This is what happens at a deliverance service: US Politics April 2022

I think this is the month where there's going to be a LOT of accountability. a lot of things that we've all known about for years and years, ol Donnie wriggling, etc - I think in April 2022, this is the month when all of them have to actually own what they did, and maybe - just maybe - repay to society some of the harm the inflicted on all of us. especially the dead people. *fingers crossed*

WASHINGTON, DC - Nancy Pelosi resigned this morning. she said she was so sorry

source

Donald Trump just died! he fukken died

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0LY0I5bLA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGNVU5ZjlgA

into this song

worst cult of personality ever pic.twitter.com/oBH0IUF6r7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 1, 2022

"If you liked your plane crashing in the swamp and most of your band dying in horrific circumstances, then you'll LOVE DeSantis's approach to COVID"

what is this thread title?

it's kind of a deep cut

Back underneath the big tent, the exorcising of evil spirits continued with a Kentucky teen who had been brought to the service by his grandfather, Nightingale, a church attendee. The boy, Bronson, had been writhing on the ground, beset, when he suddenly got up and sprinted for the door.

Volunteers from the church, in black hoodies, tackled the teen in the back of the room. They held him down, rubbed his back with Bibles, prayed in tongues and exclaimed, “Out, out, out!” One blew a shofar, the ram’s horn normally used in Jewish religious ceremonies that some Christians also use.

The two had watched Locke together online, but it was Bronson’s first time at a service, Nightingale said. The boy, who had never sworn before, according to his grandmother, was now cussing at the volunteers and growling.

“This is what happens at a deliverance service,” Locke said from the pulpit. “Cry it out, shout it out, weep it out, snot it out. We’re going to set people free tonight.”

Suddenly Bronson’s tight body went limp. The volunteers huddled over him. When they helped him to his feet, he was smiling and calm, ready to be baptized. “Amen, I never had to chase nobody before,” one of the volunteers told the teen.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Bronson said. They went up to the front of the room, where a livestock watering tank painted sky blue inside awaited and the Praise band began softly playing the worship song “No Longer Slaves.”

“I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God,” they sang. Locke came down from the stage all smiles. Bronson stepped gingerly into the tank.

“Upon your confession of faith in Jesus Christ, the power and glory of the Gospel and this beautiful deliverance we have seen tonight, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” Locke said, dunking Bronson into the water as the music swelled.

Bronson came up, water sluicing from his jeans and shirt, smiling radiantly. His grandfather wrapped his arms around his neck from behind and crooned into his ear along with the music, “You are a child of God.”

“Hallelujah,” everybody said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/31/tennessee-pastor-extremist-politics/

One thing you can say about white evangelical christians and their Republican representatives in Congress, they're no angels.

picturing Tom Hardy as Locke in the movie Locke and Tom Hardy as Bronson in the movie Bronson playing the roles of Locke and of Bronson in the above narrative

how does that article relate to us politics, you might ask?

well, you see, my new theory is that to the extent that a national conversation takes place any more, or people are actually persuaded or able to change their mind on something, whether it be by thinking about what is right and wrong and that kind of shit, or just good old fashioned peer pressure from people they personally know, or whether it be a warning from your spiritual leader that you will burn in hell eternally if you don't do what they say, that kind of political conversation happens in churches.

wherever three or more of them are gathered in His Name there are three or more people who agree who the outsiders are

The unrepentantly Trump-garbed guy in my shop walked by this a.m. to tell a co-worker that he was retiring all his Trump gear (he daily wears stars & stripes hats, "Trump in 2024" shirts, etc.). We didn't get into a talk about why, as he and I have had words about how/why he (a quality inspector) could overlook Trump's character and actions. I doubt he's walking back all his support, but am pleased to see one less billboard and felt my work stress ebb slightly.

where the cocaine orgies, I just came for the cocaine orgy part

The Reformation was a terrible terrible mistake.

As the filing deadline approached Friday to run in the special election to fill Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, the field got crowded, with current and former lawmakers, former Gov. Sarah Palin and others jumping in.

More than 50 candidates had signed up by Friday afternoon, according to the Alaska Division of Elections, with more possible by the 5 p.m. deadline. Some candidates who’ve entered were expected; others were surprises; others have never been elected to office and had little or no experience in politics.

In the special election, voters will select who will replace the state’s congressman of 49 years, Don Young, who died suddenly while traveling back to Alaska two weeks ago.

The primary election date is June 11, but this will be Alaska’s first statewide by-mail election. Ballots will be mailed to overseas voters starting April 27, and Alaskans have until May 12 to register or update their addresses in order to receive a ballot.

Final results will be announced June 26, and the top four vote-getters advance to the Aug. 16 special general election, where a winner will be chosen by ranked-choice voting.

The special general election is on the same date as the primary for a full term in office, and one or more candidates could appear in both the special general and the regular primary. The four winners of that primary will advance to a ranked-choice vote during the November general election.

Staffers disclosed that she had 0 use for this kind of complicated hugga-bugga as Governor. Jump straight to the recount ffs!

Oops, sorry, Anchorage Daily News!
https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/04/01/live-updates-alaskas-us-house-race-expands-as-5-pm-deadline-nears/

I've been taking an RX for a chronic condition for years. This week, I learned my insurance no longer covers it. Now the cost is $639-a-month! How many people can afford that?
"Your money or your life" is a hell of choice that people shouldn't have to face.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 2, 2022

If only someone could have done something about this!

Get a job, axelrod. If you were a hardworking American your insurance would cover it

wait how the actual fuck is his premium scarcely higher than mine? He’s 20+ years older and I’m rolling with a laughably terrible bronze plan and no conditions.

ok nm looked again and his premium is like 28% higher (mine has been kind of all over the map as I’m self/employed and Covid contributed to wildly disparate income over the last few). but still! no condition, shitty bronze plan (I’m presuming he’s got better coverage), and I suppose has been subsidized by U of C. but still fuck this universal healthcare care now or gtfo

my insurance went from $19/month to $309 a month because i moved to a new state and got divorced

i should have stayed where i was and patched things up. for my health, but more important, for america

Grooming! https://t.co/3xxbO6mbCH

— Peter Elkind (@peterelkind) April 4, 2022

what year is it, 1954? Jesus

Well hell they’re still on the “gays are pedophiles” trip nothing changes

NEW: Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that creates a separate, privileged class of marriage for heterosexual couples, acting as a loophole to the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage. The bill would also legalize child marriage by eliminating age requirements.

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) April 5, 2022

🐦[NEW: Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that creates a separate, privileged class of marriage for heterosexual couples, acting as a loophole to the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage. The bill would also legalize child marriage by eliminating age requirements.
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) April 5, 2022🕸]🐦

Are you a racist? pic.twitter.com/Fdknxld39i

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) April 5, 2022

Debate is heating up on Capitol Hill on funding the military, and Democrats are facing a dilemma — back President Joe Biden’s historically high Pentagon budget or spend even morehttps://t.co/86uTi0msil

— POLITICO (@politico) April 5, 2022

$800 billion! No, $810 billion!

jfc, that JD Vance ad. a big giant fucking racist, pointing the finger at the camera and whining about how everyone's calling him a racist, while also saying "This issue is personal. I nearly lost my mother to the poison coming across the border."

still can’t believe he was able to con so many ppl into thinking he was some kind of hillbilly whisperer. anyway, here’s an evergreen tweet I enjoy whenever this absolute grifter pokes his dumb baby head up.

you see jd v*nces tweets and fully understand why his mom traded him for some perc 30s

— samuel (@samtrayter) July 31, 2021

One day, two ads from GOP #OHSen candidates grumbling about being called a racist.

"I didn't do two tours in Anbar Province fighting alongside Marines of every color to come home and be called a racist," Josh Mandel says in ad that shows him invoking MLK on the Pettus bridge. pic.twitter.com/MjWWGqWeY1

— Henry J. Gomez (@HenryJGomez) April 5, 2022

telling racists they're not racist seems to be the hot new thing in the ohio primaries. not sure why they bother tbh. trump didn't.

like what percentage of people who will actually vote for him, as opposed to his much more MAGA-attuned opponent, actually believe that the opioid crisis was caused by… Mexicans? do suburban conservative dudes in ugly vests who work in F/I/RE and drive 70k trucks believe that? I guess it’s possible?

'more illegal drugs and more democrat voters pouring into this country'

I know they do grow some democrats near Oaxaca, hidden among the avocados and mangos... big ripe juicy democrats

telling racists they're not racist seems to be the hot new thing in the ohio primaries. not sure why they bother tbh. trump didn't.

i don't know, trump and maga people are definitely one kind of american racist, but i think there is also a big chunk of white america who have had recent verbal confrontations with their children, in which insinuations were made that they were racist because they keep voting for the GOP every year, and they yearn for someone to give them some reasons why they aren't racist. such as, that JD Vance's mom almost died of an overdose (? JD Vance makes no sense to me, either. i think conservative voters in Ohio are just horrible people. their level of racism was more acceptable when they were young, and they refuse to change or ask questions of themselves. i hope i'm wrong on that, it's just a gut feeling)

but i think there is also a big chunk of white america who have had recent verbal confrontations with their children, in which insinuations were made that they were racist because they keep voting for the GOP every year,

Sounds about right. These people think they can't be racists because they think the n-word is evil.

Evil but also, like, "just a word."

"And some of my best friends"
"I don't see color" etc.

that's my entire paternal line of my family (who all vote republican). it's impossible to discuss anything nuanced with them. they feel like they were painted and accused of being racists by the entire liberal / left / dem cohort of the US.

right, all that stuff. that, to me, is the most common form of racism i've encountered in my life, and of course like many people i didn't realize it was there for too long. the conservative way of life is to refuse self-interrogation. i think for a lot of people, "change" is a thing that happens out in the world, materially, events, things you can see and describe easily. but it's not something that happens in how they think about things, the interior life, challenging preconceptions. so no, they will never change.

two tours in Anbar Province fighting alongside Marines of every color...

He joined the Marines and he re-upped. Other than that he had no fucking choice about any of the details he's claiming credit for, like being in Anbar or the color of the Marines he fought beside.

Apparently there's something amiss with one of the photos in that Mandel ad...

Nice hands, Josh. pic.twitter.com/j9VMd1wNgn

— Ti5QU4NTUM🌻 (@Ti5QUANTUM) April 5, 2022

my hands are brown, i know
but they're not yours, they are my own

still can’t believe he was able to con so many ppl into thinking he was some kind of hillbilly whisperer

^probably unfair of me to phrase it this way. i don’t suppose it was really “so many ppl”; mostly just thoroughly shook centrist outlets and media assholes looking for clues in the wake of 2016. and tbh—as my faith in the meritocratic/ technocratic hadn’t been beaten out of me quite yet—if Trumpism had happened & succeeded 4 years earlier I might have been susceptible to his brand of horseshit.

not their fault that everyone who knows how to use Photoshop is a liberal

xp "so many ppl" seems fair enough, at least before JDV showed his pungent ass on Twitter so often.
Hillbilly Elegy was a best-seller, wasn't it? And/or favorably reviewed, got him some op-ed writing for WSJ, and a Major Motion Picture--or at least,

84% liked this movie
Google users
A Yale Law student reflects on his family's history and his own future after returning to his Appalachian hometown.
Release date: November 11, 2020 (USA)
Director: Ron Howard
Adapted from: Hillbilly Elegy
Distributed by: Netflix
Starring: Amy Adams; Glenn Close; Gabriel Basso; Haley Bennett; Freida Pinto; Bo Hopkins; Owen Asztalos

not their fault that everyone who knows how to use Photoshop is a liberal

back in 2016, i would have joked, "yeah that's because the liberals photoshopped the photo and it's actually them that's racist!!", in 2018 i might have typed catpassingoutinfoodbowl.png instead, in 2020 i would have said fuck a lot more. not sure what 2022 will bring!!!

yeah lol guess “so many” is sadly fine; more the “wow look at all these dummies, couldn’t be me” implication. could absolutely have been me at a certain point

xpost

anyway hate this Fucking guy so much and I hope he loses even if it means this Mandel jagoff becomes presidetn or whatever

I would vote for Howie Mandel.

Being a New York Times bestseller doesn’t require selling that many books IIRC. If everyone at Third Way buys a copy he breaks into the Top 20.

Not many people bought Vance's book but every one went out and started a militia to storm the Capital.

I think I heard him on Fresh Air or somewhere when the book came out and thought he was a thoughtful, erudite kind of guy

Now I just think he's a steaming bowl of horseshit

I think it’s more that everyone who bought his book gave money to Amy McGrath

he was basically persona non grata in MAGA world until like 2019 and even then eyed heavily w suspicion

Being a New York Times bestseller doesn’t require selling that many books IIRC

i have no expertise but this sounds very much like "anyone can paint this! my kid can paint like that!" haha

because if it is that easy, let's start a thread and get on the NYT best seller list

"it was a dark and stormy night at ILX.."

It begins. Or continues:

Oklahoma’s state House on Tuesday voted 78-19 to pass a near complete ban on abortions, legislation that far surpasses Texas’ six-week ban. The bill is now headed to the Senate and, if passed, will be the strictest anti-abortion bill in the country.

The legislation — known as House Bill 4327 — bars a physician from performing or inducing an abortion at any point in the pregnancy unless it is “to save the life” of the pregnant person. Similar to Texas’ six-week abortion ban, the new legislation would allow private citizens to pursue civil actions of up to $10,000 against anyone who performs or “aids and abets in the provision of such an abortion.” Lawmakers added an emergency clause for timing so that if the bill is signed into law, it would take effect immediately.

I see no mention of an enforcement clause requiring fathers to pay paternity or pay for putting the children up for adoption. Is this a mistake?

congratulations to the bride and groom

just reading up on how Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) met his wife pic.twitter.com/ghjyy9WMPK

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) April 5, 2022

(yeah I know they got married in 2011)

congratulations to the bride and groomer

ftfy

that was the joek!

well,

[NEW: Tennessee Republicans are advancing a bill that creates a separate, privileged class of marriage for heterosexual couples, acting as a loophole to the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage. The bill would also legalize child marriage by eliminating age requirements.

I mean they've spent the last 2 weeks calling everyone pedophiles of course this is what they're doing

jfc

I think I heard him on Fresh Air or somewhere when the book came out and thought he was a thoughtful, erudite kind of guy. Yeah, his tone was like that initially---even his WSJ op-ded humbly presenting his praved-over choice of US Supreme Court offering, Brett Kavanaugh, of Viginny. But, you know, running ro Congress, he had to get real. That's how it is here in the boondocks, when you get in that Republican Primary, boy, you gotta be Trumpiest of all and then some, no prisoners. Those anti-abortion Dog The Bounty Hunter bills will be part of the contest before too long.

*prayed*-over choice

i have no expertise but this sounds very much like "anyone can paint this! my kid can paint like that!" haha

okay

a separate, privileged class of marriage for heterosexual couples

Separate but equal?

Seriously, what does this imply - discounts at Walmart?

yukking it up now before Elon decides to make dunking on rich dorks illegal

i get excited every time i see JD Vance, he's a really rare type of build genetically. guys like this were almost completely killed off by bugs bunny in the 1940s. almost went completely extinct. pic.twitter.com/T8LCj4sxCN

— jack wagner (@jackdwagner) June 25, 2021

Snopes on the case:

Claim
In 2022, Tennessee Republicans supported a piece of legislation that would legalize child marriage.
Rating
Mostly True

What's True
If implemented, House Bill 0233/Senate Bill 0526 would create a new way for the state of Tennessee to legally recognize common law marriages, but the legal text creating that "record of marital contract at common law" contains no minimum age restrictions, and would thus have the effect of allowing, anew, the legal recognition of marriages that involve children. However ...

What's False
Despite descriptions of the legislation as being a bill "to legalize child marriage" or "to allow child marriage," one of its primary sponsors has clearly explained that it is not intended to have that consequence.

There might be more, but Snopes ads screw with my computer.

So "we aren't legalizing child marriage on purpose, but, you know... *wink, shrug*" is good enough for Snopes?

They did say

Claim
In 2022, Tennessee Republicans supported a piece of legislation that would legalize child marriage.
Rating
Mostly True

has clearly explained

Although Snopes description sure looks like it's completely true, so I don't know why "aw, didn't mean it that way" makes it mostly true. I suppose it may get tweaked, now that folks are startin' to raise a ruckus.

Marsha Blackburn spent last week attacking Judge Brown Jackson about being too soft on child sex crimes. Now she’s supporting a bill to legalize child marriage.

— 𝐁𝐞𝐤𝐬 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@antifaoperative) April 5, 2022

Well, apparently the “logic” in this is that if you make child marriage legal, then it’s not a sex crime, right? So, does anyone know how far the GOP is going in the Wayback Machine?

— Anne (@SparksMom53) April 5, 2022

"Actually, we're trying to protect children... and who's more protective than a husband"

sad lol

because if it is that easy, let's start a thread and get on the NYT best seller list

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, April 5, 2022 3:46 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just a bit of fun, so let's be cool

Haa! That was in now way meant to be a comment on, what I am suddenly reminded of, was Hipster Puppies. More like an honest challenge similar to the New Yorker caption thread or the impossible grid challenge

The last 24 hours in DC corporate media: pic.twitter.com/VR29ClrnvG

— Christina Pushaw 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 6, 2022

"The narrow GOP advantage among [Child Tax Credit recipients] stands in contrast with Democrats’ lead of 12 percentage points in late December, before the benefit expired"https://t.co/HTP1vx2a8m

— David Dayen (@ddayen) April 6, 2022

File under 'tree falling in the forest':

Kinzinger is issuing a call to action for his party to get serious -- and castigating it for so far refusing to do so.
"The world order is being challenged for the first time since World War II and they're sitting around thinking today about how we can win our next election, what the newest outrage is, what's the next thing we can do to get people angry and upset and get their money from them for our reelection," he says in the video.

Kinzinger mentions only House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Fox host Tucker Carlson by name in the video.

But his indictment of the lack of focus on Ukraine -- and the obsession with "some woke thing on Disney or whatever it is" -- covers a decent-sized chunk of the House GOP, many of whom take their marching orders directly from the Fox airwaves.

Also, he's not running for re-election.

this is something he can still do even when he loses his ability to pass any legislation in 6 months (i'm being serious, this is not the worst thing he could focus on while being repeatedly impeached)

“Amazon, here we come. Watch.” — President Bidenpic.twitter.com/DHQZINLSyn

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) April 6, 2022

"All power to the workers' councils." - Joe Biden after his fourth impeachment for chewing gum in the Oval Office

It's so cool how in a few years it's looking more and more likely that my husband and I will have to find a country that will accept millions of asylum-seeking LGBTQ+ people. Good thing I have close ties to many Canadians.

Finland?

xp I have a legit opening to go to Italy, so we'll see

WH Press Sec. Jen Psaki when asked if President Biden was endorsing Amazon workers' unionization efforts:

"What he was conveying is his long-time support for collective bargaining, for the rights of workers to organize, and their decision to do exactly that in this case." pic.twitter.com/YjnxYD9rca

— The Recount (@therecount) April 6, 2022

is it Rand Paul, in the end, who is the Worst? it's tight competition

ICYMI: Senate Dress Code Drama
Speaking of Graham, he attracted eyeballs Thursday when he didn’t vote on Jackson’s confirmation when his name was called. Was he not voting? Making some dramatic stand?

No. He was improperly dressed for the chamber — the dress code requires a coat and tie — and cast his vote from the cloakroom. Some took this as a sign of disrespect to Jackson at the momentous occasion.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) too was dressed down, and cast his no vote from the same spot — after making the other 99 senators (and audiences watching at home) wait nearly 30 minutes for him to show up.

So Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul emerged together, from a cloakroom, sans coats and ties?

You know, 30 minutes ain't that bad considering their age.

some are reporting that in a moment of desperation both of them were heard to scream "YES!!!!" from the cloak room

COCAINE ORGY IN THE CLOAKROOM!

Signing “There’s Going to be a cocaine orgy” to the tune of “There’s Gonna Be a Borstal Breakout”

in a moment of desperation mutual ecstasy both of them were heard to scream "YES!!!!" from the cloak room

arsenic in baby food, shit spinach, PFAS, so-called forever chemicals, which can be found in the food supply and are used in food packagin etc:

It’s been more than 11 years since Congress passed a sweeping food safety law designed to prevent this type of health risk. In that time, FDA has failed to put in place safety standards for the water used to grow fresh produce, as mandated by that law, despite knowing that water is one of the main ways fresh fruits and vegetables become contaminated with deadly pathogens. Congress has ramped up FDA funding over the past decade, but deadly outbreaks keep happening and it often takes the agency too long to respond.

Many consumers would be surprised to learn this anemic, slow response is typical for an agency that oversees nearly 80 percent of the American food supply, but slow is what insiders in Washington have come to expect from FDA, regardless of administration. A monthslong POLITICO investigation found that regulating food is simply not a high priority at the agency, where drugs and other medical products dominate, both in budget and bandwidth – a dynamic that’s only been exacerbated during the pandemic. Over the years, the food side of FDA has been so ignored and grown so dysfunctional that even former FDA commissioners readily acknowledged problems in interviews.

buckle up

Indeed.

A 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after authorities said she caused “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” in a state that has the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S.

It’s unclear whether Lizelle Herrera is accused of having an abortion or whether she helped someone else get an abortion.

Herrera was arrested Thursday and remained jailed Saturday on a $500,000 bond in the Starr County jail in Rio Grande City, on the U.S.-Mexico border, sheriff’s Maj. Carlos Delgado said in a statement.

that is not how the morning after pill works

Yeah, but do the Eyes of Texas see it that way---?

sorry for trump in the politics thread, but there's no way to get around it when us politics elevates people who are famous for being lying assholes

Trump issued a statement announcing the endorsement just as he was beginning his remarks at an evening rally in North Carolina, where he promoted his support for Oz and referenced their shared history as television stars.

“By the way, I endorsed another person today — Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania," Trump told the crowd. "Dr. Oz. Great guy, good man. He’s a good man. Harvard educated, tremendous, tremendous career and they liked him for a long time. That’s like a poll. You know, when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll, that means people like you.”

"You know, when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll, that means people like you."

can't think of any counter-examples, i guess he's right

He was a doctor, which you people hate, and he went to an Ivy League school, which you also hate, but he was on the TV

you're forgetting the most important thing - dr oz's undeniable sex appeal

In Trump’s statement, he added that Oz had said he was in “extraordinary health, which made me like him even more (although he also said I should lose a couple of pounds!).” He also stated, without any specific evidence for his claim, that “women, in particular, are drawn to Dr. Oz for his advice and counsel. I have seen this many times over the years.”

"Melania keeps calling Dr. Oz during our conjugals!"

Good thread about the Lizelle Herrera arrest:

It's extremely unclear what TX prosecutors are getting at with the arrest of Lizelle Herrera, who has been charged with murder for "self-induced abortion." A few thoughts, based on what I know and a helpful conversation with @steve_vladeck... 🧵

— Caroline Kitchener (@CAKitchener) April 9, 2022

Galaxy brain move endorsing a candidate for a Pennsylvania Senate seat in North Carolina.

So the charges against Lizelle Herrera are being dismissed, but it’s still unclear how or why they were filed in the first place.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/texas-district-attorney-says-indictment-woman-charged-murder-self-indu-rcna23782

Also obviously a warning of things to come.

still unclear how or why they were filed in the first place

my best guess would be a publicity move on the part of the sheriff and/or prosecutor, who are probably up for re-election

It also helped that her name was 'Lizzelle Herrera' and not 'Bethany Herzfinkle'.

Not the prosecutor, since they're the ones who dismissed the charges. It sounds like a hospital filed a report with the sheriff's department, so maybe some zealous doctor or nurse? Hopefully we'll learn more.

a judge setting a half million in bail sounds like the 'zeal' involved extended well past some individual doctor or nurse. this whole situation included public grandstanding up and down the line.

NPR just now reported that she was reported by hospital personnel in January: they were suspicious and/or thought they were legally compelled to report her admission for a miscarriage. DA says indictment has been dropped, existing law n/a (too bad if snitches expecting reward), but there was one to drop, of course, and, NPR adds, reproductive rights reps in TX expect more of this kind of (thing)

Reported in Jan., or anyway that's when she was admitted, didn't quite catch date of report, sorry.

It also helped that her name was 'Lizzelle Herrera' and not 'Bethany Herzfinkle'.

I was trying to come up with the dumbest sounding Texan White Girl name.

...that also wasn't very redneck.

A lot of Texan whites girls w means whose families (and v likely themselves) 100% support this will be taking some out of state road trips

Madison. All American women of child bearing age are named Madison

Madison Perryberry

Her boyfriend is Colton Rodgerston

Lol

dammit

In an interview, John Fetterman told me he was “eager to affirm” his “unwavering” commitment to bolstering ties between the U.S. and Israel, emphasizing that he will “lean in” on such efforts if he is elected to the Senate this November. https://t.co/2g2WIACg0k

— Matthew Kassel (@matthewkassel) April 11, 2022

seems bad

Breaking News: Brian Benjamin, New York’s lieutenant governor, was arrested in connection with a scheme to funnel fraudulent donations to a prior campaign. https://t.co/eux4n1r8Nq

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 12, 2022

anyone else read this? still working my way through it. it is a look at our hell with the metaphor of babel and the false idols of social media

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/

That is also when Google Translate became available on virtually all smartphones, so you could say that 2011 was the year that humanity rebuilt the Tower of Babel.

uh

oh man you all are going to tear me apart if you make it to the end, lol

oh shit, this is the guy who wrote the coddling of the american mind. i'll just link it there

I think social media is definitely a big problem, but there is also the problem of politicians being completely corrupt and divorced from the concerns of most people (ie the 99%). This has gotten even worse as the dems focus more on meaningless IdPol gestures than actual policies that would help anyone.

specifically which "IdPol gestures" do you have in mind?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/resizer/sboSU_PSyCS8sZ65-ymuLbqUee8=/800x449/top/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/QIOKVKW6FRHLTIGC3IYW5OHBIE.jpg

someone lost their contact lens?

That Haidt article is one of the stupidest things I've ever read, meltier than a Snickers on a Carlsbad sidewalk in July.

Trying to post another example but getting poxy fules.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-28/first-moon-trips-for-woman-person-of-color-get-budget-attention?sref=h6YXDblT

"we’re gonna give $7.5B to Bezos to send a black woman to the moon.”

The Democrats aren’t even making enough empty gestures to give a shit, they’re too busy funding the Iron Dome and breaking defense spending records.

xp. Hmm. Do you think that story in bloomberg that has never been discussed in this thread and fwiw I personally had never heard, is an example is what democrats are *focused on*?

for better or worse, i see almost no evidence they're focused on (or interested in) identity politics. possibly i'm not watching enough fox news or reactionary local news about school boards.

That's fair. I guess they don't focus on much other than getting more dems elected.

“Things they’re actually working on passing” - like the budget items in that Bloomberg piece - seems like a pretty fair definition of ‘what Democrats are focusing on. ‘

That's fair. I guess they don't focus on much other than getting more dems elected.

getting more dems elected fundraising

Why is this a surprise? Everything is about the 'warchest' (ie legal bribery), pretty much the American political system is bought and sold. And if they won't take the bribe (ahem donation), you just setup 502 groups and just bomb the f'k out of them with ads until they are gone and your poodle is in the chair or they play game.

Voters get two choices in general that they don't really choose.

seems like I've heard that before, but I can't quite put my finger on it

The modern GOP:

In a bitterly divided Congress, it was a rare measure that had been expected to sail through without a fight.

A bill to name a federal courthouse in Tallahassee after Justice Joseph W. Hatchett, the first Black man to serve on the Florida Supreme Court — sponsored by the state’s two Republican senators and backed unanimously by its 27 House members — was set to pass the House last month and become law with broad bipartisan support.

But in a last-minute flurry, Republicans abruptly pulled their backing with no explanation and ultimately killed the measure, leaving its fate unclear, many of its champions livid and some of its newfound opponents professing ignorance about what had happened.

Asked what made him vote against a measure that he had co-sponsored, Representative Vern Buchanan, Republican of Florida, was brief and blunt: “I don’t know,” he said

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/us/politics/gop-joseph-hatchett-florida.html

What could it possibly be?

they want to recalibrate and discover the VERY least they can do. they can do less than this. Let's go GOP!!!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/13/extremists-like-marjorie-taylor-greene-are-the-future-of-the-republican-party

...Greene’s rise is indicative of a more openly militant form of white Christian nationalism inserting itself firmly at the center of Republican politics. “America First” candidates like Greene are representing the Republican party all over the country. In Arizona, for instance, state senator Wendy Rogers proudly declared herself to “stand with Jesus, Robert E Lee, and the Cleveland Indians” back in December – all of them supposedly “canceled” by “satanic communists”; and at the aforementioned AFPAC in February, Rogers suggested building gallows to hang political enemies. In Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor runs on a platform of “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” and openly advocates for the establishment of a Christian theocracy.

The Republican party doesn’t just tolerate such extremists in an attempt to appease the fringe – this isn’t simply a matter of acquiescence out of convenience or cowardice. What we really need to grapple with is the fact that this sort of radicalism is widely seen as justified on the right. The exact language someone like Greene uses might be slightly crasser than what some conservatives are comfortable with, and some Republicans might disagree with specific aspects of the public image she projects. But it’s obviously not enough for them to break with her, or with any of the Christian nationalist extremists in their ranks.

If anything, most of what Greene is saying actually aligns with the general thrust of conservative politics. Republicans are currently all in on smearing anyone who disagrees with their assault on LGBTQ rights as “groomers” and declaring any progressive social position adjacent to pedophilia. And it’s really hard to tell the difference between Greene’s propaganda and what much of the reactionary intellectual sphere has been producing. Rod Dreher, for instance, one of the Religious Right’s best-known exponents, has called the Democrats the “party of groomers” and “the party of child mutilators and kidnappers” lately. Or take the gun-toting militancy that was on display in Greene’s campaign video. Republicans have long embraced the gun cult and made it a key element of their political identity. Now candidates up and down the country have the whole family, including young children, pose for heavily armed photos, reveling in the imagery of using guns to fight off those insidious Democrats and their assault on America.

...It doesn’t matter to the right that Greene’s pedophilia accusations lack any empirical basis. What matters is that they adhere to the higher truth of conservative politics: that Democrats are a fundamental threat to the country, to its moral foundations, its very survival. “How much more can America take before our civilization begins to collapse?” Greene asked last week. There aren’t many conservatives left who disagree with her assessment. That’s how they are giving themselves permission to embrace whatever radical measures are deemed necessary to defeat this “Un-American” enemy. Once you have convinced yourself you are fighting a noble war against a bunch of pedophiles hellbent on destroying the nation, there are no more lines you’re not justified to cross. Greene and her fellow extremists are perceived to be useful shock troops in an existential struggle for the survival of “real” America. The right isn’t getting distracted by debates over whether Greene’s militant extremism or Mitch McConnell’s extreme cynicism are the right approach to preventing multiracial pluralism. They are united in the quest to entrench white reactionary rule.

I fear that four years of Trumpism in power so inundated us with political stunts and outrageous political acts that we might have become a bit numb to how extreme and dangerous these developments are. Let’s not be lulled into a false sense of security by the clownishness, the ridiculousness of it all. Some of history’s most successful authoritarians were considered goons and buffoons by their contemporaries – until they became goons and buffoons in power.

What we are witnessing is one party rapidly abandoning and actively assaulting the foundations of democratic political culture. Every “Western” society has always harbored some far-right extremists like Greene. But the fact that the Republican party embraces and elevates people like her constitutes an acute danger to democracy.

what's worse is that it has become widely accepted that democrats are going down in flames in November. i should search for one of my many batty posts about the feeling that, at least here in the midwestern US, it feels like the experience of time is shifting - more and more, we predict the future and simulate it and game out the consequences, months, years before the bad thing actually happens. as happened with both impeachments, when it was widely accepted that republicans would bail trump out, and we all coped with republican cowardice and betrayal before the events even happened. when the impeachment votes actually came, as a consequence, no one was shocked, and it gave the republicans a way out. they were expected to vote that way, by that point, even.

we're doing that again, with the november elections. it will not be shocking when they get trampled. we can only hope for mild confusion if the democrats do slightly better than expected.

but - stepping back out of the body, matrix style, for a moment, and seeing us connected to tubes and our energy harvested by mechanical arms - what the fuck is happening here??? how in the world will more than half of this country vote for these lying assholes? especially now that the "center" or the "moderate" wing of the GOP is completely obliterated? there can be no doubt about who and what they're voting for, and it's so fucking ugly. --body is suddenly slorped back down into the matrix (or out of the matrix. to wherever we are here, right now)--

instead, i just sit on the couch and wait for november, feeling that the thing that everyone knows to be true, that republicans will take back the house at a minimum, and a good chance of taking the senate as well, will almost certainly happen. because it just is that way. sure, one of the parties is all-in on taking away as many rights as they can from anyone who isn't cis white and christian. ...and also the actions of their party leaders are becoming indistinguishable from q_anon, ok? but that's just how it is. it's the mid-term, the president's party almost always loses seats (except when they don't, an annoying internal voice reminds before being shushed), and this year with inflation and democrats being identified with pandemic caution when we have clearly defeated covid and are moving on, careening off a mountain curve and catching massive air, o tornado take us away

i just sit on the couch and wait for november

I know it's hard, when you're stuck in Missouri, to think that power won't be grabbed by the screaming assholes. My best advice is try to find some people somewhere who don't feel helpless, and who are still trying to make a difference, like Fair Fight Georgia, the org started by Stacey Abrams, and back them up. In 2020, activists in hopelessly conservative states reallocated their energies with a national focus. I think it helped. And if there is a local leader you admire, give them a boost, so they'll still be around in the future.

I think the GOP realizes a very fundamental truth about human nature: anger is irrational, so if you want to win without truth on your side all you have to do is rile your base up as much as possible.

that said I don't think it's quite written in stone that Dems are going to get crushed - while the party itself is inherently predictable (we all knew they'd acquit Trump because a full-throated denial of reality is the central tenant of the GOP) who knows what the voters are going to do. things shift so fast these days. also worth considering that a not-insignificant portion of diehard Republicans have died of Covid in the last year

what the hell's going on with that Florida redistricting thing? Shocking shit

1 in 3 adults in the U.S. has medical debt.

By holding medical providers and debt collectors accountable to informing consumers of their rights, the Biden-Harris administration is working to protect consumers and lessen the burden of medical debt on American families.

— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) April 11, 2022

That cumulative medical debt represents so much capital that doing anything more than neatening up some of its ragged edges would require the political will to confront the entire financial system and the foundations of capitalism head on. My money would be on capitalism coming out the victor. (/cynicalreflex)

Also, per Jane Mayer etc., a lot/most of the dark money playbook is increasingly devoted,as far as can be determined with laws protecting names of donors, to the worst people and crusades, w common link being revision/redefinition of reality, as righteous principle---one reason for that, I think) is vs. climate change/disruption as any thing other than acts of God; don't blaspheme against normal unwoke capitalism.

2+2 can equal 5 when you need it to, as in 1984.

Karl, working for the local party chapter has done much to soothe me, albeit with righteous anger. My involvement may yet prove to be nothing more than a balm, but meeting like-minded young men and women helps; there's always a future, another cause, another election until Florida goes underwater.

“How much more can America take before our civilization begins to collapse?” Greene asked last week.

Funny, I often ask the same thing myself, but my straws that break the camel's back are not exactly the same as hers.

Greene and her ardent supporters are willfully blind to the fact that rigid inflexible structures are the ones that collapse most easily when subjected to stress. Instead they see rigidity and inflexibility as the great source of strength for the 'civilization' they so desperately want to save from any form of change or adaptation.

Yeah, but there was an interview with one of the lesser moneymen, on the investigative radio show Reveal, I think" "Cool, we took over the school board, no more mask mandates or CRT! What can we do next, now that we've got this little movement going?" Hopping from one issue to the next. But how they deal with the next wave of the pandemic, for instance, that may be a little tricky---although they can see how DeSantis has handled it---

Trickier on the local level, unless they've got DeS. ,or somebody who's studied him, on high.

But how they deal with the next wave of the pandemic, for instance, that may be a little tricky

I mean, I think this is actually really simple from their perspective, they simply won't deal with it.

There will be no pandemic because they won't acknowledge it.

Joe's holding steady with the olds, at least

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3843

18-34 - 21% approve, 58% disapprove
65+ - 48/46

And we all know who votes in midterms (or at all)

that doesn't seem too bad, young people don't like him for a lot of reasons but I feel like a lot of that 58% who disapprove will vote for him anyway

seriously though start signing some executive orders Joe

xxxpost I dunno, it got pretty bad here in the boondocks last time, with the healthcare system collapsing, where there was one to collapse that is---antivax dude raving on local Facebook group about all the trouble he had getting his kid's broken leg set---people were DUDE--he couldn't see the irony or any connection, really, but others could, incl. some of his fellow MAGAs were starting to break ranks---

Others pushing back of course

today's talking point memo is bleak

It’s hard to keep up these days with the tides of Republican malevolence and press failures. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this one. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been mounting various stunts in recent weeks to keep the border immigration issue at a boil for his own 2022 reelection campaign. His latest move was to impose universal safety inspections on trucks coming from Mexico into Texas to snarl the border, drive up prices and possibly create food shortages in the United States. The proximate reason for this move is President Biden’s decision to phase out COVID-era restrictions on asylum seekers. Price spikes and border chaos are his weapon against Biden.

The chaos has been so immediate and extreme that Abbott has garnered substantial pushback even from state Republicans. State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on Tuesday attacked Abbott’s new policy as “political theater” and “economy killing action.” “Your inspection protocol is not stopping illegal immigration. It is stopping food from getting to grocery store shelves and in many cases causing food to rot in trucks — many of which are owned by Texas and other American companies. … The people of Texas deserve better!”

Abbott’s move seems constitutionally dubious at best. State governors have no authority to regulate or interdict other trade between US states or international trade. He is able to do it under the guise of ‘safety inspections’. But the federal government already does safety inspections. And these are clearly being used to throttle trade which, again, states have no authority to do.

Yesterday Abbott loosened the policy at a subset of border crossings but left most in place.

The U.S. continues to be wracked by supply chain disruptions and inflation. This move seems designed — and well designed — to exacerbate both. Abbott’s calculation, probably accurate, is that he can create chaos and price spikes to pressure Biden and it’s no skin off his back since Biden will be blamed anyway. It’s all gravy.

I had my eyes on this story at a distance. And then I noticed something yesterday. The daily Axios newsletter I get front-paged the story but left out most of what I’ve just described. It presented it as somehow a continuation of the Canadian trucker COVID activism of a few months ago — more “trucker” activism. “The next trucker protest crisis is brewing south of the border, with Mexican truckers blockading bridges amid growing fears over fruit and vegetable shortages,” Mike Allen wrote in his lede.

Sid Miller’s criticism was included, as was the issue of safety inspections. But the fact that this was a crisis created by Abbott for his own political purposes was left out entirely. Just another “trucker protest.” Seemingly more “truckers” protesting Biden himself.

These are truly the days of our discontent. The political climate is bleak, elite DC press corruption is pervasive.

Dark.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/dianne-feinstein-senate-17079487.php

Colleagues worry Dianne Feinstein is now mentally unfit to serve, citing recent interactions

WASHINGTON — When a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years.

Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.

Rather than delve into policy, Feinstein, 88, repeated the same small-talk questions, like asking the lawmaker what mattered to voters in their district, the member of Congress said, with no apparent recognition the two had already had a similar conversation.

only news in that is that they got 4 senators to start talking (off the record). people need to start talking on the record IMO or she's never gonna go.

it's to be expected that her California colleagues would defend her, or at least not lead the effort to get her to resign, but i thought pelosi's response went a little too far in her defense ("unconscionable"), especially considering that she's only 6 years younger than Feinstein:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a statement to The Chronicle, said she had not noticed a decline in Feinstein’s memory and noted her work on the recent reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the Supreme Court confirmation.

“Senator Feinstein is a workhorse for the people of California and a respected leader among her colleagues in the Senate,” Pelosi said. “She is constantly traveling between California and the Capitol, working relentlessly to ensure Californians’ needs are met and voices are heard.”

Pelosi said it was “unconscionable that, just weeks after losing her beloved husband of more than four decades and after decades of outstanding leadership to our City and State, she is being subjected to these ridiculous attacks that are beneath the dignity in which she has led and the esteem in which she is held.”

then again, maybe pelosi and feinstein enjoy pleasant 4 hour conversations where they each say and respond in the same way, back and forth

people need to start talking on the record IMO or she's never gonna go.

the SFC article also mentions that if she stays, she's expected to succeed Leahy as senate president pro tempore, which is 3rd in line for the presidency. that would mean only the health of joe biden, harris, and pelosi between president diane feinstein.

i think at that moment, the apocalypse really would happen and i would be believe it

what would happen if we had a president with dementia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JTtI3D6lqk

for now and in the near term: not a whole lot. I guess we’ll see how that plays out

Feel like Trump proved that having a President interested in Presidenting is sort of superfluous. Yeah, they can be the most powerful human being in the history of human beings but if they're checked out for one reason or another (dementia, distracted by Bloodsport on the Oval Office TV) things can mostly keep on keeping on.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tennessee-senate-homeless-adolf-hitler-b2058086.html

Pelosi is coming to Cal next week for a public talk with Barbara Boxer (the rare california politician of that era who knew when to get out). I doubt she'll wind up taking public questions but it would be interesting to see her confronted on this.

yeah, i don't know if confrontation is the way it's finally going to end. no one wants to be the one to go on record for something like that. 4 senators anonymously contributing to that article is pretty strong already, i think.. it is very sad that her husband just died. that would have been a good time for her to hang it up (rather than going back and forth to washington a ton, as everyone is saying she did). but now i can see why she wants to keep on going.

She seemed pretty coherent during the recent SCOTUS hearing but I didn't listen to the whole thing

what would happen if we had a president with dementia

HI DERE Ronald Reagan's last two years in office!

i figured that was the joke keyes was making

Many XPs It's a sad day when Sid Miller, a complete GOP toolbox, is the voice of reason in Texas government.

The Houston Chronicle subsequently reported that during the trip, Miller visited a doctor in Oklahoma City to receive a "Jesus shot"—an injection administered consisting of Dexamethasone, Kenalog, and Vitamin B12 that is "administered only by a single Oklahoma City-area doctor who claims that it takes away all pain for life." Miller subsequently said that he had received the medication in the past to treat chronic pain, but declined "to confirm or deny whether he received the injection during the February 2015 trip." Miller later reimbursed the state $1,500.

xpost update:

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, April 14 (Reuters) - Commercial truck traffic from the Mexican state of Chihuahua to Texas will return to normal immediately after both sides reached an agreement on border security, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Thursday.

The state of Chihuahua provided a plan that will allow Texas authorities to cease enhanced inspections that have led to backups of trucks from Chihuahua over the past week, Abbott said during a joint press conference with Chihuahua Governor Maria Eugenia Campos Galvan.

his stunt has stunted

Of all the things that infuriate me out of the last few dozen posts, the Feinstein one is the worst. Fucking retire. Nobody blames you for being 88 with memory issues, that's natural. Fucking retire. (Shakes fist at ghost of RBG.) Biden. Pelosi. Hoyer. Bernie too. Fucking retire. Jesus.

(Yes I am Gen X, why do you ask?)

this is michael jordan's fault. michael jordan once said "i have to retire on top. everyone should"

Anyway, came here to post this.

His name is literally Herbster.

A GOP state senator is among 8 women who say Nebraska GOP gov candidate Charles Herbster groped them.

Herbster is endorsed by Trump, and Trump Jr. is stumping for him today.https://t.co/PN8HvPzdqN

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) April 14, 2022

xp
I'm a boomer and agree 100%

We can trust the good people of Nebraska to make the correct decision

I have a hard time believing his last name is 'Herbster'.

"What's up with the Herbster? You got any shake and bake for sell MAAAAAN..."

Listening to this right now, good conversation incl. callers re their own experiences:

A growing number of activists are prepping for the fall of Roe v Wade. Journalist Jessica Bruder joins host Krys Boyd to discuss networks of “community providers” – those who perform abortions outside the medical establishment for women who cannot access care for themselves. Her article, published in The Atlantic, is called “The Abortion Underground.”

if only we had a UBI, these poor 88-year-olds wouldn't be forced to work into their declines. the government should do something about it!

OKlahoma Gov just signed this, but note last part:

Senate Bill 612, which cleared the state Senate last year and the House earlier this month, makes performing an abortion or attempting to perform one a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or a maximum of 10 years in state prison, or both. The law does not provide exceptions in cases of rape and incest.
Under the measure, the woman would not be criminally charged or convicted for the death of her "unborn child." The legislation does not prohibit the use, sale, prescription or administration of contraceptives.

Re the Abortion Underground, that's what I think a lot of people aren't prepared for. I think for some people there's a fantasy that overturning Roe will at least kind of settle the issue, and we'll have legal states and illegal states. But that's not accounting for the push to make it illegal at the national level, so that states won't have the option. And all of the ways that the illegal states will try to punish people for accessing abortion via a legal state.

This could all be settled with a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to an abortion. (stares wistfully off into space, a gentle tear running down his cheek)

xpost the Abortion Underground is becoming international, though, like on the radio show, author Bruder talks about women going across the border to Mexico, being aided in that, now that it's legal there; also Canadian pharmacies via online orders, as well as interstate. Read the article, listen to the show---it's all still in flux (especially since nobody knows how far SCOTUS and the competitive pols will go), but not nearly as much as I'd thought.

Nice things are possible.

Chile’s Constitutional Convention has abolished the Senate. https://t.co/ykSVM6vX51

— Cristian Farias (@cristianafarias) April 14, 2022

We can trust the good people of Nebraska to make the correct decision

xpost

One gentle tear indeed in response to abolishing the Senate. Such an archaic institution, if just one state in the US could follow suit I would gladly sacrifice one bodily appendage.

From a very infotaining conversation with Shane Goldmacher on Trump's endorsement fetish, among increasingly Trumpier-than-thou fields ov candidates:

...he's endorsed - now I think the number is 130 candidates across the country. And for most of them, they just get a statement from him. And, you know, you got to raise your own money to advance it. And there are many people around Trump who think, you know, he's probably overextended himself in this primary season. Why endorse in some of these races where you're looking at three pro-Trump candidates, when whoever wins is going to be a Trump-y person? You didn't need to put your own name on the line and risk a loss, especially since you're not going to really do that much for the person you endorse.

GROSS: I think you say that the candidates who Trump endorses can hold events at Mar-a-Lago, or at least some of them do that. But those are probably really costly events, no?

GOLDMACHER: These are costly events. So he has turned Mar-a-Lago into a fundraising hot spot for other candidates. And look; there is an entire Republican donor set in Palm Beach that likes to engage in politics. But what Trump has done is said, OK, you're a pro-Trump candidate, you know, running against one of the people who voted to impeach him. You get my endorsement, and you get to come to Mar-a-Lago and do a fundraiser. But by the way, you have to pay for Mar-a-Lago. It's not free. You have to pay for the food and the catering and the like. And this is not small amounts of money...

GROSS: You write that some of Trump's own advisers have warned him that he's making some risky endorsements and that his endorsements, instead of proving he's a kingmaker, might backfire on him.

GOLDMACHER: Absolutely. This is a real concern. Why endorse in some of these races where there are multiple candidates who are pro-Trump?

Most of what I quoted goes with this, written just before Trump endorsed xpost Vance, who hasn't been doing all that well so far:

Another Trump adviser said an endorsement from Trump in Ohio did not make sense at this moment and he would be better off waiting until after the primary.

“From everything I can gather he will just stay out of it for now until there is a clear and decisive frontrunner,” the adviser said. “At this point we’re less than four weeks out from the election and there’s a bunch of different polls that show Mandel or Gibbons or JD all tied and I think it’s just too late in the game. And from his perspective, why would I risk choosing a loser especially after he stayed out of it for over a year?”

Peter Thiel probably twisted Trump’s arm to endorse his guy.

why would I risk choosing a loser

This is trump we're talking about

lord I know a platoon’s worth of Q psychos are probably going to be in Congress come 2023 but if you can just please hear my prayer and make JD Vance eat shit in Ohio amen

Scott Pruitt is running in the OK GOP Senate primary.

but we can trust the good people of Oklahoma to do the right thing

The good people? Sure. But what about all those others?

Beachfront Hungary:

Florida rejects 54 math textbooks over ‘prohibited topics’ including critical race theory
Move follows a series of hardline measures by Republicans in the state to alter teaching in schools as governor welcomes news

someday soon someone is going to say "there's no math in the bible, why do we need it in schools"

Wow Beachfront Hungary- Bugs is gonna have to saw a different shape.

there's totally math in the bible. the world started 6000 years ago, people used to live for 800+ years, 2 fish + 5 loaves = 5000 people, and the numbers 3, 7, and 40 can be contorted into whatever number of days or years of whatever of anything you need

3, 7, and 40 are kind of "wild cards" for math

Q: who had the biggest butt in the bible?

A: moses, he tied his ass to a tree and walked for three miles

curious to know the specific material in those math textbooks that was deemed "critical race theory"

it doesn't add up

story problems where kids with foreign names have the audacity to take apples from good white american children

The geometry textbooks featured red lines

I read a bunch about this math book flap last night. They won't release the names of any of the rejected books, nor specify what it is in them that caused them to be rejected. There is one weird example of a worksheet (not a book) in Missouri (not Florida) which utilized some story problems about Maya Angelou (not CRT) tweeted by DeSantis' press secretary (who, I'm sorry, I try not to judge on personal appearance, but has crazy eyes.)

https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-team-defend-rejecting-crt-math-textbooks-1698494

story problems about Maya Angelou (not CRT)

I mean, this is the heart of the issue, isn't it? Because it mentions a black person, the right is claiming it just has to be CRT.

xp

they never get called out for their xenophobic racism against Chinese people. "this is why China is winning" and "...I promise you, in China kids aren’t learning about pimping in math class". anyone who isn't a white christian gets the minstrel treatment.

i remember putting together a website about trump a few years back, going through all this old footage, and being struck how, even in the late 80s, he was already constantly talking about China (just imagine the way he says it, you know how he says it, the fucker) and was obsessed about how "they" were going to beat "us" and how they were cheating and all this shit. it's just an obsession with so many of them, and it's been so blatantly racist for so long that it barely even registers when they do it over and over

The creator of that Maya Angelou worksheet, which is admittedly a little bizarre out of context, wrote something about the original context:

https://clarkcreativeeducation.com/2018/04/24/21st-century-math-projects/

Biden's collapse with young voters is kind of mysterious. I've heard a lot of theories, but I'm not sure any one of them is all that convincing.

— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) April 18, 2022

Performative stupidity?

so hard to nail it down to a single consensus reason when there are so many possibilities

purveyor of tedium heal thyself

they are extremely tedious responses!

— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) April 18, 2022

bandwagon effect includes jumping off as well as jumping on

Brandon joke shockingly effective with 22-30 yos

"Georgia Representative Josh McLaurin shares a screenshot of a conversation with Ohio Senate candidate J. D. Vance" from 2016:

http://i.imgur.com/j6wD2YU.jpg?1

I used to live 10 minutes away from this fake-ass "hillbilly" in Middletown and went the mall there once a month or so to trawl for used PC games under 10 dollars. Too bad I didn't go to Yale and write a best-selling book about my "hard life." What a piece of shit he is and always has been.

And now he's kissing Trump's ring.

most of the right probably sees "America's Hitler" as a compliment

Meanwhile Florida.

you can so easily alter a screenshot these days. what vance actually said was, "like hitler but even better"

Something kind of comically pathetic in JD Vance talking about "expand(ing) our appeal to working class black people."

That was the establishment GOP's big thing between 2012 and 2016 - they'd never win another national election if they didn't broaden their appeal to people of color, etc. then white evangelicals just turned out and voted 90% for white nationalism and they realized that path was still viable.

And now he's kissing Trump's ring.

Because Vance is a cynical asshole like Nixon.

A life-tenured, 35-year-old federal district court judge selected by Trump just abolished the air travel mask mandate for the entire country in a poorly argued decision. The American Bar Association said she was unqualified to be a judge some years back, but the then Republican majority in the Senate voted to appoint her anyway. When Trump nominated her to the federal judiciary, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a member of the Federalist Society, had never tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel, since her admission to the bar. She spent 10 months at a firm and 3 years in government practice. She clerked for Clarence Thomas.

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/18/1093364146/a-florida-judge-overturns-the-cdcs-mask-mandate-for-planes-and-other-public-tran

Feeling pretty dispirited by the way all the major airlines immediately lifted the mandate mid-flight and the joyful reaction from people who don't give a shit about others.

terrible ruling implemented by an unqualified judge in a way that will cause chaos, but the federal mask mandate had been extended for the last time and was going to expire in 2 weeks anyway, and they probably won't even appeal, so blame biden for that bit.

I can probably find room to blame both tbh.

Just gave it a try - going well so far.

idk what most people's motivation was for the 2016 election - but making sure a D held the WH for SC/judicial appointments was mine. the near 50/50 congressional gridlock and over-reliance on the executive order to get anything that the populous wants done seemed like the judicial branch was the next avenue to safeguard. and hey... here's where its at.

otm. Whatever your issues with Hillary Clinton--and one could have plenty--we could see this judicial train wreck coming if Trump got in.

Yet I doubt McConnell, should the GOP have kept control of the Senate, would've allowed a single one of Clinton's nominations.

(not a reason NOT to vote for her tbc)

McConnell is the most nakedly cynical politician of his generation. And that's saying a lot. His genius lies in his willingness to take risks and his ability to cover up his cynicism with good ol' folksy Southern humor.

I have not seen a shred of evidence that McConnell knows humor.

Mixed feelings about this one:

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday he has expanded the special session on redistricting this week to cut to the core of his latest political enemy and announced he wants lawmakers to repeal the law that allows the Walt Disney World Resort to operate as a self-governing body.

“I am announcing today that we are expanding the call of what they are going to be considering this week,’’ DeSantis said at a news conference in The Villages. “Yes, they will be considering the congressional map, but they also will be considering termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968 — and that includes the Reedy Creek Improvement District.”

The Reedy Creek Improvement District is the special taxing district and governing body for the Walt Disney World Resort. It was created by state lawmakers in 1967 and comprises 39 square miles, two cities and land in Orange and Osceola counties. It allows the company to act with the same authority and responsibility as a county government.

xp

i think mcconnell got some enjoyment out of being called Darth Vader. i don't know if it was funny to him but it was a new side to him

i don't want to go down the rabbithole too much, but it seems very likely that Kushner is even more of an evil fucker than you probably thought before reading the excerpt below?

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/princelings-and-war-crimes

A few days ago, investigative journalist Vicky Ward published an account which claimed to explain just why Jared Kushner was able secure that $2 billion investment from a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund for his freshly hatched investment fund, Affinity Partners. Her explanation also claims to explain why Kushner was successfully prevented from receiving a top level security clearance while he was in government.

According to Ward, both stem from a critical moment in the rise of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman. In 2017, then Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN) believed that King Salman and then-Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were working against him and planned to oust him from power. He also believed that Jared Kushner and others in the White House were playing some part in these plans, perhaps involving some financial agreement between the two young princelings. According to MBN’s supporters, MBN believed King Salman was mentally incompetent and that his son MBS was dangerous. Critically, MBN has a long and close relationship with the U.S. intelligence community. According to Ward’s sources, MBN was planning to oust the King and MBS by going to the country’s Council of Ministers, where he believed he had support. In other words, this would be a sort of constitutional coup d’etat. The key allegation is this: U.S. intelligence was aware of these moves. So the White House was too. Kushner brought this information to MBS allowing him to move first and eliminate MBN before he could make his move. Soon MBN was removed as Crown Prince and replaced by MBS. Later MBN was arrested and imprisoned. He hasn’t been heard from in two years.

I should add here that I think we should have at least some skepticism of the portrayal of Mohammed bin Nayef in Ward’s account. That is really, as she notes, the view of the U.S. intelligence community. He was their guy. And while I don’t think that’s a strike against him — he was probably very helpful to the U.S. — we should limit our understanding of this to that. Rather than seeing this too tightly in white-hat and black-hat terms, we should probably focus on the fact that he was their guy. Among other things they were pissed Kushner took that information not only to meddle in the Saudi line of succession but also to get their guy imprisoned and tortured. In their view, he misused U.S. intelligence to get a key U.S. ally sidelined and imprisoned to help his pal who was likely paying him off. That’s a pretty obvious way to get the U.S. intelligence world dead-set against you getting that top-level security clearance.

I have not seen a shred of evidence that McConnell knows humor.

Of President Biden, McConnell wrote, "If you ask him what time it is, he'll tell you how to make a watch." He's one of those bullshitting Southern men of that generation who will smile at you as they slip a knife between your ribs.

When $2 billion is at stake, I think we all know whose side Jared Kushner will be on: his own.

Kushner's defense of MBS in the Khashoggi affair was as strident as Trump's defense of Putin: "Now, now, let's not rush to judgment, people.. let's wait until we get all the facts," etc.

Just naked, absolute corruption

I don't know the details of Disney's legal structure, but if their taxing district is repealed does that mean the local government — Orlando or county — would have to take over maintenance etc? Because that probably wouldn't be a good deal for local taxpayers I'm guessing.

It would be...a nightmare, like the legal case in Bleak House.

Yeah, more here: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/politics/2022/04/19/qa-desantis-vs-disney-what-does-it-mean/

Q: How much does Disney stand to lose?

A: It’s unclear what’s going to happen. It’s the great unknown. First of all, Disney doesn’t get any breaks here. It’s not like they don’t pay property taxes. They do pay tremendous property taxes in Orange and Osceola, but they pay for their own fire protection, they contract with the sheriff’s department and pay for protection from the sheriff’s department, they are responsible for their own infrastructure, everything. So they are paying property taxes, but they’re also paying millions and millions of dollars for upkeep to what would usually be done by the county, so it could be that the taxpayers of Orange and Osceola counties are gonna get a tax increase because of the Reedy Creek District going away. It could hurt the counties, definitely. And I don’t think (the counties) want responsibility for what’s 27 square miles of additional territory.

This seems like an incredibly dumb idea. Which doesn't mean the Florida legislature won't do it, obviously. But an ultimate case of spiteful nose-cutting.

The world gets more ridiculous every single day.

Incredibly dumb ideas are bread and butter to Florida politicians and DeSantis is currently the dumbo di tutti dumbos of Florida politicians today.

It seems like the kind of thing that could prompt a massive lawsuit (Disney vs. Florida) given that it's so blatantly an attempt by a single politician to punish a single company.

DeSantis is operating like a Latin American caudillo, which I suppose is appropriate.

He’s operating like an American politician.

What w/pulling math books for purportedly teaching CRT, the Trump-appointed federal judge's mindless decision re masks, the threat to Disney, and the signing of #DontSayGay and the abortion restriction bills, Florida looks like a country once requiring CIA intervention.

He’s operating like an American politician.

Most American governors aren't brazen enough to tear up the district maps drawn by the legislature--controlled by their own party--and draw their own.

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ruled that a group of Georgia voters can proceed with legal efforts seeking to disqualify U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection to Congress, citing her role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The challenge filed last month with the Georgia secretary of state's office alleges that Greene, a Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden's presidential election victory. That violates a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection, according to the challenge.

The amendment says no one can serve in Congress "who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress . . . to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same." Ratified shortly after the Civil War, it was meant in part to keep representatives who had fought for the Confederacy from returning to Congress.

If this stands, maybe can apply it to Mo "IT"S TIME FER KICKIN ASS AN TAKIN NAMES" Brooks as well.

This thread has more on exactly how badly DeSantis will be fucking the citizens of several Florida counties if this incredibly stupid, self-destructive idea goes through (and it's pretty much got to, because he can't allow himself to be seen backing down):

Details emerge on @GovRonDeSantis idea to repeal Disney's special district governing authority. To pay the Disney's $2 B in bond debt, Orange and Osceola county families would have to be assessed $2,200 tax bill says @FarmerForFLSen. "This is shoot first and ask questions later."

— Mary Ellen Klas (@MaryEllenKlas) April 20, 2022

he can't allow himself to be seen backing down

this is where good diplomats earn their pay by finding fig leaves that allow the one backing down to claim some form of victory while the victors wisely refrain from crowing.

Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 1,000,000,000 migrants at our southern border in just 6 months.
 
President Biden’s open border policies are fueling this crisis! #BidenBorderCrisishttps://t.co/g10hTkaPmx

— Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (@RepDLesko) April 19, 2022

That's why Twitter doesn't need an 'edit' function.

New w @HansNichols - President Biden's inner circle has been discussing delaying the repeal of Title 42 border restrictions, now set to end May 23 https://t.co/c2aCP34cKG

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) April 20, 2022

So the FL Senate approved the anti-Disney bill, House expected to follow suit. I know we're a million miles past inflection points by now, but this still feels like a big deal to me — not in what it will do to Disney, which once the dust settles I'm guessing won't be a whole lot, but in what it signals. Trump's tendency as president to lash out at specific companies that irritated him in various ways was kind of shocking but also anomalous for the "party of business." But this really locks that in as party orthodoxy — it is not just acceptable but maybe will be expected for Republican leaders to target specific companies for purely ideological reasons, for not sufficiently bowing to the party talking points of the moment. Very Putin-like, obviously, it's straight-up strong-man stuff. You'd think that the Chamber of Commerce and the party's corporate backers would recoil at this kind of thing, but they mostly probably won't. Mostly they'll go along with it, do what they can to keep the party happy. Big business has never had much difficulty aligning its interests with those of any given authoritarian state.

Aw shit here we go again

Folks… Sanders ‘has not ruled out another run’ for president if Biden doesn’t. By @WaPoSean https://t.co/HCMEK3HFUt

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) April 20, 2022

"On border control, student debt, and masking on airplanes, the White House has opted to punt rather than making final decisions—either delaying the choice or leaving it to another part of the government," @GrahamDavidA writes: https://t.co/Qe04DeUEBj

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) April 21, 2022

The Collapse in Support is Kind of Mysterious. I've Heard a Lot of Theories, But I'm Not Sure Any One of Them is All That Convincing.

I can't tell if you're being facetious or not

sorry, I am poking fun at a Vox writer’s tweet from a couple of days ago that certainly isn’t worth revisiting

you saying it would be tedious to do so?

irl lol and yes

things are falling apart

Vance, who’s running for Senate in Ohio in the New Right nationalist vein, said that if Donald Trump is elected president, he should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat” and “every civil servant in the administrative state,” and “replace them with our people.”

every 2 years comes a new wave of politicians that are even more brazen about what they really want (power/money via theocracy?), and they set the new threshold, and then it gets worse.

remember the night of 1/6 when they finally held the vote to certify the electors, and a bunch of the GOP *still* was trying to do the coup? 6 senators and 121 house republicans, i believe? can there be any doubt that if the same vote was held today, the vast majority of the GOP would be for the coup?

if trump wins again, i think they really _will_ take on the federal employee unions (which really are powerful) and try to fire them all or replace them with "our people". yes, there are many reasons that they should not do that, and why they are bound to fail, etc, etc, but also, maybe not, when a certain threshold is crossed and all three branches of the government are brazenly corrupt?

...and 65% of the country think "brazenly corrupt" applies only to Hillary, and Hunter Biden's laptop.

Good morning!

The Kochs and their vision of the U.S. as a libertarian hellscape seem almost quaint now.

On the plus side, Mytown has a legal weed dispensary now and the governor showed up for the ribbon-cutting. Gentrification will surely follow, but at a very...relaxed pace.

The future is Peter Theil’s “post left” fascism

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/811-P6E6EAL.jpg

re: Theil, this is a depressing piece. I think most people would agree with the thesis that motivates these people (that our systems are corrupt), but their vision of what replaces it is horrific.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets#intcid=_vanity-fair-verso-hp-trending_a4dc493e-fd32-4e64-9a34-719b70d08e52_popular4-1

The thing that struck me most about that Theil/NatCon article is that they all seem to have a great grasp of how to appeal to the alienation from society that so many people feel as a means to acquire control of the levers of government, but their grasp of where their ideas will lead our society is non-existent. It's more of the school of thought that innovation means moving fast and breaking things, which somehow always leads to a better world, when in fact more of the time it leads to a more broken world.

nah dude, they want to hurt people.

I'm not sure hurting people is their motivation; it's more a byproduct, an externality to which they are indifferent. They simply want a world in which they are free to do whatever the fuck they want in moment without consequence or cost.

I know this is darkmaga/IDW shit which I've tried to ignore because it seemed so fringe that I was not really convinced of it's importance outside of niche internet areas but clearly the influence is expanding.

I think DeSantis is also just a garden variety kleptocrat. One thing I saw in a yahoo story from a Tallahassee paper was that with the rejection of the math textbooks was that there was only one vendor that met the criteria and it was some company from Houston, TX. I was figuring in the end it was about making money and it probably was with just the added benefit of owning the libs. Same thing on this Disney thing, it's sticking a tax burden on Democratic areas and pretty much going to Disney or any other corporation working in the state, you got to play back and pay me or I will seriously fxxk you over any way I can.

As the Kochs demonstrated, if even one multi-billionaire decides to throw enormous quantities of money behind certain political ideas, they are no longer fringe or niche politics, no matter how loony or harmful they may be. You can buy a lot of brains, expertise and influence for the kind of money that billionaires can throw around.

ahem, maybe it’s time we have the Mr. Choppy conversation again

What DeSantis has done with Disney is not garden variety. We are anti-corporatist here, but I've never seen anything quite like the brazenness with which he has defied the biggest moneybags in Florida.

Unlike royalty, whose very persons incorporated a rival political system, billionaires like Theil only wield the influence through wealth. Take away their wealth and they lose all significance. No need to chop off their heads and make them martyrs, when you can reduce them back to being mere commoners and cut them down to size.

very excited to see if Disney retaliates!

In a different variety of stupid

Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector are driving businesses away. In CO, we don’t meddle in affairs of companies like @Disney or @Twitter. Hey @Disney we’re ready for Mountain Disneyland and @twitter we’re ready for Twitter HQ2, whoever your owners are https://t.co/r7Vcvu20eb

— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) April 19, 2022

I looked up Polis on wikipedia. Before he was governor he was in Congress:

"He was the only Democratic member of the libertarian conservative Liberty Caucus, and was the third-wealthiest member of the United States Congress, with an estimated net worth of $122.6 million."

very excited to see if Disney retaliates!

Factor in the staff salaries and it's plausible.

Meanwhile, in Tennessee: https://www.overtoncountynews.com/news/local_state/confederate-history-month-proclaimed/article_1d41565a-ba89-11ec-8c2e-bf5d00a76ef5.html

When I say that Republicans tell pollsters "everything is bad, except church" what I mean is, very literally:

EVERYTHING is bad, except church. (Banks, maybe you can hang.) pic.twitter.com/GW8WHYZkn1

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) April 21, 2022

Does DeSantis ever do anything remotely.. gubernatorial? He seems to be a full time cultural warrior 24/7/365

Polis and Biggs should have a debate

pic.twitter.com/IYLSVKAf7W

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) April 21, 2022

and switching channels two minutes ago I see lol Governor Polis on Joy Reid's terrible show talking a lot about Soviet-style socialism.

I would buy a hammer and sickle Disney t-shirt tbh (minus Biggs logo)

Tha Wokes Took Muh Candy Bar's Dick Vein!

https://boingboing.net/2022/04/20/snopes-fact-checks-claims-that-woke-mob-removed-the-snickers-dick-vein.html

He seems to be a full time cultural warrior 24/7/365

At best it’s 4/7/365 surely. The rest of the time he can just vibe namesearch

Republicans have no policy goals. They are culture warriors 24/7 and have been so since at least January 1995 and probably earlier.

they most certainly have policy goals alfred! remove whatever obstacles remain between the big dogs and their food

The Rs used to be gung ho for policy goals. For quite a while they pushed stuff like "tort reform" and privatizing social security, but they simplified all that complicated economic hoo-hah down to just massive tax cuts and more tax cuts, plus tax cuts, with a side order of tax cuts.

well and removing environmental protections and keeping women in their place and expanding powers of arrest and making it harder for anyone to afford college and making it easier to buy elections and keeping drugs unaffordable to enrich their friends in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries i mean yes they like cutting taxes and repealing abortion but there's a lot more to the agenda than that so it's not helpful to paint republicans as guileless idiots, they've been very very busy

touché

This is what DeSantis is against: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcmU_noroIm/?igshid=NjY2NjE5MzQ=

DeSantis learned from Trump that all he has to do to increase his popularity is to keep his name in the news. Everything he does, every shitty piece of legislation he signs and every executive decision he makes is about making headlines and getting his name on the news. He is going for shock value, knowing that the media will put out stories with “Ron DeSantis does X” as the headline. Maybe- and maybe this is being generous- but maybe the media is just reporting on the facts and trying to drive awareness of a thing that is happening, and maybe they are even even looking to generate some outrage or scorn over an injustice or a patently bad decision. But the end result is the same benefit that Trump used to get- DeSantis’ name gets in the news, and his base sees the headline and says, yeah, this guy is out there fighting the culture war for us and sticking it to them libs! Give me more headlines about the awesome shit he is doing! And then DeSantis does another thing, and the media generates another wonderful headline for him. And lo, his star continues to rise.

What he doesn’t realize is he’s not the same showman Trump is. He doesn’t have the decades of building a brand for himself. He doesn’t have the personality or the flair and he has a punchable douchebag face. Also I hate him and he smells. And don’t get me wrong, I fucking hate Trump and want him to die! But DeSantis is a low-rate Trump wannabe at best.

Meanwhile Biden said to himself, look, people are tired of Trump’s name in the news, always in their face making them mad, I’m going to lay low as President, I’m not going to make waves or do anything that will make headlines, and people will appreciate that.

Only to find the people are ready to back a fourth-rate Trump knockoff than a career statesman

DeSantis will never be president he’s a short ethnic, and currently too young. Americans like their Caesars to be elderly Aryan grandpas.

Americans like their Caesars to be elderly Aryan grandpas.

To quote Longfellow's poem, "speak for yourself, Miles."

did not know he was short! ivy educated and decorated(?) military tho makes the press p horny.

When the Democrats managed to win the presidency and the Senate, it felt like our last chance to undo some of the damage that had been done and start taking the Republicans’ advantages away- take steps to prevent them from continuing to cheat their way into power. Make DC a state. Kill the filibuster and get voting rights bills passed. Fucking pack the Supreme Court, whatever, just take some steps so we feel like we’re moving in the right direction and recovering some of what’s been lost. Prosecute Trump and his enablers, prevent him from being able to run for office again. Just make it so we feel like there are consequences for their actions. We needed an answer after four enraging and frustrating years of Trump, four years of feeling powerless, every day bringing a new and worse outrage, all piling on top of each other until we felt lost and overwhelmed and doomed. The fucking division that grew in our society as people seemed to lose their minds and go all in on fascism and authoritarianism, bullying and hatred. The feeling of impending civil war, like we were actually, truly moving in that direction. We needed an answer to that. We needed to feel like we could still set things right, and start making progress toward positive goals. We needed a president who would breathe fire, who would speak to that rage and frustration, make waves, make headlines, take huge steps, get creative and bend the law even. Why not, it’s been done to us all this time with no consequences. We needed action. Fucking do something. Instead we’ve gotten a silent fart. Toeing the line. Following the rules. Quiet words or silence when we needed fire. Sputtering investigations that go nowhere instead of any consequences at all. And somehow the Republicans stay in lockstep, marching the country relentlessly toward their end goals, despite not holding the presidency or either chamber of Congress. And we still feel powerless! They finally have gotten us to where we feel like nothing good will happen, even when we hold most of the levers of power. And we have a Supreme Court leading the charge to take away our rights, with no recourse and no answer. Half of our elected representatives in Congress are completely insane and out for our blood. We have no answer for any of it. That is the frustration and anger right now. It felt like everything was promised and nothing was delivered but disappointment and the feeling that we are still somehow under Trump’s thumb, and the knowledge that he will not, in fact, go to jail no matter what happens. Fuck. I feel doomed. I don’t want to think about the next couple elections. If the Republicans get a grip on power they will entrench it and not let go.

At least that’s how I feel. I’m not actually trying to speak for anyone else.

You speak for me.

yeah.
the only thing that isn’t soul-crushingly depressing right now is nascent labor action, and the Democrats—outside of a few perfunctory nods—have been largely MIA. I guess that’s what’s so galling: the GOP goes all in on whatever insanity the base can imagine, from Q pedo lunacy to sanctioning the Capitol riot to basically legalizing vigilantism against poor women. you always think they’re going to get out over their skis (and they may get momentarily slapped back by an election here if there), but it marches on, bending reality to their will a little more each month. the difference is that massive donors are all in on the insane stuff which greases the wheels. but gah just once maybe the party apparatchiks on “our side” could put those big brains and tabulated data to work actually doing something good.

or they can assure their voters that they’re “seen and heard” and then maybe offer 25% off coupons for Disney+ to entrepreneurs with student loans who want to open a business in Economic Opportunity Zones, and just let the chips fall I suppose

Ha, yeah exactly. It just feels like we are being walked all over, and all we can do is point our fingers and go “Look! Look what they are doing! This sucks!”

The thing with the textbooks in Florida. Classic propaganda, creation of phony evidence to bolster their claims. It’s nothing to do with what is actually in the books. They don’t want to show us what the fuss is actually about because then we’d see how flimsy their case is and how much their feelings get hurt over nothing. It’s just for the headline. Everybody says, “look at Florida, look how ridiculous they are, rejecting all these math textbooks”, and the news organizations fall all over themselves to put out stories about it, as if it would shame them. But they’ve gotten exactly what they wanted- they have riled up their base and given them another talking point- “41% of math textbooks taught CRT and gender issues! They really are grooming our kids! Even in math class!”

I had no illusions about Biden. My expectations changed, slightly, when Ossoff and Warnock won, but Manchinema were always going to be a problem. What I wanted from Biden were executive orders he and I and everyone else knew a federal court or SCOTUS would/might declare unconstitutional but mattered anyway as a signal to the voters that he has their backs. I also wanted more nominations to the federal bench -- the one area in which he has surpassed my expectations.

Warren and Sanders might've had higher approval ratings at this point, but they would faced similar economic headwinds.

I can tell you as a Floridian the last two weeks have felt like I'm living the Briggs Initiative days. I'm tired.

Ha, yeah exactly. It just feels like we are being walked all over, and all we can do is point our fingers and go “Look! Look what they are doing! This sucks!”

and don't forget "GAWD they're so STUPID"

Been wondering if/when Biden is going to issue any pardons or commutations. Hasn't done a single one so far to my knowledge.

Would echo most of what epistantophus is saying. The Democrats seem to be sinking deeper into their rut of simply fundraising off of outrage until it's not their geriatric leaders' problem anymore. They're not interested in doing much to help the marginalized groups most vulnerable to GOP targeting because they view those groups as an annoyance and embarrassment anyway. Scolding and putting the base in line is the one thing they seem to palpably enjoy about exercising their power.

The Boomer Republican establishment pre-Trump was as aimless and necrotic as the Boomer Democratic establishment is now. The difference is that Trump bulldozed the GOP establishment and created the landscape we have now, which is both hateful and deeply incoherent but is at least attracting — and rewarding — energetic efforts by various groups to seize control of the apparatus. Democrats haven't had that kind of reckoning. And unlike Republicans, they don't have this whole shadow-government media apparatus churning out next-gen "stars" and stoking passions on TV every night. I think that kind of renewal, some kind of renewal, is inevitable on the Democratic side. The danger is that it won't happen fast enough to provide anything more than token opposition to the complete right-wing takeover and dismantling of the federal government.

tea party might've been astroturfed but it was a legitimate anti-establishment force within the gop - house minority leader eric cantor lost his primary

*majority leader. and i guess it was in 2014, not 2010, but still

The only terrain where liberals can compete and have a (semi-coherent) message is on cultural issues, but they’ve largely spent my lifetime outsourcing that fight to cultural products (eg no need make a principled stance on gay marriage right now; Ellen came out on a prime time sitcom). Which I can appreciate is inexpensive, it mitigates risk, and, tbh, has been a somewhat effective route in the short and medium term.

But culture warriors on the right have shown an alarming willingness to take on capital for their dumb shit in ways that make me nervous. Like I can see a Pres DeSantis having no issue putting the screws to Disney, at least until they get an antebellum princess story where acshually? slavery? not that bad

It would be p cool if dems could assume those risks in the interest of something actually Good, eg healthcare, climate, education, housing etc. That these issues (literally Justice Issues) have been allowed to be so financialized and gamified is uh not a sign of a healthy democracy.

I don't wanna be Pollyanna Stars'n'Stripes, but I also think the Democrats — or "the left" more broadly, from center-left to left-left — need their own form of patriotism to rally people around. Or I mean, I hate the word patriotism, so let's just say sense of common purpose. The right's explicit and implicit messaging is all about their idea of America and who gets to be in and who's out or pushed to the fringes. The left at the moment doesn't really have a coherent idea of an inclusive America, rooted in life/liberty/happiness/etc, drawing on our best traditions of social justice, but it can and should. Healthcare, climate, education, housing are all part of that picture, but it needs something bigger and overarching.

Get past the article's giggling and smirking tone and, well, meet the new incoherence, same as the old incoherence -- 'cept now their anti-democratic racist intentions are open:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets

Ha, I was just trying to figure out which thread to post that Vanity Fair piece in. Feels like we might need a thread for the New Right (whatever that is), not just in the U.S. but the international push toward ethnonationalism etc. The Compact magazine people and so forth. Anyway yeah, I came away from it thinking, what exactly do these people believe again? It's all very fuzzy really beyond their general hatred of cultural liberalism.

They believe in Bourbon-style monarchy with death camps for gays and brown people. It's that simple.

Well yeah.

so Kevin McCarthy was caught on tape back on Jan. 11, 2021 saying a whole bunch of stuff including that Trump was responsible for Jan 6, that Trump admitted the same, that he thinks Trump needs to resign, and also that he wished other members of the caucus would have their Twitter accounts shut down.

i saw that too, but it's also been known for over a year now that on the day of the coup, mccarthy was on the phone with trump begging him to call it off, trying to convince him that it wasn't actually antifa storming the capitol, all that.

and so on - many other republicans and rightwing pundits begging him to come to his senses, all that - has been known for over a year.

it's part of the miasma of the last year that epi was alluding to above (booming post, btw! captures much of what i feel). no one today, to the extent that anyone is paying attention, is surprised that Mccarthy was caught on tape on 1/11/21 saying a bunch of shit about trump. absolutely no one, including republicans. a bunch of them were saying that shit, for a few days, until they looked around and saw a bunch of creepy christian neo-fascists all around them with demonic smiles and realized which party they're in

and mccarthy would be the first person to look the american public in the eye and completely deny it all, delay, and then insinuate that it was actually leftists that made all this happen

it's been known, this is actual audio

will it make a difference? probably not, but still somewhat significant

also, the complaining about his colleagues part is new afaik

i don't know, maybe the smoking gun of the audio makes a difference, but i have read soooooooooooooo many accounts of mmcarthy et al standing up to trump and then weakly backing down (as well as shittalking their colleagues). i don't believe everything i read, but when many different sources corroborate the same thing, and it fits very much with what i see in real life, i tend to believe it

of course, that's probably what the newsmax viewer is telling themselves too, haha

Mitch McConnell said out loud that Trump was responsible.

One important thing, just to do a quick reality check —

Didn’t WE all see, in real time, on January 6 and also the months leading up to it, that Trump was clearly responsible??

if there was a day reality broke, I think it was probably the January 7 or 8, watching so many people just blatantly lie about what clearly happened

it needs something bigger and overarching.

ime group identity is forged in identifying a common hate figure so i think the left needs to find enemies and not be shy about laying into them. 'hopey changey' just slides right off the mind, but man people love to get up on their high horses

As we've seen with Trump, I think hate is most effective as a unifying force when there is someone to act as the avatar of the collective.

the main problem is that leftist ideology does not actually revolve around disenfranchising or punishing people so it's not quite a natural fit. secondly I think it's easier for the right to sell hatred of immigrants/queer people/minorities since those are people they'd never want to associate with anyway - doesn't quite work that way when you're targeting the rich, who are the people we all want to be, and generally rely on for employment

I don't wanna be Pollyanna Stars'n'Stripes, but I also think the Democrats — or "the left" more broadly, from center-left to left-left — need their own form of patriotism to rally people around. Or I mean, I hate the word patriotism, so let's just say sense of common purpose.

All the bet-hedging in these two sentences is the entire problem in a nutshell. The old joke about how a liberal is a person who won't take their own side in an argument. Pick an enemy and run against them. Without any of the usual lefty "oh, but of course there's guilt on all sides" bullshit. Pretend just for once that you might be right.

Semi-xp with Tracer...

democrats already have a unifying hate figure - poor people

both political parties are fueled by the same psychsocial territory, one is just not being hyopcritical about it (gop), therefore more successful.

political organization as it's currently possible in the united states is not going to change anyone or anything.

I don't wanna be Pollyanna Stars'n'Stripes, but I also think the Democrats — or "the left" more broadly, from center-left to left-left — need their own form of patriotism to rally people around.

just workshopping here, but I think it's a humdinger that's sure to galvanize the electorate: "America is already great"

map otm

political organization as it's currently possible in the united states is not going to change anyone or anything.

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Friday, April 22, 2022 5:18 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i have to admit that organization does make real, worthwhile changes happen, like the student debt collective putting pressure on the biden administration to forgive debt (and they responded by kicking the can down the road for another four months), but generally it works for very specific, well-defined interests and outcomes, less so for larger systemic problems.

I suspected the truth of that last point; now I know it.

i don’t want to speak for tipsy but I don’t really think that’s what they’re driving at. I get it—some sort of “project” (for lack of a better word) that’s not just posting and voting every two years has probably got to be part of any kind of ground up movement. “Patriotism” is kind of a misnomer. It’s pretty fraught and rightfully conflated with some of the worst things this country has ever done (and will continue to do in the future, bet).

but any of this kind of activist energy that’s ever existed left of center seems to be quickly gobbled up by NGO land and turned into ATM for the very wealthy (in the worst cases), or just a channel to redirect & cordon off any pressure put on capital from the left. Idk.

The worst part for me (well one of the worst parts, everything is so dismal now it’s hard to say what’s worst) is that the 2020 election was such a marathon and a roller coaster and even after the results were in you still couldn’t really feel like we had won for sure because of how everything go dragged out up to Inauguration Day- and then we got through all the challenges and disinformation, and holy shit we got the two Senate seats in Georgia, what kind of miracle is this!? It felt like we barely grabbed the reins of power on our last possible chance to do so. It was plain as day that the next chance they got, the Republicans would cement their power and try to become our permanent overlords, so this was our last gasp and last chance to roll things back and stop that from happening, and here is the worst part that I was talking about, it feels like we’ve just… squandered it? All we got was a quick breather, a chance to regain some sanity with Trump and company out of center stage, before… giving way to the inevitable eventuality of their return to power?? Fuck.

Like, I simply can not envision any kind of real movement on M4A *unless* there was Koch or Thiel type figure on board who had the same level of resources and the same monomaniacal drive

and that’s pretty fucked up imo. and also uh just not going to happen. that person simply does not/ can not exist.

Here is a problem with the left coming up with causes and themes to rally around- the right are absolute masters at stealing the language and turning it around, villianizing, scapegoating, and generating outrage out of literally nothing. Taking anything the left might rally around and twisting it into their own rallying cry which is amplified endlessly and becomes more powerful for them than it ever would have been for the left. It’s risky to put something forward because they will immediately steal it and use it against us as a bludgeon. Remember was “fake news” was supposed to be? Actual fake news that was made up, generally to benefit Trump. Remember when Trump immediately stole that term and used it for his own purposes? How useful was it for the left to call out fake news after that? That’s not an example of a rallying cry, but it’s a perfect example of how they steal and twist language to take away its intended power and use it for their own. They will do that shit with anything we put forward.

They aren't masters at it, they just have the informational infrastructure in place to drown out everything else. Their rhetoric is pure noise, there is no genius there at all... just brute force. It's not even worth wasting your time analyzing their words for content, there isn't any. It's just decibels. You can silence them or shout them down, there's no other option.

The right's perversion of "woke" being just the latest example.

I agree with pretty much all of the above posts. I think Tracer and unperson are in a lot of ways close to what I'm thinking, I do think having a defined "enemy" to vanquish is important, and conveniently of course we have one — collective forces trying to roll our country back to the 1800s. But I think that has to be clearly defined and fought against, and (with respect to my leftier friends) you can't insist on that enemy including everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders. Because then you're defining the enemy as just too many people, like 75 percent of the country, and that doesn't work. I know it's super boring, but a left-center-left alliance remains necessary, certainly at the national level, and the rhetoric needs to be focused primarily on Republicans/conservatives/the self-identified right.

But yeah, that's what I think needs to be out there, that we (i.e. we as Americans) have fought against these assholes (forces of racism/plunder/white supremacy/religious extremists) for 200 years and we've beaten them over and over and we'll beat them again. I realize that is a drastic oversimplification of American history, but nuance doesn't rally troops. And it is basically where we're at. "They lost the Civil War, they lost when they tried to stop women from voting, they lost when they tried to preserve segregation and Jim Crow, they lost when they tried to stop marriage equality, and they'll lose again," etc etc. You don't even have to be very specific about who "they" are. You just have to frame the actual fight for people.

I'd add labor and environmental messaging in there too, just basically reminding people what we've achieved — the 40-hour week, the abolition of child labor, clean air and water, etc. The right is assaulting the entirety of the 20th Century, it's worth enumerating what that involves.

👇👇👇👇👇
Missouri and Texas are debating bills to restrict out-of-state travel of pregnant people seeking abortions in states where access is legal.

— Rob Lowy (@rob_lowy912) April 21, 2022

So are they gonna have women who look like they might be pregnant tested at airports? What if they drive? Neigborhood Watch? Seems like fantasy totalitarian frolic ov legislators, at taxpayers' expense, but we'll see.

If the description is accurate, a law like that would be blatantly unconstitutional. What are they gonna do, provide for "private enforcement"?

Guess it would be more likely airports, if surrounding states have anti-abortion laws (assuming SOCTUS doesn't abolish it everywhere---then states restrict out of country travel?)

It may be unconstitutional now, but---

SCOTUS can't abolish it everywhere. The most they can do--and they will, surely, do this--is to strike down Roe and its constitutional protection of the right to abortion. Then it's up to the states.

The right to travel is protected by the Constitution. It doesn't matter whether the person is flying or driving. Absent something that involves forfeiture of civil rights--e.g., a felony conviction--states can't just prohibit someone from traveling out of state. Applying such a restriction only to pregnant people likely would be an equal protection violation as well.

Of course, the right to travel is not expressly contained in the Constitution, except maybe in the privileges and immunities clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Given the current makeup of the Court, and particularly the mission of Clarence Thomas to undo the "substantive due process" jurisprudence of the last century, who knows?

Correction, the privileges and immunities clauses of Article IV, Section 2 and the privileges or immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I can't find the exact Texas bill at a quick Google, but the Missouri one is another cause-of-action bill — allowing Missouri residents to sue out of state providers if a Missouri resident gets an abortion there. Which wouldn't restrict anyone's travel, it would just create disincentives for the providers. Probably successfully, given how fraught things already are for abortion providers to begin with. Do you risk losing your whole operation and ability to serve your own state's residents for out of staters?

That's what I meant by private enforcement. Supposedly, this gets around the obvious problems of having the government infringe on people's constitutional rights. I think there are very good arguments against this, including the line of cases that hold that courts cannot enforce racially discriminatory restrictive covenants, but here we are. I think there are also enormous due process problems with giving someone in State A the right to sue a resident of State B for something done in State B (with no connection to State A besides the residence of a third party), but again I am fairly sure the Court will have none of it.

allowing Missouri residents to sue out of state providers

And perhaps the out-of-state provider can counter-sue for damages? This would happen in Missouri civil courts? This whole new line of attack is such a fucking mess

ironically, this is the coolest madison cawthorn has ever been

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/22/madison-cawthorn-photos-00027286

https://i.imgur.com/FnXfRyp.png

One weird trick to attract horny karaoke MILFs

is that Jake Gyllenhaal

He’s gay.

and the guy in the photo?

he and MTG and their ilk are total fame whores and sociopaths but like, so are boring assholes like Hawley and Vance. if the GOP is going to keep devolving into whatever tf this is hope they Keep it Weird and sweaty and less blood and soil

and the guy in the photo?

So not gonna happen

https://i.imgur.com/1Zl68SC.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/1Zl68SC.png
https://i.imgur.com/1Zl68SC.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/1Zl68SC.png

it's a litmus test. is he america's golden boy, or america's fucking asshole opportunistic fascist winedriper

either way he could do so much better than those horse girls

somehow i never realized he's prettier than justin bieber ca. 2005, someone really should have steered him into a minor tv career instead of politics

I'd have much rather a different steering outcome for him.

He looks like he's auditioning for the role of Martin Essenbeck in Luchino Visconti's The Damned or, failing that, an SA member killed on the Night of the Long Knives.

https://i.imgur.com/iDzjpzj.png

An Evening of Poppers & Wine Moms.

I'd have much rather a different steering outcome for him.

I get Kelvin Gemstone vibes from this guy

hahahahah holy shit yes

Did not expect that turn of the thread---getting back to enforcement, how will who determine that citizen of state A got an abortion in state B? Comes back slimmer? Might have had a tuck, watch out---unless you're doing a proper job of surveilling your fellow State A citizen, like in USSR or Russia today.

he and MTG and their ilk are total fame whores and sociopaths but like, so are boring assholes like Hawley and Vance. if the GOP is going to keep devolving into whatever tf this is hope they Keep it Weird and sweaty and less blood and soil

― OG Bob Sacamano (will), Friday, April 22, 2022 6:36 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

pretty much yeah and that's why the modern GOP is unlike any political party on the planet. their most popular/widely covered figures are just full-time culture warriors with no real beliefs or political goals outside of being on TV all the time. a bunch of the party has converted over into being that sort of person, while the old guard has been either completely ostracized or just uses them as useful idiots (McConnell, McCarthy), while all the newcomers just try to out-crazy one another for media coverage. I mean, Trump was a registered Democrat most of his life right? didn't MTG have that tantric sex guru who said "she was not like this at all in the time I knew her"?

XP Gotta be the "I went to State B, and all I got was an Abortion and this lousy T-Shirt" t-shirt.

Wait MTG had a tantric sex guru? -Barf-

Anyway, the new age to far right pipeline is a well trod one. It’s possible these people genuinely believe what they spout.

Welp they've got 13 months to tweak this, but meanwhile:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WPEC) — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a bill aimed at dissolving a special taxing district that has granted Walt Disney World unique self-governing powers for more than five decades, even as a leading bond-rating agency cautioned investors about the proposed changes.
...he law would dissolve the districts on June 1, 2023, though it would allow the Legislature to re-establish the districts before then.

If it is dissolved, the Reedy Creek district’s debt obligations, revenues and responsibilities would be transferred to Osceola and Orange counties and the small cities of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake.

The legislative action prompted credit-rating agency Fitch Ratings on Friday to place a “rating watch negative” on about $1 billion in outstanding district debt.

The district has about $79 million in outstanding utilities revenue and refunding bonds and approximately $766 million in outstanding ad valorem tax bonds, according to an alert issued by Fitch. The district’s various debt ratings range from A to AA-, Fitch said.
“The negative watch indicates the ratings could stay at their present levels or potentially be downgraded,” Fitch said.

The negative watch “reflects the lack of clarity regarding the allocation” of the district’s assets and liabilities, “including the administration of revenues pledged to approximately $1 billion in outstanding debt,” following the dissolution of the district, Fitch said.

Fitch said the debt is expected to be transferred to Orange County and, to a lesser extent, Osceola County.
“Fitch believes the mechanics of implementation will be complicated, increasing the probability of negative rating action,” the agency said.

The Fitch alert, issued before DeSantis signed the bill later in the day, did not lower the district’s bond ratings but cautioned investors about future actions.

The message also touched on what is known as ESG, or environmental, social, and governance principles, which the agency ranks on a scale of one to five. Scores of one or two indicate “no impact on the credit score rating;” a score of three reflects minimal risk; and scores of four and five “indicate that the ESG risk is either an emerging risk or a contributing factor to the credit decision,” according to Fitch’s website.

Fitch revised the Reedy Creek district’s “general government” score on “rule of law, institutional & regulatory quality, control of corruption” from three to five “to reflect state actions to dissolve the district, which points to a substantially reduced degree of independence from political pressure,” the agency said.

“These actions potentially diminish government effectiveness and could prove harmful to bondholders, which has a negative impact on the credit profile and is highly relevant to the Negative Watch action,” Fitch said.

Meanwhile, S&P Global Ratings Agency on Friday did not issue a warning about the Reedy Creek district but acknowledged the district’s pending dissolution.

The legislation did not lay out a plan for exactly how the district’s debt obligations would be transferred.

...DeSantis on Friday also signed a separate bill targeting Disney that will remove an exemption for theme parks that was placed in a 2021 law seeking to punish social-media platforms that strip users from platforms or flag users’ posts.

Greene asked about called Pelosi a "traitor to our country," she initially denies it.

Greene:"No I haven't said that."

Attorney: "Exhibit 5 please."

Greene: "Oh no, wait, hold on now! I believe that by not securing the border that violates her oath of office." pic.twitter.com/XahwecWOwq

— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) April 22, 2022

they always seem completely out of their depth when they have to actually confront the things that very obviously happened

Usual bully behavior, usual DARVO shit.

Judge holds Trump in contempt for failing to turn over documents to New York Attorney General Letitia James

Comparing what would happen if you or I were held in contempt of court, compared to what will happen to trump

Catching up with Saturday email---how did this rally go?

There’s been intense blowback to Trump’s endorsement of Vance, who previously criticized the president and is viewed by some as a “Never Trumper” who’s now pandering to the ex-president. As the Columbus Dispatch notes, “thirty-three 2016 Trump delegates penned a letter calling on the former president to reconsider.”

“Unlike the other candidates in this race, J.D. Vance has not developed relationships with Republican voters and grassroots leaders that are crucial to win,” the letter read. “This endorsement of J.D. Vance is a betrayal to not only your Ohio supporters but Trump supporters across our great nation!”

The reaction has been most intense among allies of JOSH MANDEL, who was considered the frontrunner for a long time before Trump’s endorsement. Mandel plans to stump with Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Texas) next week and boasts the support of Club for Growth — which has landed on the ex-president’s bad side. Maggie Haberman reported earlier this week that when Trump learned the conservative group was still running ads highlighting Vance’s past criticism of him, he “had his assistant send [DAVID] McINTOSH a text saying, ‘Go f— yourself.’”

The reply from the Club? “We are increasing our ad buy,” a spokesman told our colleague Natalie.

Consider it war: “Dave McIntosh motivated Don Jr. to not only push J.D. over the finish line but tear down Mandel in the process," a source familiar told our Meridith McGraw.

MEANWHILE … The Ohio Values Voters is asking supporters to vocally protest Vance at the Trump rally tonight. As Meridith notes, the call to action sets up something of a MO BROOKS 2.0 moment, when Brooks was booed on stage with Trump following the former president’s endorsement. (Trump has since unendorsed Brooks.)

lol I guess between Daddy endorsing and Thiel’s deep pockets and spiderweb of weirdos Vance will probably get it, but I am enjoying the internecine. squabbling. Haven’t really seen all that much fighting since the 2016 primaries (among movement conservatives & hoopleheads that is; beltway nerds & guys w inches in the Times and Post and the Atlantic don’t count). Which I guess stands to reason will ramp up as we get closer to 2024 GOP primary

I remain highly invested in Vance losing in OH though so let’s keep hope alive. invested in the lols and JD’s next Big Turn that is

What a week

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/read-mark-meadows-texts-sean-hannity-ivanka-trump-marjorie-taylor-greene/index.html

If Vance actually wins the primary it'll be the ultimate invalidation of polling, as he's been in single digits pretty much the entire long-ass campaign.

Comparing what would happen if you or I were held in contempt of court, compared to what will happen to trump Fine is $10,000 per diem, no biggy when you're that far in debt anyway? Depending maybe on how quickly it has to be paid---otherwise, "Get in line."

Can someone with access hook us up?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/biden-voters-midterms.html

xp oh he'll crowdfund the fines anyway

Can someone with access hook us up?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/biden-voters-midterms.html

― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings),

"Balance the budget during an inflation."

Feel free to retain this handy summary of everything Mark Penn has ever written, and anything he might ever write in the future:

*extended, wet farting noise*

Speaking of access, I have an extra Washington post digital account (comes with my subscription), good for a year I think? If anyone wants it you can ILXmail me, first come first served!

"Balance the budget during an inflation."

If that meant they'd raise revenue by raising taxes on the wealthiest 10%, but particularly on the 1% and 0.01%, instead of cutting services to the poorest half of the population, then that would be a meritorious suggestion.

The answer is to keep in place the Covid-related border restrictions and revive trying to find a real compromise with at least 10 Republican senators on immigration that would adopt tougher barrier and enforcement measures to close the border, but also open up legal immigration and a path to citizenship for at least DACA recipients.

lol come on

Remember the "People's Convoy"? No, me neither:

It was here the convoy members made their mistake, driving onto busy, one-lane College Avenue on the Berkeley-Oakland border. There, slowed down by the usual Friday afternoon traffic, they were sitting ducks outside the Safeway. A large group of kids, armed with eggs purchased at the grocery store, began pelting the convoy.

“We’re fighting for your freedoms too,” one convoy participant said as eggs flew amid shouts of “get the f—k out of here” by the gathering crowd. A few ill-advised convoy drivers had their windows rolled down, resulting in eggs splattering the insides of their vehicles.

trying to find a real compromise with at least 10 Republican senators

real eyes compartmentalize real compromise

Washington (CNN)---CNN has obtained 2,319 text messages that former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden's January 20, 2021 inauguration.

The vast trove of texts offers the most revealing picture to date of how Trump's inner circle, supporters and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes to try to overturn the election results and then reacted to the violence that effort unleashed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The logs, which Meadows selectively provided to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, show how the former chief of staff was at the nexus of sprawling conspiracy theories baselessly claiming the election had been stolen. They also demonstrate how he played a key role in the attempts to stop Biden's certification on January 6.

the era of republicans willing to compromise on anything ended in 2008

tbf, initial tweets incl general panic re chaos and how it will make T. look bad.

Later, Green brings up Marshall law and is it good (truly)

Greene, that is! "Marsall" is her sic

The Gazpacho Police impose Marshall Law

If I lived in GA-14, I'd be pretty worried that my Rep had such memory issues.

I have a friend who lives in that district because she's in a suburb of Chattanooga just over the Ga. state line. She cannot believe that this is her congressperson.

On the plus side, her blue votes count way more in Georgia than if she voted in Tennessee.

also she gets to think way less about Marsha Blackburn 😀

It's hard to escape Marsha's penumbra.

I live in GA-06. I spend a lot of time up in GA-14 with my kids, hiking and camping. It's a gorgeous part of the state, especially Cloudland Canyon.

Everyone's always focused on Ron DeSantis, but it's worth remembering that Tate Reeves is a real piece of shit, too.

I am shocked, shocked, to learn that the Governor of Mississippi is a real piece of shit.

went to Paradise Gardens a while back—I guess it was just as she was about to be elected in 2020—and the yard signs between I75 and Summerville (and in Summerville) expressing approval were dense

... befitting the yard sign posters. (rim shot)

Does GA-14 include West Georgia University? Went there for a year and got out as quickly as possible

Carroll County is in GA-03 and is currently represented by Drew Ferguson.

Running for election in 2016, Ferguson's main issues were securing the borders, destroying the Islamic State, strengthening the military, replacing the income tax with a flat tax, repealing Obamacare, and supporting a constitutional amendment for congressional term limits. He signed on to the lawsuit seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 election, one of four Georgian representatives to do so. The Supreme Court dismissed the suit on December 11, 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Ferguson_(politician)

I’ve prob said this on here before but if you’re a cracker who can “pass”, one pretty lol thing to do would be move to a super safe red district in N GA and run as a “constitutional conservative/independent” against an entrenched republican. just blanket every bit of available public space with signs featuring simply your name and a silhouette of an AR-15 (an actual sign I saw a couple of years ago when we went up to Amicalola Falls state park area. no clue as to how the candidate fared). And then after you unseat the good ol boy just do socialist shit until you get assassinated.

probably a move best suited for someone w a terminal illness

Classic. I'm kind of hoping Kandiss Taylor is just such a candidate, although at the gubernatorial level all she could really do would be to draw votes away from Brian Kemp (which is not a bad result).

Mallory McMorrow's speech going viral speaks to some of the dynamics you all were discussing the other day I think:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/us/politics/mallory-mcmorrow-michigan.html

I'm basically with map on the uselessness of the D party, but if they're going to do so little to alleviate any of the many urgent material problems, at least not silently wringing their hands while the GOP mounts a full-blown, local-to-national fascist campaign demonizing minority populations would be nice.

Easy for this stuff to slide into insulting "would breaking up the banks end racism?" territory, but even from a merely tactical pov, it's been baffling seeing them say so little after years of coasting on a vague reputation for advancing social tolerance (which they only earned by belatedly riding on activist coattails, but still). Some posters were saying the Rs have no policy goals, but criminalizing abortion, passing censorship laws, redesigning school curricula, increasing their power over public universities, blocking any limits on gun ownership, restricting immigration/asylum, etc. are policies. "Culture wars" is such a useless concept, as if radically reshaping public education won't have profound, reverberating material effects. But more to the point, what are the Dems policy goals? If they don't have any or Biden forgot what executive orders do, they could at least fight against these loathsome R policies.

Of course it would be far better to see not just speeches but safely blue state legislatures doing things like proactively amending their constitutions to include abortion and LGBTQ rights, before we end up with all three fed branches in rightwing hands

Dems don’t care about anything except lining their pockets and the pockets of their donor cocktail party friends.

JUST IN: President Biden just told a group of lawmakers he is looking at different options to forgive most, if not all, federal student loan debt, per @cbsnews.

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) April 26, 2022

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-options-forgiving-student-loan-debt/

no lie?

God, I hope he goes ahead with it, bcz if shies away now it would be a PR disaster on the order of him publicly strangling a puppy.

He needs to just damn the torpedoes and do it, break things and apologize later.

Aimless OTM

If Vance actually wins the primary it'll be the ultimate invalidation of polling, as he's been in single digits pretty much the entire long-ass campaign.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, April 25, 2022 1:21 PM

Support for author J.D. Vance has doubled in the Ohio Republican senate primary race, catapulting him ahead of earlier frontrunners former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel and businessman Mike Gibbons -- although many voters remain undecided or uncertain about their vote.

That’s according to a Fox News survey of Ohio voters participating in the May 3 GOP primary.

Vance receives the backing of 23% of primary voters, up 12 points since last month. Mandel gets 18% (down 2 points), while Gibbons stands at 13% (down 9). State Sen. Matt Dolan comes in at 11% (+4) and former Ohio GOP chair Jane Timken gets 6% (-3).

https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-vance-moves-top-spot-ohio-gop-senate-primary

A Confederacy of Deplorables

yeah I thought maybe he’d narrowed the gap but didn’t know he was actually leading rn.

he’s not going to be nearly as funny/ pathetic as a senator :-/

This may be at least a partial explanation:

Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance claims the FBI got 'an illegal wiretap' on Trump

https://news.yahoo.com/ohio-senate-candidate-jd-vance-022902280.html

wow what a shocking new revelation, this is way bigger than watergate, etc. etc.

They'll say anything to win over the "base." David Perdue is doubling down on this kind of bullshit in a desperate attempt to win the GA gubernatorial race. He's now flat out saying that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.

*nods, look at others in room, lowers eyes, nods*

makes sense, makes sense

*nods, lowers eyes, looks at others in room*

good morning!

Where’s the handcuffs for the other guy?

Whoops!

As Florida legislators were rushing through passage of a bill to repeal the special district that governs Walt Disney World last week, they failed to notice an obscure provision in state law that says the state could not do what legislators were doing — unless the district’s bond debt was paid off.

Disney, however, noticed and quietly sent a note to its investors to show that it was confident the Legislature’s attempt to dissolve the special taxing district operating the 39-square mile parcel it owned in two counties violated the “pledge” the state made when it enacted the district in 1967, and therefore was not legal.

The result, Disney told its investors, is that it would continue to go about business as usual.

The statement, posted on the website of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on April 21 by the Reedy Creek Improvement District, is the only public statement Disney has supplied since lawmakers unleashed their fury over the company’s vocal opposition to the “Parental Rights in Education” law, also known as the “don’t say gay” bill.

The statement, first reported by WESH 2, quotes the statute which says, in part, that the “State of Florida pledges...it will not limit or alter the rights of the District...until all such bonds together with interest thereon...are fully met and discharged.”

Disney’s statement says, “In light of the State of Florida’s pledge to the District’s bondholders, Reedy Creek expects to explore its options while continuing its present operations, including levying and collecting its ad valorem taxes and collecting its utility revenues, paying debt service on its ad valorem tax bonds and utility revenue bonds, complying with its bond covenants and operating and maintaining its properties.’’

In essence, the state had a contractual obligation not to interfere with the district until the bond debt is paid off, said Jake Schumer, a municipal attorney in the Maitland law firm of Shepard, Smith, Kohlmyer & Hand, in an article for Bloomberg Tax posted on Tuesday and cited in a Law and Crime article.

The law passed by the Republican Legislature on a largely party-line vote, and signed into law by the Republican governor, either violates the contract clause of the Florida Constitution, or is incomplete, Schumer told the Herald/Times on Tuesday.

If the Legislature wants to dismantle the Reedy Creek Improvement District, it has more work to do. “It simply can’t go forward under the contract clause,’‘ he said. “They would have to pass something to address this.”

...

Neither the governor’s office, nor spokespersons for the House speaker or Senate president, would respond to requests for comment about how it intended to resolve the legal conflict.

lol

This was reported last week in a couple local blogs, and I suspect Tallahassee knew it, hence the 2023 activation date.

By giving Disney a year to resolve this, the company could shed its assets by giving its power plant and its water utility to Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake. Without those assets, Disney reduces its tax bill when the state dissolves Reedy Creek, he said.

“Disney has more power now to determine its tax bill than it did a week ago,” he said. “That’s what’s crazy to me. They want to punish Disney, but this is the furthest thing from that. You literally put them in the driver’s seat of how much they want to pay.”

Carl Hiaasen had a point.

Lyndon B Johnson’s drawing of Bobby Kennedy(1960) pic.twitter.com/o6eYj7hSzg

— crazy ass moments in american politics (@ampol_moment) April 27, 2022

started me humming Peter Pumpkinhead

but he made too many frenemies

DeSantis and the Disney lawyers operate in different universes. In the Disney universe, their lawyers won. DeSantis wouldn't agree. Doesn't matter to him what the FL courts rule in the inevitable lawsuit, he already won the battle that mattered in the media.

see also his claim that the florida pension fund sealed the deal for musk

https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/25/gov-desantis-fl-pension-board-pressured-twitter-to-ok-elon-musks-purchase-offer/

NY Court of Appeals rules with Republicans, striking down New York's Congressional and Senate maps

— Benjamin Rosenblatt (@BenJ_Rosenblatt) April 27, 2022

Gerrymandering is only valid if it helps republicans

the same thing happened in maryland and the legislature passed another map that is still going to result in a 7-1 composition probably

Mitt has some good ideas:

Desperate polls call for desperate measures: Dems consider forgiving trillions in student loans. Other bribe suggestions: Forgive auto loans? Forgive credit card debt? Forgive mortgages? And put a wealth tax on the super-rich to pay for it all. What could possibly go wrong?

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) April 27, 2022

he legislature passed another map that is still going to result in a 7-1 composition probably

just trying to wear down the opposition and the courts until they get their way

If anyone is used to ignoring cries for help from students, it's Jim Jordan https://t.co/uVpLm5FgQW

— Joe Kassabian (@jkass99) April 27, 2022

lol

BREAKING: In a historic move, Utah Democrats voted not to nominate a Senate candidate, choosing instead to join our coalition to defeat Mike Lee.

— Evan McMullin 🇺🇸 (@EvanMcMullin) April 27, 2022

I have to admit that I didn’t expect a tweet like that from Mitt Romney

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81WZGoU-spL._SY355_.jpg

Comrade Romney, welcome to the Revolution

I would’ve loved to have been on hand when that album title was dreamt up

I’m picturing many high fives and fist pumps

Anyway, Mitt probably doesn’t listen to music

making sure people don't "entitlements" is prob the only thing that mitt romney actually cares about

*don't receive "entitlements"

He listens to the harmonies generated by his underwear rubbing against his scrotum.

eh, the utah thing seems like a useful experiment. will not change the outcome of the election, and we'll learn something. how often do the democrats not run a candidate for US senate?

"Breaking"? I thought that happened last week. In any event, McMullin would be an improvement over Lee even if he caucused with Republicans, and he claims that he won't caucus with either party (though I don't know how that would actually work in practice).

_he legislature passed another map that is still going to result in a 7-1 composition probably_

just trying to wear down the opposition and the courts until they get their way

McMullin will siphon money that could go to a theoretically winnable race (even more than if the Democrats ran their own designated loser).

"They want to punish Disney, but this is the furthest thing from that. You literally put them in the driver’s seat of how much they want to pay.”

And that is why Disney keeps cutting the checks.

xp probably true but, and the Lincoln project effect would be annoying but I’d still like to see how it turned out.

What a world

TIL that Beau Biden, who worked as a federal prosecutor, a state attorney general, and a JAG in Iraq and Kosovo... still had outstanding student loans that weren't discharged after his death at 46??? https://t.co/VG4oiloWQy pic.twitter.com/by8Tnk35yY

— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) April 27, 2022

I'm all in favor of forgiving student loan debt, but if they're going to they need to do a better job selling it. Get a bunch of sympathetic stories out there, make clear that it's not all NYU poetry MFAs. (no disrespect to NYU poetry MFAs)

If they're serious about the necessity for this, they should do it now while they can and sell it afterwards.

Slate's MJS wrote a typically trenchant piece:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/coach-kennedy-supreme-court-kavanaugh-school-prayer.html🕸

Slate's MJS wrote a typically trenchant piece:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/coach-kennedy-supreme-court-kavanaugh-school-prayer.html🕸

I'm all in favor of forgiving student loan debt, but if they're going to they need to do a better job selling it. Get a bunch of sympathetic stories out there, make clear that it's not all NYU poetry MFAs. (no disrespect to NYU poetry MFAs)

Like sorry, the debt of people I know who are artists is just as real and just as much of an onus as the debt of people who aren’t, whether you or the broader public like it or not.

In real time regretting my go fuck yourself, so i apologize, tipsy. Sorry about that.

I just dislike this world so much that anything that even caters to its insane whims makes me unreasonably angry. No room for joy or art or anything that might not be easily commodified and sold. What a waste of a species

table, we've known tipsy for 20 years. He's on our side, fighting alone in the South. I suspect he meant the marketing, not the forgiveness itself, although I'll disagree on that point too: how nice to have an MFA and an engineering major side by side on stage.

I'm sensing a return of the "underwater basket-weaving" talking point

Alfred, yeah, I know. Part of my regret is knowing this.

I also just hate seeing the thing that brings me the most joy and sense of purpose derided, even if in jest or service to a larger point.

I'm in your position too.

i'm hoping that some of my incredibly stupid loans for getting a public admin degree can be forgiven so i can live for a few more months making art. it would mean everything for me, and of course i know i am the exact poster child for everything that loan forgiveness people hate

that anti-loan forgiveness people hate, i mean. and also, a fair amount of pro-forgiveness (means testing) people as well

yeah, this stuff reminds me of the people who don't want their tax money to public libraries

hilarious trick in Florida!!

NEW: After Floridians passed Amendment 4 in 2018, GOP lawmakers limited its scope to just those who have paid off all court fines and fees.

Now, in the first prosecutions under the law, poor people are being charged for illegally voting. https://t.co/xM2pRJHhSD

— Kira Lerner (@kira_lerner) April 28, 2022

News —> @POTUS says he's taking "a hard look" at further action on "debt forgiveness" for students.

"I am considering dealing with some debt reduction. I am not considering $50,000."

He says he'll have an answer in the "next couple weeks."

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 28, 2022

chaser:

https://i.imgur.com/hAxyxYR.jpg

Free debt therapy! Coupons for coding classes! (means-tested, of course)

Yes, totally talking about selling it politically. And don’t worry, being told to fuck yourself from time to time is the price of admission around here. But this issue does not travel politically as well as maybe some people think. I have heard and seen a lot of not very political people or even more or less liberal people voice some version of the “I had to pay mine, why shouldn’t they pay theirs“ argument. It is not a political slam dunk in any way. So my concern is that they fuck it up, turn it into a big partisan fight where the GOP sees actual advantage in opposing it, and then whatever they do gets immediately undone by Congress or whatever. It’s the right thing to do, but they’ve got to do it well.

And there are literal millions of stories they could tell to sell it, to illustrate how fucked up the system is. Just not really seeing that right now.

if the sahil kapur tweet above is correct it looks like they'll do some middling shit that's unpopular with pretty much everybody so

And the SC will rule it unconstitutional anyway

College debt is not something that happened way in the past... it's happening right now, as we speak. Will the Gov keep issuing new loans and keep the status quo just rolling along?

just the other day they postponed the resumption of federal loan payments to August. they keep bumping it down the road another few months.

Right, but are they issuing new student loans? Will there be any structural changes, or will this just be a one-time amnesty? And all the future students are shit out of luck?

Yeah, reforming the whole system is the thing that really needs to happen. The forgiveness is a first step, but the predatory system that creates the debt has to change.

don’t worry, being told to fuck yourself from time to time is the price of admission around here.

^^new borad description?

The political problem with debt forgiveness isn't underwater basket weaving so much as 'didn't go to college.' The hypothetical Bernie bargain was forgiveness + free college going forward (you don't benefit from forgiveness but your kid benefits in the future) + M4A taking some of the weight off our lives. Obviously I think forgiveness is good but politically debt forgiveness alone is at best a wash and might be a negative because it will (understandably) generate resentment.

They're not just kicking the can w/r/t student loans, btw. It doesn't get as much press, but they gave out a ton of SBA money at the start of the pandemic — I got a $20K loan that I used to start my record label, and was supposed to start making payments last July, but have subsequently been told not to worry about it until January 2023.

they're likely gonna need to forgive at least some student debt (even if it's just interest accrued since the start of the pandemic) because everyone's bills coming due at the same time would be catastrophic for the economy. wouldn't it?

This, we need more of this.

I’m somewhat loath to get so personal but I feel like I need to tell this story. My mother died in December 2020 with what I believed at the time to be $40k in student loan debt.

— Michelle Miller (@michelleimiller) April 28, 2022

milo's summation is otm. the systemic solution is comprehensive enough to win public approval. free (public) college going forward brings working class adults who never went to college into the grand bargain by giving their kids something. otherwise it looks like 'liberal elitism' to them.

what if we just do a "do over", wipe everything lean, evenly split up all the money, and we each get a free starting weapon

wasn't free two-year college part of build back better? not that that means anything to anyone, since bbb isn't happening

fwiw the average student loan debt and the rate of default is higher for black women than any other group.

https://www.investopedia.com/student-loan-debt-by-race-5193137

hmmm can't imagine why

i'd like to think this would be an argument advanced by the whitehouse against the underwater basket weaving criticism, but they're probably too worried about the whole racial resentment thing to want to draw attention to it.

"This text message that's supposedly mine, I don't know if it is ..."

Marge Greene gets hot when confronted by Jim Acosta today about the text by her suggesting Trump should declare martial law. pic.twitter.com/Rq1KgsKuyT

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) April 28, 2022

the dumbest thing is that she spelled it Marshall Law, like the tekken character

No no no she meant John Marshall!

"See, no, it says some people are saying it."

GOP Rep Madison Cawthorn is caught on video with his male staff member's hand on his crotch | Daily Mail Online https://t.co/Rcd7PwSwGv

— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) April 28, 2022

Jfc all this shit that’s coming out on him I guess the coke orgies were real

'Outing' Cawthron feels cheap... he deserves to be called out for being a fucking incompetent asshole, nothing more

Well, an incompetent and treasonous asshole.

We haven’t even reached the tip of the iceberg with MC, I sense.

Well yeah but the kind of shit that’s coming out seems to indicate someone is trying to make him look bad among the right

Kind of like the "Nestor" thing with Gaetz. Whatever happened to that kid, anyway?

If he and the right can team up to curb stomp his image, they may just be able to get him re elected with a larger margin of the vote

Special place in hell for closeted gay dudes who side with the people who want to kill them, stopped being sympathetic to such types years ago.

Man, no wonder he was crying when he came out of McCarthy's office. They had a Powerpoint of all the dimes they were about to drop on him.

This does add another level of intrigue to his recent attempt to bring a loaded pistol aboard a plane to DC

the dumbest thing is that she spelled it Marshall Law, like the tekken character

she presumably meant to misspell it Marshal Law, which would have been like an earlier and funnier fictional character

1984 is a great fiction novel to read but it seems like it is becoming the reality we are currently living under more and more each day.

— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) August 11, 2021

Narrator: "Representative Cawthorn had never read 1984."

"...but neither had any of the voters he was speaking to, so he and they bonded together, glad and secure in the knowledge that they need not speak openly about the shared secret of their total ignorance."

1984 is the second most important book I’ve ever read about Americans

The First: Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs

The second: The Art of the Deal.

Narrator: "Representative Cawthorn cannot read."

"Great fiction novel to read" is so perfectly succinct and descriptive.

1984 was a popular book and it still is

All the jokes about his sexuality had me looking up Madison Cawthorn's homophobic past, and it's pretty disturbing. He once slammed a gay man into a concrete barrier, crippling him for life.

— Sridhar Ramesh (@RadishHarmers) April 29, 2022

https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/120/apple/325/pinched-fingers_1f90c.png

I knew Aaron Schock and you, Caw, are no Aaron Schock.

Holy shit Sridar lmfao

Special place in hell for closeted gay dudes who side with the people who want to kill them, stopped being sympathetic to such types years ago.

table OTM

Holy shit Sridar lmfao

He's a friend of a friend, apparently also a brilliant mathematician.

uh oh, more trouble in paradise

https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657236317/

Surprised they didn't start shooting at each other.

uh oh, more trouble in paradise

https://www.bravotv.com/sites/bravo/files/styles/blog-post-embedded--computer/public/2019-10/taylor-armstrong-cat-yelling-meme.jpg