Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

and lack of black fathers, and every other imaginable thing

Why did we declare war on Xmas instead of Iran?

There's nothing complicated about any of this, really: they're an ethno-fascist death cult. The entirety of right-wing identity is centered around belittling others, worshipping violence (particularly when it's done to non-white people), and using absurd religious justifications to violate the privacy and bodily sovereignty of women, trans people, and others whom they seek to control.

They don't care about freedom, or liberty, or anything. They care about death, and enforcing their death vision upon the populace at a massive scale. There's nothing more to it.

otm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/23/theres-no-migrant-surge-us-southern-border-heres-data/

DEEEEEEAAATH CUULLLLT

You can't counter GOP claims with data.

afaict in 2021 the bOrDeR cRiSiS extends well beyond the GOP faithful/ Fox

^^^ true. See every major newspaper in the US running with this nationalist bullshit rhetoric.

Sen. Manchin (https://t.co/EHSclJLRrQ.) supports:

-- "Enormous" infrastructure push
-- Corporate rate up >25%
-- An "infrastructure bank"
-- Floats VAT tax (cc: @jdcmedlock) to fund it
-- Criticizes GOP reluctance to raise taxes

Via @sahilkapurhttps://t.co/QjQ1Iirnuh

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) March 24, 2021

west virginia, 2023

https://www.psdvault.com/img/2018/06/futuristic-landscape-9.jpg

Floats VAT tax

adding VAT feels like shorthand for "i don't actually want this stuff to happen" but fine with me if it does

i support joe manchin cutting it out with the propecia

Please don't tell me we're threatening to bomb Propecia. What did they ever do to us?

Anyway:

Dana Carvey’s Biden is A+. He’s so cool. pic.twitter.com/0f0gmYC85Y

— Rob Delaney (@robdelaney) March 24, 2021

Oh no has late night TV been all zoom calls for a year??

Even Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of the most moderate Republicans

You should be caned in public for quoting Collins and describing her this way.

too kind

*puts on thomas friedman hat*

running late on an automated taxi drive to a flight for the Kuala Lumpur, the AI looked me in the eye and said "far from being caned, maybe Susan Collins should considered being 'off-laned' from American politics - fill up the roads with latent innovation, and Ms. Collins and others of the old guard will eventually find themselves needing 'to stop off for gas'

*mutant david brooks*

i was at a #onethread factory in eastern tennessee, looking for the forgotten boards

*slips into Calvin Coolidge drag*

You lose.

in before any of the youtubers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSRYxTLeXeM

you're frisky today

Oh no has late night TV been all zoom calls for a year??

Pretty much, although some shows have the occasional in-studio guest who's socially distanced from the host.

The real news is that musical guests are mostly sending in unique music videos/promo films now.

The early pandemic Jimmy Fallon from home shows were like watching hostage videos, he was so clearly in pain not having an audience to validate him.

good thread here

Y'all muthafuckas know:

A thread: https://t.co/ePDwUpUwwA

— Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) March 24, 2021

remember when someone took the laugh track out of the Big Bang Theory? that's kind of what late night TV in the Spring of 2020 was like. the writers had to change how they did monologues because they got so awkward. the only show that kind of worked was Seth Myers, mostly because the dude talks 300 words a minute anyway so the audience laughter just kinda stilted his speech

John Oliver has been audience-free, too, which has been weird. Kind of like very ... state sponsored comedy show?

Here's the proper response:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/24/mitch-mcconnell-is-wrong-heres-filibusters-racial-history/

not having an audience forced them to do away with a lot of weird bits that didn't really work so his show has maybe improved

can't believe millions of loyal viewers have been tuning in to watch podcast tapings on TV

They're usually much shorter than podcasts.

I know it's a given that McConnell looks terrible, but he's looked *really* terrible these past few months.

it's been really hard out there for people like me who have been openly enjoying prominent conservative deaths like rush limbaugh. because once you give in to that, it's like well here comes another, and here comes another. the more you know, both in quantity of conservative voices you know as well as the depths of their craven commitment to ideology over truth, the more you end up in fights with cryptoteens in a musician's mentions

i think the answer is to reverse course. become as brittle as possible. resilience is flexibility, and flexibility is change. change is bad, especially climate change. there is no ideology, there is only truth. and if you even start talking when i'm around, then that changes my truth: NO THANKS

I know it's a given that McConnell looks terrible, but he's looked *really* terrible these past few months.

Although what will happen because of the banter heuristic is that newsom will be recalled then Feinstein will die and be replaced by a gop appointee until 2024.

even if newsom is recalled, that doesn't mean that a republican would win the election. Arnold Schwarzenegger won mainly because he was a famous actor who was in the movie, Total Recall, not so much that he was a Republican.

also no one was terribly excited by Cruz Bustamante

every time I see his name that Martini & Rossi commercial that’s been lodged n my brain for 35 years starts blaring

"I know it's a given that McConnell looks terrible, but he's looked *really* terrible these past few months."

About that...

https://theintercept.com/2021/03/04/kentucky-mitch-mcconnell-senator-replace/

I would like to see him lose the zombie hand and have an a hook attachment for a few months before he dies.

I was thinking he could be the extra head on some medical experiment like that character in Total Recall or they could turn him into MODOK.

not late night and an insane show, but the one that did a good job with guests is the Drew Barrymore show. Almost all of the in studio guests are green screened onto the set from another studio, I guess, and its done so well you can't really tell that they aren't sitting right there. I'm surprised the late night shows, which surely have bigger budgets, haven't tried that.

even if newsom is recalled, that doesn't mean that a republican would win the election. Arnold Schwarzenegger won mainly because he was a famous actor who was in the movie, Total Recall, not so much that he was a Republican.

i just want to acknowledge karl malone’s masterful friedman-pasta upthread

joe doing just fine in this presser from what I've heard

what is your favorite basic friedman pasta sauce

the press corps as usual is awful: who's in, who's out, Trump said this, what do YOU say. I never thought I'd sympathize with a president over the media over an immigration question.

It was good to see him openly laugh at one idiot reporter's question about whether a vastly overcrowded immigration center was "acceptable" to him.

Also, a real flash of anger in his voice when he talked about unions vs. plutocrats.