Trump's Card

[Tubby Isaacs]

Stop trying to make this happen, Tubbs, you are making yourself look bad.

This is one of literally thousands of things in the civility bracket and not even in the top quartile of the most egregious.

Well, I only raised it tentatively. I'm not so sure it won't help shift some votes, but we won't agree.

[Tubby Isaacs]

In other news, Kris Kobach still seems to be ahead.

I see Kansas governors have running mates. Kobach's main primary opponent is Brownback's old running mate. That doesn't seem like a great look.

[WOM]

The Manafort defense has rested without presenting a case or Manafort testifying.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Ballsy move. On the one hand it may be because they can't mount a defence that won't get them disbarred, or on the other hand they've fixed the jury, or both.

[Ginger Yellow]

The Manafort defense has rested without presenting a case or Manafort testifying.

Wow. Really leaning into the pardon gambit, huh?

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1029390983253946369?s=21

This will be interesting.

The near universal legal opinion is that NDAs covering unclassified information are unenforceable against public employees. Now the administration has given the courts (assuming that they get the case out of arbitration) a perfect opportunity to rule to that effect. And should the contracts be voided, there are literally hundreds of former staffers with stories to tell.

[Ginger Yellow]

The near universal legal opinion is that NDAs covering unclassified information are unenforceable against public employees. Now the administration has given the courts a perfect opportunity to rule to that effect.

Good thing for Trump he controls the balance of the Supreme Court then.

[ursus arctos]

That's asking a lot from the likes of Roberts.

It is also primarily a state law question.

[WOM]

Are Manafort's charges all federal?

[MsD]

The ratios on the "dog" Tweet are interesting:
44,010 replies 13,595 retweets 54,881 likes
Reply 44K Retweet 14K Like 55K

Usually he gets around what, 2.5-3 times as many likes as replies. Today it's been much lower, especially for this one.

[ursus arctos]

WOM, yes, at least for the two current proceedings.

[WOM]

Okay. So a pardon is at least possible.

[ursus arctos]

Very much so

[Satchmo Distel]

"suburban, female Trump voters" voted for a man caught on tape boasting about how he liked to "grab them by the pussy." I wouldn't be pinning any hopes on those women in 2018 or 2020. Far better to aim for 2016 non-voters or abstainers who thought both candidates were cancerous.

[San Bernardhinault]

I agree with the first part of your post, Satchmo. But I wouldn't hold out any hope for anyone who stayed home in 2016, either. If they didn't think it was worth standing up to Trump in 2016, that Hillary's emails were equivalent to Trump's racism and sexism, then it's very optimistic to hope they now will.

For the 2018 mid-terms, you just have to try and get as many of your 2016 voters to show up as possible, while hoping that the reluctant Trumpers won't bother.

[Satchmo Distel]

Are there any polls showing that significant numbers of 2016 Trump voters intend to stay at home?

[ursus arctos]

The ones that have died definitely will.

It isn’t a question that is poll d regularly and I wouldn’t really trust the responses, especially this far out from Election Day.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm getting increasingly pessimistic about the mid-terms, let alone 2020, btw. If Trump wins in 2020, I may have to get citizenship - just to cover my arse if they want to throw out foreign scum. The fact that my UK citizenship will have lost 27/28ths of its value would make the choice less painful.

[Satchmo Distel]

Going to back to Omarosa, how many white women are going to say, "Well, I was willing to support him when he was joking about grabbing the pussies of white women, and when white women accused him of assault, but now that he's called an aggressive black woman a dog, that's just too far for me"?

Come on. He knows he's on safe ground with even the most moderate GOP voter when calling an assertive black woman a dog. Civility is for show, voting is for dough and (among much of the 2016 white electorate) based on fears that can easily be prodded by racial stereotypes. Omarosa's behaviour has also been unwise in a way that a racist press can easily twist into a racist stereotype given that such stereotypes are already in its playbook.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's asking a lot from the likes of Roberts.

It is also primarily a state law question.

Do you know which state(s) we'd be talking about? Is there one campaign, registered in one state, or lots of different ones?

[Amor de Cosmos]

The ones that have died definitely will.

Are you sure? I'm sure some of them will manage to vote from beyond the grave. These days nothing would surprise me.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Still though, that tape of him ringing her, and pretending to be all upset at her being fired, and how he was out of the loop was utterly hilarious. It's great to see him in action for real.

[ursus arctos]

Amor, I actually considered qualifying my post in that regard, but I'm trying to be positive here.

Berba, yes it was.

Tubbs, I don't get the question. We were talking about Non Disclosure Agreements for public employees. They could have been drafted as being subject to the law of any number of states. Though if I had to guess, I would guess New York, because the NDAs were reportedly clones of one the Trump Organization had been using for years.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Going to back to Omarosa, how many white women are going to say, "Well, I was willing to support him when he was joking about grabbing the pussies of white women, and when white women accused him of assault, but now that he's called an aggressive black woman a dog, that's just too far for me"?

Come on. He knows he's on safe ground with even the most moderate GOP voter when calling an assertive black woman a dog. Civility is for show, voting is for dough and (among much of the 2016 white electorate) based on fears that can easily be prodded by racial stereotypes. Omarosa's behaviour has also been unwise in a way that a racist press can easily twist into a racist stereotype given that such stereotypes are already in its playbook.

I'm no longer sure there's anything he could do or say that would turn off his so-called "base."

This quote: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters." is looking way more prescient to me than it was a year and a half ago.

[ursus arctos]

That is absolutely the case and the only real question is just how large that "base" is.