US Politics, May 2024: They Shoot Puppies, Don't They?

He sure spends a lot of time playing defense... and extraordinarily childish defense, of the "I meant to do that!" school. Real loser shit.

Sometimes I think the absolute funniest outcome would be Trump as President and a Dem majority in both houses but he’d probably just have them murdered.

― Are you addicted to struggling with your horse? (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, May 19, 2024 1:08 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

dunno how likely this is (the Senate map ain't exactly great) but I think it's true that, regardless of what happens for President, the GOP is gonna underperform on everything else, as they have ever since 2016. I mean he really has hollowed out the entire GOP, if you're not a sycophant you're basically out of the party now, but it's not like the sycophants are all that popular either, the Trumpier these folks are the worse they do

I don't know about that. The "Don't Be Gay" Lady has some compelling proposals.

xp - I mean, huh, who could have possibly predicted that hitching your entire political party to this dipshit might not be a winning long term strategy. Apparently no one!

They didn’t want to! They ran everyone possible against him, it’s just that all the other Republicans made people recoil like they had just opened up a trash bag full of catfish left out in the sun for a week.

also every single one of them made it clear that they loved Donald Trump, that he was the best president of all-time, and that their first act in office would be to pardon him of all crimes, which feels like a bad way to go after the guy you're trying to primary

he just straight up does not have a campaign message: whatever the democrats/liberals are for, i'm against it!
-public education
-inheritance tax
-universal healthcare
-social security expansion
-climate change mitigation
-equity
-peace
-etc.

the Groucho Marx platform

2scoops is a premiere "i've got mine, fuck you" "libertarian" troll imho. the degree to which we know GQP state legislatures can blatantly suppress votes and otherwise cheat on his behalf smacks of authenticity if you're the kind of person who tends to bullshit more often than not. there are millions of rotten wannabe millionaire americans who cheer him on like he's rick flair (down to the fake hair). they're noisy as hell. but i think they're significantly outnumbered by a shyer (some might say "silent") and way more decent majority, i hope is enough

he just straight up does not have a campaign message: whatever the democrats/liberals are for, i'm against it!
-public education
-inheritance tax
-universal healthcare
-social security expansion
-climate change mitigation
-equity
-peace
-etc.

I think what needs to be included in this understanding is that plenty of progressive policies that Democrats run on in federal races(esp. when there’s a Republican President) wind up not getting enacted either, for multiple reasons. So running on positive policies gets discredited amongst more voters, and negative partisanship becomes the main motivator, which explains why so much national Dem messaging is “but the other guy is worse”

but many would say that the whole reason why many of those progressive policies don’t get passed isn’t always because of conservative obstruction, but because those policies would hurt the pocketbooks of the donor class, and this is what all politicians fear most

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump-foreign-policy-advisers-met-israeli-pm-netanyahu-source-says-2024-05-20/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-21/voters-fear-trump-won-t-leave-if-he-wins-2024-presidential-election reassuring I guess that even the 85 IQ swing voters get this

Former President Donald Trump on Monday posted a video on his social media platform that uses a language that appears to mirror that of Nazi Germany, suggesting there will be a "Unified Reich" if he wins the 2024 election.

The phrase "Unified Reich" appears as a part of hypothetical news headlines that announce Trump's hypothetical victory in the 2024 election, with the narrator asking, "What happens after Donald Trump wins?"

Under a big headline that says, "WHAT'S NEXT FOR AMERICA?" there is a smaller headline underneath that appears to read: "INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH."

it makes perfect sense coming from a white nationalist who has the full support of his political party no matter what he says or does including an attempt to take over the country by force.

oh come on it was a mistake! he doesn't mean to do such things

Are we sure he wasn't referring to Robert Reich? And maybe the goal is to get him a sharp, matching suit? (He always seems to be a bit disheveled.)

Robert and Steve Reich, hence the "Unified Reich."

“Ritchie Reich” could be a good laugh line for Biden

(And, yes, dumb jokes are a passable enough way to distract ourselves from how normalized or shrugged or just plain misses this kind of rhetoric has become)

I am less and less worried about Robert Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign with each passing hour. He just posted this on Twitter, tagging a bunch of stock-picking accounts:

I’m very aware of what the average retail investor has been saying about the need for greater transparency in our markets, stronger regulatory oversight and tougher penalties for market manipulation and criminal behavior. My administration will support the Ape retail rebellion and enact aggressive Wall Street reforms.

To match action with words, I just invested $24,000 in GameStop from the fees I earned from suing Monsanto for their knowingly poisoning our soil and causing cancer. I love the idea of making Monsanto support $GME and the Apes. We need a free and fair market. Let’s punish predatory short selling to the moon. By the way, I ride with you and I’m not leaving.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOHo0SvasAA2HGv.jpg

Lol, is he a Dem plant to pick off low info Qanon wannabe techbros? It seems more likely with every passing day.

Am I missing something? WTF is this all about?

There might still be some worms in there, is probably WTF it's all about

RFK Jr. be like “I have a modest proposal…”

I saw a lawn sign for RFK.

A little voice inside your head said
Don't look back you can never look back

heh it keeps giving don’t it

presumed reply “well, yeah.”

A little worm inside my head, you mean

The most important takeaway from the RFK brainworm story, imo, is that the brainworm died after feasting on RFK's brain

it starved

Next press conference some intrepid journalist needs to ask Biden if his administration will support the Ape retail rebellion...

“You did it. You cut up his brain, you bloody baboon!”

Seriously would have advised that brainworm against choosing the head of a Kennedy as a good hiding spot

RFK's brain would feed families (of worms)

The Worm Dynasty

I saw a lawn sign for RFK.

― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Tuesday, May 21, 2024 2:54 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

There's one at the end of the driveway of the first home of a very sprawly McMansion subdivision near my work. It seems entirely perfect for the place.

brain worm fever CATCH IT!

Not the first kennedy to have worms in his brain. They crawl in and out aiui

Joe the patriarch had this Nazi worm iirc.

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

Trump must be visiting

The Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., was under lockdown Wednesday morning after someone sent vials of blood to the building, three sources familiar with the situation told NBC News.

A hazardous materials team from the U.S. Capitol Police is on site.

The suspicious package was cleared, the Capitol Police told NBC News. But one of the sources familiar with the situation said the building was still on lockdown and the blood was being tested.

It is unclear if a suspect is in custody.

it was probably Louie Gohmert trying to prove to everyone he had no vaccine in his system

there's a typo, they meant tasted not tested, new kid in the mailroom hasn't been turned yet

Biden Administration Cancels Another $7.7 Billion in Student Loans

President Biden announced on Wednesday the cancellation of $7.7 billion in student loans held by 160,000 borrowers, building on his strategy of chipping away at college debt by tweaking existing programs as his administration pursues a larger forgiveness plan.

Many borrowers in this round — who qualified through public service loan forgiveness, the president’s SAVE plan or another income-driven repayment plan — have already begun receiving emails notifying them of their approvals, the Education Department said in a statement.

The steady drumbeat of loan forgiveness announcements from the White House this year has become a centerpiece of Mr. Biden’s re-election pitch, in which he has consistently described overcoming the cost of education as a primary hurdle for working families.

Of course, it's the Times, so here come the caveats!

The announcement marks another small step forward on an issue that has long bedeviled the president. Even as he has canceled more student debt than has any of his predecessors, he has fallen far short of the mass debt forgiveness he promised, disappointing many of the younger voters who overwhelmingly supported him in 2020 but have shown signs of drifting away.

The Biden administration has now canceled about $167 billion in loans for 4.75 million borrowers, or roughly one in 10 federal loan holders, wiping away $35,000 in debt on average. The president has set forward a much larger goal: forgiving debt for nearly 30 million borrowers as soon as this fall. But the broader program is still being finalized and could fall victim to legal challenges, as Mr. Biden’s first attempt at mass debt cancellation did.

far short of the mass debt forgiveness he promised

eff you NYT. that is a false framing. he promised to pursue this as one of his highest priority policy goals and he has done that in the face of an obstructionist Congress and a federal judiciary that still skews conservative.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/may/22/newsmax-delete-evidence-2020-election-lies

xp You and I know that, but voters do blame him personally for a lack of follow-through. Thinking of a woman in a recent NYT focus group:

Leaders are like, “Oh, I’m going to do X, Y, Z for you.” And then they don’t do X, Y, Z for you. That’s a long list for our current president. The first one is removing student loans. That’s a major one for me. If you’re going to say it, then do it. I do make a livable wage, but that can soon change because of the inflation.

If Smartmatic gets that adverse inference instruction, I would say that case is just about over.

I don't see why Biden has to work to appease voters that hold him responsible for not following through on student debt relief. It's not like Trump's voters hold him responsible for not building the wall, not having Mexico pay for the minuscule amount that was built, not replacing Obamacare with something better, etc.

i hear it's still infrastructure week