US Politics, February 2020. They want to kill your cows.

This is the U.S. Courthouse in Austin, Texas, designed by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, a husband-and-wife firm based in Atlanta. Maybe you like it—maybe you hate it.

The White House proposal to ban modernist federal buildings mentions it by name. https://t.co/FdySKF991b pic.twitter.com/ydHk5SpNUp

— .@kristoncapps (@kristoncapps) February 6, 2020

Great thread there.

The Treasury Department has broken the law for three years in denying Congress from seeing Trump's tax returns. Now they're giving documents on Hunter Biden to GOP senators.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/06/targeting-newly-emboldened-trumps-enemies-may-have-begun/

The Attorney General has notified federal agents and lawyers that they cannot open investigations of any presidential candidates, their campaigns, or advisers without his approval.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/barr-says-no-investigations-2020-candidates-campaigns-without-his-approval-n1131836

Unidentified ICE officers shot a dude in the face today while beating up another dude who is in the country legally, then blamed the NYPD.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/06/ice-agents-new-york-shooting-brooklyn

Think it's time we start working extralegally

Fuck

xp might as well, they sure are

good morning!

so did we note that the Grifter said to Steve Scalise yesterday, "You might've set a record for blood loss"?

"If the right people hadn't been there we might be celebrating something else today"

celebrating the death of steve scalise? ok, cool

not sure where to put this but this is the funniest thing I've seen in years

https://www.reddit.com/r/daverubin/comments/ez6rxi/larry_king_thinks_so_little_of_rubes_show_that_he/

Larry king is still alive is my first learning tbh

FOX reporting the big stories

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQMQElsXkAMkC21?format=jpg&name=large

Elsewhere in Fox, a canary flutters:

Fox News’ own research team has warned colleagues not to trust some of the network’s top commentators’ claims about Ukraine.

The 162-page document, entitled “Ukraine, Disinformation, & the Trump Administration,” was created by Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy, who produces research from what is known as the network’s Brain Room—a newsroom division of researchers who provide information, data, and topic guides for the network’s programming.

impeachment witness who confirmed the quid pro quo got fired, for some reason

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/politics/alex-vindman-donald-trump-impeachment/index.html

key passage:

His twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, a National Security Council attorney, was also fired and walked off the White House grounds alongside him.

paranoid about a sitcom-style identity switch

Sondland mist got fired too. No surprise there. Man that guy is an asshole

mist = just

Rig & B*tch

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, February 6, 2020 4:27 PM (four days ago)

Trump's election strategy, in a nutshell.

Interesting article here (from an anti-Trump conservative website) about how health care could fuck him in November. Note that the dream budget he released today abolishes the ACA.

abolishes the ACA

when you're a celebrity president they let you do that

it's great that no matter how good the healthcare programs we get are, they can be destroyed by one republican wrecker-ass president and will never last longer than 8 years.

Chris Hayes killing it in his opening monologue on the received wisdom of Trump's strength.

and Bernie's weakness

I listened to hayes’ ep and as said on other thread, my takeaway is “why the fuck is tom prez running anything?” his feelgood ‘we’re larnin’!”, with no reasonable evidence to support it is so, was infuriating to me, an old. wtf is that, he got a cv that should at least point to competence, but i doubt that.

just listening on to that ep, in this case to plouffe shortly after, made me wonder, “well, this guy sounds informed and actually credible, is he available to run dnc?” and of course that impulse is ignorant, because I don’t know that type of party shit. But has there been discussion of a new leader for the DNC?

the funny thing is that the first time I ever heard of Mayor Pete is when he was jockeying to lead the DNC, and iirc he finished a distant third behind Perez and Keith Ellison.

ust listening on to that ep, in this case to plouffe shortly after, made me wonder, “well, this guy sounds informed and actually credible, is he available to run dnc?” and of course that impulse is ignorant, because I don’t know that type of party shit.

Plouffe looks frighteningly cold-blooded. I saw that interview too.

ha i only heard it, so i did not witness his blood-temp. on the phones he just seemed ~informed~.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I can only imagine Larry David being delighted at Trump being fooled by this bit <a href="https://t.co/FHGcsJtsgw";>https://t.co/FHGcsJtsgw<;/a></p>— Andrej (@AndrejNkv) <a href="

I can only imagine Larry David being delighted at Trump being fooled by this bit https://t.co/FHGcsJtsgw

— Andrej (@AndrejNkv) February 11, 2020

sorry i botched the embed there

The DOJ is changing its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, according to a Senior DOJ official.
“The Department finds seven to nine years extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate," the source said, adding the DOJ will clarify its position on sentencing later today

— Jake Gibson (@JakeBGibson) February 11, 2020

this whole nonsense about trumps personnel change and flynn case motions is freakin me out for real.

the doj is downgrading roger stone's sentence to 'adding an angry frown onto the richard nixon tattoo on his back'

'adding a grin and a thumbs up'

This is why no one should ever be caught saying "It's all good."

it's not fair if all mr. trump's sharpest advisors are in jail for the 2020 campaign

yea Trump not getting what that CYE bit was about is pretty par for the course (see also: Pompeo tweeting out the image of Lisa tearing up her essay)

this on the other hand...not only does it make no sense but Trump seems to be RT'ing an account claiming Bloomberg is racist because he hangs out with Trump?

Mini Mike is a short ball (very) hitter. Tiny club head speed. KEEP AMERICA GREAT! https://t.co/5DUj16jtZf

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020

also noticed trump committed the most unforgivable sin of calling a white guy racist for supporting policies he himself was a fan of in 2016 in another tweet today

they think racism is over and everyone should "get over it" and it's horrible to throw around accusations of racism...unless they're able to do exactly that to their opponents. I'm beginning to think they're just a bunch of disingenuous assholes!

The GOP president could hold a press conference where he levies unfounded murder accusations against a democratic political rival while simultaneously bludgeoning a man to death with a length of pipe on camera. This isn't hypocrisy, it's tribalism.

Unlike Democrats, who do everything they can to frustrate justice with red tape and endless rules, Republicans just follow the simple, commonsense standard that it's not murder if the dead person deserved it.

Stone's prosecutor just resigned, very cool that we just allow the POTUS to interfere with sentencing now

maybe Rudy will win an Oscar next year! like Jojo Rabbit

https://news.yahoo.com/giuliani-storms-back-into-ukraine-investigation-with-hunter-biden-documentary-163027638.html

Three Stone prosecutors have now resigned. Jesus.

Oh sorry, I see that one left the DOJ completely. The other two just quit Stone's case. Still.

lmao Trump is gonna openly fuck with the election and no one's going to do a thing about it

I think it's safe to say that President Trump has learned his lesson and has been chastened and dare I say humbled by the experience of his impeachment. It's mourning in America!

I can't wait for the vigorous head shaking and finger wagging when he calls off the election.

So maybe the right response for this is for me to just step away from the thread and not read it. Twitter too. But -- I really really don't want people to laugh hollowly and say "well I guess that's it for democracy, election's gonna get cancelled amidst modest harumphs of disapproval from elected officials and journalists," and the reason I don't want people to do that is it makes me feel like shit and it makes me feel like there's no point and it makes me feel like giving up, which is not, I know, anyone's intention, but fuck, I am not ready to give up and I want to help other people not give up and I want other people to help me not give up. THE FUCKERS WHO ARE DOING THIS WANT US TO FEEL LIKE THERE'S NO POINT AND THEY WANT US TO GIVE UP. That is all.

cosign this sentiment about all the pointless black comedy nihilism on these threads

as Alfred and DJP have repeatedly pointed out in these threads, performative despair is white privilege in action

I've done it in the past, and now regret it