The Frankish Reich

I like divided government. What's wrong with that?

Idiotic prosecution. I'm no Alec Baldwin fan. "Name a good Alec Baldwin performance?" I have to go way, way back to Glengarry Glenross. But really. He's an actor. An actor handed a prop to be used in a scene. There's a requirement that a movie set has an armorer (I had never known that such a job exists) precisely to make sure that any firearms on set are safe an properly handled. She failed in a preposterous, almost unbelievable way. The script has him shooting a gun directly at someone. I fail to see any criminal liability, or even civil liability.

If you find these to be comprehensible policy goals, well, then you must have some kind of super-comprehension powers that I lack. "End inflation." As in zero inflation? Would that be good for the economy as a whole? "End" as in "go beyond Powell's 2 percent target?" "Bring inflation back to historical standards" would make sense. But that would assume that your voters are, well, intelligent rather than poorly educated. "Put Medicare on a more secure track" without changing it in any way. Yeah, that'll work. "Unleash American Energy," ignoring the fact that it is pretty much unleashed already. "Stop outsourcing." Oh, o.k. What outsourcing? Components for U.S. manufacturing? How about a 10-60% tariff? That'll drive up consumer costs for everything, making it completely inconsistent with the "end inflation." A platform for the poorly educated. Nonsense on stilts.

What is this supposed to mean? https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6#:~:text=Crude oil exports of about,million b%2Fd in 2023. The U.S. is a net energy exporter. But that's apparently not "true" as defined by ... what? This is what happens when a Republican talking point is overtaken by events. Drill, baby, drill! We drilled. We became energy self-sufficient by anyone's standard definition. But now it's not "true" because that would mean admitting that continuing with our talking point is now stupid.

Here's an answer: grow up. Where are those "liberal Rockefeller Republicans" I used to hear about? Where are those "conservative Scoop Jackson Democrats?" They don't exist. We essentially have a parliamentary system now. 99% of Republicans vote for whatever Trump says. 100% of Democrats vote for Biden-approved legislation. No Democrat will vote for a Republican Supreme Court nominee. No Republican will vote for a Democratic Supreme Court nominee. I had some involvement with Indian nationals who voted in India's elections. In a country with a huge illiterate component, they just tick a box with the symbol of the party they support. That's what we do today. Biden has proven himself to be a wobbly old man who's aged out of the public part of the job. Trump proved himself to be a mercurial fool who couldn't concentrate for 15 minutes much less 4 years. That's the choice. Check the donkey or the elephant.

Breaking: Politicians are BS Artists.

AUTISM SPECTRUM Old sperm.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barron-trump-debuts-fathers-florida-campaign-rally-sustained-applause Barron emerges! I've heard this makes him fair game.

When Biden withdraws from the race all that Hunter stuff goes away with him. Just one more reason ...

Yes, I should go back on vacation. You got me there! Seriously: it's a constant theme here that Biden has never been "in charge" and that someone else (usually Obama, I'll go with my own idea of the Deep (Democratic) State) is actually running the White House. So ... someone else will be running the White House a little bit more, particularly between 4:00 pm and 9:00 am? I'll grant you that that's not ideal. But some maniac watching Jimmy Kimmel and posting stupidity about him at 3:00 am is preferable?

Well, that's not speculation. Official Trump Campaign announcement: "Delegate Barron to make his political debut in Milwaukee!" Official Melania press release: No. He's not.

Obama did "lead" him off-stage. He didn't "help him off-stage." Joe tends to linger. He's not a vegetable. He's an old man. He shouldn't be president. Neither should the other guy. Romney or McCain or someone normal vs. Biden, I'm voting for them. Not. For. Nutcase. Trump. What's so hard to understand about that?

What on earth does that have to do with the weird veil of secrecy over Barron? Kid's 18. What, he can't say what he plans to do starting ... next month? I'm not talking about an in-depth sit-down with George Stephanopoulos. But maybe an ordinary announcement? That's why there's weird/stupid speculation about him.

I think Peter Spiliakos needs to look up the meaning of "epistemic." Duped by Biden? No! He's old. Too old. I've said it a million times. I thought the idea of the Trump Right was that Biden wasn't running the country anyway. Obama was. Remember? That's why he never left DC. So I should care about precisely how old man addled Biden is because ... why? I mean, it's Obama Term 4, isn't it?

I think the weird interest in Barron comes from how sheltered the Trumps have kept him. I was wondering about the Obama girls, so I did a quick search. In May 2016, they announced that Malia was accepted at Harvard but would be taking a gap year. That's kind of the normal timeline for deciding on colleges. So why nothing on Barron? My guess: he's caught up in a Donald-Melania dispute. We saw that when Melania vetoed him attending the Republican convention.

Ooh, interesting one. Dead cap hit is huge ($23 million?) so he'd really have to look washed in preseason. But I wouldn't rule it out. No pushback here on Milano. Of course we all hope he'll be at least 90% of the pre-injury guy. But it was so brutal that we just don't know yet.

Massages by James does not actually know what "Marxist" means. Meanwhile, the party of "alternative facts" stands ready to school us on the Orwellian use of language.

Hey, libs of TikTok ... check out how you spell the feminine form of fiancee

The economy was doing well, but the border? Umm, no. That was not "managed." https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics-fy2019 1,148 aliens apprehended at the border, and obviously a lot of got-aways too. COVID actually helped Trump here. At first the numbers went down as all countries shut down (including the US ... no pull of jobs = fewer entrants), then when they started up again Trump used Title 42 to return illegal entrants based on his declared COVID public health emergency. So Trump will tell you "I got the border under control," which was thanks to COVID. And then he'll tell you "the economy was great until COVID hit." But never both at the same time.

That chip is hilarious. I bet he took a mulligan.

This was (to me at least) the most effective argument Trump made on Thursday. I say "argument" meaning "reasoned criticism" here, not just unfounded assertions. He stated, correctly, that Biden fired no one, held no one accountable for the fiasco that was the Afghanistan withdrawal. Trump is quite correctly criticized for firing people willy-nilly, but there is also a fair point that never firing anyone, no matter how bad they botched something, also shows poor management skills. I really don't like Newsome, but he would have put up a fight and called Trump out on some really out-there claims. His little mock debate (the first debate of the 2028 cycle?) with Ron DeSantis was pretty entertaining with both men showing good sparring skills.

Oh, you're right. And it's the classic "both sides." What the Bush 43 campaign did to Kerry ("Swiftboating") counts too, even though Kerry did no doubt embellish. He still did serve in Vietnam which is more than GWB did.

Yes, but the Trump team is trying hard to erase any actual policy from his official platform. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-campaign-memo-signals-plans-reduce-national-gop/story?id=111547663 Abortion is, of course, the big one. But think about the debate. As ineloquent (is that a word? I'm using it because it sounds so ... gentle) as Biden was, we know his prescription for saving social security: eliminate the income ceiling on social security withholding. Did Trump answer the question? Of course not. And he won't. Ever. In 2020 Trump's Republican Convention just re-adopted the 2016 platform. They won't even do that this time. It's "vote for me, I'm Trump, only I can fix it," details to follow, like that long-promised replacement to Obamacare, the plan to end the Russia-Ukraine War even before he's elected, the plan to make Mexico pay for the wall, etc.

Correct. That was shameful. I voted for him. If only the Republican Party hadn't surrendered to Trumpism a mere 4 years later we'd be in a different world today.

Yes, I do think they were far-fetched. I think questions about the debate format were fair, since that format was presumably mostly at the Biden team's urging. It backfired bigly. If they had been allowed to interrupt each other we probably would have had the shouting match of 2020, in which Trump tends to come off worse (and which doesn't give Biden enough quiet time to get confused)