If that was Biden’s motivation, then where is Fauci’s pardon? Or Adam “Enemy from Within” Schiff’s pardon? Or what about Liz Chenney who is supposed to face treason charges according to Trump, where is her pardon? What about Jack Smith, where is his pardon? Kash Patel has an appendix in his book which is a literal enemies and prosecution list, any pardons for anyone on that list?

If Biden was concerned about the Trump justice department going after his political enemies, and Biden wanted to protect those people, there’s probably 80+ pardons he should be handing out.

But instead he only issued one. For his son. So Biden is either actually concerned about overreach of the Trump justice department but he’s only willing to save his son, and leave everyone else hanging. Or, Biden isn’t actually that concerned with the Trump justice department and is just abusing his pardon power to protect his shithead son from the consequences of his own actions. Either way, fuck Joe Biden.

It’s not part of the government. It will have no power or influence. It’s a set piece, just part of the show. The point is to pretend to be focused on government waste and to bring in smart outsiders to do it. The point is to get liberals pissed off so Republicans can tell voters Democrats are so out of touch, they get mad at anything Trump does, even cutting government waste. It won’t end up even issuing recommendations or doing anything, we’ll all just forget about it in two weeks. Trump gets the headline, the reaction from libs who just love government waste, further eating into our negative perception among voters, and we’ll all move on to the next outrage in the Trump show.

Learn the lesson now. Don’t react to every dumb thing Trump does. He’s a showman, there will always be a next act to keep the masses entertained, we don’t have to play a supporting role all the time. Roll your eyes, demand he follow through and show results, ridicule him for failure when nothing comes of it. Save the outrage for when people are getting hurt.

Correct

an entity Trump indicated will operate outside the confines of government.

So this is just a blue ribbon commission that’s going to collect donations, maybe government grants, write some kind of report, then send it to Congress where it will be promptly ignored because it’s recommendations will be too politically toxic for actual Republicans up for reelection to implement.

This reminds me of 2016, Trump claimed he won the popular vote but millions of illegal aliens voted, so he set up some dumb commission to investigate all the election fraud. It held a hearing or two, wasted a bunch of money, didn’t find any evidence of anything, then quietly disappeared.

Anyone on the left needs to be ready for this kind of shit and to respond appropriately. Trump will do a bunch of shit for show that doesn’t mean anything. Part of that show is getting the libs all outraged and worked up. Then Trump and Co can say “Look at those Dems with their Trump derangement syndrome lashing out at our brave president trying to cut government waste, Dems are so out of touch, yada yada”. This is the playbook, he’s been doing it for a decade now. Don’t play the game, save the outrage for real shit that hurts real people.

MAGA-flation. Republican -flation. Trump is a lame duck, but MAGA will survive. Messaging that ties everything that Trump fucksup to him alone gives Republicans in 2 or 4 years room to duck the consequences (I didn’t do it, Trump did it, I don’t agree with everything he did, blah blah blah). We need to make sure to tie everything Trump does to the whole Republican party now, so they all pay the price for letting Trump take over their party and fuck the economy and everything else.

The fight for the midterms starts today. Remember that.

I just want to nip this line of thought real quick. Policies and candidates matter, convincing voters about your positions all the time (not just during an election) matters, meeting voters where they are and having conversations matters.

Trump basically proved this.

Harris out raised Trump almost 2 to 1. Harris had an army of volunteers and the biggest ground operation in history. Trump improved his margins over 2020 anyway. Most importantly, Trump did better in states and counties where neither campaign was spending any resources, like New Jersey, or another really good example is Dade County which swung over 40 points in Trump’s favor since 2016, with neither party campaigning there.

A big reason was what Biden and Democrats did, not during the election, but in the three years before the election. They passed some moderate policies and utterly failed to sell those policies to voters as things that will help the average person. The average voter if asked what Biden did for them would give you a blank stare, and that’s on Biden and Democrats failing to 1) act boldly and 2) communicate their policy vision and how it helps people.

Meanwhile Republicans everyday beat on the drum of inflation and immigration and crime, whether or not those issues were real people felt like they were real. And most importantly people saw these messages, because Republicans are able to get in front of regular voters, to get into the national consciousness. Sometimes by going to spaces that aren’t blatantly right wing, but right wing friendly, like Rogan, sometimes just being loud and causing controversy that trickles into other spaces. When moderate spaces ridicule the latest right wing controversy, that also gets their message in front of regular people, who may not agree outright but will at least consider it. The average voter rolled their eyes at Trump saying immigrants are eating pets, but just by seeing the outrage gave some consideration to immigration and whether it’s a problem, including a cultural problem, and considered and thought about the Trump campaigns larger argument. And it cost Trump zero dollars to get a week or more of coverage about what he considers the problems with immigration just by making an outlandish claim.

Money is helpful, but it’s not even close to everything. We need Democrats with real liberal policies, getting in front of voters to explain what they mean to their lives, to talk about money in politics and corporate greed and wage stagnation and the transfer of wealth from the working class to the oligarchs, to talk about what is sure to be new epic levels of government corruption and incompetence that hurts real people. And Democrats need to do that everyday, not just in the months before an election, and need to do that in spaces where people are, not just on cable news.

Great, now I’m at the point of the post election grief cycle where I’m getting a bunch of books to try to figure out what happened. I remember this phase from 2016. Thanks for the recommendation for my list!

Interesting issue. Does their belief in their right to power control? There’s that crazy lady in Canada who calls herself the queen of Canada and issues edicts and whatever every now and then (somehow connected to qanon, I don’t remember the details). Could a US official accept a “title” bestowed by her, since she claims nobility and authority?

My recollection on the emoluments issue was SCOTUS punted in the same way they did with respect to Trump’s ability to run for office after the insurrection - Congress must declare the violation, and the remedy is presumably impeachment. So the practical effect is zero, since Congress would never take this up, let alone impeach and remove. I’d love if Dems did though, it would be fun seeing Republicans defend their justice receiving nighthood from some weird ass secret society thing.

Thanks for sharing this. It is a fantastic endorsement. It goes to the heart of everything wrong with the Trump Republican party in a way I haven’t seen the thousands of political commentators be able to do. It’s also just well written, a nice balance of reasoned journalism, humor, and outrage. This is probably the best thing I’ve read this election cycle.

Biden Admin: Israel, you must improve the humanitarian conditions in Gaza in 30 days, or else…

Israel: Designates the main aid organization, a UN organization no less, as a terrorist organization and bans their activities, violating international law in the process.

Biden Admin: …sigh…the US commitment to Israels security is ironclad…

Bezos has tons of federal government contracts. When Trump was president last time he went after Amazon and others he disliked to get their contracts cancelled. Bezos is concerned that if Trump wins, Trump could fuck with his contracts.

That’s the reason. It’s fucked up and more evidence of why news media shouldn’t be owned by fuckhead billionaires. Shameful day in WaPos history. Cowardice. Grovelling to placate Trump for the benefit of the paper 's owner.

Tin foil hat: I am somewhat concerned that our oligarch overlords seem to be hedging in a way that they think Trump might win.

It’s more like the Colbert Report back in the day, an exaggerated right winger who is so obviously wrong it’s funny.

Do pr people not know about the Barbara Streisand effect?! I was going to skip this decoder episode, except the title of the episode was “Intuit asked us to delete part of this episode”. That’s the only reason I listened, and then only just to the portion they wanted deleted. If it wasn’t for the pr genius at Intuit I wouldn’t have cared. Ffs guys.

When you get past the gross stuff, you can see the Biden admin wants to use this as an opportunity to force Israel to a cease fire. Good luck with that though, Israeli defense minister already declared the war will go on indefinitely. To Israel, there is no day after short of ethnic cleansing. But hope and ignorance spring eternal for Biden:

Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7.

I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.

There is now the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.  Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us.