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

No doubt, but post-election the VP should be an asset as well.

Someone probably suggested that but someone else heard "asshat" and figured they had enough of them.

"We were hoping she would be a credit to her race, but . . . "

I remember rumblings of Harris becoming a sort of undocumented immigration czar or something (with trips to Honduras, El Salvador), but I don't know if anything concrete has come out of that

That is one of the impossible tasks they have pinned on her.

Well, Kushner handily solved the Middle East crisis, so the bar has been raised

The Cheryl Rofer piece Alfred linked is thoroughly otm - the Times piece is a barely-disguised sexist hit job.

“I cannot be killed. I am invincible!” — Ashli Babbitt https://t.co/QU5ruJbqcq pic.twitter.com/SsCSFYrGbe

— The Onion (@TheOnion) July 25, 2022

Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Tuesday called Democratic efforts to bolster election-denying candidates in Republican primaries “disgusting,” accusing Democrats of taking too lightly the threat Kinzinger said those candidates pose to U.S. democracy.

“I think it is disgusting,” Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, told CNN on Tuesday. “Look at Darren Bailey in Illinois, an election-denier. [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker spent tens of millions of dollars so that Bailey would win. Yeah, Pritzker has a little bit of an advantage right now. Good Republican year, Bailey may win.”

I'm no veteran strategist, but I'm pretty much in agreement.. bummed that my little $25 donations were probably misspent on these whackjobs

Thanks for that link. A good test case could be comparing coverage of Beto O'Rourke:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/24/us/texas-governor-campaign-abbott-orourke.html

This new NYT article also includes more info on Christina Bobb, coordinating this stuff. (She was in touch with Doug Mastriano!)

Bobb promoted the fake electors as an OAN personality, without disclosing her work on it. Not a news organization of any kind. https://t.co/EDhFhRbKpe pic.twitter.com/i7ItGVJBOw

— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) July 26, 2022

To be clear, I'm not a fan of Harris, but the coverage by the usual Beltway suspects has been uniformly awful.

The Times does have a range:

Bad reporting like this has real consequences. Numerous people tried to warn @emilybazelon that her article could cause exactly this kind of harm. She's silent about her role in the Texas court case, and refused to answer my questions. https://t.co/wL0iE3DQIx #ProtectTransKids

— Kit O'Connell (@KitOConnell) July 22, 2022

Fully expect at best no one more than a bunch of lawyers face actual jail time, but still, WaPo makes it official:

Justice Dept. investigating Trump’s actions as part of Jan. 6 criminal probe. Prosecutors are examining the former president’s actions and conversations with lawyers and other loyalists leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, four people familiar with the probe said...Investigators have seized phone records of top aides

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/26/trump-justice-investigation-january-6/

honestly, that's the headline i expected to see the evening of january 6. or, at the latest, like a week later. then time kept passing. so much has happened in my life, since that day, it's kind of unbelievable. it feels like four trillion years ago.

still, i guess good for DOJ. i think it'll just be giuliani and eastmen going to prison, and wrist slaps for everyone else. now, when you do the coup next time, you do it a little differently, ok?

now, as a matter of professional diligence, i am going to have to ask the jan 6 coup organizers to go ahead and NOT do another coup in the next election, ok? i do apologize for that and i understand if that's going to make a lot of people angry. i am just reading what i have to say on a card here, i don't want to be a part of this either. that's me talking there, not the script. i think the january 6 people are wonderful prayer warriors. but just to be sure, i am told that i should stress that you should not do another coup, ok? now i'm going to face my guard chair toward this sleepy little corner setup and take a catnap. i urge you to not raid the armory, which is through that open door, and take over the building while i snooze, zzzzzzz

... America’s policy toward Taiwan has hardened, scrambling partisan alliances and putting the U.S. and China on a potential collision course.

Speaker of the House NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.) still weighs whether to visit the democratic island. Biden administration officials say it’s a bad idea since it could spike tensions with Beijing. But Republicans (and some Democrats) egg her on, insisting China can’t dictate where American politicians go.

It’s still unclear if Pelosi will show up in Taipei any time soon. But even the discussion of a visit highlights the “dangerous moment” that we’re in, said BONNIE GLASER, the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program director. “We’re approaching a crisis.”

Heightening tensions with China is so fucking stupid.

“I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.” “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill, there’s no threat to its status in America,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Punchbowl News when asked about the Respect for Marriage Act last week. “But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.”

https://www.theroot.com/house-democrats-introduce-term-limits-bill-for-supreme-1849336866

idk if this is likely to go anywhere but Christ is it bleak

TERRIFYING: The text of @RepCuellar's bill the Workplace Flexibility & Choice Act is available.

It would carve workers out of min wage & OT protections -- not just app-deployed workers -- ANY WORKER whose employer...1/https://t.co/NF2jfcDVWd

— Veena Dubal (@veenadubal) July 27, 2022

Thank god Pelosi et al. went to the mats to help beat back Jessica Cisneros.

Heightening tensions with China is so fucking stupid.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, July 26, 2022 7:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, so is the Chinese state's imperial bloodthirst, but

Meanwhile here's a Texas mom outraged that her 9th-grader is learning about Banksy in art class. (Bonus, it's because Banksy is "anti-free-market" lol)

Here is one of the Texas moms who traveled to Austin yesterday for a state legislative hearing focused on parents’ rights in education.

She’s angry because her son learned about Banksy in a high school art class. pic.twitter.com/FKpqfbh1Up

— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) July 27, 2022

it's funny how conservatives have become the most rabid regulators in the country. they used to say they believed in liberty, that the government should let people live. now they want to use government - state government, school boards, the US supreme court, you name it - to regulate the holy fuck out of everyone. regulating people's bodies. regulating what they're allowed to read in school. regulating who can marry who. regulating who can compete in athletic events. how about the step they fuck off for a minute and let people live their lives

Lmao tipsy mothra! Really hope that gets back to Banksy and he runs with it.

I mean, so is the Chinese state's imperial bloodthirst, but

The Table nails it. The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically (except fiscally a little too concerned with the needs of the hoi polloi, and of course a dire lack of Christian nationalism in their overbearing moralism).

I'm not even sure what 'conservative' means anymore, in today's climate; the right wing has become much more radical, seeking broad sweeping changes rather than cautious incrementalism

Maybe Mitt Romney is still a country club conservative, but he knows his days are numbered

I've been watching The Janes (HBO doc about an underground abortion network in Chicago in 1968-72) this week and idk it seems like everything I thought I knew about the political climate in American history has been off (see also finally reading Before the Storm last summer). Not that I was unaware abortion was illegal, mind you, but I think the only reason the right seems more radical right now is they're successfully clawing back a lot of the power they only gradually lost in the first place. Their core tenets have been authoritarian for a long time, and their purported libertarianism has always been a sham / purely situational for the benefit of capital / barely disguised racism

The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically

This is fantastically stupid but not quite as stupid as saber rattling with our third largest trade partner and largest source of imported goods because we're mad that they threaten our global empire.

yeah rob that sounds right to me

And not to downplay how scary the resurgent right is right now—it is absolutely terrifying, plus all the guns. I've just been working on letting go of my own delusions about what the right "actually" believes in—I've known better for decades, but those narratives were really drilled into me as a kid, the unlearning is constant.

China is bad, but why does Pelosi need to go to Taiwan anyway? Seems pointlessly provocative to me, as much as Taiwan getting to determine their own fate would obvs be desirable

20 GOP-led states are suing the USDA over a rule from the agency that prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ students in free school lunch programs. The AGs argue schools have the right to deny queer and trans kids lunch money. https://t.co/xM3IGonUIB

— Gillian Branstetter (@GBBranstetter) July 27, 2022

that tweet isn’t right afaict. the AGs are arguing they can discriminate against gay and trans kids in other ways and still get the federal funds for lunch money.

the Democrats funding trump candidates thing keeps happening, and is now being defended as a strategy by the DCCC. fucking crazy. what a horrible, horrible idea. in this case, they're funding the Republican primary opponent of Rep. Peter Meijer, who was one of only 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump. Meijer's being primaried by a Trump idiot, John Gibbs. what's crazy is that the DCCC spent $435,000 in support of Gibbs, which is more than the Gibbs campaign spent on themselves! the DCCC, alone, more than doubled his entire campaign's spending! thanks a fucking lot, Democrats??

The DCCC’s investment in Michigan’s 3rd District — which was redrawn in the decennial redistricting process to become more Democratic — marks the first time the House Democratic campaign arm put money behind an ad interfering in a GOP primary. The investment is more than the $334,000 that Gibbs has spent on his own campaign.

“Obviously, our focus is on winning 218 seats, and each race will require a slightly different strategy,” DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) told NBC News. “We think this makes sense in this case.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/meijer-trump-impeachment-democrats/

"Democracy is under attack*!"

*by the candidates we fund

good thing the economy looks absolutely rock solid as the Dems burn money popularizing fascists, can't see this backfiring at all

That Michigan thing is among the dumbest ideas imaginable.

as the Dems burn money

i was just thinking about how it was sad that the Democrats could literally take the money that is donated to them and just burn it, and it would be a better use of it than what they're actually using it for

yeah I'm glad this is out there cuz now I can point directly to the reason why I don't donate to these guys anymore

pic.twitter.com/R3rJ95oEkT

— Blake Mitchell® (@Blake_Mitchell) July 26, 2022

NJ's own @StevieVanZandt 🎸 has a VERY special message for Dr. Oz!!

So Dr. Oz just fuhgeddaboudit! pic.twitter.com/awlAeVcUeg

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 27, 2022

This is wearing a little thin but still pretty funny

actually on the lunch money thing actually the tweet probably IS right in that states might conceivably forgo the lunch money just because they’ve been forbidden to make life miserable for LGBTQ+ kids, like what happened with medicare expansion and obamacare.

The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically

This is fantastically stupid but not quite as stupid as saber rattling with our third largest trade partner and largest source of imported goods because we're mad that they threaten our global empire.

Milo Z is neoliberal now? Not sure if “fantastically stupid” was aimed at me or the GOP but my argument in short is that both parties are authoritarian, imperialistic, ethnic nationalistic, oppressively moralistic, and oligarchic.

The ad itself is also this weird reverse-psychology thing where it pretends to be an attack ad framing Gibbs as "too conservative." Maybe so that the Dems can still officially say that they didn't explicitly support him.

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/26/peter-meijer-michigan-democrats-trump

Anti-imperialism is when you threaten war on the side of the world on behalf of your client state.

Oh no he’s still just a tankie haha silly me.

You’re going to get one of these words right one day.

xps and following jmm's post here,

Democrats funding trump candidates

Karl, have you actually watched any of these ads? That's not what's happening. The ads criticize the candidates, say they are wrong for their district/state, too conservative, criticize them on their stances on issues, and cast their connections to Trump in a negative light. Yes, they are playing a double game and thinking this will both hurt the candidates with most voters while boosting them with the whacko base.

Whether it is wise strategy is open to question, but it is not "funding trump candidates" in any sense.

here's one of the ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5XVRDC50Do