2020: The Two Year Long Election

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"When will Democrats realize Trump desperately wants to run against Sanders?"

Spoiler

President Trump rarely conceals what’s on his mind. When he declares — without proof, naturally — that the Democratic primary is rigged against self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) he not doing so out of concern for fair elections.

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted:

You’ll notice he demeans Sanders, but he plainly pines to run against the septuagenarian socialist who wants dangerous felons to vote — while still in prison. Trump is an old pro at ginning up resentment, an emotion familiar to Sanders and his followers. (Remember Sanders just recently was bellyaching about coverage by the left-leaning Think Progress and lashing out at Neera Tanden, the head of the Center for American Progress.)

Trump is lending Sanders a hand in the grievance game, hoping the whisper of unfairness will rile up his troops. The only one putting a finger on the scale of the Democratic National Committee selection process here is Trump.

Trump is also obsessed with knocking out Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sanders’s primary rival on the left wing of the party. Warren has been getting praise for her detailed policy positions and was a star at the She the People gathering last week (where Sanders was booed). So out of the blue, Trump tries again to lend Sanders’s campaign a hand.

He told attendees at his rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, “I think Pocahontas, she’s finished. She’s out. She’s gone. When it was found that I had more Indian blood in me than she did, and then it was determined I had none, but I still had more, that was the end of her 32-year scam.” There was no “scam,” of course, because there is no evidence that Warren profited from her claim of Native American ancestry, but that’s not the point. Trump wants Warren out and to remind voters he has already bested her.

One can chalk this up to misogyny or to racism. Far more likely, Trump’s boosting Sanders again. As Politico reported:

The battle between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic left is ratcheting up.

Unlike in 2016, when Sanders didn’t have to sweat his left flank, Warren has managed to steal the spotlight from him on several issues. At times, she’s simply been the first to roll out a detailed policy proposal on an issue she and Sanders agree on. At others, she’s gone where Sanders has been unwilling to, like proposing to eliminate the filibuster and Electoral College.

Like the Russians pushing Jill Stein in 2016, Trump is more than happy to meddle in the other party’s primary and encourage its weakest candidate.

Well, isn’t Warren a weak contender for Democrats to put up against Trump? Not as weak as Sanders, who has done Trump’s work for him by slapping the socialist label on himself. Sanders is also the only Democrats who looks older than Trump, and the one least likely to attack him for retreat and retrenchment on foreign policy. Given the choice between the whip-smart and self-identified capitalist Warren, with facts, figures and proposals at her fingertips, and the grouchy socialist whose last campaign was fraught with claims of gender harassment and discrimination, there is little doubt that Trump would prefer the latter.

Democrats should pay attention. They need not agree with Trump’s assessment, but they should listen to the attacks he’s prepared to mount (and is already spouting) against Sanders. Trump delights in comparing dictator Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela to American socialists (“The socialists have done in Venezuela all of the same things that socialists, communists, totalitarians have done everywhere that they’ve had a chance to rule. The results have been catastrophic,” he said in February), and it only helps him pin the extremist label on Sanders when the latter shies away from an outright condemnation of Maduro. (Warren calls Maduro a dictator.)

In short, there are reasons Trump wants to clear the left lane for Sanders in the Democratic primary. Sanders remains the Democrat most easily mocked and demonized by the right. It’s why you don’t hear Trump figuring out how to juice support for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), former vice president Joe Biden or more than a dozen other contenders.

 

[fraurosena]

Seth Abramson is sounding the alarm bells. I agree wholeheartedly with his 20-thread tweet:

 

[K'Z'K]

For those who, like me until just now, have no idea what Abramson is referring to in the Twitter thread @fraurosena just posted, Jacob Wohl and his buddy Jack Burkman impersonated a young gay Republican (I didn't know there was such a thing either) named Hunter Kelly to falsely accuse Pete Buttigieg of sexual assault. Jacob's father, David Wohl, tried to get the story spread around. There is a real Hunter Kelly, but he has vehemently denied having had anything to do with the attempted smear on Mayor Pete. And lordy, there are tapes (of Wohl and his buddies discussing their awesome idea). The story was reported by the Daily Beast; there is a summary here: https://splinternews.com/worlds-biggest-moron-appears-to-have-done-it-again-1834400616

 

The Daily Beast is worth whitelisting on your adblocker for their story: https://www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-smear-merchants-jacob-wohl-and-jack-burkman-try-to-slime-pete-buttigieg-with-bogus-sex-assault-claim

 

Spoiler

Far-Right Smear Merchants Try to Slime Pete Buttigieg with Bogus Sex Assault Claim

The mayor was briefly accused of assaulting a young man. A GOP source says right-wing operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman approached him to make similarly untrue accusations.

Lachlan Markay,

Kevin Poulsen,

Noah Shachtman

04.29.19 7:56 PM ET

exclusive

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos by Getty / Reuters

A pair of right-wing provocateurs are being accused of attempting to recruit young Republican men to level false allegations of sexual assault against Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

The details of the operatives’ attempt emerged as one man suddenly surfaced with a vague and uncorroborated allegation that Buttigieg had assaulted him. The claim was retracted hours later on a Facebook page appearing to belong to the man.

A Republican source told The Daily Beast that lobbyist Jack Burkman and internet troll Jacob Wohl approached him last week to try to convince him to falsely accuse Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, of engaging him sexually while he was too drunk to consent.

The source who spoke to The Daily Beast said Burkman and Wohl made clear that their goal was to kneecap Buttigieg’s momentum in the 2020 presidential race. The man asked to remain anonymous out of a concern that the resulting publicity might imperil his employment, and because he said Wohl and Burkman have a reputation for vindictiveness.

But the source provided The Daily Beast with a surreptitious audio recording of the meeting, which corroborates his account. In it, Wohl appears to refer to Buttigieg as a “terminal threat” to President Donald Trump’s reelection next year.

Neither Burkman nor Wohl responded to repeated requests for comment on this story.  But after The Daily Beast contacted them last week, traces of the scheme disappeared from the web and social media.

On Monday, a separate individual using the name of Hunter Kelly published a post on the site Medium in which he alleged that Buttigieg sexually assaulted him in February. That post was tweeted out by David Wohl, Jacob’s father, and quickly re-written by the site Big League Politics, which is known as a landing ground for right-wing conspiracy theories.

Uh oh: BREAKING: Media Darling Buttigieg Accused of Sexual Assault https://t.co/iOGx7yo8Qu via @BigLeaguePol

— David Wohl (@DavidWohl) April 29, 2019

Kelly’s supposed Medium and Twitter accounts both say they were created this month. His Facebook page includes several posts lauding Trump and criticizing Hillary Clinton. He appears to have responded to Jacob Wohl’s posts on Instagram in the past.

The Daily Beast reached out to Kelly on a cellphone listed to him in the student directory at his  Michigan college. Told we were reporting on apparent efforts by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman to drum up false sexual assault allegations against Buttigieg, Kelly replied, “I was unaware this was happening. But yes it is true.”

Kelly wrote that he did not control the newly created Medium and Twitter accounts that posted the allegations under his name. When asked if he could verify his identity, he texted the Daily Beast a selfie that matched the photo seen on Medium and on Kelly’s longstanding Facebook accounts.

“Here is a selfie of me, sorry I have been crying,” he wrote. “Today and the promises made didn’t go as planned.”

Kelly declined to provide more details. But two hours later he posted a message to his Facebook timeline headed, “I WAS NOT SEXUALLY ASSAULTED.”

“It's important for everyone to know that I was not sexually assaulted and would never falsely accuse anyone,” he wrote. “To keep it brief for now, I was approached by a political figure to come to DC to discuss political situations from the standpoint of a gay Republican. When I arrived they discussed Peter Buttigieg and started talking about how they would be working a campaign against him.”

“I went to bed and woke up to a fake Twitter @RealHunterKelly and an article that I in no way endorsed or wrote. I have since left and am working on a formal statement to give to everyone including the Buttigieg family.”

After publication, Kelly told The Advocate that Wohl and Burkman flew him to Washington, D.C. on Sunday evening to participate in the scheme. But Kelly said he didn’t realize what they had planned, and that he didn’t consent to their publication of the Buttigieg allegations under his name.

"I woke up at 11am and spent my whole day saying I did not want this to happen," Kelly said. "My sister and her armed husband came and got me."

Asked about the allegation on Monday, Buttigieg called it made-up. “It's not going to throw us,” he said. “Politics can be ugly sometimes but you have to face that when you're in presidential politics.”

The man who told The Daily Beast that Wohl and Burkman approached him last week also described himself as a Trump supporter. He said he was connected to them by a friend in Republican politics, whom the duo had allegedly also pitched on the scheme. They met at a restaurant in the Washington area, where, the source said, both Burkman and Wohl introduced themselves using false names. Burkman assumed the alias of Matt Teller, the source said. Wohl, he said, just used the first name Bill.

The source added that he recognized Wohl because of his internet notoriety and decided to record their conversation, convinced that it could prove useful should any investigation be launched into the origins of the anti-Buttigieg scheme. The audio was provided on the condition that it not be published, so as not to reveal its source.

An expert in audio forensics contacted by The Daily Beast then examined the recording and confirmed that Wohl was one of the speakers.

"Our findings are that it is highly likely that one of the voice on the recording is Jacob Wohl's voice," Hafiz Malik, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told The Daily Beast after analyzing the recording.

Malik and his graduate student compared the surreptitious recording to publicly-available recordings of Wohl speaking. The pair then matched similar words and syllables, comparing the voiceprints in each case.

The stealthy recording was noisy—with hums in the lower register, around 60 and 120 Hz. So Malik and his student compared the "high harmonics," and got a match.

The pitch by Wohl and Burkman wasn’t detailed, the source said, but it resembled past attempts by the duo to peddle dubious sexual assault allegations against perceived political foes. It would involve the accuser giving a press conference where he would publicly make his accusations about Buttigieg. The source said Wohl and Burkman seemed to want him to figure out many of the details, including a window of time during which he and Buttigieg were both in Washington, when the fabricated offense may have occurred.

When the source expressed reluctance, they assured him the scheme would make him wealthy, famous, and a star in Republican politics. Wohl cited the national recognition given to Christine Blasey Ford after she accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault during his confirmation hearings last year.

Wohl and Burkman described the source’s role as a “catalyst” whose false allegations would prompt actual victims to come forward. They promised that a number of such victims were waiting in the wings.

The goal, Wohl and Burkman stressed, was to hobble Buttigieg’s ascendant campaign, according to the audio of the conversation. The South Bend mayor has rocketed into the top tier of 2020 Democratic contenders, to the surprise of many national political observers.

Last Monday, Burkman wrote on Twitter, “2020 is shaping up to be more exciting than 2016.  Looking like it will be Trump vs. Mayor Pete! Get the popcorn ready!”

The source did not agree to participate in the scheme, but Wohl followed up with a phone call a day or two later to see if he could recommend friends or associates who might be a good fit to play the victim in the hoax.

The phone number he called from was listed on the website of a company called Potomac Intelligence Group, which claimed to be a political and corporate intelligence firm with offices in Virginia and California. Matt Teller, the alias that Burkman used in the meeting, was listed as a Potomac Intelligence employee.

“Teller” also had a LinkedIn page, where he recently penned a post responding to a “blogger” who “wrote a story about Potomac Intelligence alleging that we work with the Saudi Government.”

It doesn’t appear that any such story was ever written.

“While we don't comment on our clients or the operations that we carry out on their behalf,” the LinkedIn post said, “we can say this: We will never apologize for our counter-terrorism practice.”

Minutes after The Daily Beast reached out to Wohl and Burkman, the Potomac Intelligence website was taken down, Teller’s LinkedIn page was deleted, and both of the company’s phone numbers were disconnected.

That website was similar in appearance to that of Surefire Intelligence, a fake company that Wohl set up under the pseudonym Matthew Cohen and used to peddle false sexual assault allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller last year. Both sites also were registered through the same anonymous domain registration service, and both used the same webmail provider, Protonmail, for their contact email addresses: surefireintelligence@protonmail.com for the Mueller smear, potomacintelligence@protonmail.com now.

The woman whom Wohl recruited to level those allegations against Mueller later told USA Today that Wohl had “made it up” and duped her into being the face of the allegations. The FBI signaled early this month that there was an active investigation into Surefire Intelligence, such as it is.

Wohl and Burkman have maintained a steady stream of publicity stunts in spite of that scrutiny. In February, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, they held a “press conference” where they claimed that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) married her own brother to get him U.S. citizenship. In the course of “investigating” those claims, Wohl faked a number of death threats against himself.

More recently, he and Burkman held a press conference where they promised to unveil damning allegations of corruption and bribery in high-profile college athletics programs. The much-hyped event was a dud.

Their attempt to go after Buttigieg doesn’t appear to be going much better. As our source recalled, “I was sitting there thinking: this is the Fyre Festival of political operations.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, the Dumpy campaign is stiffing communities. Color me un-surprised. "ONLY ON ABC-7: Trump Campaign owes City of El Paso more than $470,000 for February rally"

Spoiler

EL PASO, Texas - The City of El Paso is still waiting on a nearly half-million-dollar-payment from President Trump's campaign for his February 11 MAGA rally at the El Paso County Coliseum.

The ABC-7 I-Team obtained the 29-page invoice from the City of El Paso that details the costs incurred which totals $470,417.05.

The city's invoice bills Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. It is broken down by reimbursement owed across six departments:

• Department of Aviation: $6,286.57
• Fire Department: $60,630.84
• Health Department: $528
• Streets & Maintenance: $6,452
• Sun Metro: $15,577.52
• Police Department: $380,942.12

The invoice was dated March 27 with a due date of April 26, but as of April 29 the City of El Paso still has not received payment.

"I'm not sure about that," Marc Lotter, Trump Campaign Director of Strategic Communications, told ABC-7 Saturday while speaking at a dinner hosted by the El Paso County Republican Party. "I'll have to check with the accounting folks on that. And when that, about those bills, that's not something that I'm aware of."

The Trump Campaign did pay the $5,000 venue rental fee for the El Paso County Coliseum "immediately", according to El Paso Sports Commission CEO Brian Kennedy.

ABC-7 is continuing to obtain more documents on the cost of President Trump's rally, as well as Beto O'Rourke's campaign kick-off event in March.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

10 hours ago, KZK said:

For those who, like me until just now, have no idea what Abramson is referring to in the Twitter thread @fraurosena just posted, Jacob Wohl and his buddy Jack Burkman impersonated a young gay Republican (I didn't know there was such a thing either) named Hunter Kelly to falsely accuse Pete Buttigieg of sexual assault. Jacob's father, David Wohl, tried to get the story spread around. There is a real Hunter Kelly, but he has vehemently denied having had anything to do with the attempted smear on Mayor Pete. And lordy, there are tapes (of Wohl and his buddies discussing their awesome idea). The story was reported by the Daily Beast; there is a summary here: https://splinternews.com/worlds-biggest-moron-appears-to-have-done-it-again-1834400616

 

Some snark on Wohl:

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Pete Buttigieg releases 10 years of tax returns, jabs Trump for not doing the same"

Spoiler

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to release a decade’s worth of tax returns, showing that he and his husband, Chasten, jointly earned $128,630 in taxable income in 2018 and paid just over $20,000 in taxes.

Notably, the returns Buttigieg released — from 2009 to 2018 — included only the end of his time working as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. He began working for McKinsey in 2007 and left his job in 2010 to run for Indiana state treasurer. In 2009, Buttigieg’s last full year at McKinsey, his taxable income was $136,129.

The following year, in 2010, his taxable income was $21,317.

In a fundraising email sent to Buttigieg supporters after the release of the tax returns, the campaign sought to cast the candidate’s finances as similar to that of the average voter — almost boring, even.

“Here’s what you’ll find: Other than a tour in Afghanistan (when he didn’t take his mayoral salary) and a class he taught at Notre Dame, not a whole lot,” the campaign said. “As you can see, Pete’s not a millionaire.”

The campaign later clarified Buttigieg did not teach a class at the University of Notre Dame but received an honorarium for speaking there once.

Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest city in Indiana, has broken out of a crowded Democratic field in recent weeks, playing up his youth and his municipal governing experience as would-be strengths in Washington rather than dealbreakers.

His lowest income in the past decade was in 2011, the year he ran for mayor, when he had a negative taxable income of -$3,920.

Most years, Buttigieg filed the standard deduction, which means his returns show no itemized charitable deductions.

In 2017, he had a taxable income of $117,973, which included a $30,000 advance for his book, “Shortest Way Home.” That year, he donated $795 to charity.

In releasing Buttigieg’s tax documents, his campaign took a jab at President Trump, who has yet to release his returns and resisted doing so as a 2016 candidate.

“Mayor Pete has always played by the rules. He’s paid his fair share, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of investments, which means no conflicts of interest or corporate boards,” the fundraising email said. “And unlike the current president, he doesn’t have anything to hide.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sad, but true:

 

[Cartmann99]

17 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Pete Buttigieg releases 10 years of tax returns, jabs Trump for not doing the same"

  Reveal hidden contents

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to release a decade’s worth of tax returns, showing that he and his husband, Chasten, jointly earned $128,630 in taxable income in 2018 and paid just over $20,000 in taxes.

Notably, the returns Buttigieg released — from 2009 to 2018 — included only the end of his time working as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. He began working for McKinsey in 2007 and left his job in 2010 to run for Indiana state treasurer. In 2009, Buttigieg’s last full year at McKinsey, his taxable income was $136,129.

The following year, in 2010, his taxable income was $21,317.

In a fundraising email sent to Buttigieg supporters after the release of the tax returns, the campaign sought to cast the candidate’s finances as similar to that of the average voter — almost boring, even.

“Here’s what you’ll find: Other than a tour in Afghanistan (when he didn’t take his mayoral salary) and a class he taught at Notre Dame, not a whole lot,” the campaign said. “As you can see, Pete’s not a millionaire.”

The campaign later clarified Buttigieg did not teach a class at the University of Notre Dame but received an honorarium for speaking there once.

Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest city in Indiana, has broken out of a crowded Democratic field in recent weeks, playing up his youth and his municipal governing experience as would-be strengths in Washington rather than dealbreakers.

His lowest income in the past decade was in 2011, the year he ran for mayor, when he had a negative taxable income of -$3,920.

Most years, Buttigieg filed the standard deduction, which means his returns show no itemized charitable deductions.

In 2017, he had a taxable income of $117,973, which included a $30,000 advance for his book, “Shortest Way Home.” That year, he donated $795 to charity.

In releasing Buttigieg’s tax documents, his campaign took a jab at President Trump, who has yet to release his returns and resisted doing so as a 2016 candidate.

“Mayor Pete has always played by the rules. He’s paid his fair share, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of investments, which means no conflicts of interest or corporate boards,” the fundraising email said. “And unlike the current president, he doesn’t have anything to hide.”

 

I'm becoming extremely fond of Pete Buttigieg.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is already set to use the government to destroy the Democratic nominee"

Quote

The 2020 election is going to be ugly in many different ways. If you thought Donald Trump ran a rancid campaign when he was trying to make it to the White House, just you wait until he’s fighting to preserve his power. It has been obvious for some time that President Trump is planning to promote hatred and division, but one thing we haven’t yet focused on is how he will use the resources of the federal government to make sure he wins reelection.

We got a hint of it Wednesday when Attorney General William P. Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) asked Barr, “Has the president or anyone at the White House either asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?”

Barr reacted as though she had asked him to calculate the speed of light in nanometers per second in base 8. He sputtered a bit, asked her to repeat the question, repeated it himself, then gazed off into the distance, prompting Harris to say, “It seems you’d remember something like that,” which indeed you’d think he would. After musing for a moment on the nature of word “suggest,” Barr gave no answer.

Which suggests the strong likelihood that the actual answer is “yes.” And it wouldn’t have been the first time. As the Mueller report states, in May 2017, Trump called then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions at home to try to convince him not only to quash the Russia investigation but also to go further: “According to Sessions, the President asked him to reverse his recusal so that Sessions could direct the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton.”

Sessions did not comply. But do you think Trump would hesitate for an instant before telling Barr to open an investigation of the Democratic nominee for president? And given everything we’ve seen from Barr, do you think he’d refuse that order?

Trump may already be preparing to mobilize the federal government’s resources to destroy his opponent, whoever that turns out to be. The New York Times has a new piece featuring what is sometimes called an oppo drop: a news story about a politician initiated by a political rival passing damaging information to reporters. It happens all the time, and it’s not necessarily illegitimate as journalism, because the information itself may be relevant and the journalist does his or her own investigation to verify what they’ve been told.

But in this case, the Times acknowledges the story’s provenance right in the headline: “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies.”

Regular readers will know that I’m hardly Joe Biden’s biggest fan, but this story seems particularly weak in its implication that Biden did anything remotely wrong. What it comes down to is that, as vice president, he advanced Obama administration policy by pressing Ukraine to fight corruption, a perfectly worthy goal shared by lots of countries.

At the time, Biden’s son Hunter was working for a Ukrainian company called Burisma Holdings that was being investigated by the country’s chief prosecutor, who was widely believed to be corrupt. Which brings us to the most critical part of this story, how Trump is already using his office to go after Biden:

The Trump team’s efforts to draw attention to the Bidens’ work in Ukraine, which is already yielding coverage in conservative media, has been led partly by Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as a lawyer for Mr. Trump in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. Giuliani’s involvement raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is endorsing an effort to push a foreign government to proceed with a case that could hurt a political opponent at home.

Mr. Giuliani has discussed the Burisma investigation, and its intersection with the Bidens, with the ousted Ukrainian prosecutor general and the current prosecutor. He met with the current prosecutor multiple times in New York this year. The current prosecutor general later told associates that, during one of the meetings, Mr. Giuliani called Mr. Trump excitedly to brief him on his findings, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Mr. Giuliani declined to comment on any such phone call with Mr. Trump, but acknowledged that he has discussed the matter with the president on multiple occasions. Mr. Trump, in turn, recently suggested he would like Attorney General William P. Barr to look into the material gathered by the Ukrainian prosecutors — echoing repeated calls from Mr. Giuliani for the Justice Department to investigate the Bidens’ Ukrainian work and other connections between Ukraine and the United States.

So what we have here is the president’s lawyer, with the direct involvement of the president himself, pushing a foreign official to open an investigation for the obvious purpose of embarrassing a potential rival, while the president is pushing the Justice Department to act in ways that could harm that rival as well.

That should be a scandal in and of itself. And I can’t say this strongly enough: This is only the beginning.

Every time a president runs for reelection, there are small ways he uses the power of his office to promote his campaign, such as taking “official” visits to swing states on the taxpayer’s dime. But those efforts are usually limited by the potential for controversy and the agreed-upon norm that there’s only so far the president should go in marshaling the resources of the federal government for his political benefit. But as we know, Donald Trump doesn’t even care about rules, let alone norms.

So get ready. Trump is going to order the Justice Department to launch an investigation of his opponent — probably more than one — and Barr will likely do so eagerly. It doesn’t matter how trivial the substance is, as we learned in 2016 when the fact that Hillary Clinton used the wrong email became the dominant issue of the campaign. Did Elizabeth Warren shake hands with a guy whose cousin’s neighbor dated a mobster? The Justice Department will investigate. Did Bernie Sanders have a congressional intern whose police officer dad fixed a parking ticket for him? The FBI is on it. Did Kamala Harris prosecute someone whose lawyer’s husband got a state contract? Investigations are ongoing.

Republicans will cry that whatever it is, it’s the crime of the century. The federal investigations will give it the patina of legitimacy, and the media will dutifully cover it with all the speculative insinuation they can muster. (“Questions are being raised,” after all.) And it won’t just be the Justice Department — rest assured, right now in the White House they’re working hard to figure out how the entire government can be put to the task of reelecting Trump.

As I said, previous presidents have done that in small ways with limited effects. But Trump’s corruption, his lack of concern for laws and norms, his contempt for the very idea that the federal government exists for a purpose other than to serve him — all of these are already more than apparent. And we haven’t yet seen how far he’s willing to go to retain power.

 

[Audrey2]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump is already set to use the government to destroy the Democratic nominee"

 

If you think this is bad, just wait until Trump is re-elected. He will lean on Mick turtle until a constitutional amendment is proposed and ratified negating the one that limits the president to either two four-year terms or no more than 10 years total if it is a vice president who have succeeded to the presidency. At the end of another four years, Trump will use the same strategies to both eliminate all Republican challengers as well as all Democratic challengers and run for reelection again. you can call me cynical, you can call me crazy, but it seems like for those of us whose come up with every possible worst-case scenario during the last 3 years, many of those have come true.

I am really scared for our future.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[KeshetParparNesicha]

10 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

I'm becoming extremely fond of Pete Buttigieg.

Having just caught up on this thread, it appears that Pete Buttigieg is an FJ favorite.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

9 hours ago, KeshetParparNesicha said:

Having just caught up on this thread, it appears that Pete Buttigieg is an FJ favorite.

I think he’s a charming guy and seems nice but as far as political favorite personally I need to hear his policies including how the finances are going to work.  There is an experience gap that needs to be addressed for me.

 

[fraurosena]

See here the tactics Trump is going to employ. Bill Barr lied about not receiving requests to prosecute from the WH.

If the Dems want to play a tactical game with the elections, they should put Biden at the forefront, seemingly their preferred candidate. He will serve as a distraction for the Repugs. All attention will go to discrediting him. Meanwhile, the Dems actually have another candidate waiting quietly in the wings, waiting to pounce. 

I'm not a fan of Biden's candidacy, simply because I find it's time for another generation to take their turn. It's also why I don't think Bernie should be president. At the moment I'm rooting for Kamala Harris, based on nothing else but that l like her personality, the way she conducts herself during questioning, her no-nonsense attitude and directly going to the core of the matter. I've yet to see her policies, and I could change my opinion of her based on that, of course.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 hours ago, KeshetParparNesicha said:

Having just caught up on this thread, it appears that Pete Buttigieg is an FJ favorite.

I like him quite a bit. My first choice is still Elizabeth Warren. In fact, my dream ticket would be Elizabeth Warren as President with either Kamala or Pete as VP.  Sadly, I don't think Liz can beat Dumpy in the general election.

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I like him quite a bit. My first choice is still Elizabeth Warren. In fact, my dream ticket would be Elizabeth Warren as President with either Kamala or Pete as VP.  Sadly, I don't think Liz can beat Dumpy in the general election.

Pete as VP is a great idea! I'm all for it. Then in 2024 or 2028, he can run for pres again.

[milkteeth]

On 5/1/2019 at 7:04 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

 

 

It's incredible to me, in the year of our lord 2019, that we are still believing that 'electability' is something we're wringing our hands over during the primaries. I mean, doesn't the fact that we elected an orange TV game show host turned fascist as our president totally disprove any notions of an 'electable' candidate? Every election cycle we gaslight ourselves that we can't actually like the candidates we actually think are good. No we have to chase after the one we think is electable, which of course means the one who is white, conservative and usually male. 

Yet, in 2000 Al Gore was the electable candidate against Bush. Kerry was the electable candidate against him as well. Hillary was obviously more electable than Obama in 2008 and of course the electable candidate against Trump in 2016. I hope that we're setting ourselves up for the same mistake now in 2020, but it's starting to seem like this is a lesson we're never going to learn.  

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by milkteeth

[HerNameIsBuffy]

18 minutes ago, milkteeth said:

one who is white, conservative and usually male. 

Obama was once the electable candidate.

Im curious as to why you think HRC was considered more electable?  That was never my impression. 

And imo we have to consider electability because we need to be pragmatic enough to know getting Trump out is for the greater good rather than voting someone who doesn’t have a shot at the  independents and undecided and handing him another 4 more years.

i do think he’ll likely steal another 4 years, but I don’t want it to be a legit victory.

If this were about voting for someone who I truly believed in then most elections that would rule out both major parties as I think the corruption is completely embedded.

As it is I’m forced to vote for the self-serving jackass who I think will do the least harm to the most people.  

Long gone are the days where I could cast s protest vote for an independent because I believed in more of their policies and wanted to show support even knowing they’d never win.  The idea of enough people being in favor of whatever giving it a larger platform is fine when one party isn’t quickly marching us toward fascism.

Trump has taken my pragmatism and turned me into a Democrat.  Because that’s the only other electable party.  

[formergothardite]

6 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

we need to be pragmatic enough to know getting Trump out is for the greater good rather than voting someone who doesn’t have a shot at the  independents and undecided and handing him another 4 more years.

This is how I feel too. We need someone who will beat Trump. If he wins again America is doomed. My personal feeling is we need to have democrats who can beat as many republicans as possible and hopefully that will help move us towards a world where we can actually start voting for people we view as representing us instead of voting for the least terrible person. As long as the GOP has power there is no chance of a fair election. The democrats are far from perfect but IMO at least with them we have a better chance of getting America back on track. 

ETA: My husband and I have been discussing the election and it is his opinion that Trump will win no matter what. But he thinks the real fight should be to get control of the house and senate away from the GOP so Trump can be reined in, and he and Pence impeached. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by formergothardite

[mamallama]

So who do you see as electable?  There seem to be two factions.  Those who feel like someone who promotes socialist style polices and "new ideas" and those who feel we need to sway the refugees from the old GOP and the independants who hover in the the middle.  I'm kind of wary about new ideas at the moment.  I think it fires up the base but it's going to make a lot of the moderates hold their nose and vote for Trump or just stay home.

[formergothardite]

I don't know who is electable right now. Perhaps Biden? Trump is a force to go against, he has a massive cult following who worship him as if he is a god. He turns everything into all about him. attention seems to be glued to him and that is going to be very, very hard to compete against. 

I don't really know if there is a current democrat who can inspire voters the way Trump does. 

This is nothing like a typical campaign, no mistake or dark secret will touch Trump's popularity.  

Edited May 3, 2019 by formergothardite

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 minutes ago, mamallama said:

So who do you see as electable?  There seem to be two factions.  Those who feel like someone who promotes socialist style polices and "new ideas" and those who feel we need to sway the refugees from the old GOP and the independants who hover in the the middle.  I'm kind of wary about new ideas at the moment.  I think it fires up the base but it's going to make a lot of the moderates hold their nose and vote for Trump or just stay home.

I agree with you 100%.  There are too many centrists and people who are (legitimately) afraid of what the socialists policies may mean for them financially to vote far left.

I’m not talking the 1%.  The middle class isn’t a bunch of fat cats sitting on piles of money trying to hold on to it.  It’s people who have worked hard all their lives and are afraid a wild swing in taxes will hurt their retirement.  Or will impact them being able to leave their businesses and assets to their kids.

its people like me who make way too much money for my kids to get any kind of significant financial aid for college, but not nearly enough that helping 3 with tuition isn’t a struggle.

my kids are 20 something and still home - statistically I’m not alone as that’s the norm now.  Which means I’m still helping support an entire family while I’m not getting any younger and I can’t afford the kind of tax hit that some economists worry could come with plans like Bernie’s back in 2016.

from a business perspective one of Bernie’s proposed tax plans would have wrecked havoc on industry and he never addressed those concerns in a factual way.

but there is a hell of a lot of independents who don’t want to vote for Trump but aren’t ready for the severe pendulum swing.

[fraurosena]

25 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I don't really know if there is a current democrat who can inspire voters the way Trump does. 

I understand what you mean. Maybe in the current pool there isn't, yet. But the new generation of Democrats who were voted into office in 2018 fill me with hope for the future. And who knows what will happen with the eventual Democratic candidate? If that person has believable and achievable policies, can speak coherently and understandably for the majority of people, and is overtly anti-Trump without couching their sentiments in all too polite verbiage, then they stand a very good chance of winning.

Also, do not underestimate the way Trump inspires voters to go and vote him out of office. I believe there are many more in that camp than there are people who slavishly follow him.