Merrick Garland testified before congress today.
Give ‘em hell, AG. https://t.co/p67YbmVWAI
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) September 20, 2023
To borrow a phrase from the Obama campaign, Garland is fired up and ready to go! (Remember that nice lady dressed in her church clothes who got all that started?)
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) September 20, 2023
Glad to see it. We need to fight like hell every day to preserve government that believes in the rule of law.
Let’s get all 3 branches, shall we?
Update: hahahahaha
Trump worried about prison, asking questions.
In the past several months, Donald Trump has had a burning question for some of his confidants and attorneys:
Would the authorities make him wear “one of those jumpsuits” in prison?
As the criminal cases against him have piled up, the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner has wondered aloud in recent months about what life would be like if he’s convicted, and if appeals fail. While Trump publicly professes confidence, privately, three sources familiar with his comments say, he’s been asking lawyers and other people close to him what a prison sentence would look like for a former American president.
Would he be sent to a “club fed” style prison — a place that’s relatively comfortable, as far these things go — or a “bad” prison? Would he serve out a sentence in a plush home confinement? Would government officials try to strip him of his lifetime Secret Service protections? What would they make him wear, if his enemies actually did ever get him in a cell — an unprecedented set of consequences for a former leader of the free world.
What would happen — including in the Fulton County, Georgia criminal case against him and various co-defendants — if he were convicted and sentenced, but also re-elected?
The private questions are a departure from the air of supreme confidence invincibility Trump has projected. In interviews and elsewhere, he has claimed that the thought of losing in court and going to prison simply cannot enter his mind.
Open thread.
eversor
Was refreshing to hear. He’s more restrained than I could ever be.
narya
In the same vein, Sheldon Whitehouse continues to Bring Receipts. He was on O’Donnell last night, and Pierce has a piece up today about him.
Mr. Bemused Senior
They will live to regret that Garland wasn’t approved for the Supreme Court.
Old School
teezyskeezy
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Will they though? A lot of people could have overseen a DOJ investigating J6 and election interference and gotten the same result, but a SCOTUS seat is worth decades of political influence. I think if given a mulligan they’d still block his hearing.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Like not letting Elizabeth Warren be head of the Consumer Protection Agency.
HumboldtBlue
Eric Swalwell just told Jim Jordan to go fuck himself.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@HumboldtBlue: You raised my hopes and now I’m disappointed. Still, what Swalwell did say was good too.
HumboldtBlue
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic.
WaterGirl
FYI, for anyone who is here already, I just added this up top:
Update: hahahahaha
Trump worried about prison, asking questions.
hahahahaha
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Despite his bravado with the mug shot, that had to have shaken him. I think Fani Willis terrifies him.
Andrew Abshier
I had to go back and review “fired up, ready to go” from the Obama campaign. Having worked his campaigns twice, it was standard rep, but it never failed to produce. I sure miss those days.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: That’s so great!
Baud
I’m tired of their bullshit too!
Redshift
@WaterGirl: And he’s still so detached from reality that his big concern about going to prison is that they’ll make him wear ugly clothes!
WaterGirl
@Redshift: I was just thinking along those same lines.
If I had to go to prison, in 5 minutes I could come up with a list of a hundred things that I would worry about.
What they would make me wear would not be one of them. Will the standard-issue tennis shoes fit my wide feet? Not on the list! Will my ass look big in the jumpsuit? Not on the list!
BlueGuitarist
Thanks WG for reminding me of this:
The story of fired up and ready to go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhWDFgRfi1Q
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
RandomMonster
Without my shoe risers I’ll be 3 inches shorter! What will I do without my necktie-schlong?
JoyceH
@WaterGirl: Whatever he’s given to wear, he’s gonna be affronted that it doesn’t have a presidential seal or “President Trump” on it like his golf clothes do.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Would I have to give up my daily messages?
HumboldtBlue
Senator Fetterman is tired of the GOP’s bullshit as well.
If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.
RandomMonster
What about my porn actress massages?
H.E.Wolf
“To borrow a phrase from the Obama campaign, Garland is fired up and ready to go! (Remember that nice lady dressed in her church clothes who got all that started?)”
That nice, Black, older, Southern, church-going lady!
Obama recently honored her on the occasion of her retirement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23nnrp9e8VI
MattF
TFG has heard about concrete and barbed wire.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud: pants – oh NOES!11!
japa21
“Your are credible, they are not. You are decent, they are not.”
Great lines. But really impressive in that, unlike statements made by the GOPers, these were delivered in a calm, measured way, not sounding like a raving lunatic.
Bugboy
Coming from The Defendant, F.K.A. “One-Term Loser Twice-Impeached Former Acting President Individual-1”, that’s as close of an admission of guilt as we’re ever going to get, no?
HumboldtBlue
Of course Trump is scared, just because he’s acted like a mob boss for 45 years doesn’t mean he has the muscle a mob boss has. The rats are fleeing the sinking ship.
Baud
@Baud:
Stupid autocorrect. Messages = massages.
As most of you have figured out.
Ken
@Redshift: @WaterGirl: Wait until he finds out he won’t be able to play golf, use his cell phone, or tweet.
It will be a strange situation. Even in a “club fed” I’d think he’d need to be isolated from the rest of the inmates; the Secret Service may insist. If that happens, he’ll basically be in solitary confinement, which is not good for the mind. (Such as it is.)
I guess the Service agents will be there, though I doubt any of them will be in a mood to chat as they’re covering their 8-hour shift sitting in a prison watching him.
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
Many of the worries the rest of us would have about going to prison presumably won’t apply to Trump. He can count on getting as much of the kid glove treatment as anyone in prison could possibly hope for. That leaves him worrying about stupid stuff like how he’d look in prison clothes rather than how he’ll protect himself from the gangs.
Gin & Tonic
Matt Levine saw a hanging curveball over the plate and swung hard. Today’s newsletter: “People Who Run Public Companies Shouldn’t Live in Glass Houses.”
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: Aw damn, after Swalwell called McCarthy a pussy, I hope this was literal. But still, it was good.
rikyrah
UNDER.THE.JAIL😡😡😡
Philly folks …you know about this case?
There are bad cops …and, then there are these muthaphuckas 😡😡
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT86RXaem/
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Ken: With any luck, the TFG detail will become the Secret Service’s equivalent of the proverbial reassignment to Antarctica.
New Deal democrat
There *is* a potential deal to be made.
No Court – and in particular this SCOTUS – would uphold a deal forbidding Trump from running for office.
But since Trump’s only realistic hope is either getting re-elected or an unbroken string of hung juries, here’s the deal that could work:
1. Trump drops out of the Presidential race and stays out.
2. In return, his trials are delayed until after the election.
3. Only after he has upheld his end of the deal, he is allowed to plead nolo contendere.
4. His sentence includes staying off social media and not holding rallies. It may also include his being restricted to staying only on his golf club properties.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Delicious. Cry more, you treasonous little bitch.
bbleh
@JoyceH: if they’ll put it on his ass, I’ll go along with it.
Geoduck
@Ken: Doonesbury did a strip about it a few months back, with the Shaitgibbon’s assigned SS guy hanging out with the other prison guards until he gets word his charge has been shanked. Again.
And I admit it, if I was going to prison, I’d wonder if they’d have shoes that fit my big wide duck feet.
smith
@HumboldtBlue: The problem with Lin Wood flipping is that he’s so nutso he won’t make much of a credible witness. He might have some good information about where various bodies are buried, though.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: The jumpsuit would be too long on me, guarantee. I’d have to cuff the pants like it was the late 80s.
AM in NC
So lately (few weeks now) I have been going onto the FOX “News” website and commenting on articles to try to see if anyone is peelable when given facts, and to plant wedges among their factions where I can. This week, it has been amazing to see how the Government shutdown issue and the abortion comments by Trump are ripping the commenters there in two. It is full on internecine warfare, and I could not be happier to see it. I’m guessing these two issues depress turnout for them, and we know it’s gonna ramp up turnout for us. I’m feeling hopeful (knock wood)!!!
Spanky
Chuck Shumer is sick of the GOP bullshit as well. (Via WaPo):
Baud
@AM in NC:
Nice.
NWO Joe
Gitmo… via slow helicopter with an open door. Give him something to think about on the trip. And yes, one of those jumpsuits. Rainbow colors, just for the hell of it.
Baud
@Spanky:
AKA the thermonuclear option.
bbleh
@AM in NC: wow intelligence from inside the other side’s camp! Brilliant work! (Unfortunately, we can’t honor you publicly, for obvious reasons.)
wjca
Hey, it’s a wall, isn’t it? I thought he was into walls.
Gin & Tonic
@Spanky: He should have done this months ago.
smith
@Geoduck: One of my fondest hopes about the upcoming trials is that at the end of each Doonesbury will reprise the classic strip of Mark Slackmeyer shouting, “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” but with a “guilty” for each count TFG is convicted on. Then do it again each trial, adding on the appropriate number of “guilties” until we finally get to 91.
jonas
Republicans are outraged at Garland’s “politicization of the DOJ” because they’re assuming he’s running it the same way Barr did. As I always say, every accusation is a confession with these people…
trollhattan
Will wonders never cease?
NotMax
@wjca
“Is it American made razor wire or does it come from China?”
//
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’ll put up a post for you tomorrow. :-)
jonas
@smith: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. That guy is so tenuously tethered to reality, it’s hard to tell if he’d be worth anything as a witness.
laura
Look, tfg’s concern about “the jumpsuits” is legit. The whole shirts-n-pants in one single garment is a concept that’s received scant attention- and attention must be paid. Personally, I’ve worn jumpsuits (and my 80’s white jumpsuit with the massive shoulders was quite a look paired with a wide hot pink satin ribbon belt), and jumpsuits require really paying attention to where you are and what your body is telling you at all times. And if you aren’t totally attuned to your body and your jumpsuit, there’s going to come a moment when you may realize your failure to recognize that you’ve got to got to GOT TO pee and you’re trapped in a garment that requires extraordinary hand eye coordination to get that thing undone and down sufficiently to pee while trying not to step on your sleeve, or drag it through the bowl, and after filing the paperwork, get it back up and on and over and facing in the proper direction and, well, it’s a whole thing. So while I’m not the one to tell him about the realities of his future wardrobe, I’m totally in a position to point and laugh, knowing what I know.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: More on that in a post later tonight!
NotMax
@Spanky
I haz a confoozle.
Why is the majority leader of the Senate speaking on the floor of the House?
WaterGirl
@Baud: I just assumed you mean “Truth” Social Messages!
jonas
@NWO Joe: I’d also like to see the Central Park Five come together again to take out a full-page ad in the NYT demanding the death penalty for Trump.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic:
Dammit! Can we just pretend that I thought of that, and make a post with that title?
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: TikTok hates me. what is that about?
Frankensteinbeck
@AM in NC:
Note: Trump is only God as long as he agrees with them.
JPL
@smith: I hope that he does, because Flynn’s brother is concerned. He isn’t credible though.
cain
@Gin & Tonic: I was gonna try to go with something from that romantic comedy – The Lake House. Where Elon Musk gets messages from the future telling him he’s an asshole.
hotshoe
@New Deal democrat:
Okay, but what is the court (should say, the four or more courts currently involved in prosecuting Trump’s various crimes) going to do when he doesn’t keep his side of the deal?
Really, what?
Okay, let’s follow this planned deal a little further into prospective reality: so he breaks the deal, holds a couple rallies one weekend, tells everyone something like “they thought they could shut me up, they can’t stop you from voting for me, we’re gonna win, I’m gonna lock up all those corrupt FBI and DoJ and judges” and and and …
Now what?
Now the court reverts to the cases they had put on hold in the misguided hope that he could be influenced into behaving himself?
Why would anyone hope/believe/trust in that to begin with?
Trusting Dumpster to keep his word is like trusting Putin to not assassinate Prigozhin.
Roger Moore
@New Deal democrat:
Yes, there’s a deal to be made with imaginary Trump who isn’t anything like the Trump in the real world. The only deal Trump would agree to is one where he dictates the terms and everyone else agrees to them. Anything less, and he’ll go down fighting.
cain
@Frankensteinbeck: Pretty much true for everyone including God and Jesus.
hueyplong
Feeling a little red-faced at how quickly and easily I pictured 80s laura in that outfit.
As for projection, remember Trump’s thoughts on punishing the Central Park Five and then contemplate (with some satisfaction) his fear of being sent off by a black female. He’d put “angry” before either word and he knows it would be justified.
Hello, consequences.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic:
They shouldn’t stow thrones, either.
wjca
It’s long past time for the Senate to go back to requiring filibusters (the inverse, in many ways, of cloture) to involve actually standing up on the floor and talking. Constantly and at length. No more of this “we’ve been notified that they would filibuster, and we don’t have the votes for cloture, so we just won’t even try for a vote.” Which is simply bullsh*t. Make ’em put in the work if they want to obstruct.
Queen of Lurkers
@BlueGuitarist: Thanks for that reminder — made me tear up. Biden is good as an executive, but I miss Obama’s oratory. He has the gift of narrative and thus inspired people to a level of idealism not seen since.
Betty
@Baud: Messages works too though.
Captain C
@Ken:
Especially not for a narcissist like TFG who’s dependent on constant attention and adulation.
What are the odds that none of his kids visit him in the clink?
hotshoe
@Roger Moore:
great minds think alike ;)
smith
@AM in NC: Fox may have some insurmountable difficulties threading that needle, but it is also facing a possible extinction-level crisis due to the mounting number of shareholder suits being filed against it as part of the fallout from the Dominion lawsuit settlement.
The Meidas Touch segment I saw pointed out that not only do the shareholders have a case based on the costs Fox’s reckless lies have already incurred (and will likely incur from the Smartmantic lawsuit), the fact that Fox continues to lie on air makes it hard for Fox to argue that it has cleaned up its act in any meaningful way.
Fox is faced with an impossible dilemma: Its whole business model is based on lying. When it doesn’t lie, as when it called AZ for Biden in 2020, it infuriates its audience and risks losing viewers. If it does lie, it faces billions in settlements of additional lawsuits, brought not only by parties harmed by those lies, but also by lawsuits from its own shareholders.
laura
@hueyplong: the only thing bigger than my shoulder pads was my 80’s curly permed hair! Big Big hair.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Only 3? He should do all 300. 3 will take the heat off the GOP.
Can someone argue the other side of this? Because this does not look like a good move to me, but I would love to think it is.
Delk
They wouldn’t let Blago have his hair dye but he actually looked better gray. Can’t imagine whatever that thing going on with trump’s head is going to look like.
PJ
@New Deal democrat: Why would any prosecutor in their right mind agree to this, unless they wanted Republicans to win? And what would be the legal basis for proposing it? It makes no sense whatsoever from a judicial standpoint.
hueyplong
@Roger Moore: You haven’t seen Trump in extremis. The Russians have. Here’s guessing it was a lot more like John Turturro in Miller’s Crossing and a lot less like the boastful bloviater we’ve seen lo these many years.
Ken
They’ll be too busy running his companies — which may cause him more mental anguish than the orange jumpsuits and lack of golf.
WaterGirl
@laura: I have worn overalls – which are much easier to deal with – and I had a pale pink one-piece jumpsuit. I know of what you speak!
bbleh
@NotMax:@Spanky: because unfortunately “Coach” Tuberville has taken to doing full running tackles of any Senator who tries to speak on the Senate floor in protest against the Woke policies of the Price Support Policies of the Agriculture Department’s USDA.
Senator McConnell has expressed his disapproval of this tactic on several occasions, most recently saying “ahem, well, now … … … … “
WaterGirl
@laura: I did not have shoulder pads. My pale-pink jumpsuit was actually very cute. But complicated, if you were in a hurry.
Steeplejack
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
There’s probably a contingent in the Secret Service that would like nothing better than to hang out with their hero on a no-stress assignment.
JoyceH
@Captain C:
Those revolting golf clubs where he lives now, the members give him a standing ovation when he goes in to the dining room. He’ll miss that. In fact, that’s probably why he’s abandoned his gilded penthouse for the golf venues, he needs that constant adulation.
I doubt he would be in Gen Pop, they’d probably give him his own wing or suite. Maybe the Secret Service could clap for him when they bring his dinner tray?
PJ
@PJ: Under your plan, any criminal would just say to the prosecutor, “I’m running for office, let’s put this whole trial thing off until after the next election” (whether it’s 2 or 4 years away).
Alison Rose
Gov Newsom at the UN Climate Ambition Summit. I love how he pointedly highlights Reagan and Nixon as early political leaders in the environmental movement. There was indeed a time when Republicans knew that destroying the one planet we can live on was maybe not a good idea!
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
Tim Scott wants the striking auto workers fired a la Reagan because (whine) no one wants to work anymore yet putting in some extra hours over the weekend is A BRIDGE TOO FAR, MAN.
Cameron
Trump’s a solid 6’3″ , 215. Shit, bro’s got nothing to fear in the joint.
BlueGuitarist
@Queen of Lurkers:
H.E. Wolf put an awesome link @24 to a newer “fired up and ready to go” video, if, like me you just can’t get enough Fired Up and Ready to Go
and looks like WaterGirl is planning more!
trollhattan
@Sure Lurkalot: Tim Scott I’m guessing does not know Reagan’s beloved air traffic controllers were gummint employees, and Tim Scott runs [checks notes] zero automobile corporations. Clap harder, Timmy.
smith
@Cameron: And he has a champion body builder’s physique! I’ve seen the pictures!
Ken
@PJ: I remember reading a story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, probably fifty years ago, where a chef was on death row (the patron had asked for ketchup for her filet mignon). On learning his last meal could be anything he wanted, he put together a menu that would take a couple decades to prepare, the main delay being the wait for certain wines to reach maturity.
I think that guy had a better chance than Trump with his “running for office” argument.
rikyrah
We already knew this. In real time. He was never given the benefit of the doubt from this corner of the world.
Cassidy Hutchison is not telling us anything we didn’t know
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT86RCyfD/
Geminid
@WaterGirl: This goes to show that you are very different from Donald Trump. But we knew that.
I find it interesting to learn that Trump is started to see that prison is a real possibility. My Atlanta friend has long posited that Trump might take a plea deal or deals, and I’ve always said “No way!” Now I think that may be a possible outcome. Maybe not probable, but possible.
eversor
@Frankensteinbeck:
Christians gonna Christian.
Omnes Omnibus
@New Deal democrat: No.
trollhattan
@Cameron: His prison yard mantra “Get in mah belly!” terrified all the other inmates.
Alison Rose
@Cameron: The 6’3″ part of it, I could maybe buy, at most he rounded up an inch. If you look at photos of him and Obama, they appear to be roughly the same height, and Obama is 6’2″ I believe.
The 215 is obvious bullshit to anyone with eyes.
smith
@trollhattan: Too bad, since would be even better if they were gummit employees — isn’t the GQP plan to slit their throats?
Redshift
@Ken: Opinions from Preet Bharara and others are that it would almost certainly be home confinement, not even Club Fed, just because of the security and logistics involved. But if so, it had better also include some serious restrictions on communication.
NotMax
@Cameron
Stats of Muhammad Ali in his prime.
@
Wasn’t it Tim Scott who said only a scant few days ago that COVID had completely disappeared?
hotshoe
@WaterGirl: I’m angry on behalf of all the rest, when these top-3 promotions prove that all the rest aren’t important enough to matter to the Senate.
I know that folks who make a choice to have a military career have already understood and agreed to the disruption the service can make in their lives, at any moment — but we, the civilians/gov’t, are supposed to keep the disruptions as minimum as possible so that uncertainty (their housing, their kids’ schooling, their being in limbo for month after month) doesn’t interfere with their ability to make good decisions on behalf of our nation.
I don’t like the message Schumer would send to 300 still-in-limbo officers if Schumer corrals the Senate to force a vote on his top 3 picks.
Yes, I understand, it would take literally months to vote on each one of those 300 individually, which is why they are usually approved in batches without objection. I understand that RePug Senators — Mitch McConnell specifically — should be the ones who take Tubey out behind the woodshed to stomp him.
But now it looks as if Schumer is aiding in their lie about “it’s not Tubey’s fault, it’s not the R’s fault, if the Dems wanted to solve it, they could solve it any time” — even though he’s only solving the problem for the 3 which he thinks are the highest priority at the moment.
NotMax
Reply boo-boo.
Second part of #105 meant to be Sure Lurkalot.
RaflW
Not gonna link to it as it’s pretty much a throw-away, but apparently WI’s own Tom Tiffany is outraged that Doj & the FBI won’t charge anyone in an alleged World Naked Bike Ride in Madison, WI.
Garland has shown the effrontery of ignoring — for two months now! — a letter Tiffy and a fellow pearl-clutcher sent to the A.G. Shocking!
This is what the GOP wants to spend time on. Really the pulse of a nation, there.
mrmoshpotato
I think Dump means if Lady Justice finally shitslaps him across his Soviet shitpile, fat, orange, fascist, mobster conman face.
UncleEbeneezer
Trump JAQs, Thinking Of Prison!
Geminid
@smith: Maybe the reason Lin Wood was not indicted was that word was put out among the various conspirators that Wood was a loose cannon and couldn’t be trusted, so he was excluded from the operation.
Scout211
And that right there is the #1 reason why the political media are rooting for TFG and are bored with that “old guy” who is the current POTUS. There are no inside sources with scoops and leaks coming out of this White House. Sad.
Sigh.
mrmoshpotato
@RaflW:
Arrest people for promoting body positivity!
Seriously, one of the tenets of the WNBR is promoting body positivity.
RaflW
@WaterGirl: & @hotshoe: Surely more than three should get approved and promoted. But, as I understand it, each nominee must be brought forth separately. Each one is then offered unanimous consent, the GOP asshole says no, and then a byzantine process unfolds.
It grinds the gears of the senate to work though even these.
Best case, the three that Schumer plans to run would use up one working day of floor time, two days after the motions are filed. So likely 100 days to run 300 noms. This is time when, I presume, the Senate might be approving some judges and — if not fighting over shut down — passing budget bills, etc.
It’s absolute bullshit. But it is Tuberville, McConnell, and every single Republican’s bullshit. Not Schumer’s.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: I feel pretty sure it is gnawing at him and is gnawing a little more each day…
Buwahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
Redshift
@Roger Moore:
Sure, but it also shows a complete lack of awareness of the actual punishment, even in “Club Fed,” which is the loss of liberty and being cut off from the outside world. Horrible conditions and the threat of violence are bugs in our system, not the actual punishment prescribed by law.
wjca
I think that there’s a chance that this is more of a “proof of concept” move. Get these first three (exceptionally hard to oppose) ones done. Then repeat and repeat as necessary. A matter of punching the first, necessarily small, hole in the dike.
Redshift
@mrmoshpotato: Err, what federal law does he think is being broken? (Not to mention the supposed belief in “States Rights” going out the window again…)
Paul in KY
@Ken: They need to damn well make sure that the agents ‘guarding’ him have NO sympathy or like for him or MAGA at all!!!!
If that comes to pass.
Ken
Riding a bicycle, same one as Biden flouts several times a week.
Paul in KY
@New Deal democrat: Fuck that. I want his ass in jail.
eversor
@Alison Rose:
He ain’t six three and he ain’t no 215. FWIW Chris Hemsworth is 6’3 and clocks in at 220. Mr. Thor! He doesn’t wear lift shoes (shoes for men who want to look taller for those who don’t know about these). That’s why he’s always leaning forward. I’m 6’0 and clock in at barely under 200. While I am no where close to Chris in fitness both of us do have abs. But my abs have some flab. Most guys get used to figuring this out. One of my best friends is all of 5’11 but is built Arnold and who know what he weighs in at.
Trumps flabby ass with 2inch lifts (DeSantis also does this) is more like 6’1 250. He has a massive gut, dump truck ass, eats like shit, wears loose clothes rather than fit suits, and is just in general a hot mess. He also eats like shit. Don’t get me wrong I like a good burger or fried fish as well. I just don’t go to McDonalds for it. That’s for 1 dollar fries on cheat day!
I wouldn’t call what Trump is doing toxic masculinity, I’d more call it toxic lack of masculinity. Scared of blood, sharks, only eats fast food, and working out steals your life energy? Way to nut up and man up.
Ocotillo
@JoyceH:
Sorry Donny, not ketchup for you.
Gravenstone
@RaflW: Think that district likes their Reps on the whackadoodle side in recent years. They went from the affable Democrat Dave Obey to cretins like Sean Duffy and now this Tiffany clown.
RaflW
@Redshift: I went and looked. Tiffany says the Madison police and prosecutors are refusing to do something because a family brought a 10 year old girl to participate in the ride.
The WI State Journal says there was an investigation and it was determined the ride isn’t sexual [tah dah, it’s a daytime silly bike ride, this is correct, says Rafl] so there’s no crime to charge.
I guess Tiffany wants there to be some kiddy-porn aspect to this since people take picures, but really he just relishes having a variation on hippie-punching to offer up.
Fair Economist
@AM in NC: I commend your dedication. I can’t stand more than a few minutes of wingnut comment threads before I have to back off to something less unpleasant like cleaning a clogged sewer line.
UncleEbeneezer
@Geminid: He says he is not cooperating. He’s just been subpoenaed and plans to testify.
Paul in KY
@Captain C: 2 – 5
NotMax
@Ocotillo
“This isn’t Heinz! BARBARIC!!”
hotshoe
@RaflW:
Yes, I understand that. Okay, to make a short (short, ha ha) comment longer, I didn’t know the exact details about how many minutes/hours/days, — but I did already know that Dems were telling the truth when they said we don’t have time to take every single military promotion individually.
Which is why I’m angry at Schumer deciding to go along with the RePugs’ game. I know that Schumer does not control the treacherous mainstream media, and Fox and Twitter were going to lie about whatever he does anyway. But this is just playing into their hands; this is giving ammunition to the liars.
This is Schumer foisting upon Dems the burden of getting a few key positions filled, instead of making the RePugs discipline their traitor Tubey.
Meanwhile, Dems still don’t look as if we support our military, because we leave 300+ (minus those 3) still in limbo. Still subject to the whims of the entire R senate — Redhats who can keep blocking all the rest with no repercussions.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: And those fuckers should NEVER get that assignment.
Paul in KY
@Cameron: Has that menacing stare too. Word on the street was that Whitey Bulger was scared to death of him…
NotMax
@RaflW
Obligatory?
:)
Roger Moore
@wjca:
It’s way past time for the Senate to give up on the stupid idea of the filibuster completely and just go with a predetermined length of debate. You know, like what the House does and most sensible legislatures throughout the world. The Senate rules are stupid and outdated, and they need to be fixed.
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: I figured Lin would flip. He’s still pissed that TIFG withdrew his endorsement when he was running for the senate. Lin is returning the favor of no loyalty.🤭
RaflW
@Gravenstone: I spend some time in Vilas and Burnett counties in his district most every summer. Lots of rural white areas (some Native populations, which stand out like a pulsing blue thumb in any turnout/results precinct map, and the liberal Ashland-Bayfield), lots of guns, not great economic prospects.
Sadly Tiffany is pretty much what one would expect these days from those demographics. Superior, WI probably used to be solidly labor-Dem but that really fractured even before Trump, as the fight over mining in the Iron Range just across the border in MN tricked out. Superior was an ore dock & steel town, if less famous than Duluth-Gary on the other side of the St. Louis River.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@WaterGirl:
A normal person with normal life and normal relationships would worry about things like their relationship with kids, significant others. Grandkids. Their aging parents. Beloved pets. The maintenance on and ability to keep their home. Post prison employment.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Agree. The filibuster assumed a gentlemen’s agreement that has long since been thrown in the dustbin.
Geminid
@hotshoe: This is Schumer’s opening move. I don’t know what his next ones will be, but I think he has a plan and I will judge him after he executes it.
An obvious retort is, “So why the hell didn’t he do this months ago!” I will anticipate that complaint by saying that maybe time was not ripe, that pressure on Republican Senators had to build up sufficiently. Like it or not, the Senate is a singular institution whose rules, customs, and individual autonomy make it function very differently than other institutions like the House of Representatives.
RaflW
@NotMax: Looking at the photos from the 2019 WNBR on the WI State Journal (carefully selected to be only amusing and not lurid), I see plenty of guys with that body type being all self-accepting!! Good for them.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@hueyplong:
– Willis, Smith, et. al
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, I saw what Wood said. But Lin Wood is a liar.
E.
@Geoduck: Size 15 feet here. I’ve spent time in many jails and one prison for environmental protests in the 1980’s and I can tell you, having an unusual body is a problem in our right honorable justice system. But they will have a jumpsuit to fit his girthy frame just fine.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Alison Rose: I’m all for the aspirational, rose colored glasses approach to political rhetoric, but “Reagan the environmentalist” is a bridge too far.
hueyplong
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Well played.
Jackie
@trollhattan: Re Buck; I’ve seen rumors he’s interested in a TV gig – Faux or CNN.
I think he’s planning on retiring or getting primaried or both.
UncleEbeneezer
The great thing about Garland’s response, in addition to it being the fundamental principle of our justice system, is that as much as it works for swatting down the ridiculousness of House Republicans, it works just as well for 2+ years of the “Do Something” critics on our side. I’m so glad Garland is deeply principled, deliberate, cautious and ignores idiots like Nicole Wallace, Mehdi Hassan, Elie Mystal etc.
RaflW
@hotshoe: Perversely, taking up individual nominations earlier I think would have reinforced the idea that Dems actually had the agency to fix this problem. Given the months of work it would take to handle just this promotions issue, to the exclusion of all others on the agenda, while not allowing the time for pressure and accountability to percolate against Tuberville and the entire, complicit GOP would have been a worse outcome than this bad & infuriating one.
I am not happy that our preparedness suffers, our military leader’s lives and careers are used as pawns, but it’s on the g.d. GOP. Period.
And it is essential that Schumer and Dems do their best to hang this on them. I think this timing also connects well to the House shutdown bullshit. Jeffries, Schumer, Pelsoi and other leaders are, I really believe, doing their best with a poor poker hand to build the ‘chaos monkeys’ narrative that will tank the GOP.
I’m sure plenty don’t have my faith, but it’s what I’ve got to hang on to. The whole f**ng thing is on a knife edge.
Alison Rose
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Well, he didn’t specifically call them that, but pointed out that Reagan created the CA Air Resources Board and began the first tailpipe regulations in the country. His point was that conservatives used to do things that were pro-environment, used to care about it, and now they act like caring about it is a commie plot.
Ken
@Alison Rose: In fairness, they now think commie plots — or at least Russian plots by former commies — are the greatest thing since sliced bread.
geg6
@Redshift:
But none of that holds for the GA case. They can toss him in with the general population of the Fulton County Jail for all I care. In fact, that is my preference and I can only hope that they do. It will be fun to watch the security tapes for sure!
RedDirtGirl
@laura: Our family drove from NYC to Maine a lot over the years. And my older sister wore the one-piece flight suits with the zipper up the front that were all the rage in the eighties (from Reminiscence). I remember stopping to pee on the side of the road in the middle of winter once and she wasn’t wearing anything under the suit. She was basically bare-naked in the snow, going to the bathroom, and that brought such glee to her kid sister at the time!
HumboldtBlue
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
Anyway
Known to hikers as “Facilitrees”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@mrmoshpotato: There may be other motives for some. We loved a quote a few years back from the Philly event where a rider complained plaintively, “where are all the women?”
hotshoe
@Geminid:
Which is actually where this convo started, when Gin & Tonic at comment 50 replied about Schumer “He should have done this months ago.”
So, yeah, he should have done this months ago — Schumer should have recognized months ago that letting traitor Tubey hold up military promotions was a looming disaster for our nation’s security — and if Schumer had started, from the very first hold, to “grind the gears” of the Senate by filing cloture motions on each hold … okay, we don’t get to use a time machine to do it over, and we can’t tell how it would have worked out if Schumer had done it then. But I’ll tell you which way I bet: that McConnell would have told traitor Tubey to stop fucking around with the military and let the nominations proceed.
Well, if wishes were horses …
But I still wish that Dem senators would act as if our nation is more important than their baroque customs. Damn them all.
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: A cop that has spent at least two years raping middle school kids, sometimes using his own daughter to find new victims. Recorded his crimes using his cell phone-victim count is at least 48 children. Also extorting them for money (aka a street tax) in return for not arresting them.
RedDirtGirl
@Anyway: Ha, never heard that.
Jackie
Now for Sinema to announce…. Will she run or not? Only her hairdresser knows. Maybe.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: What about the lifts he is wearing?
stinger
@BlueGuitarist: Thank you for that link. I’m crying now. Will we EVER have that sense of hope and joyous possibility again? Will it ALWAYS be 51-49 and that’s if we’re lucky?
Scout211
O/T, but big news! Spread the word. Link
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: True, he may well be more like 6′ even. Both are just silly things to lie about. Is it somehow more manly to be 6’3″ than 6’0″? Does he think his groupies would like him less if he said he weighed 250 rather than 215? So dumb.
Doug R
@WaterGirl: Well, at least in Canada and I’m pretty sure in the USA I’d tell trump your type of prison depends on a matrix of how serious the crime you’re convicted of and what threat you pose to the community.
Generally white collar crimes tend towards less secure facilities but inciting sedition and various types of treason especially classified document mishandling would have you heading to more secure facilities.
rikyrah
The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) posted at 10:46 AM on Wed, Sep 20, 2023:
CNN reports Justice Alito’s Rome trip, following his decision overturning Roe v. Wade, was funded by Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative – a group that supported the Roe overturn.
https://t.co/JIyBtuPv8m
(https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1704522391299248340?t=UTFWRtdlGsutUU85xdkvKA&s=03)
Geminid
@hotshoe: I’ll stand by what I said about timing.
And you can call them “baroque customs,” but these are actual rules voted in at the beginning of each Congress, and they need 51 votes to be changed..
Also, this is not a “military disaster.” It’s harmful, but it’s not a disaster.
Redshift
@wjca:
That’s mostly a myth. The key change that needs to be undone is this:
Basically, that shifted the burden from the filibuster-er needing enough senators present to maintain it to the current version where opponents need a lot more present to end it. And it’s a relatively modern change, so anyone who claims they’re trying to preserve the “tradition” can stfu (but won’t.)
Alison Rose
@Doug R: Honestly, I wouldn’t care too much if it is a Club Fed type place. Just don’t let him watch TV. THAT would be the worst part of it, for him. No TV at all. If he says he’s bored, give him a stack of books. And not business books or conservative screeds, but like, Toni Morrison and Julia Alvarez and Luis Alberto Urrea and N.K. Jemisin and Shakespeare and okay I’ll stop. The notion of TIFG sitting there staring at a pile of novels he couldn’t hope to understand in a thousand years as his only form of entertainment is wonderful.
trollhattan
@Alison Rose: Can spend his time cutting deals with guys like Spike and T-Dog and Alvarez and Corn Pop. So many beautiful deals.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Doug R
If trump is being held in a Federal Penitentiary the argument could be made that there’s no need for Secret Service.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@rikyrah:
Holy fuk!
rikyrah
@Glidwrith:
And, NO WAY, he just started this. He’s a old phucking man – for a cop.
This just didn’t pop outta nowhere.
He’s been doing this.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
she gotta keep the grift going
hotshoe
@RaflW:
See, this is why it’s a great thing that I’m not Emperor of the World or even responsible for a little child or a pet: I actually don’t have the wisdom to know/predict what would be the eventual results of a decision made in one’s best judgement at the time.
People like me who say Schumer should have done something sooner may be exactly wrong about the long term results — results which might yet include, for example, service members dropping their ingrained R tendency when they (finally!) realize that the Repugs really do mean to screw them over for politics.
So, like you — although I say it very begrudgingly — I will hang on to hope that these Senate machinations work out okay.
And in any case, it is what it is.
And what “should” have been done, well, that’s just fan fic afterwards.
rikyrah
@hotshoe:
The Democrats needed to make the Senator from Alabama part of their 2024 campaign of
The Republicans hate our military.
Period.
waspuppet
Yeah and you told them you were 6’3” and 215. That’s gonna fit GREAT.
New Deal democrat
@Paul in KY: Pleasant dreams.
Geminid
@Jackie: I expect Kyrsten Sinema is looking at private polls. She has enough money to pay for good ones. The public polls consistently show her in 3rd place, and Sinema being a known quantity in Arizona, it’s hard to see how she can turn that around.
Sinema may also be in contact with that no-good No Labels outfit. She has the right profile for No Labels, and she would lose less “face” by losing that kind of Presidential campaign than she would coming in 3rd in a reelection contest.
Old School
@hotshoe:
And how would McConnell have made him do that?
trollhattan
@Scout211:
Heck yeah, we’re…gulp…nearly out.
Pro tip: your expired test will likely be accurate if is shows a positive result (as me how I know) but can’t be relied on for a negative result, i.e., false negatives are much more common with the home tests. Just get a verification at a clinic.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@AM in NC: Hanging out on the FOX comments is really taking one for the team.
Redshift
@hotshoe:
We’re always at a disadvantage in things like this because the GOPers like having government do nothing, so “grinding the gears” hurts them less than us in real-world practical terms. This “what he should have done” would have resulted in a lot fewer judges being confirmed, to give just one example. Maybe it would have been better to go the other way on that, but if we’re trying to judge it honestly we can’t ignore the tradeoffs.
ArchTeryx
@HumboldtBlue: Don’t look at the comments. Seriously, the Nazi blue checks are now out in full force.
Redshift
@hotshoe:
Again, what do you think McConnell would have wanted to do with the time on the Senate calendar instead of having it chewed up with cloture motions instead of being used for Democratic priorities?
Dan B
@rikyrah: A cop recruiting girls from Middle School for sex in the back of his cruiser is horrifying. I hope he never gets out of prison except in a body bag or pine box.
Bill Arnold
@AM in NC:
Good to hear. (Can be a lot of fun!)
jonas
@AM in NC: Wow — I’m guessing what it might suggest is there is at least a non-trivial portion of that commentariat that knows, deep down, anti-abortion extremism is an electoral loser and sees Trump’s comments opening a door to maybe not always looking like lunatics on the subject (not to say that Trump’s obsession with the 15-week ban isn’t bugfuck nuts, but anyway..). I’m sure the True Believers ratioed them good for their heresy.
eversor
I can’t take MSNBC anymore. Hauling up all these people claiming that it was all about tax cuts, balanced budgets, and not confronting Christianity and racism. Fuck these people. I hope it hurts when they go.
Redshift
@hotshoe: For what it’s worth, I’m not saying you have to be able to predict the future (retroactively); I’ve said that I don’t know which choice would have worked out better. I’m just trying to understand an argument for why what’s been done is “going along with the RePugs game” and spending a lot of time on cloture motions isn’t, and also what about breaking the filibusters would prompt McConnell to pressure Tuberville.
hotshoe
@rikyrah:
I’m with ya on that.
Saw my Navy ex-husband last Sunday and he is can’t-talk-about-it-without-yelling furious at the treacherous Rs right now.
I don’t think he’s hanging out at the VFW spreading the word to vote Dem — but I do think that the truth of Repugs hating US military members is starting to reach folks who would not have believed that before.
Ocotillo
We have all seen these photoshops and pictures of Trump all buffed up and what not. Someone needs to do one of those with him pumping iron in the prison yard.
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck:
“He tells it like it is” and “he’s a truth-teller” has always meant “he amplifies things I already believe,” not “he convinces me.” He’s found that out before, but I suspect he doesn’t have enough discipline to remember exactly what they care about without the roar or silence of the crowd to remind him.
RaflW
@hotshoe: Yeah, I’m not at all certain – but I have in the past I think underestimated Schumer (and I think he’s learned from both experience and from his collaboration with Nancy Pelosi, and hopefully Hakeem Jeffries) and so I try now to give him a bit more benefit of the doubt.
I definitely also get the anger. I shoot that out to Potatoville and his moronic Republican fellows in my Xitter feed.
RaflW
Also, @hotshoe, on a related item: Headline from The Economist, Oct 14, 2021 (alas it is paywalled, so not much detail) ~
Military bases swung hard away from Republicans in 2020
“Precincts that map closely onto military bases found a median swing of nearly eight points towards Joe Biden in 2020, compared with a nationwide shift of a little over two points in the same direction.”
lollipopguild
@Redshift: Part of trump’s modus operandi is loudly telling everyone that he is on all three sides of an issue. He counts on people hearing only the part that they agree with.
Elizabelle
@RaflW: Omnes has a sub to The Economist, as do I. I’m headed out for the evening soon, but remind me of this article tomorrow, if you like, and I will pull it down and excerpt it for you.
Maybe Omnes can do so if he shows up later.
Geminid
More Artsakh news: Reuters reports that Azerbaijan claims it is observing a Russia-brokered ceasefire and has suspended its attack on the Armenian enclave of 120,000 people. Armenpress carried a report from a journalist in Stepankert, Artsakh’s capital, saying that gunfire and bombings have quieted down.
And in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, angry crowds are calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Armenia Public Radio showed a picture of a mass of riot police with helmets and shields staged in Republic Square, in Yerevan’s center. Twelve policeman and eighteen protesters were hospitalized after yesterday’s demonstrations.
Jay
@eversor:
I wear lose clothes every day since I was 36, other than when rock climbing. It was to conceal my body and for comfort. I was/am “fit like”, was recently divorced and properly fitted pants, shirts, suits were attracting a bit too much attention in the workplace. Sizing up greatly reduced the attention.
RaflW
Just seeing that Project “Veritas” has filed for bankruptcy. It’s always been morally so, but now it’s also dead busted broke. Small miracles to happen!
Baud
@RaflW:
I hope its creditors show up in Bankruptcy Court dressed as pimps.
Dan B
@RaflW: Hooray!
JaySinWA
I think we could lock the channel to something to try and detox him, maybe MSNBC or PBS, or my choice -PBS KIDS .
Citizen Alan
@hotshoe:
How would that work? I mean, not to defend McConnell, who is a contemptible swine like everyone else in his party, but the Dems can’t get Manchin and Sinema to do anything they don’t feel like doing. Assuming arguendo that the rest of the GOP really doesn’t like Tuberville’s fuckery (I, for the record, don’t think any of them care one iota about the issue and think most of them are secretly thrilled at him “owning the libtards), what power do they have to make him stop?
hotshoe
@Old School:
huh, what?
How does Der Leader make any member vote the party line! I dunno, not my job to know the details, but I’ve heard things like giving them bad committee assignments, threatening to withhold election funds or to support a primary challenge … I do know that McConnell has been able to make his side vote unanimously for years whenever it mattered to him. Whatever methods/tools he has had, he could have tried with traitor Tubey if he wanted to.
The question then becomes, what might have motivated McConnell to throw down on Tubey’s self-promotion — and the possible answer to that question was making day-to-day business in the Senate as uncomfortable as possible by forcing cloture vote for a military promotion every single day that traitor Tubey no-voted one.
Of course I don’t want (retroactively) for our Senate to have wasted 689 hours of floor time taking up each nomination individually. And maybe that’s what would have happened, up till now with no end in sight. Maybe McConnell and Thugs would never have felt sufficiently motivated to shut down Tuberville. Maybe they would have become even more motivated to hate Dems. Or maybe the R backbenchers would have complained to McConnell that he had to do something to stop that asshole Tuberville before he wasted yet another vote.
Who knows.
As RaflW, Geminid, Redshift have each pointed out in their own ways, better results might be the reality we are actually in: might turn out that when Senate Rs stall, normies get to see how the Thugs hate the US military after all.
Dan B
In other news the Pentagon plans to investigate discharges under DADT, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. More than 30,000 military personnel were dishonorably discharged and lost all benefits.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Generally agree. But Tuberville isn’t like Manchin because he’s in a red state so easily replaceable. Plus they’re in the minority so they don’t need his vote on anything. So they can threaten to not support his reelection or not push for something he wants. But that’s about it.
Baud
@Dan B:
Awesome. For some reason I thought that was done when DADT was repealed. Long overdue.
hotshoe
@Redshift:
Good points!
Dan B
@hotshoe: Communities around military bases have swung wildly towards Dems on recent elections. This is even before Senator PotatoTowns antics.
Citizen Alan
@hotshoe:
Horse shit. Right now, we’ve got 48 Dem Senators + 3 Independents who caucus with us. The number of Dems who “act as if our nation is more important than their baroque customs” can probably be counted on on hand, but that’s enough to bring us down below the 50 we need to do any goddamned thing, let alone change that “baroque custom” your bitching about.
Dan B
@Baud: You’d think they would have removed the Dishonorable Discharges but that was the law that these military personnel violated so absent some retroactive legislation they were stuck with these discharges. How many lives were ruined it would be nice to know.
AM in NC
@smith: Thanks for the info on shareholder suits. I only knew about the voting machine vendors going after billions. You lay out the bind Fox finds itself in well. Please oh please oh please let them self-destruct.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Thank you.
Citizen Alan
@Redshift: The current state of our government only makes it clear how stupid the Slave States were to secede. Had they been smarter, they’d have stayed in the Union but used House and Senate procedures to make it impossible for Lincoln to achieve anything. “Let us keep our slaves forever, or we will make the country ungovernable” would have probably worked as a strategy.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Maybe. States were more important in people’s lives compared to the feds in those days, so hurting the ability of the federal government to operate wouldn’t have had the same impact it had today.
Gin & Tonic
@RaflW:
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s good to see. The GOP is pro-war and pro-military contractor, but it hasn’t been pro-military in a long time compared to Dems.
cain
@Old School: Not sure – but if he has that condition it would include a lot of freezing I reckon. Hope he gets that looked at by his excellent paid for government healthcare.
cain
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There is still also /r/conservative and /r/economics. :-)
hotshoe
@Citizen Alan:
Thanks, dude.
Dan B
@Citizen Alan: My experience in small town Arkansas six years after Brown v. Board of Education and three years after Central High School was a completely segregated school system. The brand new ultramodern white High School and Elementary School contrasted with the black school – corrugated sheet metal and corrugated green fiberglass windows and zero insulation. Those Crackers were furious that blacks were allowed to learn to read. There only strategy was stubborn resistance.
frosty
@Baud: Lincoln and company founded the land-grant colleges and built a transcontinental railroad when the slave states were out of Congress. That wouldn’t have happened under the scenario where they stayed in and gummed up the works. So yeah, the feds were doing some important stuff, it wasn’t just the states.
Geminid
@hotshoe: Regarding a primary challenge: Tuberville will not go before the voters until 2026. And even if McConnell was still around, then, most Republicans would want to vote against a candidate that McConnell supported. McConnell may popular among Republican elites, but a lot of the rank and file despise him.
NWO Joe
@jonas: Excellent idea! Add that to the list of “retributions”.
Baud
@frosty:
Sure, but nothing compared to today.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: The slave states might have been able to get protection from the Senate for a while but demographic trends were making them a smaller and smaller minority in the House. The Senate was headed that way too, but the process would have taken longer.
This was one reason Southern elites were pushing for Secession. Another was their belief that “Cotton is King ” and that their economic leverage would bring England in on their side.
I think they also may have read too much Walter Scott, and not enough Clausewitz.
WaterGirl
@Dan B:
That is awesome news. And not just the benefits, that has surely fucked up careers and the ability to get a job.
Do you have a link? I would like to read more, and possibly front page the story.
RaflW
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks.
I also wonder how much our military members have noticed that the GOP tends to hate mail in ballots and has taken active steps to make voting harder for our forces stationed overseas? That ought to make ’em grumpy towards the Rs.
hotshoe
@Geminid:
We probably agree that Republican politicians are all corrupt sociopaths (or whatever word you would use for that unofficial diagnosis) whose motivations are 1) money and 2) cruelty — now you’re saying that they are feral as well. Ungovernable.
Whereas before, in my understanding, their collective strength was that they would be led to vote unanimously when it mattered. That was why “Dems-in-disarray” was a real thing that hurt, because we were always up against their united front.
I pray that you’re right, that the rank-and-file won’t obey him any more, and that Republicans-in-disarray makes them more likely to fight each other while losing to Dems. Pray for injuries.
I would say that the (temporary) disruption of 300+ military promotions was worth it in the long run if, in the next couple election cycles, traitor Tubey’s antics and McConnell’s inability to corral his Thugs makes for new Dem victories in US Senate.
Kentucky doesn’t have a Senator up for re-election in 2024. Neither does Alabama. (Nor half a dozen other red states).
2026 might be good if the Thugs keep chewing each other to pieces in the meantime.
I can only hope.
cain
Posting here since it is an open thread and I don’t know anything about that foreign country the top post is talking about.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/16nramq/how_do_these_people_keep_voting_for_republicans/
WTF, y’all?
Geminid
@hotshoe: Speaking of Kentucky, Rand Paul is up for reelection in 2028. Andy Beshear is heavily favored in his reelection campaign for Governor, and if Beshear wins this Fall his term will end January, 2028- just in time for a Senate run
Some people have told me that a Democrat, even one as popular as Beashear, cannot win that seat. But I think Beshear will beat Paul, unless Paul retires instead.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: JoeMyGod had the article on DADT.
bbleh
@hotshoe: @Old School: @Citizen Alan: one of McConnell’s sticks has been that he controls an immensely wealthy PAC that doles out money to Republican Senate candidates (and others). A threat from McConnell to back a primary challenger would be taken very seriously.
hotshoe
Probably dead thread, but since I haven’t left for work yet:
Just saw the news, a few minutes ago,
Schumer says:
“Due to the extraordinary circumstances of Sen. Tuberville’s reckless decisions, Democrats will take action”
“It’s not the path a vast majority of senators on either side of the aisle want to go down, but Sen. Tuberville is forcing us to face his obstruction head-on.”
And two votes tomorrow (Thursday) “as part of an agreement reached with Republican leaders.”
Okay, it’s done deal. It’s fine, it’s all fine.
Miss Bianca
@hotshoe: Serious question: do you really, honestly, think you know better than the Senate Majority Leader how to conduct Senate business?
Geminid
@bbleh: That would be a hollow threat, I think. It is very rare for Senate or House leadership in either party to back a primary challenge against a sitting member. McConnell is not a dictator, but instead rules with the consent of a majority of his caucus. Even his most loyal supporters would tell him not to do this. His donors would too.
Geminid
@hotshoe: There still are all the rest of the promotions to be confirmed. Tuberville may throw in the towel, though. We should know by this time next week.
hotshoe
@Miss Bianca: That’s a fucked up question.
Re-checking my own posts — not one of them did I say that I know better.
I said I’m angry, I said “Dems still don’t look as if we support our military because we leave 300+ (minus those 3) still in limbo”. Even when I emphasized my opinion that Schumer “should have done this months ago” in the same post I also say “we can’t tell how it would have worked out if Schumer had done it then” — because I am well aware that I can be wrong and I do not claim that “I know better”.
And why the fuck are you picking on me out of the blue?
hotshoe
@Geminid:
Yep.
Wapiti
@Dan B: Looking this up, it looks like to me that ~32k were discharged for homosexuality, but at least 18k were honorable discharges.
It’s good that the services are looking at this and fixing it.
Wapiti
@WaterGirl: here’s a DoD link I saw.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I made basically the same point earlier today. I said it looked like we were shooting ourselves in the foot, and wondered if anyone could disabuse me of that idea. No one really jumped in to make that case.
I haven’t read all the comments word for word, but I think BJ can also be a good place to vent?
WaterGirl
@Wapiti: Thank you!
Miss Bianca
@hotshoe: when you say “Schumer should have done this months ago”, you basically ARE saying that you think you know better than him. And if you think I am “picking on you” by asking you a question, all I got to say is, Lord love a duck. Defensive much?
hotshoe
@Miss Bianca:
You are picking on me — as proven by the fact that you have not questioned anyone else who has used the same terms of opinion in this very thread — if you were jumping in to question everyone who says he should do something, then I would admit I was wrong about you picking on me — but I’m not wrong. Just the facts.
I will accept your apology now. Thanks.