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

take the words "planning behind the scenes to focus on the issue", which are just....a complete joke. it really is something i would say as a joke, to indicate that i'm not doing jack shit and everyone knows it. yet mike pence can somehow take this complete joke, this thing that might not cause a lol but might prompt a small internal "hah!", and instead uses it to try to step on the accelerator pedal of being the most misogynistic fucker who has ever called his spouse "mother", and good fucking lord that's a lengthy and terrible list

what a piece of shit he is. i now believe that my original instincts were true - when he did the bare fucking minimum on jan 6, he did it on accident. he must have thought he was in on the plan to be a fucking turd, and only later realized that he had accidentally done a good thing. he's been living in this agony ever since, hence his plans to focus

“It’s been a large part of his career,” said Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, who is currently advising him. “This is who he’s always been.”

Believe him!

Let's bow our heads to shitty political writing too ("is planning behind the scenes to focus on the issue").

mike pence ruins everything

it's also really, really funny that anyone thinks of him as a potential 2024 candidate

his ears will have retracted inside his head by then

I absolutely bet that the guy is a closet case, tbqh

No closet big enough. And he'd insist Mom join him.

i never imagined that i could think of him as anything other than a terrible, horrible, vicious person hiding inside the most boring public-facing personality that has ever existed. but then, watching these january 6 hearings, for once, you start to see some sort of person in there who you can empathize with

One more reason to never watch a minute of the 1/6 hearings.

I can't believe I am actually saying positive things about Gavin Newsom

maybe there should be presidents for different part of the country? i.e. President (West/Pacific), President (Deep South), President (Moribund Rust Belt), etc.

The January 6 committee made Pence appear sympathetic because his role in the narrative was to provide a necessary counterpoint to Trump's criminality. The moment you view him outside that narrative he reverts to being Mike Pence, bland hyper-conservative tool.

The fan yelling : Joey Votto :: The Supreme Court : people who don't want to live in a theocracy https://t.co/9JMd3MuEA4

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) June 27, 2022

lol

looks like he's been playing better - almost league average production on the year, and .256/.344/.451 wRC+ 119 since June 1

One more reason to never watch a minute of the 1/6 hearings.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, June 27, 2022 8:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

qft. why would anyone waste their time with this. life is short.

i like to know about things, and my short life is mine

I mean, I was oblivious to the fact that anyone with intellectual respectability even said that

Watching the hearings and caring what emerges from the hearings are two different things. I think I've watched 20 minutes total?

i've watched (or listened to on the radio) every single one
do you all think i am a moron for having done this? (do not answer this please)
i want to see it with my own eyes
and am not a moron for the record.

nothing will emerge from the hearings.

xp i don't think you're a moron, i'm completely mystified as to why anyone would want to watch them. i already know what happened, it happened two years ago. absolutely fail to see a reason to watch when i could be doing just about anything else.

We've all had to expand our imaginations in the last seven years, man.

map OTM - no judgement for watching or listening, I just can't wrap my head around why anyone would. Like going to church twice a week or attending a 20-hour Marvel movie marathon, the concept just baffles me.

Watching/listening to the hearings adds a dimension that can't be had by simply knowing the substance of the hearings. In the same way you can know all the ingredients in a dish and have eaten that dish before, but looking at a jpeg of the dish on your phone isn't the same as tasting it again.

You deserve a break today.

i really enjoyed that Bowers guy getting choked up about ronald reagan and the divinely inspired constitution

whata hero!

You deserve a break today.

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.), Monday, June 27, 2022

What happens in the next reel? Do I get dragged off screaming to the snake pit?

A shamrock shake.

xp - If you geniunely want to know why: I am watching it so I can see it with my own eyes, witness it. I don't want to ingest someone else's experience watching it and i do believe it's important to witness. It's sometimes boring but so are the levers of government.

I don't believe that any one of us (human beings on earth) knows exactly what will or won't emerge from the hearings. When someone says "nothing will happen" I have to ask what they know that makes them able to see the future? Let it play out, witness the work being done, and absorb the gravity of the moment. That is why I am watching.

"Nothing will happen" because the hearings aren't designed to accomplish a goal, though - like there's no endgame here that involves prosecutions or changes to the law or impeaching Trump for a third time (lol). They're Spreading Awareness(TM).

I've been listening on the radio, and I find it interesting... it's well produced and the sheer volume of Republicans testifying makes it something more than a partisan show trial

i’m not watching but i’m gonna expend zero effort wondering how anyone could possibly watch it bc that’s a thing dicks do, it’s ok that we’re processing this cultural/political moment differently, maybe post more about how much the democrats suck instead

I think it's a very good thing for both the present moment and the future that the hearings are happening and have been as thorough and well orchestrated as they have been. I haven't felt compelled to watch/listen but have been following them with interest via assorted written accounts and social media. I don't know what if anything they change, but I prefer them happening to not.

"nothing will happen" discounts the effect of Spreading Awareness TM. When done effectively, awareness-raising is an essential component of public education. Whether or not 12 hours of televised hearings will result in any learning is unforeseeable/unmeasurable; even so, that doesn't mean "nothing" has "happened" -- it means the effect isn't measurable immediately with a specific goal or endgame.

also i have to admit it brings me satisfaction to hear people throw DJT under the bus, over and over. it doesn't matter that they are sickening wrong-about-everything pious republicans. i think i find satisfaction in the public airing of the truth.

Oh yeah, there's definitely a benefit in just remembering and/or making people more aware of how terrible the whole thing was. I do think it hurts Trump in a lot of ways, maybe or maybe not in the immediate sense of pushing him away from running again, but it has some corrosive effect on his viability I think.

Most of what is being testified to was reported in the media at the time. The main thing the hearings accomplish, beyond creating a fluently integrated narrative of Trump's coup attempt, is that the testimony has all been given under oath and any corroborating documents have been assembled according to rules that establish their provenance so they could be used as evidence in court or before a grand jury.

If the Justice Department collected all the same evidence they'd have no venue for presenting it to the public. The Committee isn't bound by the same rules, so they can put all this out there prior to any indictments.

unfortunately the hearings may be helping DeSantis:

“I think the January 6 hearings are continuation of the exhausting circus that surrounds Trump,” said a close DeSantis adviser granted anonymity to speak freely. “There are of course the lunchbox Republicans who think this is a ‘mass conspiracy,’ but among the donor class many are just tired of this.”

xp i don't think you're a moron, i'm completely mystified as to why anyone would want to watch them. i already know what happened, it happened two years ago. absolutely fail to see a reason to watch when i could be doing just about anything else.

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Monday, June 27, 2022 3:38 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk I feel like there's a lot of new info that's come out of this, I'd assumed it was one of those Trumpy things where you can't condemn anyone who's a fan of yours when in reality there appears to have really been an orchestrated plot to overthrow the government, doomed as it may have been

If Dems did nothing and didn't have the hearings we just accept all the nefarious bullshit of Jan. 6., and I'm for doing something rather than nothing.

I feel like as long as we have our stupid electoral college system, and presidencies are being decided by a few thousand people in a few key swing states, if there is even a small percentage of viewers whose hearts/minds/votes can be persuaded by these hearings then they are worth having and therefore worth watching, at least in part.

XP to aimless's point:
Also primary documents like recordings and sworn testimony land very differently from everyday reporting.

Remembering a news story about election workers being harassed is dramatically different from hearing the live testimony of Shaye Moss and (recorded testimony of) her mother Ruby. When I watched it, the truth hit so hard that I felt the malevolence was undeniable and that is what I am here for. Proving, testifying, speaking the truth and witnessing it. Maybe I have felt unheard and ignored myself so I revel in testimony and truth-telling, idk.

I don’t think anything will come out of the hearings, but that’s because one criminal enterprise investigating another criminal enterprise doesn’t really have much to tell me.

None of it is legitimate.

If the Justice Department collected all the same evidence they'd have no venue for presenting it to the public. The Committee isn't bound by the same rules, so they can put all this out there prior to any indictmentsthe red wave.

i’m not watching but i’m gonna expend zero effort wondering how anyone could possibly watch it bc that’s a thing dicks do, it’s ok that we’re processing this cultural/political moment differently, maybe post more about how much the democrats suck instead

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, June 27, 2022 10:01 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

fuck off

the word cynic is based on the greek word for dog. seems like the dogs are having their day today.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission didn't bring one dead Rwandan back to life. I don't know why they bothered.

the word cynic is based on the greek word for dog. seems like the dogs are having their day today.

you are right, table. identifying dogs with corrosive cynicism is a libel against dogs

Good thing my dogs like me corrosive and cynical instead of buying into the idea that the putrid vomitorium of the US government is worth saving.

It isn’t.

The only thing that will change anything is civil war or revolution, and neither of those options are totally great, for reasons that we’ve gone over here again and again. The fact remains that these two things, and/or total climate collapse, are the only things that would allow for any sort of change at the federal level.

fuck off

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Monday, June 27, 2022 2:35 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you’re being a dick!! my excuse is i’m jet lagged

And if the Dem response to recent events is any indication, when Miami is underwater and the Santa Anas have burned through half of LA and the midwest has totally desertified, the Dems will tweet out “we’re with you on climate justice, which is why we’re wearing green this Thursday and re-working the recycling system in the halls of congress, all while singing a choral version of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin On. Look at Nancy sing, slay queen”