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

"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.

That one question about why he hasn't announced his re-election committee yet... as if it's now normal to begin running for reelection the same month you're sworn into office.

yeah even some press that I thought were ok are up there asking these meandering lame questions

We also just had a bunch of reporters acting outraged about Biden not holding a press conference. Fine. Just be equally annoyed by your fellow journalists wasting everyone’s time with this nonsense https://t.co/jDePb4yXqA

— Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) March 25, 2021

When I did town halls with Democratic candidates and I and other regular voters asked questions like "what's your plan for the opioid problem?" there was a live chat of campaign reporters rolling their eyes and scoffing at how it wasn't making news.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 25, 2021

Pretty wild that there was not one COVID-19 question at the president's first press conference, a year into the pandemic and after over 530,000 deaths.

— Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) March 25, 2021

What if journalism…is bad

the press sucks, they revealed this every day during the trump admin, they ask the goddamn worst questions

The White House press corps sucks for sure, almost 100%. There are some good working journalists out there beyond the WH, who seek out news that is both important and unreported on or under-reported. They are the ones who break the stories, about which the WH press corps self-importantly stand up and ask the president to comment on, which any idiot can do. The idea that the WH press corps represent the pinnacle of the journalistic profession is disproved at every fucking press conference the president gives.

they need a less impressive/imposing sounding noun than "corps"

"gaggle"

"bouquet"

the press corps
the st louis cardinals

or wait, maybe more like a band name?

the typewriters on loan

and everyone always knows when they're working, because the typewriters are so loud

they need a less impressive/imposing sounding noun than "corps"

― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.), Thursday, March 25, 2021 2:53 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

press crops

press craps

press carps

I can't believe Biden did this pic.twitter.com/7Em0mhr4JX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2021

lol an image for which the phrase "talking heads" was invented. some things never change.

Obama used a teleprompter, Biden uses written notes, what obvious puppets they are. You know a president is authentic only if he randomly capitalizes words in incoherent tweets full of exclamation points.

Trump was the Charlie Parker of podium-speak, freely following his muse wherever it led him...

we love talking out of our asses, don't we folks?

I haven't talked to an ass since March 2020.

Not even on Zoom?

I like my asses live.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Live_Chili_Cookoff_2008.jpg

https://cdn.britannica.com/40/141040-050-B1D8DDED/Asian-ass.jpg

me and a friend last March

aw, look at those ides

The ides have it!

Jesus, this shit in Georgia

it’s bad

Full on fascism. The 'illegal to give food/drink to someone queuing to vote' bit. Did they even bother to try and explain that one?

i think it's some sort of fear of bribery thing. obviously spasms of oligarchy that require derision and direct action.

Good morning!

I'm in a low level panic about the voter suppression laws in Georgia and other red states, because it is extremely unlikely that any legal challenges to such laws will progress fast enough to stop them for the 2022 elections and, if they do, that the US SC will uphold any such challenges.

do voting rights orgs need to wait for an election to sue or can they proceed immediately after passage?

They can sue immediately. Given the current SC composition and the recent rulings on gerrymandering, I don't see any chance at all that the SC doesn't uphold these type of laws or at least let them go forward pending a full review. It would take a video showing a bunch of republicans sitting around a room saying, "we're doing this to keep minorities from voting", and even then I'm not sure it would be enough to get Roberts and Gorsuch to join the libs.

"states have broad latitude" blah blahblah

is the problem ultimately that there's no specific constitutional right to vote??

and/or the legal definition of discriminatory which isn't based on discriminatory outcomes but on proveable intent?

I am 100% furious about the Georgia law, but my hope is that it will backfire on the GOP and voters will mobilize to vote the bastards out.

^ this