Why is everyone so mean?? US Politics: September 2022

Ugh, that’s what a fool believes

Democrats who voted to confirm Judge Aileen Cannon after Trump had already lost the 2020 election: Carper, Coons, Cortez Masto, Feinstein, Hassan, Jones, Kaine, Leahy, Manchin, Murphy, Rosen, Warner.

— Gregory Hays (@aristofontes) September 5, 2022

Seems like a ruling that will get reversed, but if it gets to SCOTUS who knows? There's a nicely monarchial appeal about extending executive privilege in perpetuity.

I wonder what her rationale was for "temporarily" suspending the DOJ investigation? Does she even know the breadth of the investigation or what parts of it may have no close connection to the warranted Mar-a-Lago search?

/5 By the way you’re seeing a lot of “the judge shut down the criminal investigation.” Not so. The judge shut down, for now, review of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. The criminal investigation existed before that and will continue on other channels as before.

— HatMaster (@Popehat) September 5, 2022

So, the Law Dork misinformed his Twitter followers? Shocking! And here I was all set to subscribe to his newsletter.

warning: don't read politico. but don't read daily beast either. don't read at all, just to be safe

normal email

The new German owner of Politico sent an email to his closest executives asking if they should meet up to pray for Donald Trump’s re-election, according to a report. Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner sent the message in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, according to The Washington Post, a year before his company’s acquisition of Politico in October 2021. “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Döpfner wrote, inspired by an article about the Trump administration taking legal action against Google for abuse of market dominance. Döpfner went on to argue that Trump had made the right call on five of the six biggest issues of the last century—including pursuing peace in the Middle East and “defending the free democracies” from Russia and China—only falling short on climate change. “No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” he added. When asked about the message, Döpfner initially denied it existed, going so far as to say: “It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.” When confronted with a printout of the email, he explained that he may have sent it “as an ironic, provocative statement in the circle of people that hate Donald Trump.” “That is me,” he added. “That could be.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/politcos-new-owner-mathias-dopfner-invited-colleagues-to-pray-for-trumps-re-election

It is possible I was a troll

It has never been sent
~murmurs in the jury of his peers
It has never even been imagined
~some cheers of support, rising action
It was an ironic, provocative statement
~chants of “MVP” begin to fill courtroom
That is me. It could be
~plaintiff, judge and jury carry him out of the courtroom on their shoulders

Where is the best place to read news/analysis nowadays?

Always lots o' links on the Reddit politics thread.

Seriously, recommendations are welcome.

Politico is where I typically go simply because I don’t have a limited number of articles.

lol pic.twitter.com/vbNW3oTKYn

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 6, 2022

I'M A DEMOCRAT WHO THINKS BIDEN'S ANTI-DEMOCRATIC RHETORIC HAS GONE TOO FAR!!!!!!

...hi i'm zach

I'M A DEMOCRAT WHO THINKS BIDEN'S ANTI-DEMOCRATIC RHETORIC HAS GONE TOO FAR!!!!!! and I'm an alcoholic

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

“I’m a Democrat who writes for the Federalist because I’m actually Very Racist”

JD Vance, understander of Ohio https://t.co/L77Hc4XIMb pic.twitter.com/8QjYy8umqn

— Bradford Pearson (@BradfordPearson) September 6, 2022

Thanks for introducing yourself, Scott, as I've never heard of you. Your opinions are, as the kids say, wack.

xp

hi they gave me back my phone in the residential treatment place i'm living. i read taegan goddard's political wire daily. it's kind of an aggregator, but he picks the articles and has been accused of being a commie spy. so what that actually means is that he's a centrist who knows what's up.

And they stand in stark contrast to comments from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who started the lockdown fetish in America and who still stubbornly claims that he did everything right.

(Disclaimer: as a lawyer, I am litigating a case that seeks to require that Newsom end the statewide Covid-19 emergency that has been in place since March 2020.)

Fucking Dr. Oz cannot stop setting himself on fire:

Dr. Oz On Incest: More Than First Cousin? 'Not A Big Problem.'

The problem with being a celebrity before you enter politics is that you’ve definitely already said too much. And considering that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate, has already been saying too much as a candidate, you know the things coming out of his mouth must have been pretty bad before.

In an interview with morning radio show The Breakfast Club in February 2014, host Angela Yee asked Oz to weigh in on a question sent in by a listener about someone struggling with an incestuous relationship.

“I’m going to ask you this and you tell me if this is safe for this person, okay?” Yee prompted Oz. “Well, he said, ‘Yee, I can’t stop smashing my cousin.’ That means sleeping with.” (Thank you, Yee.)

She continued to read out the question: “‘We hooked up at a young age and now in our 20s, she still wants it. No matter how much I want to stop, I always give it to her. Help me.’ What advice would you give that person?”

Hm. I might refer them to counseling about how to rebuild proper familial relationships and set boundaries. But Oz took it in a different direction:

Oz: If you’re more than a first cousin away, it’s not a big problem.

Yee: Okay, so second cousin is fine to smash.

Charlamagne: It’s so funny, cause I knew that.

DJ Envy: How did you know that?

Charlamagne: Cause I’m from the country! Third cousins?

Oz: Yeah. It’s fine.

Keep reading at the link. It actually gets creepier.

The smell thing

He’s off to see the wizard, as it were

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erg2vyJ2UOk

And yet, I would not be at all surprised if the election were close, or indeed if Oz won.

I'm a Democrat who's donated https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Street%2C+Scott&contributor_employer=JW+HOWARD&min_date=01%2F01%2F2010&max_date=12%2F31%2F2022,000 to Tim Scott.

(oops, that should've read "$1,000")

Funny thing is he donated all that money back in April, long before he says he became disenchanted with Biden's rhetoric about Trump and MAGA election deniers.

xxxp

As I understand it, Fetterman has a near insurmountable polling advantage.

Politico still seems okay to me---the reporting, and comments by reporters; I don't look at any full-time pundits or guest thoughts on there.
Still need to watch Biden's whole speech, but I hope that he found a way not to lump absolutely all MAGA Repubs together, since some of them, incl. Georgia's Governor and Secretary of State, stopped short of "finding votes" for Trump etc, refusing to be intimidated.

And yet, I would not be at all surprised if the election were close, or indeed if Oz won.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, September 6, 2022 6:51 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Republicans are running some of the worst candidates I've ever seen in my life and some of them may indeed win their races but I am pretty damn sure Dr. Oz will not be one of them

Since I don't have Post sub, I'll just add this quickie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut1MiTqbPnM

politico is relatively center rabble gabble, terminally DC brained stuff but stuff stills hinges on that

I have more confidence Herschel Walker will win than Oz.

Well, yeah...

As do I, despite the fact that Herschel Walker is a fucking idiot carrying a dozen red flags.

Here in Georgia, fewtbawl is more popular than Jesus.

I don't know, you can't discount some number of white Republican voters staying home because something about Walker just don't feel right, hard to put a finger on it ...

Can't rightly say

i don't like how he's always eating paint

it was a real bummer to look at the last few polls in GA, post-walker making an ass out of himself every time he tries to talk about anything, and realize that he's gained ground.

we might have thought he would need a "hail mary" in order to win this "game", but it's look more like it's "2nd and 7" on the "25-yard line" and he's about to "take the team into the red zone" as the "two-minute warning approaches"

*violentlybarfingatthebeach.png*

the GOP team is looking strong this year with Coach playing coach and Walker looking set to open the congress as a starting Running Back. Defense is a concern with Tom Cotton being such a massive, fucking asshole that everyone hates and who may die this year of just sucking so badly, but as they say, the best defense is a strong offense, and this batch of newcomers is the most offensive group of .....etc etc

the TV ads against Walker are pretty brutal, including clips of him lying to audiences about his various imaginary law enforcement jobs and of his ex-wife describing his putting a gun to her head ... it's hard to know how those ads will influence voters, but since the substance of these attacks is not disputed by Walker's campaign, they're going to get a lot of repetition

I'm hoping Walker wins because he may make a speech on the Senate floor about being a Viking when he sleeps.

One thing's for sure, there won't be TWO former Vikings elected in November...

PERFECT!
Turning it up to 11. https://t.co/FiL2Dwz8Ja

— Matt Birk (@BirkMatt) September 6, 2022

the TV ads

thing is, those are mostly older people watching, right? and those same people fondly remember those classic herschel walker touchdowns, which were also on tv

I just saw the recent polling on the GA Senate race and it's a dead heat

guy watching tv: god. remember when tv was good
other guy watching tv: yeeeeeep

There is almost nothing that could change the minds of people who are going to vote for Herschel Walker.

I just saw the recent polling on the GA Senate race and it's a dead heat

i saw that too and had a negative reaction, comparing it to Warnock's defeat of Loeffler in the run-off. i don't remember much about Loeffler's candidacy, and whether she had any obvious gaffes or scandals that were too much in a statewide election. compared to that, running neck-to-neck with Walker seems like a disappointment because he is so clearly not a good person to be in charge of anything at all.

But I forgot that it wasn't a normal election, it was a special election run-off:

https://i.imgur.com/UBm8yBY.png

another Republican, Doug Collins (lol) got nearly 20% of the votes. Loeffler received 26%. Warnock won with a plurality of 33%. i don't know, it's tempting to think "Combine Collins and Loeffler and you get 46% republicans to only 33% for warnock", and it would suggest that the inherent GOP-advantage is stronger that it might appear, so Warnock in a dead heat with football man herschel walker is a good sign.

but then...you can also add up all those other democratic/gop candidates who grabbed small percentages of the overall vote, and it becomes 48.39% democratic to 49.37% gop (i left out the libertarian/green/independents), which is pretty much a wash as well.

in summary, i don't know what the heck is going on here, but it's deep into the fourth quarter and "i'm not sure if i'm comfortable with this going into overtime"