Showing posts with label political games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political games. Show all posts
Jul 4, 2024
Feb 6, 2024
About That Retribution Thing
It never fails. People get behind a guy like Trump, and it's like they assume he's going to behave the way they would if the roles were reversed - at least giving them the benefit of the doubt, or keeping a scorecard so he can trade on favors later if he needs to.
Republicans fear they will be targets in Trump’s ‘retribution’ campaign
The former president is already attacking those who have endorsed his GOP opponents or have crossed him in other ways
Donald Trump has promised a presidency of “retribution” if he wins another term in office. Many Republicans fear they might face the brunt of it.
The former president has threatened to have donors to his Republican opponent Nikki Haley “permanently barred” from his orbit. A top adviser has vowed to destroy the career of Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), House Freedom Caucus chair, after he endorsed another Trump challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Trump campaign has also attempted to condemn former aides who worked for his rivals during the GOP nomination fight and have twisted arms demanding endorsements, telling lawmakers that Trump will remember exactly when they backed him.
“MAGA disowns her and anyone else that associates/works with her,” read a recent Trump campaign social media message targeting the Trump campaign’s 2020 communications director for working last year to elect DeSantis. “TRAITOR!”
Even new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been dragged into the crossfire. One of his top political consultants, Jason Hebert, works for Axiom Strategies, a consulting company that advised the DeSantis presidential effort. A Trump adviser called Johnson after he won the speakership to warn him not to work with Axiom, according to multiple people familiar with the call, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal details. Hebert, a college friend of Johnson’s, is expected to start billing his work for Johnson through a company not tied to Axiom, one of the people said.
The high-dollar donor community, which has been told in various ways to rally quickly behind Trump, has taken notice.
“People took that as, ‘I am going to be president and I am going to investigate you,’” said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairman and Haley backer, when Trump threatened to punish her donors. “There is always a threat. If you are not for him he’s against you.”
Trump’s top advisers say the efforts to cajole and punish within the party are not a central part of their strategy, and some close to Trump point out that the former president can be quick to forgive when it is in his interest. Trump has long distinguished himself as both surprisingly vicious and disarmingly transactional, often willing to forgive intractable enmity for short-term gain.
Hours after DeSantis endorsed him, Trump dropped use of his vicious nicknames — saying he was retiring them — and praised the Florida governor. This past week, Trump’s top aide, Susie Wiles, addressed some of the country’s most affluent donors in Palm Beach, Fla. In her presentation, Wiles did not make threats, and instead shared data and attempted to woo the donors with a carrot-more-than-stick approach, people with knowledge of the meeting said.
“The campaign is singularly focused on one thing — beating Crooked Joe Biden and winning back the White House,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, in a statement.
Trump has complained repeatedly to advisers that Republicans are not loyal enough and often shares more anger for Republicans who buck or criticize him than for Democrats. In 2021 and 2022, he made it a near-singular mission to defeat Republican lawmakers who voted for his impeachment and who publicly disputed his claims of election fraud.
There are other signs that Trump’s team has used a heavy hand. His campaign sent word to other operatives that if they worked for DeSantis, they would no longer be able to work for Trump, according to people with knowledge of the comments. One message sent to former aide who did not heed the warnings read, “RIP,” according to a person familiar with the exchange.
The former president’s advisers have discussed trying to change personnel at the Republican National Committee to install people they view as more in line with Trump and controlled by Trump’s campaign, according to people familiar with the discussions. It is unclear exactly how they would do this, but Trump said in a Sunday morning interview with Fox Business that there would be changes at the RNC. The former president has discussed trying to immediately remove Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) from his Senate leadership post should he be reelected, and has told advisers that he would want to immediately fire Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed by Trump as FBI director, following multiple federal investigations since he left office.
Some allies have kept lists of Republicans who have been critical of Trump in a bid to block them from getting jobs in a second term, according to a person with knowledge of the list. “You have a lot of people who want to come back in, but we remember what people have said in the past,” one longtime Trump ally said.
During a grueling primary, Trump has told advisers that he wants to make sure Ron DeSantis is not the GOP presidential nominee in 2028 and that he wanted to make his 2024 loss painful, people who heard his comments said. He has floated attacking lesser-known senators for not immediately endorsing him, according to people who have spoken to Trump.
Trump’s team turned up the pressure on endorsement holdouts ahead of the Iowa caucuses, and the former president quickly embraced the January endorsement of Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) just months after calling him “hopeless” in a social media post. Trump warned Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), who resisted calls to endorse Trump in 2021, that he “must be very careful” about his 2024 reelection race in a December social media post, while aides leaked word that Trump was talking of doing something more to punish his former 2016 rival. Cruz endorsed Trump after the Iowa caucuses, and Trump embraced the move as “wonderful.”
Texas House speaker Dade Phelan (R) led the impeachment effort against Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R), a Trump ally, and later endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign. Just days later, Trump endorsed Phelan’s opponent, saying in a social media post that Phelan’s support did “not mitigate the Absolute Embarrassment Speaker Phelan inflicted upon the State of Texas and our Great Republican Party!”
He obliquely threatened Haley during his speech in New Hampshire, saying she would soon be under investigation for various things — without naming them — and allies of Trump have fanned rumors about her personal life.
Haley, as Trump’s last opponent for the nomination, has tried to make Trump’s efforts to punish fellow Republicans a central message of her campaign. She has said she represents a different, more unifying kind of politics.
“That’s a president who is supposed to serve every person in America, and you are deciding that you are going to have a club and actually ban people from being in and out of your club?” she said in a recent Fox News interview.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R), a major backer of Trump, joined the pressure game during an appearance in New Hampshire with Trump, when he took a jab at his own state education superintendent, Ellen Weaver, for being the only statewide elected official who has not yet endorsed the former president. Trump advisers and allies in South Carolina have pressured Weaver, who has demurred, saying she did not want to take a position in the race, people with knowledge of the talks said.
“She’s a rookie and she will figure it out before long,” McMaster said about Weaver. Since those comments, Weaver and McMaster spoke privately, according to people familiar with the call.
Other conflicts have been fueled in public by Trump’s staff, who made a point of attacking consultants and supporters of DeSantis last year as part of a campaign to create discord within his operations. Chris LaCivita, a top aide to Trump, repeatedly attacked Axiom strategist Jeff Roe, who had previously auditioned for a role in the Trump campaign.
Trump has told advisers that his opinion of Roe, who he once praised publicly as a formidable strategist, has changed after watching the now-shuttered DeSantis campaign because he now views him as a “loser,” in Trump’s words. Trump has nonetheless endorsed a number of candidates who have Axiom as a consultant.
Several Axiom employees who worked for Trump in 2020 went to work for DeSantis. When one of them, Erin Perrine, appeared on Fox Business in January she was immediately targeted by the Trump campaign’s social media account, which called her out after Fox chose to identify her as a former Trump adviser.
“She chose to side with DeSanctimonious and nothing can ever wash that foul stench,” the Team Trump post said, using a derogatory Trump nickname for the Florida governor.
LaCivita was also behind a recent attack on Good, a congressman from his home state of Virginia for endorsing DeSantis. Aides were upset by Good’s suggestion that DeSantis had a better chance than Trump of winning a general election.
“Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him,” LaCivita said in a text message to Cardinal News, a publication that covers politics in southern Virginia.
Such moves have cast a pall over the Republican caucus, quieting public challenges to Trump’s control of the Republican Party. One of the reasons more Senate Republicans have begun endorsing Trump, according to a strategist with knowledge of the talks, is they would prefer to avoid his wrath if he becomes the nominee. Trump’s endorsements in 2022 Senate races were decisive in multiple contested primaries, though several of those candidates later lost the general election.
Johnson has told people that he speaks to Trump regularly and tries to solicit Trump’s opinion.
People close to McConnell say he has assiduously avoided fighting with Trump even when goaded by others to do so — or even when Trump has attacked his wife, former transportation secretary Elaine Chao. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, McConnell held Trump responsible, calling his actions beforehand “a disgraceful dereliction of duty” and “unconscionable behavior.” McConnell described Trump’s political clout as “diminished” after the 2022 elections. The two men have not spoken since 2020, and McConnell has largely avoided even saying Trump’s name.
McConnell has yet to endorse Trump, but he has also refrained from making any recent critical statements. “I’ve stayed essentially out of it,” he told reporters on the day of the New Hampshire primary. “And when I change my mind about that, I’ll let you know.”
After Trump won the New Hampshire primary, McConnell began referring to the former president as “the nominee.”
But of course he doesn't. The man has no honor - and he demonstrates that almost daily - so it's more than a little stupid to expect honorable behavior from him.
🤪 duh 🤨
The former president is already attacking those who have endorsed his GOP opponents or have crossed him in other ways
Donald Trump has promised a presidency of “retribution” if he wins another term in office. Many Republicans fear they might face the brunt of it.
The former president has threatened to have donors to his Republican opponent Nikki Haley “permanently barred” from his orbit. A top adviser has vowed to destroy the career of Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), House Freedom Caucus chair, after he endorsed another Trump challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Trump campaign has also attempted to condemn former aides who worked for his rivals during the GOP nomination fight and have twisted arms demanding endorsements, telling lawmakers that Trump will remember exactly when they backed him.
“MAGA disowns her and anyone else that associates/works with her,” read a recent Trump campaign social media message targeting the Trump campaign’s 2020 communications director for working last year to elect DeSantis. “TRAITOR!”
Even new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been dragged into the crossfire. One of his top political consultants, Jason Hebert, works for Axiom Strategies, a consulting company that advised the DeSantis presidential effort. A Trump adviser called Johnson after he won the speakership to warn him not to work with Axiom, according to multiple people familiar with the call, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal details. Hebert, a college friend of Johnson’s, is expected to start billing his work for Johnson through a company not tied to Axiom, one of the people said.
The high-dollar donor community, which has been told in various ways to rally quickly behind Trump, has taken notice.
“People took that as, ‘I am going to be president and I am going to investigate you,’” said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairman and Haley backer, when Trump threatened to punish her donors. “There is always a threat. If you are not for him he’s against you.”
Trump’s top advisers say the efforts to cajole and punish within the party are not a central part of their strategy, and some close to Trump point out that the former president can be quick to forgive when it is in his interest. Trump has long distinguished himself as both surprisingly vicious and disarmingly transactional, often willing to forgive intractable enmity for short-term gain.
Hours after DeSantis endorsed him, Trump dropped use of his vicious nicknames — saying he was retiring them — and praised the Florida governor. This past week, Trump’s top aide, Susie Wiles, addressed some of the country’s most affluent donors in Palm Beach, Fla. In her presentation, Wiles did not make threats, and instead shared data and attempted to woo the donors with a carrot-more-than-stick approach, people with knowledge of the meeting said.
“The campaign is singularly focused on one thing — beating Crooked Joe Biden and winning back the White House,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, in a statement.
Trump has complained repeatedly to advisers that Republicans are not loyal enough and often shares more anger for Republicans who buck or criticize him than for Democrats. In 2021 and 2022, he made it a near-singular mission to defeat Republican lawmakers who voted for his impeachment and who publicly disputed his claims of election fraud.
There are other signs that Trump’s team has used a heavy hand. His campaign sent word to other operatives that if they worked for DeSantis, they would no longer be able to work for Trump, according to people with knowledge of the comments. One message sent to former aide who did not heed the warnings read, “RIP,” according to a person familiar with the exchange.
The former president’s advisers have discussed trying to change personnel at the Republican National Committee to install people they view as more in line with Trump and controlled by Trump’s campaign, according to people familiar with the discussions. It is unclear exactly how they would do this, but Trump said in a Sunday morning interview with Fox Business that there would be changes at the RNC. The former president has discussed trying to immediately remove Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) from his Senate leadership post should he be reelected, and has told advisers that he would want to immediately fire Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed by Trump as FBI director, following multiple federal investigations since he left office.
Some allies have kept lists of Republicans who have been critical of Trump in a bid to block them from getting jobs in a second term, according to a person with knowledge of the list. “You have a lot of people who want to come back in, but we remember what people have said in the past,” one longtime Trump ally said.
During a grueling primary, Trump has told advisers that he wants to make sure Ron DeSantis is not the GOP presidential nominee in 2028 and that he wanted to make his 2024 loss painful, people who heard his comments said. He has floated attacking lesser-known senators for not immediately endorsing him, according to people who have spoken to Trump.
Trump’s team turned up the pressure on endorsement holdouts ahead of the Iowa caucuses, and the former president quickly embraced the January endorsement of Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) just months after calling him “hopeless” in a social media post. Trump warned Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), who resisted calls to endorse Trump in 2021, that he “must be very careful” about his 2024 reelection race in a December social media post, while aides leaked word that Trump was talking of doing something more to punish his former 2016 rival. Cruz endorsed Trump after the Iowa caucuses, and Trump embraced the move as “wonderful.”
Texas House speaker Dade Phelan (R) led the impeachment effort against Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R), a Trump ally, and later endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign. Just days later, Trump endorsed Phelan’s opponent, saying in a social media post that Phelan’s support did “not mitigate the Absolute Embarrassment Speaker Phelan inflicted upon the State of Texas and our Great Republican Party!”
He obliquely threatened Haley during his speech in New Hampshire, saying she would soon be under investigation for various things — without naming them — and allies of Trump have fanned rumors about her personal life.
Haley, as Trump’s last opponent for the nomination, has tried to make Trump’s efforts to punish fellow Republicans a central message of her campaign. She has said she represents a different, more unifying kind of politics.
“That’s a president who is supposed to serve every person in America, and you are deciding that you are going to have a club and actually ban people from being in and out of your club?” she said in a recent Fox News interview.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R), a major backer of Trump, joined the pressure game during an appearance in New Hampshire with Trump, when he took a jab at his own state education superintendent, Ellen Weaver, for being the only statewide elected official who has not yet endorsed the former president. Trump advisers and allies in South Carolina have pressured Weaver, who has demurred, saying she did not want to take a position in the race, people with knowledge of the talks said.
“She’s a rookie and she will figure it out before long,” McMaster said about Weaver. Since those comments, Weaver and McMaster spoke privately, according to people familiar with the call.
Other conflicts have been fueled in public by Trump’s staff, who made a point of attacking consultants and supporters of DeSantis last year as part of a campaign to create discord within his operations. Chris LaCivita, a top aide to Trump, repeatedly attacked Axiom strategist Jeff Roe, who had previously auditioned for a role in the Trump campaign.
Trump has told advisers that his opinion of Roe, who he once praised publicly as a formidable strategist, has changed after watching the now-shuttered DeSantis campaign because he now views him as a “loser,” in Trump’s words. Trump has nonetheless endorsed a number of candidates who have Axiom as a consultant.
Several Axiom employees who worked for Trump in 2020 went to work for DeSantis. When one of them, Erin Perrine, appeared on Fox Business in January she was immediately targeted by the Trump campaign’s social media account, which called her out after Fox chose to identify her as a former Trump adviser.
“She chose to side with DeSanctimonious and nothing can ever wash that foul stench,” the Team Trump post said, using a derogatory Trump nickname for the Florida governor.
LaCivita was also behind a recent attack on Good, a congressman from his home state of Virginia for endorsing DeSantis. Aides were upset by Good’s suggestion that DeSantis had a better chance than Trump of winning a general election.
“Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him,” LaCivita said in a text message to Cardinal News, a publication that covers politics in southern Virginia.
Such moves have cast a pall over the Republican caucus, quieting public challenges to Trump’s control of the Republican Party. One of the reasons more Senate Republicans have begun endorsing Trump, according to a strategist with knowledge of the talks, is they would prefer to avoid his wrath if he becomes the nominee. Trump’s endorsements in 2022 Senate races were decisive in multiple contested primaries, though several of those candidates later lost the general election.
Johnson has told people that he speaks to Trump regularly and tries to solicit Trump’s opinion.
People close to McConnell say he has assiduously avoided fighting with Trump even when goaded by others to do so — or even when Trump has attacked his wife, former transportation secretary Elaine Chao. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, McConnell held Trump responsible, calling his actions beforehand “a disgraceful dereliction of duty” and “unconscionable behavior.” McConnell described Trump’s political clout as “diminished” after the 2022 elections. The two men have not spoken since 2020, and McConnell has largely avoided even saying Trump’s name.
McConnell has yet to endorse Trump, but he has also refrained from making any recent critical statements. “I’ve stayed essentially out of it,” he told reporters on the day of the New Hampshire primary. “And when I change my mind about that, I’ll let you know.”
After Trump won the New Hampshire primary, McConnell began referring to the former president as “the nominee.”
Oct 20, 2023
Oh, Mr Jordan
Jim Jordan lost again - 3rd time's the charm I guess. And his losing margin got three votes bigger - so he quit the race.
House Republicans retreated into private caucus for an hour or so, where they voted by secret ballot, and Jordan was ... uhm ... de-selected as the Speaker candidate.
86 said, "Yeah, Jim - you're our guy."
112 said, "Fuck off, Jim."
It's interesting that out of those 112 who voted NO in secret, only 25 of them had the balls to vote that way on a roll call vote, on the floor of the House, where they have to say it out loud.
A couple of things to remember.
- The MAGA strong-arm tactics got even uglier than they usually are - loud and aggressive harassment of members, and their staffers, and their families, up to and including outright death threats. But it backfired, making more people less likely to support Jordan. I'm not feeling all warm-n-fuzzy about maybe this is some kind of turning of the worm, but I may be able to hold out a bit more hope. (as always - hopeful but not yet optimistic)
- I haven't seen anything in this yet to dissuade me from my belief that Republicans are deliberately causing dysfunction.
Oh yeah - almost forgot. Apparently god got it wrong (?)
Jul 17, 2023
Hunter's Laptop
Oh, wait - Hunter Biden actually has been found to have broken the law, he's stood before the man, admitted to being a tax cheat, and he's paid us what he owed.
He's also pled guilty to a gun charge (he lied on his background check), which is something that's almost never prosecuted.
BTW #1, I have yet to hear any Republicans squawking about how poor Hunter's 2A rights have been trampled on by a tyrannical government.
OK, but still, he got off easy. What about all the horrible things he's accused of doing in the 2014 - 2016 timeframe? Rudy Giuliani's pal got Hunter's laptop for us and it's just loaded with proof.
BTW #2, some serious questions remain largely unanswered about "the laptop":
- Does it actually exist?
- How was it obtained?
- What about the chain of custody?
I'm not saying there's absolutely nothing to it, and that Hunter Biden is innocent like a spring lamb. I'm betting there is, and he's not.
But I'll bet way more on the obviously dead solid certainty that Republicans have their new Benghazi, and it doesn't matter what the truth is - they're going to flack the fuck out of that one narrow aspect of it, trying to drive Joe's numbers down.
WaPo takes a look at it for us.
Republican lawmakers expressed outrage last week after Fox News published a 2015 email chain from Hunter Biden’s laptop in which a Ukrainian energy company executive suggested that the “ultimate purpose” of Hunter’s hiring by the company was to shut down investigations of the company’s owner. The email exchange took place about one month before then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine with the express purpose of seeking the removal of the country’s top prosecutor.
Never mind that Tucker Carlson, then a Fox News host, devoted an entire show to this email in October 2020. “Did Joe Biden subvert American foreign policy to enrich his family?” Carlson asked.
The Hunter Biden saga apparently can be endlessly recycled for maximum impact.
“The calm, judicious, steady reveal of incredibly condemning evidence that clearly incriminates the Biden crime family will eventually alarm even the most ardent supporters” of Biden, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) told Fox last week.
However, working with our colleagues in Ukraine in 2019, we carefully documented the legal cases involving the energy company, Burisma, and its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky. The information continues to be relevant to assess whether the 2015 email chain provides evidence that Hunter Biden was acting to influence U.S. policy through his father at the time.
Biden and the Ukrainian prosecutor
The email chain is part of 217 gigabytes of data on a hard drive purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden and obtained by The Washington Post from a Republican activist. A small portion of the data, including the chain, was verified by two security experts who examined it for The Post, so we are able to cite these emails and provide links.
On Nov. 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, who was a Burisma board member, and two of Hunter’s associates regarding the hiring of a U.S. public relations firm to bolster Burisma’s image.
“I would like us to formulate a list of deliverables, including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions, incl. meetings/communications resulting in high-ranking U.S. officials in Ukraine (U.S. Ambassador) and in U.S. publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their ‘positive opinion’ and support of Nikolay/Burisma to the highest level of decision-makers here in Ukraine: President of Ukraine, president Chief of staff, Prosecutor General, etc.,” Pozharskyi wrote, using a nickname for Zlochevsky. “The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former U.S. policymakers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine.”
After responding with an email suggesting he wanted “one more conversation” with Blue Star, the PR firm, Hunter Biden told Pozharskyi that he was “comfortable” with Blue Star and “you should go ahead and sign.”
Nine days later, the U.S. Embassy announced that the vice president would be traveling to Ukraine in December to meet with the Ukrainian president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, and members of parliament. Separately during this period, Blue Star indicated it was beginning to engage with U.S. and Ukrainian officials to shape perceptions of the company.
Here’s where the story gets complicated. A key purpose of Joe Biden’s December 2015 trip was to press Poroshenko to remove the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, by threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. Biden’s pressure eventually led to Shokin’s firing. But whether he was a shakedown artist operating at the behest of his son depends on whether Shokin was viewed as an impediment to investigating Burisma. Shokin has since claimed he was ousted because he was getting too tough on Burisma, but the available evidence shows the opposite is true.
- snip -
The available evidence shows that U.S. policy, executed but not developed by Joe Biden, operated independently of his son’s efforts to engage a PR firm to burnish Zlochevsky’s image. Biden’s efforts to oust the prosecutor only plausibly benefited Zlochevsky if Shokin had moved aggressively against Zlochevsky. But documents and interviews instead show Shokin had failed to act — which was a key reason the international community, led by the United States, sought his removal in the first place.
Nov 6, 2022
About Last Night
I didn't win the PowerBall jackpot last night.
There must have been lottery fraud on a massive scale.
The drawing was stolen from me.
I saw plenty of those pingpong ball thingies that had my numbers on them.
I was well on my way to winning - in fact, I did win.
So please donate now so we can check for traces of bamboo - right after I buy myself a new airplane.
Jun 26, 2022
Everybody's Got One
Not that I feel a need to go out of my way to shit on somebody's hopefulness, but c'mon, guys - SCOTUS has been scuttling laws aimed at regulating guns for 30 years - and I don't think we have long to wait before there's a lawsuit challenging this new assault on "shall not be infringed" and SCOTUS strikes it down.
There could be, however, a weird Good News / Bad News angle to consider.
If the law is upheld, that could give the liberals a warm and fuzzy feeling, and signal some small chance for even better gun safety laws to follow, but it could also mean that the plutocracy has decided it's time to curtail the rabble's ability to fight back.
Authoritarians love for you to go around waving your big bad substitute penis in the air when it intimidates "the left", but they can't afford to have you well-enough armed to mount an effective resistance once they have a choke hold on power, and you recognize that you've been slickered - again.
WaPo - Opinion: (pay wall)
GOP support for a gun bill offers hope for bigger reforms
Fifteen Republicans in the Senate and 14 in the House joined with congressional Democrats this week to break more than 25 years of inaction on gun safety. That these Republicans, many of whom had ratings of A or A-plus from the National Rifle Association, defied the gun lobby with their support of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act suggests they saw the political peril in doing nothing about the gun violence gripping the country. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who voted for the bill, admitted as much when he said he hoped GOP support for the measure “will be viewed favorably by voters” as the party seeks to regain the majority next year.
The public sentiment for gun safety that has steadily built with each mass shooting, finally forcing Republicans to drop their ironclad opposition, offers hope that the legislation, signed into law by President Biden on Saturday, will be the first and not last step in bringing some rationality to the nation’s gun laws.
The 80-page bill, produced by a small group of Republican and Democratic senators in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings at a Buffalo grocery store and a Texas school, falls far short of the tough but common-sense measures long sought by gun-control advocates. There are no universal background checks, no ban of large-capacity magazines, no requirements for safe storage of weapons and no action — not even raising the minimum age of purchase — on assault weapons. That, though, does not detract from the significance of what was achieved.
Among the worthwhile reforms: enhanced background checks for younger gun buyers to include juvenile and mental health records; incentives for states to adopt red-flag laws that allow guns to be temporarily confiscated from people deemed dangerous by a judge; tougher penalties on illegal gun purchases; and revision of a federal law intended to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers to close the “boyfriend loophole.” Those measures — along with billions of new federal dollars to expand mental health programs and improve school safety — will save lives.
Credit for the hard work of fashioning a compromise that both sides could agree to goes to Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R- Tex.), aided by Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). Mr. Murphy had just been elected to the Senate in 2012 when a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his home state and has been tireless in his pursuit of common-sense gun control despite many setbacks. Mr. Cornyn’s willingness to negotiate — and his refusal to back down even when faced with withering criticism from former president Donald Trump, Fox News and his state GOP party — is equally praiseworthy. So is his forthrightness in standing up to the NRA. “We worked with the NRA, listened to their concerns, but in the end I think they simply — they have a membership and a business model that will not allow them to support any legislation,” Mr. Cornyn said.
Passage of the bill came a day after the Supreme Court expanded gun rights by striking down a New York law limiting the carrying of guns in public. That ill-advised and dangerous ruling may have tempered any celebration over the gun bill, but it can’t squelch the public sentiment that has risen up in support of rational gun-safety laws.
Remember that last bit, and keep it in mind as we have to contemplate the probability that this is all part of the typically cynical machinations of a Republican party that knows the Supreme Court is chock full of "conservatives" who will knock down anything "Progressive" that manages to get through.
In the case of gun regulation, Cornyn can sit back and say, "Well gee whiz, I was willing to humor the dumbass Dems and give their cockamamy scheme a try, but the Supreme Court says it's unconstitutional (just like I knew they would - wink wink) - whaddaya gonna do?"
Ya heard it here first.
Sep 13, 2021
Joe Manchin
...is just another coin-operated corporate-owned phony.
When a moderate goes against his party, the political media are drawn like moths to a flame. Such was the case with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Sunday, as he appeared on NBC’s, CNN’s and ABC’s Sunday talk shows to explain his opposition to the budget reconciliation bill at the center of President Biden’s legislative agenda.
The West Virginia senator came with plenty of rationalizations. He expressed concern about inflation and the national debt. (“Do we have the urgency to spend another $3.5 trillion right now?” he asked on CNN.) He rejected the idea that the bill needed to be moved in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure deal he helped broker. “We don’t have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there’s some deadline we’re meeting,” he said on NBC of the reconciliation bill. By contrast, he told CNN, “the president went out and campaigned on [the infrastructure deal]. That’s his bill.”
But these arguments apply equally to the infrastructure deal and the budget reconciliation bill. Any concerns about the debt or inflation should surely also apply to the $1 trillion for infrastructure, and there’s no deadline that necessitates rushing it, either. President Biden has campaigned for both bills.
When a moderate goes against his party, the political media are drawn like moths to a flame. Such was the case with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Sunday, as he appeared on NBC’s, CNN’s and ABC’s Sunday talk shows to explain his opposition to the budget reconciliation bill at the center of President Biden’s legislative agenda.
The West Virginia senator came with plenty of rationalizations. He expressed concern about inflation and the national debt. (“Do we have the urgency to spend another $3.5 trillion right now?” he asked on CNN.) He rejected the idea that the bill needed to be moved in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure deal he helped broker. “We don’t have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there’s some deadline we’re meeting,” he said on NBC of the reconciliation bill. By contrast, he told CNN, “the president went out and campaigned on [the infrastructure deal]. That’s his bill.”
But these arguments apply equally to the infrastructure deal and the budget reconciliation bill. Any concerns about the debt or inflation should surely also apply to the $1 trillion for infrastructure, and there’s no deadline that necessitates rushing it, either. President Biden has campaigned for both bills.
So what, then, really distinguishes the two bills for Manchin? The answer seems to lie in an answer he gave on ABC, when asked whether neither bill may end up passing. “If you don’t need bridges fixed or roads fixed in your state, I do in West Virginia,” he replied. “I need Internet in West Virginia. I got water and sewage problems. I have got all the problems that we have addressed in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.”
I, I, I. This isn’t unusual phrasing for Manchin. In a recent New Yorker profile, he described his concerns about West Virginia’s economy as “I can’t lose one job. I don’t have one to spare,” as though his Senate office is the state’s employment center. The decisive factor for Manchin isn’t the debt, the pandemic or the inflation rate. It’s that one bill has what he wants, and the other doesn’t.
This “me first” selfishness has served Manchin well for many years, and not just as a blue politician surviving in a red state. A new report from Type Investigations and the Intercept on the coal companies that made his fortune found that “for decades,” Manchin’s coal firms “have relied on mines and refuse piles cited for dozens of Mine Safety and Health Agency violations, multiple deaths, and wastewater discharging that has poisoned tributaries feeding into the Monongahela River, as hundreds of thousands of tons of carcinogenic coal ash are dumped across Marion County.”
While Manchin doesn’t own the mines and power plants polluting the state, his businesses have benefited handsomely from them. Since he joined the Senate 10 years ago, the investigation found, he has “grossed more than $4.5 million” from his firms, according to financial disclosures. As the article notes, Manchin has said his ownership interest is held in a blind trust.
No doubt Manchin would bristle at the suggestion that his opposition to the reconciliation bill and its climate provisions would have anything to do with their impact on his personal wealth. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, though, the theme remains the same: Manchin gets his, while everyone else can fend for themselves.
Luckily, Manchin hasn’t gotten what he wants yet — and that gives the White House and the left leverage. Manchin is famously prickly about pressure campaigns, but his desire for the bipartisan infrastructure bill is palpable. Democrats shouldn’t be shy about threatening to tank both bills if one won’t pass.
Similar dynamics have already played out in the House. As the Intercept’s Ryan Grim has reported, for example, progressives on the House Education Committee shut down moderates’ attempts to water down a robust child-care benefit by refusing to vote for a more modest benefit. Sticking to the two-track path is the best chance to ensure that not only does Manchin gets his, but also all Americans get theirs.
In addition to his ridiculous opposition to the two voting rights bills that he's helping Mitch McConnell kill, there's the little matter of getting this country back on the right track for making some real progress towards economic justice, which BTW, goes hand-in-hand with environmental justice and a bunch of other common sense measures that help the very people Joe Manchin pretends to be concerned about.
WaPo Opinion: (pay wall)
When a moderate goes against his party, the political media are drawn like moths to a flame. Such was the case with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Sunday, as he appeared on NBC’s, CNN’s and ABC’s Sunday talk shows to explain his opposition to the budget reconciliation bill at the center of President Biden’s legislative agenda.
The West Virginia senator came with plenty of rationalizations. He expressed concern about inflation and the national debt. (“Do we have the urgency to spend another $3.5 trillion right now?” he asked on CNN.) He rejected the idea that the bill needed to be moved in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure deal he helped broker. “We don’t have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there’s some deadline we’re meeting,” he said on NBC of the reconciliation bill. By contrast, he told CNN, “the president went out and campaigned on [the infrastructure deal]. That’s his bill.”
But these arguments apply equally to the infrastructure deal and the budget reconciliation bill. Any concerns about the debt or inflation should surely also apply to the $1 trillion for infrastructure, and there’s no deadline that necessitates rushing it, either. President Biden has campaigned for both bills.
When a moderate goes against his party, the political media are drawn like moths to a flame. Such was the case with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Sunday, as he appeared on NBC’s, CNN’s and ABC’s Sunday talk shows to explain his opposition to the budget reconciliation bill at the center of President Biden’s legislative agenda.
The West Virginia senator came with plenty of rationalizations. He expressed concern about inflation and the national debt. (“Do we have the urgency to spend another $3.5 trillion right now?” he asked on CNN.) He rejected the idea that the bill needed to be moved in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure deal he helped broker. “We don’t have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there’s some deadline we’re meeting,” he said on NBC of the reconciliation bill. By contrast, he told CNN, “the president went out and campaigned on [the infrastructure deal]. That’s his bill.”
But these arguments apply equally to the infrastructure deal and the budget reconciliation bill. Any concerns about the debt or inflation should surely also apply to the $1 trillion for infrastructure, and there’s no deadline that necessitates rushing it, either. President Biden has campaigned for both bills.
So what, then, really distinguishes the two bills for Manchin? The answer seems to lie in an answer he gave on ABC, when asked whether neither bill may end up passing. “If you don’t need bridges fixed or roads fixed in your state, I do in West Virginia,” he replied. “I need Internet in West Virginia. I got water and sewage problems. I have got all the problems that we have addressed in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.”
I, I, I. This isn’t unusual phrasing for Manchin. In a recent New Yorker profile, he described his concerns about West Virginia’s economy as “I can’t lose one job. I don’t have one to spare,” as though his Senate office is the state’s employment center. The decisive factor for Manchin isn’t the debt, the pandemic or the inflation rate. It’s that one bill has what he wants, and the other doesn’t.
This “me first” selfishness has served Manchin well for many years, and not just as a blue politician surviving in a red state. A new report from Type Investigations and the Intercept on the coal companies that made his fortune found that “for decades,” Manchin’s coal firms “have relied on mines and refuse piles cited for dozens of Mine Safety and Health Agency violations, multiple deaths, and wastewater discharging that has poisoned tributaries feeding into the Monongahela River, as hundreds of thousands of tons of carcinogenic coal ash are dumped across Marion County.”
While Manchin doesn’t own the mines and power plants polluting the state, his businesses have benefited handsomely from them. Since he joined the Senate 10 years ago, the investigation found, he has “grossed more than $4.5 million” from his firms, according to financial disclosures. As the article notes, Manchin has said his ownership interest is held in a blind trust.
No doubt Manchin would bristle at the suggestion that his opposition to the reconciliation bill and its climate provisions would have anything to do with their impact on his personal wealth. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, though, the theme remains the same: Manchin gets his, while everyone else can fend for themselves.
Luckily, Manchin hasn’t gotten what he wants yet — and that gives the White House and the left leverage. Manchin is famously prickly about pressure campaigns, but his desire for the bipartisan infrastructure bill is palpable. Democrats shouldn’t be shy about threatening to tank both bills if one won’t pass.
Similar dynamics have already played out in the House. As the Intercept’s Ryan Grim has reported, for example, progressives on the House Education Committee shut down moderates’ attempts to water down a robust child-care benefit by refusing to vote for a more modest benefit. Sticking to the two-track path is the best chance to ensure that not only does Manchin gets his, but also all Americans get theirs.
Jan 9, 2021
Wait - What?
Donald Trump fired up his crowd last Wednesday, and sent them up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol building.
It can come as no surprise to anyone that along the way, a good part of that crowd turned into a lynch mob, loudly voicing their intent to hang VP Mike Pence.
Mike Pence has so far decided he's not going to say or do anything about it.
What are we missing here?
Oct 24, 2020
Court Wars
Here in USAmerica Inc, one of our favorite games is Sue-Your-Way-To-The-Top.
Why work for it when you can pay a lawyer to get it for you?
The Trump Crime Family plays its own version - basically illustrating that rich people get to operate at a level totally unavailable to the rest of us.
The Lincoln Project put these up in Times Square:
...which prompted this:
Which reminded me of this:
Oct 18, 2016
A Chart
It happens almost every time. "Conventional wisdom" has it that the "liberal bias" is working against the noble "conservatives" and they never get a break because of course - Hillary's buddies own all the media and they'd never say anything bad about her.
But they talk shit about her all the time because fuck if I know. False flag?
Sep 17, 2016
Revisiting The Prisoner's Dilemma
(keep Donald Trump's behavior in mind as you read thru this)
From +Plus magazine (this is the whole post):
To highlight this puzzle, consider the Prisoner's Dilemma, described in detail in Adam Smith and the invisible hand in Issue 14 of Plus. To summarise, this very famous paradox in Game Theory describes two people suspected of being accomplices in a crime. They are held prisoner in separate, non-communicating cells. The police visit each prisoner, and tell both that if neither confesses, each will be sentenced to two years in jail. However, if only one prisoner confesses, implicating the other, the one who confesses will get off scot-free as a reward, and the other, who didn't confess, will receive a punitive sentence of seven years. If each confesses and implicates the other, both will be sentenced to three years.
From +Plus magazine (this is the whole post):
Survival of the nicest?
One of the most puzzling aspects of human behaviour is cooperation, in situations where backstabbing and selfishness would seem to be more rewarding. From the point of view of evolutionary theory, the very existence of altruism and cooperation appear mysterious. The mechanics of evolution seem to imply that rugged competition is the order of the day; that, given an opportunity to benefit by cheating someone, or by defaulting on a deal, we will inevitably do so. Surely to do otherwise would mean relegation to the sidelines of the evolutionary game - and in that game, demotion means extinction.
In fact, as even the most cynical observer must admit, cooperation is rife in human society. Even if you sometimes despair of human nature, you must admit that the "dog-eat-dog" scenario conjured up by the phrase "survival of the fittest" doesn't bear much resemblance to life as we know it. So it must be that, from a purely selfinterested point of view, cooperation can actually be good for us.
Solitary confinement
What should a prisoner do in this situation? Suppose the other prisoner doesn't confess. Then the best course of action is to confess, and go free. Even if the other prisoner does confess, it will be better to have done likewise - at least the sentence will be lower. Both prisoners will reason thus, so both will confess and end up serving sentences of five years - even though, if both had remained silent, both would have served sentences of only three years.
Second-guessing
If you think this dilemma is very far from your everyday life - after all, you are lawabiding and will never be thrown in jail! - think again. Every time you make a bargain, you are potentially facing the prisoner's dilemma. What is to stop you - or, more to the point, the person you are making the bargain with - from defaulting? Surely both of you will be tempted by the prospect of getting something for nothing, and afraid that if you are honest the other person won't be, and you'll get landed with the so-called "sucker's payoff" - getting nothing for something? It's all very well to say that "honesty is the best policy" but surely this is a luxury that only the civilised and comparatively rich can afford?
Well, the good news is that we are not dependent on the benevolence of others, as the prisoner's dilemma would seem to suggest. In fact, cooperation can spontaneously break out even among fundamentally selfish agents - provided you assume that people meet each other more than once, and can remember what the other person did last time they tried to strike a bargain.
To explore this sort of sitution, political scientist Robert Axelrod invented the game of "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma" - Prisoner's Dilemma played repeatedly against the same opponent - and set up a tournament, inviting academics from all over the world to devise strategies. First Axelrod compared various strategies by pairing them and seeing who won; then he held a meta-tournament, in which there were many agents, each with its own strategy which it was allowed to modify in response to what was going on around it, for example if it saw that other agents had more successful strategies.
Over the long term, Axelrod discovered that selfish strategies tended to do very badly, as did foolishly generous strategies. Defecting encouraged others to defect; not punishing others for defecting only encouraged them to do so again. One of the most successful and stable (in other words, successful against many different strategies and in many different environments) was "Tit for Tat". This strategy involves cooperating the first time you meet another agent, and after that always repeating your opponent's last move. So if your opponent defaults on one turn, you punish them by defaulting on the next; if they cooperate on one turn, you reward them by cooperating on the next.
A slightly better strategy - because it avoids the possibility of getting trapped into long cycles of retaliation - is "Tit for Tat with forgiveness". This is Tit for Tat with a small randomised possibility of forgiving a defaulter by cooperating anyway. Forgiveness is particularly helpful if you introduce the possibility of misinformation into the game - that is, if moves are sometimes randomly misreported.
The submitted strategies varied in many ways - initial hostility, tendency to forgive or retaliate, complexity, how much past behaviour they took into account, and so on. No one strategy will always be best because how a strategy does depends on who the other players are - if you're playing against mugs, you may as well be a freeloader, and if you're playing against sharks, you may as well get your retaliation in first! And research into human behaviour is ongoing, with biologists, economists and mathematicians studying phenomena such as spiteful behaviour, altruism, and kin selection (generosity between close relatives, which is evolutionarily useful since their genes are similar). But Tit for Tat did well or best in Axelrod's tournament against very many different opponents - showing how cooperation could evolve using only the selfish mechanisms of natural selection.
That yellow-hilited paragraph sounds a little like Trump, especially in light of his recent "birtherism pivot", but other than the misinformation bit, has Trump ever shown the slightest inclination to forgive anybody but himself for anything? The guy has said he's never even asked God to forgive him.
Gotta remember one fairly important aspect of this mess. It's all well and good when we're talking about real estate deals and bargaining for some financial leverage with one of your business cronies, but it takes on a slightly different tinge when you throw in actual military options that include Nuclear Weapons.
Tit For Tat, motherfucker. This Trump guy gets elected, and we're one randomly perceived insult on a bad hair day away from World War III.
Jun 1, 2016
Today's Philosophizing
Game Of Thrones is ridiculously popular - partly because a large portion of the audience is willing to embrace the idea of basing an entire government on the awesome image of a small odd-looking naked woman emerging from a house fire of suspicious origins.
And really - if you've been following this election cycle on American TV, you're prob'ly not all that surprised.
And really - if you've been following this election cycle on American TV, you're prob'ly not all that surprised.
Apr 27, 2016
The Bathroom Bill That Ain't
Bathroom bills aren't about bathrooms. And they're not just about amping up the rubes to GOTV.
1st, they know these stoopid laws will be struck down, even tho' it'll take a good bit of time before somebody puts up a solid challenge. (remember, the money's on the side of Authoritarian Jesus)
So they'll get to use it as a wedge for another cycle or two.
But 2nd, assuming the thing does get slammed eventually, there will be pieces left over. There're bits in the NC version that forbid county and municipal bodies putting up Anti-Discrimination Laws that run counter to what the state puts in place, and that torpedo people's right's to petition the courts.
To wit:
§ 95-25.1. Short title and legislative purpose. purpose; local governments preempted.
(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."
And:
And:
§ 143-422.13. Investigations; conciliations.
"This Article does not create, and shall not be construed to create or support, a statutory or common law private right of action, and no person may bring any civil action based upon the public policy expressed herein."
And:
§ 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.
"(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees."
(notice anything missing from that last bit about discrimination?)
And:
§ 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.
"(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees."
(notice anything missing from that last bit about discrimination?)
And:
PART IV. SEVERABILITY"SECTION 4. If any provision of this act or its application is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of this act that can be given effect without the invalid provisions or application, and to this end the provisions of this act are severable. If any provision of this act is temporarily or permanently restrained or enjoined by judicial order, this act shall be enforced as though such restrained or enjoined provisions had not been adopted, provided that whenever such temporary or permanent restraining order or injunction is stayed, dissolved, or otherwise ceases to have effect, such provisions shall have full force and effect.
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015E2/Bills/House/PDF/H2v4.pdf
So businesses and governments in NC have the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ, and nobody has the right to go outside the state's Human Relations Commission for remedy. Isn't that just too fucking convenient?
Stop thinking this is about GOP foolishness and shenanigans-as-usual.
Start understanding how fucked up it is by recognizing it as another piece in a widening and increasingly effective assault on the Redress Clause of the 1st Amendment (at least that) - and prob'ly a whole lot more than that, because what kind of government do we get if citizens don't have access to the courts? - when we don't have the right to petition that government for redress?
We are so fucked.
Feb 25, 2016
One Last Shot
Conventional wisdom has it that tonight's shit fight at the monkey house GOP Debate could be the last time we see what's left of that ol' gang of our'n.
And in keeping with the best of all possible traditions, Matt Taibbi has issued the following update on the rules of the game:
TAKE A SHOT:
1. The first time (and first time only) one of the candidates compares himself to St. Ronald Reagan.
2. When Ben Carson complains that nobody's calling on him.
3. At the phrases "Great state of Texas," "Don't mess with Texas," or "Everything's bigger in Texas." Double if that last one comes from Trump in a suggestive tone. Triple-shot if Trump says "Everything except Marco is bigger in Texas."
4. If Cruz mentions he's from Texas more than five times. Take an additional shot for each time after that.
5. Every time someone jokes about Jeb Bush no longer being there. Double if the essence of the joke is that it's hard to tell the difference.
6. When Kasich makes a speech or comment whose essence is, "Well, excuse me for being sane, but…" Drink also if a moderator calls Kasich a "moderate."
7. When anyone calls anyone else a "liar."
8. Whenever any of the non-Trump candidates calls him a "closet Democrat" or "not a conservative."
9. Whenever anyone mentions Cruz's "dirty tricks."
10. When Carson recites lines from the Bible or the Constitution.
11. When any candidate mentions being the son/grandson of a hardworking bartender/mail carrier/housecleaner/etc. and therefore is not just a believer in the American Dream, but a product of it.
12. Whenever Trump mocks someone's poll numbers.
BONUS DRINK:
Players may want to make side-bets as to what happens more often: Cruz reminding the audience that he's Texan, or Trump reminding them that Cruz is from Canada. We can have a bonus shot if Cruz mentions his Texan-ness only to have Trump immediately call him a Canadian Texan.
Lastly, I propose we create a toast in honor of the recently fallen. Instead of saying "Cheers" or "Prost," we might say, before drinking, "Chris Christie was a federal prosecutor."
(Read more: Rolling Stone)
And in keeping with the best of all possible traditions, Matt Taibbi has issued the following update on the rules of the game:
TAKE A SHOT:
1. The first time (and first time only) one of the candidates compares himself to St. Ronald Reagan.
2. When Ben Carson complains that nobody's calling on him.
3. At the phrases "Great state of Texas," "Don't mess with Texas," or "Everything's bigger in Texas." Double if that last one comes from Trump in a suggestive tone. Triple-shot if Trump says "Everything except Marco is bigger in Texas."
4. If Cruz mentions he's from Texas more than five times. Take an additional shot for each time after that.
5. Every time someone jokes about Jeb Bush no longer being there. Double if the essence of the joke is that it's hard to tell the difference.
6. When Kasich makes a speech or comment whose essence is, "Well, excuse me for being sane, but…" Drink also if a moderator calls Kasich a "moderate."
7. When anyone calls anyone else a "liar."
8. Whenever any of the non-Trump candidates calls him a "closet Democrat" or "not a conservative."
9. Whenever anyone mentions Cruz's "dirty tricks."
10. When Carson recites lines from the Bible or the Constitution.
11. When any candidate mentions being the son/grandson of a hardworking bartender/mail carrier/housecleaner/etc. and therefore is not just a believer in the American Dream, but a product of it.
12. Whenever Trump mocks someone's poll numbers.
BONUS DRINK:
Players may want to make side-bets as to what happens more often: Cruz reminding the audience that he's Texan, or Trump reminding them that Cruz is from Canada. We can have a bonus shot if Cruz mentions his Texan-ness only to have Trump immediately call him a Canadian Texan.
Lastly, I propose we create a toast in honor of the recently fallen. Instead of saying "Cheers" or "Prost," we might say, before drinking, "Chris Christie was a federal prosecutor."
(Read more: Rolling Stone)
Dec 23, 2015
Today's Wonderment
Now that the budget deal's been passed and (I think) on its way over to the Oval Office; and since it includes that horrible-est of all horribles (Planned Parenthood funding), isn't it time for the RINO Hunters to be out in force, declaring all Repubs who voted for it instead of shutting down the gubmint to be traitors of the highest blah blah blah?
I mean, we did get some weak-ass blubbering from Frank Graham.
And WingNut Daily kinda put up a list of Repubs who voted for the Omnibus - although it was really just a link to another website where they love to bitch about immigration. I'll list them out here just in case you're itchin' for a chance to limber up any new torches and pitchforks you've got layin' around:
GOP Senators voting YES
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Capito (R-WV)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kirk (R-IL)
Lankford (R-OK)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Perdue (R-GA)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Wicker (R-MS)
House GOP Reps voting YES
Aderholt
Allen
Barr
Barton
Benishek
Bilirakis
Bishop (MI)
Bishop (UT)
Bost
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Brooks (IN)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Carter (GA)
Carter (TX)
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Comstock
Conaway
Cook
Costello (PA)
Cramer
Crenshaw
Culberson
Curbelo (FL)
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
Diaz-Balart
Dold
Donovan
Duffy
Ellmers (NC)
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Flores
Foxx
Frelinghuysen
Gibson
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Grothman
Guthrie
Hanna
Harper
Hartzler
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Hill
Huizenga (MI)
Hurd (TX)
Issa
Jenkins (WV)
Johnson (OH)
Jolly
Joyce
Katko
Kelly (MS)
King (NY)
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
Knight
LoBiondo
Loudermilk
Love
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
MacArthur
Marchant
McCarthy
McCaul
McHenry
McMorris Rodgers
McSally
Messer
Mica
Miller (MI)
Moolenaar
Mullin
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Newhouse
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Olson
Palazzo
Paulsen
Pearce
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Poliquin
Price, Tom
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rigell
Rogers (KY)
Rokita
Rooney (FL)
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rouzer
Royce
Russell
Ryan (WI)
Scalise
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Simpson
Smith (NJ)
Stefanik
Stewart
Stivers
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Trott
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Wagner
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Walters, Mimi
Weber (TX)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Wilson (SC)
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Young (AK)
Zeldin
Zinke
House Vote #695
Dec 16, 2015 10:30 a.m.
Passed 421/0
On Motion to Suspend the Rules and concur in the Senate Amendment in the House
I mean, we did get some weak-ass blubbering from Frank Graham.
And WingNut Daily kinda put up a list of Repubs who voted for the Omnibus - although it was really just a link to another website where they love to bitch about immigration. I'll list them out here just in case you're itchin' for a chance to limber up any new torches and pitchforks you've got layin' around:
GOP Senators voting YES
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Capito (R-WV)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kirk (R-IL)
Lankford (R-OK)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Perdue (R-GA)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Wicker (R-MS)
House GOP Reps voting YES
Aderholt
Allen
Barr
Barton
Benishek
Bilirakis
Bishop (MI)
Bishop (UT)
Bost
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Brooks (IN)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Carter (GA)
Carter (TX)
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Comstock
Conaway
Cook
Costello (PA)
Cramer
Crenshaw
Culberson
Curbelo (FL)
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
Diaz-Balart
Dold
Donovan
Duffy
Ellmers (NC)
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Flores
Foxx
Frelinghuysen
Gibson
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Grothman
Guthrie
Hanna
Harper
Hartzler
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Hill
Huizenga (MI)
Hurd (TX)
Issa
Jenkins (WV)
Johnson (OH)
Jolly
Joyce
Katko
Kelly (MS)
King (NY)
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
Knight
LoBiondo
Loudermilk
Love
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
MacArthur
Marchant
McCarthy
McCaul
McHenry
McMorris Rodgers
McSally
Messer
Mica
Miller (MI)
Moolenaar
Mullin
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Newhouse
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Olson
Palazzo
Paulsen
Pearce
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Poliquin
Price, Tom
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rigell
Rogers (KY)
Rokita
Rooney (FL)
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rouzer
Royce
Russell
Ryan (WI)
Scalise
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Simpson
Smith (NJ)
Stefanik
Stewart
Stivers
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Trott
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Wagner
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Walters, Mimi
Weber (TX)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Wilson (SC)
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Young (AK)
Zeldin
Zinke
C'mon, guys - where's that fiery passion? The people on those lists voted to bankrupt us, and to allow the Muslim Hordes to cross the borders and nefariously manipulate your virginal teenagers into killing all your grand-babies - they voted with Nancy Pelosi. Cowards! Where's that red-faced hysterical zeal we've come to know and love?
Some of the usual wild-eyed, jungle-thrashing frenzy may have been up for a while, but there's practically no sign of it anywhere on the intertoobz where I normally expect to find it. Curious, eh?
Well, as always, we can find a certain explanation in the fact that Congress Critters have to look for the "Safe Votes".
If they're in a district where the likelihood of losing a primary challenge is very low (the Eric Cantor ambush notwithstanding), then voting for it is relatively 'safe' because even though some base voters will rebel, it won't be enough to make it a problem.
Those in districts that are of a more Purplish hue need to be safe in a slightly different way. ie: They know they're in a closely divided district, and nobody on the other side is going to vote for them, so in order to shore up their constituent support at home and get their voters to turn out, they have to get permission from their leadership to vote against whatever the party caucus wants, while still being sure the bill either passes or fails according to their leadership's preference. That way, they can say they've made a principled stand, and since the vote in congress went the way their opposition wanted it to go, the other side won't get all hot and bothered. Safe.
So this is fun, ain't it? My oldest boy just came over and asked what I was working on, and when I explained it all, he rolled his eyes and said, "Fuckin' politics, man". And this kid is no dummy - he was raised with this shit; he's curious about it, and he makes an honest effort to understand it. No wonder so many of us just blow it off.
Anyway, one last thing - I'm thinking maybe the GOP is letting the Dumpster Fire that is the Donald Trump "campaign" blaze away because it gives them some cover by keeping the rubes in one place and busy, so the Repubs in congress can get a few things accomplished.
They are not totally oblivious to their poll numbers - they know the McConnell Plan is a straight-up loser for 'em now, and they know they might be about to end up on the wrong end of a political disaster that makes Jonestown look like a potluck dinner with the Methodists on an average Wednesday.
Oh yeah - can you guess what else passed this session, Repubs?
H.R. 2820: Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2015House Vote #695
Dec 16, 2015 10:30 a.m.
Passed 421/0
On Motion to Suspend the Rules and concur in the Senate Amendment in the House
Stem cells!?! Planned Parenthood and cutting up harvested dead babies to sell on the open market? Aaaaaaarrgh - oh the humanity. No wait - selling things on the open market? We're in favor of that Unfettered Capitalism thing, right? Fuckin' politics, man.
It is a wonderment.
Oct 26, 2015
Big Change Maybe
The faintest of wry smiles comes across my face when I find something that even barely hints at the prospect of the death of Commodification coming sooner than expected.
Nothing.
Not much that's different anyway. And prob'ly nothing but the usual and customary crap of tax-payers gettin' stuck with the check. We more or less bank-rolled the drive for all this "energy" - sweetheart tax incentives and access to public land; roads and utilities; and sometimes direct subsidies; not to mention having the watchdogs conveniently look the other way while Halliburton (eg) gets to poison the living fuck outa everything. Plus, we get to pay for some pretty high-priced consultants and PR pricks to make the products of USAmerica Inc more palatable to "foreign markets" etc etc etc. And now that those markets are reacting to a supply glut (that we manufactured btw), guess what all those high-rollin' entrepreneurial self-made macho assholes are gonna do next. I think we can pretty much count on 'em to go crying to "their" congress critters that the sugar bowl's empty now and they just can't possibly be expected to take it all on their-own-poor-selfless-selves to clean up the ginormous fucking mess they made while soaking the last dime's worth of life from one more patch of a dying planet.
We can bumper-sticker-ize it: Privatized profits and Socialized costs, but here's the kicker - since they did it on our dime (and because nobody's complaining about 2-dollar gas), they can make a lot of us believe they did it all because we asked them to do it.
And they can make it stick - shit, we'll pay 'em to do it.
And they can do it all over again next time.
No soul and no honor.
From a short bit at NASDAQ earlier this month:
The critical natural gas transit country, Ukraine, reached a supply agreement in the last week of September with the EU’s largest fuel supply partner: Russia.
One could argue that this agreement could actually have come too late. Natural gas supply to Europe heading into winter 2015 seems more secure than ever before, a sharp contrast to the icy winters of 2006 and 2009, in which Russia cut off natural gas supply to Eastern Europe over a conflict with the Ukraine. The following factors have turned the European natural gas market from a ‘’beggars can’t be choosers” into a true “buyers’ market’’.And this from CNBC today:
Kilduff said gas was being hit by expectations a record amount of natural gas will soon be in storage. Weekly data show gas storage at 3.81 trillion cubic feet, and the record is 3.929 trillion cubic feet in November 2012.
The Energy Information Agency predicts a peak of 3.956 trillion this November, said Kilduff, who projects it to reach more than 4 trillion. He said the most recent weather report shows above-normal temperatures for the eastern region, a significant user of heating fuelsBut then again, I can't ignore that this is part of the little political game we love to play. So instead of taking any real steps toward understanding that resources are limited and we have to figure out how to move ourselves past the self-destructive nonsense of Chop-It-Down-Burn-It-Up-Dig-It-Up-Burn-It-Down, here's what I think is most likely to happen.
The oversupply is also causing problems. "The producing region is at a record storage level," said McGillian. He said if more gas is forced into the spot market, the price will drop even more.
Nothing.
Not much that's different anyway. And prob'ly nothing but the usual and customary crap of tax-payers gettin' stuck with the check. We more or less bank-rolled the drive for all this "energy" - sweetheart tax incentives and access to public land; roads and utilities; and sometimes direct subsidies; not to mention having the watchdogs conveniently look the other way while Halliburton (eg) gets to poison the living fuck outa everything. Plus, we get to pay for some pretty high-priced consultants and PR pricks to make the products of USAmerica Inc more palatable to "foreign markets" etc etc etc. And now that those markets are reacting to a supply glut (that we manufactured btw), guess what all those high-rollin' entrepreneurial self-made macho assholes are gonna do next. I think we can pretty much count on 'em to go crying to "their" congress critters that the sugar bowl's empty now and they just can't possibly be expected to take it all on their-own-poor-selfless-selves to clean up the ginormous fucking mess they made while soaking the last dime's worth of life from one more patch of a dying planet.
We can bumper-sticker-ize it: Privatized profits and Socialized costs, but here's the kicker - since they did it on our dime (and because nobody's complaining about 2-dollar gas), they can make a lot of us believe they did it all because we asked them to do it.
And they can make it stick - shit, we'll pay 'em to do it.
And they can do it all over again next time.
No soul and no honor.
Oct 23, 2015
A Special Logic
EXPOSED: Paul Ryan helps his donors block family leave bill, then demands Congress give him personal family time https://t.co/3DY2O4AA3G
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) October 23, 2015
Here's how I think it plays out in Paul Ryan's "brain": I'm against family leave, and you're against me for being against it. So then, when I demand family leave, you don't get to be against me now that I'm for family leave for myself - because if you're against my being against it, then you being against me now for being for it makes you a typically hypocritical Libtard.
It's entirely possible guys like Ryan (and GOP operatives in general) do that kinda shit on purpose - not so much the Etch-A-Sketch thing (although there's plenty of that to it too) - but more like, "these blockheaded rubes who make up the GOP base aren't exactly deep thinkers anyway, so we can throw a buncha smoke and eventually they'll get confused and tired and they'll just leave it all to us like they always do.
'swhat it looks like from here right now anyway.
Aug 13, 2015
Something To Remember
By way of an interesting piece at Yahoo Politics:
So that means Hillary will win in 2016 by whatever substantial margin our Corporate Media Manipulators allow, which will be a landslide at about 52% - 48%.
Fair Warning - watch out for the Both-Sides crap that pops out near the end. It's mild by current standards, but it's there.
But Trumpmania may be telling us a lot less about the dominant mood in the electorate at large than we think. As one of the more astute liberal bloggers, Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum, points out, Trump has been drawing the support of less than a quarter of Republican primary voters, who in turn make up less than a quarter of the voting public.I suck at math, but I'm OK with 'rithmetic, so even I can figure out that ¼ of ¼ = 6.25% of the total vote.
So that means Hillary will win in 2016 by whatever substantial margin our Corporate Media Manipulators allow, which will be a landslide at about 52% - 48%.
Fair Warning - watch out for the Both-Sides crap that pops out near the end. It's mild by current standards, but it's there.
Mar 7, 2015
A Horse Race Of A Different Color
Conventional wisdom has it that Hillary's all set to waltz thru the primaries, and then stomp the fuck outa whatever poor slob the Repubs decide to throw into the jaws of Vagina Dentata dela Clintonia.
And this must not happen - "this" being a race that's not particularly exciting or close or competitive (ie: not conducive to lots of fat and juicy Ad Revenues for the Press Poodles to wallow in), so Scabrous Joe and Mika the Attack Bunny go to work to make sure we get that reassuring Both Sides pacifier shoved back into our maws before we get too mewly about it, and start asking the questions they can't afford to let us ask.
So let's allow my ridiculous imagination to run a little wild, and play it out to its logical extreme - what if electing the first woman POTUS is the latest in a string of The Mother of All Amber Alert Stories? And while we're busy playing grab-ass games over the prospect of President Hillary Clinton, the rest of what passes for freedom is neatly disposed of by a "government" being run by the dictates of corporate board members, not accountable to anyone for anything. Just wondering, and worth pondering.
Sweet dreams, children.
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