have a seat brad I am hearing my people are calling you brad ferrariscale why is that is that an inside joke I don’t get it brad https://t.co/aZ5SDhhXGJ
— kilgore trout, potato thief (@KT_So_It_Goes) June 4, 2020
Thanks to commentor Kay for this refulgent little report on the GOP affray from Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair:
In Donald Trump’s West Wing, being a member of the Trump family has historically been the ultimate job security. But that truism is being stress-tested after a run of polls consistently show Trump losing to Joe Biden at this stage of the race—a CNN poll this morning has him down 14 points. According to a source close to the White House, Trump has mulled taking oversight of the campaign away from his son-in-law Jared Kushner. “Trump is malignantly crazy about the bad poll numbers,” a former West Wing official said. “He’s going to broom Kushner and [Brad] Parscale—the numbers are not getting better,” a Republican close to the campaign said.
Long before the reelection campaign went sideways, Trump frequently blew up at Kushner. For instance, former West Wing officials recall how Trump hated when Kushner received too much positive press (In January, Trump was rankled when Kushner’s portrait graced the cover of Time). “Any time Jared is in the papers, Trump complains, ‘We have to get Jared back to New York!’” said a Republican who heard Trump make the comment. In the end, the source cautioned that Trump won’t push Kushner out. “This is typical with him and Jared,” the source said.
(The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Kushner declined to comment.)…
Over the weekend, Trump called around to New York friends and outside advisers in hopes they would validate Trump’s belief that the polls are wrong. “He’s asking people to agree with him that the polls are biased. But no one is telling him what he wants to hear,” said a Republican briefed on the calls. Republicans know how bad things are, but the party still believes sticking with Trump is the best bet for holding the Senate. Last week, Mitch McConnell told Republican senators that they couldn’t abandon Trump, according to a source. McConnell reminded Republicans that former New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte lost her 2016 reelection bid after breaking with Trump over the Access Hollywood video.
(Through a spokesperson, McConnell denied making the comment.)
My guess is that if #MoscowMitch is telling his fellows that they can’t abandon Trump, then #MoscowMitch has already prepared a draft of his eulogy for Trump’s upcoming defenestration. Because I’m a cynic, like that.
Speaking of defenestrations, Young Prince Jared just set up his own. Knowingly, or not?
Kushner: The law enforcement community heard the cries from the community, saw the injustices in the system that needed to be fixed and they responded by coming together to fix it pic.twitter.com/i7Dee03MYu
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) June 8, 2020
Earlier report from Mr. Sherman:
In private, Trump says Democratic governors are letting riots continue because it will hurt Trump’s re-election. My latest:https://t.co/ftt9ElIA6O
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) June 2, 2020
BGinCHI
We ask that you not judge us by the Bradness of our names, but by the content of our character.
patrick II
Poor Donald
Meanwhile, from the Washington Post via LGM
Thinking he’s the victim while he’s using the coronavirus to victimize millions of people.
Aleta
What is wrong with them. Police wearing armor firing flash bangs at unarmed protesters, hitting a 21-year-old in the chest and stunning a photographer.
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1270184140898525185
Raoul
Just saw a tidbit the evening that several Republican Colorado state senators are supporting a police reform bill. Allegedly not in that “I’ll support this if you water it down to nothing” way.
One does wonder if the one-two of Trump & Gardner as lead anchor and leaky boat is freaking otherwise ‘safe’ GOPers. CO could swing quite a bit more blue than purple in the not too distant future.
(Yes, the western slope and the plains will bleed red forever. But the state is growing and urbanizing rapidly)
rikyrah
cain
@Raoul:
oh yeah, I’m following an abolitionist and it looks like it is on its way of passing and it contains a lot of the 8cantwait.org stuff. It’s a pretty strong bill.
rikyrah
rikyrah
rikyrah
rikyrah
Gretchen
I saw a Trump ad on MSNBC in Kansas City tonight. How many of their viewers are considering Trump?
patrick II
@Gretchen:
Two drunk guys watching TV in a bar.
Major Major Major Major
Blech, sometimes I feel dirty just reading about these people.
West of the Rockies
@Gretchen:
It was a shitty commercial, too, with a tone deaf, target-missing message.
Amir Khalid
Donald Trump needs to get rid of the person actually at fault for his dreadful polling numbers: Donald Trump.
West of the Rockies
It makes me smirk reading how Trump is miserable and berating everyone around him. Gastric distress and high blood pressure, on the house!
Craigie
My advice is to say nothing then. Where’s my Ferrari?
hitchhiker
Most delicious news re trump campaign is that it just spent $400,000 to run trump 2020 ads on WASHINGTON DC local cable.
Why?
Why would they blow that change in a place where almost everybody loathes him?
Simple. Because he’ll see those ads, and maybe they’ll balance out (in his small, bitter mind) the Lincoln Project ads he’s also seeing on those channels.
The campaign is using resources to reassure the candidate.
Major Major Major Major
Redshift
@rikyrah:
Yeah, I briefly wandered into a Twitter rabbit-hole (and wisely backed out without responding) where a very white dude was carping about the Dems “just having a photo op” but the real answer is Justin Amash’s bill to end qualified immunity.
Villago Delenda Est
EVERYTHING is about Donald. EVERYTHING.
cain
@Redshift:
There was some blue check black twitter folks carping about it as well. The CDC asked them to do it. I did feel lit was a little more pageantry than was strictly necessary – I would have preferred a ringing speech and raised fist at the end than taking the knee. Show me some fire, show me resolution in your eyes, and raise your fist because we aren’t taking this crap anymore.
Captain C
OK, how do I 'imbed' a tweet as a non-admin type?cain
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep – but now that we know plot, we should be doing everything to manipulate him. The Lincoln Project has figured that out and knows how to press his buttons. I think Biden has as well – because his tweets seem to be geared to insult the president at every turn.
But the rest? Meh. Sure, support your candidate, but start running ads for an audience of one on Fox News – especially during Laura Ingraham and others. Those assholes need money so we might as well give it to them in the form of paying for absolutely fucking with Trump.
cain
@Major Major Major Major:
IceCube has been phenomenal in all this. The man makes me laugh, whil being spot on about stuff. My kind of GenXer. :D
joel hanes
@Redshift:
Ending qualified immunity would be huge.
It’s a big reason that some police organizations have been able to defy oversight or control by local elected officials for extended periods.
robmassing
@rikyrah: Meghan: “Again, I don’t know anything about this, but I saw a viral video.” How is she employed???
LeftCoastYankee
I me mean unless we can bet on the Stupids eating each other’s brains or something (I might pay attention to that), anything beyond “are they making today worse”, is TMI at this point.
Villago Delenda Est
@cain: Ice T has been fantastic, too. I’ve always liked him as Finn on Law & Order SVU. Talented actor as well as a talented hip hop artist.
And then there was that EPIC ad for Geico, I think it was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ZwDr_WxmU
Villago Delenda Est
They are looking forward to six to seven figure advances on their tell-all books.
Martin
It’s even better. Trump has hired McLaughlin to help with polling. May we be so blessed to have him replace Parscale. McLaughlin is the idiot that convinced Eric Cantor he was winning by double digits when he was losing by double digits. McLaughlin is basically un-hireable within the GOP because he produces polls whose sole purpose is to appease the candidate and keep him employed. Basically, he lies to the candidate as a standard practice. Of course Trump loves this.
If we’re lucky he’ll be convinced to dump all of his ad spending in California. The downside to this, of course, is that Trump will never accept that he lost, especially if his pollsters are lying to him. He’ll demand that the election be invalidated, and there’s a real risk in the election that people may not be considering.
If we are moving to a semi-national vote by mail, with primarily red states forcing people into polling places, what happens at the end of election night when only red states have results and blue states are days or weeks away from having enough of count to project a winner? Consider how quickly the Brooks Brothers riot formed in Florida. Imagine that on a national scale, with blue state counts getting tied up by lawyers and goon tactics, further delaying results.
On election night Trump declares victory and then over the following week or two that changes. How will that be received by Trump and by his voters?
frosty
@Raoul:
Just like the “T” in PA where I live. Anything outside of Philly, Pittsburgh, (and State College in the middle) is going to vote R. Our goal in my county is to get the Dems above 35%. Then we take PA.
Without Pittsburgh we’d be a red state.
ETA: There really aren’t blue and red states. There’s urban and rural areas and if your state has more of the former then it votes blue for statewide elections. Congress and the state lege, maybe not so much.
Martin
They’re losing their authority. They can feel it.
Redshift
@joel hanes:
Yes, and the Dem bill introduced today would end it. Which is it was so asinine to snipe at the photo op and pretend the bill that was the entire reason for it didn’t exist.
(And it’s a bill that will pass at least one house of Congress and can be the template for next year, unlike Justin “Party of One” Amash’s.)
frosty
@rikyrah: fuckem
ETA: I presume you know who I mean.
joel hanes
@Redshift:
Ah. Thanks for the context.
Leto
@Gretchen: I saw two Trumpov ads run during Maddow (outside Philly) and just lol’d. Who’s the audience for this bullshit? I guess if you’re just going to piss away money, and if Brad is taking his cut…
cain
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep, Ice T as well. Both are great follows – great actors and artists.
Dan B
@Aleta: The most serious attacks have been at the East Precinct on Capitol Hill on Seattle. It’s a few short blocks from where I livrd for almost 40 years. It was a mixed race neighborhood that was red-lined. It’s gentrified fast. We moved partly because there were many politically clueless people moving in.
Now we live in a majority minority area. There was a demonstration and march with several thousand people – majority minority – at Othello Park, an 8 block walk from us. It was peaceful with very little police presence. The difference was stark. There’s some weird dynamic at play.
The mayor, a corporate lesbian, is okay but the corporate blinders seem to prevent her from recognizing that the police are in revolt against her and she’s losing community support.
Captain C
@rikyrah: According to a Twitter thread (linked here as I can’t seem to do the kind of imbedding that non-admins can do) by Selena Adera:
Elizabelle
Refulgent. Why I read this blog.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
LOL Ice Cube
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Redshift:
@rikyrah:
There’s definitely a contingent on the left that decries “identity politics”. r/stupidpol on Reddit is particularly infamous for this and is just a left-wing r/kotakuinaction
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dan B:
That’s sad. I suspect “politically clueless” could describe a lot of people in this country unfortunately
Ian R
If Trump wants to be reassured that he’ll win despite the polls, he should try calling Democrats, rather than Republicans. Had to talk like half my d&d group off the metaphorical ledge tonight, as they’re all convinced that he’ll win despite polling far behind in every swing state he needs.
Amir Khalid
@Ian R:
Some people are not happy unless the sky is falling.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
He has no friends.
Ivan X
@Amir Khalid: I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s trying to psychologically protect oneself from the catastrophic horror of the wrong result, which most of us were completely blindsided by in 2016. I see the same thing in some sports fans. They’d rather prepare for doom to protect themselves against having their hopes dashed.
opiejeanne
@Dan B: Seattle’s Mayor Durkan has certainly lost a lot of support of the city council. She has sorely misjudged her rose here.
And I have to say that I was shocked by that video of the Seattle cops shooting that young woman with whatever that was, a flash-bang? because I thought the unprovoked violence by cops was over by now, exhausted by public outrage at the earlier examples of outrageous behavior of cops. I guess that’s like being shocked by anything Trump does by now, except he has still managed to shock me and others.
opiejeanne
Has Yutsano checked in this evening?
oclib
@opiejeanne:
yes….#192 on the previous thread
opiejeanne
@oclib: Thank you.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@opiejeanne: I’m old enough to remember the Seattle cop-riot during the WTO demonstrations.
There’s even a movie about it (link)
Shalimar
The contrast in protective equipment between police and medical personnel is stunning, and it’s making police’s traditional “dangerous job protecting you” defense look hollow. Cops have all the riot gear their departments can buy, and they still get violent over thrown water bottles. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses keep doing their jobs with inadequate PPE while their co-workers are actually dying.
Geminid
opiejeanne
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I remember how surprised we were by that riot because it seemed so out of character for Seattle. We didn’t live here yet but had spent a lot of time here. But then there was the incident with the jumper on the bridge over Lake Union and we realized that maybe we’d badly misjudged Seattle.
I read recently that the WTO protests, the violent parts, really were outside agitators (and cops? thanks for the link), but motorists yelling at a suicidal person to just jump so the traffic could move, those were not outside agitators.
opiejeanne
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I forgot to mention that just about the moment we moved here, a cop shot and killed a Native American woodcarver named John Williams on a street corner, supposedly for brandishing a knife at him. The knife was a pocket knife and the blade was closed. It was ruled unjustified killing. The cop was not prosecuted but resigned. The Williams family got a settlement of $1.5 million and a totem pole at City Center.
This was a stunning “welcome to the real PNW” moment.
Booger
@cain: I think–I hope–you mean the CBC.
Uncle Cosmo
The best thing about consistent, continual pessimism is that you are never disappointed: You feel justified when you’re proven right, and absolutely overjoyed when you’re proven wrong.
Cue Ambrose Bierce:
Ken
I’m not sure what that means but I hope it’s painful and humiliating.
Ken
I had trouble with this until I realized that to him, “protests against me” = “riots”.
Cheryl from Maryland
@rikyrah:
@Redshift: ‘
Juicers might like to know that yesterday was an official vigil for George Floyd as part of the Rev. Dr. Barber’s virtual Poor People’s Campaign Virtual March. Those of us who signed up for the Virtual March were silent for the time Chauvin had his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck at 5:00 pm. I don’t know the time the Democrats knelt, but there were events all day. For more on the vigil, here’s a link from its (warning) Facebook Page. Here’s a link to the very moving litany the Rev. Dr. Barber composed. For those of us taking care of individuals who are extremely vulnerable to COVID-19, it gave a feeling of participation and sorrow. There are more events planned, so look them up if you are interested. Sorry to be so late to this thread.