…so…first up…while they’re up
…now, I don’t much love the folks behind the lincoln project…in fact once the greasy orange RINO gets evicted from the Oval I’m pretty sure I’ll go back to thinking I could just as soon live without them…but I have to admit that they do seem to have a good line in go-fuck-yourself material when it comes to counterpunching the threats to litigate coming from people for whom the discovery process would be…let’s say fraught?
“May I suggest […] that if Mr Kushner and Ms Trump are genuinely concerned about salvaging their reputations, they would do well to stop suppressing truthful criticism and instead turn their attention to the Covid-19 crisis that is still unfolding under their inept watch.
“These billboards are not causing [their] standing with the public to plummet. Their incompetence is.”
…if the cap fits & all that sort of thing…anyway…in other matters of note, as noted by some notable people
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/how-u-s-election-could-shape-world-like-none-before
…& not to “both sides” the thing
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/25/us/politics/trump-biden-campaign-donations.html
…but there’s a lot of fear out there…foreign & domestic
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/world-watches-us-vote-trump-biden-election/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/end-of-democracy-election/2020/10/25/story.html
…still…sure seems like the people looking to intimidate voters are on one side of the line
…& the folks looking to defend them are coming from the other one
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/we-are-fighting-survival-black-essential-workers-head-ballot-box
…which really ought to be plenty damning in an even halfway sane world
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/early-voting-could-hit-100-million-by-election-day
…it doesn’t seem like that’s a complicated calculus, really
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/26/trump-carrier-manufacturing-jobs
On a Friday evening in late September, President Trump huddled with high-dollar donors, lobbyists and corporate executives in a private room at the hotel he owns in Washington, where attendees took turns pitching the president on their pet issues.
Trump was there to raise big money for his reelection effort. The price of admission: as much as $100,000 per person to get in the door.
For his guests, it was a chance to make the most of what has emerged as a signature feature of Trump’s Washington: the ability of wealthy donors to directly lobby the president.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-drain-the-swamp/2020/10/24/story.html
Under President Trump, the United States has abandoned international climate and nuclear arms agreements. It has announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, questioned the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and antagonized stalwart allies like Germany.
America’s past presidents have long promoted democracy, human rights and the rule of law abroad, yet Trump instead has waged an assault on those values at home, where he has weakened institutions, shredded norms and declared without evidence that the upcoming election will be “rigged.”
America’s moral authority also has been undercut by the devastatingly high death toll and wrenching economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the racial reckoning that has convulsed the country.
These highlights from Trump’s nearly four years in office read like Vladimir Putin’s wish list. Few countries have benefited more geopolitically from Trump’s time in office than Russia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-russia-putin/2020/10/24/story.html
…though there are definitely a few of those doing the rounds just now
…in fact
…the list of shit that doesn’t add up is threatening to outstrip the shit that does at every turn
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-coronavirus-outbreak/2020/10/25/story.html
President Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, made a telling admission. “We’re not going to control the pandemic,” Meadows said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” suggesting that the spread of the coronavirus was a fait accompli and that containment was not a central plank of the White House’s strategy. On Friday, the United States recorded a record single-day high of more than 83,000 new cases. The next day, it was just 39 cases short of the previous mark.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/10/26/united-states-europe-coronavrius-surge
…but you know what…we probably shouldn’t be surprised
…& I’m almost sure a bunch of you aren’t, at that
…because y’all seem to have a tendency to pay attention…& not to be new to this
…& at the end of the day a lot of this shit isn’t so much fake news as old news…& that brand of old news was always bad news
So what then were the real origins of the religious right?
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
It turns out that the movement can trace its political roots back to a court ruling, but not Roe v. Wade.
…even when it’s not the news that’s old so much as the goals behind it
“By tomorrow night,” Mitch McConnell told Senate Republicans on Sunday, after they voted to limit debate and advance the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, “we’ll have a new member of the United States supreme court.
“A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election,” the majority leader said on the Senate floor. “They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/oct/25/mitch-mcconnell-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-republicans-democrats-mike-pence-covid
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/court-pence-coronavirus-senate/2020/10/26/story.html
…or the old growth seems like it might in fact have been worth protecting
…so when it comes to the proposals some would make about a bit of new growth to an old institution
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/court-barrett-senate-trump/2020/10/25/story.html
…I can’t deny the allure…even if I despise the necessity
…because some efforts deserve to be undone
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vmi-peay-resignation/2020/10/26/story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-civil-servants-resign/2020/10/26/story.html
…while others do not
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-unfinished-work-of-bernard-cohen/2020/10/25/story.html
…& for some it seems like behind the grandiose rhetoric is a fear that maybe this time every single (electoral) vote really will count
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/26/us-election-texas-leading-country-early-voting
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/26/biden-big-tech-fundraiser
…because let’s face it…even if the election goes “our” way…& the dust settles this side of next year…it’s not like things get easier come January when you start to think about it
…better, maybe…but almost certainly not easier
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/22/us/pandemic-unemployment-covid.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/21/fed-low-interest-rates-pensions
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americans-fear-rising-cost-working-home-pandemic-continues
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/george-floyd-america/policing/
It’s fun to watch The Lincoln Project troll trump and company. But the enemy of our enemy isn’t necessarily our friend.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-lincoln-project-isnt-helping-anyone-but-themselves
I find the Lincoln project’s content to be tame, sub-par, and not particularly scathing. I dont think the approach of trolling a troll is very effective.
You want to really get under trumps skin? Let Jim Acosta ask all the questions.
I doubt they are effective at getting Republicans to vote for Biden, I guess we’ll have to see. But they do get under trump’s brittle orange skin.
No, they assuredly are not, and we should not forget that. I sure would like to know what agency they use, though. ‘Cause those folks are on point.
I’ve been saying this on Twitter…
This article in The New Yorker gets into the details of the production of their ads:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/12/inside-the-lincoln-projects-war-against-trump
One thing that is clear is how much money can be made off of this. They’re not really spending anything on research or buying much airtime. So most of the contributions they’re getting are going to management.
…of course they’re making money off the deal…I mean…I know I should be shocked & all…but somehow I always figured they were getting something out of it…if there was a world where they were actually in it for the principle of the thing I’m pretty sure the GOP would already be dead & buried
…ugh…some days I really wish I was a proper pessimist…I’d be so fucking smug this shit wouldn’t bother me…but no…I gotta be the eternally disappointed optimist because apparently I never learned how to do things the easy way
…thanks for the link, though…mostly the new yorker stuff I get sent is the borowitz report & it’s easy to forget they write serious stuff
I don’t have any faith that the D’s will make up any of the ground they’ve lost legislatively and judicially. They think they’re above the “because we can” political philosophy that the R’s have been playing under since at least 1994. The R’s aren’t going to come back around if they lose big; if anything they’ll just double down on their bullshit and obstruct any way they think they can.
I’d like to disagree, but I don’t think I can. It’s a good 20 years past time that the Dems start playing serious hardball. Pack the court, Medicare for all, attack voter suppression on all fronts, New Green Deal, all of it. Cripple the GOP so badly they crawl under rocks and never re-emerge. Actually, as I’ve said before, if they just attack and eliminate voter suppression the rest will come eventually. Tough job, because so much falls to the states. But packing the court needs to be job #2, or they won’t be able to accomplish anything.
But does Biden have the spine? I don’t know. I think Kamala does, though.
This is pretty fun…
Sweeeeeeeet
…score one for there being some actual justice to be had
…& I hate to be the voice of doom…but this is why they’ve been stacking unqualified judges on the appeals circuit/supreme court
…so I don’t think I’m holding my breath on that ruling being the final say on the matter…much though it damn well ought to be
Yes, look for Trump to be able to get a favorable ruling anytime he needs it. I suspect the case moves forward, but it is so constricted by later rulings in terms of what evidence is allowed that it falls apart.
I’ve said it before, but there is going to be a huge imbalance in defamation cases if the court is not expanded, and the idiots in the press aren’t prepared for what is coming.
Right wingers are going to start winning Gawker sized settlements against the NY Times and NBC and CNN on the weakest grounds, and the Supreme Court is either going to give its explicit blessing, or else allow the settlements at a lower level to stand without comment. The right is going to neuter the media, and until it happens or until the Dems expand the courts, all we’ll hear is the sound of thumbs being sucked by pundits worrying about norms.
MiSsIoN aCcOmPlIsHeD
…easier said than done (with)?