US Politics, December 2017: I guess there’s always 2018

In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was

I just watched the first 10 minutes of that debate on youtube, and the disturbing thing is Reagan seems far more cognitively together, far better at putting a complicated sentence together than Trump has been in the past I don't know how many interviews. Although in the case of Trump, I'm still wondering whether it's dementia or just a case of being a complete moron

why not both

First debates are never good for the incumbent; they look distracted, respond defensively, and act irritably (think Obama, Bush II, Poppy too). Reagan only looks unusually ruffled in the second half.

Schmidt responds:

During our conversation in July, I learned the challenges this president poses in interviews. He can jump from an issue like the Russia investigation to a policy matter before going off on a tangent about something like his golf game. If you try to interrupt him, he often continues talking. Given this, I employed a strategy in which I asked questions about the most pressing issues of his presidency and then allowed him to talk.

Some readers criticized my approach, saying I should have asked more follow-up questions. I believed it was more important to continue to allow the president to speak and let people make their own judgments about his statements. It was the best way to learn as much as possible about the president’s mind-set and his views on issues like North Korea.

times now has a separate "fact check" piece on their own interview pointing out a number of the totally false statements made by the president. i guess putting this information in the publication of the interview itself is just too complicated.

just watched a bit of the Reagan/Mondale debate, he's super on point compared to Trump

that debate is Lincoln-Douglas compared to the last dozen years. Mondale was pretty damn good, very far from a fuddy-dudd.

tbf, that "getting the interview" essay probably revealed more of the president than the interview itself.

btw, the lot-drawing to break the legislative tie in Virginny is BACK ON!

also the Admin has dropped its attempt to block trans troops, at least for now.

Hello.

So the “coffee boy” whose main qualification was Model UN effectively sparked the entire Russia investigation. Just incredible. https://t.co/9ah69w4NpV?amp=1

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 30, 2017

greeks and their big mouths

Hilarious.

Don’t go drinking with Australians unless you’ve been practicing.

there is something poignant in the air about the older man with the real hair who served with distinction as a marine taking down the posterboy for silverspoon assholes with the fake hair

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/special-counsel-offered-publicly-signals-long-year-ahead/story?id=52049373

Mueller killed kids for lbj huh

bsab so eat your own

Mr. Papadopoulos, then an ambitious 28-year-old from Chicago

Had no idea he was from here. Wonder if there is a connection with that crazy Chicago freelancer who was reportedly working with a Russian cutout to get dirt on Clinton, and then later killed himself?

false alarm. still hillary's / dem's fault

http://img.fark.net/images/cache/full/C/CW/fark_CWajSdlOMxhHohe-R7V9hLApKaM.jpg?t=CxUzcfkXE-YE7SBVXcxmiQ&f=1514782800

Trump found an “oppressive regime “ he doesn’t like. No shock, it’s Iran. He and his twitter followers are convinced of course that his vocal support for protesters there will work better than Obama’s quieter methods.

Two new pieces of fuckery:

the DOT has declared the deal they had with the governors of NY and NJ to pay 50% of the costs of rebuilding the Hudson River train tunnel, one of the most heavily traveled train routes in the US, null and void; and

the Interior Department is rolling back safety rules put in place after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

this must be the great infrastructure plan we've been waiting for this entire infrastructure week

Yeah, who would have guessed the goal of his infrastructure plan would be to make American infrastructure weaker. Savvy operator, that Trump.

Keeps us on our toes.

we need to cripple that liberal outpost, NYC, in order to make america again

I'm sure a certain kind of Republican agrees!

NYC hated Orange Don first

Some echoes here of my feelings about the stock-as-fuck "Cletus Safari":

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/media-trump-country_us_5a449e8ae4b025f99e199ef8?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

That's funny. I've actually never heard the term "Cletus Safari," which I like almost I much as I liked the Idaho militia people getting tagged Y'all Qaeda.

Have we had an actually helpful piece on all the supporters apparently changing their mind, as reflecting in the polls that show how far even his numbers have dropped over the last year? Or maybe that gets filed under those pieces I've scanned where people like him but don't support him or support him but don't like him or don't like or support him but still want to give him some time.

Cletus safari was invented here iirc?

It wasn’t nevermind

hello, hello, hello how lowwwwww

I thought you were humming "Hello" by the Beloved.

all the supporters apparently changing their mind, as reflecting in the polls that show how far even his numbers have dropped over the last year

Those people exist but I don't think they can be located and interviewed.

Trump's approval declines because some of the people on the "Trump Train" were only on it because they reflexively vote Republican. They could stomach Trump (with whatever degree of enthusiasm) because they aren't capable of voting for Democrats at all (let alone for Clinton). People who voted for Trump a year ago and are now disappointed with him DO exist, but they're not the sort of people who are going to go talk to a reporter in a diner about it.

The Cletus Safari, always and everywhere, will only locate diehards, because those are the people who want to talk about it.

YMP otm. On Friday night I was reminding my brother in law that Nixon still had well over a 20% approval rating on the day he left office. It was shamefully easy to find voters who insisted Watergate was a ginned-up partisan witch hunt over nothing, because "you know as well as I do that everyone does it, and it's no big deal".

New York "Failing" Times going hard at Trump, just spotted this in my inbox

NYTimes.com »

TOP STORIES
President Trump has brought a reality-show accessibility to a once-aloof office, invigorating voters who felt alienated by the establishment
Sunday, December 31, 2017 2:11 PM EST

I was reminding my brother in law that Nixon still had well over a 20% approval rating

yeah if 100% of the people that voted for him never back down that's a bottom floor of ~25% of the population. only about half the country voted at all and we are at a 20 year low in turnout because the two party system just keeps offering worse and worse candidates.

a general approval poll will include a whole bunch of people that didn't vote at all and thus only add statistical noise to the proverbial crystal ball. the two-party system deludes us into thinking half the country supports something when in reality even at his peak it was probably like 1 in 4 people. so not only are polls that ask about general approvals more or less meaningless they are misleading as well.

only about half the country voted at all and we are at a 20 year low in turnout because the two party system just keeps offering worse and worse candidates.

citation needed

"In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was"

i lived in louisville for ten years, i can't blame reagan for this at all

Actually, Turrican is right insofar as the Davis-Murray years go from 1976 to 1971. And only one album was recorded in Berlin.

Nice wrong thread response.

From 1976 to 1971?

Carlos Alomar for prez 2020

Turrican / Gabbneb 2028

US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"