U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

lol love just bringing yr mob lawyer right into the White House.

it'll be interesting to see what % of this first round of unlikely cabinet picks actually makes the cut

If the past 9 years have taught me anything it is to never underestimate the craven cowardice and blatant amorality of Republicans in Congress.

RFK will have to pry my Paxil out of my cold dead hands

After he's dropped you in Central Park.

What the nation needs now is more leaky whale heads

^^^ Can only hear that to the tune of “Teen Angst” by Cracker

in summary, Democracy isn't always pretty

What the nation needs now is more leaky whale heads

― velcromagnon (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, November 15, 2024 6:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

No not just for some but for everyone

RFK will have to pry my Paxil out of my cold dead hands

― Booger Swamp Road (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, November 14, 2024 11:58 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i take paxil too. i don't think he would interfere with people's access to it.

Might as well give Jill Stein a job

She already has one, and she only has to show up for it every four years.

It’s one of those Green Jobs

life will be ebola cherries

― felicity, Thursday, November 14

lads lads you slept on this one

It will be interesting to see how this plays out - attacking "big pharma" hardly seems a Republican rallying cry. Also I think Americans care much more about financial insecurity than freaking flouride

I dont think most Trump voters really understand what sorts of freaks are in his orbit

Seems like it’s time for all that oppo that we were told would destroy RFK in ten minutes to drop.

What the nation needs now is more leaky whale heads

― velcromagnon (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, November 15, 2024 7:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^ Can only hear that to the tune of “Teen Angst” by Cracker

― mildew and sanctimony (soda), Friday, November 15, 2024 8:01 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

like I need a worm in my head

Seems like it’s time for all that oppo that we were told would destroy RFK in ten minutes to drop.

he's been credibly accused of sexual assault, admitted publicly he dumped a dead bear in central park, talks about the worm in his head..... Unless he somehow was behind the murder of his uncle and father, I think this oppo is already out there

What the nation needs now is more leaky whale heads

― velcromagnon (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, November 15, 2024 7:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's the only thing that there's
just
toolittleof...

xpost I know, but as it goes these days none of that seemed to hurt him.

trump is our new frank sinatra

sorry just wanted to join in all the cracker fun

which is probably what a lot of non-white trump voters said as they walked into the polls

he dumped a dead bear in central park, talks about the worm in his head..... Unless he somehow was behind the murder of his uncle and father, I think this oppo is already out there

is this the lyrics to a Wire song?

RFK will have to pry my Paxil out of my cold dead hands

― Booger Swamp Road (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, November 14, 2024 11:58 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i take paxil too. i don't think he would interfere with people's access to it.

that's my take too. nothing will be done to break the flood of money to pharma as long as pharma shows they will get in line with the movement and the its leader. they will get in line because their obigation to shareholders is to maximize profits and their committment to management is to get them fucking rich.

i dunno, no education on it but when authoritarian power movers see the money, what "gets done" is farther from any line of rules or principles than other political movements afaict. so i think that when the administrative state is weakened eneough for pharma to get out of its hands, there will be NO move to limit our access to any drugs already out there. i'd expect there will only be a flood of new untested or ineffective or actually harmful shit flooding into "markets" and distributive networks and cash hoarding grift opps. if rfkjr has any real ideals and principles, and i don't believe he has anything other than stupid feels, he'll get put away fast. if he's a typical trumpy power striver he will do whatever he is told by his leader.

ha to the extent i am not actually educated on this shit, i guess i also am going on "feels" there.

Republicans want small Pharma

yeah i think, to the extent they perceive pharma as being cohesively lined-up with the govt admin state. and i would expect pharma as one "entity" would become less internally coherent and unitized. it exists as an industry response to the administrative state, doesn't it? if the latter is destroyed, the former starts to dissolve and weaken. but its constituent members don't, and i think small gov't republicans want them to be as free as possible (to get as rich as possible). then you let the invisible hand WORK FUCKING MAGIC.

further, the gop is not one thing, a lot are also authoritarian, government contracts maximalists, and that is another way to get richer-- and therefore free-er.

sorry, this has turned into stream of conscience hunt3r heuristics fest, i'm done for now.

heh i was just making a joke there (since they supposedly want 'small government'), they don't actually want that. RFK's position is more of a fringe left one

RFK not being a Republican is going to give license to some GOP Senators to not support him I think.

the opposition to the vaccine from the right was based on a few things:

1) they're already pretty anti-science
2) they were pissed off about businesses closing for a month so sowing doubt in the pandemic would help w/ reopening
3) "you can't tell me what to do"
4) it was a point they could use to win the election ('if Biden wins, you'll be jailed for not getting vaccinated!!!!')

when Ebola hit the US in 2014, the rhetoric was very, very different (for racist reasons). we had GOP Congressmen indicating we should ban flights from Africa, one conservative parent who got a teacher put on administrative leave because she'd been to Dallas and one person in Dallas had Ebola.

if you told them the vaccine would contain 10% Southpaw Light you might get some of them to take it

RFK not being a Republican is going to give license to some GOP Senators to not support him I think.

― Grape Fired At Czar From Crack Battery (President Keyes), Friday, November 15, 2024 8:28 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

not a chance in the world

I have a route plan for you on Inauguration Day, Bobby. it's one you might remember, from stories you heard in childhood.

(drake rapping in 2025) hey kendrick it's been a while. first of all it's "ephebophile" https://t.co/I4rED5HUR8

— chill n relaxed homie (@eagleman42069) November 15, 2024

Lol

We Don't Talk about Pedo no no no

the guy who followed Trump around pretending to be JFK Jr. has got to be steaming about the RFK adoption

What the nation needs now is more leaky whale heads

― velcromagnon (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, November 15, 2024 7:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's the only thing that there's
just
toolittleof...

― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Friday, November 15, 2024 10:07 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

big LOL

Dems have failed to make gains in the House over 3 elections but Jeffries and Pelosi and their caucus majority aren’t changing the leadership. Schumer is still Dems leader in the Senate. This Slate article asks questions about why we should trust the Dems current moderate leadership

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/11/trump-democrats-biden-kamala-harris-obama-pelosi-jeffries-schumer.html

They raised a lot of money, though.

Some interesting observations from a UNC professor about his students' engagement with the election and their media consumption habits in general, particularly with respect to what they find authentic/trustworthy. In short, hangout/shoot-the-shit podcasts YES, mainstream news articles and major celebrity endorsements NO.

(I'm reminded of that NYT focus group of younger voters that I posted the other day, in which someone said that Kamala going on SNL was a key moment for her in a negative way: "All her focus was going to entertainment industries and avoiding interviews. That came off to me as very phony.")

Thanks for that, Jaymc.

Also, wow.

While she “avoided interviews” early, she later did a Fox one and a CNN town hall one. Trump didn’t do CNN and never faced tough questions from Fox. Just from the Black Journalism organization. Most of the podcasts with big audiences are white Republican bro leaning .

attacking "big pharma" hardly seems a Republican rallying cry.

This caught my eye and I don't see anyone addressing it, so I will try.

The Republican Party to all purposes no longer exists. From November 8th going forward it is now the Trump Party. In the transactional world of Trump this attack on Big Pharma makes great sense if you consider it purely in terms of a shakedown.

As a president with a supinely compliant Congress Trump will have enormous power over Big Pharma and they know it. He doesn't give a fuck about RFK's brainworm ideas, but he knows that he can use them as a weapon to threaten Big Pharma into doing whatever he wants. Other than money, he doesn't even know yet what all he might want from them in the future. He's just setting up the relationship so that he is their unquestioned boss and they'll hop when he says jump. This is straight out of the Hitler/Mussolini fascist playbook.

Jaymc the prof you posted said :

(I vote every time I can because it’s meaningless rather than because it’s meaningful, a stance I’m happy to explain over a cup of tea but isn’t really relevant here

I would like to have a cup of tea with the guy and I note that I don’t think his article mentioned the loss of Roe v Wade , or which party has pushed tax cuts for the wealthy for decades, and why none of that seems to matter to him or his students

While she “avoided interviews” early, she later did a Fox one and a CNN town hall one. Trump didn’t do CNN and never faced tough questions from Fox. Just from the Black Journalism organization. Most of the podcasts with big audiences are white Republican bro leaning.

Yeah, but they present themselves as fora for open-minded discussion. It's not about subjecting yourself to a tough interview. In fact, the traditional network news approach to interviews with politicians, with their own formalized/staged conventions, would probably also be registered as phony. It's about having an unfiltered conversation where anything can come up and you can roll with it. People made fun of Trump asking Theo Von about cocaine, but it was also the most human Trump has seemed in years.

That said, I also think that "Kamala avoiding interviews" was a right-wing talking point that took hold with a lot of people.

podcasts have ruined an entire generation

I note that I don’t think his article mentioned the loss of Roe v Wade

The federal Democratic Party not (being capable of) doing anything about it, maybe? Absent a willingness to pack the courts and reverse Dobbs on the national level, abortion is a state issue and voters have routinely turned out to defend choice at that level but outrage alone isn't going to be much of a boost for a national candidate.

and why none of that seems to matter to him or his students

You're looking for a guy to be mad at who ultimately had zero impact on the Democrats losing.