BURNPIT: U.S. Politics, August 2022

The best deal the Dems could've wrested from Manchinema and for whomever they serve as Trojan horses, though I'm pissed about the insulin. Looks like winning two Senate seats in Jawjuh has its pluses.

And I don't know why they haven't called every bill the Inflation Reduction Act.

👍🏽

Yay!

I’m also heartened that the Dems showed some procedural guile and nous along the way.

As much as insiders get a lot of stick, you do need some pros on your team.

https://i.imgur.com/05v7IBi.jpg

"You had me at private equity funds!"

Sinemax!

McConhub!

EW! EW! EW!

The vast majority of Ohio residents clearly want legislative districts that are drawn more fairly. By 2015, the state’s gerrymandering problem had become so notorious that seventy-one per cent of Ohioans voted to pass an amendment to the state constitution demanding reforms. As a result, the Ohio constitution now requires that districts be shaped so that the makeup of the General Assembly is proportional to the political makeup of the state. In 2018, an even larger bipartisan majority—seventy-five per cent of Ohio voters—passed a similar resolution for the state’s congressional districts.

Though these reforms were democratically enacted, the voters’ will has thus far been ignored. Allison Russo, the minority leader in the House, who is one of two Democratic members of the seven-person redistricting commission, told me, “I was optimistic at the beginning.” But, she explained, the Republican members drafted a new districting map in secret, and earlier this year they presented it to her and the other Democrat just hours before a deadline. The proposed districts were nowhere near proportional to the state’s political makeup. The Democrats argued that the Republicans had flagrantly violated the reforms that had been written into the state constitution.

This past spring, an extraordinary series of legal fights were playing out. The Ohio Supreme Court struck down the map—and then struck down four more, after the Republican majority on the redistricting commission continued submitting maps that defied the spirit of the court’s orders. The chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court was herself a Republican. Russo told me, “If norms were being obeyed, we would expect that there would have been an effort to follow the first Ohio Supreme Court decision. But that simply didn’t happen.”

The Republicans’ antics lasted so long that they basically ran out the clock. Election deadlines were looming, and the makeup of Ohio’s districts still hadn’t been settled. “They contrived a crisis,” Russo told me. At that point, a group allied with the Republicans, Ohio Right to Life, urged a federal court to intervene, on the ground that the delay was imperilling the fair administration of upcoming elections. The decision was made by a panel of three federal judges—two of whom had been appointed by Trump. Over the strenuous objection of the third judge, the two Trump judges ruled in the group’s favor, allowing the 2022 elections to proceed with a map so rigged that Ohio’s top judicial body had rejected it as unconstitutional.

On Twitter, Bill Seitz, the majority leader of the Ohio House, jeered at his Democratic opponents: “Too bad so sad. We win again.” He continued, “Now I know it’s been a tough night for all you libs. Pour yourself a glass of warm milk and you will sleep better. The game is over and you lost.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy

A fantastic read.

Wow.

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims, according to a Reuters analysis of court filings and public records.

The analysis shows that people working with Matthew DePerno - the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state’s top law-enforcement post - examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan’s Roscommon County.

The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan's current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel. Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment.

both sides do it

i have no idea what's going on with the FBI raid but if they don't come up with something really good, they fucked up big time

something REALLY GOOD, because it has already been shown in thousands of different ways how corrupt he is. we don't need the 1001th piece of evidence, so if it this isn't something that puts him away, or makes that more likely, than fuck off

i feel like a NPC in FF7 remake

BREAKING: Trump currently in a white Bronco slowly headed south on a Los Angles freeway...

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) August 8, 2022

Donald Trump: If I Did It...

Saw some tweet that emphasized what a fucked up situation it is that when the FBI raids a former president's home we're left wondering not if he committed a crime but which crime they are investigating.

Going based on nothing but past performance, my guess is that the raid turns up or confirms other evidence of illicit activity or behavior, but not bodies-in-the-basement smoking guns sufficient to persuade his defenders. So it will join the actually-quite-damning Mueller investigation as another example of his victimhood and saintliness.

Good morning!

xp

this is where I'm at right now

the republican faux outrage could turn out to be a canny move if there is anything short of an actual perp walk

The judge was a Rick Scott appointee, of course:

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/crime/2018/03/15/west-palm-beach-attorney-bruce/7506025007/

their faux outrage is a fixed point you can steer around or stupidly crash into, guess what the Democrats tend to do

I dunno, you'd think it has to be pretty serious to get a court order allowing the raid of a former president, let alone this particular Asshole. They already talked to him and his people this summer about (as far as has been reported) not returning but securing his shit, so this must be something else, or something more specific, based on something someone told the FBI. Like, it's not just pictures of posing with dictators but stuff that reveals (intentional or no) missile sites or whatever. I could imagine Asshole keeping trophies of people he's secretly had bombed or killed, for example. And I can for sure imagine him showing them off.

Well they had to meet legal requirements to get permission to surveil his campaign too, and that's still used as evidence of "deep state corruption" etc etc. No amount of following-the-rules matters to people who couldn't care less about the rules. Every single thing is either for them or against them, there's no outside structure of law and order or social contracts or anything else that matters at all.

Someone noted that Asshole *has a copy of the warrant*, which means he knows what they were looking for, what statutes they think were violated, what the judge signed off on, etc., and could just make that public. (Assuming he even read it, which is a big reach.) The fact that he apparently hasn't (yet) speaks volumes.

the republican faux outrage could turn out to be a canny move if there is anything short of an actual perp walk

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Tuesday, August 9, 2022 9:27 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if there is an actual perp walk then it'll just make them even more ready for civil war, remember the default Republican position is that laws don't apply to them

if this boils down to "there were important documents we needed to secure and this was the only way to make it happen" then the FBI needs to hold a press conference and explain that very clearly

xp

I don't give a shit if it makes them upset, I care more about giving them talking points that this is the new "no Russian collusion"

I’m no Trump fan. I want him as far away from the White House as possible. But a fundamental part of his appeal has been that it’s him against a corrupt government establishment. This raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as unjust persecution.

— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 9, 2022

go away dude, please

fw:

lol

Perhaps I speak for other Never Trump types who were never supporters of Andrew Cuomo and don't support Andrew Yang: Both of them are embarrassments.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 9, 2022

sure but wasn't it well known that he took documents when he left the White House a year and a half ago? whatever this is has to be something they just found out about recently, maybe related to evidence recently uncovered in another trial, and I am guessing whatever it is is a pretty big deal. as we found out in 2016 the FBI is a fairly partisan entity who is very aware of appearances, they're not doing this unless there's a slam dunk

also would like to offer a hearty 'fuck off' to everyone in the media whining about how this only makes Republicans madder and more willing to retaliate, like why don't you think of what it means when you brazenly declare that this one particular guy is allowed to commit unlimited federal crime up to and including attempting a coup. why does every fucking thing in this country have to be about coddling Republicans.

I think you know the answer to that question.

especially since so many of those Republicans are unindicted co-conspirators.

xpost

there was talk recently that Trump was going to announce his run before the midterms, so maybe the FBI decided they had to move now

what if he kept a copy of the JFK investigation that's complete and unredacted and has just been showing it to friends at mar a lago as a treat

https://www.jfk-online.com/bacon3.jpg

"Fuck yeah!"

the investigation is going to go all the way up to the 2024 election. progress will slow to a grinding halt as all the serious people agree that it's time to let the american people decide the fate of donald trump through our well known free and fair elections.

before that, if the republicans take the house, there will be 2 years of investigations into the evil DOJ, who were so evil that they whenever they notice donald trump committing crimes on television, they spend 900 years doing jack shit before moving the lever from "grinding halt" to "fuck all"

Things I have read here and there:

• There was at least one previous "picking up documents he wasn't supposed to take with him" mission to Mar-A-Lago earlier this year, under the auspices of the National Archives or something; it's entirely possible that at that time he lied about what he had, making it necessary to send in the FBI this time
• Worth remembering that just having these documents in his possession at all is a crime all by itself
• They had to do it more than 90 days before the next election (the midterms) because of The Rules (maybe just The Rules of Washington Comity, not clear on this)
• They wouldn't have done this if they weren't 99.9 percent sure they were gonna find what they were after, so somebody probably told them this stuff was there; combine that with the idea that if they had asked him in the past, he probably lied (see first point), and there's your grounds for a warrant

i do think that if trump makes it back into the white house, the DOJ is done. trump and the GOP will dismantle it at all costs. that was likely before, and now as close to certain as the future can get, i think.

my man try and take a W here and there

lol

it's probably good advice, haha. sigh.

(i just hope this isn't like when the Washington Generals get a W)

I realize they'd only do it to curry favor with the God-Emperor, and they'd probably be replaced with Blackwater mercenaries or something, but can we honestly argue that the Republicans abolishing the FBI wouldn't be a net positive?

that would be pretty sweet

I dunno, I read the outrage in his 'Truth' yesterday, and it seemed somewhat tempered by a little wariness, like "man I really wish they hadn't looked in that safe"

I have great things in the safe! People are always asking me, "What's in the safe?"