The Real timschochet

If Trump is re-elected you’ll get your trains. They will be filled with undocumented immigrants and those suspected of being undocumented immigrants and they will be sent to detention camps last used to imprison Japanese Americans .

So far as I am aware, every sentence in your first paragraph is a complete and total lie.

Trump just announced he will pardon all those serving time for Jan 6 https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/12/trump-january-6-pardons In the past he only said he would pardon the non-violent ones. Oh well. Guess he needs some extra Brownshirts?

Watching the hearings this morning while getting ready for work. This appears to be another major embarrassment for Republicans. Hur is contradicting the idea that Biden did anything wrong and the Democrats are expertly highlighting the differences between his cooperation with the feds and Trump’s refusal to do so (which is the reason that Trump was indicted.) Of course the main reason that Hur was called to testify was to continue the suggestion that Biden is senile. Of course this meme was destroyed by the SOTU speech last week so now it just looks idiotic. One other thing nobody has mentioned: this hearing, Hur’s first, is in public. What happened to the insistence, when it came to Hunter Biden, that there was always a closed door hearing first? Thats forgotten when they think they have a friendly witness. And when is Hunter going to testify in public anyhow? And when are they going to impeach Biden which they’ve been promising for months? This is the worst most impotent most useless Congress in my lifetime. And that’s saying something.

I’m actually feeling less sorry for her since I wrote that because I wasn’t aware at the time how dishonest her story was.

Mike Florio just announced that Russell Wilson is coming to the Steelers. Not in love with this move. But it’s 1 year for 1.2 million which is nothing. I hope it works out.

Maybe so. But I do try to have limits. For instance if I knew that your wife suffered from alcoholism or some other disease, I wouldn’t bring it up in a political argument with you. And if I discovered personal information about you on the internet, I wouldn’t post it for other people to read. Because that really would fall into the a$$hole category, wouldn’t it?

1. He didn’t beg for forgiveness. He said it was a mistake. It was. A person can commit illegal actions. A person cannot be illegal. That’s what the Nazis did. We should never do that here. It’s a term designed to be collective and demeaning and bigoted. 2. Biden didn’t call half the nation fascist. But Donald Trump is an authoritarian who wants to bring Viktor Orban’s form of government here. There are many conservatives in this country who apparently wouldn’t mind that. They need to be called out. 3. The one point you didn’t mention in your other thread is that populism is bad. It brings out the worst in people: ugliness, fear, bigotry, laziness, and evil. Whether it has been used by the left wing or the right it has brought nothing but misery all throughout history. It means mob rule, the opposite of freedom and it usually leads to dictatorship. Something to keep in mind.

What concerns me is that I believe many Trump supporters are actually attracted by his cruelty, and this has been true since 2015. It’s an ugly, dark side of our culture, and it’s closely related to the fact that many folks on the right think it’s OK that Trump wants to be a dictator, because they WANT a dictator. The other day, in his admiration for Viktor Orban, Trump said that Orban isn’t controversial because he’s the boss and whatever he says goes. This comment alone should scare the hell out of anyone who cares at all about freedom in this country and retaining our democratic republic. Yet it doesn’t scare the Trump supporters. They applaud, which makes me think that this is what they want.

My point wasn’t that you shouldn’t vote for Trump over Biden. I get that you will, for policy reasons. I don’t approve of your reasons, but that’s up to you. My point also wasn’t whether or not Biden is a bad person. I don’t think he is, and you and I can disagree on that question. But that’s not the topic here. My sole point is that, whatever else you think of him, Donald Trump is a major a$$hole and not a good guy, not someone you would want to know personally. Do you agree with this point?

Just unbelievable. You make genuine points at times in defense of your positions, though I usually strongly disagree with you. But here you are trying to excuse the inexcusable and it’s simply shameful. You remind me of Lindsay Graham, honestly.

I remember when in 2016 Trump mocked the reporter with cerebral palsy and the MAGA fans spent years trying to explain that away, that it wasn’t what we thought we saw. Will they do that with this one too? Seriously I will ask again: how can any decent person actually like Donald Trump? (If you choose to respond, this question is about Donald Trump. It is not about Joe Biden or anyone else,)

What does this even mean?

Trump mocks Biden’s stutter: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5109610/president-trump-mocks-stuttering Even if you like this guy’s policies, how can you not think he’s a total a$$hole?

I understand. But I would think the libertarian issue would be reluctant to agree to government placing restrictions on expressions of free speech no matter how vile you find them.

Two days after the State of the Union I still think that Biden did a great job. But did it change anything? Who knows? Public perception is so hard to measure.

The root principle is allowing individuals as much freedom as responsible and respecting human dignity.

I know you won’t get this but the celebration of drag queens comes from the same principle that allows us to morally scold China. The two are intertwined.

OK I watched it. Thank you for posting it. Here are my thoughts. 1. I disagree strongly with his main point: though the problems he lists are very real, I truly believe that overall America is greater now than it was during his father and uncle’s time, with far less problems. I believe, for example, any black, Hispanic, gay, transgender, etc. would prefer to live in 2024 America than in 1963 America. I think this also especially true of women (though most of them might prefer to erase the last two years since the Dobbs decision.) But this constant nostalgia for the past hides the reality that in almost every way our lives are better now. 2. There is one aspect he mentioned of the past that I know will resonate with a lot of people: how it used to be that only one member of the household could provide for the entire family. What he doesn’t explain is that this was a historical anomaly based on our plunder of cheap energy after World War II. It was never true before that time and it only lasted about 30 years. It may become true again if we can ever harness nuclear fusion. 3. I don’t like his overall tone, so similar to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, of blaming the “elites” for our problems. Joe Biden may be an “elite”, whatever that means. Barack Obama certainly was not. Who cares? I like their policies (not all of them, but most). I think they’re good for America. I think they strengthen us. 4. 2024 is a binary election between Biden and Trump. This guy has no chance. Voting for him in a red or blue state is meaningless but voting for him in a swing state may help Trump and I don’t want to help Trump. I believe Donald Trump represents an existential threat to our democratic republic. I don’t care if RFK Jr or you or anyone else is sick of hearing that; I think it’s true and literally almost nothing else matters. 5. Finally it’s hard for me to take this guy seriously given his constant lies about the Covid vaccines. He has literally contributed to the deaths of millions by spreading these lies. I also believe, based on previous comments, that he is a conspiracy nut and an anti-Semite. It’s not this country that JFK and RFK wouldn’t recognize, it’s RFK, Jr. they wouldn’t recognize. (Or to be more accurate, they would recognize him as sounding a lot like his grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, who was also a conspiracy nut and a Jew hater.) I sincerely wish he’d go away.

Before I watch the video, let me respond to your comments. If you haven’t seen it I would urge you to watch Ken Burns’ “The US and the Holocaust”- it’s available on the PBS app. One of the points it makes is that prior to Pearl Harbor, and even past it, this nation had the same divides that it has now. There were those who strongly opposed FDR’s economic, cultural and social changes to the country and said they no longer recognized the United States. They opposed refugees, immigration, and our aid to England and France. Nevertheless when Pearl Harbor was attacked these same folks united behind the President and fought bravely for this country. You see Voltaire I don’t believe you. I think if America was attacked today, ala Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and if you were called upon, you’d fight to defend this country. I think your love for this country is deeper than you claim, deeper than your disdain for certain aspects of our culture. So yeah I think you would get out of bed. Now I’ll watch the video.

I’m feeling a little sorry for Katie Britt today. She’s just getting torched. She was truly awful but it’s not an easy job.

I could quote the immortal words of Tanner Boyle describing the makeup of the Bad News Bears. I won’t though. But that’s the idea.

This has been pretty much true throughout history. Sadly no country accepts immigrants without resistance. No country on Earth has been willing to accept a changes to their racial makeup without great hostility. This includes the United States, but we are unique in that we are mainly a country of immigrants and it is in our DNA to welcome them. That doesn’t mean we always do. All throughout our history there have been bigots and racists like you who are hostile to the newbies. Donald Trump is only the latest in a long line of demagogues who have used this issue to pursue power- unfortunately he has been one of the most dangerous. Even so we have defeated all of our demons in the past and we will this time as well. It’s one of the major reasons this country is the greatest in the history of human civilization.

Biden is giving a speech right now in Georgia. He sounds really energetic.

Russell Wilson is going to visit with the Steelers. I actually like Wilson but this doesn’t make sense to me unless we’ve completely given up on the two guys on the roster. I haven’t.