mtutiger

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

This is probably a "man bites dog" take, but reducing media intake (particularly social media) over the past few months has made looking at a lot of political coverage coming from NY and DC look really divorced from reality. Not so much about the left-right politics of it and more just the details they obsess over are often just not what one sees people talking about in real life. At all. The elections this week reflect this IMO.... they get led around by whatever talking points are hot on the "The Hill" while people in the country are, at the moment, worried about whether SNAP benefits are gonna be funded and whether the local food bank network will be able to cover even a fraction of those affected.

Again, to paraphrase Grant, I'm tired of banging on what he's gonna do over and over again. It doesn't solve anything. When people, even his opponents, build him up into this force of nature for which the laws of politics do not apply, it serves his interests.

Ahh yes, noted traditionally blue areas *checks notes* Erie and Luzerne County PA

It was less than 24 hours ago that the party line was that the NJ GOP candidate was a tossup for Governor... Just massive massive amounts of cope

He's also a former three-term Governor of NYS and the son of a legendary former three-term Governor of NYS. Even with his scandals, that sort of name recognition is absolutely an institutional advantage that Cuomo had going into this thing, particularly with lower information voters who don't follow the daily stuff like we do. Just don't think the picture is complete without this context. It's not like Cuomo was a rando running as an Independent

It's true, he gained quite a bit of ground with Black and Hispanic voters between the first and second round. With Cuomo's numbers, it's worth remembering that he did relatively successful job drawing off GOP voters (Sliwa dropped from around 28% in 2021 to 8% this year).... this would imply that the group he was most successful with yesterday was *checks notes* Republicans lol