US Politics, May 2020 — I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.

Just saw a commercial for this on TV--it's quite real. Where to begin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgvzUeEe9Bo

Where to begin?

by providing your credit card info! I WANT THAT

Good morning!

Like clockwork, even the NYT reporting on Kushner's comment about "postponing" the election as if he is actually someone responsible for that decision, thus giving it legs. The predictability is infuriating.

tbf John Roberts has yet to cast the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision whether or not Trump has to actually do what the Constitution says

My COVID posting has been minimal as of late--ran out of things to say--but I genuinely don't get this.

http://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/index.html

I don't get it in a broad more than a specific sense: it seems that they're essentially saying no public health emergency can ever be serious enough for government-enforced regulations.

executive orders != laws passed by the legislature

xp the wisonsin supreme court is extremely right wing, the justices were ranting about tyranny during the hearing

really happy wisconsin voters elected jill karofsky to the supreme court april 7 to replace daniel kelly

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/497697-fbi-serves-search-warrant-on-sen-richard-burr-amid-stock-trading-scandal

that's an la times story, the hill is an absolute trash website that makes the world a worse place, and the la times just furloughed a bunch of reporters and needs subscribers. here's the la times story https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-13/fbi-serves-warrant-on-senator-stock-investigation.

it seems that they're essentially saying no public health emergency can ever be serious enough for government-enforced regulations.

You have to understand that some members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court see their job as adjunct to the leadership of the state GOP and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. They are not taking seriously the idea that they need to respect precedent, nor do they intend to treat their present ruling with any respect if a future Republican governor is in a similar position. What I've learned is that you have to stop treating their arguments as if they are arguments.

funny how they didn't distinguish between tyrants and dictators, i thought those judges were supposed to be highly educated

Sad little detail there at the end of the LA Times sorry that I didn’t know about:


Under the STOCK Act, lawmakers are required to disclose their stock market activity but are still allowed to own stock, even in industries they might oversee.

The law passed the Senate in 2012 in a 96-3 vote. Among the three senators to oppose the bill was Burr.

Busy night. Lots of happenings on the Flynn case as well. Looks like the DOJ withheld information from the judge pertaining to interviews they held in their search for a justification to drop the case.

Today's shower thought: The only language some people understand is violence... and I don't speak that language. This is very frustrating to me.

BREAKING FROM LAT:https://t.co/XSEeESGrXp

— Kimbriell Kelly (@Kimbriell) May 14, 2020

It’s happening?

Burr has stepped down from his position of chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. i'd like to say that should be expected, but honestly, these days, it's kind of surprising when the GOP is shamed into admitting mistakes

haha, xp

I'd bet McConnell's language & position toward Burr is going to get much harsher after Labor Day, which is when Burr's resignation would no longer trigger a 2020 special. At that point, it's an "the earlier he's out the better" situation for the GOP heading into 2022. https://t.co/LKleo2rROo

— Taniel (@Taniel) May 14, 2020

This is the result Trump wanted.

Burr at least feigned objectivity in that role, wasn't a Nunes-level idiot, was *relatively* sober

no doubt his replacement will be yet worse

what's the deal with a Repub winning Katie Hill's old congressional seat in CA?

Expected, I think.

If Burr resigned, would his replacement be appointed by the Democratic governor?

Hill was the first Dem to win that seat in eleventy-hundred years or something; naturally, the headlines have all been like "GOP win spells doom for Dem hopes in fall"

Hill was the first Dem to win that seat in eleventy-hundred years or something; naturally, the headlines have all been like "GOP win spells doom for Dem hopes in fall"

Politico was particularly absurd in this regard, I think, but they always are.

I mentioned on the CA politics thread that particular district CA25 is still a sore spot for many Angelenos as it's where the Rodney King trial was moved to, leading to the acquittal of the 4 officers charged and subsequent weeklong riots 28 years ago... it's def not the democratic stronghold that people assume it is, as rob notes above.

Yup. Not the end of the world or particularly surprising.

Levine brilliant on the burr stuff as per

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-14/senator-s-stock-trades-make-trouble

I believe that due to an obscure clause in the Constitution, all political disputes related to someone named Burr need to be settled by single combat, to the death

it is time to update the constitution to reflect the realities of our changing world: all duels must now be fought with medieval morning star weapons, and no armor

thanks for the clarifications, guyses

I mentioned on the CA politics thread that particular district CA25 is still a sore spot for many Angelenos as it's where the Rodney King trial was moved to

go to Simi Valley and surely
somebody
knows the address of the jury

pay a little visit
"Who is it?"
"Yo, it's Ice Cube. Can I talk to the Grand Dragon?"
then boom

wait, no: Grand Wizard

makes u think

Trump on coronavirus cases: "When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases."

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 14, 2020

Trump has cured cancer by banning cancer screenings

March 7:

“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it,” the president went on. He started talking about his tour of the CDC he’d taken before his talk to the press. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

They didn't call him sir????????

I think sic is trying to be cute perhaps, but:

TO MOST PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIVE HERE, SIMI Valley rhymes with “Rodney King.” The 1992 trial of four LAPD officers accused of beating the African-American motorist was moved from politically charged Los Angeles to this western Ventura County oasis of golf courses and man-made lakes. When the four cops were acquitted, Los Angeles went up in flames, and Simi Valley became synonymous with white racism, white flight, white cluelessness but, above all, white cops because of the high number of law-enforcement employees who called the town home. For every big city, there's a bedroom burg known for having a large share of its police officers living there — Riverhead on Long Island, say, or Novato in Northern California — but Simi's extraordinary population of those in uniform has made it a fabled Copland. If, as Andrew Kopkind wrote 35 years ago, Orange County was the Bavarian heartland of Reaganism, Simi Valley may well be its Prussia.

from https://www.laweekly.com/copland/

The Kopkind quote is rich as it did not foresee neither Reagan's presidency nor his library that would be established in currently CA25 Simi, a white-flight bookend of Nixon's OC.

House Democrats are significantly scaling back the student loan forgiveness provisions in their $3T coronavirus relief package, citing concerns about the cost: https://t.co/h56VehjUsK

— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) May 14, 2020

Slaaaaaay

https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/5d27878/2147483647/resize/817x/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fa4%2Fc3%2Fef3927cf4dcab33da46e810d4003%2F200514-trump-ap-2-773.jpg

Are Dems in danger of spreading apathy among sectors of the electorate they need to vote for them if they don't fight for moneys they said they would.
Just really hoping people aren't going to turn around in November and think it's more of the same old same old.
I guess at least one side isn't a narcissistic psycho but still think they need a pull factor. & seen some really dodgy decisions made by the leadership.

less and worse make-up than Cesar Romero's Joker

more, I meant

I guess at least one side isn't a narcissistic psycho

wait, which side is this

🐦[House Democrats are significantly scaling back the student loan forgiveness provisions in their $3T coronavirus relief package, citing concerns about the cost: https://t.co/h56VehjUsK🕸
— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) May 14, 2020🕸]🐦

Hey look I found a tweet that perfectly encapsulates the current US ilx politics threads zeitgeist

It's a one party system pic.twitter.com/XF8DPEQWdr

— AlwaysAngryinNJ☭Prosecute ICE (@NJRedRev) May 14, 2020

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxxvk/senate-votes-to-allow-fbi-to-look-at-your-web-browsing-history-without-a-warrant

Vote to remove this amendment failed by one vote. Thanks for not showing up, Bernie.

xp that's an odd response to the previous post. And it's not wrong.

this is a minor sideline item in the annals of 2020, but i just want to memorialize a very rare moment: mitch mcconnell has admitted he was wrong about something!!!!!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) backpedaled on Thursday night after accusing former President Barack Obama administration of leaving President Donald Trump unprepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was wrong,” the GOP leader told Fox News host Bret Baier. “They did leave behind a plan.”

“So I clearly made a mistake in that regard,” he added.

During a virtual Trump campaign event on Monday, McConnell had made the false claim about the Obama administration, which has been manufactured by Trump in an effort to shift blame for his own administration’s feeble response to the outbreak.

“We want to be early, ready for the next [pandemic], because clearly the Obama administration did not leave to this administration any kind of game plan for something like this,” McConnell said on Monday.

Former Obama administration Ebola response coordinator Ronald Klain and Obama administration deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes pushed back on the senator’s claim that same day.

“We literally left them a 69-page Pandemic Playbook…. that they ignored. And an office called the Pandemic Preparedness Office…that they abolished. And a global monitoring system called PREDICT…that they cut by 75%,” Klain tweeted.