US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

Yes, McConnell and Ryan need his ability to excite the monsters, but McConnell and Ryan have been courting monsters for well past a decade.

I agree with the latter part, but you misread me. Empowering and generating are two different things. My frankly uncontroversial claim is that Modi, Erdogan, Putin and Duterte's positions have all been strengthened, to varying degrees, by Trump's presidency.

xps

McConnell and Ryan are monsters.

When you get a job at the New York Times, do you shove the ice pick into your own temple, or does HR do it for you?

I agree with the latter part, but you misread me. Empowering and generating are two different things. My frankly uncontroversial claim is that Modi, Erdogan, Putin and Duterte's positions have all been strengthened, to varying degrees, by Trump's presidency.

... and Orban, Salvini, and every other tinpot fascist prick on the planet.

Precisely. See also: Steve Bannon's European Tour™.

no idea why these goons would think that this fight galvanizes one side without the other.

“I want to thank the mob, because they’ve done the one thing we were having trouble doing, which was energizing our base,” McConnell says. Time will tell. https://t.co/zUHEzoYUSB

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) October 6, 2018

McConnell presser happening now.

He's touting the bipartisan opioid bill as an example of what the Senate can still do when "both sides get together." I read about the bill on Thursday but don't know if it's any good. Anyone?

I don't think NYT dude's question is at all unwarranted. Certainly the GOP will be in lockstep with Trump for the time being, but since they got what they wanted out of having a dipshit reality star installed as POTUS, don't be surprised if they see the tide turning against them and they throw him to the wolves. These motherfuckers' loyalty hinges entirely upon self-interest. That said, since the dems taking the House won't be enough in and of itself to make Trump a GOP pariah, I'm not holding my breath that'll happen anytime soon. Just keep praying for that presidential embolism!

Certainly the GOP will be in lockstep with Trump for the time being, but since they got what they wanted out of having a dipshit reality star installed as POTUS, don't be surprised if they see the tide turning against them and they throw him to the wolves.

This isn't the finish line. The finish line is a 9-0 right-wing court. The finish line is a means test for the rights currently "guaranteed" in the Constitution. The finish line is no taxes on anyone making more than $100,000 a year. The finish line is the total elimination of all forms of social insurance. They'll ride with anyone who helps move them toward the finish line, for as long as it takes. Once he's out of office and can't help them anymore, he'll be disappeared just like W or Bush I, but until that day, he's their god-king.

no idea why these goons would think that this fight galvanizes one side without the other.

problem is, one side was already galvanized

My frankly uncontroversial claim is that Modi, Erdogan, Putin and Duterte's positions have all been strengthened, to varying degrees, by Trump's presidency...

It's unclear to me how much Modi's position has been strengthened by either Trump or Brexit, actually. I'd be interested to hear more about this. Modi and Trump had one good meeting but I thought the relationship grew shakier since then:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44639927
https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2018/march/united-states-launches-wto-challenge

I haven't heard anything about what Brexit means in terms of Modi's position in India.

Brexit is custard-pie-in-the-face farce so I doubt it's empowered anyone.

unclear to me how much Modi's position has been strengthened by either Trump or Brexit

I don't think pomenitul is thinking at all in terms of practical politics or accretions of useful power when he claims those proto-fascist leaders have been "empowered", but because those are exactly the terms upon which proto-fascist leaders operate, they would find pomenitul's claim about their empowerment to be wholly theoretical and more or less worthless.

The crowd in front of the U.S. Supreme Court is tiny, looks like about 200 people (& most are onlookers) - that wouldn’t even fill the first couple of rows of our Kansas Rally, or any of our Rallies for that matter! The Fake News Media tries to make it look sooo big, & it’s not!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2018

Since the Inauguration we've all become aware of his crowd-estimate abilities.

how many different versions of this have we heard now?

Senate Republicans, not the White House, set the scope of the FBI probe into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, including the decision not to interview the Supreme Court nominee or accuser Christine Blasey Ford, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In an interview shortly before the Senate is set to vote on confirming Kavanaugh, McConnell said GOP members of the Judiciary Committee made the decision in a meeting with two other Republicans who were at the time withholding their support, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

“The White House took grief for setting the scope, but we gave them the scope,” said McConnell of Kentucky.

“We reached an agreement that it had to be done in seven days, the FBI needed to talk to anyone Dr. Ford mentioned, and also Ramirez and anyone she mentioned,” McConnell said. He was referring to Deborah Ramirez, who said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken party while they attended Yale University in the 1980s.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa previously told reporters he hadn’t restricted what the Federal Bureau of Investigation could investigate or who they could interview beyond looking at current, credible allegations.

Regarding the decision not to ask the FBI to interview Kavanaugh or Ford, McConnell said, “None of them wanted to do that. We just heard testimony, hours and hours of testimony. Nobody thought there was a need to do the same thing all over again.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-06/kavanaugh-confirmed-to-supreme-court-after-brutal-partisan-fight

Come on, Election Day. Come on...

at different points i've read that mcgahn set the scope, that there was no scope, and that the fbi was determining the scope itself. now it turns out that the judiciary committee + collins/murkowski set the scope?

I've never wanted to vote the smugness out of anyone's smirks so much.

xp yes that's what it sounds like. really, fuck them. I wish there were some consequences

The McGahn story I read actually made sense to me, from his nefarious vantage. Reportedly Trump called him up and told him to let the FBI do whatever they wanted and needed to do, and he cautioned, whoa there, my man, who knows what they might turn up if totally unleashed, let's just do the minimum that's requested of us. Which is what it sounds like they did. I mean, I totally see why they wouldn't want a full investigation opened up into Bart.

yeah they really didn't want the FBI to interview Kavanaugh, who was never ultimately made to give straight answers to questions at the hearing

I am sure that McConnell will always consider his manufacturing of a 5-4 conservative Supreme Court majority, through the blatant abuse of power while holding a one-vote majority in the Senate, to be his finest achievement. When (an not, I hope, if) the Democrats acquire their own slim majorities in Congress and take their revenge, I am sure he will give plentiful quotes to the press deploring their lack of collegiality and blatant abuse of power.

except that they don't have the guts to take their revenge

please prove me wrong!

Re: Protest Size: Apparently they had an above-average amount of blockades up by the Court and Capital this morning, which as you imagine limited access.

Can't believe a pretzel almost took out Bush, but Trump hasn't yet bled out from forgetting to clear the zipper after a piss.

You assume he unzips to piss

ew

yeah, there's a bunch of blockades, the Capitol Plaza is closed off

These fucking lying liars.

Trump sits down to pee.

so do i AND I VOTE

<3

it really is better

sitting down to pee is not a shameful thing

that era has passed. nothing that belongs to it exists anymore

to quote a line from In the Mood for Love

(the second line, not the first)

I've sent us way off topic, sorry

The only hope I have is voting this November so the blue wave will cure us of this madness, led by fearless Pelosi and Schumer.

Schumer is hopelessly mired in the muck and is pretty worthless as a leader, but don't sell Pelosi short. Even though she isn't going to set a very progressive agenda, she'll hold her caucus together and all moving in one direction, which is a very tough job.

We'll see. I say, let's have a blue wave, and people can decide for themselves how they like the results.

all of you assholes should be sitting down to pee.

Pelosi's getting a bunch of airtime in Texas because a conservative PAC is running an attack ad claiming Dem Congressional candidate Lizzie Fletcher is her puppet.

Pelosi has explicitly stated she's going to do jack diddly shit about Trump or Kavanaugh.

Why people place hopes and dreams on this "blue wave", must be an escapist fantasy born out of fatalism.

The conservative PAC shit is no different than this: establishment Democrats are the colmes to the GOP's Hannity.

Hot take.

scorching

It's not really a scorching take to pay attention to the positions people take in public.

I see.

i don't imagine anyone is expecting any form of blue wave to usher in any kind of progressive utopia, certainly not while trump is president. stopping the bleeding for two years would by itself mean massive improvements in millions of people's lives. so cool it with the hot takes, brett kavanaugh is on the fucking supreme court and everything is fucking terrible.

dnftt