BURNPIT: U.S. Politics, August 2022

Yes, the legislation passed last year gutting the referendum is called Stop Scum from Voting Act iirc

I enjoyed this ruling out of Florida, blocking part of the idiotic and obviously unconstitutional STOP WOKE Act. Props to the judge for a sustained Stranger Things riff in the intro:

In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. See Stranger Things(Netflix 2022). Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.

Now, like the heroine in Stranger Things, this Court is once again asked to pull Florida back from the upside down.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22140127/preliminary-injunction-order-honeyfund-v-desantis.pdf

this is sorely missing a reference to making deals with the gods even though it hints at the swapping of places.

Justice for Barb

I think that bro in Minnesota been snortin' a bit too much Black Rifle straight from the can (or maybe something else). He's a bit wired.

what the fuck are you doing Oz

Only in John Fetterman’s world can you go house hunting and get a home for $1. pic.twitter.com/0akJi1nNFW

— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) August 18, 2022

I don't even get what point that's trying to make.

I want to be in fetterman’s world which is really weird and not my own but the homes cost $1

Oz is running one of the worst campaigns I've ever seen, it's like he's trying to Tommy Wiseau his way into a Senate seat

like the same way The Room comes off like a poorly-trained AI trying to write its own movie, Oz's campaign is just a weird amalgam of stuff you see in other political ads with no understanding of what they're actually trying to convey. so he's just out there saying broadly popular ideas suck and grabbing raw vegetables with his bare hands

do I even want to know what this $1 house thing is about, or is it gibberish?

Fine, I looked it up:

Public records show — and Fetterman has openly acknowledged — that for a long stretch lasting well into his 40s, his main source of income came from his parents, who gave him and his family $54,000 in 2015 alone. That was part of the financial support his parents regularly provided when Fetterman’s only paying work was $150 a month as mayor of Braddock, a job he held from his mid-30s until he turned 49. He lived in an industrial-style loft he purchased from his sister for $1 after she paid $70,000 for it six years earlier.

(That's from a Philadelphia Inquirer article.)

surely no PA citizen could relate these days to needing financial help from their family.

Another lovely little flourish from the Florida ruling:

Nonetheless, the fact that the IFA uses real words found in an English
dictionary does not magically extinguish vagueness concerns. See Yates v. United
States, 574 U.S. 528, 537 (2015) (“Whether a statutory term is unambiguous, however, does not turn solely on dictionary definitions of its component words.”). If that were true, the Due Process Clause would tolerate laws containing the most incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness word salads so long as they used actual words. See generally James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939).

Concept 4 is even worse, bordering on unintelligible. Under that provision, employers cannot endorse the view that “(m)embers of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin.” § 760.10(8)(a)(4), Fla. Stat. (emphases added). Concept 4 thus features a rarely seen triple negative, resulting in a cacophony of confusion.

Good or at least promising news:

Wow. I've been sharing data showing a huge surge in women registering to vote since the 6/24 Dobbs decision. I just started to look at some age and party breakdowns of those new registrants, and the numbers are jaw-dropping.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 19, 2022

Starting in PA, where women have accounted for >56% of new registrants in that time period. Those women new registrants are 62%D to 15% R and 54% are under the age of 25. Compare that to men new registrants at 41% <25 and 43% D, 28% R.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 19, 2022

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

anyone with a washington post sub (or willing to burn a free article) should check out the photo essay on the IRS system of processing paper tax returns, which was last updated back in the 1870s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/irs-pipeline-tax-return-delays/

starve the beast, especially the part of the beast that collects taxes.

https://i.imgur.com/zEyNA8C.png

sorry america, but IRS tech can only handle 4 dependents. it's just not possible to make it better.

if anyone knows a more more modern language than COBOL than yeah, be my guest and try to fix it

then, america. then.

easier to cap child bearing at 4

"... a cacophony of confusion'

Next month's title?

Not Megadeth’s best work imo

IIRC, you can only get deductions for 10 dependents at the most

well you have to curb that great replacement somehow

Manchin’s evil but sometimes dryly funny?

Manchin in WV: "We had a Senator from Arizona who basically didn't let us go as far as we needed to go with our [prescription drug pricing] negotiations and made us wait two years"https://t.co/GuaL9STfQN

— Pavan (@ppavnr) August 19, 2022

Oh, the joy of updated website cover images...

What does your "poop" say about your health? Learn here: http://t.co/By1c8yH6q9

— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) April 10, 2013

I think that bro in Minnesota been snortin' a bit too much Black Rifle straight from the can (or maybe something else). He's a bit wired.

Confirmed.

The “smear campaign” was me posting a long video of one of Lowell’s speeches https://t.co/W4IgkfjuWP pic.twitter.com/gHGbwLZ89f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2022

Was gonna say something about FlOrbándia, but really it's just rollin' back through that old-tyme South, currently about 1953:

The ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, the Legal Defense Fund and a national law firm filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Florida's "Stop WOKE Act," which restricts how race, gender and inequality are discussed in schools, colleges and workplaces.

...It also names as defendants the boards of trustees at several public universities within the university system. They have made no public comment on the lawsuit. DeSantis' communications office did not immediately return a request for comment.

The complaint charges that the "Stop WOKE Act" is racially motivated censorship enacted by the Florida Legislature to stifle widespread demands to discuss, study and address systemic inequalities, following the nationwide protests that provoked discussions about race and racism in the aftermath of the 2020 killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

As part of the racial reckoning spurred by their deaths, people across disciplines, including professors and other educators at universities, sought to talk about the importance of racial justice in their work, and a number of departments issued statements that emphasized their commitment to anti-racism in their classrooms, Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program, said in an interview Wednesday.

"After the 'Stop WOKE Act' went into effect, many of those statements were withdrawn altogether," Watson said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in April. The legislation, officially known as House Bill 7, passed the Florida House and Florida Senate along party lines. It bars instruction that might make members of one race feel guilty for past actions committed by their race and also bars the notion that meritocracy is racist orthat people are privileged or oppressed based on race, gender or national origin. It also prevents the teaching of critical race theory, which opponents of the legislation have said is not taught in Florida's K-12 public schools.

"BACK TO BASICS....FIVE WHITE GUYS IN A ROOM"

Question: What is the Republican plan to deal with inflation?

Republican: We have a positive agenda. We have a commitment to America. We’re gonna get back to basics. We’re gonna win landslide elections.

Unasked Follow-Up Question: What does that have to do with inflation? https://t.co/bZGPGl0JEE

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) August 21, 2022

Stay the course, thousand points of light...

A fun little piece from Josh Barro:

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the “bellyaching and scolding from establishment Republicans” about Democrats’ interventions on behalf of Trumpier candidates in Republican primaries generally and the Michigan 3rd congressional district primary specifically: Rep. Peter Meijer, who had voted for impeachment, lost to pro-Trump candidate John Gibbs, who enjoyed about a half-million dollars of supportive spending from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Republicans are correct that many Democrats have acted hypocritically, raising alarm about Trump being a unique threat to democracy while they act to strengthen his grip on the Republican Party. But there’s lots of hypocrisy in politics. The reason this burns so much for the “Team Normal” Republicans is that Democrats are making life more difficult for them on two dimensions — they’re making it harder (at the margin, anyway) for them and their allies to win Republican primaries, and they’re helping to saddle the party with Trump’s preferred candidates, who are less likely to win general elections.

How do I know that’s the real reason Republicans are so indignant? It’s because when Democrats take actions that are consistent with their purported view that Trump is a danger to democracy — such as, for example, pursuing a criminal investigation of his activities — the “Team Normal” Republicans complain about that, too. Right now, the Republican bellyaching is the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago — it’s unprecedented! it strengthens his hand! it’s “overreach,” whatever — even though the actions of the Democrat at issue here (Merrick Garland) are perfectly congruent with viewing Trump as a legitimate and direct threat to democracy.

What the “Team Normal” Republicans would like is the arrangement they had before 2015 — they would like Trump to help stir up their own voters and generate “energy,” but they don’t want to have to defend his unpopular actions and characteristics to swing voters who have a negative view of him and they also don’t want to have intraparty fights with the candidates he supports. What they’d like to do is move not against him but past him. They see that Trump is absorbed by his own hobby-horses and searches for vengeance; he does not seem especially animated by the new culture wars of the day; maybe he can just be allowed to fade away, screaming into a void, as the party nominates DeSantis.

When Democrats help prop up candidates who are committed to avenging Trump, they interfere with this project. And if they indict Trump — raising the salience of Trump’s personal grievances and putting Trump’s fixation on his own alleged persecution into more plausible alignment with the locus of Republican primary voter interest in 2024 — they will also interfere with the project.

In the view of the Republicans who cry foul at these actions, it’s the Democrats’ responsibility not to back Trump or oppose him — it’s to ignore him, as they try mightily to do the same, in hopes that it will cause him to disappear in favor of another stronger potential nominee. That is, Democrats are supposed to participate in their strategy to get DeSantis nominated in 2024 — it’s their duty, even if it entails giving Trump a pass on criminal acts, and even though it will make Democrats less likely to win the 2024 election.

Well, it’s fine to want things. But why on earth would Democrats do that, simply because Republicans want them to? That your party is led by an inept, impulsive, criminally inclined man, who is viewed negatively by most voters, who cares very little about whether your party wins elections or achieves policy goals, and who keeps causing the party to nominate his unappealing weirdo personal friends in otherwise-winnable Senate races, is your problem — one largely of your own making. No self-respecting set of political opponents would respond to this in any other way than by putting the screws to you as hard as is possible.

I just find it galling to watch a set of people who have failed so abjectly, both morally and strategically, as the Republican establishment — very much including the commentators at National Review and elsewhere, whose complete irrelevance in shaping the direction of the party was exposed by Trump’s rise and reign — stand up and demand that their opponents show them mercy and forbearance and assistance in their fight to ensure their party should win elections despite its association with Donald Trump. Who do you people think you are?

criminally inclined

https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/c_fill,g_auto,w_1200,h_675,ar_16:9/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F180521164335-michael-jackson-moonwalker-lean-restricted.jpg

Walker, criticizing climate law, asks, ‘Don’t we have enough trees around here?’

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/walker-criticizing-climate-law-asks-don-t-we-have-enough-trees-around-here/ar-AA10Wwf8?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=W069&cvid=4c9b7f82e370465099ff05d77eae036a

We knew they'd be feeding him talking points, but surely they could have given him someone better than MTG to do the ghostwriting.

Riley Williams, accused of stealing Pelosi's laptop, was given permission to leave house arrest to attend a Renaissance fair.

As a public defender, I represented a teenager who wasn't given permission to leave jail to go to his dad's funeral.

Two. Systems. Of. Justice.

— Eliza Orlins (@elizaorlins) August 22, 2022

But he already had tickets!!!

She, I guess.

Sorry but it was a m'lady

he already had tickets to the funeral but they still didn't let him go?

And people were dying to get in!

I'm sure this will be just fine...

"An elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history — worth $1.6 billion — and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court.

Through a series of opaque transactions over the past two years, Barre Seid, a 90-year-old manufacturing magnate, gave the massive sum to a nonprofit run by Leonard Leo, who co-chairs the conservative legal group the Federalist Society."

https://www.levernews.com/how-a-secretive-billionaire-handed-his-fortune-to-the-architect-of-the-right-wing-takeover-of-the-courts/

Ugh. Was just reading that sad bit of news

Why won’t Biden get rid of these Trump appointees? This article also talks about how Congressional investigations of these appointees could help Biden by showing these guys are ineffective and bad .

From FBI Director Chris Wray’s hyper-surveillance of Black activists to IRS chief Charles Rettig’s refusal to disclose Trump’s tax returns to Louis DeJoy’s rejection of a zero-carbon Postal Service fleet and degradation of the mail service, it’s been easy to make the case for their replacement since day one, even setting blanket de-Trumpification aside.

Many agency weaknesses are the result of Trumpian malfeasance, as the Secret Service scandal demonstrates. The failed federal response to Hurricane Maria and the decline of the Postal Service under DeJoy are obvious targets for congressional scrutiny, but the list is long. Congress has an opportunity to create political momentum to root out incompetence and make government work better.

https://prospect.org/power/where-has-congress-been-on-trump-holdovers/

White House officials are leaning toward canceling up to $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers who make less than $125,000, sources tell CNN. https://t.co/QmUN7RGR90

— CNN (@CNN) August 22, 2022

Why won’t Biden get rid of these Trump appointees?

https://i.imgur.com/C9VpfqA.jpg

I wonder if Republicans will start running on a "Make them pay it back!" platform, and promise to go after any debts Biden cancels.

Ssssssshhhhhh!