It's another "Russia, if you're listening". He's trying to call in the favours he's owed by Barrett and Kavanaugh. Probably Alito and Thomas too, although he didn't handpick them.
I wonder if they're willing to let him rot now they already have what they want. I have no clue if Trump has any leverage left there.
They’re keeping up a veneer of impartiality until the correct fake cases get to them so they can legislate how they want to. Trump was just the means to stack the court, they have their own role to play and saving trump isn’t part of it.
Each of these folks is now a hero in the eyes of MAGA enthusiasts. They’ve been martyred after a fashion. They’ll be able to generate a steady flow of cash for probably a solid decade whether behind bars or released.
Maybe they will be pissed that Trump and the rest of the really fashy right wingers in the USA political establishment have left them out to hang, but the next time a right wing populist gets them all riled up they will know to go full force and not waver like they did during January 6. They got to experience first hand what “going halfway” gets you and will learn from it.
They’ll probably get a good cash stream at first. But I’m not sure most people in America have enough object permanence to care about these folks after a few years. Won’t they be like a Reality Winner, where almost no one remembers them a few years later except as a trivia answer at trivia night?
Not saying these people are going to be millionaires… But they’ll be able to make the rounds on right wing radio, local church speech circuits, all the neo fash militia groups that are around and be probably be able to have a nice safety net that most of the rest of us won’t have when we need it.
Like, seriously, the answer to “If you actually punish them they’ll become a martyr” is to punish all the people they become martyrs to in turn. Pretty simple stuff frankly
I’m not saying that they shouldn’t get punished, hurt them any way possible, they’re the enemy and fair game. But I don’t think this is going to finish them. And how long before the libs decide that “the government is going too far” and stop supporting the judicial attempts to punish these people? How much mileage can they get from the schadenfreude before it gets boring? I’d imagine that once that happens, Dems won’t be able to get as much juice for their fundraising efforts over this and prosecutions will start happening less and less.
And the people that were sitting on top of the walls cheering them on, have gotten to walk away pretty much free from all serious punishment. In a better country, this might make some lights come on in the old thinkin’ box that their leaders are mostly grifters and stop supporting them… but… if the polls are anything to pay attention to, Trump is as popular as ever and he’s the only one even remotely getting into some legal trouble.
I’m hoping that all the fashy TeaParty types stabbing each other in the backs over crumbs might have some negative effects on the disparate fascist groups organizing with each other… but I’ve got to admit that its most cope than hope at this point.
I really wish the media would at least try to appear unbiased, except in clearly identified opinion pieces - I don’t think it does any of us any good to have such slanted words in reporting.
All that being said, I agree with the overall take. People lost their shit when Hilary called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables,” but look at how they behave and what they push for. Why would you want to vote for someone more because there’s credible evidence that he committed serious crimes? Not just that you’re looking the other way, but it’s a desirable attribute? That’s just crap.
There’s reporting that the guy who shot the shopkeeper over the pride flag was very outspoken against abortion. “Every life is sacred, but I’m going to murder this woman because she supports LGBTQ rights.” So much of their anger is against things that have zero affect on them personally. It’s crazy.
I guess it says “commentary” at the top, so maybe I should retract that part. I’m old, and I grew up in a time when opinion pieces one the news were very overtly identified as such, with disclaimers about the publication not endorsing any opinion given. The reason being that everything else was intended to be taken factually. I see so many things now where we blur the lines, with newscasters using a lot of subjective adjectives to tell us how we should feel about things they’re reporting on. It really bugs me.
I feel like I'm also increasingly seeing this coming from the left, which I find particularly troubling. We have the facts on our side, we don't need to make bombastic clickbait and masquerade opinion pieces as reporting. It's just distracting from the actual stories and undermining our position.
I’m sure I’ve read salon articles that people have linked, but not enough to get a feel for them as a publication in general. When I read news, I generally try to avoid sources that lean hard in either direction, except sometimes to see what their take on a subject is.
(A little tip for kbin users who are tired of clickbait: If you click here and press the block button, you won't see any more posts from Salon.com. :) )
“So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here–not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.” ― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
This was originally a reply to a comment but I thought it’s important enough to reply to the post too:
The issue isn’t masculinity or how it can be toxic (to even suggest it is insulting imo).
The issue is:
Society does not value men!!!
That’s it, it’s not complicated at all. It’s not this weird problem with masculinity.
Society does not value men inherently like women (as in for just existing), it values the benefit they can provide.
This has been the case in all of human history. The difference now is that we no longer prepare most/all men to be able to provide the most value they can.
I always thought the solution was to value men inherently too. But that means saying a “you go bro” to incels and other “low value” men.
I’m not sure I agree with that. Society values women for all the wrong reasons (sexual objects, something to be controlled, etc). Men are valued for the wrong reasons too (physical prowess, etc).
Well I’m not claiming that women are or are not valued for the wrong reasons, just that they are not mainly valued for the benefits they provide but men are.
I’m saying men being valued for the benefit they provide without support is why there is a lot of mental health issues today. And that what people call “toxic masculinity” is basically caused by this expectation that society puts on men.
The best way I've heard it put is that society values women for what they are, and values men for what they do. This is bad for everyone, of course, but it's how things have worked.
Society does not value men inherently like women (as in for just existing), it values the benefit they can provide.
Since when have we inherently valued women? Since they received the right to vote, maybe when they were allowed to have credit cards without a man's permission?
How exactly are we defining value here? I just don't see any appreciation of value being shown that isn't directly related to maintaining a hierarchy of relations based on what's between your legs and what you do with it.
If society inherently valued women I would think they would have more to show for it.
Society doesn't value people. This applies close to equally for all cis people at least. If you look at the statistics of who makes money (which is normally attributed to value), it values men a little more. (Modern capitalist) society stomps over all individuals though. The individual does not matter except for the wealth that can be extracted from them.
I always thought the solution was to value men inherently too. But that means saying a “you go bro” to incels and other “low value” men.
This makes me think you're not talking about society valuing women, and instead the value women put on their friends (in movies and other media, which isn't always how it works). If your friends put you down instead of lifting you up, that's an issue with your friends, not society. I know my (male) friends (mostly male) generally lift me up. This is an issue you can solve. Either dump your bad friends or encourage the behavior you want to see out of them be doing it yourself.
I can’t believe how much he gets away with. He has zero shame, and seldom pays the smallest price for it. Sane people making sane observations about him are called deranged, and attacked over and over.
He’s a stochastic terrorist, worse than Henry II, and society has to hold him to account.
I am so sick of health condition speculation of politicians. If they have a formal dìagnosis and release it publicly, fine. But this article is just pure conjecture.
Not all memory issues are age-related or dementia or degenerative. While US politicians do trend extremely old and this increases the likelihood of having a disability, plenty of younger people have memory issues too that can get better or worse randomly. Covid fucked my memory hard.
It's ableist to require peak health 24/7 from people, even your leaders. They have teams of people around them for a reason, to collect and provide accurate information. There are briefings and reports. Redundancy is built into the system, the President isn't the only source of truth. If a President becomes unable to perform their duties in a timely manner because of these problems, like Dianna Feinstein, then we can worry about that problem.
Trump isn't dangerous because his father had Alzheimers and he's (understandably) afraid of developing it. He's dangerous because he has a habit of making absurdly malicious power-hungry selfish decisions.
Peak health 24/7 is unrealistic for anyone, but even with a chronic health problem of any kind, you need to be able to perform the functions of the job.
We don’t have a diagnosis for Trump, but there is clearly something deeply wrong with him. If he willfully provides misinformation about his health, all we have is conjecture.
Disability should not preclude you from work,but just like people without a disability, you seek roles you are suitable for. It’s not ableist to say someone with alzheimers and associated cognitive decline is not suitable for president.
After attempts have been made for accommodations and they have failed or the job description itself cannot be altered. Yes, in that situation it's fine.
We don’t have a diagnosis for Trump, but there is clearly something deeply wrong with him
We know what is wrong with him. He's extremely selfish and greedy. That is what disqualifies him to be a leader. Our speculations about his medical situation are unnecessary.
Disability should not preclude you from work,but just like people without a disability, you seek roles you are suitable for. It’s not ableist to say someone with alzheimers and associated cognitive decline is not suitable for president.
It's not ableist to say that someone with a predictably degenerative disease which is affecting their ability to make logical decisions, that we have no workarounds or treatment for, may be unable to fulfil the job requirements.
It is ableist to suggest that any incidence of memory loss or shitty rhetoric or bad writing or family history is evidence of a degenerative disease and that they should not be eligible for a role because of it. Especially when that conjecture comes from people with no medical background or relation to the person in question.
Selfish and greedy is just part of it. He is unfit on many levels.
Any incidence of memory loss is not automdisqualifying, but I’d want to know the medical reasons before electing someone to such a high office. Again, in the absence of accurate information, we only have speculation.
Discussion about these topics is not ableism. Some are suggesting an upper age limit. To me, that’s just using age as an allegory for health. We should just set minimum standards for health of these offices, if we have an aging population with increasing health needs.
Equating Obama's "bitter" and "clinging to guns" with Hillary's "basket of deplorables" feels a bit forced, and is not exactly helping me take this post seriously. The headline makes it look like Obama called them deplorable.
No shit. He's corrupt af. Between the bone saw incident and him potentially selling out our secrets from trumps trove of classified documents he should be under the jail. If I can see it it should be painfully obvious to anyone who can actually do anything.
Seems like the US is going through its phase of fascism. It’s not a mistake that the US has much domestic experience with* (unlike most of Europe) so looks like the lesson sadly hasn’t gotten through to a sizable part of the population yet
*I am ignoring a lot of shady 20th century stuff here, but I mean like full on Mussolini fascism
That’s a fair point. I haven’t been watching it closely, but hopefully it’ll pass eventually. Because the populist waves have already passed in a ton of countries, like the UK (soon to come) Poland (again probably soon) Slovenia (already passed), Czechia, Spain(?) or even Brazil. Hopefully it doesn’t get stuck like it did in Hungary.
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