mtutiger

I doubt she's changed at all, I don't particularly care if she has or hasn't frankly. The infighting spilling out from behind closed doors and into the public is naturally going to be a source of schadenfreude. And in the short term is useful (long term debatable, but none of us have control over that) And as much as Trump's supporters AND many of his opponents build him up into this mythical force of nature that cannot be stopped, the moment where jailbreaks would start to occur when evidence of the ground shifting started to become noticed (ie. The elections last week) was inevitable. The Epstein stuff was gasoline on the fire. These are politicians after all... They are ambitious, they want to move up, and to do so they often run to where the American public is going in the aggregate. A diminished Trump hobbled by a lousy economy and dogged by the Epstein stuff is a liability, not an asset

This reads a lot more as a "let them fight" thing than MTG being "cheered" on to me.

There's some inside baseball sour grapes at play here (ie. Trump refusing to endorse for a Governor/Senate run in Georgia) and don't want to down play that. However, Marge certainly also recognizes more than others that Donald Trump is increasingly becoming an albatross politically. And on top of that is 80 years old, his brain is mashed potatoes and, eventually, that he's going to die. Trump has, to date, snuffed out the ambition of a lot of GOP reps, but as he continues to become more of a liability politically and as he continues to fade mentally, it wouldn't surprise me if you start to see more jailbreaks. Just surprised we're seeing more from the far right, although let's be honest, the mainstream/moderate types in the GOP are absolute squishes

Sure, but in terms of whose more fired up, dont most recent elections suggest that it isn't necessarily his base that's the most fired up? This isn't even getting to the point that he will never be on a ballot again either... The GOP generally struggles when he isn't on option

Sure, but Trump won an election with 250k votes spread across three states with an approval sitting between 45-50%. He's currently at ~41ish percent in the aggregate and is getting polls showing him in the 30s. So yeah, when you win an election with 250k votes spread across three states while sitting at 45-50% and you lose 5-10% of your approval/support, that is *catastrophic*. I don't care how devoted the base is. That's not rose colored glasses, thats just objectively looking at the situation. What happened last week is a strong piece of evidence as well

Again, GWB was considered radioactive at the end of his term, yet his actual approval rating was still around 33%... It's not a strength to have just your base when you lose practically everyone else.

Isn't 33% less than 50%?

For the remainder of his term, this is correct... The "scales falling from eyes" thing isn't going to happen, but it doesn't really need to happen. His loss of standing since becoming President is a good example of that. Similar to GWB, if there is a "scales falling from eyes" moment, it's going to happen after he's gone or after he's dead

This is an email chain between Jeffrey Epstein and a former NY Times reporter (Landon Thomas Jr.) where Epstein apparently offers Thomas access to incriminating photos of Donald Trump. At which point ...... nothing happens. Over in the POTUS thread I called this a story as much about elite impunity as it is about Donald Trump.... this is what I mean.

Tend to agree with Tater on this one, although there was never gonna be a "scales falling from eyes" moment here. Remember, even at the end of GWB's term, 1 out of 3 Americans still approved of him. That's the floor in American politics. (And there's at least one poll, AP/NORC, who has him at 36% right now, so he may be getting closer to it depending on who one talks to) The bigger thing though is that the political implications shouldn't be what makes this newsworthy or not. I'm not even sure they matter all that much for Trump himself; he's 80 years old and in his second term. As many rumors swirl, he's not going to run again. Who the hell even knows what condition he's in physically or mentally a year from now, let alone in 2028. What makes it newsworthy is that we deserve to know the truth of what happened. Not only with Trump, who obviously factors heavily into the Epstein story, but everyone else. Regardless of who they are and what party they belong to. Trump is the biggest part of the story because he's President and it's unconscionable that we may have a pedo as President, but it's a story bigger than Trump, one of elite impunity; where elites (and yes, Holic, Trump IS an elite) get to play by one set of rules and the rest of us who follow the rules are punished.

Yeah, they aren't gonna be able to jawbone their way into making everyone think prices are down... you'd think they would have learned something from the previous four years

I see your point, but the actions of the administration to try to silence to the highest degree possible disclosure of any information is naturally gonna add a level of credibility to a wider audience. As we learned in Watergate, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up

Wow, you mean that Holic doesn't get to speak for all vets? Who knew?

Put me down as believing, deep down, that they know it's bad. But the thing is that it's not over either.... more will end up coming out. And even any move that he could make to silence or cover it up (such as commuting or pardoning Maxwell) will end up having a Streisand effect anyway. It will not end the questions or the issue. This is a pretty good offramp, but suspect that for as bad many of the diehards deep down know it is, they'll blow right past the exit as they always do.

The use of "alleged" in the Times headline is load bearing.... the emails make pretty clear that he knew.

Again, sounds like the party in power should pivot to a strategy that would win the requisite support to reopen government. Instead of flapping their gums and whining about how governing is hard

If the party that controls the Senate wants to find a way to reopen the government, they should probably start by trying to do things to win the requisite votes to reopen the government. Or if they are so inclined, maybe they should just nuke the filibuster if it's so damned important. Either way, it's on them to figure it out. Hence why the majority of Americans place the blame solely at the feet of Trump and the GOP.

As an aside, note how quickly Archie pivoted to "whatabouting" the removal of a monument to black soldiers dying on behalf of our country in WWII. It's not a defensible action and he knows it. But under no circumstances shall the Trump administration be criticized, apparently

It's not even the first time I've asked this question! Pretty sure when this subject was more prominent in 2020, I asked it then as well... and didn't get much of a response from Stanpapi or whoever was engaging at the time. European countries aren't perfect and have their own internal issues, but if one has ever been to any of them, one realizes that they didn't just preserve the statues of the losers and (often) evil figures of their history. Certainly didn't see any statues from the Third Reich while traveling in Germany some eight years ago, for instance. This whole "statues as history" thing is primarily an American phenomena and, IMO, a way to avoid having to grapple with the moral implications of the actual historical record. It's both cowardly and a factor in why everything is *gesture's hands wildly* the way that it is right now.

Am sure you agree, but this may be part of why conservatives fight the statue thing so hard: having to deal with the actual historical accounts requires being confronted with the morality (or lack therof) of the southern cause. Have been reading Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses Grant so this subject is top of mind.

Question: after the Romanians overthrew Nicolae Ceausescu in the Christmas 1989 revolution, do you believe it was disrespectful of them to tear down statues that his regime erected during his time in power?

Am aware that it works like that for any home loan given that we have a home loan. And certainly understand Hong / G2s point that people rarely see loans to term given that they use their homes as a piggy bank. May come at this from a different angle as well because if we ever refinance, the primary purpose (aside from interest rate considerations) will be to lower the length of our term to try to pay off our note earlier... We like where we live and don't plan on moving. But as a millennial-aged consumer looking at that as an offering, its a product that a theoretical ~30 year old couple/family could very well never see to term even if they wanted.... And a product that, on the other hand, will enrich banks even further. So on principle, I hate it... But others MMV

Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson... Please call your offices!

JFC