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

But also, what happens if he once again lunges for the wheel of the country in a metaphorical sense...

Jackass take the wheel

exactly, they're trying to Zapruder the whole thing and use that to argue all the testimony is invalid, which I think kinda works for them because that's the part that's getting covered extensively in the media right now. its got shades of the whole piss tape thing, "look at the desperate lies the left is trying to push", etc.

not saying it's unimportant or necessarily false (no doubt something like this actually did happen), but

the President of the United States literally tried to get metal detectors removed so armed supporters could ambush the Capitol and kill people, including the Vice President! a former general took the fifth when asked if he supported a peaceful transition of power! numerous members of Congress directly asked for pardons, knowing they were committing crimes against the country they took an oath to serve!! I grew up learning that Watergate was the biggest political scandal in history and this seems 5,000 times worse!!!

The steering wheel anecdote resonates because it's kind of comical and so specific, but I'm not sure it's a superficial or trivial detail. An image like that resonates metaphorically far beyond its literal reality. Other testimony was more damning in terms of the broader circumstances of Jan. 6, but the steering wheel and plate-throwing are such visceral illustrations of both who he is and the MAGA movement at large. I don't think they're insubstantial things.

some good news from GA (https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3851)

warnick is up 10 points on herschel walke

it's the 4th quarter and your team's down, it's 4th and long, and the QB looks at you and says "sir, I'm too tired, you're gonna have to 'carry the ball the rest of the way', it's been the honor of my lifetime to play football with you and get to know you on a personal level as well. the play clock is running low so i have to cut this short, but...maybe you should run for senator some day". i believe running back herschel walker can meet up with coach tuberville and throw a hail mary for american patriots and american football fans across the world

sorry no Google translator

I would be surprised if Stacey Abrams won. Warnock, not so much. He is very well regarded here in Georgia, especially among African-Americans, who will be a crucial demographic in a statewide race like this. I don't think the Republican strategy of putting up their own black dude will carry the day, even if that black dude is Herschel Walker.

Herschel Walker may well be the line in the sand of too brain damaged for even 2022 Republicans.

What an awful candidate. The GOP should be embarrassed, but they’re way beyond embarrassment at this point.

I don't think the Republican strategy of putting up their own black dude will carry the day, even if that black dude is Herschel Walker.

Should have gone with Killer Mike. (Yeah, yeah, he was a Bernie guy — you can't fool me, that dude is a Tulsi waiting for the right offer.)

Brain wormed delusions of grandeur, fine, he's one of us.

CTE-derived delusions of grandeur...

Most of my Republican friends here are quite upset that he is in the race. They've been predicting an implosion all along.

gonna burn one of those wacky celeb prayer candle feat the visage Paul “Bear” Bryant for this lead to hold

Should have gone with Killer Mike.

Georgia Republicans are not gonna vote for a rapper.

hoping the Fetterman/Oz race goes the same way, Fetterman is a legitimately good candidate and Oz is some idiot celebrity

he's not literally brain damaged like Herschel is but he does have that same Trumpy thing going on where his concern is his celebrity and not necessarily any political issues and we all know how much damage those guys can do

I think with both Oz and Walker, Trump et al maybe underestimate the racism of their own base (even as they feed it, of course).

warnick is up 10 points on herschel walker

biden's approval in the same poll is 33!

I'm rooting for Fetterman, we need more Carhartt dems

Oz is really getting hurt by not actually being from PA.

Probably can't name two guys from the Steel Curtain D

How about Duluth Trading Company Dems?

https://www.duluthtrading.com/mens-duluthflex-fire-hose-11-cargo-shorts-36333.html?dwvar_36333_color=BRN&cgid=mens-pants

Fetterman isn't perfect obviously, but he does seem like an ideal PA candidate to me. I went to Penn State and have spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania, its blue-collar identity is a very real thing across the political/cultural spectrum. (With obvious exceptions in the Philly suburbs etc.)

July 9th.

https://www.womensmarch.com/

The whole business of Dems supporting far-right candidates...sure hope this doesn't backfire.

Oof, the far-right GOP nominee Darren Bailey is crushing the field so far in the Illinois governor's race. Democrats spent millions to boost him, under the theory he'd be far weaker against Governor J.B. Pritzker in November.

— Taniel (@Taniel) June 29, 2022

that they’re doing this after 2016 is enough reason to never donate to them ever again

Let's try something different. pic.twitter.com/uPqCPsPAl2

— Jort-Michel Connard 🐘 (@torriangray) June 29, 2022

^^Not real, BTW.

🤔

eh, pritzker is going to destroy him.

NEW from me and @adwolfson: President Biden is poised to nominate an anti-abortion Republican attorney for federal judgeship in Kentucky, in apparent deal with Mitch McConnell: https://t.co/nfheQeLVbl via @courierjournal

— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) June 29, 2022

headbangdesk.gif

paywall bypassing link

https://archive.ph/mZLpn

Listen, we could just change the rules of the Senate so that Cocaine Mitch isn't the most powerful politician in the country despite having a minority OR we could give a far-right toddler a lifetime appointment and plan on Mitch keeping his word.

Pritzker will win, but he isn’t going to “destroy” him. It’s going to be close enough to make JB sweat until the end, my guess is one of the suburban ring counties is going tip Bailey’s way to make it way closer than it should be and, hopefully, a major fucking wake up call about how close some of the suburban areas are to becoming decidedly purple.

Even in my super liberal suburban enclave, the “reopen schools” dipshits have moved on to “too much crime” and “something must be done” whistleblowing about the predominantly black and brown schools in the district. It’s gross as fuck and I’ve heard it coming out of the mouths of people who will swear up and down that they are otherwise democrats and progressive. And nearly every one of these dipshits I’ve had to cross paths with (my punishment for volunteering for youth sports I guess) also likes to sprinkle their rants with, “fuck Pritzker”.

JB is going to win, but I think lots of people are going to be surprised by how much closer it gets.

they are otherwise democrats and progressive

"Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally." IIRC

Thanks to the Overton shift since 1966 it's now 2/20 though.

The whole business of Dems supporting far-right candidates...sure hope this doesn't backfire.

fuck, i'm not shocked that it happens, but how widespread is this bullshit this year? it happened in colorado, too:

Colorado’s returns were even more encouraging for the party [GOP]. Businessman Joe O’Dea defeated state Rep. Ron Hanks by nine points in the race to take on Democratic Sen. Michael F. Bennet. Democratic-aligned groups spent big to back Hanks, who they viewed as too extreme for the left-leaning state owing to his attendance at the pro-Trump rally in D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, and his belief in Trump’s election lies. O’Dea, who is pro-choice, decisively carried the Denver metropolitan area, a sign that suburban Republicans and independents want to take a different course from Trump’s.

what a horrible, horrible idea that is. first, 2016, donald trump. our collective amnesia is always surprising in the way that it...wait, what's going on? anyway, secondly, when democratic groups do this, the best case scenario is that their preferred republican fascist wins the primary and hundreds of thousands of people in the state get the thrill of supporting a fascist that is so legit that they won the primary. and spending millions to do that which could have gone to ANYTHING else. or, instead, they can end up spending millions to support the loser, which then boosts the "moderate" republican's standing in that they triumphed over a democrat-aligned cynical campaign bullshit effort, which obviously shows that the democrats don't think their own candidate is good enough to stand on their own

spending a ton of money to fund the craziest opponent is symptomatic of people who spend their ways thinking about how to make money on disasters

spending millions of dollars to elevate the profile of far-right candidates is fucking immoral

Nixon did in 1972 and....it's unbelievable they want to duplicate it.

sorry to flood the zone with washington post content, it's just that it's paywalled and that it's on topic and i just noticed it. here's the editorial board today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/democrats-stop-funding-right-wing-candidates/

Democracy itself is on the ballot this election year. The country needs a broad coalition to defeat candidates who would help former president Donald Trump, or another politician in his mold, again attempt a coup in 2024. Which is why it is not just shameless, but dangerous, that Democrats have spent tens of millions this year promoting Republican extremists.

By boosting the primary campaigns of right-wing zealots running against more moderate Republicans, Democrats seek to set up favorable races for themselves, against less electable candidates, in the general election. The result is that Democrats have helped Trumpian fanatics move one step closer to offices from which they could directly threaten the nation’s democracy.

Tuesday night brought the latest example. State Sen. Darren Bailey (R) won the Illinois GOP gubernatorial nomination after Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and the Democratic Governors Association spent $30 million to help him. The Trump-endorsed Mr. Bailey made his name by opposing covid-19 public health measures, pushing to evict Chicago from Illinois and favoring the banning of abortion in the state.

Even worse was Democrats’ use of this strategy in key presidential swing state Pennsylvania, where state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), a leading 2020 election denier, last month won the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He spent a mere $370,000 on television ads. His Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, spent more than $840,000 on ads designed to help him win the Republican primary.

The democratic process survived 2020 because enough Republicans in positions of responsibility refused to act on Mr. Trump’s lies. Meanwhile, Mr. Mastriano pushed the notion that Pennsylvania’s legislature could appoint its own slate of Trump electors, even though Joe Biden won the state’s popular vote. Should Mr. Mastriano win the governor’s race, he could spark a constitutional crisis in 2024 by trying to prevent the state from sending to Washington a slate of Democratic electors, against the will of the voters. Even if he loses, he will have a high platform from which to spew his poisonous nonsense.

True, Republican primary voters might embrace extremists, anyway. But while polls show that a majority of Republicans believe that President Biden is illegitimate, voting patterns suggest that allegiance to the “big lie” only gets candidates so far in GOP primaries. Two Georgia Republicans based their campaigns for statewide office on accusations that the incumbents had failed to act on supposed 2020 election fraud. Mr. Trump strongly backed them. They both lost. On Tuesday, Colorado Republican voters rejected election conspiracist Tina Peters, who was running to be the party’s nominee for secretary of state.

Everyone who recognizes that U.S. democracy is in grave danger should do all they can to encourage results such as these — not the opposite. Democrats got what they wished for in 2016, when Mr. Trump captured the GOP presidential nomination. They savored a race against a malign incompetent whom the voters would surely reject. Instead, Mr. Trump won and proceeded to tear the country apart. This year’s midterms will occur in an extremely unfavorable political climate for Democrats; Republicans, even extreme ones, could win all over the map. If Democrats truly believe that Mr. Trump and those who embrace his lies present existential threats to democracy — and there is good reason to — they should join with anyone of any partisan or ideological persuasion to keep them as far as possible from office. Instead, they have enabled the crackpots.

Even worse was Democrats’ use of this strategy in key presidential swing state Pennsylvania, where state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), a leading 2020 election denier, last month won the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He spent a mere $370,000 on television ads. His Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, spent more than $840,000 on ads designed to help him win the Republican primary.

i mean? fuck? what the fuck??

this is very "counting on RBG to not die" in terms of strategic soundness

Ugh

Fucking indefensible, this is the kind of shit that makes me wanna never vote again

this is very "counting on RBG to not die" in terms of strategic soundness

yeah it was reported at the time and appalled me then

Her reply to an interviewer back then was along the lines of, "If he couldn't even get Merrick Garland through"--MG having rep of innocuous centrist Repub---how could he replace her with anyone at all similar, but mainly that he wasn't getting anybody past McConnell.

update:

...While officials with the Secret Service as well as close to Trump have not disputed the overall characterization of Hutchinson's testimony, some are rebutting specific claims and descriptions.
Unlike Hutchinson's testimony, the limited denials were not made under oath.

...After the hearing, a Secret Service official familiar with the matter told CNN that Ornato denies telling Hutchinson that the former President grabbed the steering wheel or an agent on his detail.
Ornato is known to have a strong relationship with Trump and his team, having been granted an unusual waiver to suspend his time on the US Secret Service to serve as Trump's deputy White House chief of staff.
Engel had previously testified before the committee and described the interactions with Trump on January 6, including the former President's desire to travel to the Capitol, but Engel was not asked about an altercation or being assaulted, the official said.
he Secret Service, through the Department of Homeland Security Office of Legislative Affairs, notified the committee Tuesday afternoon that it will make the agents involved available to testify under oath, the official said, and that the agents are prepared to say under oath that the incident Hutchinson described did not occur.
The committee did not ask Secret Service witnesses to respond to Hutchinson's testimony prior to Tuesday's hearing, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Wednesday.

McConnell didn't have the Senate until 2015.

Anyway, she said Obama couldn't get anybody like her through, pretty sure she did. Whether she was full of old person shit or not, that's it.