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

Worth remembering that human life only got materially better than "subsistence farming peasantry" within the last 200 years. Before the mid-1800s, even rich motherfuckers had no appreciable technological advantages over their poorer brethren. All work was physical and arduous — the only perk of being rich was you could pay someone else to do it for you. Modern technological existence and leisure is a bubble, and when it pops it'll just be humanity going back to "as you were" status...except it'll be a lot hotter outside.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, July 28, 2022 9:55 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think modern technology is going away but yeah I think it's important to get some perspective. despite everything going on this is still probably the best time in human history to be alive. this isn't just my opinion it's the fact that the world population has gone from 2.5 billion in 1950 to nearly 8 billion today, which is not something that happens to a species unless conditions are really good. I think about this a lot too, for example when watching Get Back it occurred to me that this was all happening at a time when there were literally less than half as many people on the planet as there is today. And a lot of these people are young and learning to adapt to a world that seems to us like it's spiraling out of control.

I think people feel this way in large part because human emotion is so relativistic - we're at our happiest when we get something (material or otherwise), at our most despondent when things are being taken away from us (either real or in our imaginations). There is something profound in the fact that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are two of the most miserable fucks on the planet despite having been granted every single advantage life could offer. They are the pinnacles of a system that is fundamentally unsustainable and as such every dose of reality they get feels like a personal attack. One of the greatest joys in life is parenthood and they are unable to experience any of that joy because of how poisoned their brains have become. If/when the societal collapse comes (and I'm with KM here, I think we're sort of in the middle of it) my hope is that it at least can wash away some of that poison.

Modern technological existence and leisure is a bubble...only made possible by the mass uptake of fossil fuels aiui.

so far, but yes aiui also

Not quite the same thesis, but I've been meaning to read this for years after encountering his argument that coal amplified democracy in the West (because coal workers worked near one another and formed unions, etc.) and oil undermined it: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/232680/carbon-democracy-by-timothy-mitchell/

i was talking with my parents about roe v wade and while they are very depressed about it they told me they think america is in a very different place now than then in terms of support networks for women who want abortions and the social stigma attached to it. back then you still needed to be married (and heterosexual) to get a hotel room together in a lot of places. for instance. things were very very old school in a way that few of us have ever experienced. so yes it’s bad yes it’s a clawback, but there’s more of “us” than there used to be imo. and maybe this is wishful thinking but conservatives wouldn’t be this active, they wouldn’t be this hellbent on seizing structural consolidation of gains if they weren’t scared as hell of being made totally irrelevant by the next generation of young people who have zero sympathy for their necrotic politics

Drugmakers are waking up to the reality that Democrats’ revived budget reconciliation bill has a shot at enactment, and are waging an intense lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and over the airwaves in a last-minute attempt to bring it down...

And I'll bet they succeed in some fashion... Glaxo, Perdue lobbyists are always first in line

https://thecolumn.substack.com/p/during-record-heatwave-nyt-wapo-atlantic

"Remember that RT upthread, of Yang reminding us that Lincoln (REPUBLICAN) and Johnson (DEMOCRAT) were a winning thing, baby---John Legend: "And what happened then?""

yes, this was John Legend's greatest moment, it utterly redeems him for being 1) boring and 2) married to Chrissy Teigen

re: extinction, I try to avoid doom shit, and I also dislike this guy for a whole variety of reasons, but for some reason Medium keeps pushing him on me. I relented and read this one and actually agreed with it. I suspect what we'll ultimately wind up with in 100 years time (maybe less) is something like the Jackpot in William Gibson's 'agency' novels.

https://medium.com/eudaimonia-co/the-age-of-extinction-is-here-some-of-us-just-dont-know-it-yet-7001f5e0c79a

Sorry if this has been shared already

Marc Short, Mike Pence’s chief of staff, on Matt Gaetz.

I didn’t expect this strong of a response. pic.twitter.com/i4SN89Thpk

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 25, 2022

Reading about this climate bill and it seems the Dems waited for CHIPS to pass before announcing it, since McConnell threatened to torpedo it in retaliation. That’s the kind of underhanded go-fuck-yourself sorta play the Dems need to do way more of

otm -- it's like they...stumbled into this strategy

They’re also taking another run at 9/11 healthcare comp so seems like they’re feeling themselves?

PACT Act will come up again in the Senate Monday night, Schumer said

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 28, 2022

Schumer says Democrats will be adding in insulin legislation to reconciliation

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) July 28, 2022

I mean this administration's strategy of "do nothing" hasn't been great for their approval numbers

Punchbowl News: House Democrats plan to announce a proposal next month to ban lawmakers, their spouses and senior staff from trading stocks, according to multiple sources close to the issue.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 28, 2022

republicans are tanking VA and gay marriage bills in retaliation

Does pelosi know? xp

Whisper it by they’ve pulled back from 2 points behind to dead heat in the average of generic congressional ballot polls since dobbs (and since gas prices fell almost a dollar in two months)

republicans are tanking VA and gay marriage bills in retaliation

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, July 28, 2022 9:29 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if they're gonna do this kind of nakedly evil shit let 'em do it in full daylight

...resignations on matters of principle from his inner circle are extremely rare, and show that even among some parts of the right there is unease at how his rhetoric on race is developing.
Next week Orbán is due to travel to Dallas, where he will open CPAC Texas, a gathering of US conservatives. Orbán counts the former US president Donald Trump among his many admirers on the American right.

xp

the campaign ads practically write themselves, and yet I feel like very few people will suddenly care

say it aint so

Susan Collins tells @JNicholsonInDC that same-sex marriage bill may be doomed now bc of what Dems did on the inflation reduction bill https://t.co/ndnTOLxbEt

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) July 28, 2022

_...resignations on matters of principle from his inner circle are extremely rare, and show that even among some parts of the right there is unease at how his rhetoric on race is developing.
Next week Orbán is due to travel to Dallas, where he will open CPAC Texas, a gathering of US conservatives. Orbán counts the former US president Donald Trump among his many admirers on the American right._

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/26/longstanding-adviser-to-viktor-orban-resigns-over-pure-nazi-speech🕸🕸

Conferences to cover the cocaine orgies, no doubt.

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-favored-win-senate-first-time-538-1728325

I heard that on "Daily Beans" this morning. It strikes me as whistling past the graveyard, but still.

Walker leading Warnock by a sliver here in Georgia. We'll see.

trying to follow david hogg backlash on twitter right now and can't make heads or tails of it. I find him annoying and his pillow thing was dumb and I stopped following him because he posts every second, but nothing he's said lately seems off or wrong; he's pissed that the house dropped an assault weapons ban bill, which the dems have the votes to pass (in the house). continual 'he's a liar' reactions from people angry he's criticizing the dems? I don't even know what they're pissed about.

I'm impressed by the barrage of angry Jon Stewart clips I've seen lately. He even went on Newsmax to call out the senate for being a bunch of feckless dickheads for voting against bonus healthcare for troops that got poisoned on the job. *That's* how you use celebrity.

Republicans celebrating fucking over troops with cancer is something that should be in every campaign ad from here on

More missing January 6 texts:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/28/homeland-security-texts-jan6/

Correction 07/27/22, 13:40 p.m. ET: This article originally said that in early June FiveThirtyEight predicted the Republicans would win 60 seats in the Senate race. This article has been amended to say that in early June the Republicans had a 60 percent chance of winning back the Senate, by having a majority of seats. Newsweek regrets the error.

earlier we said that we predicted the apocalypse to happen in November. instead, there is 60% chance of a minor, second-tier apocalypse

also, republicans are mad that good guy joe manchin pulled a legislative fast one on McConnell, so now in return they're going to fuck over gay marriage in revenge, to teach democrats a lesson.

LOL at Senator Cornyn crying about being double-crossed by Senate Democrats.

“To look you in the eye and tell you one thing and to do another is absolutely unforgivable.”

meanwhile cornyn has his boys in the u-haul storage lot, stealing all your shit

Glad you think so, Senator. Go have a talk with your Roe-overturning Supreme Court picks. xp

and someone must pay the price for what the democrats did. i guess it's gay people, sorry about it

“There are only 100 of us, and the relationships and the confidence that we have that when somebody looks you in the eye and tells you something, that they're going to stick with it, is important to negotiating in good faith and building consensus that’s necessary to pass legislation…

Like, I don't even have enough fuck yous to respond to this.

POLITICO lives for this shit.

I wonder if we’ll find out 10-15 years from now that Manchin came to Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi in some top secret meeting in late 2020 and said, “look, I’m gonna be a pain in the ass, but go with me, we’re gonna make some magic happen in the long run.”

Gay people and veterans must pay for this Democratic perfidy.

I swear to god, there is no level of Hell low enough for these assholes.

love to see republicans stab themselves in the neck.

and yet they will win, because they are undead

just remembered this. great stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxfEz1GlBsw

Problem is the GOP are really good at making sure their boots are still on the necks of the disenfranchised while they stab themselves in the neck.

Yeah I am not cool with "both sides"-ing shit right now. Yeah I guess you could say that both sides have extremes. One side wants to kill people out of sheer spite, the other side kinda hopes you will say some different words sometimes. Yep, that's totally the same. Both sides, whatabout, etc.

cool

Biden administration authorizes completion of the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall in an open area of southern Arizona near Yuma, where four wide gaps make it among the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. https://t.co/XUkmYOggev

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 29, 2022

Whining about Senate betrayal is so funny because who do they think gives a shit? Even the GOP's base isn't going to hate Democrats 1% more because they tricked Cornyn et al..

idk, the latest conservative line that's been popping up over the last 48 hours is that Trump happened because the press and democrats were mean to Mitt Romney, so they certainly have the potential to hone in on the mildest of grievances and whine endlessly about it