"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

i will be eternally hateful

― mookieproof, Friday, August 7, 2020 10:28 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

HOT FREAKS!

― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, August 7, 2020 10:33 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

my mind went there instantly as well

Australian cities famously have hundreds of Thai restaurants with punning names like Thigh One On, Thigh Foon, Thigh Pan, To Thigh For, Thigh Riffic, Thighnamite, Thightanic, Thigh Me Up Thigh Me Down, Appethighsing, and EnThighSing.

NEW: Matt Lieberman, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Georgia, wrote a bizarre novel filled with racist tropes in 2018.

The president of the Georgia NAACP says he should drop out of the race.

Story w/ @ClaireEFallon:https://t.co/FScNTFKCav

— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) August 7, 2020

Here is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' John Hancock on @kanyewest's nomination papers. Sanders now apparently resides on Tripoli Ave. in Milwaukee. pic.twitter.com/rot32aqwn8

— Daniel Bice (@DanielBice) August 7, 2020

Mickey apparently moved to Milwaukee (I think?) as well. pic.twitter.com/7ysI3zMVI7

— That Clerk Rachel (@badachie) August 7, 2020

NEW: Matt Lieberman, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Georgia, wrote a bizarre novel filled with racist tropes in 2018.

The president of the Georgia NAACP says he should drop out of the race.

Story w/ @ClaireEFallon:https://t.co/FScNTFKCav
— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) August 7, 2020

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Friday, August 7, 2020 11:57 AM (six minutes ago)

In case you're wondering like I was, yes it's Joe's son.

speaking of awesome VP picks

sorry i meant to include that info

when you wrote "Joe" I thought you meant Biden, not another white male person who's 10 times worse.

Meantime, how to bury some Friday news unsuccessfully.

Liberty Univeristy President Jerry Falwell Jr. is taking an indefinite leave of absence starting immediately. pic.twitter.com/7f6oZMCgIj

— Richard Chumney (@RichChumney) August 7, 2020

"We urgently request Jerry Falwell, Jr. contract COVID-19 and die."

On Falwell, I'm having an internal conflict between "enjoy this" and "it won't make a damn bit of difference." Right now "enjoy this" is winning.

"I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out" is an A+ apology though

said somewhere else that I actually buy his explanation of the photo (no other explanation makes any sense), but since I hate him, I don't care; someone can go bury him the desert for all I care.

Anyay, stimulus talks collapsed (surprise); earlier the administration was talking about extending the $600/wk unemployment benefit for a few months until things got worked out, but this was rejected by the Dems; if he comes out and does an executive order for that and the direct payment again, any chances this makes the Dems look like assholes for not accepting the offer in the first place? I understand they're holding out for money paid directly to states and local governments.

if he comes out and does an executive order for that and the direct payment again, any chances this makes the Dems look like assholes for not accepting the offer in the first place?

On Fox News, sure.

By all accounts his Bedminster 'press conference' tonight was so bad even Fox cut away, directly to Tucker Carlson talking about Kanye as a man of deep thoughts about how to live a proper life.

Trump can’t write stimulus checks or extend the UI bump by fiat. Spending bills are still firmly out of his grasp.

Did u forget that he is a billionaire

Supposedly they want to loot the FEMA budget for UI money.. right when hurricane season just started

Friday Night Massacre at the US Postal Service, with Trump postmaster general getting rid of 23 USPS executives as a "sweeping overhaul of the nation's mail service." https://t.co/3lbWPJnt1e

— Ken Layne (@KenLayne) August 7, 2020

DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, whom Trump has nominated to become ambassador to Canada, own between $30.1 million and $75.3 million of assets in competitors to the USPS

Is that a conflict of interest and is that enough to have him removed?
& is it too late to correct the mess he has created.

was wondering if there was any way of getting rid of the problem.
BUt has that meant that the election is already a bit screwed.

Who's going to remove him?

Conflict of interest is a positive as far as Trump is concerned.

The goodies who must be about to come riding over the hill, happens in all good westerns dunnit?

I mean one must maintain a belief in the goodness of teh law mustn't one? A lovely fellow like teh Attorney General must see the benefit of justice mustn't he?
& just being a wrecker of civilisation isn't an end in itself is it?
Or does it make a lovely pastime?

You hate to see it etc

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/08/trump-antagonizes-sheldon-adelson-phone-call-392688

This is the first thing that actually says to me he might really not want to win.

A direct quote from Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times (to which no correction has yet been appended):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee52LMiXkAA3JMt.png

I guess it does feel like about 36 years since November 2016...

lol wow

oh, Mo

Is it really so strange...

This description of what “antifa” is... is insane! Mind blowing that the NYT would publish this as facthttps://t.co/YnNZ6P04ax pic.twitter.com/yJgRoJzBc4

— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) August 7, 2020

that article is pretty terrifying though...

When a tall man in a trench coat and hiking boots walked over to question Mr. Khan, the man spread his coat open, revealing several pistols on harnesses around his chest and waist. He presented a badge on a lanyard that read “Black Lives Matter Community Patrol.”

His name is Rick Hearns and he identified himself as a longtime security guard and mover who is now a Black Lives Matter community guard, in charge of several others. Local merchants pay for his protection, he said as he handed out his business card. (Mr. Khan said he and his neighbors are now paying thousands of dollars a month for protection from Iconic Global, a Washington State-based private security contractor.)

Over the past couple of days I have seen references to both Trump asking how hard it would be to add a face to Mount Rushmore, and also Trump wanting to open up the Grand Canyon to mining or something. I have no idea if either of these things are remotely accurate, and that alone shows where we are.

xp yeah, definitely makes CHOP look pretty bad

he's wanted to open GC up to mining for the last 4 years

the uranium lobby (????) wants it iirc

xp yeah, definitely makes CHOP look pretty bad

In a way that walking around it every day didn't. You don't think Rancho Bravo would have done a month's worth of business every week if they'd been open?

^ especially during the riots, pre-CHOP

ok lol

Either @TimKaine and I had a very vivid shared hallucination four years ago or Maureen had too much pot brownie before writing her column again. https://t.co/J3SSwtkg7x

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 8, 2020

xp I mean, it already looked bad in a lot of ways - but particularly the store owner fighting off robbers, getting no help from the cops, and then blacklisted and harassed by protestors, that's some Fox News bait

either factchecking is cold and decomposed or Dowd is belatedly promoting "HRC is a man" meme

how terrible has the world become when a Clinton tweet is funnier than any Dowd column

So I guess in the original article it was "36 years since a man and woman ran on a ticket together", which prompted the Clinton tweet, and then the NYT changed it to "since a man chose to put a woman on the Democratic ticket with him"

I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

Maureen Dowd will keep earning six figures long after continents slide into the sea.

Wasn't the environmental bill that Teddy Roosevelt passed introduced to prevent exploitation of the Grand canyon back in whenever that was 100 odd years ago. I watched Public Trust the new film on public lands last week and i think that was a point made in that.
Overall feelgood film with every subsequent President signing vast areas into protected public land, some grassroots groups having fought for years to protect certain areas and finally getting legislation passed by Obama. Sudden sinking feeling as t comes into power and sets up various industry people to positions controlling departments they've been fighting.
Sounds like some good is happening at the moment so hope that does last.
Heard that the pipeline protest in Dakota thought it had won its recent battle and turned off the flow only to have it appealed and I think turned back on.

Fascists making jokes:

It seems like a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet the New York Times's standards. pic.twitter.com/h4JMlUgh3y

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) August 8, 2020

Dowd is a self-made joke.

President Trump said if he is re-elected, he will look into terminating the payroll tax permanently! No explanation of how he would fund Social Security.

Also, will anyone contest in court the executive order to give out $400 (down from $600) in unemployment benefits via money that the White House is claiming they can shift from unpsent funds

tbf, the op-ed page is a joke

even if dowd were good, you can't expect her to deliver something (apparently without editing) interesting twice a week for 25 years. krugman can at least go wonky if necessary, but the whole edifice is self-perpetuatingly rotten

The thing is, Cotton thinks he's calling out hypocrisy but he's basically right, the same shitty process that led the Times to institutionally think it was required to let him wipe his ass on their page didn't go away is still in place shoveling other shit into our faces regularly