Where Are We Runnin’? - American Politics Thread, May 2022

pic.twitter.com/ETvKkj5d6S

— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) May 26, 2022

I dunno man it sure seems like Sen. Ron Johnson uses tax dollars to travel between Florida family home and the U.S. Capitol

— 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫-𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐬 (@importantmeagan) May 26, 2022

People have been saying that. Including Sen. Ron Johnson, who I’ve heard uses tax dollars to travel between Florida family home and the U.S. Capitol.

— Chloe D (@chloedeeee) May 26, 2022

cannot fucking believe my state elected that dumb asshole. dude's even dumber and more corrupt than Scott Walker.

i can believe it

GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky criticized the domestic terrorism bill in a floor speech Thursday ahead of the vote.

"Today we will have a bill before us ostensibly titled and ostensibly about the subject of domestic terrorism. But this bill would be more accurately called the Democrat plan to brand and insult our police and soldiers as White supremacists and neo-Nazis -- how insulting," he said.

yeah but what if the cop IS a white supremacist?

Some Of Those That Work Forces Act of 2022

I hate Ron Johnson as much as the next guy, but not seeing the scandal here. If I’m reading that report right he’s only been reimbursed for travel FROM Florida, which is provided for by ethics rules as long as it doesn’t cost more than flying from home. I mean assuming he’d be in Wisconsin otherwise he’s probably actually saving taxpayer money by coming in from Florida? Sure he’s rich enough to be paying his own way, but do wealthy Democrats pay for their own travel to DC? (Would be very happy to be shown that my thinking is wrong here btw.)

lol well I guess he realized he was getting ratioed for posting the link, he deleted it.

Wisconsin and America deserve better than Ron Johnson, he's actually right about that.

And yeah it may not be much of a scandal, but it's useful information. There are places where jetting into work from your Florida home might not be what people want in a senator.

biden blows a layup

does not support any investigation of why the police sucked so badly, again, in Uvalde. supports giving cops a hug and complimenting them instead.

listen, the cops have been good to joe and that's number one. number two is that democratic leadership is ageist and purposefully excludes people under the age of 40

really excludes people not at least 5-0

You don’t really get an opportunity to be a junior/apprentice partner in today’s Democratic Party until you are at least 60

But that’s ok because they definitely have the finger on the pulse of younger people. It’s like a mind meld, very impressive

When the Roe draft leak surfaced, I donated $30 to the DNC

I now received about 10-12 emails a day... from Gabby Gifford, from Warnock, Biden & Harris, etc.. "Andy - I'm asking you to DIG DEEP" etc. I guess I asked for it but I do wish there was a way I could donate $30 in dark money anonymously

maybe crypto is the answer

The begging emails are an endless river of manufactured crises and synthetic deadlines. I usually delete 'em as fast as they arrive.

I used to get a half dozen a day from the Trumpoids, but I haven’t heard from them in months. I guess if they start up again, I’ll believe he’s running in 2024.

The utter failure of this country has become so clear in the last few weeks. Taken in toto it's all so surreal. Obama wins twice in a landslide, but can't pick a Supreme Court justice because Mitch McConnell directs the GOP to stonewall everything he does, including his very moderate SC nominee. The gambit pays off when a famous con man and game show host wins the presidency in 2016, an outcome that only happened because the FBI broke all precedent and put their thumb on the scale at the 11th hour, not to mention the fact that he got 3 million less votes than his opponent. This person, through sheer luck, nominates three justices, who proceed to overturn Roe, despite the fact that A) doing so is massively unpopular and B) they all stated very clearly UNDER OATH that they wouldn't try to do it.

Meanwhile, a kid turns 18, and proceeds to buy two AR-15s, a semiautomatic weapon so powerful that it is not even used in literal war zones. He can do this because the Republican Party has pushed nonstop for lax gun laws, despite the overwhelming majority of this country supporting several gun control measures. He uses these guns to massacre 18 kids and a teacher, while the cops stand outside and do nothing, other than handcuff and threaten the parents. "Thoughts and prayers" aside, the GOP response has been to suggest arming the teachers, to turn the schools into fire hazards, and to, uh...get really mad at Beto O'Rourke.

Despite all of this, the Republicans are overwhelming favorites to take back the House and possibly the Senate later this year. It also seems widely accepted that Trump will run and win again in 2024, even though his last act as President was to direct his supporters to violently storm the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election and possibly murder the Vice President & Speaker of the House.

Do I have that all right? How the hell can we expect to have any semblance of a functioning "democracy" in 10 years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or0cXIBBf9s

This person, through sheer luck, nominates three justices

I still harbor doubts that sheer luck had anything to do with him getting to replace Kennedy.

How the hell can we expect to have any semblance of a functioning "democracy" in 10 years?

I no longer harbor this expectation.

Me neither. Beyond all the obvious points about the failure of our institutions, the simple fact is that all of these MAGA, QAnon people are not going away, no matter who wins the White House. It felt like there were a fair number of moderates/Dems who thought that if Trump lost the election, it would be like staking the head vampire in a film: his followers would snap out of their daze, rub their eyes and go back to being “normal” Republican. (As though Republicans haven’t been terrible for all of the 37 years I’ve been alive.) But I don’t see how this mass of cultists can really be deprogrammed to the degree that we won’t be an election away from disaster for the next however many years.

frogbs, you forgot the part where the elementary school shooting pushed the news that a white supremacist, whose online writings parroted mainstream right-wing talking points, murdered 10 people in an explicitly racist attack out of the news cycle and that virtually all of the 100% disingenuous GOP "solutions" to the Uvalde shooting wouldn't have worked in the Buffalo grocery store

In other news,

A federal district court, in a 2-1 decision Friday, implemented Ohio state Senate and House district maps for the 2022 election that have twice been declared unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Thats some catch,

“We must presume state actors will work together to reach homegrown solutions,” the majority wrote. “And if they fail, then it is up to the voters to punish them if they so choose.”

Gerrymandered voters will fix this.

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/05/27/federal-court-implements-statehouse-maps-twice-declared-unconstitutional-by-ohio-supreme-court/

Good morning!

“We must presume state actors will work together to reach homegrown solutions,” the majority wrote. “And if they fail, then it is up to the voters to punish them if they so choose.”

aaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahqhahahahahahahahahahaha

Not sure this is heckling. Seems instead to be a citizen of this country exercising his first amendment rights to an elected official and being manhandled by the elected official’s security while said official smirks and then returns to his dinner. https://t.co/vaA8Ruhux4

— kang (@jaycaspiankang) May 28, 2022

Ted Cruz shouldn't be able to go out in public without bags of piss and shit raining down upon him.

NEW this morning- Schumer and Pelosi have been urging Dems not to go after Manchin & Co when it comes to voting rights

Schumer told outside groups not to bully Manchin ahead of S1 vote

And Pelosi told steering members not to criticize individual senators

w/ @marianne_levine pic.twitter.com/DsyRzaayZQ

— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) June 16, 2021

Schumer and Pelosi will always have more in common with a MAGA guy who owns 4 dealerships in the exurbs of Oklahoma City than they do with the majority of their voters

not sure why milo thinks a year-old tweet is worth re-posting as if it's some recent revelation. among other things, last june manchin was still seen as an undecided vote on the BBB budget bill that was seen as the lynchpin of Biden's agenda, crucial to the overall success of his administration.

The panicky look he gives his security

#BREAKING: Several hours after the #NRAconvention, Indivisible Houston board member @TheBenjaminHdz challenged Ted Cruz to support background checks & other reform measures during a dinner break.

See the full clip.#TedCruzHasBloodOnHisHands #TedCruzChildMassacre pic.twitter.com/LxvnaGzZJN

— Indivisible Houston (@indivisibleHOU) May 28, 2022

Vote https://t.co/wRhXRlhCmq

— Ben (@kleinstille) May 30, 2022

Biden, via @courtneyrozen, speaking about gun control negotiations.

“McConnell is a rational Republican. Cornyn is as well.”

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 30, 2022

god, just retire biden, fuck

it's 1985!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you know what i hate? all that artificial turf on baseball fields! come on, let's start playing on grass again

meanwhile mcconnell is laughing his ass off while he drinks blood he freeze-dried back before kent state

he doesn't even drink blood these days; he flatly presses his tongue against the prune-like texture for a few seconds, then he stares distantly for a while, with his tongue still out against the air

^^confusingly, that's biden doing that. mcconnell prefers the real blood and dreams of even more people dying unnecessarily on his watch

If you compare McConnell to some of the real Republican nutcases in Congress, he looks pretty rational. He's relentlessly evil, but he's a dispassionate and realistic judge of the best strategies to accomplish his evil ends while avoiding doing even a thimbleful of good. Whereas Marjorie Taylor-Greene just acts like she's missing parts of her brain.

mcconnell is the rare, and classic, Lawful Evil (as opposed to Greene's Chaotic Evil)

Nothing lawful about cocaine trafficking.

ofc, just because mitch is rational does not mean he won't happily dismember you and stuff the bloody pieces in a trunk, if he thought it would maintain his power. biden is just complimenting them to soften them up, which is a waste of time in their case, but it's part of joe's MO.

Connecticut Dem Senator Murphy is on all the tv network news shows giving a ridiculously optimistic take on bipartisan gun control negotiations--

Murphy said: “[T]here are more Republicans interested in talking about finding a path forward this time than I have ever seen since Sandy Hook.

"talking" ... I can't see him getting 10 Republican votes, or Manchin & Sinema

It's so dumb the GOP can't even get behind universal background checks/closing the 'gun show loophole.'

All the lobbying money should be behind it - it pushes people to buy new, it's a boon to gun store owners (if you want to sell a gun you take it to a shop and have them do the background check/transfer it, free $25-50 for the shop for doing one sheet of paperwork and a phone call). But they're absolutely shit scared of how their voters would respond.

than I have ever seen since Sandy Hook.

Yes! they want to talk! and talk and talk! until the heat dies down and then they'll do fuck all. So it will all be just like after Sandy Hook.

but that was just talk. this time, it's talk with a little bonus ingredient they like to call "can-do"

man and so much legislation and change happened in the wake of sandy hook too, things are finally looking up