The Frankish Reich

Publish what?

So where's that "cover-up" the OP promised? It's what, 11 whole days since the shooting? And we already know it was a colossal screw up, and we know exactly how it was screwed up.

And not only that: party affiliation is unstable, even over the course of an election cycle. And one of the key reasons for the pressure on Biden to resign: the generic ballot poll (do you want Republicans or Democrats in Congress?) is basically a tie now. So Biden was underperforming that generic ballot by anywhere from 4-8 points, which is horrible. Early signs are that Kamala hasn't gotten "popular"; rather, she's now running as the generic Democrat in a fundamentally tied race. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/02/there_are_no_permanent_majorities_in_america_97110.html

Oh goodie. I tend to ignore these things. Not "ignore" as in "pretend to put you on ignore." Just plain old ignore. But hey, as for Father of the Year, I nominate Elon Musk!

Ooh, "changing dietary guidelines." I'm sure everyone will immediately adopt the voluntary Newest Food Pyramid/Polygon. The whole concept sounds communist to me. Or maybe fascist. I haven't made up my mind. Definitely not MAGA. That's all I know. America got great on red meat and red meat only.

Can't believe the troglodytes missed this. Let's think about it for a moment. Elon blames "woke mind virus" for killing his son (actually, that son is still alive and living as a woman). If you believe tans kids aren't "born that way," but rather become trans because of their environment, allow me to posit an alternate explanation. A more traditional one. One that has to do with an uncaring/absent father who seems to believe that quantity (of children) is all that matters. https://people.com/elon-musk-complete-dating-history-7502497

Irv, cleverly sliding the scale from "he's dead" to "he should resign" I refer you to Jon Stewart: let's put Biden and Trump on PEDs right now! This isn't the Olympics. They don't take away your Nobel Prize for finally solving the Middle East just because you were on Ritalin!

Trump famously doesn't read. As in read anything. When asked about his reading habits, he has suggested that he reads the Bible. But don't expect to get any significant understanding of a Bible passage from him. https://www.axios.com/2018/02/09/trump-doesnt-read-his-presidential-briefings-report-1518192747 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/17/donald-trump-describes-his-unrequited-love-reading/ He was a bad student who apparently had trouble focusing. His family sent him away to military school because of this, where he fit in much better, but without apparent improvements in his grades or behavior. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decades-later-disagreement-over-young-trumps-military-academy-post/2016/01/09/907a67b2-b3e0-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html Despite the family's wealth and connections, he couldn't get into an Ivy League college. (And look at the stats: it wasn't nearly as hard to get into an Ivy, particularly what were considered the lower-tier Ivies like Penn, at that time.) He went to Fordham instead. His niece claims that it is family lore that he paid someone to take the SAT for him. A prof who remembers him claimed that he was "the dumbest goddamn student I ever had" at Penn. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/mary-trump-book-donald-trump/index.html https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/09/14/donald-trump-at-wharton-university-of-pennsylvania/ As President, he astounded his staff by being unable to make it through even a two-page briefing paper. He did seem to have some interest in graphs and charts rather than the written word. His lack of focus on policy briefings is legendary. He gets his news through television, which he watched incessantly while President. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-looks-at-charts-in-intelligence-briefings-2020-5 https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/politics/trump-tv-viewing-analysis/index.html His manner of speaking has changed over the years, to a new kind of repetitive, lower grade-level communication. It is obviously effective with his core audience, but it is unclear whether he is doing it for political purposes or because he now lacks the capacity to communicate in more formal, Presidential ways. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-fire-and-fury-smart-genius-obama-774169#:~:text=Trump clocked in around mid,nearly a sixth-grade level. https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/ People have suggested for a long time that he is dyslexic. I believe this to be true. He is, at a minimum, an extreme auditory learner, unable to process the written word. People have also suggested ADHD/ADD, and his behavior - from his school days to the present - strongly supports this. And now we have seen a degradation in his language skills too. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/09/17/why-trump-cant-learn-educated-guess-veteran-teacher https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/donald-trump-attention-span-214223/ I don't want to suggest that a dyslexic or someone with ADHD is unfit for the presidency. Nor do I want to suggest that someone who is losing some linguistic agility is unfit (after all, that is Biden). But the key here is that he seems to have no insight into these issues. The dyslexia/ADHD appears to have been recognized early on (hence, the military school) but has gone completely untreated/unaddressed. It impact his ability to understand and focus on the critical - and complex, regardless of how Trump dismisses them as "very easy" - issues that every President must deal with. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/president-trump-national-security-advisers-rage-book/index.html There are at least as serious questions about his fitness to serve another 4 years as there were with Biden. Here we have aging combined with life-long, untreated learning disabilities, rather than just the aging curve alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign I got the "Maoist" idea from economist Scott Sumner, who is hardly some kind of lefty (he's a pretty standard monetary hawk Republican). He makes a good point about the competing visions for America, both strangely echoing Maoist theory, albeit in different ways: https://www.themoneyillusion.com/the-age-of-irony/ Consider two definitions of Maoism: 1. Radical egalitarianism. Public shaming and forced apologies when people fail to spout obvious nonsense like, “All differences in pay between ethnic groups reflect racism.” (I guess there’s lots of racism against white Christian Americans, as they make less than Jews from Eastern Europe or Hindus from India.) 2. Resentment against the intellectual elite. Shut down the universities and send the intellectuals to the countryside. Over the next four years, I expect to be eagerly munching on my popcorn as these two types of Maoists go after each other.

Because they're Maoists. They hate intellectuals and academics.

Well, the last line is the key. And I agree with it. But I think you're a little too optimistic about the status of the filibuster. I can't imagine Trump getting a majority in both houses and then just sitting back and saying, "well, I guess I'll just have to compromise away until I get 8 or 9 Democrats to join me." They'll be intense pressure on the new majority leader to kill it. And who will that new majority leader be? It would be a more sharply divided Senate with no obvious Machiavellian manipulator like McConnell. And Trump would have 4 years, not the hope of 8, and he's 77, so he knows time is not on his side ... the pressure to act fast will be intense.

The off the record comments of Trump campaign staff: they expect Harris to get a publicity-driven bump in the polls and to be in the lead (nationally) within the next few weeks. No doubt this is why Trump is talking about debates. If he felt secure in his lead, he'd probably say "I already agreed to debates with Biden; too late to change it up now." Bottom line: still a very close election. And as everyone says, the rest of us might as well sit it out and let Michigan/Wisconsin/Pennsylvania duke it out.

I expect more and more of this stupidity. No, Kamala was not made "border Czar." She was given the nebulous task of finding the "root causes" of a wave of Central American immigration. Did she ever issue a report? Discuss her findings? Meet with Central American leaders? All fair questions. Was she the "border Czar?" That was something made up or used as shorthand by media sources. There was no such thing. The blame for actual border policy falls squarely on Biden and Mayorkas. Ask her questions about policy going forward, since that's what she will be in control of if elected.

That's why we should have elected Mitt Romney in 2012 ...

Let's say the election plays out like Dems feared it would about a week ago. Trump wins. The Republicans increase their majority in the House, and they retake the Senate. How long will it take for Senate Republicans to kill the filibuster? I'd give it a month or two. What happens to medication abortion with an anti-abortion activist put in place at the FDA? Will Trump really refuse to sign a 15-week abortion ban that sails through the House and Senate? I see what you're saying. The issue is not front and center with most voters now. But I also think you need to game plan this through... it will be Kamala's job to make the case. We will see whether she is able to do it.

Why is this a bad thing? You want kids to skip school? You want parents who make kids work in a family business, etc., instead of sending them to school? So now she gets criticized by you guys for enforcing the law? And the original Twitter comment: what does an IEP have to do with skipping school?

My question for the candidates (it'll never get asked): "Ronald Reagan famously called the former Soviet Union an "evil empire." Do you consider Putin's Russia today to be an evil empire?

Kamala and the Second Gentleman are quite prudent in managing their money. https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/how-kamala-harris-manages-her-money-index-funds-and-a-2-625-mortgage-f9d026e2 A really nice low-rate mortgage locked in. Boring index investments. No obvious financial conflicts. I like it.

Y'all just jealous that you can't do edgy.

I simply cannot believe the new Trump stance on abortion. The "leave it to the states; everyone's happy" stance. There were more abortions in America in the first post-Dobbs year than in the year before Dobbs. If you believe that abortion is actually the taking of an innocent human life (I respect that position; I think it's wrong, but I respect it), how can you live with this? How can you "take the win" and say, oh well, at least we've made abortion a little less convenient for women in the southern U.S. We'll stop now. No. The Christian Right did a lot to get Trump nominated again, and they'll do a lot to try to get him elected again. They will not stop. The drive will begin with an attempt to kill "medication abortion" - Trump's FDA will be a Trump-controlled FDA, and they'll try to ban it on bogus "not safe and effective" grounds. There will be proposed legislation to ban abortion, at least post-15/16 week abortions, at a national level. We are in a Missouri Compromise moment on abortion. Hey look, we've finally settled that pesky slavery question! Except we hadn't. We might have made it worse, even more divisive. The issue will not go away.

Maybe starting an alternate "Bills Fan Forum" in which people can feel free to post rabid left-wing conspiracies under the cover of a football forum? I can't recall; did some rabid right-winger already do that?

I am pleased to report the results of my investigation: no credible evidence that Megyn Kelly had an affair with one of her superiors at Fox. Indeed, it appears quite clear that Roger Ailes asked her (as he did all female on-screen employees) to stand and twirl around for him to assess her body. That would constitute sexual harassment in every jurisdiction. On the other hand, I convict her of being a rather shameless profiteer. Trump famously insulted her, and she claimed she left (was fired?) from Fox. After failing at her post-Fox gig, she has now learned that being a right-wing commenter/podcaster is more profitable than the alternatives.

Hmm, I'm gonna have to do a little Megyn Kelly research ...