Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Come on, man.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Giving up is unforgivable.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

This really is a full service blog.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Evergreen ‘Trump is Moderating’ Story

The Evergreen ‘Trump is Moderating’ Story

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The Evergreen 'Trump is Moderating' Story

Cheryl Rofer takes a careful look at the Trump platform plank regarding abortion and actually reads it, unlike most of the major media. One sentence says “no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.”  Cheryl’s take:

If you want to believe that “no person” refers to the woman seeking an abortion, this is almost reasonable. That seems to be the way reporters are taking it, when they think about it at all. However.

If you believe that “no person” refers to everything after conception, then this describes fetal personhood. Those persons may not be deprived of life or liberty, which means no abortions ever and banning most contraceptives. Note that the last sentence says “Birth Control,” not contraceptives.

The people pushing fetal personhood have used very similar language and probably provided this paragraph.

Of course, the media (ABC News but there are others) fell for this and said that Trump is “moderating” his stance.

From the perspective of how to handle this, and other horseshit “moderating” stories, Democrats are currently in an unfortunate place.  The “Biden is old” debate coverage completely overshadowed Trump’s performance: he basically just babbled anything that came into his head.  And someone who will babble anything can only be judged by his actions, not his words.  His actions:  appointing the justices who overturned Roe.  His words: whatever he thinks will get him a sympathetic headline with the fools who write for the papers.

I know that “only a sap would believe that Trump won’t do what the Jesus humpers want him to do” isn’t great messaging, but the current task on the table is to convince would-be saps not to fall for the con.

Unrelated to this but important:   when I mentioned that  Tom Levenson, former FP and steady hand Cheryl Rofer and the asshole writing this post all have active accounts on Bluesky, I forgot to mention that Anne Laurie does, too.

Reader Interactions

182Comments

  1. 1.

    me

    Why overcomplicate it? Focus on the leave abortion to the states part and what is happening in those states.

  2. 2.

    Bupalos

    The trouble countering this stuff is that Trump does not actually have “stances.” It’s one of the superpowers of post-truth right-wing authoritarianism. When trump is confronted with the project 25 agenda and says “I have never seen any of this, I don’t know where it came from, no one associated with me had anything to do with it, and I emphatically reject it and also wish it well…” he’s not taking a stance. He’s just conducting post-truth politics.

    The media has no idea how to deal with this. I don’t really think the Biden campaign does either. I’m not sure anyone really does.

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    OF COURSE, it means fetal personhood.

    Come on now.

    Stop with this foolishness.

     

    THEY MEAN TO STRIP BODY AUTONOMY FROM EVERY WOMAN IN THIS COUNTRY.

  4. 4.

    Leto

    N+1 articles on “Trumpov’s moderating” as his kakhi pants legions lead them to the internment camps. Paging VDE to the front, paging VDE to the front.

  5. 5.

    O. Felix Culpa

    It’s not really complicated. Just bang on the Felon claiming responsibility for Dobbs as in your opening picture, day in and day out.

  7. 7.

    Charluckles

    At this point in time I am really struggling to believe that the media is falling for it or is gullible.  They just aren’t that stupid, they are actively abetting this approach.

  8. 8.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah: ​
     

    OF COURSE, it means fetal personhood.

    Come on now.

    Stop with this foolishness.

    THEY MEAN TO STRIP BODY AUTONOMY FROM EVERY WOMAN IN THIS COUNTRY.

    Excepting those women wealthy enough to ‘vacation’ in another country while pregnant, just in case anything goes awry. But for the other 99%, that’s exactly what they’re after.

  9. 9.

    Anoniminous

    @Bupalos:

    Media doesn’t care and Democrats don’t understand propaganda.

    (You can replace “propaganda” with “Public Relations, Advertising, and Marketing” if soft language obfuscation is your gig.)

  10. 10.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Bupalos:

    He, the right in general and just about any group (I see it with self-professed ‘progressives’ on certain econ issues) wanting to see its agenda enacted by disguising it’s true intent use The Firehood of Falsehood (which I’m sure many people here are familiar with).

    This piece from 2020 is a good one in the context of 34 Felonies Dude:

    https://www.persuasion.community/p/trumps-firehose-of-falsehood

    The gundamentalists and The Firehood of Falsehood:

    https://www.gvpedia.org/firehose/

    Goebbels Propaganda 101 at work in the modern GQP.

  11. 11.

    MattF

    Media are behaving as though Trump has ‘policies’. What he has are needs and a shrinking cerebral cortex.

  13. 13.

    randy khan

    Of course it’s fetal personhood.  Anyone who has paid attention to the antediluvians knows that’s their holy grail.

  14. 14.

    azlib

    Trump does not care about policy. All he cares about is staying out of prison, full stop. He can basically disavow anything and his cult will follow him anywhere. Too bad the Press does not recognize this salient fact.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    IF you are going to do anything about Abortion, please point out what Jessica Valenti has been pounding ever since Dobbs…

     

    THERE.ARE.NO.EXCEPTIONS.IN.THESE.RED.STATES.

     

    NONE

    NONE

    NONE

    Put it out there….Ask for 50 examples…

    NOT 50 from every Red State that has banned abortion.

    50 TOTAL.

    THEY DO NOT EXIST.

    You WILL NOT be able to find 50 exceptions where abortion was allowed.

    So that means that these states are COMPLETE BANS.

    this MUST be part of any discussion about abortion.

  18. 18.

    kindness

    It’s completely fetal personhood.  And most birth control will be axed because some othodox nutcase says they are abortifacts when clearly they aren’t.

  19. 19.

    Kristine

    OT, so. Just received an email from Postcards to Swing States that they’ve been slammed with orders:

    We received more than 13,500 orders since June 28, which is how many orders we were able to ship our during the entire month of June.;

    My order of 200 probably won’t arrive until the end of July.

  21. 21.

    scav

    @azlib: Much of the press are too busy following him anywhere, with their little mouths agape for the next exciting episode — continuity of plot is soooo 20th century! Homebound journos are recycling attacks and threads from past elections — recycling storylines, isn’t that ecological of them, right?

  22. 22.

    cain

    @Anoniminous:  I disagree. I think it’s the media who falls for this  – not us democrats.

    Reporters have been desperate for “Now Trump is President!” – for the 4 years he was in office and he hasn’t done shit and it ended with an insurrection.

    It’s like you take this stuff and forget everything that has happened before. Journalistic malpractice.

  23. 23.

    Josie

    @Kristine: ​
     I know that is frustrating for you, but I take this as a sign that voters are waking up and getting into action. Hang in there.

  24. 24.

    Anoniminous

    @cain:
    I was responding to:

    The media has no idea how to deal with this. I don’t really think the Biden campaign does either

  26. 26.

    $8 blue check mistermix

    @Bupalos:

    The media has no idea how to deal with this. I don’t really think the Biden campaign does either. I’m not sure anyone really does.

    For abortion at least, Kamala Harris has been on a tour of local media and non-political media (e.g., The View, which I guess is somewhat political) since shortly after Dobbs.  I saw her on The View a few months ago and wrote about it — she was good.  Whether this will break through, who knows.

  27. 27.

    JaySinWA

    Reading farther down in the referenced ABC article gives you this.

    “It is important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment. Under this amendment, Congress enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level.    The mission of the pro-life movement, for the next six months, must be to defeat the Biden-Harris extreme abortion agenda,” Dannenfelser wrote.

    Clearly showing that Cheryl Rofer is not wrong in her interpretation of the platform obfuscation.

  28. 28.

    E

    This is an excellent example of something to highlight in our personal social media accounts. Which I just did. We have work to do people!

  29. 29.

    E

    @Bupalos: Sure they do. Write 192 articles about the man blathering about sharks and batteries and televised military tribunals.

  31. 31.

    TBone

    Tiedrich takes on the FTFNYT and Project 2025 today. I fucking love this guy.  He says it like no one else can, or will.  Spitting cuss words like fire is a side effect of lo these many years since Raygun.

    https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/top-new-york-times-editor-defending

    hey, you know whose name also shows up in the White House visitor logs? mine. what can the press infer from that? that Joe Biden needed a swearing coach? I don’t think so, he does just fine on his own.

  34. 34.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT: Putin just awarded Modi Russia’s highest civilian honor. BJP runs one of the most sophisticated and devious news disinformation campaigns using the MSM, social media and messaging apps like WhatsApp. I fear more election interference  than 2020 and 2016.

  35. 35.

    JaySinWA

    @karen marie: It’s in the article she mentioned at the top of her post. I don’t know if ABC updated it with that quote after she posted

    ETA Cheryl put emphasis on using the 14th amendment with  fetal personhood as a club against abortion. That is kind of a throw away quote in the ABC article.

  37. 37.

    zhena gogolia

    So I think I have to join the bandwagon and do postcards. I live in a blue state, so that seems my best avenue, along with continuing to send money.

    What is the best place to go for postcards?

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    I think that the topic of abortion can be overwhelming.

    So, maybe Dems can take one part and pound on it.

    Someone point out that they intend to use the Comstock Act – a law passed before women even had the right to vote

    To strip body autonomy from every woman in the nation.

     

    Someone else can take the Maternal Mortality issue. How many of these Red States are trying to hide the true Maternal Mortality rates because nothing can get in the way of their abortion bans.

     

    Someone else can become the ‘expert’ as to how these laws are turning these states into Maternal Deserts, because of the loss of OB-Gyns.

     

    It’s all connected, but, I’m not expecting folks to be able to connect all the dots. They just need to pick a dot and become an expert at that.

  40. 40.

    TBone

    @schrodingers_cat: I don’t fear it, I expect it.

    I also expect them to spit their Chiclets when we (collective we) knock them upside the head with a baseball bat. Made in America.

  41. 41.

    cain

    @Anoniminous:

    Biden has filled his administration with younger fresher people – I think they do know. The press is likely knows too but chooses to do whatever because they have a story to tell.

    Reforming conservatives is always a thing with them – it’s been unchanged since at least 2016.

  42. 42.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia: I think I might do that. Looks like is the only way to reach people – can’t do the cell phone thing (which I was never comfortable with)

  43. 43.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @TBone: @schrodingers_cat: I don’t fear it, I expect it.

    👍 We are under constant attack and I expect it to increase.

  44. 44.

    Gretchen

    @E: It’s been amazing how there have been zero articles about Trump since the debate, while there have been hundreds about Biden. It’s like their job is to only cover one candidate. Is someone else supposed to be covering the other candidate? Because nobody is.

    Meanwhile, after spending the last two weeks concern-trolling about Biden, now the Obama-bros are scared that Biden is polling poorly. Guys, you own a media company! You could do something about that!

  46. 46.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Gretchen: Their job is to kneecap the Democratic candidate. A job they have done in every election campaign I have witnessed since the 90s. (I leave it to other BJers to cover the campaigns before the 90s)

  47. 47.

    Gretchen

    @schrodingers_cat: The NYT has been kneecapping Democrats all along, but the Pod Save America guys have been working to elect Democrats all along. Until the debate. They all worked on previous campaigns: Obama, Clinton, Kerry. They should know better, but they’re pushing the new candidate idea like they just fell off the turnip truck.

  52. 52.

    Old Man Shadow

    And you have to drill down on the implications of fetal personhood.

    Every woman who experiences a miscarriage will be a potential felon based on their life choices. Did you eat sushi once even though you didn’t know you were pregnant? Drink? Engage in any behavior with risk? Well, lady, you just earned a manslaughter charge.

    Contraceptives will be gone. Doesn’t matter if they don’t actually cause an abortion, they could prevent a fetal person from implanting.

    A woman’s career choices might be limited by law. Can’t have potential “pre-born” children exposed to dangers, you know. (Gotta wait for them to be born.)

    Need a divorce? Well, it might not be in the best interests of the “pre-born” child. Gotta wait nine months, hussy.

    Need to travel? Do you have permission from that baby’s father to cross state lines?

    It’s the next step on the road to Saudi Arabia West or Gilead.

  58. 58.

    scav

    In the US, women are registered at higher rates than men.  Since 1980, women’s proportional turnout in presidential elections is higher than men’s.  data  That’s baseline, pre the post-Dobbs reaction.

    Tell me again how shitting all over women’s rights gleefully is a fundamentally attractive tactic and a sure thing going forward. (there seem to be some interesting generational quirks in there.  Younger generations seem to exhibit greater discrepancies in participation, getting similar at 65-74 and switching male at 75+) There’s a headwind they’re facing, if in fact there’s any analysis going on in their sound-bite shark-bait, eeek! a windmill collage.

  59. 59.

    TBone

    @schrodingers_cat: my comment was not referring to trolls but with those I just insult their “manhood” in as few words as possible.  It works to set them back on their heels, crying, almost every time.  It’s always men somehow.

  61. 61.

    gene108

    I don’t get why the media gives Trump the benefit of the doubt when it comes to honesty. Media’s documented tens of thousands of lies. This is the mind boggling part of their coverage of him.

  62. 62.

    BR

    Called my senator and reps again to tell them to support Biden. But added a message today that they need to put the Times and other media on blast — I mean really, who elected this nepo baby at the Times?

  63. 63.

    CliosFanBoy

    Speaking of BlueSky. This poor sap needs more “likes”. :) @cliosfanboy.bsky.social

  65. 65.

    Citizen Dave

    I have an idea on how to deal with Orange Man–it isn’t THE answer, because details and facts matter.  But it should be a part.  I’ve tweeted it 100 times or so, so far.  “Trump is 100% Bullshit 100% of the time”  He is a lifelong Bullshit Artist.  Most people know what the word means, what is encompassed.  The word bullshit should be front and center in messaging

     

    There is NO TIME in which Trump is NOT BULLSHITTING.

  72. 72.

    RaflW

    The press is really, really showing it’s weakness (and/or bias). They are hounding the Biden story to its bitter end. “How many specialist doctors, on what days, and with whom watching” and all that dumb jazz.

    But ask them to interrogate Trump’s laughable ‘distancing’ from abortion or Project 2025 ,and they’re as credulous as kindergarteners. (That may be selling 5 year old short. Sorry.)

    This particular play has been run my the offensive GOP so many times, and Lucy-Charlie Brownlike, our media falls flat on their ass every time.

  73. 73.

    Jackie

    @azlib: Speaking of cults, evangelicals are discovering they’re hugging a poisonous snake 😂

    The news about the new Republican Party Platform continues to percolate through the GOP, and evangelical Christians are growing angry about the perceived backing off issues they’ve pressed for decades.

    Among the issues is the softening of anti-gay language, though anti-transgender language continues. Another is support for in vitro fertilization, which was temporarily blocked by Republicans in Alabama with laws declaring “life” begins at conception. And, after over 40 years, the platform also backed demands for a national abortion ban.

    In the past, the GOP has pressed for a constitutional amendment blocking abortion.

    Even a platform committee member was incensed over the decisions announced by the RNC Monday.

    “I’ve never seen this happen before. I don’t understand why they did it, and I’m extremely disappointed that we do not have any pro-life language,” said Gail Ruzicka when speaking to WISN12News.

    Anti-LGBTQ conservative Tony Perkins was similarly furious. In a statement, he proclaimed: “The pro-life movement will continue to advance pro-life principles and policies at every level of government.”

    “Was hearing similar frustrations from people who were in the RNC Platform Committee meeting in Milwaukee,” said reporter Oriana González. “Trump’s campaign singlehandedly changed the GOP platform without delegate input, angering attendees because they say the platform now only reflects Trump and not the party.”

    The responses were mockery:

    “You voted for this Tony,” said drone photographer Bian Jacobson in an X post.

    “They knew who he was from the beginning but made a deal with the devil. This was always going to happen,” ex-Republican Nate Bell posted on X.

    “[The Family Research Council] gets rolled by Trump is frankly hilarious,”Michael J. Hicks wrote. “All you ‘principled’ folks who convinced yourselves and your flocks that God chose Trump to forward a godly policy path have much to answer for, in this life and the next.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/republican-party-platform-tony-perkins/

  74. 74.

    rikyrah

    Jack E. Smith ⚖️
    @7Veritas4
    It’s no surprise that PoC and women are leading the grassroots movement to defend Joe’s candidacy for reelection.

    Marginalized groups who’ve had to fight for their rights for generations.

    People who understand in their bones that you don’t always have the luxury of picking the perfect time or the perfect person when you’re fighting for your very existence.

    You fight with what you have.

    You stand together till the end.

    It’s not an intellectual exercise or a clever political calculation.

    Fighters recognize fighters.
    6:39 PM · Jul 7, 2024
    https://x.com/7Veritas4/status/1810096329290657904

  75. 75.

    rmjohnston

    The Thirteenth Amendment applies to people, not just the government. People do not have the right to commandeer a uterus for occupancy. The anti-abortion position is a fetal superpersonhood position, not a fetal personhood position.

  76. 76.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Conclusion of a great thread on the Parkinson’s bullshit, from FlySistah on Xitter!

    Nothing about the frenzy of Biden is old coverage is organic. It’s the new migrant caravan frenzy that disappears after the election. You have to want to be manipulated to fall for this “but her emails” & “critical race theory” propaganda again.

  77. 77.

    different-church-lady

    I’ve been avoiding the internet and the news for a few days. Has anyone remembered how to attack Trump yet?

  78. 78.

    BR

    I think it’s time to start including the media in the messaging:

    Corrupt billionaire owned media. Corrupt billionaire owned court. Loser and whiner wanna-be dictator. All working together to make more money for themselves and take away American freedom. You’re the last line of defense this November.

  80. 80.

    pat

    James Inhofe, Senator Who Denied Climate Change, Dies at 89
    An Oklahoma Republican who led the Environment Committee, he took hard-right stands on many issues but was especially vocal in challenging evidence of global warming.

    Good riddance.

  85. 85.

    Josie

    @zhena gogolia: ​
     I am writing for Post Cards to Swing States. You pick your preferred state and they send you post cards and suggested messages. You supply stamps. Depending on which state you choose, they give you a date to mail them. I chose Nevada and will mail my 200 cards on October 15. I am writing some every day so that I don’t have to do them all at once.
    https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/

  86. 86.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Given press behavior over the past years decades, I’m past speculating why they do it.

    It’s enough to identify it for what it is: enemy action. The pattern is clear.

  89. 89.

    jonas

    @BR: There are of course horror stories coming out of those states already, but what’s kept it from becoming a bigger scandal (or liability for GOP pols) than it should be is that most women in those states needing emergency abortions are simply going to Michigan or Illinois or Pennsylvania for care, and so some of the worst scenarios — ones that would attract national attention — so far have probably been avoided. Project 2025 has all sorts of ideas for putting the kaibosh on those options, though, so eventually it’s going to turn into a shitshow on the national stage.

  94. 94.

    Josie

    @BR: ​
     Yes. Nevada is all signed up. I would suggest Pennsylvania, which is still available.

  95. 95.

    jonas

    @pat: His grandchildren can be proud knowing that he did his part to ensure that their world will be far less habitable and food-secure than his was. He will not be missed.

  98. 98.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @zhena gogolia:

    Josie mentions postcards to swing states in #84. They provide the postcards, message, and addresses. You supply the stamps and labor. A potential downside is that they start with 200 cards to write and go up from there. Those cards need to be mailed by Oct. 15, so there’s time, but still might be a lot for some folks.

    Postcardstovoters.org allows you to choose how many cards you want to do at a time, starting at around 5 or 10 cards, but your turnaround time is shorter. They give you the message and addresses; you provide the cards, stamps, and labor. They sell cards on their etsy site, but you can use cards of your own provenance. I’ve bought some on amazon for previous campaigns

    ETA: I missed that Gretchen also mentioned postcardstovoters. Good luck!

  100. 100.

    Belafon

    @Bupalos: Go back through Anne’s threads and you’ll find the Biden campaign’s responses to 2025 – they have a web page up for it – and Trump’s lies – they’ve put out a response stating he’s lying.

  103. 103.

    Josie

    @zhena gogolia: ​
     It works with the way my life is going. I can do a few one day and many on another day. I can make my own schedule. My only problem is affording the stamps, but I’ll figure that out.

  104. 104.

    zhena gogolia

    @O. Felix Culpa: I signed up for the swing state one. I like getting the postcards sent, and I can ration out how many to do per day. I asked for 300.

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    Loved the entire thread:

     

    Eva McKend (@evamckend) posted at 7:29 AM on Tue, Jul 09, 2024:
     Here is what we heard at Essence Fest from Black Voters:

    Jeri Paris, a retiree in New Orleans, emphatically supports President Biden.

    She warned against “playing games” and said “the enemy is trying to confuse everybody.”

    On Harris, she said, “Her time will come.” https://t.co/yhUyddOvwn
    (https://x.com/evamckend/status/1810652468881289719?t=g_WxeYGR6iS1NtuRV4oUxg&s=03)

  107. 107.

    zhena gogolia

    @Josie: Yes, that works better for me than the short turnaround. Plus I like that it’s focused on swing states.

  111. 111.

    different-church-lady

    When Biden was running in 2020, I was thinking, “Joe, I think you’re counting on Black folks a little too much.”
    Today I understand why: Black folks are the only ones he can count on to do the heavy lifting.​

  115. 115.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @schrodingers_cat:

    So like the Fugitive Slave Act but for women.

    QFT. And Putin giving Modi an award…there’s no question about alliances any more, if there were any. Gross.

  117. 117.

    UncleEbeneezer

    One thing about Black folx is that they don’t take well to picking on elderly people…that’s a no. Democrats should be mindful of this while they keep playing in Joe Biden’s face. There is great potential for this whole thing to backfire on them…

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    The Right-Wing SCOTUS That Bernie Built (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 10:55 AM on Tue, Jul 09, 2024:
    The tragic legacy of Obama is that he hired the best VP available but some of the worst staffers ever, and white-on-white violence behind the scenes between the working-class white ethnic Biden and the snobby WASP elite staffers has since broken out into open media warfare.
    (https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1810704356909400118?s=03)

  122. 122.

    different-church-lady

    @zhena gogolia: I’m just worried too many cowardly white folks are making it too hard a lift this time.

    I’m not talking about the ones who were going to vote for Trump anyway. I’m talking about the ones who claim they’ll crawl over broken glass to defeat Trump and then decide when the going gets tough to just spinelessly freak out and start screaming at Joe for not being a superhero.

  123. 123.

    Belafon

    There are other things you can do as well. My wife is working for a group, I don’t now the name off of the top of my head, that is gathering information on every Democrat at every level so that voters will know who the Democrats are that are running and who to vote for. The get assigned areas to do research in, and a list of races to look into.

  124. 124.

    rikyrah

    But, see, pointing out the complications , and bringing logic detracts from their goal of chaos for the Democratic Party. You are talking about them actually being serious, when in fact, they aren’t serious , and are only playing games.

     

    Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) posted at 7:31 AM on Tue, Jul 09, 2024:
    1/ If I were a serious reporter or editor I’d be calling secretaries of state—I’d start w AZ, CT, GA, IL, IA, & VA—and asking if anyone other than Joe Biden could get on the ballot; as this document shows it’s far from obvious that anyone else can.

    https://t.co/hqa8VTsjee
    (https://x.com/DanaHoule/status/1810652997359473044?s=03)

  125. 125.

    Dangerman

    @Bupalos: He’s just conducting post-truth politics.

    There is a Children’s story; something like “words mean what I mean them to mean at the time, nothing more”. Maybe it’s Dr. Seuss.

    Trump doesn’t dazzle with brilliance, he simply baffles with bullshit. The next time he dazzles with brilliance will be the first time since … ponders … ponders … not sure.

  127. 127.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @zhena gogolia: You could consider doing a postcard-writing party with likeminded friends. We’re doing that on Saturday. It’s good fun!

    ETA: I also chose wherever most needed. Got North Carolina, which makes me happy.

  133. 133.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah: Like I say, been avoiding the news. If it’s true they’re closing ranks, then 1) Good and 2) Took ’em fuckin’ long enough.

  137. 137.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: grrrr

    Rachel Bitecofer tweeted out the legal Complaint sworn to by the minor females he raped.  I posted it yesterday with a trigger warning.  It was a story at crooksandliars and it’ll raise your hair if you haven’t seen it. Even if you have.

  138. 138.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @different-church-lady:

    When Biden was running in 2020, I was thinking, “Joe, I think you’re counting on Black folks a little too much.” Today I understand why: Black folks are the only ones you can count on to do the heavy lifting.

    Bingo. They are the base of the *Democratic* party and don’t try to hide it behind equivocating language seen so frequently among self-professed white ‘progressives’. They’re fucking LIBERAL DEMOCRATS because that means something.

    Quiltingfool said this early last week and it bears repeating:

    I’m an old white woman, and I really liked Harris and Warren. But when black women came out in support of Biden I thought, I’m with them. They are pragmatic voters. They saw in Biden an (a) old white man who wouldn’t scare white people (b) a white man who served with a black man and supported him and (c) a white man who wouldn’t fuck them over.

    For “normies” it can be boiled down to: one candidate is an old man, the other candidate is an old *mad* man, which do you prefer?

  139. 139.

    cain

    @different-church-lady:

    That’s what I was saying – these folks not only want to remove Joe but Kamala  -but it was black folks that took us over the finish line in those swing states.

    To switch things and piss off the demographic that you depend on for “check notes, swing votes” voters who we have no idea who they are, what they care about – it’s madness.

  140. 140.

    JaySinWA

    @rikyrah: The Alaska Daily is reporting it now.

    There are 2 federal prosecutors (one former clerk and another prosecutor) involved along with another local lawyer.

    Those prosecutors should be removed as well.

    The judicial conduct report does not name Kindred’s former law clerk who was at the center of the investigation. The report states that Kindred and his clerk engaged in two inappropriate “sexual encounters” shortly after she had started working as a federal prosecutor.
    Kindred and his former clerk exchanged 278 pages of text messages over an 11-month period, “only a small fraction of which had any relationship to her legitimate job duties,” the order said.
    Kindred was also found by investigators to have received “nude photographs” from another more senior federal prosecutor. He also “exchanged flirtatious” text messages with a third local attorney, the order said.
     

  141. 141.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah:

    That’s a really interesting take, and lends insight into the attitudes of the Obama Bros. Most of them are from upper middle class backgrounds, went to tony prep schools, etc. I also think that they got lucky working for a once-in-a-lifetime political phenom, and think it’s their brilliance that got them there.

  143. 143.

    M31

    yup, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass:

    ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.

    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘

    ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.

    ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

    ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

    ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’

  144. 144.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @rikyrah: I object to her saying, ‘the Democrats’ when the majority of Democrats support the president. She’s talking about media pundits and a few people who are mad their chosen person lost the primary in 2020

  146. 146.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah:

    Voters: But we picked Biden.

    Elites: You’re so low info.

    Heh. Exactly. I’ll be damned if the media “elites” get to choose my candidate for me and 14 million other voters.

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    Telling it all about that clown from Florida!

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

     

    Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) posted at 11:36 AM on Tue, Jul 09, 2024:
    Who is Byron Donalds? He once pretended to be Jamaican. Had a fake Jamaican accent. Got into a fake marriage with a Black woman. Cheated on his Black wife with a white woman. Got the white woman pregnant. Divorced his Black wife. ( ⁦@claycane⁩)

    https://t.co/oKEf2as9Jy
    (https://x.com/keithboykin/status/1810714780627611775?s=03)

  150. 150.

    Soprano2

    @Gretchen: I agree, it’s shocking to me since they should know better. It’s like something ate their brains and they woke up newly born right after the debate.

  151. 151.

    Nora

    @Dangerman:  That’s Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass; he tells Alice, “When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

  155. 155.

    E

    @Jackie: These are real, bona-fide wedge issues. I have been present when Trumpers have argued about this stuff and it gets very heated very fast. We are fools not to exploit this.

  159. 159.

    narya

    @zhena gogolia: I got some from national-park-posters.com; they’re vintage park posters (NOT from the National Park Service, though!). I originally thought they’d just be a nice cool set of images, but the Project 2025 plan to destroy national parks makes them even better for GOTV efforts.

  160. 160.

    Yutsano

    The agenda is Project 2025. The Republicans are trying to hide it but that is their real platform. We need to keep shouting this from the rooftops until it sinks into normie brains. Projects 2025’s stance on abortion calls for no abortion no exceptions. Everything else is pure noise.

  161. 161.

    SomeRandomGuy

    Trump isn’t moderating his stance a bit. He’s all in with “EVERYONE, LEFT AND RIGHT, wanted it back to the states, and I DID IT! Now, some of the states might do some shit, but that’s not my fault, it’s ONLY TO MY CREDIT.”

    How pathetic would you have to be to say he was “moderating” anything when he’s just making excuses as always?

  162. 162.

    Nora

    @Yutsano: ​
     Not only does it call for no abortions, no exceptions, but it has a very broad definition of “abortion” that includes every form of contraception, even forms that have nothing to do with abortion.

    This is not about facts. You can scream all day that an IUD isn’t an abortion-inducer, and that the pill isn’t, and the diaphragm isn’t, and it doesn’t matter. They don’t care about the facts, just about their “sincere religious beliefs” that these forms of contraception are actually abortifacients, and nobody — certainly not this Supreme Court — is going to go any deeper than that.

  163. 163.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @rikyrah: Biden, even with 40+ years in actual government, has infinitely more respect for Obama than the PSAmerica dudes have ever shown.

    As a tweet/IG post I saw earlier today (by a woman named Laurie Goff, re-tweeted by Karen Hunter) Biden’s willingness to be Obama’s wing-man and defer to him, even though Obama had less experience, without ever trying to outshine or undercut him is such a huge testament to Biden’s character and respect for the Black Community (who Biden also has a deep connection to from his DE years).  Jon Favreau and crew have never showed even the slightest trace of that quality.  So their bullshit behavior totally unsurprising.

  164. 164.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Ignore anyone advocating for a blitz primary. That’s a virtual guarantee that we end up with an unvetted nominee.

    Secondly, talking to Democratic voters in the swing state of Michigan, no Dem wanted Biden gone and a couple (including one of my union mentors) were quite upset with how the party treated him.

  169. 169.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @rikyrah: Queer/trans people have also been fighting for our rights for generations.

    You stand together till the end — even when your allies aren’t perfect, even when they can be problematic. Case in point:

    Last week, the Biden Administration seemed to falter on transgender healthcare issues, releasing and revising multiple statements opposing gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth and prioritizing “mental healthcare” over other forms of care.

    Am I pissed at the Biden Administration about this, ab-so-fucking-lutely. This is the last thing trans people need right now, and trans advocates rightly regard this as a betrayal.

    But the Biden Administration can be convinced to change, Project 2025/Agenda 47 want to make my very existence illegal. So even if I didn’t think Biden is the most effective president in my life-time, I’d still be working my ass off to ensure he’s re-elected.

  170. 170.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @Mike E: This is the dark underside to Tentherism. Everything after the Bikl of Rights gets shredded. They are prepared to go without term limiting Presidents if that gets them things like no women or Blah people voting.

  173. 173.

    Eunicecycle

    @Sister Golden Bear: I like the bus analogy. Voting is like taking the bus that will get you closest to your destination. It probably won’t get you exactly there,  but close enough. That’s Biden. You won’t take a bus going the opposite direction (Trump).

  174. 174.

    Jay

    @Jackie:

    It’s part and parcel of the ReThug “dance”.

    Tony is not pissed at the platform, he’s pretending to be pissed so that the Media Moron’s can write stories that 34 Felon Rapist Pedo “moderated” the platform down from a “extremist” position, like they already are, and people like Tony are upset,

    with out mentioning that it is still an extremist position.

  175. 175.

    gratuitous

    It seems a rather obvious question to me, but I’m not some political reporter with the concomitant super powers, but has anyone ever asked the felon if he’s ever paid for an abortion? In a just-asking-questions kind of way, I mean.

  176. 176.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @gratuitous: Trump did make the rookie mistake, since abortion is murder, the woman must be a murderess, and hence, deserving of punishment. S.E. Cupp, famed conservative, scoffed at the *very idea* that the woman – who simply ordered, the killing, paid for the killing, and delivered the victim to the butcher’s block – should be punished! The pregnant woman is the VICTIM.

    That way, every pro-life woman who has had an abortion is both a painted jezebel and a fount of righteousness, all at the same time, and, as Jay and Silent Bob put it, “abortion clinic’s a fine place to meet women who’ll put out.” (Technically, only Jay *said* it, but Bob seemed down with it.)

    Of *course* Trump has paid for abortions, but only those where he couldn’t simply insist she was a sleazy bimbo looking to score big bucks by screaming rape.

    (Don’t argue – I learned what a “bimbo” was from Laverne and Shirley, why couldn’t TFG? Yeah, see, *now* you’re seeing the possibilities.)

  177. 177.

    Glidwrith

    @Josie: Ma’am, I’ll get you those stamps. Contact me through Watergirl. Make sure you have “stamps” in the subject line and we’ll figure out how to get them to you.

  179. 179.

    MinuteMan

    @lowtechcyclist: It’s against federal law for one American to murder another in a foreign country (unless the killer is the president, anyway).  So being able to pop to Canada, etc., as a way around isn’t guaranteed.

  180. 180.

    Denali5

    @Mistermix,

    I believe you are in Joe Morelle’s District, as am I, were you as horrified as I was by his lack of loyalty to President Biden?  I am going to contact Joe Morelle and ask for an explanation.  I had just finished thanking him for introducing Articles of Impeachment for the terrible Supreme Court ruling on immunity. I don’t know what to think now.

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