Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

Meanwhile:

A defense attorney for the men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery is currently objecting to Al Sharpton’s presence in the court room, saying it’s intimidating. “We don’t want any more black pastors in here,” he just said.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 11, 2021

Any more? How many are they?

I'm at the combination job creation taco bell

+2 OUTCOME FOR CUSTOMERS: ALL CUSTOMERS HAVE THE BEST MOMENT IN THEIR DAY AT COMBINATION JOB CREATION TACO BELL

fuck this piece of shit

#RittenhouseTrial Judge Bruce Schroeder breaks for lunch referencing the food that was ordered saying, “I hope the Asian food isn’t coming.. isn’t on one of those boats from Long Beach Harbor.” pic.twitter.com/UakvcxbSO1

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) November 11, 2021

Always glad when assholes are too dumb to stay under the radar.

is there something to that remark I'm not getting

echoing fox news's supply chain talking points

xp -- I don't think so! I just mean it's bad that the judge is an asshole, but good that he's making it plain. If Rittenhouse gets acquitted, maybe the prosecution can appeal on the grounds that he obviously had the judge on his side? I dunno.

you can't appeal an acquittal :/

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91vFUzKigPL._SY606_.jpg

you can't appeal an acquittal :/

for good reasons. a hung jury would allow for a retrial. but retrials happen so rarely it would amount to an acquittal.

wrong but i have things to do now

ok. that reflected my best understanding, but you would certainly know better than I do.

i'm sorry that was referring to the last sentence only, no reason to think it wouldn't be retried if there was a hung jury or other mistrial

the thing that's really irritating me now is all the right-wing commenters whining about the media "getting it wrong" and how people won't change their mind even when "proven wrong", basically insinuating that because Rittenhouse might have a plausible self-defense strategy it means everybody owes him a giant fucking apology. for one these fuckers don't have the capability to admit they're wrong about anything, and in fact would rather die a horrible death on a ventilator than get the shot that the "woke mafia" wants them to take. for two the media never reported it incorrectly! the guy's mom drove him across state lines to a community he didn't live in, decided to play cop, and wound up being the one guy who actually murdered people! those are the facts! the left's issue with him was never that he "broke the law"!!

also what kind of a horrible mother is this? I have trouble leaving my kids alone outside cuz I'm afraid they'll run in the street or something, this lady is literally dropping her teenage son off with a killing machine to police hostile protestors. I cannot imagine ever putting one of my kids in a situation like that, this fucking psycho

What this country needs are more armed "play cops" and attempted "citizen's arrests" that's for certain.

there will absolutely be more of these and more private security firms doing policing in the very near future

Stipulating all necessary caveats about The Bulwark, this is a pretty riveting read about the insane Claremont Institute's pre-election "war game": https://www.thebulwark.com/notes-on-an-authoritarian-conspiracy-inside-the-claremont-institutes-79-days-to-inauguration-report/. It rightly focuses on the wish-fulfillment nutsiness of the imaginary scenarios.

Law enforcement plays an openly insurrectionist role throughout the “79 Days” exercise, defying civilian leaders, refusing to offer them protection, and threatening them with arrest.

For example, the report imagines Chicago police (with vocal backing from their union) abandoning Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s residential block, permitting protesters to set up camp on her front lawn.

In imagined dialogue, the wargame quotes the city’s Fraternal Order of Police president as saying “We have officers risking their lives by not shooting people they should be shooting, or waiting too long because Lightfoot and her Soros-funded prosecutor Kim Foxx seem more interested in arresting cops than criminals.”

Bannon indicted

Nation yawns.

now waiting for "bannon convicted"

2 misdemeanors

Both counts are misdemeanors, which come with a maximum of one year behind bars and a $1,000 fine.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bannon-contempt-congress-charged-january-6

"biggest bastard of all time gets 2 misdemeanors" is not a good headline though

but then he'd be a convicted misdemeanor-er

The Honorable VCR Blinking 12:00, presiding https://t.co/b6LDlG37hf

— Prof. Lemon Gogurt, Podcast State University (@Ugarles) November 12, 2021

that is just excruciating to watch

will anyone ever tell him?

tell him any of the several dozen things he just got wrong

That’s colin robinson right

NEW: Dems broadly see Harris/Buttigieg as the future of the party beyond Pres. Biden.

They also see their pol. fortunes diverging in the first 10 mos of Biden’s presidency.

A party anxious about its future sharpens its scrutiny. W/@CleveWootson:https://t.co/44QxSf38DN

— Sean Sullivan (@WaPoSean) November 13, 2021

Hmm, funny coincidence

look butti mie to judge

everybody's already numb to 1/6, i know (which is why trump knows he'll get out of it), but every once in a while i think it's good to approach stuff like this fresh

On New Year’s Eve last year, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly emailed then-Vice President Mike Pence’s top aide a detailed plan on subverting Joe Biden’s election victory.

According to an upcoming book by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, former President Trump’s lawyer Jenna Ellis outlined a multi-step strategy in a memo sent to Pence’s top aide as part of an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results amid Trump pushing election fraud falsehoods.

In the memo, Ellis instructs Pence to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Trump baselessly claimed that he had won on Jan. 6, the day of the joint session of Congress certifying Biden’s electoral victory.

Ellis wrote that Pence would give the battleground states a deadline of “7pm eastern standard time on January 15th” to submit a new set of votes.

Ellis added that if any state legislature failed to meet that deadline, “no electoral votes can be opened and counted from that state.” In that case, Ellis wrote that neither Biden nor Trump would be left with a majority of votes, meaning that “Congress shall vote by state delegation.” Ellis claimed that scenario would lead to Trump being declared the winner of the 2020 election because Republicans control the majority of state delegations with 26.

Meadows reportedly sent Ellis’ memo to Pence’s aide on Jan. 1. The next day, Trump aide John McEntee issued another memo to Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short that falsely asserted in its title that “Jefferson used his position as VP to win.”

Days before the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, Trump told his supporters at a rally in Georgia that he hopes Pence “comes through for us.”

“”I have to tell you I hope that our great vice president comes through for us. He’s a great guy. Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much,” Trump said.

ABC News also noted that in a sit-down interview with Trump and Karl on March 18, the former president didn’t push back on a report from the New York Times detailing a phone call Trump had with Pence on the morning of Jan. 6 in which the then-president tried pressuring Pence by reportedly telling him: “You can be a patriot or you can be a p****.”

and yet it's 10 months later and the house investigation miiiiiiiiiight be juuuuuuuust about to get started, pending several more appeals and possibly the supreme court, and if that goes through, we will have the luxury of the house democrats illuminating exactly how awful everything really, just before their results and "findings" go absolutely no where in congress, valuable only as a supposed political cudgel against the GOP in the midterms

And then they'll lose the house and the GOP will day-one disband the 1/6 commission and all likeminded investigations and then, within a week, get the ball rolling on all kinds of bullshit, like banning Big Bird, burning books, making it illegal for men to be not masculine, calling for the jailing of Pelosi, Clinton, AOC, Schiff, Biden, Harris, et al., something to do with whatever this Brandon shit is, making masks illegal, making covid mandatory, making voting illegal unless you vote GOP, making Joe Rogan speaker of the house, putting Trump on every denomination of currency ...

If midterm elections were today, 51% of registered voters say they’d support the Republican candidate in their congressional district, 41% say the Democrat—the biggest lead for the GOP in the 110 ABC/Post polls that have asked this question since November. https://t.co/iDWaUnOtPQ

— Terry Moran 🇺🇸 (@TerryMoran) November 14, 2021

fuck that. they probably think the Democrats 'caused inflation' on basic food and other goods because they passed a stripped down infrastructure bill to spend money over the next ten years (which afaik hasn't even been signed yet), and think that the Republicans will somehow bring down the price of gasoline at once by going all-in on selling oil and gas leases that might be developed after about five years. ignorance bites.

I was waiting for the light rail yesterday and a guy hollered "Let's Go Brandon!" into empty air apropos of absolutely nothing (like, the train wasn't even delayed or too crowded or anything, literally nothing was wrong) and then looked around all pleased with himself. Is that a thing now, people just yelling "Let's Go Brandon" in public places all by themselves?

For anyone who needs to hear it. @VP is not only a vital partner to @POTUS but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country—from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband.

— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) November 15, 2021

My "the VP definitely isn't planning on running for President in 2024" t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my t-shirt.

Seems bad to have to put out a tweet like this

I was waiting for the light rail yesterday and a guy hollered "Let's Go Brandon!" into empty air apropos of absolutely nothing (like, the train wasn't even delayed or too crowded or anything, literally nothing was wrong) and then looked around all pleased with himself. Is that a thing now, people just yelling "Let's Go Brandon" in public places all by themselves?

― Lily Dale, Sunday, November 14, 2021 9:49 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

look it took conservatives a decade to learn a second joke after "I identify as an attack helicopter" of course they're gonna beat this one into the ground

also the numbers for Biden look fucking awful maybe he should try to pass one of the massively popular policies he campaigned on

maybe he should try to pass

I don't think he hasn't tried. But there's this separation of powers thing in the US government that means the president can't pass bills just because he wants to pass them. You can look it up.

Gotta wonder what kind of conservative takes light rail. Public transit is for lib sissies

Gotta wonder what kind of conservative takes light rail. Public transit is for lib sissies

Presumably his insecurity about this was what caused his outburst. They're like small children, you know? Take them out of their comfort zone and they start screaming and stomping their feet in the middle of the store aisle.

Haha ok

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrat Beto O’Rourke, former Senate and presidential candidate, says he will run for Texas governor in 2022.

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) November 15, 2021

Here ends the McConaissance.

If Abbott gets primaried by some nutcase Beto could win