Slouching Towards Oblivion

Monday, March 18, 2024

He Said It

Kinda funny how the gang who loves Trump because he "speaks his mind - he says what he means" is frequently going to great lengths to explain that he didn't mean it that way.


Trump says things the way he says things on purpose. He wants his army of devotees to cover his ass, but he knows there are some who'll pick up on it as a signal to start some shit. And the bonus is that it can scare some of the normies just enough to alter their behavior - to keep them on the sideline out of his way.

That's how Stochastic Terrorism works - kinda disappointing that Snopes doesn't address that.



Did Trump Say It Will Be a 'Bloodbath for the Country' If He Doesn't Get Elected?

Claim:
At a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, on March 16, 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump said: "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country."

Rating:
Correct Attribution

Context:
The context of the remark suggests Trump was predicting an "economic bloodbath" for the country, not a literal one, if he loses the 2024 presidential election.

On March 16, 2024, the hashtag "#bloodbath" trended sharply on social media in the wake of a Dayton, Ohio, campaign speech earlier that day by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump stirred up controversy by claiming that if he didn't get elected for another presidential term, "It's going to be a bloodbath for the country."

A video recording of the speech from C-SPAN provides proof that he said exactly those words, which many partisan observers, such as the author of the X (formerly Twitter) post below, interpreted as a threat of post-election violence:



The post above linked to an article on Occupy Democrats, a left-wing website, which pushed the "violent bloodbath" interpretation of Trump's words even as it acknowledged that, as the author put it, the context left "wiggle room" for interpretation. What was that context? Broadly speaking, it was economic. Trump was in the middle of talking about the U.S. automobile industry and the country's trade imbalance with China (emphasis added):

China now is building a couple of massive plants where they're going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they're going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.

Let me tell you something, to China, if you're listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal — those big, monster car-manufacturing plants that you're building in Mexico right now, and you think you're going to get that, you're going to not hire Americans, and you're going to sell the cars to us?

No, we're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected. Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that's going to be the least of it, it's going to be a bloodbath for the country, that'll be the least of it. But they're not going to sell those cars, they're building massive factories.

As some social media users pointed out in lengthy threads debating what Trump really meant, popular dictionaries like Merriam-Webster include "major economic disaster" as a secondary meaning of "bloodbath."

Ultimately, however, "bloodbath for the country" is an ambiguous figure of speech, and Trump has a controversial history of using violence-tinged language in reference to political opponents, which, even if the intent was metaphorical, sarcastic or just to get media attention, makes it unsurprising that his use of the phrase "bloodbath for the country" drew instant public criticism.

Trump spoke about trade tariffs with China at a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, on March 16, 2024.

That's A Little Better

Just a little.

I don't think a politician should have a fan base. It helps when people believe they can be more or less confident that a politician can do the job, and that they line up with him ideologically - again, more or less. But we can't walk around expecting "our guy" to do exactly what we want him to do. And we sure as hell shouldn't be following that politician with any level of blind loyalty.

We have to do some growing up when it comes to how we think about politics and the politicians who're asking us for our votes. We seem to be too willing to accept an all-or-nothing proposition - like if the candidate isn't 100% in step with us on every issue every time, we're going to plop ourselves down in the corner and pout.

And we have to understand that there are things going on - aspects of the decision making process - that we don't get to know about.

So anyway, I've bitched about 'the polling' for a while, and I get the feeling that maybe the pollsters are starting to get hip to their own shortcomings, recognizing they may be just a tiny bit out of touch, because their methods are just a tiny bit outdated, and their questions are too often so generalized as to be meaningless - and don't get me started on why there's never a fucking followup question.

eg:
OK, so you're dissatisfied with Biden's performance - why?
a. he's doing the wrong things 
b. he's doing the right things, but I want him to do more




Donald Trump Stung as New Poll Shows How Unpopular He Is

Donald Trump continues to have a low favorability score among Americans, new polling shows, despite being the likely Republican nominee after winning the lion's share of primaries and seeing off his only remaining rival.

An ABC News/Ipsos survey of 536 U.S. adults, conducted between March 8-9, found that 29 percent have a favorable view of the former president compared to 59 percent who view him unfavorably.

It came after Trump secured all but one of the primaries on Super Tuesday—giving him 1,075 out of 1,215 delegates he needs to become the presumptive Republican nominee—which prompted former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley to drop out of the race to leave him unopposed. Primaries being held on Tuesday could push Trump over the line.

Own a home? You might be upper classREAD MOREOwn a home? You might be upper class
Trump's popularity has remained largely unchanged since last summer. In similar polls conducted last year, which have a margin of error of 4.5 percent either way, he has hovered around a 30 percent favorability rating.

That rating dipped to 25 percent—with 61 percent viewing him unfavorably—at the start of April last year, immediately after he became the first president in U.S. history to be indicted with criminal charges, which he denies, in New York.

Newsweek approached the Trump campaign via email for comment on Monday.

The same ABC/Ipsos poll found that President Joe Biden, who is on course to be renominated by the Democratic Party, is also viewed as similarly unpopular, though his unfavorability rating is slightly lower.

Some 33 percent viewed the incumbent favorably to 54 percent who viewed him unfavorably. In November, a similar poll put his unfavorability rating at 50 percent with his favorability unchanged, while in prior polls the two ratings have modulated around the same numbers.

Neither candidate is viewed as more popular than unpopular, recent polling has consistently shown, with more people disapproving of both than approving. Analysts have said that both will struggle to entice voters to turn out for the election due to their disenchantment with the choice of candidates.

The latest ABC/Ipsos poll found that 36 percent thought Trump was trusted to do a better job as president to 33 percent who thought Joe Biden would—but 30 percent thought neither would.

The two candidates have been running neck and neck in national polls, with just a few percentage points separating them.

Trump may suffer from becoming the first former president to now face four criminal trials—which he claims are politically motivated—which are due to take place while he is campaigning for the 2024 election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

At the same time, Biden, already the oldest serving president in U.S. history at 81, has faced concerns about his age and mental acuity over a number of public gaffes, which Republicans have used to imply Biden is unfit to continue as president for another term.

If re-elected, he would be 86 by the end of his second term. But the president has brushed off queries about his physical and mental health, telling a news conference in February that his "memory is fine" and "I know what the hell I'm doing."

Recent polling also shows that nearly half of U.S. adults think Trump, 77, is too old to serve another term, and the former president has also faced questions about his mental agility.

Biden has been criticized for his approach to undocumented immigration into the U.S. and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Around two thirds of voters disapproved of his handling of immigration and the Middle Eastern conflict, the ABC/Ipsos poll found.

Some of this dissent has come from Democrats who have threatened not to vote for the president over the situation in Gaza. However, political scientists have suggested Biden's base will hold their nose over the issue when faced with the prospect of a Trump victory.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Poor Rudy


Look, if you can blow tens of thousands each month on your condo, and Netflix, and Audible, and Uber - you can pay what you owe to Rube and Shay.

Fuckin' deadbeat.


Creditors demand Rudy Giuliani sell his $3.5 million Florida condo to pay debts

Creditors want to force Rudy Giuliani to sell his $3.5 million Florida condo to help pay his significant debts, according to a court document filed on Friday.

The former New York City mayor filed for bankruptcy protection in December, citing myriad unpaid debts including a $148 million payment to two Georgia election poll workers who he falsely claimed had tampered with the 2020 election ballots while he was serving as a lawyer for former President Donald Trump.

In response to Friday’s filing, Giuliani’s counsel said the request to sell the Florida condo is “extremely premature.”

“The case is still in its infancy,” said Heath Berger, partner at Berger, Fischoff, Shumer, Wexler & Goodman, LLP, who is representing Giuliani in his bankruptcy litigation.

Giuliani has argued that he does not have the funds to pay his debts, the Friday court filing said: “According to the Debtor’s counsel, ‘there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.’”

Giuliani’s primary income comes from Social Security payments and money from his Individual Retirement Account, Berger told CNBC.

But the court document cited various expenses Giuliani pays now to maintain his lifestyle.

For example, Giuliani spends tens of thousands of dollars a month to maintain his Florida condo. In January, according to the document, he also racked up more than $26,200 in credit card payments on 60 Amazon transactions, with charges for Netflix, Prime Video, Kindle, Audible, Paramount+, Uber rides and more.

“Unfortunately, like everybody else, that’s like a debit card for him,” Berger said. “We don’t believe that there’s anything out of the ordinary, outside of normal living expenses.”

"Normal living expenses"? $26,200 in a month - and that's just Rudy's lifestyle, so we have to give the prick a pass?

What about the lifestyle of your victims, asshole? 

Creditors see his real estate assets as fair game to recoup what is owed. They said his “pre-war co-op” apartment on New York City’s Upper East Side is exempt since it is his primary residence.

However, the document said, Giuliani spends “approximately 20-30% of his time in Florida” and therefore creditors claimed the $3.5 million condo must be sold.

“It is merely a matter of when, not if, the Debtor will have to sell the Florida Condo in order to distribute the proceeds thereof to creditors,” the filing said.

But Giuliani is in the process of selling the Manhattan apartment and is looking to relocate to his Florida residence full-time, Berger said.

“The Manhattan property is more expensive to maintain. It’s worth more so there’ll be a greater distribution to creditors from the sale of that property,” Berger told CNBC.

Berger added that payments related to his divorce “will be coming to a conclusion ... within the next year or so.”

Creditors also demanded that Giuliani secure homeowners insurance for his Florida and New York City residences since they are his two most valuable assets and “if anything were to happen to either of them, such loss would be a significant impediment to creditor recoveries.”

Giuliani has claimed he cannot afford the insurance, the court document said.

The former Trump adviser has faced a slew of legal woes for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results, all of which have helped land him in bankruptcy court. His bankruptcy filing from December estimated that he has between $1 million and $10 million worth of assets and nearly $152 million to pay off, including what is owed to the IRS and law firms.

Today's TweeXt


  • Bill Barr
  • John Bolton
  • HR McMaster
  • Mark Esper
  • Jim Mattis
  • John Kelly
  • Mick Mulvaney
  • Mark Milley
  • Mike Pence
  • many others

They Get One Right

There is no warm place in my heart or in my mind for Meet The Press. Over the last 30 years, NBC in general, but MTP specifically, have turned their whole tele-journalism thing into a showcase for Press Poodles to pimp their Both Sides bullshit.

But like Grandma said, even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while.


Meet the Press Blog

‘MAGA movement’ widely unpopular, new poll finds

Just 24% of Americans surveyed have positive views of the Make America Great Again movement in a new national NBC News poll.

President Donald Trump is still unpopular and so is the political movement created in his image, according to a new national NBC News poll.

The Make America Great Again, or ‘MAGA,’ movement, which takes its name from Trump’s first campaign slogan, was the least popular individual or group tested in the new survey. Just 24% of Americans have positive views of the movement, while 45% voice negative views.

These numbers come as President Joe Biden made Trump — and his movement — the centerpiece of his re-election launch video on Tuesday.

Biden in his video that “MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away.” Biden and his fellow Democrats often use the term “MAGA” as a catch-all to describe pro-Trump Republicans who embrace the former president’s more extreme positions, including his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

A slight majority of Republicans — 52% — view the MAGA movement positively, as well as 53% of those who define themselves as conservative.

Independents also rated the movement negatively, with just 12% viewing it positively, while 45% say they have negative views of the movement.

The movement received net-positive ratings across only a few political and demographic groups, finding support among those who make up the Republican base, including Americans who are white, less educated and live in rural areas.

More than a third of rural Americans have positive views of the movement, the highest of any geographic subgroup. And the movement received its highest mark from white Americans, with a 29% positive rating, of any racial subgroup.

Men over the age of 50 were evenly split, with 36% voicing positive views and 37% voicing negative views. And a combined 58% of those with a high school degree or less and those who attended technical or vocational schools view the movement positively.

On the flip side, the movement received its highest negative ratings from groups that make up the Democratic base: the higher educated, younger people, people of color, particularly Black people, and those who define themselves as liberals.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Boomers Going Homeless


So, while some on the left sit and bitch about how Biden is "supporting the genocide in Gaza" (or whatever) - which may be how it looks to a stupidly naive "yeah-but-what-about" purist, there are other matters that just might supersede your one-at-a-time-I-need-the-world-to-be-simple mindset.

I'm a Boomer. I had a great run in the 90s, and even tho' I kinda got fucked over by my ex-wife 10 years ago, I'm doin' OK. I get a decent payout from Social Security, and I have a cushion because of what's left of my IRA. If I can stay relatively healthy, I'm good to go. I'm one of the truly lucky ones.

But guess what.


‘Unconscionable’: Baby boomers in America are becoming homeless at a rate ‘not seen since the Great Depression’ — here’s what’s driving this terrible trend

Many baby boomers across the country are now coming to terms with the hard reality that working for your entire adult life is no longer enough to guarantee you’ll have a roof over your head in your later years.

Thanks in part to a series of recessions, high housing costs and a shortage of affordable housing, older adults are now the fastest-growing segment of America’s homeless population, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, based on data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The fact that we are seeing elderly homelessness is something that we have not seen since the Great Depression,” University of Pennsylvania social policy professor Dennis Culhane told the Journal.

Here’s what has triggered what some experts are calling a “silver tsunami” — and what they say needs to change to reverse the tide.

Baby boomers are increasingly becoming homeless

The Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for social security will increase by 3.2% in 2024, matching the rate of inflation as of October. Despite this, the additional funds may not be enough to help the aging population.

Dr. Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Vulnerable Populations and Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), has observed an escalating rate of homelessness among older Americans.

In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%.

Now, the over-50 demographic represents half of the homeless single adults in the U.S. — with no sign of their numbers slowing, leaving baby boomers (those aged 57 to 75) particularly vulnerable.

“Elderly homelessness has been rare within the contemporary homeless problem. We’ve always had very few people over 60 who’ve been homeless historically,” Culhane from the University of Pennsylvania told PBS NewsHour.

But in recent years, Culhane says that has changed. Older Americans, he says, are “now arguably the fastest rising group.”

Read more: Owning real estate for passive income is one of the biggest myths in investing — but here's how you can actually make it work

Here’s what’s changed

After living through multiple recessions, leaving some of them with little savings, aging boomers are now also contending with insufficient affordable housing. And should they need additional support at a certain point, finding a low assisted living center is becoming more challenging — as the field contends with labor shortages, inflation and reduced funding that puts the already limited number of facilities at risk of closing.

Even rent is becoming increasingly out of reach in certain areas, like Massachusetts, New York and Florida.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida resident Judy Schroeder told the Journal the apartment building she was living in was sold to a new owner, raising her monthly rent by more than $500. Schroeder lost her part-time job, leaving her living off Social Security alone, and couch-surfing for months before she finally found a place in late August.

And it's not just the cost of shelter — older adults on fixed incomes are struggling to scrounge up what they need to cover basic necessities.

“I never thought, at 71 years old, that I would be in this position,” she said.

What can be done?

Researchers at UCSF told the Journal that about half of the homeless older adults in places like Oakland, California and New York, became unhoused for the first time after their 50th birthday.

These individuals pointed to a major event, like the death of a spouse or a medical emergency, as the trigger.

“It’s an entirely different population,” said Kushel. “These are people who worked their whole lives. They had typical lives, often working physically demanding jobs, and never made enough to put money away.”

She says expanding the supply of affordable housing and availability of rental assistance programs, eviction protections and renters’ rights could be key to preventing homelessness.

Some cities, like San Diego, have even piloted programs to provide rental subsidies for a limited time to older, low-income adults to help them find their feet.

There’s also the matter of income, as advocates point out that the federal minimum wage of $7.25 has failed to keep up with inflation. And while most states supplement federal programs like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Kushel believes increasing SSI or state supplements could make the difference for older adults and those with disabilities struggling to afford housing.

“In a country as wealthy as the United States, homelessness for anyone — but particularly older adults — is unconscionable,” Kushel wrote in 2020.

“We have the means to end homelessness in older adults. By increasing affordable housing for older adults, engaging in targeted prevention efforts, and building off the success of permanent supportive housing, we can make homelessness for older adults rare and brief.”

If I Do Say So Myself