37 Comments

Was it Sam Clemons who said that “There are lies, damned lies and politics.” I think Trump covers the spectrum.

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"There are lies, damned lies, and there are statistics"

Something like that

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You are correct, sir, I was extemporizing.

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we learned it in statistics class lol

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The ads need to very specifically be about his reversals. Not only are they true but they combat the narrative the Trump campaign has decided to run with that Harris has flip flopped on issues. And they need to target conservatives and make them wonder if he’s got their back Sort of like “trump told conservatives he’d cut Medicare and social security but he hasn’t” “no border wall” “he flip flopped on TikTok” etc. “now he’s backing away from his promise to conservatives to ban abortion and IVF” “he’s not for liberals or democracy but now he’s also not for conservatives”? “Who IS this guy for?”

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This reeks of weakness and the Harris/Walz campaign should hammer that 7 days/week. Some people will be fooled by Trump's new position but the Harris/Walz campaign smells blood in the water and is sending their message directly to voters.

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My niece’s daughter, 20 weeks pregnant, recently got a very poor diagnosis and prognosis of the health of her baby. That part of the family is Trump to the core. Otherwise well-intentioned people who have twisted evangelical beliefs and Trump politics into a knot.

The need to find medical care and intervention in their six-week state shook them, and they travelled a thousand miles for life-saving care. For a moment their faith in MAGA politics was shaken.

But I know them. They will swallow this latest lie of Trump’s because they want to believe in him. Yes, I know there are dreadful people who are Trump supporters. But I believe that most are like my niece and her family. Decent, gullible, fervent, and a bit dim about politics.

Lots of Democrats who are Trump/ Biden voters fit that profile. And lots of people who are motivated chiefly to protect women’s right to choose.

These are the voters we are at risk of losing either to Trump or not voting. We need to tailor our messages to them and rely on the campaign to reach them also.

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I'm sorry about your niece's daughter, but I guess I don't understand your point. You said these relatives are "Trump to the core" but also that "we are at risk of losing" them to Trump or not voting. It sounds like they are *already* lost to Trump, and if their own near-tragic situation as a result of a Trump-abortion ban doesn't sway them, I don't know what messaging or outreach by Dems would do. (On the other hand, you as a relative could have more influence over them - perhaps over time - than any random Dem or volunteer.)

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Perhaps you missed the sentence: “For a moment their faith in MAGA politics was shaken.”

But you missed the point ( or perhaps I failed to make it clear) of th 4th paragraph: “Lots of Democrats who are Trump/Biden voters fit that profile. And lots of people who are motivated chiefly to protect women’s right to choose. “

It’s those voters we’re at risk of losing to con-man Trump.

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Read down to Tom's 3rd paragraph. It begins: "But I know them. They will swallow this latest lie of Trump’s because they want to believe in him."

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I can only imagine this same scenario is happening to other at Trumpers who will hang onto any thread of possibility they can continue to believe in him.

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I’m so sorry about your grandniece’s experience! It’s even sadder they can’t change their views about MAGA.

“Decent, gullible, fervent, and a bit dim about politics. “ This describes my MAGA sister and cousins. I would add deep mistrust. It’s almost like Stockholm Syndrome. Their religiosity makes them trust abusers even when the truth is in their face. I guess this is the CULT part of it.

I’ll be deep canvassing in central NJ most Saturdays until election to voters who need to show up this election.

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Never-Trumpers will recognize the outright lies about his newfound support on abortion.

Most Wall-sitters might be skeptical.

Many Evangelicals, however, may just sit out this election cycle due to a perception of traitorous turn-around.

Trump lost more than he gained on this transaction.

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I’m surprised that in this decade of Trump crossing us all with BS that somehow it hasn’t become clear that not only will he say anything, he will say everything.

You know how desperate people will “say anything?” Well Trump is so, SO desperate he will literally say everything. It’s like a Golden Corral buffet with some of everything so that anyone can take a bit of whatever bullshit they want. It enables him to always claim that he walked something offensive back because he inevitably takes opposing positions.

The best thing we can do is wake up swing voters to this. Just because the idiot who bragged that he took down Roe now says that he is for reproductive rights doesn’t make it true. It makes him desperate. If we elect him again he will resume the Handmaids Tale dismantling of women’s rights again without apology and without remorse.

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You are right about the media - starting with Morning Joe, which just covered this. They were skeptical, but didn't really push back or mention that he hadn't (once again) provided specifics. He can't be trusted. His people can't be trusted. The results on the ground (bans and restrictions) are the facts, not his flip-flopping statements. If I won the Mega Millions this week, I'd put up billboards that had a side-by-side that showed "what he said" vs. "what he did".

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Not surprisingly, Trump continues to be a disgusting human being as he tweets and retweets abhorrent insults. Who could possibly support him to be the President of the United States? For the next 67 days, I'm referring to Trump as "The Pervert". I encourage everyone to do the same. What an abomination.

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The Donald’s True Believers don’t believe his story line of the moment. Pushing back is an exercise in futility. Noting that he is a liar may make a point with wavering “undecideds” (wherever you can unmask one). Best to just ignore his latest desperate grab for coverage and comment in the same manner and for the same reason as with a troubled child tossing a loud fit at the checkout counter. Stay calm and carry on. He cannot have more candy unless you relinquish control of the situation.

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I think that’s a great response, Carrie. Just to affirm Dan’s point that the MSM won’t do anything to push Trump on his “positions,” the NPR headline yesterday was something like “Trump clarifies his position on Florida ban“ CLARIFIES?! Now most people on the right would regard NPR as left wing, but I believe they fall into the bucket of credulous, mainstream, both siders. Trump and Vance’s stumbling remarks did absolutely nothing to clarify anything, and that’s the way they want it. Sticking to Kamala Harris’ position and message on the issue of reproductive rights is the best way to go. Then you don’t have to waste time delving into the lies and flip-flops from the Trump team.

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I'm thinking about this up and down the ballot. It seems like a simple way to talk about it is to say:

No matter where we live or what we look like, most of us do not want politicians making decisions about our reproductive organs. Some Republicans are stridently anti-IVF, anti-contraception, and anti-abortion, and believe they have the right to force those views onto everyone else. Some are too afraid to talk about it at all. And some flop around like Inflatable Tube Guy at a shady used car lot. But you don't have to wonder about Harris and the other Democrats on your ballot. They have stood steadfast for our freedom to make our own decisions about if, when, and how to have children.

Or something like that.

Thoughts?

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Just thinkin’ as I watch All The Light We Cannot See on Netflix….about the bombing of St Malo, in Nazi occupied France in WW II.

…why America has held egregiously seditious actors harmless:

Confederates in the Civil War

MAGA folks urging hate, division, alliance with Putin, the end to our democracy, suspension of the US Constitution in alliance with trump, inciting violence, coalescing spontaneously for mass, unbridled intimidation that includes threatening the lives of anyone who comes to their attention as questioning them or calls them to account for their dear leaders malicious and flagrant abuses and lies, and promising brutal violence against these public figures and their families…

…why MAGA folks and especially ordinary Republicans and Independents passively support the promised tyranny which, as evidenced by Nazi Germany, inevitably leads to barbaric, brutal, violent, lethal, catastrophic horrors

…and why the trump campaign and MAGA are not considered a conspiracy to subvert our democracy and therefore a domestic assault on our country and thereby treasonous?

Why are we putting treason to a vote; to the whims of the electorate?

Do we really want to allow a vote to subjugate ourselves in an electoral system that favors the rabid extremist minority? Particularly when extremists on the Supreme Court and in the states are immunizing trump, enabling him to escape accountability, permitting withholding of life saving medical care for women, slow walking calls to end book banning, expanding concealed carry and forcing states to expand access to weapons and most especially expanding voter suppression of Democratic voters — tipping the balance even more in favor of the extremist right wing MAGA movement?

This is, in a word, madness.

Harris Walz is exciting now, but we have got a huge uphill climb against tyranny with major headwinds tripping up our efforts at every turn. We need a massive show if force at the ballot box as we play against a team that lies, cheats, deceives, that cares NOTHING for rules, order or stability and will stop at nothing to grasp for American political power.

We must step up with monumental force at the ballot box. We should not have to work so hard. These dark forces should be stopped by law with all their malicious and subversive actions and intents. But alas, that is not the landscape we face.

We must rise. We must be mighty. We must win.

And if we do, we must work to create a legal, judicial and electoral system that never again allows a convict, or anyone else with malicious intent, and masses of Americans to unabashedly call for the end to our democracy and be permitted, with impunity, to have a pathway at the ballot box to make it so.

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Amen.

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Rule #1: Take everything Don-Old says with a grain of salt. Don’t trust him. Figure he’s lying. No other rules.

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Instagram does not let me share substack or other news articles in the midst of the most consequential election in our country’s history and perhaps in world history. Facebook is the only platform for sharing that I know of.

This 2024 presidential election is not an ordinary, good faith contest between two qualified presidential candidates.

It is a contest between good and evil, democracy and autocracy, freedom vs dominion.

It is another front in the ongoing domestic assault on our nation that trump has relentlessly executed since he began his ironic DESCENT down the escalator in 2015; a faustian descent that has resurrected my long suspended belief in the existence of the devil.

I knew there was evil in the world, but had dismissed the concept of Satan and Hades until trump and his devastatingly dark persona and essence came to infect our daily lives as he plunged us into the living Hell that we have yet to be released from.

Kamala and Tim and Dems offer us a release from this painful, sickening bondage, from this hell on earth. They offer us a commitment to serve the American people well and faithfully; a return to security and stability; a commitment to democracy.

Anyone else irritated by Dana Bash hammering Kamala about changing her position on issues over 5 years time and an equally old comment by Tim Walz when trump changes his positions in the course of a single sentence — dozens of times within a one single, word salad non responsive comment after another? And Kamala and Tim have to answer for ideas and expressions that evolved over multiple YEARS time?

Playing “gotcha” with Kamala and Tim is a cheap shot because they engage in substantive, factual ideas and concepts rather the cascade of lies, deceptions, hostility, grievance, violence, incitement, aggression, scapegoating and ad hominem attacks trump peddles — leaving doubt, instability, division and distrust, skepticism and the utter inability to discern fact from fiction in his wake.

As Kamala said, he is an unserious man. He is an immoral man. He has no substance, no integrity. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a fox guarding the henhouse.

The American people may be attracted to the apparent “strength” of a fox to guard their henhouse. But they might want to consider, at the end of the day, there will be no hen’s left as the fox devours them, one by one.

trump has a voracious appetite for power and wealth and will stop at nothing to gobble up as much power and treasure as he can. He will devour and destroy everything we hold dear, our values, our security, our democracy, our Constitution, our country and everything that stands in the way of his ascension.

Let’s NOT put all we treasure and rely on, our democracy, our weaponry, our alliances, our lives, our children, into the hands of this clever, conniving, unscrupulous and voracious fox; and let’s encourage those we love instead to choose Kamala and Tim and Democrats for the US House and Senate so we can: codify Roe, protect consumers, voters, workers, break up monopolies, continue strengthening our economy and making substantial progress to strengthen our democracy and make sure our economy, our justice system and our elected representatives respond to the overwhelming will of We the People!!

We can demand more of the ultra wealthy, of monopolies and oligarchs, we can rein in crypto and AI, and have a country and an economy that works both for business and the people and that assures the long term survival of our planet for humanity.

We are at a turning point. Let’s not flinch. Let’s not choke…

Let’s roll!!!

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Trump thinks IVF means I'm Very Frightened or, more accurately, I'm Very Fuckef.

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Fucked

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