US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

elsewhere on the intertubez, not news but a nice reminder of what's what here in the US of MAGA ~

1. The issue whether Kavanaugh told the truth is crucial here, irrespective of one's opinion of the testimony (or claims) against him. It's pretty clear he did not tell the truth, yet the party of "morality" and "honor" will put him on the court. The quality of the testimony or proof presented by others is totally irrelevant to this question; Kavanaugh's testimony had more holes than swiss cheese, the Mets' infield, and the Giants' offensive line, combined.

2. The defense of Kavanaugh's demeanor and temperament only confirms the overall affirmative action program that still exists for the privileged. Simply stated, a high school dropout who has never held a steady job or had a break, wrongly accused of crime, behaves that way in court and he's held in contempt and doing jail time for behaving exactly the way Kavanaugh did.

But Kavanaugh is "wrongly accused" therefore had the right to hold his questioners in absolute contempt. And accordingly he's going on the Supreme Court where he'll pass on the contumacious behavior of his lessers,

and, of course,

get on with the business of ending "affirmative action."

pomenitul is a Canadian dairy farmer and I claim my five

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Saturday, October 6, 2018 9:30 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's not canadian, but he sure as hell gives off the same smugness you see in a lot of canadians that talk shit about america. the typical canadian knows jack shit about america because they are fed news reports by canadian news agencies that repost/reword news articles from major american news outlets, which are already far disconnected from the regular american

he's not canadian

Um, what do you mean by this?

most of the canadians i know IRL know more about US politics than the average american

^ yep.

xp

i'm talking about canadians who live in canada obviously

me too

well i live in vancouver and the dumb things canadians say about america is endless

fa and karl both have fair points - there's definitely a vibe in Vancouver that are shit doesn't stink vs. the U.S. which is not correct.

Rep. Jim Renacci, the Republican Senate candidate, defends flying on strip club owner's plane to meeting with faith leaders https://t.co/I2jxqtvmZR

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) October 6, 2018

hypothetical time: if it was possible to go back in time to just before blasey ford came forward, and convince her not to do it, would you do it?

positive outcomes of her coming forward:
- serves as an inspiration for many survivors, helped to push a difficult but essential "national conversation", #metoo, etc
- possibility that kavanaugh's influence on the court will be diminished in some ways, at least for a while
- prominently solidified the party identify of republicans as giant fucking assholes

negative outcomes of her coming forward:
- demonstrated clearly to survivors that the people running the country don't give a shit about them, even as they claim to be moved by their stories
- civil war 2 doomsday clock moves closer to midnight as more people realize just how evil republicans actually are
- continued demoralizing evidence that aggressive lying defeats compassionate truth, at least in the short term
- according to some reports/polls, significantly increased republican voter enthusiasm while having a milder effect on democrats (who were already highly "enthused", relatively)

??? outcomes of her coming forward:
- led to several red state democratic senators to vote against kavanaugh who probably would not have otherwise (will this hurt in midterms? or hopefully lead to more support from left-leaning people in those states who typically feel forgotten?)

-----
given all that, would it be better to go back in time and just erase all of that? hopefully it's obvious that i'm not blaming ford. what she did was extremely courageous. the GOP and state media are the villains here. it just seems like the nightmare scenario might be taking place - not only did her coming forward not stop kavanaugh, but it might have led to a number of other things getting "worse". personally, i think that this is all very painful but necessary step toward something that's better - it's necessary to confront our national demons head-on. but in some ways that argument also feels like #accelerationism. i guess it depends on who is actually confronting the demons in this country.

I'd argue that second guessing the consequences instead of just doing the right thing in the moment is what has hamstrung the progessive movement in the US, so yeah I agree with your 2nd-to-last sentence there

i mean, ethically i think i would feel compelled to just apprise ford of what ended up happening and leave the decision up to her. it's her life and her trauma, not mine.

sadly, even i cannot identify my second to last sentence there, lol
xp

oops 3rd to last, before the accelerationism

feel like I'm gonna be trying to wrap my head around "we believe Dr Ford, but we don't think he did it" for all eternity

we believe she was assaulted by bart o'kavanaugh, not the next supreme court justice

Press them on it and it basically has to be some variant of the Whelan doppelgänger theory.

Republicans control the Senate by a 51-49 margin, and Saturday’s vote seems destined to be nearly party-line. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is the only Democrat expected to vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is opposed, but says she will vote “present” as a courtesy to another Republican who will be absent for his daughter’s wedding.

looks like the private plane of physical assaulter gianforte won't be needed to transport montana senator daines to cast the deciding vote for sexual assaulter kavanaugh. great job congress

i would go back in time and plead with democratic leaders not to embrace the stories of the 2nd and 3rd accusers until and unless their stories had been appropriately vetted. i would get on feinstein's case to deny being the source of the leak vigorously the instant someone said the word "leak," not weeks later. i would ask the democratic senators to actually listen to kavanaugh's testimony and call him out in real time on every little thing he got wrong, like those "four" "witnesses" who "denied" ford's allegation, instead of just sitting there. i would go back and ask all pseudo-liberal commentators and op-ed writers not to start their columns with such easy targets as michelle goldberg's "Obviously, I believe Christine Blasey Ford..." like, what happened in 1982 might have been obvious to michelle goldberg, but it wasn't obvious to anybody else. i would ask the democratic strategists to for god's sake think about what they're doing before they do it, and think about things that could be used as memes against them, so that they don't keep handing gift after gift to donald trump. i would ask them to study and devise strategies against their opponent's tactics. i would invent some democratic strategists.

the dems' and the media's constant silence in the face of lies is pretty infuriating, i mean i feel like people are just unprepared with the facts to counter lies at any given moment, so they can just be steamrolled over in the moment and then their later meek rebuttals land barely a glancing blow if that.

One’s experience of how “the dems and the media” are treating this seems widely variable according to what outlets & channels you follow

i do realize it's extremely difficult to factcheck people whose baseline is lies and misdirection and blame-shifting

today's political climate sometimes seems like an evolution of "movements" like the bush-era climate deniers. you could argue facts with them, you could patiently explain the various ways they were clearly wrong, you could scream your head off or attack the underlying institutions that empowered them. but in the end, they would retreat to places like Watts Up With That (a climate denial blog which was also the most popular "climate change" site on the internet) and re-arm themselves with their own set of facts and build each other up in the comment sections. we're contending with a combination of a relatively small number of people (and bots) acting in bad faith and then then millions of people that they completely succeed in fooling

EXCLUSIVE Chief Justice Roberts has received many misconduct complaints against Kavanaugh from a fellow judge based on Senate comments. In tense confirmation, he did not referr them to a judicial panel for further investigation. Me w @amarimow @thamburger https://t.co/gi9GYh2y4H

— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) October 6, 2018

poor john roberts, obviously so worried about kavanaugh diminishing the integrity of his court

i know no one will want to watch this final vote, but the protesters screaming while pence repeats "the sgt at arms will restore order in the gallery" is absolutely CHILLING.

they keep interrupting the vote, too

There's a massive hotel workers strike going down next door to my office and it's the only thing keeping my spirits afloat right now.

feel like I'm gonna be trying to wrap my head around "we believe Dr Ford, but we don't think he did it" for all eternity

― frogbs, Saturday, October 6, 2018 12:33 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we believe she was assaulted by bart o'kavanaugh, not the next supreme court justice

― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, October 6, 2018 12:45 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The hit is complete.

the US is currently empowering fascism all over the world

― pomenitul, Saturday, October 6, 2018 10:45 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

incredible how cluelessly facile this is

if you think trump is anything other than a symptom of the rot at the heart of the global order you've clearly not been thinking very hard for the last decade

modi and erdogan and putin and duterte would be delighted to hear they're all trump's fault

Fire every NYT dude

One big political Q, to me: does cementing a 5-4 conservative majority also cement Trump’s alliance with traditional R leaders more securely than ever, or does it open the possibility for conflict by removing the most important goal linking them?

— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) October 6, 2018

Too clever by half.

Yes, McConnell and Ryan need his ability to excite the monsters, but McConnell and Ryan have been courting monsters for well past a decade.

I agree with the latter part, but you misread me. Empowering and generating are two different things. My frankly uncontroversial claim is that Modi, Erdogan, Putin and Duterte's positions have all been strengthened, to varying degrees, by Trump's presidency.

xps

McConnell and Ryan are monsters.

When you get a job at the New York Times, do you shove the ice pick into your own temple, or does HR do it for you?

I agree with the latter part, but you misread me. Empowering and generating are two different things. My frankly uncontroversial claim is that Modi, Erdogan, Putin and Duterte's positions have all been strengthened, to varying degrees, by Trump's presidency.

... and Orban, Salvini, and every other tinpot fascist prick on the planet.

Precisely. See also: Steve Bannon's European Tour™.

no idea why these goons would think that this fight galvanizes one side without the other.

“I want to thank the mob, because they’ve done the one thing we were having trouble doing, which was energizing our base,” McConnell says. Time will tell. https://t.co/zUHEzoYUSB

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) October 6, 2018

McConnell presser happening now.

He's touting the bipartisan opioid bill as an example of what the Senate can still do when "both sides get together." I read about the bill on Thursday but don't know if it's any good. Anyone?

I don't think NYT dude's question is at all unwarranted. Certainly the GOP will be in lockstep with Trump for the time being, but since they got what they wanted out of having a dipshit reality star installed as POTUS, don't be surprised if they see the tide turning against them and they throw him to the wolves. These motherfuckers' loyalty hinges entirely upon self-interest. That said, since the dems taking the House won't be enough in and of itself to make Trump a GOP pariah, I'm not holding my breath that'll happen anytime soon. Just keep praying for that presidential embolism!

Certainly the GOP will be in lockstep with Trump for the time being, but since they got what they wanted out of having a dipshit reality star installed as POTUS, don't be surprised if they see the tide turning against them and they throw him to the wolves.

This isn't the finish line. The finish line is a 9-0 right-wing court. The finish line is a means test for the rights currently "guaranteed" in the Constitution. The finish line is no taxes on anyone making more than $100,000 a year. The finish line is the total elimination of all forms of social insurance. They'll ride with anyone who helps move them toward the finish line, for as long as it takes. Once he's out of office and can't help them anymore, he'll be disappeared just like W or Bush I, but until that day, he's their god-king.

no idea why these goons would think that this fight galvanizes one side without the other.

problem is, one side was already galvanized

My frankly uncontroversial claim is that Modi, Erdogan, Putin and Duterte's positions have all been strengthened, to varying degrees, by Trump's presidency...

It's unclear to me how much Modi's position has been strengthened by either Trump or Brexit, actually. I'd be interested to hear more about this. Modi and Trump had one good meeting but I thought the relationship grew shakier since then:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44639927
https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2018/march/united-states-launches-wto-challenge

I haven't heard anything about what Brexit means in terms of Modi's position in India.

Brexit is custard-pie-in-the-face farce so I doubt it's empowered anyone.

unclear to me how much Modi's position has been strengthened by either Trump or Brexit

I don't think pomenitul is thinking at all in terms of practical politics or accretions of useful power when he claims those proto-fascist leaders have been "empowered", but because those are exactly the terms upon which proto-fascist leaders operate, they would find pomenitul's claim about their empowerment to be wholly theoretical and more or less worthless.