"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

Fascists making jokes:

It seems like a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet the New York Times's standards. pic.twitter.com/h4JMlUgh3y

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) August 8, 2020

Dowd is a self-made joke.

President Trump said if he is re-elected, he will look into terminating the payroll tax permanently! No explanation of how he would fund Social Security.

Also, will anyone contest in court the executive order to give out $400 (down from $600) in unemployment benefits via money that the White House is claiming they can shift from unpsent funds

tbf, the op-ed page is a joke

even if dowd were good, you can't expect her to deliver something (apparently without editing) interesting twice a week for 25 years. krugman can at least go wonky if necessary, but the whole edifice is self-perpetuatingly rotten

The thing is, Cotton thinks he's calling out hypocrisy but he's basically right, the same shitty process that led the Times to institutionally think it was required to let him wipe his ass on their page didn't go away is still in place shoveling other shit into our faces regularly

along with other stuff that is good

There is no positive balance to any op-ed page, abolish them all.

Dowd makes Gail Collins read like Molly Ivins

Executive Order and memos

1/ Evictions: No eviction moratorium or new rental $, asks HUD to "consider" if evictions should stop

2/ Unemployment: Uses $44B from FEMA to cover $300/week benefit for ~5 more weeks

3/ Taxes: Option to defer payroll tax payment, but w/o new law they'll still be due

FEMA money during Hurricane Season

I guess we can just Nuke the 'canes then.

IIUC the $300 only happens in states that chip in an extra $100

Triple Matched!

“The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop,” Sasse said in a statement. “President Obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with DACA, and President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law.“

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R) offered less harsh comments, saying that while he appreciated the president’s orders, he “would much prefer a congressional agreement.” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), blamed Democrats for failing to reach an agreement, but indicated he didn’t support the president circumventing Congress.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/511202-some-gop-lawmakers-express-discomfort-with-trump-executive-orders

President Trump said if he is re-elected, he will look into terminating the payroll tax permanently! No explanation of how he would fund Social Security.

Hey, remember Tulsi Gabbard? Well, you can forget about her.

BREAKING: Kaiali'i Kahele wins Democratic nomination for U.S. House in Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. #APracecall at 7:22 p.m. HST. #Election2020 #HIprimary https://t.co/lGfinkb1KC

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) August 9, 2020

wow

Well, she wasn't running.

tulsi has already left her old career as a legislator and launched he next career as a media figure. maybe she can join the Home Shopping Network as a presenter.

maybe she can be a proactive spokesperson (ok that was very bad)

why do evangelicals vote for trump, part 10334: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/evangelicals-trump-christianity.html

typical stuff, but this conversation jumped out at me:

The years of the Obama presidency were confusing to her. She said she heard talk of giving freedoms to gay people and members of minority groups. But to her it felt like her freedoms were being taken away. And that she was turning into the minority.

“I do not love Trump. I think Trump is good for America as a country. I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away under the guise of giving freedoms to all,” she said. “Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.”

She explained what she meant. “If you are a hard-working Caucasian-American, your rights are being limited because you are seen as against all the races or against women,” she said. “Or there are people who think that because we have conservative values and we value the family and I value submitting to my husband, I must be against women’s rights.”

Her voice grew strong. “I would say it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him. And I would argue that point to the death,” she said.

She felt freer as she spoke. “Mike Pence is a wonderful gentleman,” she said. “This is probably a very bad analogy, but I’d say he is like the very supportive, submissive wife to Trump. He does the hard work, and the husband gets the glory.”

There's a photo in that article showing a family, heads bowed in prayer, about to eat. A gallon of milk rests on the table. It's the saddest photo I've ever seen.

I am never leaving the city (I know, I know)

From the start it appeared an impossible contradiction. Evangelicals for years have defined themselves as the values voters, people who prized the Bible and sexual morality — and loving your neighbor as yourself — above all.

Donald Trump was the opposite. He bragged about assaulting women. He got divorced, twice. He built a career off gambling. He cozied up to bigots. He rarely went to church. He refused to ask for forgiveness.

It has to be tough for the author to pretend he's never met an evangelical.

He gestured to his front door. “You don’t lock the doors,” he said. “I never take the keys out of the car.”

Then he patted the stainless steel Smith & Wesson .38 revolver carried in a tooled leather holster at the small of his back - "But you can't be stupid."

I couldn't read that because it wasn't reported from a folksy diner. I have standards.

Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority.

Well, what's wrong with that? Are minorities treated badly or something?

tfw when you’re so worried that others, elsewhere, might be accorded one teenie tiny bit more respect and dignity than they have historically enjoyed that you find yourself voting for donald trump. hateful creeps. i hope they drown in a vat of black, gay, trans communist jism.

^ underrated Zappa album

Her voice grew strong. “I would say it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him. And I would argue that point to the death,” she said.

two options: submit or rule over.

yeah, the dichotomy is sorta telling there isn't it

lol this guy

"TikTok is not just China’s revenge for the century of humiliation between the Opium Wars and Mao’s revolution. It is the opium — a digital fentanyl, to get our kids stoked for the coming Chinese imperium."

— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) August 9, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBssFzSx6sI

od'ing on the digital fentanyl that is the first 15 seconds of Lottery

Poor Niall, forced to say crazy bad things just to get noticed on Twitter.

So if TikTok is digital fentanyl, is twitter honest to goodness old fashioned heroine?

heroin makes you feel good

Finally, some serious action from Speaker Pelosi:

August 9, 2020

Dear Democratic Colleague,

On this Sunday morning as we pray for the American people, I wanted to share “A Responsive Prayer for Justice.”

Pray for those who are hungry.

Pray harder for those who will not feed them.

Pray for those who struggle each week to pay their bills.

Pray harder for the wealthy who do not care.

Pray for those who are homeless.

Pray harder for those who deny them shelter.

Pray for the sick and lonely.

Pray harder for those who will not give them comfort.

Pray for those who cry out for dignity.

Pray harder for those who will not listen.

Pray for those oppressed by unjust wages.

Pray harder for those who exploit them.

Pray for those who bear the yoke of prejudice.

Pray harder for those who discriminate against them.

Pray for those whose basic needs are denied.

Pray harder for the public officials who cater to the greedy and ignore those bound unjustly.

Amen.

best regards, (unsigned)

https://giphy.com/gifs/bojackhorseman-3o7aCVYdxJUQmWI0z6

https://media3.giphy.com/media/3o7aCVYdxJUQmWI0z6/giphy.gif

Some good-ass legislatin', right there

Finally, some serious action from Speaker Pelosi:

btw, just a reminder that Speaker Pelosi's powers do not extend far enough to pass whatever legislation she or you might consider necessary for the good of the nation. Gestures like this one are something you may have heard about: propaganda designed to strengthen the political basis for taking "serious action".

Or maybe you haven't heard about this kind of political behavior before now.

I'm familiar with the behaviour of stealing other people's words and pretending that you wrote them, in a completely empty act of ostensible virtue signalling that actually make you look like someone with no appreciation of fairness, sure. (Are... are we going to talk about Shia LeBouef's short films now?)

Anyway, I don't think this made it onto the thread?:

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien on @FaceTheNation right now, in response to whether Trump has told Putin to stop meddling in US elections: “Unlike my predecessors, I don’t get involved in conversations the President has with foreign leaders.”

No kidding.

— Rudy Mehrbani (@RudyMehrbani) August 9, 2020

The former director of the CIA and NSA in response:

Holy shit. https://t.co/hrYMthaiJP

— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) August 9, 2020

xp yeah, definitely makes CHOP look pretty bad

btw today there was an anti-mask / pro-Jesus rally on the CHOP site, with hundreds of ppl gathering without masks and publicly baptising each other, and at least one baby, in a grotty tub. The mayor didn't send in one single cop to break them up, let alone hundreds of cops and National Guard to tear-gas them, though, so it'll probably look pretty... good? when the NYT writes it up.

cripes.

Ann Hathaway is Nancy Pelosi in....

PRAY HARD

That NYT article on Trump evangelicals in Iowa glosses over a key distinction: these aren't evangelicals, they are an incredibly small group of rural Dutch Calvinists. It mentions Dordt College, the site of Trump's 2016 rally being "named for a major church assembly in 1618 and 1619 that declared salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed", which is the exact opposite of the American Evangelical belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again". What difference does that make? It means that the people interviewed in this article believe that they are "God's chosen people" and live their entire lives attempting to demonstrate evidence that they are part of that chosen in-group, lest they be expelled from it. So, when they talk about their religious freedom being impugned, they're really saying that they've always lived in this insular environment where homogeneity = salvation, and the only way they can continue the faith of their fathers is to keep all outsiders out of it. It's telling that their ancestors fled the Netherlands over this same false sense of "persecution", the Dutch government wouldn't let them kick anyone who disagreed with them out of the country, so they came to these rural Iowa towns where they were left alone for 100 years, and now they're confronting the fact that embracing Trump's racism and misogyny is the closest thing they'll get to preserving their "religious heritage" in 2020.

That's a v good point.

I wasn't going to read that article but oh hell yes, Dordt College, I can attest the above is accurate.

That NYT article on Trump evangelicals in Iowa glosses over a key distinction: these aren't evangelicals, they are an incredibly small group of rural Dutch Calvinists. It mentions Dordt College, the site of Trump's 2016 rally being "named for a major church assembly in 1618 and 1619 that declared salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed", which is the exact opposite of the American Evangelical belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again".

i can see some disagreement about whether that congregation technically counts as "american evangelical" or not. i think their current state (bitter resentment and a false sense of overwhelming persecution) is roughly the same, though.

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

or...something like that. of course it's a hopeless jumble of contradicting ideas, but that's evangelicalism ime, and if the dordt college people ever feel too over-oppressed, they'd fit right in with thousands of other communities and churches that are virtually indistinguishable from them