All Politics Are Loco: 2023

[Edgy MD]

It passes for political reporting.

Clicks control the discourse.

[nymr83]

It is a very legitimate, I'd even say IMPORTANT, topic for reporting.

If someone lost it there, who?

If someone planted it there, who?

Either way, how did they get it into the White House? are people not searched? could someone intending something far more nefarious have brought in a baggy of anthrax? these are important questions about the access/security to our seat our government. Even with the predictable jokes about Hunter.

[MFS62]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was recently kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus after a string of disagreements with the conservative group?
You really have to be batshit crazy for those loonies to reject you.

Later

[The Hot Corner]

Well, she definitely qualifies.

[Lefty Specialist]

Here's a pretty wild ad, against Republicans trying to raise the threshold for voter ballot initiatives from 50% to 60% in Ohio. This is ahead of another ballot initialtive to keep abortion legal in Ohio in November.

Creepy, but definitely gets the point across. It's on Twitter, so apologies in advance if Elon blocked you.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1680071525230321666

[metirish]

Wow , that's wild , very well done

[Chad ochoseis]

Here's a pretty wild ad, against Republicans trying to raise the threshold for voter ballot initiatives from 50% to 60% in Ohio. This is ahead of another ballot initialtive to keep abortion legal in Ohio in November.

Creepy, but definitely gets the point across. It's on Twitter, so apologies in advance if Elon blocked you.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1680071525230321666

This is brilliant, and I hadn't seen it.

Yeah, the D team is pulling out all the stops on this one. My neighborhood's precinct captain has been to the last two block club meetings and was going door to door yesterday morning to get out the vote in my deep blue neighborhood.

[MFS62]

RFK Jr.'s comments suggesting the coronavirus was "engineered to avoid infecting Chinese and Jewish people" were given in testimony before a congressional committee and are now part of the Congressional Record.
A sad day.
Later

[Edgy MD]

Two late-breaking stories that should have nothing to do with federal policy, but sadly will:

• A federal judge has kicked back Hunter Biden's plea deal to attorneys, leaving Biden to switch his plea to Not Guilty.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to have had a medical crisis on camera, seemingly losing the power of speech in the middle of a statement about the Defense Authorization Act. He later rallied enough to say "I'm fine," but I imagine that won't be the end of it. (There's video there, and no matter your feelings about the minority leader, it's not easy to watch.)

[whippoorwill]

The McConnell video is hard to watch. That is scary

[batmagadanleadoff]

Who cares about the article itself? Is this like the greatest article title ever? It's about as good as it gets.

The DeSantis Campaign Has a Ron Problem

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... s-rfk-cdc/

[batmagadanleadoff]

It's still hard to get the mind around the fact that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the actual governor of an actual state in the actual United States of America. Still, it's a sad fact of democracy and we can't avoid it if we're going to understand how Arkansas became ground zero for book banning and other assorted manifestations of our delicately tailored modern fascism. On Sunday, a federal judge named Timothy Brooks slapped a temporary hold on one of Sanders' pet project— a law that would criminalize librarians and bookstore owners who provide "harmful material" to minors, "harmful" being defined by luxuriously financed pressure groups, ambitious conservative politicians, and the members of the First Church Of Christ, Nuisance.

[***]

The booksellers' involvement is ominous. The Arkansas law is written vaguely enough that, if a citizen buys a copy of The Bluest Eye or something for their kids, the person who sells it to them can easily be held criminally liable. And, since we are all very aware of the ni shagu nazad elements of conservative policymaking— How's that "leaving abortion to the states" thing working out? Mike Pence called for a national 15-week ban over the weekend— it was inevitable that book-banning would go from school libraries, to public libraries, to bookstores. To bookshelves, eventually, lining living rooms and dens. Don't put it past them.

Holy fuck. Remember this disgusting bullshitting typewriter from the Trump administration? She was a Republican press secretary, so naturally, calling her a bullshit artist is a redundancy and a gross understatement.



https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... e-ban-law/

[metirish]

What a creep Rudy is

[batmagadanleadoff]

Speaking of Rudy Giuliani and sex abuse ... what's the deal with that scumbag ex-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis? She was always seen at Giuliani's side. I'm convinced she was sucking Rudy's you-know-what and that's how she got in Trump's legal inner circle. I mean, she was a local landlord-tenant lawyer. Not that there's any shame in that but how the fuck does she end up going from there to working on election and constitutional law issues at the very highest levels? On matters that attempted to determine (steal, really) the presidency, no less. No fucking way.

[Edgy MD]

If you were willing to publiclly lead such an absurd campaign, you could get from Nowheresville into the inner circle rather quickly.

All sorts of marginal kooks got access to him by telling him what he wanted to hear. Kanye West, Mike Lindell, Nick Fuentes — the list is endless. These are dangerously unbalanced people.

Any sane politician of any stripe would know to keep such figures at arm's length and further. He surrounded himself with them. Still does.

[batmagadanleadoff]

If you were willing to publiclly lead such an absurd campaign, you could get from Nowheresville into the inner circle rather quickly.

All sorts of marginal kooks got access to him by telling him what he wanted to hear. Kanye West, Mike Lindell, Nick Fuentes — the list is endless. These are dangerously unbalanced people.

Good point. But I'm sticking with the affair with Giuliani story. Sidney Powell was a major kook. But she had the credentials to work on legal issues at those rarefied air levels. She had the resume and the pedigree, kook though she turned out to be. Jenna Ellis? No way she gets in there.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Yall ever watch FOX for a segment just to see what those fools are on about? The hard-on that they have for the Bidens is straaaaaange. Such warriors against nepotism with zero self-awareness of the shit they ignore with their rope-haired hero's nefarious family. ok, back to watching baseball before I can't crawl out of this hole.

[Lefty Specialist]

I do tend to drop in from time to time. They're big on the "Biden Crime Family", which-spoiler alert- is not actually a thing. You want crime families, hey, guess who got arraigned today (for the 3rd time)? And let's talk about that 'quid pro quo' $2 billion Jared got from the Saudis.

They're very shrill, as if talking louder and more desperately will make them more believable. You can see the veins in Hannity's neck bulging.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Let's get loco. And local.

Anybody here wanna donate money to the Michigan state GOP? Because it's broke. For real. Effectively penniless. Apparently nobody wants to donate to a party led by a scumbag election stealer and state GOP pols that actually steal voting machines to manipulate the vote count.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/0 ... y-00109387

https://www.salon.com/2023/07/05/astoni ... ely-broke/

[TransMonk]

Wisconsin is finally working at healing following the past 12 years of Scott Walker and WI GOP ratfucking.

The Supreme Court switched to a liberal majority this week and lawsuits have already been filed challenging the state's extreme GOP gerrymander.

https://www.vox.com/voting-rights/2023/ ... otasiewicz

[MFS62]

An Ohio vote this week will tell us if the State's constitution can be amended with a vote of 50%.
The GOP wants to raise it to 60% to try to block an abortion vote in November.

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

An Ohio vote this week will tell us if the State's constitution can be amended with a vote of 50%.
The GOP wants to raise it to 60% to try to block an abortion vote in November.

Later

Why don't they just pass a fucking law that only GOP led referendums can ever take effect?

[Chad ochoseis]

Columbus Dispatch has called it a "no" vote. Even about half the Republican counties in Ohio look to be voting no, though I don't know if early and absentee ballots are counted first and skewing the results.



https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/pol ... 487461007/

[Lefty Specialist]

Well, I guess Ohioans decided they didn't want their rights taken away.

[Edgy MD]

I have to say, amending a constitution on a popular vote seems to undermine the idea of a constitution.

Whatever the process is, it certainly should be the same no matter who is in power, but how do you defend minority rights when a simple majority of voters can take them away? How do you establish and maintain the idea that a constitution has a higher authority than laws and regulations when it is easier to change than an ordinary law?