My personal favorite is "I'm not kidding!", either about something completely apparent, or something I was hoping he was kidding about. These are perhaps for his disastrous off-the-book comments.
I'm not watching the convention because I'm already bored and angry enough on a daily basis as it is. But for those that are watching: is there any reason to assume Biden's speech is actually going to be live? If I was managing his campaign, there's no chance it would be.
I'm looking forward to it but it's going to be so bleak. No audience, just two old, confused men remembering stuff in real time. Good grief. It's going to be a sobering experience for Biden voters who haven't much watched or listened to him lately. Biden really might be better off just skipping it. And I say that as someone who, uh, will not be voting for Donald Trump.
"The question facing each and every of us, man, you know the question. Why do you need me to tell us what the guy is for the time we're in? That's not the place I wanna be, Jack!"
There's no upside to any of these convention speeches being live, right? If I was managing Trump, I'd tape his too. Seems like Trump would be much worse and a bit at sea without an audience giving him feedback. He plays to his crowd well.
Huh. I always feel like he's kind of subdued and sullen when he's on prompter. He kinda has this pouty thing, like it's a punishment he's being forced to do.
That said, may as well admit that there's no way I can watch either guy give an entire speech. I'm grimly looking forward to the worst and weirdest debate whenever that happens but both guys really kind of depress me and make me feel stupider.
lol my wife's appraisal exactly. I said it would be a disaster if it wasn't, playing into the Trump campaign's "he's senile!" theme. So I said it had to be live and it was.
But I hate speeches given with a teleprompter, which is the conclusion I drew after a few minutes. I think he was using one, anyone know for sure? Anyway, I much prefer that if someone is going to use notes - not a bad thing for a long speech! - then just use notes on the lectern. Much more natural and engaging IMO. Those eyes focusing on the prompter... yeck.
Biden was significantly better than I thought he'd be. He's really uneven as a speaker and a debate and especially as an interview subject. Just no idea if he'll even make sense at times. Thought the speech was kind of boilerplate but that that felt noteworthy in contrast to Trump's, uh, unique style.
Cynical cancel culturists might consider trying to understand the distinction between a positive mind-blowing revelation/experience and one that is merely of the negative head-exploding variation; however with
regards to the pre-recording of "these speeches", no such surprise
occured to me.
Thanks for replying to my critical query, and I do hope your "morbid curiosity" was justly appeased.
Felt pretty boilerplate to me. Nothing to get excited about one way or the other. Which is the Biden experience in a nutshell, honestly: mediocre and unispiring at best. Can't believe this is the alternative to Trump. What a world.
I think my local liquor store is going to start to judge me if I participate in these. I previously posted a hypothetical Biden rant in a previous article, which I'll expand on below. Like Matt said, back to business after this so I'll indulge now. "Are you on crack, Jack?! Let me tell you something. I was vice president under, you know...that guy. And guess what, I picked Kam...Kar...Camille for VP because she's just as articulate, even for a black lady. So cut the smack, fat! This is the most historic moment in world history, like when the Normans stormed the beach at Pearl Harbor. So get off your keister on selection sunday and vote for me for senate!"
My tolerance is about thirty seconds; something, synapses, snap. Maybe it's the smarmy contempt for intelligence, as if we're trained seals. Last night I didn't try at all. Are they mentioning oh I don't know, the trashing of Seattle and Portland, the festival of violent crime in NYC, the attacks on speech, running the head of police out of Seattle, Rutgers cancelling the teaching of English grammar . . I'll take glancingly. Is the subtext that none of this exists?
I'm also on "the left," and I agree that some of this should at least be addressed. There are scads of leftists that agree with you on a lot of these points. The polls are starting to resemble the polls from 2016, and if Biden loses, I get the feeling that this may be one of the reasons why.
(We know the RNC is going to focus on this 100% in an obnoxious way, but ignoring that there are some problems right now is a massive tactical error.)
Right wing? I worked for Obama's election. I'm an environmentalist, probably moreso than you. I'm fascinated with the mentality, that anyone who disagrees with, well, you, should be banished with dispatc,h erased from these pages.. Yes, I've come to abhor the party I voted for most of my adult life, because I fear for my country. Sue me. I hate hitting nerves.
I worked on both Obama campaigns and just registered Independent. He was the biggest violator of the Public Charge Law:
WIC February 9 , 2010 USDA informs the Mexican Embassy that an agreement reached between the State Department and ICE, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) food voucher program does not violate immigration laws prohibiting immigrants from becoming a “public charge.”
“SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance.
Construction in Los Angeles has shifted from a heavily unionized labor force that was two-thirds white to a largely non-union one that is 70% Latino and heavily immigrant..American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation.
In June 2009, foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. This went on for 7 years.
The coherent thought here is that your friend Obama fucked over American workers the entire time he was in office, while the Democrats pretended they were big fighters for American labor. Now the party has gone all in on systemic racism, sexism and homophobia in order to silence the ongoing neoliberal plunder of the American working and middle classes.
I do not believe you. You say you worked for Obama's election, yet you are talking fascist nonsense. Why should I believe someone who throws out irrelevant distractions like"the mentality that that anyone who disagrees with, "should be banished with dispatc,h erased from these pages." I never wrote anything remotely resembling that. I never asked for anyone to be banned or censored. I think you are lying.
Sigh. Intellectual diversity Ralph, it's a real thing. Some actually think a variety of thoughts that aren't represented by any one party. And time. Thoughts can change over time.
Of course many, most people aren't lying. But online one can only make the best guess about who is arguing for real and who is just throwing out junk to distract or annoy. I do my best to figure it out. Often I am right. Sometimes I am wrong.
But this is the Salient Point: I'm not the right. And a lot of people I know feel as I do. The party's been hijacked or is sure giving a good impression of being so,by a high degree of lunacy. What are we going to do about that?
Traditional progressivism has been supplanted by intemperate zeal.
It's the height of irony when someone just "blasts" you with convenient labels to ease their anxiety and propaganda fueled fears -hell isn't some abstract feature reserved for an afterlife. It's a major sin to even question the legitmacy of any topic.
If all this Dratman fellow can do is make barking noises, well... what's his opinion really worth?
Well, for one thing, he has created the longest troll I've seen since Usenet days, and that's saying something. (The very longest was a guy who pretended to claim that the Earth was flat.) Many hooks on his line and all with fish flopping about. It's quite an accomplishment.
Thank you. But it's not a troll, at least not in my vocabulary. I am writing genuine comments and I mean every word. Nothing fake or intended only to annoy.
If you are serious -- the answer is, we can't do anything quickly. So we have to elect the non-authoritarian, non-self-dealing-for-personal-profit candidate, that is, Biden, and reject Trump, the mentally unfit.
That was the obvious point of your initial put down. Secondly, I'm the nemesis of your type, nine miles of bad road. I have my own opinions and i'll express them however I choose. You can disagree all you want. Just don't try to shut someone down. You have no right to judge whether I'm lying, or weather my thoughts are "serious" -- by your lights? I'm as serous as a heart attack, Ralph, and that's none of your business. These are all soft harassment techniques to shut people up. To recoup, you maintain that opposition to the following (totalitarian) activities are "fascist":
"[t]he trashing of Seattle and Portland, the festival of violent crime in NYC, the attacks on speech, running the head of police out of Seattle, Rutgers cancelling the teaching of English grammar . "
I am not trying to stop anyone from expressing himself. Go ahead. I am replying cogently to serious comments and dismissively to obviously unserious ones. You are mistake that I "have no right" to judge your arguments or your sincerity. That is just the sort of exchange a comment section is supposed to encourage.
I've done some reading. I think it's repugnant that Hunter Biden was on any foreign board of directors, because taking money from such sources appears to be a clear signal of corruption. That part of the Democrats' story makes me sick.
Standard 'right wing litany'. I'm a socialist without a party, so I've voted for Dems for 25 years. Obama's presidency marked a turning point. We had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency and did exactly JACK SHIT. Why? Because Dems don't work for us. They work for their corporate backers. The possibility of Sanders is so horrific for the corporations that pay for both our parties that they put a clearly cognitively impaired, horrible record, failed presidential runs in the past bc of lying and plagiarism because actual change is not an option with the Dem party. Trump is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. They don't have to do anything but say 'Trump is so horrible! We aren't Trump!". what is their platform besides 'not being Trump'? The horrific Equality Act--a piece of identitarian nonsense that allows males to identify into an female space or provision? I'm a lesbian socialist, and the Dems are corporatists centrists who have no interests or plan of ever representing our interest. Will I vote for Trump? No fucking way. Will I vote for Biden, almost certainly not. They could have earned my vote and still could, but they won't because they want the center and the corporations.
Get a grip. Biden isn't a savior; some of us like funny posts; and you aren't doing anything useful here. You have to laugh sometimes because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't.
Nah... he's given us something to do while we watch the "No Malarkey" train slide to a halt after plowing through an entire "middle class" neighborhood, farmer's market and come to rest on top of a factory people USED to work in before it explodes and destroys everything.
I'm fine with sophomoric humor when the 'top' politicians have not themselves moved beyond high school social dynamics. Matt, reserve grown up content for people and issues that actually deserve it. Looking forward to tonight's Mystery Science Theater treatment of the DNC!
You are conspicuously fiddling while the US burns. (Not that I can bear watching any of that stuff from either party at this stage of my life. If I were required to do so (are you?) I might try some of your shenanigans to stay with it.) But other than such necessity, I think it's stupid and vile to be playing drinking games while the president is sabotaging the post office so we won't be able to vote properly in the upcoming election. Or don't you care?
Ralph is conspicuously replying to Matt Taibbi's drinking-game post when he could be phone banking for Biden. If Biden loses, I'm blaming Ralph's poor decision making.
I’ve tried to take Matt’s posts in the spirit, I want to believe, they were intended. That is, like predicting what my aunts and uncles will say around the Thanksgiving table. Back when people didn’t let politics separate their families—that is, not malicious, or even disagreeing with the overall POV— just laughing at the predictable phrases they will use. However, I was hoping for a response to some of these comments to make clear that he does not honestly believe that Trump deserves the consideration we would give to “just another Republican.” I hate partisan journalism and swapped my Nation subscription for The Economist. I worry about people who blame Trump for every aspect of the pandemic without looking at pre-existing problems with healthcare, federalism and profit motive. But anyone who tries to pretend that deciding between Biden and Trump is an intellectual exercise is blowing hot air or really has no understanding of our political system, the Constitution, separation of powers, history but wants to pretend they do.
I have also tried to follow along with Matt's thinking, with significant misgivings that he is treating the whole situation as a hilariously silly game. What now makes me even more concerned is the strong impression that he is drinking too much as well as the kind of followers who seem to be writing most of the comments here, who certainly sound like right wingers to me.
My understanding of the history of authoritarian governments makes me think Trump is anything like a joke.
First time Trump ignores a Federal judge who enjoins one of his actions, by all means bring out the "authoritarian" take. Until then this is just more hyperventilating crap. Really you people are just ridiculous.
I wait until the next day to stream the conventions. Sat down today ready to have a good laugh. Instead, I was chilled to the bone. I could have been in North Korea.
Oh, he will do just that, and it won’t be until after the election, when it’s too late. In the meantime he used his speech last night to question whether te results of the election can be trusted. Do you recall that he also claimed he had the constitutional right, as president, to adjourn congress and that he flirted with the idea of not leaving office if he lost. How about courting Q-Anon? Basically, armed thugs. He has been going off the rails for some time, but he will use an election win to claim a mandate.
I am waiting to see what he says during the Republican Convention. I have gotten a kick out of his spotlighting the bias of a publication like the NYT that portrays itself as objective. I believe we should approach everything we read with a critical eye, and maybe he thinks the biases on the right are too obvious to have to mention. However, it appears that many commenting here wouldn’t agree—I mean a commenter who supported Sanders now saying he supports Trump. Say wha’. I keep checking back hoping for a comment from Matt saying, hey, guys, that wasn’t exactly my point. A moment so critical to the country’s future, writers have to take responsibility for the effect their words have. Absent some clarification from Matt, I can’t continue my subscription.
Thank you, NanC, for your most helpful comment. I was actually going to stop my subscription too, but I'm glad I did not, because having it gave me an opportunity to reply both to Matt and to the right-wingers who, if not the most numerous, are certainly the most vociferous of his commenters.
I too will be interested to see what Matt says about the Republican convention. He is obviously a most intelligent, even eloquent person, with a fabulous sense of humor. Let's hope he does not succumb to the booze bug, which all the world knows is even more deadly than Covid-19.
More provocation. You think this country is not in trouble? Then you must be writing on a paid basis to disrupt discussion on this supposedly serious forum, which I pay to participate in.
If Biden's the guy to get this country out of trouble - seems unlikely - then you should probably get to work canvassing for him instead of concern trolling here.
Also please see Matt's excellent article on the post office media panic.
I thought that article was a huge disappointment. It seemed to suggest the post office issue was legitimate, but that we need to take it with a grain of salt because the media has been so alarmist about everything that it's hard to take them seriously. Which, sure, fair enough, but assailing the media's hysteria seems to be all Matt is capable of doing these days.
I would have really preferred some level of analysis of the actual allegations -- what's actually happened, what hasn't, what it actually means, etc. Instead we got installment #325 of "hey, did you know the media is sensationalist?" Matt didn't say they were even being sensationalist about the post office thing. The article's position was that we shouldn't listen to the media based on its *past* sins, hence the allusion to the Boy Who Cries Wolf. It's also worth nothing that at the end of that parable, the boy is actually telling the truth.
I don't need Matt to tell me again that the media sucks. I'd like him to apply his considerable talents to actually analyze the issue that the media is reporting.
A scold? I am trying to have a substantive dialog. I only get angry when people post nonsense to make that impossible. As for drinking games, I've seen what alcohol can do to political commentators. The results are not nice.
I'm glad to hear it. But your sweeping statements about peoples' reasons for participating in this game are unfounded. You don't know their reasons. Hence it appears you think all participation is to be denounced. That comes across as kinda like scolding.
In any case, the results of sober political commentators are not generally better.
Now there is a real drunk's response: the results of sober political commentators are not generally better" Yes, they sometimes are. There is no guarantee that a sober commentator will write anything true or interesting. On the other hand a drunk one is far less likely to do either. Just my opinion!
Not a teetotaler. I have a drink once in a while when offered one -- usually wine, and I occasionally order a vodka drink at a restaurant. I am not strongly opposed to some consumption of alcohol.
Dude, Matt Taibbi’s been doing these “DNC drinking game” articles for years. The fact that you’re all aghast about this is why everybody’s fucking with you. Let it go, man. We’re all having fun here (for once). You’re killing our buzz.....
I did not know he had been doing these "for years". I'm just looking at it as if this were the first time I've seen this kind of column. I can't bear to watch any political speech at all, probably for the same reason Matt and many others hate them. And Matt has to watch them, I guess, so drinking might make it more fun. For most of my life I've taken to heart the appeal from the 20th century not to let a fascist takeover happen. If what I write is killing your buzz, go take another drink. Not me.
I do not agree. Playing drinking games now is simply giving in to alcoholism as a way to soothe painful thoughts. A very bad idea indeed. I have seen it ruin other writers and thinkers. That is why Matt wrote, "Start your livers." He is drinking far too much, thereby betraying those of his readers who still care what actually happens.
Matt put out a game to make us laugh and give us a break from the 24/7 outrage machine.
"Start you livers" may have been satire.
I am not speaking for Matt, but i assume that he thinks we are adults with agency. So we can choose to participate in the drinking game with diet pepsi or with 100 proof absinthe.
This is a form of entertainment in a world that is lacking amusement right now.
No one is suggesting that you cannot or even should not do his drinking game. However, I am suggesting that, to put it mildly, Matt is not practicing high quality journalism by so doing. Instead he is sadly telling the world that he has a serious drinking problem.
You really should be making those phone calls, Ralph.
Maybe add a line to your spiel: "In addition to urging you to vote for Biden, I'm also letting you know that alcoholism is a painful disease and it's not the answer to your problems. Help is available.. so after you vote for Biden, please seek professional help to quit drinking."
I see. So joking about all this instead of concentrating on telling the truth about what is going on is just a relief from torturing ourselves? I don't think this is the time for a comic interlude. Nothing is f*cking funny right now. As far as I can see we could all just as well be chuckling and playing drinking games while watching amusing videos of hilarious Kristallnacht. People's lives are at stake!
Lighten up, Francis. You don't want your face to freeze like that. And spare us the false indignation about Kristallnacht. By your own standards, it was a mostly peaceful protest that intensified. Mostly property damage anyways. Not a big deal.
My name is not Francis and you are simply putting up a smokescreen to avoid responding to ANY of the points I have made. You are simply trying to gum up the discussion with insults and irrelevancies. You won't fool me or anyone else with a conscious brain connected to their eyes.
ralph, buddy, it sure comes off like you're out of touch. i read the article and laughed, and didn't drink a drop. nor did i watch the clown show it referred to. but you're making a serious mistake here of confusing a "serious" discussion with dry/humorless/academic discussion. they have some overlap but aren't the same thing at all. clearly, nothing can be said to you if you're missing that basic distinction, but i would be remiss if i did not step in on behalf of the use of humor in making an otherwise banal point fresh. don't take everything so literally.
Yes, I agree, and that's why handing the keys truly and finally back to the Military Industrial Complex is out of the question. You may be fine with people being incinerated because it's only happening to brown people in countries you can't pronounce, but that doesn't make it right that the military should be used to bolster corporate America. You're a racist, plain and simple.
Obama sent 33,000 troops to Afghanistan. he trained and funded the Syrian Rebels embroiling US in the Syrian war. He invaded Pakistan to kill Bin Laden. He was a hawk. Trump cleaned up behind him slowly pulling troops out of Afghanistan, calling a cease fire in Syria long enough to pull Obama's troops out, brokering peace between the Koreas. (and the north has had NO nuclear tests since 2017). A lot of peace agreements are being made in his trail.
The countries that the "Brown" people come from are violent. They come from a culture of violence and do not father their children (67% of births in Mexico are illegitimate).
This is their culture and the culture they wish to instill here. We are in Culture wars not RACE wars.
This is a racist:
“You old white people. It is your duty to die.”
HISPANIC LEADERS SPEAK OUT!
Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets; “Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die … Through love of having children (Anchor Program), we are going to take over.
Are you getting the picture???? Just google Hispanic Leaders speak out and pick your source.
There are some fair points in here, but I would like to humbly and earnestly suggest you lop off that end section from your position. Cherry-picking race-baiting comments from obscure leaders serves no purpose. I could just as easily find some crazy KKK guys who support Trump and post their repugnant comments. It is a distraction from the issues really in play, which I think the first 2/3 of your comment addresses. If you were to provide statements from major Democratic leaders or the DNC platform, I think it would be relevant. But I just looked up this Augustin Cebada (who?) quote. It appears to be at least thirteen years old. I don't think citing to a 13-year-old quote from a guy nobody has heard of and who seems to command no appreciable influence in our current climate helps anything.
"They are not cherry picked". 13 year old? You nthink they have changed. DID you google the rest? Of course not! He's here still and believes the same Just google. Look up La Raza, Sotomayor's group.
This is the program they are using to actualize their plan, "For love of having children" Of course :
In 2003 in Stockton, California, 70% of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospital’s maternity ward were babies of undocumented mothers, and 45% of Stockton children under age six are Latino (up from 30% in 1993). In 1994, 74,987 babies undocumented mothers in California hospital maternity units cost $215 million and constituted 36% of all Medi-Cal [California’s Medicaid program] births. Now [2005] they account for substantially more than half.
52% of the Hispanic families HAVE NO FATHERS. It's the "OPEN LEGS" Anchor program, TAKE OVER. Google "Hispanic Leaders Speak Out". Pick your source.
Several hospitals, including ones in Stockton (40% Hispanic & Bankrupt), CA and Dallas, TX, report as many as 70% of their deliveries are to nonUS-residents. Similarly, the parents of infant citizens still qualify for welfare in order to protect the children
That is just provocation, and a false flag provocation at that. You are pretending to attack from the supposed left. It doesn't fool me. The lives that are at stake are those to follow the 170,000 who already died from Covid-19 in this country, plus those who will die from illness created by having no money for food while they wait for the $300 Trump says he is giving them in lieu of Mitch McConnell sending out the $600 per week as he MUST do but refuses.
Hospitals report fewer heart attacks and strokes amid COVID-19. One recent paper showed that hospital admissions for one type of serious heart attack fell by 38% in nine major U.S. hospitals in March. 42% overall decline in ED visits observed during the early pandemic period.
Deaths not associated with confirmed or probable COVID-19 might have been directly or indirectly attributed to the pandemic. The striking decline in ED visits for acute life-threatening conditions might partially explain observed excess mortality not associated with COVID-19
ralph, why do you ask this question? so you can either immediately discount the person as a rightwing nutjob or search deeply in your soul for some common ground and forgiveness? how is this very sentiment not the root of the problem of our divided country? this is about what is right and reasonable, and both parties are garbage fires right now, so it mostly comes down to personal taste on which kind of trainwreck you prefer. excluding the crazies that are adamant supporters, some say "give me the devil i know..." and some say "lets try something else". you forget that this is probably 70% of the country. not everyone feels as strongly as strong a sense of moral panic about this presidential choice as you do, so it'd be a mistake to read into others choices as having the significance that your pick has to you.
Kritallnacht has been ongoing in Portland for 80+ days, you know Kristallnacht actually was, right? The Nazi regime withdrew police protections for Jewish businesses and their irregulars, their bands of street thugs, took the chance to smash, loot and burn what was clearly a regime-approved target.
Take a good long look at Portland, Seattle, Chicago and other Democrat run cities. Take a good, long look at the three months of rioting that has laid siege to downtown and even residential areas of these cities, with the hands off wink-wink approval of their Democratic mayors, city councils, and the national media organizations.
I live in Chicago. There were two days of looting right when this thing exploded, and then a few scattered incidents here and there. Last weekend was the first weekend since the beginning of all this that was any major unrest. I'm not defending looting or vandalism, not by any means. But I do resent the notion that my city has become some kind of war zone. It hasn't. I was downtown just this weekend and everything looked fine. People were enjoying the city like it was a normal day. Liberal people are downplaying the looting and conservative people are overselling it. None of this will get solved until both sides get honest about what is going on.
I'd like to get hones about what is going on in Chicago, but I don't have any genuine information. Your comment is the first substantive thing I've read on the subject of this summer's looting.
Too many news pieces have become shrill in the age of Trump. It is a kind of shrill that does not convey information. It just hammers on the partisan angle of every story. That was already happening before Trump came onto the scene, but he made it much worse because he always wants to be at the center of attention, whether a news item makes him look good or look bad. Trump is like a class clown who won't calm down and shut up even for five minutes. If I were the teacher of a class Donald was in, I wouldn't hate him, but I would be waiting and watching all the time for an opportunity to get him out of my classroom.
He was in the middle of cleaning up an economic mess when COVID conveniently show up. No one likes cleaning their room. We need to import people who can pay taxes instead of consuming more than they pay.
AND you can turn back everything Trump has done with taxes, foreign policy and regulations, everything but immigration. Opening the borders is the Democrat's plan. But once there here, they become exponential poverty.
Yes, a post characterized by lines like this: " I hate Bezos as much as the next red-blooded American, but Trump’s comments ended up mostly serving as kindling for a later national wig-out." That is not sincere reporting of an actual news story. Or maybe Matt will kick me off this discussion after all. You know, I am paying for the privilege of participating.
Absolute lie. I want no one kicked out of here. You are just using provocation, and I think you are using sock puppet accounts here to look like more than one person. Fraud, lies, that's all you authoritarians know how to do. No actual substantive responses, because you have none.
I want Matt to speak up, of course, not kick people out! Kicking people out is just a ludicrous response to any substantive debate, and even though you don't have that, Matt, please do not kick this person off. Instead, Matt, please comment on all this yourself.
Ralph, it’s not that Biden is such a great candidate or hope for the future. He and the Democrats are pretty tepid and uninterested in changing their ways. Many of the readers Matt has accumulated are more interested in defeating the Democrats than in what happens after that. It’s an easy position to take: hope Trump wins and proves something to Democrats. But who’s really going to lose with that result? It won’t be the powerful.
I agree that these “drinking games” articles are basically useless entertainment. One could be made for just about any politician or convention, so what’s the huge observation here. Implicit in these articles, and the absence of any attention on Trump’s own behavior, leads me to wonder whether these criticisms are a demonstration of the the uselessness of political reporting and commentary.
If you have the luxury of reading and commenting on articles like this, you are not oppressed. I am the first one to include myself in that club. If people have real gripes they’d like addressed, they can get organized and make themselves heard and seen in the halls of power, both corporate and political. Otherwise, they might just as well be complaining about the pitching change in the last baseball game they watched.
Trump is the only Anti-globalist candidate. After Biden, the US will be a foreign nation without a culture or education system. Trumps behavior is questionable. Some of the changes he has made were sorely needed like the curbing of the importation of poverty. NO NEW WARS. manufacturing.
US Manufacturing Soars to 15-Month High: ISM August 3, 2020 Updated: August 3, 2020
Mr. Trump is correct that since he took office, the United States has added more than 10,000 new manufacturing establishments, as measured by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. They are mostly small businesses.
Just a bunch of meaningless paragraphs strung together to look like real information. The whole thing these paid trolls do is to confuse and derail discussion. Just another way to degrade the capabilities of their adversary.
pot calling the kettle black here with claims of insult over substantive response. the above comment to me looks like a series of earnestly made points, but apparently you cant see that because this person appears not to be voting for biden?
"Trump is the only Anti-globalist candidate. After Biden, the US will be a foreign nation without a culture or education system. Trumps behavior is questionable. Some of the changes he has made were sorely needed like the curbing of the importation of poverty. NO NEW WARS. manufacturing"?
Obviously you are not serious. That isn't even human-written text.
Again( for the mentally MATH DEAD) construction and manufacturing is making a comeback far better than the last administration. That's what all those " meaningless paragraphs strung together" mean.
Thank you for your reply. I am not oppressed either, but I am concerned that if Trump wins our republic is likely to collapse in some way. He is simply too destructive. If the republic goes down there could be food shortages, power off and so on. I am not saying this to scare anyone. I am just telling the kinds of thing I am worried about if Trump stays in office. As for Matt Taibbi's drinking game, I hate it. This is a time when sincere people are trying to get us off this runaway train of doom. I am naive enough to still care what happens to this country, the nation I live in.
Many on this site appear to believe that Trump is either part of a “make it worse to make it better” plan or is some avenging populist who will take on the powerful elites for them.
He’s a rather typical populist who plays on people’s hatred of the oligarchy while pressing its agenda further. A magician’s misdirection.
I don’t believe that making it worse will make it better. It will just set things up to be even worse. Yes, the system is corrupt, but honest, accountable reform is the path to better. Trying to smash things and create chaos to make them better ignores history. More chaos and disorder follows.
I don’t know if the party elites have learned a lesson with Trump, but I hope they have and will start addressing the weaknesses in this political and economic system with constitutional processes and rational policies. FDR did that and we had 50 years of decent government.
Living just outside Portland w/ family in the city I've a front row seat to a real time “make it worse to make it better” plan; it's a real thing, throughout history, used at different times by many across the political spectrum. Its point is to delegitimize whatever system is in place at the time.
My read of history is that it works when enough people in the system don't have a thoughtful investment in the system. To them the system is just the way it is. Some (important to them) part of it sucks, the chaos “reveals” its suckage to them, and they get on board with “something must be done!” What a coincidence: the bringers of chaos have the answer.
The newly enlightened have no more thoughtful investment in the new “something” than they have in the old, but its important that they think they do. That's where the head scratchingly absurd conclusions come from (“diversity through segregation” is an example, man I love Matt's way with words!). They don't have a coherent view of how systems really work, but now know they're on the right side to bring about a better one.
To get the appeal simply look at the words all the chaos bringers use to describe the results of their “something.” Fair. Equal. Accountable. Just. Natural – the way mankind is Meant To Be. (My fave, used by commies and fascists alike with a diametrically opposite definition!)
The depressing (kind of...) Truth: in any real life system those words are always aspirational, never actually achieved. Never. Saying it again. Never achieved.
Not a christian, but christianity hit one truth that IMO has made it carry on for as long as it has: I am a sinner and I want to not sin. That's not a contradiction, it IS the human condition. Their answer - I will never achieve that but will always try anyway - is a way that works to relieve the pain of that condition. The systems we create work best when they reflect that: the system sucks and we want it to not suck. We will never achieve that but we will always try anyway.
Much less exciting than building utopia, but meh, that's why we have drinking games!
The President is not sabotaging the post office. He has been trying to streamline it to make it efficient and profitable. He's pointed out that every package Amazon and other large retailers they ship through the PO loses money. It's the demorats that sprung mail in voting at the last minute to create another "crisis". They realize their only hope is to call the validity of the election into question. The fact that they advocate for ending the electoral college, no voter id, dirty voter rolls and mail in in balloting should tell you everything you need to know about their intentions.
Everything you have written is lies and propaganda. I don't know whether you believe this yourself or are only acting as a scribe for someone paying you to do it. If you really believe what you wrote, I can only say you have been badly deceived by propaganda organizations such as Fox News. The fact that you use a term like
"demorats" suggests to me that you are simply a paid troll.
Nope none of the above. What part of what I wrote don't you agree with? It's easy to be dismissive but simply putting a label on it is not an explanation. Yes we're living in an upside down world where there are alternate realities. And looking at the last 4 years it's hard not to conclude that the Democrats lie. Each stage of their attempted sabotage call it a coup have failed.
What you have written is either insincere or deluded. You watch Trump's behavior and blame these major failures of policy on the out-of-power Democrats? It simply makes no sense.
The same "out of power" Democrats that gave us a nonstop siege of Trump's presidency for the past 4 years? Do you have any idea how power actually works in this country?
I answered that a few replies later but I will re-insert that text here:
His stooge removed equipment, cut hours and broadcast well in advance that mail-in ballots would not be delivered in time to be counted. Does he actually have to shut down the whole mail service from now till Election Day to convince you that it is sabotage?
No harm whatsoever. But it is not journalism, and I pay to have access to this, so I have the ability to critique it too. Matt is a very smart man (which is why I subscribe) but I don't understand what he is up to here. I do not get the impression that he is using his brain very effectively at the moment.
Amazon made a deal in 2013 with the Post Office to deliver ONLY Amazon mail on Sundays even though it costs more to higher extra help and pay over time Amazon still pays basic price. They're working the PO workers to death.
Ralph, you are wasting your time with these trolls. They are probably Russian Bots designed to engage you in endless rounds of pointless posting. At some point, they will just tell you Covid 19 is just the flu and masks are dangerous and the earth is really cooling. They call it “owning the libs”. Don’t waste your time.
And it is Democrats who are more communistic. They want to stuff the US with poverty and ignorance and then complain about how it's not being subsidized. They want you to subsidize their voting block.
You may be right, but occasionally I think it is useful to do a verbose, multi-message refutation, not because I care what the paid trolls think but because I want others, including the page administrator, to see that those guys do not really win when someone takes the time and trouble to refute their lies.
And you are defending authoritarian takeover of the US government. I answered about the ballots below but I will repeat the answer here. Who said ballots would not be delivered on time? The post office issued a statement to that effect: Postal Service Warns States It May Not Meet Mail-In Ballot Deadlines ..." it may not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots, ... to continue through Election Day,” Ms. Boockvar said in a statement."
Starve the trolls, Mr. Dratman. Some of these people are true pricks. There’s really no other way to describe them. I’m not happy Biden is the nominee, but you will be able to smile come November, if just a little.
we're talking past each other. the distinction is normal absentee volume, the post office could handle. three months before an election to expect the post office to handle millions of additional ballots as the dems would like is not realistic. and that's not the real issue. in order for a state to switch to all mail in balloting there is a tremendous learning curve, infrastructure and security that needs to be in place. I was an observer for an election and it's not as simple as saying we'll send out tens of millions of ballots and have any believable integrity in the election. that's the real point. i guarantee on November 4th the democrat party will announce they can't determine a winner for the election, states will claim the can't complete the count and the whole thing will be thrown into turmoil and contested. For the last 3+ years it's been one stunt after another all end up exposed for what it is, an attempt to remove Donald Trump.
Jimmy Breslin was criticized once for writing an entire column devoted to his brain surgery, where and why and how it was, who was there and his reactions to having his brain operated on and waking up from same. So someone got mad: your readers don't care about your brain surgery, this is not relevant to the issues of our day. Don't indulge yourself.
Someone else wrote in to the effect that Breslin has been covering the issues of the day for decades and if he wants to write a column about his brain surgery then he's earned the right.
Same as here. You subscribe for the writing but the writing is informed by the personality and if he wants to kick loose once in a while and put up a bingo card, what's the problem? He's not a machine.
Absolutely. And if Matt were only kicking loose once in a while, I would never have written all this. The problem I have is the Matt has taken to attacking the Democrats at moment when we desperately need those same Democrats to kick Trump out of office. Trump and the current incarnation of the Republican Party constitute a clear threat to the survival of the republic. Biden and the Democrats absolutely do not. So when Matt spends much of his time attacking Biden, I think he takes an enormous risk with the existence of the United States as a representative government. Of course the US has done a great deal of evil, war crimes and lynchings that horrify me and disturb my sleep. But compare that with the US power commanded by Trump and there is absolutely no contest. Voter for Biden to unseat Trump. Period. Later, attack Biden if you want. Not now. And Matt should know this, and in fact does know this. That is why I am so confused by what he is writing now. Plus I think he is drinking too much. Now put all this together and you can see my motivation for making a big deal out of a trash-Biden drinking game.
On the other hand, down here in the southern hemisphere, we have a saying "Don't go off the deep end"...which is flippant way of summarising David Hume, the 1700s Scottish philosphers position, in my opinion.
For example:
Hume had at least two opportunities to become a tragic hero and avoid the cheerful end he eventually met. When he was 19, he succumbed to what was known as ‘the disease of the learned’, a melancholy that we would today call depression. However, after around nine months, he realised that this was not the inevitable fate of the wise but the result of devoting too much time to his studies. Hume realised that to remain in good health and spirits, it was necessary not only to study, but to exercise and to seek the company of friends. As soon as he started to do this he regained his cheer and kept it pretty much for the rest of his life.
This taught him an important lesson about the nature of the good life. As he later wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748): ‘The mind requires some relaxation, and cannot always support its bent to care and industry.’ Philosophy matters, but it is not all that matters, and although it is a good thing, one can have too much of it. ‘Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit,’ says Hume, ‘and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you.’ The life ‘most suitable to the human race’ is a ‘mixed kind’ in which play, pleasure and diversion matter as well as what are thought of as the ‘higher’ pursuits. ‘Be a philosopher,’ advised Hume, ‘but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.’
Since Matt has actually interviewed Noam Chomsky for Hate, Inc and most likely agrees with Chomsky's assessment of the Republican Party, I think it is safe to assume his drinking game is a way of letting of steam, as Hume recommended.
That makes sense, and if that is all this is, I am wrong about it. But my problem with Matt's current direction is not only with the drinking game -- much as I dislike it. In fact my bigger problem, which I discussed in the comment just above the one to which I am here responding, is that Matt seems to be tearing down the Democrats and Biden at a time when I think that is not a good idea. Again, I might be wrong, and if so, I hope someone now reading this will explain why I am wrong.
Actually I would almost prefer to be wrong because I have enjoyed Matt's writing so much in the past. But now sometimes he sounds like a right-winger, and he seems to have a bunch of right-wingers in his audience here. So, bottom line, I am confused and very concerned about what Matt has been writing. The signs that he is drinking too much might or might not be related to the way he is writing now.
If he's become a right-winger, it's not because he's changed, but rather that the situation which we all find ourselves in has changed such that the unaligned, or even the only-kind-of-aligned, cannot exist. You're either an out-and-out leftist, or a deplorable cybernazi. And you yourself seem to have fallen into this viewpoint trap based on your narrow reading of Taibbi's content.
Dore is touching on concepts raised by Jose Saramago in his book Seeing:
"...On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to go out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o' clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.
But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? A police superintendent is put on the case.
What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness..."
He certainly is. His stooge removed equipment, cut hours and broadcast well in advance that mail-in ballots would not be delivered in time to be counted. Does her actually have to shut down the whole mail service from now till Election Day to convince you that it is sabotage?
You are defending authoritarian tactics. If that is your intention, go right ahead. But don't try to deceive yourself or me about it. Who said ballots would not be delivered on time? The post office issued a statement to that effect: "Postal Service Warns States It May Not Meet Mail-In Ballot Deadlines ... it may not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots, ... to continue through Election Day,” Ms. Boockvar said in a statement."
The President is not sabotaging the post office. He has been trying to streamline it to make it efficient and profitable. He's pointed out that every package Amazon and other large retailers they ship through the PO loses money. It's the demorats that sprung mail in voting at the last minute to create another "crisis". They realize their only hope is to call the validity of the election into question. The fact that they advocate for ending the electoral college, no voter id, dirty voter rolls and mail in in balloting should tell you everything you need to know about their intentions.
Exactly how do you know that they lose money on those packages? Just because a Trump says it?
The packages they deliver for other shippers are extra volume in the system that may have spare capacity. It may make fiscal sense to make that available at marginal cost to run the system closer to capacity.
Trump claims to “know” stuff, but he puts very little time into acquiring real knowledge. Most of what he knows is wrong, but he’d rather not let go of it because it makes him feel good. He’s a lot like many in his base. They “know” shit but a lot if it is bullshit.
"he puts very little time into acquiring real knowledge."
brought to you by Russia Russia Russia, UkraineGate, Antifa is not real and if it is so what?, Cops are killing record numbers of black men, The only way to fight climate change is to give up nuclear and fund the feel-good unicorn tech made by our business friends, and so on and so forth
Also brought to you by biological sex is not real, gender is a social construct, evolutionary biology is racist and sexist, #shutdownSTEM, we need citation equity in academia, the best way to find out the truth is to hire people based on their skin color, gender and whatever else we deem to be a sacred divine mystery
Also brought to you by cancel wrongthink, fire the wrongtalkers, deplatform the heretics, we need a conversation about race, where we all say the right things.
Everyone knows the best way to acquire real knowledge is to make it very clear that hateful, bigoted liars who don't agree with party orthodoxy will be crushed and driven to suicide.
Are you talking about the WORLD HEALTH CARE that the Dems are offering to anyone who can enter the US? People will be coming from other countries to get their liver and heart transplants paid for by the WORKERS of the US?
We have too much poverty to generate enough revenue to care for EVERYONE in this country.
These are Advanced countries and they don't have Diverse problems
The English colony of Massachusetts enacted the earliest American public charge (WELFARE) laws in 1645. Many colonies protected themselves against public charges through such measures as mandatory reporting of ship passengers, immigrant screening and exclusion upon arrival of designated "undesirables," and requiring bonds for potential public charges (and women with kids).
You forgot Beau. Yes, it's a tragedy that should not be joked about but it is disturbing to me that he finds a need to continually bring this up during a campaign. Both him and his wife.
My cognitive function would be at the same level as Biden’s sober, after 5 minutes.
Taibbi lived in Russia for a long time, he should explain how drinking is done by professionals-and I say this as someone with a proud Ukrainian heritage, with the family drinking stories to prove it!
How many shots for "C'mon man!"?
My personal favorite is "I'm not kidding!", either about something completely apparent, or something I was hoping he was kidding about. These are perhaps for his disastrous off-the-book comments.
I'm not watching the convention because I'm already bored and angry enough on a daily basis as it is. But for those that are watching: is there any reason to assume Biden's speech is actually going to be live? If I was managing his campaign, there's no chance it would be.
“Is there any reason to assume Biden is actually going to be alive?” Fixed it for you.
He was pretty lively in the debate with Bernie. I mean, he lied his ass off but he was fucking confident and visibly breathing the whole time.
I'd like to know what cocktail of drugs they pump into him before letting him loose.
I'm looking forward to it but it's going to be so bleak. No audience, just two old, confused men remembering stuff in real time. Good grief. It's going to be a sobering experience for Biden voters who haven't much watched or listened to him lately. Biden really might be better off just skipping it. And I say that as someone who, uh, will not be voting for Donald Trump.
No. Is it as confusing and/or terrifying as it sounds?
Corollary question: what are the chances his speech will be read in one unbroken take? I propose mandatory drinks at every apparent video cut.
hahaha He'll look like Max Headroom.
Come to think of it.. he already DOES look like Max Headroom; with Aviators.
Biden speech, Take 23.
"The question facing each and every of us, man, you know the question. Why do you need me to tell us what the guy is for the time we're in? That's not the place I wanna be, Jack!"
Would you reveal that is was taped or try to fake it?
Oh, I'm lying to you and saying it was live. Pay no attention to the fact his hair is combed differently in every third shot.
Yeah, I think that's the rub. They want to do it taped but they know he'd get skewered for it and they don't think they can pull of the fake.
There's no upside to any of these convention speeches being live, right? If I was managing Trump, I'd tape his too. Seems like Trump would be much worse and a bit at sea without an audience giving him feedback. He plays to his crowd well.
That's a tougher question for me. Trump is much better (to his base) off prompter than on.
Huh. I always feel like he's kind of subdued and sullen when he's on prompter. He kinda has this pouty thing, like it's a punishment he's being forced to do.
That said, may as well admit that there's no way I can watch either guy give an entire speech. I'm grimly looking forward to the worst and weirdest debate whenever that happens but both guys really kind of depress me and make me feel stupider.
lol my wife's appraisal exactly. I said it would be a disaster if it wasn't, playing into the Trump campaign's "he's senile!" theme. So I said it had to be live and it was.
But I hate speeches given with a teleprompter, which is the conclusion I drew after a few minutes. I think he was using one, anyone know for sure? Anyway, I much prefer that if someone is going to use notes - not a bad thing for a long speech! - then just use notes on the lectern. Much more natural and engaging IMO. Those eyes focusing on the prompter... yeck.
Biden was significantly better than I thought he'd be. He's really uneven as a speaker and a debate and especially as an interview subject. Just no idea if he'll even make sense at times. Thought the speech was kind of boilerplate but that that felt noteworthy in contrast to Trump's, uh, unique style.
"Biden was significantly better than I thought he'd be." Yup, us too.
What happened to "I'm not watching the convention..."?
This might blow your mind, but they tape these speeches. I watched it this morning out of morbid curiosity.
Cynical cancel culturists might consider trying to understand the distinction between a positive mind-blowing revelation/experience and one that is merely of the negative head-exploding variation; however with
regards to the pre-recording of "these speeches", no such surprise
occured to me.
Thanks for replying to my critical query, and I do hope your "morbid curiosity" was justly appeased.
Felt pretty boilerplate to me. Nothing to get excited about one way or the other. Which is the Biden experience in a nutshell, honestly: mediocre and unispiring at best. Can't believe this is the alternative to Trump. What a world.
I think my local liquor store is going to start to judge me if I participate in these. I previously posted a hypothetical Biden rant in a previous article, which I'll expand on below. Like Matt said, back to business after this so I'll indulge now. "Are you on crack, Jack?! Let me tell you something. I was vice president under, you know...that guy. And guess what, I picked Kam...Kar...Camille for VP because she's just as articulate, even for a black lady. So cut the smack, fat! This is the most historic moment in world history, like when the Normans stormed the beach at Pearl Harbor. So get off your keister on selection sunday and vote for me for senate!"
Did we quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? C'mon man!
"Germans?"
"Let him go. He's on a roll."
My tolerance is about thirty seconds; something, synapses, snap. Maybe it's the smarmy contempt for intelligence, as if we're trained seals. Last night I didn't try at all. Are they mentioning oh I don't know, the trashing of Seattle and Portland, the festival of violent crime in NYC, the attacks on speech, running the head of police out of Seattle, Rutgers cancelling the teaching of English grammar . . I'll take glancingly. Is the subtext that none of this exists?
I'm also on "the left," and I agree that some of this should at least be addressed. There are scads of leftists that agree with you on a lot of these points. The polls are starting to resemble the polls from 2016, and if Biden loses, I get the feeling that this may be one of the reasons why.
(We know the RNC is going to focus on this 100% in an obnoxious way, but ignoring that there are some problems right now is a massive tactical error.)
Total right-wing propaganda from "Susan Russell"
Since you replied to her post already and then accused her of lying, perhaps you might consider avoiding behavior that some might consider harassing.
More nonsense
Did you reply to her post already?
Did you accuse her of lying?
Might some people consider multiple replies and accusations of lying harassment?
Don't be ridiculous. No one is harassing anyone here.
I note you failed to answer my questions once again.
Have a blessed day
The standard right-wing litany. Is that what you want here, Matt?
Right wing? I worked for Obama's election. I'm an environmentalist, probably moreso than you. I'm fascinated with the mentality, that anyone who disagrees with, well, you, should be banished with dispatc,h erased from these pages.. Yes, I've come to abhor the party I voted for most of my adult life, because I fear for my country. Sue me. I hate hitting nerves.
I worked on both Obama campaigns and just registered Independent. He was the biggest violator of the Public Charge Law:
WIC February 9 , 2010 USDA informs the Mexican Embassy that an agreement reached between the State Department and ICE, the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) food voucher program does not violate immigration laws prohibiting immigrants from becoming a “public charge.”
https://www.economist.com/n...
“SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance.
https://www.scribd.com/docu...
Construction in Los Angeles has shifted from a heavily unionized labor force that was two-thirds white to a largely non-union one that is 70% Latino and heavily immigrant..American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-construction-trump
In June 2009, foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. This went on for 7 years.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2010/10/29/after-the-great-recession-brforeign-born-gain-jobs-native-born-lose-jobs/#:~:text=In%20the%20year%20following%20the,of%20the%20Pew%20Research%20Center.
I volunteered for the first campaign not the second.
What is the point that you are trying to make? I can't see what all those paragraphs amount to. There seems to be no coherent thought here.
The coherent thought here is that your friend Obama fucked over American workers the entire time he was in office, while the Democrats pretended they were big fighters for American labor. Now the party has gone all in on systemic racism, sexism and homophobia in order to silence the ongoing neoliberal plunder of the American working and middle classes.
So, you're going to vote for Trump?
Probably the point is that you're kind of a cunt.
Scott obviously is a paid troll and has run out of ideas.
I do not believe you. You say you worked for Obama's election, yet you are talking fascist nonsense. Why should I believe someone who throws out irrelevant distractions like"the mentality that that anyone who disagrees with, "should be banished with dispatc,h erased from these pages." I never wrote anything remotely resembling that. I never asked for anyone to be banned or censored. I think you are lying.
I have a new slogan for 2021. Stop Being Cunts.
Pretty catchy, no?
Everyone wins when we all stop being douchebags, Ralph.
Living and working in the UK gave me a great appreciation for "you're a cunt." Man people laughed at my expression the first time I heard it.
More and more insults. They actually know nothing else.
Just stop being a cunt, sir. You'll be less like coal and more like a diamond.
'Cunt' should not be a term of opprobrium, but praise.
Depends if 'effin' precedes it
Sigh. Intellectual diversity Ralph, it's a real thing. Some actually think a variety of thoughts that aren't represented by any one party. And time. Thoughts can change over time.
Oftentimes people really aren't lying.
Of course many, most people aren't lying. But online one can only make the best guess about who is arguing for real and who is just throwing out junk to distract or annoy. I do my best to figure it out. Often I am right. Sometimes I am wrong.
LOL. I'll happily take litany (though it wasn't) over attempts to end dialog.
I have made exactly zero attempts to end dialog.
Yeah, and incessant attempts to *sabotage* dialog.
Par for the course, for your crowd.
When they go infantile like this, *they* should be cancelled!
There we go. Silence the Right!
But this is the Salient Point: I'm not the right. And a lot of people I know feel as I do. The party's been hijacked or is sure giving a good impression of being so,by a high degree of lunacy. What are we going to do about that?
Traditional progressivism has been supplanted by intemperate zeal.
It's the height of irony when someone just "blasts" you with convenient labels to ease their anxiety and propaganda fueled fears -hell isn't some abstract feature reserved for an afterlife. It's a major sin to even question the legitmacy of any topic.
If all this Dratman fellow can do is make barking noises, well... what's his opinion really worth?
Well, for one thing, he has created the longest troll I've seen since Usenet days, and that's saying something. (The very longest was a guy who pretended to claim that the Earth was flat.) Many hooks on his line and all with fish flopping about. It's quite an accomplishment.
Thank you. But it's not a troll, at least not in my vocabulary. I am writing genuine comments and I mean every word. Nothing fake or intended only to annoy.
You see, it's just insults. Nothing substantive. Insults are pointless noise.
Holy irony bypass, Dratman.
If you are serious -- the answer is, we can't do anything quickly. So we have to elect the non-authoritarian, non-self-dealing-for-personal-profit candidate, that is, Biden, and reject Trump, the mentally unfit.
That was the obvious point of your initial put down. Secondly, I'm the nemesis of your type, nine miles of bad road. I have my own opinions and i'll express them however I choose. You can disagree all you want. Just don't try to shut someone down. You have no right to judge whether I'm lying, or weather my thoughts are "serious" -- by your lights? I'm as serous as a heart attack, Ralph, and that's none of your business. These are all soft harassment techniques to shut people up. To recoup, you maintain that opposition to the following (totalitarian) activities are "fascist":
"[t]he trashing of Seattle and Portland, the festival of violent crime in NYC, the attacks on speech, running the head of police out of Seattle, Rutgers cancelling the teaching of English grammar . "
Have fun watching the convention.
I am not trying to stop anyone from expressing himself. Go ahead. I am replying cogently to serious comments and dismissively to obviously unserious ones. You are mistake that I "have no right" to judge your arguments or your sincerity. That is just the sort of exchange a comment section is supposed to encourage.
"self dealing for personal profit" -> let's take a good look at Hunter Biden and where the whole family gets its money from?
I've done some reading. I think it's repugnant that Hunter Biden was on any foreign board of directors, because taking money from such sources appears to be a clear signal of corruption. That part of the Democrats' story makes me sick.
I do not know what Hunter Biden really did that is relevant, and I also do not know where Biden's family gets its money. I will try to find out.
Standard 'right wing litany'. I'm a socialist without a party, so I've voted for Dems for 25 years. Obama's presidency marked a turning point. We had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency and did exactly JACK SHIT. Why? Because Dems don't work for us. They work for their corporate backers. The possibility of Sanders is so horrific for the corporations that pay for both our parties that they put a clearly cognitively impaired, horrible record, failed presidential runs in the past bc of lying and plagiarism because actual change is not an option with the Dem party. Trump is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. They don't have to do anything but say 'Trump is so horrible! We aren't Trump!". what is their platform besides 'not being Trump'? The horrific Equality Act--a piece of identitarian nonsense that allows males to identify into an female space or provision? I'm a lesbian socialist, and the Dems are corporatists centrists who have no interests or plan of ever representing our interest. Will I vote for Trump? No fucking way. Will I vote for Biden, almost certainly not. They could have earned my vote and still could, but they won't because they want the center and the corporations.
Get a grip. Biden isn't a savior; some of us like funny posts; and you aren't doing anything useful here. You have to laugh sometimes because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't.
Taibbi has given us a reason to watch and pay attention.
Nah... he's given us something to do while we watch the "No Malarkey" train slide to a halt after plowing through an entire "middle class" neighborhood, farmer's market and come to rest on top of a factory people USED to work in before it explodes and destroys everything.
I love this non-grownup content Matt, everybody needs a little levity right now.
Matt, I think you missed "challenges someone to a push-up contest" or to "a round of fisticuffs".
I'm fine with sophomoric humor when the 'top' politicians have not themselves moved beyond high school social dynamics. Matt, reserve grown up content for people and issues that actually deserve it. Looking forward to tonight's Mystery Science Theater treatment of the DNC!
This is going to kill you. Eat a big plate of pasta a couple hours ahead of the speech tonight. It just might save your life.
Alcohol can take a long time to kill a person. But eventually, out of control, it certainly will.
You are conspicuously fiddling while the US burns. (Not that I can bear watching any of that stuff from either party at this stage of my life. If I were required to do so (are you?) I might try some of your shenanigans to stay with it.) But other than such necessity, I think it's stupid and vile to be playing drinking games while the president is sabotaging the post office so we won't be able to vote properly in the upcoming election. Or don't you care?
Ralph is conspicuously replying to Matt Taibbi's drinking-game post when he could be phone banking for Biden. If Biden loses, I'm blaming Ralph's poor decision making.
I’ve tried to take Matt’s posts in the spirit, I want to believe, they were intended. That is, like predicting what my aunts and uncles will say around the Thanksgiving table. Back when people didn’t let politics separate their families—that is, not malicious, or even disagreeing with the overall POV— just laughing at the predictable phrases they will use. However, I was hoping for a response to some of these comments to make clear that he does not honestly believe that Trump deserves the consideration we would give to “just another Republican.” I hate partisan journalism and swapped my Nation subscription for The Economist. I worry about people who blame Trump for every aspect of the pandemic without looking at pre-existing problems with healthcare, federalism and profit motive. But anyone who tries to pretend that deciding between Biden and Trump is an intellectual exercise is blowing hot air or really has no understanding of our political system, the Constitution, separation of powers, history but wants to pretend they do.
I have also tried to follow along with Matt's thinking, with significant misgivings that he is treating the whole situation as a hilariously silly game. What now makes me even more concerned is the strong impression that he is drinking too much as well as the kind of followers who seem to be writing most of the comments here, who certainly sound like right wingers to me.
My understanding of the history of authoritarian governments makes me think Trump is anything like a joke.
First time Trump ignores a Federal judge who enjoins one of his actions, by all means bring out the "authoritarian" take. Until then this is just more hyperventilating crap. Really you people are just ridiculous.
Trump says: If I win, I win. If I lose, you cheated.
Then he asks his followers for "12 more years."
And all that is just in his first term! Not authoritarian? Like you are not a paid troll. Or maybe a bot.
I wait until the next day to stream the conventions. Sat down today ready to have a good laugh. Instead, I was chilled to the bone. I could have been in North Korea.
Oh, he will do just that, and it won’t be until after the election, when it’s too late. In the meantime he used his speech last night to question whether te results of the election can be trusted. Do you recall that he also claimed he had the constitutional right, as president, to adjourn congress and that he flirted with the idea of not leaving office if he lost. How about courting Q-Anon? Basically, armed thugs. He has been going off the rails for some time, but he will use an election win to claim a mandate.
I mean "trump is anything but a joke" -- apparently one cannot edit comments here, is that correct?
I am waiting to see what he says during the Republican Convention. I have gotten a kick out of his spotlighting the bias of a publication like the NYT that portrays itself as objective. I believe we should approach everything we read with a critical eye, and maybe he thinks the biases on the right are too obvious to have to mention. However, it appears that many commenting here wouldn’t agree—I mean a commenter who supported Sanders now saying he supports Trump. Say wha’. I keep checking back hoping for a comment from Matt saying, hey, guys, that wasn’t exactly my point. A moment so critical to the country’s future, writers have to take responsibility for the effect their words have. Absent some clarification from Matt, I can’t continue my subscription.
Thank you, NanC, for your most helpful comment. I was actually going to stop my subscription too, but I'm glad I did not, because having it gave me an opportunity to reply both to Matt and to the right-wingers who, if not the most numerous, are certainly the most vociferous of his commenters.
I too will be interested to see what Matt says about the Republican convention. He is obviously a most intelligent, even eloquent person, with a fabulous sense of humor. Let's hope he does not succumb to the booze bug, which all the world knows is even more deadly than Covid-19.
More provocation. You think this country is not in trouble? Then you must be writing on a paid basis to disrupt discussion on this supposedly serious forum, which I pay to participate in.
That's one more phone call you didn't make.
Just plain nonsense. Is anyone here falling for this?
That's one more phone call you didn't make.
You see? Nonsense.
If Biden's the guy to get this country out of trouble - seems unlikely - then you should probably get to work canvassing for him instead of concern trolling here.
Also please see Matt's excellent article on the post office media panic.
I thought that article was a huge disappointment. It seemed to suggest the post office issue was legitimate, but that we need to take it with a grain of salt because the media has been so alarmist about everything that it's hard to take them seriously. Which, sure, fair enough, but assailing the media's hysteria seems to be all Matt is capable of doing these days.
I would have really preferred some level of analysis of the actual allegations -- what's actually happened, what hasn't, what it actually means, etc. Instead we got installment #325 of "hey, did you know the media is sensationalist?" Matt didn't say they were even being sensationalist about the post office thing. The article's position was that we shouldn't listen to the media based on its *past* sins, hence the allusion to the Boy Who Cries Wolf. It's also worth nothing that at the end of that parable, the boy is actually telling the truth.
I don't need Matt to tell me again that the media sucks. I'd like him to apply his considerable talents to actually analyze the issue that the media is reporting.
It is exactly the right time to be playing a drinking game.
You can care, realize the limits of what you can control, and take a break from the 24/7 - 4 year outrage.
We have to start talking to one another again. Laughing, have a drink, mock the silliness of corporate politics.
Life is hard and long. We have done bitter, resentful division for 20 years. Where has it got us?
Maybe a drinking game is exactly what we need right now.
Cheers
> It is exactly the right time to be playing a drinking game.
It's a relatively free country. Drink if you want. Or don't if you don't want. Who cares what a scold like Ralph thinks?
A scold? I am trying to have a substantive dialog. I only get angry when people post nonsense to make that impossible. As for drinking games, I've seen what alcohol can do to political commentators. The results are not nice.
I'm glad to hear it. But your sweeping statements about peoples' reasons for participating in this game are unfounded. You don't know their reasons. Hence it appears you think all participation is to be denounced. That comes across as kinda like scolding.
In any case, the results of sober political commentators are not generally better.
Now there is a real drunk's response: the results of sober political commentators are not generally better" Yes, they sometimes are. There is no guarantee that a sober commentator will write anything true or interesting. On the other hand a drunk one is far less likely to do either. Just my opinion!
Do you hear that? I don't hear it either: What's missing are the sounds of you calling people and urging them to vote for Biden.
Yes we see the results. So how long have you been drinking, Ralph?
Nothing but taunts and insults.
That's what you get for carpet bombing this comment section with your Puritan non-sense.
I read that as "cunt". You're kind of a drip, Ralph... a square, a cunt.
+1
sat•ire săt′īr″►
n.
A literary work in which human foolishness or vice is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
n.
The branch of literature constituting such works.
For example: https://youtu.be/YgYEuJ5u1K0?t=9 😉
Ralph is obviously a teetotaler.
Not a teetotaler. I have a drink once in a while when offered one -- usually wine, and I occasionally order a vodka drink at a restaurant. I am not strongly opposed to some consumption of alcohol.
I am strongly opposed to promoting alcohol abuse.
Dude, Matt Taibbi’s been doing these “DNC drinking game” articles for years. The fact that you’re all aghast about this is why everybody’s fucking with you. Let it go, man. We’re all having fun here (for once). You’re killing our buzz.....
I did not know he had been doing these "for years". I'm just looking at it as if this were the first time I've seen this kind of column. I can't bear to watch any political speech at all, probably for the same reason Matt and many others hate them. And Matt has to watch them, I guess, so drinking might make it more fun. For most of my life I've taken to heart the appeal from the 20th century not to let a fascist takeover happen. If what I write is killing your buzz, go take another drink. Not me.
Nobody wants to drink you... Ralph.
Thanks for the PSA though... now stop being a cunt and go do something productive -like phone banking for Biden.
Take that "No Malarkey" attitude the the streets!!!
I do not agree. Playing drinking games now is simply giving in to alcoholism as a way to soothe painful thoughts. A very bad idea indeed. I have seen it ruin other writers and thinkers. That is why Matt wrote, "Start your livers." He is drinking far too much, thereby betraying those of his readers who still care what actually happens.
My whole point; you can't control anyone else.
Matt put out a game to make us laugh and give us a break from the 24/7 outrage machine.
"Start you livers" may have been satire.
I am not speaking for Matt, but i assume that he thinks we are adults with agency. So we can choose to participate in the drinking game with diet pepsi or with 100 proof absinthe.
This is a form of entertainment in a world that is lacking amusement right now.
No one is suggesting that you cannot or even should not do his drinking game. However, I am suggesting that, to put it mildly, Matt is not practicing high quality journalism by so doing. Instead he is sadly telling the world that he has a serious drinking problem.
Just my opinion! I could be wrong!
Good that you address that possibility, Ralph.
Shouldn't you be making thos phonecalls instead of wasting your morning abd early afternoon here?
Nonsense
I am trying to make clear to anyone who actually wants to know just what is happening here. That could be important for some few serious people.
More nonsense.
> Playing drinking games now is simply giving in to alcoholism as a way to soothe painful thoughts.
Speak for yourself.
I am speaking for myself. Isn't that obvious?
You really should be making those phone calls, Ralph.
Maybe add a line to your spiel: "In addition to urging you to vote for Biden, I'm also letting you know that alcoholism is a painful disease and it's not the answer to your problems. Help is available.. so after you vote for Biden, please seek professional help to quit drinking."
That is, if you take it literally.... I've had alcoholics in the family, so I get your sensitivity about it.
Yes, that's exactly my point. Thank you.
I agree in general but this game in particular is too much...at least for my tolerance levels.
That's right, everyone must stay miserable until Trump is out of power!
I see. So joking about all this instead of concentrating on telling the truth about what is going on is just a relief from torturing ourselves? I don't think this is the time for a comic interlude. Nothing is f*cking funny right now. As far as I can see we could all just as well be chuckling and playing drinking games while watching amusing videos of hilarious Kristallnacht. People's lives are at stake!
Lighten up, Francis. You don't want your face to freeze like that. And spare us the false indignation about Kristallnacht. By your own standards, it was a mostly peaceful protest that intensified. Mostly property damage anyways. Not a big deal.
My name is not Francis and you are simply putting up a smokescreen to avoid responding to ANY of the points I have made. You are simply trying to gum up the discussion with insults and irrelevancies. You won't fool me or anyone else with a conscious brain connected to their eyes.
ralph, buddy, it sure comes off like you're out of touch. i read the article and laughed, and didn't drink a drop. nor did i watch the clown show it referred to. but you're making a serious mistake here of confusing a "serious" discussion with dry/humorless/academic discussion. they have some overlap but aren't the same thing at all. clearly, nothing can be said to you if you're missing that basic distinction, but i would be remiss if i did not step in on behalf of the use of humor in making an otherwise banal point fresh. don't take everything so literally.
Ok, cameron, since you want to call me "buddy," tell me which presidential candidate you are supporting.
what smokescreen? Kristallnacht was described by the Nazi regime exactly how Democrats characterize the actions of their Antifa riot teams.
"People's lives are at stake!"
Yes, I agree, and that's why handing the keys truly and finally back to the Military Industrial Complex is out of the question. You may be fine with people being incinerated because it's only happening to brown people in countries you can't pronounce, but that doesn't make it right that the military should be used to bolster corporate America. You're a racist, plain and simple.
Obama sent 33,000 troops to Afghanistan. he trained and funded the Syrian Rebels embroiling US in the Syrian war. He invaded Pakistan to kill Bin Laden. He was a hawk. Trump cleaned up behind him slowly pulling troops out of Afghanistan, calling a cease fire in Syria long enough to pull Obama's troops out, brokering peace between the Koreas. (and the north has had NO nuclear tests since 2017). A lot of peace agreements are being made in his trail.
The countries that the "Brown" people come from are violent. They come from a culture of violence and do not father their children (67% of births in Mexico are illegitimate).
Could this become the bloodiest year on record?
12 July 2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53332756
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2020/07/06/will-mexicos-government-figure-out-how-to-reduce-violent-crime/#4fb7dbdd3d97
This is their culture and the culture they wish to instill here. We are in Culture wars not RACE wars.
This is a racist:
“You old white people. It is your duty to die.”
HISPANIC LEADERS SPEAK OUT!
Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets; “Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die … Through love of having children (Anchor Program), we are going to take over.
Are you getting the picture???? Just google Hispanic Leaders speak out and pick your source.
There are some fair points in here, but I would like to humbly and earnestly suggest you lop off that end section from your position. Cherry-picking race-baiting comments from obscure leaders serves no purpose. I could just as easily find some crazy KKK guys who support Trump and post their repugnant comments. It is a distraction from the issues really in play, which I think the first 2/3 of your comment addresses. If you were to provide statements from major Democratic leaders or the DNC platform, I think it would be relevant. But I just looked up this Augustin Cebada (who?) quote. It appears to be at least thirteen years old. I don't think citing to a 13-year-old quote from a guy nobody has heard of and who seems to command no appreciable influence in our current climate helps anything.
"They are not cherry picked". 13 year old? You nthink they have changed. DID you google the rest? Of course not! He's here still and believes the same Just google. Look up La Raza, Sotomayor's group.
This is the program they are using to actualize their plan, "For love of having children" Of course :
In 2003 in Stockton, California, 70% of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospital’s maternity ward were babies of undocumented mothers, and 45% of Stockton children under age six are Latino (up from 30% in 1993). In 1994, 74,987 babies undocumented mothers in California hospital maternity units cost $215 million and constituted 36% of all Medi-Cal [California’s Medicaid program] births. Now [2005] they account for substantially more than half.
52% of the Hispanic families HAVE NO FATHERS. It's the "OPEN LEGS" Anchor program, TAKE OVER. Google "Hispanic Leaders Speak Out". Pick your source.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/08/birthright-citizenship-economic-costs-incentives/
Several hospitals, including ones in Stockton (40% Hispanic & Bankrupt), CA and Dallas, TX, report as many as 70% of their deliveries are to nonUS-residents. Similarly, the parents of infant citizens still qualify for welfare in order to protect the children
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-14th_b_1343158
There should be a MORATORIUM on Latinos. 80 million is enough! Check out their procreation rate.
That is just provocation, and a false flag provocation at that. You are pretending to attack from the supposed left. It doesn't fool me. The lives that are at stake are those to follow the 170,000 who already died from Covid-19 in this country, plus those who will die from illness created by having no money for food while they wait for the $300 Trump says he is giving them in lieu of Mitch McConnell sending out the $600 per week as he MUST do but refuses.
Why must Mitch McConnell send out $600 a week. I'm sure if you were willing to provide the money, he'd be happy to do so.
Do you have the money? Will you offer it up to your country for the good of the many?
I hope everyone who cares and is reading this sees that this is nothing more than provocation. I will not take such nonsensical bait.
CDC days COVID numbers are padded:
Hospitals report fewer heart attacks and strokes amid COVID-19. One recent paper showed that hospital admissions for one type of serious heart attack fell by 38% in nine major U.S. hospitals in March. 42% overall decline in ED visits observed during the early pandemic period.
Deaths not associated with confirmed or probable COVID-19 might have been directly or indirectly attributed to the pandemic. The striking decline in ED visits for acute life-threatening conditions might partially explain observed excess mortality not associated with COVID-19
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925e2.htm
More than 859,000 Americans die of heart disease, stroke, or other cardiovascular diseases every year—that’s one-third of all US deaths.
https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/heart-disease-stroke.htm#:~:text=More%20than%20859%2C000%20Americans%20die,productivity%20from%20premature%20death%20alone
This is not real discussion, just bulking up a comment empty of actual content.
This is all part of the SCREAMING WOLF.
Since you are getting serious, please tell me which presidential candidate you are supporting.
ralph, why do you ask this question? so you can either immediately discount the person as a rightwing nutjob or search deeply in your soul for some common ground and forgiveness? how is this very sentiment not the root of the problem of our divided country? this is about what is right and reasonable, and both parties are garbage fires right now, so it mostly comes down to personal taste on which kind of trainwreck you prefer. excluding the crazies that are adamant supporters, some say "give me the devil i know..." and some say "lets try something else". you forget that this is probably 70% of the country. not everyone feels as strongly as strong a sense of moral panic about this presidential choice as you do, so it'd be a mistake to read into others choices as having the significance that your pick has to you.
I bet you're fun at parties.
Kritallnacht has been ongoing in Portland for 80+ days, you know Kristallnacht actually was, right? The Nazi regime withdrew police protections for Jewish businesses and their irregulars, their bands of street thugs, took the chance to smash, loot and burn what was clearly a regime-approved target.
Take a good long look at Portland, Seattle, Chicago and other Democrat run cities. Take a good, long look at the three months of rioting that has laid siege to downtown and even residential areas of these cities, with the hands off wink-wink approval of their Democratic mayors, city councils, and the national media organizations.
I live in Chicago. There were two days of looting right when this thing exploded, and then a few scattered incidents here and there. Last weekend was the first weekend since the beginning of all this that was any major unrest. I'm not defending looting or vandalism, not by any means. But I do resent the notion that my city has become some kind of war zone. It hasn't. I was downtown just this weekend and everything looked fine. People were enjoying the city like it was a normal day. Liberal people are downplaying the looting and conservative people are overselling it. None of this will get solved until both sides get honest about what is going on.
I'd like to get hones about what is going on in Chicago, but I don't have any genuine information. Your comment is the first substantive thing I've read on the subject of this summer's looting.
Too many news pieces have become shrill in the age of Trump. It is a kind of shrill that does not convey information. It just hammers on the partisan angle of every story. That was already happening before Trump came onto the scene, but he made it much worse because he always wants to be at the center of attention, whether a news item makes him look good or look bad. Trump is like a class clown who won't calm down and shut up even for five minutes. If I were the teacher of a class Donald was in, I wouldn't hate him, but I would be waiting and watching all the time for an opportunity to get him out of my classroom.
I will do that.
He was in the middle of cleaning up an economic mess when COVID conveniently show up. No one likes cleaning their room. We need to import people who can pay taxes instead of consuming more than they pay.
AND you can turn back everything Trump has done with taxes, foreign policy and regulations, everything but immigration. Opening the borders is the Democrat's plan. But once there here, they become exponential poverty.
is this a serious comment? geesh, no sense of humor, three shots immediately.
Ralph, what's to stop us from focusing on both these things at the same time?
Incidentally, Matt did post an article on the post-office situation not 48 hours ago. Not sure if you missed it, but you can't say he doesn't care.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-press-that-cried-wolf
Yes, a post characterized by lines like this: " I hate Bezos as much as the next red-blooded American, but Trump’s comments ended up mostly serving as kindling for a later national wig-out." That is not sincere reporting of an actual news story. Or maybe Matt will kick me off this discussion after all. You know, I am paying for the privilege of participating.
LOL. You are the one who wants people kicked out of here...the irony is precious
Absolute lie. I want no one kicked out of here. You are just using provocation, and I think you are using sock puppet accounts here to look like more than one person. Fraud, lies, that's all you authoritarians know how to do. No actual substantive responses, because you have none.
LOL. Sock puppets?
You need more tinfoil.
As to whether you want anyone kicked out of here, was it not you who said
"The standard right-wing litany. Is that what you want here, Matt?"
What was the purpose of that comment if not to encourage Matt to silence standard right wing litany (as you see it)?
I want Matt to speak up, of course, not kick people out! Kicking people out is just a ludicrous response to any substantive debate, and even though you don't have that, Matt, please do not kick this person off. Instead, Matt, please comment on all this yourself.
Ralph, it’s not that Biden is such a great candidate or hope for the future. He and the Democrats are pretty tepid and uninterested in changing their ways. Many of the readers Matt has accumulated are more interested in defeating the Democrats than in what happens after that. It’s an easy position to take: hope Trump wins and proves something to Democrats. But who’s really going to lose with that result? It won’t be the powerful.
I agree that these “drinking games” articles are basically useless entertainment. One could be made for just about any politician or convention, so what’s the huge observation here. Implicit in these articles, and the absence of any attention on Trump’s own behavior, leads me to wonder whether these criticisms are a demonstration of the the uselessness of political reporting and commentary.
If you have the luxury of reading and commenting on articles like this, you are not oppressed. I am the first one to include myself in that club. If people have real gripes they’d like addressed, they can get organized and make themselves heard and seen in the halls of power, both corporate and political. Otherwise, they might just as well be complaining about the pitching change in the last baseball game they watched.
Trump is the only Anti-globalist candidate. After Biden, the US will be a foreign nation without a culture or education system. Trumps behavior is questionable. Some of the changes he has made were sorely needed like the curbing of the importation of poverty. NO NEW WARS. manufacturing.
US Manufacturing Soars to 15-Month High: ISM August 3, 2020 Updated: August 3, 2020
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-manufacturing-soars-to-15-month-high-ism_3448101.html?ref=brief_News&utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb&__sta=vhg.uosvpxfbhatvsaq%7CJUT&__stm_medium=email&__stm_source=smartech
Mr. Trump is correct that since he took office, the United States has added more than 10,000 new manufacturing establishments, as measured by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. They are mostly small businesses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/politics/fact-check-trump-economy.html
Jan 17, 2020 - US housing starts soared nearly 17% in December to a 13-year high, according to a Friday release from the Census Bureau. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/housing-starts-dip-36-in-january-but-permits-hit-13-year-high-2020-02-19
Bloomberg is financing the Democratic party.
Just a bunch of meaningless paragraphs strung together to look like real information. The whole thing these paid trolls do is to confuse and derail discussion. Just another way to degrade the capabilities of their adversary.
pot calling the kettle black here with claims of insult over substantive response. the above comment to me looks like a series of earnestly made points, but apparently you cant see that because this person appears not to be voting for biden?
Earnestly made points such as
"Trump is the only Anti-globalist candidate. After Biden, the US will be a foreign nation without a culture or education system. Trumps behavior is questionable. Some of the changes he has made were sorely needed like the curbing of the importation of poverty. NO NEW WARS. manufacturing"?
Obviously you are not serious. That isn't even human-written text.
Thank You!
More facts than you've presented in your last TDS-infested posts, bud.
What is TDS please.
Again( for the mentally MATH DEAD) construction and manufacturing is making a comeback far better than the last administration. That's what all those " meaningless paragraphs strung together" mean.
Thank you for your reply. I am not oppressed either, but I am concerned that if Trump wins our republic is likely to collapse in some way. He is simply too destructive. If the republic goes down there could be food shortages, power off and so on. I am not saying this to scare anyone. I am just telling the kinds of thing I am worried about if Trump stays in office. As for Matt Taibbi's drinking game, I hate it. This is a time when sincere people are trying to get us off this runaway train of doom. I am naive enough to still care what happens to this country, the nation I live in.
Many on this site appear to believe that Trump is either part of a “make it worse to make it better” plan or is some avenging populist who will take on the powerful elites for them.
He’s a rather typical populist who plays on people’s hatred of the oligarchy while pressing its agenda further. A magician’s misdirection.
I don’t believe that making it worse will make it better. It will just set things up to be even worse. Yes, the system is corrupt, but honest, accountable reform is the path to better. Trying to smash things and create chaos to make them better ignores history. More chaos and disorder follows.
I don’t know if the party elites have learned a lesson with Trump, but I hope they have and will start addressing the weaknesses in this political and economic system with constitutional processes and rational policies. FDR did that and we had 50 years of decent government.
Living just outside Portland w/ family in the city I've a front row seat to a real time “make it worse to make it better” plan; it's a real thing, throughout history, used at different times by many across the political spectrum. Its point is to delegitimize whatever system is in place at the time.
My read of history is that it works when enough people in the system don't have a thoughtful investment in the system. To them the system is just the way it is. Some (important to them) part of it sucks, the chaos “reveals” its suckage to them, and they get on board with “something must be done!” What a coincidence: the bringers of chaos have the answer.
The newly enlightened have no more thoughtful investment in the new “something” than they have in the old, but its important that they think they do. That's where the head scratchingly absurd conclusions come from (“diversity through segregation” is an example, man I love Matt's way with words!). They don't have a coherent view of how systems really work, but now know they're on the right side to bring about a better one.
To get the appeal simply look at the words all the chaos bringers use to describe the results of their “something.” Fair. Equal. Accountable. Just. Natural – the way mankind is Meant To Be. (My fave, used by commies and fascists alike with a diametrically opposite definition!)
The depressing (kind of...) Truth: in any real life system those words are always aspirational, never actually achieved. Never. Saying it again. Never achieved.
Not a christian, but christianity hit one truth that IMO has made it carry on for as long as it has: I am a sinner and I want to not sin. That's not a contradiction, it IS the human condition. Their answer - I will never achieve that but will always try anyway - is a way that works to relieve the pain of that condition. The systems we create work best when they reflect that: the system sucks and we want it to not suck. We will never achieve that but we will always try anyway.
Much less exciting than building utopia, but meh, that's why we have drinking games!
How specifically is the President sabotaging the USPS?
The President is not sabotaging the post office. He has been trying to streamline it to make it efficient and profitable. He's pointed out that every package Amazon and other large retailers they ship through the PO loses money. It's the demorats that sprung mail in voting at the last minute to create another "crisis". They realize their only hope is to call the validity of the election into question. The fact that they advocate for ending the electoral college, no voter id, dirty voter rolls and mail in in balloting should tell you everything you need to know about their intentions.
Everything you have written is lies and propaganda. I don't know whether you believe this yourself or are only acting as a scribe for someone paying you to do it. If you really believe what you wrote, I can only say you have been badly deceived by propaganda organizations such as Fox News. The fact that you use a term like
"demorats" suggests to me that you are simply a paid troll.
Nope none of the above. What part of what I wrote don't you agree with? It's easy to be dismissive but simply putting a label on it is not an explanation. Yes we're living in an upside down world where there are alternate realities. And looking at the last 4 years it's hard not to conclude that the Democrats lie. Each stage of their attempted sabotage call it a coup have failed.
What you have written is either insincere or deluded. You watch Trump's behavior and blame these major failures of policy on the out-of-power Democrats? It simply makes no sense.
Drat, man. You are incredibly tedious.
The same "out of power" Democrats that gave us a nonstop siege of Trump's presidency for the past 4 years? Do you have any idea how power actually works in this country?
I answered that a few replies later but I will re-insert that text here:
His stooge removed equipment, cut hours and broadcast well in advance that mail-in ballots would not be delivered in time to be counted. Does he actually have to shut down the whole mail service from now till Election Day to convince you that it is sabotage?
@ralph are you going to answer specifically on these questions:
What percentage of equipment was removed?
How many hours were reduced?
How does either of those vary from the recent (last 10 years) past?
Who said ballots would not be delivered in time?
In these uncertain times, dude, what’s the problem with having a laugh and a few drinks during an utterly predictable DNC convention? Lighten up, guy.
No harm whatsoever. But it is not journalism, and I pay to have access to this, so I have the ability to critique it too. Matt is a very smart man (which is why I subscribe) but I don't understand what he is up to here. I do not get the impression that he is using his brain very effectively at the moment.
Amazon made a deal in 2013 with the Post Office to deliver ONLY Amazon mail on Sundays even though it costs more to higher extra help and pay over time Amazon still pays basic price. They're working the PO workers to death.
http://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/postal-employee-killed-on-sunday-while-delivering-packages-for-amazon/
Does this really sound like a BOT? Amazon should bail out the PO. Not the Taxpayers bail out AMAZON!
Could you slow down and just explain what you have written? I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
Ralph, you are wasting your time with these trolls. They are probably Russian Bots designed to engage you in endless rounds of pointless posting. At some point, they will just tell you Covid 19 is just the flu and masks are dangerous and the earth is really cooling. They call it “owning the libs”. Don’t waste your time.
You are free to try to craft a better answer than Ralph if you like.
Absolutely right.
Ha Russian bots seems to be the go to accusation why you don't like the answer. See my post above.
And it is Democrats who are more communistic. They want to stuff the US with poverty and ignorance and then complain about how it's not being subsidized. They want you to subsidize their voting block.
What a bunch of stupid lies.
You may be right, but occasionally I think it is useful to do a verbose, multi-message refutation, not because I care what the paid trolls think but because I want others, including the page administrator, to see that those guys do not really win when someone takes the time and trouble to refute their lies.
I answered your answer below as well.
You are hyperventilating over precisely nothing.
And you are defending authoritarian takeover of the US government. I answered about the ballots below but I will repeat the answer here. Who said ballots would not be delivered on time? The post office issued a statement to that effect: Postal Service Warns States It May Not Meet Mail-In Ballot Deadlines ..." it may not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots, ... to continue through Election Day,” Ms. Boockvar said in a statement."
Authoritarian Takeover? Didn't Joe Biden have many fingers in the whole Patriot Act pie?...
Yes the USPS did issue that statement. Do you know why they did it?
Is this a guessing game? Don't be absurd. If you think you know why, say so! Again, more efforts to ruin the dialog with delays and complexities.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-biden-wrote-patriot-act# ~ And look who's there with #CreepyJoe!
Starve the trolls, Mr. Dratman. Some of these people are true pricks. There’s really no other way to describe them. I’m not happy Biden is the nominee, but you will be able to smile come November, if just a little.
we're talking past each other. the distinction is normal absentee volume, the post office could handle. three months before an election to expect the post office to handle millions of additional ballots as the dems would like is not realistic. and that's not the real issue. in order for a state to switch to all mail in balloting there is a tremendous learning curve, infrastructure and security that needs to be in place. I was an observer for an election and it's not as simple as saying we'll send out tens of millions of ballots and have any believable integrity in the election. that's the real point. i guarantee on November 4th the democrat party will announce they can't determine a winner for the election, states will claim the can't complete the count and the whole thing will be thrown into turmoil and contested. For the last 3+ years it's been one stunt after another all end up exposed for what it is, an attempt to remove Donald Trump.
Jimmy Breslin was criticized once for writing an entire column devoted to his brain surgery, where and why and how it was, who was there and his reactions to having his brain operated on and waking up from same. So someone got mad: your readers don't care about your brain surgery, this is not relevant to the issues of our day. Don't indulge yourself.
Someone else wrote in to the effect that Breslin has been covering the issues of the day for decades and if he wants to write a column about his brain surgery then he's earned the right.
Same as here. You subscribe for the writing but the writing is informed by the personality and if he wants to kick loose once in a while and put up a bingo card, what's the problem? He's not a machine.
Absolutely. And if Matt were only kicking loose once in a while, I would never have written all this. The problem I have is the Matt has taken to attacking the Democrats at moment when we desperately need those same Democrats to kick Trump out of office. Trump and the current incarnation of the Republican Party constitute a clear threat to the survival of the republic. Biden and the Democrats absolutely do not. So when Matt spends much of his time attacking Biden, I think he takes an enormous risk with the existence of the United States as a representative government. Of course the US has done a great deal of evil, war crimes and lynchings that horrify me and disturb my sleep. But compare that with the US power commanded by Trump and there is absolutely no contest. Voter for Biden to unseat Trump. Period. Later, attack Biden if you want. Not now. And Matt should know this, and in fact does know this. That is why I am so confused by what he is writing now. Plus I think he is drinking too much. Now put all this together and you can see my motivation for making a big deal out of a trash-Biden drinking game.
I can see both sides.
Noam Chomsky supports Ralph's view that the Republican Party is one of the most dangerous organisations in world history https://www.alternet.org/2017/04/requiem-american-dream-chomsky-trump-republican-dangerous/
On the other hand, down here in the southern hemisphere, we have a saying "Don't go off the deep end"...which is flippant way of summarising David Hume, the 1700s Scottish philosphers position, in my opinion.
For example:
Hume had at least two opportunities to become a tragic hero and avoid the cheerful end he eventually met. When he was 19, he succumbed to what was known as ‘the disease of the learned’, a melancholy that we would today call depression. However, after around nine months, he realised that this was not the inevitable fate of the wise but the result of devoting too much time to his studies. Hume realised that to remain in good health and spirits, it was necessary not only to study, but to exercise and to seek the company of friends. As soon as he started to do this he regained his cheer and kept it pretty much for the rest of his life.
This taught him an important lesson about the nature of the good life. As he later wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748): ‘The mind requires some relaxation, and cannot always support its bent to care and industry.’ Philosophy matters, but it is not all that matters, and although it is a good thing, one can have too much of it. ‘Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit,’ says Hume, ‘and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you.’ The life ‘most suitable to the human race’ is a ‘mixed kind’ in which play, pleasure and diversion matter as well as what are thought of as the ‘higher’ pursuits. ‘Be a philosopher,’ advised Hume, ‘but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.’
https://aeon.co/essays/hume-is-the-amiable-modest-generous-philosopher-we-need-today
Since Matt has actually interviewed Noam Chomsky for Hate, Inc and most likely agrees with Chomsky's assessment of the Republican Party, I think it is safe to assume his drinking game is a way of letting of steam, as Hume recommended.
Just my $0.02 worth.
That makes sense, and if that is all this is, I am wrong about it. But my problem with Matt's current direction is not only with the drinking game -- much as I dislike it. In fact my bigger problem, which I discussed in the comment just above the one to which I am here responding, is that Matt seems to be tearing down the Democrats and Biden at a time when I think that is not a good idea. Again, I might be wrong, and if so, I hope someone now reading this will explain why I am wrong.
Actually I would almost prefer to be wrong because I have enjoyed Matt's writing so much in the past. But now sometimes he sounds like a right-winger, and he seems to have a bunch of right-wingers in his audience here. So, bottom line, I am confused and very concerned about what Matt has been writing. The signs that he is drinking too much might or might not be related to the way he is writing now.
I just don't know.
If he's become a right-winger, it's not because he's changed, but rather that the situation which we all find ourselves in has changed such that the unaligned, or even the only-kind-of-aligned, cannot exist. You're either an out-and-out leftist, or a deplorable cybernazi. And you yourself seem to have fallen into this viewpoint trap based on your narrow reading of Taibbi's content.
I think, from what I can see, many progressive people are getting frustrated due to some of the points Jimmy Dore raises here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiJkdCkOQco
Dore is touching on concepts raised by Jose Saramago in his book Seeing:
"...On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to go out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o' clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.
But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? A police superintendent is put on the case.
What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness..."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47667.Seeing
Is the president sabotaging the post office though?
He certainly is. His stooge removed equipment, cut hours and broadcast well in advance that mail-in ballots would not be delivered in time to be counted. Does her actually have to shut down the whole mail service from now till Election Day to convince you that it is sabotage?
What percentage of equipment was removed?
How many hours were reduced?
How does either of those vary from the recent (last 10 years) past?
Who said ballots would not be delivered in time?
You are defending authoritarian tactics. If that is your intention, go right ahead. But don't try to deceive yourself or me about it. Who said ballots would not be delivered on time? The post office issued a statement to that effect: "Postal Service Warns States It May Not Meet Mail-In Ballot Deadlines ... it may not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots, ... to continue through Election Day,” Ms. Boockvar said in a statement."
That doesn't sound like an answer to a single one of the questions I asked.
Would you care to try again?
As to the USPS statement, do you know why they made it?
Just more riddles. He hopes I am might take time and trouble to reply to nonsense.
C'mon man!
Ok, where are we going?
Return to sender. (With all due respect)
Nice concern troll. Matt has an approximation of zero influence over the proceedings of the election.
The President is not sabotaging the post office. He has been trying to streamline it to make it efficient and profitable. He's pointed out that every package Amazon and other large retailers they ship through the PO loses money. It's the demorats that sprung mail in voting at the last minute to create another "crisis". They realize their only hope is to call the validity of the election into question. The fact that they advocate for ending the electoral college, no voter id, dirty voter rolls and mail in in balloting should tell you everything you need to know about their intentions.
Exactly how do you know that they lose money on those packages? Just because a Trump says it?
The packages they deliver for other shippers are extra volume in the system that may have spare capacity. It may make fiscal sense to make that available at marginal cost to run the system closer to capacity.
Trump claims to “know” stuff, but he puts very little time into acquiring real knowledge. Most of what he knows is wrong, but he’d rather not let go of it because it makes him feel good. He’s a lot like many in his base. They “know” shit but a lot if it is bullshit.
"he puts very little time into acquiring real knowledge."
brought to you by Russia Russia Russia, UkraineGate, Antifa is not real and if it is so what?, Cops are killing record numbers of black men, The only way to fight climate change is to give up nuclear and fund the feel-good unicorn tech made by our business friends, and so on and so forth
Also brought to you by biological sex is not real, gender is a social construct, evolutionary biology is racist and sexist, #shutdownSTEM, we need citation equity in academia, the best way to find out the truth is to hire people based on their skin color, gender and whatever else we deem to be a sacred divine mystery
Also brought to you by cancel wrongthink, fire the wrongtalkers, deplatform the heretics, we need a conversation about race, where we all say the right things.
Everyone knows the best way to acquire real knowledge is to make it very clear that hateful, bigoted liars who don't agree with party orthodoxy will be crushed and driven to suicide.
how can you tell a person who has been locked down due to pandemic too long and needs attention? Three guesses but you will only need one.
Here is an idea... Go cast your vote in person...
I think it's far out that Biden is bringing back "malarkey."
Yeah, groovy.
I don't remember malarkey being part of the hippie vernacular And I used to be one. Please, no Okay Boomers.
At least he's not a boomer.
This platform is INSANE
Tare down Border wall, abolish ICE, E-Verify: Where 2020 Democrats
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/immigration/
Stop Deportations
https://dignityplan2020.com/stop-deportations
Stop Deportations on DAY 1:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-all-deportations-on-day-1
End Migrant Detention If Elected
Let them walk into the US.
https://www.newsweek.com/2020-presidential-candidates-migrant-detention-end-1447145
Amnesty for illegal immigrants
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/if-biden-is-elected-and-democrats-land-the-senate-majority-priority-one-is-immigration-and-likely-amnesty/
Abolish "Public Charge Law"
Give all unauthorized and authorized immigrants WELFARE
Biden thinks this is a Trump Rule when it's actually a LAW. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) was enacted in 1952 BY Congress.
https://www.arlnow.com/2020/06/11/statutes-of-liberty-election-2020-former-vice-president-bidens-immigration-proposals/
Can't get worked up about any of this. The fact the party won't get behind universal healthcare in a pandemic, on the other hand, is a complete joke.
Are you talking about the WORLD HEALTH CARE that the Dems are offering to anyone who can enter the US? People will be coming from other countries to get their liver and heart transplants paid for by the WORKERS of the US?
We have too much poverty to generate enough revenue to care for EVERYONE in this country.
These are Advanced countries and they don't have Diverse problems
Working —————— Welfare Population
Switzerland 65%——---W 3.3%
Finland - 71% ——-—-W 11%
Norway - 51% ——— -W 16%
Denmark - 50% ——- -W 12%
US. - 39%. —————-W 21.3% https://www.census.gov/news...
"Richer countries more likely to be homogenous." The more ethnically homogeneous the more successful.
https://www.washingtonpost....
Any budget they construct to offer this will be pure fantasy.
You sound hysterical, man. Not really gonna do this with you. Have a good afternoon.
The mere mention of a budget and he freaks out. LMAO!
This is why Democrats always get slaughtered in the first midterm after they win the Presidency.
The Public Charge laws are older than that. They date back to 1882 as part of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The English colony of Massachusetts enacted the earliest American public charge (WELFARE) laws in 1645. Many colonies protected themselves against public charges through such measures as mandatory reporting of ship passengers, immigrant screening and exclusion upon arrival of designated "undesirables," and requiring bonds for potential public charges (and women with kids).
Watching the Political grandstanding since 2015 is like seeing a procession of all the worst things a gynecologist has ever seen.
NO MALARKEY!!! hahaha
You forgot Beau. Yes, it's a tragedy that should not be joked about but it is disturbing to me that he finds a need to continually bring this up during a campaign. Both him and his wife.
It's a cheap play for sympathy. So awful.
I have a visceral distrust of politicians who tell sad personal stories. It's manipulative behavior at its worst.
Jesus Christ, Matt. That list would destroy all of Larry Hagman's livers at once.
My cognitive function would be at the same level as Biden’s sober, after 5 minutes.
Taibbi lived in Russia for a long time, he should explain how drinking is done by professionals-and I say this as someone with a proud Ukrainian heritage, with the family drinking stories to prove it!