US Politics June 2021 - "Where we're going, we don't NEED bipartisanship"

billionaires, cops, and evangelicals must be the three most organized/ effective political groups in the U.S.

prob doesn’t hurt that a Venn diagram of their primary material objectives overlap big time

jvc, I guess that I just don't think we're talking about the same people.

Apropos of nothing in particular: I had one chance to interact with Joe Manchin in a private, off-the-record setting with a bunch of other reporters, back when he was governor of WV. (2010ish?) My very strong impression, which I remember to this day, is that he's a moron.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) June 7, 2021

moron labe

the vast majority of Americans I suspect are, through dint of disposition or indoctrination, literally conservative, even the ones who are not Conservative

The indoctrination is absolutely key. The official story always fails in its job of adequately explaining what people see, feel and experience, but until it fails catastrophically most people muddle along with it as the default, because replacing it requires too much thought and effort.

Even when ordinary unthinking people end up rejecting the rosy official story because it totally failed them, its replacement is often whatever opportunistic set of ready-made explanations first falls in their path. This is why we get stuff like QAnon.

An observation I had from working in government is that most people ARE conservative in their default settings in the sense that they like stability and they don't like change. Even if the status quo isn't great and they bitch about it, it is also known and comfortable. My experience was that it didn't matter if people were nominally liberal or conservative in, say, their presidential voting patterns — most of them were likely to be instantly suspicious of anything new or unfamiliar, whether that was parking meters where there didn't use to be (the horror!), food trucks, bike lanes, whatever.

It gave me an appreciation for the built-in advantages that conservatism has as a worldview. Change is harder, persuading people to try new things (like, universal health insurance) is hard, and while progressives will be in general more open to change, that is a matter of degree.

instantly suspicious of anything new or unfamiliar, whether that was parking meters where there didn't use to be (the horror!)

OH FUCK OFF! pic.twitter.com/1iM3oibI9X

— Laurence Fox ✌🏼🇬🇧✌🏼 (@LozzaFox) June 7, 2021

^ those traffic lights have been there for five years, and Fox received 1.9% of the vote for Mayor four weeks ago

putting the lol in lol fox

infinite infrastructure week ends its latest go-nowhere negotiation, just in time to start its next go-nowhere negotiation

Weeks-long discussions between the White House and GOP negotiators led by Sen. Capito are officially done as talks shift toward a bipartisan Senate grouphttps://t.co/X7FsmhWetb

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) June 8, 2021

🎉

Voting machines in Texas are going to default to straight ticket GOP unless you solve three riddles.

AOC on fire on Chris Hayes' show, hinting at the stories emerging in the last couple days about the Koch brothers' contributions to Joe Manchin's coffers.

Yeah, that'll really show him.

Joe’s press release is just going to say “duh.”

Maybe he’ll extend that to “what are you gonna do about it?”

In case you missed it -

The Senate tonight approved a bill w/ overwhelming bipartisan support that included $10 billion in lunar lander contracts likely to go to Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin@TonyRomm https://t.co/mHqyYf7KEa

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) June 9, 2021

At least we've got our priorities straight. The ironic thing is that it's never been cheaper or easier to fake the moon landing. Be funny if the real landing gets increasingly dismissed as fake, and Amazon's fake landing gets embraced as real. That seems to be the direction we're heading in.

You just know that Bezos and Musk have at least humored the idea of mounting a giant laser on the moon and making it their own Death Star, just because it would be "cool" and/or allow them to blow up the earth.

unrelated to recent events, but I'm teaching a pension class this week to students in Panama and it has unintentionally turned into a discussion on how terrible the US is economically, especially to its elderly. this wasn't even me sharing it either, this was them talking about "wow that sounds terrible".

i have no disagreed with them at any point

Yeah, my parents just got unbelievably fucked

we have been dealing with my mother in law's situation for ages now, and it's so frustrating. yes, her (deceased) husband had a business that failed (largely due to bad partners); yes, they were immigrants who didn't really understand everything financial; yes, in theory they should have 'saved'; but, they didn't, he died, and she was left with nothing. She nannied for a few years (the family kept her on way past the point where she was useful which was nice of them) until the pandemic hit; shes been ok for the past year due to the extra unemployment, but that ends in SEptember. She has spinal compression fractures and frankly can't work and is in her 70s. Her social security, which is from her husband's income, is like $1000/mo. Her rent is twice that, let alone food costs. You'd think it would be easy to get her into some kind of affordable housing, but it is impossible in california. No other benefits are coming her way. It's a massive financial drag on us (because her other two kids are pieces of shit who are not contributing a dime).

Keeping most of the populace in a state of numbed wage slavery is the whole purpose of this supposed "democracy," or so it seems.

quite honestly it's a bit ridiculous that we put so much onus on individuals to be financially 'responsible' as it's not the easiest skill to learn, and it involves forecasting things that nobody can possibly forecast in the United States due to how much shit is shouldered 100% by the individual.

Not everybody is skilled at mathematics, and of course we as a nation are poorly educated. and we tell the average individual they should have 6-9 months of monthly expenses socked away, which requires them to actually know to the penny their monthly expenses (not just the recurring, but the projected monthly expenses), and actually earn enough to fuckin' DO that. until a few years ago, I made more than enough to do that, but due to my own folks struggles and me having to help, I break even now quite often rather than add some to the savings - fortunately I was at about 6 months of savings already).

but it's like, who can forecast an unexpected $10,000 hospital bill, a totaled car that necessitates a new monthly payment you weren't expecting, a period on short term/long-term disability which results in reduced income, a cancer diagnosis that makes you have to stop working entirely and rely on disability, etc. like nobody can possibly build that into their calculations and yet all of these things will make even the most fiscally responsible person of moderate income sink like a stone.

I think this is one reason why my view towards my folks has changed since I moved in with them - it was a bitter point in my family that my parents were irresponsible and have been 'borrowing' from my brother and I for 20 years, but I've softened on this point since I've seen up close that while that was true to an extent, it was a bit unfair to put it all on them. the Great Recession fucked them just like anybody else. if they had a house that they could sell, my dad would have a part-time nurse right now, probably.

Meanwhile ... someone tell Insane Clown Posse we figured out how magnets work.

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/cleveland-doctor-tells-ohio-lawmakers-covid-19-vaccine-can-leave-people-magnetized-interfaced-with-5g-towers/

“I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the internet of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized. They can put a key on their forehead. It sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick."

Uh no, actually I haven't, but I'm sure there are youtube videos, if only I were willing to just "do my own research."

Neanderthal OTM.

Were people this fucking stupid back in the day or was I just not paying attention?

Pres. Biden & Senate Dems should take a step back and ask themselves if playing patty-cake w GOP Senators is really worth the dismantling of people’s voting rights, setting the planet on fire, allowing massive corporations and the wealthy to not pay their fair share of taxes, etc

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 9, 2021

Were people this fucking stupid back in the day or was I just not paying attention?

Some people were, for sure, but they were isolated and easily ignored. Now they gather in FB groups and forums and empower each other.

And are invited to testify to state legislators!

xp i mean they could ask themselves i guess? but the answer would always be 'yes'

Remember when the urban myths were that Mountain Dew made you unable to cum and KFC were growing headless chickens?

Oh wait is Mountain Dew the reason why

semen doesn't stain the mountaintops

lol

Funny how conspiracy theories always come back to that.

Tenpenny wrongly says men have been advised not to have unprotected sex for at least six weeks after receiving Pfizer’s mRNA-based vaccine. She said that in her opinion, that is because the so-called “spike protein” from the virus could bind to the surface of the sperm and could change the sperm’s DNA, slow it or kill it, causing infertility or birth defects.

Free birth control, cool.

semen doesn't stain the mountaintops

― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.),

try the mountainbottoms

ayooo

Were people this fucking stupid back in the day or was I just not paying attention?

The latter. But back in the day it was blessedly easier to pay them no attention, since it was harder back then to aggressively push their stupidity at you non-stop.

McConnell says ‘era of bipartisanship is over’ as talks in Congress grind to a halt

Say it ain't so! Mitch has worked so hard to forge ties across the aisle, but the dirty socialists are staging a coup

this seems fine

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/09/politics/david-vigilante-cnn-email-secret-court-battle/index.html

TIL that there is a lawyer named David Vigilante

xp As a lawyer, I can't even imagine dealing with that - just ridiculous.

LIAM NEESON IS... DAVID VIGILANTE

Louie "Moonbeam" Gohmert (TX-GOP):

“We know there’s been significant solar flare activity, and so … is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit, or the Earth’s orbit around the sun?” Gohmert asked. “Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate.”

Eberlien said she would have to “follow up with you on that one, Mr Gohmert.”

“Well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service can make that change, I’d like to know,” Gohmert added.

What

the fuck?

Jesus Christ. That scanned even more batshit for the brief seconds before I remembered that BLM also stands for the Bureau of Land Management.