The Fall of Roe v Wade: US Politics, June 2022

hard-hitting Washington Post piece on Susan Collins, hitting the press. I have a feeling this article is going to ruffle some feathers in Washington. There are two eras - before and after this article. Defcon 1.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/02/susan-collins-supreme-court-kavanaugh-truth/

get ready to dip your toes in this excerpt of molten, red hot journalism

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has never been known for being angry, or animated, or really any adjective more charged than “concerned.” Once or twice, she has gone so far as to declare herself “disappointed.”

You might imagine, nonetheless, that the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade would have been enough to expand her measured vocabulary. You’d be wrong.

“If this … is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office,” said the statement the senator released after the story broke. “Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”

This is about as fiery as it gets for a fifth-term moderate dedicated, above all else, to dealmaking and decorum. By comparison, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), hardly hot-tempered, said the opinion “rocks my confidence in the court right now.”

All the same, you have to wonder whether Collins is less serene under the surface.

She made a spectacular bet on Brett M. Kavanaugh during his nomination hearings in 2018: saying that she believed him when he said that Roe was settled law — much like the bet she made on Neil M. Gorsuch in 2017 when he said precedent was “the anchor of the law.”

These justices, of course, might yet come through for Collins by the time the court finally rules — even if only to preserve some portion of the precedent that has enshrined the right to abortion for almost half a century. But the February draft that has much of the nation on fire boasted five conservative votes to bulldoze the rulings that have defined the status quo for decades.

(Section Break)

Susan Collins is as neat as her tailored skirt sets and monogrammed suitcase. She shows up early, shakes every hand, knows every name. She studies, and studies, and studies some more. She might not need to work this hard, and yet she does anyway. In politics, seasons and tastes change — but a fourth-generation Maine politician might be one of the few people in either party who doesn’t have to worry about them changing very much.

...

jesus

Molly Roberts can fuck right off

why are we still drowning in this shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wl1B7DPegc

that is a great video

even the corny dance sequences in the alley

sorry that is off topic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMV-fenGP1g

Jesus that Tannehill thread is depressing, but after being forced to spend time with my Trumper uncle and cousin, both EMTs, over the holiday weekend, I buy absolutely every word.

And they always repeat what they said a second time after you tell them the truth.

here is a second opinion on how susan collins mysteriously ended up voting for supreme court justices that everyone knew were lying

When the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, Sen. Susan Collins said she was flabbergasted, deeply troubled, even shocked. After all, soon-to-be-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had promised her in 2018 that Roe was a matter of settled law — despite his deeply conservative track record on abortion.

Turns out, Collins wasn’t just wrong about Kavanaugh. She was deliberately manipulated by Trump administration officials — and a future Supreme Court Justice — who viewed her as an easy mark.

Two former senior Trump White House officials tell Rolling Stone that the pro-choice Collins wasn’t even considered a serious threat to the devoutly conservative Kavanaugh. Instead, the team predicted she’d need only a vague assurance that the nominee would uphold the half-century-old ruling defending abortion rights.

And they were right.

“The thinking from Trump … and everybody else who worked to make this happen was that, as long as his nominees didn’t say anything stupid [on abortion] and let the Susan Collins-es of the world think what they needed to think and hear what they needed to hear, then it would get done,” said one of the ex-officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the team’s hearing preparations.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/abortion-susan-collins-brett-kavanaugh-trump-roe-1357183/

weird, this seems to contrast with the Washington Post version where Susan Collins is a hero and she was lied to and she is going to have to straighten her back and stand tall and listen really hard and just be braver and prouder after that one if she's going to deserve that 2143rd 6-year term as much as we want her to deserve it, let's go Susan!!!

susan collins is a good leader

Adding this to the list of good stuff he’s done

Biden responds to @elonmusk cutting production/staff listing companies expanding production. "Lots of luck on his trip to the moon, I guess," he said.

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) June 3, 2022

hey, that's pretty fun as far as Biden joeks go

it's a good burn from biden

this article's fun

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/politics/joe-biden-messaging-struggles/index.html

(Covid News Network (CNN))Being familiar never makes the feeling less dreadful: White House aides emailing each other during one of President Joe Biden's stops on the road, tracking who's covering what he's saying, which TV channels are taking the speech live -- and realizing a number of times that the answer was none.

"You are thinking," said one person familiar, "why are we doing this?"

Biden and his inner circle get weekly readouts of the metrics on local newspaper coverage of his speeches, how long and for what he was covered on cable, but also videos that staff post on Twitter and other social media interactions. Those reports go on the piles with internal memos from pollsters saying Biden isn't breaking through in traditional news outlets and that the people who are engaged are mostly voters who've already made up their minds.

But beneath this struggle to break through is a deeper dysfunction calcified among aides who largely started working together only through Zoom screens and still struggle to get in rhythm. They're still finding it hard to grasp how much their political standing has changed over the last year, and there's a divide between most of the White House staff and the inner circle who have been around Biden for longer than most of the rest of that staff has been alive. In an email to CNN, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, "That is not the dynamic in the White House."

At the center is a president still trying to calibrate himself to the office. The country is pulling itself apart, pandemic infections keep coming, inflation keeps rising, a new crisis on top of new crisis arrives daily and Biden can't see a way to address that while also being the looser, happier, more sympathetic, lovingly Onion-parody inspiring, aviator-wearing, vanilla chip cone-licking guy -- an image that was the core of why he got elected in the first place.
"He has to speak to very serious things," explained one White House aide, "and you can't do that getting ice cream."

...

...

...

They'll say he's answering reporters' questions whenever he's asked, while nixing interview requests to avoid the hours of prep and possible clean-up. They'll acknowledge that Biden himself feels shut off enough that he's quietly had a half-dozen sessions with favored writers since the fall, like last month's lunch with the New York Times' Tom Friedman, in which the columnist shared his own impressions of Biden's off-the-record thoughts, with only the tuna sandwich, fruit bowl and milkshake approved for publication.

only the tuna sandwich, fruit bowl and milkshake approved for publication.

i haven't drank in 20 days now, but this makes me want to go harry nilsson 1975

“You put the tuna sandwich in the fruit bowl milkshake…”

imagine being in a room with a tuna sandwich and Tom Friedman's hot air.

the mind of joe biden is on a ride now, a passenger on a comfortable food journey that he no longer controls so much as influences

someone mentions that retirement companies are going to allow people to put 20% of their income directly into crypto retirement accounts.

joe biden blinks. all of his aides are on zoom, muted.

joe biden tears into his tuna sandwich with renewed vigor

what the fuck

“It’s inappropriate to ... subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”

— Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) defends vetoing funds for a Tampa Bay Rays practice facility after the team tweeted about gun control pic.twitter.com/8owFo7G1A8

— The Recount (@therecount) June 3, 2022

if incoherent ranting about "woke capitalism" puts an end to using public funds for sports bullshit...hooray?

Some good news:

Univision is selling many of its Spanish-language radio stations — including Miami's ultraconservative Radio Mambí — to a group led by Democrats.
Creating a beachhead in a broadcast market often dominated by conservative or right-wing programming, a newly formed, Latino-owned and bipartisan media group is announcing Friday it has purchased 18 major Spanish-language radio stations owned by the TelevisaUnivision network — including Miami's Radio Mambí.

WLRN has learned that the Latino Media Network, or LMN — headed by Stephanie Valencia, a Latino community outreach director for former President Barack Obama, and Democratic activist Jessica Morales Rocketto — has bought the stations for $60 million.

The AM and FM stations are located in 10 of the country's largest Latino markets, including Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston and Las Vegas.

LMN says it has secured financing from "leading Latino investors" as well as Lakestar Finance, an investment group associated with businessman-philanthropist George Soros.

Other prominent LMN investors and advisers include Hollywood actress Eva Longoria, former Florida Republican Party chair Al Cárdenas, former Miami-Dade College President Eduardo Padrón and radio entrepreneur Tom Castro.

The purchase comes amid years of accusations that Spanish-language radio, especially in Miami, has become one of the most prominent sources of right-wing disinformation in the U.S.

Democrats have long chafed at much of it, particularly in 2020 when talk show hosts at stations like Mambí labeled then-presidential candidate Joe Biden a "socialista" who would turn the U.S. into a left-wing dictatorship like Venezuela's.

But until now, Democrats and Latino liberals and moderates had focused their efforts and resources on monitoring Spanish-language radio outlets instead of trying to own stations themselves.

https://www.wlrn.org/news/2022-06-03/a-new-latino-media-group-is-buying-up-and-shaking-up-spanish-language-radio

The ripple effect from that alone could be legitimately huge.

It's hard to explain how big AM radio is in Miami even for men and women you'd think are too young to listen.

“It’s inappropriate to ... subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”

Gov. DeSantis, Hobby Lobby is on line one. Chik-Fil-A is on line Two. They'd like a talk with you.

Condemning homosexuals isn't political activism. BEING a homosexual is!

“It’s inappropriate to ... subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”

sometimes i'll just lean my head back at my desk and daydream about a politician or party that would have the balls to say something like this in the interest of doing something actually good. silly, i know. but what would that look like. would people like it? would cable news give it much air? would Claire McCaskill or David Axelrod come on to tell us that this is Bad, Actually?

there's been an influx of competition in the past few years, but i think this joker is still the dumbest guy in congress

Rep Louie Gohmert on Navarro indictment: "If you're a Republican, you can't even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they're coming after you" pic.twitter.com/8eIkkycukd

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 3, 2022

Well I mean that does violate the holy writ of IOKIYAR. Sad times.

"If you're a Republican, you can't even skip two to ten years of paying taxes or the IRS comes after you, it ain't fair!"

""South Dakota Legislators Seek Hasty Repeal of Ethics Law Voters Passed." Of course, it was actually South Dakota Republican legislators"

I was just in SD for the past week and if there is a non-republican state legislator, I'd like to know, because that place is 100% non stop Republican candidate advertising across the board. On top of that, from what I can tell, they don't even mail out voter information packets, which I cannot believe. My mother said "oh in california we'd get a booklet that told us what we were voting on" and I said "uh, yeah?" she's never received one.

"no big deal to lie to the FBI?"
"yeah, exactly."

Dems gotta use that in an ad!!

Louie Gohmert used to be a judge.

that information alone undoes any sort of legitimacy of the US legal system

Checks and balances ... or the shell game writ large?

the contents of my colostomy bag have more of a sense of ethics and intelligence than Gohmert on a good day when he was young.

In my mond he talks like Gomer Pyle. I'm not clicking on that to check, though.

~mind~

Thanks for nothing Merrick Garland per Guardian reporter (although NPR reporter Carrie Johnson says "Not a surprise given their partial cooperation and their roles close to then President Trump."

Two sources confirm DOJ told Jan. 6 committee this morning that it would not pursue contempt of Congress charges against Trump aides Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino

New: Two sources confirm DOJ told Jan. 6 committee this morning that it would not pursue contempt of Congress charges against Trump aides Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino — matching scoop by @alanfeuer and @lukebroadwater

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 4, 2022

Garland wimps out thanks to "partial cooperation" and fear of litigation over exec privilege

https://i.imgur.com/UKPFMwm.png

oof

Briahna Joy Gray: Fox News is more inclined to have a leftist on than MSNBC and CNN. (MSNBC regularly hosts members of the squad)
Kim Iversen: "I used to hate Tucker Carlson... but I've grown to appreciate him... he's so anti-establishment"
Briahna Joy Gray: That's exactly right. pic.twitter.com/wtB6TvvPcI

— Matthew Dimitri 🐍🧪 (@themattdimitri) June 4, 2022

Briahna Joy Gray is a nonsense grifter who is full of shit and should be ignored

bernie's campaign retroactively tainted by association with her frankly

i read the thread and wow what an unpleasant conversation they're all having

never read the thread

It's amazing how BJG has not tried to finesse the grift at all, just went from zero to sixty on the Tucker kiss-ass career path after the Virgil Texas debacle.

she and matt christman have definitely dipped the toe into populist white grievance messaging many months ago. on one of her chapo guest appearances she lamented that covid lockdowns separated white people from their churches and families so who could blame them for their anger. to enthusiastic agreement, natch!

Members of the failed People's Convoy, now '1776 Restoration Movement', were told that locals would donate a "100 foot long" Subway sandwich for their encampment. But, it turns out, it was all a hoax, as convoy members now claim "antifa extremists" were behind the sandwich scam.

— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) June 5, 2022

Of course!

https://i.gifer.com/MCvC.gif

the only consolation I have is that Republican fundraising emails are somehow even worse! it's always shit like "Hey! It's Don Jr.! My Dad noticed the other day that you didn't appear on our MEGA GOLDEN PATRIOT list, and, uh...I kinda vouched for you dude...he said he was really disappointed and wondered if you'd fallen under the spell of the GROOMER DEMOCRATS...anyway...if you could uh, give me 5 dollars..."

I've pulled back so much from keeping up with political news since the beginning of last year but I'm genuinely about to give up altogether. Just assume that vulnerable communities will always be under assault and figure out how best to help them directly, vote locally, and fuck giving one iota of attention to any elected POS in every other level of government because what is even the point of paying attention at this point. It's all such demoralizing pyramid scheme theater.

The worst I've ever gotten was a fundraising mailer that looked like a collections letter, at a time when I was panicking because of actual collections agencies (because a hospital was mad that I didn't pay $5000 for 6 stitches and to be told that I didn't have a concussion).

xp that's going to have to be my default mode soon here too, Old Lunch, until they start rounding people up for sexing obv

we’re going to hand Mitch McConnell complete control over Joe Biden.

Uh oh he's going to make him nominate anti-abortion federal judges

Lol @ subject line “We Are Sorry”

"Packing Our Bags" is a recurring one.

lmao, sounds about right

82-year-old Patrick Leahy needs hip surgery after falling in his Virginia home. Unclear how long he’ll be out in the 50-50 Senate. Senators are on recess next week as well. His office notes he was “born blind in one eye” and “has had a lifelong struggle” with depth perception pic.twitter.com/9JhgypezIi

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 30, 2022

Senate might want to build a residential care home somewhere on the Hill

We. Would. CRY. for July thread title.

I am surprised by Gorsuch's dissent and think this is a good example of the misconstrual by the majority of states' rights: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-oklahoma-tribes.html

Indeed, he wrote, “Castro-Huerta’s argument would require this court to treat Indian victims as second-class citizens.”

Justice Gorsuch responded that “the old paternalist overtones are hard to ignore.”

Agreed. (Your government is second-class?)

I have this one fundraising email that always sticks out in my mind that purported to be from "James Carville" and the header was "[Man Alive] We are SCREWED!" I laugh every time I think about it, hearing it in Carville's voice and picturing his facial expression.

Cajun Style

as I understand it Gorsuch is actually surprisingly good on American Indian rights issues, he consistently rules in their favor

Regarding fundraising (not that I have donated for a long time), I think the politicians are doing what their pollsters are telling them to do, in the hopes that the small power of the masses will outweigh the limited(?) power of the elite. They can't escape the mass channels of influence unless they resort to influencers and have superpowers with respect to social intelligence. I think Obama resigned himself to fundraising as a surrogate for community activism.

The incessant begging emails are the product of many decades of direct-mail advertising techniques, where different kinds of appeals are tried, the results of each are carefully tabulated and compared, the least successful are eliminated and the most successful are refined. The overall effect is to converge upon approaches that appeal most strongly to the least common denominator. Most potential small dollar donors are totally baffled by the byzantine complexities of US politics.

The collision of the internet, direct mail techniques, and the simple-minded political perspective of the target audience produces the results you see in these emails. It doesn't do any good to feel insulted. The pols are just captive to the need to find the most efficient way to raise money and, for now, this is what works best.

Does it do good to do anything, Aimless? Sometimes I wonder about who are the cynical and nihilistic ones.

seriously

as I understand it Gorsuch is actually surprisingly good on American Indian rights issues, he consistently rules in their favor

he's LDS, Mormons have a whole thing with regard to Native Americans

or wait no he's presbyterian??? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/02/01/neil-gorsuch-belongs-to-a-notably-liberal-church-and-would-be-the-first-protestant-on-the-court-in-years/

as I understand it Gorsuch is actually surprisingly good on American Indian rights issues, he consistently rules in their favor

― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid), Thursday, June 30, 2022 5:12 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah it's his thing

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-tribal-rights-sonia-sotomayor.html

he must be charles m. russell collector or something

he is the only western judge on the supreme court right now fwiw

Sometimes the appeals are for people to show up. Perhaps the pollsters are thinking of disposable income and disposable time and weighing their appeals accordingly. Apathy is hard to escape. Most people don't expect an effect and come to weigh and parcel out their contributions or efforts to when enough people feel the same or they can ride a common sentiment and not stick out. (xpost)

I think Trump's politics have been described as transactional and the most corrupt governments might be considered the same. There is a notion of giving for a cause or belief that is distinct from a direct payback for survival.

Is there a sudden spate of decorating walls with dripping ketchup or similar condiment. Is there a specific canonical ketchup one needs to base things on ?

Looks like the hearings are having some effect:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/30/gop-megadonors-turn-on-trump-look-for-2024-alternatives-after-jan-6-hearings.html

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1912-09-23/ed-1/seq-29/?loclr=blogloc

"Commoners' food"; also mustard, with cheese in Ulysses IIRC; ~= false embellishment

Biden stated that he wanted to overturn the filibuster and codify abortion rights.

Is that news?

So what are we calling the July thread?

Orange Jesus Take the Wheel (just kidding)

"I'm the effing president"

so i've been trying to do something with this overwhelming anger i've felt over the last few weeks, months, years and was hoping to do more in local criminal justice. does anyone know of databases that store crime, charges, age of accused etc?

We. Would. CRY.: US Politics, July 2022