We. Would. CRY.: US Politics, July 2022

I think it's (be) best and shows growth to not use a Trump quote in the title.

Picking up from the other thread:

so i've been trying to do something with this overwhelming anger i've felt over the last few weeks, months, years and was hoping to do more in local criminal justice. does anyone know of databases that store crime, charges, age of accused etc?

― Heez, Friday, July 1, 2022 8:24 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Good morning!

Where’s the sealed indictments?

Local databases are all over the place, so it really depends where you are. They’re not required to keep track of much, and even when they are, they just don’t do it. Remember how even the fbi, a couple years ago, had no idea how many police shootings there were in the United States?

I did, and I forgot, as usual. Here’s a Washington post article on it from dec 2021:

In an attempt to create a definitive database on how often police officers use force on citizens, the FBI launched the National Use-of-Force Data Collection program in 2019, imploring police departments to submit details on every incident, not just fatal shootings. But the failure of police and federal agencies to send their data to the FBI puts the program in jeopardy of being shut down next year without ever releasing a single statistic, a new report by the Government Accountability Office says.

The program was required to obtain data representing 60 percent of law enforcement officers, to meet a standard of quality set by the Office of Management and Budget, or else stop the effort by the end of 2022. In 2019, the data covered 44 percent of local, state, federal and tribal officers, and last year the total increased to 55 percent, according to the program’s website. So far this year, the data represents 57 percent of all officers, the FBI said Wednesday.

“Due to insufficient participation from law enforcement agencies,” the GAO wrote, “the FBI faces risks that it may not meet the participation thresholds” established by OMB, “and therefore may never publish use of force incident data.”

Thanks Karl! I mean it's a bummer but thanks

oh, please don't let me discourage you! i don't know why i honed in on that one, particularly disappointing example, considering you were asking about local databases, not national ones.

it's not all garbarge. there is some stuff you can find. here's one place: the FBI's Crime Data Explorer

Thanks. It's election time here and I've been frustrated that they are charging a local kid that brought a ghost gun to school as an adult. So I hit up one former PD running for County Council and he explained that Maryland has a gun law that anyone 16 and older charged with possession gets charged as an adult. Apparently the Judge has the ability to transfer the case to juvenile courts, but it's up to the judge.

If the FBI wants cops to tell them about their use of force they need to send out emails that say "Tell Us How Much Ass You Kicked This Week, You Awesome Super Trooper, You!"

Huh

This wasn't SNL on a Thursday night.

This was Wyoming's Republican primary debate. pic.twitter.com/PUHeOMdx7I

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) July 1, 2022

"All the major internets do that"

Jesus Cheney sounds like churchill in that batch of kooky birds

forgot a comma, I don't actually consider her to be Jesus

But she has the same initials.

She's doomed

I hate to look up who on that stage is ahead of her in polling

yeah. it's Harriet Hageman, on the far left. expected to win. she's the one who says something about fauci being totally corrupt, and then later in the clip becomes only first person i've ever heard in my life say the words "2000 mules" out loud

horseshoe theory is real

"Serious leaders"

It's 2000 mules when all you need is an ox

one time, i said "bona fide" out loud. it wasn't even that long, maybe 4-5 years ago. i said "bone-uh-fyed", rhyming it with "died" which is what happened inside when one guy there clearly knew how dumb i was and said "...bone-uh-fyed...?" to me and then politely changed the topic to the category of Other Things, Any Thing Else At All, leaving me to search "bone fide pronunciation later that night. god DAMN IT! how could i not have known. and yet, harriet hageman says "2000 mules" out loud as a real thing for people to think about, and she's probably going to win. come on

wyoming should really get two half-senators... each working 2-3 days a week

...with brains working maybe 2-3 hours a day

Fwiw the obnoxious bona fide dude was just being a pedant. BOH-nuh-fied is standard American English.

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2016/03/bona-fide-2.html

Here in the South, the way very well-educated lawyers pronounce "voir dire" rhymes with "for fire."

Yep I've heard that in courtrooms.

CNN
—
Then-President Donald Trump angrily demanded to go to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and berated his protective detail when he didn’t get his way, according to two Secret Service sources who say they heard about the incident from multiple agents, including the driver of the presidential SUV where it occurred.

The sources tell CNN that stories circulated about the incident – including details that are similar to how former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described it to the House select committee investigating January 6 – in the months immediately afterward the US Capitol attack and before she testified this week.

While the details from those who heard the accounts differ, the Secret Service sources say they were told an angry confrontation did occur. And their accounts align with significant parts of Hutchinson’s testimony, which has been attacked as hearsay by Trump and his allies who also have tried to discredit her overall testimony.

ike Hutchinson, one source, a longtime Secret Service employee, told CNN that the agents relaying the story described Trump as “demanding” and that the former President said something similar to: “I’m the f**king President of the United States, you can’t tell me what to do.” The source said he originally heard that kind of language was used shortly after the incident.

“He had sort of lunged forward – it was unclear from the conversations I had that he actually made physical contact, but he might have. I don’t know,” the source said. “Nobody said Trump assaulted him; they said he tried to lunge over the seat – for what reason, nobody had any idea.”

The employee said he’d heard about the incident multiple times as far back as February 2021 from other agents, including some who were part of the presidential protective detail during that time period but none of whom were involved in the incident.

The source added that agents often recounted stories of Trump’s fits of anger, including the former President throwing and breaking things.

“Not just plates,” the source added,

The former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson received at least one message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the House January 6 select committee from an associate of former chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The message in question was the second of two warnings the committee disclosed at the end of its explosive special hearing on Tuesday, when Hutchinson testified about matters including how Donald Trump directed a crowd he knew was armed to march on the Capitol, the sources said.

Yep I've heard that in courtrooms.

Hell, I've said it. To pronounce it any other way would mark me as an outsider--not that my lack of Southern accent doesn't do that already.

Oh yeah, during his Senate primary campaign, JD Vance was indignant about charges that he wanted to defund the police. PolitiFact checked:

Vance’s calls to abolish ATF
The mission of the ATF is "to protect communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations and illegal use and trafficking of firearms," among other things, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Vance, an author and venture capitalist, has called several times for getting rid of the agency, including in a February opinion article published by the Cincinnati Enquirer, in tweets and in a campaign ad.

His Feb. 2 tweet included a video clip of himself at a campaign event alleging that the ATF is "spying on lawful gun owners" by keeping a database of gun transactions.

Vance falsely claimed in a February ad that President Joe Biden "uses the ATF to illegally track your gun transactions." The Government Accountability Office found that ATF is following the law in how it manages gun transaction records.

A joint fundraising committee that raises contributions for Vance’s campaign and for his leadership PAC also ran an ad on Facebook and Instagram calling for the ATF to be abolished.

Vance’s criticism of the FBI
Vance has been critical of the FBI, calling for an investigation of its "corrupt leadership," accusing it of botching investigations and of spying on Trump.

We found that in January, Vance retweeted a tweet that said: "The FBI is an irreparably corrupt and broken agency that needs to be defunded and eliminated."

ATF hatred is sure to get him the votes of 1992 Michigan Militia dweebs who've emigrated to Ohio.

Some new details on the Biden-McConnell deal:

1. Biden agreed to name Chad Meredith, an anti-abortion advocate, to a federal court in Kentucky in exchange for McConnell's promise that he would stop blocking Democrats' picks for U.S. Attorney in Kentucky. https://t.co/R57iFtSuZ3

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 1, 2022

Goddamn, lifetime Federalist Society judgeship for two years of a couple of prosecutors.

dems going to try and recruit Cheney to run in 2028 huh

Where's Schumer?

Gardening, probably.

Adding to his sock collection

Appointing an anti-abortion judge anywhere is bad, but in a state that's about to outlaw abortion it's even worse. And the only reason to care about U.S. attorneys is to let some political players pad their resumes.

(what is 2000 mules a mondegreen of?)

It's not. It's some ridiculous conspiracy theory promulgated by Dinesh D'Souza that thousands of fake Democratic voters cast fraudulent mail-in ballots...somefuckinwhere. I forget the details. He made one of his bullshit documentaries about it.

Yeah, it's the title of the latest D'Souza joint.

Good news for Minnesotans, apparently:

pic.twitter.com/dQFwfOeJVE

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 1, 2022

lmao how did this happen

deets: https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-legalizes-low-dose-pot-edibles-to-the-surprise-of-gop-legislator/

Here's an article from the Star Tribune (pasted in full 'cause it's paywalled):

Minnesotans who are 21 or older can start buying edibles and beverages that contain THC — the ingredient in cannabis that gets you high — under a new state law that takes effect Friday.

The new law permits the sale and purchase of edibles and beverages that contain up to 5 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per serving and 50 milligrams per package. A 5-milligram THC edible can cause a high feeling for first-time users, while people who are used to cannabis could require a larger dose to feel the effect.

Five milligrams is about half the standard dose found in recreational marijuana products in other states.

New THC products must be derived from legally certified hemp, which contains trace amounts of the psychoactive compound, according to the law. But THC will produce the same effect whether it's derived from hemp or marijuana, industry experts say.

"This stuff will get you high, no doubt about it," said attorney Jason Tarasek, founder of the Minnesota Cannabis Law firm and a board member of the Minnesota Cannabis Association. "Everybody's calling it hemp-derived THC, which makes it sound like something other than marijuana. But I went on social media and I called it adult-use marijuana, because that's what most people are going to consider this to be."

Cannabis advocates say they can hardly believe the law passed the Minnesota Legislature given Senate Republicans' opposition to recreational marijuana legalization. Steven Brown, CEO of Nothing But Hemp, said he will begin selling a dozen new THC products Friday at his six Minnesota retail stores, with a few dozen more rolling out over the next month.

"In some ways, we legalized cannabis," Brown said.

Rep. Heather Edelson, an Edina Democrat who sponsored the legislation in the House, said the new law was born from an effort to strengthen oversight of the emerging market.

Hemp and cannabidiol (CBD) products were already legal in Minnesota provided they contained less than 0.3% delta-9 THC, the primary intoxicant in marijuana. But that legal threshold did not apply to delta-8 THC, an intoxicating cousin of delta-9. As a result, delta-8 products were widely sold in the state in various forms and at dosages high enough to pose health risks.

The new law's milligram requirements apply to any form of THC, reining in the delta-8 market while also allowing the sale and purchase of traditional THC edibles and beverages.

Starting Friday, CBD and THC products must be clearly labeled and sold only to those 21 or older. Edibles must be in child-proof and tamper-evident packages, have clearly defined serving sizes and carry the label, "Keep this product out of reach of children."

"Bringing more consumer protections really was my goal," Edelson said, though she admitted the new law gives Minnesota a sample of recreational marijuana legalization: "There was no mystery about what we were doing here."

It's unclear if leaders of the Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate fully realized the law would legalize delta-9 THC edibles before they agreed to pass it. Sen. Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, said she knew it would but "did not discuss that specifically" with Republican Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller, R-Winona.

Benson, chair of the Senate Human Services Licensing Policy Committee, said she and some other lawmakers were interested in capping dosages of delta-8 THC, which existed in an unregulated gray area. But to regulate any type of THC, as the new law does, "you have to pick an amount to measure by," she said.

Miller declined to comment, deferring to Sen. Mark Koran, R-North Branch, who authored a Senate version of Edelson's bill that did not explicitly allow milligram dosages.

"With the federal changes in 2018, the [Minnesota] Board of Pharmacy and Department of Agriculture recognized the need for regulations on certain products and worked with the Legislature to restrict the market," Koran said in a statement. "That's what this bill does."

Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who chairs the Senate Human Services Reform Finance and Policy Committee, said he didn't realize the new law would legalize edibles containing delta-9 THC before it passed. He thought the law would only regulate delta-8 THC products.

"I thought we were doing a technical fix, and it winded up having a broader impact than I expected," Abeler said, adding that the Legislature should consider rolling the new law back.

House Democrats and Gov. Tim Walz, both of whom support recreational marijuana legalization, are unlikely to agree to such a request. Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, called Abeler's suggestion to roll back the law "ridiculous" and said Democrats have no interest in doing so.

Abeler "voted for it. He signed the conference report," Winkler said. "This is a step forward towards a policy we strongly support."

The law places no limit on how many CBD and THC products can be purchased and does not regulate who can sell them. It also allows the cannabis components to be infused into food and drinks.

Brown is already working with breweries to create nonalcoholic THC beers and seltzers that he will sell in his stores. He said he wants to "promote cannabis over alcohol" to Minnesotans.

Superior Cannabis Co., which has stores in Duluth; Austin, Minn.; and Superior, Wis., will soon begin selling THC gummies, president and co-owner Jeff Brinkman said. Coffee shops and bars have already begun reaching out to him about selling CBD products, he said.

"This is really exciting for us," Brinkman said. "It's a really good opportunity to demonstrate to legislators [that] legalization is just one step away."

Tarasek said Minnesota's new law is a "cannabis industry oddity." He's already fielding calls from cannabis companies nationwide that now see Minnesota as a "quasi-legal market."

"I'm getting calls from across the country saying, 'What is this? We've never seen this,' " Tarasek said. "They want to jump in."

CDB gummies are about as intoxicating as Werthers Originals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRQF8oGumaE

xp Um, the article mentions THC gummies, not CBD gummies.

From a certain point of view, we legalized marijuana

NY Gov signs new gun law:

Democratic leaders have said they expect pro-gun advocates to challenge the legislation in court -- but they believe the bill language will hold up.
New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said during a news conference Friday that lawmakers crafted the language carefully following the Supreme Court decision.
"We wanted to make sure that our permitting process would be able to stand up to scrutiny, and the technical aspects took a long time. But we are confident that we are providing New York, again, an opportunity not only to be able to have their concealed carry, but also to make New Yorkers safe," Stewart-Cousins said.
...Last month, Hochul signed a legislative package to tighten state gun laws, including a law that raised the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic rifle to 21.

i know this is a minor gotcha-type-thing and i'm piling dumb on top of dumb, but if the talking point that trump actually requested 10k or 20k national guard troops for jan 6 and pelosi and not-at-all-at-the-time-senate-majority-leader shumer nixed the request, so therefore they're responsible for the lax defense against the capitol attack, wouldn't that just implicate trump?

i mean, the reality is when he suggested that he just wanted to protect his supporters from antifa and blm and people with green hair and nose rings but the way it's presented on righty talk radio that i allegedly listen to sometimes is that this totally and irrevocably forever and ever amen contradicts the accusation that he was ok fine with his supporters breaching the capitol and perpetuating various wildings therein, because he actually tried to provide security for the capitol but was rebuffed.

wouldn't then the inference be that he assumed congress needed protection against his own supporters? it's not like antifa was going to try to stop the certification of let's go brandon frasier.

i see articles that refute the trump defense by saying that didn't happen, trump never formally requested troops and pelosi didn't have the power to reject, and i assume it's the case, but since the apparent upshot of the jan 6 panel is to triangulate trump's frame of mind and intent, why wouldn't it matter either way? either he's lying about being the guy who actually wanted to protect the capitol or elsewise he foresaw that the mob he riled up and directed capitolwards was gonna do some heinous stuff and he felt the need to provide security against what he set in motion.

i am not trained in formal logic processes and i spend most of my life like butters out in the outfield singing i see a ladybug, hello little ladybug while there's a game going on, but imo there are only two possibilities,

a) trmpu suggested nat'l guard security for his supporters only, and in the aftermath tried to game that into the assertion that he was the one who tried to protect the capitol and all his fox and friends were knowingly in bad faith with that's the fact, jack, and boo wendy pelosi, boo wendy, boo, in which case they're lying liars or

b) it's true, he requested the guardians because protecting the capitol and democracy against whom? himself and his supporters?

perhaps this is a small thing and not the silver bullet that's the final nail in the coffin but this is is kind of thinking that keeps me in the state of mind that this guy and all his friends are cheats and weasels and why are we having to deal with this still. why ado we have to prove he knew he was doing the wrong thing, if all we have to prove is he did the wrong thing?

Does Biden get stigma from having abortion criminalised under his Presidency however it's looked at. Is it going to be something taht is permanently attached to his name.
Like even allowing it to happen when he's in a position of supposed power.
& shouldn't that mean he does whatever he can to prevent it to stop it attaching to him or for more egalitarian less centred on him reasons.

He’s against abortion, he doesn’t give a shit

Like the guy is quite literally on the record as being against abortion

Yet if he had the senatorial support he'd sign a carve-out to the filibuster. Because he's been an obstreperous hack since 1974 who'll say anything to stay in power.

you see the problem here is you need a revolution or a 3rd party that was interested in doing things proactively and not in reaction to a negative other.
Should just ground SCOTUS until they learn how to behave. Would be so good if there was a way of keeping a body like that in tune with contemporary mores. If Thomas gets his way will he be tolerated by the ruling party anyway.
I mean, what is happening.
Quite enjoyed having a world that seemed like it might possibly improve. Do they need to keep running worst case scenario until things look better in comparison.

In one way it's a bummer that more off the record secret service sources have already refuted the off the record refutations of Trump's steering wheel lunge, especially the claim that his sheer size prevented such a move, because I woke up in the middle of the night with the phrase "too big to flail" stuck in my head and found it really amusing.

Imagine being Liz Cheney and being the only semi-competent human being on stage and having to pretend to take all those other people remotely seriously and knowing that you're going to lose to them.

BTW, I saw an interesting comment re: the anti-abortion judge Biden is allegedly going to nominate. Someone with more knowledge than me can unpack it:

Ok, some clarification may be in order here regarding the context.

First of all, the only thing Biden can promise is a nomination. He can’t promise any votes from the Democratic caucus, and he can’t promise that no Democratic Senator won’t filibuster the nomination (and under existing rules any Democratic Senator can do so anonymously). Unless the GOP can attract at least one vote from the Democratic caucus and ensure that not one Democratic Senator filibusters the nomination and ensure that if filibustered at least 10 members of the Democratic caucus vote with the GOP to overcome the filibuster, that guy wouldn’t be confirmed.

Second, based on the wording in this article (I’m not paying for an account with the Courier Journal to confirm), if the judgeship is “in Kentucky” it’s a District Court judgeship. That’s a lifetime appointment, but it’s a trial level judgeship in a State that falls under the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (which the Federalist Society hates) and U.S. Supreme Court. According to uscourts.gov, there are currently 75 Federal judicial vacancies and pending nominations for 20 of those vacancies, including 2 for Circuit Court of Appeals positions. The only federal judicial nominations that can proceed to be confirmed without potentially being blocked by a filibuster are Supreme Court Justices (see Ketanji Brown Jackson). 50 votes plus Kamala is enough to get a Supreme Court Justice nominee confirmed. It’s not enough to get any other Federal judgeship confirmed. Assuming the article is accurate, it is a trade of 1 trial level judge nomination (and presumably only a nomination because Biden can’t promise that no Democratic Senator will filibuster or that 10 Democratic Senators will vote to override the veto) that would be bound by decisions and subject to appeal to the Sixth Circuit (which the Federalist Society hates) and eventual appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has no vacancies at the moment, in exchange for 19 Federal judgeships, including 2 Circuit Courts of Appeal Judges. If the agreement was more far ranging than just existing nominations, it could potentially be as much as a trade of 1 Kentucky trial court judgeship in exchange for 74 Federal judgeships, including 7 Circuit Court of Appeals judgeships.

This doesn’t speak to whether McConnell will live up to his end of the bargain, but I suspect McConnell and Biden have probably made analogous deals in the past that McConnell honored.

Who wrote that?

Gore Vidal

Kinja user "Tropicana"

Imagine being Liz Cheney and being the only semi-competent human being on stage and... knowing that you're going to lose to them.

I imagine her essential self-confidence and sense of self-worth will not be damaged by the loss, nor will her financial situation, but the only shield I can imagine that would be powerful enough to deflect the sheer frustration of being thrown out by those yahoos and nincompoops would be an invincible arrogance - and hers just may be equal to that task.

Yeah I mean also fuck her obviously.

It's a great indication of where we are, that a Cheney is the one we look to in the Republican party as doing the right and honorable thing.

I have to say, like Kamala Harris, she would make a great prosecutor--or, better, a defense lawyer. Her skills would be put to much better use in that context.

Wyoming is an open primary state, no?

From Ballotpedia:

Wyoming law stipulates that parties conduct open primaries for congressional and state-level offices. While a voter must be affiliated with a political party in order to participate in its primary election, any voter, regardless of previous partisan affiliation, may change his or her affiliation on the day of the primary.

Yeah, fuck Cheney obviously, but also fuck all those other clowns on stage more. What a country. xxp

Arizona to Wyoming: "Hold our beer."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-trump-backed-frontrunner-in-arizona-s-gubernatorial-race-said-the-gop-primary-debate-felt-like-a-spoof/ar-AAZ6ppM?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=77a1722ebe704ea0f75beb04de624991

This doesn’t speak to whether McConnell will live up to his end of the bargain

if only we knew something about his track record in this regard

o if only

fwiw I was recently talking to my sister, who knows (but does not like) Liz Cheney, and is pretty sure she's playing a longer game. Wyoming is not the world, after all.

Sounds right. also

an invincible arrogance - and hers just may be equal to that task.

No one in politics can hate like a Cheney, and no one in politics can hate without losing focus like a Cheney.

More so than Trump?! We'll see.

Although he does sometimes lose focus in his longer speeches, and on some of his cronies.

Dick Cheney is more of a menace than Trump, which is saying a lot. Expanded executive powers to alarming levels, helped curb civil liberties, ruthless warmonger. he helped lay the welcome mat for Trump basically.

Yeah--Trump is not interested in military adventures, so far. He doesn't trust the military, at home or abroad.

Yeah--Trump is not interested in military adventures, so far. He doesn't trust the military, at home or abroad.

He loves displays of military might, and worships "da troops." But he's not interested in war per se because there's no way for his companies to profit from it. He's not in defense contracting, he's in real estate. So unless he can get a couple of billion to turn one of his golf courses into an air force base...

Also all those generals he surrounded himself with bailed, and he even ditched Flynn for a while.

Trump v. Papa Cheney on the "greater evil" scale is complex but also they're both Extremely Evil so the differences are sort of academic. Liz Cheney is not someone I would ever vote for for anything but she's massively overperforming expectations for Republican members of Congress in 2022, so I'm not going to carp about her right now.

I’d rather be shot in the face by dick chaney because at least when he does it it’s over in two seconds. when his daughter does it it goes on for months

— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) June 28, 2022

I’d rather be bitten by Lon Chaney

I saw Liz Cheney walkin with the queen

https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/06/america-new-civil-war-crisis-industrial-complex

great piece by nikhil pal singh - should be the last word on "impending civil war" but won't be obviously.

fwiw I was recently talking to my sister, who knows (but does not like) Liz Cheney, and is pretty sure she's playing a longer game. Wyoming is not the world, after all.

Good encapsulation of the past 50 years by this dude:

1/ Dear Republicans: We Tried Your Way and It Does Not Work (a thread):

— Thom Hartmann (@Thom_Hartmann) July 3, 2022

will otm. The first election I voted in and of course my state fucked it up

(I voted Nader. Ugh.)

Yeah, 2000 was when it clicked for the GOP that bullying and arrogant postering was enough to get the Dems to fold. Conveniently more or less right between the Contract with America and the Tea Party.

i may have said this before and it’s incredibly embarrassing and indefensible, but I didn’t even vote in 2000. It was TN so it didn’t really matter (wild thing to say about a nominee’s home state feels like a v modern development. Clintons really changed the game). 2002 midterms was when I was like holy fuck we gotta do something! 20 full years later I’m like holy fuck we gotta do something!

home state, it feels like*

(Obv Bill won AR both times but it feels like that was the last time someone like him could win in a place like that, local boy be damned)

Most of this is paywalled, but starts:

Key Points
Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified Trump tried to steer the limo to the Capitol Jan. 6.

Secret Service official Tony Ornato disputed her claim that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel.

Former Trump aides Olivia Troye and Alyssa Farah Griffin say Ornato has a history of lying for Trump.

On the record, yeah.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/03/two-former-white-house-aides-say-top-secret-service-official-may-lying-protect-trump/7796127001/?gnt-cfr=1

Voted for Nader, would do it again in a heartbeat.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem avoided answering whether or not she would change the state's law to allow a 10-year-old rape victim to get an abortion.

"The Indianapolis Star" is reporting that a 10-year-old girl in Ohio who was six weeks and three days pregnant now has to travel across state lines to Indiana to receive an abortion," CNN's Dana Bash asked Noem on Sunday. "So I just -- because this is a trigger law that was passed before you became governor, I wanted you to be clear. Will the state of South Dakota going forward force a 10-year-old in that very same situation to have a baby?"

South Dakota bans abortions except in cases where the life of the mother is at risk. The trigger law went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified Trump tried to steer the limo to the Capitol Jan. 6.

This badly distorts what Hutchinson really testified.

WATCH: Health and Human Services Sec. Xavier Becerra says there’s not a lot the Biden administration can do for abortion rights. @SecBecerra: “Unless we’re all going to say the word of the Supreme Court will no longer have value, we have to heed the word of the Supreme Court.” pic.twitter.com/yfbp6j7JIO

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 3, 2022

Yeah, imagine if we did that

Biden screwed Beshear by agreeing to a deal with McConnell to nominate an antiabortion federal judge in exchange for two temporary prosecutors.

So Beshear seems to have leaked that Biden originally scheduled the nomination for the day Roe was overturned. https://t.co/kAfIcLVAnG

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) July 3, 2022

Unless we’re all going to say the word of the Supreme Court will no longer have value

absolutely fine with this

Rising housing costs, combined with persistent inflation for basic necessities, have left more Americans newly homeless and millions more fearing they’ll soon lose their homes. (with @rachsieg) https://t.co/WFFw5P9xdK

— Abha Bhattarai (@abhabhattarai) July 3, 2022

Once there were Tent Cities, now there are SUV Suburbs.

Soon turned out
To be a pain in the ass

At least Blackrock and a bunch of other companies are ready to buy their homes at auction and turn them into rental housing for the new permanent underclass.

Threats of violence over politics has increased heavily in the last few years. But the darkness has reached new lows. My new interns made this compilation of recent calls they’ve received while serving in my DC office.

WARNING: this video contains foul & graphic language. pic.twitter.com/yQJvvAHBVV

— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) July 5, 2022

can’t help but wonder how many of those calls are from cops

Idk but that one guy is really into cocksucking.

Giuliani, Graham testimony sought in Trump election probe

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/giuliani-graham-testimony-sought-in-trump-election-probe/ar-AAZe86E?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=71b777a68ee740f791a7befc3e887789

Not that I think this will come to much. The state legislators who have been subpoenaed are fighting the process tooth and nail.

I'm glad they are starting to look into this Rudy character.

The fuck?

Incredible stuff. pic.twitter.com/LbTp0iIUrN

— Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) July 5, 2022

McLaughlin writes for the National Review, which is the Chip Diller of U.S. conservatism. He says egregious shit, couched in reasonable-sounding words, all the time.

"This is not a defense of Trump" LOL Yeah, fuck you.

I miss the NRO threads.

Right now, committee Democrats are following norms and recent practices, but this is simply not sufficient to fill every judicial vacancy—and indeed, sets a path that would leave more than 60 seats open

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/why-democrats-giving-mitch-mcconnell-judges.html

I feel (reading these threads and also seeing things friends say elsewhere) like the Democratic leadership really need to sit silently in a room and let democratic voters just calmly offer some suggestions. Not an onslaught of angry activists or anything, but the elected folks need to listen and take some things to heart.

(Not that I think this would ever happen, or that they would listen.)

I can’t remember whether any of us posted this here:

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/magazine/2022/06/30/the-real-reason-washington-ignored-kavanaughs-would-be-killer-00043679

That op-ed is awful, placing non-violent protest of the left on the same scale as the literal violence imposed by the right on many people in this country on a daily basis. Fuck civility, these people want me and mine dead and I’m not going to be polite about it because they sure aren’t.

“Violence has been so normalized” excuse me but right-wingers and white supremacist conspiracy kooks started this shit, fobbing it off on leftists banging pots and pans or interrupting some sentient swastika’s dinner is intellectually lazy and dishonest

there is an “i voted” sticker competition in ulster county & i urge you to vote for this one pls https://t.co/ZYqw6ldl1W pic.twitter.com/I6XTCUdF69

— sammy maine (@sammymaine) July 5, 2022

That one's at 94% ...

Sometimes it’s an honor to have Jordan shatter a backboard on you, just to be witness to such greatness.

— (((Barak))) (@lawnerdbarak) July 6, 2022

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FW9dwi8XEAAYwqh?format=jpg&name=medium

Saw a post on reddit that has really stuck with me, paraphrasing here but essentially it said, "Joe Biden's legacy will be watching the death of American democracy without swinging a single punch to try and stop it".

C'mon man

Biden has never been a puncher.

Whatever you feel about Gavin Newsom, this op-ed piece claims he's developing a strategy that the Dem establishment could learn from:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/03/opinions/newsom-desantis-2024-campaign-ad-obeidallah/index.html

I mean, he IS the Dem establishment, but still

"Republican leaders are banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms and even criminalizing women and doctors."

Fox News viewers: well yeah that's why we like them.

xxxpost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-oHXE0ZhE0

This Biden-era Schoolhouse Rock reboot is very depressing pic.twitter.com/YzR07Z1g5o

— Scott Gairdner (@scottgairdner) July 1, 2022

The former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone is expected to testify to the House January 6 select committee on Friday after reaching an agreement over the scope of his cooperation with a subpoena compelling his testimony, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The testimony from Cipollone is expected to be a transcribed interview and recorded on camera, the source said, and the former top White House lawyer is expected to only answer questions on a narrow subset of topics and conversations with the former president.

Among the topics Cipollone could discuss include how he told Donald Trump that pressuring Mike Pence, the vice-president, to refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election win was unlawful, and Trump’s plot to coerce the justice department into falsely saying the 2020 election was corrupt.

Mr. Cipollone and the committee have agreed to limit his testimony to his views on whether the Hulk or Thor would win in a fight.

"Pleading the fifth."

fwiw gas has peaked, see https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts and https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/XB1:COM.

I've noticed the last 2 weeks it's backed off here about 40 cents/gal.

It dropped dramatically here, as much as 50 cents in some spots.

It may also signal fears of inflation.

And Lindsey Graham has already announced that he will fight the GA subpoena.

Most likely in a Foghorn Leghorn voice

I wish he'd choke on a mint julep

"On a mint julep, that is!"

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/animaniacs/images/7/79/Foghorn_Leghorn.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140227005921

there’s a funny story about him from his (auto?) biography (which I’ve definitely not read; i guess it went mini-viral a couple of years ago?) about growing up in his parents’ bar, walking up and down the countertop cutting up for the patrons, taking swigs or pretend puffs from unattended beer and cigs. I think it features a photo of him in a cowboy getup.

and it’s like dude, out of everything in the world, you chose to do *this*???sad.

Important detail: his nickname among the customers of that bar was "Stinkball"

People like to claim Biden has lost his faculties, but this statement is genuinely impressive. This is some ice cold shit.

JUST IN: @POTUS Biden statement on @BorisJohnson’s resignation: “the special relationship between our people remains strong and enduring. I look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the government of the United Kingdom, as well as our Allies and partners…” pic.twitter.com/sk4X6vWOxb

— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) July 7, 2022

I think the Kremlin was doing a little Boris grave dancing, this is a good response

Biden is not crazy about the way the Tory government is fucking around with Northern Ireland.

Rekt

asked and answered apparently pic.twitter.com/9LcTVXZLHX

— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) July 7, 2022

I thought we had a centrist brainworms thread but alas

Brookings Institute flack shilling for COMPROMISE

Wow. This by @MichaelRWear is the single best piece I've read on what an abortion compromise could actually look like in practice. If you read only one thing today, make it this. Drop whatever you're doing and go. https://t.co/t9ZPWmYZtR

— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) July 6, 2022

The compromise in question:

A sustainable compromise would include the following elements: a federal ban on abortion post-viability with exceptions for the life of the mother, rape and incest (the ceiling); the legalization of abortion up to a certain early-stage in a pregnancy (somewhere, perhaps, between eight-fifteen weeks, depending on the makeup of the coalition to support such a bill; the floor); the codification of the Hyde Amendment; the codification of robust conscience clause protections; a prohibition of federal laws overriding state restrictions on abortion as proposed by the WHPA; and a mandate that states ensure reasonable access to a safe abortion provider.

Just a "moderate" national abortion ban that reactionaries wouldn't agree to anyway.

It's just Kabuki.

Always great to see argumentum ad temperantiam fallacies circulating by people who think they're serious thinkers

Especially after the argument's already been lost.

Lol I very rarely tweet but I felt compelled to respond to that idiocy:

"they would need to let go of their cultural goal to advance abortion as not just necessary, but a social good" This is a ridiculous statement, nobody has ever advanced abortion itself as "a social good." The "social good" is citizens having control over their own bodies.

— Jesse Mayshark (@jfmayshark) July 7, 2022

One GREAT way to advance that social good AND minimize abortion is comprehensive sex education and easy access to contraception. If anti-abortion folks ever embrace those 2 easy things, you'll know they're actually trying to reduce abortions. But they won't, because they're not.

— Jesse Mayshark (@jfmayshark) July 7, 2022

Booming posts

^^

❤️

absolutely right

North Carolina state legislators are demanding free gas pumps next to EV chargers, or the chargers will be destroyed. https://t.co/PGc9knrXMk

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) July 8, 2022

This politics-of-spite stuff is getting so old.

Bold action

Under the order, the Biden administration will take steps to protect patient privacy, including by "addressing the transfer and sales of sensitive health-related data, combatting digital surveillance related to reproductive health care services, and protecting people seeking reproductive health care from inaccurate information, fraudulent schemes, or deceptive practices," the release said. This includes enlisting the Federal Trade Commission to protect the privacy of people seeking information on abortion services, and additional steps by HHS to shield patients' health records from disclosure by doctors and insurers.

The order also authorizes the creation of an interagency task force to coordinate federal policymaking and programs, which will include the attorney general, who will "provide technical assistance to states affording legal protection to out-of-state patients as well as providers who offer legal reproductive health care," the White House said.

Sending up the Alfred signal! This email arrived in my inbox this morning — I guess they bought the mailing list of one of the Latin music publicists I get stuff from...

Note that the subject line is in English but the email itself is in Spanish.

Conservative radio star Lourdis Ubieta quits iconic Radio Mambi ahead of sale to liberal group

George Soros, socialista billonario internacional, está intentado apagar las voces conservadoras en español, con la compra de la conocida cadena Radio Mambí en Miami, entre otras estaciones.

¡Está financiando la compra de Radio Mambí y ahora quiere ocultar su participación!

¡Soros quiere detener el voto de los hispanoamericanos que votan republicano!

Esto es tan vergonzoso que Lourdes Ubieta, presentadora de Radio Mambí, renunció y se unió a Americano Media. LEA SU HISTORIA AQUÍ:

hxxps://www.foxnews.com/media/soros-takeover-conservative-radio-star-lourdes-ubieta-quits-miami-radio-mambi-ahead-sale-liberal-group.amp

Ayude a Americano Media a parar este hombre: Hacemos un llamado a la Comisión federal de Comunicaciones para frenar esta situación, por favor firmen esta petición aquí.

FIRME AQUÍ: https://americanomedia.com/fccpetition/

Dígale a los izquierdistas billonarios que no pueden comprar sus valores. ¡Soros no puede comprar su voto!

Descargue la aplicación de Americano Media AQUÍ: hxxps://blahblahbullshit y escuche gratis nuestra programación hispana original, sin la influencia económica de Soros.

It would be Soros lol

I want to be a socialista billonario internacional

Izquierdista billionario

Best on foreign policy in my lifetime

Every president invites Henry Kissinger to the White House — except Biden https://t.co/MzXu0OfTYN pic.twitter.com/JnEGBmYKOy

— New York Post (@nypost) July 9, 2022

lack of access keeps this freak up at night more than millions of dead childrens cries ever could. hit him where it hurts joe

If you’re going to go on Fox, this is how you do it.pic.twitter.com/1HpakCVmUH

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) July 10, 2022

lmao

Yeah cuz he's inside of the chef's hat helping him cook https://t.co/GS8QamFAaQ

— Jake Flores (@feraljokes) July 10, 2022

Buttigieg did well.

It's not the first time he's done something like this either, is it? I seem to remember him steamrolling Fox News similarly a month or so ago. Impressive stuff.

Wonder if the FOX asshat cleaned his mouth out with Lysol after saying "husband" aloud.

Mayor Pete was doing this back when he was a presidential candidate too, wasn’t he?

I mean

Herschel on the climate/Green New Deal/air:

"Since we don't control the air our good air decided to float over to China's bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got we to clean that back up." pic.twitter.com/BsR4GVAbX7

— stephen fowler (@stphnfwlr) July 11, 2022

Series of Tubes Redux

well, at least he thinks we have to clean something up

Fucking hell. This guy stands a decent chance of being the next Senator from my poor state.

In a way I feel bad for him, I think he's being used. But also I don't feel bad for him because he shouldn't be running for Senate and he'll be very damaging if he wins.

One thing I feel like you could never make a white Republican understand is how deeply cynical and racist it is for the party put him forth as their response to Warnock. "He's Black, isn't he? How can that be racist?"

oh it's totally based on white Reoublicans' unshakeable belief that "black people always vote for the black person", so they think running Walker ("and they love the football too!") will peel votes away from Warnock. It's also the same idea that had the Republicans running Kanye in 2020.

Not surprisingly, it betrays a deep ignorance on the part of white Republicans as to the views of most of their black fellow Georgians. It also underestimates the esteem in which Walker is held, not only as a Senator but as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist.

On the other hand, it's not totally off-base to run a star of Herschel's magnitude in SEC country, and especially this star in this state, even despite his many, many flaws. There are too many voters who are willing to overlook all the gigantic red flags around this guy because they think of him as the guy who won the national championship in 1980. The Trump endorsement probably helps on the margins, but only on the margins.

Sorry, the esteem in which Warnock is held, not Walker.

Mayor Pete has been consistently good in this respect. I don't think he's going to be the next president, he needs more experience, but compare his ability to talk with Harris' mealy mouthed weak shit.

Walker is brain damaged AND mentally ill, it's unfathomable to me that this person could hold any elected office. But I think he's polling significantly behind at this point, every week it's revealed he has another kid he has ignored.

There was one poll that showed Warnock up by 10, but that seems to have been an outlier. He's up by less than 5 in most.

Obama was probably the most impressive US politician I've ever seen in my life - not saying he was a particularly great president but he was such a good speaker and easy guy to rally around. I can see Pete getting to that level.

I'd have to give the nod to Bill Clinton for that. He has a "reality distortion field" like no other.

Walker is brain damaged AND mentally ill

I'd venture that 99% of Walker's voters aren't voting for Walker. They're voting against Warnock and for Republican ascendancy.

Republicans did run a candidate in 2018 who was so horrible that they lost a Senate seat in Alabama, so maybe it does matter

you can't go fully Jerry Lee Lewis

Meanwhile, the beating Bannon's legal team took today was something.

Steve Bannon's attorney David Schoen: "We have to make a decision... what's the point in going to trial here if there's no defenses?"

Judge Nichols: "Agreed."

— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) July 11, 2022

I would love to see Warnock win by a landslide (he should) but who knows what the future holds

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/us/politics/biden-approval-polling-2024.html

President Biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, as voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33 percent job-approval rating.

The backlash against Mr. Biden and desire to move in a new direction were particularly acute among younger voters. In the survey, 94 percent of Democrats under the age of 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.

Recent poll I saw showed walker up by 2

94 percent of Democrats under the age of 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.

And we'll probably get Hillary again.

Bernie Sanders punches through the top of straw boater campaign hat.

Hi, it me, #youthvote observer for 15+ years. Two truths:

1) @JoeBiden is unpopular with young people, and he should do more on climate, abortion, economy, debt to help fix.

2) @JoeBiden was just as unpopular in Feb 2020 w/ youth as he is today. NYT poll is not new info. https://t.co/shD4iRfiRt pic.twitter.com/FURU1FFswy

— Ben Wessel (@BenWessel) July 11, 2022

The 45% approval for the first six months when he was actually President might be a more useful reference point than when he was losing in Iowa, though.

eh, depends on whether you're going into an election or not.

"He should do more on climate, abortion, economy, debt"

Like what? He's been neutered by his own party.

Idk seems like he could do more to steer his party in the right direction, Trump seemed to have no problem doing so

except when it came to repealing Obamacare

Idk seems like he could do more to steer his party in the right direction, Trump seemed to have no problem doing so

― frogbs, Monday, July 11, 2022

selectively lowering taxes for the rich and fucking everyone else, energizing a game show-level concept of politics, consistently working to undermine democracy, and deliberately exacerbating political conflict is not steering the party in the right direction, though

well depends what you mean by right

A Fulton County judge ordered U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to testify before a special grand jury in Fulton County next month.

Graham is one of eight people jury members subpoenaed last week. Graham said he would fight the subpoena.

On Monday, the judge declared Graham a “necessary witness” to the investigation.

This is another step in a long legal process of getting Graham down from Washington to testify.

That new order says the grand jury needs to hear about Graham’s two alleged phone calls to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.

In the order, Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney said the “court finds that Lindsey Graham is a necessary and material witness” in the special grand jury’s investigation into potential criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 election.

The new order also requires Graham to come testify in August.

The grand jury subpoenaed Graham at the same time it also subpoenaed former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others who were at a December 2020 state Senate subcommittee hearing.

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Can you talk about what you’re going to testify about today?” Channel 2 political reporter Richard Elliot asked Giuliani at the time.

“Not right now,” Giuliani said.

Good thread on the limitations of Pete Buttigieg (or anyone else) going on Fox.

1/ So, I just want to point something out about Sec. Buttigieg's answer on Fox News Sunday yesterday. The good one that is making the rounds today.

Yes, it was a good answer. But, I think what most people don't realize is what happens after an answer like that...

— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) July 12, 2022

What is Lindsey's argument against testifying? Is it literally just "But I would drop myself in it because I did big crimes"?

i'm pretty sure his excuse is whatever the republican word for the phrase "cosa nostra" would be these days

Yeah, got me. He can't even cite executive privilege (I mean, he *did*, but ...) because he reportedly said around the time that he was working in his capacity as a senator! So who knows. As always, until any of these subpoenas are actually enforced he can probably just run out the clock. Personally, if I had known subpoenas were actually optional I would have gotten a lot more crimes done in my lifetime.

I think he' trying to hang his hat (or his whatever) on the Speech and Debate Clause of Article I of the Constitution.

*he's

America needs more Japanese style political engagement.

Well, Liz Cheney does come from a line of politicians prone to popping people in the face ...

Some of these lunatics, Flynn, Powell, Pillow guy, people like that, I don't understand how they are even able to function without, I don't know, falling into a manhole, sticking a fork in an outlet, or shooting themselves in the foot (literally) or something.

Pillow guy surrounded by pillows at all times, iirc.

Man, all these online fuckos...

the Back the Blue people, everyone pic.twitter.com/5T2JrtULar

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2022

New RATM lyrics just dropped

Lol Josh

whoops

Liz Cheney says Trump tried to call someone after the last Jan 6 hearing (she didn't name the person, but said they hadn't yet appeared publicly). This person didn't answer, but told their lawyer, who told the committee, who told the DOJ 👀

— David Mack (@davidmackau) July 12, 2022

there was a moment maybe 40-50 minutes in where Sidney Powell answers a question and goes for her Diet Dr. Pepper that was hilarious.

Biden nominates 5 new judges; does not nominate the anti-abortion judge everybody was pissed about

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated five new federal judges, but did not at this time move forward with a plan opposed by a growing number of Democrats and progressives to appoint a Republican abortion opponent to a judgeship in Kentucky.

The latest nominees include Cindy Chung, a prosecutor Biden previously picked to serve as the U.S. attorney for Pittsburgh and is now seeking to make the first Asian American ever on the Philadelphia-based the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Biden also named four nominees for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, including two state court judges in Philadelphia who previously worked as public defenders representing indigent defendants.

Those two nominees are Judges Mia Perez and Kai Scott. The other two nominees are Kelley Hodge, a partner at the law firm Fox Rothschild, and John Murphy, a partner at Baker & Hostetler.

Not on Biden's latest nominees list was Chad Meredith, a Republican former Kentucky solicitor general who the White House planned on June 24 to nominate to a judgeship despite his record defending abortion restrictions.

Latest update of this, w mention at the end of stuff already somewhere on the public record---but several striking excerpts, in hearings and this summary, nonetheless:

The hearing on Tuesday focused on the loose affiliations between Trump, his informal political advisers, and members of far-right militia groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.
The committee walked through snippets of witness depositions, court documents, previously unseen emails and other materials, to make the case that Trump coyly courted these militants and saw them as his troops on the ground, to pressure Congress to overturn the 2020 election.

Stephen Ayres looks like what happens if Joe Pera's character gets inevitably radicalized by his girlfriend.

so uh is Trump actively tampering with witnesses? fuckin hell, he's just begging to get thrown in jail, knowing it'll never happen

Maybe he just accidentally butt tampered them.

lol, the fuck?

.@jaketapper: "One doesn't have to be brilliant to attempt a coup."
John Bolton: "I disagree with that, as someone who has helped planned coups d'etat—not here, but you know, other places—it takes a lot of work." pic.twitter.com/y07V1Fo81y

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) July 12, 2022

lol

And this dude, I don't know what his deal really is, and don't really care, but at the very least this indicates he's the rare person in this whole imbroglio who has been getting good advice, legal or otherwise:

Another extraordinary moment: Stephen Ayres approached former USCP Dunn, Fanone, Gonnell - and apologized: pic.twitter.com/GBqJ5yIqJt

— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) July 12, 2022

We completely disavow groups like the Oath Keepers and in no way condone their hateful ideology.

— DESCENDENTS (@descendents) July 12, 2022

they're just squares going nowhere (but jail)

I’m only part way through this hearing but

THEY HAD AN INSURRECTION WEBSITE

lmao she rules

https://t.co/n33j69IORv pic.twitter.com/ZK3RFVXeMo

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 12, 2022

CIA agent mad that Bolton is stealing coup valor. beautiful https://t.co/Z2nBvLot35

— Alex Press (@alexnpress) July 12, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLQ8Xbau9dk

Why the fuck is Louis DeJoy still at the Post Office?

Because of how hard it is to remove him

It was my understanding that excuse no longer holds water as they actually have the votes now to remove him. Instead Biden’s wife did a photo-op with him to introduce the Nancy Reagan stamp.

picked by governors right? it’s not a position on par w a Justice obv, but they really got a special type of guy in there huh

The votes on the USPS board, that is.

In case you wanted to quote today’s hearing

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111123258/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript?fbclid=IwAR0QIpSYYFGSNPibb64GonmPfSlbv_CQDnDVlU-jFCUEwAtAuwmMu_DVA58

A keeper re: the Oath Keepers: "I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths, and what it was going to be was an armed revolution. I mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one."

Good for no one but the ratings, amirite?

Not quite that simple, though Biden did make strategic nominees that could make it eventually happen. But he can't do it himself

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/shows/maddow/blog/rcna28689

Xxpost

damn she's good

Settle down, this is not an erasure of your work. https://t.co/tq8vnNsyTi

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 13, 2022

Love voting for her every two years!

Omar was pretty rocky on twitter at first, but she's gotten pretty good.

the replies have stayed the same tho

holy shit, I think they might actually be going with my butt dial defense!!

Newsmax saying Trump pulled a Giuliani - that he buttdialed the J6 witness. Sure.

— Don Lewis (@DonLew87) July 13, 2022

Newsmax went on to report they were the finest buttocks in the world.

I didn't think you could butt dial with a Jitterbug

Dialed in the Butt by My Own Butt

if he butt dialed the witness, how did the witness know who it was?

did it show up on their IPhone as "Donnie J Felony"?

oh wait obv Donnie doesn't know how to spoof his number

Is it getting real, or am I over optimistic?

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/13/jan-6-panel-justice-department-false-trump-electors-00045611

heh

Hey @DrOz 👋

JERSEY loves you + will not forget you!!! 🥰 pic.twitter.com/YmaXfMpzUK

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 14, 2022

Money well spent.

Am told by a Fetterman adviser that the Snooki Cameo that they put out to troll Dr. Oz cost the campaign $393.75

— Sam Stein (@samstein) July 14, 2022

That is genius

It's a sad state of things when "good at twitter" is a qualification for political candidate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/texas-sues-biden-emergency-abortion/

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued the Biden administration over federal rules that require abortions be provided in medical emergencies in order to save the life of the mother, even in states with near-total bans.

xpost

I'll bet Truman would've done some serious trolling of Stalin if he had twitter

"pretty strong words from a keyboard warrior whose middle name is just a letter"

oh wait, that's Stalin trolling Truman

It's a sad state of things when "good at twitter" is a qualification for political candidate.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, July 14, 2022 10:08 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

No way, dude! It's just modern oration! It doesn't mean someone has good policies or will be a good custodian of their office, it's just a tool in the toolbox.

"Sir, your are no John F. Kennedy.."

etc.

neither are your!

i'm reading master of the senate right now and if you think lbj would not have been good at twitter you're out of your mind.

Nixon Twitter meltdowns would have been fun

lbj might've gotten in trouble for an accidental dick pic

"My haters are my motivators"

"somehow, my last 18 months of Presidential tweets got deleted by my secretary"

LBJ is on social media, talking about his bunghole

@realdonaldtrump couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel

lbj might've gotten in trouble for an accidental dick pic

Jumbo would have its own official Twitter account.

Breaking News: Senator Joe Manchin said he wouldn’t support funding for climate programs or raising taxes on the wealthy, a major blow for the Biden agenda. https://t.co/WgMU7KPtn6

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 15, 2022

wait didn't he say a couple months ago he would sign a climate deal?

Maybe he was afraid Dobbs gave them a chance to hold the Senate.

joe manchin’s roommates: hey we all want to order pizza are you cool with that
joe manchin: no i want to pick dinner
joe manchin’s roommates: ok
joe manchin: also i don’t want anyone to eat

— Ben Rosen (@ben_rosen) July 15, 2022

hilarious there is no punishment for this sort of behavior.

I would simply subpoena Manchin’s daughter for a very public congressional hearing on epipens

Why can’t Schumer call one of his thrice-hourly press conferences and expel Manchin from the party? Just say “We don’t have your vote anyway, so why should we waste our party fundraising apparatus and all the rest on you? Fuck off, you’re on your own”?

also I’m expecting the GOP to easily take the House, but I guess there’s a small chance the Senate numbers could hold? lots of ifs here, but in the off chance the democrats pick up a seat in Ohio, it might be time to hang Manchin out to dry. if the only thing Demotcan do—whether it’s 50 seats or 59—is judges, well then you’ve still got your 50. cradling his shriveled nuts just isn’t worth it any more, imho.

only thing Democrats can do*

Giving up the majority doesn’t seem like a good idea

Why can’t Schumer call one of his thrice-hourly press conferences and expel Manchin from the party? Just say “We don’t have your vote anyway, so why should we waste our party fundraising apparatus and all the rest on you? Fuck off, you’re on your own”?

― but also fuck you (unperson)

Manchin still votes for judges.

*only in the event that the Dems *add* a seat via OH, which is admittedly slim

xpost

Giving up the majority doesn’t seem like a good idea

They don't have it now.

Manchin still votes for judges.

And if Schumer told him "fuck you, go be an independent like Bernie" he'd stop? Then fuck him twice.

I wish I had a better answer other than "We need more Dems in the Senate." Even "Manchin should drop dead" means a GOP governor appoints his successor.

They don't have it now.

ok then go ahead and Manchin out of the party and see if anything changes

It would be one of the historic dumb moves of politics

because of course

From the NY AG’s spokesman: pic.twitter.com/Slb0oPEtOW

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 15, 2022

Well it’s more plausible than “out of respect for his friendship with Abe”.

dems will likely hold the senate since fetterman is sure to beat Oz at this point and I'm guessing Warnock will wind up beating Walker. But don't know if they'll actually pick up a seat.

I wouldn't say anything is "likely." How much unlikely stuff has happened in the last several years? Once reasonable candidates start beating lunatics and incompetents by double digits rather than a point or two I'll start feeling better about what does or does not seem likely.

GOP fears Senate debacle as flawed candidates stumble

Arizona: After receiving Trump’s endorsement, Blake Masters has surged ahead in primary polls.

But he has a lengthy track record of controversial writings, from lamenting American involvement in World War II as a college student to name-checking the Unabomber as an underappreciated thinker in a podcast during his current campaign.

Graphic accompaning Axios story appears to be an elephant sweating cum?

why is msm not talking about this? ^

lamenting American involvement in World War II as a college student

Blake's aged beautifully if he was in college during WWII.

he's Magneto

a self-hating Magneto

the gop once nominated a guy too crazy to win in alabama, so who knows about some of these clowns

dems will likely hold the senate since fetterman is sure to beat Oz at this point and I'm guessing Warnock will wind up beating Walker. But don't know if they'll actually pick up a seat.

Maybe this is wishful thinking but Ron Johnson’s seat is probably not safe

Seems quite possible the dems grow their senate majority while getting destroyed in the house thanks to gerrymandering and the personal unpopularity of the biden.

“The biden”?

hell if PA holds and in some (prob unlikely) timeline OH goes Dem, then they could ignore Manchin /*and* Sinema. but like would they? or will there be a new Manchinema

welcome to the Manchinema

it doesn’t matter if the house has a 30 seat Republican majority.

I guess it helps move judges quicker.

Graphic accompaning Axios story appears to be an elephant sweating cum?

― politics is about vibes and the vibes are off (stevie), Friday, July 15, 2022 7:16 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

why is msm not talking about this? ^

― We were clothed, except for Caan, who was naked. Don't know why. (Neanderthal), Friday, July 15, 2022 7:18 AM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Honestly this made me lol so fucking hard, kudos Neando.

Once again Senate progressives stall Biden's agenda.

the gop once nominated a guy too crazy to win in alabama, so who knows about some of these clowns

This is exactly what I mean. Roy Moore was/is a creep weirdo lunatic predator going up against a legit good person and legal hero, and he only lost by a mere 1.5%. Those are some serious headwinds.

Manchin is claiming we and others are wrong in our reporting, that he actually isn't blowing up talks, wants to see July inflation numbers, and then can decide on climate and tax. Which is NOT what Dems leader say he actually told him.

(fixed typo)

— Tony Romm (@TonyRomm) July 15, 2022

I’m sure the July inflation numbers will be tiny, allowing him to suddenly jump on board the Biden Express.

This Manchin guy seems to have trouble expressing himself. Maybe take some classes?

Manchinema Paradiso

Maybe Trump runs in '24 as ... a pretend Democrat?

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/dems-dreaming-of-trump-pre-midterm-announcement-00045969

In other words, I'm sooo sure Democrats are falling all over themselves for Trump to rush into announcing a bid.

Not learning their lesson does seem pretty on-brand for Democrats.

Trump would love to take credit for Republican victories in November

Democrats love to be beaten by scoundrels

art of me is reluctant to flag the coverage of publications I routinely criticize, particularly when their electoral politics coverage can be so egregious. But I do so here with Axios because it’s an example that even the insider sheets in DC are starting to take notice of the fact that Democrats holding the Senate or even possibly expanding their Senate majority is not some partisan pipe dream. It’s a very real possibility.

Some of this is abortion politics and to a much lesser extent firearms politics. But a big, big part of the equation is that Donald Trump was able to more or less singlehandedly pick the nominees in a number of critical states and shape the choices in a number of others. There’s simply no way absent Donald Trump’s intervention that Mehmet Oz or Herschel Walker would be the nominees in Pennsylvania and Georgia. They are both uniquely bad candidates. They might slip through in a wave election. But they’re giving Democrats big, big opportunities. Tim Ryan is at least making a fight of it in Ohio, though that’s a very steep climb. Blake Masters in Arizona and possibly even disgraced former Governor Eric Greitens in Missouri could extend this pattern. Given recent trends, Missouri shouldn’t even be in contention this year. But Greitens’ mix of campaign ad snuff films and rep for sexual violence could put it there.

It won’t be easy to hold the Senate and it certainly won’t be easy to expand the Democratic majority. But both are looking more plausible to me than they did even seven or eight weeks ago.

Unless we're dead by then.

Is there a left-wing version of RINO? Does Pretendocrat work?

DINO's been in use since at least the '90s.

Not to be confused with the limo liberal, of course.

Probably should be something more animal-like, so they can be hunted in campaign ads.

https://bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/dinosaurs.jpg

https://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/604025/86333092.jpeg

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/joe-manchin-didnt-kill-biden-democrats-agenda-alone.html

Uh-oh, the Democrats have lost Chait

Donald Trump was able to unite his party behind an unpopular tax cut for the rich. Biden was unable to unite his party behind a popular reversal of that bill, or even a partial reversal. Political scientists have an explanation for both these things: The wealthy hold a disproportionate influence on both the elite in parties, pulling Democrats to the left of their voters on social issues, and Republicans to the right of their voters on economic issues.

Chait wrote this?! Damn.

Biden’s plan did include one measure that Democrats intended to seed permanent reform: an enhanced child tax credit. The bill funded the payments for just one year. They believed the payments would prove so popular that the public would demand they continue. Social scientists have unequivocally shown the payments reduced child poverty by impressive levels without the side effects on parental work effort that conservatives warned about. Yet Manchin opposed extending the payments anyway — reportedly muttering in private that his constituents were squandering the money on drugs

I think it’s important for normal people to understand that you’re really only ‘allowed’ to do drugs if you’re in your 50s and your parents are extremely wealthy & connected and can send you to a facility that costs 15k a month, where you will continue to do drugs.

The Hunter Biden Experience

https://prospect.org/economy/the-impossible-inevitable-survival-of-the-trump-tax-cuts/

Suddenly, the likes of Sinema, Gottheimer and Schrader and others were uninterested in raising taxes on corporations, capital gains, inheritances, pass-through businesses, wealthy households, or really anything or anyone else....Manchin finally became a full-fledged member of the pro-Trump tax cuts caucus last week, when he rejected any tax increases in reconciliation. The entire premise of Democratic policy for the last two years—use the rollbacks of the most unpopular (the only unpopular?) tax cut maybe in history to offset a new round of deeply needed public investment—was dead.

Republicans love to cosplay ICE agents the way 10 year olds like to pretend they're Avengers. https://t.co/UbarN9zzbd

— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 18, 2022

Suddenly, the likes of Sinema, Gottheimer and Schrader and others were uninterested in raising taxes on corporations, capital gains, inheritances, pass-through businesses, wealthy households, or really anything or anyone else....Manchin finally became a full-fledged member of the pro-Trump tax cuts caucus last week, when he rejected any tax increases in reconciliation. The entire premise of Democratic policy for the last two years—use the rollbacks of the most unpopular (the only unpopular?) tax cut maybe in history to offset a new round of deeply needed public investment—was dead.

― curmudgeon, Monday, July 18, 2022 12:29 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Look, the C-suite is hurting! After leaving the Delaware estate and pied-a-terre in Manhattan to decamp to Rockport for the pandemic, Junior got into another car wreck in his new Benz and the treatment facility is robbing us blind but they swear it works and he should be ready to run for Senate sometime before the decade is out.

Just when you thought MTG couldn't get any worse...

I'm really sick of this shit. Twitter should either enforce its rules and ban her or it should just get rid of the rules altogether and stop pretending. pic.twitter.com/17sUJMbOCF

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 18, 2022

twitter half took that post down (as in, they left it up but dont' display it until you click on it because they say it violated rules of hateful content, but 'people might want to see it anyway')

Probably should be something more animal-like, so they can be hunted in campaign ads.

― henry s, Friday, July 15, 2022 11:54 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Actually the DNC could do a really high-concept ad that’s a version of “A Sound of Thunder” where Bernie Bros go back in time to go DINO-hunting and return to a future of President MTG.

President MTG of the Penis Protection Party

Here's a little sideshow spectacle on my homefront, which is illustrative of various things: We have a state senate Republican primary where the incumbent is a retired U.S. Army doctor and heart surgeon who has been much better than most of his party on providing good information on COVID, and he is being challenged from the right by an aquarium entrepreneur and former pain patient who is a leading advocate for legalizing medical cannabis in Tennessee. Welcome to 2022.

"an aquarium entrepreneur"

"I am an American aquarium ... entrepreneur ... "

But can you boast a candidate from The Elven Way who looks like Haley Joel Osment cosplaying "Midsommar"? I think not. Though, frankly, he's no Goodspaceguy.

Conversions are possible...

Lunch with my male GOP co-worker:

GOP: Tea, I hate Beto. But I'm going to vote for him

Me (had to ask): Wait what?

GOP (tears): That tape, Tea.(Uvdale) No excuse. Abbott doesn't care. And Roe. (pause) And I actually believe that skinny motherfucker will fix that grid

Me: 🙆🏾‍♀️

— 🛹Alejandro Sosa’s Wife🛹 Red State Democrat (@SaintMystic) July 18, 2022

"that skinny motherfucker will fix the grid" = Underrated Prince Lyric

Put THAT on a bumper sticker

Beto: Cramp your calves, fix that grid

"that skinny motherfucker will fix the grid"
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain)

Underrated James McNew bootlegs I have owned

My make GOP coworker - “Betokanda forever”

Hopefully my state can get out there today (or went out last week, or mailed ballots) and show that we actually care about mid year elections in 2022

Mid term elections

WaPo: Secret Service cannot recover texts; no new details for Jan. 6 committee Not really dealt with in actual story, except for phones being replaced maybe, but otherwise, True Crime shows teach us that nothing is ever truly deleted---anyway, the story, with details I hadn't seen (and not paywalled):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/19/secret-service-texts/
Although it took me a while to get back to WaPo, after their handling of the 10-year-old rape victim-abortion refugee.

Clearly they just didn't want anyone to know how often they called out for pizza.

Or cocaine!

Either way, just some innocent goofery.

Cocaine-stuffed crust pizza!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l33b9BimCo

Not seeing an extensive post yet, but this one lists all the Congress perps:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/politics/congress-members-arrested-abortion-protest-supreme-court/index.html

17 in all, or listed so far

And speaking of double-digit perps:

The 16 Republicans who falsely signed certificates claiming to be Georgia’s valid presidential electors have been deemed criminal “targets” by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is investigating efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

Willis indicated this determination in a court filing on Tuesday fending off a legal effort by one of those targets, Burt Jones, to disqualify her from leading the grand jury investigation. Jones, who is running to become Georgia’s lieutenant governor, had contended that Willis’ actions were politically motivated, citing her political support for Jones’ opponent. But Willis said that Jones couldn’t show he was targeted over politics — and that, in fact, she had treated all 16 of the false Republican electors equally.

Like his signature wouldn't have meant nothin', if she hadn't favored his opponent. In Trumpworld, makes sense.

Da Probe

If a popular bill that united Democrats and fractured Republicans had just passed the House, I'd be inclined to put it on the floor of the Senate ASAP. But what do I know? I'm not a senior Democratic senator, just someone who can't shake some habits of thinking like a Republican. https://t.co/btAX5CfkJv

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 19, 2022

https://wompampsupport.azureedge.net/fetchimage?siteId=7575&v=2&jpgQuality=100&width=700&url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.kym-cdn.com%2Fphotos%2Fimages%2Fnewsfeed%2F001%2F436%2F943%2F93f.jpg

Ugh , unless Durbin as the whip has been told that not all Senate Dems are on board. If that’s the case we should know who they are.

Of course Dem leadership will tell us the solution is to “Elect! More! Dems!”

“It’s not on the table for this week,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of a climate emergency declaration. “We are still considering it. I don’t have the upsides or the downsides of it.”

https://apnews.com/article/climate-biden-joe-manchin-and-environment-bed0159741405159639f800aec3b079b

Might be time to rework the schedule.

it’s entirely possible that leadership simply don’t remember what happened less than a month ago

fuckin do it Joe

Easy, broadly popular, uncontroversial ... I can see where it'd be tough for them to pull that off.

"Tough, that is!"

https://i.imgur.com/YKDH4dP.jpg

Disgraceful, spineless lunatics who don't care whether we live or die.

this window is going to be gone for who knows how long.

so many missed opportunities.

since the financial crisis of 2008 we had extremely low inflation and essentially zero percent interest rates and did we get any truly transformative spending projects? did we fuck. that was the time for something on the scale of building the interstate highway system. it’s gone now.

August is coming, they're all running down the clock and making kayak bookings on their phones

Don't want to cut into Sinema's internship at a cheese tasting institute

folks, unless you are in the top 10% or so they really don’t care about you at all. In fact, they despise the fact that you’re even out there taking up space.

and those are just the ‘good guys’. crazy world.

“That bill’s not important. It’s a waste of our time on a non issue,” he said.

“But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices,” he also said.

— bryan metzger (@metzgov) July 20, 2022

(Implied is Rubio is one of those gay people.)

If you care so much about gas prices why don't you marry them?

put the bill on the floor. if fuckers like romney and rubio vote against gay marriage, people will see how "moderate" they really are

pic.twitter.com/VoD0Ogm1Gp

— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) July 20, 2022

lol I thought that was new, whoops.

This is so much more insane than any fake tweet I could muster holy shit pic.twitter.com/xomsuPUP8p

— fiona apple neck tattoo (beach era) (@BipolarHaver) July 20, 2022

Schumer, just now on Respect for Marriage Act: "I want to bring this bill to the floor, and we're working to get the necessary Senate Republican support to ensure it would pass." via @frankthorp

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) July 20, 2022

News: Republican @SenRobPortman will cosponsor the Respect For Marriage Act, the House-passed bill to codify legal same-sex marriage, his office tells me.

He made the decision last night after evaluating it.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 20, 2022

I guess this means McConnell isn't whipping this vote?

Looks like it.

Portman's the senator with the gay son, no?

I want to laugh at the Rubio tweet because his stupidity is boundless, but I'm just fucking infuriated.

Also:

Thom Tillis, GOP senator from NC, told me he “probably will” support bill to codify same-sex marriage. Bill might get 60 votes, GOP senators say. Vote timing in Senate is unclear.

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022

oh shit, the Trump nuts have discovered the incredible power of 'mathematics':

Failed far-right Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Joey Gilbert filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn his primary defeat, citing an "analysis" that found his loss to be a "mathematical impossibility" even after a recount he requested confirmed the results.

Once the results are "statistically corrected," said a copy of the complaint obtained by The Nevada Independent, will show "with irrefutable geometric finality" that Gilbert won by more than 55,000 votes.

The "expert mathematician" cited by Gilbert is infamous election conspiracy theorist Edward Solomon, who falsely claimed to have found evidence that the 2020 presidential election was rigged using an algorithm...

geometry, statistics! All that shit, we got all that shit

Fetterman is ratioing the hell out of Dr. Oz right now

pic.twitter.com/y7A4h1BXRe

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 20, 2022

I love that Oz's campaign is just a bunch of Bernie-Fetterman slash fic

Lol Joni Ernst

She added: “I have a good number of very close friends that are same-sex married.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/20/gop-freezes-same-sex-marriage-00046924

especially since Bernie is one of the most popular Senators in the country

Well, well, well. Senator Windsock changes direction again. Over/under on how many times he'll plead the Fifth?

Breaking: Lindsey Graham will testify before the Georgia grand jury investigating Trump's possible criminal meddling in the 2020 election.

Lindsey Graham is in deep trouble.

— Jack Cocchiarella (@JDCocchiarella) July 20, 2022

wow @ that politico article. love that crop of responses. very old skool

Political groups and nonprofits aligned with the Democratic Party have spent nearly $44 million to boost the profile of far-right candidates.

Democrats strategy is rooted in the belief that these candidates will be easier to defeat in a general election. https://t.co/Lyx444gboU

— OpenSecrets.org (@OpenSecretsDC) July 20, 2022

Hold on to your butts

what could possibly go wrong

banana peel accelerationism

Yeah, this morning I saw an article somewhere about Maryland's Republican primary, where the Trump-blessed candidate won and was described as the "Democratic-favored" candidate and that gave me a really bad feeling.

I agree whole thing is reckless and stupid.

But Maryland is one of the few places I think it could work: the state over all is pretty liberal. Hogan only held on by not being a crazypants. But the red voters there are very red, having gone full MAGA. A candidate palatable to them will probably not be palatable statewide.

That said, Democrats could (and should have) just let the MAGAnauts hang themselves in MD without spending a penny.

Waldman here argues that it's unlikely that Dem spending tipped that race. The Republican primary was going to be a Trumpfest no matter what:

Republican voters don’t need to be fooled into picking candidates who present a profound threat to American democracy. They’re doing it all on their own.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/20/blame-democrats-extremists-republicans-winning-primaries/

But the red voters there are very red, having gone full MAGA.

Yeah, many Republicans have been calling Hogan a RINO for years and I know plenty of Dems who voted for Hogan over Jealous or Brown.

Things to watch for today:

1. Republicans like Glenn Greenwald pointing out how liberals celebrated when Trump got Covid

2. Republicans celebrating because Biden has Covid

Related:

Twitter will now be unusable for approx 55 minutes.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 21, 2022

He's handling isolation pretty well pic.twitter.com/lo3ULK4xRp

— Zack Budryk (@BudrykZack) July 21, 2022

HOgan would never have been elected if he didn't get substantial numbers of rich Montgomery County assholes who think they're liberal vioting for him over the scary black NAACP guy. LOts of Dem public figured also endorsed Hogan cause they were scared of an actual progressive.

"well he hates Trump, and he kept my taxes low, and he's going to fix the traffic problems so I can get to my job at Lockheed faster".

Steve Bannon:

GUILTY on all counts. Took the jury approx, three hours. Including any lunch break

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) July 21, 2022

Weird, why do I not see that anywhere else?

okay he might have made a mistake

winning strategy:

Steve Bannon's defense team rests its case after he declines to testify

Bannon's team earlier Thursday announced they would not call any witnesses nor would Bannon testify in his own defense.

yeah, a different 1/6 guy was found guilty

yeah whoops sorry if anyone got excited, there was a mixup

Bannon verdict should be tomorrow

Should be the same result

not a good sign of the state of things when secret service members (reportedly) start lawyering up.

lawyering sounds like the best course until trump 24-♾

I posted this in the shooting spree thread, but I highly, highly recommend "Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down." I was lucky enough to see a screening last night. She came out afterwards to do a Q&A. I got a chance to meet her and give her a hug. As cynical as most of us are about politics, her story is profoundly inspirational, and gives me at least a glimmer of hope for positive change.

Here we go

Lol at the Hawley running away video

here's video of Hawley running to evacuate the Capitol after he egged on insurrectionists with his infamous fist pump pic.twitter.com/aGg64ECFO1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 22, 2022

pulling a costanza

Needs some "Yakety Sax"

OK that made me guffaw

"Who behind me?"

Fredo said "go to the mattresses." "They will try to f*** his entire legacy on this if it gets worse,"

"Yesterday's a hard word for me..."

...president was such an easy game to play

here's raw footage of Trump recording his January 7 video message, getting mad and lashing out, and not wanting to say "the election is over" pic.twitter.com/jIJ2hbO901

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 22, 2022

The outtakes from Trump's Jan. 7 were only a portion of the lengthy taping session that day, @Kevinliptakcnn and I are told. Multiple people say it took about an hour to record what ended up being a three-minute video.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 22, 2022

RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT

(-sorry-) yesterday is the hardest word

i was traveling yesterday when news started coming out about the "Hawley running" clip. i will be the wet towel by saying wow, when i finally saw it, it was not at all what i was expecting. he was jogging in a building. it changes nothing. he helped incite a coup and then he jogged down a hallway and stairs as he evacuated. who cares? sorry. i feel like i just watched a minor, sub-"covfefe" moment happen again, only even more meaningless and way too in the weeds, missing for the forest for the trees kind of way. in this light, the apparent laughter that was heard throughout the hearing is just fucking pathetic, because that's the worst Hawley is ever going to get for what he did and for what he's still doing. "the people at the hearing _humiliated_ him with laughter!"...no they did not. that was his wrist slap. he just got it. those are his consequences.

Yep.

You aren't wrong KM, I just think people appreciated even a cheap laugh at that asshole's expense.

A tailor-made Morning Joe moment.

And the hearings are having an impact: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/20/jan-6-hearings-trump-support-falls-00046662

Not because the hearings have infuriated most Republicans with what they learned, understand, but because of "Trump fatigue."

yeah, I didn't think there was much beyond "look at this asshole" to that Hawley clip Are people making more of it?

[i]You aren't wrong KM, I just think people appreciated even a cheap laugh at that asshole's expense.[i]

yeah, it's kinda funny on that level (similar to covfefe). but i've read at least 3 takes from various levels of journalist now, from WashPost to some doofus on twitter to the usually more perceptive bloggers at LGM, that all seem to suggest that it was some sort of consequential watershed moment in Hawley's career.

For example, Philip Bump, who is actually paid to be a national politics reporter, believes that Hawley was on his way to skating his way through the whole "white christian fascist trying to incite a coup" thing, until that fateful moment when america saw him jog down stairs on surveillance footage:

...And why not? He’d weathered the immediate negative effects of his involvement in the riot, it seemed. Republican opinions on the day’s events had shifted and loyalty to Trump continued to be valuable currency. Even on the evening of Jan. 6 itself, Hawley was still hoping that eventuality might arrive. While at least one member of the Senate Republican caucus decided not to object to the submitted electors, Hawley didn’t. He still objected. Even after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) shouted at him, “You have caused this!”, Hawley — standing in front of a fuming Romney — objected to the electoral slate.

This, it seems, was the bet. Hawley bet it would all work out politically, that he could wave away concerns like Romney’s over the short term and be a hero to the base for standing firm for years to come. And until, oh, about 9 p.m. on Thursday, it looked like it could work.

Then committee member Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) turned the hearing’s attention to Hawley’s actions inside the Capitol that day.

...
There is a sense in which airing the Hawley video fit with the committee’s efforts, though. The committee wants to exact a cost for those who sought to upend the results of the 2020 election. They want, if only unofficially, to make it impossible for Trump to be reelected as president. It’s safe to assume they understand the narrow path Hawley has been trying to walk and understood that airing that footage would in no way help him succeed. The senator loves to seem tough. That video seemed anything but.

Hawley wants the visual of his involvement in Jan. 6 to be that fist pump: the guy willing to fight for Trump. Instead, it is now that slow-motion video: the guy who thought he was cleverly leveraging Trump’s base for his own purposes, only to see things suddenly unfold in a dramatically different way.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/21/hawleys-effort-reap-political-rewards-jan-6-scampers-off/

anyway, sorry to devote ilx space to this, it's already a waste of time and i doubt anyone at all will be remembering it next week. it just reminded me of the kind of completely empty "revelations" that people on the left who are ignoring the hearings were trying to say the entire hearings would be like. i'm pointing it out because it's bullshittedness is an outlier in the context of the rest of the hearings, which have been consistently excellent and devoid of cheap laughs

yeah, it's kinda funny on that level (similar to covfefe). but i've read at least 3 takes from various levels of journalist now, from WashPost to some doofus on twitter to the usually more perceptive bloggers at LGM, that all seem to suggest that it was some sort of consequential watershed moment in Hawley's career.

Oh god, definitely not. Glad I haven't burned my eyeballs on any of those yet.

yeah, I didn't think there was much beyond "look at this asshole" to that Hawley clip Are people making more of it?

i'll hone my criticism: this is all Philip Bump of the Washington Post's fault! :D

C’mon it was worth a chortle. My brother said he looked like the HomeStar Runner opening.

Honestly, the footage reminded me of the GG Allin show I went to in the tiny back room of a Bowery bar. It was packed with "fans" and gawkers, the band started playing, GG came out, squatted down, shit on the floor, rubbed it on his chest, threw some at the people in front, and after about ten seconds (which was how long it took for the smell to hit people who didn't have a clear view of the action), there was a human flood headed out toward the exit. When we passed the bartender in the main room, he was laughing at us and shouting, "Where are you going? Isn't this what you paid for? Get back in there and party with him!"

Axios normally publishes short, bullet-point bullshit, but this long piece about Trump's plans for 2025 is long, detailed, and fucking terrifying. If he wins, he will be the last American president to be elected instead of chosen.

I saw Swann this morning talking about it as I flipped channels, and, yeah.

Come on, that assumes the guy hasn't learned from his mistakes. At least give him a chance to become presidential... again. Besides, our institutions held and will surely hold again. Right? Right!?

Sigh.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/22/us/politics/bannon-trial-contempt-charges.html

The race that keeps on giving pic.twitter.com/6tpOriTc1E

— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) July 22, 2022

like "lost" doesn't even make any sense!

way to point out that the guy who kicks your ass everyday had a stroke recently

Biden to unveil $37bn proposal to tackle crime, including 100,000 more police https://t.co/gbM4d2x0VJ

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) July 21, 2022

Biden wants to hire more cops to beat the shit out of the people who are supposed to rally in the streets to stop the next coup attempt, presumably.

He's playing the long game. He hires 100K more cops, they commit a bunch of crimes, some of them are charged, a couple years later some of them are convicted of felonies, and then boom, that's 20 or so few Trump voters. You're welcome.

to tackle crime.

Taking a bite out of crime.

"Vote Blue No Matter Who"

Weren’t there people on this board being all “give Biden a chance” last year? Ffs

Last month.

Weren’t there people on this board being all “give Biden a chance” last year? Ffs

― brimstead,

*raises hand* I'm not sure why that point was controversial with a slim Dem Senate majority.

He'll still sign whatever bill Pelosi and Schumer give him, good and evil.

I mean, "give him a chance" as opposed to what exactly? Don't "give him a chance"? Either way, he's the only president we have for the moment. I didn't even want him to run in 2020, much less be the nominee, and I desperately don't want him to run in '24, but I don't feel like either giving or not giving him a chance in the current circumstances is anything but some kind of rhetorical gesture.

Exactly -- it's a weird thing to say. He wasn't Warren or Sanders -- and he wasn't Trump. He'd appoint the judges and justices I want and maybe sign good bills. We knew this desiccated hambone's past.

The fact that he doesn't seem to have much fight in him is one thing. I'm more surprised at the relative uselessness of Kamala or other people in his cabinet. Pete seems to be the only one capable of getting traction online, and not coincidentally he's not ancient (though neither is Kamala). He's also one of the few in the cabinet I can name, which is weird after experiencing such a rogue's gallery of villains.

Amusingly, because I wasn't sure, I googled AOC's age, and the auto-fill was "aoc age 2024." People looking ahead ...

Lacking fight and a useless Cabinet don't explain signing bad bills. Reagan was in worse shape by 1987-1988.

*and having a useless Cabinet

Pete seems to be the only one capable of getting traction online

Your memory of the primary campaign is fading. Pete displayed all the gravitas and voter appeal of a half deflated pool toy. Journalists toyed with him for a week or so, then moved on. Not one voter cared.

He seems to have stepped up his game since then

he did well in that fox bit that was getting passed around a week or so back.

but, like, has he accomplished anything of note at Transpo? (genuine question)

maybe he should have been vp

Not one voter cared

He came in close second to Bernie in Iowa and NH and he hadn’t run a national campaign before. Seems like memories are a bit hazy.

ugh jesus christ. he's a ghoul, older and deader in spirit than even biden. which i guess means he has a chance from the dem pov.

respect to him for giving us the "you've been on the front lines of corporate price fixing" moment

Though he may not be as emotive as some of his Democratic rivals, @PeteButtigieg shows the editorial board a flash of the passion that he says propels his campaign. See more this Sunday on a special 2020 endorsement episode of @TheWeekly. Full transcript: https://t.co/ooUhuoRBV9 pic.twitter.com/6qXKtgA0WF

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) January 16, 2020

Axios normally publishes short, bullet-point bullshit, but this long piece about Trump's plans for 2025 is long, detailed, and fucking terrifying. If he wins, he will be the last American president to be elected instead of chosen.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, July 22, 2022 1:42 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I saw Swann this morning talking about it as I flipped channels, and, yeah.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, July 22,

Oh, and the quote about holding up Reagan's second term as a model of hiring practices, or anything else---!

Does that mean 45 has Alzheimer’s?

Can someone explain to me why this man isn’t doing time yet?

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/24/matt-gaetz-says-women-look-like-a-thumb-shouldnt-complain-about-abortion-rights/

It is important that we only bring cases to court we know we can win, you see. It is important we keep our w-l records at 100%, you see, for optics *touches nose thoughtfully*

I liked (hated) his explanation for paying teenage girls lots of money is that he’s “generous”.

the voters in the first District of Florida can be counted on to hold matt gaetz accountable. he will hypothetically pay for his whole sex trafficking thing by hypothetically losing his house seat to some other maniacal asshole who will invent new crimes to excite the people. that will show gaetz, who will never be on tv again, i'm sure, after hypothetically being voted out of office by people who live around Pensacola.

I remember in middle school a girl coming back with just the absolute trashiest “Destin FL Spring Break” beach shirt and knowing that was all I’d never need to know of that region.

They call it the Redneck Riviera for a reason.

Lol the arbiter of tastefulness of spring break tshirts hath spoken.

I should think the tourists there are mostly from ohio, maybe ohio to blame.

Inbox: @SteveDaines will oppose the same-sex marriage bill. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman." Adds in a statement: "..it’s another attempt by Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats to distract the American people.."

— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) July 25, 2022

It's true -- Nancy Pelosi heads the Senate Democratic Caucus.

...and it's a never-ending Rock Block of the Nuge between the rants

Somebody pointed out that Republican politicians are the modern equivalent of drive-time shock jocks. Can’t remember where I read the piece that made this argument, but I think about it all the time. https://t.co/H1Qw6MhwPT

— Paul Constant (@paulconstant) July 25, 2022

Shock jocks, pro wrestlers, bad stand-up comics ...

JD Vance staking claim to the MAGA frontier of being anti-divorce. Three years away from reactionaries rejecting germ theory and fully embracing bad humors as the source of illness.

"It's the miasma"

“He’s a moderate on phrenology.”

Hillbilly Phrenology

damn JD’s wife must have one foot out the door

with a 6-3 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court has elevated Bill DeFrance to his preordained position as America's Thought Leader

Bill DeFrance, superintendent of Eaton Rapids Public Schools in Michigan, has moonlighted for years as a high school soccer referee. When religious schools compete, he has listened as coaches intone team prayers before and after a game. Still, he has never seen a public-school coach lead a prayer.

But in light of the Supreme Court ruling, and pending guidance from state officials, DeFrance said he is open to the idea of coach-led prayer.

If the Michigan Department of Education or the Michigan High School Athletic Association “said they’d like to work … about how you can incorporate prayer into sports events for kids, I’d certainly take it to the [school] board to say, ‘We could help pilot this; we could try this,’ ” DeFrance said. (A spokesman for the state athletic association emailed The Washington Post, saying: “This is strictly an individual school district issue in Michigan. We have no part in this decision-making process.” A spokesman for the Education Department wrote in an email that his agency “has not sent any guidance to local school districts on this issue at this time. We have made a request of our state attorney general’s office for a review of the decision.”)

If done well, DeFrance added, coach-led prayer could yield advantages for his district’s 2,000 students, serving as a way to learn about other cultures.

“I could see some real interesting things like, ‘Okay, Bill, you’re Hindu, you lead the prayer this week,’ and give some background about why Hindus pray,” he said. Plus, “I do think sometimes having a little bit of a spirit helps you to play.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/

Thought Leader Christi Fraga, a school board member in Miami-Dade, is also very interested in learning about other religions

Fraga still does not understand why it’s okay for the district to recognize LGBTQ History Month, with school-hosted events and celebrations, but not do something similar about prayer. Although she is running for mayor of the city of Doral and plans to leave the school board in November, she intends to continue her education advocacy — bolstered by the Supreme Court ruling, she says it may be possible to introduce more religion classes into public schools.

“I would love to see there be the ability to implement more religious teachings,” Fraga said. “There’s lessons that are taught right now in school that maybe certain families do not believe in, [and] students have to sit there and listen to what history has brought us to.”

Why not, she asked, also offer lessons on the Christianity, the “religion that has formed our nation”? As well as “the different types of religion,” she added.

i imagine these "oh yeah, other religions too, because i'm open-minded, right?" utterances to be read in the kind of sped-up, micro machines guy voice that plays at the end of commercials for products that might actually kill you

like the “other economic systems” section of my junior high economics class. they took up all of one day’s teaching iirc. i can still remember the phrase “command and control economies”

Thought Leader Amy Kruppe is an expert at identifying which religions are popular with people in her community.

Amy Kruppe took over as superintendent in Hazel Park Schools, Mich., seven years ago. When she arrived from Illinois, she was surprised to find that school board members opened meetings with prayer — sometimes inviting “a man of the cloth” to lead proceedings.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is not constitutional,’ ” Kruppe said. “But their feeling was it was important to them as an organization” — so to this day, the board opens its meetings with Christian prayer, Kruppe said.

Over the years, Kruppe has come around to the idea. There have never been complaints, apart from hers. She said coaches in Hazel Park also lead prayers at games, “and no one says anything about it.” She noted that Hazel Park, a district of about 3,200 students, is about 50 percent White, 50 percent Black and, as far as she can tell, nearly 100 percent Christian.

https://i.imgur.com/PoOuJ9I.png

weird! somehow she incorrectly identified half of her own county as Christians when it turns out that, given several million different varieties of Christianity to choose from, 50% of the county's inhabitants said "NONE". but i'm sure a lot has changed since 2010

i sentence all of these people to live in reformation-era central europe

like the “other economic systems” section of my junior high economics class. they took up all of one day’s teaching iirc. i can still remember the phrase “command and control economies”

i'm pretty sure my school system didn't even bother going that far. our history classes never made it past reconstruction by the end of the semester - we would always just barely hit a paragraph about "jim crow" and then it would be summer. i think the only other economic system i ever learned about was subsistence

I had some decent labor history in my AP History class, and we covered the civil rights movement pretty well. The greatest weakness of the narrative I received was the utterly dishonest notion that all of "those problems" — racism, sexism, labor exploitation, pollution, etc. — had been solved and were in the past.

They picked a photo to show what Biden has done to her. It's beyond the party now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/opinion/kamala-harris-joe-biden.html?searchResultPosition=1

I’m out of articles and am not going to ask anyone to share the piece youn linked to. What’s the summary - is it basically that she’s in a tough spot?

it’s saying they basically have no relationship and she hasn’t been prepared to assume the reins of power should biden cark it

(Thanks)

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/07/the-white-guys-playbook-for-discounting-women

Perhaps he picked her as his running mate just to shore up the black woman vote.

Probably but shoring up your coalition/countering your obvious weaknesses should be the only consideration in picking a VP anyway. Old? Pick someone young(ish). Black? Pick honky Joe Biden.

No doubt, but post-election the VP should be an asset as well.

Someone probably suggested that but someone else heard "asshat" and figured they had enough of them.

"We were hoping she would be a credit to her race, but . . . "

I remember rumblings of Harris becoming a sort of undocumented immigration czar or something (with trips to Honduras, El Salvador), but I don't know if anything concrete has come out of that

That is one of the impossible tasks they have pinned on her.

Well, Kushner handily solved the Middle East crisis, so the bar has been raised

The Cheryl Rofer piece Alfred linked is thoroughly otm - the Times piece is a barely-disguised sexist hit job.

“I cannot be killed. I am invincible!” — Ashli Babbitt https://t.co/QU5ruJbqcq pic.twitter.com/SsCSFYrGbe

— The Onion (@TheOnion) July 25, 2022

Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Tuesday called Democratic efforts to bolster election-denying candidates in Republican primaries “disgusting,” accusing Democrats of taking too lightly the threat Kinzinger said those candidates pose to U.S. democracy.

“I think it is disgusting,” Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, told CNN on Tuesday. “Look at Darren Bailey in Illinois, an election-denier. [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker spent tens of millions of dollars so that Bailey would win. Yeah, Pritzker has a little bit of an advantage right now. Good Republican year, Bailey may win.”

I'm no veteran strategist, but I'm pretty much in agreement.. bummed that my little $25 donations were probably misspent on these whackjobs

Thanks for that link. A good test case could be comparing coverage of Beto O'Rourke:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/us/texas-governor-campaign-abbott-orourke.html

This new NYT article also includes more info on Christina Bobb, coordinating this stuff. (She was in touch with Doug Mastriano!)

Bobb promoted the fake electors as an OAN personality, without disclosing her work on it. Not a news organization of any kind. https://t.co/EDhFhRbKpe pic.twitter.com/i7ItGVJBOw

— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) July 26, 2022

To be clear, I'm not a fan of Harris, but the coverage by the usual Beltway suspects has been uniformly awful.

The Times does have a range:

Bad reporting like this has real consequences. Numerous people tried to warn @emilybazelon that her article could cause exactly this kind of harm. She's silent about her role in the Texas court case, and refused to answer my questions. https://t.co/wL0iE3DQIx #ProtectTransKids

— Kit O'Connell (@KitOConnell) July 22, 2022

Fully expect at best no one more than a bunch of lawyers face actual jail time, but still, WaPo makes it official:

Justice Dept. investigating Trump’s actions as part of Jan. 6 criminal probe. Prosecutors are examining the former president’s actions and conversations with lawyers and other loyalists leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, four people familiar with the probe said...Investigators have seized phone records of top aides

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/26/trump-justice-investigation-january-6/

honestly, that's the headline i expected to see the evening of january 6. or, at the latest, like a week later. then time kept passing. so much has happened in my life, since that day, it's kind of unbelievable. it feels like four trillion years ago.

still, i guess good for DOJ. i think it'll just be giuliani and eastmen going to prison, and wrist slaps for everyone else. now, when you do the coup next time, you do it a little differently, ok?

now, as a matter of professional diligence, i am going to have to ask the jan 6 coup organizers to go ahead and NOT do another coup in the next election, ok? i do apologize for that and i understand if that's going to make a lot of people angry. i am just reading what i have to say on a card here, i don't want to be a part of this either. that's me talking there, not the script. i think the january 6 people are wonderful prayer warriors. but just to be sure, i am told that i should stress that you should not do another coup, ok? now i'm going to face my guard chair toward this sleepy little corner setup and take a catnap. i urge you to not raid the armory, which is through that open door, and take over the building while i snooze, zzzzzzz

... America’s policy toward Taiwan has hardened, scrambling partisan alliances and putting the U.S. and China on a potential collision course.

Speaker of the House NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.) still weighs whether to visit the democratic island. Biden administration officials say it’s a bad idea since it could spike tensions with Beijing. But Republicans (and some Democrats) egg her on, insisting China can’t dictate where American politicians go.

It’s still unclear if Pelosi will show up in Taipei any time soon. But even the discussion of a visit highlights the “dangerous moment” that we’re in, said BONNIE GLASER, the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program director. “We’re approaching a crisis.”

Heightening tensions with China is so fucking stupid.

“I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.”

https://www.theroot.com/house-democrats-introduce-term-limits-bill-for-supreme-1849336866

idk if this is likely to go anywhere but Christ is it bleak

TERRIFYING: The text of @RepCuellar's bill the Workplace Flexibility & Choice Act is available.

It would carve workers out of min wage & OT protections -- not just app-deployed workers -- ANY WORKER whose employer...1/https://t.co/NF2jfcDVWd

— Veena Dubal (@veenadubal) July 27, 2022

Thank god Pelosi et al. went to the mats to help beat back Jessica Cisneros.

Heightening tensions with China is so fucking stupid.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, July 26, 2022 7:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, so is the Chinese state's imperial bloodthirst, but

Meanwhile here's a Texas mom outraged that her 9th-grader is learning about Banksy in art class. (Bonus, it's because Banksy is "anti-free-market" lol)

Here is one of the Texas moms who traveled to Austin yesterday for a state legislative hearing focused on parents’ rights in education.

She’s angry because her son learned about Banksy in a high school art class. pic.twitter.com/FKpqfbh1Up

— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) July 27, 2022

it's funny how conservatives have become the most rabid regulators in the country. they used to say they believed in liberty, that the government should let people live. now they want to use government - state government, school boards, the US supreme court, you name it - to regulate the holy fuck out of everyone. regulating people's bodies. regulating what they're allowed to read in school. regulating who can marry who. regulating who can compete in athletic events. how about the step they fuck off for a minute and let people live their lives

Lmao tipsy mothra! Really hope that gets back to Banksy and he runs with it.

I mean, so is the Chinese state's imperial bloodthirst, but

The Table nails it. The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically (except fiscally a little too concerned with the needs of the hoi polloi, and of course a dire lack of Christian nationalism in their overbearing moralism).

I'm not even sure what 'conservative' means anymore, in today's climate; the right wing has become much more radical, seeking broad sweeping changes rather than cautious incrementalism

Maybe Mitt Romney is still a country club conservative, but he knows his days are numbered

I've been watching The Janes (HBO doc about an underground abortion network in Chicago in 1968-72) this week and idk it seems like everything I thought I knew about the political climate in American history has been off (see also finally reading Before the Storm last summer). Not that I was unaware abortion was illegal, mind you, but I think the only reason the right seems more radical right now is they're successfully clawing back a lot of the power they only gradually lost in the first place. Their core tenets have been authoritarian for a long time, and their purported libertarianism has always been a sham / purely situational for the benefit of capital / barely disguised racism

The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically

This is fantastically stupid but not quite as stupid as saber rattling with our third largest trade partner and largest source of imported goods because we're mad that they threaten our global empire.

yeah rob that sounds right to me

And not to downplay how scary the resurgent right is right now—it is absolutely terrifying, plus all the guns. I've just been working on letting go of my own delusions about what the right "actually" believes in—I've known better for decades, but those narratives were really drilled into me as a kid, the unlearning is constant.

China is bad, but why does Pelosi need to go to Taiwan anyway? Seems pointlessly provocative to me, as much as Taiwan getting to determine their own fate would obvs be desirable

20 GOP-led states are suing the USDA over a rule from the agency that prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ students in free school lunch programs. The AGs argue schools have the right to deny queer and trans kids lunch money. https://t.co/xM3IGonUIB

— Gillian Branstetter (@GBBranstetter) July 27, 2022

that tweet isn’t right afaict. the AGs are arguing they can discriminate against gay and trans kids in other ways and still get the federal funds for lunch money.

the Democrats funding trump candidates thing keeps happening, and is now being defended as a strategy by the DCCC. fucking crazy. what a horrible, horrible idea. in this case, they're funding the Republican primary opponent of Rep. Peter Meijer, who was one of only 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump. Meijer's being primaried by a Trump idiot, John Gibbs. what's crazy is that the DCCC spent $435,000 in support of Gibbs, which is more than the Gibbs campaign spent on themselves! the DCCC, alone, more than doubled his entire campaign's spending! thanks a fucking lot, Democrats??

The DCCC’s investment in Michigan’s 3rd District — which was redrawn in the decennial redistricting process to become more Democratic — marks the first time the House Democratic campaign arm put money behind an ad interfering in a GOP primary. The investment is more than the $334,000 that Gibbs has spent on his own campaign.

“Obviously, our focus is on winning 218 seats, and each race will require a slightly different strategy,” DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) told NBC News. “We think this makes sense in this case.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/meijer-trump-impeachment-democrats/

"Democracy is under attack*!"

*by the candidates we fund

good thing the economy looks absolutely rock solid as the Dems burn money popularizing fascists, can't see this backfiring at all

That Michigan thing is among the dumbest ideas imaginable.

as the Dems burn money

i was just thinking about how it was sad that the Democrats could literally take the money that is donated to them and just burn it, and it would be a better use of it than what they're actually using it for

yeah I'm glad this is out there cuz now I can point directly to the reason why I don't donate to these guys anymore

pic.twitter.com/R3rJ95oEkT

— Blake Mitchell® (@Blake_Mitchell) July 26, 2022

NJ's own @StevieVanZandt 🎸 has a VERY special message for Dr. Oz!!

So Dr. Oz just fuhgeddaboudit! pic.twitter.com/awlAeVcUeg

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 27, 2022

This is wearing a little thin but still pretty funny

actually on the lunch money thing actually the tweet probably IS right in that states might conceivably forgo the lunch money just because they’ve been forbidden to make life miserable for LGBTQ+ kids, like what happened with medicare expansion and obamacare.

The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically

This is fantastically stupid but not quite as stupid as saber rattling with our third largest trade partner and largest source of imported goods because we're mad that they threaten our global empire.

Milo Z is neoliberal now? Not sure if “fantastically stupid” was aimed at me or the GOP but my argument in short is that both parties are authoritarian, imperialistic, ethnic nationalistic, oppressively moralistic, and oligarchic.

The ad itself is also this weird reverse-psychology thing where it pretends to be an attack ad framing Gibbs as "too conservative." Maybe so that the Dems can still officially say that they didn't explicitly support him.

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/26/peter-meijer-michigan-democrats-trump

Anti-imperialism is when you threaten war on the side of the world on behalf of your client state.

Oh no he’s still just a tankie haha silly me.

You’re going to get one of these words right one day.

xps and following jmm's post here,

Democrats funding trump candidates

Karl, have you actually watched any of these ads? That's not what's happening. The ads criticize the candidates, say they are wrong for their district/state, too conservative, criticize them on their stances on issues, and cast their connections to Trump in a negative light. Yes, they are playing a double game and thinking this will both hurt the candidates with most voters while boosting them with the whacko base.

Whether it is wise strategy is open to question, but it is not "funding trump candidates" in any sense.

here's one of the ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5XVRDC50Do

Bulb, that is a ridiculous take

Thanks.

okay yeah that ad isn't exactly promoting the guy

I think it’s doing exactly that. The two concepts pushed are “too conservative” and “connected to Trump.”

The content is nearly irrelevant imo. That they're spending significant sums ($44m according to Reuters, though I think $35m of that is just from Pritzker) trying to psych out/promote right-wing fascists is *immoral* while also being risky and foolish.

Think about it this way, if the GOP tried the same tactic would you be like "oh no the wily Rs are going to con us into having lefty candidates" or would you be like "fuck yeah morons"

And maybe that first response is the "correct" one but jesus at some playing politics like a german board game is just repellent

It's somewhat reminiscent of Florida Republicans putting up dummy Dem candidates to draw votes away from the actual Dem candidates.

I'm leaving open the tiny sliver of possibility that in November we'll all be amazed the Dems held onto the House by one seat because several too-far-right GOP candidates who had various kinds of Dem primary support lost in close districts. Tiny sliver. I think it's more likely some of those candidates will be part of the new GOP majority and this will be seen as an unbelievably dumb and wasteful strategy. But I'm willing to be proven wrong.

various kinds of Dem primary support

I'm disinclined to see ads that say, effectively, "Holy shit! Look at this fucking asshole! He's fucking crazy, and probably a criminal!" as support, unless you're the kind of person who thinks "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is a thing (it's not), or thinks it's better to stay entirely silent about what your opponents are doing, and just wait for a candidate to be chosen, whereupon you engage with them in a good faith debate about the issues on an even playing field, as God and C-SPAN intended. Both viewpoints are wrong.

Saying "Oh no! If you do [thing X], the Republicans will do something crazy and evil! We better not!" is idiotic, because the Republicans are crazy and evil. They are going to do crazy, evil shit no matter what. It's who they are, it's what they do. So yes, you should draw attention to it, and condemn it, with the intention of waking up sane, not-evil people.

The strongest selling point for a Republican primary candidate is “libs hate him” followed by “Trump loves him.” Libs running ads about how they hate the candidate and how Trump loves the candidate is absolutely support.

Fortunately, the ads aren't being shown exclusively to the Republican base.

The Republican base are, however, the only people who'll be voting while the ad is running.

Come on, it's not some kind of 12-D chess that they're planning on voters remembering this ad in November - they're pumping up fascists. It's win-win - either the fascist is an easier candidate to beat in November OR they get to fundraise even more when the fascist wins. MAGA has been nothing but a boon to Democratic consultants.

am i missing something or having a stroke? how is that ad in support of Gibbs?

Meijer is a chump who wasn't going to win anyway

The point of the ad is to signal to the far-right GOP base that Gibbs is super conservative and endorsed by Trump. This thread of the conversation is weird as to my knowledge there is zero ambiguity about what the Dems are doing, their own party members are calling them out for it.

Trump has 80+% approval ratings with the people who are going to the polls in the MI GOP primary.

Democrats are running ads about how much the guy with 80%+ approval loves the openly fascist candidate.

Like Reuters doesn't even consider presenting another take on this here: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/risky-midterm-strategy-democrats-boost-far-right-candidate-michigan-race-2022-07-26/

Trump has 80+% approval ratings with the people who are going to the polls in the MI GOP primary.

See heres the thing tho. He's going to win anyway.

it's not some kind of 12-D chess that they're planning on voters remembering this ad in November

You really think everyone but you is a fucking moron, don't you?

I guess on the list of things I'm supposed to worry about that the Democrats are doing well this is way way down the list