Balloon Juice - Open Threads Archives

Two Peas, Same Pod

by WaterGirl| December 5, 20231:55 pm| 169 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Trump Indictments, Violent Insurrection at the Capitol

The Speaker of the House, and Donald Trump: two peas in a pod.

The Speaker of the House Is An Open Insurrectionist. (Past and future.)

I bring you the exact words of current Speaker of the House (transcribed by me):

As you know, we have to blur faces of some of the persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against, and be charged by the DOJ, and to have other concerns and problems.

Open support for the insurrection – at a fucking public press conference, by the Speaker of the House.

Watch it for yourself. It’s even worse than reading the words. Listen to the tone of his voice change in the clip – the Speaker is clearly outraged at the injustice – to him, it would be a travesty of justice if the people who stormed the capital suffer any consequences, let alone be charged with the crimes they committed.

The Speaker of the House is telling you they have to blur the faces of those who laid siege to the Capitol because they don’t want them to be held accountable for any crimes.pic.twitter.com/p2p0HUuq9V

— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) December 5, 2023

The Former President, He Did It Before, He’ll Do It Again (via Jack Smith – in a DC Filing)

The Government will provide the defendant and the Court extensive advance notice of the intrinsic evidence it plans to introduce at trial, including through its exhibit and witness lists, motions in limine, and a detailed trial brief setting forth the Government’s planned trial presentation. In an abundance of caution, the Government below notices evidence that, although intrinsic to the charged crimes, pre- or post-dates the charged criminal conspiracies. If the Court were to find that any part of the noticed evidence below is extrinsic, the evidence is also admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), because the Government will offer it not to show the defendant’s criminal propensity, but to establish his motive, intent, preparation, knowledge, absence of mistake, and common plan.

Sections from the filing (PDF)

IANAL, but it seems to me that Jack Smith has Trump coming and going.

A. Historical Evidence of the Defendant’s Consistent Plan of Baselessly Claiming Election Fraud

B. Historical Evidence of the Defendant’s Common Plan to Refuse to Commit to a Peaceful Transition of Power

C. Evidence of the Defendant and Co-Conspirators’ Knowledge of the Unfavorable Election Results and Motive and Intent to Subvert Them

D. Pre- and Post-Conspiracy Evidence That the Defendant and Co-Conspirators Suppressed Proof Their Fraud Claims Were False and Retaliated Against Officials Who Undermined Their Criminal Plans

E. Pre- and Post-Conspiracy Evidence of the Defendant’s Public Attacks on Individuals, Encouragement of Violence, and Knowledge of the Foreseeable Consequences

F. Post-Conspiracy Evidence of the Defendant’s Steadfast Support and Endorsement of Rioters

Time will tell, of course. But in these dangerous times, I am very glad we have a functioning DOJ and Jack Smith.

Open thread.

Two Peas, Same PodPost + Comments (169)

“Just be as quiet as a mouse”

by Betty Cracker| December 5, 202311:16 am| 226 Comments

This post is in: Gun Issues, Gun nuts, Open Threads

ProPublica and the Texas Tribune teamed up on a multimedia report about the May 2022 Uvalde school shooting. Like every report on every school massacre, it’s heartbreaking and enraging, and everyone in this goddamn country should be required to read it.

Here’s the inescapable conclusion: The cops and kids both received active school shooter training. The kids followed their training, and the cops did not. We knew the cops bungled the response almost immediately after the incident. But the report lays out in devastating detail how the fact that the kids followed their training reinforced the cops’ impulse to ignore theirs.

The children hid. They dropped to the floor, crouching under desks and countertops, far from the windows. They lined up against the walls, avoiding the elementary school doors that separated them from a mass shooter about a decade older than them. Some held up the blunted scissors that they often used to cut shapes as they prepared to fight. A few grabbed bloodied phones and dialed 911. And as students across the country have been instructed for years, they remained quiet, impossibly quiet. At times, they hushed classmates who screamed in agony from the bullets that tore through their small bodies.

Then, they waited. Waited for the adults, whom they could hear in the hallway. If they were just patient, those adults would save them.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that day in May 2022. They, too, waited. They waited for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do. They waited for the right keys and specialized equipment to open doors. They waited out of fear that the lack of ballistic shields and flash-bangs would leave them vulnerable against the power of an AR-15-style rifle. Most astonishingly, they waited for the children’s cries to confirm that people were still alive inside the classrooms.

The kids had been told repeatedly to be quiet, and they were. The cops had been told repeatedly to immediately confront an active shooter, and they waited instead.

One Uvalde police officer told investigators two kids in his family died in the shooting but he didn’t attend their funerals because “some of his relatives ‘think that we fucking let ’em die.'”

The initial probe by the Texas Rangers, the DPS’ investigative arm, is complete but has not been made public. Of the hundreds of officers who responded that day, less than a handful have been fired, including Arredondo. An attorney representing Arredondo released a statement before he was terminated, saying that his client was being used as a “fall guy.” Several officers from various agencies either resigned, were reassigned or retired.

The relatives’ response is understandable, but I’ve got some sympathy for those cops too. I can tell you from experience that the overwhelming human impulse when someone starts firing a gun in your presence is to run away like a scared fucking bunny. But I’m not a cop whose job it is to confront active shooters.

The thing is, we’re not going to address the root cause of our mass shooting problem in America — that we’re ass-deep in battlefield-grade weapons — anytime soon. So it’s therefore our obligation as a society to develop the capacity to respond in ways that minimize the death and destruction to innocent bystanders.

The kids are doing their part. One girl in Uvalde was telling her classmates “just be as quiet as a mouse,” and they were. Now the grownups in law enforcement need to step up their training too and be fully prepared to hurl themselves at madmen firing 100 rounds a minute. If doing so makes all the participants realize how fucking insane this entire situation is, so much the better.

Open thread.

ETA: Scout211 in comments below shared a link to a trailer for a documentary the PBS series FRONTLINE produced while working with ProPublica and the Texas Tribune on this story. It airs today. Scout also shared a link to statement from the news organizations on why they’re publishing details that haven’t been officially released by the state investigators. Thanks, Scout!

“Just be as quiet as a mouse”Post + Comments (226)

Squishable Morning Thread: FL Dems Get It Right

by Betty Cracker| December 5, 20236:03 am| 236 Comments

This post is in: 2024 Primaries, Open Threads

Democratic Party primary also-rans Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips and Cenk Uygur are threatening to sue the Democratic Party of Florida because the state committee submitted one name for the upcoming primary, Joe Biden, effectively cancelling the state party’s primary election. From the Tampa Bay Times:

“We’re not trying to create a conflict here,” progressive political commentator Cenk Uygur, who launched a presidential bid last month, said during a Friday news conference alongside fellow 2024 hopeful Marianne Williamson. “We’re just trying to do the bare minimum of getting on the ballot. And we’ve all earned it, and there’s no need for this conflict.”

Yes, they are trying to create a conflict, and no, they didn’t earn it. There are rules governing how candidates can get their names on the primary ballot. The rules are published online. None of the also-rans qualified, including Dean Phillips, whose top advisor takes a more threatening tone:

“We’re consulting with lawyers now and I think we’ll take a multi-pronged approach,” [Phillips campaign senior advisor Jeff Weaver] said. “A lawsuit if appropriate, an appeal to the Democratic National Committee and, if none of those resolve this problem, a credentials challenge at the convention, which could result in Florida losing all its delegates.”

A spokesperson for FL Dems explains that these dopes were asleep at the switch:

The party chose its roster of candidates at a meeting of its state executive committee in October — a decision that went under the radar.

Eden Giagnorio, the Florida Democratic Party’s communications director, said Biden was the only candidate nominated for the ballot and was consequently the only one whose name was submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office.

She said that the process by which the party determines names to submit for the primary ballot was routine and had been made available on the party’s website months ago.

“It was posted for months. It wasn’t a secret. There was no conspiracy,” Giagnorio said. “They didn’t get any votes. It’s not our responsibility to whip for them.”

Williamson, Phillips and Uygur are calling FL Dems “anti-democratic” for leaving their names off the ballot, but Giagnorio counters that “bending the rules for latecomers” would be anti-democratic. She’s right.

Open thread.

Squishable Morning Thread: FL Dems Get It RightPost + Comments (236)

Late Night Open Thread: The Longing-for-Servants Problem

by Anne Laurie| December 5, 20231:25 am| 92 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You

Six hundred eighty-nine thousand views, six thousand four hundred ‘likes’, almost 500 quotes & reposts: A self-promoting lie can run around the internet world…

What's particularly hilarious about this vibesession story is that the delivery markup price is, essentially, the McDonald's consumer hiring a low-wage gig worker so they don't have to leave the house. This complaint boils down to "the economy is bad bc the help costs too much" https://t.co/nlmYgiJ31Y

— David Watkins (@djw172) December 3, 2023

Fast food restaurant staff making $20 per hour is actually evidence of a strong economy, but if you’re making $25 an hour in a job you consider to be massively higher status than flipping burgers, you think it is bad

— Daniel Knowles (@dlknowles) December 1, 2023

All of which reminded me of this essay from Hamilton Nolan — The Cannibal South: An inferiority complex-ridden region depends on eating its own :

… Since the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, more than two million people have migrated to the six fastest growing states in the South, bringing with them $100 billion in new income. This population shift is held up by Southern governors as proof of the success of their policies—and as a herald of an ongoing shift in the balance of economic power that is bound to continue due to the South’s inherent advantages. What spurred this grand relocation? Traditional wisdom will tell you that it was the more relaxed and open posture of Southern states like Florida during the Covid pandemic, along with the perpetual allures of warmer weather, lower taxes, and more affordable housing prices.

In reality, though, this current sloshing of America towards its drain is not the start of anything new at all. It is spurred not by any new economic paradigm, nor by any Texan or Floridian governor’s new ideas about unleashing the power of free enterprise under the nation’s sunniest skies. It is, instead, a normal reaction to a temporary rise in the appeal of something that the South has been offering for more than 200 years. Politicians will tell you that the South is attractive because it offers greater freedom. Actually, it offers cannibalism: it is willing to kill and eat its own to fuel a marginal improvement in your lifestyle. Don’t let this deal pass you by!

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Ron Desantis is running (unsuccessfully) for president on the premise that he can do for America what he has done for Florida in the past three years. One way to look at his record during those crucial Covid years is: he kept stuff open and got rid of pandemic restrictions, which caused the Florida economy to flourish. Another, more accurate way to look at it is: he kept stuff open and got rid of pandemic restrictions because he fundamentally does not care whether his citizens live or die, as long as his state could get a temporary economic boost that he could use for self-promotional purposes. In this, Desantis was the perfect combination of the classic Southern socioeconomic strategy with a global pandemic. Ever since being forced to give up formal slavery at gunpoint, the South has pursued a formula of attraction only one step removed from it. The region’s offer to businesses and wealthy people in the rest of America is, and has always been, this: “Come to the South. Do whatever you want. We won’t regulate you. We won’t tax you. We’ll crush any unions that dare to come here. We’ll provide a pool of dirt-cheap labor for you. Because we don’t tax you, our public services will be awful. Our public schools will be inadequate. But don’t worry, because we will build graceful private schools for the people with money, and we will build private country clubs and gated communities to shield you from the poverty, and racist cops to police the borders of the neighborhoods, and you can live here in a private island of bliss. The inadequacy of our public services and our outright racial oppression guarantee that that cheap labor force will continue forever. You can profit from that cheap labor force without ever having to interact with the people who compose it, except as various forms of servants. The oppression, sequestered away from you and walled off from impacting your life except to enhance it, is what makes the system work.”

That’s it. That’s the South’s sales pitch. It is the poorest and most backwards region of America by traditional socioeconomic measurements, but it’s great place to be when you exclude all of the poor people from your measurements. Which they do, because “not caring about all the poor people” is the key to the South’s ability to imagine itself as a place with a political system that works. This is the slavery mentality dragged cleanly into the present day, modified just enough to fit the letter of the law. In the plantation era, the South was great, as long as you were a plantation owner. If you add all the slaves (and poor whites) into the calculation… ugh, you mess up the numbers. Despite the fact that the South’s failure to industrialize properly due to slavery was one of the things that lost it the Civil War, the region remains stubbornly addicted to cheap labor today. It is, at heart, an inferiority complex. The South’s leaders don’t really believe that they have anything to offer to lure people in other than a work force that will show up for rock bottom wages. If the South really believed in itself, it would be busily investing in public education and health care and a strong social safety net and all the other things that build a healthy and thriving society that ultimately attracts people and businesses. Instead, they do the opposite—because empowering the existing residents of the South would undermine its cheap labor pool…

Or, to quote Jen Rubin at the Washington Post on a blog-favorite historian:

… In 2021, historian Heather Cox Richardson located the roots of the mythology in the days of Reconstruction “when white southerners insisted that federal efforts to enable formerly enslaved men to participate in the economy on terms equal to white men were simply a redistribution of wealth, because the agents and policies required to achieve equality would cost tax dollars.” Labeling any effort to deprive Whites of absolute power and riches built on slavery as “socialism,” the anti-government conservative movement forged in the Gilded Age tried but largely failed to dislodge the New Deal.

“The myth of the cowboy — the individualist — was a kind of cover for the attitudes that favored large employers, including mining, railroad, financial and ranching interests,” Knute Berger wrote in 2021 for PBS’s Crosscut, expounding on Richardson’s work. “The bosses discouraged workers from unionizing or acting collectively. To the oligarchs East and West, North and South, the idea of the unrestrained individualism of the cowboy, devoid of responsibility for others, suited a divide-and-conquer strategy very well.”

And yet the movement found new strength in the past 50 years: “They called themselves Movement Conservatives, and they celebrated the cowboy who, in their inaccurate vision, was a hardworking white man who wanted nothing of the government but to be left alone to work out his own future,” Richardson wrote. President Barack Obama in challenging the myth (“You didn’t build that”) attempted to remind these characters that they’ve reaped the benefits of government (which builds the infrastructure, educates the workforce, ensures public confidence in medicines, etc.); for that he was demonized as somehow un-American and anti-capitalist. The episode underscored the degree to which American oligarchs and their political surrogates depend on delusion and denial….

That Obama fella! Hisssss!!!!….

Lends some support for this theory https://t.co/d8gKLOYfKi pic.twitter.com/Ek7EsLEIPl

— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) December 3, 2023

This is correct – and the reason white-collar middle-class Twitter people get so angry when you point it out is the cognitive dissonance between their nominal leftism and the fact that they feel this way https://t.co/wRW8RAA7QE

— John B (@johnb78) December 2, 2023

no one wants to be a subsistence farmer. the lifestyle these people romanticize, even those of of them that are theoretically left wing, is of a rural petty aristocrat. you “live off the land” but the bulk of the actual terrible work of agriculture happens just off screen. https://t.co/bilFxmj6X3

— William B. Fuckley (@opinonhaver) August 28, 2023

Late Night Open Thread: The Longing-for-Servants ProblemPost + Comments (92)

War for Ukraine Day 649: The Disappeared

by Adam L Silverman| December 4, 20237:26 pm| 53 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Military, Open Threads, Russia, Silverman on Security, War, War in Ukraine

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The Kyiv Independent has the details of the Ukrainians that the Russians have disappeared: (emphasis mine)

In the early days of the full-scale invasion as Russian troops were occupying large swaths of territory outside of Kyiv, one local village resident was relieved to see what he thought were Ukrainian troops.

The resident, Ivan Drozd, shouted the common Ukrainian salute “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine!) to the soldiers, not realizing they were Moscow’s invading forces.

The Russian troops immediately arrested Drozd on the spot, his partner Hanna Mushtukova told the Kyiv Independent, citing a fellow villager who was arrested with Drozd but later released.

More than 18 months later, Mushtukova doesn’t know anything of Drozd’s whereabouts, except for a short four-letter letter she received months after he wrote from a Russian prison.

“Alive. Healthy. Not sick,” the letter reads, Mushtukova told the Kyiv Independent. She hinted he may have been forced to write the letter that way.

Along with war crimes, such as torture, rape, and executions, Russia has also taken civilian hostages in the areas it has occupied, at times transferring them to prisons both in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and Russia for reasons unknown. The hostages include people taken off the streets, psychiatric patients, and inmates of Ukrainian prisons now under Russian-occupied territories.

Russia exploits international law loopholes to keep these Ukrainians locked up. Ukraine cannot easily exchange them as prisoners of war, as it would jeopardize millions living under occupation, creating the perpetual threat that any civilian in occupied territory could become a hostage, human rights defenders and officials have warned.

The precise count of adult Ukrainians Russia ensnared as civilian hostages remains elusive.

Ukraine’s Reintegration Ministry says there are 763 civilian hostages in Russia and Russian-occupied areas, while the country’s Ombudsman’s Office puts the number at 20,000. Human rights defenders sharply contest these official figures, suggesting they could be as high as 8,000.

“I’m very afraid that the 8,000 missing civilians include those whom we will never find,” Olga Romanova, the exiled head of Russia Behind Bars, a prominent Russian NGO protecting convicts’ rights, told the Kyiv Independent.

“I vividly remember rapidly shrinking lists of missing civilians as all of those mass graves were discovered after Izium’s liberation.”

Drozd was a 28-year-old farmer with no military experience when he was captured and imprisoned by the Russian troops. His partner Mushtukova has no information on his exact whereabouts.

“I’m counting the days. But the uncertainty and anticipation of the unknown are hard to wrap my head around,” Mushtukova said.

Holding “civilian hostages” constitutes a war crime along with violating several other conventions Russia could be brought to justice for, said Mikhail Savva, a Russian-born legal expert at the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties.

“If there are no charges against civilians, every party to the Geneva Conventions is obliged to return them as soon as possible,” Savva, a former Russian political prisoner, told the Kyiv Independent.

He said Russia exploits this loophole phrase in the Geneva Convention to keep Ukrainian civilians in legal limbo.

“We can say Russia has a system of war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. Holding a civilian (in custody) for a long term without legal authorization is a war crime of deprivation of liberty and access to justice,” he said.

Meanwhile, Yatsenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine HQ for POWs Treatment, said Russia often does not bother to count “civilian hostages.”

“It hinders finding them while all the powers of the penitentiary system are applied with inhumane traditions of the Soviet Union and Tsarist Russia,” said Yatsenko.

Much more at the link.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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The Assembly of the International Maritime Organization adopted a resolution in support of our efforts in the Black Sea – address by the President of Ukraine

4 December 2023 – 22:26

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

First of all, I would like to recognize the warriors of our mobile firing groups today.

Last night alone, during the latest “shahed” attack, 18 drones were destroyed. That’s the majority. And most of those destroyed were the result of mobile firing groups. This is how it should be. I thank everyone who trains the warriors of such groups and who works to provide them with everything they need. Last night, the mobile firing groups in Mykolaiv, Kherson, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kirovohrad regions worked well. I am grateful to you guys personally, and to everyone else who is on duty every day and every night in various regions.

I would also like to recognize the Air Force servicemen – our pilots, engineers, anti-aircraft gunners and air defense units of the Ground Forces. Warriors, your vigilance and accuracy are the resilience of our entire country and our cities.

Today marks an important result for Ukraine on the international stage as well. Particularly in the International Maritime Organization, which last week removed Russia from its governing bodies. Today, the Assembly of the International Maritime Organization adopted a resolution in support of our efforts in the Black Sea – Ukraine’s success in restoring navigation and establishing a new “grain corridor”. By the way, this export corridor has already yielded results – more than 7 million tons of cargo. And this is very significant – it is our economy. It’s not just the work of ports and agrarians, but also of many other related industries. Millions of jobs in Ukraine depend on the exports that our country is able to provide. I extend gratitude to everyone worldwide who assists Ukraine in this matter. In particular, the International Maritime Organization will now support our efforts, and there is a corresponding decision to assess the technical assistance we need for the proper functioning of the sea corridor.

Our railway system is also showing good results. In November alone, Ukrzaliznytsia transported 14 million tons of cargo. This is a record figure since the beginning of the full-scale war, and we are observing railway’s excellent performance in both export and import directions, as well as domestic transportation. I am grateful to the entire team of Ukrzaliznytsia, all our transport workers, each and every individual working in Ukrainian ports, and all those countries and peoples who genuinely support the European Solidarity Lanes created to aid the nation opposing aggression.

Today I heard a report from the Chief of Foreign Intelligence, Oleksandr Lytvynenko. An important and relevant information on what Ukraine should expect and prepare for. I also held a meeting with international relations officials on our foreign policy communications in December: we are planning an active agenda for each week of this month. We also anticipate important agreements with our partners by the end of the year. The priority remains unchanged – strengthening the state, protecting our people, and bolstering our positions in everything. And I am grateful to all those who do not put their personal interests above the interests of the Ukrainian state. Those who are fighting, working, and aiding.

Glory to Ukraine!

President @ZelenskyyUa:
“To protect and strengthen our independence, to protect our people, to restore normal, decent life to the maximum extent possible. I thank everyone who is fighting and working for this!” pic.twitter.com/7atRcoyf0W

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 4, 2023

For those of you marking Advent on your calendars this season:

Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 4

Today, we would like to say thank you to our Australian friends at @DefenceAust. Despite the significant distance between our countries, we are bonded by shared democratic values. We are particularly grateful for the Bushmaster MRAPs that were… pic.twitter.com/KGxLFPae5J

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 4, 2023

Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 4

Today, we would like to say thank you to our Australian friends at @DefenceAust. Despite the significant distance between our countries, we are bonded by shared democratic values. We are particularly grateful for the Bushmaster MRAPs that were provided to #UAarmy.

In September 2022, Bushmasters played a critical role in a successful counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region. Because of its resistance to mine explosions, this vehicle saves the lives of Ukrainian warriors. Also, maneuverability and passability are important for the performance of combat tasks.

Stay tuned for more Weapons of Victory in our Advent Calendar tomorrow.

Had an important meeting with @NATO Secretary General @jensstoltenberg
in Brussels. I am grateful to Mr. Stoltenberg for his leadership and coordination of the Alliance’s work to ensure long-term support for Ukraine.

We discussed the situation on the battlefield and the urgent… pic.twitter.com/sR9SUirXVQ

— Rustem Umerov (@rustem_umerov) December 4, 2023

Had an important meeting with @NATO Secretary General @jensstoltenberg

in Brussels. I am grateful to Mr. Stoltenberg for his leadership and coordination of the Alliance’s work to ensure long-term support for Ukraine.

We discussed the situation on the battlefield and the urgent needs of Ukraine during the winter period.

The Ministry of Defence is working to ensure the Defence Forces’ interoperability with NATO.
Ukraine’s membership in NATO is inevitable. Our country chose that path a long time ago. We are working on practical steps to bring our country closer to NATO membership.

The Financial Times reports that the US will run out of appropriated funding for Ukraine by the end of the month: (emphasis mine)

The White House has issued a blunt warning that the US is set to run out of funds to aid Ukraine by the end of the year, saying that a failure by Congress to approve new support would “kneecap” Kyiv.

The alert from Shalanda Young, the White House budget director, in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday, represented the most specific assessment yet of Washington’s waning financial and military support for Ukraine.

“Without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Young wrote to political leaders of both parties.

“There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money — and nearly out of time.”

President Joe Biden’s request for $106bn in emergency funding for his biggest foreign policy priorities, including Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific, remains mired in stalemate on Capitol Hill, driven by mounting Republican opposition to helping Kyiv.

Some lawmakers — especially in the Senate, where backing for Ukraine runs deeper — are trying to negotiate a bipartisan deal that would contain aid for Kyiv alongside new immigration and asylum procedures to reduce the number of undocumented people arriving in the US through its southern border.

But those talks appear to be faltering. On Monday, one person familiar with the talks said Republicans had hardened their demands on immigration to the point that Democrats could not support them. Among the proposals floated by Republicans were detention camps at US military bases, and prolonged detention for children, the person said, adding that they echoed the ideas of Stephen Miller, former president Donald Trump’s aide on immigration.

Even if an agreement is reached in the Senate, it is unclear if it can pass the Republican-led House, whose new Speaker Mike Johnson has been sceptical of funding for Ukraine.

On Monday, Johnson also linked additional Ukraine aid to Democrats agreeing more funding for US-Mexico border security.

“The Biden administration has failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers,” said Johnson in a statement.

“We believe both issues can be agreed upon if Senate Democrats and the White House will negotiate reasonably,” Johnson added.

Young warned Congress that cutting the flow of US weapons and equipment would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories”.

“Already, our packages of security assistance have become smaller and the deliveries of aid have become more limited . . . while our allies around the world have stepped up to do more, US support is critical and cannot be replicated by others,” she added.

The White House warning comes as EU member states are struggling to reach a budget deal in Brussels that would send €50bn to Ukraine, people close to the discussions told the Financial Times.

Young said Ukraine also needed economic support, which is in danger of stalling.

“If Ukraine’s economy collapses, they will not be able to keep fighting, full stop,” she wrote. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin understands this well, which is why Russia has made destroying Ukraine’s economy central to its strategy — which you can see in its attacks against Ukraine’s grain exports and energy infrastructure.”

Monday Evening Open Thread

by WaterGirl| December 4, 20236:02 pm| 60 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Trump Indictments

All the internet legal eagles seem quite certain that TRUMP’S APPEAL of Judge Chutkan’s ruling on Trump’s ridiculous claim of absolute immunity will be shot down quickly by the appeals court and that the even our so-called Supreme Court won’t pick it up.

The Chutkan opinion rejecting Trump’s extravagant claim to absolute immunity “is meticulously crafted with the Supreme Court in mind.” As @DennisAftergut carefully shows, her ruling is totally bulletproof. https://t.co/yfjw0OTlCB

— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) December 4, 2023

I know we won’t know the outcome until it happens, but it’s nice to think that some sanity might be introduced back into all of these proceedings.

Your thoughts?

Open thread!

Monday Evening Open ThreadPost + Comments (60)

Michigan: Nobody ever said rebuilding a major state after decades of doom and gloom would be easy.

by WaterGirl| December 4, 20232:15 pm| 173 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Politics, Open Threads, Politics

Go Michigan! (Open Thread) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shows off her mittens featuring Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas during the Michigan Inauguration on Jan. 1, 2023. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

How Michigan became the progressive powerhouse of the Midwest

LGBTQ+ equality, abortion rights, climate change policy, voting rights, education investment, gun reforms, unions on the march — the Mitten State has it all.

For years, Michigan was a national laughingstock, as bad news stalked the state like the villain in a bad ‘80s horror film.

There was the one-state recession of the early aughts, thanks to the bruised auto industry that almost collapsed during the Great Recession that followed, and two partial state government shutdowns.

Then came Republicans shoving Right to Work through a decade ago in an attempt to reverse Michigan’s economic fortunes (but really to placate rich donors), despite the vocal protest of over 10,000 union members on the Capitol lawn that made international news.

And then there was the Flint water crisis, the crown jewel of GOP former Gov. Rick Snyder’s dismal, eight-year tenure, as the state’s effort to save a few bucks in a city the administration didn’t care about resulted in Flint residents, particularly children, paying the ultimate price with their health.

It’s easy to forget how exactly the bad old days felt in Michigan.

But today, Michigan is known as the anti-Florida (thanks to some savvy marketing from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer), a veritable liberaltopia in the Midwest, which is expected to play a vital role, yet again, in picking the president next year.

This year, Whitmer partnered with the first Democratic legislative majority in roughly 40 years to not only reverse longstanding right-wing policies, but to pass major legislation furthering progressive causes like abortion rights, climate change policy, LGBTQ+ equality, education funding, voting rights, gun reforms and labor rights. All this took place as unions are again on the march thanks to massive victories like the UAW’s “Stand Up Strike” against the domestic automakers headquartered in Michigan.

For too long, it was easy to feel helpless in Michigan.

Efforts to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination started and stalled. Anti-abortion lobbyists successfully kept chipping away at basic health care rights. And a devastating 2021 school shooting in Oxford resulted in thoughts and prayers, but little immediate legislative action.

But as it turns out, it wasn’t that leaders didn’t care about issues deeply important to most Michiganders. It was just that not enough of them were in a position to do anything about it.

Michigan is proof that real progressive victories that change the lives of millions are possible in swing states, not just deep-blue California.

So can this success be duplicated?

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Like almost anything in politics, the answer is: not exactly. A unique set of circumstances, laws and players made this possible in Michigan. But there are still crucial lessons for leaders and advocates across the country.

Michigan did have some structural advantages that others don’t that helped prime the state for progressive triumphs this year.

The Mitten State’s relatively straightforward process for ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments (which many states lack — and Michigan Republicans have unsuccessfully tried to clamp down on) laid the groundwork, with voters approving an independent redistricting process and voting rights amendments in 2018.

That helped even the playing field after decades of gerrymandering and recent Republican attempts to make it harder to vote. Fairer maps for the 2022 election and policies like same-day voter registration and no-reason absentee voting, definitely helped propel Democratic candidates to victory in key legislative seats last year.

Michigan also had the gift of an eye-popping $9.2 billion budget surplus at the beginning of the year, bolstered by an unexpectedly strong economy for which Biden has yet to get credit and the last GOP-controlled Legislature that sat on billions of federal COVID aid naively hoping that Republican Tudor Dixon would vanquish Whitmer in the election (she lost by 11 points).

But, hands down, the biggest boon to Michigan progress has been having Gretchen Whitmer at the helm.

Voters chose a governor in 2019 who came armed with the most experience since Republichan John Engler was elected in 1990. In her more than 14 years in the Legislature, she endured it all in the minority as the state rotted under austerity. As a minority leader, she did thankless work behind the scenes on issues like Medicaid expansion, as Republicans weren’t eager to boost her stature by passing landmark legislation bearing her name.

And so, when Democrats defied the odds and ran the table in last year’s midterms, Whitmer was exceptionally ready to govern with the majority.

Whitmer was ready on Day 1 to finally deliver on Democratic priorities. Deftly drawing on institutional knowledge, her team had a clear plan of attack. The governor showed her methodical mastery of the legislative process that requires constantly balancing competing interests and resolving maddening intraparty conflicts.

We have all the best people. We just have to work hard to get them elected.

It’s easy to give up before we even start. It’s a good thing Michigan didn’t, and it’s a good thing that Wisconsin isn’t. We have to believe that we can win, we have to make plans for what we want to accomplish, and we have to set things in motion so we can hit the ground running when we do win.

Should we all be thinking about the role we want to have in setting the stage to make it all happen?

Open thread!

Michigan: Nobody ever said rebuilding a major state after decades of doom and gloom would be easy.Post + Comments (173)

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Everybody saw this coming.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“Alexa, change the president.”

In after Baud. Damn.

Republicans do not trust women.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

All hail the time of the bunny!

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

When I was faster i was always behind.

“They all knew.”

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The National Guard is not Batman.

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

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Michigan: Nobody ever said rebuilding a major state after decades of doom and gloom would be easy.