US Politics May 2021: Joe Manchin's Choose-Your-Adventure Book

in FL you'd be homeless doing that real fast, considering up until recently, it was capped at $275/week. and very few people get that maximum!

I think these guys got $200 a week which is plenty in Manitowoc. my rent was $100 a month!

anyway tbf there really weren't a whole lot of jobs; occasionally they'd land shitty 3rd shift factory jobs that they'd actively try to get fired from

Great Recession was my last time on unemployment... good times, even without the extra covid booster

Wow. Just...wow.

Gayle King, CBS news anchor: "Tell us about your dating situation."

Stacey Abrams, Nobel Peace Prize nominee: "I haven't been focused on that this month. I've been focused on saving democracy."

— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) May 11, 2021

If you listen closely when she's on the air you can hear the wind whistling through Gayle King's empty skull.

NEW: Biden will nominate Rahm Emanuel as U.S. ambassador to Japan https://t.co/E36sTDHiWa

— Axios (@axios) May 11, 2021

Obviously this could be much worse, but just how does this guy do it?

King's question is terrible, but also, come on, anybody can be a Nobel Peace Prize nominee

There are about 150 more impressive ways to characterize Stacey Abrams

Rahm must have inherited Epstein's little black book.

"How far away can we ship this motherfucker?"

that occurred to me too, but that's got to be a desirable gig for the professional unelectable politician class

Walter Mondale served as ambassador to Japan under Clinton. It’s a fun gig.

what're you gonna do about it, joe

NEW: This weekend, Joe Manchin said the John Lewis Voting Rights Act “has to be done.”

He said the bill deserves universal support because elections should be accessible, fair and secure. “This is ridiculous.”

But Manchin, who’s pro-filibuster, hasn’t explained how to pass it. pic.twitter.com/JrdlLp0Eq3

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 10, 2021

Douchey! Details even worse than I'd noticed: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2021/05/10/doug-ducey-sham-election-audit-exposes-threats-cowardly-governor/5014127001/
Also:
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday signed legislation purging infrequent voters from a list of those who automatically get a mail-in ballot each election, ignoring protests from Democrats and prominent business leaders who said the measure would suppress the votes of people of color.

The Republican governor acted hours after a tense debate in the state Senate, during which Republicans tried to silence Democrats who said the bill would perpetuate systemic racism.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-arizona-race-and-ethnicity-bills-elections-f66f8b032bd081092715f55dc1195134

"...the bill would perpetuate systemic racism..."

In the state where they're searching for bamboo fiber ballots, because, you know CHY-NAH

These days I'm honestly surprised the GOP doesn't just say outright 'yes, that's the point.' Don't know why they're still at all coy about their full-bore embrace of villainy.

suddenly, much of the world began to heard a soft but distinct evil cackling noise whenever republicans spoke or acted. those that heard it heard the same thing. but many of the people couldn't hear it at all. WIS -2, LCK -1

Speaking of embrace of villainy, this is some Monty Burns shit.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/552958-tennessee-cuts-off-300-federal-unemployment-supplement

Mississippi's doing the same thing: https://mississippitoday.org/2021/05/10/gunn-end-mississippi-unemployment-federal-300/

Yep. Won't be a red state left with 'em.

Oh they're embracing the shit out of it

Texas’s population boom should be a boon to Democrats. But Republicans are reaping the gains. https://t.co/vN9a5MqpMy

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) May 11, 2021

The article he links is very good and accurately describes what it's like for me living in a big liberal city that's been gerrymandered to hell.

But he takes exactly the wrong lesson from it

Cornyn’s habit of sharing sub-headlines like that without any commentary is so weird.

Quite a quote from Ilhan Omar (from here):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1MMQDfXoAIDsPS.jpg

2024 election's gonna be...fucked up. State legislatures will not recognize Democratic votes.

hell yeah omar

since court packing seems like it will not happen (guh), really hope Clarence Thomas and Alito die in the same hot air balloon accident. this week.

the destruction of SCOTUS really might just wind up being the worst legacy of the Trump admin (eventually surpassing "transforming the GOP into saying it was what everybody knew it was for many decades")

It's just crazy to see how the GOP is still bending over backwards to prove loyalty to Trump, I don't get it. I mean, yes, obviously on some level they anticipate his cultists to be big primary voters, but it's just so weird to see them hitching themselves to such an albatross this late in the game. The Democrats couldn't wait to distance themselves from the one term failure stink of Jimmy Carter and he wasn't impeached twice and effectively deplatformed. It's bonkers.

Just wait until they take back the WH and congress and *they* expand the court, and pack it with even more lunatics.

It's just crazy to see how the GOP is still bending over backwards to prove loyalty to Trump, I don't get it. I mean, yes, obviously on some level they anticipate his cultists to be big primary voters, but it's just so weird to see them hitching themselves to such an albatross this late in the game. The Democrats couldn't wait to distance themselves from the one term failure stink of Jimmy Carter and he wasn't impeached twice and effectively deplatformed. It's bonkers.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0),

It's possible that conservatives have long been not-so-secret fascists and opposed to democracy since 1964 and Trump finally gave them a Moloch to worship?

what happens if Trump dies? serious question

Depends on how humiliating and/or hilarious his death is imo

It's possible that conservatives have long been not-so-secret fascists and opposed to democracy since 1964 and Trump finally gave them a Moloch to worship?

Sure, but they don't need him to pursue that shit anymore, clearly they are doing an excellent job at the state level without him. I get that he opened the door, but it seems like he's outlived his usefulness.

I think it's less about Trump himself and more that Trump revealed that you can more or less get away with a lot of things that were previously considered unthinkable, and so Republicans want to ride that wave as far as it will take them.

re: Trump death: Drowning in ketchup? Hilarious. Dying on the toilet while trying vainly to post a tweet? Humiliating and hilarious. At this point I need to stop speculating because I lapse into a reverie of ever-more-humiliating fantasy deaths for that individual, and I don't want to give him the headspace at this point.

I think it's less about Trump himself and more that Trump revealed that you can more or less get away with a lot of things that were previously considered unthinkable, and so Republicans want to ride that wave as far as it will take them.

I don't disagree with this at all, but I guess I'm just baffled like the Cheney stuff. Like why waste time stretching out her punishment for daring to speak ill of him instead of ruthlessly pursuing their agenda? That's the part I don't really get, the symbolic shit that actually accomplishes nothing more than paying fealty to Trump.

it's less about Trump himself and more that Trump revealed that you can more or less get away with a lot of things that were previously considered unthinkable

bingo

ruthlessly pursuing their agenda?

their agenda is anti-democracy. They're doing it in the courts. Ousting Liz Cheney is part of the agenda.

Yeah, the problem with Liz Cheney, as far as GOP leadership is concerned, is not simply that she voted for impeachment but that she is being noisy about it and making things difficult for them.

right, they need to punish her to clear away any roadblocks for when it comes time to overturn the next election

Same reason why the Republican party in Michigan got rid of the GOP canvassing board member who voted to certify the election results.

Okay, it's all more depressing than I thought.

yeah I know there's a lot that needs attention right now but Dems really need to be pushing voting rights 3x harder than normal, who knows how many more chances they'll get

problem is it's very difficult to fight the GOP tactics within the system because of how willfully the GOP like to flout the law. gives you no room for missteps, and at worst you eventually have to become the thing you're fighting against

good morning!

2024 election's gonna be...fucked up. State legislatures will not recognize Democratic votes.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, May 12, 2021 9:51 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

This. 2020 is going to look like the 1788 in comparison.

the

i'm not sure what to say. it is bleak. Omar's statement from above is exactly right.

the GOP isn't going to bounce back from this, i don't think. it's the last stage of...something. is it the end of scooby doo when the mask comes off and everything is fine again? i don't think so. this is more like politicians you didn't vote for removing their mask and revealing that they're all reanimated klan wizards from the 1910s. it's frightening, all the more so because of all the tens of millions who love what's happening, are demanding it, even. plus the tens of millions who move along in lockstep.

and yet, i look outside my window and it's a perfect day and the leaves are finally filling out the branches. my own neighborhood and city voted overwhelmingly against trump. the creepy cowboys from my hometown are off doing their (racist) things in that same shitty county.

what happens after this step, in the collapse of US democracy? the openly stated goal of other states (like RUSSIA!!!!!! but you can't say that) was to undermine US confidence in our election system. i don't know how you all feel about things, but i feel like we are there. now. it seems like we are one major fucked up election away from the whole thing snapping. we know, years before the 2022 and 2024 elections, that in the aftermath there will be an uproar from republicans believing their votes were "stolen" in states where they lose, democrats fighting uphill yet again in gerrymandered/jim crow'd states and districts, and a political and legal system too broken identify and fix the problems.

and yet, the sun is shining, i can't really affect anything that's happening, and even when i write to my reps and beg for their help i know that they don't respond. you're lucky if you get put on their email list.

the ancient greeks thought that even 500 people was too many people for a local democracy (at least one in which every citizen could actually participate meaningfully). i don't have a better idea for a political system, uh, but this one is cooked

anyway, ignore that of course, but i do think cheney's ouster is a kind of breaking point, with significance that will be hard to explain to later generations (if anyone still cares at that point). it was shocking on jan 6, before the violence, when GOP politicians were already planning to vote for an attempted coup. then THAT happened, and it was shocking when some of those same GOP politicians STILL voted for it, on the same day! people like mccarthy were briefly doing something close to the right thing, in early January, criticizing what happened. then they all kissed the ring again in mar-a-lago, and now today they've commemorated their downfall with the cheney vote. it will be hard to explain, but this is it. we're done here.

My only hope for 2024 is that Trump's failson gene activates and that he makes a big noise about running (without actually running), but also somehow hates all of the 37 candidates who do run and trip over themselves trying to obtain said endorsement and the whole thing somehow backfires.