“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

We oughta try that, what’s the rent on those empty wal-marts xp

the only surprises from growing up have all been to the left - ranging from marginal "weirdo whose only dream was to join the SEALs now praises Dubya, Obama and Biden" cases to fellow traveling socialists

(lotta #resistance brainworms, it was like being subscribed to Jeff Tiedrich's newsletter some days)

One benefit of the economy going into free fall could be more space to incarcerated GOP politicians. Keeps them away from infecting the general prison population with further btainworms.
Just stick them in cages in vacated commercial premises. I think it's a policy they like for other people so surely must be suitable.

Kennedy thought MA owed him a Senate seat

It's kind of interesting to reflect that those words could have be written at pretty much any time in the last 70 years.

Every few months I get unhealthily pissed off that some horny dork wanted to rate hot girls at his college and ended up warping the brains of hundreds of thousands of Americans, nearly destroying our country as a result.

If you'd like to ramp it up to more frequently than that, other countries are also available, as is the entire institution of journalism.

meanwhile

Cruz was asked by conservative radio host Michael Berry to respond to Ocasio-Cortez, who recently declined to work with Cruz on financial services legislation, pointing to his role in egging on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, noting, "You almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago."

Cruz compared Ocasio-Cortez to French revolutionary leader Robespierre.

"She wants to set up the guillotine and go after everyone she disagrees with," said Cruz.

Cruz did not mention that at least one of the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol has been charged with making death threats against Ocasio-Cortez.

In the same interview, while attacking the Democrats for Donald Trump's impeachment, he compared them to the mobster at the center of the "Godfather" movies.

"Where the end of all three movies, Michael Corleone, he settles his debts and he eliminates all his enemies. That's really where the Democrats are right now. The reason they're doing impeachment, they're trying to destroy Donald J. Trump, because they hate him."

If there was an MA somewhere in misinterpreting popular culture, Cruz would already be the course leader

Cruz thinks, hey, if I throw lots of gasoline on the blaze it’ll go out

well if you use an accelerator it will speed up and be over faster innit

accelerant

If there was an MA somewhere in misinterpreting popular culture, Cruz would already be the course leader

This guy?

Sen Ted Cruz: "Have you noticed in how many movies how often rabid environmentalists are the bad guys? Whether it's Thanos or go to 'Watchmen.' The view of the Left is people are a disease" pic.twitter.com/fthdBWVSWv

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) February 1, 2021

yes, was thinking also of his interpretation of Green Eggs & Ham

Ted limbering up those DARVO muscles

thanos did nothing wrong

When is the Ted Cruz vaccine gonna be prepped for distribution, is what I wanna know.

he really is just a trash person, it's incredible

i think to myself - how can i angle for this particular job, how can i be a better father, what tweaks can i make to my organisational habits to make me a better colleague - and people like ted cruz just walk up, spew trash EVERYWHERE, make no sense, shit on everyone and are rewarded with power and money

i mean not that i'm so great, but that's my point - a lot of people try REALLY HARD for usually quite middling results and this guy is just a human fuckface and waltzes through life attended by riches and approbation

So long as there are mechanisms in place to rain endless power and wealth upon the irredeemably awful, people like Ted Cruz will continue to be irredeemably awful.

(I mean, he'd be irredeemably awful either which way, but in that other world he'd only be burdening his family and neighbors.)

So this is a wild read.

https://www.axios.com/trump-oval-office-meeting-sidney-powell-a8e1e466-2e42-42d0-9cf1-26eb267f8723.html

AOC's live thing didn't shed any more light on Cruz specifically, did it? Cruz (to name one) is an absolutely unscrupulous shit, but I don't think he's any more guilty of putting her life at risk than the rest of the GOP, which is I think what she was getting at when she dunked on his tweet. I assume Cruz, Hawley et al. will get hammered at the Trump trial as much as Asshole himself.

Was just coming to link the Axios story. That shit is not even funny-insane; it's scary-insane.

That story is absolutely bonkers, but lol, it's pretty clear who the source is there.

Who would that be.

Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. None of them could agree on what non-ovular shape the office actually was.

xpost My guess would be Eric Herschmann, who is present at every exchange and comes off tough-guy heroic. He gets a lot of the best lines.

For example:

Finally Herschmann had enough. "Why the fuck do you keep standing up and screaming at me?" he shot back at Flynn. "If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down." Flynn sat back down.

I did a quintuple take @ this Sidney Powell quote: 'I would caution the readers to view mainstream media reports of any such conversations with a high degree of discernment and a healthy dose of skepticism.'

Again, that's an actual quote by Sidney Powell. Yes, the one with a brainpan full of banana pudding who couldn't discern or healthy dose of skepticism her way out of paper sack.

While part of me never wants to think about our read about that nest of vipers ever again, there's another part of me that is looking forward to having more names for all those previously anonymous sources whose names were withheld so as to speak candidly. When the T-man has no power to retaliate with, I suspect there will be a flood of tell-all memoirs.

I have a healthy dose of skepticism because it’s Axios.

Zero in on any urban center you can think of. Blue surrounded by a sea of red. Has it always been like this?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html

For quite some time now and this is exactly why the sparsely populated red areas have stronger representation in Congress.

that axios story is the worst spec screenplay I have ever read

"You're quitting! You're a quitter! You're not fighting!” he exploded at the senior adviser. Flynn then turned to the president, and implored: "Sir, we need fighters."

hearing this in the voice of Anakin Skywalker in Ep III

lol

Zero in on any urban center you can think of. Blue surrounded by a sea of red. Has it always been like this?

It has been like this for the entirety of my life; not sure what it was like before I was born.

Dems playing nasty:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Tuesday announced the launch of advertisements aimed at eight House Republicans who voted against Trump’s impeachment that accuse them of siding with supporters of QAnon.

The targets of the ads, which claim the GOP lawmakers “stood with Q, not you,” include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and seven others whom the DCCC says are vulnerable in the 2022 elections.

The DCCC said that the 30-second TV ads and digital spots will play across local broadcast and cable stations in the lawmakers’ districts and that the version attacking McCarthy will also air in Washington.

QAnon represents a sprawling set of false claims that have coalesced into an extremist ideology that has radicalized its followers, some of whom participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6. Trump was impeached by the House for “incitement of insurrection.” Ten Republicans voted with Democrats for his impeachment.

The DCCC ads claim that QAnon “took over the Republican Party” and “sent followers to Congress.”

I think the QAnon stuff (which, btw, autocorrect recognized here and capitalized like that for me!) is so batshit insane we just assume everyone knows how batshit it is. But I bet a lot of folks, Republicans included, just have no idea, and that those ads could be effective.

people like my mother who don't know the inner-workings of QAnon and are just reading these theories as if they're individual thoughts by the posters are usually reacting "what in the FUCK are you talking about? are you nuts?", so it's a pretty good attack idea

Holy crap, are good things possible?

NEWS: The first USPS reform bill of the 117th Congress has been introduced.

Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Steve Daines (R-MT) will sponsor the "USPS Fairness Act" that would forgive USPS's defaulted retiree healthcare obligations.

— Jacob Bogage (@jacobbogage) February 1, 2021

only if the filibuster is nuked

Zero in on any urban center you can think of. Blue surrounded by a sea of red.

And not just BIG urban centers. Look at Maryland. It's not just Baltimore and the DC suburbs that are blue, it's Hagerstown and Salisbury.

An ad campaign should just be posting 8chan posts and saying 'really?'.

The "sea of red" has about 11 people per square mile in it is the thing, of course.

Anyway allow me to reiterate my demand to reorganize the country into a confederation of autonomous city-states supported by heavily roboticized home farmlands

nailed it pic.twitter.com/vBhd6wAln4

— Philip Bump (@pbump) February 2, 2021

Expected it to say Magnited

NYTimes suggests the Biden administration needs to appoint a “reality czar” to deal with misinformation and extremism. https://t.co/jVNWNJ3e1C

— Seth Fiegerman (@sfiegerman) February 2, 2021

lol can’t imagine this backfiring the next time a Republican wins

“Start snitching”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/capitol-rioters-may-be-ready-to-start-snitching-on-each-other