US Politics May 2019: " If I was burned at the stake, I would ask for a mirror"

#buthersalary

It was bullshit to make a stink about a guy making money on his book. It is also bullshit to make a stink about a corporate lawyer making money on corporate law.

What is decidedly *not* bullshit when evaluating candidates for the presidency is acknowledging these respective histories in order to gain insight into where they come from.

Skins are papery thin up in here

It doesn't really matter, but lol at saying Bernie published his tax returns a week later. He'd been running for president for four years at that point...

all those Fire Island parties have fried Josh Barro's brain:

People have gotten so used to formats where news is used to Make A Point that they can't read an article about a candidate's professional history without finding an implied attack in it. Putting her hourly rate in the headline was not an ideal choice, but the news inside is news. https://t.co/ASYCIiUWah

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 23, 2019

Dude, nobody made a stink about the book. Bernie preemptively defended himself about it, then people shook their heads a little. It's not the same thing.

You’re never going to get over that time he let BLM activists speak at his rally, huh?

It was bullshit to make a stink about a guy making money on his book. It is also bullshit to make a stink about a corporate lawyer making money on corporate law.

What is decidedly *not* bullshit when evaluating candidates for the presidency is acknowledging these respective histories in order to gain insight into where they come from.

Skins are papery thin up in here

― d'ILM for Murder (Hadrian VIII)

The story is okay -- it's the headline and framing that make what she did sound unusual if not nefarious, and this is how we got to #butheremails in 2016.

Skins sure are papery!

surely this story will still be relevant an hour from now

Good thread:

🗣 WHO FUCKING CARES.

This is the going rate for elite legal services. I was being billed out at $575 when I was a fucking fifth year associate because that’s what BigLaw charges.

This is infuriating. https://t.co/Le3vBH81Y4

— Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) May 23, 2019

This is clearly dumb. Journalists think it’s similar to like hillary’s speaking fees but it’s not because the latter was a roundabout way of allowing corporations to buy influence.

Dude, nobody made a stink about the book. Bernie preemptively defended himself about it, then people shook their heads a little. It's not the same thing.

That he refused to publish his tax returns. Then basically nothing happened.

when you publish a news story you are implicitly arguing "this is important and newsworthy" - it is the job of the journalist to explain what is newsworthy about the story.

Hadrian, Bernie was the one who told the story himself. So you think he was being a hypocrite, or what is your point?

I think Hadrian's right in that this seems much more like an effort to puncture Warren's progressive bona fides than a sexist slam. Either way though everyone else is also right that there doesn't really seem to be a newsworthy story here.

Fair^

xp This is not complicated, but ok. Republicans were champing at the bit to cry “hypocrite!” because “duh but how could a member of the 1% be against the 1%?”

That’s what the controversy was and why he felt compelled to defend that income. lol it had little to do w him dragging his feet on his tax returns

the story itself is more like "In 2012 EW released a list of 13 cases she worked on, now she's released a list of 54. Here's some info about them." The headline, presumably not written by the reporters (Elise Viebeck and Annie Linskey) is the problem

Ok Hadrian, but right now you're comparing Republican behaviour to the Washington Post, as if that's the same thing...

.@GOPLeader on SpeakerPelosi: "This is irresponsible. This is not a way to be – to govern." pic.twitter.com/pSstGJfMYt

— CSPAN (@cspan) May 23, 2019

hahaha ok buddy

the EW thing and the reaction..

social media has officially fried everyone's brainz

xxp I am arguing that 1) the article’s headline misses its point and is sensationalistic, but to call it misogynistic fails to see how it is consistent with treatment of other candidates and is typical of newspapers to boot, and 2) that per evol^ inasmuch as a candidate’s progressive cred is of interest to voters in a primary it is newsworthy

<3 EW

Pelosi low key slaying Trump at her presser today

so low-key that you probably missed it

Here it is:

.@SpeakerPelosi: "I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country." pic.twitter.com/SmFxvxTanv

— CSPAN (@cspan) May 23, 2019

i prefer action to sick burns

Who says Dems don’t have a strategy for fighting Trump politically (i.e., aside from investigations)? Pelosi: "I pray for the president of the United States, and I pray for the United States of America."

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) May 22, 2019

The idea that Nancy Pelosi only operates at the surface level on this shit is so stupid.

we have reports of what she's said in meetings

The most basic problem is that her actions are not visible to ordinary observers, and that invisibility ensures they have no political effect outside of the back rooms of the House of Representatives. we do not know what the strategy is regarding the Trump administration's non-compliance with Congressional subpoenas, because that strategy has not had any visible effects. this makes it, for the moment, ineffective.

So, subpoenas, hearings, court wins, new congress members calling for impeachment inquiry every day (including 1 Republican), and, yes, increasing public impatience and calls for impeachment = no action/no visible effect?

There's one shot at this and it's a process. I may be naive, but I see things moving and Nancy Pelosi knows the game.

everybody thinks we live in a shitty wish-fulfillment movie now, unless she personally handcuffs Trump to the podium on live TV while screaming FULL COMMUNISM NOW!!! she's obviously doing nothing

nah there is a middle ground where Democrats develop a messaging strategy above the fifth grade level

the electorate has proven that its preferred discursive mode is right about fifth grade level iirc

Posted this in the primary thread (insofar as differences exist):

It's obv she's playing the FDR game of letting partisans like us gnash our teeth while she waits for the moment, then says, with fake regret, that they must pursue impeachment because the president Leaves Us No Choice, etc. Schumer doesn't get it. That's why she discusses infrastructure: she's insulating herself for the sake of voters so that she can say to them, "Well, sigh, we tried with this guy..."

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 23, 2019

Would be inspiring to see more than a handful of dems aiming a little higher than the general discursive preference of a disengaged/disillusioned/nihilistic electorate.

Schumer doesn't get a lot of things it's true

honest Q: how many voters fit into the category that pelosi is accommodating (people who won't accept impeachment unless trump is given another 10-100 weeks of second chances to stop acting like a guilty man)?

JCLC I hope u know the "full communism"/AOC wing is, like, five people

The odds are she's made up her mind that this turd is a menace but is waiting for Trump to keep stepping on the rakes she lays in public. She's a vote counter. It's possible she doesn't have the numbers (yet) beyond the progressive wing to start proceedings.

honest Q: how many voters fit into the category that pelosi is accommodating (people who won't accept impeachment unless trump is given another 10-100 weeks of second chances to stop acting like a guilty man)?

― these are not all of the possible side effects (Karl Malone), Thursday, May 23, 2019

I suspect she's thinking of their reps more than the voters

She's a vote counter. It's possible she doesn't have the numbers (yet) beyond the progressive wing to start proceedings.

yeah, i think this is right. and don't get me wrong, i can understand why she's pumping the brakes on impeachment until she at least has full support in her party.

but i have trouble imagining how trump can possibly be more obviously guilty than he already is. he has stepped on every single rake, so many times.

someone please post a sideshow bob image

A friend last weekend posited a third option: a Senate trial won't begin until the House finishes impeachment proceedings, which can take as long as the House wants, possibly until November 2020?

"I was extremely calm yesterday" for June pol thread title

meanwhile, political journalists on twitter are always mentioning how infrequently the topic of impeachment comes up at democratic campaign events. or maybe it's just david weigel making that point over and over again. but i have no reason to distrust him on that. Pelosi is waiting on the the Reps. to force her hand on impeachment, and the Reps. are apparently waiting for the people to force their hand, and the people are fucking exhausted over the whole thing and most of us are depressed and just want to retire and have health care without going broke

But, yeah, Pelosi can't be seen as leading the charge towards impeachment. She has to create the impression that events pull her, "reluctantly," beyond her control.

Also, I do think she hasn't got the votes in the House (yet). No pundit has floated this possibility.

the people are fucking exhausted over the whole thing and most of us are depressed and just want to retire and have health care without going broke

Gonna blast DJ Khaled by the pool tomorrow! Join me.

multi-xps

I suppose that constitutes a 'middle road' approach, in that it is perfectly evident that not one Republican senator has showed the slightest inclination to vote to convict Trump on any articles drawn up by the House. The only good alternative is to let Trump convict himself in the eyes of voters through his public, highly visible actions. His throwing a tantrum instead of negotiating an infrastructure bill will certainly increase his popularity.

But some kind of well-crafted Articles of Impeachment need to be brought to a vote in the House before January, imo. By January 1, we will be too deep into the campaign for it to sit well with voters.

Schumer doesn't get it.

Sometimes I wonder how Pelosi manages to share a podium with that spineless, glad-handing imbecile without shoving a pen through his neck.

The only good alternative is to let Trump convict himself in the eyes of voters through his public, highly visible actions

i think it was around the 84th time he convicted himself through his public, highly visible actions that i completely lost my shit

around the 84th time he convicted himself through his public, highly visible actions that i completely lost my shit

He convicts himself every day of incompetence and inability, but since Mueller screwed the pooch by not making a clear declaration of obstruction of justice, which was a prima facie case in terms of evidence, Trump and Barr have been able to erase or efface that conclusion in the public mind sufficiently that Pelosi and the House democrats now need to rebuild and rehabilitate that case. Certainly, Trump is helping them by refusing to honor subpoenas, but it is not a done deal, yet. The US public can be slow on the uptake.