'all have moved too far to the Left and patriotic everyday Americans don't want ANYTHING to do with ya...
And then there is the Teamsters Union President...
The Democratic Party wanted to talk down to working-class voters instead of listening to their concerns about gas, housing and food prices.
Instead of embracing and trying to find a solution to the problem, the Democrats took a position that it's only their opinion mattered, and that's all that mattered.
You know, social issues are important, but at the end of the day, it's putting food on the table, being able to afford a home, and despite, you know, the rhetoric of ‘this is the best economy ever,’ you know, it really hasn't been. So that's what I believe it came down to. It was an economic decision.
They've got a lot of soul-searching to do, and look, I said this earlier today in another interview that, you know, the Democrat Party needs to take a look in the mirror and say, you know, maybe Chuck Schumer's time is over. Maybe Nancy Pelosi's time is over. Let's figure out who's going to be the best for the party.
Teamsters Union President Sean O'Brien
It's all about taking a deep long look into the mirror and realize that Democrats are wrong here..
But this is something that you Democrats will NEVER do..
I seem to remember here in Weigantia that SOMEONE predicted that Democrats immoral and unethical lawfare persecutions were actually going to have the OPPOSITE effect and will, in fact, ELECT President Trump into office by a landslide..
Once again... Ya'all were wrong.. And *I* was dead on ballz accurate.. :D
I would like to see an in-depth analysis as to exactly what Democrats were thinking when they started OPERATION IMMORAL UNETHICAL LAWFARE PERSECUTIONS... :D
But, like having Democrats look in a mirror.. It will likely never happen..
@JL
maybe Rocky and Bullwinkle will save us.
Do ya see what Democrats have been reduced to??
Relying on fictional cartoon characters... :D
I guess that is apropos since the Democrat Party has been reduced to a cartoonish representation of it's former self..
italyrusty-
Janelle Bynum win is my district. We did our part. It flipped last time due to redistricting after Oregon picked up a seat with the last census and all the districts were redrawn...
NY Mayor Adams says Dems prioritized 'fascist' attacks on Trump over talking to everyday Americans
'We’ve reached a point in this country where we no longer want to engage in conversation,' Adams says
Yep, yep, yep...
Democrats have become as nasty, as bigoted and as intolerant as Democrats accuse Trump supporters of being..
New York City Mayor Eric Adams told "The View" Friday that the Democratic Party needs to focus less on calling its political enemies fascists and focus more on speaking to the needs of everyday Americans.
Adams, a Democrat, was pressed about "defending" President-elect Donald Trump from comparisons to Adolf Hitler made by his own former staff. The mayor clarified he wasn’t defending Trump but criticizing the left’s hyperbolic rhetoric.
"We’ve reached a point in this country where we no longer want to engage in conversation. They were even calling him Hitler," he said, adding, "That was an insult to the millions of Jews and others who died. We know what Hitler did."
And NO ONE here spoke out against such divisive and hateful rhetoric..
And, as Democrats believe, "Silence Gives Assent"
:eyeroll:
Michale-
And a short time ago the conservatives were an endangered species. The voters have a short memory. What have you done for me lately. Lately will be crashing the economy and a general shit show. The pendulum will swing back hard.
Though it is telling that all you can harp on is hurting liberals and crapping on democrats. No defending Trumps policies. No explanation of how illicitly using emergency powers to push tariffs and get the worst cabinet in American history is going to improve the country. We do not just live rent free in your head, we evidently have a luxury suite with all the amenities...
dsws on [12],
I have to say that is the most complex election process I've ever come across. I've read it twice and I still don't understand it.
And I'm not what's called a low-information voter. I can't imagine how such a process could ever be explained to the voters responsible for approving such a major change to our election system.
Can you, applying it to (say) this year's results, tell us how the two parties might have done under such a fine-tuned proportional system? And as we can imagine, one or the other of the parties will fight tooth and nail against it, depending on the answer to that question. I would guess the voters who might override party interests in favor of getting a fairer and more representational legislature are not going to understand this and so will not vote for it.
Another question, I guess, is how easy it would be to defend this proposal against accusations that it will be easier to 'rig' than the current count-the-votes-and-we're-done system.
Thanks for the contribution!
And a short time ago the conservatives were an endangered species. The voters have a short memory. What have you done for me lately. Lately will be crashing the economy and a general shit show. The pendulum will swing back hard.
There are simply NO FACTS to support your claim..
It's only your PTDS and your Trump/America hate that prompts your HOPE, your WISH, that America will be hurt badly.
Though it is telling that all you can harp on is hurting liberals and crapping on democrats.
Oh I do so much more than that.. I also gloat how completely and utterly WRONG ya'all were.. :D
No defending Trumps policies.
Those policies need no defense. They are common-sense policies that the vast majority of Americans are behind..
No explanation of how illicitly using emergency powers to push tariffs and get the worst cabinet in American history is going to improve the country.
No explanation is needed as those things haven't happened yet.. DUH... You used to be smarter than this.. :eyeroll: Must be all the legalized drugs you take in the shithole city of Portland..
We do not just live rent free in your head, we evidently have a luxury suite with all the amenities...
Says the guy who simply MUST respond to every comment I make.. :D
Once again, retreaded Weigantians accusing others of what they themselves are guilty of..
Ya'all were WRONG.. Ya'all were as wrong as one can be.. :D
Donald Trump’s multiracial coalition led to the first GOP popular vote win in 20 years. Electoral College bias will drop to something like 0.4 points, after a 3.7 bias in 2020.
The red shift was pretty much everywhere. It was bigger in cities and bigger in Latino counties, but ultimately, the cross-cutting nature of the shift showed that it was a bad environment for Democrats to be running in.
What I tell ya'all… Democrats lost MILLIONS of voters to President Trump..
A considerably great margin of a win in the Popular Vote... Just as I predicted...
MILLIONS of Americans leaving the Democrat Party to vote for President Trump... Just as I predicted...
NO ONE with more than 2 brain cells to rub together can deny the reality..
This is President ELECT Trump's America...
Democrats won't be able to accomplish anything with their flaccid and impotent token resistance..
The American people are, en masse, behind President Trump... :D
Why Democrats lost, explained in one graph..
http://mfccfl.us/graph.jpg
Your Democrats blew it.. Plain and simple..
Only a massive realignment of Democrat priorities will have a chance of bringing Democrats in from the wilderness..
Speaking of drugs, your guy is a teetotaler, Gaetz is in to cocaine and ecstasy, Musk is heavily in to Ketamine and Trump's last administration was fueled by Adderall. Not to mention the White House Medical Unit was giving out a plethora of uppers, downer, opioids, you name it.
You are going to have to give up beer and move on to the harder stuff if you want to keep up with this administration...
Speaking of drugs, your guy is a teetotaler, Gaetz is in to cocaine and ecstasy, Musk is heavily in to Ketamine and Trump's last administration was fueled by Adderall. Not to mention the White House Medical Unit was giving out a plethora of uppers, downer, opioids, you name it.
None of which is factually accurate...
If you have to lie to make your case, then your case isn't worth making..
None of which is factually accurate...
Bullshit. I posted a link to reuters. Your turn...
If you have to lie to make your case, then your case isn't worth making..
But then why are you here? It's the lions share of your schtick. Not to mention Trump's...
It's well documented that Reuters nothing but a propaganda arm of the Democrat Party...
Regardless of that, the White House Medical Unit was giving out PRESCRIPTION medication..
Like Fighter Pilots are given PRESCRIPTION medication..
As usual, your "facts" are nothing but bullshit..
As to why I am here??
None of your business..
Here is Musk's drug use. LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine. Interesting...
It's well documented that Reuters nothing but a propaganda arm of the Democrat Party...
Well documented by documents you can't provide. Face it dude, you are talking out your ass. Deep tuba style. My last link was WSJ, come on, accuse them of being a liberal rag...
Funny how you claim facts, but you hide the "facts" behind a paywall.. :eyeroll:
It's irrelevant. Musk is a private citizen. If he wants to destroy his mind, that's on him...
Your desperation has you reaching.. :D
"I don’t want to be the freak show party, like they have branded us. You know, when you’re a mom with three kids, and you live in middle America and you’re just not really into politics, and you see these ads that scare the bejesus out of you, you’re like, ‘I know Trump’s weird or whatever, but I would rather his weirdness that doesn’t affect my kids.’..."
-FL DNC
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GN0sVXWbYAAS_oB.png:large
Yep, yep, yep...
The Democrat Party is the Freak Show Party...
The proof is long before the paywall. You just don't want to admit the white house is about to be druggie central. Does that make drug use common sense?
None of your business..
Eddie Mars : Convenient, the door being open when you didn't have a key, eh?
Philip Marlowe : Yeah, wasn't it? By the way, how'd you happen to have one?
Eddie Mars : Is that any of your business?
Philip Marlowe : I could make it my business.
Eddie Mars : I could make your business mine.
Philip Marlowe : Oh, you wouldn't like it. The pay's too small.
-The Big Sleep
The proof is long before the paywall. You just don't want to admit the white house is about to be druggie central. Does that make drug use common sense?
Once again.. ZERO facts to support your claim.. It's nothing beyond your hopes and wishes that the US is destroyed..
JUST so you can blame it on President Trump...
You have absolutely NO right to call yourself an American...
I mean, how much HATE and BIGOTRY must you have that you would WANT the US to be destroyed JUST so you can blame President Trump..
What a sad excuse for a human being you are...
Says the guy with the racist and misogynist slur before the democrat candidates name, every time, ad nauseam...
Nothing more pathetic than those who are quick to dish it out but then can't take it...
Says the guy with the racist and misogynist slur before the democrat candidates name, every time, ad nauseam...
And AGAIN with the lies...
But it's typical of a racist. Sees racism in everything..
On a brighter note, RFK Jr may make the whole thing a self solving problem:
I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need—three or four years if they need it—to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities.
Just put the entire Adderall addicted white house staff on a farm for "three or four years". Problem solved...
And AGAIN with the lies...
Anyone who has the misfortune to read both our posts knows who is lying...
Yep.. The Democrat. They tell nothing but lies..
Not a single one of my comments have been racist or sexist in any way...
Hahahahahahahaha
Ole Chuckie Schumer is running scared...
Prior to the election, Chuckie boy was dreaming about full control of the Senate. He planned to get rid of the filibuster and force thru America-Killing legislation that NO ONE with more than 2 brain cells actually wants..
Schumer also planned to expand voting rights nationwide by passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
He also was planning a potential rule change to codify abortion rights in federal law, a party priority after Roe v. Wade was overturned, which would have faced staunch Republican opposition and lacking a path to 60 Senate votes.
Schumer also wanted to "reform" the Supreme Court by slapping 18-year term limits on justices and touted reversing the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, which determined that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts.
Finally, Chuckie planned to move legislation that would expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 members.
Chuckie was going to get rid of the filibuster and steamroll these draconian measures thru the Senate...
Now???
"To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith.
Take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship. After winning an election, the temptation may be to go to the extreme. We’ve seen that happen over the decades, and it has consistently backfired on the party in power.
So, instead of going to the extremes, I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it’s bipartisan. If we want the next four years in the Senate to be as productive as the last four, the only way that will happen is through bipartisan cooperation."
-Chuckie Schumer
TRANSLATION: {begging} PLEASE PLEASE don't do to us what we planned to do to you!!! PLEASE!!! PLEASE!!! I'm BEGGING you!!!
BBBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Democrats are such pitiful creatures... :D
Fortunately for Schumer, President Trump and the GOP have been more principled than Democrats when it comes to the legislative filibuster, and to the filibuster in general. The GOP realizes that even though they will have the majority for the next two years, they might be back in the minority at any time after that. So Schumer will not get it good and hard the way he planned to give it to Republicans.
The GOP actually CONSIDERS the long game and looks BEYOND political/ideological quick fixes..
President ELECT Trump and the GOP actually CARE what happens to America and won't destroy this country, just to remain in power..
Unlike Democrats, who are hate-filled and bigoted slugs who can't see past their own power-grubbing wants..
BashiBazouk [19]:
Then thank you and congratulations! Let's hope she is able to hold onto the seat in two years and do much good in the world.
Yunno, one of the hallmark of the coming President Trump administration is common sense..
We're gonna be getting rid of a LOT of bull carp that came out of the Biden administration..
From the moronic OSHA vaccine mandate to the radical and totally against the science interpretation of Title IX..
And getting rid of that completely and utter retarded directive that essentially says that biological boys can be female and are allowed to participate in female sports teams.
The fact that these common sense directives have to be changed is a very large part of why Democrats were so completely and utterly decimated in 2024 election..
I mean, the idea that a male could be a female just by saying they are..????
It's completely and utterly moronic and ridiculous..
Which describes Democrats to a 'T'.. utterly moronic and ridiculous...
Sorry, Democrats. America is Just Not That Into You.
Their Fatal Attraction to Trump has turned them into exactly the thing America doesn't want.
There’s almost nothing worse than getting dumped. You’ve done everything right. You had all the money in the world — a billion dollars! You had all the celebrities — Harrison Ford, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand! Who could ask for anything more? Well, it turns out 76 million people.
This wasn’t just a “don’t call me, I’ll call you” or “we can still be friends” or “maybe someday in the future we could…” No, this was a “get lost, lose my number, forget you ever knew me” kind of break-up. The Democrats aren’t handling it well, to put it mildly.
They’re shaving their heads. They’re uninviting family members to Thanksgiving. They’re obsessing over everything Trump is doing and saying, refusing to go quietly. In other words, they’re turning into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
-Sasha Stone
It's just as I said... Ya'all's PTDS and Trump/America hate turned the Democrats in raging bigoted hate-beasts...
Democrats simply could not think and act rationally... THAT is why they lost..
I mean, think about all the bonehead decisions Democrats made while in the throes of their PTDS and Trump/America hate..
The Democrats allowed senile dementia-riddled Biden to run again.. Then Democrats coronated Biden's candidacy without a serious or even a semblance of a primary. Then the Democrats allowed senile dementia-riddled Biden to get to within a hundreds days of the election before realizing what ALL Americans already knew for years...
THEN Democrats dumped Biden and coronated ANOTHER moron as their candidate.. Again without ANY semblance of a primary..
I mean, gods, Democrats!! You SAW how Headboard Harris ran her previous presidential campaign. THAT should have been a clue and a half for yer asses that Harris simply was not presidential candidate material..
Democrats made hysterical mistake after hysterical mistake after hysterical mistake...
ALL because Democrats could not reign in their PTDS and Trump/America hate..
And NOW Democrats are making the SAME hysterical mistakes by not realizing exactly WHY they got their asses handed to them..
And so it goes and so it goes...
No autopsy of the Great Democrat Shellacking of 2024 will be complete without an in-depth analysis of the Democrats' immoral and unethical lawfare persecutions of President Trump..
By now, Democrats just HAVE to realize that their lawfare against Trump backfired, and will go down in history as that time the Democrats lost their minds and couldn’t be reigned in.
If it doesn't then that is just one more indication of how deep Democrats have fallen into the abyss of their PTDS and Trump/America hate.
The American people were smart enough to see the escalation on the Left that the Democrats could not. They knew who Trump was. They knew he was the guy on Celebrity Apprentice who said things to shock people.
Yet, the Democrat's unending persecution of him, with impeachments, indictments, mass hysteria, and eventually a felony conviction and a mug shot - they wrote themselves into the script as the bad guys. Now you have these insane women sobbing on TikTok, blathering about a “convicted felon” as though any of it was ever real or valid or necessary.
The lawfare persecutions against President Trump was the biggest Democrats could have possibly made. Yunno why?? Because it sent the message to us American voters, that Democrats couldn’t earn our votes on their own. Democrats could only win if they put Trump in jail.
Nothing.. Absolutely NOTHING did more to turn the Trump story into the Hero’s Journey than that.
By the end of it, a growing number of Americans hated the Democrats and the Democrat Party and those same Americans would crawl over broken glass to vote the Democrats out of power.
Democrat misery and the hysterical screams and whinings are all nothing but self-inflicted wounds..
Or you could apply Occam's razor: Trump is guilty but is going to get away with it because the right no longer cares about law and order...
That's the Democrat Occam's Razor..
Which, like Democrat science, has little to nothing to do with facts or reality...
If President Trump were actually guilty of those crimes, why did Democrats have to change laws and create new laws JUST to persecute President Trump??
I'll tell you why. Because it was nothing but political lawfare with no basis in fact or reality..
no basis in fact or reality..
Like most your posts? I mean we have the audio of him committing the crime:
find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won this state.
Al 'Crazed Sex Poodle' Gore said similar things in 2000...
How do we know this??
Because Al Gore's lead attorney TOLD us that is what Al 'Crazed Sex Poodle' Gore said and did....
There was no crime committed no matter how much you wish it so..
And then there were the boxes of documents containing, not a page here or there that was mistakenly taken and returned to the national archives like many politicians that deal with state secrets, but boxes and boxes. there is quite a bit of evidence he not only took the boxes but instructed staff to stash them in weird places. The true "lawfare" was judge Aileen Cannon's highly questionable rulings.
I'm not going to touch your weird sexual fascination with Al Gore. You can do that in private or whatever echo chamber you share those weird erotic fantasies...
Michale,
[10] Do ya'all know WHY Matt Gaetz is the PERFECT choice for AG and Tulsi Gabbard is the PERFECT choice for DNI??
Because ya'all and your Democrats are so hysterically against them.. :D
So you are picking the people to run this country based on how upset they make Democrats, is that it? THAT is what you feel makes them the best candidate for the job — pissing off fellow Americans? For you, that is most important?!?!
Actually it makes sense… because without that, even you could not justify their being nominated for the position! Tell me why you think a child-fucher is the best choice for Attorney General? You are obviously fine with electing self-admitted sexual predators to lead our government based on your voting history. But I want to hear what you believe makes Gaetz qualified to run the DOJ other than his history of screwing underaged little girls?
[44] And getting rid of that completely and utter retarded directive that essentially says that biological boys can be female and are allowed to participate in female sports teams.
So you want your daughter showering with trans men? A birth certificate says you are either male or female based on the visual clues the doctor witnessed at the time. You think that it makes more sense for your daughters to compete against trans boys who self-identify as males based solely on the fact that it says on their birth certificate that they were born a girl?!? You want your daughter competing against trans males in sports because you believe that their birth certificate says that is “fair”? God, you are such a pathetic sycophant follower!
Russ,
NONE of what you said is factually accurate..
:eyeroll:
And, once again, Bashi quotes the NY Grime as his source for his facts..
NO WONDER Bashi never has any REAL facts to support his claims..
:eyeroll:
Ye who hides behind their sources has no place criticizing other's sources...
Another bullshit claim by Bashi Troll that has no basis in fact.. :eyeroll:
Really? You have a few embolden quotes in this thread. Where did you get them? Afraid to show context?
If yer too stoopid to use google, that's on you son..
If you question my facts, then say so... I'll be happy to prove you wrong..
Just as I have done with Biden's campaign and the 2024 election. :D
BAWK BAWK BAWK
Bashi Troll,
I accept your concession that you have no facts to counter my facts.
As usual, you are wrong.. :D
Michale
NONE of what you said is factually accurate..
Actually, EVERY SINGLE THING I SAID WAS FACTUALLY ACCURATE!
Your denial of that fact makes when I said, “God, you are such a pathetic sycophant follower!” even more true!
You saying they are facts doesn't make them facts, Russ...
There are ZERO facts that prove ANY of the BS yer spewing..
ZERO..... FACTS....
Yer just being pissy and bitchy cuz President Trump cleaned ya'all's clocks so well :D
Remember how ya'all whined and cried hysterically because President Trump wouldn't concede the 2020 election??
I guess ya'all are going to condemn Democrat Bob Casey now?? Right??? :eyeroll:
Lemme ask ya'all something...
If Matt Gaetz is as bad as ya'all say...
Why did he win re-election by almost 50 points!!???
If the people who know Gaetz best returns him to Congress by an almost 50 point margin....????
Obviously ya'all's claims are NOTHING but political bullshit. As is per ya'all's norm...
Matt Gaetz is going to make a fine US AG... :D
And, once again, ya'all are going to lose and America and Americans are going to win.. :D
And President Trump is STILL killing Headboard Harris in the Popular Vote by a considerably great margin!! :D
How utterly devastating is it for Democrats that Harris is LOSING the Popular Vote in addition to being utterly creamed in the Electoral Vote..
Democrats didn't even get a participation trophy this time!!! :D
Oh the shame Democrats must feel..
I guess that's why I am the only one commenting here.. :D
If confirmed, Bobby Junior will be in charge of not just all those departments responsible for fighting pandemics and other deadly diseases, he will also be in charge of Medicare and Medicaid.
Let's just call this one "BJ." Okay?
So if BJ is confirmed by the spineless Trumplicans in the Senate, won't it be great fun watching all the Tea-nuts, MAGAt nuts and QAnon-nuts whine incessantly about anyone attempting to do something/anything about the atrocious crap that passes for nutrition of America's school children? Rhetorical question.
Those should be frightening thoughts. He's already threatening mass firings and plenty of fringe ideas for the nation's health.
What could be more "fringe" than Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign? I can still hear the Karens and Bettys whining about their school-aged children being "forced" to eat something/anything that wasn't dipped in batter and fried and very upset, I tell you, upset that ketchup was no longer considered a vegetable.
Come Friday, we won't even remember the scandals from Monday, or the previous weekend.
And by "we," I assume you mean "some people" because there are actually some of us that don't suffer the affliction of CRS disease because we can actually remember stuff from one day to the next.
Michale
9
You're illegally plagiarizing the work of Eric Levitz:
https://www.vox.com/politics/385394/why-kamala-harris-lost-2024-democrats-moderation
Matt Gaetz is going to make a fine US AG... :D
Embracing drugie culture while abandoning law and order, eh. Finally reaching your potential as true "Florida Man". Keep it up and we will get a news article about you eating people's faces off while whacked out on bath salts...
With Trump's cabinet appointments being crackpots, drug fueled orgy enthusiasts and Project 2025 alumni, this incoming administration is shaping up to be the Fuck You, America tour. That's what happens when you elect an old demented narcissist bent on revenge...
Matt Gaetz is COMPLETELY and 1000% INNOCENT of all accusations. Given this FACT, AG Gaetz will do a FINE job pushing President Trump's law and order agenda forward...
Ya'all are doing nothing but dining on sour grapes and crow.. :D
If he is so innocent why is the house trying to suppress that ethics report?
Simple. It's a phony report filled with nothing but political persecution based lies and BS. It's only function is to prevent US AG Gaetz from assuming the position he deserves and will excel at..
The fact remains. Matt Gaetz is 1000% completely and utterly innocent of all accusations and Gaetz will make a fine US AG, bringing law and order to a country that has had so little of both the last 4 years..
Let's talk about senile dementia riddled Pelosi who was the architect of the Democrats' utter decimation in the election of 2024...
No one deserves more blame for Dems’ $1B electoral collapse
It’s high time to shatter the myth of Nancy Pelosi as a master strategist. Nobody deserves more blame than the ridiculously self-titled “speaker emerita” for the Democrats’ $1 billion electoral collapse.
Under her ruthless leadership, her party lost the White House, the House, the Senate and the popular vote. You can’t say that enough.
Voters rejected the Dems from coast to coast, even in Pelosi’s deepest-blue home city of San Francisco, which saw a 7-point swing to Donald Trump.
She’s the only speaker in history to have lost control of the House twice.
The empress emeritus has no clothes (eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww).
If anyone wants someone to blame for the Great Democrat Decimation of 2024, Pelosi is front and center for that honor..
A phony report from a Republican led house and corresponding ethics committee investigating a Republican? Occam's razor would say otherwise...
Gaetz made a lot of GOP enemies. Now those enemies were looking for payback in the form of a phony report.
The determining factor was Biden's DOJ failing to find any prosecutable offense.
Occam's Razor clearly comes down on Gaetz's favor..
Fact reality. There is no 'there' there. It's a nothing burger.. Something you hysterical Democrats excel at..
You lost, troll.. Get over it and move on...
Did I? We will see if the Senate feels the same as you...
Yes, we will see.. Just as we saw when you claimed Basement Biden could finish the campaign..
Just like we saw when President Trump stomped the shit outta Headboard Harris and the Democrats..
You are absolutely correct. We will see just like we saw all that.. :D
You lost, troll. You will continue to lose.. And EVERYONE will see.. :D
And, if it turns out that President ELECT Trump is simply playing 12-D Chess on Democrats and Weigantians??
Well, so much the better.. Then I get to laugh at Democrats for being played so easily... :D
For me, it's a WIN WIN… :D
Well, I have my duty shift to get to..
No rest for the weary protectors of democracy on the streets of FL.. See ya'all later.. :D
ever since Jurassic Park, everyone and his brother has misused Occam's razor
I beg to differ.
I was using it wrong long before Jurassic Park.
:D
how about Jodie Foster's Contact? were you misusing it even before then?
Obviously I am making fun of Michale's long time usage of Occam's razor but still have used it correctly, or at least as correctly as can be expected when used for politics and not science/philosophy. In each usage, my competing hypothesis contains a smaller set of elements or fewer assumption than Michale's more convoluted hypothesis. Technically, Occam's razor should be the simpler explanation for the same prediction but that is not how Michale has ever used it nor how it has come in the main stream...
Michale
79
And, if it turns out that President ELECT Trump is simply playing 12-D Chess on Democrats and Weigantians??
It's very telling that you seriously believe that Trump plays "12-D Chess" when he doesn't, and what it says is you are gullible as hell. The fact you cannot see that it's actually Republicans that Democrat Donald Trump is generally "playing" is most hysterical.
Well, so much the better.. Then I get to laugh at Democrats for being played so easily... :D
Said the guy with his head so far up Don the Con's ass that he seems totally unaware that for nigh on a decade he's actually been singing the praises of a Democrat who took over the Republican Party of cowards and gullible rubes.
For me, it's a WIN WIN… :D
Imagine what a "WIN WIN" it is to watch you incessantly whine about your hatred for Democrats while falling all over yourself year after year repeatedly in the service to one. It's hysterical. *laughs*