Harris can still win.

I look forward to Republicans pushing universal background checks and mandatory gun buybacks just like the Democrats.
The Democrats will vote not to certify the count of the Electoral College ballots during a joint session of the United States Congress, pursuant to the Electoral Count Act.
A 15-member Electoral Commission (headed by legal juggernaut luminaries of Laurence Tribe, Glenn Kirschner, Liz Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, George Conway) will give the Presidency to Harris as occurred with the Electoral disputes and Compromise of 1877 also known as the Wormley Agreement, the Bargain of 1877, or the Corrupt Bargain .

And overlooking the hypocrisy.

The new “evidence” becomes public despite prior warnings from both Chutkan and Jack Smith that pre-trial publicity would jeopardize the “fair administration of justice” in the case.

an update on the j6 case before the debate got underway we read through a filing from Trump’s defense team and they were rubbing Jack Smith’s nose in his prior filings saying Jack how dare you want to release all of this material in the month before the election when months ago you said if Trump talked about any of these Witnesses or any of this evidence it was going to be the end of democracy, the administration of justice was going to be tarnished and we were all going to die well now they’re perfectly happy publishing it all.

Trolling at OTB

 Ann Althouse embraces the woke tankies attack on the Matt Walsh movie "Am I Racist?"
<blockquote>"That sums up what bothered me about the movie. The filmmaker had an agenda, so I couldn't trust him to be fair to the people he was tricking. And of course, tricking them itself is unfair. "</blockquote>
Whataboutism Same apply to Michael Moore's or Katie Couric's “Under the Gun,” excellent according to the commenters here documentaries?
@<a href="#comment-2961818">charontwo</a>:
This response made me smile.
<blockquote>@liekitisnot Ted claims they lied and he read their testimony. I just provided their testimony.
I'm not here to argue with your bullshit. If you want to live in a fantasy where facts don't matter, go right ahead, but don't expect me to join you in your delusional sandbox [litterbox] full of cat shit.</blockquote>
Matt B.  I am researching the Gish gallop pushed as a logical fallacy by you and Mehdi Raza Hasan.  
Listened to Mehdi's interview with Preet Bharara, It seems like a excuse and cope for someone having swatted/batted away every political narrative and tangent that was thrown at them to discredit them.

Back in OTB comment jail

  Paul L. says:

Monday, 16 September 2024 at 14:56

Whataboutism.

[Better job on your revision Paul. You’re getting closer to something that is the ball park of addressing the topics of the post. It’s still the gishiest of gallops, but at least you’re getting to something that is human readable and on point.

Suggestion: it might be useful for you to explain which of my points is whataboutism and whether or not you think Vance or Trump is correct about the rhetoric being dangerous topic.

Keep at it and you’ll make it there. I believe in you! – Your Orwellian Overlord!

ps. also for transparency, this email address is now going to moderation first, so we get to have these semi-public discussions without anyone else seeing what you wrote. Again, you are free to write your thoughts on your own site about this and share a link here. I will never edit that out.]

 

And he deletes the response.

 @<a href="#comment-2960774">Matt Bernius</a>:
Most of that post was the 2nd second Trump shooter repeating Democrat talking points about saving Democracy.
And you believe it was the closest that I have been to being on topic.
<blockquote>You’re getting closer to something that is the ball park of addressing the topics of the post. It’s still the gishiest of gallops, but at least you’re getting to something that is human readable and on point.</blockquote>
To refute part of your post.
<blockquote>
 Republicans [and their allies in the gun lobby], have been a bit too successful for their own good when it comes to successfully getting the public to move on from mass shootings. In the past, to deflect discussions of gun control in the wake of mass shootings</blockquote>
I don't see the Trump assassinations as mass shootings.   
A Mass shooting [Mass Murder by gun] implies that the shooter was using a weapon of war for its designed function of murdering "as many people as quickly as possible & to do the most damage [to any survivors](ask a doctor)."
Not the definition that includes the NYCPD gunning down civilians for officer safety in the 2012 Empire State Building shooting as a mass shooting.
<a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/explainer">a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident. </a>
I remember when the Republican baseball practice was attacked "for healthcare" and it was spun by the media and Democrats as it was a attack on all of Congress instead of just Republicans.
Remember how to defeat and humiliate me and my Gish gallop.
<blockquote>Mehdi Hasan, a British[/American/Muslim] journalist, suggests using three steps to beat the Gish gallop
Because there are too many falsehoods to address, it is wise to choose one as an example. Choose the weakest, dumbest, most ludicrous argument that the galloper has presented and tear that argument to shreds ("the weak point rebuttal").
    Do not budge from the issue or move on until having decisively destroyed the nonsense and clearly made the counter point.
<blockquote></blockquote>
 You have used point #3.
    Call out the strategy by name, saying: "This is a strategy called the 'Gish Gallop'—do not be fooled by the flood of nonsense you have just heard."</blockquote>

 Update

Matt Bernius says:

Monday, 16 September 2024 at 17:00

@Paul L.:
See Paul, it might have taken a few rounds of edits, but you delivered a comment that was coherent enough in unpacking your thinking that it makes it through without any edits.

Most of that post was the 2nd second Trump shooter repeating Democrat talking points about saving Democracy.

For the record, because you don’t cite your sources, that isn’t clear to your reader. How hard is it to write:
“Here are some of the attempted shooters most recent posts from x:”?

Beyond that, the shooter did repeat Democrat talking points in… checks notes… a tweet or two. And this is a huge challenge with your reasoning process. You find a single example of someone writing something and then project it out to be their only belief no matter how much else the person has written that might contradict it. Which turns everyone–including yourself–into a hypocrite. Which at the end of the day is nihilistic and useless for having a discussion.

If you are advancing the idea that this person’s actions were created by a democratic talking point, then there is a wealth of evidence that the current campaign of terror on the community of Springfield OH is based on things that Trump and Vance have said:

“Unfortunately, right now we have to focus on making sure this rhetoric is dispelled, that these rumors are just—they’re just not true. You know, Springfield is a beautiful place and your pets are safe in Springfield,” Rue said, laughing slightly at how insane it all sounded. …
Coates sighed, exasperated, while Rue shook his head. “If you could speak to the former president what would you tell him?” Coates asked.

“We need help, not hate,” Rue repeated. He criticized lawmakers who carelessly cast the city of Springfield in a negative light.

“We have a beautiful city, and we need, we need the national stage to pay attention to what their words are doing to cities like ours,” Rue added. “We don’t need this pushback that is hurting our citizens and hurting our community—I would say that to anybody who would take a mic and say those things.” [source]

So I call whataboutism on your whataboutism and also hit you with the wild draw 4 card!

BTW, you haven’t told us of you come down on “rhetoric doesn’t cause actions” (J. D. Vance) or “rhetoric causes actions” (Trump). So that’s also a reverse card there. Which of the two views do you ascribe to?

To refute part of your post.

Republicans [and their allies in the gun lobby], have been a bit too successful for their own good when it comes to successfully getting the public to move on from mass shootings. In the past, to deflect discussions of gun control in the wake of mass shootings

I don’t see the Trump assassinations as mass shootings.

I completely agree with you. The assassination attempts are technically not mass shootings (though in the first one multiple people were hit). They are still extraordinary shooting incidents. So, unsurprisingly, the same general principles appear to apply in terms of how people are processing them.

And I also suggested, through the Don Jr quote, that perhaps Republicans haven’t taken past non-shooting political assassination attempts particularly seriously. Sew the wind and reap the whirlwind.

A Mass shooting [Mass Murder by gun] implies that the shooter was using a weapon of war for its designed function of murdering “as many people as quickly as possible & to do the most damage [to any survivors](ask a doctor).”
Not the definition that includes the NYCPD gunning down civilians for officer safety in the 2012 Empire State Building shooting as a mass shooting.
a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.
I remember when the Republican baseball practice was attacked “for healthcare” and it was spun by the media and Democrats as it was a attack on all of Congress instead of just Republicans.
Remember how to defeat and humiliate me and my Gish gallop.

See you were doing so well… and then you go down a mass shooting rat hole of a Gish Gallop. Also you lose points for failing to address the latest police instigated mass shooting in NYC over the crime of… checks notes… jumping a turnstile.
https://gothamist.com/news/at-least-1-nypd-officer-shot-near-brooklyn-l-train-police-say

Remember how to defeat and humiliate me and my Gish gallop.

Oh Paul, I’m not trying to humiliate you. My entire intent is how to teach you to bring a coherent argument. Any humiliation you feel is well… on you. In that process I’m not going to let you get away with Gish Gallops anymore.

Mehdi Hasan, a British[/American/Muslim] journalist, suggests using three steps to beat the Gish gallop
Because there are too many falsehoods to address, it is wise to choose one as an example. Choose the weakest, dumbest, most ludicrous argument that the galloper has presented and tear that argument to shreds (“the weak point rebuttal”).
Do not budge from the issue or move on until having decisively destroyed the nonsense and clearly made the counter point.

You have used point #3.

Call out the strategy by name, saying: “This is a strategy called the ‘Gish Gallop’—do not be fooled by the flood of nonsense you have just heard.”

Yup. You are correct. That is exactly what I am doing. It’s great that you recognize it.

Once you stop galloping, I won’t have to do that any more. So develop the self understanding to understand you are starting a gallop and stop before you do it. Otherwise the same thing will keep happening. And since I, for the moment, control the edit button, you’re never going to win with a gish gallop. What I will always commit to is being honest when I’m editing yours (or anyone else’s posts) and be transparent about when I am taking the basic steps needed address bullshit being spread.

And as I say every time, if you don’t want to be edited, post something one your blog and put a link to it here.

 

OTB mentions Scheffler arrest after hand waving it away.

 Paul L. says:

Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 15:30

Scheffler is a model citizen accidentally detained by officers providing security for a huge event in which Scheffler was a major participant.

Wrong. Scheffler was arrested for second-degree assault of a police officer, a class-C felony, and three misdemeanors: third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic and should have been charged with contempt of cop and obstruction. Far worst than misdemeanor speeding, not wearing a seat belt, contempt of cop and obstruction.
Prosecutor dropped the case because he has tens of millions of dollars and the US legal system favors the rich. Oh and the video showed the cop was a liar.
Tyreek Hill was Insufficiently Servile and didn’t show complete, unquestioning obedience that cops demand excusing bad cops abusing their authority to show a rich black guy who is boss.
@Michael Reynolds:

The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed a rapist and convicted felon whose thugs attacked police over the course of hours on January 6. Thugs supporting a thug.

This is on topic because? Can I bring up the Miami cops who attacked and arrested someone recording them in a hotel?

convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Draft dodging Donald Trump desecrated the scared and hallowed ground of Arlington

 https://outsidethebeltway.com/trump-claims-arlington-photo-op-was-a-set-up/?unapproved=2958563&moderation-hash=3fd9120bfb91f24c7e51e6b80c42b646#comment-2958563

I hope the Democrats make it a major issues in the 2024 campaign that the mere presence of convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Draft dodging Donald Trump desecrated the sacred and hallowed ground of Arlington.
It was an example of hate speech that the “growing consensus among social justice advocates that bigoted or simply emotionally triggering speech is akin to physical violence and should be regulated as such.”.
Along complete gun registration and confiscation.

Trump Losing . . . And Losing It

 

Trump Losing . . . And Losing It

He's not taking his change in fortunes very well.

James Joyner · Tuesday, August 13, 2024 · 

The replacement of President Biden with Vice President Harris atop the Democratic ticket has radically changed the momentum of the race and undermined the years-long campaign strategy of former President Trump. He’s not taking it well.

Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei take us “Behind the Curtain: Inside Trump’s slump.”

Don’t buy the public bravado. Former President Trump’s advisers are deeply rattled by his meandering, mean and often middling public performances since the failed assassination attempt. They’re pleading with him to adopt a new “hard-hitting” stump speech to define Vice President Harris as liberal and weak, advisers tell us. And praying he’ll stop the recidivistic pull to simply improvise haphazardly.

Why it matters: Trump, who looked and felt like a clear front-runner heading into last month’s Republican convention, has fumed, stewed and stumbled in private and public ever since. Advisers are telling him Harris will grow her lead coming out of the Democratic convention, which begins a week from tomorrow — especially if they don’t define her better, faster. Then just a week after the convention, it’s already Labor Day.

What we’re hearing: Republican sources close to Trump tell us he realizes he needs to bring new focus to a message that can be meandering and self-indulgent. But it’s Trump. So a new script is often fictional wishfulness. Trump “is struggling to get past his anger,” a top Republican source tells us. Trump’s aides know he won’t change. So they’re focusing “not on the need for him to change but on the need to adapt his message to win,” the source said. “But he has to convince himself to leave the other garbage behind.”

“President Trump knows he’s the only one who can end the media’s honeymoon with Kamala Harris,” a top Trump ally tells us, “and he sees a significant opening to do so with Harris’ inability to defend her record on inflation and the border.” “To get past the media force field protecting Harris, however, he knows he needs to be very specific with his policy contrasts and is planning on debuting a hard-hitting stump speech very soon.”

The Atlantic‘s Peter Wehner (“Trump Can’t Deal With Harris’s Success“):

Biden’s abrupt departure deeply unsettled Trump. His entire campaign was built to defeat Biden. Trump survived an assassination attempt, then met a rapturous reception at the Republican National Convention, and concluded that the race was won. And it was, until Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped up.

Trump, enraged and rattled, is reverting to his feral ways. We see it in his preposterous claim that Harris’s crowds, which are both noticeably larger and far more enthusiastic than his own, are AI-generated; in his resentful attacks against the popular Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and his wife, because Kemp didn’t aid Trump in his effort to overthrow the election; and in his attack on Harris’s racial identity.

At precisely the moment when Trump needs to elevate his performance, to the degree that such a thing is even possible, he’s gone back to his most natural state: erratic, crazed, transgressive, self-indulgent, and enraged. One by-product of this is that Trump has provided no coherent or focused line of attack on Harris. His criticisms are not just vile, but witless. The prospect of not just being beaten, but being beaten by a woman of color, has sent Trump into a frenzy in a way almost nothing else could.

[…]

Something else, and something quite important, has changed. The whole landscape of the campaign has been transformed. The rise of Harris instantly cast Trump in a new light. He formerly seemed more ominous and threatening, which, whatever its political drawbacks, signaled strength; now he seems not just old but low-energy, stale, even pathetic. He has become the political version of Fat Elvis.

Trump is much better equipped psychologically to withstand ferocious criticisms than he is equipped to withstand mockery. Malignant narcissists go to great lengths to hide their fears and display a false or idealized self. Criticism targets the persona. Mockery, by contrast, can tap very deep fears of being exposed as flawed or weak. When the mask is the target, people with Trump’s psychological profile know how to fight back. Mockery, though, can cause them to unravel.

His colleague Brian Stelter continues in the same vein with “Trump’s Latest Falsehood Is a Huge Tell.“

When Donald Trump is at his most vulnerable, when he feels most threatened, he tells fans not to believe their own eyes and ears.

After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he called the event a “love fest,” denying the video evidence of the violence. After the writer E. Jean Carroll accused him of sexual assault, he said he had “never met” her, despite a photo showing them together.

And yesterday, after Kamala Harris finished a week of arena-size rallies, he claimed that images of her crowds were “fake” and AI-generated. Specifically, Trump embraced a conspiracy theory—touted by pro-Trump social-media accounts known for peddling nonsense—that the Harris campaign had posted a fake crowd photo from her August 7 event in Romulus, Michigan.

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” he wrote. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!”

The turnout at Harris events is entirely real, and political analysts suspect that the crowds she has attracted are making Trump jealous and nervous. But the AI lie is about more than Trump’s size anxiety—it portends a dark and desperate chapter in this already distressing presidential-election season.

[…]

Vulnerability seems to be the through line here—whether Trump is at risk of trivial embarrassment, criminal exposure, or being caught in lies. A public figure with truth on their side would say Roll the tape to show they’re right. Trump, instead, says, Don’t believe the tape. Just believe me instead.

While it’s possible that this is all evidence of further cognitive decline, it strikes me as part of a longstanding pattern: Trump throws tantrums when things don’t go his way. His instinct when COVID hit was not that he needed to do everything in his power to prevent catastrophe for the 330 million people for whom he was responsible but rather that it was unfair that it was happening to him.

I see the same thing happening here. He had Joe Biden beaten. He’d spent months telling us that Sleepy Joe was unfit for the job and one debate (and some follow-up interviews) cemented that image in the public mind. His own instinctive defiance in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt provided a stark contrast that was likely to last through the election.

Then, suddenly, Biden quit the race and handed the campaign over to a considerably younger, more energetic candidate. That’s just unfair! And Trump is melting down over it.

We’re inside three months to the election. Given how many plot twists there have been, it’s a bit premature to declare this thing over. But Trump seems to have no answers to the new reality he’s faced with.