Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

I was promised a recession.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Late Night Open Thread: Dark Dank Brandon Strikes Again!

Late Night Open Thread: Dark Dank Brandon Strikes Again!

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Nah, there’s always somebody in the Right-Wing Nut Job ecosphere…

Defense attorney rebuts Hammer (from a longer thread):

Oh, look, another member of the Right-Wing ‘elite’!

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  2. 2.

    Shalimar

    I’m not technically in favor of marijuana legalization, in the sense that I’m also fine with criminalizing alcohol and cigarettes and seeing the outrage you would get from all the people who think their vices are special.  Whichever way you want to go to make it all consistent is fine.

  4. 4.

    Keith P.

    This could be a wedge issue within the GOP itself.  There are some hardcore MAGA types, like Matt Gaetz and Rand Paul(pseudo-MAGA), who very apparently LOVE to imbibe in the herb and aren’t shy about publicly supported legalization.

  6. 6.

    ian

    I don’t know who that Josh Hammer guy is, but he sure doesn’t understand how a pardon works.

    Maybe he does, since he says “spirit” of law.  I guess he just assumes his readers are dipshits.

  8. 8.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:

    Why does Tom Cotton wanna be such a buzzkill.

    Have you ever seen that motherfucker? He’ll dry up a woman faster than Ben Shapiro, and he is without a doubt the most frag-prone-blow-this-asshole-officer-up we have seen since Doug Neidermeyer.

    @eclare:

    I still can’t believe he wasn’t fragged in Iraq.

    Pediddle! (if any of youse need that word translated, hit me up), and if I am not mistaken, he was never in a position to be fragged, never got close to combat.

    Also, Stephen Colbert has some thoughts on Dank Brandon.

  10. 10.

    Geoduck

    @Shalimar: Maybe I’m missing some sarcasm here, but we already tried making alcohol illegal once. It was a pointless disaster, and would be again. Keep it legal, and tax it. Ditto cigarettes, and I’m someone who hates smoking.

  12. 12.

    AlaskaReader

    The quaint myth that pot is just a vice practiced by ‘liberals’ should forever be shelved.

     

    @Rokka: …there are older references.  Too Short’s ‘Hard on the Boulevard’ is just one.  And that’s not likely the oldest reference…

  14. 14.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @ian: he’s another RW incel Podcaster. At first I thought it was a McConnell alum but that’s a different Josh. I hope blue state governors do the same thing with state laws. This would make a huge difference to many people. If I remember right you can’t get federal students loans if you’ve got a pot possession conviction on your record which is ridiculous. And renting has become so difficult in many places you don’t need a damn pot possession holding you back from renting a place.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    I was looking at Ragnarok Lobster’s Twitter account, and saw an excerpt from last night debate between Senator Mark Kelly and Blake Masters.

    Kelly really smacked Masters with a 25 second set-piece attack. He started out looking at the camera and saying, “Folks. we all know people like this. They think they know better than everyone else about everything.”

    Then Kelly faced Masters and said, “You think you know better than women and doctors” about womens health care decisions. Then he told Masters that “You think you know better” than seniors about Social Security, and “You think you know better than veterans about how wars are won.”

    Then Kelly turned back to the camera and repeated, “Folks, we all know people like this.”

    I know I’m biased but I thought it was a pretty devastating takedown

  19. 19.

    geg6

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Just this year, the drug question on the FAFSA was discontinued.  They also, finally, got rid of the Selective Service question.  I can’t tell you how many times I had to explain to a student what “the draft” was.

  21. 21.

    Soprano2

    In MO there is an amendment on the ballot to not only legalize recreational pot, but to wipe away all the state simple possession convictions. I’m hopeful it will pass, which will make a lot of Repub official’s heads explode.

  22. 22.

    Marmot

    This could be the thing to engage the perpetually too-cool yutes, who’re less excited about voting in mid-terms! (NPR’s been regularly chirping about their and Black people’s disengagement the last day or two.)

    Also, those of us in red states get to see our crap governors freak out about the advantage this gives solid Dem challengers.

    I heart it.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Marmot:

    It can’t hurt.  But I don’t see this being a big vote getter.  Not like abortion anyway.  I find a lot of people say certain issues are really important to voters when in fact they aren’t.

  24. 24.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Marmot: I am disappointed to hear that Black people are disengaged from voting. That just helps Republicans which results in more voter suppression of Black voters. Sigh.

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    This morning’s Politico Playbook has a note about former DC police officer Michael Fanone’s book Holding the Line. It turns out that Fanone recorded his conversations with Kevin McCarthy, the National Fraternal Order of Police president, his own union local chief and others. Fanone recounts the conversations in his book.

    The Playbook item says Fanone did not record his conversation with Lindsay Graham, but describes it “in cringy detail.”

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Actually, Mark Kelly did not say “people” but rather, “Folks, we all know guys like this,” which was even better.

    It was really good debate tactics, I thought.  A dismissive set up, three quick policy brushback pitches, then the dismissive punchline. It would make a good ad.

  31. 31.

    Shalimar

    @Geoduck: Yes, it was partially sarcastic.  People are going to find their preferred vice.  I don’t use any of the 3, but I do find it very frustrating that it seems like marijuana is the least damaging of the 3 but it is the one that’s illegal.

  32. 32.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: Legalization, when it’s been on the ballot, has been a large driver of turnout. But that’s not what’s happening here, so yeah, probably won’t really move the needle much. Might help with Biden’s approval numbers though, if the violent criminals are being set free lie doesn’t stick, for what that’s worth.

  34. 34.

    Eolirin

    @Eolirin, @Baud: Should note, the turn out increase isn’t just liberals in states where it’s been on the ballot, so it doesn’t necessarily help us that much even where it applies. This has become a bipartisan issue with voters, even if elements of the right are still the obstacle to change.

    So it’s important to people, and popular. Which is all the more reason to force the right into being against it. This is kind of like a “Don’t drink bleach” PSA more than anything else.

  35. 35.

    snoey

    @Eolirin: Not sure how the politics of announcing it would play out, but I’m fairly sure that nobody will actually be released from prison.   Federal pot busts are either no jail time tickets for somebody busted smoking  in a National Park or big violent conspiracies.

  38. 38.

    Eolirin

    @oatler: If it’s rescheduled, which Biden is requesting an examination of, I believe that should fix the bank problem, no?

    Well, maybe not entirely, much like porn sites, despite being perfectly legal, still have payment processing issues. But I think it takes certain legal impediments away.

  39. 39.

    Low Key Swagger

    I’m all for this, both as policy and as a political wedge issue, however small it may be.  That said, as someone who used to smoke a lot of pot, I can tell you that I am concerned about where the industry is going.  Every producer is trying to reach higher and more potent THC levels.  It isn’t the pot I grew up with.  I’ve seen changes in personal behavior in many friends who are daily consumers.  They seem way more aggressive and there is evidence that today’s pot is more addictive.  It’s like a beer drinker suddenly starts drinking Everclear instead.  I only use low does edibles these days to help me sleep, and I do like that I can control my dosage and that there are no impurities in what I consume.

  40. 40.

    Princess

    My kid, who is my window on the youth-o-sphere and the left-o-sphere, both places that have been trashing Biden, tells me this is getting great play. So did the student loan thing.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    Today show was cynical about the timing, coming just before the midterms.  Not wrong per se, but I don’t think the media are ever cynical about the GOP in the same way.

  43. 43.

    dr. luba

    @Baud: In Michigan, legalization passed in 2018 by a 56–44 margin.  And the dems swept all the statewide offices. Voter turnout was the highest it had been for a midterm election in more than 50 years.

  45. 45.

    marklar

    @Low Key Swagger: Interesting point.  This might be the opportunity for more growers to enter the marketplace, each trying to create their own niche.  There is a ‘light beer’ and ‘wine spritzer’ industries…perhaps some enterprising companies might decide to go for that ‘smooth, mellow buzz.’

  46. 46.

    Eolirin

    @dr. luba: It was also 2018; voter turn out was higher than it had been pretty much everywhere in a long time. So I’m sure it helped, but without doing the statistical analysis I’m not sure by how much.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @Eolirin: I think rescheduling cannabis is a certainty, and that ought to ease the banking problem. There still may need to be some positive action by the Treasury Department (but that’s just a guess).

    Another important consequence of rescheduling could be greater leeway for study of medicinal uses of cannabis.

    The known success of the “Charlotte’s Web” strain in treating a severe form of childhood epilepsy gives a hint of cannabis’s potential utility. Years before Virginia’s General Assembly legalized medical cannabis generally, it made an exception for this treatment that was based on parent’ testimony as to its value.

  49. 49.

    snoey

    @marklar: Already starting to happen.  Folks up in Maine are getting a hefty premium for stuff that just looks and tastes better, no percentages advertised,

  50. 50.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: Everywhere except the Senate. I’m still bitter about FL, and to a lesser degree Texas. We were so close to having those two more seats we needed.

  55. 55.

    Princess

    @Baud: it may have. I just asked him. But it may feel too incremental for them. And calling it the IRA – which I understand — does make it harder to sell as about climate to those who aren’t plugged into solid news media. Even I keep forgetting it was really about climate.

    I met Biden in 2008 and even then he was talking about how oil, the economy, and climate were one single problem. This is all so on brand for him.

    Wait — I’m getting word from my correspondent. He says IRA hit a bit but his sources are perfectionists and poorly informed. As I expected.

  56. 56.

    dr. luba

    @Eolirin: True.  It’s hard to know for sure, but I suspect both factors drove turnout.  The GOP most definitely did not want this on the ballot, but passed up the opportunity to pass similar legislation prior.

    This year they really tried to keep the abortion initiative off the ballot.

  57. 57.

    Low Key Swagger

    @Baud: Not sure if that was tongue in cheek, but twas ever thus, no?  Regulations on alcohol exist, I think people understand why.  Not sure if a big push on education will help, but I’m willing to try it.  I am a bit concerned that most pot smokers see it as a harmless and indeed helpful habit, and it mostly is…but not enough research being done to see the effects of ever increasing THC levels on heavy consumers.

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @Eolirin: A lot of anti-trump sentiment helped drive Democratic turnout in 2018. In Virginia, Democrats said that trump was a very strong GOTV force in the 2017 state elections as well as the midterms, and candid Republicans agreed.

    Michigan’s cannabis referendum also probably brought out some extra voters. There are disengaged voters in every social/cultural cohort that can be motivated by a single issue. For example, the Republicans brought in a lot of gun owners with the gun rights issue and most of them still vote.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Princess:

    Sad to say, but IMHO a large part of the current fascist threat is due to a history of poor attitudes by people who supposedly share our values.

  60. 60.

    Low Key Swagger

    @marklar: Pretty sure there are growers doing just that.  Marketing restrictions will make it necessary for those manning the dispensaries to be well versed in the effects of various strains/THC levels.  It’s been my experience that they largely are.

  63. 63.

    Marmot

    @Patricia Kayden:

    @Marmot: I am disappointed to hear that Black people are disengaged from voting. That just helps Republicans which results in more voter suppression of Black voters. Sigh.

    My feeling is that could turn on a dime with any Scotus threats to the Voting Rights Act. Or even another big event in the news. Don’t get down, get yourself some postcards!

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    PSA:  If you uploaded your calendar pics, please check your email.

    If the confirmation from Dropbox says “File Request 2022”, then the pics went to the wrong place and you need to resubmit with the updated link I sent.

    If it says “Pet Pics 2023”, they are in the right place!

    Squishable Morning Thread

  65. 65.

    Miss Bianca

    @Princess:

    his sources are perfectionists and poorly informed.

    Oh, man, if that doesn’t completely sum up a certain segment of Leftiness, I don’t know what does!

  66. 66.

    The Lodger

    @Low Key Swagger: If anyone in your state is marketing a 1:4 or 1:5 THC/CBD blend or something similar, that might work for you.  (I’m not even sure such a thing exists, but maybe it should.)

  69. 69.

    lurker

    @Baud: late to the thread and without time to look this up, but my recollection is that the initiative a number of years ago in Colorado drove turnout for that election, and notably the turnout dropped off a cliff in the next election, making it clear that it did not activate voters longer-term.

    This was well before the former guy was helping drive turnout.

    Might be interesting to see if there are issues which do get voters to keep paying attention.

  70. 70.

    Shana

    @Soprano2: Maryland has one on the ballot this year too. There was a story in the WaPo yesterday showing the results of a poll that said 75% of all Marylanders were in favor of legalizing recreational use.

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