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

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?

Can someone explain to me why this man isn’t doing time yet?

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/24/matt-gaetz-says-women-look-like-a-thumb-shouldnt-complain-about-abortion-rights/

It is important that we only bring cases to court we know we can win, you see. It is important we keep our w-l records at 100%, you see, for optics *touches nose thoughtfully*

I liked (hated) his explanation for paying teenage girls lots of money is that he’s “generous”.

the voters in the first District of Florida can be counted on to hold matt gaetz accountable. he will hypothetically pay for his whole sex trafficking thing by hypothetically losing his house seat to some other maniacal asshole who will invent new crimes to excite the people. that will show gaetz, who will never be on tv again, i'm sure, after hypothetically being voted out of office by people who live around Pensacola.

I remember in middle school a girl coming back with just the absolute trashiest “Destin FL Spring Break” beach shirt and knowing that was all I’d never need to know of that region.

They call it the Redneck Riviera for a reason.

Lol the arbiter of tastefulness of spring break tshirts hath spoken.

I should think the tourists there are mostly from ohio, maybe ohio to blame.

Inbox: @SteveDaines will oppose the same-sex marriage bill. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman." Adds in a statement: "..it’s another attempt by Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats to distract the American people.."

— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) July 25, 2022

It's true -- Nancy Pelosi heads the Senate Democratic Caucus.

...and it's a never-ending Rock Block of the Nuge between the rants

Somebody pointed out that Republican politicians are the modern equivalent of drive-time shock jocks. Can’t remember where I read the piece that made this argument, but I think about it all the time. https://t.co/H1Qw6MhwPT

— Paul Constant (@paulconstant) July 25, 2022

Shock jocks, pro wrestlers, bad stand-up comics ...

JD Vance staking claim to the MAGA frontier of being anti-divorce. Three years away from reactionaries rejecting germ theory and fully embracing bad humors as the source of illness.

"It's the miasma"

“He’s a moderate on phrenology.”

Hillbilly Phrenology

damn JD’s wife must have one foot out the door

with a 6-3 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court has elevated Bill DeFrance to his preordained position as America's Thought Leader

Bill DeFrance, superintendent of Eaton Rapids Public Schools in Michigan, has moonlighted for years as a high school soccer referee. When religious schools compete, he has listened as coaches intone team prayers before and after a game. Still, he has never seen a public-school coach lead a prayer.

But in light of the Supreme Court ruling, and pending guidance from state officials, DeFrance said he is open to the idea of coach-led prayer.

If the Michigan Department of Education or the Michigan High School Athletic Association “said they’d like to work … about how you can incorporate prayer into sports events for kids, I’d certainly take it to the [school] board to say, ‘We could help pilot this; we could try this,’ ” DeFrance said. (A spokesman for the state athletic association emailed The Washington Post, saying: “This is strictly an individual school district issue in Michigan. We have no part in this decision-making process.” A spokesman for the Education Department wrote in an email that his agency “has not sent any guidance to local school districts on this issue at this time. We have made a request of our state attorney general’s office for a review of the decision.”)

If done well, DeFrance added, coach-led prayer could yield advantages for his district’s 2,000 students, serving as a way to learn about other cultures.

“I could see some real interesting things like, ‘Okay, Bill, you’re Hindu, you lead the prayer this week,’ and give some background about why Hindus pray,” he said. Plus, “I do think sometimes having a little bit of a spirit helps you to play.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/

Thought Leader Christi Fraga, a school board member in Miami-Dade, is also very interested in learning about other religions

Fraga still does not understand why it’s okay for the district to recognize LGBTQ History Month, with school-hosted events and celebrations, but not do something similar about prayer. Although she is running for mayor of the city of Doral and plans to leave the school board in November, she intends to continue her education advocacy — bolstered by the Supreme Court ruling, she says it may be possible to introduce more religion classes into public schools.

“I would love to see there be the ability to implement more religious teachings,” Fraga said. “There’s lessons that are taught right now in school that maybe certain families do not believe in, [and] students have to sit there and listen to what history has brought us to.”

Why not, she asked, also offer lessons on the Christianity, the “religion that has formed our nation”? As well as “the different types of religion,” she added.

i imagine these "oh yeah, other religions too, because i'm open-minded, right?" utterances to be read in the kind of sped-up, micro machines guy voice that plays at the end of commercials for products that might actually kill you

like the “other economic systems” section of my junior high economics class. they took up all of one day’s teaching iirc. i can still remember the phrase “command and control economies”

Thought Leader Amy Kruppe is an expert at identifying which religions are popular with people in her community.

Amy Kruppe took over as superintendent in Hazel Park Schools, Mich., seven years ago. When she arrived from Illinois, she was surprised to find that school board members opened meetings with prayer — sometimes inviting “a man of the cloth” to lead proceedings.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is not constitutional,’ ” Kruppe said. “But their feeling was it was important to them as an organization” — so to this day, the board opens its meetings with Christian prayer, Kruppe said.

Over the years, Kruppe has come around to the idea. There have never been complaints, apart from hers. She said coaches in Hazel Park also lead prayers at games, “and no one says anything about it.” She noted that Hazel Park, a district of about 3,200 students, is about 50 percent White, 50 percent Black and, as far as she can tell, nearly 100 percent Christian.

https://i.imgur.com/PoOuJ9I.png

weird! somehow she incorrectly identified half of her own county as Christians when it turns out that, given several million different varieties of Christianity to choose from, 50% of the county's inhabitants said "NONE". but i'm sure a lot has changed since 2010