US Politics, December 2019: Profound procedural deficiencies

There should probably be laws against the formation of political dynasties but I'm not sure who would pass those laws.

IMO fuck that noise (but I've said this before)

yes, voters should be smart enough to choose wisely. or not believe what they see on the webz, which is why i dobt esp but the horrors of 'roll farms.' Then again, we're a nation of dopes.

truly great piece from @ddayen on pelosi's pathetic drug pricing bill. the lengths her office has gone to in trying to crush even the tiniest efforts to make the bill good are insane https://t.co/fTO40OA29N pic.twitter.com/9Sl4lRLB1A

— guy fieri 2020 campaign manager (@libbycwatson) December 6, 2019

BREAKING: The U.S. House of Representatives just passed #HR4 to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and end voter suppression. This is a monumental moment. pic.twitter.com/JcRJmySrrH

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 6, 2019

Look at those vote totals.

you can see Biden's long arm reaching across the aisle

Ah Amash. Truly a beacon of integrity in politics. Hates Trump, loves voter suppression

GOP wouldn't exist on a national level at this point without the bag of magnificent tricks (of which voter suppression is but one).

"personal responsibility!"

go die in a fire you fucking traitor

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) says that Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine black Americans in a Charleston church in 2015, "hijacked" the meaning of the Confederate flag.

"Here is this guy that comes out with his manifesto, holding the Confederate flag, and had just hijacked everything that people thought of," Haley said on "The Glenn Beck Podcast" Thursday.

"People saw it as service and sacrifice and heritage, but once he did that, there was no way to overcome it."

I know Nikki Haley is pale and all but does she just not care that these people would cheerfully have abused and murdered her back in the day, too?

that just got her the RNC nomination in 2024

Well luckily Roof was a lone hijacker, and that will never happen again.

That is such an incredibly moronic take I just can't even.

Nikki has hitched her wagon to the Party of Lincoln Unambiguous Racism and must either go along or get out.

Wow, can't believe Dylan Roof became the living embodiment of tainted the sacred meaning of the Confederate flag, so rude.

one thing i learned from Jane Mayer's Dark Money is that Glenn Beck (and Mark Levin, among others) used to receive large payments from the many "foundations" supported by the koch brothers. that doesn't seem that unusual, sadly, but what's really fucked up is that in return for the payments, he agreed to work in koch-sponsored messages into his main broadcast, without telling the audience that they were straight from the koch brothers.

FreedomWorks, it was later revealed, also had some hired help. The tax-exempt organization quietly cemented a deal with Glenn Beck, the incendiary right-wing Fox News television host who at the time was a Tea Party superstar. For an annual payment that eventually topped $1 million, Beck read "embedded contend" written by the FreedomWorks staff. They told him what to say on the air, and he blended the promotional material seamlessly into his monologue, making it sound as if it were his own opinion. The arrangement was described on FreedomWorks' tax disclosures as "advertising services."

i know i should be used to this stuff by now, but i'm amazed that beck is still on the air, that anyone can go on his show without ridicule, etc.

"loe jeeberman" cracked me up for some reason

REPORTER: Who's your starter?
BELICHICK: We signed a veteran from the Turkish league, Tmō Bardy.
BRADY: [in black beard, caftan]
Merhaba.

— Lupus Haas (@Mobute) May 11, 2015

Trump expresses frustration about water efficiency, says sinks don’t have enough pressure and people have to flush toilets multiple times. He says he has directed the EPA to look at opening up water standards. It’s called rain, he says, referring to states with lots of water. pic.twitter.com/pwvzqULeGB

— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) December 6, 2019

President Burger Bucket wants the EPA to relax "water standards" because for some inexplicable reason it takes more than one flush to get rid of his hideous greaseturds

I think this is the best piece I've read on impeachment so far:
https://www.salon.com/2019/12/06/impeachment-and-the-democrats-how-will-they-screw-this-up-let-me-count-the-ways/

I didn't make it past the first paragraph, which contains this painfully hilarious mischaracterization

Bolton... who is now a private citizen and has always been a blast-hardened neocon Republican, and who is clearly eager to roast Donald Trump’s gizzard on a fork and then eat it,

Bolton declined to testify, he's not eager to do shit unless compelled by a Court ruling, which will take forever.

Greased trumpturds, whoa greased trumpturds

xp he's covering his ass, but he seems like he wants to testify.

Bolton probably wouldn't mind roasting Trump's gizzard, but he won't do it unless his ass is completely covered by legal compulsion all tied up with a ribbon. Then he can say the nasty Democrats forced him to eviscerate Trump. Because he knows doing it voluntarily would burn all his bridges and he'd like to weasel his way back into future administrations.

^^^

personally I find all the hand-wringing about how Dems have handled impeachment ridiculous. First the left were all pissed that Pelosi wasn't moving fast enough, now they're pissed that after she did jump on it she didn't manage to pry any support out of the racist mouthbreathing no-info voters that comprise the GOP and their representatives. Let's be clear here: there's pretty much *nothing* the Democrats (or Trump, for that matter) could do at this point - either procedurally, rhetorically or politically - that would make anybody cross party lines on impeachment. No amount of evidence or publicity stunts or impassioned speeches is going to crack McConnell and the GOP base's grip on the party. This process has driven that home. The GOP will never, ever ditch Trump. And since they control the Senate, it's a foregone conclusion that this isn't going to remove him from office. And since it's a foregone conclusion people are starting to pay less attention/not care about it.

I don't think this is a good outcome, but it's pretty much the only outcome that was possible.

you can't rule when you're in the minority, that's just a fact. all you can do is obstruct.

that salon piece sucks ass

the worst thing about this is that Trump now knows he has carte blanche to completely ratfuck the 2020 election and he definitely will do his best

I think about this "lesson" fairly often, seems apropos re: everyone that was screaming for impeachment over the summer:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EJKZhfxYMLw/UeJhmE89JNI/AAAAAAAAKBQ/GntxWROivxA/s1600/cerebus_066_throwing_babies2.jpg

By the way, can we stop pretending that whatever Hunter Biden was doing in Ukraine was fine and squeaky-clean and totally above board? That’s all a parenthesis, of course, and there’s no evidence that his dad was directly involved, even if the optics were kind of un-good. But Hunter was getting paid a one-percenter salary to do absolutely nothing because he was the vice president’s son. If you are truly committed to constructing that as “well, he didn’t do anything wrong,” you're either a shameless party hack or you've been thoroughly gaslit by end-stage capitalism. Probably both.

no one has said this

skimmed the Salon piece, don't see any obvious suckitude.

no reason not to put as much of the Grifter's malfeasance into impeachment, except whatever the Blue Dogs are calling themselves these days won't stand for it.

Pelosi is very obviously a typical Dem hack, that's how she got her job. (look at her lousy drug bill)

yr posts are more like Trump tweets every day

a couple more exclamation points and yr done

yours are more like Trump turds bwahaaa you fell into that one pal

skimmed the Salon piece, don't see any obvious suckitude

First warning sign: It was published on Salon.

Bolton probably wouldn't mind roasting Trump's gizzard, but he won't do it unless his ass is completely covered by legal compulsion all tied up with a ribbon. Then he can say the nasty Democrats forced him to eviscerate Trump. Because he knows doing it voluntarily would burn all his bridges and he'd like to weasel his way back into future administrations.

object lesson works better with the page before included Shakey

"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers, and other elements of bathrooms," Trump says.

"People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once." pic.twitter.com/asDjGxuFts

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 6, 2019

the odd thing about it is how serious he is! if he delivered the whole thing in a mocking parody voice, it could just be seen as a really long joke about toilets. not the cutting edge, but pretty good for trump. but he's so serious! but not in the nathan fielder dumb serious way, just in the dumb dumb serious way

Trump thinks that poor flushing in a toilet is connected to water pressure? Not in any of the ordinary toilets for home installation I have ever seen. Those flush from a filled tank of water, which then refills after the toilet has flushed. All that could be accomplished with higher water pressure would be refilling the tank faster.

Obviously, a man who was born rich and has never done any low-fi plumbing at home is unlikely to know such stuff, but you'd think someone would explain it to him. Actually, I'm guessing someone tried to, but he didn't listen.

it's a situation where they're also looking very strongly at other elements of bathrooms as well, though

the president has no clothes

and has to flush about a dozen times, many are saying

We just don't have worthy turds

"it's not you, sir. it's EPA's terrible regulations on water pressure for toilets. we will look into it. very strongly."

Trump probably remembers the bitter complaints when the six gallon flush toilets were replaced by the first wave of rather underpowered six liter toilets, about 4 decades ago and thinks this would still be a hot issue for his base, resenting the un-American eggheads and tree-huggers who did away with mega-toilet tanks.

"Flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once" for January title.

It's beyond parody! The President is filling his toilets full of shit and he doesn't understand why he can't make the doody go away so he held a press conference!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfP_e3hsb4

He's very sad and concerned. So many White House toilets have been utterly obliterated.

The gold leaf just gets stripped off, like some corrosive substance is being dumped into the bowls.

i'm guessing he personally mishandled toilet complaints from residents at his father's properties

Flint still has lead in its water. jfc