In case the 10minute clip won’t play for you, here’s a link.
Well. Look who showed up for work today. It would be hilarious if Democrats offering to save his speakership from The Hills Have Eyes caucus was his Damascene moment. https://t.co/UAIQry8QEe
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) April 17, 2024
#BREAKING: Biden backs Johnson plan for Ukraine, Israel; calls for vote this week https://t.co/r481xMmpZH
— The Hill (@thehill) April 17, 2024
What's inside the $95 billion House package focused on aiding Ukraine and Israel https://t.co/zDnfjziUES
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 18, 2024
MAGA Mike Johnson says he didn’t get around to Ukraine aid earlier because House Republicans had other “big lifts.”
Like hounding Hunter Biden and passing an evidence-free Mayorkas impeachment? Republicans don’t have big lifts — they have small brains. https://t.co/DyW2OiOCkq— Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16) April 17, 2024
The word lift has many meanings. For the Republicans I think he means to steal. Big thefts.
— E. Morey (@EMorey4) April 17, 2024
There is a section of the Republican party that just straight up wants Russia to win and Ukraine to lose, but they know they can't say that out loud, so instead they just keep saying even dumber and dumber justifications for their opposition to Ukraine aid. https://t.co/cQqPMqABAJ
— Centrism Fan Acct 🔹 (@Wilson__Valdez) April 16, 2024
Jake can try to slap lipstick on this pig, but any honest reporter would simply tell you that Trump and his GOP minions in Congress are abandoning Ukraine on the battlefield in hopes of handing Putin a victory but doing so might jeopardize their access so here we are https://t.co/aBkn0pTkZh
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) April 16, 2024
Historians in future will have fun writing about how the Kremlin took over the @GOP, and how these money-grubbing US politicians fell to fighting each other – to the extent they could not even agree a price at which to sell to the Kremlin the rope with which they would be hanged. https://t.co/KYPFM46sNN
— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) April 17, 2024
Mousebumples
Doesn’t Trump have big lifts? Like in his shoes? Maybe the House GOP is following his style choices.
Also, good morning!
Baud
For once, I hope Gaetz is right.
@Mousebumples:
Good morning.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
“The Hills Have Eyes caucus” is a chef’s kiss worthy descriptor. That’s just brilliant.
Baud
I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.
Rusty
It sure sounds like there has been a shift and Ukraine aid has a real possibility of passing. Gaetz thinking he lost amd Johnson justifying it as replenishment of US stocks are good signs. I’m cautiously optimistic, the sooner the better that we get aid back to Ukraine.
Jay
Given what has happened in the EU, I would guess that the FBI, (not the New York office), is starting to look at whom is actually bought by ruZZia.
matt
I guess this is the moment where we’ve tried all the alternatives and are getting ready to do the right thing.
Baud
@matt:
They often do this. Delay, hope something makes the issue goes away, and then do something and expect people to forget about the delay.
Remember Tuberville’s hold on military promotions?
mrmoshpotato
Let’s send John Hudson all the sympathy cards.
Barbara
@matt: I can’t find any emojis for how this take makes me feel.
mrmoshpotato
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
It really is.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Or the annual Take The Budget Hostage Fest?
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
And debt ceiling.
eclare
@mrmoshpotato:
Agree! Perfect description.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Yup. Actually, I think it was the debt ceiling I was thinking about.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: I had to look that up but “mutated cannibals” sounds about right.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah, I never saw that movie either.
ETA: Mutated cannibals is a great band name though.
Mousebumples
Suzanne
@mrmoshpotato: Seriously. I feel like I would need a Silkwood shower if I even stood in the same room as that guy.
I feel like the Russia knob-slobbing going on in the GOP is such an extension of the Big Tantrums that mediocre white men have been throwing. It’s so clearly an attempt at aligning their brand with Big Daddy.
Ken
@Suzanne: There are absolutely fascinating, or maybe the word I want is horrifying, polling histories showing how Republican opinion flipped on Russia in the 2010s. It shifted a lot under Trump, but the trend was already there.
OzarkHillbilly
Did not have this on my 2024 headline bingo card: Brazilian woman arrested after taking corpse to sign bank loan: ‘She knew he was dead’
Betty Cracker
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: That made me laugh too — a keeper!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
At least back in the “good old days”, the GQP was simply owned by corporations. Never thought I’d think that was better but here we are.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Weekend at Braga’s!
Jeffro
this is actually an excellent summary of the situation!
These Putin tools think we don’t see right through them…it’s insulting.
Ben Cisco
@Suzanne:
This part right here.
Denali5
@OzarkHillbilly:
Somewhere there is a movie script waiting.
OzarkHillbilly
If the GOP thinks illegal immigration is bad now, just wait a few years.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: I recently watched Happy Valley and when the protagonist police officer is asked why seemingly normal people would do something criminally crazy, she says, “people are weird, people are mad.”
Or desperate, I guess.
Chief Oshkosh
@Jay: I think that that is VERY optimistic. The FBI is not in the business of going after criminals who are also Republicans. They’re still too busy gettin’ their hate on for Democrats and hippies.
And for god’s sake, Democratic Presidents, quit putting Republicans in charge of ANYTHING, including the FBI. Just so fucking stupid to think that you’ll get better outcomes with the same low-quality hires.
OzarkHillbilly
@Denali5: Quentin Tarantino is working on it as we speak. (he says he’s given up on The Movie Critic)
Harrison Wesley
According to Reuters, UN Security Council will consider Palestinian application for full UN membership tomorrow. Also according to Reuters, said application will be DOA.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud: I’ve played that game. The flying Volkswagen-sized killer wasps had it in for me, though.
Geminid
The vote Saturday will be dramatic if only because this matter has been dragged out for so long. There ought to be plenty of Republican votes for the package; we should know for sure early in the roll call vote.
I’ll be interested to see which Republicans vote for it and which don’t. It seems like most of that caucus has been straddling the fence on Ukraine, but Saturday they will have to pick a side to come down on.
Harrison Wesley
@OzarkHillbilly: A good plot for Guillermo del Toro, too.
Baud
@Geminid:
If there are separate bills, wouldn’t the Dems be united on Ukraine?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
@Geminid: uh huh 🤔 🤔
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Soprano2
@Ken: I think they’ve come to see Russia as the ideal for how they want things to be. It’s the “great white hope” example they want the U.S. to follow.
Baud
Of course, even if the House passes the Ukraine bill Friday, I expect a few deadbeat Republican Senators will hold up quick passage.
Betty Cracker
Last night on his shitty, tumbleweed-choked social media platform, Trump used Bill O’Reilly’s lone unmolested intern as a sock puppet to set an angry mob on the NYC jury pool:
It’ll be interesting to see how the judge handles this. Legal analysts are saying it at least sidles up to the line the judge set with the gag order to protect jurors and court personnel. Maybe some hours in the clink and a big fat fine would discourage the orange skidmark from continuing to use the implicit threat of mob violence to intimidate jurors?
Geminid
@Baud: I’m guessing House Democrats will all vote yes on Ukraine aid.
Baud
@Geminid:
Thanks. Wonder if a lot of Republicans will see that as “cover” to vote against it, or if they’ll see safety in numbers and vote for it. Suspense!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
I thought the Senate had passed something already, or had telegraphed that they’d quickly pass what was being done in the House. Can’t remember other than it didn’t appear Senate passage would be held up.
gene108
I don’t know much about getting bills passed in the House, but bringing a bill to the floor for a vote that has support from majorities in both parties and will easily pass doesn’t seem like much of a heavy lift.
Speaker Johnson, like every Republican Speaker since 2011, at least, would rather cave to the crazies in his caucus than negotiate with Democrats to get stuff done.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
What the Senate passed isn’t what the House is voting on. And I think it takes only one Senator to force a delay, which would require a couple of days to go through the process.
Chris
Yeah, it’s called “the Republican Party.”
NotMax
Crimea river, Johnson.
//
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I hope the judge makes him explain himself in court, and then when he can’t – when it’s obvious that he’s just making shit up to intimidate the current/prospective jurors – the judge (as you said) gives him a day behind bars to think about it.
(I’m kind of done with the fines – they clearly don’t mean anything to the orange toddler)
Kay
@Jeffro:
Our local judges are very protective of juries (and individual jurors). This would be a big deal and considered worse than attacking the judge by our judges. Jurors are considered above the fray – not part of the adversarial actions between the prosecution and defense.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Nominated.
Betty
@Betty Cracker: I have read that that is a fake post which makes it even worse that Trump reposted it. Will be interesting to see how Watters reacts.
Kathleen
@mrmoshpotato: And lots of garlic and crosses.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jeffro: In spite of Trump’s temper tantrums in court, the Orange Buffoon won’t see the inside of a jail cell. Rich people are treated differently in this country and that’s not going to change.
Chris
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Jennifer from Sadly, No! had a 4th of July post more than a decade ago whose thesis statement was, in effect, that if you embrace the Thatcherite/Reaganite notion of “there is no such thing as society,” what you’re really saying is “there is no such thing as country.”
No matter what it says on the paperwork, a country, before it consists of anything else, consists of the people in it. If they’re not strong and healthy, then neither is the country. So if you don’t give a shit about them, then you don’t actually give a shit about the country, either.
In other words, the leap from “there is no such thing as society” to “Russia, if you’re listening” is less a leap and more a small shuffle.
Ironically, “if you embrace unregulated capitalism, then any foreigner with enough money can just walk in and buy your country right out from under you, even if the reason he has enough money is that he’s a paid agent of his government” used to be a staple of the right wing critique of capitalism (back when modern capitalism was still new enough for conservatives to find it suspect). Never really went anywhere, because it turned out that 99% of the time, concerns about capitalism and shady foreigners was something people like that only cared about if it was a dogwhistle for “but the JEWS!!!” (with a side order of “waaahhh, some pleb can be richer than me now just because he’s good with money, I BET HE’S NOT EVEN FROM HERE!!!”) But, y’know, broken clocks and all that…
Kay
I’ve mentioned the Leahy Laws here before – they’re a set of US laws that forbid weapons transfers to governments that violate human rights. Weapons donations – they don’t limit a government buying US arms – that’s considered a commercial transaction. Anyway, pro Palestinian actvists and others have been demanding the US follow these laws and lately it’s reached a kind of head.
This is ProPublica yesterday:
Enforcing the Laehy laws is not unusual for the US. They use these laws as a human rights lever regularly and they are considered effective – governments change their behavior when Leahy laws are enforced.
Chris
@Chief Oshkosh:
Yeah, the extent to which police agencies today are just Republican militias is turning into a full-blown national security crisis.
Unfortunately, Democrats are still afraid, and not without reason, that the mushy middle and far too many of their own voters will scream bloody murder if they’re perceived as doing anything to hamper our poor virtuous cops and feds.
Baud
@Kay:
I’ll be interested in seeing what happens after the funding packages are passed.
Another Scott
@The Thin Black Duke: Lots of things never happen until they do. I remember when the PTB said that there would be no indictment, no perp walk, and no mug shot because everyone knows what he looks like. And yet, a little while later, there was.
I take Garland and Smith and all the rest as being serious that “nobody is above the law.” Unless TIFG does a plea deal, then I expect him to serve at least some time in prison (with a good chance that he’ll never leave).
But we’ll see!
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris
@Baud:
Yeah, I’m finding it hard to be optimistic. The appeal of the discharge petition was that it was for a bill that had already been approved by the Senate. This is going to punt it back to another chamber that’s going to let it languish for another three months while people figure out how to bribe the holdouts, and when the bribes are done, it’ll have changed so much that it’ll have to be sent back to the House so the process can start over again.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: So Blinken’s getting set up to take the fall?
Elizabelle
Good for the Kennedy family, endorsing Biden en masse.
I kinda hope Mrs RFK Jr’s career tanks, too.
Baud
@Chris:
If there are nine Republican votes for Ukraine, then it should pass quickly, if not immediately. Schumer doesn’t have to bring up Israel funding until Ukraine gets done either.
artem1s
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
REAVERS!
Melancholy Jaques
@Another Scott:
I’m not that concerned whether he serves time. The most important thing is that the public record of who did what will be established. Nothing, not even a video of him saying “I want to overthrow the government and establish a dictatorship” would affect his cult following. But there are people who will be persuaded not to vote for him once they know what really happened. Right now, they haven’t paid attention.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: I won’t be surprised if he gets house arrest and I’d like to think it would be sentenced to an un air conditioned 2 bedroom, 1950s bungalow in the Florida panhandle but that last part is probably a bridge too far.
He’s an ex president, entitled to lifetime SS protection and I don’t see that being revoked or happening in prison.
Kay
@Baud:
The special State Department panel is itself a compromise in Israel’s direction – a committee approach is unique to Israel – so human rights advocates feel the US has already given up ground on human rights violations and they still aren’t enforcing Leahy laws.
I don’t think it’s going away. Reading the reports it looks to me like some of the pressure is coming from inside the State Department now, rather than just from activists.
Baud
@Kay:
Yeah, I’m just wondering how much they are concerned about giving Republicans an excuse to scuttle funding for Ukraine. We should find out in the next couple of weeks if the bills get passed.
TBone
Euan MacDonald smashed it out of the park. Some pundit or other should read that out loud to the nation every damn day.
sdhays
@Chris: McConnell is, surprisingly, pretty good on Ukraine. I think they’ll pass it with all deliberate speed if it’s something Democrats can support. They’ll probably have to deal with cloture shenanigans because your Rand Pauls or whoever won’t give unanimous consent, but that will take days to pass, not months.
I had started to lose hope, so this is very welcome news.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
Always the problem with “committees” right? They tend to water down accountability until it disappears completely. But your take is too cynical for me. I think the Leahy law enforcement angle is a good argument from activists and that’s why it’s gaining traction. It (along with US action at the UN re; Palestinian rights, as you note in your comments) is the response to “but what can Biden DO!?” This is what Biden can do. Enforce US law. Seven Dem Senators are calling for enforcement too. That’s progress.
TBone
@Jay: my fervent hope.
Baud
Are the Republicans really getting nothing out of this delay other than helping Putin out for a few months?
Chris
@Baud:
My concern is that if it was impossible to find enough Republicans to act quickly on the discharge petition, it may be impossible to find enough in the Senate, too.
As for Israel, that lever has limited impact. The whole problem with trying to force their hands by tying Israel aid to Ukraine aid is that they don’t have to care as much – at the end of the day, even if all the arms packages fail, Israel isn’t actually in a life or death situation where it dies if it doesn’t receive more weapons from the U.S, and Ukraine is.
So yeah. Really hoping this does pass the House and that we do have nine extra votes in the Senate (and of course, that Manchin or some fuckwad like that doesn’t also decide to play their own game). I’m just… prepared for disappointment.
cain
@Baud: maybe a number of them are compromised and want to keep their jobs or not go to jail?
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: I apologize for coming off as too cynical – I probably am too cynical, but this is an issue I’ve followed almost all my life. And I’m an old fart.
cain
@Chris: I can’t see Manchin doing anything here. Maybe Sinema but Ukraine aid is still favorable to even Republicans at least the old ones.
Watch out for Rand Paul, it’s that guy that will cause drama or Ted Cruze.
Baud
@cain:
Also JD Vance. He’s a Putinite.
Torrey
Attack ads I want to see.
I know more than a few people who reliably vote Republican, claiming that the #1 thing for them is “supporting the troops.” I want to see a series of ads making the point that under Republican control, the U.S. regularly abandons our allies (Trump with the Kurds, Bush’s mismanagement of Afghanistan and Iraq and failure to support the interpreters who supported the US forces, Trump setting a pre-announced date for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan, and the whole dysfunctional Republican caucus with Ukraine). When the U.S. does not stand behind its allies, it looks like an unreliable partner.
I also want to see a series of attack ads on the specific senators and congresscritters who are clearly on Putin’s side. The Republicans did it to decorated combat vet Max Cleland in 2002, and that was without any basis in fact. I refuse to believe a sophomore public relations student couldn’t come up with a series of solid ads against the current crop of Republicans. Heck, Liz Cheney is practically writing their scripts for them.
Melancholy Jaques
@Elizabelle:
I guess I’m naive and out of touch, but I don’t understand why RFK Jr’s entire family coming out against him isn’t devastating to his efforts. See also, Paul Gosar.
Kay
@Harrison Wesley:
It’s fine. Following it your whole life you’re probably entitled to be cynical at this point. I thought it was heartening that the Leahy laws actually work. So much of the US human rights and international law adherence seems to me to be vague posturing and rhetoric with no follow-thru. This is a real tool.
I read that Leahy drafted and promoted the laws as a response to US Republican/conservatve support of human rights abusing Right wing dictators in central and south America. They still love Pinochet. Tom Cotton wants to bring Pinochet-style repression here.
Fake Irishman
@Baud:
at a first approximation, that appears right. For all we complain about the GOP getting too much of what they want, they certainly have walked away from some pretty juicy deals over the last 30 years: an not-great immigration bill (does many helpful things, but contains a few big Republican priorities without any big Democratic asks) last winter, massive budget cuts they could have pinned on Obama in 2011, some rather draconian Medicaid cuts in 1995.
There’s also a lesson for us here too: It sure sucks in the moment to compromise with assholes like Liberman and Nelson and Manchin and Sinema, but isn’t it great to have the Affordable Care Act and the IRA, and the American Rescue Plan (and Dodd-Frank and the Obama stimulus) instead of not having those things?
OzarkHillbilly
I got a new cell phone the other day, a flip phone because I don’t want any of that crap they load up smart phones with. So what do I get? A flip phone loaded up with a bunch of shit I have no use for and even less desire to have on my phone.
As an added bonus, it appears I need a degree in computer programming to add a contact. WTF???
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: JD? I never did get around to reading Hedge Fund Hillbilly or whatever his book was. I don’t intend to, either.
Kay
@Melancholy Jaques:
There’s a whole goup of US voters who don’t read or follow real news. Kennedy’s supporters won’t know about it – they’re busy doing their own AIDS research and listening to Joe Rogan promote the idea that Dr Fauci is a Deep State plant. His target audience are literally the shallowest, dumbest people in the country. He’ll get a percentage too.
Bupalos
@Chris: Ukraine aid will have no problem in the senate. The disappointment is that the damage is done. The shape of the conflict in Ukraine is quite different today because of the delay and the morale effect of Ukrainians down to the conscript level realizing the United States isn’t really capable of being invested in this fight.
biden needs to counteract that by opening up new weapons options and stoping with the now ridiculous timidity.
TBone
@Elizabelle: me too, she should have publicly and vociferously distanced herself from that piece of shit. I’d have divorced him immediately or sooner.
Fake Irishman
@Fake Irishman:
and to be clear, it is to the great credit of Priya Jayapayal and most of the denizens of the Congressional Progressive Caucus up to and including the AOCs and Ayanna Pressleys of the world (often even the Kori Bushes, Katie Porters and Ilhan Omars of the world) that they understand the need to negotiate and compromise to get what they want.
RevRick
@Baud: Somehow the Emoluments Clause was supposed to protect us from that, since the Founders were terrified of the interference of Great Powers in our government. We’ve seen how well that’s worked. *sigh
TBone
@Melancholy Jaques: 👍 plus Alvin Bragg can establish the pattern of RICO behavior going way back – I hope that is something Fani Willis can use to bolster her case(s).
Kay
@TBone:
Me three. There are limits. He’s now espousing the view that AIDS is fake. Joe Rogan has picked it up and will be beaming it out to his brain-broken listeners 4 hours a day.
The “health and wellness” bullshit industry in the US is out of control.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
From the quote box:
Same standards, sure, but ISTM there ought to be a vastly different set of procedures when the mass murders are taking place in real time. Your regular procedures might take the better part of a year; when every day is a new set of massacres, investigating at a deliberate pace is a failure to enforce the law – and morally, it’s a collaboration with the murderers.
RaflW
Johnson doesn’t have the guts to try to marginalize people like Gaetz. Which is a shame, but I sure hope that in 2025, neither Gaetz nor Johnson will have much impact on the business of the House.
RevRick
@Ken: Putin’s white ethno-nationalism attracted them, because it scratched their fascist itch.
NotMax
@Melancholy Jaques
How long until Jr’s campaign labels them all KINOs?
//
Betty
@Bupalos: I hope they do make sure the right weapons are provided. It’s not encouraging to know the VP suggested they stop attacking oil refineries. I am guessing that’s because it raises the price of oil which feeds the Biden is causing inflation stories.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: A military base would be just fine for me.
TBone
@Kay: there are just not enough cuss words for these fucking imbeciles. Need more coffee to loosen my tongue. Then I might let ‘er rip for the rest of today in the hopes that venting in such a luxurious fashion will help me sleep better.
Every time I see the ads for the supplement pills called “Fruits” and “Veggies” I despair for the nation.
Baud
@JPL:
Maybe one of the ones whose name was changed so it no longer honors confederates.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: Down here in FL, these folks are trying to take over the board of Sarasota Memorial Hospital. I told my friend in Sarasota (who hadn’t heard about it) that if they succeed, she probably should try somewhere else for any health issues.
NotMax
@Baud
Change the name back to Fort Bragg?
The non-CSA one.
//
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Right. The law’s moral grounding is exactly that – the US is supplying the weapons at no cost, hence on moral terms it is the same as if the US were committing the human rights abuses. There’s no attentuation at all – it’s A to B. You can’t hand a gun to someone when you’re aware the person intends to murder someone else, then when he murders the person with the gun you just handed him claim innocence “he did it, not me!”. That’s the moral situation the law is intended to address. It’s a codification of that idea.
Chris
@RevRick:
I think it’s equal parts Cleek’s Law and genuine ideological affinity, with a little trouble telling where one ends and the other begins.
A lot of the original Putin-fanboyism was simple Obama Derangement Syndrome: everything Obama did was wrong, every foreign leader who wasn’t tied to Obama in their minds and especially one who was hostile to Obama was Doing It Better, so when all the memes of Bare Chested Bear Riding Manly Man Vladimir Putin started going around, of course they were retweeting them and sighing wistfully about how oh, if only we had a real man like him in charge.
But then it turned out that Russia had a really major active measures system that was busy looking for people like them, and then jumping on them and cultivating them, in a way that most dictators don’t. And then they looked into Russia a little deeper and realized that, oh hey, this really is our kind of country! They put the cops in charge, they let the rich do whatever they want (so long as they’re not the wrong kind of rich IYKWIMAITYD), and they don’t tolerate Teh Gheys!
sab
I haven’t talked to my RWNJ brother in years because of politics. The week of Dad’s funeral should be fun.
ETA ///
Baud
@Chris:
Russia helped them defeat the evil Hillary. It was a major bonding experience.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Melancholy Jaques: The oligarchs’ money propping him up isn’t likely to be swayed by the rest of the Kennedy clan utterly rejecting his position. He’s either a useful idiot to the GOP or a fellow traveler, it doesn’t matter any more which, and as long as the oligarchs continue to think he’s useful, he’ll get all the support he needs to cause problems for the oligarchs’ enemies.
Nettoyeur
@Bupalos: Same thing happened with regard to aid to UK before Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war agsinst the US. The GOP America First bunch were actively pro Hitler.
Soprano2
You mean the people who don’t realize (or do but lie about it) that most drugs come from plants and other natural sources? Yeah, they’re out of control. They can actually kill people. “Chinese weight loss tea” is “natural”, and it can also kill you. I wish people realized that if those “natural” products worked so well we wouldn’t have chemicals! I’m sorry, that “natural” laundry soap doesn’t get my clothes clean like regular detergent does. And so on. You can’t just put the word “natural” on something and claim it’s better.
Chris
@Baud:
Oh well yeah, that for sure. I’m just talking about pre-2016 Putin fanboyism.
Relatedly: back in the 2000s, before Putin fanboyism on the right was ever a serious thing, what I occasionally glimpsed on wingnut blogs was Milosevic fanboyism. After all, Milosevic was just trying to defend the gates of Europe from the Muslim Horde. And besides, since his big Western nemesis was Bill Clinton, can he really be all that bad?
It wasn’t common, exactly – it’s not one of the tropes that the wingnut machine as a whole embraced. I only saw it a few times, and from commenters rather than posters. But I never saw anyone push back against it either.
Soprano2
@Nettoyeur: Rachel Maddow did a whole podcast and book about that. I had no idea, I had never learned that history.
Betty
@Betty: My bad. Looks like Watters did a whole segment trashing the jurors on his show.
rikyrah
@Mousebumples:
they are in formation against him.
clap clap clap
Soprano2
So, on another subject, Uri Berliner resigned from NPR so now he can go somewhere he would fit in better, like Fox News (I fully expect him to show up at one of those right-wing “news” companies). I shake my head at the idea that the only “viewpoint diversity” he thinks actually matters is having more conservative viewpoints, as if there aren’t already enough places you can get that information.
Soprano2
@Betty: I think for partisans like us, it’s hard to imagine there could be people who don’t have any kind of opinion about TFG. I don’t know how he can trash people he knows almost nothing about.
Geminid
@TBone: Hew Hewitt’s most faithful radio advertiser is an “natural” anti-inflammatory blend. He does the ads himself: “I’m gonna run 8 miles tomorrow but I’m not worried about aches and pains because I take [Supplement]! You should try [Supplement] too! It’s a blend of….”
Advertisers selling gold, freeze-dried survival meals “shipped to you in unmarked boxes,” and mortgages come and go, but Hewitt never stops flacking [Supplement!].
jimmiraybob
@OzarkHillbilly: “If the GOP thinks illegal immigration is bad now, just wait a few years.”
I assume that this will include vast hordes of disease-bearing, mind-poisoning migrants from the south …. southern US dessert dust-bowl states … fleeing oppressive and deadly conditions.
The Good Book says that we treat the sojourner as our neighbor. The Trump/MAGA Book says build a wall and shoot them in the legs (presumably to be fed to the alligators in the moat that runs along the wall).
What to do, what to do?
RaflW
Jonathan Bernstein makes a point (House Republican Perpetual-Fiasco Machine) that I less effectively made in the last day or two:
“…then there are the Republican Ukraine/Israel hawks, who have utterly failed to use their leverage to put any pressure on Johnson and the party at all. For example: when Johnson and the radicals really wanted to pass the Mayorkas impeachment; the hawks could have withheld their necessary votes until Johnson agreed to put the Senate-passed Ukraine/Israel bill on the House floor. But no.
In other words, the entire House Republican conference is contributing to making this as much of a fiasco as possible.”
(Italics added — emphasizing that even longer-term House Rs including committee chairs failed to use leverage that in the past they’d have known how to do. I suspect a combo of brain drain & unmerited fear of their MAGAloon colleagues).
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s just really unfair to accuse every physician of killing people, or “withholding” treatment or profiting off death.
The celebrity practioners are full of shit too. RFK Jr. got state of the art medical treatment for his drug habit and throat/voice problems. I guarantee if Joe Rogan has a real health problem he won’t be fucking around with internet cures. He’ll be headed right to Mayo. They tell the dopey (young and mostly male) followers to reject the medical care they get for themselves.
It’s such a poisonous view- that the whole world is conspiring against you. No wonder young white men are all fucked up (and they are, I agree). Their “role models” are absolute, low life scum.
jimmiraybob
@Soprano2: I highly recommend both; “Ultra” the podcast and “Prequel” the book. Detailed historically-verifiable information on America’s 1st brush with Nazi fascism. It was a close call. After entry to WWII it went underground and simmered in RW groups like John Birch Society and the KKK, until now.
I’m on my 2nd slow-read of “Prequel”.
RaflW
@Soprano2: I speculated that he’ll be on the ‘faculty’ at Bari Weiss’s faux university by this coming fall. If she and her ilk have secured sufficient paying customer/idiots.
Betty Cracker
@jimmiraybob: I second those recommendations. It was uplifting in a sense. We’ve seen these enemies before and defeated them. Then, as now, it took a lot of courage on the part of ordinary people. The courts failed more often than not. The pro-fascist movement had tons of powerful supporters in government. We have the blueprint to keep our democracy.
catclub
They could protect him in Gitmo.
TBone
In case you’d like to see rock star Jamie Raskin busting balls again, here’s a video
https://susiemadrak.com/2024/04/18/jamie-raskin-destroys-gomer-comer/
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly:
If he’s a convicted felon, I don’t see that he’s entitled to Secret Service protection after that. Prison guardianship should be sufficient. He can be kept in solitary confinement if there’s any fears that GenPop would try to harm him. (Ha, as if – I think the bigger fear would be that they would try to rally round him!)
Kay
Speaking of Kennedys and the sleazy “health and wellness” industry here’s a refreshing counter to that:
Women who are past child bearing age are really neglected as far as health in the US. It goes back to the archaic ideas in the US where women are only valuable or worthy if they’re young – see;, media demanding Hillary Clinton shut up and take up knitting while fawning all over Mitt Romney, see;. media and Republicans promotiong laws forcing women to bear children – that’s the only value they recognize with women – as baby producers.
This helps put us on the road to parity on womens human rights with other developed countries.
Anyway. Maria Shriver is the spokesperson for this.
Sanjeevs
Lets see if Merchan acts or if he’s like the rest of them.
NotMax
@jimmiraybob
1939, Madison Square Garden.
Commentary by the director behind the film.
sab
@Kay: I personally would not trust Cleveland Clinic on anything. A marketing firm distantly attached to a hospital chain.
ETA Maria Shriver is out in California. She knows absolutely nothing about what Cleveland Clinic is doing in Ohio.
ETA I guess it is good news that they think we are a useful market.
Chris
@Soprano2:
Yeah, it really gives it away that “viewpoint diversity” is never about anything but listening to conservatives.
I mean, yeah, sure, let’s have viewpoint diversity! Let’s have voices representing Cuban-style communism, Iranian-style islamism, and Zapatista-style anarchism, not to mention (God forbid) Scandinavian-style social democracy! And when religion comes up, let’s have some Unitarian Universalists, Muslims, neo-pagans, and representatives of multiple Native American tribal religious traditions! Now that’s viewpoint diversity! What’s wrong? We’re just exposing people to different points of view! We just don’t want them to live in a bubble? You’re not saying you were lying to us about these things, are you?
jimmiraybob
@Betty Cracker: ” It was uplifting in a sense.”
Absolutely. Like a lot of people I knew a little about the era(Lindbergh, Ford, Father Coughlin for instance) but had no real sense of the depth of the threat as far as how far it reached into the American culture (Hitler youth camps for FSM’s sake!).
“Ultra” and “Prequel” are good antidotes to the doomed mind disease.
NotMax
Slight coding fix for #128.
@jimmiraybob
1939, Madison Square Garden.
Commentary by the director behind the film.
Soprano2
@RaflW: Without a doubt there are valid criticisms of NPR and its news coverage, but he gave the game away with what he complained about – TFG and Russian “collusion”, the “lab leak” theory, and other crap like that. Those are all right wing Republican talking points. There was not one acknowledgement that NPR probably has more “diversity of viewpoints” than any other news company because of the amount of women and POC they employ as reporters.
TBone
@sab: I read really, really bad things about them anecdotally from a person who was an inpatient, written during her stay. She was gaslit repeatedly, plus worse. BUT if they’re capable of change and not just looking at women as a money making demographic that they’ve neglected to fleece to the fullest extent, I’m hopeful. We’ll see.
When I see argle bargle about “connectivity” my red blinker goes off.
jimmiraybob
@NotMax: Yes.
When I saw an article about the Madison Square Nazi rally I posted a picture of it on FB. A few minds were blown.
One reason the RW don’t want this kind of history revealed is so they can keep trying.
Jean Marc Bibeau
@Jay: Would you know who are the oligarchs/cable in the US who support and coordinate globally with Putin?
Not the GOP senators which are mostly mostly lobbyists…looking for the puppeteers
Thanks
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m not anti-supplement; I take Omega-7 for eye dryness because I heard it recommended on “The People’s Pharmacy” by an opthamologist! I take a few other supplements too, but I would never think they could be all of my health care, or that I don’t need drugs. My daily asthma inhaler is like a miracle; without it I’d be wheezing within a couple of days. There has to be a balance. I agree they’re doing their listeners a real disservice by making them think the immune system of their body can cure anything if only it’s strong enough. It plays into the idea these young men already have that they’re invincible and nothing can ever hurt them.
TBone
@Geminid: Mike Suckabee is on that train too. We need to blow up the trestle.
RaflW
@Rusty: The most important thing is getting Ukraine their urgently needed aid. That said, Johnson putting his own nuts in a vice is entirely predictable. Now that he’s framed it as 80% replenishment of US stocks, if the bill fails, Dems need to immediately attack him in his home district airwaves for ‘defunding our defense industry jobs’.
sab
@Kay: Re celebrity doctors: my doctor dad used to laugh that it was a miracle that Dr DeBakey was out of country when Jerry Lewis had his heart attack, and that is why he survived.
ETA Would you want Dr Oz treating your family member?
NotMax
@RaflW
Vise.
However the judges will accept the typo with gusto.
;)
TBone
@Jean Marc Bibeau: Jeffrey Yass, the Uhleins, the Koch empire, Harlan Crow & Leonard Leo, Eric Prince and his fucked up sister, just off the top of my head. If I thought about it the list is much longer …
TBone
@sab: my former female GP’s first name is Ayn (*shivers just thinking about it)
Eolirin
@TBone: The Mercers are a big one. Cambridge Analytica looks an awful lot like actual coordination with Russian intelligence services
Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and Elon Musk too.
But I think Prince works with China more than Russia
A lot of the big players have effectively outted themselves over Ukraine. Anyone pushing Russian propaganda about Ukraine can be assumed to be compromised.
TBone
@Eolirin: 👍 I quit FB over Cambridge Analytica. Prince and DeVos dirty fingerprints on Africa too if I recall correctly. Haven’t had enough coffee yet today…
TBone
😆😆😆
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/04/rep-jared-moscowitz-submits-amendment-make
Captain C
@Soprano2: Funny, though, how few of them are up-and-moving there, especially to areas outside of Moscow or St. Petersburg. It’s almost like they know their lives will become more like that family that got all their assets ripped off than some white supremacist paradise where they can do whatever they want.
Soprano2
@TBone: I read about that last night and think it’s hilarious! Yep, put it out there for everyone to see that she’s a tool of Russia.
Soprano2
@Captain C: It’s also funny how few of them live in the “heartland” or any of the other places they think are “real America”. Most of them seem to live in those cities where “coastal elites” reign supreme. Almost as if they know the quality of life is better there regardless of what they tell their listeners and viewers.
Barry
@Kay: “Our local judges are very protective of juries (and individual jurors). This would be a big deal and considered worse than attacking the judge by our judges. Jurors are considered above the fray – not part of the adversarial actions between the prosecution and defense.”
So many of these things do not apply when rich white men are defendants.
Chris
@Soprano2:
Oh, I’ve definitely noticed the “red elites prefer blue states” phenomenon before. I’ve also noted how it rhymes with the way Saudi elites live a sort of half life where they have mansions and frequent trips to the West for all the fun stuff that’s either forbidden or just not a thing at home. Or the way Soviet elites in the old days had all these special ways of getting the decadent consumerist amenities of the West that their people were theoretically forbidden.
My working theory is that there’s an entire category of elite that needs for there to be closed, repressed, reactionary, puritanical societies, because those societies are how they get their power and money, but also needs for there to be liberal, pluralistic, innovative societies, because those societies are the only place where there’s anything worth spending the power and money in.
EarthWindFire
My response to “natural”: Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are natural, and I don’t embrace those. It’s an all-purpose response too. It really gets the religious bigots who tell you the gheys are unnatural ticked off and stammering.
Kayla Rudbek
@Soprano2: all matter is either made of chemicals or pure elements. I get really annoyed at the woo merchants who advertise their products as “chemical free”
Kayla Rudbek
@EarthWindFire: I usually say that arsenic is perfectly natural
Captain C
@Baud: I wonder how much of his hedge fund bucks came from Russian sources.
gvg
@EarthWindFire: Parrot fish and clownfish naturally change sex according to life circumstances. Parrot fish turn from female to male. Clownfish turn from male to female. Finding Nemo would have really surprised people if Disney had stuck to real biology.
Citizen Alan
@Ken: I am now fully convinced that the sole objection of the republican party to the soviet union during the cold war was the fact that they were all anti capitalist. If Stalin and Kruschev et al were all a bunch of kleptocrat mobsters who ran the USSR like a giant mafia operation the way Putin does Russia today, the Republican party would have absolutely adored them and thought that they were better leaders than any Democratic president between 1932 and 1992. The rosenbergs would have been praised as defenders of capitalism instead of executed.
Misterpuff
@OzarkHillbilly:
She tried to Weekend At Bernie’s a bank!
Brass Ones!
Old Man Shadow
The optimism in thinking there will be a future, let alone historians to write about it, is so cute.
KrackenJack
@TBone:
Obvious late to the thread, but just wanted to thank you Tbone for a link that doesn’t go to the deadbird site. Since Nitter was blocked, I don’t go there.
Layer8Problem
@Old Man Shadow: Har-har! Quite.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
Obligatory point that conservative Republicans were very slow to get on board the Cold War train after liberal Democrats got the ball rolling on it.
It’s hard to map exactly onto the present day, since the 1940s and 1950s also had Southern Democrats and moderate Republicans playing a major role, both of which have since disappeared and morphed into one of the two main factions. But suffice it to say that if you looked at those Republicans who in 1950 already agreed with the Republicans of today on all the issues – the anti-New-Deal, anti-civil-rights faction that would eventually take over completely, the Taft wing of the party – they were very much not first-hour Cold Warriors. They stuck to the same isolationism they had in the 1930s. They got on board eventually, of course, but as late as 1952 Eisenhower felt that he had to run as a Republican in order to stomp hard on that wing of the party and buff up their opponents as much as possible.
Independently of that, of course, there’s also the fact that the far right types have always been envious of their authoritarian opponents. “They get shit done! They don’t have any milquetoast liberals bogging them down and stabbing them in the back like a fifth column!” Lots of fundies spent the war on terror years envious of the devotion shown by Muslim fanatics strapping on a bomb and blowing themselves up, and wishing their people had that kind of “dedication.”
divF
@cain: This. I think that Biden (i.e. the intelligence agencies) has serious receipts on a number of Republicans working with Russia that are usable and actionable. Playing such a card would tear the country apart, but I think that he has told Johnson (as he he may have done with McCarthy about the debt ceiling) that he has reached his limit.
Dan B
@TBone: A housemate of mine and her husband who’d worked at the University of Washington git jobs at the Cleveland Clinic and were very disappointed.