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comment by OftenBen

I am actually unimpressed.

Nobody has an opinion on the man that is capable of changing.





kleinbl00  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"56 percent said they would be less likely to vote for Mr. Trump if his justice would help overturn Roe v. Wade, while just 24 percent said they would be more inclined to vote for him."

That is a scientific poll of changing opinion and what, specifically, would change that opinion. 950 likely voters, Sept 22-24 phone poll.

OftenBen  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Poll data last time said he would lose.

Pardon me for not jumping for joy.

kleinbl00  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Move them goalposts!

You know why you're always mad? Because you ignore all evidence that doesn't make you mad. The simple argument here is that more than half of voters polled said their mind would change. Doesn't mean Trump loses, doesn't mean Bernie gets his sainthood, means that there is statistical evidence that minds can change vis a vis Trump.

Only thing we're talking about here, buddy.

You can absolutely say "everything here is shit" but when I say "technically that's a dandelion growing over there" you're wrong. Simply.

OftenBen  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Goalpost hasn't moved.

I don't believe polling data represents how people vote. I believe a Trumpster is perfectly happy to lie to your face about who they support.

kleinbl00  ·  1516 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah dude, it has. You went from "Nobody has an opinion on the man that is capable of changing" to "Poll data last time said he would lose" and now we're at "I don't believe in polls" to "I believe a Trumpster is perfectly happy to lie to your face about who they support" despite the fact that "shy Trump voters" are such a tired saw that there are several hits a week going back two months.

In three statements you have gone from "nobody has an opinion capable of changing" to there is no evidence you can show me that indicates Trump voters don't lie about everything to everyone.

OftenBen  ·  1515 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Whatever you say chief.

The world is as KB sees it and naught else.

b_b  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not even gonna link here, but Douthat had the audacity to call Barret a new kind of feminist

OftenBen  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Conservatives have learned that the label of 'feminist' doesn't have a hard and fast definition so they get to apply to any and every woman with a conservative viewpoint and any argument against them is sexist because this time it's a woman taking away peoples healthcare.

b_b  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Remember when Ivanka's signature issue was free child care? So feminist.

OftenBen  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not in the slightest.

Coulda been last week or 4 years ago.

kleinbl00  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

On a hunch I typed "Ross Douthat" "Phyllis Schlafly" into Google to see if he described Good Ol' Phyllis as a feminist. Yep. In that very article.

Phyllis Schlafly described herself as an anti-feminist.

b_b  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The logic contortions that go into stating, without irony, that "feminists" like Barrett recognize that they wouldn't be able to hold the jobs they hold without the women's movement, but they nonetheless reject all of its central tenets, would make the cast of Cirque du Soleil wince.

kleinbl00  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I can walk you through it.

"Fairness" is a big conservative principle. If anything, I would say that conservatives lean into fairness as hard as liberals lean into empathy. So whatever bleeding hard liberal bullshit free government healthcare saves Mitch McConnell, it's only "fair" that they use it since it's available to everyone. If they take it away, that too is "fair" because there's nothing preventing anyone from using the same perks and advantages they have. And in general, Republicans got to where they are by working hard, so it's only fair that they reap the benefits. If someone else worked harder but didn't make it quite as far, well, that's as fair as it can be because as we all know, life isn't fair so we better make sure we all get our fair shake - I mean, the Emancipation Proclamation made it so that all men are created equal and if white men get further than white women, it's because on a level playing field they just do better.

I mean, you wouldn't really have Amy Coney Barrett turn down the advantages that are availble to people like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, would you? And look - she made it all the way to the House of Representatives! Clearly the system is working for everyone. The fact that Herman Cain was a successful black conservative entrepreneur is proof positive that anyone black can be a successful conservative entrepreneur, the fact that he's the only one has a lot more to do with how traditionally lazy black men are than any systemic problems of equity.

It's that easy.

b_b  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't think that this will change any minds, either. It's not as if he was going to write "money launderer" as his occupation. I'm just stunned that after 5 years, someone finally leaked it. I thought that since we've gone this long with every journalist in the business hungry for these docs and yet getting nothing, that it just wasn't a possibility.

am_Unition  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's gotta be someone in the IRS, right? The NYTimes has to have been sifting through the information for at least a month or two, but maybe prosecutors have had at least some of this info longer than we thought?. This could be a way of leveraging public outcry against Trump's court system stalling on the Mazar's side of the tax returns.

But, again, it is known that SDNY (Vance) has Deutsche Bank loan application records. There's no way a bank provides hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to someone telling the bank that they lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year routinely. This is a 100% chance of tax fraud.

Here's some more good news:

    The newspaper said Trump initially paid $95 million in taxes over the 18 years it studied. But he managed to recover most of that money by claiming — and receiving — a stunning $72.9 million federal tax refund. According to the Times, Trump also pocketed $21.2 million in state and local refunds, which are typically based on federal filings.

If you're taking state tax refunds, that's state-level criminal tax fraud, right? Even if it's based on a federal filing? If so, you can expect the NY AG to attempt prosecution. The argument/precedent that a sitting president cannot be indicted only applies to federal crimes.

I'm also floored that this info found its way out, but this is now a full-blown cult we're talking about. /r/conservative is floating better legal defenses of Trump than the man himself, but this is unprincipled and morally reprehensible behavior. For the billionth time. I don't give a fuck if it's TeChNiCaLLy LeGaL, we should be able to agree that it's flat-out wrong to live a life of excess while giving nothing back. But we can't! Despite it being Christians endorsing blatantly anti-Christian behavior.

It's time for a fuckin' family meeting, America. It's up to people like us. Our institutions and media have failed us. We have to initiate the healing at a personal level. Guitar? Not a bad place to start.

uhsguy  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Didn’t the NY ag get them? My money is someone got them out of there.

am_Unition  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yep, the NY AG is specifically investigating whether Trump inflated his assets for favorable bank loans and tax write-offs. It's not clear how long each entity has had access to the tax returns, but I would guess that the NYTimes story took at least six weeks to put together. Whether or not NYT waited to publish closer to the election is a good question, though. Obviously, the timeline is still a bit muddy, for now.

Leaking the returns could be a last-ditch effort from SDNY. We know that Bill Barr's all up in their shit, no doubt in an effort to shield Trump from accountability.

b_b  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't think someone in the IRS would do that knowing that they will be found out in like a minute. My guess is that it's someone, a Deep Stater at DoJ, say, who has a serious bone to pick with him. That person is probably more savvy at how investigations would proceed, and knows how to cover their tracks. There are probably so many people who have seen them at this point, however, that there could be multiple sources.