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

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

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

Pig ignorance of money and banking is as common as ear wax. Saying "money isn't real", when it is not supplemented by some hint of genuine knowledge, is indistinguishable from pig ignorance.

bring back the gold standard!!!!

so we can have the pleasure of killing it all over again!!!

yes, "money isn't real" is shitpost-y, but if you can't appreciate how it looks and what it means for Democrats to be wringing their hands over $1400 or $2000 for someone who hasn't worked in 10 months, all while dousing Rolls Royce in 180 million of 'covid relief funds', all i can say is enjoy those midterms

oink oink

Money is a group hallucination
like time
But quite convincing though.

Likely to make people go cold turkey if they try to withdraw from it though innit.

taking more offense at the (imaginary) notion that "money isn't real" than at the insulting horseshit justification for paltry relief that "money is real" says everything anyone needs to know abt your politics

fuck off

Map you’re out of line

― “Big” Don Abernathy, Sunday, January 31, 2021 7:20 PM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

am i? you're a little bitch who still gets money from his parents

Money is a group hallucination
like time
But quite convincing though.

Add crime and a few other things to this list and we're good.

can't do the crime if there is no time

add gender to the list too, for some reason i didn't want to get involved in this convo so i posted in the "posts you had second thoughts about" thread

Map, that simply isn’t true.

Sorry if this was posted already, but Miller literally told the national guard they were not allowed to arrest or even search any protesters on 01/06 -- memo written TWO DAYS earlier.

Smoking gun: The orders from Miller to the DC National Guard for January 6 included in linked article— is a must read. The DC guard were allowed no helmets, no body armor, no weapons. They were not allowed to stop or arrest protesters. Letter orders no interference with rioters https://t.co/py9y17iw0U pic.twitter.com/tjsLBVcbPn

— Holly Brewer (@earlymodjustice) January 30, 2021

xposts
dang yall grow tf up

what it means for Democrats to be wringing their hands over $1400 or $2000

I know what you're saying and it is probably closer to political reality than my perspective is.

It is a perspective that is totally blind to every single detail of how the US government works and reduces a complex situation down to two blobs called Republicans and Democrats playing tug of war. Except the Republicans don't really matter. As of Jan 20 the Democrats are Running Things Now, so whatever happens, it only happened because the Democrats wanted it that way. That's how the great blob called the Public sees politics, so that's The Truth.

Which is why the filibuster must be destroyed as soon as possible. Even then, nothing happens without at least 50 votes in the Senate, including Manchin and Sinema, or some Republican crossovers. Which I fucking hate, but that is the reality I see and live in.