The New York Times gave us the chart above, in an article about how the “he could shoot someone at high noon in central park and we wouldn’t care” Trump “base” will make a Republican effort to nominate a responsible, respectable, competent candidate for President difficult if not impossible. Look at that array! And my sister, a Democrat, complains that her party’s options are terrible, which they are.
How can a nation this large and diverse have no leaders who seem capable of doing the top job ethically and well? This is a societal, cultural, systemic failure.
That a character like Donald Trump, former POTUS or not, can have that kind of overwhelming support in the midst of indictments, the long, long trail of ridiculous and offensive statements, and his disqualifying conduct of refusing to accept his electoral defeat yet tells us that something is deeply rotten in the state of America. And whatever that state of rotteness is, returning either Joe Biden or Trump to the White House would be an invitation to too many disasters to contemplate.
But let’s start from the bottom of the list, where hope blooms. Nobody wants Chris Christie to run. Good. He was an ethics villain in 2016, knocking off Trump’s adversaries in the debates when he had the rhetorical tools and ammunition to take out Trump the way he reduced poor Marco Rubio to a laughing stock. Then Christie endorsed Trump, whom he knew was unfit, in a corrupt quid pro quo deal, probably to be Vice-President, which Trump reneged on. Then Christie was out to get Trump again, but it was too late. The one-time rising GOP star’s star was already permanently tarnished by his George Washington Bridge fiasco anyway. He’s running to get headlines and speaking fees, I guess. That he has almost no support speaks almost as well for the Republican voters as their support for Trump is damning.
Vivek Ramaswamy is the GOP equivalent of tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang in the last cycle for the Democrats. He’s not a serious candidate, and anyone who thinks he is doesn’t understand the American Presidency. Like Christie, he’s just static in the race, and a distraction. In a very important election like the one approaching, causing static and distractions is unethical.
Nikky Haley lost me and any hope of getting wide support by trying to play “both ends against the middle” regarding Trump, first condemning him unequivocally after the January 6 riot when she was sure he was finished, then trying to worm her way back into Trump’s good graces when she realized that sucking up might be a better strategy. Maybe she’s running for Vice-President on a Trump ticket. She should talk to Chris Christie.
Senator Tim Scott, like Haley and Christie, has an integrity deficit. One conservative firebrand also described him as “an affable but unaccomplished senator firmly within the tradition of the political puffballs that South Carolina’s GOP inexplicably turns out,” and that’s true too. But he disqualified himself last week by pandering to CRT anti-America racists by agreeing with Kamala Harris’ despicable Big Lie that Ron DeSantis’s state’s guidelines for public school history hold that “slavery was beneficial for slaves.” (We discussed Harris’s smear here.) The news media, of course, loved it: NBC, for instance brayed: “Tim Scott rebukes Ron DeSantis over Florida Black history standards about slavery – The GOP presidential candidate told reporters that, despite new language in Florida public schools, ‘there is no silver lining’ in slavery.”
As others have pointed out, either Scott is stupid, or he lied along with Harris to harm the prospects of DeSantis, his main rival beside Trump. Either way, he’s not a viable, or respectable, candidate.
Then there’s Mike Pence, who is deluded. His single claim to fame is that he refused to try a ridiculous, obviously crack-brained scheme cooked up by one of Trump’s “best people” on the theory that the Vice-President could stall the election certification process. In other words, his single claim to fame is that he isn’t a complete idiot. Mike Pence would lose to Joe Biden or an inanimate carbon rod in a landslide that would make Barry Goldwater seem like a champ. The Trump Cult will never forgive him, he is an anti-LGTBQ bigot, and has literally nothing to offer except his apparently sincere religious beliefs.
Finally, there’s Gov. DeSantis, the only Republican who has a shot at getting more support in the primaries than a man who is too old, and who has proven again and again that he has no ethics alarms, no impulse control, and still only a CEO’s concept of leadership, which is not how the office of the President was designed to function. And that man, if nominated, is going to be occupied by multiple criminal prosecutions when he should be devoting his attention to sending the Democrats back to school so they can re-learn the Bill of Rights.
DeSantis, a successful and popular governor of a major state, should have an easy path to the nomination. Unfortunately, so far he hasn’t shown that he can run a campaign, or that he knows how to 1) avoid falling into traps, like the recent disaster with his Nazi-loving speechwriter or that he’s “ready for prime time.” Right now, he seems to be the second coming of Scott Walker, the once hyped conservative governor of Wisconsin who became invisible on the debate stage.
This bunch makes the 2016 GOP field running against Trump look like The Magnificent Seven. Surely, surely, there are better leaders out there.
And now, a song…
Ethics Alarms 
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
I’m reminded of Kim Hubbard’s line, “We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.”
I apologize for my iPhone changing “Kin” Hubbard to “Kim.” Darned AutoCorrect.
I’m starting to get the worrisome feeling that the Democrats might win again. It’s just depressing to imagine it, but we seem to be inching towards this non-trivial possibility. I think though that Joe Biden, because of Hunter, or other circumstances, might be taken off the ballot. Though the big wigs need to hurry up with it, so there’s enough time to pivot. I think Kamala is not even a consideration. Who but Gavin Newsom?
Dems control the ballots and the ballot boxes. As a result, they will win the presidency in 2024 even if they run a low-grade artichoke. Our presidential elections are similar to those held in Soviet and current day Russia.
And just wait, in the handful of places the GOP manages to figure out ballot harvesting to its own advantage, there will be nothing but story after story after story of election fraud.
No they’re not.
“Our presidential elections are similar to those held in Soviet and current day Russia.”
This comment just shows how successfully Trump has brainwashed a good portion of the nation.
Regarding Tim Scott:
“But he disqualified himself last week by pandering to CRT anti-America racists by agreeing with Kamala Harris’ despicable Big Lie that Ron DeSantis’s state’s guidelines for public school history hold that “slavery was beneficial for slaves.””
If that is his biggest flaw, there is still time to overcome it. He can adjust his position, while admitting that he spoke too hastily without fully understanding the entire issue and that he intends to learn from the experience, blah, blah, blah.
-Jut
I don’t think so. That episode also means he is vulnerable to black activist group-think and inclined to pander, just like the previous black President.
Scott lost me immediately and permanently for the exact reason provided in this post. Coward.
My vote for Trump is now simply a middle finger to the Democrats.
Which is worse 4 more years of Trump or 4 more years of Biden, and why?
Trump actually didn’t enact disastrous policies and for the most part did ok when you take away the media-driven insanity that didn’t have to happen except that the Left Wing is insane.
Biden’s record is an unmitigated failure.
This is easy. I’ll begrudgingly deal with 4 more years of progressive media behaving little better than toddlers than having an actual toddler at the helm of the Federal Government.
By what metric is Biden’s record an “unmitigated failure?” The economy is doing well. We have record employment numbers. Inflation has slowed down. Violent crime is down. Illegal immigration is down. Not everything is perfect and of what’s good, not all of it can be attributed to the president, but I’m not seeing unmitigated disaster here. Americans aren’t happy due to political division and culture war, but I don’t see that as Biden’s fault. I could also name several policy disasters on Trump’s end, primarily foreign policy disasters.
The massive inflation is NOT a sign of a healthy economy—nor is an uncontrolled National Debt. The employment numbers are more illusory than ever, because so many have dropped out of the job market entirely. Businesses have cut back on hours and staff—I experience the results of this every day. To argue that the economy is great is pure gaslighting.
We don’t have massive inflation right now. As I pointed out, it has slowed down significantly.
The national debt is no more uncontrolled now than it was under Trump, or any of the previous four presidents. The more important number is the deficit, which has continued the trend of rising under Republican presidents and shrinking under Democratic ones.
The employment numbers aren’t “illusory” because people are dropping out of the job market, you just have to look at labor force participation numbers; those are two different things. You have to measure employment based on people looking for work, and by that standard, the fact is that most people who want a job can get one. When we have more jobs than people willing to fill them that does create problems, but it sure beats the alternative.
We don’t have massive inflation right now. As I pointed out, it has slowed down significantly.
I don’t read comments that start out dishonestly like this. The level of inflation hasn’t gone down. Costs remain higher than they were or ever should have become. Saying the rate of inflation has slowed down is like saying the rate of increasing the National Debt is slowing, or “I’m not bleeding out as fast as I was!” That’s a deceitful talking point, not an argument.
“The more important number is the deficit, which has continued the trend of rising under Republican presidents and shrinking under Democratic ones.”
https://reason.com/2023/07/19/why-did-joe-biden-stop-talking-about-the-deficit/
The deficit decreased under Biden if you only look at spending at the beginning of COVID, when Trump was still president. It is still significantly higher than Trump’s deficit, outside of the COVID year. And you’re ignoring who really controls the budget–it’s not the president, it’s Congress. People who throw out your snippet ignore the salient fact that deficits decrease the most when the House and the presidency are owned by opposite parties, especially when the House is owned by Republicans.
In fact, all of Biden’s accomplishments you list are a result of things getting back to relative normal after people overreacted to COVID. Everything is worse than before COVID, but it isn’t as bad as it was at the height of COVID.
Bingo. And pretty obvious too, but those deceptive talking points still work.
“…speech while committing a crime”
As in you’re using your speech to lie to commit fraud.
[Comment removed]
I hope this isn’t for me because I’m answering your question and broke no rules and am trying to have an honest debate here.
First Amendment doesn’t protect speech when you use your speech to commit a crime like fraud.
Like if I lie to an insurance company to collect disability, or lie about being beat up. There are many examples.
It was, but maybe I was in error: What did “As in you’re using your speech to lie to commit fraud” mean? I took it to be an accusation that I had used my speech to lie. Was it?
Pending your response, I have taken down the banning notice.
“You’re speech” didn’t actually mean Jack Marshall’s speech.
“a person’s speech”
Got it. Sorry to over-react: another commenter was misbehaving, and I was in a banning mood. My apologies. (Please write more clearly).
The original claim was that Biden has been an “unmitigated failure.” I cited factors contradicting that claim, which has yet to be backed up by anyone. I also said that I do not necessarily credit Biden with all of the positive factors I mentioned.
That the economy has somewhat recovered from the disastrous government response to COVID (admittedly, which Trump absolutely engaged in) is only contradictory to Michael’s claims if you assume Biden was somehow responsible for that recovery.
But no, he decided to throw gasoline on the inflation bonfire, has repeatedly decided to throw gasoline on the culture war bonfire, and as I indicated in my comment below, has shown a horrifying disregard for constitutional limits to presidential power.
I’d be interested to hear what you think Biden is directly responsible for that is good (and not just compared to the height of COVID, but the normal that was before COVID). You cite inflation, the economy, and crime. What did Biden do to improve any of these?
I’m not sure if any of these measures have improved the economy—I’m not an economist. But here’s some of what he has done that may have had an effect:
“
Bidenomics is a made-up way to package some very real things. Legislatively, it entails items such as the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the CHIPS Act. On the regulatory front, it tries to boost competition in ways big, such as antitrust enforcement, and small, like eliminating junk fees. From the bully pulpit, it is a bent that is more pro-worker and focused on specific industries.
The way the White House lays it out, at the core of Bidenomics are three pillars: making smart public investments in America, empowering and educating workers, and promoting competition. Within those pillars, Bidenomics takes big swings at change but also tackles issues at the margins, and some of it appears to be working.”
https://apple.news/Ar0g7_kTHRSiYGcfxrqT1KQ
“Appears to be working” is right: The US economy is recovering faster from the pandemic than most other Western industrialized nations.
And the “disastrous response to Covid” included the former president discouraging mask usage and social distancing, which extended the pandemic. He did do well fast-tracking and pushing the vaccine, but at that point he had so seeded distrust of science and love of conspiracy theory into his followers that they were more reluctant to take it than the general population. This also extended the pandemic. This does not mean the CDC did not also do things to confuse the issue, or that all the measures passed by left-leaning officials were justified. But ultimately, not taking the pandemic seriously made the fallout worse (and was also a leading cause of Trump’s electoral loss).
I’m sorry, but throwing more government money (i.e., not new value, merely fiat currency) at an economy that first and foremost is suffering from an excess of demand (caused in large part by huge cash giveaways) and a dearth of supply (caused by both the pandemic itself and the government’s reaction to the pandemic) is about the worst thing you can do if you’re trying to prevent runaway inflation and a recession. If we had truly been practicing Keynesian economics (which no one will ever do) and shoring up production and value during more plentiful times, perhaps the government could have spent its way out of the pandemic without runaway inflation. Extremely doubtful even in the best of circumstances.
And the disastrous response to COVID was not in a lack of response from the government, but in shutting everything down. Despite all the claims, there is no correlation, much less a causal relationship to be found, between how well a population social distanced/wore masks and the infection rate. You attribute conservatives’ reticence to government edicts and solutions to Trump when Occam’s Razor tells us that conservatives are already more leery of government.
“I’m sorry, but throwing more government money (i.e., not new value, merely fiat currency) at an economy that first and foremost is suffering from an excess of demand (caused in large part by huge cash giveaways) and a dearth of supply”
I suggest reading the whole article. The “dearth of supply” is being addressed. And a lot of those bills go beyond merely “throwing money.”
Your claim that there is no correlation between how well a population social distanced/wore masks seems contradicted by much of the research I have seen. Here is just one study contradicting that claim. I am not vouching for its authority, merely presenting an alternate perspective.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213701/
Biden’s idea of what the job of government is–and I’m saying Biden but it’s probably more his staff since he seems to be mostly a figurehead at this point–is downright frightening.
His willingness to do things he himself has said is unconstitutional or that has already been ruled unconstitutional is a bigger threat to our Republic than Trump could ever try to be. Between reinstating the eviction moratorium (after it had been ruled unconstitutional by the SC), trying to forgive student loans (after admitting himself he didn’t have that power), and trying to by proxy mandate vaccinations for a large majority of the working public, he is coming as close as I ever thought I’d see a president to outright declaring the Constitution a hindrance to the United States. And that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m missing other examples.
The previous president, and Biden’s main competition to be the next one, tried to overturn the election. He wanted his VP to refuse to certify so that he could stay in office. His next VP will almost certainly attempt to comply with that demand, which could create a major constitutional crisis.
I am not saying any of the actions of Biden’s you bring up here are constitutional—in fact, I agree with you that they are not! But if we are weighing the two main candidates against each other, the prospect of overturning our entire democratic system of elections seems a lot scarier to me than forgiving student loans or stopping evictions. If that system is not viewed as sacred, or at least legitimate, by both sides of the aisle, then the types of objections you rightly bring up against the president’s constitutional overreaches will not matter. Our votes won’t matter. That’s the America Trump wants—where he declares victory by fiat and can change the Constitution at will.
I’d have more of a problem with Trump’s actions on Jan 6th if they:
1. Had any chance of success. No one has ever explained to me how Pence refusing to certify the election would have thrown anything into chaos–we would have been in the same situation we are now, with a small minority of the population claiming that Trump should be president but no one with any real power changing their behavior because of it. I see it as even less egregious than Hilary’s rogue electors plan back in 2016, because although there was some question about whether electors really did have the ability to override their states’ votes, some states had explicit laws that would forbid them from doing what Hilary wanted.
2. Weren’t murky, constitutionally. We’ve never been in this situation before, so we don’t know what is allowed and what isn’t. For the most part, Trump was exploring potential avenues for stopping the election certification; outside of getting at least one of the other branches of government involved, I don’t see how he could ever have hoped to succeed. On the contrary, Biden and the democrats are directly delegitimizing the SC, whose only claim to any power is based on its perceived legitimacy–the SC doesn’t have armies or bureaucrats to enforce its edicts.
Trump is good at creating situations we’ve never been in before. Biden is good at directly attacking the separation of powers with something that obviously has a very good chance of success–delegitimizing the Supreme Court.
Trump never tried to delegitimize the Supreme Court? Really?
A president who doesn’t respect your right to vote and to have your vote counted will not respect any of your other rights.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/his-own-words-presidents-attacks-courts
“A president who doesn’t respect your right to vote and to have your vote counted will not respect any of your other rights.” That’s really outrageous and pure partisan spin, as you know, I hope. Do better.
Your own link doesn’t support your claim.A call for recusal of two justices isn’t attacking SCOTUS (which Obama did in a SOTU), and the other items didn’t involve SCOTUS. Disputing Roberts’ boilerplate claim isn’t attacking the Court. But it doesn’t matter: you can’t use Trump, whose conduct you deplore, to justify bad conduct from anyone else. My position is that a POTUS can say he disagrees with a decision of any Court, and should leave it at that.
Calling for a recusal for bullshit reasons is of course attacking SCOTUS. He said they should recuse over any case involving him–you agree that’s ridiculous, right?
And I’m not using it to justify Biden’s bad conduct. I was responding to a direct comparison between Biden and Trump. How am I supposed to respond to a comparison I feel is misleading if I can’t make a comparison of my own?
By ignoring it as irrelevant, which it is. I didn’t give Trump a pass because Obama did it. But, to be fair, if someone attacked Trump’s judge comments saying that Obama would never do such a thing, I would be obligated to point out that he did.
Never mind!
The object here isn’t to give anyone a “pass.” We are talking about who would be a better president; specifically, whose view of the Constitution and actions regarding it would be less damaging. I acknowledged that I believe some of Biden’s actions have been unconstitutional, but that I feel Trump’s are more extreme and do more damage to the Constitution as a whole. Junkmailfolder is taking the opposite view. Only one of us is being told that by doing this, we are giving our preferred president a pass.
You can’t offset second hand accounts of what Trump “wanted to do” and, in my view, false accounts of what he did with multiple unconstitutional acts and conduct by the Biden Administration.
And no, a VP trying to stop a certification of an election would create no more of a Constitutional crisis than a VP announcing he was the Queen of the Nile. It can’t be done. No judge would rule otherwise. No sane VP would try it. Mike Pence is about as dim as VPs get, and even he wasn’t that dumb.
“Second-hand?” “False?” Trump wanted to overturn the election–he said that himself, firsthand. And the latest indictment does a good job demonstrating that this may have gone beyond mere speech and crossed the line into fraud, especially with the fake elector stuff, which is probably more important than his demands to Pence. Not to mention times he directly violated the separation of powers, such as declaring a border emergency to use military funding for the border all, or the bump-stock ban.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/exit-survey-trumps-constitutional-misdeeds
It’s still second hand, and it’s still just a desire, as we’ve been discussing before. Joe Biden has stated that he wanted to do things he said were unconstitutional, then actually tried to do them anyway, and nobody is alleging a crime.Not to mention times he directly violated the separation of powers, such as declaring a border emergency to use military funding for the border all, or the bump-stock ban…” They shouldn’t be mentioned. These were defensible efforts to argue for presidential power that hadn’t been tried yet. Trump doesn’t know the Constitution from a wring desk: some lawyer on staff told him it was worth a shot, just as some lawyer told Biden he had the power to cancel student debts.
Yes. it’s ridiculous. It criminalizes speech. It should be 100% irrelevant that Trump has continued to say that the election was stolen. That’s not misinformation, it’s Trump’s opinion.
Yup, I was misinformed on Tribe. He’s hopeless now; I shouldn’t have made that mistake. By “timing” he means that the objective should be to stop Trump from running, which is, of course, a partisan position, not a legal one. Not surprisingly, Tribe thinks an anti-speech indictment is just fine if it kneecaps Trump. Tribe is a disgrace.
“It criminalizes speech. It should be 100% irrelevant that Trump has continued to say that the election was stolen. That’s not misinformation, it’s Trump’s opinion.”
That is, of course, not what he has been indicted for.
From the indictment:
“The Defendant and co-conspirators organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states…attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow…This included causing the fraudulent electors to meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes; cast fraudulent votes for the Defendant; and sign certificates falsely representing that they were legitimate electors. Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the Defendant succeeded in outcome-determinative lawsuits within their state, which the Defendant never did. The Defenders and co-conspirators then caused these fraudulent electors to transmit their false certificates to the Vice President and other government officials to be counted at the certification proceeding on January 6.”
That’s not speech. It’s an action. And it’s likely fraud.
Of course, the government still has to prove intent, which means proving that Trump knew he was lying, as the indictment alleges. The indictment provides evidence of this, such as when Trump said that Pence was “too honest” in regard to Pence refusing to go along with his election lies. This is where the witness tampering counts come in, which will likely be a lot easier to prove than the conspiracy and fraud charges.
It is not, unlike the classified documents indictment, an open and shut case. But it is a case, and you’re wrong to claim otherwise. I recommend David French and Ken White’s analysis for more on that.
The fake electors had no means of registering their votes, unless there was a plot to murder the real electors, and there was not. It was a scheme that couldn’t succeed, that was not anticipated by any law because it could not succeed. There was no harm, because there could not be any harm.
David French is such a an anti-Trump zealot that I really don’t trust his judgment regarding Trump, but if you have the Ken White link, I’d love to read his take. Ken has also jumped the shark regarding Trump, but I always respect his analysis.
Here’s something the president definitely didn’t believe was true:
“99. That night, the Defendant approved and caused the Defendant’s campaign to issue a public statement that the Defendant knew, from his meeting with the Vice President only hours earlier, was false: “The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.”
This was simply a lie. This isn’t Trump saying what he believes, it’s saying what the Vice President believes. And he knew the Vice President did not share his belief because the Vice President told him that many times.
That alone doesn’t show fraud or conspiracy. But it does show that the president was perfectly willing to lie in order to accomplish his goal of staying in office. Which should make any rational jury wonder: whar else was he lying about?
Really, so what? That doesn’t describe a crime, or evidence of a crime. Nor does the President and Vice President’s agreement about a matter of Constitutional law mean a damn thing: neither is exactly a scholar. OK< Pence has a right to be furious. What is that doing in an indictment?
I am unaware of any stipulation in the laws under which Trump has been charged that says a fraud must have the potential to succeed in order to be prosecuted. Can you cite that part of the laws?
The fraud is in knowingly submitting falsified documents to Congress for the goal of obstructing an official proceeding. Michigan has already charged 16 fake electors for doing this very thing. Are they wrong to do so? I would need a much more thorough analysis of the law in order to be persuaded that they are. And no one is arguing that they have been indicted for mere “speech.”
“No sane VP would try it.”
Ok, but we won’t have a sane VP in a second Trump term. We will have someone like Kari Lake or Mike Flynn. Trump is never going to pick anyone like Mike Pence, whom he views as a betrayer, again. His cabinet will be made up of nothing but yes-men and loons—sorry, I mean “enemies of the Deep State.” Who knows what they’ll try? As I said before, if I had told you Trump himself would try what he did prior to the 2020 election, you would have said I had TDS.
“Really, so what?”
It goes right to the heart of the “he really believed it” defense, as do other quotes in the indictment. He knew Pence didn’t agree with him and lied and said that Pence did. That supports Smith’s argument that Trump’s lies were knowingly false. Again, lies aren’t illegal, but the issue is using them in service of perpetrating a fraud and attempting to deprive citizens of their voting rights.
Here’s the White piece. He doesn’t argue strongly in favor of the indictment, but does convincingly show that it’s plausible with the way these laws have been applied in the past, and takes aim at the National Review for its misleading coverage of precedent. I hope you will not dismiss it out of hand. These charges are serious and defaulting to the belief that they can’t possibly be merited may end in disappointment.
There is no fraud if Trump believed that he did not lose the election, and there is no evidence, none, zero, that he did not. You cannot intend a fraud when you think what you are doing is right and truthful. A fraud that has no effect is just a lie, and lies are protected by the First Amendment. Actions in pursuit of a fraud can constitute an attempted crime. The entire indictment is bootstrapping, and without proof that Trump didn’t really think he won, then the whole contrived effort fails.
Sorry, forgot the link: https://popehat.substack.com/p/people-are-lying-to-you-about-the
Thanks.
And I read Ken’s piece. It’s excellent. But it isn’t an endorsement of the arguments in the indictment, it is, as is typical, a solid, historical legal analysis of the legal theories involved, aimed at rebutting a careless National Review analysis. Ken does this better than anyone. His grand approval comes down to the statement that the arguments that Trump engaged in crime are “plausible.” Talk about faint praise.
I would also like to see Andrew McCarthy’s rebuttal to Ken’s criticism of his analysis.
I literally just showed you the evidence. He knew Pence didn’t agree with him and he lied and said that Pence did. That’s evidence that he was willing to lie about other things in service of his goal. There are other quotes in the indictmentwhich show this as well: telling Pence he’s “too honest” when Pence said he couldn’t overturn the election, implicitly conceding by saying “We’ll give it to the next guy” in a natsec meeting, admitting that Sidney Powell’s theories were “crazy” and then repeating then anyway. You read the indictment, so you know all this.
And previously you said there was no reason to mention the lies in the indictment, but now you say there can be no crime if he didn’t lie? Which is it?
He also knew the false slate of electors wasn’t real. Even if he did really believe that he won the election—even if those beliefs were true!—that would not magically make them the real electors, and it would not make the false documents that submitted to Congress magically true. And causing them to submit those false documents is not speech, it’s an action.
You never answered my question: was Michigan wrong to indict the 16 fake electors?
How does that have anything to do with whether Trump believed that he won the election? Nor does it even prove that Trump was lying about Pence. He may have misunderstood. Pence may have waffled, or not been direct: you can’t trust Pence any more than you can trust Trump. It’s he said/he said.
As for the Michigan electors: I haven’t studied it enough to have an informed opinion.
“ How does that have anything to do with whether Trump believed that he won the election?”
Your question could be rephrased as “How does Trump lying about one part of his plan to stay in office have anything to do with whether he lied about other parts of his plan to stay in office?” The answer to that question is obvious. And you didn’t address the other quotes.
“Nor does it even prove that Trump was lying about Pence.”
Yes, it does.
“He may have misunderstood.”
Not possible if the evidence in the indictment is true.
“Pence may have waffled, or not been direct:”
The indictment shows him being very direct. Again: have you read it? The whole thing? I read all 45 pages of it last night.
“you can’t trust Pence any more than you can trust Trump. It’s he said/he said.”
It’s witness testimony and it’s evidence, even if you don’t accept it as proof. People are indicted, and even convicted, based on witness testimony all the time.
“As for the Michigan electors: I haven’t studied it enough to have an informed opinion.”
Ok. Then why are you so confident that Trump causing the false electors to submit false documents to obstruct an official proceeding can’t be conspiracy or fraud? That’s exactly what the Michigan electors have been charged with. If you don’t know enough to have an informed opinion on their indictments, then you don’t know enough to have an informed opinion on Trump’s either.
You’re hopeless on this. One lie does not prove that the liar lied about something else. This is one more example of a different standard being applied to Trump. “How does Trump lying about one part of his plan to stay in office have anything to do with whether he lied about other parts of his plan to stay in office?” Is still a definitive rebuttal. What the prosecution has to prove is that Trump did not believe the election had been stolen and the he won. A. Trump did, and does believe that. B. It can’t be proved that he didn’t.
There was no way the alternate electors could ever have power to do anything. It was a meaningless, harmless, impossible fantasy. De minimis non curat lex Their existance was based on a bad legal theory. Bad legal theories are not illegal. They’re not even unethical.
“ you can’t trust Pence any more than you can trust Trump”
I can, and a jury probably will. Especially because Trump was pushing the election lies and Pence was not. Lots of trials come down to whom juries trust more, as I’m sure you know.
That’s just pure, unvarnished bias. Pence has a motive to make Trump look bad. He’s a proven weasel. A jury doesn’t have to believe Trump more than Pence, they just have to know that nothing he claims in this situation can be believed beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m a rusty trial lawyer, but I could impeach Mike Pence with my brain tied behind my back.
You’ve made these odd claims before that Trump being unsuccessful at overturning the election and essentially becoming a tyrant makes his actions less: damaging, wrong, significant, shocking, disgraceful, or scary.
The plan itself and the gall he had to even try is utterly damning. .
That’s where I’m having trouble. They can argue if they feel so compelled that these actions weren’t technically illegal. I hope they’re wrong, but I don’t *know* they’re wrong, and they have some valid defenses. (Less so on the stolen docs charge.) But so many here are arguing not only that Trump didn’t break the law on January 6th, but that he should be put in office again…at least, if his competition is the guy who–gasp!–overreached on the issue of student loan forgiveness. It’s bananas.
Trump definitely didn’t violate the law on Jan.6. His words were not an effort to incite a riot, and there was no insurrection. There is no excuse for claiming otherwise.
Jack, that comment has no relation to my comment or Ryan’s or even the indictment itself, which does not charge him with incitement or insurrection.
The riot and insurrection narrative is the underpinning of the Democrats’ pursuit of Trump in this matter and the PR campaign that greased the way to the indictment by placing that lie in the minds of the gran jury.
Ok, but that still has nothing to do with what we said, or whether he should be indicted for the fraud, conspiracy and witness tampering charges. Seems like addressing the media narrative is a convenient way to ignore addressing the actual indictment.
“One lie does not prove that the liar lied about something else.”
Didn’t say it did. What it is is evidence. That the defendant lied about once piece of his plan indicates he could have lied about others. And you’re still ignoring the other quotes in the indictment that more directly show Trump indicating he didn’t believe the election lies.
And again, he knew the false electors were not real and had them sign official documents saying they were. That’s lying in service of a crime for the purposes of obstructing an official proceeding. Whether this had any chance of succeeding is irrelevant. Signing and submitting false documents to Congress for the purpose of obstruction is still a crime.
Nope. Bad theory, weak argument. I’m sick of hearing it. Not worth having to pull your comments out of moderation a zillion times a day.
You’re going to be hearing it from people a lot more qualified than me for the next year at least, so I’d work on coming up with a rebuttal better than just calling it “bad” or “weak” with no explanation.
Strike two. This kind of arrogance won’t fly here. Don’t tell me what I have to do. I don’t have time to rebut every one of your endless critiques in detail. Some, like this one, don’t deserve it.
“It criminalizes speech.”
Uh…
Just because words are involved in the commission of a crime does not mean that prosecuting Trump violates his First Amendment rights.
First Amendment rights are strong, but they are not unlimited.
Also, fraud and speech while committing a crime are acknowledged First Amendment exceptions.
That’s why they were careful in the indictment to point out false statements that were specific and falsifiable (like 10k zombies voted) vs “these machines are unreliable”
Bill Barr made this very point on CNN today, saying the First Amendment “does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy. All conspiracies involve speech and all fraud involves speech. So free speech doesn’t give you the right to engage in a fraudulent conspiracy.”
This was Donald Trump’s own attorney general, who previously went as far as lying about the results of the Mueller Report before it came out in the service of Trump. But he calls this indictment “damning.”
If Jack can (incorrectly) say “even Larry Tribe” says the indictment is meritless, I hope I can point out that even Bill Barr says it’s serious without being accused of an “appeal to authority.”
I retracted the Larry Tribe mistake both in my replay to you and in the comment in which it occurred. Don’t do that again. And saying that Bill Barr lied about the Mueller Report is signature significance for a Trump Deranged troll. Barr is an honorable man, and a terrific lawyer; he never lied for Trump, and never would. He’s made some ethics mistakes (like his book, which breaches confidentiality and was a breach of trust,) but all of his opinion are in good faith.
Oh—this was Strike One. I should have made that explicit.
Use “uh” like that again here on me, jerk, and you’re out. And don’t lecture me on 1A. “these machines are unreliable” is an opinion, and under no circumstances is evidence of any crime, or a criminal act. What the hell is “speech while committing a crime”—never mind, I don’t care what you think that is. You mean speech in furtherance of a crime, like “Stick ’em up”? That’s not what either “10k zombies voted” or “these machines are unreliable.”
I disagree with you about Barr’s comments on the Mueller Report, but that’s off-topic—if you believe all of Barr’s arguments are in good faith, then you must accept he is making the argument that this indictment is damning in good faith. So you should probably address his arguments.
I’m not your Reply Monkey. I’ll address what I want to address when I choose to address them.
Regarding DeSantis, I think most of the negativity about him is unwarranted and is manufactured (by unholy alliance between Trump, Dems (fearing him), and MSM doing the bidding of Dems).
For all the talk about his lack of charisma, every time I hear him talk I find him engaging, passionate (yeah I know some of it is pretending), he gives clear and pointed answers (often using supporting facts, stats, etc.).
His biggest problem is that he has been trying to out-Trump Trump, and is running to the right of Trump (presumably because he thinks he needs to do that to court the MAGA and evangelical voters, at least for the primary phase), which is a mistake, but correctable one.
I think many GOP voters are being suckered by those who fear him most, because news flash: Trump has ZERO chance of winning in the general election.
I agree. The Axis of Unethical Conduct that has been blistering Trump ever since 2016 is still going after Trump, of course, but in their spare time they’re going after DeSantis with all the tools they’ve assembled. They have the technology. They can destroy DeSantis as effortlessly as they have destroyed Trump. All the machinery is in place, finely tuned and running smoothly.
DeSantis has zero chance of winning. Unless and until the big tech companies are forced to stop manipulating elections, the three letter agencies are forced to stop manipulating elections and voter id is instituted, the elections will be rigged in the deep state’s favor. Pretending like we have real elections is just playing into their hands.
We have “real elections.” Trump lost a real election because he ran a terrible campaign. The same is true for Hillary. Both made excuses for it, and while some of those excuses on each side may have more validity than others, refusing to cope with their own flaws as candidates does nothing but ensure further failure. But instead of accepting his loss, Trump and the Republican Party tried to throw out legally cast votes. And he continues to make no serious effort to reach the voters he couldn’t reach in 2024. Instead of trying to make voting harder, Republicans should focus on actually trying to reach the majority of Americans.
It was a real election, in the sense that both candidates had the same rules and regulations applied to their voters and campaign. It was an anomaly election, however, with less voting integrity than any election in decades, with various anomalous factors affecting turn-out, voter literacy and more that, in a republic, should never be tolerated. The pandemic and lockdown were exploited: Drop boxes and mail-in ballots guarantee public suspicions and some level of corruption.
Trump ran a lousy campaign in great part because the kind of campaign he excelled at was precluded by the lockdown. The same conditions that undermined his strength minimized Biden’s weakness—his feebleness and declining mind. His campaign resembled William McKinley never leaving his back porch. Trump’s decision to eschew the first scheduled debate was petty and stupid, and he was ridiculous in the first one he did participate in. He should have let Biden talk as much as possible, and regularly responded with “What?” Instead, Trump wouldn’t shut up.
Of course, the election had been poisoned against Trump before the campaign began for reasons discussed here repeatedly. It was amazing he did as well as he did.
You call expanding mail-in ballots and drop boxes “exploiting” the pandemic, I call it a reasonable measure to allow voters to keep themselves safe during a pandemic. The alternative would have been making voters who did not feel safe voting in public to make a choice between voting and feeling safe. That’s not a choice I think they should have to make. And of course, Trump poisoned the election himself by discouraging his supporters from voting by mail. Then he acted surprised when Biden got more mail-in votes. If he genuinely believed he got more mail-in votes than Biden and the only explanation for the alternative was fraud, he’s the dumbest guy ever elected to office.
I call it a reasonable measure to allow voters to keep themselves safe during a pandemic. You can call it whatever you want, but your statement makes my point. The policies sacrificed the integrity of the voting and the election for other concern unrelated to counting every vote and the right to vote—both of which are undermined by insecure voting processes. You can’t have it both ways. The policies chose dubious health concerns over the integrity of the election.
The right to vote includes access to the ballot box. There are numerous court cases supporting this. Not allowing most citizens to vote by mail during the pandemic would have created an unreasonable burden on their right to vote. That would have compromised the integrity of the election more than anything that has been proven about the 2020 election. And the health concerns were hardly “dubious.”
The health concerns were uncertain, aka “Dubious.” Measures easily could have been put in place to keep voters away from each other and staff. It would have taken planning and extra time to vote. The Election was the most important objective. Not pampering Wuhan-phobics. Holding in person voting only (except for pre-approved hardship) would have met the access requirement. Allowing non-citizens, unidentified voters, and systems that are vulnerable to double voting and other forms of manipulation also breach voting rights.
“Extra time to vote” would have been met with the exact same bogus objections we’ve been hearing from the pro-Trump side for years.
“Allowing non-citizens, unidentified voters, and systems that are vulnerable to double voting and other forms of manipulation also breach voting rights.”
Ok, but that did not happen.
You don’t know that.
And by extra time I mean long lines and expanded voting hours to accommodate them. This has been done before. Anyone who won’t vote because of a long wait has forfeited their right.
“Anyone who won’t vote because of a long wait has forfeited their right.”
I, and the courts, disagree with you.
Yeah? She me where a long line constitutes an infringement of the right to vote. If there are a reasonable number of polling places, no court has ever complained. In a special circumstance like a pandemic, the decision to take health precautions that result in longer wait times have never been found illegal, so no court disagrees with me.
The health precautions are not what caused longer wait times; what are you talking about?
You’re not following at all. I WROTE that regular voting could have been and should have been required, with no drop boxes and no mail-ins. Meaning: What would be required in this unusual situation would have been more polling places, the requirement of a safe distance between voters, a checking procedure that did not require close contact…in short careful isolation of each voter as much as possible. It would cause longer wait times. The public would be forewarned. It’s not a tough concept, and it would preserve the integrity of the election, unlike ID-less, mail-ins and drop-boxes with no reliable chain of custody.
I do not agree with you that chain of custody was broken and neither does any reliable election authority, including the guy Trump appointed to run CISA, who said that the election was completely secure. (That’s also in the indictment.)
Drop boxes BY DEFINITION disrupt the chain of custody. So do mail-in ballots. “Any reliable election authority” that understands what the term means would not make the absurd claim that that a ballot dropped in a mailbox has a secure chain of custody. You should be able to discern that, so you are choosing not to
Yes, all the experts are wrong and you are right, because you are the arbiter of how terms are defined. Everyone who disagrees with you, no matter their qualifications, expertise, or logic, is “hopeless” and deluded. Must be tough.
And that’s Strike Three. You don’t get to address me like that here, and the Comment Policies are clear. This is a non-substantive, snotty comment denigrating your host.
You have 24 hours to submit an acceptable apology via private email. None of your comments from this point on, until that apology, will see the light of day. (Fortunately, WP for some reason makes me clear all of your comments, so unless I release them, they are already blocked.)
In case you don’t make it back, you’re full of crap regarding the “experts” on chain of custody. Maricopa County, for example, claimed that it “tracks your ballot every step of the way once they get it from the mail or pick it up from a drop box, or once you cast it at a voting center.” But that’s not where the chain of custody isn’t secure. If X hands a ballot to Y to mail it, we have no idea what Y does next. Same with the drop boxes. We also don’t know what and who happens to the ballot in the postal system. Chain of custody means from the origin to the final stopping point, when the vote is registered.
I don’t tolerate snottiness when a commenter is right, but I really resent it when the commenter is wrong.
If you do make it back, stop attaching strings of comments to your own comments. I get comments in a chronological list that tells me what the comment was attached to only: It took me 15 minutes to find out your snotty comment was aimed at me. (You are allowed to be snotty to other commenters, though I wouldn’t get in the habit of it.
The clock starts NOW: it’s 6:45 pm EST. Hope to hear from you.
Added: incidentally, Bill Barr, whom you just used in an appeal to authority regarding the indictment, vigorously objected to mail-in ballots, arguing that the were not secure because of chain of custody issues. One of those “experts” you are alluding to?
Added further: Sadly, it looks like this is curtains for Masked Avenger. He just sent a defiant comment denying that he has anything to apologize for. Well, I’m disappointed: his contrarianism was sometimes interesting, but he also took up more of my time than I have to spare. I wanted to ask him how he got this way as an intelligent, educated citizen, automatically accepting partisan narratives and talking points as discovered truth.
Oh well.
Update: Ah, the thin veneer of good faith and civility falls away! In his latest attempted post, MA calls your host a “stupid asshole.” Well, so much for the prospects of his suspension being lifted….
What’s the matter with these people?
All of those things are irrelevant as long as the citizens who actually voted had their votes counted and those votes were used to elect the next President.
That’s all that matters.
That lineup is not a “hand-picked list of champions, destined to be a dynasty and win it all, year after year.”
I don’t think I’ll be queuing up Alan Parsons Project’s “Sirius” as they are introduced.
Agreed… well, with the conclusion, although I might have taken a different route to get there.
A couple of the names have changed but the conclusion hasn’t since I wrote this in early February:
“As one of the few folks in the country to have been registered to vote in both New Hampshire and Iowa (not at the same time!), Curmie looks forward to the caucuses and primaries with anxiety, but perhaps a little hope. We couldn’t get a lot worse, and there might just be someone we hadn’t thought of who’ll emerge from one party or the other. Just… uh… don’t bet the mortgage on it. And be prepared to vote for the less awful candidate.”
Well, maybe the conclusion actually has changed, as it’s getting rather late for new candidates to emerge. Alas.
I think you are missing Trunp’s appeal. People don’t want a good President. At this point, they want a President who will protect them from the government. The government is toying with a “Climate Change State of Emergency” so they can suspend people’s rights, because Trump didn’t do it under Covid. They are moving against “domestic terrorists’ which are defined by things such as being Libertarian, nativist (not wanting endless foreign wars), tranditionally Christian, etc. They have already been censoring unapproved ideas and banning people, even political candidates from the media. They just ignore any Supreme Court ruling that limits their power. They are actively grooming children and sterilizing them, often for their own perverse pleasure. They support taking your children away if you won’t agree to sterilize them and have already done it in numerous cases. They banned the President of the United States from having the ability to speak directly to the American public. Think about it, after the Twitter ban, you couldn’t be sure what Trump really said, you only could view what the media wanted you to see after they had the option to alter it.
The government is out to get Trump. You can see it in the fabricated evidence, the misuse of every intelligence and law enforcement agency. You can see that Trump is the enemy to the dictators in charge of this country. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is the only option because every other candidate is my enemy. We know that just about every other candidate will cave to the pressure of the Deep State. Every other candidate wants my rights infringed and wants to put me in jail if I don’t comply with their demands.
If your choice is someone from a group of people who want you dead or imprisoned, or someone who probably doesn’t care about you, but actively despises the people who want you dead or imprisoned, who do you support? At that point, you don’t care if he is kind of a scummy person, this is about survival.
Trump is a bad candidate, but he is the only candidate if you care a bit about your rights and your freedom. If you doubt it, just ask yourself what would have happened under the COVID emergency if Hillary Clinton had been President? Lockdowns would have been federally ordered. COVID vaccines would have been mandated under penalty of imprisonment. It would have been like Australia or worse.
Oh, just because he doesn’t appeal to me doesn’t mean I miss his appeal. I’m a stage director: I know stage presence and charisma when I see it. It’s a huge advantage. Huey Long had it. Obama. JFK. The best comp with Trump’s rise is “A Face in the Crowd.” If you haven’t seen it since Trump’s election, you should watch it again. Another (meaner, less fair) comp for Trump: Martin Sheen’s diabolical candidate in “The Dead Zone.’
Bingo.
If I believed all of the horrific premises in Michael R.’s comment, I might vote for Trump too.
But I find nearly every single premise not only false, but baffling, and I think most liberals would have a hard time understanding how such things can be believed. I also think that I would be unable to convince anyone who believed such things that they weren’t true.
I don’t know how Americans of different parties are expected to communicate with one another when not just our ideological beliefs, but our beliefs about material facts of reality, are so fundamentally different.
I would enjoy a line by line demonstration 1) of the falsity of nearly every single premise 2) the corresponding baffle and 3) which premises are not false and/or baffling.
If I must…
“At this point, they want a President who will protect them from the government.”
They want him to protect the right people from the government (conservatives), and to punish the wrong people (liberals). Trump has made this very clear in his “I am your retribution” speeches. Trump has repeatedly called for abuses of government power, especially police power. He called for bringing back torture and is overtly pro-police brutality. He’s advocated “opening up the libel laws” to make it easier for the government to go after critics. Perhaps you can see why Trump’s critics won’t feel particularly “protected” by his administration, even if his supporters might.
“The government is toying with a “Climate Change State of Emergency” so they can suspend people’s rights, because Trump didn’t do it under Covid.”
Too vague to respond to without knowing what “rights” Michael refers to. This article lays out what Biden could do under a declared climate emergency, and it’s mostly about halting drilling and oil exports. Nothing that really affects individual rights. https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-emergency-biden.html
“They are moving against “domestic terrorists’ which are defined by things such as being Libertarian, nativist (not wanting endless foreign wars), tranditionally Christian, etc.”
No one has been defined as a terrorist merely for these qualities. This is a complete strawman.
“They have already been censoring unapproved ideas and banning people, even political candidates from the media.”
The government has not done this. They have made requests to media outlets, as every single presidential administration, including Trump’s, have done.
“They just ignore any Supreme Court ruling that limits their power.”
Too vague to respond to.
“They are actively grooming children and sterilizing them, often for their own perverse pleasure.”
No children have been “sterilized.” Some minors do receive puberty blockers as part of gender-affirming hormone therapy. There is conflicting research on the extent to which this may affect fertility. But no one is making kids sterile “for their own perverse pleasure;” the goal in these treatments is the mental health of the child. You may disagree with the parents (and doctors) who make these decisions but it is not helpful to lie about their motives. And applying the “groomer” slur to all trans-affirming adults who interact with and accept transgender kids is appalling and takes away from the focus on real groomers, who can be found in all aspects of life, including conservative and Christian environments.
“They support taking your children away if you won’t agree to sterilize them and have already done it in numerous cases.”
I do not believe that any child has been taken away from their parents simply because the parents were not accepting of their trans identity. I would need to see evidence of this.
“They banned the President of the United States from having the ability to speak directly to the American public.”
Here’s where the word “they” ceases to lose its meaning, because previously it meant “the government,” and the government did not do this. In fact, this was an example of a private company exercising its rights against the head of the government. And leaving out the reasons the company did this is also misleading and dishonest; they did so only once it became clear that the president’s words were inspiring violence on the Capitol, and they did not want their platform to be responsible for that. If Twitter was as biased as many on the right claim, they would have caved to liberal pressure to ban Trump far earlier than that.
“Think about it, after the Twitter ban, you couldn’t be sure what Trump really said, you only could view what the media wanted you to see after they had the option to alter it.”
Ridiculous. Parler was founded years before January 6th. He could have posted there. He could have called into Fox News. He still had plenty of favorable media sources through which to communicate. The actual reason we didn’t hear from him for those last two weeks is that he was under pressure from Republicans in his own cabinet, who were considering invoking the 25th Amendment.
“The government is out to get Trump.”
Yes, when you inspire an uprising against the government and take classified documents with you on your way out and then refuse to give them back, the government tends to be out to get you.
“You can see it in the fabricated evidence,”
There has been no fabricated evidence against Trump. The closest was the altered email to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page, who had already left the Trump campaign, and the guy who did that was convicted for it. The Steele dossier was not “fabricated evidence,” it was raw intelligence put together by a private investigator, never revealed to the public until after Trump won, and played almost no role in the larger Russia investigation. There’s nothing else.
“You can see that Trump is the enemy to the dictators in charge of this country.”
But a great friend to dictators in charge of other countries.
“We know that just about every other candidate will cave to the pressure of the Deep State.”
There is no such thing as the Deep State, it’s an excuse used to explain why even so many Republicans have turned against Trump or refused to bow to his illegal demands. Jeff Sessions was a great and loyal MAGA patriot, until he wouldn’t cave to Trump’s demand to refuse to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and then he was Deep State. Bill Barr was a law and order hero, until he wouldn’t support Trump’s stolen election lies, and then he was Deep State. Mike Pence was helping Trump protect Christians, until he refused to decertify the election, and then he was Deep State. It’s an unfalsifiable conspiracy theory and I can’t take seriously any claim that includes the term.
“Every other candidate wants my rights infringed and wants to put me in jail if I don’t comply with their demands.”
So does Trump, who doesn’t believe in your right to vote.
“If you doubt it, just ask yourself what would have happened under the COVID emergency if Hillary Clinton had been President? Lockdowns would have been federally ordered. COVID vaccines would have been mandated under penalty of imprisonment. It would have been like Australia or worse.”
The Covid pandemic was still ongoing and serious for at least a year into Biden’s presidency, and none of this happened, so this is nonsense.
Ultimately extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and if Michael R. wants to back up any of his apocalyptic fears with facts, I welcome him to do so. As of now I see no evidence of anything but Biden Derangement Syndrome.
“You can see that Trump is the enemy to the dictators in charge of this country.”
The fact that a President who refused to accept the results of an election and tried to stay in power after he was voted out isn’t the “dictator” in this scenario is mind boggling.
I await the incompetency traits on the other side. At this point, however, I could never be convinced to pull the D lever in the sanctity of my voting booth. What are we to do?
I’d say Bob Dole and George Bush Sr. were the last decent, WWII national politicians. We Baby Boomers have failed to produce any worthwhile political leaders. John Kerry? Bill and Hill? Joe Biden? Frankly, even John McCain. In the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, anyone with any sense went into anything other than politics. Sex, drugs and rock and roll is not way to run a country, son. And no, I don’t know what the solution is.
George H.W. Bush lost my support (and that of many people I know) when he (a) quickly reneged on his “no new taxes” pledge, and (b) banned the import of military-looking semi-auto rifles by Executive Order (on the urging of Drug Czar Bill Bennett and First Lady Barbara Bush) after promising that he would not ban semi-auto rifles. That last one cost him more votes than is generally recognized. He was not by any means a believer in Reagan’s agenda, and was instead merely a managerial-class Republican, just another member of the big government DC elite.
Dole was a somewhat more reliable conservative but couldn’t compete effectively with the more youthful and charismatic incumbent Clinton on the campaign trail.
And I don’t know what the solution is either. I’m still buying beans, bullets and band-aids.
Jack,
I support your removal of MA. You were way more tolerant of his hijacking of your blog than I would have been.
I hate banning articulate, passionate commenters, even those who abuse the privilege like MA. But setting yourself up as a perpetual antagonist is ultimately boring, and MA was exhausting: he probably cost me the time I would normally have to make another daily post.
I understand your point but I gave up commenting on his errors in fact because there wasn’t any point when an honest exchange of ideas was not happening. Eventually, I gave up reading many of the posts because it was tiresome and not very enlightening.
Yeah, that’s a problem that I haven’t figured out how to fix over the years. Most enthusiastic commentators settle on a reasonable number of posts after a quick burst of energy. I was hoping MA would settle down, but he got worse. It’s weird that even after he was approved after moderstion, WordPress kept all his comments in PENDING until I released them. I dreaded coming back to the blog: there would be a red “8” or “12” in the moderation file, meaning that Masked Avenger had struck again, and most of them involved a response from me, which I didn’t have time for. If I dashed off something quickly, MA would snap back with a “gotcha!’ on some minor detail.
It’s almost as if WordPress’s software could tell MA was going to cross the line.