The large audiences Trump craves keep eluding him

We know that there is nothing that Trump loves more than to give long speeches to a large gathering of his fervent supporters. He seems to fancy himself as having powerful oratorical skills, possibly because his fans, like trained seals, laugh and applaud on cue at the right points. It does not seem to matter that the laugh lines consist of childish taunts, slurs, and derogatory nicknames. To him and them, they seem to be witticisms of the caliber of those delivered by Oscar Wilde.
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Let me make this perfectly clear

Fellow FtB blogger HJ Hornbeck over at Reprobate Spreadsheet privately alerted me to the fact that what I thought was a somewhat anodyne response that I made in a comment thread is being portrayed as somehow at least a semi-endorsement of transphobic views. My comment was purely a suggestion about how to keep small group discussions focused on the topic at hand, something I had some experience with as a teacher, and had nothing to do with whatever is the topic of discussion.

I tend not to write defensively. I assume that my words will be taken in good faith and not try to anticipate how my words could be misconstrued. I know that I am not aware of all the issues that members of the transgender community face and hence may, on occasion and out of pure ignorance, say or write something that should and could have been phrased better and thus may fall prey to those who seek to misinterpret my words to advance transphobic agendas. I would like to apologize in advance if that happens and would appreciate correction from those, like HJ, Crip Dyke, Andreas Avester, Rhiannon and others who know much more than I do.

So let me state my position as clearly as I possibly can.

I fully support the right of the transgender community to equal treatment and to be granted all the respect, rights, and privileges that all the rest of us enjoy. And I definitely oppose any attempt to exclude members of the transgender community from any activity by questioning the ‘reality’ of their gender.

Under no circumstances should people interpret what I write (even if poorly worded) as contradicting any of the above or as even the slightest endorsement of transphobic views.

Trump is flailing

It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump is flailing, trying desperately to reverse his sinking fortunes. We know that he is relentlessly focused on ratings and polls and however much he may like to think that these are being manipulated by his enemies to make him look bad, he has to realize at a gut level that things really are not looking good. Just yesterday comes news of a poll that shows him losing to Joe Biden by 13 points in Pennsylvania, a state he won in 2016, one of the small group of states that includes Michigan and Wisconsin that gave him his electoral college victory despite losing in the overall national vote.
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Atheists in the US and around the world

This article collects statistics about atheists in America and worldwide.

In America:

Research has shown that most atheists tend to lean to the left in terms of their politics. About 69% of non believers are Democrats while 56% consider themselves to be politically liberal. In keeping with this finding 92% of atheists support same sex marriage and 87% approve of legal abortion. Atheists are also more likely to be young (the median age being 34), male (68%), white (78%), and educated (with 43% having a college degree).
…

According to the Pew Research Center in terms of the U.S. adult population the average age of Christians was 49 in 2014 which is up from 46 in 2007. This comes as a contrast to atheists whose average age fell from 36 in 2007 to 34 just seven years later. American Jews remained steady over this time period with a median age of 50.

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The rise and fall of demagogues

Senator Joe McCarthy casts a long shadow over American politics. The radio program Fresh Air had an interview with Larry Tye, author of the book Demagogue, that chronicled McCarthy’s smear campaign that brought him such fame. Starting in 1950, his wild allegations of Communists having infiltrated pretty much the entire US government, including the military, led to many people being fired and their lives destroyed, with some dying by suicide.

McCarthy adopted scorched-Earth tactics against anyone who opposed him, piling on lie after lie, making unsubstantiated allegations just in time to make the news deadlines, and quickly moving on to new ones before the earlier ones were investigated and repudiated. He would also lash out at anyone who opposed him, even campaigning against fellow politicians, and was so successful that he became feared and few ventured to criticize him. The comparisons to Donald Trump just jump out at you, including the detail that McCarthy was advised by the same sleazy lawyer Roy Cohn (1927-1986) who was a mentor to Trump and represented him in defending the charges that Trump’s housing properties discriminated against potential black tenants.
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Bail denied for Ghislaine Maxwell

The associate of serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein appeared in a New York City court today and pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against her. The judge denied her request for bail after prosecutors disputed her defense team’s claim that she was not a flight risk. Prosecutors said that her French citizenship (a country that does not extradite its citizens) and her extensive financial resources would make it highly likely that she would flee. The mystery is why she had not already done so before her arrest because she must have known she was under investigation, especially since Epstein’s death elevated her to the main living perpetrator of the abuse.
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Tucker Carlson ‘goes on vacation’ after his racist aide exposed

Tucker Carlson hosts a show on Fox News that some have dubbed the ‘White Nationalist Hour’ because of the relentless race-baiting that he spouts. It says something about the Fox News audience that Carlson’s show has become the highest rated cable news show. But a couple of days ago, Blake Neff, the show’s top writer, was exposed as having posted racist, homophobic, and misogynistic messages on various social media sites under a pseudonym.
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Trump’s re-election strategy involves gambling with people’s lives

Some political analysts claim that presidential elections are determined by what they call the ‘fundamentals’, meaning those factors that represent the underlying health of the economy like the GDP, job growth, unemployment, inflation, the stock market, and so on, all encapsulated in the mantra of the Bill Clinton campaign workers that “It’s the economy, stupid!” Such analysts argue that all the hot button GRAGGS issues (guns, race, abortion, god, gays, and sex) that make up the news headlines play a much lesser role in determining the outcome
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