"What Do You Want Me To Say About Slavery?": US Politics, January 2024

Let the 11-month descent into hell commence.

This ad isn't up on YouTube yet, which is why I'm posting a link to Twitter. Katrina Christiansen is a Democrat running for Senate in North Dakota.

Just a few years ago, North Dakota had a Democrat representing our state in the U.S. Senate.

They said it couldn't be done before. Well, I'm about to do it again.

The Senate majority is up for grabs in 2024. Join me. Together, we will win this race. Watch my launch video now! pic.twitter.com/HrZvh7RYOD

— Katrina Christiansen (@KatrinaforND) December 5, 2023

Wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ge5BoOOhCo

Underrated Morrissey song titles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEyy0Czis3c

Huh

I was thrown violently off balance when the jaunty score kicked kn

Don't know which of many possible threads to put it on, but Claudine Gay resigning is Some Bullshit.

Elise Stefanik needs to go play in traffic.

And Christopher Rufo, people need to learn how to stand up against that guy.

Don't know which of many possible threads to put it on, but Claudine Gay resigning is Some Bullshit.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Elise Stefanik needs to go play in traffic.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, January 2, 2024

And Christopher Rufo, people need to learn how to stand up against that guy.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, January 2, 2024

the last three posts are very otm

i mentioned it in the israel/palestine affects on other countries thread which admittedly it's barely connected to

I'm still waiting for the rest of this Title VI investigation into antisemitism AND ISLAMAPHOBIA to happen. Because we obv got the antisemitism part. They seem to have pivoted to investigating the very important issue of plagiarism?

They're investigating the important issue of HOW DID A BLACK WOMAN GET TO BE PRESIDENT OF HARVARD WHO LET THIS HAPPEN?

Like, Oh, sure, he went to Harvard.

I love how Epstein List mainstay and famous sexist bigot Larry Summers appears in the NYT reaction story, nodding sagely that Gay is doing the right thing by resigning. For the institution, you see. The NYT notes Summers also "resigned under pressure," as if the situations are in any fucking way comparable.

As always, he admits what he's up to, which is why it's so infuriating that people keep taking the bait.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I am contributing an initial $10,000 to a "plagiarism hunting" fund. We will expose the rot in the Ivy League and restore truth, rather than racialist ideology, as the highest principle in academic life.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 3, 2024

racialist

This thread on the Gay situation gets a lot of the dynamics right imo.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1742266230050869269.html

he starts to lose me quickly with the implication that any 'antisemitism task force' is illegitimate.

Fair point, and I also think he somewhat underestimates the degree to which Gay's options at every point were constricted. But I think he's right about the conflicted position of so many liberal institutions (including the NYT) and the ways it makes them easy targets and/or complicit in their own betrayals.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/01/rufos-collaborators

Rufo has competition, granted, but he's one of the three or four most malevolent forces in American political life whom most Americans don't know.

He's like a cartoon evil genius.

something about the way he just says his evil plans out loud screams supervillain

Serious White Men all tut-tutting loudly about how unfortunate but important it is to OFF WITH HER HEAD

https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1742425422196056443?s=20

Oops, wrong link type. Well, the post is Nate fuckin Silver saying, "Abstracting from the current controversy a bit, but 'the identity of the messenger is more important than the message' is a thru-line though a lot of very bad ideas."

once again, the "liberal media" just reports whatever the right wants them to

articles about Claudine Gay and her various "scandals" were top 5 featured stories on the New York Times homepage Dec 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 22, 25 and her firing is the now their top story. There is simply no way this is proportionate, sober or reasonable coverage

— Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) January 3, 2024

The Stanford controversy last year? It got no almost-daily NYT coverage.

To return to what tipsy said last night: Rufo isn't a genius by any stretch. He's honest about his intentions and skilled at applying pressure points to classic lib weaknesses.

elite media obsessed with their elite alma mater

Yeah I didn't mean Rufo is actually a genius. "Supervillain" is better. But he's very good at pushing buttons — and narrating it as he does it!

Like Charlie Kirk, he has figured out the grift.

I'm not sure Rufo is in any way "leading" these things, he strikes me as a grifty self-promoter. The real people behind all this idiocy are the billionaires who fund people like Rufo.

worth noting maybe that the Stanford story was broken by a student reporter who also happens to be the son of a NYT reporter (Peter Baker). don't know if that had any bearing on their decision whether or not to cover it, though as Moynihan (I think) pointed out, it's not something that would ordinarily have been treated as national news until there was an outcome (the resignation). whereas the Harvard story is treated as news bc Rufo and his ilk are talking about it, and the NYT has decided that right-wing grievances are worth taking seriously.

Rick Perlstein has a new piece in the American Prospect. It's good.

According to polls (which, yes, have their uses, in moderation), something around half of likely voters would like to see as our next president a man who thinks of the law as an extension of his superior will, who talks about race like a Nazi, wants to put journalistic organizations whose coverage he doesn’t like in the dock for “treason,” and who promises that anyone violating standards of good order as he defines them—shoplifters, for instance—will be summarily shot dead by officers of the state who serve only at his pleasure. A fascist, in other words. We find ourselves on the brink of an astonishing watershed, in this 2024 presidential year: a live possibility that government of the people, by the people, and for the people could conceivably perish from these United States, and ordinary people—you, me—may have to make the kind of moral choices about resistance that mid-20th-century existentialist philosophers once wrote about. That’s the case if Trump wins. But it’s just as likely, or even more likely, if he loses, then claims he wins. That’s one prediction I feel comfortable with.

Journalistically, this crisis could not strike more deeply. The tools we have for making sense of how politicians seek to accumulate power focus on the whys and wherefores of attracting votes. But the Republican Party and its associated institutions of movement conservatism, at least since George and Jeb Bush stole the 2000 election in Florida, has been ratcheting remorselessly toward an understanding of the accumulation of political power, to which they believe themselves ineluctably entitled as the only truly legitimate Americans, as a question of will—up to and including the projection of will by the force of arms.

Ain’t no poll predicting who soccer moms will vote for in November that can make much headway in understanding that.

...

A political journalism adequate to this moment must throw so many of our received notions about how politics works into question. For one thing, it has to treat the dissemination of conventional but structurally distorting journalistic narratives as a crucial part of the story of how we got to this point.

For instance, the way mainstream American political journalism has built in a structural bias toward Republicans. If one side in a two-sided fight is perfectly willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate without remorse in order to win, and journalists, as a matter of genre convention, must “balance” the ledger between “both sides,” in the interest of “fairness,” that is systematically unfair to the side less willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate. Journalism that feels compelled to adjudge both “sides” as equally vicious, when they are anything but, works like one of those booster seats you give a toddler in a restaurant so that they can sit eye to eye with the grown-ups. It is a systematic distortion of reality built into mainstream political journalism’s very operating system.

For instance, the way mainstream American political journalism has built in a structural bias toward Republicans. If one side in a two-sided fight is perfectly willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate without remorse in order to win, and journalists, as a matter of genre convention, must “balance” the ledger between “both sides,” in the interest of “fairness,” that is systematically unfair to the side less willing to lie, cheat, steal, and intimidate.

I mean yeah, this is the whole game for the GOP, they say it out loud too, what is amazing is how willing the media is to fall for this

tbf I don't remember any "Democracy Dies in Darkness" stuff from the press when Obama or Biden won.

Yeah but the fascism stuff is such as small part of Trump's routine, maybe 10%. The vast majority of his material is about celebrities and hot guys who hug him.

It may be 10% of his routine but it's 98% of his appeal. (margin of error 2%)

still winds me up when right-wing media types get called genius manipulators for passing a compliant media the exact sort of slop they love. like getting called a genius for getting a dog to chase a stick

— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) January 3, 2024

10% nazi is a lot

As a working journalist I agree with Perlstein and other such critiques but I also think people tend to exaggerate the importance of the MSM — at least, people who mostly pay attention to the MSM, which is who all of these critiques come from. A third of the country or more get their "news" almost entirely from right-wing media, and talking about what the NYT does or doesn't do has pretty much zero bearing on those people. Not that we shouldn't talk about the NYT or MSM, we should, but it is not "the media" as many people experience it.

I mean even if you don't watch CNN or subscribe to the NYT right-wing discourse is still all over social media, hell I found out about the Harvard president resigning because it was listed as 'breaking news' on a new browser tab

the issue seems to be there's just so much out there fighting for people's attention, we can only focus on so many things at once, and the right does a pretty good job ensuring it's shit like Bud Light and Target instead of say the fact that the clear Republican frontrunner is knowingly or unknowingly quoting Mein Kampf

As a working journalist I agree with Perlstein and other such critiques but I also think people tend to exaggerate the importance of the MSM — at least, people who mostly pay attention to the MSM, which is who all of these critiques come from. A third of the country or more get their "news" almost entirely from right-wing media, and talking about what the NYT does or doesn't do has pretty much zero bearing on those people. Not that we shouldn't talk about the NYT or MSM, we should, but it is not "the media" as many people experience it.

I agree. The complaints about "the media" mostly come from people who still regard Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd as important voices. In terms of actual real-world impact, much more attention should be paid to what's being broadcast on Fox, Sinclair, and OAN. But if we accept that the MSM is a sealed bubble mostly talking to itself, criticism from within is welcome.

I was referring to, ahem, another thread.

The college president who had an Only Fans with his wife should get more press

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/what-to-know-about-joe-gow-fired-uw-la-crosse-chancellor-involved-in-porn-industry/ar-AA1m7OqY

That guy kinda cracks me up. Doesn’t seem like he was even really hiding it.

no they are very publicly proud of it. absolute stupidity, who even cares, let him fuck his wife on the internet and teach

Let him teach! But he shouldn’t be surprised at losing the chancellor role. Bit much for the folks in La Crosse.

Hell, the squishiest Dems I know watch MSNBC exclusively. I'm not creating a binary.

Yeah but MSNBC isn't really like right-wing media. It's the closest thing on the left to Fox, I guess, but it's still part of NBC and is still more or less part of the MSM — it's like the Sunday NYT op-ed section or something.

There isn't any equivalent on the left to the sealed-bubble captive-audience self-reinforcing system of right-wing information, it just doesn't exist. And actual left-wing media wouldn't be like right-wing media anyway, the right-wing media model is built around conservative psychology. You can't just import it into a different ideology.

yeah, that's my point if it wasn't clear

Ah, gotcha. Well ... right!

Rick Perlstein:

Generations of this incumbent, consensus-besotted journalism have produced the very conceptual tools, metaphors, habits, and technologies that we understand as political journalism. But these tools are thoroughly inadequate to understanding what politics now is.

According to polls (which, yes, have their uses, in moderation), something around half of likely voters would like to see as our next president a man who thinks of the law as an extension of his superior will, who talks about race like a Nazi, wants to put journalistic organizations whose coverage he doesn’t like in the dock for “treason,” and who promises that anyone violating standards of good order as he defines them—shoplifters, for instance—will be summarily shot dead by officers of the state who serve only at his pleasure. A fascist, in other words. We find ourselves on the brink of an astonishing watershed, in this 2024 presidential year: a live possibility that government of the people, by the people, and for the people could conceivably perish from these United States, and ordinary people—you, me—may have to make the kind of moral choices about resistance that mid-20th-century existentialist philosophers once wrote about. That’s the case if Trump wins. But it’s just as likely, or even more likely, if he loses, then claims he wins. That’s one prediction I feel comfortable with.

Journalistically, this crisis could not strike more deeply. The tools we have for making sense of how politicians seek to accumulate power focus on the whys and wherefores of attracting votes. But the Republican Party and its associated institutions of movement conservatism, at least since George and Jeb Bush stole the 2000 election in Florida, has been ratcheting remorselessly toward an understanding of the accumulation of political power, to which they believe themselves ineluctably entitled as the only truly legitimate Americans, as a question of will—up to and including the projection of will by the force of arms.

Ain’t no poll predicting who soccer moms will vote for in November that can make much headway in understanding that.

this was already posted?

Before I'd bookmarked the thread, I see. Thanks!

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/us/politics/trump-hotels-foreign-business-report.html

Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China.

The transactions, detailed in a 156-page report called “White House For Sale” that was produced by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, offer concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.

My goodness -- the NYT not #bothsidesing for once.

The emoluments clause.... those were simpler times...

https://i.imgur.com/Lr0foL9.gif

Nate Silver has been very sniffy about the Claudine Gay ouster — "Plagiarism is plagiarism," she had to go, etc. — and now he seems right on the line of tipping over into Taibbi territory. Not that it matters what Nate Silver thinks about anything, but the Gay panic is having quite the effect on Sensible Centrist types.

There's a certain type of journalist with an increasingly utilitarian outlook, i.e. it's so important the Good Guys win that the ends justify the means and fairness and accurately are subservient to that. This was subtext for a long time but is now being said explicitly.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 3, 2024

Silver's about six months away from full on MAGA at the rate he's going.

I demand accurately.

Do the Germans have a phrase for that sort of unforced error (like misspelling the word 'misspelled' when you're calling out a misspelling)? Because it is seriously the funniest thing in the world to me.

Natesilversprang

"As is often the case with utilitarianism, this seems like a miscalculation derived from a failure to respect other people's intelligence"

You mean the utilitarianism of finding something/anything to take people down in order to score Israel-luvin' points?

Nate Silver is a piece of shit, not sure why the unsubtle racism of his gestures is surprising.

I mean, I am against Gay and against the reasons for which Gay was forced to resign— it's not that difficult to hold these two beliefs at the same time, tbh.

so this whole thing is about papers she plagiarized some 30 years ago? didn't Gorsuch do the same thing?

i mean so did Biden, so did lots of white guys. the reasons behind her resignation are complete racist bullshit

Sounds like she failed to cite some things properly. I'll let the academics among us determine whether she flunks the paper but the congressional hysteria is definitely not merited.

We can't let the footnotzis win

Just once, it would be nice if the higher ed sector acted like a sector, defending itself and undermining its opponents, rather than a debating society, arguing in public over whether its critics have a point. Amoral industries like oil and gas get this. Why doesn't higher ed?

— Jeremy C. Young (@jeremycyoung) January 4, 2024

Counterpoint, higher ed IS acting like the sector it has always been, which — especially at the prestige/Ivy level — is primarily a means for training and grooming the rising ruling class.

yep!

most of it from China

Isn't essentially his entire business/political career a shakedown operation? He's always acted like a Jersey mob boss.

A surprisingly clear-eyed article from Politico. Why can't the New York Times or the Washington Post state things this plainly?

Why Jan. 6 is a problem for Trump's campaign

Republican voters have steadily grown more forgiving of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — and in some cases, more supportive of Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the election.

The rest of America hasn’t joined them.

As the GOP appears poised to formally line up behind Trump as its standard-bearer this November, fewer Republicans today call the rioters “criminals” or say the judicial punishments they’ve received are appropriate than in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack, polls show.

That’s helped ease Trump’s path to the nomination. But those shifts in public opinion haven’t extended to the rest of the electorate, including independents, suggesting a continued danger for Republicans and an opening for Democrats: GOP voters may increasingly brush it aside, but the Jan. 6 riot continues to be toxic in a general election.

The findings of two polls released this week underscore the risk for the GOP in tapping Trump again, just as Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire prepare to cast the first votes in the primary contest.

Democrats and independents still hold starkly negative views of Jan. 6, its participants and Trump’s role in stoking the riot. Majorities of Americans overall still believe now-President Joe Biden was elected legitimately, that Trump is guilty of trying to steal the election and that the federal criminal charges in Washington against Trump are appropriate.

Even as surveys generally show Trump running even with the unpopular Biden or leading him narrowly in the horse race, Trump’s refusal to concede the last election and his actions leading up to the Capitol riot are significant liabilities for his candidacy.

And it’s not just a poll-based hypothetical that direct ties to Jan. 6 or broader denial of the 2020 election results are a millstone for Trump and his aligned candidates. Only 14 months ago, voters in the midterms rejected the majority of 2020 election deniers — especially in battleground states — despite a political environment and generic ballot that otherwise favored Republicans.

The latest poll results — conducted ahead of Saturday’s anniversary — show that views of the Jan. 6 violence have changed little overall since 2021. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll out this week showed half of respondents believe the protestors who entered the Capitol were mostly violent, down only slightly from 54 percent two years ago.

...

The Washington Post identified nearly 300 GOP candidates for federal or statewide office in 2022 who “denied or questioned” the 2020 election results. Of the 47 who ran in what the paper determined to be competitive races, only 10 won. And that list of competitive candidates doesn’t include some battleground-state candidates, like Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, whose false claims around the 2020 election made him a considerable underdog to now-Gov. Josh Shapiro, despite the state’s history of close elections.

Some of those prominent 2022 losers are trying again, like Arizona’s Kari Lake and Washington State’s Joe Kent. Lake, who lost a close race for governor in 2022 that she never conceded, is running for Senate. Kent, who ousted then-Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) in a congressional primary only to lose narrowly in a general election, was recently recorded saying Trump needs to win the presidential race so he can pardon some of the Capitol rioters who’ve been convicted in federal court, according to CBS News.

Trump himself has floated mass pardons for many of the nearly 1,300 defendants who’ve been charged with a crime related to the Jan. 6 riot, according to data released by the Justice Department on Friday. Last May, Trump told CNN he would be inclined to pardon a “large portion” of those the government has accused of committing crimes that day.

That won’t be a popular position to the general public. The Suffolk University/USA Today poll found that 59 percent of voters agreed with a statement calling the Justice Department’s prosecutions of the Jan. 6 rioters “the appropriate work of the justice system.” Only about a third, 32 percent, said it was “inappropriate and should be reversed” — though that does include a 60 percent majority of Republicans.

Trump may have succeeded in moving GOP voters away from their immediate revulsion after Jan. 6, but the broader electorate is less likely to come onboard in November.

Solid dad joke

Happy anniversary to the last time a Republican actually took a stand pic.twitter.com/RMPhTaXc7A

— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) January 6, 2024

Re: Our thread title

Hard to believe it's an actual quote lol https://t.co/mq28sfQcOo pic.twitter.com/eRPgjnptEs

— Tarnishéd Ted (@teddylj) January 6, 2024

Seriously blows my mind that every time I hear Trump speak about basically any topic he sounds like his brain is melting, but when he’s critiquing fellow Republicans he can make perfectly sound and coherent points.

Jesus Christ I'd never heard of Bill Ackman until the Claudine Gay blowup, but he's a total psycho. I tried to read his insanely long rant about plagiarism and AI but could not get through it. Just another totally unhinged billionaire.

Ackman vs Icahn vs Herbalife was a multiyear battle to the death in the financial news. The Wikipedia page for the documentary-propaganda movie Betting On Zero (warning, link may cause brain atrophy) makes a strong case for the elimination of billionaires, MLMs, and capitalism.

The existence of billionaires, MLMs and capitalism makes a strong case for the elimination of MLMs, billionaires and capitalism.

Trump was right on Haley up there but then he also said this:

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested the Civil War could have been avoided through “negotiation,” arguing that the fight to end slavery in the US was ultimately unnecessary and that Abraham Lincoln should have done more to avoid bloodshed.

“So many mistakes were made. See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you,” Trump said at a campaign event in Newton, Iowa. “I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died. So many people died.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/06/politics/trump-civil-war-negotiated/index.html

Many people died. He's right.

“It was, I don’t know, it was just different,” Trump said of the war. “I just find it – I’m so attracted to seeing it.”

war hits different when it's civil

Jesus Christ I'd never heard of Bill Ackman until the Claudine Gay blowup, but he's a total psycho. I tried to read his insanely long rant about plagiarism and AI but could not get through it. Just another totally unhinged billionaire.

His wife, an MIT professor and something of a publicity hound, has ties to Jeffrey Epstein and is now being accused of plagiarism herself in her doctoral dissertation.

But it’s different, you see, let him tell you how in 75,000 words …

it is happening again

It’s even worse than we thought.

Don’t believe the spin. Once you break through typical Washington math, the true total programmatic spending level is $1.658 trillion — not $1.59 trillion.

This is total failure. https://t.co/QBok5lpa6E

— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) January 7, 2024

Oh shit a tiny bit more oh shit oh shit oh shit

The largest items by far in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and defense/national security. Which ones are they going to cut?

they are going to cut costs by simply killing poor and old ppl, this should make benefits cuts less painful.

Oh, you know ;)

xp to jimbeaux

xxp Yes, this was the "Path to Prosperity" laid out by libertarian bro Paul Ryan.

Also, our national decline in lifespan is helping

see?

They will never, ever cut defense/national security.

thats where the social savings go, if not my pockets

we need security to save us from ourselves

to the extent "it's the the economy (vibes)", things are starting to improve a bit for biden

"In a good place"

US consumers' inflation expectations are back to where they were before the pandemic, per the NY Fed

Inflation is expected to rise 3% this year and 2.6% annually over 3 years (down from 5% and 3%, respectively, one year ago) https://t.co/eiB3NEA7j3 pic.twitter.com/8wXomhau4c

— Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) January 8, 2024

A few more tidbits from the New York Fed's consumer survey

• Home price expectations are basically back to prepandemic levels

• Households are looking a bit more optimistic about their personal financial situation

• Credit availability is no longer seen to be getting worse pic.twitter.com/SfDa4eYbjx

— Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) January 8, 2024

Jimbeaux is right. The Federal Government is basically a retirement plan that happens to have an army.

Freedom Caucus anti-"spending" hawks just want us to not also have stuff like the National Endowment for the Arts or the FDA or NIH or museums or, I dunno, joy.

It remains true that if you zeroed out ALL of what gets called "discretionary spending," everything would still be massively fucked. Indeed, it would all be worse. Because, as flawed as government is, a lot of the time it is at least trying to do the right thing. In a lot of spaces, governments are the only entity that us even bothering to work on behalf of the downtrodden. Because it's in no one else's self-interest.

at one point in time, conservatives were rightfully seen by the public as the joyless people that liked working to death, going to church, resting on Sundays, writing letters to tv networks asking to ban whatever tv show offended them, being afraid of technology, etc. easier then for liberals to paint themselves as "free spirits", uninhibited by the social mores of the Moral Majority.

conservatives still are a joyless people but somehow they've convinced everybody they're the fun guys. it's been truly a thing to see.

they try to ban things more than ever now, but convinced everybody that liberals do all the banning through cancel culture. they still whine about how vehicles are too computerized and how new tractors are overcomplicated, but they learned to like technology because it made their stock values go up due to decreased overhead. they hold the latter opinion while still complaining all day that they can't ever speak to a human being in a call center.

They don't actually care about working to death anymore, they just fill their day with meetings where they talk about work and do very little, take tons of unneeded business trips, bill 100 hours anyway and brag about how hard they work, and still don't see their families, but somehow spin this as the proper alternative to those joyless, godless liberals who 'leave work and schools' to protest in the streets.

they also seem way more addicted to politics than any liberal while simultaneously criticizing liberals for overcomplicating life and not just being able to enjoy it. they spend hours of time watching political junkie tv, talk radio, tweeting about politics, talking about it at the dinner table, going around the country to attend rallies by the same politicians, boycotting products made by woke people. like the entirety of their personality is their tribal political identity, and there's little beneath the surface, but they will tell you THEY'RE the fun guys and the liberals are the ones who hate fun.

I think Democrats should really lean hard on many of these "hawks" voted for Trump's tax cut for rich people, which was predicted at the time to massively inflate the deficit/debt and has done that (along with the pandemic etc of course).

Nobody who talks about debt or deficits without putting taxes on the table is remotely serious about debt and deficits, but we all know that and I know why it's hard for the Dems to just say that because that plays into them being "tax and spenders" or whatever. But it still needs to be said.

I get what you're trying to say Neanderthal but I don't think the act is all that convincing. like haven't there been studies down on how nobody wants to date/hang out with conservatives anymore

Second Trump term will bring a “You have to date me or you’ll go to jail” executive order

Neanderthal's topic - the strange way the right has repackaged joy and fun - is interesting, and I would like to subscribe to his newsletter

they try to ban things more than ever now, but convinced everybody that liberals do all the banning through cancel culture. they still whine about how vehicles are too computerized and how new tractors are overcomplicated, but they learned to like technology because it made their stock values go up due to decreased overhead. they hold the latter opinion while still complaining all day that they can't ever speak to a human being in a call center.

They don't actually care about working to death anymore, they just fill their day with meetings where they talk about work and do very little, take tons of unneeded business trips, bill 100 hours anyway and brag about how hard they work, and still don't see their families, but somehow spin this as the proper alternative to those joyless, godless liberals who 'leave work and schools' to protest in the streets.

From today's NYT about how evangelism has changeD:

The early months of the coronavirus pandemic, when churches suspended in-person worship under quarantine orders and in many cases began livestreaming services on Facebook and YouTube, produced lasting transformations in habits. Some once-faithful attendees now join services online, in some cases sampling the streamed offerings of churches far from home. Others simply never got back in the habit of attending at all.

And the schedules of blue-collar jobs and youth sports no longer consider Sunday mornings sacrosanct, making regular attendance more difficult for working people and families.

Tricia Shuffty, 42, a Republican-leaning independent in Lucas County, said she voted mostly on “biblical issues.” But “unfortunately, I work Sundays,” Ms. Shuffty, a security guard, said, “so I don’t get to go to church regularly.”

Clergy and religion experts are quick to note that people who have left church, or did not attend in the first place, have not necessarily abandoned religion. Evangelicalism has long had an individualistic strain that resists the idea that personal faith requires church attendance. Many people whose connection to organized religion has eroded continue to strongly identify as Christians.

But the drop-off has had impacts far beyond individual spirituality. As ties to church communities have weakened, the church leaders who once rallied the faithful behind causes and candidates have lost influence. A new class of thought leaders has filled the gap: social media personalities and podcasters, once-fringe prophetic preachers and politicians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/us/politics/donald-trump-evangelicals-iowa.html

lol at voting on "biblical issues.”

Just say abortion, coward

You know, I’d somehow almost forgotten that we have to do this potential government shutdown thing again

government shutdown threats, along with the debt ceiling, are a good natural experiment to check in on our collective amnesia. yep, still there!

like the entirety of their personality is their tribal political identity, and there's little beneath the surface, but they will tell you THEY'RE the fun guys and the liberals are the ones who hate fun.

The fun is in the hating, and both/all sides have gotten to varying degrees comfortable with this

it is happening again

Collins: Does that include potentially moving to oust Speaker Johnson from his job?

Roy: Again, that's not the road I prefer…

Collins: You said you don't prefer it, but you did not say no. pic.twitter.com/59IqeIoLlo

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 9, 2024

What gets said and what gets done proceed upon similar, but separate, calculations.

Surprise Hunter Biden appearance on Capitol Hill! This has truly become a shitty reality TV show.

'become'

"You're the epitome of white privilege, coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of?" Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said just after he entered the room.

LOL

I know nothing matters, but the democrats on this committee are clearly furious and absolutely lighting up the other side today.

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1745117537174523975

Crockett to Republicans: "Let me tell you why nobody wants to talk to you behind closed doors -- because y'all lie." pic.twitter.com/Iby1cyGY9P

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 10, 2024

I'm an instant fan of Jasmine Crockett. "y'all don't know what white privilege is".

Daaaaamn.

the truncated version of the quote Rupar gives doesn't do it justice. she goes in hard on it.

GOSAR: An inquiry is a search

RASKIN: And what's been found?

GOSAR: There's stuff there

RASKIN: Can you share it with us?

GOSAR: *word salad* pic.twitter.com/i4k76qlGD2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 10, 2024

"Word salad" is more coherent than that

Bars

"there's stuff there" sounds like what my mother would say after I claimed I cleaned off the dinner table

never sure what "Democrat goes off for the cameras and we feel great about it" really accomplishes but OTOH I was jumping out of my chair for Rep. Jasmine Crockett

it'll help with Crockett's fundraising

yeah

if only the rest of the party could state things that plainly

I think that kind of calling out bullshit does accomplish some things. The persistent fact-based Democratic pushback to these idiot House inquiries really has made the GOP look bad, to the extent that even some Fox hosts have pestered Comer about not really having found anything.

Plus of course it feels good to watch.

Giving me little dopamine hits, there's worse things that members of Congress can do.

Plus, not much a party in the minority can do but call out bullshit.

I'm just happy she called out that bullshit weaponizing of the term "white privilege". the offensive practice of Republicans weaponizing and intentionally misusing the terminology of "SJWs" in an attempt to strip the words of their power is no surprise, but they need to be told to sit down and shut the fuck up every time, publicly, by someone who knows how

Gosar comes off like Bobby Moynihan's "Drunk Uncle" character on SNL.

xpost I don't even care if everybody laughs at the person afterwards. it's just important to me as a person that people keep standing up for what's right, regardless of whether it brings about any meaningful change (though obviously that's a hope too!)

“The minority”

Christie's ending his campaign.

He was running?

big shocker there

He can’t get hired doing sports talk radio, had to do something with that time

As much as I dislike the guy, he was, afaiu, the last remaining R running that hasn't sworn fealty to Trump no matter what.

He was running?

Campaigning. I think we all know Chris Christie does not run.

you do not "gotta hand it to em"

Not handing anything to him at all, it was just nice to have at least one thorn in Trump's side along to needle him, if nothing else.

the last remaining R running that hasn't sworn fealty to Trump no matter what

yeah, but he was a slobbering lapdog until Trump rejected him

Christ people, I wasn't trying to campaign for the dipshit. It's just bleak to realize the rest of the campaign season will feature nothing but GOPers ass tonguing Trump. Christie's digs at Trump were at least mildly entertaining in the debates.

I don't think the digs will end - he'll just be a freelance pundit now, CNN will invite him all the time to talk shit on Trump

Yeah, if anything he'll be even more inescapable now. One cable network or another will just hire him (he used to be property of ABC, maybe they'll take him back).

Nick Saban’s retiring, time to test my theory that gets 400 EVs running as a Democrat. Break the solid south!

Oh, come the fuck on now

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/florida-school-district-removes-dictionaries-sexual-content_n_659ef171e4b0e696b9109285/amp

https://i.imgflip.com/7ixp9c.jpg

oops sorry for the irrelevant caption there

Wondered if end-to-end encryption was a sly ref to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dkc6tt3RvE

In a statement to The Messenger, a representative for the Escambia County School District said calling the book removals a “ban” is inaccurate.

“The 1,000+ books they reference have not been banned or removed from the school district,” the spokesperson said. “Rather, they have simply been pulled for further review to ensure compliance with the new legislation. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous and counterproductive.”

That's right. They haven't been removed. They've just been . . . pulled. Temporarily.

Not banned, just the victim of a chilling effect. Got it.

So the Dems have themselves several campaign ads based on Trump's glee last night at the overruling of Roe v. Wade, eh?

Looking up dirty words in the dictionary a time-honored tradition btw.

The books haven't been removed, they've just been (looks up "removed" in the thesaurus) ... abolished? No, not that. Retired? Gotten rid of? So many options.

We have consciously uncoupled ourselves from these problematic tomes

surprised they didn't say "we set boundaries, and it is not our place to help you if you continue to violate these boundaries" and call us all abusive

"allowing your child to read this book violates a boundary of ours. we are standing up to you on this and we ask that you respect our wishes for your child"

"It is not our job to educate you on why your children cannot read these books. Please do not ask us to perform unpaid labor."

Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade: I did it. I’m proud to have done it. It was a miracle pic.twitter.com/4SRaUFHqd1

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 11, 2024

you're probably gonna be seeing this in a lot of commercials

That and the Chip Roy quote from November: "One thing: I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did. One!” Then he dared any Republicans in the room to come to the floor and “explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done.”

My Trumpy uncle died, so I flew out east for the funeral. I think that whole segment of our small family is pretty Trumpy, and also generally very easy to ignore. But I will be forced to socialize with them tomorrow, and my mom told me not to bring up anything about politics. She told me she was talking with my aunt today, who said that my aunt's brother wouldn't be able to fly to the funeral from Arizona, because it's hard to get a ticket, since so many of the planes are in use by the government, full of illegal immigrants being sent east on taxpayer dimes. Like, wtf?

My first instinct was to skip the funeral entirely, but then I thought, well, I haven't seen most of these people for around 10 years, I may never see them again, or want to see them again, but it's only a few hours.

might be a great time to learn about the NFL playoffs

Sounds like your aunt's brother came up with a pretty good excuse for not going, one that you surely could have used as well. No Trumper worth their salt is gonna challenge that one.

It's always possible to listen to a relative's Trumpy grievances, keep one's mouth shut, look serious and nod in a non-committal sort of way, then try to change the subject. Repeat as needed until your escape. As you leave do not look back.

That's the plan.

I saw my aunt's brother for the first time and probably 40 years back in early 2020, he found out I was living in California and started railing against pelosi, and I immediately changed the subject by saying "what's really got me in a twist is how LA now has two NFL teams and I keep forgetting one of them is even there!" We had a solid chuckle over that. At the end of the hangout he lit his 10th smoke, gave me a clap on the back, and said "I'll see ya later kid." And drove off in his truck.

The very trumpy South side CPD-affiliated half of my Chicago family

Don’t know how you all do it, honestly.

It's always possible to listen to a relative's Trumpy grievances, keep one's mouth shut, look serious and nod in a non-committal sort of way, then try to change the subject. Repeat as needed until your escape.

Also known as “being a Midwesterner”

Apply externally. Not intended for internal use. Do not continue if you experience feelings of nausea, dizziness or self-loathing.

My sympathies, Josh. My nuclear family will talk to you about Hunter Biden and what he did to inflation, Israel, and the border.

Yeah, fuck Joe Biden.

Wasting my tax money, importing illegal immigrants, raising the price of gas and meat, taking away my guns. For God's sake, cutting the military budget to next to nothing!

Yeah, fuck Joe Biden.

An hour ago I was in mild traffic behind one of those Ford LeBehemoth trucks with LET's GO BRANDON and FUCK YOUR FEELINGS bumper stickers and I at last understood Florida's Stand Your Ground law b/c I wanted to shoot his nut sack.

I've been tempted to buy a bunch of bumper stickers to cover up those bumper stickers on people's trucks

lol Alfred

I think Trump is gonna start going after Haley in a big way.. he's already hinted at the birther shit, pretty soon he'll say she's 'not my type' and maybe make a reference to curry

We don’t need to ghostwrite his racism

*hums the line to "Another Brick in the Wall" chorus*

xps A childhood friend of mine descended into Trumpism as a result of the far-right evangelicalism that took hold of him in adulthood. We weren't exactly close, but it seemed like no one wanted to say anything about his politics until one day he spoke up in angry defense of Richard Spencer. Finally someone did, it took him a bit to get it, and there was no apology. At that point quite a few people including myself stopped putting ourselves in a position where we had to listen to him.

*By that time we weren't exactly close

Both my relatives who were openly supportive of Trump have had to be put into assisted living because of dementia. It makes me sad that the last semi-cognizant things I heard from people I love was bullshit about him.

Both people I know who descended into MAGAhood were kind of blandly ‘white libertarian dad’ guys who got off on the ‘ain’t I a stinker’ vibe of being pro-Trump in 2016. Not ideologically committed to any particular project but then they just started consuming all the Trump media.

One was a guy I grew up with, he still had a wife and social life when I befriended him on social media.

The other grew up with some of my friends and burned every bridge he could - alienated those lifelong friends, got divorced, quit his job because the company was “too politically correct.” Complete descent into madness.

Defriended, I befriended him at a Christian ska-punk show in 7th grade.

These family members I'm going to see today fall under the category of educated, relatively young, well-off assholes. I mean, my aunt is old and dumb, and my uncle died of complications due to dementia - he was in a home - but my cousins and their families, I don't know what's gotten into them. I don't have much of a social media presence myself, but one of my cousins, her husband, at one point his Instagram account followed so much insane shit I first thought it was a joke.

Tbf I haven't seen them in person since 2017, and in person they were fine back then. Maybe they have gotten worse, maybe they just have the discipline to keep their opinions in check.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/01/10/psst-joe-biden-has-solved-the-student-debt-crisis/

Seems like a big improvement over REPAYE.

Predictably, this has sent conservative media into histrionics. “Unlike Biden’s other student debt cancellation proposals, there’s very little chance the Supreme Court will block it,” an apoplectic Fox News column observed. The Wall Street Journal fretted that SAVE would “make forgiveness a permanent part of the student-loan system.”

Nice

btw, lest the opportunity go missed, I can think of a thousand good names for Christian ska-punk bands.

the entire MAGA wing of my family (my fathers' side) basically disowned me via FB (not that I'd heard one peep from any of them personally since he died in 1997) over posts about George Floyd and BLM.

good morning!

Where’s the jail terms?

the one ex-friend I had that descended into MAGA-dom wrote a long, lengthy screed defending (extremely angrily) the protests at Charlottesville. Worst thing is he was Jewish.

(sorry for clumsy wording, really meant 'most ridiculous thing about that is he was Jewish and defending Nazis')

Oh man

Worst thing is he was Jewish.

Was his last name Miller?

It’s the large-scale debt relief activists have spent years fighting for. Why are they badmouthing it?

Because that's what makes them "the left."

As far I know, I have no MAGA family members.. but a drummer I played with decades ago has apparently fully descended into that world, and now lives way up a gravel road and doesn't want visitors. I'm told his wife got him into it. It's sad, he was a sweet skater/punker/artist kid when we were friends but everyone who still knows him says he's gone bonkers. I'm not on FB so I don't see his paranoid screeds

the years I was heavily into theatre greatly skewed my list, also I tended to be a loudmouthed leftist screecher for years so anybody who was right-wing usually blocked me. so the conspiracy theories that filled my feed were left-wing ones like BEWARE THE TELLTALE SIGNS OF ASPARTAME POISONING

my older brother isn't quite MAGA, he says he despises Trump but is way into far-right media and often repeats Tucker Carlson talking points verbatim. he's often got into political fights with the rest of the family (everyone else is pretty liberal, outside of my Dad), but Covid I think broke his brain for good, and honestly I think it's really affected him, not to mention our relationship. I haven't really had a real conversation with him in years. it's sad. the other day I realized that if my parents and little brother weren't around anymore I'd probably just never see him again.

I don't remember if I shared this doleful anecdote, but taking my nieces to lunch in November and singing along to Nicki Minaj's Barbie single I asked them if they'd seen the film. "Too woke," the oldest said. "Papa is obsessed with three things: #woke, Biden, and Ohio." I almost drove my car off the road. It has, I must say, discolored our relationship insofar as I can't look at this courteous man and excellent husband the same way. He knows my leftism -- I'm not a social media wallflower -- so I suppose it's a tribute to his courtesy and excellence that not once in 16 years has he started a political discussion. Not a one.

My parents, however.

My one good friend who went MAGA probably did it because life didn't hand him things on a silver platter and his resentment boiled over. But he was always a bit cold around the heart, probably. His default was to be "logical". I think w/him there was a pathology at play and I think for so many of the MAGA types, maybe the "smarter" ones even moreso, it's not a Trump thing or a USA thing, it's a pathological trait independent of our current idiotic nationalism and xenophobia. If they were reincarnated in a past dictatorship or future dystopia, they'd fall into goose-step quickly.

xp Ohio?

He's from Ohio.

#Woke is such a phantom.. nobody can quite agree what it is, but they know it's bad, real bad

Like "critical race theory," it's anything white parents think makes their children even a little bit uncomfortable.

yea a year ago at some family event my brother went on this weird rant about how the new Batman movie was too woke, even as someone who kinda understood what he was trying to say I thought it was incredibly weird, I can only imagine how the other people there felt about it. you have to be so tapped into these weird rightwing mediasphere to understand a single word these people say right now.

I've rehearsed future inevitable confrontations, most of which end with my asking, "So you don't want the girls to be as gay as me, is that it"

He'll deny it and pass a lie detector. These guys here so much claptrap on the radio that facing the Embodiment of Woke in their own family is a possibility they don't cosnider.

My Trumper uncle has just devolved into nonsensical posts filled with MAGA jargon. A recent example was him inexplicably posting a link to an article about Barbie debuting on Max and captioning it, "See I told you people, go woke go broke!". Uh, yep, dude, that most definitely apples to a wildly successful movie that made a gajillion dollars and was the number one grossing movie of the year. They don't even care that it's meaningless drivel, they just want to signal their hatred for "the left" even if it's totally incoherent.

Who was it who shot up a case of Bud Light when the MAGA crowd lost their shit over the company working with some transgender influencer? Kid Rock?

Yep, that was the idiot.

what was hilarious about that is that his 'boycott' of Bud Light only lasted a few months, idk seems like if you made big waves shooting up a case of beer it would be real easy to not be photographed drinking that same beer, but alas

equally hilarious that all these conservatives were openly celebrating Modelo taking over Bud Light's top spot temporarily, even though they're both owned by the same company

pretty helpful reminder that nearly all this shit is purely for show, they don't really believe or care about any of it

Kid Rock, a/k/a Robert James Richie, was born in my dad's hometown of Romeo, Michigan. His parents owned the local Ford dealership. He is a completely fake redneck.

If you guys are tired of Woke movies like Barbie, I've got a comedy for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py2MzGtmaJ0

(invoked that little gem on the Arm0nd thread)

Oh lord

reviews - "lol, they set out to trigger the libs and trigger they did"

me - "i haven't even heard of this fucking movie"

I'm embarrassed for anyone who took part in that.

Except the Daily Wire. Fuck those guys.

It's wild that the thing that right-wingers are most upset at corporations about is bland DEI messaging. There are so many other things to be mad at them about!

Like what, imperialism?

“A woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.”
- Barry Goldwater

“Men (who are anti-abortion) should keep their asses out of doctor’s offices. That’s something between the pregnant woman and her doctor.”
- Barry Goldwater

there's a whole story about how abortion became a conservative issues.. it wasn't always so; true conservatives like Goldwater ^^^^ would consider it a private issue. But they knew they needed a unifying battle to round up the evangelicals, and this turned out to be it

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” Nixon told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”

the crazy thing about that "Lady Ballers" movie is that like 90% of the marketing is about how nobody else had the guts to make a movie like this which completely ignores the fact that "Juwanna Mann" was made 20 years ago and used to be played on Comedy Central all the time. also it was fucking terrible.

I think the difference is that Lady Ballers' cast is mostly white.

Right-wingers should not try to do humor.

what about Larry the Cable Guy?

Right-wingers should not try to do humor.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux),

what, you don't like Kelsey Grammar?

Eh

Goldwaters’ wife Margaret was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood in Arizona. She was from Muncie and her family started Warner Gear which ended up a big part of GM at some point.

Goldwater was an insane radical, but he he some great quotes to shove in conservatives' faces

'he has'

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/01/10/psst-joe-biden-has-solved-the-student-debt-crisis/

Seems like a big improvement over REPAYE.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek)

thanks for this link, caek

Reagan was not against abortion until he realized he could make money writing creepy horror fiction about it

Yeah the story of the right’s turn from indifference to or active support for abortion is of course explained (as lots of things are) by the right’s embrace of/by white evangelicals.

I was at a Taco Bell today and was parked next to one of those assholes with a "Choose Life" license plate, and worse, it was a vanity tag with custom plate number "UNBRN".

took me five minutes to talk myself out of doing things to that vehicle

Lesson learned, I had a great time with my family. Didn't hear anything weird from them, everyone is someone I'd hang out with again. Go figure. I guess years of passive social media had distorted my opinion. Granted, they may be Trumpies, but they didn't show their hands.

they would probably be small

personally I would put on extra bumper stickers that said "Choose a job" and "Choose a family" and "Choose a big fucking television"

lol Prez

If George Michael could wear that shirt, it's good enough for me.

lol Keyes

Along the Goldwater quotes, Reagan has some great ones to shove in their faces

I supported this bill. I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.
- Ronald Reagan

For one, we very much need in any immigration bill - we need protection for people who are in this country and who have not become citizens, for example, that they are protected and legitimized and given permanent residency here. And we want to see some things of that kind added to the immigration bill.
- Ronald Reagan

i feel like "good old socially liberal right wing cunts from 30 years ago" is a standard international lie for right wingers nowadays

what happened to Ramaswamy? Did he go missing?

The details of that new student loan debt repayment/forgiveness program make me wonder why I haven't heard a peep about it in the regular media or on ilx for that matter. From caek's linked article:

SAVE is more than a consolation prize. The plan is a more legally secure vehicle for keeping payments manageable while delivering billions in debt forgiveness. For the nearly 3 million low-income Americans who have already seen their monthly payments slashed to zero, the program is working just like conventional forgiveness. It has the benefit, too, of making “forgiveness a permanent part of the student-loan system,” as the Journal put it, instead of canceling debt once without putting an ongoing forgiveness program in place for future borrowers.

Andy: Perhaps Ramaswany swam away

The details of that new student loan debt repayment/forgiveness program make me wonder why I haven't heard a peep about it in the regular media or on ilx for that matter.

Because it's an unambiguously good thing that Biden deserves credit for?

Can't post it from where I am, but very good letter from Pritzker to Abbott down in Texas, about the inhumanity of sending migrant families, many without coats or any winter gear, on buses to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a cold snap in Chicago. People are going to die.

The cruelty is the point.

There’s an “environmental americorps” type program that launched last year, a Biden/Harris joint. I think I found out about it accidentally through one of their Instagram pages. Never heard a peep about elsewhere, got almost no reaction when I posted about it on FB. (I *think* I posted about it on ILE, don’t remember a reaction.)

There’s nothing sticky or sexy or viral about actually doing stuff for people.

“I guess” is how that final sentence should’ve started.

This is why, when Biden signed that THC decriminalizing executive order (I think), I had a rant about whether or not it happened if no one could be bothered to notice it

And even IF newspaper editors devote some ink to these things, did they happen if cable news didn’t shout about them? And even if they did, etc etc

If Biden decriminalized THC but no one could remember, did it really happen?

Far out, man.

lol

This is a time when having a bunch of online foot soldiers would pay off. Remember that viral post from 2017 about "100 Trump Achievements" from his first 100 days (or six months or some bullshit) and it was all stuff like "Denied the FBI a new office building" and Obama rollbacks?

Frankly, I don’t care what he’s done that’s good. The guy keeps bypassing Congressional approval to give arms to genocidaires while killing people in another country to protect shipping containers.

Biden probably gave the FBI that building too,

We've reached the "Obama pushed the Affordable Care Act and targeted the killing of an American citizen and his son" part of the reelection campaign.

Oh! I always get those two mixed up!

If Biden decriminalized THC but no one could remember, did it really happen?

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes)

If you remember when Biden decriminalized THC, you weren't really there.

What’s that man?
The Inflation Reduction Act, man!
Well, turn it up, man!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nikki-haley-fares-best-against-biden-2024-presidential-election-poll/

Such is the state of things that I can see polls like this and still hope Haley (or anyone else who is technically polling better than him) somehow eliminates Trump from contention, even if the numbers say Trump is the one the GOP should least want on their ticket

So, yeah, I guess fully “anyone but Trump” indeed

I want him in jail, and I want him voted out of office in November. I want it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_k5CSYKhg

I was thinking Eve's Plum

It should go without saying - others on these threads have said it! - that I’m hardly Captain Save-A-Biden here. I don’t think he’s perfect, or that any politician is perfect, and I’m less advocating for him to be universally beloved and more wanting policies and acts that can help people to be recognized and respected. More than anything, though, I just want Trump to be drummed out of American life and to avoid any Republican inspired or in fealty to him to take the White House. Period.

So do I. The damage is permanent, though. The so-called fever will not break even if he should drop dead this afternoon. Why would it? Since the Nixon era the GOP has dreamed about winning elections without bothering to court Dems and by campaigning on wanton cruelty. They reached their goal.

I mean:

The reason to vote blue.

Please repost.#TrumpCult #TrumpCultLife #VoteBlue pic.twitter.com/DmtVMQxDba

— Jamison Eklund (@HotMoozik) January 14, 2024

Another pull from those recent polls:

CBS News Poll: % of Americans who believe they will be financially better off if (X) wins in 2024.

Trump: 49%
Biden: 21% pic.twitter.com/SGbwUYuRjP

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) January 14, 2024

Why are people so dumb about "the economy." For a "top priority," they sure don't bother trying to understand it in the least. It's almost like crediting a president with rain or sun — which I suppose some people do, too.

Trump voters want a dictator, but they'll settle for a dick.

Why are people so dumb about "the economy." For a "top priority," they sure don't bother trying to understand it in the least. It's almost like crediting a president with rain or sun — which I suppose some people do, too.

"If Trump is reelected, our apple harvest will improve!"

https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/christopher-lee-had-to-take-promoting-the-wicker-man-into-his-own-hands/l-intro-1659819570.jpg

genuinely baffling that the Dems cannot find a way to counter this narrative, especially since Trump's "tax cut" was almost exclusively for the top 1%, written in a way so that the middle class's taxes would actually go up the moment he left office, they weren't being coy with any of this either. not to mention all the biggest economic crashes of my life happened under Republican presidents, while all the recoveries happened under Dems, like how the hell can they not capitalize on this

Btw, that same poll:

More than 80% of Republican primary voters agree with Trump's statement that immigrants illegally entering the US are "poisoning the blood" of the country, per new CBS News polling pic.twitter.com/iPUkjfJH5s

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 14, 2024

The weird pretense that inflation was somehow an American phenomenon that can be attributed to Biden policies rather than a global phenomenon clearly attributable to pandemic disruptions, it's just so stupid. But most Americans of course have no idea what's going on anywhere else in the world.

Trump voters want a dictator, but they'll settle for a dick.

Letting the child tax credit expire was dumb

This willis shit in GA deeply pisses me off.

The least interesting primary season of our lifetimes starts tomorrow!

Let me just say that if poisoning my blood means that I don't need to endure the next year of US politics, then please give me a lovely pint glass full of that sweet sweet poison

This willis shit in GA deeply pisses me off.

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved)

Are we all still convinced this won't be a problem?

Yes

Nope

Maybe

Ask again later

Reply hazy, try again

It is certain

signs point to yeesh

Good evening!

The neighbors are watching.

Why The World Is Betting Against American Democracy
Ambassadors to Washington warn that the GOP-Democratic divide is endangering America’s national security.

When I asked the European ambassador to talk to me about America’s deepening partisan divide, I expected a polite brushoff at best. Foreign diplomats are usually loath to discuss domestic U.S. politics.

Instead, the ambassador unloaded for an hour, warning that America’s poisonous politics are hurting its security, its economy, its friends and its standing as a pillar of democracy and global stability.

The U.S. is a “fat buffalo trying to take a nap” as hungry wolves approach, the envoy mused. “I can hear those Champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day.”

As voters cast ballots in the Iowa caucuses Monday, many in the United States see this year’s presidential election as a test of American democracy. But, in a series of conversations with a dozen current and former diplomats, I sensed that to many of our friends abroad, the U.S. is already failing that test.

The diplomats are aghast that so many U.S. leaders let their zeal for partisan politics prevent the basic functions of government. It’s a major topic of conversations at their private dinners and gatherings. Many of those I talked to were granted anonymity to be as candid with me as they are with each other.

For example, one former Arab ambassador who was posted in the U.S. during both Republican and Democratic administrations told me American politics have become so unhealthy that he’d turn down a chance to return.

“I don’t know if in the coming years people will be looking at the United States as a model for democracy,” a second Arab diplomat warned.

...

The current and former diplomats said their countries are more reluctant to sign deals with Washington because of the partisan divide. There’s worry that a new administration will abandon past agreements purely to appease rowdy electoral bases and not for legitimate national security reasons. The fate of the Iran nuclear deal was one example some mentioned.

“Foreign relations is very much based on trust, and when you know that the person that is in front of you may not be there or might be followed by somebody that feels exactly the opposite way, what is your incentive to do long-term deals?” a former Latin American diplomat asked.

...

“The world does not have time for the U.S. to rebound back,” the former Asian ambassador said. “We’ve gone from a unipolar world that we’re familiar with from the 1990s into a multipolar world, but the key pole is still the United States. And if that key pole is not playing the role that we want the U.S. to do, you’ll see alternative forces coming up.”

Russia’s diplomats, meanwhile, are among those delighting in the U.S. chaos (and fanning it). The Eastern European ambassador said the Russians had long warned their counterparts not to trust or rely on Washington.

And now what do they say? “We told you so.”

I'm very sure that'll improve under Trump 2.0

“I don’t know if in the coming years people will be looking at the United States as a model for democracy,” a second Arab diplomat warned.

Some scary irony here.

“I can hear those Champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day.” for permanent thread title going forward

“Partisan divide” is such a stupid, unhelpful, and not surprising at all way to force some sorta symmetric framing of the problem.

We’ve seen what “bipartisan” efforts over the last 25 have resulted in.

The U.S. getting ever closer to embracing and achieving dictatorship?

xp

Yeah, I am sure all our allies would be cool with an America 100% unified behind a Republican autocrat agenda.

You’ll have a bunch of new allies, I’m sure.

president is who can carry most pizza box https://t.co/pd7srKMIpf

— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) January 15, 2024

tweets like that, and the fact that such accounts can prosper, make me glad I'm done with twitter

https://jacobin.com/2024/01/nikki-haley-south-carolina-scandal-mismanagement

@maxwelltani
Per two sources, Sen. John Fetterman is working on a memoir focusing on his political rise and struggles with mental health. The book is titled "Unfettered," and will be co-written with author Buzz Bissinger. Crown is publishing.

now there's a name I haven't heard in a bit

I told y'all that people aren't paying attention:

Even as the Biden reelection campaign forges ahead with preparations for another potential general election match-up between Biden and his predecessor, it is grappling with a stubborn reality: The majority of undecided voters simply do not seem to believe – at least not yet – that Donald Trump is likely to be the Republican presidential nominee.

According to the campaign’s internal research, this is the case for most of the undecided voters that the campaign is targeting – nearly three-in-four of them, senior Biden campaign officials told CNN. Those officials said one of the biggest reasons driving this is the simple fact that many voters are not paying close attention to the election, including the ins and outs of the GOP nomination process.

“You can’t conceive of how tuned out these folks are,” one senior campaign official said.

To that end, Biden campaign officials see the task of helping voters recognize that Trump is a strong frontrunner as one of their most important and urgent challenges, with the first GOP caucus in Iowa now just days away. A key part of that work is painting a vivid picture of what a second term of a Trump White House would look like.

“You can’t conceive of how tuned out these folks are" for the February thread title.

yeah why wouldn’t you be paying attention to the twists and turns of pre-primary season, as narrated by the worst people on earth every afternoon on cable news, such relevant shit being discussed 24/7

I don't think you have to be paying that much attention to realize that Trump is the likely Republican nominee--even if he is convicted of multiple felonies before the election.

But they aren't! I had a conversation with a gay pal last weekend, a smart guy, but who absolutely doesn't believe Trump and Biden will be the nominees -- and not in the rhetorical "I can't believe we're stuck with two old dudes!" way.

idk two of the biggest pieces of election news, like actual election news, were that trump was thrown off the ballot in two states so

xp Did you ask him who he thinks will be the nominees?

xp Who does he think will be the nominees?

That's the point: he doesn't pay attention. He simply can't believe Biden will get renominated and primary voters will elect Trump. He's an online politics dork like us.

*he's NOT

Sounds like the type of voter who won't feel motivated to get to the polls in November

I know there are a lot of people who are in a hard, daily struggle to survive in this economy - they’re focused on work and their families. But that ain’t everyone and it never fails to amaze me how unaware so many people are of the political life of their nation.

Nah, I gave him my best lecture -- and I bought the two rounds off drinks. I'll drive him if necessary.

xpost

"Do They Know Who the Nominees Are?" - Band-Aid

BLEEEED DA WOOOOORRLD

Maybe if we convinced Taylor Swift to cut a single with that title and theme

Isn't that why the right wing is in a froth about her?

Not to be rude but I question how smart this guy is if he’s saying shit like “I don’t think Biden will run again”

Well really I absolutely mean to be rude, just not to you, Alfred

Hell, we got people on these threads wondering why Biden wouldn't resign or the DNC not nominate him.

We have pundits wondering that stuff too

I am kind of on board with reinstating political literacy tests to allow people to vote, if I’m being totally honest. Just give them to everyone, not just the Black people.

I mean, like, when in America history does a presidential nominee resign or not seek renomination to watch his party keep the White House? Rutherford Hayes?

last night I was out and they announced Trump had won Iowa during the halftime report...a couple people were genuinely surprised by that

I was mildly surprised that DeSantis came in second. I thought his campaign was on life support. I guess Haley hasn't done herself any favors recently.

I mean, Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016, so it's not a lock, but Jesus, unless Trump literally dies he will be the nominee.

Santorum win in 2012.

In 2020, Biden explicitly left open the possibility of not seeking a second term. So it's not like it was just wishful thinking. He didn't commit to it, but it was in the conversation. And he probably meant it, at least in the sense of, "if I have a stroke or something."

He shouldn't be running, but here we are.

xp
DeSantis visited all 99 counties, which I think got him some extra votes, but he can't do that everywhere.

I didn't believe it for a nanosecond. Biden, whatever else, has been in politics since 1974. xpost

Yes he has. Sigh.

I am kind of on board with reinstating political literacy tests to allow people to vote, if I’m being totally honest. Just give them to everyone, not just the Black people.

Was talking about this with my wife last night. It should be a quiz about current events. You should have to answer a series of 20 true-false questions about events that happened (or didn't happen) in America during the previous four years. If you get, say, 80 percent of them right, you get to vote.

He's not an online politics dork like us

yeah but you have to be exceptionally tuned out, head in the sand delusional or have been in a coma to not believe that Biden is running.

You should have to answer a series of 20 true-false questions about events that happened (or didn't happen) in America during the previous four years. If you get, say, 80 percent of them right, you get to vote.

Question 1: Who won the presidential election in 2020?

1. Who is the Secretary of the Interior?
2. What was the 2022 U.S. GDP?
3. How many mass shooters in the past five years were named Dylan?

Or, if you want to make it true/false: Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020.

False: He won it when Obama picked him as his running mate

I get constant emails like this from Democratic organizations. Are they effective? They sure aren't with me; I find them annoying as fuck. But I guess they're part of keeping the sense of urgency stoked.

James, after Trump’s blowout win in the Iowa GOP caucus last night, he’s leaving President Biden in the DUST! Don’t abandon Biden now: Add your name immediately to endorse his reelection!

SIGN NOW: ENDORSE PRESIDENT BIDEN

IF Democrats like you get complacent, President Biden will be completely ABANDONED just months ahead of his critical rematch against Trump!

AND IF we don’t hit our 5,000 signature goal by MIDNIGHT, Trump and his stooges will laugh in our faces and plow even further ahead in the polls!

SO WE’RE BEGGING YOU to step up at this make-or-break moment: Don’t LOSE your signature spot, add your name to endorse President Biden and be on the right side of history in 2024! »
CLOSING AT MIDNIGHT: ENDORSE PRESIDENT BIDEN »

Thank you. We need you more than ever!

Team VPP

Haley's at it again!

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Tuesday that the United States has never been a “racist” country, rejecting a suggestion that she might have trouble becoming the GOP presidential nominee as a woman of color.

In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Haley whether she thinks the GOP is a “racist party.”

“No. We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country,” Haley said in response.

i diligently unsubscribed from every single political mailing list several years ago they are all annoying and pointless

I mean, I'm flattered that the president wants my endorsement and all.

yeah but you have to be exceptionally tuned out, head in the sand delusional or have been in a coma to not believe that Biden is running.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm),

No, no -- his mind reels that Biden will be the nominee without his stepping down or without the DNC waving a wand and replacing him.

i diligently unsubscribed from every single political mailing list several years ago they are all annoying and pointless

I gave Jon Tester $20 this year and now I'm getting emails from Tim Kaine, Katie Porter, and a few others. That's the part that annoys me. I can live with getting five emails a week from Tester; he's my Senator. But these other assholes? And James fucking Carville? Fuuuuuck off.

Trump is the likely Republican nominee--even if he is convicted of multiple felonies before the election.

Trump is the likely Republican nominee--ESPECIALLY if he is convicted of multiple felonies before the election.

Fify

The whole point of current R politics is the raised middle finger to normalcy.

And James fucking Carville?

Yeah, once you're in their system, they're relentless.... I wish I could just anonymously send a money order to they don't know who I am, not sure if that's legal for politics though

I get constant emails from Jon Tester, and I've been to Montana exactly twice in my life.

James,
Give me back my fingers!

last night I was out and they announced Trump had won Iowa during the halftime report...a couple people were genuinely surprised by that

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 16, 2024 6:19 PM bookmarkflaglink

he may have won it, but he's gonna get fucked with the taxes on that prize. that's what they don't tell you on these game shows

IF Democrats like you get complacent

like what even is this nonsense. like, if you're an organizer or someone who does phone banks and this time around you and other like-minded people decide not to volunteer, ok, yeah, that kinda 'complacency' would hurt, but the average person who gets that is just a regular voter. 'complacency' is merely not voting. your campaign is the one that can't be complacent. I can't make my face turn into a vote

I suspect many of the people who think Biden won't be the nominee aren't totally tuned out, but tuned in just enough to catch wind of the incessant discourse about Biden's age and mental capacity.

^^^ this

My sister, who lives in San Diego, is the ultimate undecided voter. She's basically a republican but told me that she doesn't think Trump will be the nominee because of his crimes and she couldn't vote for him, but she also thinks that Joe Biden is compromised by China (I tried to convince her otherwise), and that the economy isn't as good as we think.

There's no convincing her

I thought she would like Nikki Haley, but no, to her Haley is a warmonger. I have no idea who she will vote for. I think maybe she will sit out this election

There's always RFK Jr or Joe Manchin

Too bad Gus Hall is dead

i wish my brother George was here

maybe if national political parties want anyone to give a fuck they should stand up to the forces currently destroying society and the planet just an idea

We tried that and the result was the character assassination and hounding of a truly moral dude with the intent of removing him from public life and scorching the earth behind him.

maybe if national political parties want anyone to give a fuck they should stand up to the forces currently destroying society and the planet just an idea

A terse summary of where we are (and where the former president should be):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmNCMfE6BNU

"There's a difference between being indicted, and being found guilty by a jury of your PEE-ers."

I see what you did there, Chris Hayes. the pee tape is real and you're just holding it. Holding it, to release at just the right moment. It will be (to coin a phrase) a streaming video.

A shower of political gold, if you will.

A Pee-rfect Tape

Our only hope is an alien invasion.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4413162-trump-haley-tied-in-new-hampshire-poll/

this article graphically illustrates just how wildly inaccurate the Iowa Caucus has been as a predictor of an eventual White House victory.. like, in nearly 50 years it's almost always been wrong

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iowa-caucuses-predict-president-history/story?id=106131420

I totally forgot, or more likely purposely blocked out, the fact that Santorum won Iowa.

Who woulda guessed that IOWA wouldn't be a good predictor of what all Americans want?

makes me wonder why the Dems don't consider it a primary state anymore

Today in "Yeah, but what has Biden even actually done?":

BREAKING: The Biden administration is ending bank overdraft fees as we know them.

Under a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule, overdraft fees at large banks will be strictly regulated and capped as low as $3. Low-income Americans will save billions.

Banks typically charge $35 for overdraft fees even though most overdrafts are for less than $26 & are repaid within 3 days.

~23 million households pay overdraft fees in any given year. "This rule may save consumers $3.5 billion or more in fees per year."

Next GOP president will immediately yank that new rule, and be handsomely rewarded for doing so

It's been a bit better on the Democratic side. Iowa was where Obama's campaign caught fire.

Don't worry, the Supreme Court's ruling in Chevron v. NRDC will annihilate the CFPB's regulatory ability and your bank will be free to charge you $35 overdraft fees on that $2.79 purchase at the corner store

The invisible hand.

Well, one thing this thread needs is more doom posting.

well I mean, it's not about Trump this time

Hooray..?

Doom clap is the new boom clap

he wants to be Trump's running mate, or at least a cabinet post

An Oklahoma lawmaker is facing backlash for proposing a discriminatory bill that deems people of Hispanic descent as “terrorists”.

The Republican state representative JJ Humphrey introduced the bill, HB 3133, which seeks to combat problems in the state, such as drug and human trafficking, and lay out punishments to those who have committed these “acts of terrorism”.

The punishment for such a crime would be forfeiting all assets, including any and all property, vehicles and money.

In addition to “a member of a criminal street gang” and someone who “has been convicted of a gang-related offense”, the bill defines a terrorist as “any person who is of Hispanic descent living within the state of Oklahoma”.

Humphrey is the same asshole who said he was going to have Animal Control go into schools to pick up any kids dressed as furries.

has anyone, ever, seen a high school kid at school actually in their fursuit? like, how many could there possibly be?

I live down the street from a high school, and I'll occasionally see kids wearing sort of "Where the Wild Things Are" hooded animal costumes with tails.. but I don't think they're actual furries, just weird high school kids

“I got a call that they had one of the kids come in as a furry, as a cat,” said Humphrey. “To have this kind of nonsense going on in the school – we’re there to teach education, we’re not there to play games and play make up furries.”

...He got a call, you can't argue w/ that!

it ain't easy being an Oklahoma furry

It ain't easy teaching education to make up furries

As long as the schools are providing appropriate litter boxes, I don't see a problem.

One school's furry is another school's mascot.

Iirc they actually got to the bottom (so to speak) of that litter box story, and it was horrific. I think it was one of the schools that had a shooting, and part of their response was to have litter available in the classroom, in case the kids were trapped in there and they needed to use the bathroom.

makes sense

As long as the schools are providing appropriate litter boxes, I don't see a problem.

ALL GENDER litter boxes, please

Yikes, Josh, so sorry to hear that. I did not intend to trivialize the topic.

the bill defines a terrorist as “any person who is of Hispanic descent living within the state of Oklahoma”.

Qué pinche de mierda.

xpost lol sometimes it's just so fucked up you have to laugh.

Here's a whole insane timeline of the rumor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools_hoax

I guess the only documented instance of litter in classrooms was Columbine, sometime post, well, Columbine.

Growing number of Senate Democrats question Biden’s Israel strategy
From @lizcgoodwin @yabutaleb7https://t.co/6bm5DAj2zm

— Michael Scherer (@michaelscherer) January 20, 2024

Centered at the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank with close ties to the Trump movement and to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the group coalesced roughly three years ago around a sweeping ambition: to strike a killing blow against “the leftist social justice revolution” by eliminating “social justice education” from American schools.

The documents — grant proposals, budgets, draft reports and correspondence, obtained through public-records requests — show how the activists formed a loose network of think tanks, political groups and Republican operatives in at least a dozen states. They sought funding from a range of right-leaning philanthropies and family foundations, and from one of the largest individual donors to Republican campaigns in the country. They exchanged model legislation, published a slew of public reports and coordinated with other conservative advocacy groups in states like Alabama, Maine, Tennessee and Texas.

From a NYT story about the right's crusade against DEI programs.

I'm glad they finally got around to writing about that, but as usual the MSM is about four steps behind events. This kind of stuff is really where I feel like the "coastal elite" rap against the MSM is most accurate — they simply don't perceive what's actually happening in a lot of the country.

Yeah, I applaud the reporting but where was it in 2021-2022? They didn't need to subpoena emails -- these activists proclaimed their intentions.

Let us not forget that the Times also ran article after credulous article (and what felt like 500 approving editorials) about this bullshit before finally releasing this piece.

Even as they sought to stigmatize and defeat left-wing ideas, academics and activists in the Claremont orbit seemed cognizant that some of their own views were outside the mainstream.

In a 2021 exchange among academics at Claremont, Hillsdale and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dr. Yenor discussed edits to an essay he was planning to publish in First Things, a conservative journal. His editor, he said, wanted Dr. Yenor to be less “prudent” in his writing about homosexuality, encouraging him to voice ideas like — as Dr. Yenor characterized it — “Our sexual culture will not heal until ‘faggot’ replaces ‘bigot’ as the slur of choice,” or “Our sexual culture will not be healed until we once again agree that homosexuality belongs in the closet and that a healthy society requires patriarchy.” (“Since they are my views, I have tried to do that,” Dr. Yenor wrote. In the end, he settled for tamer language.)

In casual discussions with like-minded academics and activists, some those involved in the anti-D.E.I. effort mocked what they considered liberals' obsession with hierarchies of oppression. Some evinced a frank dislike of gay people.

The correct framing for all of this shit is just plain old racist/sexist/white male supremacist backlash against demands for social/economic/political inequality. It's not like we don't have about 17 prior chapters of this in our history. The conservative pretense is that they're responding to some kind of new phenomena — "wokism," "DEI," "gender ideology" — but it's just the same vicious shit as all the prior iterations.

That's one of my biggest frustrations, people who should know better failing to understand that yes this is just another one of those chapters.

I think I’m just going to tell people who say anything disparaging about “woke” to me that I didn’t realize they were a segregationist

Wouldn’t be surprised at the number of people who reply back that, “hell yeah I’m a segregationist/confederate/etc”

New Biden campaign ad features a woman who says she had to flee Texas to end a planned pregnancy after the doctors said the fetus had no chance of survival. “Because of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade.”https://t.co/Uy1iURYrxo

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 21, 2024

boom

Tipsy/DJP otm, it is a continuation of an enduring politics. Nothing new, but it was ugly then and it's ugly now and it will remain ugly.

It's a rejection of the GOP's Lee Atwater policy at last.

That's a good ad.

There was a long interview with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on Face The Nation this morning and the host, Margaret Brennan, was leaning into right-wing talking points. Whitmer batted everything back without blinking. It's worth watching.

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

Is it one of those "people are saying ..." interviews that just amplify the BS? She's pretty good vs. BS.

DeSantis out?

Yup

It's kind of like K Fed announcing he's retiring from music but hey

From MSN: "New polling from CNN and the University of New Hampshire shows DeSantis earning just 6% of the state’s Republican vote, whereas Trump has 50% and Haley has 39%."

Avoiding the "embarrassment of third place" is understandable, but there is also the perception that everybody running against the Trumpocalypse is really just auditioning for running mate/cabinet positions, so I can see why dropping out as soon as possible is a comprehensible positioning move. You don't want any more chances to alienate the MAGAbase.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-planning-drop-presidential-bid-sunday-rcna134953

Fuck him. I hope he dies.

Honestly don't see his career progressing from here. His campaign only managed to highlight how much he was universally hated.

He no doubt hopes that by dropping out early he earns good notices that'll help in 2028

xps FWIW, a friend of mine moved to Texas after his wife got pregnant simply to be close to her family. (I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but I'm still surprised how many left-leaning friends of mine have moved to Texas in recent years.) Anyway, she's now visibly showing and once in a while he drives out of the state with her, and he told me he gets stopped and questioned as to whether they're seeking an abortion elsewhere. It's really fucked up.

just looking at desantis you knew he'd come up short

he told me he gets stopped and questioned as to whether they're seeking an abortion elsewhere.

so, visible pregnancy has become probable cause?

xxp

That is indeed extremely fucked up

Wonder which red state will be the first to try to set up border checkpoints.

jfc

I don't really think DeSantis has much of a future either, I was pretty worried about him for a minute too as he did resemble the "smart fascist" who a lot of people thought would take over the party post-Trump. plus he actually did follow through on a lot of his more cruel ideas, so he seemed like a guy who could throw a lot of red meat to GOP voters. but yeah once you hear him talk and try to interact with people its clear he doesn't have it, he's somehow even more off-putting and weird than Ted Cruz

😯

You can excuse me for feeling smug about this guy. We knew he was as likable as dead herring, and the NYT published a story today on New Hampshire fascist voters who give no shits about "woke."

He could end up in a Trump cabinet, couldn't he? Secretary of Making Trump Seem Likable By Comparison.

Republican voters want their cruelty delivered by a real-life Madam puppet

not read this, just enjoyed the headline/url

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/19/the-desantis-team-ran-the-worst-campaign-in-history-00136527

nah he won't be in Trump's cabinet I think he actually hates him on a personal level

The only way Trump would give him a cabinet position is if there were one that would humiliate him.

that’s been christie’s job tho

From the POLITICO story:

The myth: An army of paid doorknockers would fan out across the country, even in states beyond the early primaries, and deliver the nomination to DeSantis. It’s hilarious. If you ever believed that it was possible to affect the trajectory of a presidential campaign with underemployed losers going door to door in between puffs of strawberry-flavored vapes, you are vaping an intoxicant yourself. When skeptics noted that the advertising was not moving the polls, they were told not to worry: There was a giant, secret army of DeSantis door knockers! The absurdity was breathtaking. Yet, the news media reported that DeSantis’ ground game was his secret weapon. It was secret because it wasn’t there.

aren’t doorknockers usually volunteers?

https://media4.giphy.com/media/z88aYORoi8fQc/giphy.gif

So basically the only remaining questions this primary season are:

Does Haley drop out before or after the South Carolina primary?

and

How many votes will 'Ceasefire' get in the Dem primaries?

Re: the Willis allegations. There seems to be some substance here. If--and it's still a big if--they are true, it would not be the first spectacular lapse of judgment committed by the DA. Regardless, I don't see it derailing the indictments entirely, but it could disqualify Willis and her team.

Here's hoping Willis doesn't Marcia Clark up this prosecution.

if it disqualifies her team there is no guarantee that it will be taken up by anyone else, the AG could decide to drop it entirely

one wonders how trump and his team of bozos keep tumbling back asswards into not accidentally drinking bleach and then you see the people our side are sending out ffs

xpost lot of "if"s there

Are people seriously saying that because two consenting adults had a relationship that the case against Trump, which has nothing to do with their relationship, might be hobbled? That is fucking insanity, the guy is fucking goon and a crook, just deny everything and say fuck you to anyone claiming that there's something inappropriate going on.

otm

"Trump tried to steal an election via intimidation and bribery in a criminal conspiracy"

"Well, we can't do anything about it because two people bringing the case bumped uglies"

THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/22/texas-border-supreme-court-immigration/

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ordered Texas to allow federal border agents access to the state’s border with Mexico, where Texas officials have deployed miles of concertina wire.

---

In October of last year, Texas sued the federal government after Border Patrol agents cut some of the wire strung along the Rio Grande, arguing DHS destroyed the state’s property and interfered in Texas’ border security efforts.

The 5-4 order from the Supreme Court vacated a previous injunction from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prevented Border Patrol agents from cutting the concertina wire.

yea I genuinely don't see how this is going to derail the case, it's just one more thing for Trump to be incredibly weird about

concertina wire

Makes it sound so festive

if this bullshit is as advertised maybe she needs to get that cv over to djp because ay

Lol djt lol lol typos

pls mercy

which has nothing to do with their relationship

She hired him as part of the team. He's being paid a lot of money, some of which, it is alleged, was used to take private vacations with DA Willis. This is something a prosecutor should scrupulously avoid.

Again, none of this has been proven, but apparently the soon-to-be-ex-wife has produced receipts.

yeah it's not nothing.

it's nothing according to any expert that's not sending invoices to Donald Trump or accomplices of Donald Trump

It should not be a basis for dismissal, but it creates huge problems for her.

It's just a huge own goal. Again, if true.

As the media and right continues on about Fani Willis and Nathan Wade I still don't see how any of it is a conflict of interest?https://t.co/guaaYcUZqq

— Shanlon Wu (@shanlonwu) January 20, 2024

That's the point, though. It opens her up for public criticism, it's a huge distraction.

This is the same DA who was disqualified from prosecuting Burt Jones, one of the fake electors who is now the Lieutenant Governor, because she hosted a fund-raiser for his opponent.

nice polemic does not post similarly situated stuff.

It should absolutely not impact the case at all, but of course we've watched as consistently every single bad break somehow works out in Trump's favor.

It might not directly impact the case, but it sure as heck could delay the case.

Keeping in mind this is Georgia and the Republicans dominate the state government I can think of four words that could magically appear soon, based on this 'scandal':

temporary paid administrative leave

The same state that passed a bill authorizing the legislature to remove "rogue" prosecutors.

It was blocked by the state Supreme Court, but they're busily reworking it.

“it’s not nothing”

i truly don’t care about how it looks, the entire thing is cooked up by a bunch of yapping fascists and even giving them an inch of credence is fucking horseshit. fuck em.

This is definitely true, but it doesn't really give any of us power over how things play out in GA where there's no shortage of people looking for an angle to sink this thing.

Even Brian Fucking Kemp says he'll vote for Trump if he's the nominee.

Also Brian Kemp was pushing back on the formation of a 100% republican controlled review and discipline board for state prosecutors (cooked up specifically for this purpose), but this gives him juuuust enough cover to play ball with the state congress.

what do you mean "even" Brian Kemp? Of course he was going to vote for Trump dead or alive

Hm...

1. There has been a MAJOR CHANGE in the politics of book bans in school libraries

Republicans in Florida are now advancing legislation to MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT TO CHALLENGE BOOKS in public schools

It's an implicit admission that things have gone way too far

🧵

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 23, 2024

Bill O'Reilly's books got pulled.

Book-banning is deeply unpopular, and per polls anyway not all that much more popular among Republicans than Democrats. Among other things, I think DeSantis' flameout is a bit of a death knell for the current war-on-woke wave. Not that it will disappear completely, but contra Rufo I don't think it really stirs that many people's passions.

I'm covering my local school board races here this year and so far even among Republicans not hearing a lot about all that shit. They're mostly talking about class sizes, test scores, etc.

An NYT story the other day quoted voters in Iowa and New Hampshire not giving much of a shit about #woke.

Attack Woke, Become Joke

It is interesting: yr stereotypical white working class evangelical NRA rural diner voter is the person you would think would be most scared of woke, but. They also are the people least likely to see any actual wokeness in their worlds.

Because if basically everyone within a hundred miles of you is ALSO a white evangelical Christian gun-lovin' pickup driver, you do not really see the threat.

Maybe this is hopium but eventually it could become a boy who cried wolf thing. OMG THE GAY BROWN LEFT-HANDED VEGAN TRANS LIB COMMIES ARE COMING TO GROOM YOUR KIDS AND/OR DOG can only work so often, if it keeps not happening. White rural areas are extremely homogeneous.

I think the places anti-woke politics work are purple places. Places where a conservative voter might actually encounter the scary Others they have been conditioned to fear.

what do you mean "even" Brian Kemp? Of course he was going to vote for Trump dead or alive

He's been on Trump's shit list since 2020. He's split from the state party over election denial. He's well aware of Trump's many faults and criminality. And yet, somehow, Trump is the better option to him.

Trump could begin dry-humping a GOP politician's mother's grave, and mashing a plate of feces in their face, and that politician will still show up in the voter booth like "look I'm voting the lesser of two evils here"

so that's life in Central Florida eh

the Lynx bus gets wild on Tuesdays

death knell for the current war-on-woke wave

but it has a catchier hook than the war on cultural marxism! as used by the social injustice warriors both are equally meaningless gobbledygook, but woke is way more fun to say

The war on woke will continue, of course, but it is not the stuff of national campaign victories

A typically excellent Albert Burneko piece on Ron DeSantis.

Over the past eight years the legacy politics press has dispatched whole entire legions of reporters on earnest Cletus Safaris and commissioned billions of words in an effort to understand The Appeal Of Donald Trump. They have done this despite Trump being a man whose value proposition could scarcely be more straightforward and legible to anyone halfway willing to see America for what it is; that obviousness, nearly as much as the value proposition itself, is the appeal. That same institutional press treated Ron DeSantis's personal and political appeal not only as if they existed, but were self-evident. That is very funny.

DeSantis ended his humiliating slapstick campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination over the weekend, after a miserable distant second-place finish in Iowa's caucuses. He'd spent months in the state, making a big show of covering its every acre and visiting all 99 of its counties. The campaign was wagering that a win or a strong finish there could redound to his benefit in the subsequent competitions in New Hampshire and South Carolina, where he had otherwise failed to catch on. Trump, who has not yet in his whole life uttered the word "Iowa" with so much as half-feigned interest, walloped DeSantis there by 30 points. This is less because of anything Trump did or said—very little of his appeal has anything to do with that—and more because no one anywhere likes or admires Ron DeSantis or feels excited to vote for him or ever has. Even the outright neo-Nazis his campaign openly courted never saw any reason to pick him over Trump.

The above figuring most definitely does account, by the way, for the many serious pundit and columnist types who have worked over the past couple years to project an image of Ron DeSantis as, depending on their outlet, either the ascendant conservative golden child destined to restore executive competence and political know-how to the party's ongoing anti-human endeavors or Basically Randall Flagg. This is a tiresome and transparent ritual, in which performatively impartial and tastefully liberal-ish politicos accidentally reveal their own priors by treating the "elite credentials wedded to breathtakingly cruel intentions" profile as an electoral cheat code.

None of them wanted to vote for Ron DeSantis, either. (What if someone found out!) What they wanted was for enough other people to vote for him that they wouldn't have to, and maybe a new mystery to solve—instead of trying to suss out Trump's appeal in America's most hideous diners again, they could go to pretty much the same places and try to find out why everyone had fallen in love with this squinty, vicious little weirdo. What they want is reinforcement, always, for the claim that anything to the left of their own milquetoast striver centrism is untenable loony shit, offensive in its refusal to accept the world as they insist it must always be and the most ridiculous of minority positions. They want people to want something more like what Ron DeSantis was supposed to be.

This treatment gave the early, impressed coverage of DeSantis a peculiar uncanniness no less weird for having in earlier cycles radiated from the respectability press's work on behalf of, for example, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, and on and on and on back through time. The attempt to see these mediocre sadists as the future was embarrassing at the time and is inexplicable in retrospect. It's like reading a dinner table described as a horse. It has four legs and is taller than a dog. A horse! Reading it, you find yourself going, "Wait, that doesn't make it a horse, because it isn't a horse." But a guy can sit on it and it isn't a chair. A horse!

. For chrissakes, had Jonathan Chait ever encountered Ron DeSantis? Live and in motion, ass jutting out to balance the cartoonish lifts in his ludicrous cowboy boots, the horrible grimace-smile smeared beneath his dead eyes like spilled canola oil, bleating incomprehensible n-chan gobbledygook in his wet smack of a voice, instantly repulsing everyone within earshot? Or maybe the better question is, had Jonathan Chait ever encountered anyone else?

I really hope Albert collects all these salvos in a book someday.

But of course

Former president Donald Trump and former governor Nikki Haley appeared to blatantly break the law as they casually strolled up to the crowded New Hampshire polling stations amid the primary, irate voters said on social media.

Laws are for little people

https://newrepublic.com/post/178343/libs-tiktok-creator-advising-school-libraries-government-job

Libs of Tiktok lady will be advising school libraries in Oklahoma

Ugh she is so terrible. She's in that Stephen Miller category, you can see her organizing mass executions with zeal.

We don’t call states like Oklahoma flyover shitholes for nothing

"we"

No, we get 5 bucks from Soros each time we do it

Really important to remember that Oklahoma is 13% Indigenous because of settler colonialism, and simply abandoning it or disregarding its existence because of some yapping fascist honkies does a deep disservice and is disrespectful as fuck to the people who live there who have not consented to rule by such honkies, but feel they must stay on what remains of their land.

Furthermore, the “flyover” talk and anti-southern sentiment is misplaced and misguided, totally eliminating room for networks of solidarity between people in more progressive areas and those who can’t or won’t move from places like Oklahoma or Arkansas or Alabama for reasons that are personal, political, and deeply felt.

In other words, please knock it off with the “flyover shitholes” talk. It’s hugely disrespectful.

Otm

Some of us in shithole states work to change things for people worse off than us.

When I moved from a ‘flyover shithole’ to a big East coast city, I realized the people there were just as dumb and bigoted, just in different ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTeTnDKncJ4

"liberal" California has some of the most racist shitty ass cities in America.

well, what tell i heard that's cuz a lot a folk from good ol bugtussle out moved out thar

"He Stopped Living There Today"

xp jk you want terrible spaces you can find em all round. fortunately great ones too. and sometimes theyre the same.

Yeah, northern California probably has as many wannabe confederate secessionists as Oklahoma. They even have a name for their cosplay country! (st4te of j3ffers0n)

iirc 'Okie from Muskogee' was written by a Californian

The ostensibly "liberal" enclaves in the Midwest are just more subtle and insidious with with their racism and creeping fascism. Of course I knew this already, but covid really ripped the masks of a lot of hidden fascists where I live.

The most racist city in the US, according to polls of Black Americans, is Boston.

This is not surprising at all.

Boston's racial/racist history is notorious and terrible. Last major league baseball team to have a Black player, among many other things (busing riots etc).

Boston has a ton of issues and I am not interested in playing Cap’n-Save-A-Racist-City but I will for brief moments only to point out that people in every other city love to proclaim Boston as The Most Racist City whenever some heinous racist shit happens in their area

Like, maybe spend less time going “at least we’re not Boston” and own/fix your own fucking shit

For sure, not being Boston doesn't let anyone else off the hook. What American city doesn't have a racist history (or present, for that matter)?

Peoples is peoples so why should it be

Breaking: The White House says President Biden and first lady Jill Biden have invited Kate Cox, the Texas woman at the center of a high-profile abortion case, to the State of Union address in March.

"Elections aren’t about just picking your best friend for the job or the candidate who makes you feel good. Elections are about power," UAW president Shawn Fain says, announcing endorsement of Biden, saying he is "the best shot of uniting the working class"

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) January 24, 2024

otm

The father of a friend, a union man, told me a couple weeks ago that while he has complaints about the president's Wall Street leanings the Biden NLRB has been the best of his lifetime: excellent at dealing with possible violations.

“Elections have consequences,” Crystal LaGrone, the chair of the Wagoner County Democratic Party, told The Daily Beast in August. “And we get people like Ryan Walters in positions of authority, where they really don’t have any expertise, and are attention-seeking. It feels like he wants to make a name for himself, not help the kids of Oklahoma.”

Well, yeah.

A little curious as to how the UAW can be calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on one hand and endorsing a genocidaire on another, but then again, what I see as wild contradiction many see as the price of doing politics.

Generally agreed with tables but I also have a strongly conditioned need to make fun of Oklahoma whenever possible. (My grandfather was an Okie and never stepped foot in the state again after returning from WW2.)

A little curious as to how the UAW can be calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on one hand and endorsing a genocidaire on another

Biden is more likely than Trump to ultimately advocate for peace in Gaza. Should he have done it already? Sure. But Trump takes positive glee in indulging Netanyahu's worst impulses; Biden wags a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger finger at Netanyahu and gets told to go fuck himself. Those are two different things.

Wild contradictions are the price of politics.

Maybe they got Biden to do something about Gaza to get their endorsement

from what I've read of Fain, I don't think he's a cheap date to get Biden's endorsement
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-01-24/uaw-president-shawn-fain-battles-elon-musk-over-ev-labor-future

give away UAW endorsement, I mean

unperson: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens-lifelong-bond-with-israel-shapes-war-policy-2023-10-21/

Alfred: that's fine, I just find it repulsive and won't participate in it. I

“In speech after speech in New Hampshire, Trump mentioned, in no particular order: Joe Biden’s inability to pick up a beach chair; his uncle Dr. John Trump’s career at MIT; Al Capone and Scarface; the difference between prison and jails; Hannibal Lecter; a real estate deal with Ted Kennedy; and the weather in Iowa.“

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/24/trump-rally-speeches-maga-vibes-00137364

has Texas seceded or is Bluesky just off the hook this evening?

Good article on the numbing tedium of Trump on the stump:

His rallies aren’t fundamentally different than they have been in past elections, but therein lies the problem: There’s little new substance or material in this year’s revival of the Trump Show. His core grievances — against the “radical left Democrats,” the deep state, the RINOs, the globalists, the media — are little changed since he first started running for president in 2015, and his schticks — spinning out new nicknames for his rivals, goading the crowd to boo the press — are all retreads. Trump may still be full of venom and fury, but his laugh lines feel wooden and rehearsed, his digressions lacking color and zing.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/24/trump-rally-speeches-maga-vibes-00137364

Touché!

Lol, same article, okay okay...

In fairness, that article is quotable as hell

his laugh lines feel wooden and rehearsed, his digressions lacking color and zing.

This stuff gets written, not because it matters to the election, but because the reporters who follow the campaign don't have any pertinent information to put into their stories, so they write about their own ennui.

well, the whole article is about the dullness of his rallies, so it's at least pertinent to the story

That’s about the 400th article I’ve seen about how Trump rallies in 2017 or 18 or 19 or 20 or 24 aren’t as effective as the 2016 ones. Doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Yep

That shit just glides off me

The Tobacco Tea Party is off to the races:

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, posted a photo of himself holding a pack of Zyn on X.

“Big Brother Schumer doesn’t want us to chew or smoke. Now he’s against an alternative that’s helped many quit. Come and take it!” Hudson said in the post.

fwiw he hasn't won any general elections since 2016 (it's probably not really bcz of the rallies though) xxp

fwiw, there are many UAW members who are really pissed about the Biden endorsement for precisely the reason i mentioned.

they are being dragged out of UAW meetings that their dues are paying for because they are being vocal about it.

It's good that there are members pushing on these things. But the leadership cares more about the NLRB and labor protection than it does about anything else. So if there are going to be compromises, those are the things that get prioritized. And Biden's been OK on them and obviously better than serial exploiter of labor Trump. They have a stand on Gaza, which is good, but obviously not all stands are equal.

(also sometimes I accidentally say NRBQ for NLRB)

A federal judge on Tuesday night blocked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act’s disparate-impact requirements against Louisiana agencies.

Judge James D. Cain, a Trump appointee, ruled against residents of a stretch of parishes along the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley,” an epicenter of petrochemical manufacturing in the U.S. with disproportionately high rates of cancer.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4427465-judge-bars-epa-from-enforcing-civil-rights-act-provision-in-louisianas-cancer-alley/

jfc

a Trump appointee

sign, ten miles high, neon, flashing lights, sirens, all screaming ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

I wish I hated anything as much as Republican judges hate the Civil Rights Act

I wish I hated anything as much as Republican judges hate the Civil Rights Act

― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland)

How about Republican judges?

Explains a few things

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/the-white-house-has-its-own-pharmacy-and-boy-was-it-shady-under-trump/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/hitler-and-his-drugs-inside-the-nazis-secret-speed-craze-113396/

Jackson had been accused of fostering a toxic work environment

Literally, apparently.

From that ^^^^^^^ 2017 Rolling Stone article:

“Everyone’s drawing these comparisons between Hitler and Donald Trump.” But he compares the new American leader to Hiter’s drug of choice, instead. “These former industrial zones in the so-called Meth Belt are now broken-down areas where underprivileged white people live, who support Trump and who take a lot of meth and depend on that anticipation that meth creates. You take meth, you think something’s gonna happen, something exciting. That’s the kind of energy that Trump creates. People get excited and I think that cheap excitement, that fake hope that meth creates is also something that Trump creates. I think Trump is a kind of a personified meth.”

You take meth, read Twitter you think something’s gonna happen, something exciting.

Peter Navarro has been sentenced to 4 months in prison for contempt of Congress.

Is there an avenue for appeal? I would hope not.

But Ron Vara is still a free man

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics/peter-navarro-ron-vara-trump-china-intl-hnk/index.html

Andy, I think that meth thing is kind of bullshit. Trump's perpetual base is the upper-middle class exurban desk jockey who thinks he's country because he drives a spotless Ford F150, or small town gentry (the guy who runs the local GMC dealership).

Eh, I also think the meth thing is bullshit, but having relatives (and thus being forced to occasionally visit) a small, rural town that still in 2024 has it's very own Trump store, there are absolutely many unwavering, rabid MAGA folks who are desperately poor and struggling in very serious ways. It isn't just the upper-middle class and gentry, though they are there too.

Yeah, I kind of agree (that writer is German, btw)... he pretends to fight for the little guy, but HIS little guy owns a propane business and makes $750K a year

lol I can tell you Trump's base in Miami consists of Cubans with gated homes who drive F-150s and whose kids go to private schools.

You don't get to 70+ M without hitting all of these various zones of interest

er, 70M+ (plus 70+ y.o. men)

I see what you did there.

I received a Nikki Haley fundraising text today. I felt an initial white-hot flash of rage that they had my number, followed by the pleasant sensation of blocking the number and reporting it as spam

More news on the GOP killing the border deal: This comes as negotiators are discussing a whole new process for expelling asylum seekers and spending way more than the $14 billion Biden wanted, sources say.

This sn't good enough for MAGA. Insane.

Link:https://t.co/NpGRgtWSlt

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) January 25, 2024

They don't want a "humane" solution, but they also don't really any solution. A completely dysfunctional immigration system serves conservative political interests in so many ways. It creates a huge, persistent panic about an alien-Other invasion, it inflicts misery on poor mostly nonwhite people whom they really enjoy inflicting misery on, but it still leaves enough economic wiggle room to have a big base of cheap easily terrorized labor. Why would they mess with that by imposing some kind of better order on it?

don't really WANT I mean

Is there a thread or has there been much discussion here about all the immigrants? It's heartbreaking, all the mothers with small children I see everywhere, seemingly (and often literally) appearing overnight, usually bundled up and selling candy. Because of dickheads like the governor of Texas there's virtually no way to keep up with the influx, which is I suppose simultaneously proving his/a point (in the worst, most heartless possible way) while sowing division at their destinations. I know, for example, that there's a lot of resentment among locals in some neighborhoods here at seeing so much money and effort go to these pawns being shipped here rather than the Chicago neighborhoods themselves.

Incidentally, some 30,000 plus Ukrainian immigrants were afaict successfully assimilated into Chicago, which shows the difference Federal support makes, just as the current situation shows the impact of cruel, feckless assholery.

Yeah, they just wanted to kill it so they can use it in the election and say Biden is allowing all these hordes in.

They don't want any solution... the cheap labor keeps wages down, and it's the only thing they have going, why would they want an actual solution

well ukrainians are white

Any serious discussion obv would include some attention to why all these people are fleeing their countries and how the U.S. contributes to that and could do things to improve it. But lol @ "serious discussion."

trump says they're from prisons and mental hospitals, real bad hombres

We decide who's white.

Was anyone under the impression that Republicans wanted "a humane immigration solution"?

He wrote this then went to admire those fake teeth for an hour. https://t.co/h2tTsxUdYp

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 25, 2024

It is not worth anyone’s time to try to figure out what he’s talking about

agree

It's pathetic that no one sees it (because I'm the one tweeting it)

They don't want a "humane" solution, but they also don't really any solution. A completely dysfunctional immigration system serves conservative political interests in so many ways. It creates a huge, persistent panic about an alien-Other invasion

Sure but isn't that precisely what people used to say about abortion? That they wanted the issue more than the results?

Then the dog caught the car (apologies for the metaphor; don't wish to trivialize either issue).

So the govs of Oklahoma and Texas are openly talking about the prospect of armed conflict with the US government? It's like sovereign citizen shit writ large.

Josh, yeah I believe we saw that movie in 1861 (again, apologies if that sounds too flippant)

I think the perception was correct that the Republicans preferred a stand off on the issue of abortion rights. It gave them almost 50 years of fund raising and activism. But they also had to demonstrate commitment through action or risk alienating those voters. Now the issue is likely to work against them for the next several election cycles. Would they say it's worth it? Absolutely, because it allowed them to pack the SCOTUS with justices who will serve them across a broad swath of issues, while packaging their nominees mainly as anti-abortion votes and distracting the public from their horrific originalist doctrines.

yeah but if they continue to lose elections based on that single issue, I imagine some will 'moderate' their message... Haley has already done so

Haley has said she will sign any further restrictions that come to her, even a national abortion ban bill if she is president, so I don't see how she has moderated

Ehh, she said something about 'we shouldn't go after the poor women' or 'not everyone agrees with our religious viewpoint, and THAT's OKAY'

Lol there is no way anyone with an R next to their name would walk away from banning everything under the sun if given the chance. Come on.

“We can’t do anything without 60 Senate votes,” Haley said, referring to the support needed to overcome any filibuster of abortion legislation. “We’re going to have to have a compromise to make anything happen,” she added before turning and exiting the restaurant.

Her vague stances have drawn mixed reviews and sometimes conflicting interpretations from voters and activists in the state. Some, including abortion rights advocates, have lauded and embraced her views. Others have challenged them or voiced confusion about where she stands.

Some here said they see her as a “pro-choice” candidate, others as one who is “pro-life.” Many agree that she seems more reasonable and less extreme than her rivals. Haley allies hope her posture will help her against-the-odds bid in a state where many Republicans favor abortion rights.

She's wiggling around uncomfortably

Her main talking point of late is to say what needs to happen to ban abortion nationwide, which is they need 60 senators. She’s playing both sides of the aisle at the same time as she’s outlining the strategy going forward

xp exactly that

yeah, I just said she's moderating her current messaging, not what she'd actually do if in office

It's all semantics, but I don't think she's moderating her current messaging fwiw, she's clearly anti-abortion and just acknowledging the realities of the House/Senate, which as Eric said is playing both sides

I don't know where you got that quote, but her stances aren't vague

Jimmy I understand the general direction of your post but it doesn't apply to guns (where gop-ers oppose any restrictions)

If Haley is trying to ELIMINATE Trump she needs to drop out, join his campaign and try to get him to eat even more trans fats on the trail.

Definitely some more T.V. Dinners

it fuckin rules that the GOP have painted themselves into such a corner that any sort of proposal that's actually realistic is automatically extremely unpopular

Maybe Vivek meant she’s trying to shit Trump out?

Trump is a little like the "coyotes" who smuggle migrants across the border. He'd rather exploit the problem for his own poltical profit than allow Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve it. https://t.co/eMykBU6yZK

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) January 26, 2024

my jaw just dropped. jfc david axelrod is a piece of shit.

"Unless something drastic happens, you have lost the Arab American and Muslim community. At this point, from what I can see, there's no winning them over. That was the idea of the meeting," Turfe said.

"Until there's a cease-fire, the overall consensus in the community is they're not welcome here, essentially."