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

An update on immigration/family reunification:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/31/biden-migrant-family-reunification-463999

The “you said $2000 checks” thing is a fairly bad faith thing. I mean I think we all knew the argument was $2000 instead of the $600 not “in addition to” but whatever make it $2000 or more at this point. Money is real.

O IS IT

but like reallly isn't t a disease? I mean he ain't my idea of a comforter.
& he seems to spread like a virus so the last year of his incumbency seems so significant dunnit.
Maybe its rabies or something.

xpost Oh, I know Asshole won't stay mum. I'm just asking what the risks or repurcussions are if he did. As far as I can tell, the answer is "none." It's not a legal proceeding, per se, in that there's no threat of jail or fines or anything, right?

At this point, I am weighing the efficacy of a second impeachment (particularly since no one really expects him to face any repercussions) against just letting the schmuck fade further into obscurity.

is there a difference?

To me, the big question is whether the democrats can manage it enough to resemble an actual trial or will they immediately lose control of the proceedings and let it turn into a clown show?

If the other side, in whatever guise or under whatever representation, is allowed to say a single thing, then it will be a clown show.

This is pretty much a reality version of a Sideshow Bob episode of the Simpsons, kinda hard not to keep it turning into a clown show.

Like, there's no need for a defense because there *is* no defense. At best you'll get a bunch of variations on the ol' Susan Collins hand-wringing, at worst you'll get Rand Paul or John Cornyn or Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley saying, well, anything.

Hope this doesn't undermine the new administration from being able to get anything further done.
Would be so nice if current investigations lead to significant people being removed but assume that would be a longshot.

Oh right, heard teh Skullduggery episode with Al Franken earlier where several quotes about the popularity of Cruz appear so I assume must be the original source.
Hadn't realised Franken was doing his own podcast too

The defense will be purely a bullshit technical argument that you can't impeach a president who isn't in office anymore

Feeling much better about the mainstream/leadership democratic senate these days. Still not sure about manchin and sinema and one of the 50 could croak at any time but maybe they’ll get something done.

Regular people don’t care whether we pass something with 51 or 60 votes. It’s a pandemic and the largest economic contraction in 90 years. We must ignore those who call anything a Republican proposes a compromise, and anything a Democrat proposes partisan. We have to deliver.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 31, 2021

President Biden should declare a national emergency on the climate crisis.

Donald Trump declared a fake emergency for his ineffective, wasteful wall. That was no emergency.

The climate crisis is an emergency.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 31, 2021

So one of the founders of the Lincoln Project is...a superpredator, basically.

21 Men Accuse Lincoln Project Co-Founder of Online Harassment

John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist and co-founder of the prominent anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, has for years sent unsolicited and sexually provocative messages online to young men, often while suggesting he could help them get work in politics, according to interviews with 21 men who received them.

His solicitations included sending messages to a 14-year-old, asking questions about his body while he was still in high school and then more pointed ones after he turned 18.

These messages from Mr. Weaver, 61, who helped run John McCain’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008 and John Kasich’s in 2016, did not lead to physical encounters except in one consensual case, and none of the men accused Mr. Weaver of unlawful conduct. Rather, many of them described feeling preyed upon by an influential older man in the field in which they wanted to work, and believing they had to engage with his repeated messaging or lose a professional opportunity.

Mr. Weaver sent overt sexual solicitations to at least 10 of the men and, in the most explicit messages, offered professional and personal assistance in exchange for sex. He told one man he would “spoil you when we see each other,” according to a message reviewed by The New York Times. “Help you other times. Give advice, counsel, help with bills. You help me … sensually.”

Lincoln Project leaders, in their first extended comments about Mr. Weaver, said they had not been aware of such allegations until this month, when a magazine article and an open letter on Twitter from a data analyst named Garrett Herrin accused Mr. Weaver of grooming young men online.

Steve Schmidt, a co-founder of the group, said its leaders had learned last summer from social media posts that Mr. Weaver, who has a wife and two children, might be involved in relationships with men, but emphasized, “There was no awareness or insinuations of any type of inappropriate behavior when we became aware of the chatter at the time.” Mr. Weaver denied the claims, Mr. Schmidt said in an interview.

In mid-January, after the allegations gained public attention, Mr. Weaver issued a statement acknowledging he had sent “inappropriate” messages and apologizing “to the men I made uncomfortable,” while saying he had believed all of his interactions to be consensual. He said he would not return to the Lincoln Project from a medical leave that began in the summer.

The organization has issued a statement, which is creepy as fuck in its own way.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtEzdQnXYAIiRQA.jpg

I don't know who's wearing the Chuck Schumer skin suit, but he or she is OK by me.

I mean I think we all knew the argument was $2000 instead of the $600 not “in addition to” but whatever

I think the context here is that the Democrats have a history of own goals like this, so what you're sensing is the collective eye-rolling of millions of Americans when they make a straightforward promise like "$2,000 checks for all!" and then immediately and predictably are like "asterisk - paragraph of technicalities"

I mean I think we all knew the argument was $2000 instead of the $600 not “in addition to” but whatever make it $2000 or more at this point.

You’d be incorrect. Even some of the people who dutifully read the politics thread here for two hours a day were confused by this - because the messaging focused on $2k even after $600 checks passed.

The Squad’s amendment was a ‘top up’ to $2000 before the $600 passed, yes, but expecting people to read the text of amendments instead of the tens of millions of dollars in advertising taken out is ridiculous.

Yeah that’s the bad faith meme bullshit I was talking about. I get the recreational aspect of that and wanting to be another guy who does that.

“You gotta understand the context of memes”

Xpost

Keep repeating "bad faith" and maybe it will become true.

Ok

money is only "real" when it's being used to help poor and working people

and i promise you in georgia not a single person was getting the message that electing Ossoff & Warnock meant $1400 rather than $2k.

Money is real.

just incredible

Yeah again we’re pretending it was $2000 in addition and not instead of the $600. But whatever just make it $2001 at this point

Make the entire plane out of the checks so it doesn’t crash

you are, needlessly, such a fucking prick

Money is real.

just incredible

imagine thinking this in United States of America in the year 2021

Money is real.

Time for a poll.

ehh, nothing to get polled about
"Money is real" forever.

Please Will give me your “not real” money. I’m the uhh...money inspector.

Map you’re out of line

welcome to ILX, Don

(also, I FP'd you)

Huh?

Huh?

more rib tickling ilx humor I suspect

money is "real" insofar as it is used to discipline poor people

tell me how real it is when when trillions are shoveled into the pockets of telecoms, fossil fuels, and defense contractors

It seems a bit, um, unreal to simultaneously argue that money has no reality at all, while at the same time the difference between $1400 and $2000 is extremely consequential.

Do I have to?

Xpost

Well i guess it would be nice
If i could
Start shitposting

i know not every poster
has a shitpost like me

holy shit they're actually going to deficit hawk us again and by god we're going to roll over for it

It seems a bit, um, unreal to simultaneously argue that money has no reality at all

look like we're going to have an obtuse-off, competition is fierce

We can probably categorize “Money isn’t real” as a shitpost guys

Playing dumb vs. concern trolling

Here's a proposition for you. It is imperative to send money to people whose lives are threatened by their current lack of money AND money is real. In fact, the second part is implied by the first.

legit pretending the objection to "money is real" is an ontological one jfc

Lol