US Politics- One Flew over the Cuckcoup’s Nest

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Wasn't she involved in some unsavory shit back in the '70's? 

All I know about what she did in the 70s is she worked for Dan Rather.

13 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

We could see impeachment in the House by the middle of next week.

Saw Elissa Slotkin say this morning they're gonna come back on Monday.  I think they should come back now (or, never left), but if that's the case the vote should be Monday when they get back.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Honestly, I’m going to give them some slack about taking a short pause.  Weds was traumatic and terrifying.  Monday is soon enough and it’s not like their staffs etc. aren’t WORKING.  There’s a lot of nonsense that probably is happening behind the scenes.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

@DMC Too lazy to look it up right now but I thought it had something to do with Nixon. Like she was defending him to the end. Might have been ford's pardon. I can't remember.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Like she was defending him to the end. Might have been ford's pardon. I can't remember.

Oh sure, she's always defended Ford's pardon from what I recall, I'd assume/make sense she did so at the time.  Definitely wouldn't call defending pardoning Nixon unsavory myself, but YMMV.

[Ran]

47 minutes ago, DMC said:

But she gets a pass because she stole a line from a poet

My only quibble with your harangue against Noonan is this bit, because it wasn't plagarized, it was properly quoted and the correct attribution was never denied.

The rest is entirely correct, though.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

38 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Baker has, at least, been consistently critical of Trump. His anger after the Feds hijacked some of the PPE he'd purchased in the spring was pretty palpable.

Of course the die hard local Trumpkins here hate him so much they constantly forget he's from their party.

Your state is weird when it comes to governors….

[DanteGabriel]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Your state is weird when it comes to governors….

I think it's relatively healthy, if nothing else than to keep the local Democrats a little honest, so they don't go Full Rhode Island. (I say as a ten-year resident of Rhode Island)

At least Massachusetts hasn't lost the trick of breeding sane Republican politicians.

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Question: were lower taxes and picking judges worth it?

 

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, because they could have done that with literally any Republican president if they controlled both chambers of Congress. Trump's only two accomplishments were done by McConnell. 

Been saying this for years. Trump only succeeded because he brought out the crazies and let the racism freak flag fly proudly.  They'd have gotten all of the same stuff with Jeb!, but they wouldn't get to be openly racist.

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

My new favorite story comment/internet word: the “traitor-bros”!

The problem with demagogues whipping up their mob with promises of bread and circuses is that when they're shown to be making it all up and they decide to back away from what they were doing, the whipped up mob remains...and they usually need to turn on something...

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

My only quibble with your harangue against Noonan is this bit, because it wasn't plagarized, it was properly quoted and the correct attribution was never denied.

Heh.  Swear to gods, I first wrote "plagiarized," but caught myself.  I used "stole" instead in the spirit of Sorkin's adage "good writers borrow from other writers.  Great writers steal from them outright."  Regardless of proper attribution, Reagan and Noonan reaped the benefits of that line while most have no idea who John Magee was.

[maarsen]

It seems Antifa has managed, judging by some comments, to infiltrate not just the rioters but the Republican party, the Republican caucus, and even the Trump inner circle and family.

[Fez]

5 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

 

Been saying this for years. Trump only succeeded because he brought out the crazies and let the racism freak flag fly proudly.  They'd have gotten all of the same stuff with Jeb!, but they wouldn't get to be openly racist.

But it's the openly racist stuff that many of them care about the most.

Also, while Jeb! absolutely would've given them Gorsuch and either Kavanaugh or someone just like Kavanaugh; I don't think he'd have give them Barrett. He'd certainly have filled the seat, but good chance it would've been Barbara Lagoa actually, one of the other frontrunners considered at the time. And that would've disappointed the evangelicals who love Barrett so much. 

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, Morpheus said:

We could see impeachment in the House by the middle of next week. My guess is that McConnell sits on it for a week so Senate Republicans don’t have to make a choice either way.

No, they still may have to make a choice. There is precedent for still holding a trial when someone is impeached even after they have left office, and whether or not that would occur will then be Schumer's call, not McConnell's. And I devoutly hope they would hold such a trial, because one of the consequences of a conviction could be that Trump would be prevented from ever holding federal office again.

P.S. Have now seen what Zabzie said about the quorum, but they certainly should be forced to do something obviously craven like that instead of an impeachment trial just being dropped.

[Hereward]

Fez,
What kind of proper Evangelical nut job doesn’t hate Catholics? Your country is strange!

[Fragile Bird]

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh.  Swear to gods, I first wrote "plagiarized," but caught myself.  I used "stole" instead in the spirit of Sorkin's adage "good writers borrow from other writers.  Great writers steal from them outright."  Regardless of proper attribution, Reagan and Noonan reaped the benefits of that line while most have no idea who John Magee was.

That’s so funny, because several generations of Canadians were raised loving his poem, and the standard book of poetry once used in high schools is called High Flight. In fact, if you quoted the poem to people (of a certain age, I suspect) they’d likely tell you he’s a beloved Canadian poet.

[Fragile Bird]

2 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Fez,
What kind of proper Evangelical nut job doesn’t hate Catholics? Your country is strange!

The US has this bizarre sect called Evangelical Catholics. True story!

[Ormond]

3 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Fez,
What kind of proper Evangelical nut job doesn’t hate Catholics? Your country is strange!

A few of them still do, though in USA Evangelical circles those are now the ones that the garden variety Evangelical nuts themselves think are nutty.

[DanteGabriel]

7 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Fez,
What kind of proper Evangelical nut job doesn’t hate Catholics? Your country is strange!

Evangelicals and the Mel Gibson wing of Catholicism achieved a political entente when they compared notes on who they hated and found a lot of overlap.

Wait till you hear about Jews for Jesus...

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I have to say, this idea of fascism coming about due to a denial of social or economic justice to ordinary people misguided.

The rise of the far coincides with the barest amounts of justice being offered to typically maligned groups or subjugated groups within their society. Women, ethnic and religious minorities, the lgbt, immigrants.

Economic Inequality, but it’s gone down 

And their grievances  are often not rational and something a society that values, equability, and equality.

A white heterosexual male  in rural area in the US has a very little chance of actually ever interacting with a typical immigrant. Yet immigration will be the issue their most concerned with. Not covid. Not the opioid epidemic. Immigration. The idea that people like him—white heterosexual males—perhaps won’t have as big a monopoly on power in the nation is terrifying to him.
And trying to humor his bigotries—by pretending their rational and reasonable—it will not make him less bigoted. It will simply reaffirm his worldview is right.

I am not calling on Biden to execute anyone. 
I’m calling on him to give justice. Not to give undue leniency to rioters. In 9 months I do not want to see one of cosplaying fascists walking free, waxing their politics, and to be looked at as heroes.

Justice would see them in prison. It would send a message to others who’d organize an insurrection like this that they got can’t try to kill democracy and just resume their lives.

 

Going to quibble over a couple things here:

I'd be interested to hear how economic inequality has gone down in the US.

Also, there are plenty of rural immigrants, all over the country.  They work on farms and in food service everywhere, not just in cities.  

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh.  Swear to gods, I first wrote "plagiarized," but caught myself.  I used "stole" instead in the spirit of Sorkin's adage "good writers borrow from other writers.  Great writers steal from them outright." 

Speaking of Sorkin, Noonan used to be a consultant on the West Wing. May have contributed to writing some episodes, I dont know.

[Ormond]

9 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Going to quibble over a couple things here:

I'd be interested to hear how economic inequality has gone down in the US.

Also, there are plenty of rural immigrants, all over the country.  They work on farms and in food service everywhere, not just in cities.  

The distribution of immigrants outside of metropolitan areas is extremely uneven. In Nebraska, there are a few small counties (Dawson and Colfax especially) that have a very high population of immigrants, so much so that the majority of children in their school systems are children of immigrants, mostly because of workers in meatpacking plants. But the majority of rural counties in Nebraska would still have a small enough population of immigrants that the average local person would seldom interact with them.