Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

experts seem split as well

Unfortunately the rabid fanbase's latest memes (all they have are memes...well, that, and violent rebellion) boils down to "because not everyone agrees boosters are necessary, the vaccine doesn't work, so I won't get vaccinated at all". Which, of course, is like saying "my Warrior's first two auto-attacks didn't kill the raid boss, so I'm swapping to Animal Crossing".

[Edge-]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...-book-1260164/

Trump is releasing a book!

Which apparently is basically a picture book with 300 images inside it, wondering if there will even be that many words.

You can buy yours for the low-low price of $74.99, very affordable for a book, going up to $229.99 for a signed copy!

Wondering if they'll just autopen the books or if Trump will actually do his scribble signature that, again, is absolutely not him signing his name.

[Breccia]

Which apparently is basically a picture book with 300 images inside it

Remember, kids, you can't be found guilty of libel or slander if you don't actually say or write anything!

[gondrin]

Remember, kids, you can't be found guilty of libel or slander if you don't actually say or write anything!

On the subject of something that doesn't write or say anything worthwhile and is mostly lies, here is Steve Bannon. He tried to delay his eventual jailing because he is afraid they will hose him down and actually cut his hair. The Judge said "No. Quit playing as a homeless man Steve. Nobody likes a liar."

I might be not telling the truth on some of it. I will let you figure out what it is.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

[Edge-]

Remember, kids, you can't be found guilty of libel or slander if you don't actually say or write anything!

It's pretty perfect for putting on your covfefe table, right next to your National Geographics and such.

Have we ever figured out what "covfefe" means or who it was directed at? I have vague recollections of I think it was...Pompeo saying, "The people who needed to get the message got the message.", but this is a mystery that absolutely needs solving!

[Breccia]

Ronna McDaniel says Biden won the election.

"Who?"

The head of the RNC.

Also, when asked about Trump in 2024, she refused to answer.

I don't normally have to describe "this true thing happened, and we need to talk about the issues" as SHOTS FIRED! But, Trump decided to make this so.

Counting down till Trump calls the head of the RNC a RINO traitor in...let's say 12 hours.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump's inner circle tells Politico and CNN that Trump is jealous of DeSantis.

And you know how Trump handles that -- by taking revenge.

Simply put, Trump does not want the spotlight on anyone who is not Trump. DeSantis, who currently has a job, is not just doing a better job than Trump by that metric alone, but is also polling better half the time, and also has yet to refuse to run in 2024 if Trump runs.

Look at what McConnell, McDaniel, and now DeSantis have shown us in the last 24 hours. The Party of Trump, is trying to remove Trump. This could easily lead to a bloodbath.

Where's Greymane's popcorn?

[Edge-]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...d9b_story.html

Federal and state investigators are examining an attempt to breach an Ohio county’s election network that bears striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year, when government officials helped an outsider gain access to the county voting system in an effort to find fraud.

Data obtained in both instances were distributed at an August “cyber symposium” on election fraud hosted by MyPillow executive Mike Lindell, an ally of former president Donald Trump who has spent millions of dollars promoting false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

The attempted breach in Ohio occurred on May 4 inside the county office of John Hamercheck (R), chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, according to two individuals with knowledge of the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. State and county officials said no sensitive data were obtained, but they determined that a private laptop was plugged into the county network in Hamercheck’s office, and that the routine network traffic captured by the computer was circulated at the same Lindell conference as the data from the Colorado breach.

I mean...at this point is this even surprising?

[Breccia]

I mean...at this point is this even surprising?

Two things:
1) Non-paywall source, and
2) What was surprising was this appears unconnected to the other FBI raid that also involved Lindell. Odd that WaPo uses "striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year" referring to Peters being the subject of an FBI wake-up call this week.

...other than Lindell.

Hmm. Hey, didn't Lindell have a problem with his computer guy? Like, there was some kind of falling out?

[Kaleredar]

It's pretty perfect for putting on your covfefe table, right next to your National Geographics and such.

Have we ever figured out what "covfefe" means or who it was directed at? I have vague recollections of I think it was...Pompeo saying, "The people who needed to get the message got the message.", but this is a mystery that absolutely needs solving!

Pretty sure “covfefe” was him screwing up spelling “coverage”

[Benggaul]

Well, got woken up midway through my sleep because an anti-COVID restriction group decided honking their cars as they went down the road was the way to go today, so, you know, America still fails to hold a monopoly on stupid assholes. Anyway, Friday's report:

111,829 new cases; over 24k more than two weeks ago. Yikes.

Top 10:

Michigan: 10,241 new cases; 79 deaths
Pennsylvania: 7,604 new cases; 96 deaths
New York: 7,444 new cases; 40 deaths
Ohio: 6,429 new cases; 84 deaths
California: 6,352 new cases; 118 deaths
Illinois: 5,720 new cases; 42 deaths
Minnesota: 5,193 new cases; 30 deaths
Arizona: 5,070 new cases; 78 deaths
Wisconsin: 4,185 new cases; 16 deaths
Texas: 3,863 new cases; 96 deaths

Things are bad in Michigan (*confetti falls with an unfurled banner proclaiming this the understatement of the day*). New England is also featuring more prominently in the top 10 as cases have been rising there the past week as well. A lot of the South is probably still in their "safe" period after COVID ran rampant there, but a few states are starting to show signs of the next wave. New Mexico joins Michigan in the "Severe" risk category as their cases per 100k jump to about 79. Minnesota will probably bump up to that category in the next day or so. Something something South Dakota something something 21% positivity something something fuck Kristi Noem.

1,332 deaths is around 100 fewer than last week and brings the total to 791,098. Kentucky came outta nowhere with 128 deaths to take the top spot on the day (probably a correction) with California in second and Pennsylvania once again tied for third with Texas. The 7-day average jumped back up above 1k but it's likely because of the corrections made after the holiday last week.

Related news:

About 60% of the US population has reduced protection against COVID-19, CDC data shows--Well, I guess this pushes me off the fence on boosters a bit. Basically a lot of people got their full vaccination so long ago the protection has started falling dramatically. They're still a lot less likely to be hospitalized, but have a higher chance of contracting it than a few months ago (but, again, still much better than unvaxxed).

FDA clears Moderna’s and Pfizer’s Covid vaccine booster shots for all U.S. adults--I guess now I should start urging people to get their boosters, but I feel like it's probably a bit late. Cases are already going up.

Michigan shatters peak COVID-19 case rate. 1 in 10 cases in US are from the state--Not good. Their silly reporting system made it a bit difficult to see just how bad it was getting there until recently, but yeah, much like last year Michigan is in the thick of it.

Stay safe, folks.

[postman1782]

Well, got woken up midway through my sleep because an anti-COVID restriction group decided honking their cars as they went down the road was the way to go today, so, you know, America still fails to hold a monopoly on stupid assholes. Anyway, Friday's report:

111,829 new cases; over 24k more than two weeks ago. Yikes.

Top 10:

Michigan: 10,241 new cases; 79 deaths
Pennsylvania: 7,604 new cases; 96 deaths
New York: 7,444 new cases; 40 deaths
Ohio: 6,429 new cases; 84 deaths
California: 6,352 new cases; 118 deaths
Illinois: 5,720 new cases; 42 deaths
Minnesota: 5,193 new cases; 30 deaths
Arizona: 5,070 new cases; 78 deaths
Wisconsin: 4,185 new cases; 16 deaths
Texas: 3,863 new cases; 96 deaths

Things are bad in Michigan (*confetti falls with an unfurled banner proclaiming this the understatement of the day*). New England is also featuring more prominently in the top 10 as cases have been rising there the past week as well. A lot of the South is probably still in their "safe" period after COVID ran rampant there, but a few states are starting to show signs of the next wave. New Mexico joins Michigan in the "Severe" risk category as their cases per 100k jump to about 79. Minnesota will probably bump up to that category in the next day or so. Something something South Dakota something something 21% positivity something something fuck Kristi Noem.

1,332 deaths is around 100 fewer than last week and brings the total to 791,098. Kentucky came outta nowhere with 128 deaths to take the top spot on the day (probably a correction) with California in second and Pennsylvania once again tied for third with Texas. The 7-day average jumped back up above 1k but it's likely because of the corrections made after the holiday last week.

Related news:

About 60% of the US population has reduced protection against COVID-19, CDC data shows--Well, I guess this pushes me off the fence on boosters a bit. Basically a lot of people got their full vaccination so long ago the protection has started falling dramatically. They're still a lot less likely to be hospitalized, but have a higher chance of contracting it than a few months ago (but, again, still much better than unvaxxed).

FDA clears Moderna’s and Pfizer’s Covid vaccine booster shots for all U.S. adults--I guess now I should start urging people to get their boosters, but I feel like it's probably a bit late. Cases are already going up.

Michigan shatters peak COVID-19 case rate. 1 in 10 cases in US are from the state--Not good. Their silly reporting system made it a bit difficult to see just how bad it was getting there until recently, but yeah, much like last year Michigan is in the thick of it.

Stay safe, folks.

It's only going to get worse. Now with stupid people gathering for the holidays and it getting colder, people will congregate, I bet we are up over 200k by mid December again.

[Breccia]

It's only going to get worse. Now with stupid people gathering for the holidays and it getting colder, people will congregate.

Basically a given. I hope proportionately it's not as bad, with 60-70% vaccinated, now including kids and boosters, it shouldn't be.

"Shouldn't" is a loophole.

[Benggaul]

Another voter fraud accusation blows up in Republicans' faces

Not my title, but appropriate.

The mysterious case of Rosemarie Hartle's vote in the last presidential election, three years after her death, was trumpeted in November 2020 by the Nevada Republican Party and various prominent conservatives. From then-President Donald Trump on down, Republicans used stories about phony votes cast under the names of dead people as key evidence for their claim that Joe Biden's victory was marred by major fraud.

The Hartle mystery is now solved. And it turns out that the fraud was committed by a Republican.

Hartle was married to Las Vegas businessman Donald Kirk Hartle, a registered Republican. In November 2020, Hartle told Las Vegas television station 8 News Now (KLAS-TV) that he felt "disbelief" when he found out that a mail-in ballot was submitted in his late wife's name. It was "pretty sickening," he said at the time, adding that he didn't know how it could've happened.

But Hartle had actually cast the phony ballot himself.

On Tuesday, Hartle pleaded guilty to the crime of voting more than once in the same election. The judge, 8 News Now reported, said Hartle had pulled what seemed like a "cheap political stunt that kind of backfired and shows that our voting system actually works because you were ultimately caught."

Not all of the handful of actual voter fraud cases are committed by Republicans, but boy does there seem to be a disproportional amount considering how "concerned" they seem to be with it.

[Breccia]

Not my title, but appropriate.

Mine would have been "Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Ballot"

Unrelated: The results of a recent poll are not that surprising, for the most part. Since 2019, Republican faith that elections are fair plummeted from 72% to 37% and, of course, solely on the grounds that "Trump said so".

But one result stands out: 70%+ of all groups (Ameicans, Democrats and surprisingly Republicans) oppose any legislation that lets a state just throw away a result because they just don't like it, and vote with replaced electors that don't obey the Electoral College. And 60%+ of each group think the 2022 election will reflect the will of the voters.

[Fugus]

And 60%+ of each group think the 2022 election will reflect the will of the voters.

I wonder how much of them believe that because of all the laws they have passed to prevent "The Other" from voting to ensure they win.

[Breccia]

Every public step the Republican Party takes away from the Party of Trump is good for the country.

Sen. Cramer (R-NBD) went on Meet the Press and basically said whether the bill helped Trump (or Biden) didn't matter, the merits did.

Unfortunately, right now, a lot of the rhetoric is centered around, as much as anything, 'This gave Joe Biden a victory.' Whether he gets a victory or not, I happen to believe that every transaction Washington -- not every transaction in Washington requires a loser.

I was advocating for it long before Mr. McConnell announced his support for it. So he didn't induce me in any way. Trump and I had a pretty healthy conversation about it after a previous national television appearance where I talked about the merits of the bill.

Simply put, I don't take that last line at face value. Trump bashed the bill. I don't think the conversation was "healthy" at all.

That said, the fact that Sen. Cramer is saying this sort of thing at all, out in the open, is a good sign. The only chance the Republican Party has left is to be the fourth thing to divorce from Donald Trump.

"What was the third?"

Yeah I don't think the Republican Party will formally cut ties before Melania does.

- - - Updated - - -

Once again, it's time for Guess the Speaker!

A: I’m tempted just to quit over this.

B: I’m game. Totally outrageous. It will lead to violence. Not sure how we can stay.

"That's really vague."

Yeah, true, it was. Anyhow it was Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, both on FOX News. They were talking about Carlson's pay-per-fool "Jan 6th was a false flag by commie librul socialists who want to vaccinate you at gunpoint" special.

"Well if they felt so strongly, they should have quit."

They just did. Goldberg and Hayes stayed with the increasingly conspiracy-ridden FOX News, hoping they could (their term) "right the ship". They could not. Once FOX News intentionally promoted Carlson's special, they realized "righting the ship" was impossible after it hit the iceberg (their term). So they grabbed the first available lifeboat (my term).

They've been increasingly concerned about the threat of violence since 2019, but “When do we get to use the guns?” a few weeks ago really got their attention.

Whether it’s ‘Patriot Purge’ or anti-vax stuff, I don’t want it in my name, and I want to call it out and criticize it. I don’t want to feel like I am betraying a trust that I had by being a Fox News contributor. And I also don’t want to be accused of not really pulling the punches. And then this was just an untenable tension for me.

-- Goldberg

Every rational human being that flees FOX News makes FOX News worse, but I think we also know there's a tipping point in which an organization staffed entirely by whackjobs will end up destroying themselves. They'll break the law by directly encouraging violence or linking where to forge your dead wife's ballot or take Russian money and launder it into the NRA or something. Until then, every FOX News contributor who says "This is beyond even the level of crazy we're used to spewing" just makes them look worse.

[Edge-]

https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...-election-loss

"Al Gore had a better case to argue than Mr. Trump and he was a man about what happened to him," Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said, according to CNN. "He accepted it and walked away."

In which a US federal judge calls Trump a baby by comparing him to Al Gore, who lost and didn't spend months on pointless lawsuits and accepted the outcome of the election.

Now, this was in relation to one of the cases of the Jan. 6 rioters where the judge was considering prison time for one of them, one that the federal prosecutors were not seeking prison time for -

And what concerns me, is that you were gullible enough to come all the way up here from Florida based upon a lie and then associate yourself because of that lie with people and try to undermine the will of the American public about who should be the president of the United States.

“I have concerns about whether you will be gullible when something like this arises again," he added. "That concerns me, it really does because we are in a troubled situation as a country."

[Breccia]

Alex Jones and Roger Stone subpoena'd.

Executive Time does not cover either of them.

"Okay Stone I get, but Jones?"

No one would book the Ellipse, no one would book the other areas. No one would pay for it. We went and paid for it.

Thank God a donor came in and paid like 80 percent of it. Because it cost close to half a million dollars, with all the equipment, all the stages and the rest of it. Port-a-Potties, you name it.

-- Alex Jones, Jan 7

Which means one of three (point five) things has happened.

1) Alex Jones is lying, he did not make any of the bookings himself. This seems unlikely, as bookings like that can't be done anonymously.

2) Alex Jones is lying that the money was other people's money, and he contributed it himself. This means he was working with the organizers of the murderous insurrection. Oh, sorry, the very fine people on both tour groups that just happened to turn into a murderous insurrection by accident, whoopsie daisy!

3) Alex Jones is telling the truth. And now, not only did Jones get himself wrapped up in it, but he's going to have to disclose who else was. There's no such thing as client-complete-whacko-lunatic confidentiality. And I'm fairly sure Jones doesn't have any PAC/Super PAC to hide the donor.
3.5) By the way, this was a campaign event, therefore, a donation of $500,000 or so would need to be disclosed. If Trump did it with his own money, that's yet another problem for his floundering legal team. If Trump did it with taxpayer money, that's a felony.

If Bannon goes to jail for refusing to testify, so will Stone and Jones.

If any of these people are proven to have organized the event, then helped inspire a violent riot, a couple years behind bars and $200,000 in fines will seem mild. There's already two people locked up for 41 months, one of whom has already cost Jones an insanity defense. It's all but proven both of them were physically present that day.

Also subpoena'd was Stockman, another event organizer, who apparently knew things were getting out of hand and tried to stop it, and who reportedly was willing to go under oath voluntarily.

Bannon wasn't just the warning shot, he was the starting pistol. Now that the House has proof that it can actually indict people for refusing to testify, they're going to continue to pick off the stragglers -- those not actually WH employees -- until they start talking. Trump can't pardon them, and they can't buy their way out of it.

"Do you expect them to talk?"

Yeah I already did that joke. For what it's worth, I don't think Jones knows anything.

"About the riot. or..."

No, just anything. I think he's a crazy man who was almost blacklisted, and it lying when he says he was heavily involved. Stone is a different story. He's been wrapped up in shady to illegal shit for years. That's why Trump had to pardon him. I think Stone was deeply involved in this, I think he had personal contact with the larger groups that attended, I think it's reasonable enough to assume this for the House to be allowed to ask by threat of contempt, and based on the squealing noises and soiled underpants from the last time, I think Stone might literally rather die than go to jail.

We'll have to find out. I have every faith the murderous insurrection investigation wants to leave no Stone unturned.

- - - Updated - - -

So uh...COVID counts.

The USA has a 7-day average of 92,344, which is up 29% from two weeks ago.
Hospitalizations and deaths are flat, 50k and 1,097.

Leading the charge:
Michigan, 88 cases per 100k population
Minnesota, 75
New Mexico, 67
Hew Hampshire, 65
North Dakota, 62
Wisconsin, 60
Vermont, 59
Alaska, 57
Colorado, 56
Arizona, 54

I'm seeing a northward trend here, as expected with the coming winter temps.

The deaths/100k list has a lot in common. Montana, Idaho, WV and Kentucky are on it, VT, NH and surprisingly Minnesota are not. Not sure how that happened.

The ten lowest vaccination rates are WV at the top...that explains a lot...then Idaho, Wyoming, Alabama, Mississippi, ND, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Georgia. Each of these states is sub-50% while the USA is 59%.

In other news:

Florida's time travel cheating is starting to deflate. While they continue to try to shove deaths back in time, they are losing the ability to do so when the majority of the deaths they report are recent.

DeSantis yells at the AP for daring to mention that he hasn't handled COVID well. "How dare you point out my public failings?" he said, presumably from a skull throne on a mountain of bodies. "I'd sue except what you said was objectively true. But whataboutism! Whataboutism!"

To be fair to DeSantis...nah. But it is worth noting he's not in charge of the only state that's in trouble. Michigan has had 140 school outbreaks in 7 days. Last week it was 87. Michigan does not have a statewide mask mandate, it's county by county. Hmm. I wonder if there's a connection between those districts that...holy shit this list reads like stereo instructions. From the looks of things, of the four counties with the most affected schools, 2 have no mandate, 1 has K-6 only, and Detroit does have a mask mandate. No, I didn't measure them by population or anything.

Man, new respect for @Benggaul for doing this. I see why he does the quick reports anymore.

[DarkTZeratul]

Watching Chris Christie being interviewed on PBS.

PBS: "You say we need to move forward, but a recent poll shows 60% of Republicans still believe that there was election fraud, that Donald Trump should be in the White House right now. How do you convince tens of millions of people to change their minds?"
Chris Christie: "Well what you do is you lay out the facts."

Sorry Chris Christie, but if that were a viable strategy 60% of Republicans wouldn't believe the election was fraudulent.

[Breccia]

PBS: "You say we need to move forward, but a recent poll shows 60% of Republicans still believe that there was election fraud, that Donald Trump should be in the White House right now. How do you convince tens of millions of people to change their minds?"
Chris Christie: "Well what you do is you lay out the facts."

PBS: "Yeah we tried that. It didn't work. You saw that it didn't work. Why would you say something this clueless? What's wrong with you?"
Christie: "Because if I say 'Trump has to be brought to court for his false claims' I'll be murdered."