Huckleberry Butchmeup

A tweet from Manu Raju:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham warns there will be “collateral damage” if Democrats move forward on impeachment: “Those of us in the Republican Party in the Senate need to shut out the House,” meaning move on with GOP agenda

PoliticusUSA:

Besides the fact that Senator Graham was warning House Democrats not to impeach his new political daddy, there was a serious threat in his statement. Graham was saying that if House Democrats impeach Trump, the Senate is going to freeze the House out. There will be no more legislation from the House that will get passed in the Senate. Mitch McConnell’s Senate majority will ignore everything that comes out of the House, including articles of impeachment.

The only constitutional requirement is that a trial is held on articles of impeachment. Theoretically, McConnell could hold a trial in an hour, have Senate Republicans vote not to convict, and impeachment ends with a whimper.

House Democrats need to ask themselves how much different life would really be if Senate Republicans ignored them. McConnell is refusing to bring House-passed bills the Senate floor for a vote, so what would House Democrats really be losing?

Republicans are very worried about impeachment, and Lindsey Graham’s words should be read not as a warning but as an expression of fear.

Today's Tweet

Word

What's my beef with (most) Never Trumpers?

It's really simple.

Allow Ace from "Casino" to explain: "Listen, if you didn't know you're bein' scammed, you're too fuckin' dumb to keep this job. If you did know, you were in on it. Either way, you're out!"

— driftglass (@Mr_Electrico) August 1, 2019

The American Freak Show

Anybody else flash on Gilda Radner when they see Marianne Williamson?

Zack Beauchamp, Vox:

Self-help guru Marianne Williamson was the breakout star of CNN’s first Democratic debate — at least if internet chatter and pundits are to be believed.

Williamson was the most-searched person on Google after the debate in 49 out of 50 states. 

CNN analyst and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm praised her “really compelling and authentic” answer on reparations, saying, “Honestly, I think she brought it.” GOP pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that “she’s cutting through the clutter tonight.” A Washington Post article claimed she had “a big night,” writing that she “used her limited time on the microphone to maximum effect, attracting attention for meaningful answers on race and Democratic ideology.” Even current Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) singled out her “surprisingly eloquent answers” to some of the debate questions during his post-debate MSNBC appearance.

This all needs to stop.

Something that I think would go a good long way in trying to stop it is exactly what Mr Beauchamp is doing - ie: take every opportunity to bitch at the Press Poodles whenever they hint at the standard bullshit of "horse race" or some other worn out metaphor, or when they start with the bromides like "Bringing some common sense..." or "a much-needed fresh perspective from outside the beltway..."

(BTW, ever notice how often the inside-the-beltway puffballs complain about how stuffy and stale it is inside the beltway, as they limo their way from one Georgetown cocktail party to the next?)

Marianne Williamson is not a serious candidate for the presidency: She’s a self-help celebrity who openly disdained policy debate onstage Tuesday night. Worse than that, she looms as a menace to public health — someone who has attacked antidepressants and vaccination in a manner that “can literally kill people,” as my colleague German Lopez (who covers public health) put it. She has no business being on the debate stage; the more famous she gets, the more harm she can do.

The fact that a lot of media figures aren’t recognizing this — that they’re either celebrating her flashes of insight on issues like reparations for slavery or enjoying her kookiness — shows that they haven’t fully internalized the lessons of Donald Trump’s rise to power. Williamson is vanishingly unlikely to win, or even come close, but the amount of press attention she’s getting is troubling. Even if public interest in her mandates some level of coverage, at least it could be more muted and skeptical than what we’re seeing.

“As far as I can tell, Williamson has zero experience or expertise that would prepare her to effectively do the job for which she’s auditioning, and that’s terrifying to me,” Seth Cotlar, a historian of the US at Willamette University, tells me. “It’s fun to cover politics as a circus, because it often is a circus, but the stakes of what happens in DC are incredibly serious and have real consequences for people’s lives.”

It's not a game show. It's not a beauty pageant. It's not Wrestle-fucking-Mania.
We're trying to figure what's best for the most, and while we don't get real close to it very often, we do manage to move things along when we're not encumbered by Rent-Seeking Media Leeches who think the point of the exercise is to sell cut-rate insurance bundles, mail-order housewares, and boner pills.

Hey, Press Poodles - wanna know why about 80% of us hate "the media"?  Take a look at about 80% of the shit you guys put on cable all day every fuckin' day.

Bring back Bobbie Battista and HLN. We got 30 minutes of actual news, followed by another 30 minutes of actual news, followed by another 30 minutes...

And when something else happened, they covered it like - you know - a fucking news story. They didn't treat every little thing like it was the Hindenburg in 1937, and they made sure they checked their shit before anything got on the air. 

And when they fucked up (because people fuck up once in a while), they went on the air and they said, "Dang - we fucked up. Sorry, guys. We'll try to do better."

It's like we've lost our ability to have an internal dialogue with ourselves before we blurt out whatever the fuck is rattling around in our heads. We're like 5-year-olds who just start yapping and end up asking grandma if she really is "ignorant hillbilly trailer trash, like Mom said you were a coupla days ago when she was talking to the neighbors...?"

As The World Burns

Wired:

Here's a sentence for you: The Arctic is burning. Yes, that Arctic - the traditionally cold and wet one, large swaths of which are being consumed by an astonishing number of wildfires, from Russia to Greenland to Alaska.

“Arctic fires - the combination of these two words is still an unusual term in my field of fire science,” says Guillermo Rein of Imperial College London. “Arctic fires are rare, but they're not unprecedented. What is unprecedented is the number of fires that are happening. Never before have satellites around the planet seen this level of activity.”

Unprecedented, yes, but not unexplained. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to the desiccation of vegetation, which fuels huge blazes. Fortunately for us, these wildfires typically threaten remote, sparsely populated areas. But unfortunately for the whole of humanity, so far this year Arctic fires have released some 121 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, more than what Belgium emits annually. That beats the previous Arctic record of 110 megatonnes of CO2, set in 2004—and we’re only in June.
This came onto my Twitter feed, and one of the replies - from a denier, of course - was "Don't pretend this is the first time it's happened".

I say "of course" because it's a very familiar theme - "It's happened before. Global warming and climate change and all that hippy dippy shit is happening now because it's always happened and you're just trying to fuck me out of enjoying my freedom and blah blah blah."  

What isn't as obvious is the invited inference that we're supposed to be calmed somehow by the knowledge that the world has fucked us over before and there's nothing we can do about it, so we might as well relax and have some fun as we wait and watch and make bets on how long it'll take before we all choke to death because of our own stupid complacency.

And it's a theme that fits with a kind of nihilistic overview I see in way too many people.

The emotional and intellectual heavy lifting required to deal with some of these problems is just too much for a lot of folks.

So we get The Prom Committee Effect. A dozen or so kids do all the work, while everybody else concentrates on getting a date, buying something cool to wear, and boosting their own expectations so they can bitch about it at the after-party.

'Twas ever thus, and ever thus 'twill be.

But this ain't the fuckin' prom, kids - this shit's gonna kill us.

Today's Quote

When the sun sets on your career and they are writing your story - of all the good and bad things you did in your life - the thing you will be remembered for is whether, in this moment, with this president, you found the courage to stand up to him.

--Pete Buttigieg

How Stuff Works

Trump rallies are pretty much exclusively held in Trump-friendly places. 

That's not to say he avoids the blue states. It's just that he goes where he's welcome - he stays in the red parts, no matter what.

And that little detail is kind of important.

NAACP reminds us of an interesting little tidbit, via Business Insider, as reported back in March of this year:

US counties where President Donald Trump held a campaign rally saw a 226% increase in reported hate crimes over similar counties that did not hold a rally, political scientists at the University of North Texas said in an analysis published in The Washington Post.

According to a study done by University of North Texas professors Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers, and PhD candidate Ayal Feinberg, the scientists found that Trump's statements during the 2016 campaign "may encourage hate crimes" in the respective counties.

The study measured the correlation between counties that hosted a 2016 campaign rally and the crime rates in the months that followed. The scientists used the Anti-Defamation League's map that measures acts of violence and compared the counties that hosted a rally with others that had similar characteristics, including minority population, location, and active hate groups.

- and -

Branton, Martinez-Ebers, and Feinberg noted that their study "cannot be certain" that the marked increase was solely attributed to Trump's rhetoric. But they also shut down the suggestion that the reported hate crimes were fake.

"In fact, this charge is frequently used as a political tool to dismiss concerns about hate crimes," the analysis said. "Research shows it is far more likely that hate crime statistics are considerably lower because of underreporting."

Today's Eternal Sadness

32-year-old Tony Timpa died at the hands of poorly trained cops in Dallas three years ago.

It took over two years and a decision in federal court to get the video released.

Dallas Morning News:

The officers pinned his handcuffed arms behind his back for nearly 14 minutes and zip-tied his legs together. By the time he was loaded onto a gurney and put into an ambulance, the 32-year-old was dead.

Timpa called 911 on Aug. 10, 2016, from the parking lot of a Dallas porn store, saying he was afraid and needed help. He told a dispatcher he suffered from schizophrenia and depression and was off his prescription medication. The News first reported Timpa’s death in a 2017 investigation that showed Dallas police refused to say how a man who had called 911 for help ended up dead.

Those three officers -- Kevin Mansell, Danny Vasquez and Dustin Dillard -- were indicted by a grand jury in 2017 on charges of misdemeanor deadly conduct, three months after The News published its investigation into Timpa’s death. Following two days of testimony, the grand jury’s indictment stated that the "officers engaged in reckless conduct that placed Timpa in imminent danger of serious bodily injury.”

But in March, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot dismissed the charges.

Creuzot previously told The News that he met with "all three medical examiners" who had testified to the grand jury. They reportedly told him they did not believe the officers acted recklessly and "cannot, and will not, testify to the elements of the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt."

Today's Quote

I can do without Claire McCaskill as often as not, but she's got her moments.

Let's be honest. If America were all white, there would be universal healthcare and free college like in the other Euro & Scandinavian countries. The only reason we don't have it here is because white people don't want brown and black people getting "free stuff." 

--Claire McCaskill

Today's Pix

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Continuing Daddy's Legacy

Failure is a family tradition.

Forbes:

Ivanka Trump’s latest memoir on empowering working women is so far a moneyloser for its publisher, Portfolio, a division of publishing giant Penguin Random House, Forbes has found. 

From its May 2017 release through the end of the year, Trump’s book Women Who Work sold 31,900 copies, according to data from NPD Bookscan, which tracks 85% of the U.S. domestic book market. That means the book, which advises women on how to excel in both their social and professional lives, has raked in about $1.1 million. Portfolio received an estimated $566,000 from all the sales, while it paid a $787,500 advance to Trump prior to her joining her father’s administration as an advisor. The First Daughter will receive another installment of her advance in the upcoming months. Altogether Forbes, with help from publishing experts, estimates that Portfolio, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment, has lost at least $220,000.