The Biden "Tall Tales" story is in my screenshot because it's so absurd. The effort to make Biden's stumbling and lying lovable. Look, they even juxtaposed pandas...
Anyway, it's a friendly welcome to Burgum. The first article begins:
After taking his software company public in 1997, Doug Burgum gathered a few colleagues in his office and swore them to secrecy.He's a conspicuous man the size of an obscure man.
He wanted to uphold the modesty and decorum central to his North Dakota birthright and his chimney-sweeper past, but he was eager to boast about a splashy new purchase. While others splurged on cars or boats, Mr. Burgum’s big reveal was a Bobcat front-end loader — a dirt mover for his ranch near Fargo.
“I remember thinking, ‘Yeah, Doug, you’re not big-timing anyone with that one,’” Jeff Young, the software company’s former operations chief, recalled with a laugh.
Now the governor of North Dakota, Mr. Burgum’s long-held scruples over being seen as an attention-monger have hurled the longtime Republican out of political obscurity and into the limelight as one of a handful of the leading contenders in Donald J. Trump’s search for a running mate....
I like that they highlighted my favorite thing about Burgum: He's a chimney sweep!
In some ways, he can be easy to pigeonhole as a mild-mannered Midwesterner. He worked as a chimney sweep in college, wearing a black top hat and tails to evoke Dick Van Dyke’s character in “Mary Poppins.”...
Yes, the Midwest. I know it well. Does the New York Times? The author of this piece, Michael C. Bender grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Only a thousand miles from Fargo, North Dakota. The Midwest. A large place the size of a small place.
Did you remember that Burgum was my favorite contender for the top slot? Here's my July 29, 2023 post: "Never heard of? He's been my favorite of the GOP candidates since he started."
More from the NYT article:
At the age of 67, Mr. Burgum is closer to a generational peer of the 77-year-old former president than most of the other Republicans under serious consideration. He endorsed Mr. Trump in 2016, but won both of his races for governor without relying on help from the former president. His independence, both electorally and financially, has helped ease Mr. Trump, who keeps close track of the political debts he’s owed, according to two people familiar with the former president’s thinking.
I like the prison break theme.
Mr. Burgum possesses a Stanford degree, an easy ability to talk sports and a thick head of hair, which he kept in a ponytail as a younger man and is now an object of Mr. Trump ’s admiration. The former president has privately told people that Mr. Burgum has the “central casting” look he favors in public figures.
Men and their hair, their thick, lush, long hair... shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen... let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees... a home for the fleas... a hive for the buzzin' bees... nest for the pandas... this ain't no propaganda... men's hair hair hair hair....
Posts
80 comments:
I remember thinking, ‘Yeah, Doug, you’re not big-timing anyone with that one
-someone who has never driven a bobcat.
Not a DEI candidate, is the hidden message.
... it's a friendly welcome to Burgum.
And if Trump picks him, he'll become a Nazi in the blink of an eye.
Joe Biden loves to lie to the American people, and the media slurps it up like gospel in their Regressive church of Satan.
There....I fixed it for them...
I spent my teen years in Cleveland. Geographically, it’s east, but culturally, it’s midwest. It is a big place.
That’s a surprisingly gentle article. They must be waiting for Trump to pick him before they start calling him a Nazi.
Tall Tales? Seriously? Biden isn't talking about Paul Bunyan. He is lying about his own history.
Tim, I was thinking something similar. Ohio is more Midwest than North Dakota.
Althouse said…
I like the prison break theme.
To paraphrase Thin Lizzy, “There’s gonna be a jail break, somewhere in this post…”
Plus, “Is it flowing? I like flowing, cascading hair. Thick lustrous hair is very important to me.”
I looked it up to see if I was wrong about the definition of "birthright" and I wasn't.
Apparently the New York media heard Trump was planning to hire Mitt Romney one day and thought "gee, this gullible yokel will hire anyone who looks like a Hollywood president!"
What they didn't realize is that Trump was taking advantage of Mittens and his idiot pride. In reality, all of President Trump's most successful appointments were of skilled bean counters (Lighthizer/ Ross) or diplomats who didn't need the State Department or Senate confirmation (Kushner).
The fact Pence and his team were overwhelmingly disappointments is why only NYT readers will think Trump could ever pick Burgum.
I'd buy a Bobcat if I could afford one. I'd push dirt around and do wheelies. Where I live, I could legally drive it to the grocery store. Respect.
"....... according to two people familiar with the former president’s thinking."
---
None of these people have a clue what Trump is thinking or who is his top pick for VP. Last month the left was sure that Haley was the VP choice. Two weeks before that it was someone else. Each article had anonymous sources of someone "familiar with Trump's thinking" Each article was bullshit.
My take, FWIW...
1) Noem, Vance, Huckabee Sanders, Donalds...all too inexperienced and/or lacking national presence.
2) Scott is not the attack dog type, which is the VP candidate's main role
3) Trump probably should choose Stefanik, who is intelligent, amoral and ruthlessly ambitious. Those qualities actually will likely put him off choosing her for VP.
4) Trump being Trump, he will likely chose Kari Lake, the person most unsuited for the job. However, she is loud, loyal and at home in front of a camera and on TV, which are the qualities Trump probably wants this time around. Trump chose a nobody like Mike Pence in 2016 because he needed to firm up evangelical support. Those votes are safely in the bag this time around, so he can choose a bomb-thrower like Lake this time.
If Trump would pick Kamala Harris even the Progs would ensure he finishes his term.
I’m not sure about the bobcat: does that come before the back hoe or after?
Regardless, that’s someone who wants to get down to business.
Lee Zeldin would be an inspired choice for VP for Trump. Nearly won NY Governor's race and he is a very effective attack dog when needed.
And if Trump picks him, he'll become a Nazi in the blink of an eye.
He'll become an even bigger Nazi if something happens to Trump while in office.
What does a VP do, anyway? Aren’t they just a placeholder?
Biden did nothing, Pence did nothing, Harris does nothing. Or, more specifically, you can only achieve negative things. However, it does make the person visible for a presidential run. Unfortunately, major dumbassery in the role doesn’t disqualify you for the position.
Trump doesn't need an attack dog VP.
Governor of the Barren Rectangle. I like it. Go Doug!
"A chicken in every pot and a Bobcat in every garage."
In my much younger days I got to operate heavy highway equipment on occasion. Most fun was a small John Deere bulldozer.
My wife know that, after a lotto win, a Bobcat would be housed in my new, huge, fantastic garage.
Bobcats are fun, because skid-steers now come with quick attachments that allow you to change out the device at the front easily: Bucket, blade, auger, grapple, mulcher, etc. But in reality any heavy equipment is a ball to operate because they are an immediate, direct power multiplier as an extension of your body. Nothing is more gratifying than that. But bulldozers are the most fun, with backhoes coming in second for anybody that has ever planted a tree.
The NYT is wish-casting their easiest-to-beat dream scenario, I think. Burgum would be a poor choice.
My take, FWIW...
Rich,
Considering you get your talking points from the DNC, it is not worth a bucket of spit.
Biden is still the left's nominee.
these people are not afraid. 2024 will be rigged just like the last election.
These are the same Soviet Soros a-holes who OKed engineered the covid virus release.
I'm more curious as to how they spun the Biden's "tall tales" article.
mindnumbrobot said...
"... it's a friendly welcome to Burgum."
And if Trump picks him, he'll become a Nazi in the blink of an eye.
Yeah, I get that. I don't really wish to argue the point other than to say that I know that I won't be wasting my time alleging that Burgum is any sort of "Nazi."
My question(s) for Burgum will be simple. Was the 2020 election "stolen"? (Burgum has said previously that it wasn't. Now, he is having a much harder time answering the question.)
If Burgum is a V.P. nominee (and I personally don't think that he will be, precisely because of the things I am raising in this comment), he is going to have to face long video clips of Trump saying repeatedly that the 2020 election was "stolen." Not simply problematic, or anything characterized by such mild or squishy terms. Trump says 2020 was "rigged" and "stolen" from him and that he actually won in 2020 "by a landslide." Those recordings are going to get played in front of Doug Burgum if he is nominated, and he will get drilled on them. Relentlessly. Repeatedly.
Trump has that weird sociopathic ability to say stuff like that and it doesn't really register in his conscience because he lacks any conscience. Burgum isn't built like that. Burgum is basically a normal person. Unlike Burgum, Elise Stefanik can do what Trump requires. Vivek Ramaswamy can do it too. They're both political freaks.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Burgum, struggling to endure even a mild questioning by Martha Raddatz. After being confronted with Trump saying that 2020 was stolen, Burgum was cornered into responding, "I'm not saying that." In the event (a really unlikely event I feel, although I don't much care) that Burgum gets picked, that's going to get a million times worse. As it should.
Trump should form a unity ticket and run with Bob Menendez.
All Trump needs to do is pick someone who is smart, can think on his feet, and treats the media with the needed contempt.
Burgum would be fine, I think, but there are better options.
Poor Rich- that verdict didn't turn out to work. Morons.
Doug Burgum acknowledges that President Biden won the 2020 election."I believe that Joe Biden won the election." (3:45)
One thing that Trump's campaign staff might like about this clip of Burgum is that it is a rather effective, master-class tutorial on how to run out the clock on a network television interview where the questions are not to your liking. The last question is a marvel. Burgum is asked about Mike Pence's upholding of the Constitution, and without even a passing effort at answering, Burgum pivots to energy, inflation, business startups, national security and the border.
>Stefanik, who is intelligent, amoral<
So, Rich, some examples, perhaps, of Stefanik's amorality?
"I used my first big check to buy a skid steer" is a much better get to know me story than, "I shot my dog and my goat in a fit of pique."
I'd love to see a politician, any politician, when asked about the 2020 election say just this: "No one actually knows -- and that's a serious problem for any democracy."
"I used my first big check to buy a skid steer"
Two of my first (and best) employees used their first big paycheck to buy pickups. Kept them on the payroll for as long as I could but each eventually moved on to start up their own small business. Great people.
Ice Nine said...
>Stefanik, who is intelligent, amoral<
So, Rich, some examples, perhaps, of Stefanik's amorality?
Good question!
While we wait for Rich to respond (I expect him to have a good answer), I thought that I might take a shot at it.
First let me note that there is barely a day, much less a week, that passes without Elise Stefanik posting some bit of reprehensibly false trash on Xitter. This in fact would make for a dandy wager; pick a week, any week, in the last two years and I will bet that there is an Elise Stefanik Tweet from that week that is laughably mendacious.
And let's start by going way back to "pedo grifters." Nothing (at least not since the days of John Nance Garner, or perhaps Spiro T. Agnew) has so elevated the Vice Presidency as the idea that Elise "Pedo Grifters" Stefanik might be nominated.
clint said...
I'd love to see a politician, any politician, when asked about the 2020 election say just this: "No one actually knows -- and that's a serious problem for any democracy."
I hear you. I don't like what you are saying, and I reject it as serious political thought, but I do hear you and I understand what you are trying to do.
But it doesn't work. It might, if Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley or Doug Burgum were the nominee. None of them are. It's Trump. And the question is whether Trump is right when he consistently, regularly, repeatedly, laughably continues to claim that 2020 was "stolen" from him and that he actually won "in a landslide." There aren't two sides to that. Reasonable people aren't differing over that. That's 100% pure crazy. Trump has created the target. Trump has dragged an entire party into his psychological pathology.
Operating a skid steer takes practice. You have to use both hands and both feet. At first you look like a total spaz. The machine is jerking forward and back, the bucket is going up and down apparently at random, but they're a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. Operating heavy equipment is fun. Greasing it in the mud, getting the damn thing started before sunup when it's 10 below, tumbling down a steep hill in it, not as fun.
@ Meade
What kind of business was it?
Aggie said...
Bobcats are fun, because skid-steers now come with quick attachments that allow you to change out the device at the front easily: Bucket, blade, auger, grapple, mulcher, etc. But in reality any heavy equipment is a ball to operate because they are an immediate, direct power multiplier as an extension of your body. Nothing is more gratifying than that. But bulldozers are the most fun, with backhoes coming in second for anybody that has ever planted a tree.
Nothing says power like a D8.
Isn't Burgum a Climate Crazy?
Impressive man but my sense is, he could morph into someone VERY
un-Trump-like. We've suffered enough of that kind of thing.
I'm not concerned about Trump experiencing mental decline or loss of energy but he is approaching 80 and,sometimes, shit happens. Who would Burgum be with Trump gone?
I trust Tulsi more than Burgum. I think she knows the Swamp is real. More vetting required but she'd add a lot of votes.
Stefanik is probably the choice who'd do the most good at the polls. No idea how she'd be in The Oval'
My pick's DeSantis but that's not happening.
Runner-up is Noem. She's a governor. That means something. The people who can't understand the dog thing aren't voting with us anyway. Americans ought to know more about farm life and what happens on the way to the dinner table.
Bob,
Residential landscape design-build-maintenance.
Shorter Chuck:
"The only acceptable Republican VP candidates are all Democrats.
Blogger clint said..."I'd love to see a politician, any politician, when asked about the 2020 election say just this: "No one actually knows -- and that's a serious problem for any democracy.""
This.
Blogger clint said..."I'd love to see a politician, any politician, when asked about the 2020 election say just this: "No one actually knows -- and that's a serious problem for any democracy.""
This.
———-
+1
Residential landscape design-build-maintenance.
That explains the nice work we've seen in pictures here on the blog.
"Trump should form a unity ticket and run with Bob Menendez."
Biden should form a unity ticket with resurrected Hitler.
They're already on the same team...
"No one actually knows..."
My sources know.
"No one actually knows..."
Is there a single state Governor or Secretary of State, past or present, of either party in any of the 50 states who thinks that the election that they presided over in 2020 was in any way invalid? About such people, I would say, "they actually do know..."
And I think I know. What I know is that no one has supplied a single serious/credible issue from a single state that puts into doubt that state's electoral votes.
Michigan (state senate) Republicans looked at 2020, and did a lengthy respected report which found absolutely nothing that put the results in doubt.
Arizona (state senate, and others) Republicans looked at 2020, hired the "CyberNinjas" to investigate, and came up with nothing.
Pennsylvania? Nevada? Georgia's Republican Secretary of State and Governor saw nothing to upset their state's results. I'm not even talking about all the failed lawsuits. I'm talking about someone, anyone, outside of the MAGA-Extreme bubble who has anything serious to say about supporting the truly crazy theories about Trump winning "by a landslide," and the election being "stolen."
I recognize that millions of credulous folk think that there was something wrong with 2020. None of them can articluate a meaningful theory as to why. Many of them have had their heads filled with insane conspiracy garbage. And yes indeed, as the saying goes, "that's a serious problem for any democracy."
Funny, I thought "Chuck" was banned a long time ago. Today this seems to be the "Chuck" blog.
"Trump should form a unity ticket and run with Bob Menendez."
I thought that the most sadly-underreported story of May was this one. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a Navy veteran and former prosecutor, introduced a bill that would bar Trump and Menendez from recieving classified briefings. The bill didn't mention either one by name; it simply would bar the president, vice president, members of Congress and federal candidates from receiving classified information if charged with obstructing an official proceeding, unlawfully retaining classified defense information, or acting as a foreign agent, among other criminal offenses.
Chuck, with blanket mail-in ballots, ballet harvesting, drop-boxes with poor or no chain of custody, it is unknowable.
(I see now that the Rep. Mikie Sherrill bill was a March story in The Hill. Not May. I guess it was underreported.)
My golden rule: never trust anything posted by a so-called LLR Michigan "election lawyer", particularly one with the screen name of "Chuck".
Original Mike said...
Chuck, with blanket mail-in ballots, ballet harvesting, drop-boxes with poor or no chain of custody, it is unknowable.
Here is ANOTHER underrported story. The absolutely fantastic, cataclysmic flameout of the Dinseh D'Souza election-conspiracy film, "2000 Mules." Which is now humiliatingly retracted by its distributor and withdrawn from circulation. And do click on that link; it is some wonderful writing.
Chuck actually believes he is accomplishing something here. Amazing how people delude themselves.
Rich said...
My take, FWIW...
1) Noem, Vance, Huckabee Sanders, Donalds...all too inexperienced and/or lacking national presence.
2) Scott is not the attack dog type, which is the VP candidate's main role
3) Trump probably should choose Stefanik, who is intelligent, amoral and ruthlessly ambitious. Those qualities actually will likely put him off choosing her for VP.
4) Trump being Trump, he will likely chose Kari Lake, the person most unsuited for the job. However, she is loud, loyal and at home in front of a camera and on TV, which are the qualities Trump probably wants this time around. Trump chose a nobody like Mike Pence in 2016 because he needed to firm up evangelical support. Those votes are safely in the bag this time around, so he can choose a bomb-thrower like Lake this time.
All Rich is doing is showing he is too stupid to think like Trump.
If Trump were to pick Kamala, she would become, instantly in the media's eyes, a privileged white woman
Why is Chuck still here?
Marcus Bressler said...
If Trump were to pick Kamala, she would become, instantly in the media's eyes, a privileged white woman
If Trump were to pick Kamala, Scott Adams would declare it to be an act of complete genius by a Master Persuader, playing 8-dimensional chess beyond the understanding of anyone except perhaps Trump, and of course Scott Adams.
Chuck - The anecdote that one guy is suing is not compelling. I don't need a study to inform me that banks need to put the money in a safe. Same with mail-in voting.
NYT analyzing lies.
Rich
Biden: “Tall tales, whoppers and sentimental exaggerations”
Trump: “Lies and mendacious falsehoods”
Biden: “Tall tales, whoppers and sentimental exaggerations”
Trump: “Lies and mendacious falsehoods”
That the NYT continues to speculate on Trump's VP pick tells me that "convicted felon" didn't work at all, that Trump shook all of that off, and that this is back to normal political summer.
Chuck said...
Marcus Bressler said...
If Trump were to pick Kamala, she would become, instantly in the media's eyes, a privileged white woman
If Trump were to pick Kamala, Scott Adams would declare it to be an act of complete genius by a Master Persuader, playing 8-dimensional chess beyond the understanding of anyone except perhaps Trump, and of course Scott Adams.
All Chuck is doing is showing he is too stupid to think like Scott Adams.
“Blogger clint said..."I'd love to see a politician, any politician, when asked about the 2020 election say just this: "No one actually knows -- and that's a serious problem for any democracy.""
This.
———-
+1”
Yes, a common statement is that dead people vote. It astounds me that the government can’t match death records from the irs with voting records and prove to everyone that no dead people voted, they don’t need to give out names. Why will they never do this? Because they want to cheat I guess. It seems very doable if we are spending trillions per year. If they find that some did vote dead on the first pass, they can do more detailed checking on a second pass.
he has long since removed all doubt on that score,
Gotta be a woman. Tulsi Gabbard, anyone?
Meade, What software did you use in your landscape business?
meh.
Bergum is the throw away candidate - because Trump knows he will lose to the crooked kingdom.
Thanks Bob!
Original Mike said...
Chuck - The anecdote that one guy is suing is not compelling. I don't need a study to inform me that banks need to put the money in a safe. Same with mail-in voting.
There was a whole lot of bitching about all of the absentee voting in Michigan in 2020. TONS of it. And the usual refrain was from TrumpWingers who were pissed off and believed that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel had all conspired to impose it. I found that hilarious. The TrumpWingers were too stupid, and too short of memory, to recall that in 2018, Michigan had a ballot proposal on the subject of universal absentee voting, and it passed, easily, with a commanding majority statewide vote. THAT'S how we (in Micihgan at least) got what you ignorantly call "mail-in voting." Not COVID; not some Democratic Party power play.
By the way; I voted AGAINST the universal absentee voting measure. I'm glad it won, given what happened in COVID, and I would vote for it were it up for a vote now. I have reversed myself. And it is almost entirely due to my new view of the Republican Party as being fundamentally unfit to govern. We used to regard absentee voting as "Our" special constituency in the MIGOP. All kinds of political benefits flow from absentee voters; you get more names and addresses. You know when absentee ballots are hitting mailboxes. You know who is returning their ballots. Etc., etc., etc. We wanted to keep absentee voting reserved for the people who got their shit together to sign up for it. People over 60; people who would bother to make an attestation that they were away from the jurisdiction on election day, etc. Republicans. At least, the Republicans of those days.
But the people spoke. They wanted no-excuse absentee voting. They wanted to join my club. They won, and I'm glad that they did. Then along claim the weird, twisted TrumpWingers who disowned absentee voting (along with the entirety of MIGOP success, pre-Trump) and Michigan went from being a (R) House, Senate, Governor and Supreme Court... to being (D) across the Board.
Bill, started the business in 1984. The only computer software we used was an accounting program called MYOB. 1992. Floppy disks. Even in 2007 when the business was sold, CAD was not yet useful enough to a company of our size. So… industry manuals, textbooks, reference libraries, Horticulture magazine, Architectural Digest, Fine Gardening magazine…
Why do you see everything through the political lens, Chuck? I don't care which party supported what. I care about the integrity of the ballot box. There's a reason many countries don't allow widespread vote by mail. it is not secure.
Original Mike said...
Why do you see everything through the political lens, Chuck? I don't care which party supported what. I care about the integrity of the ballot box. There's a reason many countries don't allow widespread vote by mail. it is not secure.
I see most things through a "Trumpism" lens. I like secure elections. I want secure elections. I want to respect electoral results, and I want the body politic to respect them.
I resent the Trumpists' illegitimate claims that we have had a lot of stolen or illegitimate elections since 2016. (Funny, how the razor-thin 2016 election wasn't suspect. Nor were the House elections that gave the GOP its bare majority. But the 2020 Presidential was a Trump "landslide" and "stolen.") I want to defeat Trumpism. Most particularly, I want to defeat Trumpism's malevolent influence on elections and the undermining of confidence in sound elections.
After our no-excuse absentee-ballot elections in Michigan in 2020 and 2022, there was no good reason to suspect that they were insecure or invalid. But Trumpists keep making claims to the contrary. And again I say to you that Michigan's no-excuse absentee voting scheme was overwhelmingly approved by the voters in 2018.
I'm fine with the vast majority of GOP voting initiatives; I supported just about all of them, pre-Trump. Trump's utter poisoning of the GOP has only slightly dampened my enthusiasm on voting policy. I still favor photo i.d. for voting; I want there to be solid protections for voting integrity in voter registration and policing voter rolls. I was on Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's (you may have heard of them) side as they defended Georgia election law reforms. I just think that TrumpWing Republicans have become the shittiest advocates for most traditional, sensible Republican policy on most subjects, election-related or not. And it's all because in the end, they have to defend Trump. Which is intellectually impossible.
"Funny, how the razor-thin 2016 election wasn't suspect."
Of course it was suspect. Is was suspect from the other side, which is just as much of a problem.
"I want to respect electoral results, and I want the body politic to respect them."
You're going about it all wrong, because it's always politics with you.
"And again I say to you that Michigan's no-excuse absentee voting scheme was overwhelmingly approved by the voters in 2018."
I don't care. It is insecure.
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