Enough With The Cutesy Titles, People Are Dead: US Politics January 2021 pt 2

Ugh no blood libels for anyone, please.

hard to believe it's a battle to sell the american public on getting the same level of healthcare afforded a shitheel like Richard Shelby. we are truly the most acquiescent creatures to ever walk on two legs

if Thune doesn't run (maybe even if he does) Noem is going to run for his seat and given how fucked up SD is, she will win, and the prospect of her in the Senate is much worse than Thune, who sucks, but doesn't suck as much as she does.

i suppose it's theoretically possible that a Dem could win that race but unlikely

As recently as 2005, all four Dakotas senators were Democrats. But yeah, hard to imagine going back to that any time soon.

what the hell happened there? is it oil/gas money?

that, FOX news, Obama, racism.

I was in SD last year and was in a restaurant with a TV and there was an opinion thing running where someone was talking about it being time to bring Kaepernick back and at least two tables of old white people next to me almost had fucking strokes, they started twitching, shaking their heads, "no, absolutely not, no way!" while eating their pancakes.

there's also been increasing suppression of Native voters.

Yep, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2019/10/04/for-some-native-americans-no-home-address-might-mean-no-voting

Going back to MTG, I was depressed to read this story (posting the cached version so you don't get paywalled). I knew she ran unopposed but I hadn't looked into what happened and why.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cQALuaMJU7IJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/17/kevin-van-ausdal-qanon-marjorie-greene-georgia/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

(I'll note that this guys sounds like he was completely the wrong person to run against her, and I think that story is probably not giving his domestic issues nearly enough weight. Women don't divorce people and get restraining orders out of the blue like this, not when there's a baby, so I'm suspecting that his punching a hole in the wall was not some outlier in his behavior)

Yeah, that story about MTG's opponent is depressing, though, even taking into account his shortcomings. Sadly, I think we're going to see a lot more of that type of thing. I've mentioned it on other threads, but recently even local candidates for the district school board of all things have had racist zoom bombers, death threats mailed to their houses, cars broken into, etc etc (and I live in a very blue city in a very blue state). There is a very real thread of terror aimed at progressive (and basically any Democrat) candidates of all stripes right now and I don't know that it's being discussed yet just how deep that runs.

(nb I know the guy running against MTG was Republican, I guess I could expand that to say a thread of terror against any non Q candidate)

the guy in the story was running as a Democrat, not a Republican.

Yeah, I think I was conflating his story with a different guy that was a primary candidate that got scared off as well.

at any rate, I imagine by the time 2022 comes around someone will be better prepared to challenge her and she'll be out (if she's not forced out before then, which frankly is probably unlikely unless she breaks the law). At least by then, anyone running will know what they're up against.

I mean, I don't know. This is where my cynicism kicks in and I think she was voted in because of the violent bullshit she's spewed, not despite it.

agreed, but without Trump in the picture things may be very different

When MTG originally declared her candidacy in 2019, she was running for Lucy McBath's seat in GA-06, but GOP leadership eventually persuaded her to run in GA-14 instead. Presumably the idea was that she couldn't win in a swing district, but would have much less trouble in redder territory.

right but it remains to be seen whether or not that is in fact the direction the GOP is going to run in or if this stuff is going to peter out now that the entire country doesn't revolve around a conspiracy boomer

"I think she was voted in because of the violent bullshit she's spewed, not despite it."

she was voted in because no one ran against her.

fuck I mean, I probably could have moved to georgia and run against her and won, and I shouldn't ever hold elected office anywhere.

magic the gathering

Trust me, I absolutely understand that she won because she was unopposed. But I don't think saying literally any wet blanket could have beat her really undersells what she is pushing and how many people were buying it. It's a dangerous assumption to make that she can be brushed aside so easily. I absolutely hope she is, but coupled with Boebert, it's not like she's a singular outlier.

ugh, "but I do think saying.."

Congress needs to get serious about America’s debt. We are $27 TRILLION in debt thanks to Washington's out of control spending & inaction on the debt limit. We must act now to put the U.S. on a fiscally successful path. Read more in my letter here: https://t.co/WoMJWydPYv

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 26, 2021

lmao that ratio

I agree that Congress needs to get serious about America's debt......to marginalized communities and the exploited labor class

"Well, Trump is gone now, guess I finally have a chance to take a look at the ole' budget spreadsheet, haven't broken it out in years...HOLY SMOKES!"

oh so let's allow the former CEO responsible for the biggest Medicare fraud in American history pontificate about debt

fuck I mean, I probably could have moved to georgia and run against her and won, and I shouldn't ever hold elected office anywhere

i promise you she's a rock star in her district

folks,, this is GOP 2024 frontrunner energy

Since we're doing old videos of Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing people, here's her from before she was elected, in Feb 2019, turning up in Congress to try & get @IlhanMN & @RashidaTlaib to retake their oaths on a Bible & not a Quran:
(h/t @ehananoki)pic.twitter.com/YMr7InKYqZ

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 27, 2021

Boebert for veep plz.

So Mitch is in Mar-a-lago today? FFS!

they've just got so much more wild-eyed intensity and authenticity than pampered try-hards like Bachmann or Palin could ever muster

people really feel that and respond to it

xpost

covid hotspot, florida

idk if it's been discussed yet but it looks like some pretty good climate-oriented EOs were signed today

The executive actions include establishing climate change as a national security priority,

empty guff

conserving at least 30% of federal land and oceans by 2030 and

means less than nothing. 30% of federal lands and oceans that still remain during the second term of President Greene, if those lands take out a means-tested loan for a small business in a developing neighbourhood. how about 100% by 2021?

canceling new oil and gas leases on public lands and waters.

into it if this means "newly granted," not "halting future grants"

directing the Department of the Interior to indefinitely pause new oil and gas leases on public lands and offshore waters “to the extent possible.” The order does not specifically ban new coal leases and leaves fossil fuel leases on tribal lands up to their discretion.

oh well!

apply this link to ^ too

Moreover, Biden is directing a review of existing fossil fuel leases and development projects, and asked the Interior Department to find ways to boost renewable energy projects, especially offshore wind, on federally owned water and land.

good. how's the staffing and leadership at the Interior rn?

The American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas trade association, balked at the new restrictions. “Restricting natural gas and oil leasing and development on federal lands and waters could threaten U.S. energy security, economic growth and good-paying American jobs,” API tweeted.

or it could do the opposite. fair play to them.

A key part of the executive orders is creating new offices and committees focused on addressing specific climate problems and goals. Besides formally creating a new White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, led by Gina McCarthy, a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Biden on Wednesday established a National Climate Task Force that directs members across agencies and departments “to enable a whole-of-government approach to combating the climate crisis,” according to a White House memo.

Biden is also creating a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative designed to create new jobs in conservation, an Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization to take on projects that cut the pollution from existing and abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure, as well as a White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council and White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council to boost environmental justice monitoring and enforcement.

ok this makes for some headlines but is there --

Few details were provided on exactly who will be spearheading the many new efforts, how much funding they will receive, or timelines for delivering on these bold goals.

-- oh.

FWIW, it's pretty clear that they really DID have a Day 1 plan at this point:

When President Biden swore in a batch of recruits for his new administration in a teleconferenced ceremony late last week, it looked like the country’s biggest Zoom call. In fact, Mr. Biden was installing roughly 1,000 high-level officials in about a quarter of all of the available political appointee jobs in the federal government.

At the same time, a far less visible transition was taking place: the quiet dismissal of holdovers from the Trump administration, who have been asked to clean out their offices immediately, whatever the eventual legal consequences.

If there has been a single defining feature of the first week of the Biden administration, it has been the blistering pace at which the new president has put his mark on what President Donald J. Trump dismissed as the hostile “Deep State” and tried so hard to dismantle.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/us/politics/biden-government.html

Just think - they’ve been at this for a week!

A week.

Where’s my $2k

Your $2,000 $1,400 tax adjustment is still in the works.

Raymond otm

You’ll get it in the form of coupons from Joe Manchin’s daughter’s company. You can have one third of an epi-pen!

We need to give Americans a choice: your gun or your truck. Pick one, you can't have both.

how's the staffing and leadership at the Interior rn?

Biden's nominee, Deb Haaland, will be the first Native American to lead a cabinet-level agency. This Fox News piece explains all the things Republicans and the fossil fuel industry (but I repeat myself) hate about her. There are a lot.

There is no more telling way to convey the corruption inherent in having a Trump branded property just blocks from a Trump White House than its desolation a week into the Biden era. https://t.co/72gOx7J014

— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) January 27, 2021