Can We Try De-Exhuming McCarthy, US Politics July 2021

NPR's annual reposting of the Declaration of Independence gets predictable replies. -

🧵 245 years ago today, leaders representing 13 British colonies signed a document to declare independence.

It says "that all men are created equal" — but women, enslaved people, Indigenous people and many others were not held as equal at the time. https://t.co/dtE0z2Uabc

— NPR (@NPR) July 4, 2021

I was surprised how few IRL examples of this type of building collapse I could find in history, but a friend and I were talking and think this could definitely happen again, given how many rich building owners can seem to bribe their way into good inspections.

how's the Grenfell inquiry going

it continues

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09n7tk8

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the leaders

Of the nearly 700 Republicans who have filed initial paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run next year for either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives, at least a third have embraced Trump’s false claims about his defeat.

Many of them — 136 — are sitting members of Congress who voted against Joe Biden’s electoral college victory on Jan. 6.

Similarly, of the nearly 600 state lawmakers who publicly embraced Trump’s false claims, about 500 face reelection this year or next. Most of them signed legal briefs or resolutions challenging Biden’s victory. At least 16 of them attended the Jan. 6 protest in Washington.

“What’s really frightening right now is the extent of the effort to steal power over future elections,” said Jena Griswold, the Democratic secretary of state in Colorado. “That’s what we’re seeing across the nation. Literally in almost every swing state, we have someone running for secretary of state who has been fearmongering about the 2020 election or was at the insurrection. Democracy will be on the ballot in 2022.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-trump-2022-midterms-election-falsehoods/2021/07/04/3a43438c-d36f-11eb-ae54-515e2f63d37d_story.html

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the people they lead

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 74 percent of people who haven’t been vaccinated say they probably or definitely won’t get vaccinated — and that the divide fell sharply along party lines. According to the survey, 86 percent of Democrats have received at least one vaccine shot compared with 45 percent of Republicans. Only 6 percent of Democrats said they are not likely to get vaccinated, compared with 47 percent of Republicans, including 38 percent of Republicans overall who said they definitely will not get the vaccine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/04/republicans-vaccines/

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or maybe it's the other way around. only a total fool can get elected in the GOP now. if you say anything that resembles reality, they primary you with Q and actually win, because they're all so fucking dum-.....foolish

good morning!

XP One of those dopes is a guy I went to high school with who has--afaict--no real political experience outside of working extensively with a 'Back The Blue' organization for the last couple of years, which apparently is enough to take a shot at a US Congressional seat in a hard-R white flight district with an open seat next year.

seems worthy of some american dollars

ppl outside of KY love to be like 'ky what is wrong with yall??' when mcconnell and rand paul do the shitty things they do.

well now yall can help us get rand paul out of here. wld you spend $20 to replace him with a black man who gets it? https://t.co/KPhynJ2J4e https://t.co/cv68r6SINe

— tracy the business goose (@brokeymcpoverty) July 1, 2021

hell yeah

JIM CLYBURN: "We are always for voter ID. We are never for disproportionate voter ID. When you tell me…a photo for a student for an activity card is not good but for a hunting license it is good that's where the rub is. I don't know of a single person…against ID-ing themselves" pic.twitter.com/gd4qVZCYnt

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) July 4, 2021

Is that bad? It seems he is just attacking the Rs voter ID arguments head on by saying, “if an ID is good enough to get a hunting license, it is good enough to vote”.

hunting licenses don't have photos on them, do they?

Idk, but I believe the point stands either way. He is basically reiterating Stacy Abrams position from 1-2 months ago.

Which is a big shift (and cave-in) from Democrats arguments for the last 10+ years and it’s ridiculous to say “no, we were always pro voter ID!!!”

If it somehow gets the voting rights bill passed then that might be a win. I know it won’t but not a big deal.

Some subtle indications here that some members of the minority may not be acting in total good faith. https://t.co/c0h7KZbhRv

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 6, 2021

sing along: deeaaaath CULLLLLLT

https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/trump-suing-zuckerberg-dorsey-bias-censorship-1235013445/

must be nice to have all this money to waste.

I'm sure he's already soliciting donations to his legal fund*.

*Donations to "legal fund" may or may not be used for any particular actions, legal or illegal

if 'illegal' is so bad, why does it have the word 'legal' in it.

i mean inflammable and flammable mean the same thing

doesn't cost him anything neanderthal. he has lawyers on retainer who can file paperwork, he's not actually going to go through with it. it's just free press.

And, as we learned from Rudy and others, somehow he keeps finding these lawyers willing to forego payment for... something?

Rudy Can Fail

Haha, yeah and he’s not even talking with Rudy anymore.

Makes me think of Chris Christie, too. Just public humiliation after humiliation, and he got nothing for his loyalty.

Trump must just string everyone along or threaten them, and if you’re gullible or cowardly you end up getting fucked

Roger Stone gets paid in sex.

Actually it’s a Querelle situation:
If T wins the dice throw he gets to fuck Stone’s wife, but if he loses the throw it’s hello Nixon back tattoo.

And there it is: Trump fundraising appeal off his lawsuit already out pic.twitter.com/4KUaokjezH

— Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) July 7, 2021

ah yes, getting your name on the Donor List President Trump sees, the ultimate achievement in American politics. look, i'm a guy who spends most of my free time watering my shitty lawn and now i'm on the same as chris christie!!!

I’m the guy doing the matching funds x5, because I am real and definitely exist

will you please join my donor pyramid scheme mh? we have been openly searching for an x5

will you activate my x5 impact

late nite pillow talk, Washington NW

will you activate my x5 impact

Yes I have pushed the multiply button five times. You are set

I realize this is hardly a new or fresh revelation, but I saw someone sharing noted vocal anti-abortion idiot C@nd@c3 0w3ns' anti-vaccination tirade, in which she is suddenly very vocally and angrily insistent that the government has no right to tell her what to do with her body, I'm again reminded that there is no consistent worldview or logical train of thought with these conservative beyond defining themselves in opposition to whatever "liberals" feel strongly about it.

I think the Democrats should start a new, highly visible public safety campaign about how dangerous and stupid it is to stand in front of speeding trains. I firmly believe that the number of people who stand in front of speeding trains to trigger the libs would be greater than zero.

or maybe pay some actor to portray an alternative medicine-y guy that has a mega-safe vaccine that liberal government is suppressing and it protects against not just COVID but most infectious diseases, and then when they show up to get vaccinated, the syringes are filled with rat poison.

The key is to sell them gold and then hide the vaccine in the gold pile

Biden seeming ornery af in this Afghanistan press conference.

probably listened to Morning Joe this morning

NEW YORK — Michael Avenatti — who made headlines representing an adult-film actress who claimed an affair with Donald Trump before he was president — was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Thursday, after offering a sobbing plea for mercy for trying to extort Nike Inc.

The disgraced celebrity lawyer was convicted in February 2020 of fraud and attempted extortion for his efforts to shake down Nike for as much as $25 million during what he said was a negotiation for his client, a youth basketball coach. A jury found that he threatened to expose alleged wrongdoing within the company if it did not meet his demands to settle.

"Mr. Avenatti had become drunk on the power of his platform, or what he perceived the power of his platform to be. He had become someone who operated as if the laws and rules which apply to everyone else didn't apply to him," said U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe.

https://i.imgur.com/nvkgH5d.jpg

if wu and teachout are on board then sounds good to me

"President Biden is going to sign a sweeping antitrust executive order today spearheaded by Bharat Ramamurti and Tim Wu and cheered by Zephyr Teachout" is an accurate sentence I, uh, certainly would not have expected to write a year ago

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) July 9, 2021

People liked Avenatti for about a NY minute because he was good at coming back at Trump in the media. The shine wore off fast when he broke out that #Basta shit.

130 countries signed on to an American-led effort to create a 15% minimum corporate tax rate. The plan for a new global tax system would ensure multinational corporations pay a fair share of tax wherever they operate and earn profits. https://t.co/Dbt6pox3LH

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 4, 2021

seems like good news. the dems are gonna put a provision for this in the reconciliation bill.

i mean 15% is low but it's also significantly higher than the rate in tax havens like the caymans, isle of jersey, etc.

"global tax rate" sounds like the mother of all triggers for right wingers

A month or so ago I caught a couple minutes of a Larry Kudlow radio show where he had some Trump admin tax guy on and they were talking about this like some NWO star chamber.

"global tax rate" sounds like the mother of all triggers for right wingers

More like "globalist theft rate".

This is great news for the countries that didn't sign on to this agreement.

Which I'm guessing are the caymans, isle of jersey, etc.

would additional revenue for the US from, uh, actually making corporations pay taxes, lead to a windfall of new money that doesn't require legislation? or lead to new funding for THE GREEN NEW DEAL (to name one prominent topic that has been completely dropped by Democratic leadership, no surprise) that wouldn't require new taxes on people aren't rich?

Democratic leadership was openly hostile to the Green Nes Deal iirc

whitehouse is still pushing for it hard in the senate, including his grief with how climate magically vanished from the budget/infrastructure/whatever bills. i'm sure manchin had nothing to do with that!

because of that, and i'm just talking out of my ass because wtf do i know, but if there happens to be a new source of revenue for the federal government that would come from a miracle global deal that forces corporations to pay a small portion of their fucking taxes, including the united states, then it's a good position for Whitehouse et al to be loud about climate yet again, because resistance to it never fucking stops whether it's exxon or republicans or the tobacco industry or manchin or pelosi

But hey all the right people are pleased with Sinema.

In ominous sign for Dems, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’s pleased that Sinema won’t support $3.5 trillion infrastructure budget resolution: “I was certainly pleased. She is very courageous.”

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 28, 2021

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dont-sweat-sinemas-antics

don't sweat the small stuff -- and it's ALL small stuff!!

how much of the stuff that was cut from the bipartisan deal is not now in the proposed non-bipartisan (reconciliation?) bill? is that not yet clear?

Why are Sinema and Collins hanging on Bill Hader in that infrastructure pic?

Meantime, this...is a read.

https://thedispatch.com/p/inside-the-mind-of-mike-lindell

i imagine the mind of mike lindell, knowing that his mind was about to be probed, thinking "don't think about fucking my pillow. don't think about fucking my pillow" a few times, imperatively

Should have smoked some crack to prepare IMO.

Crackhead to IMO

Sinema isn’t just a bad Democrat. She’s a bad Senator. https://t.co/xprrLPYZnZ

— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin) July 30, 2021

Hope she gets primaried into oblivion and I never have to think about her again.

Why does Joe love to punt so much?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/us/politics/eviction-moratorium-biden-congress.html

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/07/23/texas-democrats-frustrated-president-joe-biden-has-not-agreed-meeting-voting-rights-bills/8058593002/

lol

Today’s Anniversary of Medicare & Medicaid reminds us to reflect on the critical role these programs have played to protect the healthcare of millions of families. To safeguard our future, we must reject Socialist healthcare schemes. https://t.co/mOdUuX7THT

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) July 30, 2021

Why does Joe love to punt so much?

There's a joke in here about him vying for a Chicago Bears coaching position, but I don't think this is the audience.

puntin' makes him feel good

What was gained: “Bipartisanship”

What was lost: pic.twitter.com/QxjDXiHb1s

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) July 30, 2021

Imaginary outcomes are invariably going to look pretty sweet. Like when you make a comparison between becoming a corpse and going to heaven.

That was super deep, brah.

If my rephrasing of Bowman strikes you as shallow, it's because the same shallowness was in the original you posted.

Apparently on Fox:

Question: Could you ever get behind a vaccine mandate for everybody?
Ron Johnson: No, not unless there’s some incredibly deadly disease.

few things enrage me more than these 50+ (honestly prob more like 80+) unrepentant assholes in the senate having quite literally the best medical care on the face of the earth

good morning, it's infrastructure week!!

Lol

I really miss qualms being able to say “where’s the tax returns” over and over

You know this bill is a big f'n diablo pork sandwich if the GQP is willing to vote for it.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-big-money-behind-the-big-lie

It's August.

*removes bookmark*

lock 'er up, mods!

but first: Lady G Shook the Covid Tree - August 2021 US Politics Thread