Now if we're talking personal, non-political life, I could agree with you. We have loyal fans of sports teams, we are loyal to our friends and family, and so forth. But even there the term "allegiance" is ... odd. It's got a heavy flavor of the old "I pledge allegiance to the flag... and to the republic" thing that we all learnt in school. It makes us twitchy when it's used of a person-to-person relationship among Americans (what y'all do overseas is up to you).
Thanks LC, you've given me the thinnest excuse to link to my favourite one of these. I don't know anything about American football, but I just substitute Man City (before the Arabs), or (my own team) West Ham - many UK readers will have their favourite shit team
GK - I liked your rabbit-hole analogy. But the comic link suggests another, nobler, stronger reason for sticking with Trump through thick and, err, thick
I have been loyal to one football team since my Dad bribed me to barrack for them by buying me their guernsey in or about 1973. They were booted out of the league and abolished in 1996. I still barrack for them.
It's often been said of Trump that he approaches the presidency as if it were a reality TV show. The culture is a celebrity, showbiz culture. It's all show and no substance.
Absolutely. This has been clear for years. It’s all about popularity - and, if he becomes unpopular, ratings. The crazy celebs get higher ratings than the talented ones.
It’s a sign of the times.
My worry is that, where the US leads the U.K. tends to follow. (Look at shopping malls ruining the high street and 1000 other examples)
Yeah, but it's me who enjoyed watching De Niro attack Trump, not a culture. I didn't enjoy it because he's a film star, but because he's articulate, impassioned and eccentric. Presumably, you would predict that I'm "exactly" the person to be seduced by populists. Turning it into a generalization makes it meaningless.
Enjoying it is all fine and good.
However, quoting a criticism and thus assigning it value because it's been made by a celebrity is, I believe, the kind of behaviour that does get populists elected, because it ranks the superfluous over the substantial, the appearence over the essence - and that is at the heart of the criticisms of both Trump and Johnson in this forum.
It depresses me when people's criticism of these mandates adopts similar tactics to the ones used by those being criticised.
Yeah, but it's me who enjoyed watching De Niro attack Trump, not a culture. I didn't enjoy it because he's a film star, but because he's articulate, impassioned and eccentric. Presumably, you would predict that I'm "exactly" the person to be seduced by populists. Turning it into a generalization makes it meaningless.
Enjoying it is all fine and good.
However, quoting a criticism and thus assigning it value because it's been made by a celebrity is, I believe, the kind of behaviour that does get populists elected, because it ranks the superfluous over the substantial, the appearence over the essence - and that is at the heart of the criticisms of both Trump and Johnson in this forum.
It depresses me when people's criticism of these mandates adopts similar tactics to the ones used by those being criticised.
Yeah, but it was me who fucking enjoyed watching De Niro, and who presumably is exactly likely to vote populist. Drowning in generalizations, can you actually see another person?
I suppose the issue is not what Robert de Niro said (which I thought was a proper trenchant criticism and I would have agreed with anybody else who said it) but that his celebrity (or notoriety) got him the air time.
My perspective has always been to judge statements on their merits regardless of who says them. But I do qualify that in the case of proven liars! So my generalisation about the American President is that I know he is lying because he is speaking or tweeting. I have no such preconceptions about Robert de Niro.
Do I? You have plenty of interesting and cogent things to say, but when all I have to go on in a post is basically the equivalent of a shared Facebook post from some celebrity, I'm not sure I'm missing much, or that I'm wide of the mark.
I observe that a more important communications issue is Trump's systematic demeaning and sidelining of professional medical and scientific advice. He is rubbishing facts and figures, describing advice as 'unacceptable to him' and is receiving enthusiastic support for his alternative narrative from Fox News and GOP senators. When the figures take a turn for the worse, it will be the figures that are wrong. If infection clusters start in various States it will be the fault of the Governors.
He is relentlessly pursuing his policy of opening up America come what may and he has an alternative facts narrative already in place.
Now that matters a lot more than whatever publicity de Niro gets for his very reasonable opinions.
Fundamentally, T always has to be the rightest, smartest, richest, bigliest, and loudest guy in the room. He always has to be better than someone. Plus he's a flim-flam man, a con artist, the worst kind of used car salesman. Plus some combo of mental and physical illness. Plus being just generally lost.
Something that worries me: It's been a long time, AFAIK, since he made meaningless sounds and spoke in word salad. He speaks more coherently--which is not to say he knows what he's talking about, or that any of his ideas are reality based. His way of speaking is more normal, which makes him seem more normal, and even more presidential.
I think they've gradually put him on some kinds of meds, and this is the result. I think that was done to Dubyah/Bush, too.
I don't begrudge either of them their meds--clearly, they both need(ed) a lot of help. But IMHO the result is that they seem more "normal"...and some voters--maybe without even realizing it--might think T more worthy of presidency.
I don't know how or why so many people don't see what a severely-broken, hot mess T is--even many people who oppose him. I know some Shipmates have said that he's not broken, unintelligent, suffering from dementia, etc.--just evil/bad. Part of my own learning curve is reminding myself that there are always reasons for the way a person is. "Evil" can be a handy shorthand, especially when you need to vent. But ISTM it doesn't really deal with the whys, and those are needed if you want to try to help the person be better, so they don't cause so much harm. The whys can also help you realize that maybe *next* time, you should look out for certain clues so you can avoid being ensnared by another such person.
Well, thinking through possible reasons for his comments, it occurred to me that he *might* hate T for just those reasons. He may feel/be in a hellish situation where he's wayyyyy down an acid-lined rabbit hole which was *supposed* to lead to a golden crown, a pot of gold, and delicious golden carrots. There's something further down the hole, but it growls and stinks--and not of carrots.
McConnell already has his golden crown / pot of gold / delicious golden carrots / whatever other metaphor you want to use. Mitch McConnell's goal is power for its own sake, and the current arrangement gives him plenty. So any pretense that McConnell is concerned about traditions or decorum is just that: a pretense.
I suppose the issue is not what Robert de Niro said (which I thought was a proper trenchant criticism and I would have agreed with anybody else who said it) but that his celebrity (or notoriety) got him the air time.
If you have a platform given to you I don't think there's any reasonable argument that you have a moral obligation not to use it to discuss important issues. I'm reminded of an incident back in 2003 when actress Janeane Garofalo was invited on various talk show to discuss the Iraq War (she was noted for her vocal opposition to invading Iraq) and would then be denigrated as an actress who shouldn't have opinions on things like that. Garofalo usually made the point that these shows could very easily have invited someone else to discuss whether invading Iraq was a good idea but they reached out to her.
There's also a bit of a double bind here. Robert De Niro isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's not enough of an expert (though as a voting-age citizen I'd say he meets at least a minimum standard of expertise). On the other hand Barack Obama isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's too much of an expert. Eventually you get the idea that no one is allowed to criticize Donald Trump.
It's often been said of Trump that he approaches the presidency as if it were a reality TV show. The culture is a celebrity, showbiz culture. It's all show and no substance.
Absolutely. This has been clear for years. It’s all about popularity - and, if he becomes unpopular, ratings. The crazy celebs get higher ratings than the talented ones.
...
The way he creates a crisis - which he can't deal with - and then jumps to another crisis is classic "tune in next week" stuff.
I watched the De Niro interview. He's correct that no-one ever takes trump on.
Apparently when you're elected as president of America, it is assumed you'll behave in accord with the office, and the equivalent of divine right of kings and queens must always apply. Apparently he cannot be prosecuted for anything, can say and do anything, and everyone will do what he says. Pravda (Russian leading news outlet) speculated recently that if the COVID-19 issues appear to be sinking his bid for a second term as king president, he is very likely to provoke a serious war in the middle east, probably with Iran. Pretext will be something threatening to Saudi Arabia. (Which is another topic we've visited before: support for murderous dictatorships)
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was released from prison Wednesday following a request by his lawyers due to the coronavirus pandemic, his attorney Kevin Downing said.
Downing told CNN that Manafort is going to serve the rest of his term in home confinement after serving about a third of his sentence at a federal prison in Western Pennsylvania.
Manafort is currently 71 years old and prisons are one of the major potential COVID-19 hotspots, along with nursing homes, meat packing plants, and the White House, so it makes sense to release non-violent felons to home confinement. On the other hand Michael Cohen (86067-054) is still in prison, as are a whole bunch of other felons who aren't connected to the president* and might benefit from some kind of compassionate release.
I suppose the issue is not what Robert de Niro said (which I thought was a proper trenchant criticism and I would have agreed with anybody else who said it) but that his celebrity (or notoriety) got him the air time.
If you have a platform given to you I don't think there's any reasonable argument that you have a moral obligation not to use it to discuss important issues. I'm reminded of an incident back in 2003 when actress Janeane Garofalo was invited on various talk show to discuss the Iraq War (she was noted for her vocal opposition to invading Iraq) and would then be denigrated as an actress who shouldn't have opinions on things like that. Garofalo usually made the point that these shows could very easily have invited someone else to discuss whether invading Iraq was a good idea but they reached out to her.
There's also a bit of a double bind here. Robert De Niro isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's not enough of an expert (though as a voting-age citizen I'd say he meets at least a minimum standard of expertise). On the other hand Barack Obama isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's too much of an expert. Eventually you get the idea that no one is allowed to criticize Donald Trump.
I agree! It's not an issue for me, BTW. The editorial decisions of the media about who they interview and what standards of public interest or balance they use in making those decisions are an interesting but separate question. I see and hear plenty of media criticisms of Donald Trump on both sides of the pond, and I see and hear plenty of evidence from the Trump administration that they seek to control all narratives that might in any way assert that he deserves criticism. I've got good grounds for which of those siren voices I find to be more credible.
There's also a bit of a double bind here. Robert De Niro isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's not enough of an expert (though as a voting-age citizen I'd say he meets at least a minimum standard of expertise). On the other hand Barack Obama isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's too much of an expert. Eventually you get the idea that no one is allowed to criticize Donald Trump.
Just in case that's a swipe at my post above, I'd point out that a double bind can only be imposed by one party, or two people working in collusion, and that I made no contribution regarding Obama's criticisms, therefore there is no double bind in play here.
Secondly, I didn't prohibit anyone from criticising Trump. What I said, and what I maintain, is that drawing attention to criticisms made by celebrities works in favour of the debate taking place in Trump's preferred, um, theatre, in other words that of showbusiness, celebrities, and personalities, where style, brand recognition, and notoriety matter more than substance, and populism can gain traction.
Secondly, I didn't prohibit anyone from criticising Trump. What I said, and what I maintain, is that drawing attention to criticisms made by celebrities works in favour of the debate taking place in Trump's preferred, um, theatre, in other words that of showbusiness, celebrities, and personalities, where style, brand recognition, and notoriety matter more than substance, and populism can gain traction.
Eutychus...
This is a pretty nebulous connection that you are positing here. "Celebrities have populist appeal, Ttump is a populist, therefore if people listen to celebrities criticizing Trump, it reinforces populism and ultimately helps people like Trump."
Which is a little like saying that since populists talk in empty sound-bites, their opponents should only speak in full, well-constructed paragraphs, lest they perpetuate the sound-bite culture that populists like.
All of which might have some validity, but the fact is, we do live in a world where sound-bites are the medium through which a lot of political discourse takes place, and if you don't adjust to that reality, you can forget about having any significant number of voters hearing you.
What I said, and what I maintain, is that drawing attention to criticisms made by celebrities works in favour of the debate taking place in Trump's preferred, um, theatre, in other words that of showbusiness, celebrities, and personalities, where style, brand recognition, and notoriety matter more than substance, and populism can gain traction.
You have a point of course. We used to call it "the cult of personality" I think. Someday everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. And of course you get a reverse phenomenon. Tony Fauci is now a personality. But what makes him so? Is it the exposure or the fact that he provides clear facts-based argument? He looks trustworthy so he is? Or he is trustworthy because of his presentations?
Someone like me (a child of the modernist, not post-modernist age) probably sees Dr Fauci differently to many others. What he says is verifiable so my confidence in him as a pretty reliable facts-based communicator is based on my ingrained habit of seeking verification, rather than taking anything purely on face value.
You are right to be concerned about any processes which give aid and comfort to a populist culture. That way lies the death of truth, of facts-based decision making. I don't think the short de Niro interview did a lot to reinforce that particular trend but YMMV.
Well, thinking through possible reasons for his comments, it occurred to me that he *might* hate T for just those reasons. He may feel/be in a hellish situation where he's wayyyyy down an acid-lined rabbit hole which was *supposed* to lead to a golden crown, a pot of gold, and delicious golden carrots. There's something further down the hole, but it growls and stinks--and not of carrots.
McConnell already has his golden crown / pot of gold / delicious golden carrots / whatever other metaphor you want to use. Mitch McConnell's goal is power for its own sake, and the current arrangement gives him plenty. So any pretense that McConnell is concerned about traditions or decorum is just that: a pretense.
McC has power and status and such. He may well want more. But where can he go from here? Only way I know for him to publicly increase what he has is to run for president. He can't really run against T--that would probably shatter the Republican party, possibly causing so much division that angry Republicans might just vote for Biden (just as some Democrats who loathed Hillary voted for T). And that might carry over so that the Democrats win both the House *and* the Senate. And McC would likely be blamed.
So, even if McC really believes T is fit to be president, McC may well feel that he's working against his own best interests and desires. Anything he might do would feel and be seen as a betrayal: of the party, of T, of the Senate, of the country, of himself.
Hence being down a rabbit hole with no place to go.
All of which might have some validity, but the fact is, we do live in a world where sound-bites are the medium through which a lot of political discourse takes place, and if you don't adjust to that reality, you can forget about having any significant number of voters hearing you.
I live in the hope that the Ship and its content are not part of that world, nor called to promote it. We're supposed to be at least a bit unrestful, after all.
McC has power and status and such. He may well want more. But where can he go from here? Only way I know for him to publicly increase what he has is to run for president.
Mitch McConnell runs the Senate and has a president* who will sign anything McConnell puts in front of him. Why would abandoning the Senate to run for president increase McConnell's power? As far as status goes, I've never seen any indication that McConnell has any interest in status beyond maintaining the approval of enough registered Kentucky voters to keep him in office.
If (perish the thought!) McConnell were to become POTUS, wouldn't his wife have to give up her Cabinet position? Or have all those rules fallen by the wayside?
But there was no known case of COVID 19 in the federal prison where Manifold was incarcerated.
My take on this is that if you wait until you identify the first case in a crowded facility like a prison, you've waited too long. This does not, however, seem to be the position of the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department, or the Trump administration* in general, leading to questions of why Manafort (35207-016) specifically got this special dispensation. I mean, we all suspect why, I'd just like to hear someone in an official position acknowledge it.
If (perish the thought!) McConnell were to become POTUS, wouldn't his wife have to give up her Cabinet position? Or have all those rules fallen by the wayside?
Was such a rule implemented some time following Bobby's stint as Attorney-General?
If (perish the thought!) McConnell were to become POTUS, wouldn't his wife have to give up her Cabinet position? Or have all those rules fallen by the wayside?
Was such a rule implemented some time following Bobby's stint as Attorney-General?
Yes, I believe that was when it was enacted.
I'm wondering if Ms. Chao might be "grandfathered" in, so to speak, since she would have held the position before McConnell became POTUS. (This is all hypothetical -- I seriously doubt McConnell will wind up in the White House.)
If (perish the thought!) McConnell were to become POTUS, wouldn't his wife have to give up her Cabinet position? Or have all those rules fallen by the wayside?
Was such a rule implemented some time following Bobby's stint as Attorney-General?
It was indeed, and exactly because of it. Of course with Trump appointing his children and children-in-law to advisory posts, it seems to have been forgotten, or at least unenforced.
When she was First Lady? Many people got really upset that she was "interfering" that way. Traditionally, the role of a first lady is to be a hostess; support her husband; and take on some charitable-type project. Hillary wanted more, and could do more. But she wasn't elected--or officially appointed. So there was backlash. IIRC, she was pulled/forced off her health care policy work.
If (perish the thought!) McConnell were to become POTUS, wouldn't his wife have to give up her Cabinet position? Or have all those rules fallen by the wayside?
Was such a rule implemented some time following Bobby's stint as Attorney-General?
It was indeed, and exactly because of it. Of course with Trump appointing his children and children-in-law to advisory posts, it seems to have been forgotten, or at least unenforced.
An additional reason for presidents not appointing relatives to positions of power: Bobby/RFK blamed himself for Jack/JFK's death. As the attorney general, he was going after...organized crime, IIRC, and he thought they killed Jack as retribution.
When she was First Lady? Many people got really upset that she was "interfering" that way. Traditionally, the role of a first lady is to be a hostess; support her husband; and take on some charitable-type project. Hillary wanted more, and could do more. But she wasn't elected--or officially appointed. So there was backlash. IIRC, she was pulled/forced off her health care policy work.
According to the wiki article on the Clinton health-care plan, there was a an attempt to get her removed from the task-force, but the courts ruled that the First Lady could be considered a governmental position to begin with, so she stayed on till the end.
It will be interesting some day when the dust has settled (please God) to see what the fuck caused such a supine attitude on the part of McConnell and many others. I keep thinking they're smoking something.
{Cue Wikileaks, Anonymous, Rolling Stone, WaPo, NYT, the ghost of The Village Voice...}
Not sure whether you mean the compromising material is being used to force them to do what they're doing, or it *could* be used to to force them to *stop* what they're doing, or just embarrass the hell out of them.
But whatever works...
Oh, and I meant that they might be smoking the Constitution instead of using it, 'cause they've sure got parts of it going up in flames. Maybe they're high to the point of being psychotic?
Didn't some of the Founding Guys smoke some sort of marijuana? Maybe there are chemical traces of it in the document.
{Cue Wikileaks, Anonymous, Rolling Stone, WaPo, NYT, the ghost of The Village Voice...}
Not sure whether you mean the compromising material is being used to force them to do what they're doing, or it *could* be used to to force them to *stop* what they're doing, or just embarrass the hell out of them.
But whatever works...
Oh, and I meant that they might be smoking the Constitution instead of using it, 'cause they've sure got parts of it going up in flames. Maybe they're high to the point of being psychotic?
Didn't some of the Founding Guys smoke some sort of marijuana? Maybe there are chemical traces of it in the document.
Today is May 16. According to the Council of Economic Advisors, this is day that COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. will reach zero. According to Worldometer more than 400 Americans have already died today and it's just after noon on the East Coast. According to most sensible people it is now half past fire-Kevin-Hassett o'clock.
Trying to find a curve fit that will produce the politically expedient answer explains just about everything you need to know about the Trump administration*'s approach to any policy question.
Fuck. They did a _curve fit_ on a cloud of data points, went all the way to order fucking 3 (because hey, the data might have - who knows - two whole turning points in it...maybe) and then called it a predictive model. Except they chopped it off at y=0 because the prospect of minus deaths (resurrections?) in large numbers tomorrow, might have clued people into the idea that something was a bit smelly. Fuck.
Fuckity fuck. It's even worse than that. They minimised the error in a band of x (time in this case) but a curve fit _always_ fucks off somewhere weird and usually inconvenient outside the band in which you have data to fit (which is a right pain in the arse if you're trying to do automatic frequency-domain filter designs, which have value outside the band you're trying to design them in, whether you like it or (as usually) not.) The out-of-band bit in this piece of shit is the future - because we have no optimisation data for deaths tomorrow - and then they use that arbitrary shit as a _prediction_.......... Fuck. That's monumentally stupid.
Except they chopped it off at y=0 because the prospect of minus deaths (resurrections?) in large numbers tomorrow, might have clued people into the idea that something was a bit smelly.
Would anyone really be surprised by the Zombie Apocalypse at this point?
(D'ye suppose somebody's got a big old chest of compromising material on all these folks, squirreled away somewhere safe? Thumb drive, more likely)
Most elected officials ranking above dogcatchers are bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists. That information is not hiding on a thumb drive - it's legal bribery on a grand scale in plain view. Bringing them down over e.g. sexual or drug-related misdeeds is a distraction from the reality that they were compromised from day one by the campaign finance system and were never working for anyone but their donors.
This is ridiculous. There's no mystery about why vanishingly few Republican politicians are willing to stand up to Trump; he has a 92% approval rating among people who identify themselves as Republicans. No politician who defies the overwhelming sentiments of their constituency could survive a primary challenge.
There IS no primary challenge. Party leadership has in fact acted to shut down the bare possibility of a challenge by refusing to allow the mechanisms for such a thing to function in several states, last I heard. Which is a step you take when you are both pusillanimous and aware that your favored candidate is deeply, deeply vulnerable.
Consider this: I have looked at the results of two states (sorry it’s not more, but it wasn’t a burning issue for me) and even running against nobody in a Republicans only election, he still managed to lose at least 4 percent of the votes. Who were they? Republicans who thought it worthwhile to struggle through crappy weather and local obstacles just to get to a polling place where they could write in “Mickey Mouse” or some such, knowing their vote would make not the slightest bit of difference except to spite Trump and prevent him from having a 100% vote. In a primary, which means nothing this year, and we all know it.
Now that’s anger. And if 4% of Republicans went to all that trouble for a wasted gesture, you have to ask yourself how many feel the same but didn’t drag themselves in, knowing they’ll have a real vote come November.
There IS no primary challenge. Party leadership has in fact acted to shut down the bare possibility of a challenge by refusing to allow the mechanisms for such a thing to function in several states, last I heard. Which is a step you take when you are both pusillanimous and aware that your favored candidate is deeply, deeply vulnerable.
Republican politicians who defy Trump would face challenges in their own primary races.
Consider this: I have looked at the results of two states (sorry it’s not more, but it wasn’t a burning issue for me) and even running against nobody in a Republicans only election, he still managed to lose at least 4 percent of the votes. Who were they? Republicans who thought it worthwhile to struggle through crappy weather and local obstacles just to get to a polling place where they could write in “Mickey Mouse” or some such, knowing their vote would make not the slightest bit of difference except to spite Trump and prevent him from having a 100% vote. In a primary, which means nothing this year, and we all know it.
Now that’s anger. And if 4% of Republicans went to all that trouble for a wasted gesture, you have to ask yourself how many feel the same but didn’t drag themselves in, knowing they’ll have a real vote come November.
Practically none of them - see aforementioned 92% approval rating.
Comments
I have been loyal to one football team since my Dad bribed me to barrack for them by buying me their guernsey in or about 1973. They were booted out of the league and abolished in 1996. I still barrack for them.
Absolutely. This has been clear for years. It’s all about popularity - and, if he becomes unpopular, ratings. The crazy celebs get higher ratings than the talented ones.
It’s a sign of the times.
My worry is that, where the US leads the U.K. tends to follow. (Look at shopping malls ruining the high street and 1000 other examples)
However, quoting a criticism and thus assigning it value because it's been made by a celebrity is, I believe, the kind of behaviour that does get populists elected, because it ranks the superfluous over the substantial, the appearence over the essence - and that is at the heart of the criticisms of both Trump and Johnson in this forum.
It depresses me when people's criticism of these mandates adopts similar tactics to the ones used by those being criticised.
Yeah, but it was me who fucking enjoyed watching De Niro, and who presumably is exactly likely to vote populist. Drowning in generalizations, can you actually see another person?
My perspective has always been to judge statements on their merits regardless of who says them. But I do qualify that in the case of proven liars! So my generalisation about the American President is that I know he is lying because he is speaking or tweeting. I have no such preconceptions about Robert de Niro.
You miss the person in front of you.
Do I? You have plenty of interesting and cogent things to say, but when all I have to go on in a post is basically the equivalent of a shared Facebook post from some celebrity, I'm not sure I'm missing much, or that I'm wide of the mark.
He is relentlessly pursuing his policy of opening up America come what may and he has an alternative facts narrative already in place.
Now that matters a lot more than whatever publicity de Niro gets for his very reasonable opinions.
Something that worries me: It's been a long time, AFAIK, since he made meaningless sounds and spoke in word salad. He speaks more coherently--which is not to say he knows what he's talking about, or that any of his ideas are reality based. His way of speaking is more normal, which makes him seem more normal, and even more presidential.
I think they've gradually put him on some kinds of meds, and this is the result. I think that was done to Dubyah/Bush, too.
I don't begrudge either of them their meds--clearly, they both need(ed) a lot of help. But IMHO the result is that they seem more "normal"...and some voters--maybe without even realizing it--might think T more worthy of presidency.
I don't know how or why so many people don't see what a severely-broken, hot mess T is--even many people who oppose him. I know some Shipmates have said that he's not broken, unintelligent, suffering from dementia, etc.--just evil/bad. Part of my own learning curve is reminding myself that there are always reasons for the way a person is. "Evil" can be a handy shorthand, especially when you need to vent. But ISTM it doesn't really deal with the whys, and those are needed if you want to try to help the person be better, so they don't cause so much harm. The whys can also help you realize that maybe *next* time, you should look out for certain clues so you can avoid being ensnared by another such person.
McConnell already has his golden crown / pot of gold / delicious golden carrots / whatever other metaphor you want to use. Mitch McConnell's goal is power for its own sake, and the current arrangement gives him plenty. So any pretense that McConnell is concerned about traditions or decorum is just that: a pretense.
If you have a platform given to you I don't think there's any reasonable argument that you have a moral obligation not to use it to discuss important issues. I'm reminded of an incident back in 2003 when actress Janeane Garofalo was invited on various talk show to discuss the Iraq War (she was noted for her vocal opposition to invading Iraq) and would then be denigrated as an actress who shouldn't have opinions on things like that. Garofalo usually made the point that these shows could very easily have invited someone else to discuss whether invading Iraq was a good idea but they reached out to her.
There's also a bit of a double bind here. Robert De Niro isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's not enough of an expert (though as a voting-age citizen I'd say he meets at least a minimum standard of expertise). On the other hand Barack Obama isn't allowed to criticize Donald Trump because he's too much of an expert. Eventually you get the idea that no one is allowed to criticize Donald Trump.
Shut Up and Sing, indeed.
The way he creates a crisis - which he can't deal with - and then jumps to another crisis is classic "tune in next week" stuff.
Apparently when you're elected as president of America, it is assumed you'll behave in accord with the office, and the equivalent of divine right of kings and queens must always apply. Apparently he cannot be prosecuted for anything, can say and do anything, and everyone will do what he says. Pravda (Russian leading news outlet) speculated recently that if the COVID-19 issues appear to be sinking his bid for a second term as king president, he is very likely to provoke a serious war in the middle east, probably with Iran. Pretext will be something threatening to Saudi Arabia. (Which is another topic we've visited before: support for murderous dictatorships)
Manafort is currently 71 years old and prisons are one of the major potential COVID-19 hotspots, along with nursing homes, meat packing plants, and the White House, so it makes sense to release non-violent felons to home confinement. On the other hand Michael Cohen (86067-054) is still in prison, as are a whole bunch of other felons who aren't connected to the president* and might benefit from some kind of compassionate release.
Secondly, I didn't prohibit anyone from criticising Trump. What I said, and what I maintain, is that drawing attention to criticisms made by celebrities works in favour of the debate taking place in Trump's preferred, um, theatre, in other words that of showbusiness, celebrities, and personalities, where style, brand recognition, and notoriety matter more than substance, and populism can gain traction.
Eutychus...
This is a pretty nebulous connection that you are positing here. "Celebrities have populist appeal, Ttump is a populist, therefore if people listen to celebrities criticizing Trump, it reinforces populism and ultimately helps people like Trump."
Which is a little like saying that since populists talk in empty sound-bites, their opponents should only speak in full, well-constructed paragraphs, lest they perpetuate the sound-bite culture that populists like.
All of which might have some validity, but the fact is, we do live in a world where sound-bites are the medium through which a lot of political discourse takes place, and if you don't adjust to that reality, you can forget about having any significant number of voters hearing you.
You have a point of course. We used to call it "the cult of personality" I think. Someday everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. And of course you get a reverse phenomenon. Tony Fauci is now a personality. But what makes him so? Is it the exposure or the fact that he provides clear facts-based argument? He looks trustworthy so he is? Or he is trustworthy because of his presentations?
Someone like me (a child of the modernist, not post-modernist age) probably sees Dr Fauci differently to many others. What he says is verifiable so my confidence in him as a pretty reliable facts-based communicator is based on my ingrained habit of seeking verification, rather than taking anything purely on face value.
You are right to be concerned about any processes which give aid and comfort to a populist culture. That way lies the death of truth, of facts-based decision making. I don't think the short de Niro interview did a lot to reinforce that particular trend but YMMV.
McC has power and status and such. He may well want more. But where can he go from here? Only way I know for him to publicly increase what he has is to run for president. He can't really run against T--that would probably shatter the Republican party, possibly causing so much division that angry Republicans might just vote for Biden (just as some Democrats who loathed Hillary voted for T). And that might carry over so that the Democrats win both the House *and* the Senate. And McC would likely be blamed.
So, even if McC really believes T is fit to be president, McC may well feel that he's working against his own best interests and desires. Anything he might do would feel and be seen as a betrayal: of the party, of T, of the Senate, of the country, of himself.
Hence being down a rabbit hole with no place to go.
I live in the hope that the Ship and its content are not part of that world, nor called to promote it. We're supposed to be at least a bit unrestful, after all.
Mitch McConnell runs the Senate and has a president* who will sign anything McConnell puts in front of him. Why would abandoning the Senate to run for president increase McConnell's power? As far as status goes, I've never seen any indication that McConnell has any interest in status beyond maintaining the approval of enough registered Kentucky voters to keep him in office.
My take on this is that if you wait until you identify the first case in a crowded facility like a prison, you've waited too long. This does not, however, seem to be the position of the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department, or the Trump administration* in general, leading to questions of why Manafort (35207-016) specifically got this special dispensation. I mean, we all suspect why, I'd just like to hear someone in an official position acknowledge it.
Was such a rule implemented some time following Bobby's stint as Attorney-General?
Yes, I believe that was when it was enacted.
I'm wondering if Ms. Chao might be "grandfathered" in, so to speak, since she would have held the position before McConnell became POTUS. (This is all hypothetical -- I seriously doubt McConnell will wind up in the White House.)
It was indeed, and exactly because of it. Of course with Trump appointing his children and children-in-law to advisory posts, it seems to have been forgotten, or at least unenforced.
An additional reason for presidents not appointing relatives to positions of power: Bobby/RFK blamed himself for Jack/JFK's death. As the attorney general, he was going after...organized crime, IIRC, and he thought they killed Jack as retribution.
According to the wiki article on the Clinton health-care plan, there was a an attempt to get her removed from the task-force, but the courts ruled that the First Lady could be considered a governmental position to begin with, so she stayed on till the end.
The Constitution?
Fixed quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
(D'ye suppose somebody's got a big old chest of compromising material on all these folks, squirreled away somewhere safe? Thumb drive, more likely)
{Cue Wikileaks, Anonymous, Rolling Stone, WaPo, NYT, the ghost of The Village Voice...}
Not sure whether you mean the compromising material is being used to force them to do what they're doing, or it *could* be used to to force them to *stop* what they're doing, or just embarrass the hell out of them.
But whatever works...
Oh, and I meant that they might be smoking the Constitution instead of using it, 'cause they've sure got parts of it going up in flames. Maybe they're high to the point of being psychotic?
Didn't some of the Founding Guys smoke some sort of marijuana? Maybe there are chemical traces of it in the document.
There's always ergot poisoning.
Trying to find a curve fit that will produce the politically expedient answer explains just about everything you need to know about the Trump administration*'s approach to any policy question.
Would anyone really be surprised by the Zombie Apocalypse at this point?
That said, dubious predictions premised on wishful thinking aren't exactly a new thing for Mr. Hassett.
Most elected officials ranking above dogcatchers are bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists. That information is not hiding on a thumb drive - it's legal bribery on a grand scale in plain view. Bringing them down over e.g. sexual or drug-related misdeeds is a distraction from the reality that they were compromised from day one by the campaign finance system and were never working for anyone but their donors.
Consider this: I have looked at the results of two states (sorry it’s not more, but it wasn’t a burning issue for me) and even running against nobody in a Republicans only election, he still managed to lose at least 4 percent of the votes. Who were they? Republicans who thought it worthwhile to struggle through crappy weather and local obstacles just to get to a polling place where they could write in “Mickey Mouse” or some such, knowing their vote would make not the slightest bit of difference except to spite Trump and prevent him from having a 100% vote. In a primary, which means nothing this year, and we all know it.
Now that’s anger. And if 4% of Republicans went to all that trouble for a wasted gesture, you have to ask yourself how many feel the same but didn’t drag themselves in, knowing they’ll have a real vote come November.