All Hallow’s Tabs
- Via People: George W. Bush’s Daughter Barbara Breaks Silence on Election to Campaign for Kamala Harris (Exclusive).
- Via CNN: Supreme Court rules RFK Jr. will appear on battleground ballots despite suspending campaign. This is a pretty obvious outcome, since voting has already started and, moreover, Election Day is, you know, like next week. Kennedy’s ongoing shenanigans, which include wanting to be on some state ballots and not others, are just ridiculous (the Court also rejected an attempt to have his name placed on the NY ballot). I fully support ballot access for third parties, but I detest playing games with the process like this.
- Because of course, he did. Via the AP: Trump says his New York rally marked by crude and racist insults was ‘an absolute lovefest’.
- Via ABC news: Trump claims to ABC’s Scott he didn’t hear comedian’s Puerto Rico comment, doesn’t denounce it. It’s a real profile in courage and leadership.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump told ABC’s Scott.
- This is a message clearly cultivated for an Evangelical audience (if it sounds like “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” then you don’t speak Evangelical). But I simply do not trust people who say that God spoke to them directly. This concern goes up exponentially when it is someone in power making sound like God told them they should be in power.
- A predictable outcome.
- The weave!
- And, to conclude, maybe why listening to Joe Rogan is not a great idea.
Trump has a very strange definition of love. Hardly surprising, though.
The most significant problem with Speaker Johnson, Mike Dense, Pat Robertson, and the like is that the typical pattern to “a calling” from the Bible was for “the called” to say “who, me?” as opposed to the contemporary pattern of announcing the call at a press conference or meeting of partisans dedicated to agreeing with you.
And common sense just told me “very clearly” that you are “not fit for public office.”
@CSK: It makes sense if you consider TFG is thinking about himself (always). “It was a lovefest for me.”
I see no evidence that Rogan noticed Trump is declining. There’s also a cut in that video to make it look like Trump shifted from Laptop Hoax to Whale Psychologist.
And… Rogan asked follow up questions, which makes him more competent than about half of the journalists in America. (Insert crying emoji here)
@just nutha: @Franklin: Moses led his people out of a hostile country and took 40 years to find a promised land. I’d be happy if Mike/Moses led the MAGAts out and spent 40 years stumbling around trying to find the perfect place. Maybe Elon can play Joshua and lead them all to Mars.
I owe a heavy debt to commenter @becca for describing Mike Johnson as a “professional Christian”. Wow, is that in evidence here. Johnson is really, really good at saying things that commit him to no course of action, but sound, really, really great.
I mean, what did Moses do? He led the faithful out of Egypt, where they are enslaved. Who are they enslaved to? Pharoah. Who is Pharoah? Does he say? Does he let them think that for themselves?
No, I don’t think this is good, but I also remember how good Mike Johnson is at commanding Biblical/Christian terminology and references to his own agenda.
Not that I know where this is going. I don’t.
@Mr. Prosser: This is pretty much what I thought. Mike Johnson is telling evangelicals: “Prepare for 40 years in the wilderness”. Moses never took over the Promised Land. He was not allowed to enter.
And yes, Mike Johnson is definitely aware of the specifics of this story. There’s no way he can’t be.
@Gustopher:
Right, it’s two Rogan interview clips back to back, but I think that’s pretty clear because the heading changes and a subtitle excerpt appears when it cuts to the windmill-whale part of the interview.
At the beginning of the clip, Rogan asked him how he thought he was robbed in 2020. After getting a bunch of nonsense, Rogan asked, “Are you going to present this ever?” Trump’s answer was complete gibberish: 51 intelligence agents lied, the laptop was from Hunter’s bed, and they said it was created by Russia.
@CSK:
Not really. See what takes place inside the Ministry of Love in Orwell’s 1984.
As to Johnson, in this day and age, I expect 4K video of Jehovah shared on social media.
@Jay L Gischer:
Not unwise.
Democrats are beating Republicans in voter enthusiasm, even as swing-state polls show tight race (Business Insider)
W’s daughter Barbara is campaigning for Harris. Meanwhile, my WAPO subscription runs through July and this morning they have a “Guest Opinion” by Jeb. Why we should return to ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran. (Guest link so you can verify what I say, not because I think anyone should read it.) This the sort of thing that had me thinking about dropping WAPO long before Bezos decided not to endorse. He got toasted pretty seriously in comments. Way too soon for people to have forgotten Iraq.
When I voted last Friday in Illinois, I noticed that RFK Jr was still on the ballot. Wonder how many votes he will be picking up.
Just got back from attempting to vote in my semi rural suburban town. I was informed it was a 2 hour line from a tree up ahead so probably 2:45 for me.
The line grew while I was there. Did I mention its pouring rain currently?
One woman ahead of me left because her bum knee wasn’t going to tolerate standing for that long. I was the second person to leave; I was going to miss picking up kids from school. Most people were budging though.
Just a report on what’s happening in Indiana. It’s a deep red state so presumably many of these people participating in democracy are doing so to vote in the guy who’s promising to threaten Democratic rule. But long lines and enthusiastic turnout in the purple and blue parts of conservative States seems to be a better omen than the opposite.
@Franklin:
Call me old fashioned, but announcing yourself as self-assured Prophet of the Lord seems just a teensy bit presumptuous.
As I’ve quoted before, and unfortunately will probably have occasion to again in future, an Anglican cleric on some evangelical ultras:
“Both heretics and lunatics.”
@just nutha:
When these people think of God, they see their own face.
One of the things I keep reminding people is that we are in a war which has no end, and cannot have an end.
Every election is just another battle.
And this cuts in both directions!
If Trump wins, this will be a loss but we are within just a razors edge from victory. And vice versa.
@JohnSF: That seems to be the modern GOP: heretics, lunatics, and just plain ticks.
@Eusebio: There is definitely an edit. I really was mostly focused on his answer about 2020 (I should have been more explicit).
@Chip Daniels: AYUP!
@JohnSF: I noticed that Johnson didn’t compare himself to St. Peter. After all, being crucified upside down is not the kind of fate anyone should envision.
@JohnSF: You know, I really agree. It is presumptuous to announce one’s self as a prophet of the Lord.
And yet, that’s what all those guys in the OT did. You know, the ones with books named after them?
@Chip Daniels: On one hand, I agree. The work is never finished. Humans are made to be vulnerable to ideas like racism, and tribalism.
On the other hand, my math background suggests that in all non-linear systems there are stable periods and unstable periods, which are much shorter in duration and then settle down into a more stable (in mathspeak: near-linear) behavior. This has been called “punctuated equilibrium”.
I think we are moving through an unstable phase and will land at a more stable phase. I do not know what that stable phase will look like. I expect it will have features I like, and others I don’t like. We will spend time where we are not on a knife’s edge, though, for better or worse.
Meanwhile, Republicans have been acting like they are facing an existential threat for probably as much as the last 20 years. Democrats are finally catching up to this. And maybe Independents are taking notice that things they took for granted are not so secure.
Democracy is not something that can be taken for granted. The fight for it may wax and wane, but it will never be done.
@Jay L Gischer:
True enough. But they seem to have had rather better grounds for such assurance than Speaker Johnson.
And were more, in general, critics calling for repentance than self-satisfied politicians seeking advantage. Moses and the later Prophets being somewhat different.
Their prophetic status was generally recognised in retrospect.
I somehow doubt similar accolades will be accorded to Johnson, who might be better content with being a constitutional lawmaker than a divinely appointed lawgiver.
But who can tell?
Perhaps the Prophecies of Johnson may one day be added to the apocrypha?
Hopefully not the Apocalyse of Michael.