At the risk of stating the obvious, the July 2019 US Politics Thread is horse-sh*t

They (and the ranking members) knew for weeks that Rob was gonna be a Zombie yet they didn't strategize?

oh Alfred

Allow me my fifth-rat jokes. It's 2 p.m. and half my students haven't shown for evals.

i feel like the "strategize" part should have been replaced with another Rob Zombie reference to really make the joke sing

wasn't giving Genius the clicks

https://www.thelittlechimpsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/fiveratschimp.jpg

FIFTH RAT JOKES

see the fifth rat? He's sniffing for bad jokes

1. Thank you for going there.
2. Thank you for going there to a high level of cuteness and quality.

making sure he's defeated by the minimum 4-5% popular vote margin to secure the electoral college, of course, which is no guarantee that democrats would win enough in enough gerrymandered districts across the country to make gains in the house

Dems won the popular House vote by 8 points in 2018, so a 4-5% win for Trump's challenger would probably mean the House keeps their majority but it shrinks a little. Of course incumbency helps, people split tickets, etc., but Dems just had a really good election, picking up a lot of the seats it's feasible for Dems to hold, and it's hard to see them making their majority much bigger absent a really big blowout win at the top of the ticket (which is certainly not impossible.)

can i pre-emptively whine about how much i especially hate mcconnell in the future version of the world where democrats win the white house + house but not the senate, and politico is reporting that mcconnell convened a GOP leadership meeting the night of election night 2020 to declare that their number one priority was defeating Pres. __, etc etc. that's like the best case scenario world right now too

i feel like a guy who is addicted to smoking compost, envyingly eyeing the guy addicted to chewing found cigar butts

buttz*

Had I known as a child that things like opposite day and the absurd fictional terrorist organization called Cobra were, in fact, brown acid visions of a future America, I would've been a whole lot more agnostic about the wisdom of drinking stuff with a Mr. Yuk label on it.

Then watch the following clip as if Destro were McConnell and Cobra Commander were Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8eZ7yuGJFo

"You psychotic sibilant of a dolt!"

ftr, adam schiff sucks and should be primaried from the left

My admiration for Schiff has, until now, been based on his ability to form complex, grammatically correct sentences which embody actual thoughts and ideas. This is such a refreshing contrast from the average House member that he appears as a paragon of rationality when placed in their company.

Schiff and to a lesser extent Nadler was terrific yesterday.

https://gizmodo.com/trump-appears-in-front-of-photoshopped-presidential-sea-1836687973?

what the fuck

Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for being unable to act. Sweden has let our African American Community down in the United States. I watched the tapes of A$AP Rocky, and he was being followed and harassed by troublemakers. Treat Americans fairly! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019

can't wait for another round of idiot right wingers claiming this DESTROYS the racist narrative

"Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM" is Amistad worthy.

Apparently in Trump's world "fairness" is treating US celebrities better than local crime suspects because USA has done "so much" for Sweden.

Btw, the guy they beat up is apparently a Middle Eastern asylum seeker, so I'm not sure if any kind of racist narrative can be easily attached to the whole story.

might be part of why Trump is so eager to free him as well

legit impressed he figured out how to make his phone do an umlaut

you mean Dan Scavino did

Obvious this was coming after that initial 'very talented..' set up.

Apparently in Trump's world "fairness" is treating US celebrities better than local crime suspects because USA has done "so much" for Sweden.

his thing is telling other people and countries that they owe him, and if they don't give what he demands, he more confrontational.

he is the most unfairly treated president in united states history, and most unfairly treated person in human history

he ^gets^ more confrontational

Meanwhile: pobrecito!

Tonight I tweeted a pic of a Georgetown party hosted by @maureendowd, attended by @SpeakerPelosi, @SenSchumer and DC journos. In the old days it would’ve been a benign big-shot brag. No more. It was viciously ratio’d by left and right. I deleted it. All establishments are hated.

— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) July 25, 2019

100% serious here: is that qanon stella woman mentally well? she sounds like she can barely talk.

Errrrr,

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/25/danielle-stella-republican-ilhan-omar-charged-felony-qanon-trump

A criminal complaint filed to Hennepin county district court alleged Stella was seen leaving the store without paying for most of her haul, after “scanning only a few other items” that were valued at about $50.

The complaint said Stella told police in a statement she “remembers arriving at Target to purchase items but nothing else” due to post-traumatic stress disorder, and that she “normally she goes to Target with someone because of anxiety around people”.

triggered much, snowflake?

Officers in nearby Bloomington then arrested Stella on 28 April after she was allegedly seen by security staff at a Cub Foods grocery store stealing a bottle of tick spray for cats, and placing other items “under her purse so that they could not be seen”.

I think, at a bare minimum, she should seek counseling for kleptomania

(She's the one who stole a former staffer's personal laptop, isn't she?_

Stole/kept, yes.

I'm not sure how things work over there but can anyone just say they're running for Congress? Don't they have vetting procedures or selection committees or anything?

Ah yes the uk, where relatively few criminals are in office.

Anyone can run in the primary (which is what Stella is doing -- she's facing other GOP candidates ATM) provided that they file an application correctly.

As for vetting, that's what the party does when they're looking for a candidate they specifically support (with money, donors, staff, etc.) in a race; an unvetted candidate is basically running outside of the establishment system.

(xp) Not so much the criminality as the 'anxiety around people' and the, er, rest.

just being a conspiracy theorist is worthy of DSM classification imo

will chuck todd or maggie haberman have anything to say about the 'optics' of mitch blocking election security bills on the same day as

Russian Hack of Elections System Was Far-Reaching, Report Finds

i mean i hate the 'this is outrageous and should be leading every newscast/paper in america' genre but

xps What Leee said.

Generally, anyone registered with the state elections office as a member of one of the two major parties may pay a fee to file as a candidate for office in that party's primary election. The winner of the primary election becomes that party's candidate in the general election. The exceptions to this are very few and hardly worth mentioning.

Minor/third parties often choose a different method to place their candidates for the general election, often through calling a party convention where the attendees select the candidates.

i'm still slack jawed from the President of the United States responding to the detaining of a Harlem rapper with "Sweden should focus on its real crime problem!"
can't stop being terrified about how impressionable this guy is BY ANYBODY. Guarantee you the first time he had heard of A$AP was via a Kardashian and a day later he's prepared to cause an international incident over him. it's madness.

I'm almost literally holding my breath waiting for the first world leader to respond to him with anything close to "Shut up, you idiot."

Instead, they just gossip about his stupidity at G-7 and G-20 summits whenever he's not in the room.

Oh, that's 100% guaranteed. I just want one of them to do it into a hot mic while he's standing right there.

Merkel's got a great burn book.

Relative to Latinx and people from the Middle East idk if it’s better or worse that Trump has juuuuust enough regard for African Americans to deeply patronize them at every opportunity.

Vote for me, I freed all the rappers! You people love the rap music, right?