US Politics: Red, Red Whine

[Zorral]

Quote

 

Trump’s Mocking of Christine Blasey Ford and the Dark Laughter of His Audience 

By Eric Lach

https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/trumps-mocking-of-christine-blasey-ford-and-the-dark-laughter-of-his-audience

 

This event and the audience and the nazi playing together, is grisly, in the same way BK and Judge were laughing while assaulting Dr. Blasey, which is what she remembers most clearly and has haunted her all the years since.  Quite appropriate behavior by a fascist / nazi / corrupt traitor, who lied and cheated about money and sex and everything else since childhood.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Quote

 

The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.

By DAVID BARSTOW, SUSANNE CRAIG and RUSS BUETTNER

 Oct. 2, 2018

President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.

But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings....

 

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

The supreme court has been on a slow downward spiral since the Bork hearings.  Bork not being confirmed is exactly the reason that all subsequent nominees refuse to state their positions on numerous constitutional issues in a forthright manner, even though everyone already knows what 90% of those positions will be.  Kennedy was the last non ideologue who has been nominated to the court, which now consists of idealogues of left and right whose votes can be easily predicted 98% of the time.  It has simply taken longer for the ruin of the court to show up "bigly" because it runs on a longer timeline, so there are fewer events that showcase how it is already totally fucked up and partisan. 

Claiming that Bork’s confirmation hearing is the root cause of today’s problems with confirmation hearings is a false narrative pushed for years by conservatives. Bork got a fair hearing and was voted down, and not entirely on party lines. Bork’s opinions did not reflect stare decisis, and they were out of touch with the popular opinions of the public. Bork wanted to be what conservatives claim the lament: an activist judge. And most importantly, his role in the Saturday Night Massacre should have barred him from ever severing any role in the U.S. government. He was simply not qualified and 58 senators voted him down. Claiming that he was some kind of victim of an unfair process is simply not accurate.

The reasons we are where we are is quite simple. One side, whatever you think about them and their policies, does try to be an honest actor. The other side is happy to traffic in hypocrisy if said hypocrisy is a means to an end that is power. Just look at Trump. Not only does he not stand for traditional conservatism, he doesn’t even know what it means. Republicans said this during the primaries. They called him a conman. A liar. A racist. And when he won they all bent their knees. Because he was a means to power, so values be damned if they get in the way of that.

[lokisnow]

Prop 6, the out-of-state republican attack on California infrastructure and economy, has a very narrow 52% against in the latest poll.  I guess it's good that a bare majority of California's are against out-of-staters sabotaging their roads and destroying their cars?

also Dianne Feinstein's lead has shrunk from 22% to 11%, 

But Gavin Newsom not really running a campaign seems to have bitten him in the ass, as his lead has shrunk by  12% from 24% to 12%

https://www.sgvtribune.com/2018/09/27/rent-control-loses-gas-tax-wins-in-new-pre-election-poll/

and the scare tactics against rent control seem to be working as well. I figure, the economists (who only believe in fairy tales never in reality) are profoundly wrong always--especially the neo-liberal-rich-bro-economists that are always against anything that might benefit the poor, like Rent control.  and housing is so bad, rent control couldn't hurt, and in our current environment of no rent control, the builders exclusively build extremely high end units which all sit vacant as foreign investments anyway, so it's not like enacting rent control could possibly depress the current zero construction of units for people to actually inhabit. And since enacting rent control would probably help a lot of people out, and given that the market does not function the way economists say it functions in a zero regulation environment, we ought to enact rent control because at least it's instituting some protections of the regulatory state, which will be an improvement on the current absence. We should do it because it is doing something and will help some people who desperately need help.

[Cas Stark]

32 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Claiming that Bork’s confirmation hearing is the root cause of today’s problems with confirmation hearings is a false narrative pushed for years by conservatives. Bork got a fair hearing and was voted down, and not entirely on party lines. Bork’s opinions did not reflect stare decisis, and they were out of touch with the popular opinions of the public. Bork wanted to be what conservatives claim the lament: an activist judge. And most importantly, his role in the Saturday Night Massacre should have barred him from ever severing any role in the U.S. government. He was simply not qualified and 58 senators voted him down. Claiming that he was some kind of victim of an unfair process is simply not accurate.

The reasons we are where we are is quite simple. One side, whatever you think about them and their policies, does try to be an honest actor. The other side is happy to traffic in hypocrisy if said hypocrisy is a means to an end that is power. Just look at Trump. Not only does he not stand for traditional conservatism, he doesn’t even know what it means. Republicans said this during the primaries. They called him a conman. A liar. A racist. And when he won they all bent their knees. Because he was a means to power, so values be damned if they get in the way of that.

I don't agree, both sides are hypocritical when it suits their purposes, and both sides view the other side as the unhinged lunatics bent on destruction of the country in the name of their respective values/polices.  If the Republicans had really bent the knee to Trump he would have his immigration legislation and his border security billions.  The Republicans have been unsuccessfully trying to thread a needle where they only support Trump enough to preserve some level of status quo, but maintain distance from his more, erhm, 'unorthodox' actions, but for the most part they have not embraced him at all let alone sworn fealty.  

[Week]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

I don't agree, both sides are hypocritical when it suits their purposes, and both sides view the other side as the unhinged lunatics bent on destruction of the country. 

Have you not been conscious for the past 2 years? Of course there is hypocrisy on both sides -- everyone is a hypocrite at some point or another -- however to continue to suggest both sides are behaving equally badly is incorrect without substantial evidence of hypocrisy by Democrats.

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

If the Republicans had really bent the knee to Trump he would have his immigration legislation and his border security billions.  The Republicans have been unsuccessfully trying to thread a needle where they only support Trump enough to preserve some level of status quo, but maintain distance from his more, erhm, 'unorthodox' actions, but for the most part they have not embraced him at all let alone sword fealty.  

How many children are currently being held in detention away from their parents? How many Iraqi refugees entered the country this year as opposed to previous years? His unorthodox actions are happening, significant causing harm, and are completely unchecked (or supported) by congress. Inaction is tacit support.

[Chaircat Meow]

3 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

It’s not really about whether someone did those things.    The idea isn’t that someone who drank heavily is likely guilty of assault or sex crimes, but that someone who lies about, dissembles and otherwise misrepresents or evades the truth about the drinking is probably lying about other more serious things.   The decades ago drinking itself isn’t what calls the character into question, but rather his dishonesty about it that opens him up to further questions of credibility.   

His drinking habits are an issue because the nature of said habits has a bearing on the truth or falsity of the allegation. Ford said he was drunk when he assaulted her. If he drank to the point of violence, or incoherence and 'blacked out' and admitted to all this, his personal testimony would be sort of self-refuting, or at least worthless, as he would be admitting to the possibility of having no reliable recollection of events. Whether it is entirely fair that people who imbibe substances that can have these effects have weak defences against allegations like this and are in that way judged more likely to be guilty is another matter, but it is clearly relevant to the truth or falsity of the charge.

Anyway ...

Libruls may have a case for once and I have changed my mind. Looked at dispassionately there is enough support for Dr Ford's account of events and enough reason to doubt Kavanaugh's for people to reasonably oppose his nomination on the basis of the charge.

Among other things I was quite struck by the corroboration provided to Ford's account by Kavanaugh's own calendars and Judge's memoirs.

''Her story is also corroborated, imperfectly but perceptibly, by Kavanaugh’s high-school calendar. Ford describes the attack as taking place at a gathering at which at least four boys—Kavanaugh, Judge, Patrick (P.J.) Smythe, and a boy whose name Ford could not remember—and one girl, Leland Keyser, were drinking beer. Ford specifically allowed for the possibility that there might have been others present as well.

Kavanaugh’s calendar entry for the evening of July 1, 1982, contains an entry that reads, “Go to Timmy’s for skis with Judge, Tom, P.J., Bernie and Squi.” In the hearing, Kavanaugh acknowledged that “skis” in this entry referred to “brewskis,” or beer; that P.J. was Smythe; that Judge was Mark Judge; and that “Squi” was a boy who, Ford had earlier testified, just happened to have been someone she “went out with” for a short time. The calendar entry does not include Ford or Keyser, so the corroboration is far from perfect. It also includes people not mentioned by Ford. Then again, the degree of overlap with Ford’s story is striking. In the summer in which Ford alleges that Kavanaugh attacked her at an evening get-together with a small group of boys drinking beers, his calendar identifies an evening get-together with a small group of boys drinking beers, including three of the boys named by Ford, along with one she dated. Why exactly Kavanaugh imagines his calendar entries to be powerfully exculpatory I am really not sure.

Ford’s story also finds some degree of corroboration in Mark Judge’s employment history. Ford claims that she saw Judge some weeks after the alleged attack at the Safeway where he worked and that he was visibly uncomfortable seeing her. The Washington Post verified from Judge’s own memoir that he was, in fact, working at a grocery story as a bagger in the relevant period. Assuming the FBI investigation firms that up, it would offer another data point tending to corroborate her account’s consistency with verifiable facts.''

Source: I Know Brett Kavanaugh, but I Wouldn’t Confirm Him

 

[Corvinus85]

The new national emergency alert got texted to most people's phones. (I didn't get it, but I'm ok with that), and the jokes at work are flying "Just wait until Trump starts sending tweets like this", even to people who don't have Twitter.

[Kalbear]

30 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

If the Republicans had really bent the knee to Trump he would have his immigration legislation and his border security billions. 

How? It takes 60 senators to get both. He got his tax reconcilliation reform with his bent knee; the rest of the resistance has been almost entirely from Democrats. 

The only thing they didn't get was the ACHA thing, which was largely due to the fact that it was so unpopular that no one actually wanted to vote on it, and was a razor thin margin. And even that was precisely three people saying no. So yeah, not all Republicans - only 96% of them, and of those who didn't one is dead. 

[Bonnot OG]

The U.S. government having access to everyone’s phones like this should scare the fuck out of you. It puts so many people at risk. The politically radical and the oppressed specifically. This is a direct invasion of our privacy, and it will no doubt lead to more state sanctioned violence.

I'm sure this totally won't be used in a partisan way that pushes propaganda.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Bonnot OG said:

The U.S. government having access to everyone’s phones like this should scare the fuck out of you. It puts so many people at risk. The politically radical and the oppressed specifically. This is a direct invasion of our privacy, and it will no doubt lead to more state sanctioned violence.

I'm sure this totally won't be used in a partisan way that pushes propaganda.

Oh fuck this. The US government has had access to your phones, your televisions, your radios and your press for well over a hundred years. An undirected mass message is entirely in line with the rest of the EBS that we've had for ever. 

If you have a cell phone, chances are you've opted in to absurd privacy violations and done so happily. If you're caring more that a massive text you can't reply to can be sent out as the invasion, you've really got some issues. 

[Bonnot OG]

33 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Oh fuck this. The US government has had access to your phones, your televisions, your radios and your press for well over a hundred years. An undirected mass message is entirely in line with the rest of the EBS that we've had for ever. 

If you have a cell phone, chances are you've opted in to absurd privacy violations and done so happily. If you're caring more that a massive text you can't reply to can be sent out as the invasion, you've really got some issues. 

Just wait until it starts pushing out white genocide propaganda, or false attempted terror attacks that were thwarted by the FBI to help up their want for an Aryan nation and eventual genocide. 

You're kidding yourself if you don't see how this is a problem. 

Not everyone is gonna keep up with the news cycle and or has the time to watch tv, the news, or has the want. 

This is just another way of them being able to control a narrative.

[Zorral]

38 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

The U.S. government having access to everyone’s phones like this should scare the fuck out of you. It puts so many people at risk. The politically radical and the oppressed specifically. This is a direct invasion of our privacy, and it will no doubt lead to more state sanctioned violence.

I'm sure this totally won't be used in a partisan way that pushes propaganda.

It does scare the eff outta me. Which is why I don't have a smart phone.  Though of course google knows everything about me anyway, though I'm not on FB, other than a fake manufactured account FB itself created via the mining of my friends and all their other accounts, e-mail contacts, etc.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Bonnot OG said:

Just wait until it starts pushing out white genocide propaganda, or false attempted terror attacks that were thwarted by the FBI to help up their want for an Aryan nation and eventual genocide. 
 

Okay - what is stopping the government from doing that RIGHT NOW, with the EBS that exists already? Is it appreciably different that they can hit every television, radio, normal phone, newspaper, and the entire internet? 

Because they have had that, and had it for 50 years. 

Just now, Bonnot OG said:

You're kidding yourself if you don't see how this is a problem. 

You're kidding yourself if you think it is any more of a problem than what we have.

Just now, Bonnot OG said:

Not everyone is gonna keep up with the news cycle and or has the time to watch tv, the news, or has the want. 

You realize this is an emergency broadcast system, and not a 'voice of the POTUS' text, right?

Just now, Bonnot OG said:

This is just another way of them being able to control a narrative.

This is another bullshit rant against things you don't understand instead of being upset about things that do exist. 

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

His drinking habits are an issue because the nature of said habits has a bearing on the truth or falsity of the allegation. Ford said he was drunk when he assaulted her. If he drank to the point of violence, or incoherence and 'blacked out' and admitted to all this, his personal testimony would be sort of self-refuting, or at least worthless, as he would be admitting to the possibility of having no reliable recollection of events. Whether it is entirely fair that people who imbibe substances that can have these effects have weak defences against allegations like this and are in that way judged more likely to be guilty is another matter, but it is clearly relevant to the truth or falsity of the charge.

Anyway ...

Libruls may have a case for once and I have changed my mind. Looked at dispassionately there is enough support for Dr Ford's account of events and enough reason to doubt Kavanaugh's for people to reasonably oppose his nomination on the basis of the charge.

Among other things I was quite struck by the corroboration provided to Ford's account by Kavanaugh's own calendars and Judge's memoirs.

''Her story is also corroborated, imperfectly but perceptibly, by Kavanaugh’s high-school calendar. Ford describes the attack as taking place at a gathering at which at least four boys—Kavanaugh, Judge, Patrick (P.J.) Smythe, and a boy whose name Ford could not remember—and one girl, Leland Keyser, were drinking beer. Ford specifically allowed for the possibility that there might have been others present as well.

Kavanaugh’s calendar entry for the evening of July 1, 1982, contains an entry that reads, “Go to Timmy’s for skis with Judge, Tom, P.J., Bernie and Squi.” In the hearing, Kavanaugh acknowledged that “skis” in this entry referred to “brewskis,” or beer; that P.J. was Smythe; that Judge was Mark Judge; and that “Squi” was a boy who, Ford had earlier testified, just happened to have been someone she “went out with” for a short time. The calendar entry does not include Ford or Keyser, so the corroboration is far from perfect. It also includes people not mentioned by Ford. Then again, the degree of overlap with Ford’s story is striking. In the summer in which Ford alleges that Kavanaugh attacked her at an evening get-together with a small group of boys drinking beers, his calendar identifies an evening get-together with a small group of boys drinking beers, including three of the boys named by Ford, along with one she dated. Why exactly Kavanaugh imagines his calendar entries to be powerfully exculpatory I am really not sure.

Ford’s story also finds some degree of corroboration in Mark Judge’s employment history. Ford claims that she saw Judge some weeks after the alleged attack at the Safeway where he worked and that he was visibly uncomfortable seeing her. The Washington Post verified from Judge’s own memoir that he was, in fact, working at a grocery story as a bagger in the relevant period. Assuming the FBI investigation firms that up, it would offer another data point tending to corroborate her account’s consistency with verifiable facts.''

Source: I Know Brett Kavanaugh, but I Wouldn’t Confirm Him

 

Weren’t Judge’s work schedules one of the many things the WH told the FBI they couldn’t look at? Or maybe that changed?

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

The new national emergency alert got texted to most people's phones. (I didn't get it, but I'm ok with that), and the jokes at work are flying "Just wait until Trump starts sending tweets like this", even to people who don't have Twitter.

I just assumed he would use it to let everyone know the elections were cancelled (or some other power play)

[DMC]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I wouldn't call it a flat out lie. He dodges the question, in truth, with a lot of dissembling. It's rather well done imho. What's bothering is that he could have been truthful and admitted to having started drinking before 18 without hurting his chances or credibility.

Sure, but it's still not telling the whole truth.  It's wholly transparent, and poorly done at that, dishonesty.  And totally agreed - it is bewildering he couldn't just admit a lot of things about drinking.  Can't recall any numbers on this, but Americans are totally welcome to compunction.  If he just showed some instead of acting like a major league asshole, he'd probably be confirmed by now.

6 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It's not a lie to give a somewhat misleading answer, it's misleading and not honest, but that isn't perjury.

So, that's are standard now?  A SC nominee was deliberately dishonest under oath in front of his job interviewers, but it wasn't technically perjury, so let's hire him!

5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

The supreme court has been on a slow downward spiral since the Bork hearings. 

Ah, the classic GOP Bork narrative.  You guys really know how to nurse a grudge.  It was thirty years ago, get over it.  The idea SC nominations weren't political until Bork is preposterous.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Oh fuck this. The US government has had access to your phones, your televisions, your radios and your press for well over a hundred years. An undirected mass message is entirely in line with the rest of the EBS that we've had for ever. 

Slow.  Clap.

[DMC]

I like how Warren indicating she's probably going to run is news.  538's weekly chat is about it.  It's like, what?  Are you stupid enough to not figure she was running already, or are you pretending to be stupid for content's sake?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I don't agree, both sides are hypocritical when it suits their purposes, and both sides view the other side as the unhinged lunatics bent on destruction of the country in the name of their respective values/polices.  If the Republicans had really bent the knee to Trump he would have his immigration legislation and his border security billions.  The Republicans have been unsuccessfully trying to thread a needle where they only support Trump enough to preserve some level of status quo, but maintain distance from his more, erhm, 'unorthodox' actions, but for the most part they have not embraced him at all let alone sworn fealty.  

Sure, both sides are hypocrites, but the level of hypocrisy is not comparable. You'll be hard press to find many while it's quite easy to find giant whoopers Republicans have said and done. Just use the the current nomination process and compare it to how Garland's was handled.

As far as getting things done goes, it's not for a lack of effort. A great deal of Trump's agenda would have already passed if not for the Senate filibuster. They've been pushing his ideas. Problem is, they're just not very popular.

If you want to see the most complete example of a Republican swearing fealty, just look at Sen. Cruz. He viciously attacked Trump during the primaries, calling him anything and everything he could think of. Meanwhile, Trump called his wife ugly and said his father was a murderer. And after all of that, Cruz still bent his knee and kissed Trump's ring. They're going to have a rally together in the not too distant future. I know I'd never do that with someone who attacked my family in that manner. 

[DMC]

Ok, so I do think 538's "draft" is pretty fun.  We should do this before the midterms - who's your number one pick as the 2020 Democratic Presidential nominee?  My top pick would be Harris.  Who's yours right now?

[Morpheus]

Sentient pile of smegma, Lindsay Graham, is another example. He was anti-Trump even after he was elected, occupying a similar mildly critical but sure to vote in his favor space as Corker and Flake. He and Trump went on one golf trip a year ago, and Graham had his Body Snatchers moment wherein he is suddenly one of the most ardent Trumpers around. Whether it is kompromat or that he is auditioning to be the new president-protecting AG, this guy has completely thrown away whatever exaggerated cred he had as a “rational”, “bipartisan” Republican, the mavericky glow, real or imagined, which refelected onto him from his bestie, McCain , has utterly dimmed.