Reminder that Trump doesn’t endorse people because they’re good for the country or even because they’re good for the party.

Trump endorses people only when it benefits himself. For example, he might force them to pledge personal loyalty to him, like he tried to do with James Comey.

“I have not yet begun to defile myself.”

These lawyers are trying to speak to the public through the court. It’s an irresponsible use of the court.

Because this is politics, and the US has only two possible options in November, it is good to remember that Trump told Israel that it should “end the problem” of Gaza.

Even if you don’t like Biden on this issue, it is imperative to vote for him in November. A non-vote for Biden is almost as bad as a vote for Trump.

I can guarantee MAGA will have no qualms voting for Trump despite his genocidal tendencies. If you don’t vote for Biden and Trump wins, you will be responsible for a lot of suffering.

More background on this “non-partisan” commission.

The CPD was established in 1987 by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican Parties to “take control of the presidential debates”. The commission was staffed by members from the two parties and chaired by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul G. Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf. At a 1987 press conference announcing the commission’s creation, Fahrenkopf said that the commission was not likely to include third-party candidates in debates, and Kirk said he personally believed they should be excluded from the debates.

It is not non-partisan. It is bipartisan. That’s an important difference. Saying that it’s nonpartisan is misinformation.

Third parties have often criticized exclusion of their candidates from debates, due to the CPD’s rule (established in 2000) that candidates must garner at least 15% support across five national polls to be invited to the national debates. The last candidate from outside the two major parties to participate in a CPD-sponsored debate was Ross Perot, who polled sufficiently high in his 1992 presidential campaign to debate George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in all three debates; Perot’s running mate, James Stockdale, also participated in the vice presidential debate. When Perot ran again in 1996, the CPD declined to invite him to the debates, finding that the Reform Party candidate had no “realistic chance to win” the election.

So, it’s an organization run by the two major parties that explicitly tries to keep third parties from participating in the debates.

Our obsession with what celebrities think can really cause problems. There’s really no reason to care what a guy like Butker thinks about social issues, other than maybe to feel sorry for his wife.

Based on McConnell’s past actions, I suspect that the reason he is standing by his previous position is that he doesn’t find it politically beneficial to change his opinion. I don’t think there is any other type of meaning to McConnell’s political positions.

Also, strange to bring up name order at all when it has nothing to do with the joke they presented.

It makes me wonder if they badly retold a joke they heard where the original punchline was that his name was Mario Itsumi.

In Japan, Itsumi is actually a common name, either as a family name or as a girl’s given name.

There should be some penalty for filing lawsuits like this that have zero merit. Like, pay the fees that you caused the taxpayers.

If that’s how they felt was the strongest opening argument, it reveals how weak that whole angle was.

Well said. I can’t believe how long that article was for the quality.

I have this strong suspicion that nobody read the whole thing, even the guy who challenged us by saying “Have you read his essay?” and linked it.

Okay, I started reading it, and I had to stop because he lost his credibility to me. Here are the notes I made for the beginning of the article.

First, he cites statistics to show how the demographics of listeners moved left between 2011 and 2023. He mentions Trump as related, but doesn’t consider how Trump’s lies about “fake news” caused a massive shift in what news people consume. And he doesn’t mention how during that time all news outlets were being affected by the rise of social media.

But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.

This is what Burr’s summary of the Mueller report said. It’s right wing propaganda. The report actually found all sorts of evidence, but concluded it couldn’t call them crimes because of a policy of the DOJ.

There was really no point in continuing reading once I got to actual lies. It’s not journalism and the author doesn’t come off as credible to me.

Having heard Cohen speak a few times, I’m almost sure that he’s called Trump a petulant man child many times before.

Since Trump’s criminal trials are already ongoing, politically, he needs to use this appeal to avoid convictions now, though. Many polls have said that a lot of people wouldn’t vote for him if he’s convicted. I suspect some percentage of those people were telling the truth.

This would be giving Biden absolute power. It’s difficult to predict what any specific person would do in those circumstances.

There’s a lot of evidence that Biden hasn’t abused power when he’s received it in the past, but imagine he’s given absolute power, and then Trump wins the election. And then Trump threatens Biden and his entire family.

I don’t know what Biden would do in that situation, but I know what I’d do.

Why not both? They could have something on those politicians and also be envied by them.

Unless everything we know about Russian intelligence is wrong, Putin almost certainly has kompromat on many politicians. There was an article recently from a politician about how after he was elected, he started being approached by young beautiful women, and he realized after talking to other politicians just how trivial an effort it would be to get compromising material on most of them.

According to George Clooney, he always saw Trump in NY bars trying to sleep with random women in the early 2000s. Trump was already a world famous “businessman” at the time who was into politics. Exactly the sort of person Russia could target and who would be easily compromised.

When you look at what she’s done, she’s beyond obvious.

She had an order overturned early on, and then, rather than changing the types of things she’s doing, she changed the format that she’s using to do those things. She started using these paperless orders that are more difficult to challenge.

She’s favoring Trump as much as she thinks is possible to get away with. And if Trump is elected, some have been saying that he plans to appoint Cannon to the Supreme Court.

Adams knows it won’t be easy running as a Democrat for the House in the deep red northwestern corner of Montana. The district covers northern Lincoln County, a mecca for militia members or sympathizers and doomsday preppers. Republican Donald Trump won 74% of the county vote in the 2020 presidential race.

While Adams’ campaign may look like a fruitless undertaking, he doesn’t see it that way. For him it’s a chance to tell his own story — that of an “honest weirdo” who emerged from a traumatic childhood to find his own way in life. It’s also a chance to make the case for his own vision of how democracy and personal responsibility intertwine.

You never truly know whether somebody would be good or not ahead of time, but I initially feel good about a person who is interested in politics who seems to actually think of themselves as “honest”.

“Bi” seems an apt description of her party affiliation.

Also what’s with the circle around women vs. the triangle around men? Is this some meaningful gender related symbolism that I’m unaware of?

It must be the windmills turning them gay.