BURNPIT: U.S. Politics, August 2022

Fox keeping it Fair and Balanced, after checking w Gov. Orban:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspends 'Soros-backed' state attorney who refused to enforce abortion ban

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-gov-ron-desantis-suspends-liberal-state-attorney-andrew-warren

doctors that provide gender affirming care to transgender people.

Tell me again how Peter Meijer was a moderate who cared about democracy... https://t.co/KL9YXfE7Rl

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) August 4, 2022

That is aggressively missing the point about why Democrats shouldn't pour money into backing the Even Greater Evil.

Yeah, I agree with you, they're all assholes, which I thought was the point of that tweet.

Yes. Full agreement on that. This kind of politicking is a dumb person's idea of smart politicking.

Raising Arizona

Republican ‘doomsday ticket’ ready for November

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2022/08/03/republican-doomsday-ticket-ready-for-november-00049722?nname=politico-nightly&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000172-4d9a-d3ba-a9f3-6f9e04a20000&nlid=2670445

Instead of inflation or education any of the other “traditional campaign issues that candidates normally discuss,” Barnes said, Democrats in Arizona this fall “get to talk about the Trump candidates. They get to talk about running against Donald Trump.”

It might be enough to keep Trump’s class of Arizona Republicans from ever taking office. On the other hand, the environment is so good for the GOP nationally this year that some or all of them may win.

Citation needed. There are no positive signs for the Republicans that I can see beyond "the out party always wins in midterm elections," with less than a century's worth of evidentiary support for "always." Things "always" happen until they stop happening, and the Republicans are doing as good a job of tying their own shoelaces together as possible between these insane candidates, the anti-abortion shit, and on and on. It might be close, but I would not bet against the Democrats barely holding the House, and gaining in the Senate.

Economic uncertainty, 9% inflation and sub-40% Presidential approval are very much a 'good environment' for the non-governing party.

It often is.

Feel like normal factors don’t really apply anymore especially given the outcome of that Kansas abortion referendum

Rs will almost certainly take the House but they could actually lose Senate seats thanks to the morons they’re running out there

Breaking: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will support the Democrats’ economic bill, she said in a statement tonight. This is the clearest sign yet that Democrats will have 50 votes and be able to pass it by the end of the weekend.

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) August 5, 2022

Feel like normal factors don’t really apply anymore especially given the outcome of that Kansas abortion referendum

This is what I'm saying. January 6, the abortion decision, and even more localized shit like right-wing maniacs shutting down libraries because there are books about gay people in them...there are a lot of factors causing people to not trust the Republican party the way they might have in the past.

Yeah, remember "I'm not a witch," "legitimate rape," and so on: sometimes they blow it, even in an advantageous year.

IN state Rep. Davisson (R) argues for requiring forced birth of non-viable fetuses.

Asked what he would tell children of a mother going through pregnancy resulting in stillbirth: "[None] of us are guaranteed tomorrow. We must accept death as a consequence of life." pic.twitter.com/cAUEDEOZ8n

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) August 4, 2022

deeeeeeeeath cult

Fort Wayne seemed like a nice little city when I had to stay there for a week - an actual downtown of sorts, with a baseball stadium even, some good looking early 20th century houses that were still cheap... too bad about Indiana in general.

Good Burmese food, from what I hear.

Sinema got them to take out carried interest. Tbh I think they put it in so she could take it out.

Good Burmese food, from what I hear.

― jaymc, Thursday, August 4, 2022 10:14 PM (n

lol

lots of links:

Detroit Primary Likely Means No Black Representation For First Time Since 1955

...Many people are pointing to a redistricting decision that blended Detroit’s 80% Black population with the suburbs surrounding the city. The Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission paved the way for new House and legislative maps, which will remain intact for ten years.

In January, an ensemble of former and current Black Detroit lawmakers filed suit over the redrawn districts, claiming they lessen the voting power of African Americans in the state. However, the concern is not limited to congressional representation. Given the results of state legislative races, the Detroit Press notes Black representation will fall below the 20 currently serving.

https://www.theroot.com/detroit-primary-likely-means-no-black-representation-fo-1849371062

Hello I would like to share with you the most astonishing thing I have ever seen

At this CPAC booth you receive a silent disco headset that plays harrowing testimony from people arrested for participating in J6

Instead of dancing, you stand around and watch this guy cry pic.twitter.com/cin6F5zDhz

— Laura Jedeed (@LauraJedeed) August 5, 2022

Oh yeah that's actually one of the convicted. The judge sentenced him to Life at CPAC.

— Wendle™ (@AstroDog19) August 5, 2022

Talk about a crisis actor.

tbf, the American justice system is overly cruel

Is there another cage with immigrant children crying inside to cheer the c-packers up again after they experience this bummer of a booth?

It is! They're really indicting most of the wrong things, here.

Turns out if you're planning to protest, you should understand exactly what you're protesting, where you are going to go (and not go), what you might be arrested for and charged with -- correctly or incorrectly, given the laws -- and what you're going to do to make bail or retain counsel. Or just be a dipshit and do a half-assed coup which means no bail or very high bail, I guess.

sorry, that was a xp

I mean, if jailing insurrectionists leads to a bipartisan push for across-the-board sentencing reductions, I'm all for it

spoiler: it will not

Orange jumpsuit made me think of the many falsely accused men locked up for decades at Gitmo - but then I saw the MAGA hat! he's actually a patriot

dude looks like he was thrown in the slammer for fighting for his right to party

I would like to be paid to sit in a cage and cry for days on end

So CPAC is like a halloween haunted house? What other scary scenes?

Matt Gaetz's House of Notties

How many CPACs are there?? There used to be just the one annual one plaguing deep blue Arlington, Virginia for a weekend.

Matt Gaetz's House of Notties

I would like to be paid to sit in a cage and cry for days on end

that's just called having a corporate job

When Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, arrived in the U.S. this week, he bypassed the White House and President Biden to pay a visit to a more admiring U.S. president. He caught up with former President Donald Trump at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J.

That was on the way to the Conservative Political Action Conference's annual gathering in Dallas, where Orbán gave the kickoff address on Thursday afternoon — despite a speech last week widely decried as racist, even by one of his top aides. She resigned in protest.

Orbán sloughed off such criticism on Thursday.

"Don't worry, a Christian politician cannot be racist, so we should never hesitate to heavily challenge our opponents on these issues," Orbán told his Texas audience. "Be sure: Christian values protect us from going too far."

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/04/1115541985/why-hungarys-authoritative-leader-is-drawing-conservative-crowds-in-the-u-s

they should establish a texas embassy in budapest

the chaser

This is "Walk Away" founder Brandon Straka — who did not serve any prison time in his Jan. 6 case thanks to, as his attorneys described it in their sentencing memos, "substantial" cooperation with investigators. https://t.co/nnJR3CFX8x

— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) August 5, 2022

Incels taking themselves literally.

ha

lol A+ xp

Pretty shitty witness protection program

excuse the interruption but what is the canonical (US?) climate change thread?

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

??

thank you

lmao https://t.co/jNPudSf4rh pic.twitter.com/BKTh3klJhy

— alex (@genossse) August 5, 2022

lol, only in such a deranged gerontocracy would this be considered a diplomatic olive branch after senior person nearly starts ww3

Pelosi bringing that Michael Scott Energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAg2jw0uZ3I

here's a question for today: if something or someone is evil, are you justified in killing it? you probably paused for a second there. maybe at the word "evil" itself, and then, if not, hopefully at "killing", when you started to think through what that might mean. here's a variation: do you trust that other people, when told that something is evil, will think the same way that you do? will they pause at violence, if everyone around them is shouting that something is evil?

Stoking the culture wars is nothing new for CPAC. But with dark, militant speeches — and literal demonization of the MAGA movement’s political opponents — the conservative convention in Dallas this week menaced America with what seemed to be thinly veiled calls for violence, all while seeking to whitewash the political mayhem of Jan. 6, casting Capitol Hill rioters as victims of a “Democratic Gulag.”

From Hungarian authoritarian Victor Orbán to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to right-wing extremist Jack Posobiec, Conservative Political Action Committee speakers urged an us-versus-them confrontation, seeming unbound from the constraints of electoral politics.

Bannon, now the host of the “War Room” podcast, brought his bellicose message to CPAC, appearing as the headline speaker at the convention’s Friday night ball. “We are at war,” Bannon told the MAGA faithful. “We are in a political and ideological war.” Repeating the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, Bannon insisted that Joe Biden is an “illegitimate imposter.” Calling on Republicans to send “shock troops” to Washington, Bannon promised the crowd they had an opportunity to “shatter the Democratic party as a national political institution.” He alleged that the party has been overrun by “radical, cultural Marxists” and “groomers” who “want to destroy the Republic.” Bannon insisted the GOP must pursue absolute victory over “power-mad and lawless” Democrats, asserting: “There can be no half measures anymore.”

[snip] (fuck ted cruz)

[snip] (CPAC invited orban and some new alt-right fucks to replace the crew that has been banned due to saying that they liked hitler in previous years. wrong fascist. that's not the one the GOP likes out loud. so they changed it up.)

...It could be tempting to dismiss such bombast from Cruz and Posobiec as empty rhetoric. But Kari Lake, the GOP nominee for governor in Arizona, directly threatened confrontation with the federal government over immigration at the Southern border should she win office in November.

“We have an invasion at the border,” Lake insisted, referring to undocumented immigrants and refugees. Lake then vowed that, after being sworn in, she would mount a military response, even lacking approval from the Biden administration: “As soon as my hand comes off the Bible, we’re going to send the Arizona National Guard troops to the border,” Lake said. Insisting on the “sovereignty” of the states, she insisted: “We will take the fight to the federal government. We’re not going to be victims of what they’re doing to us.”

The rhetoric of revolution and frontline confrontation went hand-in-hand with other speakers and presenters who cast the American left as demonic, evil, and destructive — in other words the kind of enemies who deserve to be dealt with harshly.

In between speeches, CPAC promoted a documentary, hosted by chair Matt Schlapp, called The Culture Killers, which inveighs against a “great desecration” perpetrated by the left. ”Anything that’s good, anything that’s holy, anything that’s truthful is being attacked,” Shlapp insisted on video. The documentary describes America as “under siege from an enemy within,” with one voice insisting, over images of burning cars, “There is no end. These people will never stop, until you stop ’em.”

here's rick scott downgrading Democrats from "wrong" to "evil".

this is pre-genocide stuff pic.twitter.com/CKhGbmspaz

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2022

CPAC then held a panel called “You’re Next: The Rise of the Democratic Gulag,” which presented Jan. 6 defendants not as alleged perpetrators of riot and insurrection, but as victims of a rigged judicial system.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) was the official spokesperson for this line of idiocy. He claimed that Jan 6. defendants have been the recipients of “Soviet-style justice” — alleging without evidence that prosecutors, defense attorneys, and federal judges have been “colluding” to secure predetermined convictions. The congressman insisted that “all of the institutions in the United States have been weaponized, not unlike the former Soviet Union” to create an “American Gulag.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-2022-ted-cruz-militant-rhetoric-1393449/

the most excruuuuuuuuuuciating thing, one of them, at least, is listening to people like this tell each other that the problem with the democrats is they "haven't read 1984"