The Fall of Roe v Wade: US Politics, June 2022

11. Provides the Republican's a fig leaf to protect against attacks that they haven't done anything on gun control.

10 AM ET, let’s get it crackin’.

lol Bill Stepien is no longer testifying because his wife just went into labor. Good timing.

Send some federak marshals over to check her dilation

*federal

Stepien is also the campaign advisor for Liz Cheney's opponent in the Wyoming house election (only one seat). and of course, her opponent is all-in on Stolen Election shit

.@Liz_Cheney: “You will also hear testimony President Trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani, to just claim he won.” pic.twitter.com/3mUfxkcBYx

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) June 13, 2022

the still image of Bill Stepien is hilarious

"Just another day."

xpost was just about to post that neanderthal. love that they went with this one, excellent shot

https://i.imgur.com/cZ1eYAk.png

What do you mean, "apparently," Congresswoman?

hilarious to listen to kushner try to recount, out loud, what he thought about the stolen election claims. it was very hard for him. very hard.

why is it never mentioned, in the context of the big lie/stolen election stuff, that trump claimed widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election? remember? "3 million votes"? he won by 3 million votes if you really counted...something?

i know it's big and dumb and obvious, but isn't the existence of a very similar lie, 4 years earlier, deployed almost on accident, as if he expected to lose (which he did, by the popular vote, by millions of vote) and planned beforehand to allege election fraud? in 2016? and he did it anyway?

this is all so fucking dumb i can't breathe

could trump have possibly been involved in perpetuating a gigantic lie about election fraud to the american public, to the point of cheering on henchmen to murder mike pence (who really, really deserves to be murdered more than almost anyone)?

geeeeeee i don't know!!!!

*puckers lips out and and drags index finger rapidly up and down across it to make cartoon noises*

Good point Karl

I know that this is acting as some sort of cathartic exercise for you, KM, but it might actually be a good idea to *stop* following what's going on in this horse and pony show.

i've actually barely been following the news this year

I had watched/listened to none of this until this morning for a few minutes. I think they're laying out the (very obvious) allegations calmly, rationally, and logically, with none of the grandstanding you sometimes see in these things. Numerous people telling Trump his fraud allegations were bullshit, juxtaposed with audio clips of him ranting on Fox about "DUMPS! THEY CALL THEM DUMPS! MASSIVE... DUMPS! IT'S... A VERY TERRIBLE THING..." in the weeks after the election makes it clear to me how he could convince a bunch of his most brain dead minions to storm the capitol. But I would think that, I guess...

PS: Just having to hear that fucker's voice again made me turn it off.

"An apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani" is the new "30 to 50 feral hogs". https://t.co/PGYJQ5EKCI

— Andrew Mueller (@andrew_mueller) June 13, 2022

I was thinking about that too Karl - it was so obvious that no matter how badly he lost he was going to call fraud and create some real problems. Sometimes you have to give the way a wide latitude but sometimes he’s the most predictable man on the planet. The entire run up to the election he was blatantly fucking with the mail for no reason other than to manufacture the “red mirage” that literally every election pundit knew was gonna happen! How is there any question to this at all??

I think we should borrow from the Brits phrase "tired and emotional" in place of "stinking drunk."

i remember telling a family member, over a year before the election, that he was going to lose and never, ever shut up about how it was stolen. even then, a year before the election, he was already saying it was going to be stolen. i remember because i think i made a joke here (and elsewhere) that he was telling the truth, it really was going to be stolen, and he was going to try to steal it, the classic trump/conservative projection, etc

the hearings are essential because they put together a picture of what actually happened, all in one place. there's been a lot of reporting on the whole thing, of course, before it happened, the day it happened, and ever since. but so much of what we've learned since 1/6/21 has been related to testimony/evidence collected via this committee's investigation. so it is unquestionably (i think) a good thing for this to happen, to lay out what they know, even if we already know a lot about it.

however, there are 3 separate groups of people involved here. a big one is anyone who paid attention to what happened around that time and isn't a complete liar. a second are the maga people, republicans, conservatives, people who tune out this kind of hearing in order to hear fox instead, on purpose.

the third is all the people who have absolutely no idea what is going on and will never care. this won't get to them, either.

so, yes, all of this is pointless on some level. it's essential on one level that counts and completely meaningless on another which also, brutally, counts

In some ways, it’s the third group that scares me most.

The neighbor across the alley is a Trump supporter who is rocking a Trump hat right now as he coaches some kid and their parent in baseball. I'm going to guess he is in category two or three. I mean, he has a Ben Carson for pres sticker on his (electric!) car, so he's clearly some sort of kook.

Agreed, this is important for reasons beyond what's being generated from the typical punditbrain right now: i.e. "how many Republicans will be convinced by this" & "how will this affect midterms", etc. etc. The greatest grift the Republicans have going right now is that they have lowered the bar so much that everyone expects them to be lying scumbags. Biden is by no means a great president, but had Trump accomplished half of what he did he'd be trumpeted by the media as the best president since Lincoln. The guy got entire days worth of positive press because he got through a fucking SOTU speech on teleprompter. Their party contains some of the dumbest, most nakedly corrupt politicians alive, along with actual pedophiles and criminals. And they get away with it because as far as both the media & public opinion is concerned, this is Just How Things Are. Of course Republicans are gonna back massively unpopular shit like criminalizing abortion and letting your PE teacher molest 14 year old girls who are "too good at sports". Of course Democrats are gonna be taken to task when gas prices are high, even though literally every Republican voted No on a bill that would bring prices down. Of course the GOP is going to campaign on the benefits of the bills they voted against. Everyone expects that of them. And that is how they've gotten to this position where they are still a very dominant and dangerous force in American politicians despite the fact that everything they do is a predictable trainwreck. You have to do shit like this 1/6 commission. If you give up because it's not gonna move the needle then it opens the door for even more horrible shit to come!

Not sure if this is the right thread for it

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jun/12/sheriffs-office-releases-names-of-31-patriot-front/?fbclid=IwAR0TiauC1t7Nm0bQLXEM02GC3SAK78TKMr5Me5kWgABNTW4wN3P6ecOfjNw

Fully half those mugshots indicate some level of fetal alcohol syndrome

meanwhile, here in the ultra-tolerant Bay Area:

Hate crime investigation underway after alleged Proud Boys storm Drag Queen Story Hour at Bay Area library

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Proud-boys-storm-Bay-Area-Drag-Queen-story-hour-17236693.php

so this one seems directly attributable to the Libs of Tiktok account

The Proudly Latent Boys

Seriously, every one of these cunts needs to have their balls stomped, and hard.

"The big lie was also a big rip-off"

Of all the facts highlighted in today's hearing, the fact that Trump raised $250M for a "official legal defense fund" that didn't even exist should be the headline story, because lying about money gets people's attention in ways that lying about the election doesn't.

yeah but he's a super successful businessman, that's why we voted for him... when it comes to money, he knows best

remember, his 'free' offer during Thursday's hearing was only accessible via a $50 donation, so everything is relative

Always Money In The Covfefe!

oh well, we should probably all just start drinking to forget our hopeless predicament. The Man's too big. The Man's too strong.

The thing about that $250 million is if whether there's not some weird buried legal language basically saying "We can do whatever we want with this and you agree to that by sending it to us." What I'm wondering more is what was exactly done with the money beyond the snippets given.

Toilet paper, in bulk, stored in a Ft. Knox-like vault. You roll your eyes now ...

Interest payments on his loans from the Russian mob.

Rudy Giuliani looks loony in every clip here

they think at least some of the money went to Trump hotels

Like maybe those coin-operated mattress massagers

The Magic Fingers! Those were a highlight of childhood travels.

Trump's Tiny Magic Fingers

Nearing the end, the Al Schmidt section. The committee would do well to dedicate more time to the threats directed at people in the path of this insanity.

Pretty rad how many of these witnesses are Republicans

All of them, isn't it?

Well I'm convinced.

I am disgusted and outraged at the out right lie by Jason Miller and Bill Steppien. I was upset that they were not prepared for the massive cheating (as well as other lawyers around the President) I REFUSED all alcohol that evening. My favorite drink..Diet Pepsi

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) June 14, 2022

The follow-up might be even better

Is the false testimony from Miller and Steppien because I yelled at them? Are they being paid to lie?

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) June 14, 2022

Well, are they?!?