US Politics, January 2020. Because we hate ourselves.

i think they should. he obviously wants to speak. he just wants to be forced to speak. go ahead house, force him to speak!

my rep tweeted 'shopped pic of Obama & Iranian Prez. When called out on it, he apologized profusely and vowed to be more careful with what info he shares online. Lol jk here's his response:

Gosar later sought to deflect criticism with more tweets disparaging those who ridiculed him, especially in the media.

"To the dim witted reporters ... no one said this wasn’t photoshopped. No one said the president of Iran was dead. No one said Obama met with Rouhani in person. The tweet says: 'the world is a better place without either of them in power'.

"The point remains to all but the dimmest: Obama coddled, appeased, nurtured and protected the worlds No. 1 sponsor of terror. The world is better without Obama as president. The world will be better off without Rouhani."

as we all know, every time you tweet a pic that is NOT 'shopped, it's customary to label it as such. Otherwise, everyone just assumes every pic is 'shopped.

sometimes I am amazed that this shithead was voted into office...but then I take a look at some of my neighbors and it makes more sense

"The world will be better off without Rouhani." Does Gosar know that Rouhani wasn't the one who was killed? Also Rouhani is relatively moderate as far as Iran goes? And also Rouhani doesn't have much power? fuck Gosar to death.

n.b. Bolton said he would comply with a _Senate_ subpoena, not a House one.

Because the gop majority Senate is not going to subpoena anyone, certainly not him, this is pretty much like saying you'd accept an invitation to become queen of England.

Exactly

even if he does testify and brings the goods "you can't impeach the president, we're at war now"

n.b. Bolton said he would comply with a _Senate_ subpoena, not a House one.

I get the reasoning but I think i think Bolton would look extremely bad if he didn’t comply with a house subpoena, especially if they subpoenaed him in response to the senate not doing it.

I agree, if the senate won't commit to it, the house should definitely subpoena him, and take him to court if necessary

Bolton is very careful to differentiate among those he thinks will disapprove of his statements or actions. He will continue to duck any House subpoena on his previously stated grounds, because he doesn't fear reprisals from Democrats. otoh, keeping in the good graces of the Republicans will ensure him a comfortable future, a good income, continuing political influence, and probably another stint in a high official position.

Bolton’s offer to testify is only so he can publish his book without getting blowback

the GOP, a study in contrasts

Natl Security officials gave a compelling briefing to Senators just now. They answered every important question.

Anyone who walks out & says they aren’t convinced action against #Soleimani was justified is either never going to be convinced or just oppose everything Trump does.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 8, 2020

vs

Mike Lee calls Iran briefing “probably the worst briefing at least on a military issue I’ve seen,” adding that it was “insulting” to be told by administration officials not to debate merits of taking military action

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 8, 2020

A ticked off Mike Lee says the Iran briefing was so bad it changed his mind on Kaine’s war powers resolution, and now he’s going to support it

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 8, 2020

lool

“I walked into the briefing undecided. I walked out decided,” @SenMikeLee says announcing support for Dem war powers resolution. @RandPaul agrees.
Lee’s words describing briefing: “.. un-American, unconstitutional ... wrong ... insulting ... completely unacceptable.”

— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) January 8, 2020

I'm kind of curious what happened to make it THAT bad

lmao spicy

There's more: @MikeLeeforUtah says that after today's "stunt" (aka the briefing he's not happy with), "I'm willing to consider and introduce any and every war powers resolution."

— Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) January 8, 2020

Lindsey Graham grabbed his ass

Oh come on, like that's never happened before

Republican senator Mike Lee blasts the Trump administrations post-Iran briefing, says they were told they could not dissent from Trump, couldn't debate it, and if Trump needed justification to go to war "I'm sure we could think of something" pic.twitter.com/bfyPqoSf8c

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) January 8, 2020

Fox News cut away from Republican Sen. Mike Lee as he excoriated the Trump admin’s Soleimani briefing as “probably the worst briefing at least on a military issue I’ve seen.” pic.twitter.com/736Qtd6bWZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2020

New Matmos record leaked:

58 times. He sniffed 58 times during his address. Here are all of them. pic.twitter.com/GoAIfsfdLd

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 8, 2020

Someone who's been on camera his entire adult life and doesn't know how to back the fuck off a mic. One of the very few rudimentary skills anyone else in his shoes would have mastered long ago.

Is it a really important detail to know how many times he sniffed

he sniffs when he's racked up in order to try and seem sane and coherent for a camera

I mean this is just basic stuff

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/30/I_move_away_from_the_mic_to_breathe_in.jpg

Meagan Daily has lost her mind:

The populist mood persisted and found expression on the Left. There was Occupy Wall Street. There was Black Lives Matter. And then, most fearsome of all, there was the Bernie Sanders campaign, with its unexpectedly popular message of democratic socialism — even in Fox country. It was up to a few clever conservatives to rethink the movement’s strategy. The smartest among them have always known that conservatism’s long-term survival hinges on preventing the working-class portion of its base from heeding the siren song of the Left.

Enter Donald Trump, a man apart. A billionaire, yes, but one who had little reverence for the stodgy experts whose graphs proved the struggling worker was a loser worthy of his lot. Trump spoke of the need to stay out of costly and stupid military adventures while people back home struggled to put food on the table. He promised to stop trade deals that bled jobs from whole regions, leaving husks of towns beleaguered by poverty and drug addiction and engulfed in gloom.

Trump spoke of the need to stay out of costly and stupid military adventures... He promised to stop trade deals that bled jobs...

Trump definitely spoke those things and promised those things, but he spoke ten times as much about his stupid border wall and how nasty immigrants were and how deceitful journalists were and how Chy-nuh was our enemy and how amazingly astute he was. Those other things were just sidecars to the main issues of racism, xenophobia, and hatred of liberals.

New Matmos record leaked:

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, January 8, 2020 5:17 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

this is fine

NEW: Today Trump will propose rolling back a bedrock environmental law, exempting projects without significant federal funding from environmental reviews that have been required for 50 years. By @eilperin and @brady_dennis https://t.co/7V39YDZdSA

— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) January 9, 2020

sounds tailor made for his wall

Good morning!

not sure how to reconcile the fact that 1) most people think a prominent supreme court attempt to repeal the ACA this year would be bad electoral politics for the GOP, and so only worth doing if you expect to win the case 2) quite a lot of the GOP seems to be operating on the assumption that the case doesn't stand a chance.

"The entire ACA is unconstitutional because the mandate penalty remains law but is currently $0!"

"Cool story, guys. Anyway, we're expanding Medicaid under the ACA."

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 9, 2020

somebody's the mark here, and given the tx state gop is involved, i like to think it's them. but who knows.

“I will send them over when I’m ready,” Ms. Pelosi said at her weekly news conference on Thursday morning, “and that will probably be soon.”

this is weak sounding as i feared it would be, but i'm glad that it's happening now and not in late february or something. the potential gains to be made by waiting to send the articles were 1) extract concessions from senate GOP/mcconnell on additional witnesses, 2) hope that news reveals more trump corruption, 3) pressure senate GOP swing votes to either do something responsible by not standing in lockstep opposition, or at least get them to make clear their fealty to trump ahead of the election.

they didn't get 1), they got a little bit of 2), and if there was an effort to make 3) happen it seems to have passed without incident

And in a bid to signal to Ms. Pelosi that her time was running out, Mr. McConnell signed on to a resolution introduced by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, that would alter Senate rules to allow the impeachment charges to be dismissed without a trial if they are not delivered within 25 days of House approval.

impeachment articles were approved dec 18. 25 days is ~ january 12. this coming monday. well, she held onto them as long as she could, i guess.

what would not be weak? No snark intended.

xpost

it's not her fault at this moment, it's the situation they find themselves. there's not really a strong way to rephrase it.

I thought a POLITICAL GENIUS could come up w/ something

she has an Obama 9-dimensional chess set at home

this pretty much nails it

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7IUnVnFKhU/?igshid=fp0flmpci849

good morning!

mcconnell has told gop senators to expect a trial next week, apparently

'How has your life improved since you intentionally decimated your genital region with a disc sander?'
'Mm...eh, y'know...mmmrrmmmm ehhh huhhhhhnnnnnnggggggh GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHI don't know, it just has. It just has.'

Quite the nugget in this WSJ story --->

"Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said" https://t.co/3xxLFJ6XTk

— Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) January 10, 2020

hmm, wonder if this could possibly related to known warmonger lindsey graham somehow hearing about the plan to assassinate soleimani days before the strike, on a golf course, despite none of the democrats being briefed about it

so at least sticking with Obama on this amirite

#US to #Iraq: We’re staying. pic.twitter.com/bnliyZY9O1

— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) January 10, 2020

Narrator: He was not a force for good in the Middle East.

YES WE ARE. and we will stay until everyone sees that. they will thank us in the end!! after they pay back the trillions they owe us for the forcing of good that we did

and we take their oil

the dinosaurs were Americans

*** MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ***