Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

This fight is for everything.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Let’s finish the job.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Let there be snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Kill the Filibuster

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Kill the Filibuster

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Kill the Filibuster

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
.

… not our democracy. Be nice if we were only fighting the Republicans, but it is what it is.

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Someone went with Sinemanchin rather than Manchinema.

    I actually haven’t heard where Sinema is on the filibuster.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    I hope there’s some mockery of McConnell’s threat to gum up Senate business, pointing out that he’s already doing that. Heck, even when he was running the chamber they didn’t accomplish anything other than routine funding resolutions, one massive tax cut, and approving judges — the last because the Republicans eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominations.

  7. 7.

    brendancalling

    I hate to say it, but I don’t see it happening—and only because of Manchin and Sinema.

  9. 9.

    Ken

    @Baud: Yankees hired the first woman manager for a minor league team.

    The third sign of the apocalypse!  Watch now for a rain of frogs….

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    Says he would “personally guarantee” the Senate “would not be more efficient”

    Who cares, you traitorous piece of shit? I just want them to be more effective in the pursuit of things which benefit America and Americans.

  13. 13.

    germy

    Mary Trump: "Donald is the weakest person I've ever met in my life… And yet, he has been able to find people even weaker than he is whom he is able to bend to his will."

  14. 14.

    zhena gogolia

    @brendancalling: And 50 Republican senators, including “moderates” Romney, Collins, and Murkowski. What about them? And the 16 who voted for the VRA to be reaffirmed?

  16. 16.

    germy

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick wins election to U.S. House in Florida's 20th Congressional District.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 12, 2022

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Sinema was against a filibuster carve-out as recently as mid-December. If she’s issued a statement on it since then, I missed it. Her objection back then was that lawmaking via simple majority would lead to legislative whiplash. That wouldn’t be the most terrible argument ever if our our opponents weren’t authoritarians who are dismantling democracy.

    I think everything will come down to two competing versions of reality: one that recognizes the red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard and one that doesn’t. Maddeningly, the latter seems more likely to prevail. But hey, maybe we’re all overreacting and everything will be fine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Well, we need unanimity so it’s a hard path to success.

    I think worrying about overreactions vs underreactions is a waste of time.  I worry more about productive reactions vs. destructive reactions.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Maybe worrying about that is a waste of time too? I know that fretting in general isn’t productive, but it’s so difficult to avoid, especially for certain personality types. I’m a lifelong worrywart, but I’m trying to get better!

  27. 27.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: The first two signs being the designated hitter rule and the infield fly rule.

    It’s a slow-moving apocalypse! The DH is closing in on 50 years in the AL, but at least I remember the pre-DH era.  The infield fly rule goes back to 1895.

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    Stacey Abrams had quite a busy day on Twitter yesterday, and depending on how you look at them, two tweets might seem appalling, or encouraging:

        Likewise, as an original sponsor of voting rights legislation, I am grateful to Senator Sinema as she seeks to protect the institution she serves and the constituents put at risk by state legislators unwilling to defend access to the ballot.

    Then it gets worse!

       As past secretary of state and governor, Senator Manchin understands better than many how vital our elections are to our highest ideals. I commend his continued engagement on how to guarantee vibrant, full debate on these bills and hope he will see them through to passage.

    “Grateful”! “Commend”!

    Is Stacey Abrams naive and softheaded? Or is she a hardheaded,, pragmatic politician who uses her best arguments to press two other politicians to advance crucial legislation?

  31. 31.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @germy: ​ I remember the distant past, when Kal’s editorial cartoons were a major (if not the major) reason for subscribing to the Baltimore Sun. Long departed, as the rag has sunk (stunk?) steadily below the level of serviceable fishwrap…

  32. 32.

    Ken

    @Geminid: You left out “neocorporate shill”, which will I’m sure show up on Twitter within the next hour (if it’s not already there).

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:   I have met Derf Backderf.  He penned the graphic novel, My Friend Dahmer.

    Yep.  Went to high school with Jeffrey.

  40. 40.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: I think worrying about overreactions vs underreactions is a waste of time.

    Yeppers. The pointlessness of it has been demonstrated with the plague. Here we are, two years in, and having been told numerous times that we’re overreacting to it, but people are still dying of Covid at the rate of four 9/11’s per week, or nearly two Jonestowns every day.

    And if we come through this era to a time when our democracy is safe, and it looks like we’re actually responding to global warming strongly enough and soon enough to rein it in, I will be too damn relieved to care if people get on my case for overreacting to these threats.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: DeLong talks about tail (of the distribution) risks occasionally and had a good version recently, which I can’t find.  People regard them differently, or don’t think about them at all.  Most senators don’t live in the same world we do, and that’s a big problem.  There’s no evidence that the GQP can be shamed into doing the right, meaningful, thing.  We’ll have to see what S&M will accept…

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m traditionally a worrier too.  It has not led to anywhere good for me in my personal life, and I suspect politics is the same.

    I work at internalizing the fact that no amount of worrying will give us the power to control other people’s actions.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @Baud: I work at internalizing the fact that no amount of worrying will give us the power to control other people’s actions.

    But if you could…. Superhero or supervillain?

  46. 46.

    Kay

     Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Education Department is under fire for trying to steer a multimillion-dollar contract to a company whose CEO has ties to the state’s education commissioner. Records and interviews show that, before the Florida Department of Education asked for bids, it was already in advanced talks with the company to do the work, subverting a process designed to eliminate favoritism. The company is MGT Consulting, led by former Republican lawmaker Trey Traviesa of Tampa, a longtime colleague of the state’s education commissioner, Richard Corcoran. During a bidding process that was open for one week, MGT was the only pre-approved vendor to submit a proposal — pitched at nearly $2.5 million a year to help the struggling Jefferson County School District with its academic and financial needs.

    Florida seems to still have local newspapers, which I think helps on the corruption front.

    One bidder, bidding open for a week. Completely fair process, right?

  47. 47.

    sab

    @Elizabelle: So he is an Ohioan? Dahmer’s high school is one of the suburban schools of my city. Some of my cousins and my college roommate went there.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @Kay: One bidder, bidding open for a week. Completely fair process, right?

    You missed the part about bids having to be submitted in person, in a disused bathroom in the third sub-basement with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the leopard”.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: The Republican corruption down here would make 1970s New Orleans blush. Seriously, it’s hideous. The local dailies are good at uncovering it, but so far, no one seems to give a shit.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    Members of the Jefferson County School Board have been outraged for months, seeing the entire process as a way for the state to siphon more money out of a rural, majority-Black school district and into the pockets of the politically connected.
    The decision to hire a company to help the three schools — and have Jefferson County pay for it with federal coronavirus relief dollars — came from the Department of Education, they say.
    “I’m just going to be honest with you. It’s money,” Jefferson County School Board member Bill Brumfield said in an interview last month. “It’s money and it’s politics, and they are just trying to kick Jefferson County around again like a bunch of little country bumpkins sitting over there and knowing nothing.”

    Working class versus the DeSantis elites! But- black people, so may not apply in GOP politics.

  53. 53.

    MazeDancer

    You can gift yourself a $9.99 Washington Post subscription. They will just extend your current subscription by a year.

    Found this out when I gave a couple of subscriptions. And WaPo didn’t send the emails. So I got the codes over the phone. One of the people had a subscription already, so I was experimenting with using the code with another email.

    Not signed in, I copied the code onto the “redeem your gift” page and it automatically announced my extended subscription.

    Well, thanks.

    Try sending the gift to an email you don’t use for your WaPo subscription. And use the code.

    Also, I learned they will electronically hondle at WaPo. Decided I would take a break from the 99 bucks a year I was paying, so I cancelled. They asked why. I checked “too expensive”. They came back with how about 40 bucks. Okay.

    So I’m getting 2 years for 50 bucks. Bezos can afford it.

  54. 54.

    p.a.

    @Another Scott: Don’t know about Sinema, not sure she even knows herself what she’ll spew out day-to-day or hour-to-hour, but Manchin’s talk of ‘bipartisan solutions’ followed by his picking the scrapings from McConnell’s boot out of his own ass every time just says to me: fraud.  (On the assumptions a) he’s not reached his current position being an idiot, and b) he’s not going to seek reelection* so doesn’t have to pander to his constit’ents.)

    *he’s got the age & cash to ride off into the sunset burning $100 bills and not materially affect his lifestyle.

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It turns out the largest electricity provider in the state, Florida Power & Light, funded the GOP “ghost candidate” schemes that resulted in at least one Trumper stealing a state senate seat (and possibly others). The state senator still occupies her stolen seat. When Democrats asked for an audit of the utility, the Public Service Commission declined. They don’t give a shit.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Corruption is one of the things I think is cumulative, so the constant reporting matters. When it “lands” you wonder “why did they care about this scandal when they didn’t care about the 5000 others?” but it’s just the tipping point.

    It’s like “Trump is a liar”. It rolled off him for so long and then..whoosh- most people thought he was a liar.

  57. 57.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I was friendly with a woman who worked in purchasing here. They always have trouble with that – she said more than once she had to reject a request for bid because she could tell it was written to blatantly favor one vendor over all others, and that’s illegal. It’s a problem when you know there is a vendor you like and who does good work for you, and yet you have to take the risk of putting it out for bid and someone you don’t want underbidding them. We had a different contractor get the lining contract one year, and it was a nightmare – it took them literally a half day to line a pipe, rather than the few hours of our preferred contractor, so we got a lot of complaints about people and equipment being in the alley behind people’s houses at midnight! That low bid is sometimes not worth the savings. But yeah, that sounds totally corrupt.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Oooh. I think that one has some legs as a scandal. I meant to ask you. It has tenacles :)

    Could end up federal too. The school scandal can also be federal. It’s federal money and they do their own investigations.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: I got a laugh the other day, reading an article on the Republican Governor primary in Georgia. Republican Congressman Earl Leroy “Buddy” Carter said he didn’t care who won between Perdue and Kemp, they just had to beat Stacey Abrams. Back in the day, Carter served with Abrams in the Georgia House. But, “this is not the Stacey Abrams I knew.”

    When she saw this, Abrams probably said to herself, “Buddy, you didn’t really know me, did you?”

  60. 60.

    JMG

    Every Senator has a deep personal interest in maintaining the filibuster, as it affords them the luxury of avoiding accountability on close and hence somewhat risky votes. In cold terms, Manchin would have even more power if there was no filibuster as nothing could happen without his say-so, but he prefers lack of responsibility to power. It is to their credit that so many Democratic Senators are now so frustrated they are willing to work without the net of the filibuster.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Nan Whaley in Ohio is running with a focus on corruption so we’ll see how it does. Ohio is just gross now. They’ve gone hog wild – they’re stealing everything that isn’t tied down.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I’m all for federal investigations, and several are ongoing! They can’t be political, obviously. But impartial corruption investigations might do more to turn some FL seats blue than the national party pouring more money down the state party rathole.

  63. 63.

    Quinerly

    @zhena gogolia: I asked this the other day. I caught part of Romney’s speech yesterday. He ain’t going to help.

    I asked earlier if anyone has ever pinned down Tim Scott in an interview. I need to Google when l have time.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott: Here it is – Brad DeLong’s Substack (from December 22):

    It’s “risk assymetry” in this case (not tail risk) –

    […]

    There are also the “rubber, meet road” issues: the principal of prioritizing full employment and full recovery first, and rearranging the financial deck chairs later, would suggest that our current inflation is exactly what we want to see. Indeed, it is what we need to see in our economy, in which wages and prices are sticky downward to a considerable extent.

    And then there are the deeper “secular stagnation” issues: when you keep hitting the zero-lower-bound on interest rates, either your inflation target is too low or your fiscal todd policy is too tight—probably both.

    Plus: the bond market does not see the Federal Reserve as in any sense being on the wrong path.

    But in my mind the overwhelming consideration is what it has been since 2008: risk asymmetry. If the Fed errs in the direction of excessive easing, it does have the power to repair the situation through tightening. If the Fed errs is in the direction of excessive tightening, it is then powerless when it recognizes its mistake.

    Failing to realize how much this risk asymmetry ought to shape policy is a mistake that people keep making, and making, and making—from my perspective, at least.

    (Emphasis added.)

    The same applies in the current political environment. (And the pandemic. And climate change. And water. And …)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Yarrow

    Breaking news from New York: Prince Andrew WILL face a civil sex case trial.
    US judge – Lewis Kaplan – dismissed a motion by Prince Andrew’s legal team to have the lawsuit thrown out in a legal technicality.
    It now moves to the next stage #princeandrew

    — Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) January 12, 2022

    Prince Andrew had tried to have the case thrown out saying he was covered by the settlement his accuser Virginia Giuffre signed with Jeffrey Epstein in 2009.
    However, lawsuit moves to next stage: usually deposition.
    The alternatives for Prince Andrew are to settle or default.
    — Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) January 12, 2022

  66. 66.

    JML

    there’s nothing funnier than Mitch McConnell threatening to make life worse if we go nuclear. he’s already made the senate a hellscape of despair and misery, and frankly any attempts to objectively make it worse might in fact fracture his own caucus a little bit, especially as the soulless, stupid, and ambitious hacks he has as members begin clawing at each other for power…

  68. 68.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: Dominion is similar in Virginia.  Virginia has no contribution limits for state races, and Dominion is a huge funder of candidates.  The Democratic nominee for Lt. Gov. (Ayala) made a pledge in the primary not to take campaign contributions from them, but then turned around and did.  It’s a bad system (to allow regulated utilities to have outsized political influence in any form), but it’s very difficult to change.

    [ Insert rant #23421 about public financing of elections. ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Trump lowered the standard for corruption. It’s really, really hard to raise a standard once it’s been lowered.

    I mean, come on. Just the calls he made to state offocials to get them to change results are fucking outrageous. Ten years ago that alone would have been huge. You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. That’s now how standards work. They don’t magically recover. The whole reason people stick to them is they know it’s hard as nails to push them up once they’re in the cellar.

    There’s an inability to accept that we are going to have to pay for Donald Trump. There are consequences. He did real damage.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: People are pouring money into Val Demings’ Senate campaign. She raised $14 million through the first three quarters of last year, compared to $12 million for Rubio. Democrats “discovered” Demings as a House Manager for the first impeachment trial, and this has helped her fundraising. Also, there is a lot of animus towards Rubio, and people especially want to beat him.

    This last factor is a practical example of negative partisanship. We saw it last year in the money raised by Jaime Harrison and Amy McGrath. They raked in huge amounts of money not because they were especially strong candidates with good prospects of winning, but because donors hated Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.

    On the other hand, Barbara Boullier and Steve Bullock were not so strongly funded. Boullier faced Roger Marshall, who only made a name for himself as a “moron” yesterday, while Bullock faced the bland Steve Daines.

    Val Demings, though, is a strong candidate with good prospects of winning.

  74. 74.

    Yarrow

    @Kay:  There have to be consequences for such actions. Arrests, court cases, people found guilty, punishments. That kind of thing. It’s the only way for these people to see that there are consequences for these kinds of actions. Otherwise the “standards” will stay where they are – low.

  75. 75.

    MattF

    @OzarkHillbilly: I think one should assume, in the absence of concrete information, that Abrams knows what she is doing. I recall that senator from Louisiana (Kennedy) discovering the hard way that she’s very smart and very knowledgeable.

  76. 76.

    danielx

    @JML:

    Note: if McConnell is squealing about unnamed but dire consequences, I’d say Dems are on the right track. When has he ever worried about consequences for something he wanted to do?

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Government lawyers want me to believe it is not illegal to call an election official and ask that official to find votes and change a result? If that’s true they need some new laws and if it isn’t true they need some new lawyers.

    What if everyone did that? I mean, why wouldn’t they? Give that a shot. Doesn’t hurt and it might help! Call enough of them and you’ll find a crook! Is it okay in a city council race? A school board race? Or does this pass just apply to Presidents?

  79. 79.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    It wasn’t just him, the media normalized his  lying & corruption, along with the Republicans’ solid support of the lying & corruption. None of it rises to the level of emails!!!

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @Another Scott: One Republican operative has been criminally charged in the “ghost candidate” scheme to siphon votes that FPL is now implicated in. We’ll see where that goes. Bribery is basically legal now, but paying fake candidates to sandbag opponents is still against the law. Even in Florida.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @James E Powell:

     None of it rises to the level of emails!!!

    Oh, emails don’t matter anymore. Email anyone you want, about anything. And if you don’t like election results feel free to run a 6 month pressure campaign on state and local officials to change the result, culminating with an actual coup attempt. Why should powerful people have all the fun?

    We have a sheriff’s race coming up. The loser should follow The Trump Precedent. That’ll be extra cool because he has the power to arrest and the people he calls to change the results will be afraid of him. He’ll definitely get a taker.

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’m so old I can remember when Vladimir Vladimirovich solemnly stated he’d never do this.

    Breaking news: The head of the International Energy Agency has accused Russia of throttling gas supplies to Europe at a time ‘of heightened geopolitical tensions’, implying Moscow has manufactured an energy crisis for political ends https://t.co/078S2CSByH pic.twitter.com/OSysVryycG
    — Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) January 12, 2022

  84. 84.

    Kay

    @James E Powell:

    They’re still doing it. Don’t interview people who hang up when you ask the first hard question. It’s cheating. He got the promotion part of the interview without the downside of sitting for it. Jesus Christ. He’s been pulling this stunt for 50 fucking years. At what point do they get it?

  87. 87.

    MisterDancer

    @MattF: McConnell making threats means he’s unhappy.

    Agreed. We rightly have concerns about McConnell. He’s done more to erode Democracy than anyone, over the years.

    But he has limits, and he’s pretty obvious — and public — when he hits them. McConnell doesn’t do subtle, not in the same way that has me reading tea leaves when Pelosi or Schumer make moves, for example.

  88. 88.

    Layer8Problem

    @Kay: Rachel Maddow over the last couple of days has brought up the fake
    slates of Trump electors claiming a Trump win submitted from a number of states, from
    Nicholas Wu’s reporting in Politico, noting the similarity of a number
    of different states’ submissions implying a common influence from
    somewhere, and the replacement on those submissions of what would be
    normal Republican electors with others. I believe Michigan’s Attorney
    General is actively investigating, but how hasn’t this been prosecuted
    yet? Does this rise to criminal conspiracy, or forgery at least?

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: Yup.

    I heard a promo of the interview on the radio yesterday, and Inskeep’s oh so clever “up to the moment he hung up on me” was  infuriating.  TFG is a toxic narcissist who is trying to install himself as dictator.  He’s not done anything newsworthy since leaving office, and giving him a platform is counterproductive for an organization that supposedly tries to present straight , objective, truthful information to the public.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  91. 91.

    Jinchi

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I see TFG hung up on Steve Iniskeep on NPR after Iniskeep pressed him re the Big Lie.

    I’m not sure why NPR was so desperate to interview Trump in the first place. The report states they’d been trying for 6 years.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    They’re going to promote him for the next Presidential cycle. He wants to brag about inventing the vaccine. So he gets a forum to do that and then runs away for the hard part?

    If these are the rules then at least they should be applied equally. Hang up when it gets hard. Trump does it. Why shouldn’t his opponents?

    They’re acting as if the value of this is the public finds out he wants to promote his (fake) invention of the vaccine. Everyone already knows he wants to promote it. What does it fucking matter?

  93. 93.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Trump does it. Why shouldn’t his opponents?

     

    Trump gets to because he had so many more press conferences than Biden. /Chinchilla

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    That’s the other thing- as if “number of words” is the measure of value. Yeah, Trump talked to the press a lot. That’s certainly true. 99% of it was self-aggrandizing and/or ass covering lies but on sheer volume he wins.

  96. 96.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Geminid:

    I think Abrams knows that Manchin and Sinema will blow up any chance of legislation passing if they feel insulted.  Manchin has said so outright.  So, stroking their egos is one of the preconditions of negotiation.

    @lowtechcyclist:

    D’aw.

  97. 97.

    Layer8Problem

    @Jinchi: Perhaps he’s not getting enough free air time from his usual venues for some reason and he’s got to stoop to using “even the liberal” NPR?

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Maggie Haberman
    @maggieNYT
    · 11h
    This would indicate Trump’s “must tell the truth” message to me about the timing of his vaccine comments a few weeks ago were about DeSantis, who is increasingly under his skin

    The value of this to readers is Donald Trump might, might, be sending a secret message to the Governor of Florida.
    Cut to the Trump Whisperer to interpret his every word.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: To me, Stacey Abrams embodies the good qualities of a politician. One of these qualities is knowing how to talk to other politicians. She also is not afraid of criticism from the small-minded.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid: Yup, a lot of people assume Abrams is a progressive warrior, but as I recall in her actual campaign for governor she talked a lot about reaching across the aisle, because Georgia. Also because she understands that politics is the art of addition. Something that eludes a lot of people

  104. 104.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker:

    Whoh, Nelly.

    CA has had PUC commissioners going to bat for PG&E and their LA and SD cousins, but at least occasionally gain some remedies through the legislature. I doubt you’re in a setting where there’s any meaningful oversight whatsoever. Lotsa luck.

    My genius conclusion, predating Enron even, is that investor-owned private utilities are the devil’s spawn. PG&E has gone through TWO bankruptcies and yet we’re still under their (phenomenally incompetent) thumb–incompetent is inadequate here for an organization that routine 1. kills people 2. triggers fires that have consumed millions of wildland acres.

  109. 109.

    Shalimar

    There is Matt Gaetz-is-an-asshole-and-an-idiot news.  He tried to narc on the 30-A Songwriters Festival for requiring vaccination to attend.  Turns out he was wrong, their policy is to require a negative Covid test or proof of vaccination, and they cleared with DeSantis’s office that it doesn’t violate his state order against “vaccine passports”.

    I think it’s scary that a little music festival that will get under 10k attendance feels the need to clear their policy with the dictator/governor, but it is nice to know Gaetz is still horrible.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The folks at Jerkobin Magazine must have been worried about Stacey Abrams’ reputation as a “progressive,” because they had an article a couple years ago that explained to readers how Abrams is not what what she’s cracked up to be. The author picked various nits in her state legislative record. Then he complained that even when she did the right thing and got a good bill passed, she would justify the legislation with pragmatic reasoning.

    Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not Jerkobin is a parody magazine.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid: I’m just waiting for “Val Demmings is a cop!”— which might actually help her– and for Cheri Beasley’s record as a judge to be dissected by somebody like Sarah Jones with a B.A. in Righteous Feelings

  117. 117.

    Kathleen

     

     

    @Kay:  I see that Sherrod Brown has endorsed her and I believe ODP is endorsing her as well which John Cranley has complained about. My concern is that it will be heavy lift for 2 mayor’s from SW Ohio with no state wide exposure. Not sure yet who I support but am leaning towards Whaley.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    Megan McArdle
    @asymmetricinfo
    ·1h
    That said, I have been surprised over the last year to watch the left focus almost all its energy on “defending democracy” type threats, and almost none on what seems to be a fairly rapid defection of Hispanic voters to the GOP.

    Yes, you dopes, because that’s what “the Left” has been doing – unless you count the last 9 months they tried to pass a huge bill packed full of things like child care subsidies, family leave and workplace protections.
    It just isn’t a valid criticism. It isn’t true. These people CANNOT continue to claim that Democrats don’t address “kitchen table” when in fact they do.
    They’re now all going to run with this narrative they just invented that it’s all been “democracy type threats”. To do that they have to ignore the entire BBB debate that happened right under this noses, but hell, it’s 2022 not 2021 so that was “last year” so of course they forgot it.
    Talking about threats to democracy makes a certain group of comfortable people really uncomfortable, so they prefer to ignore the threats. They also insist you do too and if they have to lie about what you focus on, well, they will.

  120. 120.

    catclub

    @Ken: the last because the Republicans eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominations.

     

    The Democrats eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominees, with the exception of the supreme court.  The GOP eliminated it for SC nominees.

  122. 122.

    trnc

    @Betty Cracker: Sinema was against a filibuster carve-out as recently as mid-December. If she’s issued a statement on it since then, I missed it. Her objection back then was that lawmaking via simple majority would lead to legislative whiplash. That wouldn’t be the most terrible argument ever if our our opponents weren’t authoritarians who are dismantling democracy.

    That’s it in a nutshell. It’s one thing to support the filibuster as a way to get bipartisanship on bills if the republicans even pretended that they would work with us on some things. It’s another thing altogether for someone to screech about comity after and while republicans openly pledge to block agendas and after a decade of abusing it again and again.

  124. 124.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: Most of it wasn’t actually the interview, either, it was other stuff. He said it was 9 minutes, but I bet we didn’t get more than 2 minutes of the actual interview. Post it online in an unedited form so people can listen to the whole thing. Trump kept saying things about the results of the audit, but I didn’t once hear Inskeep ask the obvious question – “Can you give me an example?” It’s journalistic malpractice, the way they interview him.

  126. 126.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: That’s one reason they loved him so much – they felt like they got unfettered access, even though they actually didn’t because he won’t answer any questions he doesn’t want to answer, and hanging up on them or walking out in the middle seems to be A-OK with them. I think a condition of publishing the interview should be that you don’t hang up until it’s over.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Guffaw. Look, there have been times that Democrats didn’t focus on kitchen table issues but the last year is not one of those times. They can’t just roll this out periodically like it’s an eternal truth! You have to check- “are Democrats ignoring kitchen table issues like I always say they are?”

  130. 130.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Can we send out the Bat signal to Tony Jay for his unique take on the Boris Partygate situation.  I am sure it would be hilarious.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I am of the opinion that his numbers go down the more he talks, so I’m all for it. It was really consistent when he was President. The more attention he got the more people disliked him. Republicans here said it: “oh, I wish he would just not TALK so much!” The handwringy moderate ones who want to believe they are somehow still in the mainstream, yet still voting for these nutcases. They prefer the real views to be distributed only to the base.

  132. 132.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    There were like two periods. The first period where they normalized him and promoted was the time he could have been sidelined with less attention. But once they did that we should switch to “lots of attention” because he’s horrible and enough people see the problem it to make it worthwhile.

    You don’t have endless time to mitigate/diminish threats. There’s a window. It closes and doesn’t open again.

  133. 133.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sab:

    Oh I’m just thrilled to be in Bill Johnson’s district and have my vote diluted /s

    What about you?

  134. 134.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I have mixed feelings about him being more invisible. OTOH, I think like you say the more he talks the more his numbers go down, but he has an absolute floor of about 35% that he never goes below. OTOH, when he was on Twitter and FB whatever he said absolutely DOMINATED the news cycle every single day. Can you imagine Biden and Democrats trying to get their message out if they had to compete against Trump’s tweets every single day? The press would run to report whatever Trump said on Twitter and completely ignore the administration, because that’s how they roll.

  136. 136.

    M31

    I had JUST subscribed to the WaPo for the $9.99 yearly special when they ran that infuriating op-ed about “some people think Biden goes to too many funerals” and when I went to cancel they offered me ANOTHER year at 9.99

    lol

    didn’t do it, but still might

    and they did delete the Tweet about the op-ed, so they at least felt bad

  137. 137.

    patrick II

    I suppose it was inevitable, but I still gasped aloud when I read this at Digby’s yesterday:

    Anti-COVID-19 “Vaccine Police” leader Christopher Key has a new quarter-baked conspiracy theory for his anti-vax followers to use to cure themselves of COVID-19: Drink their own urine… “Now drink urine!” he continued. “This vaccine is the worst bioweapon I have ever seen,” he concluded. “I drink my own urine!”

    Christopher Key is the founder of “Vaccine Police”, a web site with anti-vax news from across the internet. I don’t know how many followers he has, but that is literally mentally ill.

  139. 139.

    scav

    @Leto: As he noted, there is simply no way TonyJay could possibly keep up with His Flobalob & Paarrr-TAHY.

    I vastly appreciate his efforts nonetheless.

  140. 140.

    trollhattan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Jerry 2.0 was a far more pragmatic edition, as befitted the intervening decades, plus I guess the day-to-day hands-on nitty gritty of being a mayor. Also, time spent with monks and Mother Theresa. And dogs.

    Walked past the Capitol grounds yesterday recalling various times seeing the first dogs getting their walkies. Good times.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    That’s true. Maybe we have the right mix now, where he just goes on their shows and spews.

    I hate his voice. I hate that bragging, honking delivery and broad accent, and how he uses the same dumb useless filler words over and over. There are certain people who you can HEAR that they love the sound of their own voice when they speak and it’s just repellent to me. Newt Gingrich is another one. They always talk A LOT, too.

  142. 142.

    No One You Know

    Only in the United States Senate can a man stand up, announce from the lectern that he’s not going to do his job, and not get fired.

  143. 143.

    trollhattan

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    At this point is there anything BoJo can do to lose support of Tory voters? They elected* a clown and buffoon and serial random spawner who continues to demonstrate who and what he is, and it seems not to make any difference.

    We have firsthand experience with just such a “leader.”

  144. 144.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:  Not sure what “progressive warrior” means, but does Jerry Brown fit the position? More recently, how about Jersey’s Murphy, who apparently is running the state fairly progressively. Point taken about elections, though, as I’m not sure he ran as such.

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    And then abruptly, the former president was gone

    If only he would grace us with his permanent absence. What a nice world….

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    @SFAW:

    He wouldn’t be a reasonable fucking conservative if he wasn’t gumming up everything possible so that the conservative class of wealthy donors could steal more….

  149. 149.

    Baud

    @Chief Oshkosh: Well, it’s in the eye of the beholder, I guess.  I certainly don’t see Murphy being talked about as a good example to others of what it means to govern as a progressive. Maybe it’s my bubble.

  152. 152.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay:  I worry that the damage includes the Russians having key insights into how to quietly shut down our key infrastructure. In fact, I know they do.

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