Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Karl Henning]

No talent for governing, but dig all that "Executive Time" on Twitter . . .

Trump's itchy Twitter finger: His latest false claims

The president's Twitter feed is worthless often inaccurate, but he has topped himself in recent days with tweets on forest fires, elections and stocks.

[arpeggio]

I have seen a few Democrats who stated that they doubt that the recount would change the results.  They felt that it is important to follow the law to ensure every vote is counted.

[BasilValentine]

I have seen a few Democrats who stated that they doubt that the recount would change the results.  They felt that it is important to follow the law to ensure every vote is counted.

Of course it's not just the recount. The absentee ballots are being tallied and aren't there provisional ballots still being evaluated?

[JBS]

Of course it's not just the recount. The absentee ballots are being tallied and aren't there provisional ballots still being evaluated?

The deadline for verifying provisional ballots was last Thursday.  Overseas mail-in ballots have to be received by Nov 17 (I think) to be counted.  But even if all of them voted for Gillum and Nelson (doubtful, since at least some of them are military voters whose home county is Pensacola or nearby [meaning likely GOP voters], the total count would be only marginally changed.  If there is a noticeable change in numbers it would likely be from the undervoting (and the number of Broward undervotes seem logical to me, probably the result of local voters voting for a locally based candidate, and black voters voting for two black candidates (governor and attorney general, in contrast to the senate candidates, both of them older white guys with no local connections).

Further note:
the polls  before the election that showed Gillum and Nelson with small but noticeable leads were probably faulty.  The area affected by Hurricane Michael is heavily GOP, and voters there were probably not correctly represented by post hurricane polls.

[Karl Henning]

Do they somehow not realize that all the President has to do, is TWEET??!!

Federal judge delays certification of Georgia election results, citing concerns over provisional ballots

[arpeggio]

Of course it's not just the recount. The absentee ballots are being tallied and aren't there provisional ballots still being evaluated?

I am sorry.  I have done a lousy job of explaining stuff.  I probably should not have said anything.

I am probably wrong but think I heard that in Florida there are many ballots that are only counted if the race is close.  One class of ballots that are now being tallied are for those in active service in the military.  I apologize if the above is bogus.  It seems to me that we should count the ballots of the active military.  It would be terrible if their ballots were discarded.

[71 dB]

CNN sues the White House over Jim Acosta.

[Karl Henning]

[...] Third, the Democrats' win reveals just how miserably Republicans performed in a year in which Democrats held on to or flipped Senate seats in seven states that Trump won in 2016 (Montana, Arizona, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania). Republicans, with the most favorable map in a generation, will pick up at most two seats (depending on the outcome in Florida). Trump might have helped Republicans hold on to the deepest-red states (e.g. Missouri, North Dakota), but his dominating presence in the last week or so of the campaign hammering an anti-immigrant message might have harmed House and Senate Republicans everywhere else. (As of this writing, Democrats picked up at least 32 seats; that total could reach 40. They also added at least seven governorships.)

[Karl Henning]

Nice banana republic President Toadstool is trying to sell ya, America!

Suppress voting among traditional Democratic groups; supervise your own election; and then cry foul to intimidate voting officials and to discredit the opposition's wins — this sounds like something out of a tin-pot dictatorship, not what you'd expect from the world's leading democracy. Ominously, this practice suggests that Trump and his cult-followers might refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election if things don't go their way.

[Karl Henning]

ROFLMAO

Two Charts Show Trump's Job Gains Are Just A Continuation From Obama's Presidency

There has been a fair amount of rhetoric about the job growth and lower unemployment rate seen since President Trump took office. Candidate Trump touted that there would be 25 million jobs created over 10 years if he was elected. In January 2017, I wrote that this was a fairly easy campaign promise when you analyze the data and realize that it will only take 2% annual growth of the workforce to hit this target.

This is a review of Trump's Economic Scorecard before the midterm elections.

President Trump started with a distinct advantage with a workforce of 145.7 million, 9% larger than when President Obama took office. If the workforce were to only grow by 2%, that would add just over 2.9 million jobs a year or 243,000 per month. Over the course of 10 years, there would be over 29 million jobs added.

Additionally, over President Obama's last six and five years in office after the economy had recovered from the Great Recession, the average employment gains were 2.42 and 2.48 million jobs per year. Pretty much on track to add 25 million over 10 years [...]

[Zeus]

More interesting is the location of Macron's right hand. He's known to prefer oldies... And Angela's tender look? French First Lady, be careful!

I'm not sure about my source, but I recall reading that Macron had his hand on Trump's knee also, earlier in the week.  Macron may just be touchy-feely in that way.

On the other hand, from what I know of Trump, grabbing his knee would probably freak him out.  In fact, that might be why Trump has threatened to disband NATO.   

[amw]

It should be noted that while these Florida elections are close in percentages of total votes cast, they are not anywhere near as close as Bush Gore in 2000. I forget the figure for Nelson, but Gillum would need at least 33,000 votes to erase his opponent's lead. Recounts don't normally produce that many votes.

Nelson is within 0.15 percentage points but I have no idea how many votes this translates into. I do recall seeing lots of social media images of undelivered crates of absentee ballots left in post offices and polling places but the idea that Nelson could win in a recount seems implausible. In any case this is someone whose primary concern after Hurricane Michael seemed to be the large amount of expensive military hardware that was destroyed, so in the long term you may be better off without him (obviously while hoping that someone more likeable can knock off Scott in 2024, or Rubio in 2022).

[SimonNZ]

Trump is preparing to remove Kirstjen Nielsen as Homeland Security secretary, aides say

"President Trump has told advisers he has decided to remove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and her departure from the administration is likely to occur in the coming weeks, if not sooner, according to five current and former White House officials.

Trump canceled a planned trip with Nielsen this week to visit U.S. troops at the border in South Texas and told aides over the weekend that he wants her out as soon as possible, these officials said. The president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen's lackluster performance on immigration enforcement and is believed to be looking for a replacement who will implement his policy ideas with more alacrity.

[SimonNZ]

Conservatives have gone fully fact-free: So how the heck do we even talk to them? The "debate" over the Jim Acosta video shows the right has no use for facts. Is there any way to talk to them?

"Watching smart people fruitlessly insist on arguing evidence and facts with conservatives who clearly have no respect for either got under my skin. I took to Twitter to point out that no one actually believes Acosta did something wrong, but that many Trump-supporting conservatives are simply faking that belief in order to troll the left and distract the media. I wrote a whole book, "Troll Nation," about the way that "triggering the libs" has become the single most important goal of the modern American right. And how better to do this than to pretend to believe something obviously false, and then laugh at liberals as they drive themselves nuts desperately trying to get conservatives to see reason?

These tweets went viral, which I suppose shows that many on the left have finally decided that it's time to accept that your average conservative fancies himself to be Hannibal Lecter masterfully trolling Clarice Starling. (Buy my book!) In truth, it doesn't actually require much in the way of grace or wits to gaslight liberals. All it requires is a shameless willingness to say obviously false things, and then watch your opponents -- still romantically attached to the idea of reasoned debate -- grow increasingly desperate in insisting that objective reality should inform one's opinions.

But while many people liked my tweets, others on the left responded with frustration, asking how, exactly, we're supposed to deal with right-wingers if they flat out reject the idea that truth has any value in political discourse.

I find this question frustrating, mainly because it assumes that for every problem, there must be a solution — an assumption that the evidence simply doesn't support. How do you persuade people to listen to reason or acknowledge the facts, when they have openly declared that they don't care about reason or facts?

The answer is simple: You can't. These are autonomous adults who have decided that loyalty to Trump and hatred of liberals matters more than the truth. There are no cool psychological tricks one can use that are likely to convince them to readjust their values system.

That answer, of course, is unsatisfying, because it's not like liberals can simply drop all engagement and discourse with conservatives. Doing that would be tantamount to giving up on this country and letting the liars drag us directly down the path to authoritarianism, and quite possibly outright fascism. So what do we do, rhetorically speaking, to fight back?

[SimonNZ]

Georgia Lawmaker Arrested Amid Protest To Count Every Vote In Governor Race. State Sen. Nikema Williams said she just wanted her constituents' "voices to be heard."

"A Georgia state senator who joined protesters at the state Capitol building in Atlanta in an effort to make sure all the ballots from last week's gubernatorial election are counted was arrested on Tuesday.

State Sen. Nikema Williams (D-Atlanta) was arrested in the rotunda after authorities said they issued warnings for the demonstrators to disperse.

"I stood peacefully next to my constituents because they wanted their voices to be heard, and now I'm being arrested," Williams told reporters after her hands were zip-tied by police. "And now I'm being arrested."

The demonstrations were sparked by concerns over the ongoing recount in the too-close-to-call governor's race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams. A federal judge blocked Georgia's secretary of state, who until last Thursday was Kemp, from certifying election results until at least this coming Friday in order to allow time to review thousands of provisional ballots.

The protesters chanted "Count every vote!" during the demonstration and "Let her go!" as Williams was being arrested, WSB-TV reported. Several other people were also arrested, according to the station.

"When a sitting senator, who is the vice chair of the state Democratic Party, is thrown into a paddy wagon at the state capitol, it is a stark reminder that our right to freely assemble is at risk," said state Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta), according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

[SimonNZ]

Deputy National Security advisor fired. By Melaina. Over seating arrangements on air force one.

[SimonNZ]

Sounds like Melania is also going to have John Kelly fired for refusing to promote her courtiers.

[JBS]

Nelson is within 0.15 percentage points but I have no idea how many votes this translates into. I do recall seeing lots of social media images of undelivered crates of absentee ballots left in post offices and polling places but the idea that Nelson could win in a recount seems implausible. In any case this is someone whose primary concern after Hurricane Michael seemed to be the large amount of expensive military hardware that was destroyed, so in the long term you may be better off without him (obviously while hoping that someone more likeable can knock off Scott in 2024, or Rubio in 2022).

The margin Nelson needs to overcome is in the range of 13,000. I agree it is unlikely.  But Scott was corrupt even before he became governor, and consistently takes the low road. Also, he is probably the worst governor  Florida has had that I can remember, which means going back to c. 1970 and Charlie Kirk Yet the GOP is strong enough that half our voters went for him. And given the GOP stranglehold on state politics, it is unlikely any Democrat will do better than Nelson, who at least had incumbency going for him.

[Sydney Nova Scotia]

Next she will want the Whitehouse painted Red 

[amw]

The margin Nelson needs to overcome is in the range of 13,000. I agree it is unlikely.  But Scott was corrupt even before he became governor, and consistently takes the low road. Also, he is probably the worst governor  Florida has had that I can remember, which means going back to c. 1970 and Charlie Kirk Yet the GOP is strong enough that half our voters went for him. And given the GOP stranglehold on state politics, it is unlikely any Democrat will do better than Nelson, who at least had incumbency going for him.

Certainly Amendment 4 changes the political geography somewhat though—of the ~1.5 million re-enfranchised ex-convicts, the largest single demographic is black men, about 500,000 of them, who tend to vote Democratic by about an 85-15 margin. There are also about 300,000 Puerto Ricans who form the "Maria diaspora", and those who aren't able to return to the island & end up in Florida long term likely will end up becoming politically active, though probably more around issues like Puerto Rican statehood than anything in the current Democratic or GOP platforms.

I agree that Scott will be a terrible senator though, and certainly worse than Nelson. I guess stripping the dead weight out of the Democratic Party might make it a more effective opposition party, though. (Getting rid of Hillary certainly seems to have helped, for instance.)