Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

This blog will pay for itself.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

After roe, women are no longer free.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

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Protest Is the New Brunch

Sunday Night Open Thread: Farewell, for Now, to the ‘People’s Convoy’

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But the grift will never die…

… The response, instead, has been mostly indifference. As well as some heckling and trolling. And some criticism that the 1776 Restoration Movement is just another group using a narrowly defined patriotism to grift for dollars and social media clout.

The protesters deny all of that. They say their cause is pure. For the past few weeks in Washington, their morning ritual has been the same. The first-risers get coffee going. Someone puts out doughnuts and fruit and snacks. Ice-filled coolers are restocked with water bottles…

Their demands are both insistent and vague. When asked for specifics, the members will say that they want representatives to recognize that they work for the people and address their grievances.

What the protest boils down to for most is a belief that the federal government should have much less authority over state governments when it comes to deciding almost every issue.

Support for that position here has been hard to garner. Most visitors have ignored them. The majority of the people who have stopped to talk with them have been foreigners, Fisher said. “They want to know what we’re about,” he said…

“This is family,” says Ohio truck driver and evangelical minister David Riddell, 57, the group’s leader, who said he never joined a protest until he connected with the People’s Convoy earlier this year. His eyes brim with tears. “So far in this movement, I’ve baptized three of them in the Potomac, renewed the vows of another couple, celebrated the 57th wedding anniversary with another one. This is family.”

In the family, Riddell allows debate and input on the issues, but he makes the final decisions, he said. He is also a member of the Proud Boys, the far-right extremist group that has a number of its leaders facing federal charges of seditious conspiracy and “opposing the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” on Jan. 6, 2021.

Riddell says he was not at the Capitol that day and has told his followers that if they choose violence, then he will no longer take part in the protest…

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GOP Death Cult Open Thread: DC-Area (Social Media) Traffic Alert

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From the Washington Post‘s ‘Local’ section:

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Ohio Jackals – Contact Info For Your Legislators

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If you are enraged about Ohio’s vile forced-pregnancy bill (H.B. 182), debbie has compiled a list of the sponsor and co-sponsors the members of the Insurance Committee who began hearings on the bill last week.. I’m going to put them below the fold. Keep in mind that the Insurance Committee is hearing the bill and is not responsible for it. The Sponsor and Co-Sponsors want the bill to become law. Write, call, demonstrate! Let these people know what you think!

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Late Night Open Thread: Bill Weld Steps Into the Arena

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I’ll admit to a having a soft spot for ol’ Bill — and not just because, when he was Governor, he sent us a nice letter granting the required permission for an old friend to perform our wedding ceremony. He’s not gonna be the Republican nominee, but I might send his NH campaign a few bucks, because if Fox News is ever required to acknowledge Weld’s candidacy the Oval Office Squatter will burst a blood vessel flexing his little thumbs on twitter.

(Also, the Airport Diner featured in the clip does an excellent fried chicken livers & mashed potatoes plate — I try to eat there the once or twice a year when we go to Manchester for a Currier exhibit or a quilt show.)

Check out his comments on the Mueller report, at approximately 2:20 below:

… [I]f Weld’s campaign did somehow get traction, it could present a headache to the Trump operation, and history has demonstrated the effect of such challenges.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush faced a troublesome run from the right from commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, who embarrassed the incumbent by winning 37 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and fighting Bush until the national convention. The weakened president lost to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Similarly, President Gerald R. Ford had to fend off a Republican challenge from Ronald Reagan in 1976 before losing in the general election to Democrat Jimmy Carter…

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

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Feels like Wednesday is the new Friday — too much news for one week. And I’m just a spectator here!
 
At the same time:

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Deploraville Dispatch

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Did you argue politics with relatives over the holiday weekend? My Trumpster kin had nothing to say about their orange idol. I suspect they’re ashamed of him but too stubborn to admit it.

I’d like to think that’s progress, but I know better; they still believe the same stupid shit that made them vote for a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue in the first place.

Over the weekend, I read a Washington Monthly piece by Daniel Block about Democrats in deep red areas — kinda the opposite of the Deploraville safari articles about “heartland” Trump voters.

There’s a lot of truth to it, IMO. Here’s an excerpt:

Reporters have descended on conservative bastions like Augusta, as well as counties that recently flipped from blue to red, in a bid to understand how a reality television star became president. They have spoken to longtime, working-class conservatives and ex-Democrats who, through Trump, finally found a vehicle through which to express their political frustrations. In doing so, they’ve routinely painted a picture of Trump-voting America so predictable that it has become a trope. Yet very few journalists have chosen to focus on the Democrats in Trump country who stayed Democrats…

But even in places like Augusta County, thousands of people voted for Hillary Clinton. No depiction of Trump country is complete without them. Most of their neighbors may be standing by the president, but if Augusta is any indication, Democrats in rural red counties are just as fired up and enthused as their counterparts in liberal cities. In Virginia’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes Augusta, no Democrat has mounted a midterm congressional campaign in twenty years. This year, four people ran…

As more activists come out of the woodwork, the Democratic Party gains more people like Frank Nolen: human faces who can make the party more accessible to residents with hidden liberal inclinations. This is critical for the party’s fortunes. Building a viable electoral infrastructure depends on making it socially acceptable to be a Democrat.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the people who belong to the party that opposes an abusive, corrupt, would-be authoritarian degenerate are the ones who suffer social consequences for that. But it’s a reality that many of us live on the daily. That’s part of the reason you won’t find me boo-hooing over Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ comped cheese plate or pitying Tucker Carlson for blowback to his hate-mongering.

Fox News feeds its viewers a steady diet of “oppressed conservatives in Hollywood” stories and plays up incidents where its wealthy hate-mongers are harassed by ordinary citizens. The Fox News audience eats that victimization shit up — all the while engaging in subtle and overt intimidation tactics against neighbors with different political views.

The Post has an article today by doctoral candidate Emily Van Duyn about Democratic women secretly organizing in a deep red part of Texas. Some of the women in the underground group she studied shared why they’re unwilling to “come out” as Democrats:

The existence of this group does more than tell us about 136 women in a small county in Texas. Their experience of fear and intimidation challenges assumptions about democracy in the United States. That is, in a truly liberal democracy, people should be able to voice their views without fear of retaliation.

These women’s choice to engage and persist underground also challenges us to reconsider the privilege of being publicly political and the possibility that the things we see on the surface in our communities, the yard signs, the bumper stickers, are not the whole story.

It’s not the whole story, and we can’t write off the folks in those places. I know it’s tempting to give up on red areas — I live in one, and sometimes I think the best solution is to re-stage Sherman’s march. In a post about radicalized rural kids earlier this week, Mistermix observed:

This is not to say that radicalized rural kids aren’t a problem – but the problem is bigger than that. The Senate and the Electoral College over-represent states that intelligent progressive kids want to leave. Maybe, as Deb and James Fallows have reported, some of these kids will stay and enlarge blue dots in otherwise conservative states. But why bother when you can just move a few hundred miles away and not have to deal with the narrow minds and poverty of spirit that infects rural America?

I don’t have a good answer to that dilemma for individuals. I fled my conservative home turf as a young person too, only to ultimately return. But as a society, if we want to have a functioning democracy (and maybe even avoid a second civil war), those of us who do choose to remain in red areas — people like Cole, some of you, and me — have to do the hard work of building an electoral infrastructure, as outlined in the Washington Monthly piece.

That’s the only way forward. I sure hope we can pull it off.

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Nobody Is Above The Law: Mueller Rapid Response Has Been Activated

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I’ve received several requests to post this update. If you signed up for the Rapid Response you’ve probably received an email like this:

Earlier today, Donald Trump installed a crony to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, crossing a red line.1 MoveOn and our allies are activating the Nobody Is Above the Law network meaning there will be actions around the country tomorrow, Thursday, November 8 at 5 p.m. local time (please confirm at the link to your local event below) and we need to see you, your friends, family members, and neighbors there!

By replacing Rod Rosenstein with just-named Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker as Mueller’s boss overseeing the investigation, Trump has undercut the independence of the investigation. Whitaker has publicly outlined strategies to stifle the investigation, referred to Mueller’s team as a “lynch mob,” and cannot be allowed to remain in charge of it.2 This amounts to a direct assault on the independent Mueller probe which has already produced dozens of indictments, guilty pleas, and guilty verdicts.

You’ve RSVP’d to attend a rapid-response event if Trump crossed one of the red lines and interfered with the Mueller investigation—one of hundreds of events nationwide that will show an immediate, massive rejection of Trump’s interference. Now it’s time we come together to act! These events will take place across the country on Thursday, November 8! Most are at 5 pm

Here are the links to find an event in your area:

https://act.moveon.org/event/mueller-firing-rapid-response-events/search/

https://act.moveon.org/event/mueller-firing-rapid-response-events

https://act.moveon.org

Please be aware, all these links are down at the moment. Looks like they are on overload.

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