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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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You've talked quite a bit about Shiwan Khan, would be OK with talking about the other villains who show up more than once, Benedict Stark and The Voodoo Master?

The Voodoo Master tends to get overshadowed by Khan by virtue of being less prominent and because, in a lot of ways, Mocquino does feel a bit like a prototype for Khan. Like Gibson was testing the waters of what kind of major supervillain he wanted the Shadow to have, and was gradually figuring details like the hypnotic traps and unique henchmen and mystic background and a fraudulent dark magician figure with Mocquino, before Khan blew it all up to bigger proportions. Twice already we’ve had instances where Mocquino was set to appear in a Shadow adaptation after Khan, and said adaptations got canned before he could show up (and I don’t think it does either character a favor if Mocquino comes after Khan). And of course Mocquino has the problem of being an ethnic supervillain whose identity and name are tied up to grotesque prejudice that twists cultures and beliefs into Hollywood boogeymen, and the novels sadly treat vodou beliefs far less charitably than how the other novels approach tibetan/asian mysticism. It’s definitely a problem, but not without it’s solutions.

Putting that aside, The Voodoo Master trilogy is very fun, the first novel in particular was the number one rated Shadow novel in a fan poll back then. Personally, my favorite is City of Doom because of it’s blend of gothic, urban and industrial settings, great battles even for a Shadow novel, and a spectacular finale, but they all have very strong points. And I do like Mocquino himself as a character. He is historically significant as the first true supervillain of Shadow Magazine (if you don’t count other odd criminals like The Black Master or The Cobra). He is different from Khan personality-wise in the sense that he is more of an old-school supervillain, who likens his conflict with The Shadow to a “game” they play, who likes to boast and brag about his powers and whose goals largely revolve around extortion. He has a vendetta against industrial society (although he himself employs industrial tactics, because he is a hypocrite), and said vendetta being largely just him trying to destroy it so he thinks people will fall in line with his cult more easily. Unlike with Khan, there’s no delusions or aspirations of grandeur and greater purpose here, it always comes down to crime and profit with Mocquino and he barely bothers to pretend otherwise.

He is resourceful and insidious and racks up a bigger body count than Khan on City of Doom alone, and there’s a real creepiness to his zombie minions as they are regular people stripped of all identity and forced into becoming walking meat shields. I think one way to make him work better on his own could be by playing up his ruthlessness and charm, and focus on the mind control/cult leader aspect. Make him the Jim Jones of Shadow villains.

Justice Inc redesigned him to look like Boris Karloff, divorced him of racist trappings, played up his dark magician persona and ballooned up his abilities into outright superpowers, all of which worked quite well as the closest he's ever had to an update And interestingly, there’s some odd Joker-esque aspects to him in his final appearence in Voodoo Trail:

Though almost silent, the explosion was forcible. The tank disgorged a greenish gas that spread like an expanding monster, filling the entire room that the trio had just left.

There was something parched and withery in his face, particularly noticeable when The Shadow saw the Voodoo Master's profile. Mocquino bore the scars of flame, not only on his face, but upon the scrawny arm he extended from his robe. Those burns showed like livid brands: a fitting mark for a supercriminal.

That hissing sound in the zombi cave! It was gas, leaking from underground pipes that led into Manhattan. Filtering through the porous stone, it gathered other chemical elements. Mocquino must have discovered that leakage and noted its effects. He had put the discovery to his own use.

...lips formed a grin so jagged that it was difficult to note where his mouth ended and his scar began.

Mocquino's shrill laugh told that he expected his men to overwhelm The Shadow through force of numbers.

Honestly, “Doctor Mocquino” I think is a better name for him than Voodoo Master. A Rogues Gallery isn’t complete without a major Doctor in there, and divorcing Mocquino of “Voodoo Master” and all that implies could be the better way of making this character work again. Play up the fact that he’s exploiting Caribbean religions and citizens for personal gain and roping them into his crime ring, maybe even have him use similar theatrics as The Shadow to paint himself as this great master of voodoo, but in the end, he’s always just Doctor Mocquino, an evil, rotten shyster who puts his knowledge to use for evil and evil alone.

Responsible for the first and only cliffhanger of Shadow Magazine with the kidnapping of Rutledge Mann, Benedict Stark is easily the single worst scumbag out of all Shadow supervillains. Just this completely horrible, wretched monster who ends up being somewhat dissappointing and frustrating of a villain in my view. Despite having quite a bit going on for him, Stark is not really interesting enough to warrant the 4 novels he gets, and where as Khan and Mocquino usually escape The Shadow thanks to prior planning and last-minute escape and strokes of luck, Stark seems to get away with it only because the narrative says so, not nearly as impressive as the other two despite being far, far worse, which makes it you don’t want The Shadow to match wits with him, so much as you just want The Shadow to kill him as soon as possible. In fact, here’s what Stark gets away with in the first ten pages of The Prince of Evil alone:

He gaslights a man named John Harmon into thinking he was developing amnesia

Gets Harmon to sign away enough money to be bankrupted for life, and no one, not even his wife, believe him when he says he was conned

Causes Harmon to commit suicide.

Then, while Cranston's talking with a friend of Harmon named Jackson who wanted to help him, the two go to Jackson's house to find it completely destroyed, his priceless belongings acid-ruined.

Then, they find Jackson's dog dead, with it's throat slit, and a Bible scattered nearby with the story of the good Samaritan marked, making it clear that this all happened because Jackson tried to help Harmon.

And then, as Cranston tries to stop one of Stark's goons from brutally assaulting a boy who was just paid by Cranston to watch his car, he gets attacked and knocked unconscious.

And THEN, the henchman gives the kid a brain concussion and then hauls him in front of a coming truck, with Cranston just barely saving the kid in time as the henchman escapes.

This is just the first 10 pages. Not even Spider novels usually start with this many atrocities happening all at once. Whatever problems Tinsley has as a Shadow writer, I’ll give him this: He definitely knows how to go from 0 to 100 in ways Gibson never would. The book obviously doesn’t keep this up forever (thank goodness), but The Prince of Evil is really all about building up Stark’s presence as this new ultimate Shadow villain, and I think the build up is quite solid up to a point.

He’s established as possibly the richest man in America. Where as Cranston is a millionaire, Stark is a billionaire, who owns “ailways and steamships, factories and mills all over the United States". Nobody knows what he looks like, nobody’s ever seen a picture of him, and Cranston, who knows everyone and everything, has never once laid eyes on the man. We also know in advance that he uses drugs delivered by chewing gum to turn his thugs into bloodthirsty savages who desire only terror and torture and inflict those at his beck and call, and we get a passage where Clyde Burke ingests one of these gums, experiences it’s effects, and ends up chasing down a mouse and killing it, for no reason other than it was the only living being nearby, much to his horror. And it very nearly develops into something even worse:

He could hear the snoring of a man sleeping inside a cellar apartment. Clyde halted. His fingers tightened on his iron bar. He guessed that the man asleep inside was the building janitor. He fought against a hot impulse that flared anew in his blood.

He wanted to kill that janitor! He wanted to smash at him with the iron bar until the man was battered and dead! Murder seemed so exciting. And so easy! Clyde could picture the terror of his victim as he struck at him. It would be sheer delight to maim the fool before he killed him.

The thing that saved Clyde was the thought of the chewing gum. He knew that the savage whisper that urged him on to murder was not his own brain talking, but the voice of a powerful drug.

Laying the bar on the concrete floor, he ran for the cellar exit. He didn't glance back. He was afraid that if he did, he'd be tempted to pick up the bar and commit a senseless and brutal crime.

The cold bite of the breeze was like a draft of cooling water against his parched lips. He began to get a grip on himself. Once more he was Clyde Burke, a normal human being who would go out of his way to avoid hurting a fly.

Stark has weaponized and mass-produced a drug that creates an army of Mr Hydes at his beck and call, that can turn even one of the kindest and most heroic characters into the series into a sadistic maniac itching to main and murder anything that’s in front of him, and that alone is not just a much more viscerally horrifying kind of mind control than what Khan and Mocquino use, it’s also got a an edge to it more suited for gritty urban drama. It’s an idea I definitely would have liked to see used again even after Stark’s out of the picture.

And then we actually get to see Stark for this first time, and he’s described as a grotesquely deformed baboon man leering at his beautiful secretaries, who deliberately employs the most attractive people to make his own deformities stand out further, and who is cartoonishly vile everytime he opens his mouth. He never really displays exceptional cleverness, compared to other Shadow villains, except for the fact that he keeps suspecting Cranston is The Shadow, and sometimes just seems to get really lucky. Stark tends to get much, much less interesting as the build-up evaporates and he has to stand on his own feet as a character, I barely remember anything he did in the following books. At the time, I thought Stark’s characterization was weak, and I still do.

This text blurb here was used on a promo S&S did for Prince of Evil, and it starts by talking about incredibly well-liked people who are kind and how Stark is the opposite because he's evil. Of course, as we all know, evil and well-liked are not opposites.

Stark may have been a tad more interesting had they went with the angle of him being a horrible monster who's also incredibly popular and beloved and friendly. About 70% of The Shadow’s villains are already middle-aged to elder rich businessmen pretending to be good, so maybe Stark being young and attractive and initially sympathetic-looking, atop being the richest and cruelest of them all, could also help set him apart. Sort of an evil Harry Vincent maybe.

But instead he's so obviously and viscerally awful all the time he shows up, so incapable of restraining himself, that it's impossible to buy him as a deceiver who’s pulled the wool over society’s eyes. At the time, I thought to myself that he was just painfully obvious of a villain and too brutish and stupid for me to buy that he’s supposed to be the richest criminal genius in America.

But then again, nowadays I’m well aware that wealthy and respected figures of society, who are cartoonishly horrible even openly in public, is just what billionaires are like, so maybe Tinsley had a point here.

#replies tag #the shadow #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #shadow magazine #dr mocquino #the voodoo master #benedict stark #the prince of evil

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incarnateirony · 6 years

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Tumblr chaos, post rescue; Castiel, ratings, etc etc.

So tumblr decided to go bonky but in a way I could save an old post, that won’t turn up by direct link anymore, or open the Keep Reading. Keep in mind this was made mid-season-13, and I haven’t been arsed to update it since then, but this is just me like... rescuing a post. HOPEFULLY THIS ONE WORKS.

So we’ve all heard the divisive wank. First, it was that “Cas ratings are the lowest rated” and, some that STARTED clue-ing in backpedaled to “well he has no POSITIVE effect on the ratings.” - whatever it took to try to make it seem like Misha had no personal positive impact to the show.

This is a topic I covered in an old video of mine, but I decided to do it modernly again, complete with automated spreadsheet. Episodes have been listed by number, demo, raw viewers, and then Cas Y/N. For the sake of argument, at another point I’ll also do breakouts based on “Cas promotion” to show how the shift is incredibly more drastic there, but Northern Sparrow did that back in Season 10 with expectable results. So for now, let’s cover this. And I’ve literally tried to postulate as many of the anti-arguments to discredit pro-Cas things as possible.

The following episodes are based on “Did Cas appear in any capacity in these episodes in this season,”

Arguments have been made such as removing the Premier as an alternate total for Castiel, under the extremely generous assumption that fans and GA do not generally expect Cas in the Premier at this point, and that none of the numbers are in any way related.

This is a buffer provided in the interest of anti-arguments, rather than from the angle of Pro-Cas. Finales do not have the same effect, as they generally drift from the premier demo, as quite literally witnessed in all the charts below. The charts are then sorted by N/Y on Cas, but you can doublecheck the numbers as you wish.

All numbers have been rounded to hundredths (0.xx) for demo and x.xxx for million viewers. If it is missing another unit, that means it was a 0, and Excel ate the 0.

( Numbers are sourced from the highly popular https://tvseriesfinale.com/ )

SEASON 11

Possible anti argument: Cas was only in voice in Baby. Even still I urge you to do the math and realize it does NOT bring Cas down to the season average or No Cas thresholds as is. Minus the premiere, Cas still pulls 0.044 above episodes that do not have him. Minus baby it drops to the 0.03 range-ish. Go on. You have a calculator.

SEASON 12

This is the closest one to date, if only because various negative impact of 12x19′s airdate is NOT being removed, again, in the interest of giving anti-Cas people every benefit of the doubt (and it wasn’t the size of the one I’m about to talk about soon), and every angle, without removal or exemption for special rules that would give him any positive edge. Even with this hit, 0.016 demo still cements Cas above episodes without him, even with the premier removed.

HERE’S WHERE IT GETS FUN THOUGH.

SEASON 13

You’re probably wondering what the hell all of that at the bottom is. That’s me literally giving haters every possible argument in the book I could think of in their interest to drag Cas down.

Cas Minus Premier you’ve figured out by now.

Cas Minus Premier Minus Thanksgiving seems like we’re giving Castiel an extra “but but but!” argument.

But you will also see that “No Cas” has been given an exception on the mass pre-emption of 13x17, with an option removing that from the tally, despite not doing so for season 12 in his favor (which you will notice very similar number shift on 12x19).

Both Thanksgiving and the NYC blackout of airing were exceptional events, and each “side” reasonably has one, so while giving the NYC exemption, and knowing the network has said they’re aware of Thanksgiving and writing it off as a “special” due to the holiday, both are receiving options of Exemption from the totals.

In the interest of comparing the excess effects of Scoobynatural, a bracket has been made for “Total without Scooby,” “Cas value without Scooby,” and “Thanksgiving without Scooby.” Obviously we can not include “No Cas NYC without Scooby” as that is already self-exempted as an episode that contained Cas.

The results are as to be seen. The only way, whatsoever, that ratings operate at-or-better than the average result of episodes with Castiel included are if you: Include Thanksgiving’s crash to Cas, while giving non-Cas eps an exemption on NYC, and remove Scoobynatural’s bonus. That’s right. If you give them a free pass on their reasonable crashout episode, but make Cas take the equally reasonable crashout episode as a penalty, and remove a good episode of his entirely as a special, the episodes would almost match.

To clarify:

Castiel, Thanksgiving Included, No Scooby: 0.59, and removing the premiere ticks it to about 0.58.

Non-Cas eps, NYC exempt, letting them get the benefit OF Scooby’s ratings without including it to Cas... even though... Cas was in the ep? You’ll get 0.585.

That is literally the only way to break it even. If you remove Scooby from their season average since... Cas was... in Scooby... and not getting the benefit... they still drop under the line.

Obviously the most reasonable comparison would be to remove Scooby from both for the “special” argument (which really only strips bonus from Cas), and give either neither, or both, their respective exemption. (Thanksgiving, NYC)

Cas, minus premiere, minus scoob, minus thanks: 0.607

Non-Cas, minus NYC crash: 0.577

Cas, Minus Premier, scoob, including Thanks: 0.59

Non-Cas, including NYC crash: 0.557

[drums fingers on desk] So what I’m reading out of this is, if I penalize every possible Cas route and give every possible benefit to non-Castiel episodes, they break even. If we do equal penalty or lack thereof, we get 0.030 difference and 0.033 both in Castiel’s favor, kinda like I said he runs us roughly 0.03 difference depending on the night, modernly?

And we had an identical effect in S11? And... S12, it appears to be half, when allowing Castiel to still take every penalized episode, but it’s still above the same base line?

And then there’s also the fact that raw viewership on all S11-13 totals are also higher on average, if people want to spin that angle, even if it’s technically demo that matters.

I wonder what this MEANS.

WHAT COULD IT MEAN?

That’s at least three years. I could probably go further back, as I imagine this divide started gradually inclining from S9 for misc reasons, but it’s here, and we’re here, and we’re now. Digging back into archives of season 6 (if there’s even a true net negative going on there, which I doubt, just saying “ancient history”) doesn’t matter when we are in TODAY. This is three consecutive years. With EVERY REASONABLE ANTI ARGUMENT AVAILABLE AND SPECCED OUT FOR THEM. I am literally arguing a case FOR THEIR END and the only way to do it is to WILLINGLY twist it into the most ridiculous penalty/reward imbalance to even make it even.

And while this prepares to reblog and no doubt get skewed, I’m going to provide a useful attachment in advance for the inevitable, pre-telegraphed, “But ratings are down compared to before and that’s cuz Bro Only fans left and they’re the TRUE MAJORITY” (as if we never had a Cas/Destiel fan exodus in S9 and 10 too or anything from other drama) so have a link on why that simply isn’t true. As well as addresses a bunch of other dumb-as-rocks talking points people who don’t understand what they’re looking at tend to use to bag on people/the show.

There’s a reason S12 crept into the top 20 shows for digital calls in the world for the first time last year, including resources like Hulu and Amazon that, while they do not report to Nielsen for demo numbers, report to the network for digital sales. S13 is doing even better. I can’t wait to get the numbers on that when season is done.

And before anyone challenges my “link on why that simply isn’t true” I’m going to issue a simple challenge: Find me a show aside from the Superbowl that gets, today, the 10.0s that were fairly common high-ish end TV back in 2005. I’m not gonna make it ridiculous and ask for the 20.0′s that ER was getting at the time. Find me a 10. Because ratings everywhere have declined.

I keep issuing this challenge for people to find me even one 10.0 current nightly show this year, but it’s like... it’s like nobody can find it. I wonder why!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s fine if you don’t like Cas. Nobody says you have to like Cas. Acting like he has no net positive impact is ridiculous. Spreading misinformation because someone with a myopic episode-to-episode, strictly-fandom-bubble, argument-of-the-hour-for-only-their-preferred-perspective, is absolute insanity.

And before anyone does the OTHER telegraphed argument of “WELL... THAT’S... JUST... 0.03ISH!” you first need to recognize that’s a 5%~ loyalty viewership impact over the season, but those are strictly STANS THAT ONLY TUNE IN WHEN HE IS THERE. That is NOTHING to say of the ramifications that would happen if he would leave entirely, permanently. And considering the myopic “no positive impact” is direly wrong, you MIGHT want to consider how much of the GA outside of the hatred-bubble has drawn an affinity to him as their primary interest. All existing demographic information says about 33%. Some have said over 40% would quit if he didn’t come back at one point. This was a 10,000 head census, IP-checked-for-individuality polling with over 60 individualized questions. Dean still got 50% of preferred character interest. Sam’s made me cringe with how low it was but it unfortunately matches all other global trends on other platforms, and that sucks. But even if it was “low” respectively, they’re both important. Between the two it meant J2 - as two separate individuals - pulled about 67% of the show popularity, with Misha pulling the other third. And considering the regained S7-8 demographic, thataboutmakessense.

Like I said, at some point I’ll do one on the effect of Cas promos, but at one point, Northern Sparrow did this in S10, so I mean

Have that to pacify you for now to see that this was already an ongoing this even back then.

Hopefully I armed people with some good information the next time someone spews this age-old horse shit at them.

#supernatural #ratings #castiel #the cas effect #tumblr is wild

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nobszone · 6 years

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A midterm night’s dream

So as my American followers know, we have an election tomorrow. Rather exciting isn’t it? I can say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the run up to this one, though it took a while to really get going.

Anyway, before we all go to the polls, I’d like to share a rather...interesting experience I had last week.

(Also a thousand apologies to Jonathan Pie, whose writings this story is ripping off inspired by).

The story begins last week, November the 1st. It had been a busy day. It was the day after Halloween which meant everyone was rushing to put away the pumpkins and deck the halls, gamers everywhere were getting ready for the start of Blizzcon the next day (only to be inevitably disappointed when Blizzard pulled a Konami) and the entire internet had learned what I had known for years; the most powerful Smasher was The Pink Nightmare.

But it had also been a very busy few months. The Midterm Elections had been circled on many an American’s calendar ever since January 20, 2017. A lot of things had been happening in the American political sphere this year, and there was a palpable sense of anticipation for the Midterms, and for good reason. This was, in many ways, the first major referendum on the job performance of Donald Trump.

So as you can imagine, this particular election was being framed as “The Most Important Election Ever.” But seeing as how the same thing had been said about the last several elections, I knew that for better or worse it would most likely be back to business as usual once it was over (for what passes as “usual” these days).

So on that day I had returned home from work, and when I opened my mailbox I was delighted to see my absentee ballot inside. Truth be told, I don’t really care much for standing in line at the polls and given that my ballot this year had quite a lot of things on it to consider, I really didn’t feel like standing in a voting booth for a good 30 minutes.

Even so, ever since I turned 18 I’ve never missed a chance to participate in our democratic process, and I wasn’t going to start now.

Now I know what you’re all thinking. How did I intend to vote? Well, this was a bit of a tricky proposition for me. I try my best to be an informed voter, reading up on the candidates and their stances on the issues and deciding for myself who’s platform I agree with more.

But this time I was going purely on instinct, and my instinct was to vote straight-ticket Democrat. Which really felt strange because, historically, my instinct has always been to do the opposite of whatever Michael Moore tells me to do.

I parked my car and opened the door to my house, with a spring in my step and my ballot in my hand. I was confident in my conviction that, despite some reservations, voting for the Dems in this election was the only sensible choice to make. And I knew it was the right choice, because my Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr feeds had been saying the same for months. Anyone who was anyone was telling me that only a racist, idiot or Russian spy would vote for the GOP in this election, so it must be true.

And besides, I had conjured up a fantasy in my head of Trump being so irate at a Democratic controlled house that he instantly resigned the Presidency out of spite.

This was going to be easy.

Well, it had been a long day at work, and it’s not a good idea to vote when your mind is fatigued. So I decided a quick nap was in order; and afterwards I would be refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to do my civic duty as a citizen of the Republic.

I set the ballot down on the counter and sprawled out on the couch and closed my eyes. I was home alone, and thus I felt no particular reservations about napping in the living room.

And then, something happened.

A voice began to speak to me. I became apprehensive and frightened. Who was it that was speaking? Was it my conscience? Was it God? Was it the first signs of schizophrenia?

Either way, I instantly knew who was addressing me.

It was the voice...of Princess Luna.

Now, don’t be alarmed. As long time followers know, I am an OG Brony. And as such, I occasionally experience visitations from the denizens of Equestria during times of emotional distress. Whether it’s Twilight Sparkle giving me encouragement before finals, Rainbow Dash assuring me that neither the last launch of the Space Shuttle nor the 2017 Solar Eclipse will be clouded out, or Vinyl Scratch giving me some companionship on those cold Winter nights, I’ve just gotten used to it.

But this was the first time I’d been visited by Princess Luna. The lunar regent herself! The only pony who’s presence in a dream actually made sense!

Time slowed, I sat up on the couch, rubbing my eyes blearily. But Luna remained standing in front of me, having adopted a humanoid form for a variety of Freudian reasons. Once again she began to speak.

“My friend, what troubles you?”

I sighed.

“I’m confused.”

An expression of sympathy crossed her face as she put a hand on her chest.

“Of course you’re confused. How can you not be? Everyone is confused. Because the only thing the media is talking about is what this means for Donald Trump.

“But there’s something missing. Information. How can you possibly make a decision if you’re not properly informed?”

She sat down beside me, taking my hand in hers.

“You and your fellow citizens have a tough choice to make. The GOP’s stance on immigration has been reprehensible, and Trump’s wish to mobilize troops is practically a Kent State-style situation waiting to happen. But despite his overtones, those migrants are not turning around. What happens to them when they get to the border? What happens if Trump ends birthright citizenship? And what about legal immigrants? If you sustain immigration at its current levels, what will happen to public services? Will Medicaid be able to cope?

“The economy is doing rather nice. Historically speaking, a good economy bodes well for the ruling party. But what about Trump’s trade war with China? Or the tax bill? Trump has often used the stock market as an indicator of how the economy is doing, but it lost nearly $2 trillion last month alone!

“And there’s so many other issues to consider as well. Will LGBT rights continue to be protected? Will your foreign policy change? Will gun rights be protected? There’s a lot to consider here.”

I held up a hand. “I know all these things, Luna. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, you know the Republicans plans for these things. But, tell me my friend, have you heard anything from the Democrats about how they plan to handle issues?”

I paused. I thought about her question and realized she was right. I’ve heard how my local candidates would approach those issues, but in terms of a unified strategy from the Democrats?

I’d heard nothing.

Other than-

“All you’ve heard from the Democrats is that you need to vote for them so they can stop Trump. And yes, that very well could happen, but to what end?” Luna asked, finishing my thought.

She stood up and faced me.

“The real problem is nobody wants to admit that they don’t know what will happen if things stay as they are for two more years, let alone what will happen if there’s significant opposition to the President. Your country has never had a President like this before.

“The GOP says that they’ll advocate for Conservative views and values instead of constantly kissing Trump’s ring. But recent history tells us that’s not going to happen. Furthermore, the GOP has traditionally been in favor of a smaller government and a weaker executive branch, and now you’re in a position where the traditional Republican argument is being made by Democrats. And because everyone thinks that the GOP is a bunch of racists, Libertarians like yourself are scared of being labeled Pro-Trump by default!”

Luna began to pace around the room as she started to talk of fear. “This whole debate, if you can call it a debate, has been about causing fear!” she cried. And every time she said the word “fear”, she spoke in her Royal Canterlot Voice.

“The Democrats say that your democracy will be undermined by Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. Fear.

“Trump says that America will be overrun by caravans of migrants and masses of illegal aliens if the Republicans lose. Fear.

“Barack Obama says the character of your country is on the ballot. Fear.

“The GOP is not only ramping up the threat of illegals, but that a Democratic majority would wreck the economy. Fear or fear? Would you like some fear with your fear?!”

Luna paused. I sat upright, riveted to my seat.

“The level of debate during this process has been terrifying! It has exposed everything that is wrong with modern political discourse. Jane Fonda compared Trump to Hitler, as if that comparison has never been made about any politician since 1945, yet Fox News claims that liberal donors would rather the Democrats start a nuclear war, if that was the case then why would anyone vote for a party who could potentially destroy the planet?

“Emma Gonzalez says that the lives of high school students depend on who is elected, and Trump says a vote for Democrats is a vote for MS-13 to run wild. I always thought school shootings and MS-13′s criminal activities would happen regardless of who was in office, but no, silly me, apparently the GOP is allowing people to gun down kids, while paradoxically MS-13 supports more gun control legislation! Once again, a national political debate has descended into FARCE! ”

Luna’s voice reached a fever pitch. It felt like the entire world shook with the reverberation of each syllable.

“The right has completely abandoned its principles in favor of supporting a man with an ego the size of a planet and the intelligence of a gnat! And the left has made it all about personality over politics, emotion over logic, which is a laugh seeing as their candidate in the last election lacked both of those things!”

“This is the choice your country faces!” Luna exclaimed, her eyes burrowing into my soul and her voice shattering every molecule of air around me. “Vote for Democrats and you’re supporting Identity Politics! Vote for Republicans and you’re supporting Statism! IDENTITY POLITICS OR STATISM! FUCK ME, WHAT A CHOICE! YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE STUCK BETWEEN THE WEHRMACHT AND THE RED ARMY!”

The silence was nearly as deafening as the voice it succeeded. I sat there, looking Luna square in the eye, her face seemingly frozen in an intense glare.

And then I could look no more. I put my face into my hands and I wept.

She was correct. For all my enthusiasm and patriotism, we were at a morton’s fork yet again. My hope was that once the 2016 election was over, the polarization would die down as both parties sought to get on with the job. Instead it never ended. The GOP sold out to Trump and the Dems learned nothing from Clinton’s defeat.

“What do I do?” I managed to choke out. “What can I do?”

It was at this point that I felt Luna embrace me. Her arms wrapping around my back, gently rubbing like a mother soothing an upset child. Her head rested on my shoulder, her snout buried in the crook of my neck as she did her best to bring my emotions back to a more reasonable level.

“It’s alright, my friend.” She whispered to me. “You know what you must do...you always have.”

And then I opened my eyes. I was awake, and she was gone.

Even now, nearly a week later, I still can’t get my head around what happened. Sure enough when I woke up, I felt refreshed and in the correct mindset to cast my ballot.

But following the advice of the lunar regent, I abandoned my original plan and instead I took some time to brush up on the candidates and their platforms once more. Then I voted for the candidates that I felt would do the best job.

And I honestly can’t work out how I would’ve voted if I hadn’t taken that nap.

And now it’s your turn. Despite all the polls and predictions, we still have no idea how today is going to turn out. This time however, both sides share blame for the uncertainty.

What it comes down to is this. We’re nearly 2 years into Donald Trump’s attempt to “Make America Great Again”, but we still don’t know what that means. Maybe I’m being factitious though, because Trump and his hardcore base seems to know what it means. It means an America with walls on the borders and divisions among the populace, an America where you can’t trust anyone (especially any TV channel that isn’t Fox News), an America where potential interference from a hostile power is not only tolerated, but perhaps encouraged.

Doesn’t sound that great to me, but of course you’re free to disagree with that.

But the Democrats aren’t much better. What the hell is their plan for America? Have they thought of anything besides “Impeach Trump?” And what if the Mueller probe comes back and it turns out that even if Russia was running an operation to harm our country and people Trump knew were involved but Trump himself wasn’t, what happens then? Hope he invites a porn star to the Oval Office and do re-enactment the Lewinsky affair?

The problem is no one knows what the Democrat’s plans are, because they have no plan after “Impeach Trump.” In a related story, no one knows what “Make America Great Again” means because no one ever knew what it meant.

And, like it or not, this all falls at the feet of Donald Trump.

We were never supposed to vote for Donald Trump.

You know it, I know it, we all know it. No one thought we would vote for Trump. Even people that voted for Trump didn’t think we’d vote for Trump. That’s why the Democrats were so eager for him to get the nomination and didn’t particularly care that they screwed over Bernie Sanders for an utterly unelectable candidate in Hillary Clinton; they assumed an election against Trump wouldn’t mean a Trump win, but it did and instead we got the single biggest embarrassment of the Democrats since 1968.

Fast forward two years later, and really nothing has changed.

For the last two years, the level of debate has been appalling from both sides of the aisle. Both sides have to take responsibility for this. There haven’t been any facts. There’s been no debate about policy, proposals, nothing. It’s all been about who can say the most alarmist thing or pull off the sneakiest trick and get away with it.

Nothing that has happened over the last two years has been reasonable political debate. It’s more like a dream you have after you’ve done a fifth of Vodka and a No Mercy run on Undertale.

One involving Princess Luna perhaps?

#politics #American Politics #Midterm Elections #humor #jonathan pie #brony #bronies #mlp

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Do Republicans Think Of Trump Now

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-do-republicans-think-of-trump-now/

What Do Republicans Think Of Trump Now

Republicans Think Democrats Always Cheat

What do majority of Americans think of Donald Trump after the recent U.S capitol siege ? | WION

The Republican strategy has several sources of motivation, but the most important is a widely shared belief that Democrats in large cities i.e., racial minorities engage in systematic vote fraud, election after election. We win because of our ideas, we lose elections because they cheat us, insisted Senator Lindsey Graham on Fox News last night. The Bush administration pursued phantasmal vote fraud allegations, firing prosecutors for failing to uncover evidence of the schemes Republicans insisted were happening under their noses. In 2008, even a Republican as civic-minded as John McCain accused ACORN, a voter-registration group, of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.

The persistent failure to produce evidence of mass-scale vote fraud has not discouraged Republicans from believing in its existence. The failure to expose it merely proves how well-hidden the conspiracy is. Republicans may despair of their chances of proving Trumps vote-fraud charges in open court, but many of them believe his wild lies reflect a deeper truth.

One In Five Republicans Say They Think Donald Trump Will Be Reinstated As President This Year

President Joe Biden faces significant and unusual threats to his presidency, which previous presidents have not had to deal with. The most striking is the degree to which many Americans do not recognize his fair electoral victory.;

In the latest Economist/YouGov poll, a sizable percentage of the public and nearly three in four Republicans say they do not accept his election and believe he was not legitimately elected president. The size of GOP doubt about President Bidens election has not changed appreciably since his inauguration. Overall, more than a third of the public today are election doubters.;

For some who reject the election outcome, there is even an expectation that the results will be altered. One in six overall and one in four Republicans now believe it is likely that former President Donald Trump will be reinstated in the White House by the end of the year. One in five Trump supporters believe the same.;

Supporters have falsely claimed that Trump would be reinstated on multiple dates and have changed the expected date each time it does not happen.

Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow had said the reinstatement would take place this Friday, but he has now extended the timeline. Lindell is popular with those with those who think there will soon be a change at the White House.; By more than two to one, those who expect Trump will be reinstated have a favorable opinion of him. Among all Americans, unfavorable views exceed favorable ones narrowly .;

Image: Getty;

How Early Trump Supporters Feel Now

The former presidents 2015 backers, in their own words

About the author: Conor Friedersdorf is a California-based staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.

Now that Donald Trumps presidency is over, how do the Americans who supported him at the beginning of his political run feel about his performance in the Oval Office? I put that question to 30 men and women who wrote to me in August 2015 to explain their reasons for backing his insurgent candidacy.

Among the eight who replied, all in the second week of January, after the storming of the Capitol, some persist in supporting Trump; others have turned against him; still others have lost faith in the whole political system. They do not constitute a representative sample of Trump voters. But their views, rendered in their own words, offer more texture than polls that tell us an approval rating.

As I did in 2015, Ill let the Trump voters have their say. But this time Ill conclude with some thoughts of my own, in my capacity as a Trump critic who knows that Americans have no choice but to coexist, as best we can, because our political and ideological differences are never going away.

And now?

The third correspondent told me in 2015 that hed vote for Trump, despite knowing that he would do a terrible job:

His assessment today:

Read Also: What Are The Basic Differences Between Democrats And Republicans

‘nobody Is Afraid Of Their Grandfather’

Many Republicans expect Americans will become dissatisfied with record levels of government spending and debt, an increasingly crowded U.S.-Mexican border;and new rules and regulations promulgated by the Democratic Congress and the Biden administration.

Pledging to work with the Biden administration on an infrastructure bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he is “hopeful” that “we may be able to do some things on a bipartisan basis; but they got off to a pretty hard left-wing start.”

“We don’t intend to participate in turning America into a left-wing,;kind of Bernie Sanders vision of what this country ought to be like,” McConnell told Fox News after the meeting between Biden and congressional leaders.

Fiscally conservative groups are stepping up campaigns against Biden and his spending proposals.

The organization Americans For Prosperity is preparing ads for competitive House districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia. Biden wrested those states from Trump in the 2020 election, providing him his margin of victory in the Electoral College.

Some Republican criticism plays off Biden’s age and his occasionally mangled syntax, but that strategy has met limited success. Some of the attacks mirror the ones Trump made in 2020 against “Sleepy Joe.”

“Trump never found a salient way to brand Biden, and Republicans continue to struggle after the election,” Republican strategist Alex Conant said.

Inside The Republicans Bunker

Its hard to be worried when you dont really like the guy. Thats what one senior Republican Senate aide had to say when I asked how concerned conservatives are about Donald Trumps fate.

The truth is, Trump fatigue is a condition that knows no party, and many Republicans are as tired of this shit as anybody else. Thats not to say theyre outraged, or motivated to Make a Difference. Theyre just tired. You can live inside the right-wing bubble in a state of depression, resigned to the fact that, yeah, every five minutes or so, the president is probably going to do something norm-shattering or potentially impeachable, and no, you probably wont or cant do anything to change that. Sad!

Im totally bored by the story, one person who speaks regularly with the president told me. Theres nothing to it. I already know all the details. This person is bored more generally, too with the topic of Donald Trump. When we talk about what it would take for the presidents defenders to turn on him, this crucial piece is missing: You cant feel outraged if you can no longer feel anything at all.

If you were to turn on Fox News, this is what you would hear. I called up Newt Gingrich the other day, and it was like he was just reading directly from these emails, which suggest a strategy of partisan bullying and obfuscation. In other words, no real counterargument or legal defense to speak of.

*This article appears in the October 14, 2019, issue of;New York Magazine.

Read Also: Do Republicans Want To Cut Social Security And Medicare

Republicans And Their Declared Positions On Donald Trump

Elected officials’ positions on Donald Trump Federal:Republicans and their declared positions on Donald Trump Republicans supporting Donald Trump Republicans opposing Donald Trump State and local: Republican reactions to 2005 Trump tape

In a typical general election year, elected officials readily line up behind their party’s presidential nominee. In 2012, for example, The Hill reported that only four Republican members of Congress had declined to endorse Mitt Romney by mid-September of that year. “All other House and Senate Republicans” had already endorsed the Republican nominee.

But 2016 was not a typical general election year.

Controversial comments from the GOP’s 2016 nominee, Donald Trump, about women, Muslims, Hispanics, and veterans who were prisoners of war caused some Republican lawmakers to distance themselves from the businessman, while others outright denounced him.

This page tracked the stances of Republican lawmakers on Trump throughout the 2016 presidential election: Did they support him? Did they oppose him? Or were they somewhere in between? The focus of this page is on Republican members of Congress and Republican governors, but we also have included some information on influential Republicans who have served in Republican presidential administrations.

Republicans Cant Understand Democrats

Only one in four Republican voters felt that most or almost all Democratic voters sincerely believed they were;voting in the best interests of the country.;;Rather, many Republicans told us that Democratic voters were brainwashed by the propaganda of the mainstream media, or voting solely in their self-interest to preserve undeserved welfare and food stamp benefits.

We asked every Republican in the sample to do their best to imagine that they were a Democrat and sincerely believed that the Democratic Party was best for the country.;;We asked them to explain their support for the Democratic Party as an actual Democratic voter might.;;For example, a 64-year-old strong Republican man from Illinois surmised that Democrats want to help the poor, save Social Security, and tax the rich.;;;

But most had trouble looking at the world through Democratic eyes. Typical was a a 59-year-old Floridian who wrote I dont want to work and I want cradle to grave assistance. In other words, Mommy!;Indeed, roughly one in six Republican voters answered in the persona of a Democratic voter who is motivated free college, free health care, free welfare, and so on.;;They see Democrats as voting in order to get free stuff without having to work for it was extremely common roughly one in six Republican voters used the word free in the their answers, whereas no real Democratic voters in our sample answered this way.;

Also Check: What Major Cities Are Run By Republicans

Government Is Not The Solution To Domestic Social Problems

This is pretty universal among Republicans. Government should not be providing solutions to problems that confront people . Those problems should be solved by the people themselves. A Republican would say that relying on the government to solve problems is a crutch that makes people lazy and feel entitled to receive things without working for them.

Republican Allies Break With Trump Say Take Time To Count All The Votes

What do California GOP voters think of Trump?

WASHINGTON Some Republicans are not falling in line behind President Donald Trump’s attempts to falsely declare victory and seek to halt some vote-counting in the presidential race, with several GOP leaders expressing rare public rebukes of the president.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a Trump ally who usually avoids criticizing the president in public, told reporters Wednesday that “claiming you’ve won the election is different from finishing the counting.”

With millions of votes still uncounted, Trump in a 2:35 a.m. Wednesday speech at the White House baselessly claimed he had defeated Democrat Joe Biden and alleged “major fraud on our nation” as election officials work through a massive surge in mail-in ballots, which they had long warned would take extra time to count. The president called for a halt in “all voting.”

Don’t Miss: Did Republicans Support The Civil Rights Act

The Real Reason Trump Is Not A Republican

John C. Danforth was a Republican U.S. senator from Missouri from 1976 to 1995.

Many have said that President Trump isnt a Republican. They are correct, but for a reason more fundamental than those usually given. Some focus on Trumps differences from mainstream GOP policies, but the party is broad enough to embrace different views, and Trump agrees with most Republicans on many issues. Others point to the insults he regularly directs at party members and leaders, but Trump is not the first to promote self above party. The fundamental reason Trump isnt a Republican is far bigger than words or policies. He stands in opposition to the founding principle of our party that of a united country.

We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, and our founding principle is our commitment to holding the nation together. This brought us into being just before the Civil War. The first resolution of the platform at the partys first national convention states in part that the union of the States must and shall be preserved. The issue then was whether we were one nation called the United States or an assortment of sovereign states, each free to go its own way. Lincoln believed that we were one nation, and he led us in a war to preserve the Union.

Read more on this issue:

Opiniontrump’s Gop Is An Embarrassment Here’s Why Democrats Like Me Can’t Give Up On It

While Romney may be the lone Republican senator to defy Trump at all , many organizations like the Lincoln Project, Republican Voters Against Trump, 43 Alumni for Biden and Right Side PAC are forming. All have Republicans at the helm who are publicly supporting Biden in a grassroots effort to take down Trump at the ballot box in November. The focus of many of these groups are swing states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, which are full of suburban voters who voted for Trump in 2016.

While these groups are encouraging, Republican lawmakers still need to understand that they are going to hemorrhage support until they disavow the Trump takeover of their party. If they want people to remain Republican voters such as the ones who belong to these newly formed groups, they need to start rebuilding the party and reground it in the principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility and equality for all.

Recommended Reading: What Name Did The Democrats Give Southerners Who Became Republicans

America Should Deport Illegal Immigrants

Republicans believe that illegal immigrants, no matter the reason they are in this country, should be forcibly removed from the U.S. Although illegal immigrants are often motivated to come to the U.S. by companies who hire them, Republicans generally believe that the focus of the law should be on the illegal immigrants and not on the corporations that hire them.

All Aboard The Trump Train

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House

The country’s top Republican and the party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee said on June 2 that he would support Trump. His change of mind came after he previously acknowledged the pair had “work to do” before he could back him.

On May 5, Ryan said he wasn’t ready to back the mogul, signaling Trump’s uphill battle in uniting the party in the months leading up to the general election.

“What a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards,” he told CNN. “We want somebody who takes these conservative principles, applies them to the problems and offers solutions to the country that a vast majority of Americans can vote for, that they want to be enthusiastic about.”

Trump responded with a snarky comment, saying, “I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda.”

But it all changed on June 2, when Ryan penned an op-ed for his hometown paper and said he will “be voting for him this fall.”

Rick Santorum, Former Pennsylvania Senator and 2016 Republican Presidential Candidate

“I am committed to working with Donald and his administration to ensure that conservative priorities are advanced,” he added, “not simply judicial nominees, but nominees to key administration positions.”

Orrin Hatch, Longest Serving Republican in the Senate

Although the Utah senator said Trump needs to soften his rhetoric, he has agreed to support him, according to the Associated Press.

Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader

Don’t Miss: How Many Seats Do Republicans Hold In Congress

Donald Trump Would Have Made A Great House Republican

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Content

For the past few years, its become a political truism to speak of two Americasthe Red America of Donald Trump, the Blue America of Joe Bidenand their parallel, nonintersecting realities, which shape everything from party preferences to belief in the basic principles of science. The pandemic has tragically reinforced this narrative. One need only look at a map charting the latest spikes in cases, which show up as bright-red splotches across Republican-leaning states in the South and Midwest where Trump remains remarkably popular. Biden is President now, but there are no real signs that his lower-key leadership and appeals to national unity are measurably closing the national divide. In fact, the latest Associated Press/NORCpoll, out this week, shows that, today, sixty-six per cent of Republicans believe Trumps Big Liethat Biden was not legitimately electedwhich is a percentage point more than in February.

What Is Happening To The Republicans

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in;the past.

Save this story for later.

Content

But, for all the anxiety among Republican leaders, Goldwater prevailed, securing the nomination at the Partys convention, in San Francisco. In his speech to the delegates, he made no pretense of his ideological intent. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, he said. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Goldwaters crusade failed in November of 1964, when the incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, who had become President a year earlier, after Kennedys assassination, won in a landslide: four hundred and eighty-six to fifty-two votes in the Electoral College. Nevertheless, Goldwaters ascent was a harbinger of the future shape of the Republican Party. He represented an emerging nexus between white conservatives in the West and in the South, where five states voted for him over Johnson.

Shopping

agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.

Also Check: Why Do Republicans Stand Behind Trump

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rjzimmerman · 6 years

Link

This Op-Ed by Frank Bruni of the New York Times is the best opinion piece or editorial about trump that I have read. That says much, because I have read more about trump, love him or hate him, than I can to admit, because his mere existence as ostensible president of the US confounds me. Sorry if the post is long, but, to me, Bruni’s words are worth a long post. If you read the first several paragraphs, you’ll get it. If you want more, keep reading. (Some of the text is bold. I added that touch, because those parts grabbed my attention.)

A death in the family. A punch to the gut. The announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement felt to me and many people I know like both of those, but even more so like something else: a sick cosmic joke.

How much power will a president with such tenuous claim to it get to wield? How profound and durable an impact will such a shallow and fickle person make?

Donald Trump barely won the White House, under circumstances — a tainted opponent, three million fewer votes than she received, James Comey’s moral vanity and Russia’s amoral exertions — that raise serious questions about how many Americans yearned to see him there.

But he’s virtually assured of appointing as many judges to the Supreme Court as each of his three predecessors did and could reshape Americans’ lives even more significantly. It’s the craziest dissonance. The cruelest, too.

In his heart of hearts, he doesn’t give a damn about rolling back abortion rights. Any sane analysis of his background and sober read of his character leads to that conclusion. Yet this man of all men — a misogynist, a philanderer, a grabber-by-the-you-know-what — may be the end of Roe v. Wade. Time to spring into action, Ivanka! I type that in jest, knowing that my keystrokes are in vain.

So many of Trump’s positions, not just on abortion but also on a whole lot else, were embraced late in the game, as matters of political convenience. They were his clearest path to power. Then they were his crudest way to flex it.

Now they’re his crassest way to hold on to it. He will almost certainly move to replace Kennedy with a deeply, unswervingly conservative jurist not because that’s consistent with his own core (what core?) but because it’s catnip to the elements of his base that got him this far and could carry him farther.

Never mind how much it exacerbates this country’s already crippling political polarization. Never mind how much fear it sows in many women, in many people of color and in many L.G.B.T. Americans, all of whom could see rights that they fought so long and hard for snatched away. Never mind that this is a moment, if ever there was one, to set a bipartisan example and apply a healing touch.

Trump will gladly cleave the country in two before he’ll dim the applause of his most ardent acolytes. What puffs him up takes precedence over what drags us down.

Get ready: He’ll crow and taunt. He’s already crowing and, characteristically, making Kennedy’s retirement all about him. “I’m very honored that he chose to do it during my term in office because he felt confident for me to make the right choice and carry on his great legacy,” Trump said.

He will bully, both ideologically and tactically. And he will get his way, because — this is part of that cosmic joke — the advantages seem always to cut his way. The obstacles teeter and collapse.

Other presidents have had to worry about getting 60 votes in the Senate for Supreme Court nominations to proceed. Not Trump. Despite all the smack that he has talked about Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader is there for him, their interests perfectly aligned on this.

McConnell used the “nuclear option” once already, for Neil Gorsuch, rendering a Democratic filibuster irrelevant. So the precedent has been set. The coast is clear.

It’s possible, yes, that two Senate Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — would vote against Trump’s next nominee, not wanting to help deliver the death blow to Roe v. Wade, and that Trump would then need a Democratic vote to get to 50. But it’s also possible that he could get several of those.

That’s what I mean about his outrageous fortune, his incessant advantages. The senators up for re-election in November include a number of Democrats in red states that heavily favored Trump in 2016. They have to worry about bucking and inflaming him by denying him his pick for the Supreme Court.

In fact three of them — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — supported Gorsuch’s confirmation last year. It’s no accident that North Dakota, which Trump won by nearly 36 points, was the site of his rally on Wednesday night.

Kennedy’s retirement and the acrimonious debate over his replacement will undoubtedly galvanize voters in the midterm elections in November. There’s disagreement among political analysts about which tribe — Republicans or Democrats — will benefit more at the polls.

But here’s the most galling thing: In terms of the Supreme Court, it won’t matter, not if Trump and McConnell follow through on their expressed determination to fill Kennedy’s seat before the midterms. Distraught Democrats could turn out in droves, create a blue tidal wave and take back the Senate as well as the House. They’d still be living with Trump’s court — and they’d go on living with it, in all likelihood, for many years to come.

Trump is hardly the only modern president to have a dubious mandate. George W. Bush, for example, was inaugurated after a messy recount of votes in Florida and a disputed resolution imposed by the Supreme Court.

And Trump’s Supreme Court opportunities aren’t unique. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as it happens, got their two chances to nominate new justices during their first two years in office as well.

But the shakiness of Trump’s claim to majority support, the intensity of antipathy to him and his sneering, gloating, uncompromising response to that aren’t a familiar combination. It’s impossible to square the roughly 77,000 votes by which he won the Electoral College with the license that he has given himself and the rein that the members of his adopted party have given him.

As usual, the truth about Trump is the opposite of the story he tells. He points to Robert Mueller’s investigation and to negative media coverage and portrays himself as a modern-day martyr.

But he’s the luckiest man alive. Although he savaged the G.O.P. en route to its presidential nomination, he was greeted in Washington by a mum McConnell, a blushing Paul Ryan and a mostly obsequious Republican congressional majority.

And now, with a handpicked replacement for Kennedy, he’d probably have “fewer checks on his power than any president in his lifetime,” Mike Allen wrote on Axios on Thursday, adding, “The media, normally the last check on a president with total control of government, has lost the trust of most Republicans and many Democrats, after two years of Trump pummeling.”

That doesn’t account for a Democratic takeover of at least one chamber of Congress, the importance of which cannot be overstated. And it ignores one other check that works on some presidents but not on Trump.

It’s conscience. A better man might shudder somewhat at the division that he was sowing and the wreckage in his wake. Trump merely revels in his ability to pull off what nobody thought he could. Shamelessness is his greatest gift. How unfunny is that?

#trump #Frank Bruni

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canadianabroadvery · 4 years

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Canada's Conservatives are “completely clued out” about the unpopularity of hard-right social policies and are essentially “campaigning against themselves,” two leading political commentators argued in an online panel discussion last Monday.

Answering questions from Canada's National Observer editor-in-chief Linda Solomon Wood, columnists Bruce Livesey and Sandy Garossino spent an hour tackling wide-ranging questions about why today's Canadian conservative movement has moved so far to the right, its hopes for retaking power in the face of an increasingly progressive populace, and how evangelical Christians and Big Oil got a stranglehold on the right.

“The social conservative base is enormously powerful,” Livesey told Solomon Wood and the audience of 100 participants on the Zoom webinar, part of Conversations, sponsored by Canada's National Observer. “The reason (leadership rivals) Peter MacKay and Erin O'Toole have taken the positions they're doing — which are ludicrous in terms of ever trying to get elected — is because the base has this enormous social conservative element. In order to win the leadership, you've got to pander to them.”

But that's precisely what has lost them repeated elections, and will only worsen their chances over time, he said.

Livesey — an award-winning investigative journalist with experience on CBC's flagship shows The Fifth Estate and The National, Global News' 16×9, and PBS's Frontline — most recently did an analysis on the state of the Conservatives for the National Observer entitled, How Stephen Harper is destroying the Conservative party.

He said he interviewed between 25 and 30 sources for his story, and other than a couple political scientists as experts, focused almost entirely on hearing from Conservative members past and present.

“I tried to basically interview just Conservatives … people within the party, both from when they used to be called the PC (Progressive Conservative) party all the way up to the current generation,” Livesey said. “There's a lot of people who wouldn't talk to me … It was a big challenge; given that I was going to talk to them about Stephen Harper, there seemed to be a bit of a concern.”

But some did want to talk, and could be broadly lumped into two camps: the long-ousted progressive wing of the party, once nicknamed “Red Tories”; and the more recent alumni and strategists of the Harper era.

“If you talked to the sort of Red Tories — the 'liberal' wing of the party — there was no surprise there that they think the party's stuck in a ditch,” Livesey said. “The more interesting thing was finding the younger generation who were around Harper in some capacity, who are beginning to realize — having lost two back-to-back elections — that something was wrong.”

What exactly is wrong, however, he found divisive amongst loyalists. Some expressed hope to find a better leader than Andrew Scheer to save their flagging fortunes. But others, Livesey said, had started to see problems in the party's offerings to voters altogether.

“That's the contradiction the party's in at the moment,” Livesey, author of the book Thieves of Bay Street, said. “The base just thinks, 'We just need the next Stephen Harper to lead us back into power.'

“Abortion and gay marriage — those are the two issues that get social conservatives all agitated, and they want to have something done about them. Harper was brilliant at keeping that element under a lock and key. Scheer was not … nobody trusted him on those issues. The social conservative base is an enormous problem for that party.”

Whoever wins the leadership of the party, Livesey predicted, must “basically ignore what the base is” if they want to win enough seats outside Alberta, the Prairies and rural Ontario.

Hard Right

Garossino, meanwhile, agreed that infighting over who can be the most hardline on divisive issues such as LGBTQ rights and abortion is only hurting the party more with each utterance and campaign plank.

The popular longtime columnist with Canada's National Observer spent years previously as a Crown prosecutor and trial lawyer and Vancouver community advocate. She is also a keen observer of Canadian and American political trends, admitting Monday she's a big nerd for electoral data and crunching riding numbers. While she and Livesey admitted few Tories are likely paying heed to this publication, they ought to at least pay attention to the dismal electoral data.

When it comes to hard-right social issues, the numbers don't lie.

“They're actually campaigning against themselves the more they play to that,” Garossino said. “It doesn't play in any of the areas that the federal Conservatives need to take power. They have got to get into the 905 — the (Greater Toronto Area) — and they've got to get into Quebec.”

According to the most recent polls, the Conservatives are indeed trailing behind the Liberals — despite Scheer's repeated attempts to portray Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a reckless spendthrift, contemptuous of accountability and the rule of law.

A new poll released June 28 by respected pollster Léger Marketing placed Liberals at 40 per cent support, double-digits ahead of Conservatives in voter intentions compared to the Tories' 28 per cent. (The survey of 1,524 Canadians gave the NDP 17 per cent support, the Bloc Québecois seven per cent, and Greens one point behind; the online poll's margin of error could be considered equivalent to 2.5 per cent.) The results mirrored another opinion survey last week.

But yet another poll by Ekos Research found an even starker divide when it comes to gender last week, with Liberals leading among women with a staggering 24 per cent lead over the Tories, which held a slight lead over the Grits among men.

Multi-poll aggregator 338Canada, meanwhile, ran 250,000 statistical election simulations using recent polls and predicted a 189-seat Liberal seat majority if an election were held now, with the Tories trailing at 94 seats (a party needs a minimum 170 seats to win a majority government).

But both Livesey and Garossino reminded participants in the Zoom event that key to electoral victory in Canada is commanding broad support across the most vote-rich, densely populated urban centres — particularly the Greater Toronto Area suburbs, Montreal, and B.C.'s Lower Mainland. It was a lesson former Prime Minister Stephen Harper understood despite his past social-conservative, Reform Party roots.

That's something Livesey believes the Conservatives have lost sight of completely. He has little hope the once-moderate stalwarts of the party will regain control any time soon because of the need to survive the hard-right base that serves as a gauntlet for would-be leaders.

“They're not taking into consideration the electoral math that plays into this,” he explained. “The Tories' base gets them about 30 per cent of the vote, but to win a minority, you need around 35, a majority around 40.

“That means you've got to convince ... the very seat-rich urban hubs like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal … that you represent their interests. That is the programmatic problem with the party now. They have completely clued out to the fact that those voters don't want to vote for that particular platform.”

Stuck on Harper

In his June 25 analysis, Livesey argued former prime minister Stephen Harper remains the most powerful force in today's party, but may be, in fact, undermining “the very thing he created” as his successor Scheer steers the party sharply towards the far right on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights.

It's something Tory supporters should be extremely wary of, particularly as the far-right administration in the pandemic-gutted United States faces “potential devastation of unbelievable proportions because of the failure of this one man,” Garossino said. But the roots of the crisis go back decades to Reagan-era right-wing neoliberal movements, she and Livesey agreed, as billionaires and corporations were effectively handed the keys to power in the U.S.

Today, with tens of millions of unemployed losing their private health benefits, the chickens are now coming home to roost in that country.

“If you look at the trajectory, this is the sum result of a program that began in the '70s and '80s to, in effect, ensure the state did nothing for the average American citizen,” Livesey said. “(It marked) the end of the so-called welfare state — the New Deal type of government — and the capture of the state by largely the billionaire class.”

But although the Tea Party hasn't taken hold to the same extent north of the 49th parallel, similar hardline right movements have found sympathy in many parts of Canada.

Canadians, and particularly those loyal to the Conservative party, ought to worry about similar political movements here gaining any more foothold than they have. But it was actually Canada's Reagan-era Conservative leader who garnered some positive attention in Monday's online discussion.

Faced with a stark ideological choice today, Tories might look for inspiration — and success — to former PM Brian Mulroney.

“The PCs recognized they had to be a centre party to win power. The person most genius at figuring that out was Mulroney, he won two solid majorities … and destroyed the Liberals in Quebec. They had the 'big tent' approach, that social conservatives, Red Tories, environmentalists, people from all walks of life, fiscal conservatives, could all be under the same umbrella." Livesey said.

“It worked until it didn't work.”

Mulroney was also considered a leader on environmental issues, and even stalwart Conservative architect Tom Flanagan told Livesey he hoped for some critical Tory reflection on their climate change and carbon pricing policies.

“There is increasing awareness they have to be better on that front,” Livesey said, “even if it is in a very cynical way.”

But it's not just the evangelicals trying to steer the Tory ship. Another powerful force in the country has leveraged influence extremely effectively. Livesey and Garossino said other than the Tories' social conservative base, the party also has been held “hostage” by the oil industry lobby and some of Harper's former entourage, such as Jason Kenney, now Alberta premier.

Garossino has frequently commented on the state of Canada's Conservatives, most recently in her May 27 column, Stephen Harper's power dissolves, in which she argued that Harper continues to “control his chastened party” from the sidelines, but as “the right’s energy and narrative has been seized by Trumpian ideologues,” the Canadian electoral as moved on and is no longer interested.

Canada's Conservatives ought to ponder those trends carefully before selecting their next leader, Garossino said, but she's not hopeful.

“To get to be a contender nationally, you have to get past the base, which is far more conservative than the Canadian public,” she said. “They're almost fighting against themselves.”

Could the Red Tories stage a Mulroney-inspired comeback — and retake the reins from today's increasingly unpalatable oil and religious party wings? That remains to be seen.

#canpoli #consernative party of canada

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venezuelablog · 7 years

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Venezuela and the OAS Democratic Charter: Reply to Weisbrot and Ellner

David Smilde

[This response was published yesterday on the Venezueladialogue.com blog as part of a discussion of the question: “Is the OAS Playing a Constructive Role on Venezuela? What Should It Be Doing Differently?”]

I appreciate Mark Weisbrot and Steve Ellner’s replies to my response to the forum-organizer’s question on the OAS role in Venezuela. I highly value spaces such as this one because I think progressives should feel a special sense of urgency to analyze and debate a left-project-gone-wrong like Chavismo. Not doing so allows the right-wing to control the agenda and stamp what is going on in Venezuela in a way that will complicate other left projects in the future.

The disagreement between Mark, Steve, Miguel Tinker Salas and me is an interesting one because we agree on most of the basic facts, but work with different political and theoretical perspectives and so frame them differently. For instance, Mark says, based on Miguel’s recounting of the history of the OAS:

“We are arguing that the OAS is at this moment controlled by powerful interests who are using it to help topple a government, for political reasons, not to improve the human rights situation in Venezuela.”

I could actually agree with this sentence if it were edited in the following way to give it a little more realistic view of the situation.

“We are arguing that the OAS is at this moment AND FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE controlled by powerful COMPETING interests who are using it to help CHALLENGE OR SUPPORT a government, for political reasons WHICH INCLUDE IMPROVING the human rights situation in Venezuela.”

First, of course the OAS is the site of powerful political interests. The idea that that there could somehow be “neutral,” “honest,” or “well-intentioned” mediation is simply naïve and uninformed by a century and a half of critiques of rationalist, foundationalist philosophy. What would “neutral” mean? Actors without political interests? Actors without cultures? Actors without histories? Who will designate these neutral actors? From what criteria? The same can be said for the demand for “honest” and “well-intentioned” actors. These are to be determined by which criteria? Judged by whom? There are no self-evident criteria, nor are there judges speaking Esperanto that will fall from the sky to resolve our conflicts. There are only human agreements based on arguments, consolidated into institutions. These institutions have histories and are inevitably the sites of struggle among unequal actors.

But in most cases, and certainly in this case, these political interests are competing. In the OAS discussion on Venezuela there is a bloc of countries that includes the US and with whom we can assume the US is engaging in power politics using its economic, political, and military resources to generate support. And there is a group of countries over which Venezuela has a large degree of influence: the Caricom countries that have benefitted from Petrocaribe and the countries that form part of the ALBA strategic bloc.

In terms of resources with which to influence allies, the US clearly has the advantage over Venezuela. But in terms of the structure of the OAS, it would seem Venezuela has the advantage. The one country, one vote OAS system gives small countries an amplified voice. So St. Lucia, with a population of under 200,000 people, has the same voting power as Brazil, with a population of nearly 208 million. And St. Vincent, with a population of 110,000, has one vote just like the US, with a population of more than 321 million. As a result of the OAS rules, the pro-Venezuela block has been able to hold off the Venezuela-critical block, despite having a fraction of the population and resources.

Indeed, usually when I have this discussion it is with right-wing supporters of unilateral US measures like sanctions. Their argument is that the OAS is structurally flawed and will never act with respect to Venezuela because of its petro-diplomacy and therefore unilateral measures are justified.

And that is really what is at stake here. Despite their inevitably flawed and uninspiring histories, multilateral spaces with clear rules and obligatory, public debate, are always going to be better than bilateral conflict that depends simply on guns and money. It is unlikely that the OAS will be able to come up with any sort of consensual plan of action. Even if it does, Venezuela will simply reject it. However, the diplomatic process, discussion and debate are extraordinarily important. They force the US to engage in diplomacy with countries in the region, make their arguments and listen to others. They force Venezuela to do the same. The process of diplomacy, discussion, and debate bring out new information, new understandings and new areas of consensus.

All of this could lead to some other multilateral initiative among a “group of friends” that could be key in facilitating negotiation in the Venezuelan conflict, as the Contadora Group did in Central America in the 1980s. The Contadora countries had a variety of interests of their own, not all of which were noble. But they succeeded in forming a counter-hegemonic bloc, that developed a strategy at odds with the goals of the United States. If we were to follow the criteria promoted by Weisbrot et al, we would have to reject the Contadora initiative because the motivations of these countries were not completely honest or well-intentioned.

It is good to be clear on what we are talking about here. The OAS does not have the power to “topple” Venezuela. In fact it does not even have the power to “intervene” in Venezuela. It only has the power to withhold its legitimacy. States become part of multilateral institutions not only to have spaces to engage their peers, but because these institutions provide them with added democratic legitimacy vis-a-vis their populations, competing authorities, and competing states. Venezuela forms part of the OAS of its own volition, signed on to the Democratic Charter in 2001, and even supported the candidacy of Luis Almagro for Secretary General. It is only now, when it is the focus of criticism, that the Venezuela’s government has decided to withdraw.

None of this obliges an uncritical backing of Secretary General Luis Almagro. As I mentioned previously, in my view he jumped the gun by about a year, and failed to do the groundwork necessary to develop a consensus. More recently, his statements regarding Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López being guilty of “crimes against humanity” were not only unstrategic, they were criticized as inaccurate by the Venezuelan human rights groups in best position to judge. Almagro successfully put Venezuela on the agenda of the region, but in my view his handling of the Venezuela case has impeded the formation of a consensus in the OAS. In any case, at this point his role is secondary. He put the issue on the agenda, but it is the Permanent Council and the General Assembly that can actually make decisions about Venezuela and the Democratic Charter.

Nor does supporting the current OAS discussion oblige one to regard the OAS as the preeminent multilateral space for discussion of the Venezuela crisis. I had high hopes for the CELAC discussion, thinking that without the presence of the US, discussion of a solution might take off. But CELAC member-states seemed to prefer the OAS as a space for this problem. UNASUR has made some noises, but does not seem to have any plans. It is the OAS that is in position to hold a discussion and form consensus in a relevant time frame.

Whatever forum the discussion takes place, it will inevitably be political. But that does not mean it will not include human rights advocacy. Seeing “the political” as purely instrumental and cynical is an old-fashioned fiction. Seeing sincere human rights advocacy as non-political is just as naive. Most politics contain a mixture of self-interest and moral interests, and the moral interests are often determinative. Political actors can be politically interested in human rights insofar as they think it requires power to actually defend them. There is no contradiction there. This will be true of the OAS, CELAC, UNASUR or any other imaginable forum.

On a final point, I am glad to hear that nobody in this discussion is arguing against the idea that “basic democratic rights are ‘universal’ human rights.” However, let me point out that my friend Steve Ellner’s most recent comment begins with the idea that invoking the Democratic Charter on Venezuela “would be justified in the case of a clear-cut systematic and flagrant violation of human rights,” but that this is not now the case in Venezuela.

How is it possible that a government that has postponed two elections and is now violating the Constitution by aiming to rewrite that Constitution without first asking people if that is what they want (polls show they don’t), is not engaging in “systematic and flagrant violation of human rights?” What is more, the electoral bases of the Constituent Assembly are so stilted that they will deliver Chavismo a majority of the delegates with just 20-30% of the vote. This Constituent Assembly is not based on any popular demand, but on the Maduro government’s desire to change the rules instead of facing electoral defeat. This isn’t a flagrant violation, it’s an obnoxious violation of democratic rights.

In Steve’s statement we can see the left’s long-term willingness to cast a blind eye towards violations of electoral rights as long as these violations are part of a supposedly progressive project. The same tendency can be seen in the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales statement that came out at the end of April, which is concerned about violence, but does not even mention elections. The truly unique historical achievement of Chavismo con Chávez was that it pushed forward with a leftist revolution through electoral democracy, threading the needle not once, but time and again. Chavismo con Maduro has betrayed that achievement, turning the movement into a crass power grab oriented more towards the well-being of governing elites than the well-being of the popular sectors whose hopes for a better world have been dashed once again.

#Venezuela OAS #democratic charter

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momtaku · 8 years

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SnK Chapter 89 Poll Results

This poll closed with 770 entries. It was a lot to go through, but I appreciate the all the support. The poll was posted on Reddit and Tumblr, so I’m hopeful it’s a solid snapshot of how the fandom views the events of chapter 89.

What happened on the roof was too significant a moment for the characters to be completely unchanged by it. Anger, trust issues, grief were cited as factors. Interesting, many people saw the change as a potential positive.

My favorite positive comment:

Change, yes, but not necessarily damage. Their relationships will grow from this just as they have through every other arc.

This comment made me nod my head solemnly:

I REALLY hope so. I hated the serumbowl, but if it happened it might as well have some meaning and not have all the drama be just outta the moment. I wanna believe the characters have a say in where the story goes, and it's not just convenient so the plot can move to where Isayama wants to.

Many respondents noticed a general numbness in Levi’s demeanor. Several want to wait and see. But at this point, only 12.9% of respondents think Levi’s relationship with Eren and Mikasa is permanently damaged.

Levi doesn't seem to care about what's happening around him anymore, i don't think he''ll care about his relationships anymore. He looks like he's even starting to ignore his duties as a soldier.

I was expecting a more emotional response out of Levi but he's still hanging there. A lot of fans think he's much more distant after losing his liege but I feel like this sentiment is often what the fans want to see rather than what is happening? Levi behaves pretty kind to the kids the past few chapters though, even though they played a large part in his decision. Only time will tell I guess but I do wonder about his mental state...

Levi's rationality will help him cope with Erwin's loss in so many ways. On the other hand, his compassion will always make him understand what it's like to be in other people's shoes. After all the revelations, I'm pretty sure he has also considered Eren & Armin's time limit, and how Mikasa is taking it. He has always been that kind of person, rational and strong but never lacking in compassion.

To the mind of many, Hange is far less forgiving than Levi. 73% of respondents think her trust and faith in Eren and Mikasa is damaged, and 26.5% believe it’s permanent.

“Bitter Hanji is my life source. I need her backstory like I need air.”

Despite Hange’s open disagreement with Levi over the serum, 89% of respondents think their relationship will be ok. I agree.

The good news: 70.8% do not think Hange’s being cruel. Hange is stressed, heartbroken and grieving, and that may be making them more short-tempered than normal, but their behavior is not unreasonable.

The bad news: 20% of the fandom think she is being cruel. As someone on Reddit suggested, maybe we should put a fence around them.

I'm sorry for Eren, but also Hanji is really tired right now. She has a different position and has to face a lot of problems and other high ranked heads of the military divisions and making difficult decisions...and they just have not many time.

I loved Hanje in that chapter, I think a lot of ppl don't realise how alone Hanje is in this situation, their situation is even worse than Erwin imo. They have more enemies, less trusting comrades [Levi put his personal feelings 1st and reduce the chances of Humanity surviving...

she is being unreasonable, but i think it's a realistic portrayal of how someone would behave after going through so much like idk why people are acting like her behaviour is unfounded. like im not sayin hanji acted reasonsably, she didnt like she shouldve tried reasoning with eren instead but she obviously got frustrated because of the absolute shit everyones going through right now

From how she behaved during the actual serum bowl (tm) I think it's safe to say Hanji is a very empathetic, understanding and mature person. The problem right now is she doesn't know what Eren is going through and why he is behaving weirdly at this moment,in addition to being frustrated and not being able to understand Levi's decision.

I'm huffy about the Hanji hate... she's so stressed and grieving, people need to cut her some slack

Isayama did good! Despite all our theories, it appears that Ymir was an ordinary girl who was given an extraordinary name. 84.5% of respondents were satisfied with her backstory.

That said, many people think there’s more to the story. Don’t rule out those mystical ties just yet!

Well i know the People of Ymir share weird connections that even surpasses time... That Ymir's dancing titan looked hella like the Devil that gave Ymir Fritz powers.

I'm still expecting more to be revealed. Her past hasn't completely been showed to us and I still believe she's somehow connected to THE Ymir.

About 2/3 of the fandom agree that Ymir is too important for an offscreen death. Big thumbs up from me on this one! For those who think she’s dead, they are side-eyeing the Quadrupedal Titan.

I believe Ymir was eaten to make the Quadrupedal Titan. The way they both stand on all fours makes me believe that. Also, Ymir's disappearance and The Quadrupedal Titan's appearance.

I sometimes think of these polls as an “ask the audience” test since usually the majority is right. That won’t work for the question of whether Reiss and Fritz are the same or a different bloodline. With almost 800 respondents, the fandom is equally divided on this point.

32.6% do not think time travel will be a part of this story. 22.1% do. If time travel is a factor, 48% are ok with that if it’s well written. 30% will be disappointed.

My personal feeling align with this:

I HATE TIME TRAVEL WHY ISAYAMA I TRUSTED YOU Dammit

I’m hopeful if the story goes this way, Yams will pull it off successfully.

Most people believe Eren Jaeger is the source of Kruger’s memory of Mikasa and Armin. The most popular write-in entry was Grisha. In retrospect, I should’ve added him as an option.

Past, present, and future exist simultaneously. Eldians are magically connected, so they can "leak" their memories/thoughts to each other across time. The Coordinate just make this process very efficient.

I’m happy to report that my favorite Commander Handsome is still loved and missed by the majority of the fandom, at least on Tumblr! I was told that most of the 25.7% who disregard him at this point are the Redditors who chimed in :)

He would be 200% more stressed out, with more weight on his shoulders and with 199 new ghosts judging him 24/7.

Because I personally favor the vets, I assume the majority of my tumblr followers do as well. This makes me wonder if the results of these polls are slanted in their favor. This month, however, this wasn’t the case. Fans of the 104th had a nearly equal voice.

Some Final comments

I can’t list them all, but here’s a sample of the final chapter thoughts:

“Reiner looked really handsome this chapter. This is not important but appreciated.”

“I really enjoyed the flashback! I feel like many other major series get boring after the underwhelming reveal (since fans just want to see the series finish after the theories parts are done) but I felt like snks "truth" lived up to its hype.”

“Nobody's talking about the men who venerated Ymir have the same clothes as the people from the wall cult ...”

“Eren aknowledged Mikasa's existence! Yay!!”

“Jean acting as Hanji's assistant--make Moblit proud man! You go Jean, let those leadership qualities shine! :P”

“I'm worried that Eren won't trust others with the information about Dina, and that withholding the information will have bad consequences :/”

“The utter lack of focus towards what happened between Armin and Bertholdt and Armin's new powers is so bizarre to me. Like really, Bert's death has been so poorly handled.”

“Where's Annie”

“pls let ymir be alive and gay”

“Recent reveals have been great, I hope the characters will start to take action with what they know soon.”

“More heart-break and intrigue, but this is Attack on Titan so what else is new, lol!”

“Mindblown since 5 chapters^tm, give me the Ackertalk and some love for Mikasa and Levi-they look both done af and bring Ymir back”

“I'm so loving the latest chapters & these info reveals. So complex & cast may qs abt humanity's nature. Everyone can be right or wrong, evil or good depending on the perspective. I do strongly believe there's hope & the cycle will be broken. most likely, Eren would sacrifice himself somehow.”

“I hope that Mikasa's weight loss isn't just a throw away line and that she gets treated more like a main character. Oh and that we finally get the Ackertalk!”

“Levi looks so done...”

“For the love of everything can we please have these characters talk to each other. Eren talk to Mikasa, Mikasa talk to Levi, Levi talk with Hanji just open up the thought chambers. Lord. We've been waiting on ackertalk for 84 years...”

#snk chapter 89 #snk poll #snk 89 #snk analysis #thank you everyone!

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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The Two Psychological Tricks Trump Is Using to Get Away With Everything

His brazen attempts to redefine the norms of acceptable conduct work for a reason.

Peter Beinart, Professor of journalism at the City University of New York | Published October 7, 2019 | The Atlantic | Posted October 8, 2019 |

Last Thursday, Donald Trump said something that, on its face, seemed inexplicably self-defeating. Already under attack for having asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, he publicly asked China to do the same. This time there was no whistle-blower forcing Trump’s hand. Having already transgressed the once-sacrosanct principle that foreign powers shouldn’t meddle in American elections, Trump—for no apparent reason—brazenly violated it again.

And yet, Trump’s China remarks don’t appear to have hurt him much. The majority of Republican voters and politicians still oppose his impeachment. His China comments may even prove politically shrewd. Research into the psychology of secrecy and confidence helps explain why.

In January 2016, Trump infamously declared, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” The statement was widely interpreted as a commentary on the loyalty of Trump’s voters. But it can also be understood as a commentary on the value of brazenness—of acting publicly rather than furtively and confidently rather than bashfully. It’s a value academics have confirmed time and again.

In 2013, three researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder—Mark Travers, Leaf Van Boven, and Charles Judd—published a paper in the journal Political Psychology entitled “The Secrecy Heuristic.” They gave students two documents, one from the National Security Council and one from the State Department. Half the students were told that the NSC document was classified and that the State Department document was public. Half were told the reverse. And although the classified and nonclassified documents were exactly the same, the students gave more weight to the one they thought was secret. The researchers’ conclusion: There is a secrecy “heuristic”—a mental shortcut that helps people make judgments. “People weigh secret information more heavily than public information when making decisions,” they wrote. A 2004 dissertation on jury behavior found a similar tendency. When judges told jurors to disregard certain information—once it was deemed secret—the jurors gave it more weight.

While it’s unlikely Trump has heard of the secrecy heuristic, his comments about murder on Fifth Avenue suggest he grasps it instinctively. He recognizes that people accord less weight to information that nobody bothers to conceal. If shooting someone were that big a deal, the reasoning goes, Trump wouldn’t do it in full public view. The logic works even better when it comes to Trump’s comments about Ukraine and China. Most Americans know murder is against the law. Whether inviting foreign meddling in an American election constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor,” by contrast, is less well established. By openly inviting such meddling, therefore, Trump sends the message that it’s not that important. If it were, he’d have kept his request a secret.

But brazenness entails more than just a lack of secrecy. It also entails confidence. And here too, there’s ample evidence that Trump’s confidence works to his political benefit.

If people use secrecy as a heuristic to gauge importance, they use confidence as a heuristic to gauge competence. As Cameron Anderson, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, explained to me, “There is a lot of research showing that when people exhibit confidence, they come across as more competent, intelligent, skilled, and so forth.” The word con man, the Harvard professor and former Obama-administration official Cass Sunstein has noted, is short for confidence man. That’s because “when con men succeed,” Sunstein observes, “it’s usually because they enlist the confidence heuristic. They don’t show any doubts. They act as if they know what they are doing.” Thus, they win people’s trust.

By openly asking Ukraine and China to investigate a political rival, Trump expressed confidence that he’s doing nothing wrong. And while one might think the majority of Americans would view Trump’s confidence as an outrageous sham, academic evidence suggests that con men can be surprisingly difficult to unmask. In a 2019 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers at the University of Utah and UC Berkeley noted, “Prior research is split on whether this exposure of overconfidence diminishes a person’s social standing. In some studies, individuals who expressed confidence, and were later revealed to be wrong, lost credibility in the eyes of others … However, in other studies, individuals who were exposed as overconfident were not held liable.” Sometimes confidence men pay a price when they are revealed to be bullshitters. Sometimes they don’t.

The key, the Utah and Berkeley researchers suggest, is whether the con man retains “plausible deniability” in the face of evidence that he has been proved wrong. They note, for instance, that people who express confidence through nonverbal cues—speaking loudly, interrupting others—tend to retain their reputation for competence and good judgment better than those who express confidence through overt claims that can be clearly falsified. But even people who do make specific, falsifiable claims can maintain their plausible deniability in other ways, the researchers note—for instance, by “undermining the expertise or credibility of those reporting the error.”

Trump, according to people who study body language, expresses an enormous amount of nonverbal self-confidence. In addition, his promises are often vague and thus hard to concretely disprove. But these tendencies would be less valuable if he did not also relentlessly “undermine the expertise or credibility” of those people and institutions—journalists, judges, bureaucrats, members of Congress, whistle-blowers, inspectors general, the special counsel—who expose his facts or judgments as having been in error.

In this effort, Trump has enjoyed crucial support from Fox News. Under the best of circumstances, the Berkeley business-school professor Don Moore explained to me, political partisans are notoriously difficult to sway with new information. Yet despite this, when I asked researchers at Ipsos to break down some of the data from their October 3 USA Today poll on impeachment, they reported something remarkable. When Ipsos asked Republicans who say Fox is not their main source of news whether “President Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden is an abuse of power,” 38 percent said yes. Given that most of those respondents likely voted for Trump in 2016, that’s a high number. It suggests some genuine willingness to recalibrate views of him based on this new information. If 38 percent of Republicans in the Senate supported Trump’s impeachment, he would be forced from office.

But among Republicans who said Fox was their main source of news, only 11 percent considered Trump’s behavior an abuse of power. For them, overwhelmingly, Trump retains plausible deniability in the face of critics who seek to expose him as a con man. And it is because of them that Trump’s continued brazenness works. As the Utah and Berkeley researchers show, people who maintain plausible deniability benefit from expressing self-confidence. If people keep giving you the benefit of the doubt, you’re better off thumping your chest and declaring yourself vindicated than expressing remorse or self-doubt.

By doubling down with his comments about China, that’s exactly what Trump did. Among voters inclined to distrust competing sources of information, his willingness to brazenly redefine the norms of acceptable conduct works. Shamelessness, one might say, is the point.

The Mad King’s Enablers

As Trump’s demands grow ever more erratic, democracy rests on the willingness of bureaucrats to ignore the democratically elected chief executive.

Oct 3, 2019

Adam Serwer | Published October 3, 2019 | The Atlantic |Posted October 8, 2019 9:00 AM ET |

This morning, President Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense on camera.

Responding to questioning from reporters about his effort to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to launch an investigation into one of his Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump reiterated his demand that Ukraine “start a major investigation into the Bidens,” before suggesting that “China should start an investigation into the Bidens” as well.

Ukraine is dependent on the United States for military aid; China is in the midst of a trade war with the U.S. instigated by Trump. Both countries now know that they can influence United States policy by pursuing the president’s personal, political interests. A president using his authority to form an alliance with foreign powers, at the expense of the national interest, is such a straightforwardly impeachable offense that the Framers themselves designed the impeachment clause for the express purpose of removing a chief executive who uses his powers in this way.

Republicans have attempted to shift the conversation away from Trump’s acts, to focus instead on questions about the process used by the whistle-blower who exposed Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine. But not only did Schiff and the whistle-blower follow the rules; both the redacted complaint released by the White House and the summary of the call itself substantiate the allegations at the center of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. And even if they didn’t, the president himself just repeated the impeachable offense on camera, making an explicit demand that two countries criminalize his political rival.

It was not even the first time this week that Trump demanded a political rival be investigated. For the past few days, Trump has demanded that House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason” for a mocking paraphrase of Trump’s call with Zelensky using mafia-like language.

The accusation of treason is absurd. The Constitution specifically protects the remarks of legislators on the House floor, secures freedom of speech, and defines treason in extremely narrow terms, limiting it to “levying war” against the U.S. or aiding its enemies. But Trump makes no distinction between loyalty to him as a person and loyalty to the United States, and so takes criticism as treason.

Yet despite the president’s bluster, nothing happened. The Justice Department did not arrest and imprison Schiff, arraigning him on charges of treason. And that reality speaks to both the absurdity and danger of this moment, in which American democracy relies on the willingness of executive-branch subordinates to ignore the ravings of the Mad King. This extends into the realm of policy, where Trump’s own officials have struggled to contain his lust for cruelty, refusing requests to gun down migrants or install a moat with alligators at the border.

Elected Republicans know that Trump is unfit for office. The president’s own subordinates know that Trump is unfit for office. They know this, because when the president issues ridiculous orders, such as the demand that a leader of the opposition party be arrested, they ignore his demands. A nation in which the opposition cannot criticize the head of state without facing criminal sanction is not a democracy, but it is the kind of country over which Donald Trump would like to preside. The result is that American democracy rests on the willingness of bureaucrats to ignore the commands of their democratically elected chief executive.

Unable to defend the substance of the president’s extortion attempt, Republicans have turned to complaining about the process. But Thursday’s performance on the White House lawn renders those baseless complaints moot—the president just did publicly what the Democrats have accused him of doing privately. The only argument against removing Trump from office is that Trump’s raving is just Trump being Trump, and is not to be taken seriously. But the fact that the president’s madness must be ignored from time to time for America to continue to function as a democracy is an argument for, not against, his removal.

Although congressional Democrats and Republicans are divided on impeachment, there is vanishingly little disagreement on whether or not Trump abuses his authority or is fit to be president. The distinction is that, for the moment, Republicans appear not to care.

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gyrlversion · 5 years

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Boris Johnson makes his first pitch to be Tory leader

Boris Johnson today made his first public pitch to succeed Theresa May, as senior Tories called for an experienced Brexiteer to take over.

Days after he finally backed the Prime Minister’s deal, Mr Johnson said a No Deal exit is ‘far the best option’ and insisted the Conservatives should ‘get on with it’.

And in his own vision for the party he said the Tories should then concentrate on ‘cutting taxes wherever we reasonably can’, including stamp duty and inheritance tax.

It came as Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said it was ‘more likely than not that the next leader will be someone who campaigned for Brexit‘.

Boris Johnson (pictured today) has three times the support of his closest rival in leadership polling and made his first pitch to be leader today

Mr Johnson, who has been accused of disloyalty for his opposition to Mrs May’s deal, wrote in the Telegraph today: ‘We cannot go on like this. We need to get on with it and to get it done. We should really come out with No Deal – now looking by far the best option; but if we cannot achieve that, then we need to get out, now.

Iain Duncan Smith the VERY unlikely soft-top heart-throb

Iain Duncan Smith’s arrival to see Theresa May at Chequers in his £25,000 Morgan 4/4 last week made headlines and turned the former Tory leader into an unlikely heart-throb.

Iain Duncan Smith pictured in his £25,000 Morgan 4/4

‘He’s been getting fan mail from middle-aged women all week asking for a ride,’ a Commons source said.

It is not the first time IDS’s soft-top motor has hit the headlines – we first revealed his ‘Mr Toad’ look, below, back in 2003.

‘We need to get Brexit done, because we have so much more to do, and so much more that unites the Conservative Party than divides us. We have so many achievements to be proud of – and yet every single one is being drowned out in the Brexit cacophony’.

Chris Grayling has called for an ‘experienced’ Brexiteer to take over the party – seen as a nod towards Mr Johnson rather that his rival Dominic Raab.

He told the Telegraph: ‘The party has to ask itself a question about the leadership: the next two or three years are going to be very tough because the European stuff is not going to go away.

‘Is the person who takes us through the next two or three years and sorts out Brexit and gets the sort of hard time that Theresa has had, the same person who we want to be leading us into the 2027 general election?

‘It may be that we are planning two things rather than one. Planning somebody who has got the experience and resilience to get us through the immediate future. But then … we have got a really good generation of younger politicians in their 40s who can make a real impact, who are going to be the leadership of the party in the future.’

Moderate Tories appeared to step up efforts to frustrate the leadership ambitions of Boris Johnson last night, launching a new grouping opposed to a No Deal Brexit.

Around 40 MPs have signed up to the One Nation Group which will be led by Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and former education secretary Nicky Morgan.

The faction, which is aiming to be a counterweight to the European Research Group, is planning to host its own hustings in any future party leadership contest and has ruled out supporting anyone who wants a No Deal departure.

Mr Johnson, however, did get some backing from an unlikely quarter last night – Tony Blair.

The former PM claimed the Tories could beat Labour in a general election if ‘formidable’ Mr Johnson was leader.

Amber Rudd is relaunching the One Nation faction inside the Tory party as moderates move to block Boris Johnson and hard Brexiteers in the race for power

As ministers fight for the job Liz Truss (left in Westminster on Friday) today called for the Tory party to remodernise, while Dominic Raab published his plans to tackle knife crime

Jeremy Hunt is seen as a safe pair of hands and could help unite the party, some MPs have claimed

High profile members of the One Nation Group also include Business Secretary Greg Clark, Justice Secretary David Gauke, Scottish Secretary David Mundell, energy minister Claire Perry, as well as Damian Green and Sir Nicholas Soames.

Sir John Major yesterday criticised potential leadership candidates for jockeying for position instead of focusing on attempts to get the Brexit deal passed.

He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme: ‘I think they should concentrate on the decision we should make next week, not who is going to be prime minister at some future stage.’

Sir John appeared to criticise hopefuls such as Mr Johnson, Esther McVey and Dominic Raab, who last week backed Mrs May’s Brexit deal despite making dire warnings about it.

‘I find it extraordinarily odd that there are people who decided the Prime Minister’s deal was going to turn us into a vassal state and they voted against it. Once it is apparent there’s going to be a leadership election and one of them might become prime minister, the question of a vassal state disappears and they support it,’ he said. ‘I think the public will be very cynical about that.

‘I don’t know when the Prime Minister will go and nobody can be certain… but when we elect a new prime minister I think it has to be someone who can be a national leader, not a factional leader and I think that does disqualify a number of candidates.’

Britain faces a hung Parliament if another general election is held

Sir John Curitce’s latest numbers suggest a near identical Commons would be returned – accept with slightly weaker Tory and Labour parties in a more hung parliament

If No 10 does call another general election Britain faces another hung Parliament, according to the latest polling on the issue.

The majority of public is also opposed to going back to the polls to break the Brexit deadlock at Westminster.

But Theresa May may be forced to call a possible snap general election within weeks if she loses because remainer MPs will try to force her to deliver a soft Brexit or a second referendum.

Now she has lost MPs are preparing to force a soft Brexit and long delay to leaving the EU upon May next week.

No 10 has threatened to call a general election rather than be forced into a soft Brexit – but looming over that threat is a new forecast of what might happen in a snap election by polling expert Sir John Curtice.

But Sir John’s latest numbers suggest a near identical Commons would be returned – accept with slightly weaker Tory and Labour parties in a more hung parliament.

The figures suggest even the dramatic step of a new general election would do little to break the stalemate.

The PM hopes this bleak outlook will persuade Labour MPs to back it as the party has accepted the divorce deal – but she is set to be disappointed. She needs 75 more votes than she got on March 12 to win.

Polls since the 2017 election have seen the two main parties mostly neck and neck. The Tories have held a narrow lead in recent months

Sir John also said the UK will always have a centre-Right party and a centre-Left party, adding: ‘Whether that’s exactly the same Conservative Party as we have now or not, I can’t be certain – but that there will be a Conservative Party on the centre-Right of politics, but it needs to be at the centre-Right if it wishes to win, not the far-Right.’

Several senior Tories yesterday appeared to be on manoeuvres to replace Mrs May this weekend.

Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, called for the Conservative party to ‘remodernise’ as she set out her stall in a newspaper interview. Miss Truss, who backed Remain in the referendum and was previously in charge at the Ministry of Justice and Defra, picked out cutting taxes for businesses and stamp duty for young home buyers as key policies.

She told The Sunday Times: ‘Sometimes politics can be in danger of being managerial. The Conservative Party needs to remodernise. We need to be optimistic, aspirational. We need to participate in the battle of ideas. We haven’t been doing.’

Other Cabinet ministers tipped to join the race when the time comes include Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Work and Pensions Secretary Miss Rudd, Home Secretary Sajid Javid and House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom. Mr Johnson, Miss McVey and Mr Raab, who all quit the Cabinet in protest at Mrs May’s handling of Brexit, are also expected to go for No 10. Mr Raab, a former Brexit Secretary, yesterday attempted to outflank hostile competition by addressing allegations that he used a non-disclosure agreement, also known as a ‘gagging order’, to silence a former colleague who accused him of bullying.

He told The Sunday Times the claims were ‘completely false’, while his allies suggested they were being deployed as part of a ‘smear campaign’.

Another former Cabinet minister, Justine Greening, said she ‘might’ run for the Tory leadership. In an interview with The Sunday Times, she said the party needed a leader for the ‘2020s, not the 1920s’.

‘It’s 32 years since we had a landslide and we have to answer the question about why we have failed to connect with people and their ambitions,’ she told the paper. Miss Greening, a prominent Remain campaigner, quit as education secretary when Mrs May attempted to make her the work and pensions chief in early 2018.

Mr Blair last night told the HuffPost UK news website that Mr Johnson was a ‘formidable campaigner’ who would pose a powerful challenge to Labour.

‘If you have a Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party, he’s a formidable campaigner, he’s an interesting personality, he can get out there and do his stuff, for sure,’ he said. ‘I have absolutely no doubt if you have a Right-wing populism against a Left-wing populism in this country, the right-wing will win. So it depends where we [Labour] stand.’

Mrs May last week promised to step down if MPs passed her Brexit withdrawal agreement.

And they’re off! From hard Brexiteers to Remainers, the race for No.10

Dominic Raab 10/1

Age: 46. Former Brexit Secretary. Diehard Brexiteer.

Background: Son of a Czech-born Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis in 1938 and died of cancer when Raab was 12.

EXPERIENCE: Lasted only four months as Brexit Secretary. Voted against May in leadership confidence vote.

STRENGTH: Skilled debater who honed his skills as an adversarial lawyer with blue chip legal firm Linklaters.

WEAKNESS: Seen as too clever by half and lacking people skills.

VERDICT: In second place in ConservativeHome’s leadership league table.

Boris Johnson 4/1

Age: 54. Former Foreign Secretary. His support for Brexit was vital to Leave’s win.

Background: Known for being identified by just one name, Boris, for his show-off Classics references and for chaotic private life.

EXPERIENCE: Twice voted London mayor.

STRENGTH: Starry, charismatic and clever crowd-pleaser.

WEAKNESS: Bumbling foreign secretary. May struggle to win MPs’ support. A ‘Stop Boris’ campaign is likely.

VERDICT: Party grassroots love him and he’s top of the ConservativeHome league table by 12 points.

Matt Hancock 25/1

Age: 40. Health Secretary. Arch Remainer.

Background: Father bought their council house. Ran his own computer software business before becoming Chancellor George Osborne’s chief of staff.

EXPERIENCE: Cabinet minister for only 18 months. Seen as a ‘coming man’.

STRENGTH: One of life’s Tiggers with ambition and enthusiasm to match his brainpower.

WEAKNESS: Never knowingly modest, he once foolishly likened himself to Churchill, Pitt and Disraeli.

VERDICT: Little known among Conservative Party members.

Amber Rudd 25/1

Age: 55. Work and Pensions Secretary. Remain cheerleader.

Background: Daughter of a Labour-supporting stockbroker and Tory-leaning JP.

EXPERIENCE: Became Home Secretary after just six years as an MP. Resigned over the Windrush scandal after inadvertently misleading MPs.

STRENGTH: Tough operator who was restored to Cabinet within six months.

WEAKNESS: Holds seat with majority of only 346. Headmisstressy manner but an accomplished performer.

VERDICT: Ninth in leadership league table.

Esther McVey 33/1

Age: 51. Former Welfare Secretary. An ardent Brexiteer.

Background: Spent the first two years of her life in foster care. Was a breakfast TV presenter before becoming a Tory MP on Merseyside.

EXPERIENCE: As welfare minister was viciously targeted by Labour.

STRENGTH: Tough and telegenic. Won plaudits with members for resigning from Cabinet over Brexit deal.

WEAKNESS: Some say she doesn’t have the intellectual fire power for top job.

VERDICT: Ranked 14th in league table.

Penny Mordaunt 33/1

Age: 46. International Development Secretary. Arch Brexiteer.

Background: Her mother died when she was a teenager. Cared for younger brother. EXPERIENCE: Was a magician’s assistant. Appeared in the reality TV show Splash!

STRENGTH: Only female MP to be a Royal Naval Reservist. Attended Lady Thatcher’s funeral in uniform.

WEAKNESS: Inexperienced, having been in Cabinet for less than two years. Has never run a major Whitehall department.

VERDICT: Edged up to 11th in ConservativeHome league table.

Andrea Leadsom 16/1

Age: 55. Leader of the Commons. Ardent Brexiteer.

Background: A former City trader. Mother of three.

EXPERIENCE: Struggled in her first Cabinet post, as Environment Secretary.

STRENGTH: Blossomed as Leader of the Commons, winning plaudits for taking on Speaker John Bercow.

WEAKNESS: Stood for leader in 2016 but made ill-considered comment comparing her experience as a mother to the childless Mrs May.

VERDICT: Has soared to the top of the ConservativeHome table of competent ministers.

Michael Gove 4/1

Age: 51. Environment Secretary. High priest of Brexiteers.

Background: Adopted son of a Scottish fish merchant.

EXPERIENCE: Figurehead for Leave during referendum campaign. Cabinet heavyweight who’s served as Education Secretary and Justice Secretary.

STRENGTH: Brilliant debater with razor sharp intellect.

WEAKNESS: Still suspected of having a disloyal gene after knifing Boris Johnson in last leadership contest.

VERDICT: Popular with the Tory members, who, crucially, will vote for the new leader.

Gavin Williamson 50/1

Age: 42. Defence Secretary. Converted Remainer.

Background: From a Labour-supporting, working class family. Ran a pottery firm before becoming an MP.

EXPERIENCE: Started his rise as Mrs May’s Chief Whip. Leap-frogged experienced colleagues to land defence job.

STRENGTH: Matinee idol looks and knack for self-promotion.

WEAKNESS: Military chiefs nicknamed him Private Pike after Dad’s Army character. Suggested missiles should be fitted to tractors.

VERDICT: In 19th place in league table.

Liz Truss 50/1

Age: 43 Chief Secretary to Treasury. Brexiteer.

Background: Raised by Left-wing parents and as a child was marched through the streets on anti-Thatcher protest shouting: ‘Maggie out!’

EXPERIENCE: Joint-author in 2012 of a controversial booklet, Britannia Unchained, which alleged ‘the British are among the worst idlers in the world’.

STRENGTH: A genuine free-marketeer.

WEAKNESS: Poor public speaker with a mixed ministerial record.

VERDICT: Only 15th in ConservativeHome leaders league table.

Sajid Javid 9/1

Age: 49. Home Secretary. Remainer who changed to Brexit after the referendum.

Background: Son of a bus driver who came to Britain from Pakistan with £1 in his pocket. Was head of credit trading at Deutsche Bank.

EXPERIENCE: Previously Culture and Business secretary, cracked down on union rights.

STRENGTH: An extraordinary rags-to-riches back story that we will hear more of during the leadership campaign.

WEAKNESS: Widely seen as a wooden and a poor speaker.

VERDICT: In 4th place in ConservativeHome league table.

Jeremy Hunt 8/1

Age: 52. Foreign Secretary

Background: Eldest son of Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt. Married to a Chinese wife and he speaks Mandarin.

Before politics, set up an educational publisher which was sold for £30million in 2017.

EXPERIENCE: Longest-serving health secretary in history.

STRENGTH: Among the most experienced ministers in the field who, unusually, has made few political enemies.

WEAKNESS: Some, though, regard him as a ‘bit of a drip’.

Verdict: Seen by many as man who could best unite party on Brexit.

‘Sad he can’t afford bookshelves’: Dominic Raab is mocked online for leaving two piles of political biographies on his windowsill during a BBC interview ‘to appear well-read’

Perhaps he was keen to burnish his credentials as a political heavyweight.

Dominic Raab appeared for a BBC interview with what appeared to be a carefully curated selection of books in the background, including the autobiography of Austrian bodybuilder-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and biographies of US Presidents Regan and Nixon.

The pile of books also contained a primer on economics from the Economist magazine, in what may have been an attempt to prove his ability to run Britain’s economy.

Tory MP Dominic Raab appeared for a BBC interview with what appeared to be a carefully curated selection of books in the background

And it did not take long for people to take to social media to mock Mr Raab for trying to appear well-read with the awkwardly placed stack of books.

Dan Barker posted a witheringly sarcastic put-down which questioned the positioning of the MP’s collection.

He tweeted: ‘Sad that Dominic Raab cannot afford bookshelves, and is forced to place small stacks of politically relevant either side of his head in a way that looks really inconvenient in terms of opening those blinds.’

One mocker, Guy Pedliham from London, put it rather more bluntly and said: ‘That contrived placing of books in the background. You’re fooling none of your constituents.’

It did not take long for people to take to social media to mock Mr Raab for trying to appear well-read with the awkwardly placed stack of books

What books did Dominic Raab choose for the background of his BBC interview?

Virtual History | Niall Ferguson

Nixon | Jonathan Aitken

The Reagan Diaries | Ronald Reagan

An American Life | Ronald Reagan

King Hussein | Roland Dallas

Total Recall | Arnold Schwarzenegger

The Hugo Young Papers | Hugo Young

Economics | Matthew Bishop

Garrie Coleman, from Teesside, also weighed in on the former Brexit Secretary’s odd positioning of his books but suggested that, for someone reportedly vying to be the next prime minister, he did not come across as ‘in touch’.

He posted: ‘Here’s man-of-the-people Tory MP Dominic Raab doing what most ordinary folk do with their collection of books – keeps them on a sodding window sill.’

And one hilarious tweet even constructed a fake scenario in which the Tory MP asked his secretary to fetch him some intellectual books from the shops so he could come across well-read to the BBC audience.

Johnny Starling, from Tees Valley tweeted: Dominic Raab to his assistant – ‘I’m going to be on the telly, run down to Waterstones and buy some books to make me look clever.’

Labour’s Jess Phillips, a parliamentary colleague of Mr Raab’s, also put the boot in and wrote: ‘This is an amazing insight into a very fragile ego.’

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years

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Beto O’Rourke’s campaign may keep other Texas Democrats in his shadow

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=8358

Beto O’Rourke’s campaign may keep other Texas Democrats in his shadow

“Your Beto sign looks lonely.”

Joanna Cattanach texted those five words and a link to her campaign website to hundreds of voters — whose numbers she’d received from the Texas Democratic Party — in her Dallas-area state House district last month. The first-time candidate said she was motivated by the sea of distinctive black-and-white signs for El Paso Democrat Beto O’Rourke popping up in lawns all around her.

The gambit worked. Her campaign received 200 sign orders in the 24 hours after the text was sent out, she said.

It was just the latest example of the double-edged sword Cattanach and other Democrats running in down-ballot races — particularly those for state Legislature — are confronting amid the fervor O’Rourke’s bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has sparked among the party’s base.

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“If there’s $20 in a room, $10 of it is going to Beto. That’s just happening right now,” said Cattanach, who’s challenging Republican state Rep. Morgan Meyer of Dallas this fall. “The rest of it goes, in order, to the congressional candidates, [state] Senate candidates and then, if you’re lucky, as a state House candidate you can get some of that too.”

With the 2018 midterms less than three months away, Cattanach and other Texas Democrats are facing an issue that’s not uncommon for candidates lower on the ballot: getting noticed when the name at the top of the ballot is getting the most attention.

What stands out this year, many candidates and operatives say, is the level of excitement O’Rourke is generating among the party’s base, a situation that has led to the U.S. Senate race dominating attention this summer — over virtually every other race on the ballot.

Despite the fanfare surrounding O’Rourke’s run, the race remains Cruz’s to lose. Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in nearly 25 years. Cruz won his Senate seat in 2012 by 16 points. Yet lower on the ballot, Democrats see races where a win is far more likely — if only they can get out of O’Rourke’s shadow.

But, as former Austin-based Democratic consultant Harold Cook points out, the only thing worse than having a popular name at the top of the ticket is not having one.

“If you have one Democrat that’s doing well, that’s going to help down-ballot races,” Cook said. “I can tell you that some Democrat in Texas is going to win a House seat who would not have won if Beto were not doing well at the top of the ballot. Beto is going to do whatever he can do to break up a straight-ticket Republican vote, and do a pretty good job increasing turnout.”

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In House District 134, Democrat Allison Lami Sawyer said she’s experiencing this tension between O’Rourke energizing local Democrats while also monopolizing their attention first-hand. Politically, the Houston-area district is viewed as a toss-up: Harris County went undeniably blue in 2016 and Sawyer is running against state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, who is viewed as one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the state Legislature. But as Sawyer talks to Texans in her area, she said she’s finding it hard to keep the focus on her own race.

“It’s a major problem when you need to go and educate your own party about the subtleties of this race but you can’t get attention because Beto is so exciting,” Sawyer said in a recent interview with The Texas Tribune.

“A lot of Democrats down the ballot are worried that people will go in [to the polls] check ‘Beto’ and then leave the rest of the ballot blank,” she added.

At the national level, media outlets are pouncing on what they’re calling “Betomania,” an acknowledgment of the massive crowds that come to many of O’Rourke’s campaign events, his ability to connect with younger voters through social media and his hustle at garnering money, volunteers and attention in spite of his long-shot bid to outseat Cruz.

“Outside of El Paso, nobody had any real reason to pay attention to him,” said Cook, speaking of O’Rourke. While other Texas Democrats running for statewide office this year have struggled to fundraise and gain attention as viable competitors, recent polls show Cruz has a single-digit lead over his Democratic challenger. O’Rourke has helped boost interest in his bid by campaigning in every corner of the state, livestreaming much of it via Facebook.

“Most candidates put you back to sleep, but Beto did the opposite of that,” Cook added.

O’Rourke seems aware of how much of his party’s success this year in Texas is riding on his shoulders. While he’s received flak for not endorsing some fellow Texas Democrats — specifically Gina Ortiz Jones, who’s hoping to unseat a friend of O’Rourke’s, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, in one of Texas’ most competitive congressional races — he’s let lower-ballot candidates appear with him at events as he campaigns around the state. Over the weekend, most of the other Democratic statewide candidates joined O’Rourke on a swing through South Texas, speaking before him at “Musica con Beto” events that his campaign hosted in Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville.

“I want to make sure that wherever there’s an opportunity for these statewide candidates to meet the people who will decide their elections, that they get the chance to do that,” O’Rourke told reporters at a recent campaign event in Austin. “And I’m excited about the leadership that they’ll be able to provide this state.”

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Some compare the intense focus this year on the Cruz/O’Rourke race to what most candidates across the country dealt with in 2016, vying for the attention of voters absorbed by the presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“When you have a presidential year you have the same problem. It’s just a struggle to get known,” said Jeff Crosby, a Democratic consultant in Texas, on the challenge for down-ballot candidates. “There’s not much news coverage from TV or newspapers, so you’ve got to go to where the people are. You can’t do something passive.”

Julie Johnson, a Democrat challenging Republican state Rep. Matt Rinaldi of Irving, said she’s blockwalking and holding various events in her community to make sure voters know about her platform. Though she thinks her approach is helping her effectively challenge Rinaldi, she said she’s heard from other candidates that the excitement for O’Rourke is making it hard for them to get resources, specifically local volunteers, for their own campaigns.

“There’s some competition,” she said. “Beto does an awesome job of reaching people, but they want to volunteer for the big and shiny [races]. There are some really worthy down-ballot candidates that are worth volunteering for as well.”

O’Rourke’s blockbuster fundraising — he’s raised over $20 million in his bid against Cruz — has coincided with a fundraising boom for several Texas Democrats running in U.S. House seats this year. Yet some candidates for the state Legislature think donors’ excitement about flipping Congress has crowded out support for lower-ballot races.

Crosby estimated a candidate running for a competitive seats in an urban Texas Senate district may need $2.5 million for the midterms. Nathan Johnson, a Democrat challenging Republican state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas, raised $360,000 between the March 6 primaries and June 30. Though he declined to say how much he’s raised since then, he said his campaign is “on track fundraising-wise, but still has a lot of work to do.”

“There’s a great allure and a sex appeal to federal races that I think largely comes from all of us reading the national newspapers,” he said. “People regard state politics as lower office or less important. In terms of competing for money, we have to overcome less spotlight and the presumption that these are inexpensive races.”

Even some Republicans consultants think down-ballot candidates have reason to worry about the focus on O’Rourke’s campaign against Cruz.

“If I were the Democrats, I’d be putting a lot more energy into competitive state House and state Senate races and stuff down the ballot. They have a real opportunity,” said Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based GOP strategist. “But that’s what happens, right? These big races do take up a lot of the time and energy of the volunteers and the money of the donors, and it’s going to be really, really difficult for any Democrat to win statewide — even O’Rourke.”

“So if I was a Democrat, I’d be saying, “I’m a state House candidate. I’ve got a shot to win. This race is competitive and if I just had $50,000 of what O’Rourke got, I can probably win this thing,” he added.

Yet for all the frustration some Democrats may have at being overshadowed by O’Rourke, many candidates are also using it to their advantage whenever possible.

Julie Johnson said she recently recruited nearly 100 volunteers at a local O’Rourke rally. Ana-Maria Ramos, a Democrat challenging Republican state Rep. Linda Koop of Dallas, said she’ll reach out to voters in her district who already have O’Rourke’s yard signs — like Cattanach has already done with some success in a nearby district.

“I’ll take the movement because we need the energy. God, we need the energy at the top. Imagine if we didn’t have him. Who else would be our energy?” Cattanach asked. “I need him to be energetic and to do everything he can to excite our midterm nonvoters because it helps me.”

Since the primaries, Cattanach has raised more than $100,000. Like her success in targeting those with O’Rourke signs in their yards, she’s also hitting up the broader pool of donors to the El Paso Democrat.

“All of Beto’s financial reports are public, so we call his donors in House District 108 and remind them that the down-ballot candidate is here. The message that we send is that if you want Beto elected, then you need to elect me too,” she added.

Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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To understand what the Trump administration is thinking about separating families and locking kids up at the border, you have to understand Stephen Miller’s foundational political belief: It’s better to stir controversy, at any price, than it is to engage constructively.

The architect of Donald Trump’s immigration policy and the White House’s resident troll, the 32-year-old White House senior policy adviser believes it’s good to “trigger the libs,” so to speak, with “the purpose of enlightenment.” To Miller, working constructively across the aisle isn’t as useful as “melting snowflakes.”

To Miller, there’s no reason to moderate a view or a policy, especially not when it comes to his deepest passion: immigration restrictionism. It’s subject he was passionate about even in high school and one over which he bonded with former boss, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, a longtime immigration hardliner. It’s no wonder, then, that Miller designed the initial version of Trump’s travel ban, barring people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days, and refugees for 120 days.

As Republicans are beginning to call the Trump policy of separating children and parents at the border utterly cruel, Miller’s response is a reminder that not only does he not care, the cruelty is by design. “No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement,” Miller said in an interview with the New York Times. Enforcing that policy was a “simple decision.”

The popularity of the family separation policy is plummeting, and conservative pundits and politicians are jumping ship en masse. Even Trump administration officials who supported the separation policy in early 2017 are now attempting to pretend such a policy doesn’t exist.

Miller’s strategy of “melting snowflakes” might be his most deeply held belief. But on family separation, it’s divided the right and pushed the left back into the activist square.

My colleague Dara Lind has a terrific explainer on the family separation policy:

As a matter of policy, the US government is separating families who seek asylum in the US by crossing the border illegally. Dozens of parents are being split from their children each day — the children labeled “unaccompanied minors” and sent to government custody or foster care, the parents labeled criminals and sent to jail.

Per Lind’s research, between October 1, 2017, and May 31, 2018, at least 2,700 children have been split from their parents.

Family separation isn’t based on any law, and such policies may have had their origins in previous administrations — as Lind pointed out, the law addressing unaccompanied children was passed in 2008 and signed by President George W. Bush. But while Trump administration officials argue that they’re simply “doing their jobs,” videos released by Border Patrol of young children and women being kept in cages are causing an uproar across the country.

BREAKING: Border Patrol @CBP just gave us this video of the detention facility we toured yesterday in McAllen, Texas. We weren’t allowed to bring in cameras, or interview anyone. To be clear: this is government handout video. pic.twitter.com/Zjy80qIZFZ

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) June 18, 2018

Some conservative personalities have attempted to provide cover for the administration, arguing that cages aren’t cages, for example.

But overall, Trump’s White House is receiving significant pushback from conservatives, including members of Congress with high profiles within the right, and even pastors on Trump’s evangelical advisory board. Former first lady Laura Bush wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for a “more moral” answer to the problem of illegal border crossings, while Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) told CNN that Trump could “stop this policy with a phone call,” adding, “If you don’t like families being separated, you can go tell DHS stop doing it.”

Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) called the policy “horrible,” adding this message to Trump: “This is not a right or left issue. This is right or wrong. This is what it takes to be the leader of the free world. This is what it takes to be the leader of a free country.”

In a Facebook post, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) wrote of the policy: “Family separation is wicked. It is harmful to kids and absolutely should NOT be the default U.S. policy. Americans are better than this.” And Sasse pointed out that while “some in the administration have decided that this cruel policy increases their legislative leverage … This is wrong. Americans do not take children hostage, period.”

It’s that final point that’s received significant pushback — that children are being used as leverage to force Democrats to agree to a border wall or another form of immigration restriction. (Per a White House leaker: “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”) Even former Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly said that the Trump administration “will not win on this one.”

The government should know how bad this looks and how innocent children are actually suffering. That kind of scenario is unacceptable to most Americans as exemplified by former First Lady Laura Bush’s withering criticism. https://t.co/F4PKL00xLS

— Bill O’Reilly (@BillOReilly) June 18, 2018

The Trump administration hasn’t really tried to win the public conversation on family separations. As conservative writer Ross Douthat pointed out on Twitter, the policy didn’t begin with a public discussion or explanation for separating young children from their parents, or by making the case to Congress for more family detention facilities. It started by taking kids from their parents first and attempting to assuage demands for legislation later.

You can’t say “we’re being forced into this” if you didn’t make any effort to sell the public and Congress on the alternative system before you chose this one. And the fact that the Trump WH doesn’t do normal salesmanship/policymaking, bc incompetence, is an insufficient excuse.

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) June 18, 2018

That’s not a bug within the Trumpian system, it’s a feature of Stephen Miller’s approach. It’s also similar to the approach of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who agreed publicly with Miller in 2016 about the purported “massive problem” of immigration and who said Sunday on ABC’s This Week: “I don’t think you have to justify it.”

Miller’s reason for being in the White House and in politics is immigration restrictionism. When he joined the Trump campaign in 2015, conservative polemicist and immigration hardliner Ann Coulter tweeted, “I’m in heaven!”

And nothing has changed since 2015. As Miller told Breitbart in May, he believes the border with Mexico “is the fundamental political contrast and political debate that is unfolding right now.”

But Miller has no interest in convincing the opposition of the correctness of his views. Like he did in high school and in college at Duke University, he simply wants to enrage. As National Review columnist Dan McLaughlin told me, this follows his boss’ style of political discourse. “A hallmark of the Trump approach to politics is the assumption that politics is all about activating emotional reactions, not persuading anyone to change their mind.” In short, “triggering the libs.”

Republicans are trying to win the 2018 midterms. For members of Congress, that includes motivating the base — but it’s also about winning over moderates and independents too.

The Trump-Miller approach plays well with Breitbart readers and immigration restrictionists. But it’s not turning out to be hugely popular among Republicans. In the first Quinnipiac poll on children being separated from their parents at the border, voters oppose it 66 to 27. And though Republicans support it 55 to 35, that’s incredibly low in comparison to Republican support for, say, Trump himself.

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway distanced herself from the policy, telling Meet the Press that “nobody likes this policy.”

FULL INTERVIEW: @KellyannePolls joins #MTP in an exclusive interview and says, “As a mother, as a Catholic, as someone with a conscience… I will tell you nobody likes this policy,” on the issue of family separation at the border.https://t.co/FBm12m7lI4

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 17, 2018

It’s no wonder, then, that faced with such opposition, members of the administration not named Stephen Miller have resorted to arguing that the family separation policy isn’t a real policy at all. (This was before saying a day later that children taken away from their families by that “nonexistent” policy were being well-treated.)

But despite the linguistic gymnastics, the fundamental policy remains unchanged, as does the political strategy. The outrage and hoopla around the cruelty of the policy is the whole point. Even if the strategy backfires in the fall midterms, Miller’s game — drive the outrage, refuse to retreat — will remain the same.

Original Source -> Stephen Miller believes in controversy as political strategy, even if it means jailing children

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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pipelinelaserraygun · 7 years

Video

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FULL transcript, below!

“Well, thank you very much. It’s an honor to be here and, I must tell you, that Melania and I are really thrilled. We really looked forward to this. … I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s really quality people … quality people. So, thank you very much.

It’s been really another calm week at the White House. We finally have it running like a fine-tuned machine. It’s fine-tuned. It’s a beautiful piece of work. … But before I get started, I wanted to apologize for arriving a little bit late. You know, we were late tonight because Jared could not get through security. … Ivanka, you’ve got to do something, … Jared—but I will tell you, he’s a good guy. He has—he has suffered. He is a great guy he really is.

I know the Gridiron is really an old tradition in Washington, been around a long time, and one that’s important to many of you in the media. So, I was very excited to receive this invitation and come here and ruin your evening in person. … My staff was concerned heading into this dinner that I couldn’t do self-deprecating humor. They were worried about it. They said, ‘Can you do this?’ And I told them not to worry. Nobody does self-deprecating humor better than I do. … In fact, Orrin Hatch, Orrin said that ‘Donald Trump is the best at self-deprecating in the history of America, better than Washington and better than Lincoln.’ … Thank you, Orrin.

They told me my remarks tonight should be something like a late night routine. … Late night—are they the worst, by the way? We’re finally going to get one that’s going to come to our side. They will get very big ratings if they do that. … With all the television talent here, I think … you’d have figured that out. But I have to tell you, in preparation, I did what any good late night comic would do these days. I called Chuck Schumer and I asked him for some talking points. Can you believe this? I also spoke to some of the funniest people around the White House starting with my number two, Mike Pence. … Love you Mike. … Some of you may think that Mike is not a comedian, but he is one of the best straight men you’re ever going to meet. … He is straight! …

I saw him the other day. We’re in line shaking hands with men and women. A woman came over to shake his hand and he said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do that. My wife is not here.’ I never saw anything like it. He’s … years ahead of his time. … Mike is doing a fantastic job as our vice president. He really is. He’s doing a fantastic job. Could not have asked for better. I really am very proud to call him, ‘The Apprentice.’

But lately what bothers me, I have to tell you, he’s showing a particularly keen interest in the news these days. He starts out each morning asking everybody, ‘Has he been impeached yet?’ …. You can’t be impeached when theres no crime! … Mike, put that down! … I thought that was going to get a much better … I said to Melania, ‘Do you think I should use that one? I don’t know.’ And then she said, Use it. It’s good.’ … So much for humor. You never know about humor do you. …

Steve Mnuchin … we saw him and his beautiful wife on stage. … When she asked whether or not she could sign the money also, I said, ‘Steve, you’ve got a lot to handle.’ I said, ‘You can’t do that Steve!’

America has a proud history of Treasury secretaries who sponsor the arts. Alexander Hamilton gave us so much. Andrew Mellon famously gave us the National Gallery—tremendous gift. Steve has given us the blockbuster movie ‘Lego Batman.’ … See, now that one I didn’t think was funny at all.

But Attorney General Sessions is here with us tonight. … I offered him a ride over and he recused himself. … But that’s OK. We also have some of the leading lights of the media here including some folks from the failing New York Times. That sucker is failing! … I know we have our differences, but I also know that you have a very special place … in my heart. … The other day they had five stories on the front page of the New York Times and every one of them was totally different and each one of them was bad.

After all, you the New York Times are an icon. I’m a New York icon, you’re a New York icon, and the only difference is, I still own my buildings.

I especially have a place in my heart for Arthur Sulzberger. … Our stories are almost mirror images. I inherited a million dollars from my father—had a great father—gave me a million dollars and I turned it into billions. True story. Arthur inherited billions of dollars and he turned his into millions. Hello Arthur.

And it’s been a very tough year. Jeff Zucker’s here. … CNN, it lost a tremendous amount of credibility this year, but they also lost one of their true stars, the guy who got you the most scoops, inside info … your really very best reporter. There was nobody like him—Steve Bannon. That guy leaked more than the Titanic …

As I’m sure you’ve seen, we’re now riding very high in the polls, which is hard to believe considering I never get good press. But I just hit 50 in the Rasmussen poll.

A lot of people said I wouldn’t be able to do so with … losing my so-called chief strategist. … I just lost my strategist. … Just lost my strategist. It’s pretty bad, but somehow, we’re still doing great even without Omarosa. … By the way, I always knew, someday, you’re going to fire her. Is that the worst? By the way, Omarosa, you’re the worst! …

So many people have been leaving the White House. It’s actually been really exciting and invigorating. … I like turnover. I like chaos. It really is good.

Now the question everyone keeps asking is, ‘Who’s going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?’ … That is terrible honey, but you love me, right? … I wont tell you what she said. … She said, ‘Behave.’ … Is that terrible?

By the way, she has been an incredible first lady. … Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and all of them. There’s so many women in that audience. The women with signs, ‘We love our first lady.’ True, all of them, hundreds and hundreds of them during speeches, ‘We love high heels. We love everything.’ … These signs, they have pictures of shoes. … Remember when she was badly treated about wearing high heels when actually she had the sneakers in her bag? But they love our first lady.

I can tell you, despite what you’ve reported, we’ve had a lot of success this year. We really have … tremendous. Our tax plan has been a tremendous victory. … That is really turning out to be popular. Melania is even getting some major benefits from it. She can finally claim me as an adult dependent. …

And the White House is actually a warm, loving, and wonderful place. I’ve heard it’s cold. It’s not cold. It’s warm. It’s loving, you meet great people, wonderful people like yourselves. And I just don’t understand why everyone on the internet and in the media keeps screaming, ‘Hashtag Free Melania.’ Free Melania. … Like a number one hashtag. Free Melania. She’s actually having a great time.

Yes, are you? Oh, good, she’s having a great time. You’re doing a good job. You know, you can’t do a great job unless you enjoy it. It’s true. You people know that as great reporters. You love what you do, and if you didn’t love what you do, you wouldn’t do it well. …

Before we go any further, I want to just discuss the big financial story of the week. Ever since we announced our new tariffs, which actually is very popular with people because they’re tired of getting ripped off, many dying American industries have come to the White House asking for protection. They want help. They need protection. Unfortunately, I’m sorry, I fear it may be too late for the print media. That was pretty good though wasn’t it? … That’s another bomb that I thought was going to be great.

It might be hard for you to believe, but I do enjoy gatherings like these. They give me a chance to socialize with members of the opposition party. … Also great to see some Democrats here. … The opposition party, I’ve seen a few of them applauding tonight including Sen. Joe Manchin, who’s here.

And don’t worry, Joe. … He’s a good man. There aren’t any cameras this time Joe. And I won’t tell Chuck and Nancy what you’re doing. Because boy was he applauding me the other night. Right? At the State of the Union he was up there applauding. I don’t know who the hell he was catering to.

I thought my State of the Union address was actually extraordinary. One of the best ever given. in fact Luis Gutierrez was so overcome with emotion at how good this particular speech was that he had to leave the chamber. He left and wept.

I probably could have found a way to get the Democrats to stand and clap. … They didn’t. They were like frozen. I said black unemployment is at the lowest point in history. No emotion. They sat other than Manchin. He stood up. Thank you, Joe. He’s still paying the price for that. I said Hispanic unemployment is at the lowest level in history, record. There was no emotion. But I decided I wasn’t going to change anything. I wasn’t going to get them to stand. I didn’t know how. … I was not going to include a salute to Fidel Castro. They would have stood up. They would have cheered. …

And I know Mayor Mitch Landrieu feels right at home in Washington coming from Louisiana. I love Louisiana. … Not too bad right? Not bad Mitch! … It’s a beautiful swamp. I like that swamp. … That’s a much more legitimate swamp. But I have to say Mitch, that while you’re here in Washington, only one request. … They already hit him on the statues. I was going to say, ‘Don’t touch our statues.’ But they’ve already hit you three times on the statues. … But Mitch you did a good job tonight and honestly I love the way you finished. … I really did. I thought it was very appropriate. … Thank you.

And I never knew Tom Cotton was such a great comedian. We were laughing, the whole place. That was good tom. A rising star. How old are you now Tom? He’s 40. Wow, I better watch my back. You know … he’s a friend of mine, but in politics, you just don’t have these guys. … You were great tonight. I appreciate it. … Thank you Tom Cotton. And he is a rising star in our nation, not our party, in our nation. He’s got a great future—smart and a great guy.

I was hoping we’d also see Adam Schiff—wonderful guy. … Leaking Adam! … He’ll be in the middle of a meeting—what is he? In some committee, congressional committee, Mike what is it? Intelligence? Judiciary? What the hell committee? That’s the only thing, he doesn’t know what committee he’s on because he’s on the phone so much. He doesn’t have any time. ‘Hey, let’s call these guys.’ … Is that legal? Are you allowed to go to .. and just every half hour … ‘I got to go break the news.’ … Adam Schiff … He was going to come tonightand then he heard that this was not a televised event so he stayed home. He stayed home.

But Adam is constantly on television pushing the idea that somehow I would undermine democracy. … Undermine? I love democracy. But he thinks I’m going to undermine democracy. So, I have to tell him I have great respect for the various branches of government, the executive, the legislative, the judicial—very important—and last, Fox News. I have a lot of respect for Fox News. … Thank god for Fox News.

I often think that the Democrats would be better off if they learned a thing or two from us. They could learn from us. For instance, you might have noticed that some of the best lines from my campaign followed a certain pattern. ‘Drain the swamp!’ Remember that? … When I saw that I hated it. … Somebody brought that one down for me, I said, ‘This is so hokey.’ Drain the swamp. … This massive crowd, 25,000 people, and I said, .. Drain the Swamp!’ And they went crazy. I said, ‘Whoah.’ Then, I said It in the next speech, ‘Drain the swamp!’ And now, I love it. Drain the swamp!

But we had, ‘Drain The Swamp,’ we had, ‘Lock Her Up, we had, ‘Build The Wall.’ Build the wall! Nancy Pelosi has been trying to come up with a line that’s equal. And her line that she announced last week is, ‘Mow The Grass!’ It doesn’t work. ..

Mow the frickin’ grass. … That’s going to stop MS-13. … Mow that frickin’ grass! … Man, she’s crazy, but she’s a fine woman. She is. I actually like Nancy Pelosi. Can you believe that? Her and Maxine Waters. How about that one? Maxine Waters, ‘He must be impeached!’ That’s all she knows how to say, ‘He must be impeached!’ Impeached! … But he’s done nothing wrong. Doesn’t matter, they say. What has he done wrong? ‘I don’t know! You got to be impeached!’ … And then I say … I get in trouble for this, ‘She has to immediately, take an IQ test.’ And people go crazy. They went crazy/ But Maxine and Nancy and these people, there’s a lot of hatred. There’s so much hatred we have to stop Mike. We have to stop the hatred.

And it’s true … Nancy’s worth tens of millions of dollars and she’s a populist. … You know, she really considers herself that. And I really try to tell her that you can’t be a true populist unless you’re worth at least ten billion dollars … people like you better.

I don’t know how the hell they like me, but boy I love those people. I love them. I really do. … I understand that, in recognition of our massive tax cuts, Nancy suggested that—Oh, I’m not going to say this. The dessert should be crumb cake. Give me a break. You know, the word crumb is not working out well for Nancy.

On the way in tonight, someone asked me what I think about the Dreamers. I love the Dreamers. I do love the Dreamers. … I’ll be honest. … I really believe the Republicans want to solve this problem—DACA—more than the Democrats and certainly faster. So, we’re all working together and I hope that something’s going to happen. I really do. I hope that something’s going to happen. …

We’re talking about the Dreamers and, quite honestly, Democrats can fantasize all they want about winning in 2020. Those are the Dreamers. … I’m a Dreamer also. …

There’s talk about Joe Biden, Sleepy Joe, getting into the race. You know what he said, ‘I want to take him behind the barn.’ … Just trust me, I would kick his ass. … Boy, would he be easy. Oh, would he be easy. … But Joe—give me a break. The guy who keeps making outrageous statements thinks he has a shot at being president? Guy makes outrageous statements. … He’s going to be president? He doesn’t have a shot.

And Oprah. Oh … here’s my next one. Oprah, I don’t think she’s ever been hit verbally yet. Right? She’s led a charmed life. She’s done a great job. … She used to love me …. I was on one of her last shows, ‘The Trump Family.’ We’re going to have to replay that for her. We’re going to have to. … She says she’ll run only if she gets the go ahead from the Almighty. All right Oprah, go ahead and run. …

And then we have Elizabeth Warren. … I watched her making a speech for Hillary. I said, ‘I think she’s losing all of the male vote for Hillary Clinton.’ It was brutal. It was mean and angry. Elizabeth Warren, who had a rough day last week trying to prove her heritage, She had a rough day. And she had a good suggestion though about easing world tensions. The world is quite tense. Some of this stuff should have happened over the last twenty years, but it didn’t. … But she said that Rex Tillerson and I should sit down with the leaders of Iran and North Korea and smoke a peace pipe. … I didn’t like that Pocahontas.

I won’t rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won’t. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine. … He must be a fine man. Do you think he’s a fine man? … Although, we did save the Olympics. President Moon gave us a lot of credit, said, ‘It was—it was President Trump that made the Olympics successful because there were a lot of people that wanted to go into that stadium with the potential of a problem—a big problem—and he gave us all a lot of credit. He said, 'Without President Trump and his strong attitude they would have never called up and said, 'Hey, we’d love to be in the Olympics together.’

And that’s true. … Whether people want to hear it or not, they had a very successful Olympics. That was heading for disaster. They weren’t selling tickets. … It was heading for disaster and now we’re talking. And they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago and said, 'We would like to talk.’ And I said, 'So would we, but you have to de-nuke, you have to de-nuke.’

So, let’s see what happens. Let’s see what happens. You know when the media said … and when I said, 'My button is bigger than yours and mine works.’

Everyone gave me a hard time, what a terrible thing. They didn’t say what he said. He said, 'I have a button on my desk and I am prepared to use it.’ Nobody ever said that. So, my statement was in response, but maybe positive things are happening. I hope that’s true and I say that in all seriousness. I hope that’s true … But we will be meeting and we’ll see if anything positive happens. It’s been a long time. …. It’s a problem that should have been fixed a long time ago … very far down the road. …

i know there’s been a lot of talk about Twitter and social media this year. But it really can be an important form of modern day communication. If I didn’t have Twitter how would Gen. Kelly and Gen, McMaster know what it is that they’re supposed to say that day. They wouldn’t know. They’d have no idea.

There’s been a lot of criticism of John Kelly in the press, which i think is very very unfair. He’s doing an amazing job. He even told me he would let Ivanka visit the Oval Office when she gets home from representing us in the Olympics and she did so. Ivanka did you enjoy your visit? I hope so. That was very nice and by the way Ivanka did an incredible job representing our country at the Olympics. She did.

Many people have asked me how my time as a reality TV star prepared me for the presidency, the truth is there’s very little overlap between the two. Very little. In one job, I had to manage a cutthroat cast of characters desperate for TV time, totally unprepared for their … jobs, and each week afraid of having their asses fired. In the other job, I was the host of a smash television hit. … Television’s so easy compared to this. …

I know we all came here tonight to have fun and tell jokes, but I also think we need to discuss the issues. Issues are very important. … For example, we’ve got a new plan to tackle global warming, one of my favorite subjects. We’re going to reduce the carbon footprint when we travel by shrinking the press pool so that we only have room for Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and Judge Judy. …

I better wrap it up. I have to be up early tomorrow morning—six o'clock—to be listening to Fox and Friends. … But I do want to say this is one of the best times I can ever remember having with the media. This might be the most fun I’ve had since watching your faces on election night. … I apologize. Years, years, years taken off your life. Oh, John King, with that beautiful red map. His hand was shaking toward the end. … I love the way he uses that map. He’s good at it. … And then it was Michigan. Remember they wouldn’t call Pennsylvania? There was one percent of the … vote to go in Pennsylvania. It was like 11 o’clock. One percent of the vote to go, they wouldn’t call it. And if i lost even one of the votes, I won by a lot. They wouldn’t call it. So instead, they called Wisconsin. And then, John King, remember, ‘The Winner of the great state of Michigan.’ He’s going Michigan. He’s like, ‘Hey Trump won Michigan, this can’t be happening.’ And that hand was up. …

Look, whether you like me or not, you have to say that was good. That was exciting. … Lot of tears were in this room. You’re not supposed to cry. Mike are they supposed to be crying? If somebody wins or somebody … they’re supposed to be a little impartial. Let’s be a little bit more impartial. …

But you know, I’ll tell you what, I do have a lot of respect for a lot of the people in this room. Even people that have been very strong opponents, I’ve developed a lot of respect. Fairness is important to me, but you know, you’ve got your point of view. And a lot of you cover things very squarely and there are few professions that i respect more. And I’d like to thank the Gridiron Club and Foundation—foundation does an incredible job—for this wonderful evening. I want to thank all of the amazing speakers and, really, performers. Some very good performers … they really are. …

I want to thank the press for all you do to support and sustain our democracy. I mean that. I mean that. Some incredible people in the press … brilliant, powerful, smart, and fair people in the press. And I want to thank you. My greatest wish is that we can all work together to make America safe, and just, and free for all Americans. We have a great country and we all, together, will make it even better. Thank you all very much. This is a great honor thank you.”

The Saturday March 3rd, 2018 dinner was NOT televised.

On the animation, those were the ACTUAL punchlines delivered by the President.

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eurekamagdoteu-blog · 7 years

Text

So: Just Who Are The DUP?

A Young Arlene Foster.Photo by The Belfast Telegraph.

Lindsay Heenan

British politics is not what it used to be. A once stable and often monotonous political system has been shaken to its core in recent years, with resignations, referendums and leadership elections rendering the United Kingdom a fractured state in flux. For students of political science, Britain has rarely been as exciting; yet for Brits themselves, politics has rarely been so worrying.

With little doubt, the shock decision of the British electorate to leave the EU was the biggest accelerant in this new era of British politics. Described by many as a plunge into the dark, the referendum result unearthed a number of questions that didn’t immediately demand answers before June 23rd 2016 - including the time of the next General Election. Despite denying the need to call a General Election upon her ascension to Number 10, Theresa May’s 2017 U-turn brought Britain back to the polls earlier this year, in order to secure the mandate that her naysayers said she lacked. Predicted a colossal majority over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, May actually managed to lose 13 seats in the Commons, a fact that left her with a variety of unpleasant decisions to make. Who’d of thought that Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party would become the kingmakers of the commons amongst all this uncertainty?

As a Northern Irish citizen, I can absolutely acknowledge the lack of understanding around the DUP, or further still, what the situation in Northern Ireland actually is. My aim however, is to try and make sense of who the DUP are, what they stand for, and what Theresa May’s new reality means for the UK as a whole, as well as Northern Ireland itself.

Just Who Are the DUP?

If I’m being honest with myself, I’m not even sure where to begin with this. But let’s try it out. The Democratic Unionist Party was founded by Reverend Ian Paisley at the height of ‘The Troubles’ in 1971. The firebrand preacher established the party on the principle of staunch allegiance to the United Kingdom - totally abhorrent of any sort of Dublin influence in Northern Irish affairs. This was perhaps best demonstrated by Paisley’s charisma-fuelled ‘Never’ speech in protest of Margaret Thatcher’s signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement - a video I thoroughly recommend finding on YouTube.

Since its inception, the DUP has always offered a somewhat more radical form of ‘unionism’ in Northern Ireland. In 1998, they refused to enter the new Northern Irish government established by the Good Friday Agreement, on the grounds that they would not share power with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA. This move would skyrocket their support among those who could not yet bear the thought of convicted murderers, who despite having not served full sentences, were being elected to public office. Ironically, when they became the largest party in the country in 2006, Paisley and the DUP would change their views on this matter, and indeed entered into government with the ‘bloodthirsty monsters’ (Paisley) of Sinn Fein. Paisley himself would serve as First Minister alongside IRA top gun (perhaps ‘top bomb’ would be more appropriate) Martin McGuinness. Paisley dramatically softened his stance on Irish Nationalism and Catholicism during this time, but it would not be enough for the DUP’s ‘modernisers’, who ousted him from the party in 2008.

What Do They Believe?

To get a grip with what the DUP stand for today, it’s important to clear up the misconceptions spread by British tabloids that no doubt clogged our Facebook feeds in the days following the General Election. The reality of the DUP is that, as far as Northern Ireland goes, they really are not that shocking of a phenomenon. Outside of our London bubble, there are without doubt areas of the UK which some may refer to as, well, a little more rustic. There is perhaps no area a better example of this than Northern Ireland - we did go through a thirty-year civil war after all.

A proudly Christian party, in what remains a strongly Christian country, the DUP uphold the views of the Protestant tradition in Northern Ireland - and are popular for doing so. Their support mostly stems from rural church-goers and working class Protestants in larger towns and cities like Belfast and Derry. The former sympathise with their hardline stance on issues like gay marriage and abortion (which both remain illegal in Northern Ireland), while the latter see them as the only party protecting their right to fly Union Jacks from every lamppost available, and march on the roads as much as possible during Northern Ireland’s 10 annual sunny days. With Sinn Fein’s support growing among Catholics in Northern Ireland, it would be political suicide for the DUP to alienate either of these core support groups. Thus, their stance on key issues only hardens. The party remains as firm today on many issues as it did during the Paisley years. They reject calls by people in the North to have a referendum on the border. They do not agree with the legalisation of gay marriage, abortion, or recreational drugs. They deny notions of Darwinist evolution and climate change. While this may seem like a shocking set of beliefs outside of my country’s borders, a high percentage of the population have a keen fondness for the DUP’s offerings.

The party’s stance on gay marriage and abortion have undoubtedly resulted in them getting plastered with homophobic and sexist labels - which to me feels overzealous. It would be wrong to label the whole support base of the party as homophobes and misogynists on account of their religious beliefs on social issues. But this does not mean the DUP are not deserving of these labels. The leadership continues to stand behind members of the party who have clear homophobic and sexist, not to mention racist, Islamophobic, and sectarian, beliefs. Here are some standouts:

‘There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children’ - Iris Robinson, former MP, on child sex abuse

‘Would I trust them to go down to the shops for me, yes I would’ - Peter Robinson, former First Minister, on distrust of Muslims

‘I don’t care about CO2 emissions, to be quite truthful’ - Sammy Wilson, MP, on climate change

‘Her most important job will remain that of a wife, a mother, a daughter’ - Edwin Poots, MLA, on Arlene Foster becoming First Minister

‘Save Ulster from sodomy!’ - Ian Paisley’s slogan during protests against legalising homosexuality

Clearly, then not a very forward thinking party. These people are certainly part of the DUP’s old guard- but the fact that the party continues to give these individuals power and air-time speaks volumes.

So What Does Confidence & Supply Mean For Us?

So what will the deal between May’s Conservatives and Foster’s DUP mean going forward? For Northern Ireland, this really has the potential for good things. An injection of £1 billion to one of the poorest regions of the UK is all the more valuable considering we are currently lacking a government, and looks to be lacking one for the foreseeable future. Despite opposition from many in England, Scotland and Wales, Northern Ireland is the region in most desperate need of investment to education and infrastructure. Though I have much distaste for the DUP, I’m excited for the prospects this deal brings for Northern Ireland, both economically and politically - perhaps this forgotten province shall finally gain some politically clout. For the UK as a whole, the deal will actually do very little. A ‘Confidence & Supply’ deal looks almost nothing like the Conservative’s coalition formed with the Liberal Democrats in 2010. The DUP’s ability to shape policy going forward will be highly limited, with May’s main concern in shaking their hands being the passage of budgets and the avoidance of Motions of No Confidence. Despite unrest even among Tory ranks of the DUP’s record on LGBT rights, it’s unlikely that we’ll see any sort of homophobic legislation rolled out UK-wide.

A general election nobody predicted left us with a result that similar numbers foresaw. The DUP became the kingmakers in May’s government’s most desperate times, giving the six counties of Ulster levels of media attention last seen when bomb-strapped cars lined the streets of Belfast. In the end, Northern Ireland remains a poisoned chalice - it is in neither the interest of the United Kingdom, nor of the Republic of Ireland, to control this region. An economic liability and a desperately divided state, the future is uncertain for Northern Ireland - the present however, looks rather promising.

#dup #northern ireland #politics #Eurekamag #Brexit #politic #university college london

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