DCUM Weblog

The most active thread over the weekend will probably come as no surprise to anyone. Titled, "Shots fired at Trump rally", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, this thread reached nearly 200 pages and well over 2600 posts since the attempted assassination of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump on Saturday evening. The first few pages were devoted to simply posting details — a few of them vaguely correct — about what had happened. But soon the thread devolved to little more than finger-pointing. Trump supporters in the thread were sure that the shooter was a liberal motivated by Democratic rhetoric. Their posts were filled with anger with many insinuating that any DCUMer who didn't share their rage was essentially personally responsible for the attempt on Trump's life. For their part, many of the liberals insisted that Trump's own often violent words that consistently inflamed his supporters had come home to roost. When the the shooter was identified and records showed that at 17 years of age he had made a $15 donation to a progressive organization and then, months later, had registered as a Republican, both sides were given ammunition to claim he belonged to the other side. The debate about this was interminable with posters intent on making the most of his party affiliation and others determined that no mention of his registration would go unanswered. The responses pointing out the shooter's $15 contribution were often accompanied by a graphic that was posted so many times that I fear it may be permanently burned into my retinas. A similar never-ending dispute was over whether Trump had been wounded by a bullet or fragments of glass. It is not clear to me why this is even an important distinction, let alone one worth arguing about for two days. Trump-supporting posters kept returning to their allegation that the shooter had been inspired by accusations and claims made by Democrats, including President Joe Biden. It is interesting that a party that once rallied around a profane statement concerning what liberals should do with their feelings has transformed into a fragile collection of snowflakes. Calling Trump a threat to democracy had put his life in danger, posters claimed. While Trump often promotes violence from the stage of his rallies, MAGA posters had to dig deep to find words with which to implicate Biden. The best that they could do was a statement that Biden had made privately during a phone conversation with party financial donors. He said that he was done talking about the debate that that Trump should be put in the bullseye. He then went on to discuss Trump policies that he planned to criticize more forcefully. The context of this clearly has nothing to do with violence, but that didn't stop Trump supporters who interpreted this as a direct order to shoot Trump. The shooting has created an uneven balance in the rhetoric battle. Trump's MAGA cult, built on resentment and anger, will hardly be satisfied with a new humbled and emphatic Trump who is interested in lowering the temperature and creating unity — if such a thing were even a possibility. Therefore, Trump's inflammatory words will likely continue. Democrats, on the other hand, have been brow-beaten to the point where they will have to be practically apologetic with any criticism of Trump. As one poster in the thread asked, "what if you think that Trump is a threat to democracy?". MAGAs have never considered that to be legitimate criticism and now they claim that it is a provocation to murder. Therefore, while the violent rhetoric that is common among Trump and his supporters will likely continue, Democrats will only be allowed to respond with expressions of respect and desires of unity with Trump.

Yesterday's most active threads were again dominated by political topics which filled three of the top four places. The first of those was titled, "Biden’s ‘Big Boy’ press conference" and, obviously, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started this thread in anticipation of a press conference that would be held yesterday evening by President Joe Biden following the conclusion of the NATO summit held in Washington, DC. Following Biden's poor performance in the presidential debate with former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump, he has been under tremendous pressure to participate in unscripted events that would allow the President to demonstrate his cognitive fitness. This press conference was such an opportunity. For reasons that I cannot begin to understand, the White House itself chose to refer to the event as the "Big Boy Press Conference". As has been the case in all recent Biden public events, this thread immediately started off with conspiracy theories. Posters predicted that Biden would be given the questions in advance, that everything would be rehearsed, and that Biden would be drugged to perform better. These same claims had been made prior to the debate and, obviously, did not turn out to be true. But a track record of being wrong has never stopped these posters. Many posters had very low expectations for Biden, assuming that the debate performance was an accurate indicator of his neurological state. The President did little to convince them otherwise when earlier in the day he introduced Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as "President Putin". Biden started the press conference off strongly with a prepared statement that was obviously read from a teleprompter. But, whatever hopes Biden might have had of changing minds about his fitness were almost immediately shattered when he referred to "Vice President Trump" when he obviously meant Vice President Kamala Harris. Of course posters in the thread immediately jumped on both of these gaffes which almost completely set the tone for the rest of the press conference. It cannot be denied that Biden is no longer a very good communicator. He has a stutter which causes him to speak slowly in order to avoid. His voice is gravely and he has a tendency to stumble over words. But as he showed throughout the rest of the press conference, he has a solid grasp of details of complex topics and can understand and explain the nuances of complicated issues. When it comes to being able to understand and articulate policies, Biden is far more able than Trump. Many posters in the thread recognized this, but others either could not or would not get past the gaffes. These misstatements are unfortunate, but which of us parents has not called our own children by the wrong name on occasion? That doesn't mean that we don't know who our children are or that we are suffering from dementia. But, in Biden's case, it reinforces a concerning perception that he has lost his mental sharpness. Biden's performance was almost the worst cases scenario. Had Biden entered the room unable to remember what day it was and promptly provided a recipe for banana bread in response to a question about his plans for the Middle East, the decision to replace him would have been easy. Alternatively, had he put in an error-free performance that included Obama-level oration skills, he probably would have quelled most of the criticism. However, he did neither. This press conference was neither fish nor fowl. As such, the fight over the Democratic presidential nominee will go on.

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. That means that the first thread for today's post was actually the third most active yesterday. That thread was titled, "Do younger teens really do nothing all summer?" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that her 14-year-old son thinks the original poster and her spouse are being unfair because they require him to participate as a counselor-in-training at a half day summer camp and volunteer one evening a week. He claims that most of his friends are either doing nothing or only a 2-hour crew activity and, therefore, have more free time than him. The original poster thinks that her son has plenty of free time as it is and he wastes that playing video games. She asks whether what her son says about his friends is really true of most kids. Most of those responding say that their kids are involved in some structured activities. Counselor-in-training positions are popular as is volunteering. Many are involved in some sort of sport and quite a few other posters say that their kids are attending summer camps. A few even have jobs. But some posters prioritize allowing their children to have free time. Just about the only controversy in this thread involves a poster who accused parents who arrange structured activities for their kids of not wanting to parent and not wanting their kids to simply "exist". "Just let them be kids for awhile", she argues. Posters such as this one seem to have an idealized view of childhood in which carefree children spend their summers playing with friends, having their own adventures, and keeping themselves entertained. While there may be a few examples of this sort among the posters' kids, for the most part any free time kids have these days is filled by screens. In contrast to the oft-stated concern that kids spend too much time playing video games, the anti-structured activities poster didn't seem to be concerned about that, saying that there is nothing inherently wrong with playing video games. Moreover, while that poster suggested that parents force their kids into the structured activities, a number of posters argued that their kids want to do those activities and that don't need to be forced. None of the posters expect their kids to be busy every minute of every day for the entire summer. But, they also don't want their kids to be sitting around bored or doing nothing but playing video games all summer. What is clear is that some kids are able to take the initiative to find activities with which to keep themselves busy while others need a bit more engagement from parents.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "pit bull on a plane" and posted in the "Pets" forum. The original poster says that as she was debarking from a regional airplane, she noticed that a pit bull had been in the seat behind her. This caused her to wonder what would happen if the dog had "snapped" in the confines of a small airplane. She asked for advice about what to do if that happened again in the future. This thread was reported a number of times with the accusation that the original poster is a troll. So, let me commment on that first. I can't say whether the poster is a troll or not. What I can say is that she has been creating a large number of threads, mostly on fairly mundane topics. She was also the author of the thread that I discussed yesterday about hiding a trip from a friend. Whether the poster is a troll or just has a knack for provoking engagement I can't say. While I have not read every post in this thread, I am fairly comfortable saying that it is unlikely that the original poster received any useful advice about what to do about a pit bull that suddenly goes bersek in an airplane. The most common reaction was to ask the original poster why she was concerned about a dog that she hadn't even noticed during the flight. In the original poster's defense, she was asking about what to do on future flights, not the one that she had just completed. The second most common reaction was to argue about put bulls. In the pets forum there are two topics that are guaranteed to launch flame wars. The first is whether pets should be adopted from shelters or purchased from breeders. Posters will fight like cats and dogs over that topic. The second is pit bulls,. There are posters who detest pit bulls, considering them to be unreasonably dangerous. In fact, one of the main arguments against adopting from a shelter is that many of the dogs are at least part pit bull. There was actually a thread in which a poster attempted to document attacks by pit bulls. The thread reached 23 pages before I locked it. I locked it because a pro-pit bull poster kept posting off-topic posts which the anti-pit bull poster would report. There was a constant cycle of anti-put bull post, off-topic post, and then a report to me resulting in my removing the post. This went on long enough that I got tired of it. In the case of this thread, posters on both sides of the pit bull debate showed up. The anti-pit bull position is, of course, that the dogs are dangerous and should be banned. None of these posters would want to be on an airplane with a pit bull and they don't think pit bulls should be allowed on airplanes. They would ask to move or leave the plane if they were seated near one. The pro-pit bull position is that it is not the dogs but the owners who are the problem. In the case of this dog — which most of the pro-pit bull posters don't believe even existed because they consider the original poster to be a troll — the dog was very well behaved and not a threat to anyone. The dog obviously had a good owner. Any behavioral issues with a pit bull are the fault of the owner rather than the breed, these posters say. In any case, they argue, dogs from other breeds also attack people. Personally, I believe that if you are on an airplane and suddenly attacked by a pit bull you should do exactly the same thing that you would do if you were attacked by a poodle or a great dane. I am not sure what that is, but I don't think that air travellers need to learn specific anti-pit bull defense responses.

Yesterday's most active thread was a bit of a surprise to me. Titled, "2024 AP Exams - Results", and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum, the thread was literally about the results of the 2024 advanced placement exams. Started at 4:33 a.m., the thread was meant to alert posters that the scores had been released three minutes earlier at 4:30 a.m. I was a bit surprised that parents would be up at 4:30 to check their kids' test results, but then I noticed that the original poster was in California. Still, that would be 1:30 a.m. her time. Clearly, my dedication as a parent is not measuring up very favorably because I would be sound asleep at either 1:30 or 4:30 a.m. I would find out about my kids' test results if or when they got around to telling me about them. Because many of the parents posting in this thread were obviously learning about the results before their kids — who were likely still asleep — had had a chance to check them, there was some discussion about whether the parents should stay mum until the kids saw their scores themselves or go ahead and tell them. There were also concerns expressed that checking the scores was an invasion of the kids' privacy. But most of the thread was simply posters posting the results. Those whose kids received all 5s (the top score) were obviously thrilled. Some were pleased with a 4 but some were a bit let down. Some posters argued that the difference between a 4 and a 5 is minimal and doesn't indicate much about a student's abilities. Scores of 3 were a bit more controversial. Some colleges award credits for a 3 and, therefore, several posters were satisfied that their kids had received 3s. But others viewed 3s as disappointing. I didn't read the entire thread which is currently 18 pages long, but I did notice several posts saying that scores this year had improved over previous years. Some attributed this to better prepared students and pandemic set backs finally being overcome. But others argued that the tests are getting easier and that high scores should not be taken that seriously. AP scores are particularly important to those students who are applying to universities in the United Kingdom where ACT and SAT results are not accepted but AP exams are required. Therefore, in some cases, these results will determine where kids will be going to college next year. Despite the concentration on scores, there is quite a bit of additional discusion on the topic of AP exams. If you are not familiar with the exams or are interested in deepening your knowledge, this would be a good thread to peruse.

Just as most days last week, the most active topics over the weekend were political. The first of those was titled, "ABC News interview TONIGHT with Biden" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started this thread in the late morning on Friday in anticipation of the recorded interview of President Joe Biden that ABC News was going to broadcast that evening. The original poster expressed his opinion that the interview would be too short and the fact that it was pre-recorded would be insufficient to demonstrate Biden's cognitive fitness. The interview was scheduled to be recorded in the afternoon which the original poster described as Biden's "functional" window and would be conducted by George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton White House staffer. None of this was reassuring to the original poster. Others were even more strident in their criticism. Several posters were certain that a conspiracy was in the works. Biden would be provided the questions in advanced, they said. The interview would be edited, they claimed. There is no evidence of the first and ABC News explicitly denied the the interview would be edited. One poster even predicted that artificial intelligence would be used to fake or enhance the interview. The thread was already 15 pages long before the interview even aired. Once ABC News started the broadcast, posters posted their reactions as they watched. Most were not impressed. Once again Biden's voice sounded off and every stumble over a word resulted in a rash of posts. Biden's skin tone which had taken on an orange hue reminiscent of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's, was also the subject of many remarks. There is very little indication that the interview had successfully achieved its goal of assuring the public that Biden has the cognitive ability to run the country. The problem that Biden faces is that he is not currently a good communicator. His critics are assuming, or at least arguing, that Biden's communications struggles reflect problems with other skills necessary to serve as President. I am not sure that this is a good assumption, but Biden and his team are doing little to convince the public otherwise. This thread is currently 55 pages long and I am unable to read it all. But shortly after the interview ended it appears that the thread started going off topic and simply turned in to a presidential campaign free-for-all thread. In a way that is fitting. There is nothing that Biden can do to convince diehard Republicans that he is fit for office. Similarly, plenty of Democrats are willing to vote for Biden even if he has to be propped up like Bernie in "Weekend at Bernie's". As such, Biden's performance in the interview is of little matter to these folks. As for those who are basing their vote on Biden's fitness for office, based on the little evidence they provided in this thread, they want to see more of Biden in order to better make a decision.

The three most active threads yesterday were all posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. However, one of those was a thread that I discussed yesterday and will skip today. Still, half of the topics I will discuss today are political. The first of those was titled, "It is insulting to us American voters that we have to choose between a senile old man and a criminal". The original poster says that she is furious and cannot vote for either President Joe Biden or former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. She says that it is completely unacceptable that American voters have been put in this position and that the whole world is watching in horror. The worst part about our current conundrum is that it was not caused by our political system breaking down, but rather our political system working exactly as it should, at least in terms of selecting candidates. The Republican Party had a hard-fought primary with a number of credible candidates. Those candidates included several sitting or former governors, a U.S. Senator, and a former Vice President. Trump, as a former President — as well as a cult leader — always had an advantage. But the other candidates had a fair opportunity to defeat him and simply failed. Trump is clearly his party's preferred candidate. The Democrats' situation was somewhat different. It is rare that sitting Presidents face contested primary elections with anything other than token opposition, especially when the President has been successful as it can be argued that Biden has been. The stiffest opposition from Biden was from "uncommitted". But while the system functioned as designed, the institutions within that system have been weakened and/or are dysfunctional. Trump was twice impeached but each time the Senate, acting mostly along partisan lines, refused to convict. In the case of Trump's January 6 related impeachment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even agreed with the impeachment, but argued that Trump, as a former rather than sitting President, should be dealt with by the courts rather than Congress. It was the same McConnell who had previously engineered the appointment of three Supreme Court justices selected by Trump, once by refusing to confirm a nominee and once by rushing to confirm a nominee in record speed. The judicial system has simply not been up to the task of handling Trump and his Supreme Court picks are further assuring that he will not face legal consequences. On the Democratic side, most voters likely believed that Biden was going to be a one-term President. A bridge candidate who would defeat Trump, get the country back on track, and then prepare the ground for the younger generation. But somewhere along the way Biden, if he had ever agreed to this in the first place, changed his mind. Again, the institutions that could have played a role in easing him out failed. Mechanisms are grinding away now that may result in Biden's replacement, but whether that comes to pass is still an open question. The real challenge facing us is how we can strengthen the institutions that are fundamental to our democracy but which have simply not been functioning adequately. I don't really have an answer to that question.

Yesterday's most active threads were again dominated by political topics, even when the topics were not in the political forum. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Biden weighing whether to drop out", and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a New York Times article that currently reports that President Joe Biden has told allies that he understands that he must quickly convince voters that he is up to the job if he is to salvage his presidential campaign. This article originally said that Biden had talked to these allies about dropping out. While the current version of the article contains a quote from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, denying that claim, the claim itself is missing. The article provides no information about why the original claim was removed or even any notice that it has been dropped from the article. After New York Times reporters tweeted out the claim that Biden had discussed dropping out, Biden campaign officials strongly pushed back saying that they had only been given 7 minutes to respond to the report and would have denied it then if they had had time. The upshot is that this thread is based on an allegation that has been removed by the newspaper and rejected by both campaign and White House officials. The discussion in the thread is mostly about who would take Biden's position at the top of the ticket. The most obvious choice is Vice President Kamala Harris. Legally, the campaign money raised by the Biden-Harris campaign can only be used by Biden or Harris. Nevertheless, in this thread, there is strong opposition to Harris. Posters are concerned that she is not popular and that her weaknesses can easily be exploited. Some posters argue that she should be removed as the vice presidential candidate, but that would mean that another campaign would have to start from zero in terms of money. Other posters suggest that she remain as the vice presidential candidate, but someone else be selected to run for the presidency. According to campaign finance experts, that arrangement would legally be a new campaign and could not access the current Biden-Harris money. Realistically, Biden and Harris are the only two candidates. Personally, I don't understand the opposition to Harris. Yes, we can all think of our dream candidates, but none of those are realistic options (unless either Biden or Harris is your dream candidate). Biden and Harris are both currently polling about the same against former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. I would think that Harris has a much bigger upside. Moreover, Harris's writ as candidate would be fairly simple. She would only need to support reproductive rights, support gun control, demand that corporations lower prices, and attack Trump on a long list of topics. Beating Trump does not require sophistication. It mostly requires demonstrating that you are not Trump and that you still maintain significant cognitive capability. What would be really damaging to Democrats is a long, drawn-out, process to determine whether Biden will stay or go. If he is going to step down, he needs to do it quickly. If he is not going to, all the Democrats calling for him to move aside need to shut up. Democratic infighting at this point is really not needed.

Unlike the past two days, the most active threads yesterday were not all political topics, though half of them still were. The most active thread, however, was not political at all, unless you include family politics. Titled, "Napping on vacation when you have kids?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum, the original poster is upset about her husband's nap routine. On days off, weekends, and vacations, the original poster's husband expects to have a two-hour nap each day beginning at 4:00 p.m. The original poster is especially frustrated by this with regard to vacations. This forces the family, which includes their two tween/teen children, to return to the hotel each day for nap time, depriving them of two hours a day that could be spent on other activities. Moreover, since the original poster doesn't feel the children are old enough to explore strange cities on their own and the hotel pool does not allow the children to swim without supervision, the original poster doesn't get to enjoy downtime herself during her husband's nap because she has take care of the kids. The original poster thinks that her husband is being unreasonable and wants to know if she is wrong. There is a surprising amount of interest in this topic which produced 21 pages of responses in less than a day. For her part, it seems that the original poster bowed out after the second page, perhaps not wanting to waste vacation time on DCUM. Also surprising was the amount of support shown for the original poster's husband. DCUM, at least as represented by this thread, is apparently very pro-nap. A fairly common type of response was for a poster to explain that they make a bazillion dollars a year and normally work 25 hour days, but on vacation they like to take a nap. In fact, very few posters seem to take issue with the original poster's husband's nap habit. Rather, they provided ideas for the original poster to accomodate it. Many posters thought that the children were old enough to do activities on their own, despite the original poster's reservations in that regard. Even if the kids weren't able to go to the pool or venture out into the city, they could at least read or have screen time while their father napped. Several posters argued that the issue wasn't the two-hour nap, but rather the inflexibility of its timing. Not all activities lend themselves to being back at the hotel at 4, they suggested and they didn't like the idea of being forced to plan around a daily nap at that time every day. Other posters said that they intentionally plan in such a manner so that they can have their daily naps. A number of posters advised the original poster to simply plan their day and go about their activities, allowing her husband to depart for his nap and catch up with the family later. That way, only his day would be interrupted. A considerable number of posters worried that the nap requirement was caused by a medical condition such as sleep apnea. But this idea was scoffed at by posters who consider daily naps to be completely normal.

For the second day in a row, all of the most active topics were posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and all but one are related to the presidential debate. The shortest of these threads is 12 pages and the first one is over 50. So I am unable to read all of the posts in the threads and will only provide an overview of the topics. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "The President is Above the Law". This thread was started back in January after oral arguments before the Supreme Court regarding the question of whether former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump has immunity for his actions related to the January 6 insurrection attempt. During the hearing, Trump's lawyer was asked whether a president could order Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent and enjoy immunity for the act. Trump's lawyer argued that Congress would surely impeach a president who did such a thing, but short of impeachment the President would have immunity. This led to the original poster creating this thread. Yesterday, the Supreme Court released its decision in the case, granting considerable immunity to the President. In her dissent, Justice Sonya Sotomayor returned to the example of Seal Team 6 being used to murder a political opponent, claiming that the majority ruling granted immunity for such an act. The majority ruled that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for "core constitutional powers", those duties specified in the Constitution. In addition, the Court ruled that presidents have presumptive immunity for "official acts", actions undertaken in the course of acting as president. Finally, the court confirmed that presidents enjoy no immunity for private acts. On the face of it, this sounds fairly reasonable. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. The Court also ruled that evidence involving acts for which the President is immune cannot be used against him. This presents a significant hurdle to prosecuting a president for crimes that were unofficial acts and for which even the Court agrees, there would be no immunity. As Sotomayor explains in her dissent, imagine that the President gave an official speech during which he stated his intention to prevent a political rival from passing legislation by any means. That would be an official act for which the President would have the presumption of immunity. If the President later hired a private hitman to murder the rival, that would be a private act, but the President's public admission of intent could not be introduced as evidence to support a murder charge. As things stand, the case against Trump has been remanded to the lower court where Judge Tanya Chutkan will have to review the case in light of the Supreme Court's decision. If the actions for which Trump has been charged appear to core constitutional acts, he will have immunity. It is very unlikely that any of Trump's January 6-related actions will fall in that category. However, there will certainly be an argument that the actions were official acts for which Trump should have the presumption of immunity. It will be up to Jack Smith to demonstrate that the acts were, in fact, private. One thing that is already clear is that some evidence, such as that involving Jeffrey Clark, will no longer be admissible because it involved official acts.