As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
In a news item entitled, "On weekend dedicated to war dead, Trump tweets insults, promotes baseless claims and plays golf," Washington Post writer Anne Gearan fills in what the headline refers to:
He made little mention of the sacrifice Americans honor on Memorial Day or the grim toll of the virus.
What an utterly worthless p.o.s.In fact, Trump’s barrage of social media attacks stood in sharp contrast to a sober reality on a weekend for mourning military dead — the number of Americans whose lives have been claimed by the novel coronavirus has eclipsed the combined total of U.S. deaths from wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, deep in the dystopia otherwise known as Trump Country, you have this unstable loon:
The husband of the woman who leads the Reopen NC movement says people should be willing to kill, if necessary, to resist the “New World Order” and emergency orders imposed by state government to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Adam Smith posted a string of Facebook Live videos on Facebook on Friday, May 22, 2020 that culminated with a chilling threat.
“But are we willing to kill people? Are we willing to lay down our lives?” he asked. “We have to say, ‘Yes.’ We have to say, ‘Yes.’ Is that violence? Is that terrorism? No, it’s not terrorism. I’m not trying to strike fear in people by saying, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ I’m gonna say, ‘If you bring guns, I’m gonna bring guns. If you’re armed with this, we’re going to be armed with this.’” [snip]
“This is a test,” he continued. “This is seeing if we are ready to accept the mark of the beast, if we are ready to accept this New World Order system they want to implement over humanity.”As the article goes on to point out, Smith also belongs to the neo- Nazi "boogaloo" movement, whose main goal is to start a racial civil war. Look for these neo- Nazi seditionists to continue to ally themselves with the various "open" movements, which by any other nomenclature is "Trump's base."
Michelle Goldberg writes about the revelation earlier this week (part of an FX movie, "AKA Jane Roe," that debuted Friday) that Norma McCorvey (the "Roe" of "Roe v Wade") lied about her conversion from pro- choice icon to pro- life shill, for money, respect and attention. It's a complicated story:
It was a cultural coup for the right when McCorvey publicly turned against legal abortion. Jane Roe rejecting Roe v. Wade was something abortion opponents could throw in the faces of pro-choice activists. So it is a bombshell that McCorvey has revealed, in the posthumous new documentary “AKA Jane Roe,” that it was, at least in some sense, an act. “I am a good actress,” she said. [snip]
In the documentary’s final 20 minutes, McCorvey, who died of heart failure in 2017, gives what she calls her “deathbed confession.” She and the pro-life movement, she said, were using each other: “I took their money, and they put me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say, and that’s what I’d say.” [snip]
Contemplating McCorvey’s deeply sad trajectory, I find it hard to hold her betrayals against her. The author of the Vanity Fair article, Joshua Prager, nailed it when he wrote, “McCorvey has long been less pro-choice or pro-life than pro-Norma.” But given all her disadvantages, someone had to be. She may have been a con artist for much of her life, but at one crucial moment she was a heroine. Some issues aren’t just black and white.What isn't so complicated is the moral bankruptcy of the "pro - life" movement, which was eager to use a damaged woman for their grubby, sham religiosity. That's the real message in this story.
We posted a Fox "News" poll earlier this week showing Joe Biden kicking the orange shitgibbon's ass. As many of us are dubious of polling this far out, we thought an explainer by Harry Enten as to why 2020 looks very different than 2016 would be good:
Almost any time I explain that Biden's leading Trump, someone will inevitably bring up "but what about 2016." That's why this week marks an important milestone for the Biden campaign.
It's one of the first times during the election year that Biden was clearly running ahead of Hillary Clinton's 2016 pace in the matchup against Trump. [snip]
Biden notably hasn't trailed in a single live interview poll this entire year.
Although Clinton would regain some of her advantage in June 2016, the fact that the race became so close at this point four years ago was an indication that the electorate was somewhat unsettled. It showed that under the right circumstances, Clinton could lose nationally, or, at the very least, that Trump could come close enough nationally to win in the electoral college.
Biden's lead, of course, is the steadiest of all time. His lead has never fallen to just a point or anywhere close. It's been consistently at or right around 6 points, as it was this week. If you were to create a 95% confidence interval around the individual 2016 and 2020 polls, the 2016 race was about 1.5 times as volatile up to this point.
But it's not just the margin that is important to examine. Look at the vote percentages.
The reason Biden's lead is so wide compared to Clinton's is that he's running a little more than 5 points ahead of where Clinton was in terms of vote percentage. Biden is at slightly greater than 48%, while Clinton was a little less than 43%.
Democrats are united, pissed off, and eager to reclaim the White House and Senate. They won't have any enthusiasm problem come November 3. But we must work our asses off between now and then for victory.Even when Clinton's lead widened in June, she never got to 48% in the polls. She had to pick up a lot more late-deciding voters for her lead to feel secure than Biden will likely need to.
As always, we highly recommend you visit Infidel 753's link round-up for the best collection of links to interesting posts from around the internet.
