Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[PhaelixWW]

I read somewhere another option would be to REDUCE the number of seats to 7, which would get rid of the last 2 appointed judges. An interesting option.

That would be VERY interesting.

The Democrats could reduce it by two...wait a year...then increase it.

That right there. I like. That is the type of crap Mitch would totally do, so it would be satisfying to see it thrown back in his face if it happened.

But why stop there? Why not, at that point, raise it to 27?

[Breccia]

The orange turd just set a new record, 200000 dead. USA USA USA

With that in mind, it's time for Guess the Speaker!

As you’ve heard several doctors in the task force note from this podium, we were looking at the prospect of 2 million people potentially perishing from the coronavirus in this country.

We grieve when even one life is lost. But the fact that we have come nowhere near that number is a testament to this president taking immediate action.

So the new message is "we should cheer Trump because he didn't hit the numbers that we would have hit if literally nothing had happened". Yes, the 2 million mark was "nobody does anything". And, while McEnemy...oh, right, the speaker was McEnemy...is praising Trump for his quick action, as a reminder, this remains a blatant lie.

1) He did not shut down travel. And only after the WHO said so.
2) He praised China for months while the outbreak emerged.
3) He continues to blame everyone who isn't Trump to this day, even speaking at the UN asking them to hold China accountable for his lack of action.
4) Most of the early action was taken by states. New York was hit early and hard, as a hub of international travel. Trump then blamed him in a matter that is now an ongoing week-long challenge, @Orlong you're now involved, you'd better get working on that.
5) And of course, praising Trump for doing better than literally nothing is all that Trump has left. But let me remind everyone of a more recent prediction.

In May, we were talking about 134,000 deaths.

We are now past that by 50%.

[Paranoid Android]

taking a vote pre-election is sure fire sign McConnell is already writing off Collins, Gardner, etc AND Trump

https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/st...110367745?s=19

It is hilarious how the Grim Reaper, McConnell is using Trump and the idiot does not know it. McConnell sees what will likely happen to Trump so to use him for this is worth it.

Yes, to be fair Trump is benefitting in a way to get this. We can argue how this might swing voters, yet Trump has no choice.

Now is Trump a great thinker, haha excuse me. Does he believe in his legacy of I guess you call it conservatism in the courts. I doubt it. Will he tour this as his greatest accomplishment. No.

[cubby]

But why stop there? Why not, at that point, raise it to 27?

I think the 19/27 solution might be the way to go - and yes, I would like [hopefully elected] Biden to appoint all 18.

[Zan15]

I think the 19/27 solution might be the way to go - and yes, I would like [hopefully elected] Biden to appoint all 18.

then we can say "oh we just did that so we could see your faces and watch you cry"....you know just like they say on 90% of the things trump and republicans do

[cubby]

then we can say "oh we just did that so we could see your faces and watch you cry"....you know just like they say on 90% of the things trump and republicans do

I would not be opposed to something like that.

[Pannonian]

Can't someone convince Jared that holding back the nomination until after the election would help Trump?

[kaid]

Idk, good question. If there isn't a law, and we have full control of congress and white house, we make it a law. I just want rapey brett and this new person not to have their jobs.

That actually is harder. They are lifetime appointments and changing because the lifetime appointment is in the constitution. So you can expand/contract the court but even if you contract it you would have to wait for justices to die off/retire. That is why the easy play is if you want to do this add enough so that those people are basically no longer a factor. The number of supreme court justices has gone up and down over the years and that is set by the congress so we know its legal and constitutional. They could also add new federal court districts and judges as well and with how over loaded some areas are there is actually a lot of reason to do this to keep from having huge backlogs of cases.

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I think the 19/27 solution might be the way to go - and yes, I would like [hopefully elected] Biden to appoint all 18.

And the plus side of doing so is it locks in at least that number for a long time. You could change the law to lower the amount of justices but you can't fire a justice without impeaching them so anybody appointed stays appointed. And frankly if the current practice is the SCOTUS is an unelected lifetime legislative branch then it should be treated as such. If you get all the levers of power then you can flip the court and stack the fuck out of it. Eventually it will get so stupid that it may force an amendment restructuring how many and how they are selected.

[cubby]

And the plus side of doing so is it locks in at least that number for a long time. You could change the law to lower the amount of justices but you can't fire a justice without impeaching them so anybody appointed stays appointed. And frankly if the current practice is the SCOTUS is an unelected lifetime legislative branch then it should be treated as such. If you get all the levers of power then you can flip the court and stack the fuck out of it. Eventually it will get so stupid that it may force an amendment restructuring how many and how they are selected.

That's very interesting - and packing the courts seem like a better and better idea. Especially a high number like 19 or 27. Lock those in with a simple Democratic hold on House/Senate and the White House. So even if the GOP wrestles back control, they couldn't really affect it, unless they doubled the court size.

And to get it Democratic buy in, ask each democratic held state send a short list of 3-5 people to nominate. Or something equally (and blatantly) partisan. Because fuck the GOP.

[kaid]

That's very interesting - and packing the courts seem like a better and better idea. Especially a high number like 19 or 27. Lock those in with a simple Democratic hold on House/Senate and the White House. So even if the GOP wrestles back control, they couldn't really affect it, unless they doubled the court size.

And to get it Democratic buy in, ask each democratic held state send a short list of 3-5 people to nominate. Or something equally (and blatantly) partisan. Because fuck the GOP.

Honestly I doubt the democrats will get a chance the gop is going to nominate somebody and then the silliest court cases will immediately get taken up by the SCOTUS to hand republicans wins in every state so bring on el presidente for life trump.

[Draco-Onis]

That's very interesting - and packing the courts seem like a better and better idea. Especially a high number like 19 or 27. Lock those in with a simple Democratic hold on House/Senate and the White House. So even if the GOP wrestles back control, they couldn't really affect it, unless they doubled the court size.

And to get it Democratic buy in, ask each democratic held state send a short list of 3-5 people to nominate. Or something equally (and blatantly) partisan. Because fuck the GOP.

Let's be frank though the democratic party doesn't have the balls to pack the court while the republican party goes out of its way to keep its base happy democrats don't give a flying fuck about the base. It's one of the reasons democrats lose they keep depressing their base chasing the moderate label.

The court have already gone off the rails under Trump if they didn't want to pack the court before this that's not going to change.

[Breccia]

Earlier today, I quoted McEnemy who responded to reporters asking about the two hundred thousand plus dead with "well we heard it could have been two million so, you're welcome". Paraphrased.

Let's hear Trump on the topic.

I think it’s a shame. I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right you’d have 2.5 million deaths.

But it’s a horrible thing. Should have never, ever happened. China let this happen, and just remember that.

I believe @Edge- will file this under "I take no responsibility". I have a different way to classify it.

It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.

Team Trump is forced to use the 2 million dead "if nobody does anything" benchmark because, well, it's the only one left they haven't broken yet. Just a reminder, in that earlier citation of McEnemy I did post a projection of 134,000 deaths. We are well beyond that.

There's also a week-long challenge going on, one involving red states. Full information here. I don't believe I've seen @Thwart @DocSavageFan @GreenJesus @lockedout and now featuring @Orlong respond to it yet, and we're past halftime. Did anyone respond, and I missed it?

[Benggaul]

35,696 new cases, around 1k fewer than last Tuesday.

Texas: 4,269 new cases; 107 deaths
California: 2,921 new cases; 124 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Missouri: 2,106 new cases; 49 deaths (new record)
Wisconsin: 1,672 new cases; 7 deaths
Illinois: 1,531 new cases; 29 deaths
North Carolina: 1,168 new cases; 39 deaths
Oklahoma: 1,164 new cases; 14 deaths

South Carolina actually had something like 2.6k cases reported today but all but about 800 of them were from the result of a backlog--some of which dated back to March.

"Hey, that test she took? Yes, it came back positive and we thought you should kn--...oh? Oh. I'm so sorry for your loss."

You'll notice there aren't that many on the 1k and above list, which is good, but the fact that we're still hitting about the same numbers for total cases means that difference is being made up by several other states that just haven't breached the 1k barrier yet. Testing has also been abysmal in primarily GOP states. Georgia is doing around 15k per day despite still being up near 10% positivity (you'll recall at one point they were reaching 3-4k cases regularly). Texas sometimes spikes above 100k tests but usually averages around 30k which is nowhere near enough. Their positivity is around 8.5%. They need to do more.

Fuck Florida.

By contrast, New York regularly does more than an average of 70k per day with a positivity less than 1% and California's positivity is 3% and dropping with an average around 100k tests per day.

The Midwest continues to be a growing concern as cases are higher every week. Wisconsin is getting hammered. The Dakotas and Nebraska are trending higher all the time. Misery and Minnesota are trending up. Misery actually had their second-highest total ever today. Positivity in about ALL of them is trending up. Too bad Trump didn't tell them masks save lives.

We begin the week under 1k deaths--a good sign. 969 is a couple hundred fewer than the previous Tuesday and puts the total at 205,471. Missouri's deaths skyrocketed today but there's no indication if this is the result of a correction or not. Apart from that they're distributed pretty much as you would expect. But according to Trump this is affecting "virtually nobody", so I guess we can just ignore the 7 million confirmed cases in the US...many of whom will develop long-term cardiac and/or respiratory problems as a result.

Stay safe, folks.

[beanman12345]

Let's be frank though the democratic party doesn't have the balls to pack the court while the republican party goes out of its way to keep its base happy democrats don't give a flying fuck about the base. It's one of the reasons democrats lose they keep depressing their base chasing the moderate label.

The court have already gone off the rails under Trump if they didn't want to pack the court before this that's not going to change.

TBF getting judges approved is as high of a priority to dem's as it is to republican's. Obama got 400 judges through in 8 years vs Trump's 200 in 4. Although Obama had a harder time until Reid killed the 60 vote rule to simple majority.

[jonnysensible]

trump giving it the 'one death is a tragedy but 200,000 deaths affect almost nobody' lol.

stealing an election and going full gilead. I think most autocrats fully intend to create kleptocracies.

[Zaydin]

trump giving it the 'one death is a tragedy but 200,000 deaths affect almost nobody' lol.

stealing an election and going full gilead. I think most autocrats fully intend to create kleptocracies.

Trump is basically invoking the 'A million is a statistic' trope to downplay the death toll.

[Draco-Onis]

TBF getting judges approved is as high of a priority to dem's as it is to republican's. Obama got 400 judges through in 8 years vs Trump's 200 in 4. Although Obama had a harder time until Reid killed the 60 vote rule to simple majority.

It's not that high of a priority since the democrats basically laid down and let themselves get run over when it came to Merrick Garland the pick republicans claimed they would approve of if Obama somehow picked.

[Breccia]

In the ongoing effort to prove what hypocrites they are, several Party of Trump Senators are claiming Hunter Biden's work with Ukraine was unethical.

"Of course, we're ignoring Kushner, Ivanka, and especially Trump himself when we say this," they basically admit. "I mean, Trump said directly that Russia wasn't in Ukraine, then was corrected to his face, and clarified that Russia wouldn't be in Ukraine if Trump had been in charge. Then, Trump did fuck-all about it, and invited Russia to G8 personally. Basically, we have no choice but to be hypocrites, because it is not possible to back Trump in any other way."

[kaid]

It's not that high of a priority since the democrats basically laid down and let themselves get run over when it came to Merrick Garland the pick republicans claimed they would approve of if Obama somehow picked.

I think the problem in that case was they held the seat open so long its hard to stay enraged for most people for longer than a year. Something rammed through in less than 2 months could be a very different matter.

[cubby]

In the ongoing effort to prove what hypocrites they are, several Party of Trump Senators are claiming Hunter Biden's work with Ukraine was unethical.

"Of course, we're ignoring Kushner, Ivanka, and especially Trump himself when we say this," they basically admit. "I mean, Trump said directly that Russia wasn't in Ukraine, then was corrected to his face, and clarified that Russia wouldn't be in Ukraine if Trump had been in charge. Then, Trump did fuck-all about it, and invited Russia to G8 personally. Basically, we have no choice but to be hypocrites, because it is not possible to back Trump in any other way."

I think Hunter's indictment is the October Surprise.

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It's not that high of a priority since the democrats basically laid down and let themselves get run over when it came to Merrick Garland the pick republicans claimed they would approve of if Obama somehow picked.

What precisely could the Democrats do in the Garland situation? You say they "laid down and let themselves get run over"...what were their options?

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35,696 new cases, around 1k fewer than last Tuesday.

Texas: 4,269 new cases; 107 deaths
California: 2,921 new cases; 124 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Missouri: 2,106 new cases; 49 deaths (new record)
Wisconsin: 1,672 new cases; 7 deaths
Illinois: 1,531 new cases; 29 deaths
North Carolina: 1,168 new cases; 39 deaths
Oklahoma: 1,164 new cases; 14 deaths

South Carolina actually had something like 2.6k cases reported today but all but about 800 of them were from the result of a backlog--some of which dated back to March.

"Hey, that test she took? Yes, it came back positive and we thought you should kn--...oh? Oh. I'm so sorry for your loss."

You'll notice there aren't that many on the 1k and above list, which is good, but the fact that we're still hitting about the same numbers for total cases means that difference is being made up by several other states that just haven't breached the 1k barrier yet. Testing has also been abysmal in primarily GOP states. Georgia is doing around 15k per day despite still being up near 10% positivity (you'll recall at one point they were reaching 3-4k cases regularly). Texas sometimes spikes above 100k tests but usually averages around 30k which is nowhere near enough. Their positivity is around 8.5%. They need to do more.

Fuck Florida.

By contrast, New York regularly does more than an average of 70k per day with a positivity less than 1% and California's positivity is 3% and dropping with an average around 100k tests per day.

The Midwest continues to be a growing concern as cases are higher every week. Wisconsin is getting hammered. The Dakotas and Nebraska are trending higher all the time. Misery and Minnesota are trending up. Misery actually had their second-highest total ever today. Positivity in about ALL of them is trending up. Too bad Trump didn't tell them masks save lives.

We begin the week under 1k deaths--a good sign. 969 is a couple hundred fewer than the previous Tuesday and puts the total at 205,471. Missouri's deaths skyrocketed today but there's no indication if this is the result of a correction or not. Apart from that they're distributed pretty much as you would expect. But according to Trump this is affecting "virtually nobody", so I guess we can just ignore the 7 million confirmed cases in the US...many of whom will develop long-term cardiac and/or respiratory problems as a result.

Stay safe, folks.

If Biden wins, could he immediately initiate the 200M/day tests that we need to get a handle on this? (i.e. does the U.S. even have those numbers of tests) If not, how long would it take to get spooled up?

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TBF getting judges approved is as high of a priority to dem's as it is to republican's. Obama got 400 judges through in 8 years vs Trump's 200 in 4. Although Obama had a harder time until Reid killed the 60 vote rule to simple majority.

This is an interesting point. I was looking at the total federal judges approved through each of the past presidents, and while Trump's numbers are high, they aren't outrageous (although the 3 SCOTUS seats is unusual). Jimmy Carter had more in his four years.

Federal Judges appointed by Presidents