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

As a former president notes:

Note that Gaetz is a lawyer, still licensed in Florida, apparently. The splash you heard is his own lawyer throwing himself into Biscayne Bay. https://t.co/0fI8k6U20l

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 30, 2021

"threatening to smear my name"

consider it smeared

I like how Elongate is a...word. but gaetz just takes it as "part of his name", so he responds with his own name+gate, without even bothering with wordplay. i'd expect this out of lesser reps but COME ON matt gaetz, you know better!

Gates-gate though, tbf to this pea-brained sex criminal.

Why hasn’t Matt Gertz legally changed his name yet?

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Must vom TV

Rep. Matt Gaetz will be on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) March 30, 2021

ilxor jjjusten memorably described Gaetz as "a bag of rabid rats dumped into a human skin suit"

He's gonna go on FOX to explain why he wants a job at Newsmax - got it

Oh shit I might have to watch tucker tonight

What a night for g gordon liddy to croak

I don't doubt that Gaetz is working with a FL FBI office to try and come up with something on the victim. These local offices often are way more political than the DC leadership (cf. Giuliani using his NY FBI office connections from SDNY days to investigate Hilary, among other things).

I really don’t think Matt Gaetz committed “sex trafficking” even if he is guilty of exactly what the NYT describes. And in fact, the age of consent is 16 or 17 in the vast majority of states.

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) March 30, 2021

Yes I am in fact a libertarian thank you for pointing that out

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) March 30, 2021

Well shit if that guy is cool with it

Rep. Matt Gaetz will be on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) March 30, 2021

Looking forward to Greenwald and Taibbi becoming rabid Gaetz defenders.

Matt Gaetz's campaign didn't spend any money on legal fees in the 2020 cycle until July, shortly after his associate Joel Greenberg was indicted. His campaign spent $64K on legal consulting over the last 5 months of the year. pic.twitter.com/oTFafdUazD

— Karl Evers-Hillstrom (@KarlMEvers) March 30, 2021

Man, these people are so fucking weird

The Republican Poseurs Who Claim to Be True Texans

Earlier this week, a campaign video emerged out of Texas showing a brawny bull-rider trying to buck his way into Congress. The ad, featuring Republican candidate and former professional wrestler Dan Rodimer, checked all the Republican boxes, from complaints about “communism” to whingeing about how Democrats “hate our way of life.” “Commies in D.C. are ruining America,” railed Rodimer, claiming the time had come to “make America Texas again.” For good measure, Rodimer referred to himself in the third person as “Big Dan.”

...

“Originally from New Jersey, Rodimer attended a preparatory school in the suburbs before moving to Florida for college and law school,” the Post wrote, while noting Rodimer’s buttoned-up, mild-mannered campaign ads from just a year before, when he ran for Congress in Nevada. Trading his starched polo for a 10-gallon hat and replacing his meek voice with a half-baked impression of Doc Holliday, Rodimer had refashioned himself as a cosplay cowboy—one who’d firmly back the kinds of illiberal, authoritarian policies swiftly rising in popularity on the Texas right.

“The Justice Department regularly prosecutes such cases, and offenders often receive severe sentences.”

Good sentence.

One (admittedly minor) thing about the Rodimer story... they've been married for three? or four? years. Going off the bit where his "then-girlfriend now-wife" called 911 on him.

They have six children.

Thread of him denying stuff he hasn’t been accused of etc.

Matt Gaetz vows to Tucker Carlson he didn't "travel" with a 17-year-old, but his denial seems pretty specific and carefully worded pic.twitter.com/emGePJeVfV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 31, 2021

Wow. Back from commercial, Tucker Carlson proclaims that the interview he just conducted with Gaetz was "one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted." pic.twitter.com/85Fnyv4Km9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 31, 2021

Lol at “I’m not the only person on screen right now who has been accused of a horrible sex crime”

Natch

For some reason, QAnon people are refusing to take their dream scenario coming true — a sitting congressman being investigated for child trafficking — at face value. They love Gaetz’s inscrutable double agent story because it sounds like 5D chess.

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 31, 2021

Otoh Qanon is def concerned with ‘face value’

Biden Wants to Pay for Infrastructure Plan With 15 Years of Corporate Taxes

Oh?

The president will propose using the revenue from increasing corporate taxes to pay for eight years of ambitious spending on roads, bridges, utilities and other needs.

oh!

Mr. Biden’s proposals include raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent and efforts to force multinational corporations to pay significantly more in tax to the United States on profits they earn and book overseas. The corporate tax rate had been cut under President Donald J. Trump from 35 percent to 21 percent.

....oh

He could attach the next 7% to a different spending priority, there’s a certain amount of logic to that

THREAD — Reporters toured the temporary border facility in Donna, TX today.

The Biden admin allowed pooled coverage for the first time.

We saw a “pod” designed for 32 migrant children under CDC guidelines now holding 615.

The facility is at 1700% pandemic capacity.

📸:TV Pool pic.twitter.com/cJTPUAxXmc

— Nicole Sganga (@NicoleSganga) March 30, 2021

*winces*

are they going to get a handle on this or what? I know it's a fucked situation and nothing new but they have to do better than that.

is it still naive and unfair to blame this administraton for keeping children in concentration camps?

there definitely is a middle ground between "OMG WE ARE BEING INVADED AND OVERRUN BY IMMAGRANTS" and "move along, nothing to see here"

the middle ground being "fuck the border" right?

sounds good to me

I love how AOC said that people criticizing the Biden admin for keeping kids in cages are operating from a privileged position, when months ago under a different president, she was fine with calling them concentration camps. It's almost as if she doesn't care about these kids!

Yeah, sure, she doesn't care, you nailed it.

I'm pretty sure she does actually care, but keep on being purely equivalency-forward in your thinking, it helps everyone maintain the belief that being a good person means all contradictions magically vanish from your life... provides a much easier environment for the disingenuous.

Talk about projection

"You see, if we do it, it's okay, and you can't criticize us"

GTFOH with that two-faced disingenuous bullshit

OK, but I'm going to stick with assuming that AOC's beliefs align with mine and she is doing what she can to address the inhumane conditions at the border.

except for the political cost, i'm not sure why FEMA isn't dispatched to build temporary housing tbh

FEMA has been involved since mid-March.

okay... and why is that not addressing the problem? brb, gonna read a bit.

seems to be a question of prioritizing allocation of resources, a problem that varies radically in size depending on numerous exigencies, a lack of competency and compassion from local/federal officials and general political quagmire? also doesn't seem clear quite what FEMA is doing at the moment.

One might assume that the Trump administration weakened infrastructure and judicial/legal capability for processing amnesty cases when everyone knew these things needed strengthening, intentionally creating a crisis in order to rally the base, and when he lost the election, Trump deliberately left Biden a pile of shit to sort out and fix, and it’s the kind of thing that can’t just be fixed on Day 1! Cue the media stories and finger pointing as this becomes Biden’s fault!

Watch as Democrats do the GOP’s messaging work for them!

it's not his fault but it is for sure his mess to clean up in a way that is not atrocious. The media fucking sucks and we all know that, they are going to gravitate to whatever pulls ratings and grabs attention.

Stunning to see corporate owned media seeking to distract from progressive legislative priorities. Obviously this is a humanitarian crisis but who are we to say this isn’t being fixed as quickly as possible? Let’s just speculate that nothing is being done!

It isn't being fixed as quickly as possible, and the Biden administration continues to deport people needlessly.

It's also disgraceful that every time people come at Biden from the left, people say we're "doing the Right's work for them." Give me a break.