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

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.

"Vote Blue No Matter Who"

Weren’t there people on this board being all “give Biden a chance” last year? Ffs

Last month.

Weren’t there people on this board being all “give Biden a chance” last year? Ffs

― brimstead,

*raises hand* I'm not sure why that point was controversial with a slim Dem Senate majority.

He'll still sign whatever bill Pelosi and Schumer give him, good and evil.

I mean, "give him a chance" as opposed to what exactly? Don't "give him a chance"? Either way, he's the only president we have for the moment. I didn't even want him to run in 2020, much less be the nominee, and I desperately don't want him to run in '24, but I don't feel like either giving or not giving him a chance in the current circumstances is anything but some kind of rhetorical gesture.

Exactly -- it's a weird thing to say. He wasn't Warren or Sanders -- and he wasn't Trump. He'd appoint the judges and justices I want and maybe sign good bills. We knew this desiccated hambone's past.

The fact that he doesn't seem to have much fight in him is one thing. I'm more surprised at the relative uselessness of Kamala or other people in his cabinet. Pete seems to be the only one capable of getting traction online, and not coincidentally he's not ancient (though neither is Kamala). He's also one of the few in the cabinet I can name, which is weird after experiencing such a rogue's gallery of villains.

Amusingly, because I wasn't sure, I googled AOC's age, and the auto-fill was "aoc age 2024." People looking ahead ...

Lacking fight and a useless Cabinet don't explain signing bad bills. Reagan was in worse shape by 1987-1988.

*and having a useless Cabinet

Pete seems to be the only one capable of getting traction online

Your memory of the primary campaign is fading. Pete displayed all the gravitas and voter appeal of a half deflated pool toy. Journalists toyed with him for a week or so, then moved on. Not one voter cared.

He seems to have stepped up his game since then

he did well in that fox bit that was getting passed around a week or so back.

but, like, has he accomplished anything of note at Transpo? (genuine question)

maybe he should have been vp

Not one voter cared

He came in close second to Bernie in Iowa and NH and he hadn’t run a national campaign before. Seems like memories are a bit hazy.

ugh jesus christ. he's a ghoul, older and deader in spirit than even biden. which i guess means he has a chance from the dem pov.

respect to him for giving us the "you've been on the front lines of corporate price fixing" moment

Though he may not be as emotive as some of his Democratic rivals, @PeteButtigieg shows the editorial board a flash of the passion that he says propels his campaign. See more this Sunday on a special 2020 endorsement episode of @TheWeekly. Full transcript: https://t.co/ooUhuoRBV9 pic.twitter.com/6qXKtgA0WF

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) January 16, 2020

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.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, July 22, 2022 1:42 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

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

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, July 22,

Oh, and the quote about holding up Reagan's second term as a model of hiring practices, or anything else---!

Does that mean 45 has Alzheimer’s?