US Politics, March 2024: The house of illuminati will NOT be holding any other event in the foreseeable future.

yeah come on let's not go too far. you can object to tables' scorched earth view without pretending Fetterman hasn't been disappointing as a public figure

more disappointing than Senator Oz?

What about Senator Connor Lamb?

I don’t think Oz is capable of disappointing me.

Well Lamb lost the primary so... he should have what, run third party and thrown the seat to Oz?

I guess I don't really understand this discussion

I mean these are dumb choices. Of course any dem is going to be better than any republican. Would a centrist hack like Lamb have been better than Fetterman? Possibly.

more disappointing than Senator Oz?

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Thursday, March 7, 2024 2:35 PM (eleven minutes ago)

Sorry, maybe this was a genuine, non-rhetorical question.

In which case: disappointing compared to what I thought I had learned about Fetterman and his politics (often through statements he made on social media or to the press) when he was running for office. I'd also say that I would be disappointed in any senator in any state who made a point of publicly counterprotesting an antiwar or anti-genocide protest -- that in my opinion goes beyond having views that differ from my own and into "this guy is scary" territory.

idk how anybody could react to Fetterman like he isn't a complete sellout. he sold his voters a bill of goods and is now flipping them the bird after an abrupt heel turn.

I disagree strongly with his support for Israel, but you can't say he didn't explicitly state he was pro-Israel during his Senate campaign because he did

idk how anybody could react to Fetterman like he isn't a complete sellout. he sold his voters a bill of goods and is now flipping them the bird after an abrupt heel turn.

What bill of goods did he sell? Did he take a position on Israel/Palestine during the campaign that he's now reversed himself on, that I'm not aware of? He was never anything but a working-class white Democrat, basically an east coast Jon Tester. Yes, he aligned himself with Sanders based on economic/class issues, and/but none of that has changed that I know of. People are making up a John Fetterman to fight with because they're mad about Gaza.

xp
yes, I meant to mention that part of the disappointment down to my not learning about his views in full. But that's why I included the bit about him counterprotesting. It's one thing for a Democrat to support Israel — that wouldn't surprise me — it's another to make a spectacle of yourself waving a flag at people protesting the deaths of civilians. I found that genuinely disturbing.

it ain't even just Israel. after calling himself a progressive for years, he then came out and said derisively that he wasn't a progressive, and started supporting anti-immigration measures he hadn't previously shown support for, even using the right-wing phrase du jour "there is a crisis at our borders"

rob otm

Perhaps it would be a better show of support to push for it knowing it will fail, and get Republicans to, once again, show off their prejudiced, hateful rhetoric in full view, but perhaps that is not the once winning strategy it used to be and that's the source of the pragmatism here?

I don’t know that this was ever a winning strategy in Congress. Footage of someone voting no is not as viscerally awful as footage of someone having fire hoses and dogs set upon them.

major side eye at Katie Porter popping off about the "rigged" election she lost

I think his spectacle and combativeness are what got him elected when someone like Lamb would have lost to the Trump-backed Oz, so is the same spectacle in the service of being militantly pro-Israel embarrassing? Yes. Can I really complain if I liked it just fine when it was pissing off Trump and upsetting Senate norms, and likely kept the Senate in Democratic control? I don't know.

And we're about to have the first Trans congressional rep

Danica Roem is a Virginia state senator, trans. Rachel Levine is a senior HHS official, trans.

Democrats are not perfect (as noted) but we're at least trying.

or maybe just maybe Fetterman's brain is fucked up from a major stroke and he is not the same person he was before.

hasn't he always been not a bad guy at all but still a child of affluence? didn't he only start really working in his early 30s, and in politics, at that? not casting aspersions! but no ally is entirely saintly

major side eye at Katie Porter popping off about the "rigged" election she lost

Yeah, this is gross and she needs to take another tact.

I am still flummoxed at why, in an era where every elected official is not only trained to avoid drawing attention to themselves on contentious issues, they've also got to witness how swing voters will end the careers of people with 'main-character syndrome', why in the fuck Fetterman would go all-in on projecting his weird pro-Likud/anti-Palestine views to the point where it's now his identity, while also eerily echoing Bush-era reactions to anti-war sentiment. He's had some great votes and pushed some solid legislation during his brief Senate tenure (and I appreciate that he's backing Andy Kim in NJ), but why taint your good work by something so sour and dickish? How is he better off politically?

If you were to poll 1,000 moderate, apolitical swing voters (as in, the people who unknowingly hold the future of our democracy in their hands), asking them "which of these choices do you prefer: making any military support of Israel's battle with Hamas conditional on PM Netanyahu putting a stop to the invasion of Gaza and pulling back the settlements that antagonize neighbors; or giving him what he wants, regardless of what he does to Gaza/West Bank/Golan Heights?", is the second option really so much more popular than the first to where it would justify (in a political, not moral sense) Fetterman's antics? There's no way that's the case.

perhaps he's just fervently pro-israel for some deep seated, non-politically calculated reason; I don't know what that reason would be and I would hope it is not a bigoted reason.

I forgot to add, why do so many elected officials like Fetterman equate being pro-Israel with meaning that you had to be pro-Likud? Can't you be pro-Israel and pro-2-states while also opposing Bibi's shitty party and their fuckery? What's the benefit?

I guess it depends on if you think his behavior is a schtick and behind the scenes he is actually making those kinds of calculations, or if he really is as he seems to be, and therefore is not actually making calculated choices in that way at all... he might just have his beliefs and figure since he got elected he should act on them without really looking for external validation

Is he in the process of being divorced or did I imagine that?

his wife took a social media break and this turned into a rumor that they split up over his Israel position but I think it was a progressive fever dream.

his wife is more popular than he is though, maybe she should run

His wife said she was taking a break
But Fetterman said she was being harassed online by “the kind of people who protest outside my house every friday.”

Biden watches Morning Joe tv show per links earlier, but apparently his Chief of Staff won't let him meet with the Democratic Hispanic Caucus regarding border issues and see what they think

https://punchbowl.news/article/chc-white-house-tensions-flare-border-policy/

I was hoping for more Carhartt Dems, now I ain't so sure

I was hoping for more Carhartt Dems, now I ain't so sure

Everybody loves the working class until they actually talk to a working class person.

and there's nobody more genuinely working class than Senator John Fetterman

Jill Biden is going to have 20 guests at the State of the Union speech tonight

Among the guests are a woman from Alabama whose in vitro fertilization treatments were stopped after a state court decision, and another from Texas who was denied an abortion in the state despite what her doctors said would be health complications from the pregnancy. Their presence signals Mr. Biden’s emphasis on an issue that has lifted Democrats in recent elections as he faces a rematch with former President Donald J. Trump, whom he trails in many polls.

They are among a number of guests intended to touch on health policy, including Maria Shriver, the journalist who has become a women’s health advocate.

Also on the list are the head of the United Automobile Workers and a number of union members, as the president seeks to burnish his labor bona fides. Other guests, including a mayor, a police officer and the prime minister of Sweden, represent a range of issues, from student debt forgiveness to infrastructure to jobs programs.

Everybody loves the working class until they actually talk to a working class person.

there's a reason a lot of working class people voted for Trump in the rust belt

I should have added "white" to "working class" there

Everybody loves the working class until they actually talk to a working class person.

And we wonder why the party is losing them.. actually, no we don't

here we go

Santos is going to steal steal so many coats tonight...

he still has his lanyard?

god, all of this is painful

biden saying "illegals" over and over while greene shouts over him with some unknowable bullshit, johnson shakes his head no, and harris smiles blankly

he's been on fire for the most part, though

yeah, mostly sounds good to me.

Everybody loves the working class until they actually talk to a working class person.

Fetterman’s dad was a partner in an insurance firm and he has a finance MBA.

His Israel Warrior schtick does make feel about like I’ve felt after every conversation I’ve had with a white guy with a MBA, though.

One member, GOP Rep. Max Miller, who left early, said he left because: “This is beneath a president. It’s a full blown campaign speech.”

Lol irony

Rep. Miller, I have some shocking news for you.

My wife is for some reason watching the GOP rebuttal in the living room. I’m in the bedroom and all I can hear is “rising star” Katie Britt sounding like she’s in the verge of breaking into tears.

Katie Britt alternating between crying and doing a creepy serial killer smile while doing a whisper rant about the border and how Biden is personally inviting in illegals to kill women. The NBC network reporters just repeated cliches about her being young without factchecking her or even commenting on her weird drama school, Saturday Night Live evangelical approach

Saturday Night Live evangelical approach

She was chosen for this role by Speaker Johnson.

True, while she’s easy to laugh at, she like Speaker Johnson is scary .