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

Whining about Senate betrayal is so funny because who do they think gives a shit? Even the GOP's base isn't going to hate Democrats 1% more because they tricked Cornyn et al..

idk, the latest conservative line that's been popping up over the last 48 hours is that Trump happened because the press and democrats were mean to Mitt Romney, so they certainly have the potential to hone in on the mildest of grievances and whine endlessly about it

xp right. overall approval among your voters goes up when you pass things, even if those things are unpopular with those voters! i don't think overall approval goes up when you tattle that CHIPS was passed unfairly. most people don't know what CHIPS is.

overall approval among your voters goes up when you pass things, even if those things are unpopular with those voters!

e.g. iirc 2017 tax cuts were and are incredibly unpopular, but their passing was the high point in trump's approval?

gab, the social media network for nazis, has started running ads on their platform. but who would pay to advertise their products & services on a website for white nationalists, antisemites, and aspiring mass shooters? well...

— molly conger (@socialistdogmom) July 29, 2022

Ad-Based Gab for August thread title.

they certainly have the potential to hone in on the mildest of grievances and whine endlessly about it

Like my conservative friend who is still so mad about the “cover up” of Hunter’s laptop.

Russian government officials requested that a former colonel from the country’s domestic spy agency who was convicted of murder in Germany last year be added to the US’ proposed swap of a notorious arms dealer for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, multiple sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
...The request was seen as problematic for several reasons, the sources told CNN, among them that Krasikov remains in German custody. As such, and because the request was not communicated formally but rather through the FSB backchannel, the US government did not view it as a legitimate counter to the US’ offer which was first revealed by CNN on Wednesday.
But underscoring how determined the Biden administration has been to get Griner and Whelan back to the US, US officials did make quiet inquiries to the Germans about whether they might be willing to include Krasikov in the trade, a senior German government source told CNN. A US official characterized the outreach as a status check on Krasikov.

The conversations were never elevated to the top levels of the German government and including Krasikov in a potential trade has not been seriously considered, the German source said. But the previously unreported discussions reveal that Russian officials have at least somewhat engaged with the US’ proposal.

...Asked for comment, a State Department official told CNN that “In order to preserve the best opportunity for a successful outcome, we’re not going to comment publicly on any speculation.”

...Multiple sources told CNN that even if it is not Krasikov, the Russians will likely demand two prisoners be released in exchange for Griner and Whelan. Russian government officials have indicated publicly in recent weeks that they want to see the release of Bout and Roman Seleznev, a convicted hacker currently serving a 27-year sentence in the US.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics/griner-whelan-russia-murderer-request/index.html

Here’s @tedcruz fist-bumping fellow Republicans after blocking a bill to help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. pic.twitter.com/sZdDljrJV7

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) July 29, 2022

So there's nothing in this reconciliation bill about renewing the child tax credits, I assume?

Manchin really didn't like the idea of his constituents' children sitting around eating food, when they could starting a summer job way down in the mine

lol

He was worried about people spending it on drugs, someone could have just pointed out that the credit let them buy his daughter's epi-pens.

Maybe child tax credits for freeing up child labor? Fair and Balanced.

Careful with the phrasing, he'll think you mean tax credits for coal mining operations to hire pre-teen children.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/29/homeland-inspector-general-texts/

The Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog scrapped its investigative team’s effort to collect agency phones to try to recover deleted Secret Service texts this year, according to four people with knowledge of the decision and internal records reviewed by The Washington Post.

In early February, after learning that the Secret Service’s text messages had been erased as part of a migration to new devices, staff at Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari’s office planned to contact all DHS agencies offering to have data specialists help retrieve messages from their phones, according to two government whistleblowers who provided reports to Congress.

But later that month, Cuffari’s office decided it would not collect or review any agency phones, according to three people briefed on the decision.

...Cuffari, a former adviser to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), has been in his post since July 2019 after being nominated by Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/29/homeland-inspector-general-texts/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/joseph-cuffari-blocked-investigation-into-secret-services-clearing-of-lafayette-square-says-report

Why has Biden White House or current DHS head not asked for Trump appointee Cuffai to resign? And shouldn't all be asked to testify under oath and face charges? Back in April the Project on Government Oversight said that Cuffari should be placed on administrative leave and or fired https://www.pogo.org/letter/2022/04/pogo-calls-on-president-biden-to-remove-dhs-ig-joseph-cuffari

They're such shameless mobsters

New: Rep. Matt Gaetz was caught on a hot mic assuring Roger Stone that Trump would likely pardon him shortly before Stone’s criminal trial in 2019. “The boss still has a very favorable view of you … he said it directly.” https://t.co/GcePQC3vcg

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) July 30, 2022

We have to give them the benefit of the doubt here. By “the boss” Gaetz is probably talking about the American taxpayers

Or Springsteen, or Ross?

Sinema indicates she may want to change Schumer-Manchin deal
Also: coming Vote-a-Rama, poison pills, more---it's Axios, but seems plausible enough:
https://www.axios.com/2022/07/30/sinema-schumer-manchin-deal-democrats

Rep. Chuy García (D-IL) tweeted profanities and a slur in response to a random Twitter account with 531 followers who trolled him. pic.twitter.com/LUjqWnDoxd

— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) July 30, 2022

will use the vote-a-rama to force vulnerable Democrats to take politically difficult votes.

Similar to whining about being tricked on CHIPs, is this something that ever really matters? Every Republican ad is a lie about their opponents record anyway.

(and I'm sure Democrats will run ads about Republican Senators stabbing veterans in the bank to similarly little effectiveness)

Yeah getting them to withdraw money and then stabbing them probably more effective

Apparently the vets thing will pass next week. I follow this stuff and I have no idea what’s going on. Amazed senators think anyone cares at all about anything other than bills that pass (and even then).

Mr President, passage would not have been delayed if Senator Schumer had kept his promises. Good news is, despite his mendacity, it will pass this next week. https://t.co/HVUtLYmFeU

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) July 31, 2022

cornyn is talking out of his ass

So, given what we know of cover-ups and incompetence, why are there *any* Trump picks still in appointed government positions?

Deep state

Dem adherence to norms and traditions

If God didn’t want Louis DeJoy running the Post Office, He’d smite him.

getting ready to cast my vote in the missouri primary. my choices for a democratic senator are a marine, someone with busch in their name, and a guy who spends all of his interview time talking about how cool the text message campaign is that he built which costs 2 cents per message instead of the state-wide average of 6 cents.

guess i'm voting for tough guy marine with a soft heart lucas kunce to stand up man-to-man with all the republican candidates who center their campaigns around how they want everyone to use their guns and also how everyone is out to get them. he was endorsed by sanders last night, i guess. but early polling shows that even if Eric Greitens, who is a shell of a man and a reaaaaaaaaaal piece of shit, wins the Republican nomination, Kunce would be a significant underdog. And if the other Eric (Schmitt) wins -- Schmitt is a reaaaaaaaaaal piece of shit -- then it's not even close. The good people of Missouri know in their hearts that they want a reaaaaaaaaaaaal piece of shit!

speaking of, trump made an endorsement yesterday: ""I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"

predictably, both Erics thought it was about them.

so did Eric Trump

that eric trump is a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

so Nancy Pelosi is in Taiwan, not really sure what to make of that

She should hoist an American flag and claim the country, see what China makes of *that*.

Good news, I guess:

President Joe Biden has far outpaced his Oval Office predecessors in nominating women and racially diverse attorneys to the federal bench, a new American Bar Association analysis confirms.

As of July 1, 68% of the 68 federal judges nominated by Biden and confirmed by the Senate are Black, Hispanic or Asian American, and just three are white men, the ABA found. By contrast, 16% of the judges installed on the federal bench by former President Donald Trump are non-white, according to the organization's 2022 Profile of the Legal Profession.

The report, released Thursday, details how diversity within the federal judiciary is slowly increasing.

After Biden, Barack Obama appointed the second-most non-white federal judges, at 36%, followed by Bill Clinton at 24%. According to the ABA’s figures, which date back to the Carter administration, Ronald Reagan had the lowest percentage of non-white federal judges at 6%....

...In addition to racial diversity, Biden has pushed to nominate federal judges with a broader range of professional experience and has tapped more nominees with backgrounds as public defenders than past presidents.

Our intelligence community is the best.

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) August 2, 2022

lol

what a weird thing to say

Not if they’ve got Chasten held at an undisclosed location.

appropriately chastened

Gimme a C
Gimme an I
Gimme an A

Pete was assigned to 'intelligence' when he served in the US army, so he's a member of the club.

Would be funny if the DOT had its own spooks looking for, I dunno, foreign subversion of air traffic control or something.

I just remembered that the buildings for the Federal Highway Administration and the CIA are adjacent to each other in Virginia.

BURNPIT: U.S. Politics, August 2022

Boring: sorry, nope, the FHWA facility adjacent to CIA HQ is just a test track. Their headquarters is in SE.