It's not stupid at all for the senile game-show host to keep using the same lies. They keep WORKING. He got away with a seditious conspiracy by lying about the 2020 election. He got away with the election tampering by lying about a conspiracy by Fani Willis. He got to run again despite being Constitutionally disqualified by claiming there was a massive conspiracy to persecute him dating back to 2016, when his campaign was all mobbed up with Russian spooks.
We may well see the Virginia redistricting reversed based on the most recent lies.
The USA has rewarded him with near-limitless wealth and power for every single lie he's told.
He's dumb as a stump, but he's not dumb enough to quit with the winningnest strategy he's ever come up with over his entire life spent as a grifter.
Don't expect a change in behavior from someone like Trump when he's never really been held accountable for his behavior, and has no reason to expect he ever will be. It's as you say: Not only has he not been held to account for the most reprehensible conduct and crimes, he has been rewarded for them.
I keep reminding myself Trump's run on the Apprentice ran out of gas because it got predictable and boring. Same thing could happen with election fraud since he's been at it for 10 years and it's old and boring.
The problem is everyone ignores his claims of fraud until they become personally convenient, and then all of a sudden, they go back and try to litigate it.
Mark Elias and Democracy Docket have been all over the fraud litigation. He's been so successful he might be the reason the fraud stuff is mostly ignored.
It's 'cause his Unka, President at MIT, only professor ever who taught every course and had degrees no one else ever had in nuclear and giraffe and person woman man camera TV, strongly, like never before, honestly.
His genius is his grift! He’s like Keyser Soze, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
In Trump’s case it was convincing the world (not all of us) he was actually a self made businessman and master dealmaker—and not the corrupt, depraved lunatic he turned out to be.
Trump has told associates, "If you say something often enough, it becomes true."
It's quite obvious that he operates on that approach to the question of "truth." What's most astonishing is how many not-stupid people have played along with it. Maybe they are just as cynical as he is.
But the strategy also plays into the principle that some fundamental "truths" must be accepted on faith. From that perspective, it's easier to understand why so many religious people accept Trump's pronouncements unquestioningly, no matter how absurd or transparently false they are.
“If you say something often enough, it becomes true.” That was operating assumption behind Josef Goebbels’ Big Lie. The through-line: Goebbels-Roy Cohn-Trump.
Well, the 'Merkin population, its infotainment industry, and the judiciary all just rolled over for it.
No one ever had to accept it. I think if you ask people today about that whole "no collusion, no obstruction" story, the only people who'll agree that sounds right are the real cultists.
But too much of the other stuff was just let slide by virtually every major institution of "authority" and/or "sensemaking" that we maintain as a society.
That may be solid proof that we're *collectively* too dumb to deserve any better.
I'm appalled at the percentage of people who believe that non-citizens are voting. And that Trump's approval rating is so robust despite everything that's occurred in the past decade. We are not a serious country.
It's like Trump found the cheat code to drill straight into the fear center of the brain where no standards of proof or logic apply. Maybe it's something in the water??
Cheat code? All he and Murdoch did was copy the Nazis in Germany. We have all known for close to century how propaganda works, and how incredibly effective it is. Once we decided Murdoch could lie as much as he wanted legally, it was over for us.
Yeah, I agree that the root of our problem is that lying is no longer punished politically. Not sure how one regulates it in media without unintended consequences. The grass roots end-times like fear of 'liberals' in large swaths of American Christianity is adding to this.
There is not an original thought one amongst these reprehensible sub-humans. But they forget how all that Nazi-ing ended. Total destruction of the Germans' way of life finally opened their eyes. It didn't matter to them that 'other' people suffered - it's what they deserved. When it came for them? Leopards and faces and all that good stuff.
I'm sure we all don't like paying for an inferior item we didn't buy.
"I'm appalled at the percentage of people who believe that non-citizens are voting."
No kidding. Apparently, millions of illegals are personally willing to risk decades in prison in order to increase the vote tally for their preferred candidate by a single vote.
Does that make sense? Of course not, but they believe it anyway.
On the Cheap Shot: It's regrettable that the pope has created such a schism between the protestants and the Catholics. It's probably time for both sides to go their separate ways.
Or you could just pull out the old professor joke about the undergrad test answer naming the 95 Feces. (Having received one informing me that "Cerberus guarded the gate to Haiti," I'm inclined to believe that actually happened. More than once.)
On the Cheap Shot: As an atheist, I too have major issues with the direction of the Vatican. I had been considering returning to the Catholic church, but this new-found devotion to the Word of God has me reconsidering. I think I will remain non-denominational for the moment.
Pretty amazing comment. I mean, the whole reason Protestants exist is because they had problems with the Vatican. it's right there in the name. Protest-ant. Those who protest...
Jesus doesn't seem to have much of a place in his own Gospel anymore. Exactly like the Framers of the Constitution seem to have disappeared. Amazing how the excessive rightwing has no room for any of that silly nonsense these woke people actually wrote and spoke....or all the backwards people who still think adherence to their timeless truths still matter.
I have begun to wonder if there will ever be a book written that explains what happened in the first quarter of the 21st century to the nation of the USA... was it something in the water? toxic air fanned over from Russia? What?
The assignment in Nov 2026 is to run up the scores so high to shut MAGA up. It is unfair and all but only landslide defeats handed to the GOP in successive elections may save our republic.
I need to read more abt this topic. I assume that the evangelicals & fundamentalists would be the most opposed to a "liberal" pope, they not realizing that parts of the Bible are poetic.
I "love" the "we were winning the election until bigger precincts were counted" argument. Following this "logic" anything that changes the results after the first precinct reports is fraud. Why do we bother counting more than one precinct?
There seems to be a lot of outrage that Charles won’t meet with Epstein victims while he’s in the US. I don’t understand what that would achieve - he isn’t implicated himself in their abuse, and he is constitutionally constrained from doing anything in the U.K. besides what he has already done. Anything else would just be a performance. Am I missing something?
I loudly applaud Jordan's guest post! But it is not just that we must show that no man is above the law because we don't have Kings in this country. We must demonstrate that the repecussions that await those who believe themselves above the law are terrifyingly swift and sufficiently ruinous to deter future offenders. It's late enough in the day that rich men should no longer be able to commit crimes with impunity and treat "regular people" like objects. Punish them all. Punish them harshly. Make "getting away with it" shameful instead of the badge of honor it clearly is at present.
Andrew writes, "Trump’s brain is so cooked that he immediately believes that literally any election result that fails to go his way must have been the result of fraud..." It has nothing to do w/ what he *believes*; this is just his automatic tactical response. The vote could've been 80% to 20% and he'd have said the same thing. It's worked spectacularly for him so far, so why wouldn't he?
Good point by Jordan; never thought of it that way before.
Re Comer's claim: wonder if he's lying. On what grounds would anyone truly believe Ghislaine would provide anything useful? Or is it just that MAGA is has become so corrupt / criminal friendly that this is natural for them?
He’s lying. Comer knows there is a lot of evidence against Felon Trump and he is trying to save DonOld. Maxwell get a pardon. Then she lies and says nothing happened, and he gets off. Oh she will perjury herself, big time. After the pardon. She keeps her end of the business deal. Always did.
Maybe it might be wiser for maxwell to stay in Camp Cupcake. 3 squares a day, a puppy, ability to roam the grounds. Her life won't be the same when she gets out. There are many angry people out there that are the orange idiot's followers. They believed him when he promised to release the files. Believed bondi.
The pardoning, or commuting of Ghislaine would not be taken positively in many Trump circles. Even those who aren’t rabid release the files folks might not be able to swallow a pardon.
So what! Prices are soaring. We are in a war we can’t win. Housing is just a dream for his base. Farmers are going bankrupt. Tariffs are still in place. The wrong people are getting deported to hell hole countries. None of this stuff was wanted by his base. If he didn’t care about them now, why would he change; as long as they money pours into his bank account, and the Republicans do nothing.
Even the prolife Catholics in my circle were furious over attacking the Pope. They decided Trump was truly crazy and needed to go. But I don't think this change extended beyond crazy Trump with some carry over to JD.
Well that's encouraging. Did you read JVL's Triad in which he said his supporters would choose him over their religious leaders? Or did you watch the FG (I can't stomach them, even w/ JVL on there to voice my reactions!)? Do you think the folks around you are unusual, or do you think they represent the majority?
I'm sincerely encouraged that you think there's *anything* he could do that would be political suicide. I tend to think he could murder their families in front of them and his base wouldn't split from him.
The administration has made it crystal clear that Ghislaine Maxwell did nothing wrong and nobody was trafficked. So how exactly can they keep her imprisoned? How can a person traffic girls to imaginary phantoms?
I think Trump has a whole different understanding of "truth" relative to a normal person. That's how he can be so routinely and extravagantly mendacious.
"Even in our deeply stupid era, the idea that Donald Trump might pardon Jeffrey Epstein associate and convicted sex criminal Ghislaine Maxwell seems almost too preposterous even to contemplate."
It's not preposterous at all. Nor is it preposterous that Trump's sycophants in the House will either publicly support such a pardon or simply not talk about it. Trump is a piece of shit. His enablers are pieces of shit. Once you absorb that lesson, any potential action he or they may take has a non-zero probability.
Personally speaking, I hope he does pardon Maxwell, and that's because it'll give me permission to tell his enablers and voters that they voted for pedophile and someone who protects pedophiles.
Does Trump really believe the election rigged or just say these things because there are no consequences for his lies and political gain. No Republicans initially believed his lies about 2020 and I remember those, when they thought his political career done, commenting on how could it hurt for him to have his little pissy moment. Except as Andrew notes his lies have metastasized across the electorate and become an article of faith among the Republican Party. All this did not have to happen, but Trump, once again, was allowed to get away with his lying and the cowardly Republican Party allowed it instead of finishing him off. We are all paying the price for his lies with an electorate which is more conspiracy driven and no longer trusts the voters choices for the transfer of power. When that happens and one party doesn’t trust the system, they will look for other means that elections for legitimacy.
Agreed (or really aggrieved?).The elite Republicans (contradiction in terms?) mostly know Trump's lying. The rest are mouth-breathing dupes. But, this rigged BS is very hard organically on a democracy.
A very large segment of America has become deranged if 44% of the electorate still favor Epstein Class protecting republicans. The derangement runs deeper than believing Illegal Immigrant Spacecraft stuffed election ballot boxes for dems. As republicans seem to agree that child sex trafficker Maxwell should be pardoned by King Creep, a new version to the GOP anthem of I'm Proud to be an American could be, I'm proud to be a republican where pedos are set free...
It's to the point where eight children get murdered in another mass murder and the media is almost silent. musk slashes USAID which s leading to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children and republicans yawn. Ending reseach funding for childhood diseases and making vaccines seem like the enemy of children who will suffer from not receiving them brings republicans joy. Republicans take food from the mouths of poor children in order to feed the insatiable money appetites of the billionaire tech bros, crypto scammers, and insider trading cronies of trump. Republicans should not try to use the party of family values slogan but instead, tell the truth and say they are the party of Epstein Class values. Republicans use children as political slogans as they put them in greater danger and use then as chattel. Republicans act more the party of Jim Jones than a party of any real religious calues. And the country and press yawn... trump has damaged America greatly. and the only thing that has been stolen is America's decency.
Amazing as much as it is disturbing. Republicans are more freightened of a trans woman than a Gym 'I see nothing' Jordan, a 'hey, little girl, want a lollipop' Matt Gaetz in congress, or a president held liable for sexual assault, who was the best friend of the world's most notorious pedophile, and who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, as president. Priorities, I guess...
Property over people, always. A trans woman wants people to be treated equally; Jim Jordan, though, will stop the foreign hordes from stealing your car.
I'll keep saying the same thing. I wish we lived in a world where men had to dress up as women and sneak into women's spaces to assault us. In this world, the real one, they don't need to go to that much trouble. Hell, they don't even need to wait until after dark.
I can imagine GOP passing state laws that demand all establishments with bathrooms hire a security guard to ask for identification before entering a bathroom. The GOP Bathroom Police will get a plaque at the Capitol;...
'Maybe the resistance party should give up on restoring their battered reputation and just lean in. “Vote Blue: Odds Are You Hate Us Less.”'
This probably is better politically than my slogan "Vote Blue: If you hate us, that's a you problem."
"When I asked where specifically the president was claiming fraudulent votes had been counted, a White House press aide simply referred me back to his post. RNC spokeswoman Kiersten Pels, by contrast, pivoted to attacking the fairness of the gerrymander—again without touching the substance of Trump’s claim."
To live a life unburdened by shame or hypocrisy. What a life. Trump literally demanded the Texas gerrymander, that was not even democratically decided, which started all of this tit-for-tat.
As far as Trump pardoning Maxwell in return for her testimony, in what world does she need to be pardoned to offer testimony? She's in prison; presumably, one day she'll get out. And if she ever wants to get out, she should provide testimony on demand, or else expect to see some years added to her sentence. She doesn't have the leverage in this situation. This is absolutely fucking unreal and absurd and why is this even a discussion?
We should look back at the Bulwark comments and figure out who made the best guess of the month of her pardon. I may have predicted April, but I'm usually wrong about predictions, so I'm probably misremembering.
To be fair, isn't that the Prince Andrew approach? "We were all entitled to rape little girls by birthright"? I'm at the point of wondering what there is to save in this country.
It's not stupid at all for the senile game-show host to keep using the same lies. They keep WORKING. He got away with a seditious conspiracy by lying about the 2020 election. He got away with the election tampering by lying about a conspiracy by Fani Willis. He got to run again despite being Constitutionally disqualified by claiming there was a massive conspiracy to persecute him dating back to 2016, when his campaign was all mobbed up with Russian spooks.
We may well see the Virginia redistricting reversed based on the most recent lies.
The USA has rewarded him with near-limitless wealth and power for every single lie he's told.
He's dumb as a stump, but he's not dumb enough to quit with the winningnest strategy he's ever come up with over his entire life spent as a grifter.
Don't expect a change in behavior from someone like Trump when he's never really been held accountable for his behavior, and has no reason to expect he ever will be. It's as you say: Not only has he not been held to account for the most reprehensible conduct and crimes, he has been rewarded for them.
I keep reminding myself Trump's run on the Apprentice ran out of gas because it got predictable and boring. Same thing could happen with election fraud since he's been at it for 10 years and it's old and boring.
The problem is everyone ignores his claims of fraud until they become personally convenient, and then all of a sudden, they go back and try to litigate it.
Mark Elias and Democracy Docket have been all over the fraud litigation. He's been so successful he might be the reason the fraud stuff is mostly ignored.
So true. Trump is an IQ test. Thing is, he knows it.
The guy identified a picture of a giraffe. If that's not proof of genius, I don't know what is. 😀
It's 'cause his Unka, President at MIT, only professor ever who taught every course and had degrees no one else ever had in nuclear and giraffe and person woman man camera TV, strongly, like never before, honestly.
I recall Unka built MIT. By hand, with tools that hadn’t even been invented yet. Everyone saying they’ve never seen anything like it
His genius is his grift! He’s like Keyser Soze, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
In Trump’s case it was convincing the world (not all of us) he was actually a self made businessman and master dealmaker—and not the corrupt, depraved lunatic he turned out to be.
And the rest is history!🤪
What a high-brain altitude individual.
Oh Wow! I got that one right too!
That's a stretch.
Trump sets very low standards for intelligence.
I’d say more like a Rorschach test.
Trump has told associates, "If you say something often enough, it becomes true."
It's quite obvious that he operates on that approach to the question of "truth." What's most astonishing is how many not-stupid people have played along with it. Maybe they are just as cynical as he is.
But the strategy also plays into the principle that some fundamental "truths" must be accepted on faith. From that perspective, it's easier to understand why so many religious people accept Trump's pronouncements unquestioningly, no matter how absurd or transparently false they are.
“If you say something often enough, it becomes true.” That was operating assumption behind Josef Goebbels’ Big Lie. The through-line: Goebbels-Roy Cohn-Trump.
Same playbook as every authoritarian.
Well, the 'Merkin population, its infotainment industry, and the judiciary all just rolled over for it.
No one ever had to accept it. I think if you ask people today about that whole "no collusion, no obstruction" story, the only people who'll agree that sounds right are the real cultists.
But too much of the other stuff was just let slide by virtually every major institution of "authority" and/or "sensemaking" that we maintain as a society.
That may be solid proof that we're *collectively* too dumb to deserve any better.
And apparently he's not even as dumb as a plurality of American voters.
Lies that are perfect for who they’re for tend to keep spinning around — a perpetual motion machine in that lowest circle of Hell.
"I was there when Martin Luther King, Jr. nailed his 95 Theses to the White House Door to protest the Woke Pope."
- Quentin Tarantino, Ezekial 25:17
Martin Luther King Jr. is my favorite German dude from Georgia! He and his buddy Genghis Khan had some fun times together at Studio 54.
Will you be here all week?
Daniel - do you work in the writers room for Three Year Letterman on X-twitter? 😉
I throw these gems to the masses for free.
I'm appalled at the percentage of people who believe that non-citizens are voting. And that Trump's approval rating is so robust despite everything that's occurred in the past decade. We are not a serious country.
It's like Trump found the cheat code to drill straight into the fear center of the brain where no standards of proof or logic apply. Maybe it's something in the water??
Cheat code? All he and Murdoch did was copy the Nazis in Germany. We have all known for close to century how propaganda works, and how incredibly effective it is. Once we decided Murdoch could lie as much as he wanted legally, it was over for us.
Yeah, I agree that the root of our problem is that lying is no longer punished politically. Not sure how one regulates it in media without unintended consequences. The grass roots end-times like fear of 'liberals' in large swaths of American Christianity is adding to this.
This ^^
There is not an original thought one amongst these reprehensible sub-humans. But they forget how all that Nazi-ing ended. Total destruction of the Germans' way of life finally opened their eyes. It didn't matter to them that 'other' people suffered - it's what they deserved. When it came for them? Leopards and faces and all that good stuff.
I'm sure we all don't like paying for an inferior item we didn't buy.
"I'm appalled at the percentage of people who believe that non-citizens are voting."
No kidding. Apparently, millions of illegals are personally willing to risk decades in prison in order to increase the vote tally for their preferred candidate by a single vote.
Does that make sense? Of course not, but they believe it anyway.
I'm appalled that they ignore every bit of actual fact or evidence. Stockholm Syndrome?
On the Cheap Shot: It's regrettable that the pope has created such a schism between the protestants and the Catholics. It's probably time for both sides to go their separate ways.
I agree! We need to like put up 95 reasons (or theses if you will) why we need to split up.
Or you could just pull out the old professor joke about the undergrad test answer naming the 95 Feces. (Having received one informing me that "Cerberus guarded the gate to Haiti," I'm inclined to believe that actually happened. More than once.)
IKR?????
On the Cheap Shot: As an atheist, I too have major issues with the direction of the Vatican. I had been considering returning to the Catholic church, but this new-found devotion to the Word of God has me reconsidering. I think I will remain non-denominational for the moment.
Okay, but the difference between atheism and returning to the Catholic church is wider than the Gulf of America.
Pretty amazing comment. I mean, the whole reason Protestants exist is because they had problems with the Vatican. it's right there in the name. Protest-ant. Those who protest...
Henry V???
Yeah, that Word of God thing can be a bummer...
Why would an atheist (literally, one who does not believe in the existence of any deity) return to the Catholic Church? I am genuinely curious.
Being ironical
Ah, I see. Maybe a /s at the end would have helped me see that. 😀
Jesus doesn't seem to have much of a place in his own Gospel anymore. Exactly like the Framers of the Constitution seem to have disappeared. Amazing how the excessive rightwing has no room for any of that silly nonsense these woke people actually wrote and spoke....or all the backwards people who still think adherence to their timeless truths still matter.
Well said.
I have begun to wonder if there will ever be a book written that explains what happened in the first quarter of the 21st century to the nation of the USA... was it something in the water? toxic air fanned over from Russia? What?
The assignment in Nov 2026 is to run up the scores so high to shut MAGA up. It is unfair and all but only landslide defeats handed to the GOP in successive elections may save our republic.
Yes, and yet look back at the results of the 2008 election. What was then left of elected Republicans hunkered and doubled down. And it worked.
Yeah, that’s why it has to sustained multiple defeats at every level. The party as is today needs to be wiped out.
Yep. Will take the combination of Good Governance, Ruthlessness, Focus, Good Messaging, Good Candidates....
Accountability for the people that led us (unwillingly for most) into this mess.
Or else this mess keeps on repeating.
We need a double dose of ruthlessness unfortunately
And that is in part because the Dems we elected did not protect us, did not push back, wanted to "move on" somehow etc etc etc.
I thought rejecting the Papacy was the whole point of Protestantism.
Somebody didn't get the memo.
Nor pay attention in history class.
Yes, among others, ninety-three at least.
I see what you did there. 😀
I need to read more abt this topic. I assume that the evangelicals & fundamentalists would be the most opposed to a "liberal" pope, they not realizing that parts of the Bible are poetic.
Wasn't it the divorce thing? I'm gonna have to go look up Henry and Luther now.... sheesh!
That was birth of the Church of England.
Ah. Thanks. So Luther and his hammer were separate and different. (I am apparently related to Luther so you'd think I'd remember...)
I "love" the "we were winning the election until bigger precincts were counted" argument. Following this "logic" anything that changes the results after the first precinct reports is fraud. Why do we bother counting more than one precinct?
The bigger question is, why do we bother continuing counting if the Republican is in the lead?
Let's go one further... why count if the President already knows the winner? 😀
And if the President already knows the winner, why even vote at all? That's how you MAGA.
The kinder MAGAs will fill out and submit our ballots for us so it doesn't look like we are powerless. Oh wait, they've already done this.
Dixville Notch has been wondering this forever.
I had to look that up. Makes as much sense as the Electoral College. 😀
I'm not sure it's a thing anymore. 20-30yrs it was something to talk about until some actual precincts weighed in.
Ever since I started being a poll worker, I just go to bed on election night.
There seems to be a lot of outrage that Charles won’t meet with Epstein victims while he’s in the US. I don’t understand what that would achieve - he isn’t implicated himself in their abuse, and he is constitutionally constrained from doing anything in the U.K. besides what he has already done. Anything else would just be a performance. Am I missing something?
Ann - well, since ours is a culture of entertainment, performance is what we expect/demand. As is said, we’re not a serious nation
Steve Schmidt had some smokin' hot words to say about the fact that Charles is coming here at all. https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/the-kings-disgrace 😲
I loudly applaud Jordan's guest post! But it is not just that we must show that no man is above the law because we don't have Kings in this country. We must demonstrate that the repecussions that await those who believe themselves above the law are terrifyingly swift and sufficiently ruinous to deter future offenders. It's late enough in the day that rich men should no longer be able to commit crimes with impunity and treat "regular people" like objects. Punish them all. Punish them harshly. Make "getting away with it" shameful instead of the badge of honor it clearly is at present.
"Terrifying swift" is one of our biggest problems.
A Rico investigation.
Andrew writes, "Trump’s brain is so cooked that he immediately believes that literally any election result that fails to go his way must have been the result of fraud..." It has nothing to do w/ what he *believes*; this is just his automatic tactical response. The vote could've been 80% to 20% and he'd have said the same thing. It's worked spectacularly for him so far, so why wouldn't he?
Good point by Jordan; never thought of it that way before.
Re Comer's claim: wonder if he's lying. On what grounds would anyone truly believe Ghislaine would provide anything useful? Or is it just that MAGA is has become so corrupt / criminal friendly that this is natural for them?
He’s lying. Comer knows there is a lot of evidence against Felon Trump and he is trying to save DonOld. Maxwell get a pardon. Then she lies and says nothing happened, and he gets off. Oh she will perjury herself, big time. After the pardon. She keeps her end of the business deal. Always did.
Maybe it might be wiser for maxwell to stay in Camp Cupcake. 3 squares a day, a puppy, ability to roam the grounds. Her life won't be the same when she gets out. There are many angry people out there that are the orange idiot's followers. They believed him when he promised to release the files. Believed bondi.
They may want to rethink this.
The pardoning, or commuting of Ghislaine would not be taken positively in many Trump circles. Even those who aren’t rabid release the files folks might not be able to swallow a pardon.
They would hold their noses and make gag noises, but they’d ultimately swallow it, because their god king must’ve thought it right.
Nah. Whatever Comrade Napoleon says is right, is right. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
So what! Prices are soaring. We are in a war we can’t win. Housing is just a dream for his base. Farmers are going bankrupt. Tariffs are still in place. The wrong people are getting deported to hell hole countries. None of this stuff was wanted by his base. If he didn’t care about them now, why would he change; as long as they money pours into his bank account, and the Republicans do nothing.
Commuting Maxwell's sentence would go over as well as attacking the Pope and picturing yourself as Jesus. It would be political suicide.
The results of attacking the Pope are unknown. I'm guessing 40-50% of US Catholics will side with Trump.
That seems high, but, much like the current Republican Party, the Catholic Church was purged of many thoughtful people during the child sex scandals.
Even the prolife Catholics in my circle were furious over attacking the Pope. They decided Trump was truly crazy and needed to go. But I don't think this change extended beyond crazy Trump with some carry over to JD.
"They decided Trump was truly crazy and needed to go." I'd be interested to know their opinion/intensity in 8 weeks.
Well that's encouraging. Did you read JVL's Triad in which he said his supporters would choose him over their religious leaders? Or did you watch the FG (I can't stomach them, even w/ JVL on there to voice my reactions!)? Do you think the folks around you are unusual, or do you think they represent the majority?
Sarah's recent focus group was not encouraging in that respect. Stunning how many think "Pope bad. Trump good", despite calling themselves Catholics.
I'm sincerely encouraged that you think there's *anything* he could do that would be political suicide. I tend to think he could murder their families in front of them and his base wouldn't split from him.
The administration has made it crystal clear that Ghislaine Maxwell did nothing wrong and nobody was trafficked. So how exactly can they keep her imprisoned? How can a person traffic girls to imaginary phantoms?
It's probably Sleepy Joe Biden's fault. If not, it's the fault of Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
I think Trump has a whole different understanding of "truth" relative to a normal person. That's how he can be so routinely and extravagantly mendacious.
"Even in our deeply stupid era, the idea that Donald Trump might pardon Jeffrey Epstein associate and convicted sex criminal Ghislaine Maxwell seems almost too preposterous even to contemplate."
It's not preposterous at all. Nor is it preposterous that Trump's sycophants in the House will either publicly support such a pardon or simply not talk about it. Trump is a piece of shit. His enablers are pieces of shit. Once you absorb that lesson, any potential action he or they may take has a non-zero probability.
Personally speaking, I hope he does pardon Maxwell, and that's because it'll give me permission to tell his enablers and voters that they voted for pedophile and someone who protects pedophiles.
Does Trump really believe the election rigged or just say these things because there are no consequences for his lies and political gain. No Republicans initially believed his lies about 2020 and I remember those, when they thought his political career done, commenting on how could it hurt for him to have his little pissy moment. Except as Andrew notes his lies have metastasized across the electorate and become an article of faith among the Republican Party. All this did not have to happen, but Trump, once again, was allowed to get away with his lying and the cowardly Republican Party allowed it instead of finishing him off. We are all paying the price for his lies with an electorate which is more conspiracy driven and no longer trusts the voters choices for the transfer of power. When that happens and one party doesn’t trust the system, they will look for other means that elections for legitimacy.
Agreed (or really aggrieved?).The elite Republicans (contradiction in terms?) mostly know Trump's lying. The rest are mouth-breathing dupes. But, this rigged BS is very hard organically on a democracy.
A very large segment of America has become deranged if 44% of the electorate still favor Epstein Class protecting republicans. The derangement runs deeper than believing Illegal Immigrant Spacecraft stuffed election ballot boxes for dems. As republicans seem to agree that child sex trafficker Maxwell should be pardoned by King Creep, a new version to the GOP anthem of I'm Proud to be an American could be, I'm proud to be a republican where pedos are set free...
It's to the point where eight children get murdered in another mass murder and the media is almost silent. musk slashes USAID which s leading to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children and republicans yawn. Ending reseach funding for childhood diseases and making vaccines seem like the enemy of children who will suffer from not receiving them brings republicans joy. Republicans take food from the mouths of poor children in order to feed the insatiable money appetites of the billionaire tech bros, crypto scammers, and insider trading cronies of trump. Republicans should not try to use the party of family values slogan but instead, tell the truth and say they are the party of Epstein Class values. Republicans use children as political slogans as they put them in greater danger and use then as chattel. Republicans act more the party of Jim Jones than a party of any real religious calues. And the country and press yawn... trump has damaged America greatly. and the only thing that has been stolen is America's decency.
Yeah, but Democrats aren't protecting the sanctity of girls' sports. Looks like the public has no choice but to vote R.
Amazing as much as it is disturbing. Republicans are more freightened of a trans woman than a Gym 'I see nothing' Jordan, a 'hey, little girl, want a lollipop' Matt Gaetz in congress, or a president held liable for sexual assault, who was the best friend of the world's most notorious pedophile, and who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, as president. Priorities, I guess...
Property over people, always. A trans woman wants people to be treated equally; Jim Jordan, though, will stop the foreign hordes from stealing your car.
Part of the bathroom ban is that it is also a way to stigmatize women who don't look "feminine" enough.
I'll keep saying the same thing. I wish we lived in a world where men had to dress up as women and sneak into women's spaces to assault us. In this world, the real one, they don't need to go to that much trouble. Hell, they don't even need to wait until after dark.
Ask me how I know. Ask any woman.
Bigotry is a puzzling thing!
I think it is very much related to ignorance. And trump brings both of those characteristics to the forefront and stands proud of them.
I can imagine GOP passing state laws that demand all establishments with bathrooms hire a security guard to ask for identification before entering a bathroom. The GOP Bathroom Police will get a plaque at the Capitol;...
'Maybe the resistance party should give up on restoring their battered reputation and just lean in. “Vote Blue: Odds Are You Hate Us Less.”'
This probably is better politically than my slogan "Vote Blue: If you hate us, that's a you problem."
"When I asked where specifically the president was claiming fraudulent votes had been counted, a White House press aide simply referred me back to his post. RNC spokeswoman Kiersten Pels, by contrast, pivoted to attacking the fairness of the gerrymander—again without touching the substance of Trump’s claim."
To live a life unburdened by shame or hypocrisy. What a life. Trump literally demanded the Texas gerrymander, that was not even democratically decided, which started all of this tit-for-tat.
As far as Trump pardoning Maxwell in return for her testimony, in what world does she need to be pardoned to offer testimony? She's in prison; presumably, one day she'll get out. And if she ever wants to get out, she should provide testimony on demand, or else expect to see some years added to her sentence. She doesn't have the leverage in this situation. This is absolutely fucking unreal and absurd and why is this even a discussion?
Because the Trump Administration position is that she did nothing wrong.
Right! Why are they waiting on issuing that pardon!
After the mid-term election, but not long after. Just long enough for voters to forget before the next round of serious campaigning.
We should look back at the Bulwark comments and figure out who made the best guess of the month of her pardon. I may have predicted April, but I'm usually wrong about predictions, so I'm probably misremembering.
There's got to be something for that on Polymarket. Some insiders will probably make lots of money on it when it happens.
To be fair, isn't that the Prince Andrew approach? "We were all entitled to rape little girls by birthright"? I'm at the point of wondering what there is to save in this country.
I was thinking maybe "Vote True Blue. We're for You! (Hold our feet to the fire later.)"