No, he's right. Nobody should be disqualified for a media report. All that would do is lead to everybody throwing wild accusations against everybody else.
However, reports from FBI investigations and the House Ethics Committee absolutely should be grounds for disqualification.
You're missing my point slightly.
Yes, if Trump is dead-set on killing the DOE, we're fucked. You're right there. But unlike many of Trump's other yes-men, Linda McMahon is not known to have the drive to do anything by herself. Go watch any of her WWE footage or any time she's made a public statement. That woman hasn't lifted a finger in her life without calling on her assistants to check on her nails. And we all know that Trump has the attention span of a methhead with ADHD. The silver lining is that if Trump decides to set his sights elsewhere, she'll do little damage on her own, unlike a more ambitious yes-man who will take the initiative.
Think of it this way. It could have been Boebert. Or MTG. Or Jim Jordan. Plenty of cronies exponentially worse than McMahon if they were chosen, and all of which would have the initiative to do it themselves if Trump's attention was focused elsewhere.
Given the results of the election, that reaction may not be the one you think it is.
It’s wildly worse than you think. The number of bullet ballots in swing states is around 5-12% of the total vote counts. It’s a statistical anomaly that ONLY exists in the swing states. Other things to consider:
There were bomb threats in only swing states.
This we knew was going to happen long ago, but I do not recall any reports of those threats impacting operations or vote counts.
There were a number of counting stations that are reporting issues with their tabulation software, again, significantly happening in swing states.
This is where we get into dangerous territory. You cannot claim there were issues with tabulation software or any of the other technical issues I've heard bandied about, to the point where every state went significantly redder, while still saying that our elections are free, fair, safe, and secure. Because it allows Trump and MAGA to beg the question: If it happened in 2024, who's to say it didn't happen in 2020? Who's to say it won't happen again in 2028? Go down this path, and good luck being able to convince anybody that our elections are or were close to legitimate ever again.
Polls performed prior to election accurately predicted of pretty much every downballot race, but for some reason are wildly inaccurate for predictong the President in only swing states?
Polls haven't gotten Trump right in 10 years. If you're still looking at polls when discussing Trump, that's the first thing you're doing wrong.
There’s odd, and then there’s statistical improbability. We’re boarding on fucking bizarre, and it’s shocking that people aren’t making a bigger deal than this.
Sometimes, longshots pay off.
It's pretty simple. Take a look at what the vote tabulation total says, then take a look at how many people showed up to the polls. The numbers should be equal, down to the ballot. And remember, all 50 states went redder. If there was a problem, surely someone in a blue state would have. You can't be that far off without it showing up somewhere, and if nobody noticed that preliminary counts were off, that again points to a systematic failure of our election system across the country.
Nobody noticed the internet traffic of whatever supposed hackers manipulating the system in real time? Not a single district noticed counts that didn't match poll attendance? That's the thing. Even if you are 100% absolutely correct, that means that either our systems are so bug-ridden that it could be off by millions of votes, or so insecure that they can be infiltrated and manipulated by hackers without a trace. There are numerous fail-safes to ensure integrity up and down the process, and if the counts are off by that much, that means multiple protections across all 50 states failed, meaning that the election integrity we've been professing we have for the past four years doesn't exist.
Talk to people. This is actually fairly common. Many people don't follow politics closely enough to make informed decisions about ballot questions, and plenty of others simply don't care. Lots of people couldn't name the mayor of their town, their US Representative, or even their Senators. Plenty of people will go there to vote for one thing and ignore the rest because they either don't know or simply can't be bothered.
If I recall reading correctly, I think the average for this is about 1-2% of voters per state. I know there's some controversy because that number is higher in battleground states, but these are Trump voters we're talking about here, and I could easily see them turn out in droves for their god-king and ignore the rest of the ballot, because the only thing they cared about was getting Trump back into office. No reason for a Trump voter to do that in California, because it isn't going to matter. Pennsylvania is a completely different story, which is probably why we're seeing it happen so much in battleground states.
licenses are pieces of paper representing their years of training losing will not make them not doctors does not work that way
Without those pieces of paper, they cannot practice medicine.
Wrestling fan for over 40 years.
Honestly, given the options that Trump could dredge up from the 9th circle of hell, this isn't the worst choice.
Linda McMahon sat there for 50 or so years and did nothing while her husband committed all sorts of atrocities. And she deserves everything she gets for doing that. All the criticism surrounding that is 100% valid. But I want to point out the key words there. "Did nothing." Because that's pretty much Linda McMahon's resume.
As CEO, she did nothing. Vince called the shots. She just signed the paperwork -- at best. Her position was mainly a figurehead position just to ensure McMahon's power in the company was that much more entrenched. She has all the charisma and personality of cigarette ash, and her on-air persona was literally to sit in a wheelchair and say nothing because she wasn't capable of better acting.
She had a cabinet position during Trump's first administration, and did a whole lot more nothing.
I would expect the same thing here. Linda McMahon is an unqualified hack who shouldn't be in the position, but if there's a silver lining, it's this: Left to her own devices, McMahon will likely do nothing. Education won't get any better, but it won't get any worse either. She's smart enough to know when she has no idea what she's doing, and if the past 50 or so years is any indication, she'll spend the next four years doing a lot more nothing and hoping nobody notices.
Yes, she absolutely will follow Trump's directives to the letter. But Trump's attention span is worse than Linda McMahon's acting skills. I hate to say it like this, but if Trump stays focused on removing all the brown people and forcing his cronies to buy his watches, there's at least the possibility that McMahon could just keep her head down for 4 years and at least not leave the DOE worse off than the way she found it. She's got a 50 year resume showing her skills at doing nothing. Hopefully she'll continue that trend.
there are enough doctors that if most of them just started doing their jobs regardless of government policy something would eventually break and change would occur
They tried that in Idaho. Idaho basically just doubled down in response and now they're having a crisis because of a lack of OB/GYNs.
The legislature doesn't care. They've lost about 25% of their OB/GYNs already and have done exactly nothing.
The problem is that right now if they choose to save one patient, they will have their licenses yanked and thrown in jail, which means that many other women would suffer due to a lack of services. These doctors know that their decisions led to the deaths of these two women. But they also know that having their own licenses yanked would do nothing but probably lead to the deaths of several more.
For doctors, it's basically a Sophie's Choice.
Mark my words, this will pass, even if only to set the stage for what trans people will have to deal with for the next four years.
Part of me expects regular motions to have her expelled entirely. And there's a non-zero chance that they'll just drop the threshhold needed to expel a member to simple majority because fuck what the Constitution says, they have control now.
LOL, how cute. You think that still matters.
Nothing stopping both houses from just reducing the threshhold because fuck you that's why, getting Trump to sign off on it, then getting backing by the Supreme Court. Sure, that's completely at odds with the Constitution, but who's left to enforce it?
We already know that at least half the states will just blindly go along with it and say it's to control immigration, or just because MAGA, or because fuck you that's why. Threaten the rest with withholding of all federal funding until they get on board and watch how many fall in line. Sure, that's even more highly illegal, but again......who's going to stop them? Laws don't mean shit if there is nobody willing or able to enforce them.
So she's trying to pull a Madison Cawthorn 2.0. She might wanna consider how well that worked out for him.
With that being said, does this really make sense?
She's either lying through her teeth, or Madison Cawthorn was right all along. I'd say the odds here are about 50/50.
But let's say she's right (I know, I know, bear with me....)......doesn't that just mean that she knows that the GOP are full of the same "groomers" that she has been crusading against for years? And that she's OK with it, so long as she can use it for political capital? I mean, I get it......pride in the hypocrisy and all that. But how in the name of Jesus' favorite camel does this make her look good? At all? At best, it means she's complicit in allowing what would literally be the most powerful pedo ring on the fucking planet to continue to exist, and is perfectly fine with keeping that information from the public as long as it's in her political best interest or she can use it to advance her own political career.
And that is her in the best possible light. It only gets worse from there. I just don't see how this is anywhere close to being beneficial for her unless she's got the goods. And if she's got the goods, I have about a hundred million more questions.