We. Would. CRY.: US Politics, July 2022

He's handling isolation pretty well pic.twitter.com/lo3ULK4xRp

— Zack Budryk (@BudrykZack) July 21, 2022

HOgan would never have been elected if he didn't get substantial numbers of rich Montgomery County assholes who think they're liberal vioting for him over the scary black NAACP guy. LOts of Dem public figured also endorsed Hogan cause they were scared of an actual progressive.

"well he hates Trump, and he kept my taxes low, and he's going to fix the traffic problems so I can get to my job at Lockheed faster".

Steve Bannon:

GUILTY on all counts. Took the jury approx, three hours. Including any lunch break

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) July 21, 2022

Weird, why do I not see that anywhere else?

okay he might have made a mistake

winning strategy:

Steve Bannon's defense team rests its case after he declines to testify

Bannon's team earlier Thursday announced they would not call any witnesses nor would Bannon testify in his own defense.

yeah, a different 1/6 guy was found guilty

yeah whoops sorry if anyone got excited, there was a mixup

Bannon verdict should be tomorrow

Should be the same result

not a good sign of the state of things when secret service members (reportedly) start lawyering up.

lawyering sounds like the best course until trump 24-♾

I posted this in the shooting spree thread, but I highly, highly recommend "Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down." I was lucky enough to see a screening last night. She came out afterwards to do a Q&A. I got a chance to meet her and give her a hug. As cynical as most of us are about politics, her story is profoundly inspirational, and gives me at least a glimmer of hope for positive change.

Here we go

Lol at the Hawley running away video

here's video of Hawley running to evacuate the Capitol after he egged on insurrectionists with his infamous fist pump pic.twitter.com/aGg64ECFO1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 22, 2022

pulling a costanza

Needs some "Yakety Sax"

OK that made me guffaw

"Who behind me?"

Fredo said "go to the mattresses." "They will try to f*** his entire legacy on this if it gets worse,"

"Yesterday's a hard word for me..."

...president was such an easy game to play

here's raw footage of Trump recording his January 7 video message, getting mad and lashing out, and not wanting to say "the election is over" pic.twitter.com/jIJ2hbO901

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 22, 2022

The outtakes from Trump's Jan. 7 were only a portion of the lengthy taping session that day, @Kevinliptakcnn and I are told. Multiple people say it took about an hour to record what ended up being a three-minute video.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 22, 2022

RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT

(-sorry-) yesterday is the hardest word

i was traveling yesterday when news started coming out about the "Hawley running" clip. i will be the wet towel by saying wow, when i finally saw it, it was not at all what i was expecting. he was jogging in a building. it changes nothing. he helped incite a coup and then he jogged down a hallway and stairs as he evacuated. who cares? sorry. i feel like i just watched a minor, sub-"covfefe" moment happen again, only even more meaningless and way too in the weeds, missing for the forest for the trees kind of way. in this light, the apparent laughter that was heard throughout the hearing is just fucking pathetic, because that's the worst Hawley is ever going to get for what he did and for what he's still doing. "the people at the hearing _humiliated_ him with laughter!"...no they did not. that was his wrist slap. he just got it. those are his consequences.

Yep.

You aren't wrong KM, I just think people appreciated even a cheap laugh at that asshole's expense.

A tailor-made Morning Joe moment.

And the hearings are having an impact: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/20/jan-6-hearings-trump-support-falls-00046662

Not because the hearings have infuriated most Republicans with what they learned, understand, but because of "Trump fatigue."

yeah, I didn't think there was much beyond "look at this asshole" to that Hawley clip Are people making more of it?

[i]You aren't wrong KM, I just think people appreciated even a cheap laugh at that asshole's expense.[i]

yeah, it's kinda funny on that level (similar to covfefe). but i've read at least 3 takes from various levels of journalist now, from WashPost to some doofus on twitter to the usually more perceptive bloggers at LGM, that all seem to suggest that it was some sort of consequential watershed moment in Hawley's career.

For example, Philip Bump, who is actually paid to be a national politics reporter, believes that Hawley was on his way to skating his way through the whole "white christian fascist trying to incite a coup" thing, until that fateful moment when america saw him jog down stairs on surveillance footage:

...And why not? He’d weathered the immediate negative effects of his involvement in the riot, it seemed. Republican opinions on the day’s events had shifted and loyalty to Trump continued to be valuable currency. Even on the evening of Jan. 6 itself, Hawley was still hoping that eventuality might arrive. While at least one member of the Senate Republican caucus decided not to object to the submitted electors, Hawley didn’t. He still objected. Even after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) shouted at him, “You have caused this!”, Hawley — standing in front of a fuming Romney — objected to the electoral slate.

This, it seems, was the bet. Hawley bet it would all work out politically, that he could wave away concerns like Romney’s over the short term and be a hero to the base for standing firm for years to come. And until, oh, about 9 p.m. on Thursday, it looked like it could work.

Then committee member Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) turned the hearing’s attention to Hawley’s actions inside the Capitol that day.

...
There is a sense in which airing the Hawley video fit with the committee’s efforts, though. The committee wants to exact a cost for those who sought to upend the results of the 2020 election. They want, if only unofficially, to make it impossible for Trump to be reelected as president. It’s safe to assume they understand the narrow path Hawley has been trying to walk and understood that airing that footage would in no way help him succeed. The senator loves to seem tough. That video seemed anything but.

Hawley wants the visual of his involvement in Jan. 6 to be that fist pump: the guy willing to fight for Trump. Instead, it is now that slow-motion video: the guy who thought he was cleverly leveraging Trump’s base for his own purposes, only to see things suddenly unfold in a dramatically different way.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/21/hawleys-effort-reap-political-rewards-jan-6-scampers-off/

anyway, sorry to devote ilx space to this, it's already a waste of time and i doubt anyone at all will be remembering it next week. it just reminded me of the kind of completely empty "revelations" that people on the left who are ignoring the hearings were trying to say the entire hearings would be like. i'm pointing it out because it's bullshittedness is an outlier in the context of the rest of the hearings, which have been consistently excellent and devoid of cheap laughs

yeah, it's kinda funny on that level (similar to covfefe). but i've read at least 3 takes from various levels of journalist now, from WashPost to some doofus on twitter to the usually more perceptive bloggers at LGM, that all seem to suggest that it was some sort of consequential watershed moment in Hawley's career.

Oh god, definitely not. Glad I haven't burned my eyeballs on any of those yet.

yeah, I didn't think there was much beyond "look at this asshole" to that Hawley clip Are people making more of it?

i'll hone my criticism: this is all Philip Bump of the Washington Post's fault! :D

C’mon it was worth a chortle. My brother said he looked like the HomeStar Runner opening.

Honestly, the footage reminded me of the GG Allin show I went to in the tiny back room of a Bowery bar. It was packed with "fans" and gawkers, the band started playing, GG came out, squatted down, shit on the floor, rubbed it on his chest, threw some at the people in front, and after about ten seconds (which was how long it took for the smell to hit people who didn't have a clear view of the action), there was a human flood headed out toward the exit. When we passed the bartender in the main room, he was laughing at us and shouting, "Where are you going? Isn't this what you paid for? Get back in there and party with him!"

Axios normally publishes short, bullet-point bullshit, but this long piece about Trump's plans for 2025 is long, detailed, and fucking terrifying. If he wins, he will be the last American president to be elected instead of chosen.

I saw Swann this morning talking about it as I flipped channels, and, yeah.

Come on, that assumes the guy hasn't learned from his mistakes. At least give him a chance to become presidential... again. Besides, our institutions held and will surely hold again. Right? Right!?

Sigh.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/22/us/politics/bannon-trial-contempt-charges.html

The race that keeps on giving pic.twitter.com/6tpOriTc1E

— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) July 22, 2022

like "lost" doesn't even make any sense!

way to point out that the guy who kicks your ass everyday had a stroke recently

Biden to unveil $37bn proposal to tackle crime, including 100,000 more police https://t.co/gbM4d2x0VJ

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) July 21, 2022

Biden wants to hire more cops to beat the shit out of the people who are supposed to rally in the streets to stop the next coup attempt, presumably.

He's playing the long game. He hires 100K more cops, they commit a bunch of crimes, some of them are charged, a couple years later some of them are convicted of felonies, and then boom, that's 20 or so few Trump voters. You're welcome.

to tackle crime.

Taking a bite out of crime.