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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[bankshot1]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/30/opinions/donald-trump-deserves-second-term-jennings/index.html

CNN ran this op-ed piece on why Trump deserves a 2nd term.

It's by a former GWB/Mitch McConnell advisor, so it is not exactly shocking that he would come down on this side of things.

It has more than a couple weaknesses in its praise of Trump. There is no acknowledgment that the economy was tilting downhill before things got shut down. There is no mention of China at all, let alone the complete and utter failure of Trump's trade war with them. Kim Jong Un and North Korea make no appearances in this piece. The only mention of Iran is a passing reference to the assassination of Soleimani (and no mention of the killing of others at the same time who we had not marked for death, but who were guilty by association). The closest it gets to mentioning climate or environment is "regulations," discussing Obama overreach without mention of Trumpian overreach. Minorities, Blacks, deaths, or police? Nary a mention.

But perhaps most telling is that this is the only thing it has to say about the past 9 months' experience with COVID-19/coronavirus:

And for all of the President's missteps, including his rhetorical failures in dealing with coronavirus, this vote is about the next four years.

There is no case to be made for reelecting Donald Trump and Scott Jennings just drives that home.

Scott Jennings is the Ward Cleaver-smiling 1950's face that the Republican party so wants to return to.

No coloreds, no jews, and women in the kitchen or the bedroom

He and his matched pair CNN buddy, Rick Santorum, are the photogenic poster boys of Republican fascism.

The kinder, gentler smiling face generally non-confrontational of American fascism, but they will fuck you in ways you never imagined you'd get fucked and then they'll steal you blind.

and they'll just keep on smiling.

[barton]

NEWTON, Pa. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticizing public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States.


This might be,  in a campaign where a low point might be hard to pick out, a contender.   The core lie,  and what a vile lie it is,  that doctors garner extra profits for covid deaths,  can only come from someone who lives in a dark and dehumanized and cynical worldview, like some hideous end stage disease of capitalism.  Future historians will struggle to understand the forces that formed Trump and his lackeys. 

I have been thinking of William Carlos Williams poem that begins,  "the pure products of America go crazy...."   (Yankguy might know that one)
 

[facilitatorn]

http://thebulwark.com/the-trouble-with-the-its-not-real-fascism-argument/

[FlyingVProd]

Rest in peace Sean Connery.

Sean Connery lived to be 90 years old, so he had a good life, and movie stars have it made, life is good for the movie stars. And he lives on in his work, as millions weep for the loss of him. He lived a life well lived.

Salute,

Tony V.

[oilcan]

Just to balance/contrast Laura Field's article (thank you,  Facilitat) in The Bulwark, here's Walter Shapiro's more optimistic piece on the process of ridding ourselves of the nettlesome priest of pestilence....

https://newrepublic.com/article/159841/election-day-alarmism-trump-coup

Both are fine thinkers and writers,  both trying to drill down to what they see as important, and I think both score points against easy assumptions.   

[josh]

Why Laura Field's arguments seem more substantial to me, part 1741:

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/democrats-cancel-central-texas-events-after-trump-supporters-surround-follow-biden-bus-on-i-35/

[bodiddley]

There is no case to be made for reelecting Donald Trump and Scott Jennings just drives that home.

What I found really weird is that Trump has been asked a few times this year what he planned to accomplish in a 2nd term.  A real open-ended, softball question.  And he had no answer and would ramble about unrelated stuff.  I mean, when you're running for president, you might be prepared to say why, and what you would do.

I think in the last week he started talking about reducing taxes and regulations and reducing immigration.  Though in a general way, and it's pretty unclear how taxes can be lower, and why, especially with the debt mounting up like crazy.

[Yankguy1]

Taxes can always be lowered. Ask Red.

[bankshot1]

speaking ot taxes


By Joseph E. Stiglitz
Mr. Stiglitz, a university professor at Columbia, is a Nobel laureate in economics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/republicans-biden-taxes.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The Trump administration has a dirty little secret: It’s not just planning to increase taxes on most Americans. The increase has already been signed, sealed and delivered, buried in the pages of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.


President Trump and his congressional allies hoodwinked us. The law they passed initially lowered taxes for most Americans, but it built in automatic, stepped tax increases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy. All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019.


For most, in fact, it’s a delayed tax increase dressed up as a tax cut. How many times have you heard Trump and his allies mention that? They surmised — correctly, so far — that if they waited to add the tax increases until after the 2020 election, few of the people most affected were likely to remember who was responsible.


So without doing the math, but Prof. Stiglitz did, he's good at math, the most vulnerable and least able to afford tax increases, ie those making the least will be paying for the reduced taxes of the wealthiest.

That is Reoublcan tax policy.

As noted above, beware of a smiling "Ward Cleaver:, he will fuck you in ways you don't want to be fucked, and steal you blind.

As the Stiglitz op-ed concludes

The problem now is that unless the Democrats win a majority in the House and the Senate and clinch the presidency, these Republican tax increases, already legislated, are likely to go into effect. The increases, unfairly aimed at the vast majority of Americans who are disproportionately suffering in the pandemic, will cause even more hardship.

They must be stopped.

[barton]

Thumbs up,  to that post,  Banks.   The GOP never disappoint. 

[facilitatorn]

Just to balance/contrast Laura Field's article (thank you,  Facilitat) in The Bulwark, here's Walter Shapiro's more optimistic piece on the process of ridding ourselves of the nettlesome priest of pestilence....

https://newrepublic.com/article/159841/election-day-alarmism-trump-coup

Both are fine thinkers and writers,  both trying to drill down to what they see as important, and I think both score points against easy assumptions.

With deficits in the suburbs, among women, with the old, with the young, along with the traditional aversion to republicans in minority populations, I think Democrats and the Biden team will still carry the day decisively in enough states to matter.

Criminality and thuggery from the trump camp and it’s more unstable supporters, as Josh gave an excellent example of in Texas, is in my mind the bigger threat, with ICE, CPB, and the bureau of prisons’ riot squad waiting in the wings to help their god king stay out of the volcano.

[facilitatorn]

Thumbs up,  to that post,  Banks.   The GOP never disappoint.

Second that. That last paragraph should have been every other ad on talk radio this past month.

[barton]

Why Laura Field's arguments seem more substantial to me, part 1741:

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/democrats-cancel-central-texas-events-after-trump-supporters-surround-follow-biden-bus-on-i-35/

There is a lot of that low-grade redneck fascism being tried out,  and the slender reed of optimism I clutch is that when a media lens is pointed at those kinds of shenanigans,  it can function as a recruiting tool for the Democratic Party.   They so thoroughly subvert their "free speech" patter with actions like that.   You have to ask how many voters are more firmly and resolutely headed to polls when they see thuggery like that highway attack,  versus how many are really intimidated. 

[bankshot1]

Thumbs up,  to that post,  Banks.   The GOP never disappoint.

They are who they are.

You don't need off-the-wall conspiracy theories to demonize the Republican pricks.

they don't want you dead (except for the old and infirm that need government benefits like SS and medicare) they want the lower and middle-classes working and paying taxes.

To refill the treasury so they can steal from it again and again and again.

[kiidcarter8]

He’s no homicidal mastermind he’s an insanely stupid and drug addicted sociopath who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.


Sure

This is exactly what comes across in the speeches.

heh