tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63837418954551238212024-03-18T14:58:17.348-07:00Rim Country GazetteOfficial blog of the Rim Country Gazette, the Newspaper of the People. Our fortes are fairness and telling the truth. Besides keeping Arizona's Rim Country and a growing audience of readers worldwide apprised of the issues that matter, our focus is quality of life, arts, heritage, entertainment and culture.
Jim Keyworth,
EditorJames Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.comBlogger7412125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-23552313342457245802024-03-18T14:55:00.000-07:002024-03-18T14:57:43.989-07:00UNCLE TOM, 'ER TIM: Aspiring Trump veep hits North Korean levels of sucking up<div class="post-header">
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<div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="283" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1282104/story_image/GettyImages-1946340500.jpg?1710539767" title="no image description available" width="400" /><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Sen. Tim Scott really, really wants Donald Trump to pick him.</b>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600"><i><span style="background-color: #fcff01; color: #45818e; font-size: x-large;">Any black man who sucks up to racist Trump is an Uncle Tom</span></i> <br /></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">By Hunter for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Daily Kos Staff<br /></span></span></b></span></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Friday, March 15, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> 5:30:09p MDT</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710545409000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Seditious
conspirator and multi-indicted Donald Trump has now clinched the
Republican Party's nomination for president.That means that it's time
for the would-be contenders for Dear Leader's vice presidential slot to
prove that they can suck up to the would-be strongman more than even
Trump himself can handle.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina has been making a </span><i>strong</i><span> bid to be No. 1 Suck-Up, and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1768453720642076794" title=""><span>on Fox News</span></a><span> on Thursday, he sucked as hard as a sucker can suck. North Korean news broadcasters have nothing on </span><i>this</i><span>.</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Well, let me tell you what. If there's anyone who's paying
attention to the details of 2024, it's Donald Trump. Who is now running,
co-running, the RNC? Lara Trump. Why? Because he understands that the
devil's in the details, so he puts his brilliant daughter-in-law in
charge of our RNC apparatus so that all that [former RNC chair] Reince
[Preibus] talked about, wise wise man that he is, will be taken care of.</b></p></div></div></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>OH COME ON NOW. There's sucking up and then there's </span><i>sucking up</i><span><i>;</i> at this point EMTs need to be called out to remove Trump's whole upper torso from Scott's throat.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>He put his "brilliant" daughter-in-law in charge of the party's
apparatus? Putting family members in charge of the party's cash
supplies is among the first things authoritarian crooks do upon seizing
command. And Dear Leader's personal kin are always described as
"brilliant" as Dear Leader himself, because if you don't say that, then
Dear Leader's family makes sure your future political career is buried
six feet under in an unmarked grave.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Lara Trump's "brilliant" career is thin enough that even her Wikipedia page </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Trump"><span>can barely scrape up anything to say about her</span></a><span>.
She worked as a tabloid news producer, married Eric Trump and his
family’s money, and parlayed it all into a year-and-a-half Fox News
career before devoting herself full-time to polishing her
father-in-law's copious golden turds while </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2020/09/02/lara-trump-laura-loomer-campaign"><span>boosting the careers of</span></a><span> </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/29/1816053/-Right-wing-reporter-handcuffs-herself-to-Twitter-HQ-and-the-Twitter-responses-erupt-into-hilarity"><span>the far right's weirdest weirdos</span></a><span>. Sure, buddy. Everybody should be </span><i>very</i><span>
excited that the entire Republican Party is now in the hands of Trump
and the increasingly shrinking set of family members willing to be seen
with him.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>You just know that Donald was pressing his daughter Ivanka to
take the RNC slot, having previously made her his White House "adviser."
The joke's on him, though: Son-in-law Jared Kushner was able to convert
his own White House foreign policy slot to a </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/12/2152589/-After-protecting-Khashoggi-s-murderer-Donald-Trump-and-Jared-Kushner-are-now-cashing-in"><span>$2 billion investment from the Saudi royal pockets</span></a><span>, so Ivanka can steer clear of her indicted daddy. She doesn't need to suck up to him for odd jobs anymore.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>However, as Scott noted in his glowing assessment, “But at the
end of the day you want the ball in the hands of the best player on the
field. That player is Donald Trump.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>We'll only give him a B+ on that one, because if Scott was
really into that metaphor he would have found a way to wedge in comments
on Trump's bulging muscles and masculine athletic physique. Still a
good try, though.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There's been rampant speculation about Trump's vice presidential shortlist and </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/23/2225114/-Trump-s-shortlist-of-VP-candidates-is-all-about-who-will-go-the-lowest"><span>how far Republican hopefuls will have to debase themselves to stay on it</span></a><span>,
but Scott has spent considerably more time polishing his sycophantic
phrases than some of the other candidates. There's also been tedious
press speculation—</span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/abortion-trump-vp-pick-rcna142264"><span>fueled solely by Trump's own allies</span></a><span>—as
to whether Trump will attempt to pick a running mate who can better
dance around the party's moves to criminalize abortion nationwide, which
would rule out Scott and in fact </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/14/2229220/-Trump-wants-a-VP-pick-who-s-not-extreme-on-abortion-Good-luck-with-that"><span>most of the current contenders</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>You can discount those particular claims, because Trump cares about Trump first and foremost and will </span><i>only</i><span>
be deciding who his running mate will be based on the extent to which
they can flatter and extol him on his television screen. Trump has never
shown the slightest interest in policy matters, allowing himself to be
bent in whichever direction his </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/27/2177991/-Trump-adviser-Stephen-Miller-pushed-for-blowing-up-migrant-boats-with-drones-new-book-claims" title=""><span>most extreme advisers</span></a><span> have wanted to bend him. He's not going to start now.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLprmCHCmkgJTPK8nnj8SttxKbAwB5yLLisnO0RmclnLnfczSApIDVbAXNS-7Bm6KAgookICjX8cuYr40m2bE7QHna7YMIFgYJuUdsmYO6rifz_11CS7RUf7qgi6jsJokOFMV6RkiQpoMgZcBcGH8uLMpENpMlxprmmbQ7VJ7Kf8F91Z0uPYL6N4l1sk/s796/98467917_1333232730216167_4327056959468470272_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLprmCHCmkgJTPK8nnj8SttxKbAwB5yLLisnO0RmclnLnfczSApIDVbAXNS-7Bm6KAgookICjX8cuYr40m2bE7QHna7YMIFgYJuUdsmYO6rifz_11CS7RUf7qgi6jsJokOFMV6RkiQpoMgZcBcGH8uLMpENpMlxprmmbQ7VJ7Kf8F91Z0uPYL6N4l1sk/w361-h400/98467917_1333232730216167_4327056959468470272_n.jpg" width="361" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Uncle Tim is sucking</span></b><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span> "as hard as a sucker can suck."</span></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-2923150794403734862024-03-17T14:45:00.000-07:002024-03-17T14:45:26.894-07:00Seriously, Again, How Dumb Is Trump?<p></p><h2 class="date-header"><span></span></h2>
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<img alt="Seriously, Again, How Dumb Is Trump?" data-image="" height="91" src="https://www.rsn.org/images/001/020167-robert-reich-030816.jpg" width="200" />
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<span data-credits="" style="font-family: helvetica;">Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. (photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star) </span>
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<b class="logo" style="font-family: helvetica;">
<a href="https://www.rsn.org">
<img alt="rsn.org reader supported news" src="https://www.rsn.org/images/logo-255x72.gif" width="255" /> </a></b><b class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="16/Mar/2024" style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></b></p><p><b class="author" style="font-family: helvetica;">
<span data-author="">Robert Reich</span>
<span class="author-divider">/</span>
<span data-publication="">Robert Reich's Substack</span> </b></p><p><b class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="16/Mar/2024" style="font-family: helvetica;">16 March 24</b>
</p><div data-content="">
<blockquote><b><i><span style="color: #45818e; font-size: x-large;">And why has his extraordinary stupidity fallen off the radar during his third run for the presidency? </span></i></b></blockquote><p><b class="author">
<span data-author="" style="font-family: helvetica;">Robert Reich</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">
<span class="author-divider">/</span>
<span data-publication="">Robert Reich's Substack</span> </span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="16/Mar/2024">16 March 24</span></b>
</p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">My
definition of stupidity is continuing to do something that has so far
cost you a minimum of $91 million because you won’t stop doing it. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In
recent days, Trump has again publicly charged that E. Jean Carroll’s
allegation of sexual abuse, for which he has been found liable in court,
is “false.” </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">When a jury last year found Trump liable for
sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, Trump responded at a CNN
town hall by defaming Carroll again.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">So when it came time earlier
this year for another jury to decide what Trump owed Carroll in the
second defamation lawsuit, her attorneys asked jurors to make sure it
was enough to “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-trial-e-jean-carroll-01-26-24/index.html" target="_blank">make him stop</a>.”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The
second jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million (which, with interest added
in, is $91 million). But it apparently is still not enough to make Trump
stop.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump has just renewed his attacks on Carroll in much the
same terms as before — claiming that she “made up” the story and that he
had “never heard” of her. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Unsurprisingly, Carroll’s attorney
now suggests there could be a third lawsuit, because the previous
verdict was obviously not enough to dissuade him from more defamation.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">I have to wonder why the mainstream media isn’t discussing Trump’s extraordinary stupidity. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The
media continues to discuss Trump’s criminal indictments, and is —
finally! — noticing that Trump is becoming less and less coherent. But
why isn’t it reporting on something almost every lawmaker and journalist
in official Washington knows — that Trump is remarkably stupid? </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">I don’t mean just run-of-the-mill stupid. I mean extraordinarily, off-the-charts, <i>stupifyingly</i> stupid. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In
December, Trump said his comments about immigrants “poisoning the
blood” of America were not inspired by similar statements made by Adolf
Hitler about Jewish people, because Trump “didn’t know anything” about
Hitler. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In <a href="https://hughhewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/12-22-Hewitt-PresidentTrump-Interview.mp3" target="_blank">an interview</a>
with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump explained that “I’m not
a student of Hitler. I never read his works. They say that he said
something about blood, he didn’t say it the way I said it either, by the
way, it’s a very different kind of a statement.”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The media interpreted this as Trump trying to backpedal from his Hitler-ish remark. But what if Trump <i>in fact </i>doesn’t know anything about Adolf Hitler? </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">After all, he recently claimed that <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-latest-relentlessly-stupid-084138421.html" target="_blank">magnets don’t work in water</a>, that the Civil War was unnecessary because it should have been “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4395612-trump-civil-war-negotiated/" target="_blank">negotiated</a>,” and that no one would know <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4395612-trump-civil-war-negotiated/" target="_blank">who Lincoln was</a> if he hadn’t gone to war.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Still don’t believe Trump is stupid? </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Consider
the views of the people who worked most closely with him during his
presidency. Anyone remember when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called
Trump a “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/tillerson-s-fury-trump-required-intervention-pence-n806451" target="_blank">f—king moron</a>?”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Or when National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster called him a “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/trumps-insults-idiot-woodward-806455" target="_blank">dope</a>?”
And Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, former White House Chief of Staff
Reince Priebus, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and even
Rupert Murdoch all referred to Trump as an “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/looking-for-a-stable-genius-for-president" target="_blank">idiot</a>?” (Technically, Murdoch called him a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/rupert-murdoch-wished-donald-trump-dead-michael-wolff-book" target="_blank">f—king idiot.</a>”)</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn described Trump as “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/the-wildest-claims-about-trump-from-michael-wolffs-fire-and-fury.html" target="_blank">dumb as sh-t,</a>”
explaining that “Trump won’t read anything — not one-page memos, not
the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings
with world leaders because he is bored.”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">When one of Trump’s
campaign aides tried to educate him about the Constitution, Trump
couldn’t focus. “I got as far as the Fourth Amendment,” the aide <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html" target="_blank">recalled,</a> “before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Of
course, Trump doesn’t think he’s stupid. “Actually, throughout my life,
my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like,
really smart,” he tweeted. As he <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/donald-trump-2016-wharton-pennsylvania-214425" target="_blank">recounted</a>, “I went to an Ivy League college … I did very well. I’m a very intelligent person.” </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump
wasn’t exactly an academic star, however. One of his professors at the
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Finance
purportedly <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/09/14/donald-trump-at-wharton-university-of-pennsylvania/" target="_blank">called</a> Trump “the dumbest goddamn student I <i>ever</i> had.”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump biographer Gwenda Blair <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/08/03/donald-trump-a-classic-case-of-affirmative-action-for-the-wealthy-wants-to-take-it-away-from-the-disadvantaged/" target="_blank">wrote</a> in 2001 that Trump was admitted to Wharton on a <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2016/11/trumps-history-of-donating-to-penn" target="_blank">special favor</a> from a “friendly” admissions officer who had known Trump’s older brother. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But
hold on. I ask myself: How could Trump have become president, and now
clinch the Republican nomination for the presidency for a third time, if
he doesn’t have something in the brain bank? Even if Trump doesn’t
read, can’t follow a logical argument, and has the attention span of a
fruit fly, I keep believing he must have <i>some </i>intelligence. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Well, it turns out there’s another form of intelligence, called “emotional intelligence.” </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Emotional
intelligence is a concept developed by two psychologists, John Mayer of
the University of New Hampshire and Yale’s Peter Salovey, and
popularized by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Mayer and Salovey <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962184905800587" target="_blank">define</a>
emotional intelligence as the ability to do two things: “understand and
manage our own emotions,” and “recognize and influence the emotions of
others.”</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">True, Trump hasn’t displayed much capacity for the first. He’s thin-skinned, narcissistic, and vindictive. As dozens of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/08/us/politics/national-security-letter-trump.html" target="_blank">Republican foreign policy experts have put it</a>:
“He is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. He does
not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts
impetuously. He cannot tolerate criticism." </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Okay, but what about Mayer and Salovey’s <i>second </i>aspect of emotional intelligence — influencing the emotions of others? </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>This </i>is
where Trump’s brain outperforms the brains of ordinary mortals. He
knows how to manipulate people. He has an uncanny ability to discover
their emotional vulnerabilities — their fears, anxieties, prejudices,
and darkest desires — and use them for his own purposes.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">To put it another way, Trump is an extraordinarily talented conman.</b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">I
believe he’s always been a conman. He conned hundreds of young people
and their parents into paying to attend his nearly worthless Trump
University. He conned banks into lending him more money even after he
repeatedly failed to pay them. He conned contractors to work for him
even with a well-deserved reputation for stiffing them. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">He’s been an even greater <i>political</i> conman. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In
November 2016, he conned 62,979,879 Americans into voting for him,
getting them to believe his lies about Mexicans, Muslims, African
Americans, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the “wonderful,”
“beautiful” things he’d do for the people who’d support him. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">And
now he’s conned most Republican voters into believing his utterly
baseless claim that he won the 2020 election. Political conning is
Trump’s genius. </b></p> <p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">This genius — <i>combined </i>with utter stupidity in every other dimension — poses the clearest and most terrifying danger to America and the world. </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXoEKX1zOHHxULryDfjePC0vMVz6Kp_XKcMqsky_teg26K5wZVSojkgcZeZSEbe-yuHVBFv7ayj7qe_PE_Z0BZT9vzNZzzHy-7ySHyOaA0SqbOGDEgZfRYUdmS6AS-IAKy42FPAQjXzHNwhzcEzPhbHouBJmpG_t_8cu0LS-hhOROTb0YYntSH-phynNc/s915/GettyImages-1230457865.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="677" data-original-width="915" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXoEKX1zOHHxULryDfjePC0vMVz6Kp_XKcMqsky_teg26K5wZVSojkgcZeZSEbe-yuHVBFv7ayj7qe_PE_Z0BZT9vzNZzzHy-7ySHyOaA0SqbOGDEgZfRYUdmS6AS-IAKy42FPAQjXzHNwhzcEzPhbHouBJmpG_t_8cu0LS-hhOROTb0YYntSH-phynNc/w400-h296/GettyImages-1230457865.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">"He
knows how to manipulate people." </b><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump's people storm the Capitol on Jan. 6.</b></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-58484901459572719972024-03-16T12:42:00.000-07:002024-03-16T12:42:59.228-07:00MUST READ: Trump’s not making much sense lately, and AI isn’t to blame<div class="post-header">
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<svg class="time" fill="none" height="14" viewbox="0 0 13 14" width="13" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"></svg><img alt="no image description available" height="267" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1276352/story_image/GettyImages-2035834721.jpg?1708816508" title="no image description available" width="400" /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>A genuine, unaltered image of Donald Trump grabbing a flag "by the pussy," as he puts it so delicately.</b></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span><div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Hunter for Daily Kos</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff </span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710509417000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Friday, March 15, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710509417000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> 7:30:17a MDT</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710509417000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710509417000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600">REPUBLISHED BY: </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710509417000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710509417000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Donald
Trump graced the conspiracy-spouting Newsmax with his doughy rage on
Wednesday, and let's just say the interview won't be tamping down on
speculation that his wordsmithing abilities—which were always spotty to
begin with—are now crumbling before our very eyes. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Speaking with interviewer Greg Kelly, Trump waxed philosophic
about why Hillary Clinton, um, apparently set off a weapon of mass
destruction when "acid testing" her phones?</span></b></p></div></div></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>And the rest of the interview was just as bizarre.</span></b></p>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>What a masterful performance. From Kelly's ultrasycophantic "Is
it lonely at the top?" framing to Trump's incoherent,
barely-stream-of-consciousness answers, this really does capture the
full feel of living in an authoritarian country where nobody is allowed
to point out that Dear Leader fell off his rocker years ago and everyone
must nod enthusiastically, no matter what absurdities come out of his
word-hole.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There's the portion in which Trump claims he has been treated worse than any other president ever:</span></b></p>
<blockquote><b style="font-family: helvetica;">I don't care, Andrew Jackson or anybody else, nobody has
tr—when you think of the fake things, nobody's been treated like Trump,
in terms of badly. Russia Russia Russia, Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine,
everything was a scam.</b></blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Nobody's been treated like Trump in terms of badly, he says.
That's a bit too long to embroider onto a hat, but it would probably
make a decent bumper sticker slogan. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“</span><i>Trump 2024: Nobody's Been Treated Like Him In Terms Of Badly."</i></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>We should note here that multiple presidents have been
assassinated while in office but that hardly counts as hardship compared
to the rudenesses Trump has endured, says Trump, in terms of Badly.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But things go completely off the rails after that masterful
turn of phrase. And you have to admire the resolute look plastered on
Kelly’s face as the host appears to slowly realize he's sitting next to
an absolute wackadoo who may or may not, at any point in the interview,
suddenly demand the right to flay him and eat his face.</span></b></p>
<blockquote><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But by the way, they released Hillary Clinton. She hammered
her phones. She used, uh, all sorts of acid testing on everything else,
they call it, uh, bleach bit, but it's essentially acid that will
destroy everything, you know, within 10 miles. I mean what she did was
unbelievable.</b></blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>He's right—it is unbelievable. It's also complete gibberish.
Just off-the-wall bizarre, from "acid testing" to "hammered" to supposed
zones of destruction.</span></b></p>
<blockquote><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Nothing happens to her. Nothing happens to Bill Clinton, he
took it out in his socks, you know there was a famous socks case, which
he actually ended up winning.</b></blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There are </span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jun/12/why-the-bill-clinton-sock-drawer-case-is-not-compa/"><span>so many things wrong with that sentence that there's no room to list them all</span></a><span>,
but there were no classified docs in the Bill Clinton case, nobody took
anything out in their socks, and Trump's version of events appears to
be a case of full-on mushbrain.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Now, Donald Trump has never been an honest man, or a
particularly coherent one. His memory has always been selective and,
let's just say, wildly imaginative. But at some point we have to ask
ourselves whether his recent performances </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/13/2228157/-Watch-Trump-choke-in-this-savage-supercut-of-supercuts"><span>stretch into something measurably worse than what we've seen in previous years</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Those supercuts of Trump's recent gaffes were so humiliating
for Donald that he was quick to lie to his Truth Social fans that
"Artificial Intelligence was used by them against me in their videos of
me." </span><a href="https://gizmodo.com/donald-trump-ai-videos-hur-testimony-fake-debunk-1851331323"><span>Nope, those were all real, genuine Trump performances</span></a><span>, according to an analysis by Gizmodo.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It's a mystery why Trump's fans still consider him a macho
strongman figure who’s smarter than anyone else on the planet, but maybe
this stuff sounds like genius-level oration to the average MAGA voter.
The rest of us, though? We're a bit worried about you, Donald. Your
ability to string coherent thoughts together appears to be doing not
well, in terms of badly.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPBkUk0sCcKqqnhcUEYSGEa-fMmmuDCNRKG-aEmRM_8MVXKy7n_vZb0Sv8McQZDVyPnsATt7U0xEzJ7IyflRwN1Z8YS5Ctee4WzMyvN0cfqKWtw5zjR0TvUjTXTvMKzlLBZVr3qN8hEtnOkShEunjr2e8sHm9fDUDQpFTgFkqBEeb4FghPZTWtjO6zcJI/s915/Trumpism.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="915" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPBkUk0sCcKqqnhcUEYSGEa-fMmmuDCNRKG-aEmRM_8MVXKy7n_vZb0Sv8McQZDVyPnsATt7U0xEzJ7IyflRwN1Z8YS5Ctee4WzMyvN0cfqKWtw5zjR0TvUjTXTvMKzlLBZVr3qN8hEtnOkShEunjr2e8sHm9fDUDQpFTgFkqBEeb4FghPZTWtjO6zcJI/w400-h225/Trumpism.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">"Nobody's been treated like Trump,
in terms of badly," sayeth the Donald. </b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-75962988579128087092024-03-15T14:25:00.000-07:002024-03-15T14:25:38.095-07:00Have Democrats Finally Stopped Wimping Out?<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><div class="post-header">
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<img alt="Have Democrats Finally Stopped Wimping Out?" data-image="" height="182" src="https://www.rsn.org/images/001/055838-schiff-031324.jpg" width="400" /> <b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="image-caption"><span data-credits="">Rep. Adam B. Schiff questions special counsel
Robert Hur on Tuesday, backed by a photograph of a bathroom at
Mar-a-Lago where Donald Trump kept boxes of classified documents after
he left the White House. (photo: Nathan Howard/AP)</span></span></b></div><div class="container"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="image-caption"><span data-credits=""> </span></span></b></div><div class="container"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="image-caption"><span data-credits="">
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<b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="author">
<span data-author="">Jackie Calmes</span>
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<span data-publication="">Los Angeles Times</span> </span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="14/Mar/2024">14 March 24</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="14/Mar/2024">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="14/Mar/2024"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="14/Mar/2024"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span></b>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">For years now, the single most common complaint I’ve heard from Democrats is that their party doesn’t fight as hard, and <i>never</i>
dirty, like Republicans do — they don’t bring guns to a gunfight. Since
2016, I’ve heard that rap from Republicans too: Never-Trump types
express surprise and exasperation that their Democratic comrades in arms
against the former president don’t, well, take up arms politically.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Democratic pols will concede as much: They worry about how they might
come off to the poli-sci profs, pundits and civic-minded idealists.
Their good-government bent is commendable. But getting bested repeatedly
by the likes of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is not.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">”One of us is playing with a rolling pin, and the other is fighting
with a gun,” an aide to Senate leaders once told me, frustrated that
Democrats were adhering to Marquess of Queensberry rules as Republicans
busted norms to pack the federal courts. “We always bring a butter knife
to a gunfight,” longtime Democratic strategist Brian Fallon similarly <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/how-democrats-failed-to-respond-to-the-supreme-court-what-they-need-to-do-now" target="_blank">groused</a> not long ago.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Fallon felt that so strongly that Democrats were wimping out that in
2017 he co-founded a liberal activist group, Demand Justice, to give the
left a more combative approach in judicial confirmation contests. He
recently left the group for a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/12/brian-fallon-harris-campaign-communications/" target="_blank">job in the Biden campaign</a>,
as the communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris. That’s
good: Democrats need scrappers, lots of ’em, and the ever-cautious
Harris in particular needs communications firepower.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Even better signs of a more fired-up Democratic Party have emerged lately, just as Biden and Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-primary-georgia-washington-mississippi-hawaii-15bb0084ad656903ffef14cfae822abd" target="_blank">each secured</a> their respective parties’ nominations Tuesday with wins in several states’ primary contests.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">One sign was Biden’s <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-03-08/joe-biden-state-of-union-donald-trump-age" target="_blank">plucky</a> State of the Union <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/03/08/remarks-by-president-biden-in-state-of-the-union-address-3/" target="_blank">address</a> last week, in which he took a baker’s dozen shots at “my predecessor” and parried House Republicans’ taunts like a <a href="https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1756888470599967000?s=20" target="_blank">smiling Dark Brandon</a>
come to life, shooting red lasers from his eyes. To hear Republicans
carp afterward that Biden was too partisan gave new meaning to the pot
calling the kettle black.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Another indication of an amped-up Democratic offense was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/08/biden-campaign-ad-onslaught-00146028" target="_blank">news</a>
of a big $30-million Biden campaign ad buy, along with the president’s
busy stumping schedule in battleground states and the campaign’s plans
to hire hundreds of aides. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6e4ruziZBI" target="_blank">first ad</a>
was a good one, too, featuring a lively Biden poking fun at his age,
noting his achievements, drawing contrasts with Trump and,
appropriately, promising “to fight for <i>you</i>.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">And on Tuesday came some evidence that other Democrats will have
Biden’s back. Those on the House Judiciary Committee came loaded for
bear to the hearing that the majority Republicans held showcasing Robert
Hur, a Republican and the former special counsel whose <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-10/joe-biden-age-2024-election-robert-hur-classified-documents" target="_blank">recent report</a>
on Biden’s handling of classified materials included damaging
commentary about the president’s age and alleged “diminished faculties.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The committee’s Democrats, notably California Reps. <a href="https://x.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1767595036642808016?s=20" target="_blank">Ted Lieu</a>, <a href="https://x.com/atrupar/status/1767579501364420680?s=20" target="_blank">Adam B. Schiff</a> and <a href="https://x.com/atrupar/status/1767582923417383128?s=20" target="_blank">Eric Swalwell,</a>
appropriately focused less on Hur’s asides about mental lapses and more
on his report’s conclusions that “no criminal charges are warranted”
against Biden (compared to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/US-v-Trump-Nauta-De-Oliveira-23-80101.pdf" target="_blank">41 felony counts</a>
against Trump). And that despite Republicans’ claims to the contrary,
what Biden did with top-secret documents was in no way comparable to the
far more serious allegations against Trump for conspiracy and false
statements.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The committee Democrats didn’t ignore the issue of age and mental
acuity; they simply turned it against Trump. Several of them came, yes,
armed — with video montages of the former president’s verbal flubs,
slurred words and non sequiturs at recent MAGA rallies.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But Democrats’ more typical lack of fight explains why Hur, a former
Trump Justice Department official, was tapped as special counsel — by
Biden’s Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland — in the first place. Democrats,
wanting to be seen as fair, keep giving Republicans a virtual monopoly
on independent counsel jobs each time Washington decides it needs
another high-profile investigation. Whether the person being
investigated is a Democrat (Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton) or a
Republican (Donald Trump), Democrats have supported having a Republican
prosecutor.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Republicans don’t reciprocate.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">David Brock, now a Democratic operative but notorious in the 1990s as
a ruthless, right-wing scourge of the Clintons, a few years ago
confessed to me his occasional irritation with his new party for its
punch-pulling, say, by rejecting a line of attack as somehow unfair.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“Now, that’s nothing that I ever experienced as a young conservative,” he told me. “There’s a different ethic.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“Republicans just want the result, they just want to get there, they want <i>the win</i>,”
Brock added. Democrats, on the other hand, “do a lot of hand-wringing
about how to get there,” about whether they are being respectful of the
“process.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">And yet, ask most Republican voters and they’ll tell you that it’s
Democrats who are the dirty fighters, cheating in elections and
weaponizing the government against their foes, chiefly Trump. Because
that is what Trump tells them.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">That’s Republicans’ dirtiest play of all. Lying to their own voters.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">This election year will likely be as mean as any in memory. Here’s
hoping I’m correct that Biden and the Democrats have sheathed the butter
knives and shelved the rolling pins. It’s not like Trump hasn’t given
them the ammunition for a gunfight.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-OjMCYVS7UtMe03zR1Fa36p_C6xbfOq22VYKSBSK23es_ueMG7ZnNbMOGzdhMw3r53Vz6oM7L1f_uhkNO1J5mZqKUcjFqsY5SCWoyeX4kZClGr4c-Q25n2j9x5Ij04urGY2n7ZWhH-o_HD1mo2PUkffj7Mywthg5Z5l3GgXJS9ffVgJE-GlSY18_L6Y/s550/maddow-hannity-snow.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="550" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-OjMCYVS7UtMe03zR1Fa36p_C6xbfOq22VYKSBSK23es_ueMG7ZnNbMOGzdhMw3r53Vz6oM7L1f_uhkNO1J5mZqKUcjFqsY5SCWoyeX4kZClGr4c-Q25n2j9x5Ij04urGY2n7ZWhH-o_HD1mo2PUkffj7Mywthg5Z5l3GgXJS9ffVgJE-GlSY18_L6Y/w400-h215/maddow-hannity-snow.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has never been afraid of a fight. Is the Democratic Party finally joining her in fighting fire with fire?</b></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-61888548824673845092024-03-14T14:21:00.000-07:002024-03-14T14:21:53.596-07:00“How Come Everything the Republican Party Stands for Involves Other People Dying?”<div class="post-header">
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<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">By thomhartmann</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Community</span></span></b></span></div><div class="story__timestamp"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a> <br /></span></span></b></span></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Wednesday, March 13, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> 8:44:47a MDT</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710341087000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>According to a popular meme, comedian Noel Casler (the guy who worked on </span><i>The Apprentice</i><span> and
outed <u><span style="color: #cc0000;">Trump’s drug abuse and diaper wearing</span></u>) asks, “How come everything
the Republican Party stands for involves other people dying?”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">He then goes on to note GOP support for assault weapons,
opposition to masks and vaccines, opposition to saving the environment,
and their all-out war on Obamacare and Medicare-for-All.<span> </span></b></p></div></div></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Casler may have just been being glib, doing the written equivalent of
a standup routine, but his question deserves a serious answer, so let’s
look at the evidence.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">It’s undeniably true that Republican-controlled “Red” states, almost across the board, have higher rates of:</b></p>
<ul><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Spousal </span><a href="https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/violence-and-abuse">abuse</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">Obesity</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">Smoking</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Teen </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/teen-pregnancy-higher-red-states-blue-states/">pregnancy</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Sexually transmitted </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2009/01/stds-higher-in-red-states-015729">diseases</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/teen-pregnancy-higher-red-states-blue-states/">Abortion</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Bankruptcies and </span><a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/us-states-with-the-highest-poverty-rates">poverty</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://smartpolitics.lib.umn.edu/2009/09/16/red-states-have-higher-crime-r/">Homicide</a><span> and suicide</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Infant </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">mortality</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Maternal </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">mortality</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Forcible </span><a href="https://smartpolitics.lib.umn.edu/2009/09/16/red-states-have-higher-crime-r/">rape</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://smartpolitics.lib.umn.edu/2009/09/16/red-states-have-higher-crime-r/">Robbery</a><span> and aggravated assault</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Dropouts </span><a href="https://appliedsentience.com/2020/07/30/economics-are-red-or-blue-states-better/">from</a><span> high school</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/674703">Divorce</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/48944108">Contaminated</a><span> air and water</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Opiate </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">addiction</a><span> and deaths</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">Unskilled</a><span> workers</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Parasitic </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-south-a-bad-name/">infections</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Income and wealth </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inequality-in-red-vs-blue-states-2015-7?op=1">inequality</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Covid </span><a href="https://politicalwire.com/2021/11/29/red-states-see-highest-rates-of-covid-deaths/">deaths</a><span> and </span><a href="https://khn.org/morning-breakout/covid-deaths-skew-higher-than-ever-in-red-states/">unvaccinated</a><span> people</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Federal </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/red-states-are-welfare-queens-2011-8">subsidies</a><span> to states (“Red State Welfare”)</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>People on </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/krugman-moochers-against-welfare.html">welfare</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Child </span><a href="https://appliedsentience.com/2020/07/30/economics-are-red-or-blue-states-better/">poverty</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://appliedsentience.com/2020/07/30/economics-are-red-or-blue-states-better/">Homelessness</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Spousal </span><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/murder-women-report_n_55f85315e4b0c2077efc3713">murder</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://appliedsentience.com/2020/07/30/economics-are-red-or-blue-states-better/">Unemployment</a></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Deaths </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2012-nov-20-la-fi-hy-red-states-traffic-deaths-20121120-story.html">from</a><span> auto accidents</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>People living on </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom">disability</a></b></p>
</li></ul>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But are all these things, along with widespread GOP support for
dictators like Putin, Orbán, and Xi, happening because Republicans hate
their citizens and worship poverty, death and disease?</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Or is there something in the GOP’s core beliefs and strategies that just inevitably leads to these outcomes?</i></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">It turns out that’s very much the case: these terrible
outcomes are the direct result of policies promoting greed and racism
that the GOP has been using for forty+ years to get access to billions
of dollars and win elections.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Using racism as a political strategy while promoting and defending the greed of oligarchs </span><i>always</i><span> leads to widespread poverty, pollution, ignorance, and death regardless of the nation it’s done in.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">We’ve seen it over and over again around the world: it’s happening
today in India, The Philippines, Brazil, Russia, and Hungary, for
example. And the GOP has spent the past 40+ years marinating itself in
both.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Here’s how it happened here in America:</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The GOP first openly embraced racism in 1964 when the party’s
presidential candidate that year, Barry Goldwater, proudly refused to
support the Civil Rights Act of 1964.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It was a huge shift for the party of Lincoln, and when President Lyndon Johnson </span><a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html">signed</a><span> the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, 1964, the South did a collective “what the hell?!?”</span></b></p>
<blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>As LBJ </span><a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-over-the-once-democratic-south">told</a><span> Bill Moyers, “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come.”</span></b></p>
</blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">So the newly publicly proclaimed belief in white supremacy became an
official part of GOP ideology in the 1960s, leading directly to Richard
Nixon’s explicitly racist 1968 “Southern Strategy.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">It was later replicated by Reagan speaking about “states’ rights” at
his first campaign speech near the scene of the murder of 3 civil rights
workers, George HW Bush’s Willie Horton ad campaign, and Donald Trump’s
rants about Mexican rapists and people from what he called “shithole
countries.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But racism alone can’t explain the entire list above. There had to be something else.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The second element embraced by the GOP that filled out the rest of
the list above happened in 1980 when they hooked up with religious
grifters and greedy, morbidly rich people.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Prior to that election year, George HW Bush and his wife
Barbara were big advocates for Planned Parenthood and a woman’s right to
choose an abortion. Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, had
signed the nation’s most liberal abortion law and was also an outspoken
supporter of </span><i>Roe v Wade</i><span> and Planned Parenthood.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Similarly, the white evangelical movement prior to 1980
was largely supportive of abortion rights. They were furious, however,
when the Supreme Court </span><a href="https://www.historynet.com/scotus-101-prayer-public-schools/">banned</a><span>preacher-led school prayer and in the late 1970s Jimmy Carter </span><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8274866/">pulled</a><span> the tax exemptions of segregated schools run by white supremacist evangelicals.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Jerry Falwell had started his “Moral Majority” in 1978 and
uber-Christian Paul Weyrich (co-founder of The Heritage Foundation and
the guy who famously said, “I don’t want everybody to vote!”) signed up
for the Reagan campaign.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>As Donne Levy </span><a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181629">writes</a><span> for George Washington University’s </span><i>History News Network</i><span>:</span></b></p>
<blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“Weyrich and Falwell realized that the tax exemption issue based on
racial discrimination had limited value, but opposing abortion was a
moral issue cutting across racial and religious lines. That was their
thinking on the eve of the 1980 elections.”</b></p>
</blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The election that year saw the first major merger in American
history between a political party and a religious movement largely run
by grifters. Something that would have both shocked and horrified the
Founders of our country and the Framers of the Constitution.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Republicans started talking about God (the word </span><a href="https://billmoyers.com/content/timeline-the-religious-right-and-the-republican-platform/">appeared</a><span>
in their platform for only the second time since the Party’s formation
in 1856), and preachers and televangelists began to openly push GOP
candidates from the pulpit in defiance of nonprofit law and the IRS.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The GOP also adopted Falwell’s call for a return to school
prayer, hostility to sex education, rejection of women’s rights,
reassertion of patriarchy, and open hatred of homosexuality.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Championing what today we’d call the “culture wars,” Republicans
fully embraced the anti-science perspective of Falwell and his
colleagues, questioning for the first time the theory of evolution,
ridiculing global warming, and scoffing at concerns about pollution
causing cancer and other diseases.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Within a decade they were even claiming, as Mike Pence </span><a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/27/pence-smoking-cancer-donald-trump-coronavirus-response/4890066002/">wrote</a><span> in a 2000 op-ed, “Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">As the GOP went deeper down their religion-induced rabbit
hole, their hostility to science was logically accompanied by a
hostility to education and educated people. George HW Bush and Rush
Limbaugh began talking about “pointy-headed liberals in ivory towers,”
openly trashing higher education to bring blue-collar voters into the
party.<span> </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">That was followed by a sustained Republican attack on public
education itself by pushing for-profit privatized “charter schools” and
vouchers, an ironic position in that Republican President Dwight
Eisenhower had probably done more to advance public education than any
president in the 20th century.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Thus was set up the GOP’s 2020 hostility to masks and Covid
quarantines, sex education and birth control, and their 2021 attacks on
vaccination. And their continuous denial of global warming.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The other big turning point for the GOP in 1980 was Reagan’s open embrace of America’s oligarchs.<span> </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Just four years earlier, in their </span><i>Buckley v Valeo </i><span>decision,
conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that when a rich person
showered so much money on a politician that that politician pretty much
only voted the way the rich person wanted, that was no longer bribery
but, instead, First Amendment-protected “free speech.” </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In 1978, in a Republican-appointee-only decision written by
Lewis Powell (of Powell Memo fame), the Court extended that right to buy
politicians to American corporations (it was extended to international
billionaires and corporations in 2010 by </span><i><a href="https://amzn.to/43gYU8b">Citizens United</a></i><span>.)</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">President Jimmy Carter had championed the average person and
the rights of working class people: he even walked from the Capitol to
the White House after his inauguration rather than take a limousine.
Reagan not only brought back the limousine, he turned his inaugural
balls into a high-dollar lavish celebration of wealth and economic
power.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The Democratic Party was still, at that time, mostly funded by labor
unions; the GOP, however, picked up the opportunity offered them by the
Supreme Court four and two years earlier and put up a “for sale” sign,
inviting into the party any wealthy person or corporation who’d put up
enough money for a Republican candidate to win an election.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The result of this whole sad history is that Red states have
been turned into sacrifice zones for Reagan’s racial and religious
bigotry and the neoliberal raise-up-the-rich and crap-on-unions economic
policies he inflicted on America.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In the years since the Reagan Revolution, TV preachers have become
multimillionaires with private jets, their parishioners have slid deeper
and deeper into poverty and addiction, and the unholy alliance of
church and state that Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton warned us about is
now arguably — behind great wealth — the second most powerful political
force in America.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Turns out Noel Casler was right, but the story is a bit more detailed
than the GOP just embracing death and disease. Those same policies
also make the morbidly rich — from oil barons to televangelists — vastly
richer, and those rich people and their businesses and churches return
the favor by pushing their followers and cycling part of their profits
back toward Republican politicians.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Now you know </span><i>the</i><span> </span><i>rest of the story.</i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaCxzidCEZARDGqCKzNRqKu0BWbk9tFm9ZbgDszqqVPHPj17wDERYtzYqNxsXF947BxHKF52A6v7XTuac5xFa9M1O_ujcqxe48eqqRGYxwmXnmh3qq3C5F_udcKmeExIHaBYQ9DIACY43lbpFp5zgf6R-xeg_F9vlR8GU9yt6xhmoixX9i-Rta-UO1rJs/s519/366214443_3532356433709662_7813250677863492369_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="519" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaCxzidCEZARDGqCKzNRqKu0BWbk9tFm9ZbgDszqqVPHPj17wDERYtzYqNxsXF947BxHKF52A6v7XTuac5xFa9M1O_ujcqxe48eqqRGYxwmXnmh3qq3C5F_udcKmeExIHaBYQ9DIACY43lbpFp5zgf6R-xeg_F9vlR8GU9yt6xhmoixX9i-Rta-UO1rJs/w400-h270/366214443_3532356433709662_7813250677863492369_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>What's
wrong with this picture? Only Trump should be in the hoosegow. He may
hide behind the flag, but it is not guilty by association.</i></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-77974104980510086282024-03-13T11:31:00.000-07:002024-03-13T11:34:53.072-07:00Democrats bring supercut of Trump receipts to GOP's Hur hearing—and it's devastating<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><div class="post-header">
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Walter Einenkel for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff</span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1710259981000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Tuesday, March 12, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710259981000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600">10:13:01a MDT</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710259981000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710259981000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710259981000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1710259981000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span></span></b><p></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The House Judiciary Committee, led by Republican embarrassment Rep. Jim Jordan, </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/12/2228994/-Live-coverage-House-GOP-hearing-on-just-how-old-Biden-is?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web" title=""><span>held its latest political-theater hearing on Tuesday</span></a><span>.
Former special counsel Robert Hur is the newest star witness pranced in
front of the committee in Republicans’ hopes of creating bad-sounding
chaos around President Joe Biden that could hurt him for this November’s
election. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Like the rest of Jordan’s attempts at political theater, so far
the attempts to paint Biden as both a mentally incompetent leader </span><i>and</i><span> an organized-crime mastermind have</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/20/2194416/-Democrats-pummel-Republicans-at-Jim-Jordan-s-circus-show" title=""><span> failed spectacularly</span></a><span>.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the committee, pulled out a
video supercut of Donald Trump at rallies, press conferences, and
depositions. Here are some of the highlights:</span></b></p></div><div class="story__text-below-fold">
<ul><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/1/2150519/-Video-provides-glimpse-of-Donald-Trump-pleading-the-Fifth-more-than-440-times-during-deposition" title=""><span>inability to remember</span></a><span> so many things from his deposition.</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/23/2201184/-Donald-Trump-s-speeches-are-turning-into-incomprehensible-fascist-pablum" title=""><span>inability to distinguish</span></a><span> between world leaders.</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/15/2223648/-Donald-Trump-says-he-purposely-forgot-who-he-was-talking-about"><span>mixing up</span></a><span> former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/1/2226752/-Biden-and-Trump-both-spoke-at-the-border-Only-one-looked-presidential" title=""><span>virtually incoherent</span></a><span> racist statements about immigration.</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Trump’s constant reminders to everyone that he has a great memory or “one of the great memories of all time.”</span></b></p>
</li></ul>
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</div></div></div>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Nadler put it best, saying at the end of the video, “That is a
man who is incapable of avoiding criminal liability. A man who is wholly
unfit for office, and a man who, at the very least, ought to think
twice before accusing others of cognitive decline.”</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiRlP7RkLDfm6odL4ATxGO5KHJx2JXQiyCSUQuqwnCFu0y8ngjo3yjSrGoTYuSwYNRc_a3vZqDDnzBPzpgl2N1lQPeH-z1q1n5hNHSSFsKT0WJ9F5eObl8PW4GrMkb_N1J1mpNM0mvDgL6Sy1G92RxKwW8PxJ2Sg5NxMtVQV5Ihwl7WcyUDzMH-fRA5hA/s640/46708207_2162189587177980_8014491940219256832_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="502" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiRlP7RkLDfm6odL4ATxGO5KHJx2JXQiyCSUQuqwnCFu0y8ngjo3yjSrGoTYuSwYNRc_a3vZqDDnzBPzpgl2N1lQPeH-z1q1n5hNHSSFsKT0WJ9F5eObl8PW4GrMkb_N1J1mpNM0mvDgL6Sy1G92RxKwW8PxJ2Sg5NxMtVQV5Ihwl7WcyUDzMH-fRA5hA/w314-h400/46708207_2162189587177980_8014491940219256832_n.jpg" width="314" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In
terms of intellectual capacity and recall, it turns out this caricature
of Donnie as a cave man is quite accurate. Bet you didn't know his
whole body is orange.</span></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-79252184888697014182024-03-12T14:27:00.000-07:002024-03-12T14:27:49.726-07:00Katie Britt is the latest Republican to turn a SOTU response into comedy gold<div class="post-header">
<div class="post-header-line-1"></div>
</div>
<div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="297" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1279963/story_image/GettyImages-1534860858.jpg?1709923694" title="no image description available" width="400" /><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Sen. Katie Britt</b>
</figure>
</div><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Mark Sumner for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff </span><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709926203000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600"> </span></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709926203000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0600">Tuesday, March 08, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709926203000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"> 1:30:03p MST</span></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709926203000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709926203000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709926203000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0600"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There's
something about a Republican response to the State of the Union address
that inevitably generates a field day for comedians. Whether it’s Marco
Rubio getting </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/marco-rubios-water-bottle-moment">so very thirsty</a><span>, or </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/6/22/8824553/bobby-jindal-speech">Bobby Jindal</a><span>
going from darling of the party to has-been in 15 minutes flat, the
route between SOTU response and “Saturday Night” Live cold open is often
one short, straight line.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But on Thursday evening, those sticking around to hear Alabama
Sen. Katie Britt’s rebuttal might have been forgiven for believing that
the process had been streamlined, because Britt’s speech already seemed
like an “</span><a href="https://x.com/mmpadellan/status/1766087584474595349?s=20">SNL” skit</a><span>. From the faux kitchen setting, to the going all out for the lead in the seventh-grade production of “The Crucible” </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/katie-britt-sotu-rebuttal-torched-republicans-1234983528/">energy</a><span>, to the garb that reminded many viewers of a character from “</span><a href="https://x.com/gigglyleigh/status/1766121178874409092?s=20">The Handmaid’s Tale</a><span>,” Britt’s performance might be the response to end all responses. </span></b></p></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>And really, why not do that? Just end it. Despite an old </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-the-worst-job-in-politics-but-somebody-has-to-do-it/2018/01/29/2de84c5c-02d2-11e8-9d31-d72cf78dbeee_story.html">Washington Post</a><span>
headline proclaiming that the State of the Union response is “the worst
job in politics. But somebody has to do it” … the reality is that </span><i>no one has to do it</i><span>.
The SOTU response isn’t in the Constitution. There is no law. This is a
completely made-up thing designed as an excuse to give the opposing
party some free air time.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The biggest puzzle of the night might be why, when they keep
getting burned, Republicans insist on plopping their hands right back on
this hot stove.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On Thursday night, Republicans handed off the response duties
to their youngest female Senate member, apparently hoping for a stark
contrast with old Joe Biden. Maybe they had been listening to their own
statements about Biden being ancient, slow, and unable to deliver a good
speech for so long that they actually believed them. Maybe Britt just
found herself drawing the short straw in whatever arcane process
Republicans use to select the next sacrificial victim.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Whatever the reason, she was propped up in a kitchen set so
devoid of life it made an IKEA display seem warm, then left to wander
through a whispery, dystopian hellscape that sometimes seemed like a
test for whether it’s possible to combine a political speech with </span><a href="https://www.nebraskamed.com/neurological-care/asmr-videos-are-exploding-online-but-what-is-asmr-and-does-it-work">ASMR</a><span>.</span></b></p>
<div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content="&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;mom pick me up im scared &lt;a href="https://t.co/s3f6sxTb81"&gt;pic.twitter.com/s3f6sxTb81&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1765957533464678624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;March 8, 2024&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
">
</div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It was so awful that, as </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/katie-britt-sotu-rebuttal-torched-republicans-1234983528/">Rolling Stone</a><span> reports, Republican commentators were burning down Britt’s performance in real time. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>All of it becomes </span><i>infinitely</i><span> funnier if you are privy to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/us/politics/katie-britt-talking-points-influencers.html">the document</a><span>
that was circulated by Britt’s office before she spoke. That document
gave tips on how pundits might describe her follow-up to Biden.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It suggested that reporters might say things such as, “She came
off like America’s mom—she gets it.” Or, “She’s one of us. That’ll be
families’ takeaway watching this.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But to show that Britt wasn’t entirely manufactured in </span><a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/stepford-wife">Stepford</a><span>, there were also some more serious suggestions. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“The conclusion of her border section was a real ‘Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ moment,” read one proposed talking
point. If that wasn’t enough of </span><a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199990009.001.0001/acref-9780199990009-e-4500">the Gipper,</a><span>
the document also suggested that reporters might say the speech was
“reminiscent of Reagan’s message of that Shining City on a Hill.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Only Britt’s speech was more “</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mfnhu8sO5k">Silent Hill</a><span>” than shining city. How far into cosmic horror did Britt’s uplifting speech wander? About this far.</span></b></p><div class="css-175oi2r r-1awozwy r-18u37iz r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs"><a class="css-175oi2r r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l r-1loqt21" href="https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts" role="link"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1awozwy r-18u37iz r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs"><div class="css-1rynq56 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-37j5jr r-a023e6 r-rjixqe r-b88u0q r-1awozwy r-6koalj r-1udh08x r-3s2u2q" dir="ltr" style="color: #0f1419; text-overflow: unset;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: medium;"><b><span class="css-1qaijid r-dnmrzs r-1udh08x r-3s2u2q r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;">Shannon Watts</span></span></b></span></div><div class="css-1rynq56 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-37j5jr r-a023e6 r-rjixqe r-16dba41 r-xoduu5 r-18u37iz r-1q142lx" dir="ltr" style="text-overflow: unset;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: medium;"><b><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-1awozwy r-xoduu5" style="text-overflow: unset;"></span></b></span></div></div></a></div></div><div class="css-175oi2r r-1d09ksm r-18u37iz r-1wbh5a2"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l" data-testid="User-Name" id="id__3qcwvuio1nd"><div class="css-175oi2r r-18u37iz r-1wbh5a2"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1d09ksm r-18u37iz r-1wbh5a2"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: medium;"><b><a class="css-175oi2r r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l r-1loqt21" href="https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts" role="link" tabindex="-1"><div class="css-1rynq56 r-dnmrzs r-1udh08x r-3s2u2q r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-37j5jr r-a023e6 r-rjixqe r-16dba41 r-18u37iz r-1wvb978" dir="ltr" style="text-overflow: unset;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;">@shannonrwatts</span></div></a></b></span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="css-175oi2r"><div class="css-175oi2r r-1s2bzr4"><div class="css-1rynq56 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-37j5jr r-1inkyih r-16dba41 r-bnwqim r-135wba7" data-testid="tweetText" dir="auto" id="id__es3vou7ac5c" lang="en" style="color: #0f1419; text-overflow: unset;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: medium;"><b><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;">Sen
Katie Britt says sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a
woman while encouraging Americans to vote for a convicted sexual
predator.</span></b></span></div></div></div><p></p>
<div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content="&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;Sen Katie Britt says sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman while encouraging Americans to vote for a convicted sexual predator.&lt;br&gt; &lt;a href="https://t.co/oKZdUZuy3u"&gt;pic.twitter.com/oKZdUZuy3u&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1765964010149863906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;March 8, 2024&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
">
</div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It was bad—</span><i>so</i><span> bad. But at least Britt can go to work on Friday knowing she is</span><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/tommy-tuberville-alabama-embryos-ruling-ivf" title=""> still the best senator from Alabama</a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On one hand, everything about this speech seems to be either
horrifying or hilarious. It’s like watching a car crash after slipping
on a banana peel, with narration provided by a soap opera-reject. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On the other hand, maybe putting Britt on stage and instructing her to </span><i>emote</i><span>
through a description of a fallen America was a genius move. After all,
the thousands of instant memes that followed are taking up oxygen that
would otherwise be spent lavishing praise on </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/8/2228231/-After-Biden-s-State-of-the-Union-everyone-on-the-right-needs-a-new-script?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web">Biden’s forceful and energetic speech</a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>And now America can discuss how best to export this unexpected meme surplus.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuy8dwSNsXZdth6dOCsDp9lp53ExCf79TeoQ3HYrZLav0_94ApFQv0KtSxsJGbK5ku9AqtjEvhyphenhyphendHu-cQKicWxSMBcAExdes_tCFSaGHk-ME9yxYSoHK9G6p8ZgwPjwGC6_AcHj23j3-mTwwlGavpCT49beu5JMaLVNC42UAzDZ7AmrhTb-nWy03QimI0/s960/84735426_3328673870479547_4800501555377733632_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="960" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuy8dwSNsXZdth6dOCsDp9lp53ExCf79TeoQ3HYrZLav0_94ApFQv0KtSxsJGbK5ku9AqtjEvhyphenhyphendHu-cQKicWxSMBcAExdes_tCFSaGHk-ME9yxYSoHK9G6p8ZgwPjwGC6_AcHj23j3-mTwwlGavpCT49beu5JMaLVNC42UAzDZ7AmrhTb-nWy03QimI0/w400-h339/84735426_3328673870479547_4800501555377733632_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The GOP has such a wonderful sense of humor, and it starts at the very tip top with the clown they are running for president.</span></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-40427923498703275902024-03-11T15:39:00.000-07:002024-03-11T15:39:26.496-07:00Eight reasons to celebrate Kyrsten Sinema curtsying out of the Senate for good<div class="post-header">
<div class="post-header-line-1"></div>
</div>
<div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 07: U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) arrives for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address during a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on February 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. The speech marks Biden's first address to the new Republican-controlled House. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)" height="267" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1279194/story_image/GettyImages-1463969107.jpg?1709686879" title="WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 07: U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) arrives for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address during a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on February 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. The speech marks Biden's first address to the new Republican-controlled House. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)" width="400" />
<figcaption data-image-attribution="Attribution: Getty Images"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema arrives for President Joe Biden's State of the
Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 7, 2023.</b></figcaption>
</figure>
</div><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Walter Einenkel for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff</span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709739006000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Monday, March 11, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709739006000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 8:30:06a MST</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709739006000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709739006000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709739006000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709739006000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On Tuesday, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/5/2227648/-Sen-Kyrsten-Sinema-says-she-won-t-seek-reelection-avoiding-3-way-race?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_2&pm_medium=web"><span>announced</span></a><span>
that she will not be seeking reelection as an independent. The good
news is that Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego will now face off against
Republican </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/29/2220249/-Watch-Kari-Lake-get-booed-by-her-fellow-Republicans"><span>looney toon</span></a><span> Kari Lake without former Democrat Sinema as a third-party distraction. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The other good news is that Sinema will be leaving the Senate, along with her </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/30/2129820/-Sinema-sends-a-message-both-with-her-flashy-clothes-and-her-embrace-of-Republicans"><span>cynical sartorial style</span></a><span> and her infuriating record of </span><a href="https://azmirror.com/2019/06/14/sinema-splits-with-democrats-to-confirm-top-trump-appointees/"><span>voting against</span></a><span> her Democratic colleagues.</span></b></p></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Sinema’s decision not to seek another term is not a surprise. Her </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/06/kyrsten-sinema-filibuster-betrayed-arizona-voting-rights"><span>repeated betrayal of the constituency</span></a><span> that voted her into the Senate in 2018, when she was still a Democrat—including </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/9/2140892/-Kyrsten-Sinema-decides-her-personal-ambitions-are-no-longer-served-by-the-Democratic-Party"><span>her decision</span></a><span> after the 2022 midterms to leave the party—greatly </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/27/2054753/-Sinema-s-unforced-errors-have-cost-her-big-time-with-Arizona-Democrats"><span>diminished her chances</span></a><span> of winning reelection as an independent.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/24/2201365/-Sinema-reportedly-doesn-t-care-if-she-loses-her-Senate-seat-because-then-she-can-cash-in"><span>Reports</span></a><span>
that she was ready to make big bucks in the private sector began
leaking in 2023. Now she will have all the time in the world to make all
the corporate money she wants.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Here are a few memorable moments from Sinema’s appalling tenure in the Senate.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>1. She blocked all attempts at </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/graham-praises-manchin-and-sinema-for-protecting-filibuster-2021-4"><span>filibuster reform.</span></a><span> Joining forces with the </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/4/2202988/-Millions-of-families-have-gone-hungry-since-Republicans-and-Joe-Manchin-ended-child-tax-credit"><span>equally odious</span></a><span>
Sen. Joe Manchin, she was able to thwart or blunt the edges of every
serious piece of progressive legislation Democrats introduced, </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/11/03/john-lewis-voting-rights-act-fails-to-pass-senate/?sh=16ff0591b3d2"><span>including</span></a><span> the John Lewis Voting Rights Act—for which </span><a href="https://news.wttw.com/2022/01/22/arizona-democrats-censure-sinema-blocking-voting-bill"><span>she was censured</span></a><span> by the Arizona Democratic Party. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>2. Then there was her infamous curtsy. Sinema </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/9/2020056/-Days-after-minimum-wage-thumbs-down-Sinema-gets-an-International-Women-s-Day-Twitter-ratio"><span>helped sink an amendment</span></a><span> to raise the minimum wage, stabbing working families in the back and making a big show of it too, </span><a href="https://19thnews.org/2021/05/kyrsten-sinema-filibuster-curtsy/"><span>with a gleeful thumbs down</span></a><span> and a curtsy—and a refusal to explain herself. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It is estimated that a minimum wage increase would have affected nearly 32 million workers—</span><a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/raising-minimum-wage-transformative-women/"><span>19 million of whom are women.</span></a></b></p>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>3. She made a big to-do about telling everybody that a Jan. 6 commission was “</span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/january-6-commission-sinema-missed-senate-vote-capitol-siege-2021-5"><span>critical</span></a><span>,”
then skipped an important Senate vote for creating that commission. Her
spokesperson had the audacity to comment that Sinema would “be entering
into the Congressional record that she would've voted yes."</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>4. Sinema </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/us/politics/sinema-fund-raiser-social-climate-bill.html?smid=tw-share"><span>fundraised</span></a><span> off big business groups that opposed the Democratic Party’s progressive social policy and climate bill. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>At the same time she was begging for big business money, she
was reportedly telling fellow senators behind the scenes that she was
“averse to the corporate and individual tax rate increases” that would
be needed to pay for budget expenditures.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>5. She forced a Senate committee to </span><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blood-hands-duckworth-blasts-sinema-195807713.html"><span>delay a vote</span></a><span> on an aviation bill concerning the amount of training required for commercial pilots. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Her alternative aviation training proposal earned the ire of
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran helicopter pilot on the
committee. Duckworth said Sinema’s alternate proposal to loosen pilot
training requirements would “mean blood on your hands when the
inevitable accident occurs as a result of an inadequately trained flight
crew.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>6. Sinema posted a picture to her social media account, prominently displaying a </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/kyrsten-sinemas-fuck-off-ring-is-the-new-i-really-dont-care-do-u"><span>“fuck off” ring</span></a><span>. The move seemed to be a callous response to the heavy public criticism she received over her failure to support wage earners. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>7. Sinema got a </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/6/2056406/-Did-you-know-Kyrsten-Sinema-did-a-paid-internship-at-a-California-winery-during-the-pandemic"><span>paid internship</span></a><span> at a California winery.
In the middle of the pandemic! And while a spokesperson said “the
Senate Ethics Committee preapproved Sinema's work,” there was no further
explanation offered for why she took the internship, why she took the
money for the internship, and why she had nothing better to do that
summer.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>8. Sinema also voted </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/12/2216886/-Kyrsten-Sinema-finds-a-new-way-to-vote-against-Democrats" title=""><span>against a Biden judicial nomination</span></a><span>—for no discernible reason! Sinema’s vote against U.S. Distri</span><span>ct Judge S. Kato Crews after voting in 97 appointees during the Trump administration remains baffling.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>When news broke Tuesday that Sinema will not be seeking another
term, Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, put it
best.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“Kyrsten Sinema will go down in history as a feckless, corrupt
egomaniac who sabotaged abortion and voting rights and destroyed her own
political career in the process,” she </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Leahgreenb/status/1765096842973356458"><span>tweeted</span></a><span>. “Enjoy your lobbying gig and leave the rest of us alone forever.”</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw0w6z4Xo_y-UCb0148zKezg3VQwrE6P6zDn1aQ2pfjs5w57KsdWJalSNlHpZhTplR_uN9Iuf3dhMZT37VjD2ZBDWX3SAWg9A8ncnhhMLDeU1GGvq5OiyBKIge_J8ZNl0kHN1oso9WYC_xTa86Q1FbBi6EQPECAD_mU5BNjk9IUiiZITvfKxJeB7s8LaE/s1000/sinema%20manchin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="1000" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw0w6z4Xo_y-UCb0148zKezg3VQwrE6P6zDn1aQ2pfjs5w57KsdWJalSNlHpZhTplR_uN9Iuf3dhMZT37VjD2ZBDWX3SAWg9A8ncnhhMLDeU1GGvq5OiyBKIge_J8ZNl0kHN1oso9WYC_xTa86Q1FbBi6EQPECAD_mU5BNjk9IUiiZITvfKxJeB7s8LaE/w400-h181/sinema%20manchin.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Who
are those masked traitors who forgot who elected them? Why, it's none
other than Sinema and Manchin, about to take a one-way elevator ride
straight to hell.</span></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-83397344623965009722024-03-10T14:48:00.000-07:002024-03-10T14:48:54.443-07:00Mitch McConnell endorses guy he hates<div class="post-header">
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</div><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQKt9TqyN7-3s0v1BcjdKRrqtBRUzZb6BPYuQ9209PEo9CeiAiw1Ly424mODHPM6Xu1wMFC3sm8SbGe7QoDbpk6sL19gCpef7eJ1cUzSCrHjmBewUAuZrJMoBTGHDmD7k2n5FvvyQBFpgooEQypQPLWj9G0LO3TCUBZdjweoyuU8SHY7PUADBgrEDZP4/s915/AP_19225637011373.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="915" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQKt9TqyN7-3s0v1BcjdKRrqtBRUzZb6BPYuQ9209PEo9CeiAiw1Ly424mODHPM6Xu1wMFC3sm8SbGe7QoDbpk6sL19gCpef7eJ1cUzSCrHjmBewUAuZrJMoBTGHDmD7k2n5FvvyQBFpgooEQypQPLWj9G0LO3TCUBZdjweoyuU8SHY7PUADBgrEDZP4/w400-h266/AP_19225637011373.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><p></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Maybe this is the connection between Mitch and Donnie. They both cozy up to Papa Putin, who in turn helps them fix elections. </b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">By Kaili Joy Gray for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Daily Kos Staff</b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709741470000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Sunday, March 10, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709741470000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 9:11:10a MST</span></span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709741470000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">REPUBLISHED BY: </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709741470000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709741470000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">On Wednesday, Donald Trump won the coveted yet unthinkably lackluster endorsement of a guy he’s been at war with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/23/politics/donald-trump-mitch-mcconnell-feud/index.html" target="_blank">for years</a>, who happens to hate him right back.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned
the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for
President of the United States,” Republican Senate Leader Mitch
McConnell <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/03/06/mcconnell-trump-endorse-2024/" target="_blank" title="">said in a statement</a>. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.” </span></b></p></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Take a beat to recover from the overwhelming enthusiasm McConnell forced himself to muster for the man <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/26/2225948/-Mitch-McConnell-tries-to-cling-to-power-by-bending-the-knee-to-Trump" target="_blank">he held</a> “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of [Jan. 6].”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Of course, the endorsement does <i>not</i> come as a surprise. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/26/2225948/-Mitch-McConnell-tries-to-cling-to-power-by-bending-the-knee-to-Trump" target="_blank">It was reported</a>
just last month that the two teams were in talks to negotiate an
endorsement because while the two men openly despise each other, at
least they can agree that they also despise President Joe Biden. Awww,
unity!</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">While Trump spent years demanding <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/3614769-trump-calls-for-mcconnell-to-be-ousted-as-gop-leader-immediately/" target="_blank">McConnell’s ouster</a> from his leadership role and calling the Republican leader all kinds of charming little nicknames, like “RINO” and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3645397-trump-calls-mcconnell-an-absolute-loser/" target="_blank" title="">“absolute Loser,”</a> now
that McConnell has announced he’s stepping down in November, they can
put all that hating-each-other messiness behind them. </b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“During his Presidency, we worked together to accomplish great
things for the American people including tax reform that supercharged
our economy and a generational change of our federal judiciary - most
importantly, the Supreme Court,” McConnell also said in his rousing
endorsement statement. Because as much as he might despise Trump, he <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/28/2226395/-The-17-worst-things-Mitch-McConnell-did-to-destroy-democracy" target="_blank" title="">loves destroying democracy more</a>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>And oh, such sweet, sweet memories of the destruction they wrought together, </span><span>packing the judiciary with horribly unqualified, mostly white dudes and, of course, stealing a Supreme Court seat or two. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Whether Trump will graciously accept McConnell’s endorsement or
find some way to rub a bit more salt in the wound is anyone’s guess,
but don’t hold your breath.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXgLi7Vcq3Nd6Kw8kBhgdBOAXWNoppjaXfeeNC1dKjD39MyynVJBO2vyplDu6pmOKT2vkMi16Mr4PoP47nbLG8P0N6KXePsjMoIRBADNrqv755znkyuu7QbXYPA7UeykIAji-MyzKFwAfAl3Vi3vsFXEIXPzep72zoFz55zr6-4HxQ_-pLGw9-RBMGuhQ/s530/104668552-GettyImages-646462182-1.530x298.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="530" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXgLi7Vcq3Nd6Kw8kBhgdBOAXWNoppjaXfeeNC1dKjD39MyynVJBO2vyplDu6pmOKT2vkMi16Mr4PoP47nbLG8P0N6KXePsjMoIRBADNrqv755znkyuu7QbXYPA7UeykIAji-MyzKFwAfAl3Vi3vsFXEIXPzep72zoFz55zr6-4HxQ_-pLGw9-RBMGuhQ/w400-h225/104668552-GettyImages-646462182-1.530x298.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Remember this touching moment when Trump shared his "affection" for Moscow Mitch? If two men ever deserved each other...</span></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-61049180090824443942024-03-09T15:11:00.000-08:002024-03-09T15:12:32.600-08:00Biden’s energized State of Union confounds right<p></p><h2 class="date-header"><span></span></h2>
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<div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><b><img alt="no image description available" height="267" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1279886/story_image/GettyImages-2067120368.jpg?1709912533" title="no image description available" width="400" /></b><b style="font-family: helvetica;">President Joe Biden, center, delivers the State of the Union address on March 7 in Washington, D.C.</b>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">By Mark Sumner for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Daily Kos Staff <br /></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Friday, March 08, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 9:30:13a MST</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709915413000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Well, that settles it. President Joe Biden can’t possibly win this thing.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Just like Republicans have been telling Americans all along, Biden is too </span><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-joe-biden-delivers-third-042337145.html" title=""><span>aggressive</span></a><span>, too </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-joe-biden-energy-state-union-1877209"><span>energetic</span></a><span>, too </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/03/07/joe-biden-sotu-brutal-trump-campaign/72842044007/"><span>fiery</span></a><span>, too </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/07/joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address"><span>feisty</span></a><span>, too </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/state-of-the-union-biden-03-07-24/h_eb5074c598daeb0c92be89b9f76a8e39"><span>forceful</span></a><span>, too </span><a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/nicole-russell/article286412005.html"><span>loud</span></a><span>, too </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-partisan-state-of-disunion-891a9a62" title=""><span>partisan</span></a><span>, and definitely too </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4517996-speaker-johnson-grimaces-shakes-head-through-heavily-political-biden-address/" title=""><span>political</span></a><span>.</span></b></p></div><div class="story__text-below-fold">
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Also, he talks too </span><a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-documents-archive-guidebook/annual-messages-congress-the-state-the-union-0" title=""><span>long</span></a><span>, tells too many </span><a href="https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/president-joe-biden-jokes-age-state-of-the-union-address-2024/3456049/"><span>jokes</span></a><span>, and too often goes off-script to </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/07/biden-state-of-the-union-updates"><span>spar with opponents</span></a><span>. If all that isn’t bad enough, Biden wants to talk to members of Congress when it’s late and decent Republicans are </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/08/biden-sotu-exit-walk-lights-off-house/" title=""><span>very, very sleepy</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It’s just like they’ve been saying all along. Biden’s age is an issue. Maybe he’ll be more presidential in 2032.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Biden’s 2024 </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/7/2228167/-Read-the-transcript-of-President-Joe-Biden-s-State-of-the-Union-address?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web"><span>State of the Union speech</span></a><span>
clocked in at 1 hour, 7 minutes, and 17 seconds. That doesn’t make it
the longest speech on record, but considering the clip at which Biden
blasted through the material (about 6,400 words in the transcript, more
in real life), he packed a lot into that space.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“I know I may not look like it,” said Biden, “but I’ve been
around a while.” And in his time in Washington, Biden has clearly
learned how to deliver a speech that absolutely confounds both his
opponents and a media that had already scheduled plenty of lazy “Biden
too old” editorials between now and November.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Three weeks ago, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/10/us/politics/biden-trump-aging.html"><span>The New York Times</span></a><span>
was explaining how the age issue that they’ve been pushing 24 hours a
day sticks to Biden so much more than to Donald Trump. “Mr. Biden’s
voice has grown softer and raspier,” wrote reporter Rebecca Davis
O’Brien, and he “moves more tentatively than he did as a candidate in
2019 and 2020, often holding his upper body stiff, adding to an
impression of frailty.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>When it comes to Trump, the same article explained that he
“holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that
typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>After Thursday night, both The New York Times and the
Republican Party are going to need a new playbook. The Joe Biden who
stepped to the podium on Thursday and then stayed in the House chamber
so long that the perpetually dyspeptic Speaker Mike Johnson, who dashed
home to find his rapture-ready PJs, was not the Joe Biden they’ve been
describing.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Biden’s forceful entry into the chamber on Thursday evening, his fast-forward, high-energy delivery, and his absolute </span><i>eagerness </i><span>to
engage whenever Republicans booed or refused to applaud the most
fundamental issue was an absolute joy. He came in hot, only seemed to
grow in energy and confidence through the night, and came off the winner
every time he sparred with just-say-no-to-everything Republicans. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In his speech, Biden was the happy warrior of American
politics. If he had the occasional stumble, it was seemingly because he
just </span><i>could not wait</i><span> to tell you not just about the things he had done, but also about all the things left to do in making American lives better.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Meanwhile, Johnson sat behind him like a bobblehead whose
spring had been wrongly inserted, shaking his head so many times that he
is likely spending this morning at the chiropractor. Out in the
audience, Republicans intent on mocking Biden instead ended up being an
obvious self-parody—something that should have been obvious the moment
Biden strolled down the aisle, saw Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s clown
suit, and took her apart with no more than an expression.</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span> </span><img alt="Image" class="css-9pa8cd" draggable="true" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIJPPb5bMAABq58?format=jpg&name=small" width="382" /></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Only a few minutes into the speech, Republicans were claiming
that the guy they’d been describing as little short of comatose was </span><a href="https://x.com/AriFleischer/status/1765933483082264792?s=20"><span>too fast</span></a><span>, </span><a href="https://x.com/FrankLuntz/status/1765931381648175574?s=20"><span>too loud</span></a><span>, and definitely </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4518596-buttigieg-responds-mike-johnson-biden-sotu-address/"><span>too political</span></a><span>. That last part was especially offensive to </span><a href="https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1765921501625114856?s=20"><span>classy Republicans</span></a><span> and the memory of Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/politics/rush-limbaugh-medal-of-freedom.html#:~:text=pumping%20his%20fist.-,Mr.,was%20first%20awarded%20in%201963."><span>completely nonpartisan performances</span></a><span> (I mean, it’s not as if Trump had </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-transforms-people-s-house-campaign-venue-n1237763"><span>a campaign rally at the White House</span></a><span>).</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In one night, Biden went from “</span><a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2024/03/08/state-of-the-union-sleepy-joe-nowhere-in-evidence-as-canny-well-versed-biden-outlines-vision-in-blistering-speech/"><span>Sleepy Joe</span></a><span>” to “</span><a href="https://x.com/justinbaragona/status/1765956494502109317?s=20" title=""><span>Jacked-Up Joe</span></a><span>” as Republicans scrambled for a new handle on the president.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In his speech, Biden made some very gutsy announcements, such as laying out plans for </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/07/politics/us-military-aid-port-gaza-biden/index.html"><span>an aid port in Gaza</span></a><span>,
forcefully talking about America’s role in expanding NATO and the need
for Ukraine assistance, and putting abortion issues front and center
while telling the Supreme Court to prepare to hear from American women.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>If Republicans didn’t like what they were seeing, </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/8/2228191/-Biden-got-feisty-at-the-State-of-the-Union-and-voters-ate-it-up?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web" title=""><span>Americans watching the speech</span></a><span> certainly did. As Daily Kos’ </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/8/2228191/-Biden-got-feisty-at-the-State-of-the-Union-and-voters-ate-it-up?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web"><span>Kerry Eleveld</span></a><span>
reported, potential voters in Arizona were turning up the live-reaction
dials for Navigator Research, highlighting many parts of the speech
that had them excited. A </span><a href="https://x.com/IanSams46/status/1765961808727163218?s=20"><span>CNN</span></a><span>
quick poll found that 64% of those watching had a positive reaction to
the speech, and after watching the speech, there was a
17-percentage-point increase among those saying that Biden’s policies
will move the nation in the right direction.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Republicans were left sputtering over Biden’s display of vigor
and command. Much of the press was left scrambling to find more synonyms
for “energetic.” And viewers were largely left convinced that Biden had
the right plan for America.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It’s hard to describe a more successful combination.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Meanwhile, down at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had promised to provide his own live commentary on the speech, but </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/disaster-for-trump-as-truth-social-crashes-at-critical-sotu-moment" title=""><span>technical issues</span></a><span>
had him fuming on the sidelines for much of the evening. When he did
get his chance to talk, Trump became obsessed with the fact that Biden
was occasionally </span><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-biden-sotu-address-truth-social-rant_n_65ea8d9fe4b026052a52f988"><span>coughing</span></a><span> and convinced that the president’s rapid-fire delivery was the product of stimulants.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It’s hard to dispute that Trump may be the expert when it comes to a White House allegedly “</span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-white-house-drugs-speed-xanax-1234979503/"><span>awash in speed</span></a><span>.” But as Biden’s speech moved toward its conclusion, Trump delivered a meme-worthy “Truth.”</span></b></p>
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<figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><img alt="" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1279868/large/screencap1.jpg?1709909829" /></b></span>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>If by that Trump means the drugs that kept America complacent
while he speed-walked the nation toward an authoritarian regime, then
he’s absolutely right. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In his speech, Biden told everyone to “wake up.” And maybe, just maybe, it worked.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0g-j1rrgP6dAeEOQXTyyChL428PIm1qsfhGfaPdEfiez1po2bWpAL9U18bZuGJRJWRZ3qnHqGtrDeyFKNYTwleSBs7CQ0QA_KYPWdVIjKv1RGvPuF5N_cYaymPx1858-Q-BcFKQBm6301-3GZgUnRdvONa-u87Po7iHRkKg0gKiqvnTv2ZauaatHIJcU/s1024/DSCN1228.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="739" data-original-width="1024" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0g-j1rrgP6dAeEOQXTyyChL428PIm1qsfhGfaPdEfiez1po2bWpAL9U18bZuGJRJWRZ3qnHqGtrDeyFKNYTwleSBs7CQ0QA_KYPWdVIjKv1RGvPuF5N_cYaymPx1858-Q-BcFKQBm6301-3GZgUnRdvONa-u87Po7iHRkKg0gKiqvnTv2ZauaatHIJcU/w400-h289/DSCN1228.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span>Biden brilliant at SOTU: What a difference an administration makes.</span></b></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-14634551151417825022024-03-08T14:44:00.000-08:002024-03-08T14:45:13.206-08:00DAVID A. GRAHAM / THE ATLANTIC: The Most Unusual State of the Union in Living Memory<div class="post-header">
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<img alt="The Most Unusual State of the Union in Living Memory" data-image="" height="182" src="https://www.rsn.org/images/001/055792-joe-biden-030824.jpg" width="400" /> <b class="image-caption" style="font-family: helvetica;"><span data-credits="">President Joe Biden during his third State of the Union address. (photo: Shawn Thew/Bloomberg)</span> </b></nav></div></header><div class="container"><b class="image-caption"> </b> </div><div class="container"> </div>
<div class="container"> <span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;"><b><i></i></b></span></span><b class="logo"><a href="https://www.rsn.org"><img alt="rsn.org reader supported news" src="https://www.rsn.org/images/logo-255x72.gif" width="255" /></a></b></div><div class="container"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;"><b><i></i></b></span></span></div><div class="container"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;"><b><i> </i></b></span></span></div><div class="container"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #134f5c;"><b><i>Republican members of Congress repeatedly heckled President Biden, who was happy to mix it up with them</i></b><b class="author"><span data-author=""> <br /></span></b></span></span></div><div class="container"><b class="author"><span data-author=""> </span></b></div><div class="container"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="author"><span data-author="">David A. Graham</span>
<span class="author-divider">/</span>
<span data-publication="">The Atlantic</span> </span></b></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="08/Mar/2024">08 March 24</span></b></span>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Few leaders have so visibly enjoyed being
president as Joe Biden. That might explain why he took so long getting
down the aisle of the House chamber tonight, shaking hands and taking
selfies. When he finally made it to the dais, he soaked up the applause
and then grinned. “Good evening! If I were smart, I’d go home now,” he
said.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The joke acknowledged the stakes of the evening’s State of the Union
address. Conventional wisdom held that Biden had little to gain—the
speeches <a href="https://archive.is/o/u7kGW/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/07/state-union-addresses-dont-usually-have-much-political-effect/" target="_blank">rarely give presidents much boost</a>—but
much to lose if he seemed lost, old, or incoherent. But Biden delivered
an energetic and pugnacious speech, one of the strongest of his career.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“In my career I’ve been told I’m too young and I’m too old,” Biden
said to laughter. “Whether young or old, I’ve always known what endures,
our North Star: The very idea of America, that we are all created equal
and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. We’ve never
fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either.
And I won’t walk away from it now.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">At times, it was less a speech than a conversation. Republican
members of Congress repeatedly heckled Biden, who was happy to mix it up
with them. In one colloquy, the president attacked GOP tax policies as a
handout to corporations and the wealthy, eliciting jeers. “You’re
saying no. Look at the facts,” Biden smirked. “I know you know how to
read.” Biden also engineered a predictable but successful trap by
praising a bipartisan border-security bill that Republicans killed at
Donald Trump’s behest. When Republicans booed, Biden broke out into a
broad, Cheshire-cat smile. “Oh, you don’t like that bill?” he said.
“I’ll be darned.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The exchanges were a gift to Biden, whose aides had hinted he wanted
to talk back to hecklers, just as he did last year. They see these
moments as opportunities for Biden to prove he’s fast on his feet and
not the senile shell whom some of his critics say he is. For the second
year in a row, Republicans set a very low bar for Biden’s speech, and
once again, he cleared it without much trouble.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Biden’s eagerness to engage did produce one awkward moment.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (wearing a MAGA hat against House
rules) demanded that Biden acknowledge the recent murder of Laken Riley,
a young Georgia woman allegedly killed by an unauthorized immigrant.
Biden, who has tacked right on immigration, obliged. He held up a button
with her name on it and referred to the man as “an illegal,” a term
generally considered improper by Democrats.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Even without the repartee, this State of the Union was the most
unusual in living memory, for a couple of reasons. First, Biden oversees
what is statistically a strong economy, but voters’ dim views of it are
perhaps the greatest threat to his reelection. He had to sell his
economy without appearing oblivious to public concerns. Second, Biden is
in a presidential race against a former president, the first time
that’s ever happened in the address’s history. That gave him the awkward
task of figuring out how to handle “his predecessor,” as he called
Trump at least a dozen times.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“The state of our union is strong and getting stronger,” Biden said,
putting his spin on the traditional formula. He tried to convince
listeners that things were better than they’d heard, or felt. “The
American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told, so
let’s tell the story here,” he said. “I inherited an economy that was on
the brink. Now our economy is literally the envy of the world! 15
million new jobs in just three years. That's a record!”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Biden knows his rosy view is not commonly held. About two-thirds of respondents in a recent<a href="https://archive.is/o/u7kGW/https://www.axios.com/2024/03/02/biden-trump-siena-poll-nyt" target="_blank"> <i>New York Times</i>/Siena poll</a> said the country was headed in the wrong direction. Eighty percent are dissatisfied with the status quo, <a href="https://archive.is/o/u7kGW/https://news.gallup.com/poll/1669/general-mood-country.aspx" target="_blank">according to Gallup</a>.
So Biden summarized some of his victories, recounting the country’s
comeback from the COVID recession, boasting about growth in union jobs,
and celebrating his moves to cut prescription-drug prices.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Biden also framed the presidential race less<a href="https://archive.is/o/u7kGW/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/joe-bidens-most-urgent-state-of-the-union-priority/677670/" target="_blank"> as a referendum on his record than as a choice</a> between himself and “my predecessor.” He warned about a return to the bad, not-so-old days of the Trump administration.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“My purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress and alert the
American people that this is no ordinary moment,” Biden said. “Not since
President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been
under assault here at home as they are today.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">He castigated Trump and members of Congress for seeking to “bury the
truth” about the January 6 insurrection and accused them of hollow
patriotism. “You can’t love your country only when you win,” he said. He
attacked Trump for anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying, “Unlike my
predecessor, I know who we are as Americans.” He also assailed Trump for
his criticism of NATO and friendliness toward Russian President
Vladimir Putin. “My predecessor tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you
want,’” Biden said. “That’s a quote. The former president actually said
that, bowing down to a Russian leader. That’s outrageous, it’s
dangerous, and it’s unacceptable.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Biden spoke at length about abortion rights, calling on Congress to
pass a law protecting the right to in-vitro fertilization and promising
to reinstate <i>Roe v. Wade</i>. He noted Trump’s pride in the decision
overturning it and quoted the majority opinion, which said that “women
are not without electoral or political power.” Biden addressed the
Supreme Court justices seated in the audience directly, saying, “You’re
about to realize just how much you were right about that.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">By the end of the roughly hour-long speech, Biden seemed more
animated than he had at the start. He closed by acknowledging widespread
concerns about his age, then pivoting to yet another attack on Trump.
“My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are,
it’s how old our ideas are,” he said. “Hate, anger, revenge, retribution
are among the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient
ideas that only take us back.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The test of whether he’s right will be whether it’s him or Trump addressing a joint session of Congress this time next year.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjosAaGfX4J3HhaDErreaNsj2uAlq_Vt9j7U5BD4YEEEBhXkovRNYMmzZUH94Od10E03w2gNUueDuAB4fRmVCVCBRt1bESwGdNi9NHIgKjvXkeV9mSskrP6eSd0n9LW-uzLvCtT0xOoXO9CClLo44Xg9WopNgqpB_qpSvDLi7_Ky3lpJ92hyphenhyphenxtXGdlXGDc/s927/419727824_711392974463218_7170116955423520938_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="927" data-original-width="828" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjosAaGfX4J3HhaDErreaNsj2uAlq_Vt9j7U5BD4YEEEBhXkovRNYMmzZUH94Od10E03w2gNUueDuAB4fRmVCVCBRt1bESwGdNi9NHIgKjvXkeV9mSskrP6eSd0n9LW-uzLvCtT0xOoXO9CClLo44Xg9WopNgqpB_qpSvDLi7_Ky3lpJ92hyphenhyphenxtXGdlXGDc/s320/419727824_711392974463218_7170116955423520938_n.jpg" width="286" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><br /></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-8514629619732879372024-03-07T15:51:00.000-08:002024-03-07T15:52:21.470-08:00Elon Musk flies to Mar-a-Lago as Trump seeks cash for those pesky court fees<h2 class="date-header"><span></span></h2>
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<div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="285" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1279318/story_image/GettyImages-1236145171.jpg?1709743116" title="no image description available" width="400" /><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Then-President Donald Trump acknowledges Elon Musk, right, after the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020.</b>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Mark Sumner for Daily Kos</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff</span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709748004000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Wednesday, March 06, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709748004000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">11:00:04a MST</span> </span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span> </span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>REPUBLISHED BY:</span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Blue Country Gazette Blog</span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span>Rim Country Gazette Blog</span><span> <br /></span></b></span></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There are “billionaires,” and then there are billionaires. Unfortunately, sometimes they share the same delusions.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On Saturday, </span><a href="https://mastodon.social/@elonjet/112029761580521085"><span>watchers of private-jet traffic</span></a><span>
noticed that Elon Musk’s plane was on the ground at the airport closest
to Mar-a-Lago, leading to speculation that the CEO of Tesla might be on
hand to meet with the guy who has spent years claiming electric
vehicles </span><a href="https://thehill.com/business/4219775-trump-claims-bidens-ridiculous-all-electric-car-hoax-partially-to-blame-for-uaw-strike/" title=""><span>are a Chinese hoax</span></a><span> and that electric cars need to charge every </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/trumps-misleading-claims-about-electric-vehicles-and-the-auto-industry/"><span>15 minutes</span></a><span>.</span></b></p></div><div class="story__text-below-fold">
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On Tuesday evening, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/us/politics/trump-elon-musk.html"><span>The New York Times</span></a><span> confirmed that Donald Trump and Elon Musk met on Sunday in West Palm Beach as Trump desperately looks for a way to cover the </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/05/trumps-best-option-to-get-540-million-for-legal-penalties-could-be-clean-property-private-lenders-.html" title=""><span>$540 million</span></a><span>
he owes for a pair of recent legal judgments. Whether Musk has agreed
to pick up the tab for Trump’s fines is unclear, but that he could do so
for only </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal-complete.html" title=""><span>about 1.2%</span></a><span> of the check he wrote for Twitter shows the huge difference in wealth between the two men.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>If democracy was already smoldering, Musk could provide Trump with a </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/01/elon-musks-boring-company-sells-all-of-its-flamethrowers.html" title="">flamethrower</a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Trump owes $454 million in fines and interest for business fraud in New York and </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/26/trump-e-jean-carroll-defamation-trial-closing-arguments.html"><span>$83 million</span></a><span> for his defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump has been unable to get a judge to </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-james-appeal-bond-fraud-new-york-3093352e94274f9daba3d84f0c43467e"><span>halt the payments</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In addition to repeatedly declaring that EVs don’t work, and threatening to </span><a href="https://www.ttnews.com/articles/trump-georgia-evs"><span>end tax credits</span></a><span> that encourage car buyers to pick EVs, Trump has </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/its-time-trump-sail-into-sunset-says-musk-2022-07-12/"><span>previously attacked Musk</span></a><span>, saying that he would have been “worthless” without government subsidies.</span></b></p>
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on
all of his many subsidized projects …,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social
platform in July 2022, “I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’
and he would have done it.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>That might seem like the kind of statement that might make Musk
reluctant to open his wallet. However, not only has Musk been
repeatedly spreading a laundry list of Republican conspiracy
theories—including backing the “</span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-1234941337/"><span>great replacement</span></a><span>” claims of white supremacists and false stories that President Joe Biden is allowing millions of migrants into the country </span><a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/politifact/article/fact-check-elon-musk-immigration-18659023.php"><span>so they can vote</span></a><span> in the next election—the </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#75ad87d43d78" title=""><span>second-richest man on the planet</span></a><span> has several big reasons to support the Republican candidate.</span></b></p>
<ul><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Tesla has faced repeated issues with safety at its factories, with </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-safety-violations-dwarf-big-us-auto-plants-in-aftermath-of-musks-model-3-push/?sh=12e5b10154ce"><span>rates of violations</span></a><span> that dwarf other auto manufacturers. </span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Tesla’s “self-driving” cars, which Musk has </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-musk-tesla-driving/"><span>relentlessly promoted</span></a><span> for a decade, are part of a </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/tesla-investigation-steering-control-lost-f29be580500a4ca97a280d6090259f05"><span>growing investigation</span></a><span> by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that could result in a major recall and restrictions on Tesla’s system.</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Tesla has been repeatedly sued over racial discrimination, including by the </span><a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-sues-tesla-racial-harassment-and-retaliation"><span>Equal Employment Opportunity Commission</span></a><span>, overrunning an openly hostile and racist workplace.</span></b></p>
</li><li>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Tesla has been </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-launches-bid-organize-tesla-entire-non-union-auto-sector-2023-11-29/"><span>targeted by the United Auto Workers</span></a><span>, with the union’s president, Shawn Fain, pushing hard to organize workers there and at other nonunion automakers.</span></b></p>
</li></ul>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>To help stop that last one, Musk has recently joined with the third-richest man on the planet in a plan to </span><a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/amazon-joins-spacex-trader-joes-in-challenging-us-labor-board"><span>destroy</span></a><span> the </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-01-31/column-elon-musk-nlrb-lawsuit-spacex"><span>National Labor Relations Board</span></a><span>. Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos may be </span><a href="https://www.thestreet.com/personalities/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-is-purposefully-lagging-behind-elon-musks-spacex"><span>rivals in space</span></a><span>, but back on the ground, both of them are committed to keeping their workers divided and powerless.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>What would keep Musk from agreeing to wipe out Trump’s little
half-a-billion-dollar legal problem in exchange for a promise that,
should Trump get back in the White House, he will take care of Musk’s
issues with racism, safety, and those pesky unions?</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Nothing. Sure, it may seem like a bribe—because it’s a bribe—but that’s unlikely to be an issue.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>For both men, this could be what Trump might describe as a fantastic deal. Destroying government oversight was </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/donald-trumps-plan-to-make-the-presidency-more-like-a-kingship"><span>already on his agenda</span></a><span>, and if the Heritage Foundation’s </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president"><span>Project 2025 needs to be tweaked</span></a><span> a little to keep the money flowing to Musk, that can surely be arranged.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In the distant past of 2017, Musk </span><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15726292/elon-musk-trump-advisory-council-paris-climate-decision"><span>stepped down</span></a><span>
from a pair of Trump advisory councils in protest of Trump’s stance
toward the climate crisis. But the Tesla guy has vanished down a long
hallway of </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1"><span>self-medication</span></a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/elon-musk-became-so-paranoid-he-banned-meetings-of-more-than-2-twitter-employees-fearing-mutiny-or-sabotage-author-says/articleshow/105332737.cms"><span>paranoia</span></a><span>, and </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/media/elon-musk-antisemitism-white-people/index.html"><span>white nationalism</span></a><span>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>According to Tuesday’s New York Times article, Musk believes
it’s “essential” that Biden lose the election. And Musk’s support for </span><a href="https://x.com/aintscarylarry/status/1765376162656907271?s=20" title=""><span>immigration conspiracy theories</span></a><span>,
which has recently included describing Biden’s actions as “treason,”
might provide nice cover for handing a wad of cash to Trump. But there’s
a long, long list of reasons why Musk could benefit from some dedicated
neglect on the part of the government.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Musk is among the richest people in history. He wants to make his robots, spaceships, and </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/neuralinks-first-human-patient-able-control-mouse-through-thinking-musk-says-2024-02-20/"><span>brain chips</span></a><span> without concern about regulations or safety. He wants to be free to </span><a href="https://fortune.com/2024/01/11/elon-musk-dei-diversity-racism-blacks-boeing-united-airlines-aviation-safety/" title=""><span>discriminate against Black people</span></a><span> and </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-nick-cannon-breeding-kink-1382676/" title=""><span>treat women like breeding stock</span></a><span>. Trump can promise him all that and more. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The Tesla CEO might even choose to pad out the Republican Party’s </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/republican-national-committee-funding-cash-finances-1866326"><span>empty coffers</span></a><span>. But that’s pretty much the same thing as sending cash </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/23/2225329/-Lara-Trump-turns-RNC-into-latest-Trump-grift-and-Republicans-are-nervous" title=""><span>directly to Trump</span></a><span>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Should Musk actively campaign for Trump, he comes with his own
set of fanboys who may not completely overlap with Trump’s … though it’s
hard to believe that anyone who has stuck with Musk through his recent
statements was not already going to check the “R” box on the ballot. It
seems fair to say that </span><a href="https://x.com/Taniel/status/1765242934511759867?s=20" title="">not every Tesla employee</a><span> is going to follow Musk’s orders on voting. </span></b></p>
<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span>Don’t be surprised if Musk cashes that check. But he really should make Trump get on his knees and beg. </span></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwt0ZuQGLRB6zuer0I2HpzDAA9Phc5hyphenhyphenTT-q9wjvKTjgSD0kA7PbXJ2rWAxhJQE5PrXOrIELKpKtrpAow73Eh9DCOOaQiktBvEqQy46LLrsUUspf16N5YeFtsUShsB5Ae34MI4D_MxkvvrOQZhni-qOZBMAKKqRIE17cQUuzjPEtWvELYYnq5Mj6yr2oI/s553/AAYYuSY.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="553" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwt0ZuQGLRB6zuer0I2HpzDAA9Phc5hyphenhyphenTT-q9wjvKTjgSD0kA7PbXJ2rWAxhJQE5PrXOrIELKpKtrpAow73Eh9DCOOaQiktBvEqQy46LLrsUUspf16N5YeFtsUShsB5Ae34MI4D_MxkvvrOQZhni-qOZBMAKKqRIE17cQUuzjPEtWvELYYnq5Mj6yr2oI/w400-h300/AAYYuSY.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></b></div><b><span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Hey, Trump hung out with this guy and his little girlfriends. Why not Elon Musk? Sleazebags, all.</span><br /></span></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p></p>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-49321965850280705412024-03-06T15:57:00.000-08:002024-03-06T16:02:27.059-08:00LAY IN SOME EXTRA POPCORN: The Trump trial the Supreme Court can't stop starts March 25<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><div class="post-header">
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</div><div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="250" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1278817/story_image/AP24063024908679.jpg?1709564950" title="no image description available" width="400" /> <b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>If I can't make it there, I can't make it </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>anywhere. </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It's up to you </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>New York, New York.</span></span></b> <br /><figcaption data-image-attribution="Attribution: AP"></figcaption>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Mark Sumner for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff </span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709569104000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Monday, March 04, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709569104000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 9:18:24am MST</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709569104000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709569104000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">REPUBLISHED BY: </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709569104000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709569104000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Monday should have </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/02/trump-election-subversion-case-judge-trial-date-00139395#:~:text=Donald%20Trump's%20March%204%20trial,in%20April%20and%20possibly%20beyond.">marked the start</a><span>
of Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C. trial for attempting to overthrow
the 2020 election, but has now been delayed for months by Trump’s claim
to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/us/politics/trump-immunity-appeals-court.html">absolute immunity</a><span>. With the </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/28/2226526/-We-need-more-talk-about-the-Supreme-Court-s-despicable-move-on-presidential-immunity" title="">Supreme Court</a><span> agreeing to hear Trump’s appeal in April, the trial on charges of </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/1191493880/trump-january-6-charges-indictment-counts#:~:text=6%20case%3A%20The%20special%20counsel%20indictment%20explained%20Trump%20was%20charged,to%20obstruct%20an%20official%20proceeding.">conspiracy and obstruction</a><span> is unlikely to kick off before the fall.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In Florida, Trump’s trial on charges related to his withholding of classified documents continues to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/01/judge-cannon-signals-doubts-about-jack-smiths-timeline-for-trump-trial-in-florida-00144449">be put in doubt</a><span>
by a Trump-appointed judge. That one is currently set to begin on May
20, but Judge Aileen Cannon seems all but certain to move that date back
by months.</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In Georgia, where Trump has been charged with attempting to interfere in the state’s election results, proceedings have been </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/01/trump-classified-documents-election-biden-latest-updates">delayed by a sideshow</a><span>
over the personal life of district attorney Fani Willis. The judge in
that case has said he will rule on whether Willis must step aside within
two weeks, but how this could affect the trial isn’t clear. No trial
date has been set yet.</span></b></p></div></div></div><div class="story__text-below-fold">
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>However, there is still one criminal trial that appears
unaffected by the immunity appeal and unlikely to suffer further delays.
That case </span><a href="https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-34-count-felony-indictment-of-former-president-donald-j-trump/">includes 34</a><span> of the 91 felony charges Trump is currently facing, and it’s set to begin on March 25.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Unlike the recent trials for Trump’s <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/9/2168402/-Jurors-find-Donald-Trump-liable-of-sexually-assaulting-E-Jean-Carroll">sexual assault</a> and <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/26/2219774/-Jury-orders-Trump-to-pay-E-Jean-Carroll-83M-in-defamation-case">defamation</a> of writer E. Jean Carroll, or his trial for <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/16/2223904/-Donald-Trump-fraud-verdict-364-million-penalty-in-civil-fraud-case" title="">fraudulently inflating</a>
the value of his real estate holdings, the case that will go before a
Manhattan court later this month is a criminal, not civil, proceeding. </b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>This is the first time in history that any current or former president has faced a criminal trial.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/donald-trump-indictment-falsifying-business-records/story?id=98377002#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20penalty%20for,four%20years%20in%20state%20prison.">The charges</a><span>
against Trump in this case involve falsifying New York business records
to disguise hush money payments to adult film actress Stephanie
Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels. Each of those charges carries a
potential maximum sentence of </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/donald-trump-indictment-falsifying-business-records/story?id=98377002#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20penalty%20for,four%20years%20in%20state%20prison." title="">four years in a state penitentiary</a><span>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>While it may be satisfying to think of Judge Juan Merchan, who will </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-hush-money-case-new-york-trial-hearing/">oversee the case</a><span>,
sentencing Trump to 136 years behind bars, this is extremely unlikely.
Of Trump’s four criminal trials, experts believe this case represents
the </span><a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4155978-trump-criminal-indictments-ranked-by-risk/">least danger to Trump</a><span>.
Even if Trump is convicted on some or all of these charges, he could
face a relatively small penalty when compared to the recent massive
rulings in civil cases. He may </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-criminal-cases-ranked-how-much-legal-trouble-2023-8">not face any jail time</a><span>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Still, as </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/nyregion/donald-trump-lawyers.html">The New York Times</a><span>
notes, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has extensive evidence
against Trump, including audio recordings, and testimony from those
involved. To avoid conviction, writes the Times, Trump’s attorneys will
have to be “stellar.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>One of the witnesses testifying against Trump is likely to be
his former attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen acted as the middleman between
Trump and Daniels, and the repayments Trump made to Cohen are the
subject of the charges against Trump. Cohen has already </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/25/2201649/-In-court-faceoff-Michael-Cohen-testifies-against-Trump-in-fraud-trial-Trump-shrugs-Proven-liar">testified against Trump</a><span> in his real estate fraud trial. Cohen was already tried in federal court and </span><a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-sentenced-3-years-prison#:~:text=Robert%20Khuzami%2C%20Attorney%20for%20the,bank%2C%20and%20campaign%20finance%20violations.">sentenced to three years</a><span>
in prison for charges related to the hush money scheme: tax evasion,
campaign finance violations, and making a false statement to bank
officials.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In this case, Trump is not going to be represented by the likes of </span><a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4483371-trump-lawyer-habba-brushes-off-ny-ag-threat-seize-assets/">Alina Habba</a><span> or </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rudy-giuliani-apartment-manhattan-listing-bankrupt-b2505491.html">Rudy Giuliani</a><span>. Instead, he will be represented by a </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/nyregion/donald-trump-lawyers.html" title="">new team</a><span> of lawyers headed by Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, both of whom have extensive experience in criminal court. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Whatever expertise his new legal team has, Blanche and Necheles may find it difficult to keep Trump under control. Trump made </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/1/2226705/-Trump-is-encouraging-threats-to-judges-And-it-s-no-accident">attacks on the judge</a><span>
and courtroom staff part of his routine in his civil cases. Considering
his lack of success in intimidating Judge Arthur Engoron in the real
estate fraud trial or Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Carroll case, Trump may
have even learned his lesson about offending the person responsible for
determining your sentence.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But probably not.</span></b></p>
<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span>No cameras will be allowed in court, and additional steps may
be taken to keep jury members anonymous based on the threats leveled
against those involved in previous Trump trials. Expect further coverage
of this trial as it approaches.</span> </b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFObmizSRHDp6nMO1vvbgo-9OGLlYaYuhFlUMDIm1CCbmYhBKshVeOQkMyGgdmJZ2_4XogP68Gze6jDGH3Xx19XtI0Ybu2lFK2q5CWQtRv3nfz39LIJLFy1EaijHJ4b1ZtcZMJr3GWhs3BW-J7h_YyjHhRn5DAPUrOug4ByUlotyouab733y-2GDxtDxw/s931/trumps%20in%20hoosegow.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="931" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFObmizSRHDp6nMO1vvbgo-9OGLlYaYuhFlUMDIm1CCbmYhBKshVeOQkMyGgdmJZ2_4XogP68Gze6jDGH3Xx19XtI0Ybu2lFK2q5CWQtRv3nfz39LIJLFy1EaijHJ4b1ZtcZMJr3GWhs3BW-J7h_YyjHhRn5DAPUrOug4ByUlotyouab733y-2GDxtDxw/w309-h400/trumps%20in%20hoosegow.jpg" width="309" /></a></b></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Our favorite Trump family portrait. Except where's Eric. </b></span></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-47680313370483677792024-03-05T17:33:00.000-08:002024-03-05T17:34:52.584-08:00Supremes decision reveals the court is a fraud<div class="post-header">
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy1a2qZCIKFVojrk2Akx8vjF8uzM45TACU652dxFoMHq-77uR-t5-kF3EGpg_Fea2uu6Hsp3mPhcMTQnAdRQhx8RGMe0Duw7p6VKHHfdzOJpPkRtBPqqFWQ7IXc3C6fp6ycbesAdwqOaHveHZ827lKJw7SUP3zHEdyehgzR1eUd6nIxJMNiqn3qEhk6P8/s768/AA1jRWjW.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy1a2qZCIKFVojrk2Akx8vjF8uzM45TACU652dxFoMHq-77uR-t5-kF3EGpg_Fea2uu6Hsp3mPhcMTQnAdRQhx8RGMe0Duw7p6VKHHfdzOJpPkRtBPqqFWQ7IXc3C6fp6ycbesAdwqOaHveHZ827lKJw7SUP3zHEdyehgzR1eUd6nIxJMNiqn3qEhk6P8/w400-h300/AA1jRWjW.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">What horrible secrets lie hidden under those robes?<br /> </b><p></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com/daily kos.com">Daily Kos</a></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">March 5, 2024</b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">REPUBLISHED BY:</b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></b></p><p><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Rim </b><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Country Gazette Blog</b></a></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/supreme-court-trump-v-anderson-fourteenth-amendment-originalism/677636/?gift=j43dmafZti9kgQ5HJxDAVL9P9Mjsci3OSEgSJLdSII4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share" target="_blank">Adam Serwer</a> of
The Atlantic writes that the Supreme Court’s resolution to the
Colorado case is about something other than so-called “originalism.”</b></p>
<blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Justice Amy Coney Barrett—alone among the Republican appointees in
refusing to go along with their unilateral rewriting of the Fourteenth
Amendment—wrote separately, and seemed to urge the media to avoid
stating the obvious, that the justices were doing politics rather than
law. </b></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile
season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance,
writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not
up,” Barrett wrote. “For present purposes, our differences are far less
important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of
this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”</b></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><u>No</u>!</b></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The message Americans should take home from this case is that when <a href="https://www.vox.com/21497317/originalism-amy-coney-barrett-constitution-supreme-court">Justice Samuel Alito says</a>,
“I do think the Constitution means something and that that meaning does
not change,” what he means is that the Constitution changes to mean
what he would like it to mean. </b></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">They should take home the recognition
that when <a href="https://time.com/5670400/justice-neil-gorsuch-why-originalism-is-the-best-approach-to-the-constitution/">Justice Neil Gorsuch says</a>, “Suppose originalism does lead to a result you happen to dislike in this or that case. So <i>what</i>?” he would never allow such a thing to happen if he could avoid it. </b></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">And they should understand that when Barrett herself <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-confirmation/2020/10/13/923215778/barrett-an-originalist-says-meaning-of-constitution-doesn-t-change-over-time">says that the Constitution</a>
“doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse
my own policy views into it,” she is not telling the truth, but she
would prefer you not point that out.</b></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">This case reveals originalism as practiced by the justices for the
fraud it actually is: a framework for justifying the results that the
jurists handpicked by the conservative legal movement wish to reach.
</b></p></blockquote><p></p><p>"<b style="font-family: helvetica;">Americans should keep that in mind the next time the justices invoke
originalism to impose their austere, selective vision of liberty on a
public they insist must remain gratefully silent.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68QuXKK67k6_SGWpBVRBJlBGrK-KdZ6BnzJTFb7EwqQ3BK_uAJMF4P5EIafC_7OcYUkAHbzM-3Ek4wgJqU7Fuj6mX4M4T8TrymRbdtwIVXp6AaEdjjFVj0Wzkn3-L55m6ISyjxpiUyrePnrszpJrmsnYQ2i5VYUAehU9WZu_IvsgDKv8yQxiPcrLL5rI/s333/BB19YU8O.img.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="311" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68QuXKK67k6_SGWpBVRBJlBGrK-KdZ6BnzJTFb7EwqQ3BK_uAJMF4P5EIafC_7OcYUkAHbzM-3Ek4wgJqU7Fuj6mX4M4T8TrymRbdtwIVXp6AaEdjjFVj0Wzkn3-L55m6ISyjxpiUyrePnrszpJrmsnYQ2i5VYUAehU9WZu_IvsgDKv8yQxiPcrLL5rI/s320/BB19YU8O.img.jpg" width="299" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">"[Barrett] is not telling the truth, but she
would prefer you not point that out."</b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-90186991776271686402024-03-04T13:09:00.000-08:002024-03-04T13:09:13.593-08:00 TIME TO IMPEACH: Supreme Court continues to rule against democracy <div class="post-header">
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<h3></h3><hr /><div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="309" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1277809/story_image/pm240229c.jpg?1709302841" title="no image description available" width="400" />
<figcaption data-image-attribution="Attribution: Pedro Molina"></figcaption>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A cartoon by Pedro Molina.</b></p></div></div></div>
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p></p></div></div></div><blockquote><h1 data-title=""><span style="background-color: white; color: #134f5c;"><i>Keeps Trump on ballot, rejects Colorado voter challenge, ignoring insurrection</i>;<b><i> Liberal justices accuse conservative
majority of going further than needed.</i></b></span></h1></blockquote><b class="author">
<span data-author="" style="font-family: helvetica;">Ann E. Marimow</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">
<span class="author-divider">/</span>
<span data-publication="">The Washington Post</span></span></b></div><b class="author"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span data-publication="">March 4, 2024 </span></span>
</b>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously sided with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a>, allowing the former president to remain on the election ballot and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/19/trump-off-colorado-ballot/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target="_blank">reversing a Colorado ruling that disqualified him</a> from returning to office because of his conduct around the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target="_blank">Jan. 6</a>, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The justices said the Constitution does not permit a single state to disqualify a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/presidential-candidates-2024/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target="_blank">presidential candidate</a>
from national office, declaring that such responsibility “rests with
Congress and not the states.” The court warned of disruption and chaos
if a candidate for nationwide office could be declared ineligible in
some states, but not others, based on the same conduct.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos —
arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the
inauguration,” the court said in an unsigned, 13-page opinion.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">While the decision was unanimous, the court’s three liberal justices
also wrote separately, saying the conservative majority went further
than necessary in the ruling and decided an issue that was not before
the court in an attempt to insulate itself and Trump from “future
controversy.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The court’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/f7b74194-324c-4bdc-80e6-fdbbde18e3ed.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_9" target="_blank">decision to keep Trump on the ballot </a>leaves
him as the leading candidate for the Republican nomination and for now
removes the Supreme Court from directly determining the path of the 2024
presidential election. The justices fast-tracked <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/05/trump-supreme-court-ballot-norma-anderson/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9" target="_blank">the challenge from voters</a>
in Colorado and issued their decision one day before Super Tuesday,
when that state and more than a dozen others hold nominating contests.
The ruling applies to other states with similar challenges to Trump’s
candidacy.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In a sign of the high court’s awareness of the election calendar, the justices took the unusual step of announcing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/f7b74194-324c-4bdc-80e6-fdbbde18e3ed.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_10" target="_blank">the opinion</a>
on the Supreme Court’s website on a day when the court is not in
session, instead of issuing it from the bench later this month.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump reacted to the decision with a brief, all-caps message on his social media site. “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” he wrote.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump’s eligibility to return to office is not the only question
before the justices that could affect the electability of the former
president, who is facing four criminal indictments, two of them related
to his efforts to block Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/28/trump-supreme-court-immunity-claim-dc-trial/?itid=lk_inline_manual_16" target="_blank">next month will hear Trump’s challenge </a>to
a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
that said he is not protected from criminal prosecution by presidential
immunity. The justices’ decision to take that case delayed Trump’s D.C.
federal trial for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election results
until at least late summer, just a few months before the general
election.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The justices separately have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/13/jan-6-obstruction-supreme-court-trump-rioters/?itid=lk_inline_manual_17&itid=lk_inline_manual_19" target="_blank">agreed to review the validity of a law</a>
that was used to charge hundreds of people in connection with the Jan. 6
riot and is also a key element of Trump’s four-count federal election
obstruction case in Washington.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump is the first former U.S. president ever charged with a crime.
The high court’s involvement in his legal and political future as he
campaigns to return to the White House has made the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-2024/?itid=lk_inline_manual_20" target="_blank">2024 election</a> an unprecedented test of America’s judicial and democratic institutions.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In the Colorado case, the justices were reviewing a decision from
Colorado’s top court that relied on a long-dormant post-Civil War
provision of the 14th Amendment to declare Trump ineligible to return to
the White House. The case thrust the Supreme Court into a pivotal role
not seen since 2000, when the high court’s decision in <i>Bush v. Gore</i> handed the presidency to George W. Bush and bitterly divided the nation.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The provision prohibits anyone who previously pledged to support the
Constitution as “an officer of the United States” from returning to
office if they betrayed their oath by engaging in insurrection. The text
of Section 3 does not specify who is supposed to enforce the clause or
when it should be invoked.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">As part of the court’s opinion Monday, five of the six conservative
justices said Section 3 must be enforced through federal legislation, a
stance that legal analysts said would presumably prevent Congress from
trying to enforce the statute by refusing to count Trump electoral votes
at the Jan. 6, 2025, joint session to certify the election results.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The three liberal justices, in their sharply worded concurrence, said
that approach “shuts the door on other potential means of federal
enforcement.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult
issues unnecessarily,” wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and
Ketanji Brown Jackson. “In a sensitive case crying out for judicial
restraint, it abandons that course.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, agreed with the liberals
in part, writing separately to say that the lawsuit before the court
“did not require us to address the complicated question of whether
federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can
be enforced.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But she also appeared to chide the liberals for the tone of their
concurrence, saying this political moment was not a time to “amplify
disagreement with stridency.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile
season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance,
writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not
up,” Barrett wrote.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The challenge to Trump’s candidacy was brought by six Colorado voters
— four Republicans and two independents. The Colorado Supreme Court
found Trump engaged in insurrection when he summoned his supporters to
Washington and encouraged an angry crowd to disrupt Congress’s
certification of Biden’s victory.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">At oral argument on Feb. 8,<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/08/supreme-court-oral-arguments-trump-colorado-ballot/?itid=lk_inline_manual_37" target="_blank"> justices from across the ideological spectrum warned</a>
of troubling political ramifications if they permitted Colorado’s top
court to order the leading Republican presidential candidate off the
ballot. Several justices suggested that allowing the state court ruling
to bar Trump from federal office would throw the presidential race into
turmoil and lead other states to try to disqualify Democratic
candidates.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The justices did not spend much time on the question of whether Trump
engaged in insurrection. Instead, much of the discussion focused on
differing interpretations of the text and history of the 14th Amendment
provision, also known as the disqualification clause.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, told the court that enforcement of
the disqualification clause is up to Congress, not state courts or
officials. In addition, Mitchell said Section 3 does not apply to Trump
because the president is not an “officer of the United States,” which is
one of the terms the section uses when discussing potential
insurrectionists.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Jason Murray, the lawyer for the Colorado voters, urged the justices
to definitively resolve the question of Trump’s eligibility. He warned
that if they did not do so, Congress could still try to disqualify Trump
and prevent him from taking office if he wins the general election.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOnn7_XXpWH0cOaMFXT1u9BjefOhTufOFIKKbc5fD6opYYWWpL53Y6Dqvjn4WOUYg2EdQil-GXFwbxk5Y9OAtXJqxkBiIkOdoqz32ACkCqZZS_dKJtUhrr9hUduznvEtXO0S3nj490NuTT-jpMqjgtqL2d2ZBwaqDHOZvcdG3dkaUGiF_uwhxSA-b8ahU/s680/EIOGaNIWsAMuDoQ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="680" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOnn7_XXpWH0cOaMFXT1u9BjefOhTufOFIKKbc5fD6opYYWWpL53Y6Dqvjn4WOUYg2EdQil-GXFwbxk5Y9OAtXJqxkBiIkOdoqz32ACkCqZZS_dKJtUhrr9hUduznvEtXO0S3nj490NuTT-jpMqjgtqL2d2ZBwaqDHOZvcdG3dkaUGiF_uwhxSA-b8ahU/w400-h268/EIOGaNIWsAMuDoQ.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Will
he really get away with all this? The Supremes are ignoring an
insurrection in doing their part to make it happen. If you or I had
done half the things Trump has done...</b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-14151381300687988392024-03-03T13:02:00.000-08:002024-03-03T13:02:45.124-08:00BANANA REPUBLIC TIME: A court in debt to Trump is NOT A FAIR COURT!<p></p><h2 class="date-header"><span></span></h2>
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<p> <img alt="It’s Hard to Properly Explain How Much the High Court Moved for Trump This Week" data-image="" height="182" src="https://www.rsn.org/images/001/045556-donald-trump-100521.jpg" width="400" /> <b class="image-caption"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span data-credits="">Donald Trump. (photo: Intercept)</span>
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</b><b class="post-date" data-date="" data-value="02/Mar/2024" style="font-family: helvetica;">02 March 24</b><div data-content=""><blockquote><b><i><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: x-large;">There isn’t a legal or logical reason for delaying judgment on Trump's immunity claim.</span></i></b></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span class="author"><span data-author="">Sonja West</span>
<span class="author-divider">/</span>
<span data-publication="">Slate</span> </span></b></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">On Wednesday, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022824zr3_febh.pdf" target="_blank">announced</a>
that it would hear the case in which former President Donald Trump
claims a virtually king-like right of absolute immunity from criminal
prosecution. The court’s two-paragraph statement grants the case and
sets the argument date at the end of April, without explanation. The
announcement came with little fanfare, appearing on the court’s website
(if you knew where to look) under the yawn-inducing heading of
“Miscellaneous Order.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But while the justices may be attempting to disguise their decision
as the normal workings of a court of law, we need to be clear: This was
an extraordinarily political act. They had before them a menu of options
on how to handle this unprecedented case, and from those options, they
chose one of the most beneficial for Trump’s chances of reelection. This
is a big deal, and the court should not be allowed to hide its
deliberate decisionmaking behind a smokescreen of generic legal
maneuvering.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In fact, at every point in this process, the court has acted exactly
as Trump’s legal team wished they would. First, the justices denied a
mid-December request to take the question on an expedited basis, forcing
it instead to go through a burdensome and predictably meaningless
hearing in a lower court. Once the case returned to them, they then
stayed silent for a bewildering two weeks before eventually announcing
they would take the case. And, finally, they once again refused to act
quickly and instead scheduled the oral argument a full seven weeks away,
in late April. While technically they could have stalled even longer
and refused to hear the case until next fall (and for all we know the
late-April date was some sort of compromise position), the result of
their judicial foot-dragging is the same: It very likely delays Trump’s
election obstruction trial until after the election.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">By camouflaging their actions in the banality of court procedure, the
justices are obscuring the extent of the power they are exercising.
Scholars and journalists who cover the court are left struggling over
how to explain to the public the momentousness of what is really
happening. “The thing that I find most challenging about covering this
Supreme Court is that I have a ‘this is an exceptionally alarming
decision’ voice that I try to use very sparingly, so as not to diminish
its effectiveness with overuse,” <a href="https://www.threads.net/@ian.millhiser/post/C36Y0Gjrp_n?hl=en" target="_blank">Vox Supreme Court correspondent Ian Millhiser wrote</a>
on Threads following the court’s decision on Wednesday. “But I don’t
know how to accurately convey what happens in this Court without using
it often.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The question of Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution arises out
of the federal case against him for election subversion. It is a
long-shot argument that most <a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/12/26/preposterous-nonsensical-and-a-sure-loser-legal-scholar-trashes-immunity-claim/" target="_blank">constitutional law scholars</a> <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-insignificance-of-trump-s-immunity-from-prosecution-argument" target="_blank">consider weak</a>
and that every judge who has considered it so far has rejected. The
trial court judge presiding over the case, Judge Tanya Chutkan, was the
first to do so in early December, concluding that presidents do not
receive “a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">But special prosecutor Jack Smith suspected the justices would want
the final say on the question, so in mid-December he asked them to
please bypass federal appellate court review and instead take the case
as quickly as possible. Resolving this issue speedily, Smith told the
justices, was of “imperative public importance.” Indeed, public polling
shows that whether Trump is charged criminally for these events is one
of the things that voters have said would affect their decision in
November.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Yet the court refused this request, sending the case to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where a panel of judges did
expedite their review and unanimously upheld Chutkan’s ruling. Trump
immediately <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A745/300410/20240212154110541_2024-02-12%20-%20US%20v.%20Trump%20-%20Application%20to%20S.%20Ct.%20for%20Stay%20of%20D.C.%20Circuit%20Mandate%20-%20Final%20With%20Tables%20and%20Appendix.pdf" target="_blank">appealed</a> to the Supreme Court, and Smith once again <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A745/300627/20240214180323991_23A745_Trump%20v.%20United%20States_Gov.%20stay%20resp_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">asked the court</a> to either uphold the lower court’s ruling or decide the case as soon as possible.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">While the court is typically known for its slow and deliberate pace,
historical precedent supports Smith’s repeated requests for swift action
in a case that involves an urgent issue of presidential fitness for
office. In 1974, the Supreme Court accelerated its review of
then-President Richard Nixon’s claim of immunity from having to turn
over Oval Office tapes related to the Watergate investigation. <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1973/73-1766" target="_blank">In that case</a>,
the court bypassed the court of appeals review and handed down its
unanimous decision against the president a mere two months after the
trial court judge’s ruling. Had our current court acted similarly in
this case, we would have had a final ruling weeks ago, but instead we
will now likely have to wait until late June.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Other historical examples also show how quickly the court can hear
and decide cases. In the 1971 “Pentagon Papers” case, the court received
the petition to hear the case on a Thursday, granted it on Friday,
ordered the briefs to be submitted by 9 a.m. on Saturday, then held oral
argument at 11 a.m. Four days later, the court handed down its final
decision in the case—a stunning two weeks after the trial court’s
initial ruling.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In the chaotic aftermath of the 2000 presidential election between
George W. Bush and Al Gore, the justices also demonstrated how little
typical court procedures actually restrain them. When then-Gov. Bush
asked the court for a stay of the Florida recount, the justices not only
granted the stay but went a step further and also decided to treat the
application as a completely different kind of legal filing—a petition to
hear the case. Ta-da! The court then moved with crazy speed. They
granted that newly created petition on a Saturday, told the parties to
have their briefs in by Sunday afternoon, and held oral arguments on
Monday morning. The court then issued its final opinion in <i>Bush v. Gore</i> the very next day. See? Easy-peasy.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Lest you think the court was simply faster in the past, the current
court also has demonstrated that it can act quickly when it has the will
to do so. As Steve Vladeck <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/01/the-rise-of-certiorari-before-judgment/" target="_blank">has documented</a>,
the court in recent years has started to bypass appellate court
review—a power once used sparingly—with astonishing frequency. It also
is no stranger to expediting its briefing and argument schedule, as it
has done recently in cases involving issues such as abortion
restrictions and student loan forgiveness. Increasingly, moreover, the
justices simply skip the whole briefing-and-argument song and dance
altogether and decide significant issues with lightning speed on the
shadow docket.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">The arguments in favor of judicial speed are even stronger in this
case than in others. This is a presidential election year, and the clock
is ticking. While we wait for the justices to slowly sharpen their
pencils, all pretrial activity in the lower court has stopped (another
Trump-favorable decision the court made in this case).</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Meanwhile, Trump is wasting no time securing the Republican
nomination. So this is where we are: A person with a 50–50 chance of
winning the next presidential election has been indicted by a federal
grand jury on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States and to
obstruct and overturn an election, and the highest court in the land
sees no reason to hurry. It is hard to imagine a situation with a
stronger public need for a sober and complete review of the evidence and
a judgment in a court of law before it is time to head to the voting
booth. In its decision on Wednesday, however, the court did all it could
to deny the public that right. Court procedure can seem like a
confusing or boring set of road rules that the justices are bound to
follow. But the actuality is that the justices are, and always have
been, in the driver’s seat. It is time we wake up to that fact.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPegj5x0Gdfwc2lAXAwER8Op07fDfghKNvrUark2KTjGBTV9G8fTZfn_XWQbEnRJhti_GNoXEspjFIvf6G8dTNuoel9y58YlIFTiHCR9koyNRJz_t_3DH6DvBqQHQe6fejF8EX_VfH5OkB3rTlfSkNy4X8SbGG86Fc5DMrI9951TrgutLEb4WPcU2XzU/s550/trump-snowflakes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="550" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPegj5x0Gdfwc2lAXAwER8Op07fDfghKNvrUark2KTjGBTV9G8fTZfn_XWQbEnRJhti_GNoXEspjFIvf6G8dTNuoel9y58YlIFTiHCR9koyNRJz_t_3DH6DvBqQHQe6fejF8EX_VfH5OkB3rTlfSkNy4X8SbGG86Fc5DMrI9951TrgutLEb4WPcU2XzU/w400-h216/trump-snowflakes.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Who's afraid of the big, bad Donald? Apparently your very own Supreme Court. </b></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-35760120757914072142024-03-02T10:41:00.000-08:002024-03-02T10:41:32.724-08:00Trump shopping network for all your MAGA needs<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><div class="post-header">
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Brian McFadden for Comics</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a> <br /></span></b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Follow me on<span> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcfadden" target="_blank">Mastodon</a>,<span> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mcfadden.bsky.social" target="_blank">Bluesky</a>,<span> </span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/BrianMcFaddenCartoonist/" target="_blank">Facebook</a><span>,<span> </span></span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/brianmc_fadden/" target="_blank">Instagram</a><span>, or at<span> </span></span><a href="https://brianmcfadden.org/" target="_blank">my website</a><span>.</span></b></p>
</div></div></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-18374498712702594212024-03-01T16:43:00.000-08:002024-03-01T16:43:36.674-08:00Here's how every Democrat should answer questions about Biden's age<div class="post-header">
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<div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="267" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1277075/story_image/GettyImages-1235241659.jpg?1709063467" title="no image description available" width="400" /><b style="font-family: helvetica;">President Joe Biden, left, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom</b>
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</div><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Kerry Eleveld for <a href="https://bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com/daily kos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709076612000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Tuesday, February 27, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709076612000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 4:30:12p MST</span> <br /></span></b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>REPUBLISHED BY:</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> <br /></span></b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>RCalifornia
Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a messaging masterclass over the weekend on
NBC's "Meet The Press," beating back questions about whether President
Joe Biden, 81, is too old to serve a second term. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Yes, Donald Trump is 77. But Newsom doesn't waste a moment on
that. Instead, he demonstrated how Biden's age—and the wisdom that comes
with it—is the reason he has notched so many important legislative
successes as president. </span></b></p></div>
<div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content="&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;Q: Do you think it’s responsible for Joe Biden to be at the top of the ticket?&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Gov &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;@gavinnewsom&lt;/a&gt;: Responsible? I revere his record. What he&amp;#39;s done in three years is a masterclass. Close to 15 million jobs is eight times more than the last three Republican presidents combined &lt;a href="https://t.co/HGpU2Ks2Pz"&gt;pic.twitter.com/HGpU2Ks2Pz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1761798776740626637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;February 25, 2024&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
">
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>NBC News’ Kristen Welker posited, "Do you think it's
responsible for Democrats to put [Biden] at the top of the ticket given
those concerns?"</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"Responsible? I revere his record," Newsom began. "What he's
done in three years has been a masterclass—close to 15 million jobs,
that's eight times more than the last three Republican presidents
combined." </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"The economy is booming, inflation is cooling," Newsom
continued. "We have American manufacturing coming back home—all because
of Biden's wisdom, because of his temperance, his capacity to lead in a
bipartisan manner, which is an underrepresented point. And so I have
great confidence moving forward. So the answer is: Absolutely—all in, in
terms of the next four years."</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Newsom's delivery was, quite frankly, performance art. All his
points were solid, succinct, and informative. But his tone and
assuredness inspired confidence not just in how he felt but also in how
voters should feel.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Polls routinely suggest that Americans are more concerned about
Biden's age than Trump's. But as Daily Kos has reported, that
discrepancy</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/13/2193119/-Poll-Republicans-clutch-pearls-over-Biden-s-age-shrug-at-Trump-s"><span> </span><span>is largely driven by</span></a><span>
the fact that Democratic voters willingly admit their concern about
Biden's age, while Republican voters wouldn't dare admit the same about
Trump. (Most Republican voters also view Trump as fit for office, so
their sense of judgment is objectively questionable.)</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Nonetheless, Democrats must accept that the age of these two candidates will be an issue in the upcoming election. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Of course, there's more than one way to combat the age issue.
Another is to point out that Biden may be old, but he ain't crazy—an
approach that The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell took after Trump
suggested he would let Russia do "whatever the hell they want" to
America's NATO allies. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"Yeah, Biden’s old. But he doesn’t say things like this," Longwell tweeted.</span></b></p>
<div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content="&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;Yeah, Biden’s old. But he doesn’t say things like this. &lt;a href="https://t.co/iMvcIigIuT"&gt;https://t.co/iMvcIigIuT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1756469193589842386?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;February 11, 2024&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
">
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<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But Newsom's argument works on several levels, educating the
public about Biden's successes and building pride among Democrats about
what Biden has accomplished—not in spite of his age but because of it.
Wisdom, temperance, and bipartisan leadership are three perfect
qualities to invoke as crucial to Biden's successes—because Trump has
exactly none of them.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Drawing contrasts, as Longwell did, is important. But drawing
contrasts that generate enthusiasm for Biden is better. It won't be good
enough this cycle for Biden to simply capture anti-Trump protest votes
among independents and even some Republicans. Team Biden will also have
to give some voters—particularly Democrats—a reason to vote
affirmatively </span><i>for</i><span> him. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Newsom's answer, if replicated by a wide swath of younger Biden surrogates, will inspire Democratic participation in November. </span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnQQGbtI7thl0Tqemnj9to-pqj-RFx90YZMrvL2b1Yc28m2qSQK-th6uxsF1FLuDtmfJgI-o9Lo3QKwcKY0krHicmg-bikCalnNmSDvTKXy-u8yu14JnEdo13ka_r-p3zbCnoHNMTjq1oGstdc7sI8yp6rguPcW6eDe0KM1FrtStnIqX1fwwfOAx6RqEU/s915/AP_20173190993453.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="915" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnQQGbtI7thl0Tqemnj9to-pqj-RFx90YZMrvL2b1Yc28m2qSQK-th6uxsF1FLuDtmfJgI-o9Lo3QKwcKY0krHicmg-bikCalnNmSDvTKXy-u8yu14JnEdo13ka_r-p3zbCnoHNMTjq1oGstdc7sI8yp6rguPcW6eDe0KM1FrtStnIqX1fwwfOAx6RqEU/w400-h266/AP_20173190993453.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Remember this photo? Trump shows his age too.</b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-65484534041767781362024-02-29T15:12:00.000-08:002024-02-29T15:12:41.996-08:00Supreme Court decision confirms what we suspected: It has lost its moral compass<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><div class="post-header">
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<p> <picture class="dcr-evn1e9"><img alt="a side-by-side image of Liz Cheney and Donald Trump" class="dcr-evn1e9" height="240" src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b8e959209a71e78679a4698ed9d16fee0a95b07e/0_0_2999_1800/master/2999.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none" width="400" /></picture></p><span class="dcr-n4pnam"></span><div class="dcr-6ufhd0" data-gu-name="media"><div class="dcr-14emo0l"><div class="dcr-hlfdy3"><figure class="dcr-142siv7" id="3820aa4d-379e-4ca4-acde-19a5e8f4cc0c"><span class="dcr-n4pnam"><figcaption class="dcr-10c8vbz"><b><span class="dcr-1qvd3m6" style="font-family: helvetica;">Liz
Cheney (left): ‘Trump attempted to overturn an election … Our justice
system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election.’</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> Composite: Getty Images, Anadolu</span></b></figcaption></span></figure></div></div></div><aside class="dcr-ien304" data-gu-name="title"><div class="dcr-10355cg"><div class="dcr-1xdhyk6"><a class="content__label__link dcr-1ninwh6" data-component="section" data-link-name="article section" href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/us-supreme-court"><span></span></a></div></div></aside><div class="dcr-1okpd28" data-gu-name="border"><div class="dcr-upmzd8"></div></div><div class="dcr-1djovmt" data-gu-name="headline"><div class="dcr-14emo0l"><div class="dcr-1msbrj1"><h1 class="dcr-1m6z4y2"><span style="color: #134f5c;">Liz Cheney: supreme court delay will deny voters ‘crucial evidence’ on Trump</span></h1></div></div></div><div class="dcr-1yi1cnj" data-gu-name="standfirst"><div class="dcr-1teqwow"><p><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;"><i><b>Republican demands that justices come to a speedy verdict after supreme court decision to hear Trump election interference case</b></i></span></p></div></div><div class="dcr-1p1jrx6" data-gu-name="disclaimer"></div><div class="dcr-kt8blz" data-gu-name="lines"><div class="dcr-14emo0l"><div class="dcr-ich95x"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="dcr-194w08h" height="13" preserveaspectratio="none" stroke-width="1" stroke="var(--article-border)" viewbox="0 0 1300 13" width="100%" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"></svg></div></div></div><div class="dcr-14emo0l"><div class="dcr-1v9sla6"><div class="dcr-5oiine"><div class="dcr-1kpcv08"><div><address aria-label="Contributor info" data-component="meta-byline" data-link-name="byline"><div class="dcr-ygtsjm"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a data-link-name="auto tag link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/richardluscombe" rel="author">Richard Luscombe@richlusc</a></b></div></address></div></div></div></div></div><div class="dcr-1kpcv08"><div><details class="dcr-1d52k2r" open="" style="--mobile-color: inherit;"><summary class="dcr-1ybxn6r"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span class="dcr-u0h1qy">The Guardian <br /></span></b></span></summary></details><details class="dcr-1d52k2r" open="" style="--mobile-color: inherit;"><summary class="dcr-1ybxn6r"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="dcr-u0h1qy">Thu 29 Feb 2024 14.03 EST</span></b></summary><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Last modified on Thu 29 Feb 2024 16.50 EST</b></span></details></div></div><div class="dcr-ch7w1w" data-gu-name="body"><div class="dcr-v4ay52"><div class="dcr-lw02qf" id="maincontent"><div class="article-body-commercial-selector article-body-viewer-selector dcr-1g5o3j6"><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A Republican member of the January 6 committee has said the supreme court’s decision to <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/28/supreme-court-donald-trump-immunity-claim">wade into Donald Trump’s immunity case</a> will deny Americans crucial information about the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Liz Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman who was <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/16/wyoming-republican-primary-liz-cheney-donald-trump-harriet-hageman#:~:text=Liz%20Cheney%20loses%20Wyoming%20Republican,midterm%20elections%202022%20%7C%20The%20Guardian">ousted by primary voters</a>
angry at her participation in the hearings that followed the
insurrection, also demanded the justices come to a speedy decision.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In a <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1762985005507076598">message posted to X</a>,
formerly Twitter, Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, said voters needed to
have a verdict on the presumed Republican presidential nominee before
they go to the polls in November.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,” she wrote.“Donald
Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice
system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election.
SCOTUS [supreme court of the US] should decide this case promptly.”</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Justices
on Wednesday set the week of 22 April to hear oral arguments over
Trump’s assertion that he cannot be held criminally responsible for
actions he took to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump,
who is facing a four-count indictment including conspiracy to defraud
the US and conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the
election results, has declared the decision a victory, mostly because
it puts the trial on hold, possibly until after the election.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Some Democrats, meanwhile, are also upbeat about it. The California congressman Ted Lieu, who has previously accused Trump of <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/04/trump-georgia-phone-call-democrats-ask-fbi-investigate">committing multiple election crimes</a>, said such a delay would work to his party’s advantage at the ballot box.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“My view of the SCOTUS action: if the trial is delayed until after November, we will see the largest blue wave in history,” <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1762992160696078549">he wrote</a>, also on X.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“If
November becomes a referendum on whether Trump faces justice, then
Democrats will absolutely flip the House, keep the White House and
expand the Senate.”Some legal experts are warning the supreme court’s
action, along with delays already affecting several of the <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/28/donald-trump-investigations-criminal-charges-tracker">other legal cases Trump is facing</a>, could have consequences for democracy.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">While
many believe the court will ultimately confirm the rejection by a
Washington DC appeals court of Trump’s claim, they say the delay could
prove harmful.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“This case really is most
important in terms of democracy, and the most compelling with the
evidence. That makes it very difficult in the sense there would be no
verdict on this critical issue that cuts to the heart of democracy,”
said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of
Richmond and a veteran supreme court analyst.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“Maybe
the supreme court just couldn’t resist, as the highest court in the
land, weighing in on this very weighty question of presidential
immunity, though most people who are clear-eyed about this don’t believe
that there’s much of an argument for immunity in this context.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“The
court could have been perfectly satisfied with the DC circuit opinion,
which was comprehensive and clear, and just seen no reason to take it
up. But this is about delay. I don’t think anybody really disputes that.
Trump’s theory over his entire life in litigation is that delay is his
friend, and here it really is. It’s conceivable none of these cases goes
to verdict before the election.”</b></p></div></div></div></div><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">In
a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump claimed that
“legal scholars are extremely thankful for the supreme court’s
decision”, and insisted without irony that future presidents would fear
“wrongful prosecution and retaliation” after they left office if he
loses.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump himself has <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/22/trump-revenge-game-plan-alarm">spoken openly</a>
of seeking “retribution and revenge” over political foes if he is
returned to office, and said he would appoint a special prosecutor to
“go after” Biden and his family.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A former
lawyer and legal analyst Lisa Rubin said she was “beyond terrified for
our country” because the supreme court will delay the trial and
potentially affect the election.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">“I honestly
thought there would be enough votes on the court not to take this case,
for no other reason than bad facts make bad law,” she told MSNBC News.
“And the facts here could not be worse. If there was a context in which
you wanted to decide the bounds of presidential immunity it’s not this
case.”</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May at the earliest.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Alternatively,
in the worst-case scenario for special counsel Jack Smith, the supreme
court could wait until the end of its current term in July. That could
mean the start of a trial expected to take up to three months might be
delayed until no earlier than late September.</b></p><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Trump’s
legal strategy has been to stall the various cases against him, ideally
until after November’s election, in the hopes that a second term of
office will allow him to pardon himself or install a loyal attorney
general to drop charges.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLrTfPukD8sv3meyo_0hgqoln7Alw7hhYXdFOsxpxrJQCZwgH9jX15ker9vDan_P0V3lpGB3azQkCAQdx53QK9mcV94lOPDl9GLE1ikL4LZ-F5N3PvknF529yUL0PdyVw0pO-lqkxAmI3xdAAvuI0IbpUWc-jOKasJCc8ww6RfSg4iCZQSdtakwx5vVHQ/s1000/055191-thomas-083123.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="1000" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLrTfPukD8sv3meyo_0hgqoln7Alw7hhYXdFOsxpxrJQCZwgH9jX15ker9vDan_P0V3lpGB3azQkCAQdx53QK9mcV94lOPDl9GLE1ikL4LZ-F5N3PvknF529yUL0PdyVw0pO-lqkxAmI3xdAAvuI0IbpUWc-jOKasJCc8ww6RfSg4iCZQSdtakwx5vVHQ/w400-h181/055191-thomas-083123.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;">And
"Coke Can" Clarence Thomas shows no inclination at all to recuse
himself - even though his wife participated in the conspiracy.<br /></b><p></p><ul class="dcr-4cudl2"><li class="dcr-4cudl2"><p class="dcr-4cudl2"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><i class="dcr-4cudl2">Hugo Lowell contributed reporting</i></b></p></li></ul></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-80058011708608439652024-02-28T16:34:00.000-08:002024-02-28T16:34:20.847-08:00GOOD RIDDANCE: The 17 worst things Mitch McConnell did to destroy democracy<p></p><h2 class="date-header"><span></span></h2>
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<div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="FILE - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 5, 2024. President Joe Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 27, to discuss the emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel, as well as avoiding a government shutdown next month, according to an anonymous White House official. The top four leaders include McConnell, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)" height="225" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1277366/story_image/AP24056791903402.jpg?1709150224" title="FILE - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 5, 2024. President Joe Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 27, to discuss the emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel, as well as avoiding a government shutdown next month, according to an anonymous White House official. The top four leaders include McConnell, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)" width="400" />
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Mark Sumner also contributed to this story.</i></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Joan McCarter</span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a> Staff </span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1709152099000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Wednesday, February 28, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1709152099000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 1:28:19p MST</span> </span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span> </span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>REPUBLISHED BY:</span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> <br /></span></b></span></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Mitch McConnell </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/28/2226379/-McConnell-will-step-down-as-the-Senate-Republican-leader-in-November?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web" title=""><span>announced Wednesday</span></a><span>
that he will be stepping down as Republican leader of the Senate in
November. And, for the sake of the democracy he’s spent decades trying
to destroy, that moment can’t come soon enough.</span></b></p></div><div class="story__text-below-fold">
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Here are just a few of his career lowlights.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;">1. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/13/can-republicans-really-block-obamas-supreme-court-nomination-for-a-year-probably/" title=""><span>He stole a Supreme Court seat</span></a><span> from President Barack Obama. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, McConnell
insisted that the seat would remain empty because it was an election
year and, according to a rule he created, the seat could therefore not
be filled. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“The American people should have a voice in the selection of
their next Supreme Court Justice," he said. “Therefore, this vacancy
should not be filled until we have a new President.”</span><span> </span><span>He refused to even give Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, a hearing much less a vote.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But three years later, asked what he would do if the same situation arose in 2020 under President Donald Trump?</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"Oh, we'd fill it," </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/29/1861149/-Not-breaking-Mitch-McConnell-is-a-massive-unprincipled-hypocritical-liar"><span>he said</span></a><span>. And that’s just what he did.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;">2. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/26/1989816/-McConnell-goes-totally-nuclear-puts-Barrett-on-the-Supreme-Court-8-days-before-the-election" title=""><span>He stole a Supreme Court seat</span></a><span> from future President Joe Biden.</span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>And he did this after changing his “no new Supreme Court
justice in the last year of a president’s term” rule—to install the
ultra-conservative Amy Coney Barrett on the court eight days before the
2020 election.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The night Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in the fall of 2020, </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/on-night-of-ginsburgs-death-mcconnell-pushed-trump-to-nominate-amy-coney-barrett/"><span>according to</span></a><span>
McConnell’s former chief of staff, McConnell told Trump he would
absolutely fill the vacancy just weeks out from the election, “and
you’ve gotta nominate Amy Coney Barrett.”</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>3. He packed the federal judiciary for Trump with </span><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-and-mcconnells-overwhelmingly-white-male-judicial-appointments" title=""><span>white men</span></a><span>, many of them </span><a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/trump-picks-more-not-qualified-judges-1" title=""><span>unqualified</span></a><span>. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>While the Supreme Court seats may be the most visible part of McConnell’s stacking of the judiciary, his goal went further. As </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-mcconnell-and-the-senate-helped-trump-set-records-in-appointing-judges/" title=""><span>Frontline</span></a><span> noted, that meant he wanted his legacy to be one of “filling the federal judiciary with conservative judges.”</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;">4. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/11/when-did-mitch-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/" title=""><span>He vowed</span></a><span> to obstruct Obama. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/11/when-did-mitch-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/"><span>he told</span></a><span> the National Journal in 2010.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;">5. He vowed to obstruct Biden. </span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration,” he </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/mcconnell-says-he-s-100-percent-focused-stopping-biden-s-n1266443"><span>said</span></a><span> in 2021.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>6. He made the debt ceiling a </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/8/3/1002778/-Mitch-McConnell-takes-a-permanent-hostage-the-debt-ceiling" title=""><span>permanent hostage</span></a><span> starting in 2011. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>McConnell may not have invented the government shutdown, but he
made sure that shutdown threats were a regular part of American
politics while shutting down efforts to fix the problem.</span>
<span>"I think some of our members may have thought the default issue
was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” McConnell said
before a vote in 2011. “Most of us didn't think that. What we did learn
is this—it's a hostage that's worth ransoming." </span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>7. He turned the </span><a href="https://democracy21.org/news/press-releases/a-timeline-of-the-senate-filibuster" title=""><span>filibuster into a weapon</span></a><span>. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>McConnell used the filibuster “more than ever in history”
during the Obama administration to try to deny Obama any legislative
victories, just as he’d threatened to do. And he kept using it long
after Obama left office, including to block </span><a href="https://twitter.com/DSenFloor/status/1398312051622223873"><span>a 9/11-style Jan. 6 committee</span></a><span>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>McConnell </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1397949199639924736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1397949199639924736%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstories%2F2032431%2Fedit" title=""><span>reportedly worked the phones</span></a><span>
to be sure the commission bill died, asking some Republican senators to
join the filibuster as “a personal favor” to him despite the appeal
from the mother of fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick to
support the commission. </span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>8. He </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/14/this-is-how-bad-mcconnell-really-is/" title=""><span>voted to acquit</span></a><span> Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>And, just like when he blocked the nomination of Garland to the Supreme Court, he blamed it on the timing. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>As </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/14/this-is-how-bad-mcconnell-really-is/" title=""><span>The Washington Post</span></a><span>
described it, “We witnessed a historic confession of hypocrisy and
deceit on Saturday when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
went to the floor after voting to acquit Donald Trump in the former
president’s Senate impeachment trial.” That came after McConnell had
given a speech calling Trump’s actions “a disgraceful, disgraceful
dereliction of duty” and saying that Trump was “practically and morally
responsible for provoking the events of the day.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But McConnell had an excuse: timing. He claimed it was too late
to convict Trump. For McConnell, it’s always too late to do something.
Unless it isn’t.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>9. He built a career, and a big campaign nest egg, </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/9/12/1885081/-McConnell-s-career-has-been-built-by-fighting-gun-safety-laws-and-1-3-million-from-the-NRA" title=""><span>fighting gun safety regulations</span></a><span>. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>That includes pulling down $1.3 million in donations from the
NRA while blocking efforts to address mass shootings. No single
individual may be completely responsible for America’s failure to
address gun violence, including school shootings, </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/1/2101661/-No-one-has-more-gun-violence-blood-on-their-hands-than-Mitch-McConnell" title=""><span>but McConnell comes close</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>10. He </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/12/2/1348812/-McConnell-will-try-to-roll-back-campaign-finance-laws-in-omnibus-spending-nbsp-bill" title=""><span>destroyed campaign finance reform</span></a><span> and </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/15/18224850/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-finance-reform-hr1" title=""><span>filibustered any effort</span></a><span> to get money out of politics. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>He may have called money in politics “</span><a href="https://democracy21.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/McConnell-12-10-73-article-with-text-transcription.pdf"><span>a cancer</span></a><span>” at the start of his career, but once he was in the Senate, he devoted himself to protecting that cancer. And spreading it.</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;">11. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/mitch-mcconnell-s-complicated-history-voting-rights-act-n1234755" title=""><span>He blocked votes</span></a><span> to save the Voting Rights Act. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>That included refusing to hold hearings on an amendment named
in honor of the great congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.
McConnell claimed he was a supporter of the VRA at the beginning of his
career, but as Senate leader, he weakened the act at every turn. This,
along with his other moves to make it </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/30/1830926/-Making-it-easier-to-vote-is-a-Democratic-power-grab-McConnell-sneers"><span>more difficult to vote</span></a><span>, earned McConnell the nickname “</span><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/"><span>the gravedigger of American democracy</span></a><span>.”</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;">12. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/07/27/539907467/senate-careens-toward-high-drama-midnight-health-care-vote" title=""><span>He tried to kill Obamacare</span></a><span>—and failed.</span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"This is clearly a disappointing moment," he said after the
repeal attempt failed 51-49. "I regret that our efforts simply were not
enough this time."</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>13. He blew off </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1UJ00Q/" title=""><span>coal miners with black lung disease</span></a><span> from </span><a href="https://www.good.is/articles/mcconnell-brushes-off-coal-miners" title=""><span>his own state</span></a><span>. </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>That included giving a group of miners who drove from Kentucky
to meet with him just two minutes of his time, but McConnell always
found time to help mine owners </span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24092019/mitch-mcconnell-coal-miners-pensions-fund-appalachia-senate-campaign/"><span>prop up the dying industry</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<blockquote><b style="font-family: helvetica;">He failed to support legislation that would reclaim mine
land for economic development. He shied away from a bipartisan coalition
in his state that is nurturing tech, medical, and even solar jobs. He
led the Republican effort to cut taxes on the coal companies—taxes that
would help struggling miners. And he has not pushed to shore up a badly
underfunded miners’ pension fund.</b></blockquote>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>14. He’s working with the Trump campaign </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/26/2225948/-Mitch-McConnell-tries-to-cling-to-power-by-bending-the-knee-to-Trump"><i>right now</i></a><span> to endorse Trump for another term. </span></span></h2>
<blockquote><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Sources involved in the negotiations give a weak
explanation. “We’ve reached the part of the primary where the party is
coming together,” one source told The Hill. “The absolute worst thing
that can happen to this country is electing Joe Biden for four more
years, and you can expect to coalesce around that point over the next
nine months,” the source continued. So much for protecting our
institutions from the guy who tried to “torch” them.</b></blockquote>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>15. He </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/22/politics/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-green-new-deal/index.html" title=""><span>named himself</span></a><span> the “Grim Reaper.” </span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>He vowed to kill—literally kill—progressive legislation to address climate change and expand Medicare.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“Are we going to turn this into a socialist country? Don’t
assume it cannot happen,” he said in 2019. “If I’m still the majority
leader of the Senate, think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff
is going to pass. None of it.”</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>16. He took </span><a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/13/sen-mitch-mcconnell-photo-confederate-flag-lives/3291529001/"><span>this infamous picture</span></a><span> in front of a Confederate flag.</span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>He said the photo of him beaming in front of the racist
flag was taken when he was a freshman senator, at a meeting of the Sons
of Confederate Veterans. And no, he isn’t sorry.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>"I don't regret going to speak to a group which at the time was
not being considered, you know, a pariah in our society,” he said years
later. “I, over the years, have probably been to plenty of groups and
shaken hands with a whole lot of people who didn’t agree with me."</span></b></p>
<h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>17. He tried </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-republicans-facebook-twitter.html"><span>to silence</span></a><span> Sen. Elizabeth Warren. It backfired.</span></span></h2>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>During a floor speech against the confirmation of Jeff Sessions
as Trump’s attorney general in 2017, the Massachusetts senator read—or
tried to read—a damning letter from Coretta Scott King, written in 1986,
which blasted Sessions for “the awesome power of his office to chill
the free exercise of the vote by black citizens” while serving as a
United States attorney in Alabama.” </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>McConnell didn’t like that and insisted Warren had violated a rule against demeaning a fellow senator. And he cut her off.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“She was warned,” McConnell said. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The joke’s on McConnell, though, because his </span><i>tsk-tsking</i><span> of Warren became a meme. And a hashtag. And a </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/nevertheless-she-persisted-tattoo/"><span>tattoo</span></a><span>. And a </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/436491-warren-puts-gender-front-and-center-in-new-fundraising-campaign/"><span>fundraiser</span></a><span>. And a rallying cry. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">So long, Moscow Mitch. And good riddance. </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wkHytqYR7MrKoaczrv7LfVmuogzxsTMF6V5xKbGk4iOwL62cFaLQFt7tdMs93_c5iLXc_uJICDiHKKhQxAmL_enh0eGflffOY-pjUu-OEQEBIXIWqZ2EG6adLpXHScJBr1PJ2pwbHq94KsuvKwgvk6al-0QWTLkIXM1DQ1pdZsP-iua3ia592gnXrIo/s860/025397-mitch-mcconnell-062817.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="860" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wkHytqYR7MrKoaczrv7LfVmuogzxsTMF6V5xKbGk4iOwL62cFaLQFt7tdMs93_c5iLXc_uJICDiHKKhQxAmL_enh0eGflffOY-pjUu-OEQEBIXIWqZ2EG6adLpXHScJBr1PJ2pwbHq94KsuvKwgvk6al-0QWTLkIXM1DQ1pdZsP-iua3ia592gnXrIo/w400-h181/025397-mitch-mcconnell-062817.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><br /></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-26741166705980283272024-02-27T12:48:00.000-08:002024-02-27T12:48:05.836-08:00Trump’s "body tics" and "forward-leaning posture" raise health concerns<div class="infinite_scroll_container" id="infinite_scroll_container"><div class="container_main_article"><main id="posts"><div class="in_brief_article" data-authors="Sarah Toce" data-sections="All Salon, News & Politics" data-title="President Trump’s "body tics" and "forward-leaning posture" raise concerns: expert" data-url="2020/10/22/president-trumps-body-tics-and-forward-leaning-posture-raise-concerns-expert_partner/"><section class="main-content no-gutters"><section class="article_outer_wrapper"><div class="scroll-posts" id="2020/10/22/president-trumps-body-tics-and-forward-leaning-posture-raise-concerns-expert_partner/"></div><div class="scroll-posts" id="2020/10/22/president-trumps-body-tics-and-forward-leaning-posture-raise-concerns-expert_partner/">
<img alt="" class="absolute top-1/2 -translate-y-1/2 left-0 w-full opacity-30 object-cover scale-[1.2] post-background-image-filter" height="400" role="presentation" src="https://external-preview.redd.it/a_mKANiF6FVPG3L8K3a8-TTg5-H9Wfz8v_cKrmo5Ocs.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=14220f154b9c62bc5b8b098c64681cf7fca9d846" width="333" /> <b class="article_img_desc"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>WHO'S THE OLDEST CANDIDATE? - The Donald's leaning forward posture. At least Biden stands up straight.<br /></span></span></b></div><div class="scroll-posts" id="2020/10/22/president-trumps-body-tics-and-forward-leaning-posture-raise-concerns-expert_partner/"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"></b><section class="title-container"><h2><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: #45818e;">“The American public is entitled to know about his neurological health," Richard E. Cytowic M.D. wrote in 2020<br /></span></i></span></h2>
<section class="writer-container writer-app-wrapper">
<div class="writer_info_wrapper">
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<div class="writer_name_box">
<h3 class="writer_name"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By </span>
<a href="https://www.salon.com/writer/sarah_toce">Sarah Toce</a></span></span>
</h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="top_writer_desc" style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></span>
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<div class="published_date">
<h3 class="publish_date"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Salon <br /></span></span></h3><h3 class="publish_date"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01; font-size: small;">Originally Published October 22, 2020 1:51PM (EDT</span><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">)</span> </span></h3>
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</section>
</section><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/neurologist-trumps-forward-leaning-posture-and-body-tics-are-cause-for-serious-concern-report/" target="_blank">Raw Story</a></b></span></div><div class="scroll-posts" id="2020/10/22/president-trumps-body-tics-and-forward-leaning-posture-raise-concerns-expert_partner/"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b> </b></span></div></section></section></div></main></div></div><section class="source_section">
<b style="font-family: helvetica;"><img alt="rawlogo" class="source_image" src="https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/300/https://media2.salon.com/2018/04/rawlogo.png" /></b>
</section>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A professor of Neurology at George Washington University says
he believes there may be legitimate concerns over President Donald J.
Trump's "forward-listing posture" that goes beyond the comical memes and
gif responses normally shared on social media.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">"I know something about political figures and observable signs of illness from afar," <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/richard-e-cytowic-md" target="_blank">Richard E. Cytowic M.D.</a> wrote in <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-fallible-mind/202010/we-are-entitled-ask-the-president-brain-scan" target="_blank">Psychology Today</a><i>. </i>". . . The American public deserves an accurate account of our president's health."</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">"While most frequently observed in Parkinson's Disease, the bent
posture so evident in Trump may also be seen in Alzheimer's Dementia,
movement disorders of the basal ganglia, and as the side effect of
certain medications," Cytowic continued. "Also noted are the sudden,
jerking movements of Trump's right arm. Since they occur only on one
side, the prefix "hemi" is applied, while "ballistic" means sudden or
flinging in the manner of a projectile. Trump's hemiballistic arm
movements are evident in news clips <a href="https://youtu.be/1-Io3VI5a80?t=257" target="_blank">from Memorial Day</a> (also here via <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4877828/user-clip-trump-wreath-laying" target="_blank">C-Span</a>)
at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as are his uncontrolled swaying and
forward tilt. He is seen to grab his wayward arm with the left one in
an effort to keep it under control."</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">While Trump "aced" a 10-minute <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-bragging-cognitive-test-dementia/2020/07/22/6578e826-cb65-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html" target="_blank">mental status screening</a> in
August (2020), Cytowic said "the test is one an average adult should easily
pass. To a neurologist, his way of walking, posture, and jerky movements
are concerning and in want of explanation."</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">According to Cytowic, "It is true that individuals who have balance
and gait issues similar to those observed in Trump can have degenerative
brain disease in the frontal lobes, such as fronto-temporal dementia or
Pick's Disease. Other possibilities are normal pressure hydrocephalus,
sensory ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, small lacunar strokes in the
basal ganglia, supranuclear palsy, the effects of too many medications,
and Parkinson's Disease, which can begin on one side and also show early
cognitive impairment."</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Regardless, "The president is a public figure whose judgment we must
trust," Cytowic said. "The American public is entitled to know about his
neurological health given the enormous responsibilities placed on our
commander in chief."</b><img alt="Picture 1 of 1" data-zoom-src="https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/XeMAAOSwkWVjfl53/s-l1600.jpg" height="225" src="https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/XeMAAOSwkWVjfl53/s-l1600.jpg" width="400" /><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A closer view of the Donald doing his Leaning Tower of Pisa routine.</b></p>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-12667901688872140962024-02-26T12:11:00.000-08:002024-02-26T12:11:45.332-08:00Clarence Thomas is offered $1M a year to 'get the f--- off the Supreme Court'<div class="post-header">
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<div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 29: John Oliver speaks onstage at the Clooney Foundation For Justice Inaugural Albie Awards at New York Public Library on September 29, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Albie Awards)" height="267" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1274581/story_image/GettyImages-1429126227.jpg?1708362258" title="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 29: John Oliver speaks onstage at the Clooney Foundation For Justice Inaugural Albie Awards at New York Public Library on September 29, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Albie Awards)" width="400" />
<figcaption data-image-attribution="Attribution: Getty Images for Albie Awards"><b style="font-family: helvetica;">John Oliver</b></figcaption>
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</div><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>By Mark Sumner for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></p><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Daily Kos Staff</span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1708369202000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Monday, February 26, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708369202000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">12:00:02p MST</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708369202000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708369202000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708369202000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708369202000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a> </span>
</span></b></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On Sunday’s edition of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/19/john-oliver-clarence-thomas-resign-1-million-offer" target="_blank"><span>made a direct offer</span></a><span>
to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. After showcasing a new,
luxury RV valued at $2.4 million, Oliver offered to give the RV to
Thomas, along with $1 million a year in cash, if the justice would sign a
contract promising “to get the fuck off the Supreme Court.” </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>He isn’t the first to think of such an offer. Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, who is </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/10/as-sam-bankman-fried-awaits-jail-ftx-customers-await-full-repayment.html"><span>awaiting sentencing</span></a><span>
on seven criminal counts, reportedly attempted to negotiate with
representatives for Donald Trump over how much money it would take to </span><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/donald-trump-sam-bankman-fried-five-billion"><span>keep Trump from running again</span></a><span>
in 2024. They reportedly settled on $5 billion, and Bankman-Fried was
reportedly willing to pay, but he got arrested before he could cut the
check.</span></b></p></div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Both of these offers seem like they should be illegal. Because </span><i>they should be illegal</i><span>.
But they’re just the flip side of what’s already happening—wealthy
patrons buying figureheads who will do exactly what they want in office.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/23/2148334/-Congress-needs-to-hear-from-you-Citizens-United-still-needs-to-be-overturned"><i>Citizens United v. FEC</i></a> decision and other <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-courts-looming-dark-money-decision">egregious decisions</a> on campaign financing, political candidates are absolutely awash in funds from those with business before the government. <a href="https://issueone.org/donors-key-findings-and-profiles-of-the-top-15-dark-money-groups/">Dark-money</a> groups, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/02/25/these-billionaire-donors-spent-the-most-money-on-the-2020-election/?sh=7a330cff14ce">billionaire donors</a>, and massive s<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/PACS/superpacs.php?cycle=">uper PACS</a>
have the kind of leverage over candidates that makes the idea of buying
a vote seem old hat. Now they buy candidates by the dozen, with the
knowledge that in a system where running for Senate can top a <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1318120/midterm-senate-races-most-money-spent-us/">quarter of a billion dollars</a>, their favor is necessary for most candidates to remain competitive. </b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In the Supreme Court, there are essentially no rules other than
don’t get impeached—despite a recently announced but utterly toothless </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ethics-pressure-supreme-court-announces-adopting-code-conduct/story?id=104856337"><span>code of conduct</span></a><span>. Conservative super-patron </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/31/2190756/-Clarence-Thomas-admits-to-three-more-trips-funded-by-billionaire-Harlan-Crow"><span>Harlan Crow</span></a><span> has </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow"><span>showered gifts</span></a><span> on Thomas. That includes globe-spanning </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/17/2181682/-How-Harlan-Crow-slashed-his-tax-bill-by-taking-Clarence-Thomas-on-superyacht-cruises"><span>superyacht cruises</span></a><span>, more </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/17/2164396/-Clarence-Thomas-mom-lives-rent-free-in-his-billionaire-pal-s-house"><span>pricey vacations</span></a><span> and </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/bohemian-grove-where-the-rich-and-powerful-go-to-misbehave/2011/06/15/AGPV1sVH_blog.html"><span>retreats</span></a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/4/2167459/-Clarence-Thomas-had-a-child-in-private-school-Harlan-Crow-paid-the-tuition"><span>school tuition</span></a><span> for one of Thomas’ relatives, and </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163830/-Billionaire-Harlan-Crow-Bought-Property-From-Clarence-Thomas-The-Justice-Didn-t-Disclose-the-Deal"><span>a house</span></a><span> where Thomas’ mother lives. In return, Crow has gotten reliable rulings from Thomas that have </span><a href="https://afj.org/article/justice-thomass-billionaire-friends-benefit-from-his-anti-union-rulings/"><span>more than paid him back</span></a><span>. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Besides, this is all peanuts for Crow. </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2023/04/19/how-clarence-thomas-friend-harlan-crow-got-so-rich/?sh=5cc54e2c2bb1">Forbes</a><span> estimates his and his brothers’ net worth around $2.5 billion. That’s nearly 13,000 times the </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4290971-heres-the-average-net-worth-of-americans-by-age-how-do-you-stack-up/#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Reserve%20issues%20its,worth%20increased%2023%25%20to%20%241%2C063%2C700."><span>median net worth</span></a><span>
of American families. Picking up the tab on a quarter-million-dollar
gift means about as much to Crow as it would for most people to give a
waiter a $20 tip. And Crow is a piker compared to the wealth of the
folks at the top of Forbes’ list.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>From state legislatures to the Supreme Court, politicians can
be rewarded with essentially anything to run for office, and even more
is available to reward them for votes once they are elected. This is
exactly what opponents of </span><i>Citizens United</i><span> and advocates for campaign finance reform have warned about for decades.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The issues always existed, but it’s grown massively worse since former House Speaker </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/"><span>Newt Gingrich</span></a><span> and Senate Minority Leader </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/15/us-supreme-court-mitch-mcconell-conservative-judges-democracy"><span>Mitch McConnell</span></a><span>
demonstrated that a government based on tradition and respect for the
nation was like a house built on sand. Any jackass could smash it. All
it took was a total lack of decency.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Paying Thomas to step down may seem like a ridiculous step. But
he’s already being paid handsomely to stay. Providing a counteroffer
may be the simplest solution—and even if it’s not successful, it does
highlight the flaws in a deeply broken system.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>If $5 billion would actually keep Trump from running, the money
could probably be raised in an afternoon. Unfortunately, at this point,
Trump seems more interested in smiting his seemingly endless enemies
and protecting himself from the consequences of his crimes. Which are
also endless. Besides, even if he made the deal, he’d just take the
money and run (for office) anyway. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>This should all be clearly illegal, but in the meantime … Dear
Clarence, that motorhome looks really sweet. Take it. Please take it.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0gFDmBDXY58Uph08YlULcErSL5gLrhaAsOPhHLZ-lyelL5ahWOeP70CMTL9xmdBTfg-fMeG5LXkh9J_nPjjExVFuwlOV782ONCor4U4-HYu4827J7pltUFnADjHNgY9NYb7iljZr9hoFFcAxuPbDmIMJzP0eR0YDzTAoi4xDnVZGq4_85KC1h7JkJP0/s915/C103771B-7F8C-41B7-82BE-CAADD4647351.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="915" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0gFDmBDXY58Uph08YlULcErSL5gLrhaAsOPhHLZ-lyelL5ahWOeP70CMTL9xmdBTfg-fMeG5LXkh9J_nPjjExVFuwlOV782ONCor4U4-HYu4827J7pltUFnADjHNgY9NYb7iljZr9hoFFcAxuPbDmIMJzP0eR0YDzTAoi4xDnVZGq4_85KC1h7JkJP0/s320/C103771B-7F8C-41B7-82BE-CAADD4647351.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The
Honorable Justice Clarence "Coke Can" Thomas is clearly on the take.
He has no problem with Nazi stuff, but prefers unmarked cash.</span></b>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-41273621923605579942024-02-25T13:02:00.000-08:002024-02-25T13:02:39.666-08:00The Trump sneakers in a "knotshell"<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><div class="post-header">
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</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A cartoon by Clay Bennett.</b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>
<span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1708535089000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Wednesday, February 21, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708535089000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">10:04:49a MST</span>
</span></b></div><p><b><a href="http://dailykos.com">DAILYKOS</a></b></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-39319828229050442112024-02-25T12:55:00.000-08:002024-02-25T12:55:30.100-08:00Every warning of post-Roe America is coming true, and there’s worse ahead<h2 class="date-header"><span></span></h2>
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<div class="story__content"><div class="story__image"><figure><img alt="no image description available" height="287" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1275643/story_image/GettyImages-1983186640.jpg?1708629931" title="no image description available" width="400" /> </figure><figure><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="color: #45818e;">"It means forcing women to
surrender their autonomy and be crushed by a patriarchy that demands
control over every aspect of their bodies."</span></i></span></b> <br /><figcaption data-image-attribution="Attribution: Getty Images"></figcaption>
</figure>
</div><div class="story__text"><div class="story__text-above-fold"><div class="story__timestamp"><span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">By Mark Sumner for <a href="http://dailykos.com">Daily Kos</a></span></b></span></span></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Daily Kos Staff</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Friday, February 23, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 7:30:04a MST</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> </span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700">REPUBLISHED BY:</span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com">Blue Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span></b></div><div class="story__timestamp"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span><span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708698604000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"><a href="http://www.rimcountrygazette.blogspot.com">Rim Country Gazette Blog</a></span></span><span> <br /></span></b></span></div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There are currently </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/abortion-access-restrictions-bans-us-dg/index.html"><span>nine states</span></a><span> where a </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/13-year-old-rape-victim-forced-to-give-birth-due-to-mississippis-abortion-ban"><span>rape victim under the age of 18</span></a><span>
is forced to carry a fetus to term. Four states where that’s true even
if there is a threat to the girl’s or woman’s health. This is the
reality of America since the Supreme Court issued its </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf" title=""><i>Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization</i></a><span> ruling on June 24, 2022. Within days of the Dobbs ruling, a </span><a href="https://time.com/6198062/rape-victim-10-abortion-indiana-ohio/" title=""><span>10-year-old rape victim</span></a><span>
was forced to flee Ohio to find treatment. The child was almost six and
half weeks pregnant, just past the cutoff for Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat”
ban.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>As grim as all of this has been, still is, and will be in the future, Republicans want to make things </span><i>worse</i><span>. That doesn’t mean just a </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/23/gop-debate-national-abortion-ban-00112666"><span>national abortion ban</span></a><span>
that spreads these horrors to every state. It means forcing women to
surrender their autonomy and be crushed by a patriarchy that demands
control over every aspect of their bodies.</span></b></p></div><div class="story__text-below-fold">
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>On Wednesday, the </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/21/2224901/-Alabama-hospital-puts-pause-on-IVF-in-wake-of-ruling-saying-frozen-embryos-are-children?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_11&pm_medium=web"><span>Alabama Supreme Court</span></a><span>
ruled that frozen embryos are “children,” showing yet another aspect of
how radical conservatives are forcing their way into the most intimate
decisions of women and families. And that’s just the beginning.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In vitro fertilization has been available as an option in the United States </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/babies-americas-first/"><span>since 1981</span></a><span>.
For many individuals and families, IVF represents the only viable means
of attaining pregnancy. It is often expensive and difficult, with </span><a href="https://nccd.cdc.gov/drh_art/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=DRH_ART.ClinicInfo&rdRequestForward=True&ClinicId=9999&ShowNational=1"><span>a success rate of less than 50%</span></a><span>. It may take several tries before establishing a successful pregnancy. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>In the wake of the ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court—whose chief justice espouses a </span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/alabama-supreme-court-chief-justice-spreads-christian-nationalist-rhetoric"><span>Christian nationalist belief</span></a><span>
that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on every aspect of
American society and law—many would-be parents in Alabama have </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/21/2224901/-Alabama-hospital-puts-pause-on-IVF-in-wake-of-ruling-saying-frozen-embryos-are-children?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_11&pm_medium=web"><span>lost access to IVF</span></a><span>. What happens now to the "</span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/21/alabama-ivf-ruling-embryos-sparks-concern/72673907007/"><span>extrauterine children</span></a><span>"
stored frozen in Alabama clinics remains unclear. What is clear is
that, under a ruling that turns every fertilized egg into a “child,”
thousands of individuals and couples seeking to start a family will go
childless.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Far from running from this decision, Republican presidential candidate </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nikki-haley-sides-alabama-supreme-court-ivf-ruling-embryos-are-babies-rcna139819"><span>Nikki Haley endorsed</span></a><span> the Alabama court’s position on Wednesday. And though she has since tried to </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4482507-haley-didnt-say-agreed-alabama-ivf-ruling/"><span>walk that statement back</span></a><span>—slightly—it’s clear that Republican politicians are closely aligned with the groups supporting these decisions. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>That the </span><i>Dobbs</i><span> ruling could lead to an end of IVF might seem like a stretch, but the threat </span><a href="https://gen.medium.com/anti-abortion-hypocrisy-has-never-been-clearer-c7b621db7ab5"><span>was not unexpected</span></a><span>.
The process of IVF is impossible to square with extremist abortion laws
that insist life begins at conception. IVF is currently responsible for
</span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/24/ivf-abortion-restriction-roe-v-wade/11272706002/"><span>84,000 babies a year</span></a><span>,
and it’s the preferred way for many LGBTQ+ couples to have a
child—which is absolutely a reason why conservatives are more than
willing to see this process stopped.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But that’s not the end of where Republicans want to take the nation after the Supreme Court overturned </span><i>Roe v. Wade,</i><span> eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. It’s not even </span><i>close</i><span> to the end. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Right now, the </span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/13/2211492/-The-Supreme-Court-will-rule-on-limits-on-a-commonly-used-abortion-medication"><span>Supreme Court is deciding</span></a><span> the fate of the widely used abortion drug mifepristone. The drug was approved in 2000, and the </span><a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/questions-and-answers-mifepristone-medical-termination-pregnancy-through-ten-weeks-gestation"><span>Food and Drug Administration</span></a><span>
affirms its safety based on over 20 years of studies. But those trying
to block access to mifepristone are claiming that the FDA didn’t use</span><a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/legal-challenges-to-the-fda-approval-of-medication-abortion-pills/#:~:text=The%20federal%20court%20could%20find,over%20more%20than%20two%20decades."><span> a lawful review process</span></a><span>, and conservative judges have repeated this claim, despite a lack of evidence.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>That’s far from the end. From the moment the Supreme Court returned control over women’s lives to </span><a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/current-numbers"><span>the men running state governments</span></a><span>, the right moved directly into a </span><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/birth-control-ban-alliance-defending-freedom-rcna119675"><span>war on birth control</span></a><span>.
Conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom—the same group
that was behind the case of the Colorado cake shop that </span><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-111"><span>won the right to discriminate</span></a><span>
against gay couples—wants to convince Americans that the “birth control
pill was a mistake, ”in the words of a longtime leader of the group. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Such groups have launched a propaganda campaign insisting that
the birth control pill is far more dangerous than any study or decades
of experience demonstrate. That propaganda is now being spread by </span><a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1758569518442701250?s=20"><span>Elon Musk</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But banning the pill isn’t the end goal. It’s merely a step along the path. The Heritage Foundation, which </span><a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/impact/heritage-expert-helps-shape-supreme-court-nominee-list"><span>loves to brag</span></a><span>
about how it was instrumental in selecting the conservative judges that
now pack the Supreme Court, is absolutely open about where it wants to
go.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>They released a video that would be shocking if it had been taken from
some secret meeting of the group and smuggled to public visibility. But
the Heritage Foundation posted this video to their own X (formerly
Twitter) account. This is their public position. This is what they want
you to see. </span></b></p>
<div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content="&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;&amp;quot;It seems to me that a good place to start would be a feminist movement against the pill, &amp;amp; for... returning the consequentiality to sex.&amp;quot;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, &amp;amp; ending recreational sex &amp;amp; senseless use of birth control pills. &lt;a href="https://t.co/yq5uxJN0WJ"&gt;pic.twitter.com/yq5uxJN0WJ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/Heritage/status/1662534135762624520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;May 27, 2023&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
">
</div>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>After a series of false claims about the dangers of birth
control pills, the speaker gets down to business by insisting that birth
control pills were invented for “the purpose of rendering a woman
receptive to what is, for the most part, loveless and sometimes
extremely degrading sexual access.” Then she moves on to the core of her
argument. </span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>“It seems to me that a good place to start would be a feminist
movement against the pill, and for rewilding sex, returning the danger
to sex, returning the intimacy and, really, the consequentiality to
sex.”</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>If that sounds at all confusing, what she’s saying is that
women shouldn’t be able to have sex without being concerned about
becoming pregnant. That’s the “rewilding,” the “danger,” and the
“consequentiality” she wants.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The goal of the Heritage Foundation, the Republican politicians
it empowers, and the judges it selects is to end the option of sex for
any purpose other than reproduction. They’re not hiding this. They are
proud of it. And if that means women surrender every ounce of agency in
their lives … well, that’s the goal, after all.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The Supreme Court is about to rule on a drug that has been helping women since 2000.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Republicans are taking away an option used by would-be parents since 1981.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>They’ve </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/01/20/a-proclamation-on-50th-anniversary-of-the-roe-v-wade-decision/#:~:text=Fifty%20years%20ago%2C%20on%20January,woman's%20constitutional%20right%20to%20choose."><span>taken away rights</span></a><span> that existed since 1973.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Now they want to roll things back to before </span><a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/history-oral-contraception/2000-06#:~:text=The%20Food%20and%20Drug%20Administration,as%20it%20is%20popularly%20known."><span>1960</span></a><span>.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Even that’s not the true end. Because the end is somewhere back
in the Bronze Age and in fantasies of what it means for women to “</span><a href="https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/submission-of-wives-to-husbands/"><span>submit</span></a><span>” to the control of men.</span></b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>It’s been less than two years since the </span><i>Dobbs</i><span>
decision, but America is a fundamentally different nation than it was
in the 50 years leading up to June 24, 2022. Where we go from here will
be decided in November. By women, and by everyone who genuinely respects
them.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jS_yIZI9wY8Fo8XW4w-l7gH26eaqFhBZF19BbDMg03BZPkKrkNuZNVEN0KUecr1iD3znV6LmLopAwVvJRFVNRZUT4LTU27Xk0_wQvti5MgaETi3y4zIyj2PBVezKC1o1VMKRt21f2fan0D0zpgZf6AcLTTi5a9s8qal1d2ioJJtiMuYjs_gToih6EU0/s168/16508481_779813678834814_8543296186340855113_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="168" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jS_yIZI9wY8Fo8XW4w-l7gH26eaqFhBZF19BbDMg03BZPkKrkNuZNVEN0KUecr1iD3znV6LmLopAwVvJRFVNRZUT4LTU27Xk0_wQvti5MgaETi3y4zIyj2PBVezKC1o1VMKRt21f2fan0D0zpgZf6AcLTTi5a9s8qal1d2ioJJtiMuYjs_gToih6EU0/w320-h320/16508481_779813678834814_8543296186340855113_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Where will it end? "Somewhere back
in the Bronze Age and in fantasies of what it means for women to “</span><a href="https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/submission-of-wives-to-husbands/"><span>submit</span></a><span>” to the control of men."</span></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p></p>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6383741895455123821.post-83697563236301390752024-02-24T13:18:00.000-08:002024-02-24T13:18:40.316-08:00There was an old fascist who lived in a shoe...<div class="post-header">
<div class="post-header-line-1"></div>
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<div class="story__image"><figure><div class="story__image"> <figure>
<img alt="SHOEWeb.jpg" height="232" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1275369/story_image/SHOEWeb.jpg?1708560674" title="SHOEWeb.jpg" width="320" />
<figcaption></figcaption>
</figure>
</div><p></p>
<figcaption></figcaption>
</figure>
</div><p><b style="font-family: helvetica;">A cartoon by Lalo Alcatraz.</b></p>
<p><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>There was an old fascist... Please share </span><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/laloalcaraz?__eep__=6&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZWcrrsihfO4HqA-bM9VXgfTW9F36vK91VmyUC8m-rX4j4c7mHI9Z2kqdFJ0PQ3_BiRrWVqdjBPY8_fPgN0h72IOh7L0wBcQcncHrKJQdM1aiHueK5aRSxvPzOZ7_5zhqgMRMjDi-7LRJv8kyS3_L0nk76hlp4euiHPlxK-YrEOBzsEOJmbmn-Fszm-SvfrKZ2w&__tn__=*NK-y-R">#laloalcaraz</a></span><span> cartoons! </span><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/trump2024?__eep__=6&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZWcrrsihfO4HqA-bM9VXgfTW9F36vK91VmyUC8m-rX4j4c7mHI9Z2kqdFJ0PQ3_BiRrWVqdjBPY8_fPgN0h72IOh7L0wBcQcncHrKJQdM1aiHueK5aRSxvPzOZ7_5zhqgMRMjDi-7LRJv8kyS3_L0nk76hlp4euiHPlxK-YrEOBzsEOJmbmn-Fszm-SvfrKZ2w&__tn__=*NK-y-R">#Trump2024</a></span></b></p><div class="story__timestamp"><span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span class="timestamp story__date--long" data-epoch-time="1708560793000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%A, %B %d, %Y" data-time-zone="-0700">Wednesday, February 21, 2024</span>
at <span class="timestamp" data-epoch-time="1708560793000" data-localize-time="" data-time-format="%l:%M:%S%P %Z" data-time-zone="-0700"> 5:13:13p MST</span></b></span>
</span></div>James Keyworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16778065398076170813noreply@blogger.com0