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

oh god no not pete

Remember slow news days?

Is that tweet supposed to imagine Mayo Pete meeting with Joe?

If Buttigieg is named VP I won't vote.

xp - yeah, I mean it's like a .12% chance but god it would be beautiful

Maybe every woman of color in the Democratic Party turned him down (or spoke to the Scientologists)

Ed Rendell likes the cut of Pete's jib.

It sucks so fucking bad that for the rest of my life this rodent-faced dork will almost certainly be someone in American politics I’ll have to know and hear about.

I'm sure there was lots of good ol whinin' and complainin' about it here a few months ago, but as a queer dude who is married, I've never felt more insulted by someone's existence in my life.

It's like he is the exact antipode of everything I care about and value.

I’m certainly no great judge of character but he seems transparently disingenuous, opportunist, and uhh “fake” smart or something

an absolute cipher

he basically is that character from The Politician but somehow less likeable

I didn't like him to begin with because I knew about the McKinsey period, but when I found out he *volunteered* to join the US military apparatus in 2009, I was convinced that he had nothing approaching any ethical sense. Put the garbage in the trash afaic.

Pete as veep would be the ultimate fuck-you and therefore perfect

because really what are you gonna do, not vote for them

if the reveal is that pete is actually a woman of color, i swear i'm going to cancel my subscription to this dumb channel

It sucks so fucking bad that for the rest of my life this rodent-faced dork will almost certainly be someone in American politics I’ll have to know and hear about.

On the contrary, being Biden's VP would probably tank any future career. He can make a failed run in 2024/8 then go sit on a bunch of corporate boards.

unless he becomes president

However unfair it might be, no one with the last name 'Buttigieg' will ever become president.

― E Pluripubis Unum (Old Lunch), Wednesday, January 23, 2019 8:42 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pretty sure I still stand by this.

Pretty sure.

What if he changes his name to Petey Butts?

my take on it is that Biden has to make it clear he's vetting everyone

Buttigieg angling for Secretary of Defense or something.

CIA director

Always best to promote from within

Master of Secrets

Maybe they'll put him in charge of Hufflepuff this term.

The presumption that Biden would meet Buttigeig only in regard to VP is blinkered. My guess he will get a speech slotted at the convention and they'll talk about Pete's role in the campaign and possible posting in Biden's administration. Buttigeig did Biden a solid favor by pulling out of the race before the South Carolina primary and endorsing him at the same time. Not a big enough favor to merit being chosen VP, but big enough to ask for a minor Cabinet post or something about that level. He did well enough in the early primaries that he can claim to bring votes to the table.

So that means we can't kill him? :-(

Well, you can try. It might require a silver bullet.

you can but only after temp ban

yeah I def don’t think he’s being tapped for VP (I think Joe will pick a woman); I’m just sad I have to know who this fucknut is. and even sadder the Democratic Party has become the lint trap for phonies and strivers who can only conceive of politics as doing more neocon bullshit abroad and more neolib bullshit here at home.

Had a feeling I might get tempbanned for that... apologies, all in jest. I just loathe the guy.

Giving a tyrant enough rope is a terrible strategy and for the millionth time since 2016, time is not our friend. fatigue and internal turnover makes successful resistance ever less likely. but fine, wait for midterms.

― Hunt3r, Tuesday, June 26, 2018 9:11 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink


eventually everyone folds for the boss or gets folded. don't like it? better change that boss. clock is ticking.

― Hunt3r, Thursday, June 28, 2018 12:42 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i get afraid it’s very very late now

yeah

aww

I’ve got to be honest I kind of expected to speak.

— Andrew Yang🧢🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 11, 2020

lol

when the grifter gets grifted

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-hookers-for-jesus/hookers-for-jesus-wins-fresh-round-of-funding-from-trump-administration-idUSKCN2512IY

The group, run by a born-again Christian survivor of sex trafficking, operates a safe house for adult trafficking victims known as Destiny House. It was the target of a December complaint by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees local 2830, which asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate whether politics factored in to a grant award for the group. It was the second such complaint filed by the union in 2019 raising concerns about the grant-review process.

Hookers for Jesus is now set to receive $498,764 in fresh federal funding, part of $35 million in grants to help provide housing for trafficking victims unveiled at the White House on Tuesday by Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. That is on top of the $530,190 that Hookers for Jesus was awarded in 2019 over three years to help expand services to trafficking victims. A person briefed on the matter told Reuters that since the 2019 award was accepted, Hookers for Jesus has drawn down only about $32,000 of the funds. It was unclear why the organization has tapped only a fraction of the grant.

Justice Department spokeswoman Mollie Timmons said that Hookers for Jesus “underwent a merit-based review” and that independent peer reviewers also determined its application “met the necessary criteria” and “scored them highly.” Annie Lobert, who runs the nonprofit, did not respond to a request for comment. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that the group’s policy manuals showed that in 2010 and 2018, residents of the safe house were required to go to church, complete Christian homework, and were banned from reading “secular magazines with articles, pictures, etc. that portray worldly views/advice on living, sex, clothing, makeup tips.” In general, recipients of federal funds are not permitted by anti-discrimination laws to use the funds to engage in explicitly religious activities.

In a May 12 letter to Lobert, the Office for Civil Rights in the Justice Department’s grant-making arm determined that Hookers for Jesus was not in violation of federal rules requiring it to keep religious activities separate from federally-funded ones because it did not plan to use the money to support Destiny House until the second and third years of the grant. It instructed Lobert to develop “a plan to ensure compliance” with the law once Hookers for Jesus begins to start using the funds for Destiny House in 2021.

In an interview earlier this year with Reuters, Lobert denied that her group forces the women to go to church. She declined to provide updated copies of her policy manuals.

@realDonaldTrump
News Conference at 5:30 P.M. Enjoy!

i know we have gone over this before but these bullshit rallies masquerading as press conferences are the fucking worst and networks need to stop covering it.

Certainly not live. But he manages to provide pull quotes for his political opponents in most, I don't think they're buttressing his base.

Plus his public statements have been repeatedly introduced as evidence in court cases countering his bullshit.

Susan Collins losing to Sara Gideon in Maine, per Bangor Daily News poll

Down by 8 among registered voters, 5 among likely voters and 3 among certain voters

Her approval rating is 37%;49% disapproval

60% say view of her has diminished in past few yearshttps://t.co/YhRTk5zT5F

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) August 11, 2020

Omar looks like she’s fine

Huge vote drop in #MN05: with 86K ballots (> 60% of the number of ballots cast in 2018, and expect higher turnout), Reo. Ilhan Omar has a big lead, 57% to 40%.

— Taniel (@Taniel) August 12, 2020

wooooo

There it is

I've seen enough: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) wins renomination in #MN05, defeating Antone Melton-Meaux (D).

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 12, 2020

YOU LOVE TO SEE IT

Posting this here because the biden thread is being used for ... other stuff and a general election (but not the rest of politics) thread seems untenable. Let’s just have a monthly thread for the newsy stuff.

This is otm. They think rice would have been good news for trump but no one cares about that stuff. But also they don’t have a plan for Harris.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/11/team-trump-assails-phony-kamala-while-privately-acknowledging-her-appeal-393983

But he and his aides focused their line of attack through the same lens they’ve used on other potential running mates, perhaps indicating after months of research on Harris they don’t have much else to criticize.

Many in Trump’s orbit had hoped Biden would tap Susan Rice, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, whom they had thought could fire up his MAGA base. Despite their eagerness for her, Rice being selected likely wouldn’t have helped Trump attract the independent voters his team has been trying to win over for years.

With less than three months until the election, Trump is lagging behind Biden in most national polls and battleground states. His standing has even fallen in traditionally red states as the coronavirus pandemic has dragged on.

Republicans, who have found little success in tarnishing Biden, will now try to damage Harris by describing her as a failed presidential candidate who didn’t generate excitement in her own party. Most of Trump’s attention on Harris during the Democratic primary was about her performance in the race, and he returned to that theme Tuesday at the White House to recall her poor showing in the campaign.

Completely incoherent attack line

In addition to attacking her for being liberal, Republicans highlighted her record as a prosecutor — which now appears out of step with the Democratic Party after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police — though that could contradict their message that she’s too soft on crime. Harris joined Black Lives Matter demonstrations this summer.

“She is now trying to bury her egregious record as a prosecutor in order to appease the anti-police extremists that are now controlling the radicalized Democrat Party,” Trump 2020 senior adviser Katrina Pierson told reporters Tuesday.

"As you all know, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have been overtaken by the radical left,” he said. “So given their promises of higher taxes, open borders, socialized medicine and abortion on demand, it's no surprise that he chose Sen. Harris.”

Sorry that was a lot of pasting ON IPHONE