US Politics June 2021 - "Where we're going, we don't NEED bipartisanship"

It took about 5 minutes of googling to figure out the difference between the two, btw

At any rate, Ocasio-Cortez working out a deal with someone who voted the same way she did on 92% of the votes in the previous Congress and 98% of the votes in the current Congress isn't a stretch or even remarkable; it's relatively easy to work with someone who has the same goals as you.

It took about 5 minutes of googling to figure out the difference between the two, btw

Good grief.

The openly racist neoliberal caucus and the merely tacitly racist neoliberal caucus, keep them straight. Yeesh.

My congresswoman is Pressley

meanwhile a cold wind blows b/w the ears of Mr. Bipartisan.

Manchin said he's open to backing several provisions in bill, including declaring Election Day a holiday.
But in return for his support, Manchin wants to require ID to vote. Dems are engaging him. The goal, Kaine told me, is to get “50 out of 50” Dems. https://t.co/vfVGyJ9k7f

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 16, 2021

Breitbart's angle:

Geneva Summit Diaster: Biden Gets Nothing

Putin Gets Away with Everything…

Trump got prostitutes to pee on that bed

Since it looks like Juneteenth is heading towards being a national holiday, how many years will it be until some company starts doing "find your freedom away from high prices sale" for that weekend?

click the refresh button in your email box in about 30 seconds

did i miss this here the other day?

Calling all unapologetic Americans to join me and become a Pipehitter. https://t.co/KO15jutDPi

— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) June 15, 2021

i want to say that i already used the Pipehitters Local 420 joke on twitter, so it is off the table

My life was empty, forever on a down
Until you took me, showed me around
My life is free now, my life is clear
I love you sweet leaf, though you can't hear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EiUmBgljsY

The pipehitter thing is extra funny because I assume spec ops bros initially picked it up from Pulp Fiction thinking it meant badass instead of “insane crackhead.”

Prominent voting rights activist Stacey Abrams said Thursday that she could “absolutely” support compromises floated by Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), the lone Senate Democrat who is not sponsoring a sweeping elections bill in the chamber.

A three-page memo circulated by Manchin’s office this week indicates the centrist’s willingness to support key provisions of the For the People Act, the marquee Democratic bill that the House passed in March — including provisions mandating at least two weeks of early voting and measures meant to eliminate partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. But Manchin’s memo also sketches out several provisions that have historically been opposed by most Democrats, including backing an ID requirement for voters.

During an appearance on CNN, Abrams was asked if she could support such a compromise.

“Absolutely,” she responded. “This is a first and important step to preserving our democracy.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/17/joe-biden-live-updates/#link-IPBBWPLQVJHQPBE4Q3AWC3CVHM

sure, but will 10 republicans agree?

no, i'm sure. but maybe their refusal to agree with even good ol' compromising manchin will (finally) be the final nail in (finally) the (FINALLY) COFFIN on Manchin's delusions of compromise?! FINALLY

I just wonder if the surviving historians of tomorrow will recognize or overlook Manchin's (and, sure, also the other dem senators using him as cover) instrumental role in wrecking the shit out of this country.

definitely not, because my military garrison of vigilantes will defeat both the Machines and the Pipehitter Patriots at in what will be known as the 20-Minute War, due to how bad they all exploded and how quickly it happened, and we will write the history and replace everyone with other people and pretend it never happened. We will hide those secrets deep in the pyramids, just so that whoever finds them will also be into a lot of other weird things too and they won't be fully believed

One thing I do like about the GQP in the social media days, these a$$holes have no problem with telling you what they really think now.

Rand Paul-

The "idea" of democracy and majority rule is what "goes against" American's history and values, claimed Paul. "The Jim Crow laws came out of democracy. That's what you get when a majority ignores the rights of others,"

Thomas Massey- (LIKE MOTHERFCKERS CAN'T READ A CALENDAR AND TELL THE DIFFERENCE)

"I fully support creating a day to celebrate the abolition of slavery, a dark portion of our nation's history," Massie said on the House floor Wednesday. "However, naming this day 'National Independence Day' will create confusion and push Americans to pick one of those two days as their independence day based on their racial identity."

He added: "Why can't we name this Emancipation Day, and come together as Americans, and celebrate that day together as Americans: black and white, all colors, all races, all ethnicities, and then come together on Independence Day, which celebrates the creation of our country throwing off an oppressive government."

Stephen Miller-

Stephen Miller, in a statement issued when the organization filed the lawsuit on Monday, quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and said the legal challenge was America First Legal’s effort to carry on the fight against discrimination.

“For this reason, AFL is filing a lawsuit today against the Biden Administration to prevent it from administering programs created under the American Rescue Plan Act that discriminate against American farmers and ranchers based upon the basis of race,” Miller said.

The plaintiff, Sid Miller, and the lawsuit argue that white ethnic groups such as the Irish and Jews that have experienced bias are unfairly excluded. The lawsuit also questions who would qualify as a racial minority since neither the law nor the Agriculture Department sets any thresholds for blood lineage.

I do wonder about the legality of those farm subsidies tbh. But fuck Stephen Miller. And uh Rand Paul the Jim Crow laws WERE PASSED EXPRESSLY TO RESTRICT DEMOCRACY you unbelievable dipshit.

I don't think there is any doubt that the USDA did decades of racist crap and if there are cases where Jews or Irish or Native American or Asian American farmers got screwed, then they should get their day too.

But that is not really what these scum bag lawyers are doing...

https://i.imgur.com/SL4h2Wt.png

high and low humor, i love it

I learned that about pussies long ago, especially the ones around the block

A thread:

I’m sorry, I know some folks don’t like hearing any criticism of him. But this royally sucks. I’m disgusted. A lot of us worked hard to tee him up to restore ethics to government and believed the promises. This is a a real “fuck you” to us—and government ethics. https://t.co/NRuc7hpOHi

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 18, 2021

I want competent nepotism, unlike what I get in Miami-Dade County.

Walter Shaub criticized the previous administration, but didn’t go off like this with them

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/31/trump-ethics-chief-walter-shaub-kleptocracy

ok, but reading that article, this seems like really small potatoes compared to the last four years

It’s still bad.

It’s still bad.

Schaub no doubt has his own agenda, but it should be called out regardless. I hear there are lots of jobs open at restaurants, maybe they could go there instead.

Sorry, Shaub.

this guy continues to know what's up

Rep. Ronny Jackson: "We have redistricting coming up and the Republicans control most of that process in most of the states around the country. That alone should get us the majority back." pic.twitter.com/DEuIIDjDdW

— The Hill (@thehill) June 18, 2021

I support nonpartisan district drawing, but at this point I think the blue states that have adopted it should scrap it and go back to hard partisan gerrymandering. It’s just unilateral disarmament under the current conditions, and since SCOTUS has already said it’s not going to touch the issue there’s no obvious end in sight.

good morning!

Without trying to handwave, I think there's a lot of 'fighting the last battle' going on already on the GOP side in terms of mindset, per Jackson's quote. There's an overriding assumption that everyone who voted for Trump in 2020 are going to do the same equivalent in 2022 and 2024 both, and I don't really buy that -- complete abandonment, sadly obviously not, but the effect of the RW complex talking to itself convinced that everything will repeat one-to-one has been telling.

Yeah I thought it’s been shown that there are hordes who don’t show up to the polls for Rs if Trump isn’t on the bill.

There’s also a horde of Democratic voters who showed up because Trump was on the bill, of course.

Jackson's specific point is that they can gerrymander their way to a House majority in '22 regardless of anything else. Which is probably true. Anything can happen etc., but lots of things are in their favor on that. My state (which voted 60-40 for Trump) is likely to go from 2 Democrats in our 9-person legislative delegation to 1. That's going to happen in all the red states.

There’s also a horde of Democratic voters who showed up because Trump was on the bill, of course.

Because of Trump, yeah. In a normal year Doug Jones still would have lost to the child molester by 12 points.

It's the money, they need to get more transparency on who is putting this cash into the elections. At some point in the 80s, someone just realized you can just buy into any of these elections.

I had a 300 level campaign finance class in Polisci in the early 90s and the prof made us go and use this dial up on the 'internet' to log into the Gov website to download campaign finance donations and research it out. He stated 'we would understand why' in a few years...being the internet. But the thing that was wild I could remember as I had do reporting based on some of the house races in my local district, which I can remember how low the total amount of cash being spent on campaigns - it was chump change compared to now. I remember Andy Jacobs (D) in Indy spent only like 5-8k on his whole campaign, now he had been in office for a couple decades at some point and was near retirement, so people knew who he was.

But the thing that changed was that someone for the money realized this and I think it just became a race to bottom to dominate the money to the point now the GOP is often largely often not able pick their candidates (more than the Democrats that have work harder to raise same funds). There are more than a few house members and governors where pretty much their daddy or benefactor pretty much bought them into office.

McConnell and Co. with Citizens United pretty much broke the dam, and there is so much money sloshing around - pretty much the only thing that matters is raising money. And if the powers that be are putting up money for these show ponies, they better f'ing perform and they do.

I don't see anything changing or improving until this gordian knot can be untied. I think the phrase I remember being used was money in campaigns is like water, you might stop it one way but it fill find a way to flow. I sadly think it is just going to end up in America bungling further into incompetent totalitarianism. Too much rot in the foundation, house won't hold up.

so the plan is to bring up this new manchin-approved voting rights legislation, let mcconnell completely stonewall it, then manchin (and national joke sinema) won't allow the filibuster, and then it dies. and the big plan is for this to demonstrate to well-informed americans that it's the republicans and mcconnell who stand in the way of bipartisanship. this way in 2022 americans will all vote in the midterm and remember who really stood in the way of progress, leading to a strong democratic majority for 2022 on.

NICE FUCKING PLAN!!!!!!

an alternate plan would be to get rid of the filibuster and pass some shit

take it to the "so not going to happen" thread

Can't get rid of the filibuster without 50 votes + Harris. It's still the same dog chasing its own tail.

president manchin, vice president sinema

taking a stroll down memory lane this morning and reading about the 2013 Supreme Court decision to gut the Voting Rights Act (5-4 conservatives, of course). and the transparent LUDICROUS reasoning that Republicans would cooperate with Democrats to pass new Voting Rights legislation, as if the core project of conservatism wasn't suppressing the rights of anyone who isn't straight, white, and christian.

But, writing for the court’s majority, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said that America is not the country that it was a half century ago when the Voting Rights Act was passed to end a century of attempts by former slaveholding states to block blacks from voting.

“Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote.

But Democrats have accused Republicans at the state level in recent years of enacting a series of measures intended to suppress the vote of minority groups likely to support Democratic candidates.

Just last week, the Supreme Court struck down an Arizona law that required people registering to vote in federal elections to show proof of citizenship, a victory for activists who said it discouraged Native Americans and Latinos from voting.

Tuesday’s decision placed the burden on Congress - sharply divided along party lines to the point of virtual gridlock - to pass any new voting rights law like the one sought by Obama.

...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, on Tuesday pledged to move quickly to try to restore voting rights protections after the ruling.

“I intend to take immediate action to ensure that we will have a strong and reconstituted Voting Rights Act that protects against racial discrimination in voting,” Leahy said.

Republicans were largely silent on the court’s ruling. Neither House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner nor Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican, had any immediate comment.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-voting/supreme-court-guts-key-part-of-landmark-voting-rights-act-idUSBRE95O0TU20130625