US Politics, December 2019: Profound procedural deficiencies

She added that her vote was "not a decision of neutrality" but that she was "standing up for the people of this country and our ability to move forward together."

but this holiday season, in order to stand up for her country, one veteran is standing down by refusing to be neutral and voting present instead

I just want to make it clear to anyone who may have missed it, that Tulsi Gabbard has never been relevant to US national politics. This may become clearer by contemplating AOC's impact, which has been largely at the level of symbolism rather than passed legislation or influence on Congress, and yet AOC's national relevance has been several orders of magnitude greater than Gabbard's.

agree, I can't think of a single defining achievement of hers

all in all, it looks to me like Gabbard is attempting to pull off a Palinesque leap into prominence, based on her looks and a handful of memes.

why would you slam Michael Palin like that

j/k I agree, she is a pretty woman with rad hair and completely stupid, conflicting, and wrong opinions on almost everything.

wonder if she’s still popular in her district? I’m guessing her national profile keeps challengers at bay but holy fucking lol if she got beaten in 2020

primaried*

She already announced she’s not running for re-election for Congress in 2020

well yeah, she has to clear up time to be a full-time leftist commentator on fox news

john lewis has stage four pancreatic cancer

Rep. John Lewis diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/29/politics/john-lewis-pancreatic-cancer/index.html

Oof. That's grim. Hope the treatment is successful.

aw f*ck

and people still say biden is the most electable candidate, when we are already at "lock her up ii: ukraine edition"

Wow—quite the start to @JoeBiden’s second event in NH. A man from the back of the room calls Biden a “pervert” and accuses him of touching women and children, before a second man asks Biden where the money is he and his son “earned from Ukraine” from the other side of the room

— Molly Nagle (@MollyNagle3) December 29, 2019

(maybe goes in the primary thread instead of here; it's still very alarming how much of this potential oncoming disaster is in plain sight

There very unfortunately seems to be some overlap between Bernie and Tulsi supporters so if he’s the nominee I don’t think she’d peel away any support but I do think she could siphon off votes from Biden.

agreed. all they need is a story to hammer into the ground, esp one that claims to refute the raison d'impeachment.

xp

That Twitter feed is so damn gross. If he's the nominee the only answer is, "Who cares what his piece of shit son does?"

not sure if you mean the reporter or the people there but either way, the answer is the same people who care deeply about the security policy followed for governmental emails

Can we just nominate some MMA fighter person to win the cool vote and then have Bernie Sanders surgically implanted in his or her head

Yeah, the commenters. I'm steeling myself for July. Xpost

Not too late for Liz to name The Rock as her running mate

xp

they'd at least win MTV's Couple of the Year

according to Jacob Wohl he's definitely her type

(maybe goes in the primary thread instead of here; it's still very alarming how much of this potential oncoming disaster is in plain sight

i have a worry about this as well, but you know what they say: it's in the future! so

but... let's say this happened in the past: biden wins in...2020 1920 and the republicans (albeit in the minority) endlessly create benghazi 2: joe biden in ukraine edition. meanwhile the rest of the country completely forgets about what happened with the preceding administration, elects a bunch of republicans in the 2022 mid-term and bidengate/impeachment frenzy overwhelms the next of the biden's term. then, in 1924, the washington baseball team wins the world series after winning just 92 games during the regular season.

its not necessarily joe biden's fault, and the gop is going to manufacture a scandal about whoever gets elected because what else are they going to do? govern in good faith? hahahahahahahaha. but with biden the impeachment bullshit would arise instantaneously, even before his inauguration

NEW: Bolton, Pompeo and Defense Secy Esper met w Trump in the Oval Office in August to try to convince him it was in US interests to release military aid to Ukraine. Trump refused. https://t.co/IZG2rTjrQY via @NYTimes

— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) December 29, 2019

IT. WAS. A. PERFECT. CALL.

there is no price comrade combover is unwilling to pay in order to fight corruption

Our prayers are with the families of the victims and the congregation of yesterday’s church attack. It was over in 6 seconds thanks to the brave parishioners who acted to protect 242 fellow worshippers. Lives were saved by these heroes, and Texas laws allowing them to carry arms!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019

Thought we weren’t supposed to politicize these things

how abysmal and horrifying that there is a growing group of americans that consider taking a gun into a church their civic duty

how even more abysmal and horrifying that the president of the country thinks this is a positive thing. this fucker hasn't been in a church outside of campaigning since well before he got involved in public office.

Twitter: Republican VP, GOP VP!
Centrists: That's not what Joe really said!
Joe Biden: pic.twitter.com/behX3GZnVF

— #BeTheMedia 🔥 (@Bernie_Or_Vest) December 31, 2019

Um

yeah, idk. if the democrats would like to run joe biden as their candidate good luck to them.

but did you see how close to obama he stood for those 8 years? look at his record of standing near a president.

The DNC will have so much egg on their face when they nominate Biden. Thank goodness they'll be the only ones impacted!

it's very strange that he's the resilient centrist, seemingly, and not someone like harris, beto, booker or mayor pleat

why?

there's just something about that old, white, straight, party-line man that makes him appealing to the dems. it's a mystery!

How odd that an old white male former Vice President with a long Senate career is more favored by people voting for stability and predictability in the presidency over a first-time non-white female senator, a 1-term Representative, and the mayor of a wholly irrelevant city.

jesus, Treeship

Jesus is #yanggang

https://completejoy.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/jesus-with-boy-on-bench.jpg?w=768

l-r: Jesus, treeship

Jesus/Treeship the unity ticket

the mayor of a wholly irrelevant city.

they should put this on the screen whenever he's on tv

The United States Postal Service shipped more than 13 billion pieces of mail and packages this holiday season. But now that gift-giving has abated, the agency, which falls under President Trump’s jurisdiction, is facing another deadline: find a new Postmaster General by January 2020.

The new leadership will be handpicked and approved by the Postal Service’s Board of Governors: a group of five men (mostly with investment banking and private banking experience), three of whom were appointed by Trump, along with the current Postmaster General and her deputy.

Once the new leadership is in place, the board will also be tasked by the Trump administration with creating a package of large, structural changes intended to help the ailing Postal Service. Those changes will likely include privatizing and selling pieces of the public service off, according to the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), which represents more than 200,000 current and retired postal employees.

In 2018, Trump issued an executive order to create a postal task force, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The group was charged with figuring out how to make the postal service a more profitable entity. They recommended that the agency roll back collective bargaining rights for postal workers and sell off pieces of the service to private industry.

https://fortune.com/2019/12/27/usps-privatization-postal-service-going-private/

i.e. mail whatever you need to mail now because we're about to fuck ourselves in our own ears and lay off millions of government workers without any alternately applicable skillsets

idk, mailbombs might prove useful