215 Comments

They aren’t sleepwalking. More accurately they are heading into a catastrophe eyes wide open.

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Accused? You mean convicted and sentenced. And "without access to anyone" is called solitary confinement and that is rare. Prisoners are allowed visitors and those who publish their writing are legally protected under the First Amendment.

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Regarding Covidiocy... I made perhaps not the wisest choice and tweet something on Twitter. My tweet energized the Elon Musk crowd and one of them literally tweeted that I must be vaccinated as if this explained their entire disagreement with me. I really was surprised how alive this controversy is nearly two years after my first vaccine. Remarkable

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Re the NYT story on Durham and Barr, especially their reportedly very close contact which is exactly what a Special Prosecutor is NOT supposed to do, it's not proof. It's statements by a number of people close to the investigation who are unnamed. The only proof will be an investigation where they and the anonymous people are under oath. Until that happens, it's just the biased, fake news, NYT.

I don't see the big story here. Am I missing something?

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I listened to Monday's Bulwark Podcast this morning. Will was outstanding on police brutality not being a race thing, per se, and the fact that the five policemen who beat Tyre Nichols were black underscores this. It's a power thing. With black people, they can get away with it cause they're a disavantaged minority and don't have the means to do something about a police beating that white people have.

I wish there were a transcript, Charlie, so I could send that around.

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Here's something I don't understand. If DeSantis leads Trump in all three scenarios, why is Trump considered the front-runner? Is it because of the GOP's winner take all primaries?

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As Mark Halperin emphatically points out only Trump addressed the grievances of 47% of the population and that continues to be the case. In that regard he can still get the nomination and win in 2024 unless an alternative is available to siphon off some of those alienated voters (+- 2%?) in the key states.

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And how does Trump address those grievances? He has no platform. His wall is mythical, he's done squat about immigration, he created no new jobs, every deal he supposedly made turned out to be a pile of nothing but his ego, gave a gigantic tax cut to the rich, ignored a pandemic, lied through his teeth about nearly everything, ripped off the government via overcharging them at his properties, increased prices with his tariffs, hurt US standing with our allies, grovels before Putin and lastly wants to overturn the last election and jail everyone he hates. The only grievances he cares about are his.

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As a pharmacist, I’ve spent countless hours trying to compassionately and non-judgmentally answer people’s questions and allay concerns about Covid and the the Covid vaccine while trying to be as honest as possible about what we know and don’t know and what in hindsight, could have been handled better. All this is much more difficult because of hyper partisanship, distrust of institutions and experts and rampant misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Cathy Young’s excellently researched and well-sourced piece addresses many of these issues in one of best pieces on Covid I’ve read in a long time.

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founding

I remember not long ago Tim Miller responded to some anti anti attacks that we Never Trumpers wanted Trump to win again. He said something like "If he needs the votes, I will re register as a Republican and vote for DeSantis in order to deny Trump the nomination. " And I thought, yes, so would I. Never Trump basically means whatever it takes. I'm just planting that seed right now. We may once again be called to vote in opposition. And bite your tongue Tim.

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That poll is very helpful information, especially the question about a hypothetical 3rd-party run by Trump. I take that to mean he would get 10-15% of the popular vote in that scenario, which would mean Biden would then stomp DeSantis. A result to be encouraged in any way possible.

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You just know his family has been waiting for that deus ex machina for a lot longer than the GOP has.

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RE: Will Saletan's statement in the podcast yesterday about why police attack people.

Will made the statement that the police attack/treat poorly people because they think they can get away with it because the victim is black.

I'd say he is partially right.

Yes, they do it because they believe they can get away with it, but it's not just because the victim is black. He's falling into the talking point that police violence only happens to POC - not true at all.

While true that a DISPROPORTIONATE number of POC are killed/abused by police, in terms of raw numbers, white people are clearly the most. So, it's not (solely) a racial thing.

We have to get past the idea that "The police beat/kill people because they are racist" if we are to actually start to solve the problem of police brutality. When you start to realize that it's (nearly) endemic to the police themselves, you can begin to see that training and screening for factors other than racism (power trip) can go a long way towards reducing police abuses.

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founding

Anyone else energized by Liz’s 4% showing - without trying - I’m thinking her upside is 8% as a few spineless cowards leave the race

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She’d get lots of I’s and some disaffected D’s in a general.

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Read this sad article about teachers in Florida having to remove or hid their classroom libraries until their books are put on a centralized “approved” list. Personally I wasn’t a very happy child — books were my refuge. I feel for these teachers and kids.

Hide your books to avoid felony charges, Fla. schools tell teachers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/31/florida-hide-books-stop-woke-manatee-county-duval-county-desantis/

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Jan 31, 2023·edited Jan 31, 2023

Trump loses primary to a stellar, mainstream, establishment candidate as yet undetermined. Trump runs Independent. Aforementioned candidate beats Trump AND Biden. Why not? Think grand. At least try, for heaven’s sake.

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Sorry, but:

Step 1: Steal all the underpants.

Step 2:

Step 3: Profit!!!

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There are no "stellar mainstream republicans"

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Jan 31, 2023·edited Jan 31, 2023

I think if Trump sinks the GOP, this might be a good thing. Perhaps the more intelligent and reasonable conservatives will realize that fascist/populism isn't a winning strategy. Some people don't like Biden, but his ratings are better than a lot of incumbent Presidents. He has a lot of good accomplishments under his belt.

I don't give credence to the Classified documents scandal because, if anything, it make the National Archives look careless with their procedures. I would bet every ex president and VP has a few in a drawer at home. Trump is different since he had so many, knew he had them, lied about it and then refused to return them.

So the best scenario would be Trump splits the vote and tanks the GOP. The crazies lose in the next midterms or quit and start their own party, and the GOP cleans house.

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[I think if Trump sinks the GOP, this might be a good thing. Perhaps the more intelligent and reasonable conservatives will realize that fascist/populism isn't a winning strategy.]

Hell, they might already realize this (both of them!). The problem is, Fox / Tucker, Bannon, et. al aren't going to give up on the Two Minute Hate grievance money train they've found.

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You are certainly correct about t**** document thing being very different and IMHO very much worse. I don't believe you can put the Biden/Pence documents on the Archives, because the National Archives is NOT responsible for tracking classified documents. Using the archives as the conduit to retrieve these documents meant it was not revealed which agencies these documents actually came from.

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