US Politics, June 2018: This is a total goat rodeo.

you guys' new friend Schmidt

Steve Schmidt attacks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for ‘dishonest progressivism’ — and says it’s bad as ‘Trumpism’ https://t.co/WcdXEtsgki

— Raw Story (@RawStory) June 27, 2018

“And what Trump is doing is radicalizing American politics,” the conservative strategist continued. “And he is a beneficiary the more radical politics becomes. When it becomes a game of incitement between a far left who says everybody is going to have a government job, everybody is going to have daycare, everybody is going to have retirement, free schools, free college education — as we careen toward $30 trillion in debt.”

and of course the debt only counts when we’re talking about public benefit - trump’s tax cuts can add a staggering amount to the deficit and no-one in the gop blinks an eye

Granted everyone having a government job could be the military. Fuck it, I would be for mandatory military service if that gave people healthcare, a pension, free higher education etc. Tricare for everyone.

Her platform seems entirely reasonable, but people hate to share unless it's their head on the block.

I'm been teetering between my usual pessimism and cynicism and arguably worse things, like desperation and nihilism and fatalism. There are few reasons to be hopeful. At the same time, I sort of sometimes sense that feeling is itself, weirdly enough, a kind of luxury stemming from all the progress made more or less just over the span of my lifetime. Things feel desperate because we know what's at stake. We know what's at stake because we've overcome so much. When idiot was elected I had this conversation with a few people. In the '60s, we had MLK assassinated, Malcolm X assassinated, Kennedy and his brother assassinated, we were at unwinnable war (with a draft), racism was *legal*. And somehow things got better, even if we almost immediately got Nixon. And then soon after, Reagan. At the same time, it's disheartening to watch and listen to what is in essence the aggressive rejection and repudiation of decades of social progress. Just because those battles were mostly won does not make it heartbreaking to have to fight them all over again, for no reason at all beyond spite and ignorance and bad intentions and nihilism. There are all sorts of bad players in this, but I sometimes wonder if, similar to what I was babbling about above, some people really understand what's at stake, because they've spent their lives with much less at stake, thanks to progress in civil rights, labor rights, reproductive rights, economic rights, and so on, rights that have made their lives even slightly easier or better that they take for granted.

Anyway, I liked this thread:

I tweeted this earlier today but just going to say again: abolitionists lost every single SCOTUS case. every single one. John Brown failed. And chattel slavery is over now.

— Dr. T’Chanda Prescod-Weinstein🙅🏽‍♀️ 🇧🇧 (@IBJIYONGI) June 27, 2018

just a lotta bloodshed was needed

Yes, but at least people were willing to fight. I had this discussion with a friend yesterday, though: would people have mobilized in large, diverse numbers *without* the draft? The last years seems to indicate "yes," but I don't know what effect that has had so far.

My biggest worry, I realized last night, is that people who live in liberal-leaning states fight for their rights while those in conservative ones let their citizens die because, thanks to recent SCOTUS rulings and where we're going jurisprudentially, we're becoming an atomized country, reminiscent of the pre-New Deal and Progressive days: if you wanted redress, seek it from your state government because the fed can do nothing.

It will take a couple more severe shocks, at least, to get 60s-style/levels of mobilization going, I think. Society is much more atomized than before so it's tough. Kids in cages has upped the tension level; I shudder to think of what the next big trigger could be. (Roe v Wade getting overturned will be a big one but I suspect something else will happen sooner.) (xp!)

That atomisation is also a result of income inequality. Are those on the positive side of that inequality going to risk their status for those not on that side?

Well, they're increasingly outnumbered, so it might not matter.

if you wanted redress, seek it from your state government because the fed can do nothing.

Might be for the best, especially if/when Roe is overturned and 20+ states at the very least consider banning abortion immediately. Hell, in Ohio last year, iirc, there was a bill that wanted to make abortion a death penalty offense. If people on the local level are harmed or aggrieved or persecuted/prosecuted, that is an opportunity to more rapidly change the balance of all the states away from right wing policies as a bulwark against Federal antipathy or indifference. Back to what I was saying about taking things for granted, I wonder how many people actually do want to live in a heartless right wing neo-theocracy, whether the thing they have been implicitly clamoring for for decades is actually the thing they actively want.

I am sure there are loads of people who are fine with letting women in their family go to jail for miscarrying but unable to prove it wasn't an illegal abortion.

the atomization is also happening on an individual/personal level, too. many people have smaller and looser social circles. I often think about what I could do to influence people until I realize how bad I am at influencing people on even the most minor of things.

A helpful Red State update.

It can be difficult to pay for healthcare services not covered by insurance. #OnJuly1inTN a new law allows physicians to accept a barter of goods and services in exchange for healthcare services.

— TN Senate GOP Caucus (@tnsenategop) June 26, 2018

(worth reading for comments)

pawn shop usa

I would actually say that is a useful law if the doctors only accepted guns.

Armed medical militia really could bring about Ragnarok though

Or if it was a reducing guns program. But whatever, we can't count on any lawmaker that wants to spend money on constituents. So, oral sex for all doctors!

worth remembering ragnarok brings about new life in the end mebbes

the apocalypse gets a bad rap rly

The apocalypse will ultimately only be tragic because other non-human species will have to suffer the fallout (possibly literally) of our insistence upon self-annihilation.

We need some Captain Trips action up in this piece imo.

Josh Marshal:

How do we react? I wrote yesterday that we can’t expect the courts to save us? That was clear with yesterday’s decisions. It’s even more overwhelmingly clear today. Litigation remains critical. But the fight for voting rights, for instance, will be won at the ballot box. Change will come through robust political coalitions — at the local and state level, building to the federal level. Everything else must follow the same path. We are on our own, left to our own devices. The history, whatever mistakes, misfortunes and interventions, is simply the terrain we now grapple with.

Coming off the brutal 2004 election, George Bush was reelected with his Republican majorities after an unexpected midterm election pick-up in 2002. There were numerous articles and even books explaining the Republicans’ “permanent majority,” a mix of wedge issues, money and geography which locked in a Republican majority something like forever. Two years later the entire Republican congressional party was shattered. Things change quickly – often dramatically and at the worst moment. I continue to believe that the Republican right is involved in an essentially defensive action, trying to lock in policy gains and anti-democratic obstacles to stave off an electorate which is growing and largely hostile to their views.

That’s an analysis, a prediction. But predictions and analyses can be wrong. We don’t know the future. As an historian, I know we don’t even really know the past. I wrote this the day after President Trump’s election: “At such a moment I come back to a thought I’ve told family members at times of stress or grief. Optimism isn’t principally an analysis of present reality. It’s an ethic. It is not based on denial or rosy thinking. It is a moral posture toward the world we find ourselves in. If everything seems great, there’s no need for optimism. The river of good news just carries you along.”

I mean, I apologize because I already know people are going to yell at me for this, but at this point I see optimism as about as rational as climate change denial

WATCH: Our interview with former @ICEgov spokesperson James Schwab was interrupted by a surprise visit from government agents.@JamieYuccas reports ➡️ https://t.co/QlDGflrdP4 pic.twitter.com/4shmAqutD8

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 28, 2018

holy shit

https://i.imgur.com/Vn0U7D2.gif

love the tactical sunglasses the agent on the right is wearing

Ive turned off all feeds for stories, i cannot take the endless stream of shitnews with long long tails. Cant’t play right now. Cant do it.

Yeah, I'm self-imposing a news blackout while I drink beers and get sunburnt next week and I'm not sure when/if I'll return to it tbh. Like I can feel the stress taking a physical toll, and what the hell can I even do about shit like this ffs.

Taking no position on how good it doesn't or doesn't feel to post about criminal activity on ILX, it is not a good idea to do it for your own sake and I would recommend against it.

An email thread among my housemates, including a specific phrase uttered by one of them, was a key piece of evidence in a recent J20 trial.

I know but my coping mechanisms are all out of wack

(and the one who uttered the phrase wasn't the one on trial) xp

I'd make being a vulgar and incoherent crank at public comment sessions at city hall my new hobby but I've got a job

please be the new whats up bootlickers tho

starting to get a bad feeling that everyone's gonna walk because of this Strozk thing

not legally.. but the court of public opinion consists of morons so maybe

yeah legally I don't think this will have much impact

this is being overshadowed by the SC stuff afaict

Nate Silver on the David French line about a SCOTUS pick helping GOP enthusiasm:

But let me pick a few nits with French’s claim. One questionable assertion is his idea that “a new Supreme Court pick will galvanize the entire [Republican] base for months.” That may understate how many other stories the Supreme Court pick will compete with for attention. The news cycle moves very quickly these days, and Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court last year was a major news story for only a couple of weeks. The death of Antonin Scalia and the Republican refusal to consider Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland also did not gain much traction as a news story in the 2016 campaign given how much else was going on.

Perhaps, as the exit poll data implies, the Supreme Court was an overlooked issue in 2016 that was more important to evangelical voters and other parts of the Republican base than the media assumed. But it was not necessarily a top-of-mind issue to these voters. The exit poll question specifically prompted voters to think about the Supreme Court. But when Gallup and other pollsters ask open-ended questions about what issues are most important, the Supreme Court doesn’t really register. Nor does abortion, for that matter, with issues such as immigration and the economy rating as being much more important.

Also, assuming Trump has his choice confirmed by the Senate before the midterms, the Supreme Court will arguably be more of a backward-looking issue in 2018 than it was in 2016. I say “arguably” because Kennedy probably won’t be the last justice to retire under Trump; liberals Ginsburg and Breyer are retirement risks, as is conservative Clarence Thomas. Still, in 2016, voters were deciding on an open Supreme Court seat and not just the prospect of further vacancies.

I can't imagine Ginsburg retiring under these circumstances, she will go to the grave first.

She could become incapable of continuing in the job, it does happen to people at that age.

as morbid as it is john mccain is a comparison point here, until recently he still continued in the job despite being far worse off than rbg

I wish Thomas had retied yesterday.

xp, that's true, and her clerks can (and probably do) 95% of the work for her, they can just up it to 98% or whatever.

as morbid as it is john mccain is a comparison point here, until recently he still continued in the job despite being far worse off than rbg

it is truly upsetting that he remains alive, yes

well at least he got to stick his thumb in McConnell and Trump's eye over the ACA