That’s about as clear as it gets. Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are responsible for killing Roe v. Wade. And if you vote for them, they’ll go even further. pic.twitter.com/IsPEy8pm7M
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 17, 2023
Trump is the most dangerous idiot I have ever seen.
Open thread.
bbleh
There is a certain innocence in his self-destructive directness. Like, he can’t possibly imagine he would say the wrong thing, ever. Like in his deposition in the Carroll case. And it seems to be getting worse.
Maybe this is part of his appeal. Maybe “he tells it like it is” is not entirely “he’s saying what I think and what I want to hear said” but also an appreciation that he’s not playing you, he’s not a conniving lying sociopath like every other politician: he just blurts it out. Maybe it’s considered “refreshing.”
Nancy
Yes, Go Brandon.
Now please get this tough on the debt ceiling douchery.
dm
People on the net pissed on CNN for giving him a platform, but that’s a direct quote from his CNN town hall. The Biden campaign is going to be able to mine that town hall for campaign material for the next 18 months.
Also, it’s too bad that criticizing CNN took precedence over airing the lunatic things Trump said, in all kinds of spaces, because that was what was important. But the media like to think everything is about them.
zhena gogolia
@Nancy: What specific steps do you think Pres. Biden can take with respect to the debt ceiling, given that the Republicans have the House of Representatives?
bbleh
@Nancy: @zhena gogolia: I’m likewise pessimistic about that. Reproductive rights are real and personal for a lot of people. The debt ceiling is an abstraction that perhaps 10-20% of the country understands with any clarity; mostly what they hear is “too much spending” and “too much debt.” Most people have no clue what could happen to them — personally — in the event of a default. They don’t see it as a hostage situation. That limits Biden’s options sharply.
rikyrah
Democracy vs. Fascism
That’s 2024
Fight for your FREEDOM.
Baud
ArchTeryx
@zhena gogolia: 14th Amendment, overridden by newer laws and separation of powers. The debt ceiling is unconstitutional and illegal on its face and always has been. Instruct Treasury to ignore it and let the Republicams sue to default.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Inability to stay in topic is why we can’t have nice things.
lollipopguild
@ArchTeryx:This a million times! Telling the GOP?nazi party to go pound sand should be what Democrats do on a regular basis.
bbleh
@ArchTeryx: OR, because in the event of a technical default the Treasury must decide whom to pay and whom not, screw over every Republican constituency in the country, with prejudice. Cut defense acquisition, oil & gas subsidies, and agricultural payments to farms with over half a million in revenues to zero. And then say, “hey, we gotta make choices.” And let them sue.
But I doubt that’s gonna happen. There’s gonna be some deal, likely one that saves more face for Republicans. And everyone will breathe MUCH easier that the world economy didn’t crash.
I just hope Dark Brandon keeps score, and the next 2 years are absolute hell for Republican priorities. “A dish served cold” and all.
S Cerevisiae
@ArchTeryx: Agreed. The language in the amendment is clear, I’m no lawyer but “shall” is usually legally bulletproof.
Baud
Speaking of good fights
https://i.imgur.com/VKFhZAV.jpg
Nancy
@zhena gogolia:
I’d like to see him and the administration lawyers work on citing the 14th Amendment Section 4:
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
Maybe mint the fancy coin or pay the debts already incurred whether the debt ceiling is raised by vote or not.
I don’t claim to know stuff about politics but considering that Kevin McCarthy can lose his position if even one representative says he should per agreement, any negotiated agreement with him is meaningless anyway.
Advertisement
Baud
I never watched this show, but this is hilarious.
https://v.redd.it/oayrk183sg0b1
Sister Golden Bear
We’ll likely need to add birth control to the list. Today’s Fifth Circuit Court hearing today, consisted entirely of the Republican judges searching for a reason — any reason — to ban mifepristone. And yes the anti-contraceptive plaintiffs made the 1873 Comstock Act a key part of their argument — we’ll if the Fifth agrees and the SCOTUS upholds, but I wouldn’t be shocked if both do.
Geminid
@Nancy: One Republican can move to vacate the chair, but that doesn’t mean McCarthy would lose the vote to vacate. He won the vote for Speaker despite 5 holdouts.
Baud
God, I hope Musk decides he wants to contril this. It will be hilarious.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: That’s great!
Nancy
@Baud:
Now, Baud, I’m the one who brought up the debt ceiling. I care greatly about reproductive health care and have supported Planned Parenthood for as long as I’ve been able to afford to. I do love tough talk from Democrats so much that I got all excitable and hoped it would spread.
Burnspbesq
Elizabeth Holmes had a very bad day yesterday. Her motion to stay out of the slammer pending appeal was denied By the Ninth Circuit, and the district court ordered her to report to FPC Bryan (Texas) on 5/30. She also got hit with an order to pay $452 million in restitution, for which she and Balwani are jointly and severally liable (and which is not dischargeable in bankruptcy).
FAFO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nancy: What makes you think that they are not doing it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think the 14th Amendment ploy is the sure thing some seem to, even though I think it would be with a non-partisan, even non-ideological SC, but if Angus King– the oft-forgotten Indie– is saying this, I imagine it might get some attention in DC
ETA: one of the reasons I’m skeptical is that, as I understand, even successful litigation would mean a whole lot of chaos in lending and investment markets over the time it took to resolve, which would be what? At the very least a couple of weeks, I imagine? Chaos and rising interest rates hurt the most vulnerable
brantl
We couldn’t pay enough for the campaign add ammunition that he’s giving us.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@bbleh:
Edited
What deal do you think all House Republicans could agree to?
Sean
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I mean, even lunatic Josh Hawley seems on board. As Josh Marshall points out, it seems like the GOP senate is desperate for Biden to solve the debt ceiling problem for them.
WaterGirl
@Nancy: Timing is everything, and I imagine Biden has a plan and timing in mind for every piece of it.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: Well I for one had hopes that Jeffries could flip five republicans
I read that Kevin wanted to make the trump tax cuts perminent as part of the deal. Yup let’s add trillions more to the deficit. Biden could address that.
Quantum man
Do you all think Biden will give in to Republican demands in the end? If so he will face this again in a year.
Nancy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hope and fear entwined.
Geminid
@bbleh: I think that once a default becomes imminent people will start to see economic stress on some areas, like a spike in interest rates for car loans, home loans, etc. Consumers will be affected less than auto dealers, builders, developers and such. The latter will be on the phone telling their Congressional representatives to do something quickly.
Sean
@JPL: I personally think the discharge petition is the least likely outcome, unless these mysterious 5 get spooked by the market unrest or general cataclysm of an actual default. Even the “moderate” swing district folks are loudly shitting all over the discharge petition efforts. Mike Garcia – CA basically said “over my dead body” on that point today.
Nancy
@WaterGirl: I am a Dark Brandon cheerleader. I hope that he will make things happen. I see headlines about negotiations that make me nervous.
So I hope you’re right and fear that you’re not. I’ve got to give up reading every opinion piece in sight
Geminid
@Quantum man: I don’t think Biden will accept debt increase legislation good for less than two years.
Sean
@Quantum man: Based on everything I’ve read, any negotiated outcome would require extension beyond the 2024 elections, into 2025. I don’t think they’d agree to anything with only a year extension.
We don’t really know what Biden’s plan is, but saying “I’ll come to the table and offer specifics” and then having the GOP spit in his face lays solid groundwork for the potentially extralegal options.
WaterGirl
This has been my theory all along. I wonder if it will turn out to be true.
JPL
@Sean: Well there are a few in NY, but Jeffries knows how to count.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Not the most reliable source, but it’s possible.
btw I read that sending Santos to the ethics committee is a place where it dies. They already sent complaints to the DOJ and that’s all they would do.. It simply allows cover the the Republican reps from NY to save face.
Kay
They had polling a coupla weeks ago where women said they did not know which party overturned Roe. Some people polled believed Biden had killed Roe because Biden was President when it happened.
I know- one can never, ever underestimate voters- it’s impossible. As little as you may think they know, they know less.
Anyway- I suspect that’s what this is about and if so, bravo. Do not take for granted that they know anything.
Especially on abortion, which has barely been covered by media- too busy with 500 articles about cancel culture.
WaterGirl
@ArchTeryx: I actually think that’s where this one ends. Biden is not going to crash the economy. Biden knows everything is on the line.
He has that in his pocket for if he has to use it. Even though he doesn’t want to have to use it, i believe that’s what he’ll do – he will not allow the economy of the world to crash on his watch.
That would hand the election to the Republicans, and that would hand the US to the authoritarians, and democracy as we know it would be no more.
edit: Think Afghanistan. He knew what was right, he knew how they would react, and he did it because it was the right thing. In these times, also known as the least bad option.
Tony G
@zhena gogolia: I’d like to see Biden and members of his cabinet, every single day, describe in accurate but graphic detail what would happen if the United States defaults on its debts, while emphasizing, day after day, that this risk exists only because the entire GOP (not just “MAGA Republicans”) is insisting on massive cuts to programs that help the poor and the middle class. Lay it out in detail every single day. Force the Republicans to lie and deny the truth of it. That’s what I’d like to see from Biden.
mrmoshpotato
With more dangerous, non-idiots (read: fascist shitstains) using him for their own means.
“But I can’t vote for her!” Stupid, selfish, dumbass children.
Glad to see President Biden blatantly calling out all of their bullshit (by quoting their own words).
JPL
@WaterGirl: There is a danger because the court is nuts.
The loonies argued today before the federal appeals court that within thirty days of receiving Mifepristone a large percentage of medicaid patients who used it went to the ER. Medicaid patients tend to not have doctors and go to the ER for treatment and that’s what justice argued but the court appeared to ignore it.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Wow. That is depressing.
Tony G
@Kay: That is true. There are an awful lot of people in this country who apparently believe the the United States is an absolute monarchy, with the president being responsible for everything, good or bad. Half the people have below-average intelligence, as the old joke goes.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I don’t know. He killed Roe.
JPL
@Baud: I imagine lots of republicans eat roe, especially the ones Kevin courts.
UncleEbeneezer
WaterGirl
@Quantum man: Not me!
Biden learned his lesson that year with the debt ceiling and Obama.
edit: They are playing in Biden’s hands.
Biden: Okay, I’ll negotiate.
Rs: asking for ridiculous things Biden can’t agree to.
REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT.
Biden: Okay, you fuckers, I tried to negotiate, you gave me no choice. 14th amendment or the coin or some option they think Biden won’t have the balls to lose. They will be wrong.
robmassing
“Thank you President TRUMP!!!”
It’s weird enough when he talks about himself in the third person; now here he is talking to himself in the second person.
Manyakitty
@UncleEbeneezer: omg. I think I need a private moment.
Mai Naem mobile
@Kay: there was a Louisiana poll done into Obama’s term where a majority thought Katrina had happened under Obama and blamed him for NOLA not being remediated fast enough. There’s also people who think Medicare was passed under Reagan.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Man.Person.Dog.Woman.Camera
Tony G
@ArchTeryx: Yup. In a better world, the unconstitutional debt ceiling legislation would have been repealed decades ago — any time that the Democratic Party had controlled Congress and the President. But I guess that nobody predicted this level of insanity from the Republicans.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I assume the courts could issue a stay to basically allow Treasury to issue valid debt up until a final decision is reached. But maybe they don’t have that power? If they do, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did that and then slow rolled the whole case through the lower courts like they did the emoluments suit against Trump. That would kick the can down the road a long ways.
SCOTUS is ideological but I think Roberts and Kavanaugh at minimum would vote the way the moneybags wing wants them to vote. Thomas would vote to default out of spite because his grift has been exposed and he’s a petty vengeful asshole whose been thoroughly embarrassed about having his honor questioned by mere mortals. My guess is probably everyone but him and maybe Alito who might be team chaos would decide to save the economy. Maybe not crazy eyes because she probably wants to bring back the middle ages but that’s 6-3 to abolish the debt limit.
TriassicSands
That really isn’t true. The Republican assault on Roe predates Trump and MAGA by many, many years.
Mitch McConnell, not a true MAGAt, but a sometimes facilitator and abettor, was instrumental in assuring the end to Roe and he acted well before Trump and MAGA were dominant factors in Republican Politics. The Republicans have relied on the Federalist Society for SCOTUS nominees and all of them were going to vote to overturn Roe once a majority was in place.
What is true about the quoted statement is that if elected the Republican Party, with or without Trump and MAGA, will go even further. I strongly object to Biden’s characterization, because the problem today is not simply Trump and MAGAts, it is the Republican Party. I don’t see any genuine efforts in place to reform the Republican Party and separate itself from the neo-fascism that the party has embraced. Trump’s role has clearly not been insignificant, but the idea that Trump is the long-term problem we face is just wishful thinking
The key is to identify the Republican Party as the problem. Until voters understand that, they will continue to think it is OK to vote for Republicans, even if they claim to be moderate.
Tony G
@Tony G: Maybe Biden can include at the end of every daily message the points that: 1) He will NOT negotiate with economic terrorists. 2) He will NOT allow the United States to default on its debts. Let the Republicans figure out what he means by that. (Hint: The 14th amendment supersedes any law.)
JaySinWA
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Ah, but which way does the moneybags wing want the vote to go? They can make a lot of money in chaos, especially engineered chaos.
Geminid
@Sean: All it takes is 5 out of 223. If the discharge petition succeeds, I expect it will be a few Reps planning to retire who defect. And maybe Valadeo (CA) and Newhouse (WA). They represent states with jungle primaries, and already survive in impeaching Trump.
Bryan Fitzpatrick (PA) might vote for a discharge petition. But no Republican is going to sign that petition until the last minute, I think. And there will be another floor vote on the legislation itself.
As best I understand it, before that vote the Democrats intend to amend the legislation to reflect whatever deal is acceptable to to both the White House, the House Democratic Caucus, and the five (or more) Republican defectors. There might be a parallel negotiation in the Senate over the substance of the compromise.
While this seems like a legislative Rubik’s Cube, Congressional leaders do this kind of thing a lot, although usually with lower stakes. But even if a deal is finally made, the process will be a real stressor for a lot of the people watching.
Tony G
@Tony G: I used to work with a lot of loud-mouthed hotheads — plus one guy who never lost his temper. So, the day that this guy lost his temper, everybody paid attention. Bland old Joe Biden can be like that guy.
NotMax
Strange bedfellows in agreement.
Matt McIrvin
@TriassicSands: By the “MAGA Republicans” formula he’s trying to drive a wedge between Republican politicians, and voters who themselves identify as Republicans. It’ll probably only work on the margins but that might be crucial.
TriassicSands
@dm:
There does seem to be some recognition that CNN’s real violation was allowing Trump to have any say at all in the audience make-up.
trollhattan
@robmassing: Glad it’s not just me. “Please clap” came to mind, except I guess it’s more “I demand you clap!”
Florida
ManPipsqueak.WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Absolutely. Trump didn’t know what day the Waco disaster happened, but someone on his team does.
x 10,000
Sure Lurkalot
Regarding the trillion dollar coin, 14th amendment, selectively paying bills…I don’t have an issue with any of these “solutions”.
Bestowed on us from the dark side are many theories/tactics they do or would impose—unitary executive, alternate electors, state legislature power to overturn popular vote, no Supreme Court noms in lame duck, textualism/originality, 1970’s “memo” absolving the president from prosecution…just to name a few.
The solutions to avoid the cliff have rationales and people more knowledgeable than me have defended them. The only reason Republicans haven’t used them is that we have never (and probably would never) put them in the position, not hating our country for love of power.
WaterGirl
@JPL: If you never try what is right because the court is nuts, you are giving the court every bit of the power it wants to have.
It’s a shitty situation having ideologues in charge of the highest court in the land.
Citizen Alan
@TriassicSands: At this point, I think that is redundant. The republican party today is the trump party. The numbers of republicans who can openly reject Donald Trump and get re elected in a red district is negligible. And i’m betting that most of them will either retire or cross party lines in the next few years. I hope David valadeo, who is likely going to be my Congressman in a few weeks, is the first to switch parties.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
@Baud:
Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall.
eversor
@bbleh:
You’ve hit the nail on the head here. I’m in VA and I know that both of our Democratic senators do want to cut social security and medicare. I know neither of them want to raise the minimum wage or expand voting rights. I know both of them love the filibuster. And I know that our Democratic party here is a bunch of well educated, well paid, social liberals who want to stomp down the poor and the working class as much as the Koch brothers if not more. They are just social liberals and being a Republican is beneath their social status. Manchin and Sinema are just running cover for most of the Democrats. Electing more of them is not going to change this, more will just come out to take the hit.
The reality is the bottom 80% is fucked, and the top 19% is just as much a problem and would have to be ground into past just as much as the top 1% for anyone to have a chance. So this is all cultural theater over “theocractic vs secular” with no other option on the table. Trump is at least willing to say it. Once people see that they check out or just vote for the person who’s going to hit the other side harder. I remember Nancy Pelosi defeding tax breaks for 400k and 250k a year, yeah great for the urban educated but it’s not defendable. I remember Hillary Clinton claiming regulating banks won’t stop racism, which while true displays the real priorities of the party.
Anyone awake has realized they are all full of shit but a small minority of either lunatics or the straight up sad honest fools who think they can fix things. At that point, let it burn. Put the loonies in power and at least you’ll get to laugh as that top 20% burns… which is better than just being prey for them.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
It is depressing but a political operative might not see it that way. A political operative might see it as room for growth in the pro-Roe vote. We benefitted from overturning Roe in a midterm but midterm voters are more engaged and informed than people who only vote in Presidentials. We can still pick up Roe voters. Midterm Roe voters + Presidential.
patrick II
@Baud:
Maybe Twitter will recover some of its ad revenue.
Jay
Geminid
@NotMax: Some people do get their emergency information from AM radio. The FCC allows Harrisonburg, Virginia station WSVA to broadcast at higher power at night during emergencies for that reason. They serve parts of West Virginia where there are no other radio stations.
Cameron
@JPL: I don’t think it’s roe that they’re eating.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@NotMax: That is disappointing. I was hoping a stake would be put in right wing radio. They need the constant stream of disinformation to survive.
WaterGirl
@TriassicSands: You have to not piss of whatever is left of people who think of themselves as “reasonable Republicans”, so that’s why MAGA Republicans is the way to go when speaking about the damage being done.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jay: I believe she’s quoting the plot of the latest Black Panther movie. She missed the part where nobody but Wakandans stand a chance against them. She should probably focus her energy on getting Wakanda to join NATO or something.
Baud
@eversor:
If that’s where being anti-Christian leads you, Jesus, take my wheel.
sab
@WaterGirl: Having spent my whole reproductive years unable to use birth control pills because of my cardiac system but where pregnancy might also kill me (same cardiac defect), I am fast losing sympathy for women who don’t bother to know the political or medical basics.
Including one of my Catholic nieces who survived one ectopic pregnancy and assumes she will survive her next pregnancy in Ohio.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Someone took Will Ferrell’s crazy pills!
Ksmiami
@Tony G: agreed that he and his team need to explain the stakes to the moronic public every day… the fact that we are even talking about this as a result of the GOP says our state of government and future financial stability is at risk.
Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Havn’t seen it yet. Thought it was some kinda Disney, Little Mermaid right wing acid trip.
Elizabelle
@eversor: Fuck you. Those are lies about Tim Kaine, and about Mark Warner, too. Voting rights alone makes your statement false.
You’re as shrewd an observer of politics as you are of Christianity.
What the hell. I am talking to a pastry.
Jay
NotMax
@Jay
Remember G.W. Bush’s screed warning of impending animal-human hybrids?
Burnspbesq
@NotMax:
AM radio is useless in EVs, too much RFI.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jay:
The movie introduced the character of Prince Namor, who is leader of a bunch of technologically-advanced water people. I was never a big Marvel reader as a kid so I’m not very familiar with the character.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
But this is a problem that can be fixed, and it can be fixed with an effective political campaign.
It isn’t like so many other problems- it’s not “talking someone out of being a white supremacist” or “persuading gun nut to register His Precious”
These are the voters campaigns are for- the least attached and interested and informed but basically agree with us.
NotMax
@Burnspbesq
Functions fine in my EV/ICE hybrid.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Nominated.
Burnspbesq
@eversor:
I’m at a loss to understand how anyone with more than two intact brain cells could believe the shit you profess to believe.
Baud
@Burnspbesq:
I did not know that.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: I don’t like that bill, bipartisan as it may be. Was reveling in the possibility of hate radio AM dying.
What technical advances are there, or could occur soon, to fill the need for emergency warnings?
Could this be a bill to prop up a technology past its prime? Or maybe it’s some sweet, sweet broadcaster money.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Thank you! I thought that might make a good rotating tag as soon as I typed it. The perils of Balloon Juice.
It needs the What the hell, too, though.
Omnes Omnibus
How do you know this? Citations, perhaps?
NotMax
@Ceci n est pas mon nym
Trivia:
Namor appeared in the first comic book published by Timely (later to become Marvel), in 1939, predating Captain America by more than a year and Spider-man, Iron Man and Hulk by decades.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think it’s faith-based.
WaterGirl
@sab: Still true after all these years.
Geminid
@Jay: I see that President Erdogan made the grain deal announcement himself. That fits well with his runoff campaign. One of Erdogan’s main appeals is to Turkish nationalism, and he’s showing that he is an assertive regional leader.
Ed. Erdogan was instrumental in getting the grain deal in the first place, and keeping it going when the Russians try to quit it. Both he and his Defence Minister have said the deal involves Turkiye’s “vital interests” and that’s diplomatic speak for, ” military force is on the table.” Russia can’t afford a fight with Turkey in the western Black Sea.
WaterGirl
@Kay: It’s true, thanks for the reminder.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Jesus be praised.
Roger Moore
@Burnspbesq:
I think you’re giving them way too much credit.
AWOL
@eversor: To be honest, I prefer your cat-licking-its-anus essays . . .*
*I shouldn’t pick on you. I produce many books by ex-vangelicals. I imagine you were in the cult.
trollhattan
@NotMax: Na-a-a-a-ah, tell me mooooooohre!
Jay
@Geminid:
Bellingcat is using sat images to try to track 100 “ghost ships” stealing Ukrainian grain from occupied Ukraine. Over $2 billion worth so far.
sab
@WaterGirl: I am a decade past menopause. I could say: “Not my problem anymore, young nitwits. We fought your battle and you just strolled away from the victory because you were too busy to vote.”
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s such an excellent thing to say about Virginia Democrats, too.
Particularly after two of them were just attacked with a baseball bat at work two or three days ago.
(For anyone who missed it — the incident in Gerry Connolly’s office that injured two staffers; both released from the hospital: the attacker is a mentally ill man, a paranoid schizophrenic, whose father was trying to get him into treatment. This does not excuse, but does help explain.
The attacker had complied with a treatment order for nine months — if memory serves — after a previous legal entanglement. It was refreshing that he’d not managed to obtain a gun in the interim, thank dog.
Unlike the pied one, I have faith that Gerry Connolly is thinking about the attacker’s situation too, and how he can ensure more mental health care availability in the community.
And icing on the cake: as a young man, Gerry Connolly was considering a career as a Catholic priest before he decided on family life and politics. He is an example of an actual Christian. They do exist, despite what some might tell you.)
Bupalos
@bbleh: Y’all need to reorient. This OP seems to be framed as a gotcha. Like “OH WOW HE SAID THE QUIET PART TOO LOUD AND IF WE BLAST THAT OUT CIRCLED IN RED IT WILL HURT HIM.”
No. It won’t. Reorient to reality: On its own and in the short term, this changes the actual terms of life for a very small slice of the population, and the way it changes those terms is ambiguous.
Even though polls will tell you a majority disagrees with most of the positions now opened up by the SC dropping Roe, that in no way means that Trumpism necessarily pays a political price for what it has done. Not unless we are successful at explaining why this new world is worse and will make our lives worse.
It really isn’t sufficient to just assume the (real but weak) unpopularity of evaporating Roe will do the work for us. We have to have clear in our own minds why this makes life worse, and we have to be able to explain it. And to do that we have to get over the idea that you don’t have to work to do that. Or can just do the “if you don’t get it, then fuck you!” thing.
JaySinWA
You’re hiring a hispanic chauffeur?
NotMax
@Elizabelle – @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
The assumption that the AM band is wall-to-wall right wingery is flawed.
As is the expectation that the demise of AM will somehow sound a death knell for any such programming, somehow preventing any such from pulling up stakes and settling into digs on FM.
At least here AM is also home to locally produced special interest informational (and also musical) fare as well as things like broadcasts of high school sporting events. It’s reach is much more all-encompassing than is FM’s, too, due to geography.
Ramona
zhena gogolia
@sab: One is tempted. I’ll never forget the young woman who said to me the morning after the 2016 election, “This shows the dead end of neoliberalism.”
Jay
@sab:
but, you won’t.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Eversor really likes pie.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Take it that political genius was a student?
Were your students shell shocked that day, too?
Frank Wilhoit
@bbleh:
“…And it seems to be getting worse….”
It is his audience who are getting worse.
Jay
@NotMax:
AM here is 90% computer programmed “pop” recycled, (Includes both Country and Western) ad fests, 2 Hindi stations, politically 100% in conflict, 2 Chinese stations, 1 Indigenous station, (CBC subset) and 3 CBC stations, I classical, one jazz and the other CBC Normal.
FM is where the fun stuff happens, UBC, SFU, Dan Savage,…..
Kirk
@eversor: Idle question, but are you related to Brick Oven Bill?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: Seconded!
Gvg
@dm: Trump has said enough sociopathic things already on the record and recorded that there was no need for yet another TV show.
Mike in NC
He really loves to send himself those little Thank You notes. Maybe he displays them framed in every room in every one of his seedy properties. So needy. He used to sit down with Bill Barr and get weepy over the fact that so few people loved him.
Anyway, the most terrible irony would be if abortion is banned in this country due to a serial rapist.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gvg: Agreed.
Maxim
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’ve seen that movie, but I didn’t recognize the plot from her, um, commentary.
Geminid
I imagine that Ukrainian officials press their Turkish counterparts about this. In the meantime, Ukraine has exported 30.2 million tons of grain and seeds since the deal began last year, on 900 ships.
brantl
@JPL: The corporate sTump tax cuts are ALREADY permanent, it was the cuts for individuals the bastards made temporary.
sab
@Jay: I might. Voting is relatively easy if you have the right i.d. but banging on doors in USA is increasingly scary. Probably won’t bother next time unless local. Not my problem anymore. I have done more than enough for sixty years.
Elizabelle
@sab: You know, all the recent shootings made me wonder about door to door political canvassing in some environs. I’d suspect some organizers are cutting their canvassing lists more carefully.
In 2008 for Obama, we were going out to farflung rural homes to talk to voters. I don’t know how much you would do that now, depending on the area.
sab
@Jay: I will walk away wirhout a twinge of guilt. My generation did our part. A lot. Sorry if the next generation feels unsafe.
ETA Site is very quirky tonight.
brantl
@TriassicSands: There’s a MAGAT scorpion riding the Rethuglican elephant, the elephant goes where the scorpion tells it to, if it doesn’t want to be stung.
Gretchen
@sab: I’ve heard of at least on Kansas City OB telling her patients to go to and ER on the Kansas side if they think they might be miscarrying. Missouri is a dangerous place to miscarry now.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Afriend from Virginia Beach told me that he canvassed for Elaine Luria at Food Lion parking lots last year. Security was not the issue; he felt he was getting too little engagement going door to door.
Dan shops at a Harris Teeter, but he avoided them. He thought there were to many Republicans that he couldn’t persuade, and he did not want to remind them about the election.
Tony Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
What if Aquaman was Black Adam.
That’s basically Namor.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Yeah, I saw your comment. Food Lion works. So would a Trader Joes, I would guess.
Harris Teeter: also a lot of affluent and educated young there, who are reachable. But I see your friend’s point.
I would take working a parking lot over knocking doors in a big apartment complex any day of the week. They are rarely home enough to make it worth while. For whatever reason.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Grocery store politics probably vary from community to community. The Charlottesville Harris Teeter would probably be a good place to canvass for Democratic candidates; the Harrisonberg Harris Teeter maybe not so much.
bbleh
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): wouldn’t have to be all. Part of the deal might be some of the crazies could vote against it, and to make up for it some purple-district Dems could vote for it, which would be something else for the crazies to howl about, and the Dem leadership could grumble to the degree necessary to make it palatable, and everybody’s needs would be met. And the entire Donor Class and Small-Business-Owner class — whose calls their Congress-critters take — would breathe a sigh of relief
@Geminid: I think it is precisely the “auto dealers, builders, developers and such” whom the leadership of both parties would be counting on to twist necessary arms
I think the discharge petition is a long shot, almost but not quite 14th Amendment, and would be unlikely except as a last resort, by which time the markets likely would have gone materially crazy. Good to have it as a last resort, but I’d be scared of it coming to that.
sab
@ArchTeryx: I agree with you. How can you override a Constitutional Amendment.
This Supreme Court can easily and shamelessly do just that.
sab
@Elizabelle: You are not in Ohio. I forget where. But following for you for years. Herre we are.
catclub
@zhena gogolia:
Repeatedly say: “if there is a default it is because of the House and Senate republicans. If a clean debt ceiling lift is brought to a vote it will get a majority.”
TriassicSands
I disagree, because phonies like Nancy Mace (and others) try to make the distinction between Trump/MAGA and being a Republican. Voters rationalize voting for candidates who claim to reject Trump or who claim to want to return the party to the pre-Trump days. However, those candidates, like Mace, reliably support the Republican agenda in Congress and the Republican agenda is the real danger since the party of 2015-6 was already well on the way to neo-fascism and more than willing to fall in line behind Trump.
Trump/MAGA did not end Roe. That was the Republican’s goal and they would have achieved it whether or not Trump had been elected or MAGA became the dominate force in Republicanism. As many have pointed out, when Trump is gone, his replacement is overwhelmingly likely to be as bad or worse (DeSantis?) And countless Republicans, who wouldn’t ban Roe, still reliably voted for candidates who would ban it or who would support the GOP’s agenda once they got to D.C. — which was to overturn Roe.
Biden still seems to believe there is a separate Republican Party, but you, yourself, made the case that that isn’t true. I think it is incredibly dangerous to pretend that the problem is Trump, when countless Republicans are 2020 deniers, will never stop trying to ban abortion, or deny millions of Americans the right to vote or live their lives as they see fit. If we go through the Senate and identify each senator that poses a threat to democracy, we are hardly limited to people who only became a problem after Trump and MAGA appeared on the scene.
I think that is wishful thinking. There simply is not a significant reservoir of “Republicans” who will vote for Democrats. That is the whole point of the extreme division in this country. Democrats are going to lose lots of elections if they believe the road to victory is by persuading Republican voters to either vote for Democrats (because the don’t like the Trump/MAGA package) or by persuading those supposedly persuadable Repubicans to vote for “moderate” Republicans. The problem is when those “moderate” Republicans get to Washington they reliably support the extreme agenda of the REPUBLICAN PARTY, not Trump and MAGA.
Citizen Alan argues that there isn’t a distinction between the two — Trump/MAGA and Republicans. If that is the case, then the problem has to be identified ass the Republicans, since they will still be here long after Trump and MAGA are gone.
Trump gave Republicans permission to reveal who they really are. The people you don’t want to piss off are the Republicans who provide GOP majorities and vote to support their extreme agenda. They might be reasonable if the entire party were reasonable and the GOP had a reasonable agenda. But the entire party isn’t and the GOP doesn’t.
If Democrats want to win elections, we’re going to have to figure out a way to get people who should be voting Democratic to vote in historic numbers, rather than stay home because x, y, and z* or because the Democrats aren’t and different or better than the Republicans. Otherwise, the EC, gerrymandering, and voter suppression are going to determine winners and losers.
*Mostly excuses, not real reasons.
catclub
A helpful BJer pointed out the members of the “democratic sneate 60 vote caucus under Obama. Lieberman was the most liberal of the bunch. I remember Max Baucus and Byron Dorgan
Mary Landrieu, Blanch Lincoln, Kent Conrad and Robert Byrd.
Nancy
@NotMax: my AM radio works. I drive a plug in Prius hybrid and listen to NPR on AM.
StringOnAStick
@TriassicSands: It might be wishful thinking, but my rightwing heavy authoritarian father has made it very clear that he thinks tRump is “a creep” and says he refuses to vote for him ever again. He says tRump will win the primary and lose the election, and apparently he is fine with that. I have a friend with similar parents, in TX and they are saying the same thing. In both cases the prohibition on abortion is a big part of it. Formerly reliable R votes who have said they will not vote for him, and that’s not nothing.
bbleh
@Frank Wilhoit: I dunno — he seems more rote, less in the moment. Won’t matter to his stans, but there may be less of a thrill for the rest of the audience.
bbleh
@TriassicSands: If Democrats want to win elections, we’re going to have to figure out a way to get people who should be voting Democratic to vote in historic numbers, rather than stay home…
This absolutely! First, there are a lot more inactive Dem-leaners than there are Dem-curious Republican-leaners, and second the bang-for-the-buck is much greater with inactive Dem-leaners.
BUT. The flip-side is persuading Republican-leaning voters NOT to vote, or at least not for Trump (just leave the line blank). Convince enough of them that he’s just too beyond the pale, and you reduce his margin just as much as you do by getting Dem-leaning nonvoters into the booth.
There’s value in toxifying him, and through him the Republican brand.
Tony G
@Ksmiami: Yup. It’s a combination of the fact that (with all due respect) about half the people walking around are about as dumb as rocks, plus the fact that people have busy lives and are only peripherally aware of politics. For both reasons, major points — about Roe, about the debt ceiling, about whatever — should be repeated over and over and over again. That’s what the right wing has been doing for decades.
Dirk Reinecke
@Kirk: Or perhaps Matoko_Chan?
TriassicSands
@StringOnAStick:
Yes, but will he vote for a Democrat?
TriassicSands
@bbleh:
I don’t disagree generally, I just don’t expect there to be that many Republicans who will simply not vote for Trump. In 2020, after four years of Trump, voters responded by giving him more votes than any other presidential candidate had ever gotten, except Biden. I firmly believe that the key to future Democratic victories is getting people to vote Democratic, not getting Republicans to not vote for Republicans.
JerrytheMacGuy
@NotMax: I say Markey and Cruz should amend their AM radio bill to require 8-Track Tape Players installed in every car!