Good for VoteVets!
?? In a TWO WEEK ad buy on Alabama broadcast TV, VoteVets is hitting @SenTuberville HARD:
“You’re hanging our military out to dry just like you did the players at Ole Miss.” pic.twitter.com/Gij9LiE8Ck
— VoteVets (@votevets) August 3, 2023
Also, I didn’t get the chance to post this news earlier, for reasons…
Biden was convinced by the head of Space Command, who argued moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view was in contrast to Air Force leadership, who studied the issue at length & determined relocating was right move.https://t.co/27OKtAj9QV
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 31, 2023
I know reporters can't be bothered to, you know, report the facts, but it was *Trump* who overruled the military and wanted to move this command to Alabama. *Biden* is siding with the military. https://t.co/4P1vGQlF4B pic.twitter.com/vb95eqDQSc
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) August 1, 2023
Congrats, Tubes. You got your decision. https://t.co/26Bd459G90
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 1, 2023
More than 300 military nominations are being held hostage because the GOP is putting partisan politics over our national security & the well-being of our service members.
It’s past time that MAGA Republicans put People Over Politics and end this blockade!https://t.co/gE836FKLtc— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (@repcleaver) July 31, 2023
Rep. Cleaver’s a Democrat, but he’s highlighting Politico‘s article on the division within the Disloyal Opposition Party:
… Tommy Tuberville’s abortion-related blockade of military promotions is uncomfortably splintering both the Senate GOP and Alabama Republicans. Now they’ll spend the summer stewing about it.
The Alabama senator refused to allow any of the more than 250 stalled military promotions to quickly advance, retribution for the Defense Department allowing paid leave for abortions. Democrats, who could have called individual votes on the nominations over the August recess, ultimately decided it was the GOP’s responsibility to convince Tuberville. That didn’t happen, the Senate left for five weeks, and the Republican’s nearly five-month hold appears almost certain to stretch into September.
And while conservatives are mainly cheering the football coach-turned senator on, there are signs that some Republicans are having a hard time accepting the one-man blockade. Summing up the feeling back in Alabama, Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.) observed: “Mixed emotions.”
“Some people like it, some people don’t understand it. Some of our older military folks aren’t really happy about it; they understand it better than anybody,” Carl said…
Tour de force from @GlennKesslerWP here:
“Tommy Tuberville pledged to ‘donate every dime’ to veterans. He hasn’t.”https://t.co/ISEp2onKqF— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 19, 2023
Following now-standard GOP practice, Tuberville has also lied to his constituents about his (lack of) charitable donations, per the Washington Post:
“I stand with our veterans and I’m going to donate every dime I make when I’m in Washington, D.C., to the veterans of the state of Alabama. Folks, they deserve it. They deserve it a lot more than most of us.”…
Yet there is no evidence that Tuberville has kept a key pledge he made when he ran for Senate three years ago — that he would “donate every dime” he made in Washington to Alabama veterans.
A U.S. senator earns $174,000 a year. We’re assuming that Tuberville was proposing to donate only his salary, not the substantial earnings he makes from his investments. (He has an estimated net worth of $20 million.) With Tuberville now having served 2½ years as senator, that would amount to a total of $437,000 in potential donations…
Tuberville’s staff indicated that thus far the senator had not lived up to his pledge.
“You are correct that Coach uses the Foundation as the primary vehicle for donating to veterans’ organizations, but it is by no means the only one,” Tuberville communications director Steven Stafford said in an email. “You may have learned by now that there were serious problems with the Foundation for a number of years, and that the Foundation came under audit. My understanding is that during the audit, the Foundation paused most of its activities.”…
You ain’t no Sen. ‘Shakedown’ Shelby, Coach! (Shelby actually *delivered* for his constituents, sometimes).
Tuberville out with a furious statement on Biden’s space command decision: “This is absolutely not over. I will continue to fight this as long as it takes to bring Space Command where it would be best served—Huntsville, Alabama.” pic.twitter.com/cXCyJQWyBQ
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 31, 2023
if I’m Katie Britt I’m mad as hell though. I barely even got here and my senior colleague, who is a dimwitted failed college football coach by the way, just chased billions in federal dollars out of Alabama by picking a fight with the Pentagon for reasons he can’t even explain
— knife-wielding hemophiliac (@NickTagliaferro) August 1, 2023
Yes, I am a bad person for adding this, but every dentist warns about the dangers of grinding one’s teeth…
Katie Britt admitted to hospital for sudden facial numbness likely caused by infection, senator says https://t.co/3wMHdYMis4
— Jimmy Carter (@askjimmycarter) August 1, 2023
PSA: FIFA Women’s Soccer Matches
SpaceUnit
If I’m supposed to feel sorry for Katie Britt go fish.
Ken
Great, now I’m fixated on whether “Coach” or “Senator” is the more prestigious title. On the one hand, coaches are the highest-paid state employees in many states. On the other hand… um… huh.
HumboldtBlue
“And fuel accusations that abortion politics played into it.”
Well, yeah, that’s exactly what is fucking happening. Tommy Too-stupid is playing petty abortion politics that is directly interfering with our national security.
SpaceUnit
Look at that dipshit’s clueless face. If the Senate wasn’t so evenly divided I’d say that Tooby is the senator that Alabama deserves.
ETA : Also I’m in Colorado and All Your Base is Belong to Us, asshole.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Coaches, ah, yes.
They seem to be teachers, when they’re the dumbest critters on staff. On the high school level, it was dismaying to realize the almighty foo’bol coach was such a waste of space. It is not a good thing to be 14 and realize, “I could teach this class, and do it better than this overblown football coach.”
SmallAxe
Alabama – Thank you sir may I have another into perpetuity
laura
Is it really about abortion, or is the subject of healthcare related travel just the cover to grind the military to a halt and stall on filling positions like the supreme court fuckery that McConnell pulled. I see no evidence that the Senate Minority Leader has any qualms about banjaxing the military command. Is this how the GOP intends to replace the administrative state and fill vacancies with sycophants in January 2025? Am I way off, or is this Tommy’s continued devotion and allegiance to tfg?
Ken
I’m holding out hope that somewhere down the line, Tuberville accidentally blurts out that Trump was bribed to move the command to Alabama.
HumboldtBlue
Dolly Parton met her future husband at the Wishy Washy.
John Revolta
@laura: I’ve been thinking this as well. While I don’t know why it might be Tuberville particularly, it’s been an obvious ploy of the Repubs to stall judicial appointments while Democrats are in power, and it’s worked for them. Packing the military with partisan nuts is, if anything, even scarier.
BeautifulPlumage
My cynical speculation is that he’s being paid to be the asshole. He doesn’t seem the type to hold deep convictions or the smarts to have come up with this himself. I can see The Family or other xtian nationalist shoveling money at him.
Carlo Graziani
@Ken: That would, unfortunately, not damage either Tuberville nor Trump politically, particularly in Alabama.
BeautifulPlumage
The other part that confuses me about this – isn’t the Air Force base in CO known for having a lot of xtian connections? Why did they want Space Force moved? Obviously, my actual knowledge about any of this is zilch. Maybe one of our military mavens can give us some perspective.
Dopey-o
Hartmann suspects that Tuberville wants to deadlock these promotions until Trump’s Triumphant Return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in 2025.
Trump would install loyal sycophants to MAFA.
Carlo Graziani
The Space Force brass must feel that they dodged a major bullet here. Huntsville is a shithole. I used to be condemned to go to astrophysics conferences at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center every couple of years, and Wow! What a great place to leave. The best available entertainment in that “city” is a minor-league hockey game at the Werner Von Braun Civic Center, I shit you not.
Kent
These are all command level promotions that he is blocking and senior officers in all branches of the military most definitely trend Republican.
I wonder how many of them are reconsidering their loyalty to the party after being jerked around and treated like dirt this way.
I also suspect that Democrats are in no great hurry to move procedural mountains to go around Tuberville because this is such a back look for the GOP to be doing this. Let the GOP fix its own.
Alison Rose
I loved this salty tweet from the White House
If you can’t see it because Muskrat is a Fuckrat, they’re quote-RTing a tweet from Tommy Potatotown insisting that his holds were not impacting national security, and they added a bunch of images of headlines about his holds are in fact doing just that.
Kent
@Dopey-o: No, they are all senior military commanders not political appointees. These are not politically appointed positions. The majority of them are probably Republicans anyway.
dmsilev
@John Revolta: Career military, especially the senior officer set, have tended to be Republicans for a long time. Tuberville so blatantly pissing on them might not really be a great idea for the GOP.
SpaceUnit
@BeautifulPlumage:
The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs does have a rather weird “Christian” culture, but the state as a whole has gone blue in recent years.
Steve in the ATL
@Kent: btw thanks for your reply on Chile last night. We’ve decided to follow your advice and just spend a couple of weeks with your in laws!
Parfigliano
OK. Space Command not going to Alabama. Good. Now time for reverse succession and start pulling every Federal job you can out of Alabama.
HumboldtBlue
@Carlo Graziani:
What a fucking world.
BeautifulPlumage
@SpaceUnit: oops, I thought the Air Force command was located there. My (very) bad.
Ken
@HumboldtBlue: Yeah, while we’re getting traitors’ names off military bases, we should take a look at that one too.
Kent
@Steve in the ATL: You have my sympathy!
Prepare to sit around for hours and hours listening to stories from the old days while the maid brings you pisco sours until you no longer feel any pain.
My wife’s family is actually straight out of an Isabel Allende novel. For real.
Carlo Graziani
@HumboldtBlue: Huntsvilke is the site of the Redstone Arsenal, the Army (!) base where the U.S. employed Von Braun, and from which he saved the US rocket program in one shot after the Navy’s launches kept falling over or pinwheeling, and getting wiped out by the Range Safety Officer’s “destruct” button, while the Soviets seemed to be locked into rocketry success.
Hence, the Civic Center
Oh, and Hockey, because NASA/MSFC homed a lot of Boeing engineers, many of whom hailed from Canada…
dmsilev
@HumboldtBlue: Just don’t ask about the sister-city arrangement with London.
Kent
@BeautifulPlumage: Nope. The Air Force has eight major command centers scattered around the US and one in Germany. None are in Colorado. The senior command (other than the Pentagon) is probably Langley VA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_commands_of_the_United_States_Air_Force
Steeplejack
@Alison Rose:
Nitterize it: “This you?”
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Home of the V-2™ Rocket Pop?
//
Carlo Graziani
@BeautifulPlumage: NORAD. Which, as it happens, tracks a lot of objects in space. So, a lot of infrastructural synergy with SF, none of which obtains in Huntsville AL.
HumboldtBlue
@Ken:
That’s a good point.
@Carlo Graziani:
Oh, I’m familiar with the man and his work, I just didn’t realize there was a public edifice erected in his honor.
@dmsilev:
Feed me, Seymour, where do I start with that collaboration?
NotMax
Do the gods of destiny love us enough for Judge Chutkan to set a trial date of January 6?
Marc
The Redstone/Jupiter/Juno rockets were literally scaled-up V-2s, I guess he didn’t see any point to wasting a good design.
Alison Rose
@NotMax: Well…it’s a Saturday, so likely not.
HumboldtBlue
And say what you want about Philly sports fans, they get a bad rap.
In the off season, the Phillies signed shortstop Trea Turner to a massive 11-year $300 million dollar contract and so far this season Turner has played like ass. Stanky ass.
Normally Philly fans are pretty vocal when a player, particularly one as good and as well paid as Turner, isn’t playing well and will use their very loud voices to express their displeasure.
So yesterday, Phillies Reddit decided to use a different sort of voice and said that instead of booing Turner lustily at tomorrow night’s home game, as is their wont, they will donate to the V Foundation (Jim Valvano) cancer research fund.
They’ve raised a lot of money and the story has been picked up by local and national media.
NotMax
@Alison Rose
Even so, an extraordinary (if truncated) initial session could be held as the facility is not shut.
;)
Origuy
@Kent: None are in Colorado now. Peterson Air Force Bace in Colorado, home of the Air Force Space Command, was transferred to the Space Force along with the renamed Space Operations Command.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: My birthday is at the end of that month, and I’m hoping for a present — could be slightly early or late.
Dangerman
So?
Do these idiots not know how the game is played? Want to be Blood Red AND get money that could go to a Bluer State? What part of go get fucked do they not understand?
Funny, I remember when California was getting boned by Trump because we didn’t rake our forests; don’t recall anyone from Bama complaining.
Go watch some football and STFU.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
My gut feeling is late January or early February. Five months from the August 28 hearing to set a trial date, sufficient time for defense counsel and staff to review evidence on the quartet of charges.
scott alloway
@HumboldtBlue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro
HumboldtBlue
@scott alloway:
Just brilliant.
Whatever happened to the musical comedian?
Mike in NC
The name Tommy Tuberville is so cartoonish. He must have a side gig on Spongebob Squarepants.
Steeplejack
@HumboldtBlue:
Still kicking but retired at 95.
prostratedragon
NotMax@42: Right. And that would mean that the whole case (except maybe sentencing) could wrap before the May date in FL. Since I’m too old for a pony, I’d take something like that.
Jim Appleton
@HumboldtBlue: Tom Lehrer is still alive, if that’s what you mean.
But I think you mean the era.
Soprano2
So.Much.Stupidity.About.The.January6th.Charges on my TV. The pundits keep saying that the prosecution has to prove TFG knew he lost the election. NO THEY DON’T!!
Soprano2
So.Much.Stupidity.About.The.Jan6th.Charges on my TV. The pundits keep saying that the prosecution has to prove TFG knew he lost the election. NO THEY DON’T!! I heard someone say that Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. NO HE DIDN’T! How can I know this but pundits on TV don’t?
Alison Rose
@Soprano2: What I really don’t get is like…he’s not on trial for simply denying that he lost. When the right keeps trying to make this about free speech, everyone is pointing out that it’s absolutely not. He could have screamed a million times that he won and he wouldn’t have been indicted for that. It’s what was done BECAUSE of his ostensible belief that he won, what he encouraged people to do, and all the duplicitous shit he and his cronies tried to do to subvert the results of the election. It doesn’t matter if he takes ten polygraphs and they all show that he truly believes he won.
Jackie
@Alison Rose: Exactly this. Well said, Alison.
HumboldtBlue
@Steeplejack:
Good to hear.
@Jim Appleton:
Indeed, I do mean the era.
BeautifulPlumage
OT I assume everyone’s seen the slide cop video (nitter)
I’m dying at this follow up:
Normal people, when they go down a slide, they’re fine.
Jim Appleton
@HumboldtBlue
This is a really good question, and again about era.
Flanders and Swan, Peter Schickele, Victor Borge, Anna Russell.
All about wit.
Weird Al, Dr. Demento, Riders in the Sky … wit with, um, production?
Lately, just a lot of non-musicians trying very hard and more about tech and schtick than wit.
BeautifulPlumage
@scott alloway: HumboldtBlue: Jim Appleton:
Tim Minchin!!!!
Jim Appleton
@BeautifulPlumage:
Yeah, no.
Schtick, not wit.
I get why folks like this, but it’s nothing near Tom Lehrer.
Sanjeevs
@Jim Appleton: Flight of the Conchords, Bo Burnham
BeautifulPlumage
@Jim Appleton: Randy Rainbow?
Jim Appleton
@Sanjeevs:
@BeautifulPlumage:
Yes, Thank You for saving me!
And RR I think shows how current media differs from what some might call a golden era
Still, by and large the majority of hacks trying to make funny music suck.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
OT Rant: There were two storage shed on the property I live at. Mine has been there 11 years, the other one closer to the front house has been there so long that it is on the assessor maps. Anyway, someone(the mystery person) thought these were not up to code and notified the city who paid a visit. Finding code violations, they sent a letter to the landlord saying they needed to altered to be up to code. I asked the landlord to send me the notice so I could check the code to rectify the violation or if necessary remove the shed(they did so with the other one). So she sends me 3 phone shots of portions of the document. I send her a note, that she should send me whole document. She emails me back to say that I have the relevant portions(even though the code violation is cut off). I sent a email back reiterating my request to send the whole document with instructions on how to redact portions that she doesn’t want me to see(probably their address, which they don’t seem to realize is public record on the assessor’s web site).
From what I can gather from the city code is there is an interior setback requirement(the shed was against the wall at the property line), of 5 feet. But I still need to see the entire damn document to be sure, before I start moving shit.
/rant
HumboldtBlue
The battle between wine and beer, done country style.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Catchy tune, bizarre title.
:)
Trollhattan
@Alison Rose: Got to be the Jersey gal Biden brought on board to do media. Sounds on brand. And awesome.
sab
Kaitlin Collins again. She is from Alabama so of course she won’t do her job and report this story accurately, since that would favor Biden’s position to keep it in Colorado where the Air Force wanted it to begin with.
Baud
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Landlord is an idiot.
Baud
Reddit thread with this title.
First comment under it.
lowtechcyclist
@John Revolta:
One thing about the threat of invoking the Insurrection Act in January 2021: the military leadership let it be known that they were dead set against any such intervention in domestic politics.
Replace enough of them with people like Gen. Flynn, and that might not be the case if a GOP President gets another chance to try that.
Baud
Kay
@Baud:
He’s one of three pediatric heart specialists in the state. They really should have hung on to him. I wonder if the interstate medical care trips wil become more and more common- not just abortion but also a whole range of specialists.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
That’s really horrible.
I don’t blame the doctors for leaving, not in the least. They’ve got options, and in their shoes, I’d be relocating to a sane state too.
It’s the people running Louisiana and Idaho and other states going down the same path who don’t give a damn what they’re doing to the people in their states who can’t easily pick up and move, and won’t have adequate medical care now that they’re chasing medical professionals away. Fuck those malevolent shitheads.
Kay
Iowa joins the book banning states. Quarantined books.
5000 articles about 20 Yale law students not deferring to Right wing judges enough and almost no coverage of Right wing states banning books. It’s like 9 states now- we’re approaching double digits.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
And it won’t be just medical professionals, it’s just that the need for them is more immediately apparent. There’s going to be a major brain drain from red America; I’m sure it’s already in motion. It may take some years before the effect of that brain drain on their economies becomes noticeable, but it’ll happen. The states that are doing this shit are going to turn themselves into the sorts of backwaters that most of the South was during the Jim Crow era.
smith
Doctors getting out, university professors getting out, teachers getting out. Who could have predicted that turning your state into a hellhole for educated people would make them leave?
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
True, but it’s also true that the people in these states are doing this to themselves:
I guess they’d rather hate than have a pediatric heart specialist available. This is a choice.
The Thin Black Duke
@lowtechcyclist:
satby
@Baud: NAZIs were / are ok with eliminating what they consider “defective” humans. In 1940 it was to keep their “bloodlines pure”. In 2023, it’s to keep their taxes low.
satby
@Kay: He’s a married gay man and father of two children. That’s the primary reason they’re leaving. And of course they treat him like he’s a monster, they’ve been groomed to assume gays who adopt kids are pedophiles.
p.a
I’ve at times thought of being a provacateur and contacting some mouth-breather orgs that they are slacking by not attacking their state colleges’ chemistry and physics departments for the inherent denying of Genesis in their curriculua. SHUT ‘EM DOWN! Oh, biology too!
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
You wonder about states like Texas and Florida- states with large urban centers and big, prestigious medical facilities and a population who demand that level of care. There’s only so much a city can do to protect against a regressive state government. The blue urban islands within red states won’t act as buffers forever with the states going further and further backward.
Geminid
Huntsville grew from 13,500 residents in 1940 to almost 140,000 by 1970. It has since passed Mobile, Montgomery and Birmingham to become Alabama’s largest city, with an estimated population of 227,000 people. Ed.
smith
@Kay: Case in point, Houston, where the local school board was taken over by the state, and immediately the HS libraries were turned into “discipline centers.”
Kay
@satby:
I think one could perhaps stand irrational hated but you just couldn’t bear it if it also reached your kids. Good for him for putting them first and getting out.
It’ll soon be too hot to remain in Louisiana anyway. I thought I would die on a summer visit to New Orleans and that was 20 years ago.
satby
@Kay: Agree.
Geminid
@Kay: This may be one reason Georgia Republicans picked Brian Kemp over David Perdue in last year’s primary for Governor, and by a wide margin. The Georgia Republican establishment seems to have kept the upper hand over the radicals in that state. This might be due to Chamber of Commerce types wary of seeing their state’s economy hollowed out by the knuckledraggers and their reactionary policies.
Ed. Enough rank and file voters seemed to agree for Kemp to beat Perdue handily, and even Raffensperger survived his primary.
eversor
@lowtechcyclist:
They don’t care. They think they can lock this in nationally so it won’t matter. That’s the end goal. Where only traditional Christians have full rights and everyone else is just there to be the help and then be taxed into oblivion, with of course ethnic/racial/cultural/religious purges to get there.
These people look at Russia and Hungary and think it’s great for cultural reasons and that since democracy won’t produce that it’s bad.
They are utterly convinced they can turn California into Texas.
And yes they are stupid enough not to realize that the reason their side has lost in Ukraine, in WW2, in the Civil War, is that each time the noble traditionalists and their martial prowess have tried this they’ve been crushed by the industrial might of their enemies. Who once pissed off enough, far from being cowards, went scorched earth on them. Usually after warning them not to do it, and then proudly annoucing their intent to level and burn everything they could!
smith
Almost all blue states are blue because the population of their big cities overwhelms that of the rural red areas. Attacking the cities makes sense politically for the GQP in red states as a way to prevent any creeping purpling of the state. You could easily see the combination of brain drain and global warming in Southern red states leading to a reversal of the growth of their urban areas, and further erosion of the cities’ political clout. Of course, that also means serious hampering of the states’ wealth-generating engines as well as reducing their tax base. No biggie, I guess, if Goober paradise is attained.
Kay
@Geminid:
I see that on the local level where I live. For about the last 20 years there has been this push-pull between the radical Republicans and Chamber of Commerce types. The Chamber of Commerce group have so far prevailed short term but I think there’s an inexorable shift Right in the GOP that will eventually win out because Right wing young people are very far Right. They’re bringing up a whole cohort of terminally online and fringy nutjobs.
Geminid
@Kay: I wonder how that dynamic will play out in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary. It seems like they need to find a candidate who can appeal beyond their base if they’re going have a chance against Sherrod Brown.
Kay
@Geminid:
I don’t vote in GOP primaries, even local ones, because my reading of Ohio law says I am swearing to vote GOP in the general if I pull a GOP primary ballot and I won’t do that, but I watch them with interest because nearly all of local government is GOP. It’s amusing to watch the Chamber types get alarmed and move in and shut down the nutty Right. They don’t actually want to live in a shithole. They’re much more effective at that than the national GOP.
Kay
@Geminid:
Sherrod told us he needs 1 in 6 Trump voters. He thinks he can do that. He runs great campaigns. He has this long time campaign manager who is like an olde timey brutal Irish political operative who came out of labor. My husband loves him :)
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Only the best people
Geminid
@Kay: One thing the Georgia Chamber of Commerce types have going for them is that state’s economic growth. They can tell the smaller businessmen and professionals, “Guys, we can all become rich if we just keep our knuckles off the ground!”
satby
A beautiful, touching thread on her father by Naomi Biden:
“The pain he has endured would be enough to make a lesser man give up on life all together. But despite the best efforts of an cruel few to destroy a private man, he is sober, happy, and as at peace as ever today because as long his family needs him, he has not lost his purpose”
smith
@Geminid: They’re trying to walk a fine line there. Economic growth in a modern economy almost necessarily means expansion of metropolitan areas, which in turn leads to shocking outcomes like two Democratic senators. As much as they’d like to maintain a feudal social system while enjoying growth in an economy that depends heavily on knowledge workers, in the long run it may not be possible.
BellyCat
@Kay: The Mason Dixon line will be redrawn via healthcare access well beyond women’s reproductive health as diversity is flourishing in the healthcare industry nationwide, regardless of state politics.
Notably, doctors are one of the most trusted professions regardless of party affiliation. Just wait until the GOP starts attacking WOKE doctors. Should be interesting and will help boil down their committed membership closer and closer to its 27% dregs.
satby
We are descended from a people who kept a war going on a tiny island for a thousand years. We don’t fuck around.
RSA
Whew. Here in the real world, UCSD stands for a University of California campus, so I was confused and a bit troubled. It’s Urbandale Community School District in Jesusland.
Matt McIrvin
@smith: Texas and Florida have both been booming in recent years too, haven’t they? I’m assuming one of the reasons for the extreme reactionary turn in both states is that they figure they can easily take any resulting damage, so there’s freedom to operate.
Steeplejack
@satby:
Keeping a pointless feud going for a thousand years is pretty much the definition of fucking around.
AM in NC
@Soprano2: It is enraging. I’ve seen this nonsense in comment sections too and I reply simply:
I could sincerely believe I am the Tsar of All Russias, but once the Supreme Court rules I am not in fact Tsar, then, as far as the US legal system is concerned, I am not Tsar.
Same for Trump. Once the USSC determined that Joe Biden was the legally certified President, ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING Trump did afterwards (to pressure vote count changes by Governors or to submit fraudulent slates of electors to Congress) was an illegal coup to maintain power after he lost the election.
Doesn’t matter one iota what Trump believed. Only matters what the Justice System ruled, and the US Justice System ruled that Biden was elected POTUS.
Geminid
@smith: Kemp and company are trying to appeal to Georgia’s college educated suburbanites, but there is a tension in the party between the pragmatic modernists and the reactionary radicals and bible-thumpers.
The latter groups took over the party apparatus, but Kemp has managed to work around them. Going into last year’s election for Governor, I saw people here talk about a “Kemp machine.” I believed in it after he beat Stacy Abrams by 5 points. She was a strong candidate who ran a good campaign, I thought.
You mention Senators Warnock and Ossoff, and they are an instructive example of a Republican party dynamic. In 2020 when both Senate races went to a runoff. many people discounted their chances because the historic pattern is for the Democratic vote to drop more than the Republican, from general election to runoff.
But that time, David Perdue’s vote dropped over twice as much as Ossoff’s, and Ossoff won.* Observers attributed much of Perdue’s dropoff to disgusted Trump loyalists taking their anger out on “the RINOs” who would not back their guy in the Presidential vote count. Trump made two Georgia appearances that December, but his support for Perdue and Loeffler was undercut by his complaints that Georgia Republicans like Kemp had let him down.
*Rev. Warnock’s was a “jungle” primary with a dozen candidates so it’s harder to compare his November vote to his runoff vote. Warnock did run about 20,000 votes ahead of Ossoff on January 5, 2021.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I think part of the reason for this focus is that the indictment emphasizes over and over and over that Trump was lying about everything, and adds several times that these were knowing lies, so the assumption is that the government needs to prove that in order to convict him. But I think a large part of the reason for that assertion is that Smith needs to avoid legitimizing Trump’s statements about a stolen election.
I do think it’s fascinating that what the defenses of Trump are basically aiming for is an insanity defense, that Trump is incapable of distinguishing truth and falsehood–and these are usually people who would vote for him for President in 2024.
satby
@Steeplejack: wasn’t pointless. It was to repel occupiers.
JML
@satby: It seems clear that Hunter went off the rails after his brother died, a traumatic event for any family but one that hit him especially hard and he really struggled to deal with it. Which makes the GOP using him as their punching bag, constantly lying throwing his name around as if it exonerates them from all their BS just so outrageous. Bunch of feckless thugs, the lot of them.
artem1s
this is some straight up Trumpian bullshit. Nonprofits go thru audits annually. If they are receiving federal funds or doing business with federal agencies they have to have a recent audit on file. None of the NP’s I ever worked for ‘paused’ operations while undergoing an audit. Unless what he’s talking about is a review on whether their NP standing is legit or they didn’t report unrelated business income or lobbying expenses, then maybe they might have to suspend operations but only because they were a foundation in name only (grifting and using funds for board enurement instead of disseminating donor funds).
Rusty
@laura: The Republicans have been very clear that should they win the White House they will decapitate all the professional senior management at government departments and agencies and replace them with loyal lackeys who will then run them into the ground. They have already done that with much of the judiciary. That the military would be included isn’t so far fetched.
HinTN
@Kay: No, they won’t. The TN lege has already begun messing with blue Nashville’s local government. They’re full of shit and full of themselves. Hypocrites, too. Witness the G(R)OPer leader drooling all over that gay teen Instagram account.
Salty Sam .
Especially when the State supersedes the ability of those blue urban islands to governs per their citizenry’s wishes. The last bill Greg Abbot signed gave the State of Texas the right to nullify local ordinances that went against them.
Josie
@Kay: This is definitely a worrying trend. The Texas legislature passed a law that wipes out certain ordinances in cities like Houston, and has already attacked voting rights in Harris County. Also, as another commenter said, the state has taken over the Houston ISD and is working to destroy it. Abbott is currently trying to pass a law to use state money to support private schools.
ETA: Texas is so gerrymandered and voter suppressed that it is next to impossible to fight all this.
Gravenstone
Freshman science class, the “teacher” (boys HS basketball coach shoehorned into a teaching slot) openly admitted that I and my friend basically taught the class. He was an absolute waste of space.
Glidwrith
@Alison Rose: This “I BELIEVE” bull is the rotting heart and soul of the right. Facts be damned, from their bigotry to their grifting, they are always claiming their beliefs trump (pun intended) facts.
I wonder if one of the effects of smacking down Shitgibbon in spite of his so-called sincerely held beliefs will have some effect on rolling back some of the other belief-bullshit in law.
misterpuff
It’s a feature not a bug.
Those are WOKE people who might hurt their fee fees.
All because THE TRUTH hurts.
sab
@Kay: Other states are screaming to have pediatric cardiologists. Would do anything to get them. And Louisiana just ran one off. Fucking amazing.
Honus
@Ken: The difference between von Braun and say, Robert E. Lee, is that von Braun was was serving his own country while fighting the U.S. He didn’t break his oath (which he recited and reaffirmed after each promotion) to then slaughter men he had previously commanded. He aided a bad cause, and was arguably evil, but not a traitor.