It’s comparative, innit.
Mods
Please move this stuff to the Downunder thread where it belongs.
Cheers 
Leopard is scary but you just need to know where the leopard is spotted and then avoid that place because as they said, a leopard never changes it’s spot.
I saw an advertisement once in the local paper…
It said “Leopard Skin Coat For Sale - Spotless” :0)
True story… but think I should still hail a cab - Taxi 
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I caught some of it , and have decided never again to subject myself to any more Congressional Hearings , or at least not ones chaired by the crazy gang.
From NYT ;
Republicans Should Have Thanked Robert Hur. Instead, They Yelled.
'If there’s one thing you can count on from Republicans these days, it’s their refusal to take yes for an answer.
On Tuesday they spurned an easy win once again, during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by Robert Hur, the now-former special counsel who investigated President Biden’s retention of classified documents. The bottom line of the report Hur issued last month was that Biden broke no laws and Hur would not recommend any charges against him. But, of course, the juiciest part of the report came in Hur’s gratuitous characterization of Biden’s mental state — calling him a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
This was gift-wrapped campaign fodder for Republicans, and yet somehow it still wasn’t enough.
“You are part of the Praetorian Guard that guards the swamp out here in Washington, D.C., protecting the elites,” Representative Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin said to Hur, a deputy U.S. attorney general in the Trump administration.
Tom McClintock of California used his allotted time to complain about the classified-documents prosecution of Donald Trump, charging the Biden administration with using the rule of law as “a weapon to wield against political rivals and a tool of despotism.”
And then there was Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee chairman, who just yelled. That appears to be the only way he is able to form sentences.
Where, a viewer might wonder, was the gratitude to Hur?
Put aside for the moment that Hur could not explain why he needed to speculate at length about Biden’s memory and cognitive functioning, since he admitted he didn’t have sufficient evidence to recommend charges in the first place. Or why, if it was so important to consider how a jury might be influenced by the president’s memory, he failed to report his own statement that Biden seemed to have “a photographic understanding and recall” in at least one instance.
All Republicans had to do was sit back and enjoy Hur’s one-sided report and the political damage it has inflicted on Biden. Why wouldn’t they?
Because, as has become clearer with every day of the Trump era, they don’t actually want to win. They don’t even care about classified-document retention. All they care about is their endless list of grievances about the swamp, the “deep state,” the elites — whatever today’s term is for the government that they control half of.’
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How crazy do they have to get before the US public starts to notice?
When do the grown ups retake control?
In November hopefully , when their bullshit is rewarded with a Democrat clean sweep.
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There aren’t any left. Fifty years of the neoliberal agenda- dumbing down, soundbite politics, mass distraction, etc- has meant that most of the supposed grown-ups aren’t very bright. And those who are, have to perform a certain way anyway.
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Not until after the (bloody) revolution…
There were several moments where Hur was eviscerated, showing big discrepancies between the transcripts and his characterization of them in his report. Several times even using Hur’s own words in the transcripts that argued against his characterization in the report.
The best though was from Swalwell who realized that this was being done less a real congressional hearing and more media fodder for an upcoming election. So in his questioning he played a 2 minute video of Trump malfunctioning knowing Fox would be airing it live 
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Now Trump is the official nominee the push for party endorsements is underway. Pence announced today he will not endorse him.
The last man to run for President who failed to get the endorsement of his former VP was Teddy Roosevelt failing to get Taft’s endorsement for his bid in 1912. The reason then was because Taft was the sitting president and was himself running for reelection
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Trump continues to experience a sizeable opposition in his primary, losing 20% of the vote in yesterday’s Florida primary. That isnt really explained by the presence of De Santis given he got a negligible amount of that vote.
What do you put the opposition down to? People getting worn down with the circus surrounding Trump? Or something else?
I have a friend involved in GOP politics who says there are 4 general reasons people give him for voicing unease about Trump. I don’t remember the details of how he breaks that down, but he claims the only thing that reliably produces different behavior from people who have voted for him in the past is disgust over 06JAN and the rewriting of history they have done since.
This seems like a pretty decent hypothesis and represents the Kinzinger/Chaney wing of the party who both voted for him in 2020 but lead the party’s rejection of him thereafter.
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What does the endorsements do? If there are a sizeable Republicans refusing to endorse Trump, is there a mechanism to pull back his nomination or is there even time to do that?
I don’t think the 20% is as relevant as people make it out to be. If he was still fighting for the nomination, then 100% yes. The anti trump people are more inclined to vote in a dead rubber. In other words, he is NOT going to lose 20% of his 2020 totals in the 24 election, he wont even lose 5%, I personally think he will gain on the 2020 totals.
No, there is no real mechanism other than the convention, and that simply won’t happen.
What it does show is a lack of enthusiasm. His campaign might struggle to get donors and volunteers, particularly in states where there are closer Senate races.