Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

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

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

A consequence of cucumbers

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

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

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

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

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

We still have time to mess this up!

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: News of the Grown-Up Government

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: News of the Grown-Up Government

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  2. 2.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Jim Jordan’s district is a gerrymandered amalgamated hellscape of exurbs of Columbus, Dayton, Ft Wayne(IN), Toledo and Akron/Cleveland. It’s a set of disparate cities with differing economies, and the only thing each has in common is a set of exurbs from which disaffected, suspicious, parochial white people commute into the city for work.

    He’s the apotheosis of exurban whites….

  4. 4.

    Jesse

    Love that graphic presentation of Jeffries’s victory in the vote. Normies would look at that and think “looks like there’s a clear winner”. (After all this is over, they may be right, though I think that a Jeffries win is possible only after even more haggling and embarrassment than we’ve seen so far.)

  7. 7.

    montanareddog

    Interesting  to see that Clyde (“Maggie’s Dad”) Haberman tweet contrasting Biden and Trump. Maggie’ll be whining to him about screwing up her access to the perpetual defendant.

  8. 8.

    JMG

    @Joey Maloney: For most American voters, sadly Democrats as well as Republicans, being on TV is what they believe is their elected officials’ job. Jordan is good at that.

  10. 10.

    Kay

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:

    Jim Jordan’s district is a gerrymandered amalgamated hellscape

    That’s true but it’s really not “exurbs” of anywhere. It’s almost 3 hours from Sandusky to Fort Wayne IN and no one commutes to Toledo from Lima. The towns and smaller cities in the NW part of his district are just towns and smaller cities – they’re not exurbs of larger places.

  11. 11.

    different-church-lady

    FYI: the front page is feaking out my iPhone again. Much like it used to freak out my old iPad: reload, reload, reload. Except (a) this time it’s a modern device (iOS 15) and (b) it’s only the front page: this individual post loads fine.

  12. 12.

    WendyBinFL

    Biden has flown into TWO war zones. He also met Zelensky in Kiev. And Trump was afraid of rain.

  13. 13.

    montanareddog

    @WendyBinFL: Cut the guy some slack. If you had an amateurishly-crafted basket of piss-encrusted straw on your head, you’d be afraid of the rain, too.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A Republican congresswoman has said she will not run for re-election next year, claiming “DC is broken”.

    Debbie Lesko, from Arizona, said in a statement that traveling to Washington each month had also proven difficult. “I have decided not to run for re-election in 2024. I want to spend more time with my husband, my 94-year-old mother, my three children, and my five grandchildren,” Lesko said, per Politico. “Right now, Washington DC is broken; it is hard to get anything done. Please know that I will continue my work to improve Congress and to help my constituents and the American people. We must all work toward that end.”

    Lesko, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, is a former school board member and state lawmaker. She won her House seat in a special election in 2018.

    And who broke it? Who refuses to fix it? Who is running back to AZ in search of a rock they can bury their head under?

    The sad part of all this is that whoever it is that replaces her, they will no doubt be worse.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    One could compare Jim Jordan to my representative, Marcy Kaptur. Kaptur actually has to compete for votes and she does that – she’s a workhorse in Congress. This past week she was in the red part of her district – my county (75% Trump) – holding a town hall on “women in the workforce”. She had local guest speakers- at least two I know to be Right wing Republicans. Contrast- the Democrats in Jordan’s district aren’t represented at all – he “serves” only the blood red base.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    “Sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes”

    I understand why the disastrous U.S. response to the 9/11 attack is couched in terms like that, but it doesn’t make it any less infuriating. JFC. How about someday an American president tells the fucking truth about that debacle?

    “Everyone was understandably pissed off after 9/11, but dishonest and unscrupulous right-wing politicians converted the nation’s grief and anger into mindless jingoism, accused fellow citizens who opposed lashing out of being unpatriotic, let the mastermind of the attacks escape his hidey hole and go on the lam for years, invaded the wrong country, killed tens of thousands of innocent people and poured well over a trillion dollars down a rathole. For nothing!

    Don’t be dumb like we were, Israel!”

  17. 17.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @OzarkHillbilly: I think “broken” is a weak metaphor. It allows the speaker to avoid saying exactly what’s wrong. Reporters should push politicians to say more about what they mean when they say it’s broken

    ETA: Like what Betty does directly above with the “mistakes were made” cliche. Although truthfully, I was surprised Biden was as negative as he was. He often surprises me by giving a direct answer rather than wiggling out of it

  18. 18.

    Kay

    juliamacfarlaneabc’s profile picture
    juliamacfarlaneabc
    Axios’s Barak Ravid reports:
    Biden asked Netanyahu and his war cabinet about what their plan was for Gaza the day after the war. They said they don’t have one

    Israelis have to get rid of Netanyahu. It’s not just the blatant, outrageous corruption and bellicose war mongering, he’s also a fucking incompetent. Get RID of him already. Send him packing. Christ, I feel like he’s been in power for 50 years. What will it take?

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: Lesko represents, mostly, the northwest exurbs of Phoenix. If you know the Valley, you know that that is dominated by Sun City, which is the country’s first age-restricted master-planned community. They do not allow schools in their community, and they pay to use a neighboring municipality’s police and EMS. They drive golf carts on the streets. In short: the country’s worst kind of old people.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: Just like after 9/11, everyone gets so wrapped up in whether or not a huge military response is justified (okay, yes, that was easy) and refuses to think about whether or not it would be effective (much more difficult to answer). And it devolves into moronic questions about “supporting” Israel vs Palestinians vs Hamas, as if anyone can define what “support” genuinely entails. And it’s full of bad faith, accusations of anti-Semitic or anti-Arab feeling if one criticizes the worst, loudest voices on either side. Whatever. 

  21. 21.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: In maybe 50 years. Right now too many people are still too raw from that; and I include a lot of our military who served, which included Biden’s own son (and my foster son). Just like the disaster of Viet Nam, telling the truth of the waste of money and lives is something that slowly gets acknowledged when the losses are distant. It was pretty brave for Biden to say as little as that, considering he surely knows that war eventually cost Beau his life.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: “Broken” is at the core of everything they say. The list of broken things is endless. You notice they never accept any responsibility for the things they say are broken? But they are right in the middle of it all.

    They blame DEMs for McCarthy’s being deposed. They blame DEMs for not helping them find a solution their RWNJ primary voters will accept. They blame DEMs for everything burning down but they are the arsonists.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: In one of the threads yesterday someone (Geminid, I think) cited polling from Haaretz that shows Israelis are ready to kick that prick to the curb after the war. Maybe there’s no way to dislodge him now — I don’t know how their government works. But if you’ve got a bellicose, corrupt, incompetent in charge, and they do, kicking him out with all possible speed is even more urgent before he fucks this up too!

  28. 28.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: a couple front pagers insist on putting long posts entirely on the front page instead of breaking somewhere for after the fold. It’s annoying, phones refresh much more often than PCs do (in case of weak or dropped signal), so you never get to the bottom.

  29. 29.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Oh, I hope so, but I’ve seen that prediction before and he seems to burrow in and remain. Even the tough guy persona has now been revealed to be a mirage- they attacked because he’s weak. They ran right over him and his multi billion dollar defenses with golf carts and motorcyles and a small force – it has to be hugely humiliating. Now his giant ego will just make more catastrophic errors as a response to being humiliated. Low quality hires never get better, only worse. Mediocre hires can get better, but the real bottom of the barrel disasters just get worse.

  32. 32.

    Joey Maloney

    @Betty Cracker: Maybe there’s no way to dislodge [Bibi] now — I don’t know how their government works.

    His coalition holds 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. New elections can be called if he loses a simple majority no-confidence vote. The coalition is mostly made up of religious fanatics, bigots, and bigoted fanatics, but they’re all hanging on for dear life out of simple practicalities: under Bibi they’ve been able to loot the treasury for their personal enrichment and turn the army into their personal goon squad in the West Bank.

    Unless Bibi really fucks up the war – which is not out of the realm of possibility – the coalition will hold and the next scheduled elections will be in 2025.

  33. 33.

    Tony Jay

    @Kay:

      Axios’s Barak Ravid reports:
    Biden asked Netanyahu and his war cabinet about what their plan was for Gaza the day after the war. They said they don’t have one

    Which is bullshit, because of course they have one, just not one they want to spell out to a Democratic President who has already made it as plain as is possible under the fucked up Approved Narrative that he will not be happy if Bibi and Co are too overt in trying to drown memories of their culpability in a river of Palestinian civilian blood.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @different-church-lady:

    I am having the identical experience recently (iPhone 14, brand new six months ago, Safari), I would say especially so over the last week or two. It doesn’t happen every time, but it happens a lot, particularly when the post is graphics-heavy or link-heavy above the fold.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    AlJazeera.com gives us yet another warning about being a critical news consumer.

    A US Department of State official has resigned over Washington’s decision to boost military aid to Israel, saying the US-supported Gaza war would lead to more suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians.

    Josh Paul, a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, wrote in a note published online on Wednesday that the administration of President Joe Biden was repeating the same mistakes Washington has been making for decades.

    […]

    An important warning, and good for that person for resigning if he feels he can no longer support and carry-out US policy.

    However, …

    Hamas, the armed group that rules Gaza, attacked southern Israel on October 7, prompting Israel’s retaliation on the besieged Palestinian enclave. The violence has killed at least 1,400 people in Israel and nearly 3,500 in Gaza.

    Biden visited Israel on Wednesday, showing support and giving it “the green light to act as it sees fit” in Gaza.

    Biden did not say that. An AlJazeera reporter – Alan Fisher – said that. Making up quotes is wrong and dangerous – especially in a middle-east war.

    One has to be careful to keep one’s thinking cap on when trying to stay informed on this stuff.

    To be clear, I think Biden and his team have done well so far in this. I think that Israel has held off on the ground invasion thus far partly / mostly because of Biden’s work. But we can always do better, and messages always need to be tailored to the audiences. Threading the needle is hard, and shows the value of having experienced diplomats rather than slumlords on the team. I don’t fault Biden for moving carriers and sending $100M quickly. That’s actually much easier to do here than in Ukraine’s case (the Black Sea is a bathtub, and laws are on the books to enable quick arms transfers to Israel that aren’t there for Ukraine to the same extent, etc.).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    Josh Marshall, getting right to the point, LOL.

    Late yesterday, Aaron Blake of the WaPo put up a much-needed observation: the non-MAGA wing of the GOP (such as it is) managed to find some spine in the face of threats and intimidation from the MAGAts.

    I wonder if Gym will have the Orange Man call the holdouts directly today?

    It’s perhaps one of the most important but least-understood facets of the MAGA movement’s dominance of the Republican Party: the role of threats and intimidation. Congressional Republicans have occasionally cited its impact in leading their colleagues to toe Donald Trump’s line — despite their better judgment and principles — with the most recent being retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

    But most don’t talk about it, some of those members have noted, because to call out the mob is to inflame it.

    That’s started to change somewhat.

    A handful of Republicans this week have not only stood up against the effort to install hard-right Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as speaker; they’ve also stood up in a pretty striking way to the pressure tactics and attempted intimidation that came with it.

    there is no question that the situation was always likely to devolve like this. There is a cottage industry of right-wring influencers who have used these tactics to significant effect, mostly on behalf of Trump. Trump has for years conditioned his supporters to employ these tactics. And Jordan is very much of the MAGA movement.

    Trump has repeatedly attacked any Republican who dares to criticize him, making them persona non grata in the party and often helping to usher them out the door. (Many of those who have cited threats in the past were retiring or former members.)

    The question from here is whether the pushback sets the tone and changes anything. The antidote to this kind of intimidation was always going be either the fever breaking or people starting to call it out and holding strong against it.

    That’s easier to do that when the guy on the other side is Jim Jordan rather than Trump, for obvious reasons. And we should hardly expect Republicans to suddenly speak in the same terms about their leading candidate for 2024 presidential nominee.

    But at the very least, the speaker drama has revealed the presence of some backbone among members of the Republican conference whose spine density was in question. And it has occasioned at least something of a conversation about ugly political tactics that is years overdue.

    There’s a really good story lying right there in plain sight, snooze media.  Why not see what you can find out off-the-record and get back to the American public about it?

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Joey Maloney:

    under Bibi they’ve been able to loot the treasury for their personal enrichment and turn the army into their personal goon squad in the West Bank.

    If they don’t do something about the corruption it won’t matter if they win the war. Corruption destroys countries. It’s incredibly corrosive. Netanyahu is like Texas attorney general office levels of corruption. Off the charts.

  42. 42.

    Argiope

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Hey now, some of us live there.  It’s true that Gym is an asshole and that the OH state lege has carefully carved out his voters for him.  But invest now and get in while the cost of living is low, before the rest of the country figures out we’re in a prime spot to weather climate change more gently than most other areas.

  44. 44.

    TeezySkeezy

    @Jesse: A few GOP moderates voting “present” and they’ll start really freaking out, especially if they keep adding one each time, ticking up toward 9.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    Btw (and OT) speaking of things that the American public could stand to hear more about, American Household Wealth Jumped During the Pandemic

    Well yeah – the child tax credit, wage gains, and jobs Jobs JOBS (ie, Bidenomics!) – really helped.  Maybe we could use four more years of that?  But only if the word gets out…

    American families saw the largest jump in their wealth on record between 2019 and 2022, according to Federal Reserve data released on Wednesday, as rising stock indexes, climbing home prices and repeated rounds of government stimulus left people’s finances healthier.
    Median net worth climbed 37 percent over those three years after adjusting for inflation, the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Financesshowed — the biggest jump in records stretching back to 1989. At the same time, median family income increased 3 percent between 2018 and 2021 after subtracting out price increases.
    While income gains were most pronounced for the affluent, the data showed clearly that Americans made nearly across-the-board financial progress in the three years that include the pandemic. Savings rose. Credit card balances fell. Retirement accounts swelled.
     

    The financial progress, particularly for poorer families, is especially remarkable when compared with the aftermath of the last recession, which lasted from 2007 to 2009. It took years for household wealth to rebound fully after that crisis, and for some families it never did.

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Kay, I don’t know if you saw this or not.

    NC Appeals Court: Mom who committed crime while pregnant can lose parental rights
    Judge Murphy justifies decision because ‘life begins at conception’

    I immediately thought of you when I saw this story in my notifications, because this is one of those family law things that doing away with Roe could mess up in ways the proponents of making abortion illegal never thought about.

  47. 47.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kay:

     

    Israelis have to get rid of Netanyahu. It’s not just the blatant, outrageous corruption and bellicose war mongering, he’s also a fucking incompetent. Get RID of him already. Send him packing. Christ, I feel like he’s been in power for 50 years. What will it take?

    You might’ve been describing Shrub. And he was re-elected.

  48. 48.

    Scout211

    In the Speaker sweepstakes,  Rep. Jack Bergman says he ready to report for duty.  Who?

    A Republican congressman from Michigan is prepared to “step up” and serve as U.S. House speaker to help lead the party out of the chaos both it and the nation currently face, his spokesman said Wednesday.

    Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., has been approached by colleagues and had conversations about making a bid for speaker, and would be willing to serve in that role to finish out the current congressional term, but not beyond that, Bergman spokesman James Hogge said in an email to the Detriot Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network.

    . . .

    Like the rest of Michigan’s GOP congressional delegation, Bergman has endorsed Trump for president in 2024.

    Along with Republican Reps. Lisa McClain and Tim Walberg, Bergman was one of three members of Michigan’s congressional delegation who voted unsuccessfully to reject the Arizona and Pennsylvania results from the 2020 presidential election.

    Bergman supported Jordan in the first two votes.

    . . .

    Earlier, Bergman supported former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and opposed McCarthy’s ouster led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida.

    In 2022, Bergman was elected to a fourth two-year term in Michigan’s 1st congressional district, which is comprised of the Upper Peninsula and much of the northern Lower Peninsula. Bergman served in Vietnam and retired from the U.S. Marine Corps with the rank of lieutenant general.

  49. 49.

    montanareddog

    @Jeffro:

    There’s a really good story lying right there in plain sight, snooze media.  Why not see what you can find out off-the-record and get back to the American public about it?

    Bingo!  But I won’t hold my breath that Wapo or FTFNYT will do that when there are Democrats to blame for the speaker impasse, and a president that is old, in case you hadn’t heard

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    Manu Raju
    @mkraju
    1h

    Multiple GOP sources say that Jim Jordan is bleeding votes and is poised to lose even more Republicans if he goes through with a third ballot today. One GOP member who opposes Jordan says there are about 30 R no votes.

    It’s unclear if Jordan goes through with the noon vote

    [ womp, womp ]

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: I saw a bit of that yesterday.  His twitter minions refer to him as “General”.  That very much rubs me the wrong way – we have a civilian government, not a military one.  Being in elected office is an honor not to be minimized.

    Similarly with Potatotown going by “Coach”.  It’s an insult to constituents and the national government.

    Grrr…,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    John S.

    And in news from the not-so-grown-up government, this lunatic trying to compare a violent insurrection to a peaceful protest:

    “By launching an insurrection in the Capitol complex, these actors caused elevators to be shut down, staircases and hallways to be blocked, exits to be made inaccessible, and official legislative business to be obstructed, putting Members of Congress, their staffs and Capitol visits at risk,” Greene wrote in the letter.

    Greene railed against the protests in a series of posts on X, calling the protest “an insurrection of Capitol Hill.”

    Greene also claimed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who spoke to a crowd of demonstrators on Wednesday, was leading the protest, calling her a “Hamas Caucus Leader.”

    https://thehill.com/policy/international/4264018-greene-requests-capitol-police-preserve-footage-reports-house-protest-demanding-ceasefire/amp/

  55. 55.

    Soprano2

    @Scout211:  would be willing to serve in that role to finish out the current congressional term, but not beyond that, Bergman spokesman James Hogge said in an email to the Detriot Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network.

    Doesn’t he know that the Speaker’s term ends when the current Congress ends? He would never have to serve past the current congressional term!

    The Republican caucus is filled with a bunch of clowns.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: I’m pretty sure he knows that. He is just telling his fellow Repubs that he won’t run for a 2nd stint, which may very well not be a choice available to him after next November.

  59. 59.

    Ken

    @Scout211:  Rep. Jack Bergman says he ready to report for duty.  Who?

    Great, now I’m imagining the horror-tedium of watching the Republicans nominate, and vote down, every one of their 220+ Representatives in the search for a speaker. The only saving grace will be watching Jeffries’ steady stream of 212 results. Maybe we’ll even see some pundits crack and say, “Jeffries has gotten the plurality for the last 180 ballots, maybe….”

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Thank you, I read it. It’s even more kind of devious than a straight reliance on Dobbs because they’re claiming to rely on a much older state law so the decision is carefully calibrated to avoid the political ramifications of relying on Dobbs, but they get the same result.

    It’s also political in the sense that they didn’t have to reach the “life begins at conception” issue at all. The mother was going to be sentenced for felony child abuse as to an older child. She would have lost custody of the infant anyway because she was going to prison. They DELIBERATELY seized an issue they didn’t need in order to get a “life beings at conception” decision in place.

    Something really interesting is happening in Ohio and may be a “new front” in the far Right religious intrusion into families and womens lives. They’re getting really agressive with adoptions – using what are considered radical legal theories to have chuldren removed from birth families and placed in Right wing religious homes. They’re doing this because foreign adoptions have been really throttled back – countries like Haiti have halted the flow of children to the US.

    When Dobbs passed and people in my political sphere said “this is about providing children to far Right religious” I rejected that. I’m now watching these really radical adoption legal manuevers where they’re trying to REMOVE children from what are called “good enough” birth families and place them in far Right religious homes and I’m not so sure. As horrible as it sounds this is what I’m seeing.

  61. 61.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @Kay: ​
     There is no reason for Netanyahu to pay any attention to Gaza under “normal” conditions, i.e. except at times like the past two weeks. This is because the settlers have no interest in it.

  62. 62.

    Scout211

    @Soprano2: He would never have to serve past the current congressional term!

    Not to defend “the General,” but I think that was a signal that he wouldn’t run for Speaker in the next congress.

    But hopefully, that point is moot because Speaker Jeffries will be running the show.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @Scout211: And here I thought Don Bacon was the only ex-general in Congress. Bacon was an Air Force general.

    I had to laugh at Rep. Bergman’s promise not to serve as Speaker beyond this Congress. Republicans have a low chance of winning a majority in the next Congress. This current mess will likely be their last Majority this decade.

  65. 65.

    montanareddog

    @Scout211:

    Along with Republican Reps. Lisa McClain and Tim Walberg, Bergman was one of three members of Michigan’s congressional delegation who voted unsuccessfully to reject the Arizona and Pennsylvania results from the 2020 presidential election.

    So another retired 3 star general, like Flynn, whose loyalty to TIFG outweighs the oaths to uphold the constitution that he swore as both an officer and a congressman.   Jeesh, have these men no honor?

  66. 66.

    Tony Jay

    @Ken:

    I said last week they should just pass a rule that every member of the GOP majority in the House can put their name into a big hat (probably a Stetson, or one of those MAGA caps) and, one by one, they’ll all get a chance to serve as The People’s Speaker for a month.

    Not looking so crazy now, is it?

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    We’re seeing far Right lawyers openly use family income as a factor in whether birth families lose their children and make the children available to far Right religious who want to adopt. Not “homeless” or “unable to provide for basic needs”. These are low income people who are providing for their children. This is just way the hell out of left field. It’s NEVER been a factor for the obvious reason that we don’t “reparent” children based on the fact that their birth parents are poor.

    As usual with the Right, every accusation is a confession. This is approaching human trafficking. They’re going to end up essentially buying babies.

  68. 68.

    Ken

    @Jeffro: I was going to object to Josh Marshall’s

    That’s easier to do that when the guy on the other side is Jim Jordan rather than Trump, for obvious reasons.

    But I thought a bit, and realized that — although Jordan has a leading role in the House Republican caucus, while Trump has no official power at all — Trump does have numerous crazy followers who will commit violence when he asks, while Jordan doesn’t. Jordan may not even have friends who would pick him up if his car runs out of gas.

    In fact I half-expect that if there is an investigation into who was sending those threatening tweets to congressional spouses, it will turn out to be a couple of interns in Jordan’s office.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    It’s not just the blatant, outrageous corruption and bellicose war mongering, he’s also a fucking incompetent.

    Yeah, it’s like.

    The entire reason we’re in this mess is that Bibi decided to pull everybody and their brother off the Gaza border to give his friends even more guards for their colonies.  He needs to go, before the war.  Otherwise, you’re simply setting yourself up for more of his endless lines of fuckups and “my friends in the colonies are more important than the safety of Israel” schemes.

  70. 70.

    Chris

    @Betty Cracker:

    In one of the threads yesterday someone (Geminid, I think) cited polling from Haaretz that shows Israelis are ready to kick that prick to the curb after the war.

    Idiots.

  72. 72.

    Geminid

    @John S.: That was a peaceful protest, with 300 arrests but no injuries. By contrast, 61 police were injured at a protest in Berlin last night.

    Forty three Turkish police were injured in Istanbul two nights ago, while forcing protesters away from the US Consulate. The protesters shot off the fireworks they’d been saving for Galatasary FC’s next Champion’s league victory (at the Consulate, not the police).

    It sounds like last night’s Berlin protest got more violent, though.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    Right, I read that, that he was so busy serving his far Right base that he left the country unprotected. Part of this response is humiliation, right? Just like the US with 9/11. Our giant multi billion dollar war/defense machine didn’t “keep us safe” from 12 people with boxcutters. We were so mad we had to kill half a million Iraqis to feel better about ourselves.

    That’s what I mean about these bellicose Right wing war mongers. They’re never actually good at protecting people. One supposedly has to keep them in power to “stay safe” but they never keep anyone safe.

  75. 75.

    Joey Maloney

    @Chris: You’re missing the part where Bibi has deliberately allowed Hamas to retain and expand its power and influence in Gaza in order to prevent the Palestinian Authority – the one which has renounced violence and accepted a two-state solution – from getting their shit together enough to be an actual viable negotiation partner.

    Bibi and Hamas are in a mutually parasitic relationship, each using the other the fatten themselves off their respective subject populations.

  76. 76.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Our giant multi billion dollar war/defense machine didn’t “keep us safe” from 12 people with boxcutters.

    My favorite detail about 9/11 was that one of the Air Force people scrambling fighters after the attack had to ask his superiors whether attacks on the homeland fell within the purview of the Defense Department.

    It just says so much about the state of the military since 1945 and how little it has to do with defending the country.

  78. 78.

    Jackie

    Everybody find your shocked face and put it on:

    “As she weighs a reelection bid, Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has garnered support from big-money donors who have given thousands of dollars to Republican committees over the past few election cycles,” The Messenger reports.

    Maybe Sinema should drop the Indie affliction and run as the Repug she secretly is against Kari Lake! 😂

  79. 79.

    dmsilev

    @Jackie: I would have been shocked if that weren’t the case with her.

    She won’t go GOP; her whole brand (at least in her mind) is Maverick Independent.

  80. 80.

    Argiope

    @Kay: They were buying babies before, just from other countries where the laundering was less obvious.  Extending this theory, what happens to all the frozen embryos? I feel like you’re onto something.

  81. 81.

    TS

    @Kay:

     they’re trying to REMOVE children

    Sounds like STEALING children to me. We have what is known as the “stolen generation” in Australia – sure sounds similar.

    The Stolen Generations refers to a period in Australia’s history where Aboriginal children were removed from their families through government policies. This happened from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. Many were then adopted by white families.

  82. 82.

    Chris

    @Jackie:

    I swear to God, the next “moderate”/”independent”/”centrist” Non-Partisan I see whose Non-Partisanship is a cover for liberal rather than conservative tendencies will be the first.

  83. 83.

    Nelle

    @Kay: (I’m parachuting in so if this has been addressed, please forgive me. I’m spending time rocking a feverish 15 month old and am not keeping up.)

    Even more than serving his red base, Jordan is serving himself.  I’ve seen this at several sources yesterday that Jordan’s assets went from $100,000 in 2000 to $30 million now.  Unless that is disputed, I’m not sure why that isn’t a bigger deal.  Or is that just normal for Congresspeople to go into office, get a Congressional salary, and have their assets increase by millions without a comment anymore.  It worked for Rick Perry, among others.

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @Chris: “after this war”

    That is how the question was asked. I suspect a lot of those 80% would like to see Netanyahu kicked out now. They’re right in the middle of a crisis though, and not many Israelis are making it an issue. Yet.

  85. 85.

    Shalimar

    @Jesse: I don’t think Jeffries wants to preside over this clusterfuck, where Republicans can oust him if they ever have 218 members agree on a replacement.  What Democrats want in an agreement is the ability to force any bill with majority support to the floor for a vote whether the Speaker agrees or not.

    Hakeem Jeffries will be Speaker of the House in January of 2025.

  86. 86.

    narya

    My iPhone (12 mini, up to date OS) also chokes on posts sometimes, especially Xitter-heavy posts.

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Maybe they’re just used to seeing it as “Kiev” for so long. After all, that’s what somebody here said about using “Zelensky” instead of “Zelenskyy.” //

  89. 89.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Steeplejack: Except, as I think you know, both “Zelensky” and “Zelenskyy” are Latinized from Ukrainian, just according to different standards, while “Kiev” is Latinized from Russian, not from Ukrainian (just like “Dniepr.”) It’s the russification that’s objectionable, not the transliteration.

    If we’re not careful here, somebody might deposit 800-1000 words on Romanization/transliteration standards for Cyrillic-based languages.

  90. 90.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Wow, that is horrible, but not that surprising to me. They honestly believe that they should rule over all of us, and that they should have the right to force their conservative religious beliefs on everyone through the force of law. I think they can see that their population is shrinking, so they’re grasping at anything they can to try to increase it.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It sure does make all of their rhetoric about “parental rights” seem particularly hollow, doesn’t it? Evidently for them “parental rights” depend on your income. Are there judges who are actually going along with this? I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be challenged, having a low income isn’t a reason to remove a child from a home.

  92. 92.

    Betty Cracker

    @dmsilev: Sinema is a win-win investment vehicle for GOP megadonors since she’ll continue to fiercely protect their interests in the time she has left in the Senate, and maybe they figure fluffing a doomed if it even happens reelection bid could potentially dent Gallego’s support on the margins.

  94. 94.

    Ramalama

    @WendyBinFL:

    Biden has flown into TWO war zones. He also met Zelensky in Kiev.

    “President Biden has finally come into his own.”

    or

    “The Day Joe Biden looked like a President.”

    Trying to think of the coddling phrases journalists (or more likely their editors) used to describe Trump.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: I am once again asking: do Republicans who might not toe the line really get more of this than any Democratic politician, just for being a Democrat? It’s monstrous but the Democrats seem to live with it.

  96. 96.

    Suzanne

    @Fled the US: No, Rio Verde is northeast, Sun City is northwest. Similar species of assholes, though.

    Sun City is quintessential midcentury ranch house master-plan sprawl. Rio Verde is pseudo-libertarian types who want the space of rural living for their rugged individualistic lifestyle, but also all of the amenities and conveniences of suburban living. Neither of them want brown people around.

  97. 97.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    This just popped up on twitter:

    Trump lawyer Sidney Powell has cut a plea deal and is expected to plead guilty in Georgia one day before her trial begins. She has agreed to testify in future proceedings as part of the plea deal.

  98. 98.

    lowtechcyclist

    @dmsilev:

    She won’t go GOP; her whole brand (at least in her mind) is Maverick Independent.

    Also, the donors’ whole motivation in giving to her campaign is to pull votes away from Gallego.  So neither Sinema nor her backers want her to go from indy to GOP.

  99. 99.

    Kent

    @Soprano2:I immediately thought of you when I saw this story in my notifications, because this is one of those family law things that doing away with Roe could mess up in ways the proponents of making abortion illegal never thought about.

    Oh, this is a feature not a bug.

    And I assure you they have thought about it.

  102. 102.

    Kent

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Sounds like the Judge in Fulton knew what she was doing when she scheduled all the defendants for one single trial.

    The rats are all jumping ship because none of them want to be on the stand with Trump.  He’ll be left holding the bag as the lone defendant when this finally reaches trial.  Heh.

  104. 104.

    Scout211

    Interesting news this morning in Insider. Peter Thiel was an FBI informant, recruited by (the bad) Charles Johnson.

    Peter Thiel has worn many hats over the years: Silicon Valley founder, Trump megadonor, cryptocurrency booster, democracy skeptic.

    But there is yet another facet to Thiel, one that has remained secret until now: FBI informant.

    In the summer of 2021, Insider has learned, Thiel began providing information as a “confidential human source,” or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns.

    Charles Johnson, a longtime associate of Thiel’s and a notorious figure in the far-right movement that Thiel has subsidized for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.

    A source with knowledge of Thiel’s relationship to the FBI, whose identity is known to Insider but who insisted on anonymity, corroborated Johnson’s account, telling Insider that Johnson brokered a relationship between Thiel and Buma. Insider was able to confirm through an additional source that the FBI added Thiel to its formal roster of registered informants.

    Its a long read, with many sources (some anonymous), but worth a few minutes of your time.  There are many interesting political implications here.

  108. 108.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Shalimar:

     I don’t think Jeffries wants to preside over this clusterfuck, where Republicans can oust him if they ever have 218 members agree on a replacement.  What Democrats want in an agreement is the ability to force any bill with majority support to the floor for a vote whether the Speaker agrees or not.

    The only way such an agreement would be enforceable is if Jeffries (or another Dem) were voted in as Speaker.  And I’m sure Jeffries knows that.

    But he became Speaker in the coming weeks, he could get a few bills on the floor (like aid for Ukraine and Israel, and a CR funding the government into next year) before they got 217 votes for a Motion to Vacate.  Getting those through the House would be a big gain.  If they oust him after that, so fucking what??

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    FYI: the front page is feaking out my iPhone again. Much like it used to freak out my old iPad: reload, reload, reload. Except (a) this time it’s a modern device (iOS 15) and (b) it’s only the front page: this individual post loads fine.

    Also had a problem with my Pixel phone. Thought it might be an Internet blip.

  110. 110.

    Suzanne

    @Kay:

    We’re seeing far Right lawyers openly use family income as a factor in whether birth families lose their children and make the children available to far Right religious who want to adopt. Not “homeless” or “unable to provide for basic needs”. These are low income people who are providing for their children. This is just way the hell out of left field. It’s NEVER been a factor for the obvious reason that we don’t “reparent” children based on the fact that their birth parents are poor. 

    I have suspected this for a long time. I actually heard statements like this made by two religious families I have been acquainted with who were foster families hoping to adopt. They fully feel entitled to other people’s children, and justify it by saying that they’re “more financially stable” and “better able to provide for a child’s needs”.

    There are many, many more families struggling with infertility than there are children to adopt. I know that accusations of racism get brought up, but they usually aren’t exactly pointed the right way. For a lot of conservative Christian families, adopting a child of another race is a potent status symbol (see Amy Coney Barrett, David French, etc.). The racism comes into play with the utter disregard those white families have for the birth parents, who often assume that brown and Black children come from dysfunctional families and bad cultures and therefore they’re entitled to those kids.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    They’re not relying on the factors in the adoption decisions, but most don’t go to “decision”. They’re (ostensibly) “by consent”.

    I think it’s bad for good faith adoptions. There’s now a whole group of young liberal women online who are having this “is adoption coercive and anti women?” discussion. My youngest son’s gf casually told me as if it was accepted and understood that she and my son don’t want children and “can’t” adopt because she’s a feminist. Okay, my son is a goofball and has no business raising so much as a goldfish – they’re both too young- so this is all theoretical but I was taken aback how she said this as if I knew it.

    Dobbs changes adoption, right? The pregnancy and birth are no longer voluntary. This is the context in which they’re having this discussion.

  112. 112.

    wjca

    @Kay: Corruption destroys countries. It’s incredibly corrosive. Netanyahu is like Texas attorney general office levels of corruption. Off the charts.

    The Texas AG may be off the charts.  But Bibi is orders of magnitude worse.  And not just because he has more scope.

  113. 113.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s the russification that’s objectionable, not the transliteration.

    Just be patient with people anyway, OK? Here in the U.S., it was ‘Kiev’ for an awfully long time. My grandmother was born in Kyiv when it was Kiev, that was 1905.  Most of us only started seeing ‘Kyiv’ last year.

  115. 115.

    Fake Irishman

    @Joey Maloney:

    Yep. And the relationship between Israel and Hamas goes back farther than the last few years. They were quietly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood back in 1960s and 1970s because they thought identification with Islam was safer for the Jewish State than secular Palestinian nationalism was. The tacit support for Hamas to weaken the PLO in the late 1980s flowed naturally from that.

  116. 116.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: @jonas: The judge should make a few dozen copies of “Attorney-client privilege does not extend to criminal acts”, pre-folded into paper airplanes for easier delivery to Trump lawyers in the courtroom.

  117. 117.

    wjca

    @Suzanne: There are many, many more families struggling with infertility than there are children to adopt.

    Simply not true.  At least the way you phrase it. What there are is many, many more families struggling with infertility than there are infants to adopt.  For anyone willing to adopt a child, rather than insisting on an infant, there are plenty available.

  118. 118.

    Ken

    @BruceFromOhio: Surely all in service to realizing Nosferatu’s goals of fucking shit up for the rest of us.

    I was going to correct your spelling to “Nyarlathotep,” then realized you were speaking of Thiel himself, not his Dark Master.

  119. 119.

    tobie

    According to the NYT, Biden is mulling a triple aid package for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel to the tune of a whopping $100 billion.

    Tim Mak is hearing it will be $60 billion for Ukraine, $10 billion for Israel. Presumably that means the remaining $30 billion would be for Taiwan. I know questions came up in the Ukraine thread last night on whether the US was showing the same commitment to Ukraine that it was to Israel. $60 billion seems like a pretty strong statement of support.

  121. 121.

    Manyakitty

    @Kay: Kaptur was SUCH a step up from that whackadoodle Kucinich. Fortunately, Emilia Sykes represents me excellently.

  123. 123.

    tobie

    @jonas: Whoah. Thanks for linking to that. I wasn’t expecting a guilty plea for the diet Dr. Pepper drinking lady who believed Hugo Chavez could be manipulating US election equipment from the grave.

  127. 127.

    wjca

    @Cameron:  I thought Nosferatu was one of FL’s senators.

    Well, since they’ve got three (counting Florida resident Taterville), surely they can spare one.

  128. 128.

    spc123

    @Betty Cracker: How does that work though? Really not an ideal time to be running through an election process and there is likely no formal way to avoid this (which is a good thing). He would have to leave on his own accord, which unfortunately, doesn’t seem possible.

  129. 129.

    Anyway

    How much do families get paid for “hosting” a foster child? I’ve always wondered if the additional family income is an incentive for some families to foster/  adopt…

  131. 131.

    Manyakitty

    @Kay: I thought that’s where a lot of the babies and young children stolen from the border with Mexico ended up, too. Betsy Devos had those connections to the ‘christian’ adoption agency. 🤮

  133. 133.

    montanareddog

    @Geminid:

    That is how the question was asked. I suspect a lot of those 80% would like to see Netanyahu kicked out now. They’re right in the middle of a crisis though, and not many Israelis are making it an issue. Yet.

    This is up to the Knesset, not the Israeli people, though. It did not stop the House of Commons defenestrating Chamberlain in 1940 in the 1st year of a genuinely existential war; but no evidence of any of the right wing bloc in the Knesset allying with the left to do away with Netenyahu yet

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @spc123: Another election could take 8 weeks and maybe more to produce a new government. A more likely scenario would be a Knesset vote of no confidence and formation of a new coalition excluding Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s 14 MK’s. The new government would have a different Prime Minister, likely former Defense Minister and IDF chief Benny Gantz.

    Likud’s 31 MKs would participate, but probably under a new leader. Last Fall, they were poised to vote Netanyahu out if he did not win a Knesset majority. Then his coalition did unexpectedly well in the November election.

    At least, that is this American’s guess.

  136. 136.

    gvg

    @Kay: I thought it was somewhat coersive before because first they spent decades brainwashing women AND their families into thinking abortions were always wrong so that then women who really were in a bad place to have kids were producing surplus kids and looking for adoptors. I was almost lucky but the mother backed out. Florida law allows us to financially support a pregnant mother but she can still back out right up till the adoption. Anything else would be selling and essentially slavery so there is no way around that, but I do admit I felt rather raw about it. Still, she backed out due to pressure by her boyfriend’s family, and she did not consider abortion. It was her fourth child, and she was not financially able to support them.

    There is another adoption angle that bothers me. I have been told you can do some community support to imprisoned women or soon to be imprisoned women, make friends with the pregnant ones who have to give up their babies and they may choose you to be the mother. If they don’t have relatives that can take custody, the state puts the child up for adoption. If the mother has opinions they listen to her. That seems reasonable but still sound creepy that certain groups know this angle and use it.

  137. 137.

    Chris

    @Fake Irishman:

    Generally speaking, it was the West’s policy for the entire Cold War to support (Saudi-based) Islamic fundamentalism as a counterweight to (Egypt-based) Arab Nationalism.  The latter was secular, socialist, revolutionary, and generally speaking more left than right, so they were the biggest threat as far as Western policymakers were concerned.

    Israel supporting Hamas in the eighties is an outgrowth of that.  So was us supporting the most reactionary factions of the mujahidin in Afghanistan, even though that wasn’t the Arab world.  Oddly enough, I think Iran-contra may have been as well; the entire Islamic Revolution was such an outside-context problem for the entire Cold War establishment that I think well into the eighties there were still people hoping that we could bring Iran back to our side by playing the ecumenical “we children of God should be allies against the godless communists!” card.  The whole story of McFarlane taking a Bible to Tehran as one of his presents for Khomeini just reeks of that.

  139. 139.

    gvg

    @Anyway: It varies by state. In Florida its very tiny for most regular kids. I am told you can make a living if you are qualified to host a medical needs child but trust me, that is a full time job with some kind of medical training. They don’t designate small problems as medical needs.

    Florida got that way because in the past people were using the system to make money and taking in lots of kids , stacking them too many in a room, not caring for them and spending the money on their own needs.

    Now there isn’t enough money to lire the grifters (here), there are square foot rules per bedrooms, closets and baths and inspections and background checks with fingerprints….or at least there were 10 years ago when I did it. Always preferred the kids to the paperwork and there was always a shortage of enough homes to place them in. We picked up that other states varied widely in how they did it and it wasn’t always what you would expect.

  140. 140.

    Geminid

    @montanareddog: There really isn’t much of an Israeli “Left” these days, but there is a large bloc of “Center” opposition parties. They have always been ready to ditch Netanyahu, and actually did from June, 2021 to December of last year (the last 5 months as a caretaker government).

    Still surviving from that government are Labor; the Arab party Ra’am; Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid; Benny Gantz’s National Unity; and Israel Beitanu (favored by Russian immigrants). Those are the parties to watch, along with Likud and the two Ultra-Orthodox parties.

    Much of US media coverage in this area is fairly superficial. The go-to source here will be Israeli media site Haaretz, and also The Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post, I think.

  141. 141.

    pajaro

    @Tony Jay: ​
     

    I believe the quote concerning “the day after” is intended to relate to what Israel plans to do once it has completed it’s military operation. Who will run Gaza, in the event Israel destroys Hamas? Israel doesn’t want to stay, I believe. I’m not sure the PLO would want to do it, particularly if they are placed there by Israel. But someone will need to run Gaza once the war ends, and it’s not clear that Israel has thought through that question at all.

  143. 143.

    db11

    @Geminid: I had meant to ask your opinion of the current Jerusalem Post? Ever since Conrad Black bought it I haven’t trusted it, and have assumed that it tilted well right (like his other media properties).

    Do you find its reporting reliable? Would I be correct in thinking that editorially it’s serving right wing political interests?

    (The comments section seems overwhelmed by the hard right, but that’s also true for a lot of media that don’t lean that way themselves.)

  144. 144.

    Ken

    @piratedan: According to last night’s thread, a lot of candidates’ fundraising is falling off, blamed partly on the perception that Biden and Trump have locked up their nominations. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth among political consultants, advertising agencies, and pundit, all of whom rely on candidate spending.

  146. 146.

    Geminid

    @db11: I don’t read the Jerusalem Post enough to say. My impression is that its reporting is pretty straight. I look at it as similar to USA Today: not a lot of in-depth reporting, and a cautious, neutral aporoach to party politics similar to NPR- except there are 10 parties in the Knesset!

    Their election coverage seemed objective and not slanted.

    One deficiency of both the JPost and the Times of Israel: they give little attention to people’s lives in Gaza and the West Bank. Haaretz is much better in this respect. It’s also unreservedly anti-Netanyayu.

  150. 150.

    Paul in KY

    @Betty Cracker: That’s too shrill, Betty, to ever be stated (no matter how objectively truthful).  How about:

    “Our nation was hurt and wished for retribution after 9/11, but special interests worked to convert our nation’s grief and anger into pursuing unrelated state actors, accused citizens who opposed this pivot of being insufficiently patriotic, took our eyes off the mastermind of the attacks and thus allowed him to escape justice for years and spent over a trillion dollars of our nation’s wealth for minimal gains in the Mideast. Please learn from our errors!”

    Maybe a Democratic President might say above some day…

  152. 152.

    Glidwrith

    @Argiope:

    @TS: I don’t think they’re willing to do the hard work of actually bearing the children. I’m also reminded of Shitgibbon breaking families crossing the border. How many children were fed into the grifters adoption system and never reunited with their families because there were no records?

  153. 153.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Repeating again what former Knesset Member Einat Wilf posted the day of the attack:

       Abandon those who live within the borders of the State of Israel and its sovereign territory, those who are entitled to the protection of the state and its army, for those who jump on hills outside the borders of the state. The lack of a clear border in the West Bank and the collection of delusional messiahs who are only trying to stretch the borders are a disaster for Israel.

    [Translated from Hebrew]

  154. 154.

    WaterGirl

    @Tony Jay:

    Which is bullshit, because of course they have one, just not one they want to spell out to a Democratic President who has already made it as plain as is possible under the fucked up Approved Narrative that he will not be happy if Bibi and Co are too overt in trying to drown memories of their culpability in a river of Palestinian civilian blood.

    I’d say it’s pretty short, too.

    Rinse, repeat.

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