Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

This fight is for everything.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Everybody saw this coming.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Usually wrong but never in doubt

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

The revolution will be supervised.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I was promised a recession.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

You are here: Home / Archives for Politics / Democratic Politics

Democratic Politics

RIP Dianne Feinstein

by | 194 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Diane Feinstein has passed.  How sad that after a trailblazing career like she had, that my first thought has to be “oh, no, what about the Judiciary Committee?”

RIP Diane Feinstein

click on the statement to embiggen for easier reading.

Open thread.

Update: I was about to put a fundraising post for our two initial VA delegate candidates when I heard the news about Diane Feinstein.  I imagine Diane Feinstein will take up most of the oxygen, so I’ll save the post for later.

But in case anyone wants to take their angst about what will happen now with Judiciary, and use that for good in Viginia, the thermometer is in the sidebar (at the top) and I’ll include the thermometer here, as well.

RIP Dianne FeinsteinPost + Comments (194)

What’s the Matter with Kansas Ohio?

by | 37 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

So many questions about what’s up with Ohio!

Republicans chose their own map as the starting point for the redistricting commission. Were Republicans given a majority on the redistricting commission?  Otherwise, I don’t see how the Rs could push that through.

They are required to have 3 public hearings, and they chose 3 business days in a row, starting with the first one today.  I would say that’s short notice, but it’s really no advance notice at all.

Can someone from Ohio explain how this can possibly be legal?  Is it legal in Ohio to just say fuck you to the courts?

Paging Ohio peeps!  Paging Marc Elias!

Ohio Redistricting Commission selects GOP working map, sets public hearings

The Republican members of Ohio’s redistricting commission set aside their bickering long enough to introduce a new legislative map Wednesday. Despite objections from Democrats on the panel, Republicans adopted their plan as the commission’s working document. The maps’ partisan breakdowns are 62-37 GOP-to-Democratic in the Ohio House and 23-10 in the Senate.

The commission briefly weighed a pair of legislative maps proposed Tuesday by House Minority Leader Allison Russo and Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio. Republican members declined to include the proposal as an alternative working draft.

The state constitution requires the commission hold at least three public hearings around Ohio to discuss their proposal. The commission approved the following meeting schedule:

  • Friday Sept. 22 at Deer Creek State Park in Mt. Sterling southwest of Columbus
  • Monday Sept. 25 at Punderson State Park east of Cleveland
  • Tuesday Sept. 26 in the Senate finance hearing room at the Ohio Statehouse

The commission has set each meeting to begin at 10 a.m.

Update from Democracy Docket (thanks Scott)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, Sept. 20, during the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s (ORC) first meeting since it was reconstituted, the ORC voted 4-2 along party-lines to use legislative maps proposed by Republicans as the ORC’s working draft, which will be subject to public review.

The maps would maintain the Republican stranglehold on the Legislature, due to egregious partisan gerrymandering. The Republicans’ Senate proposal contains 23 Republican seats, compared to just 10 Democratic seats. The partisan discrepancy was no different in Republicans’ House map, which would contain 62 Republican districts and 37 Democratic districts. Currently, Democrats hold just 32 House seats and seven Senate seats, compared to 67 and 26 Republican seats, respectively.

The Ohio Supreme Court has struck down the Republican commissioners’ legislative maps five separate times for being partisan gerrymanders in favor of Republicans, but Republicans’ delay tactics forced Ohioans to vote under illegal maps in 2022.

Today’s vote took place during the ORC’s first meeting in over a year, after last week’s meeting was delayed because Republicans on the commission couldn’t agree on a co-chair. Prior to today’s meeting, Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber (R) was finally announced as the Republican co-chair. Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie J. Antonio (D) was selected as the Democratic co-chair at the start of the meeting.

The GOP-backed proposals come a day after Democrats on the commission released their own legislative maps, which the ORC voted down today, also along party lines. Introduced by Antonio and Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D), the maps would have drastically leveled the playing field of the currently gerrymandered Legislature as Democrats would have held 43 House seats and 14 Senate seats, while Republicans would have held 56 and 19 seats, respectively.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) previously said that the commission should have maps approved by Sept. 22, but that timeline has been thrown into doubt after last week’s delays and the COVID-19 diagnosis of Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who also serves on the ORC. DeWine virtually tuned in to today’s meeting, but did not vote. Russo and Antonio have said that they don’t expect the process to be complete until mid-October.

Also on a party-line vote, the ORC scheduled three public meetings, which will all take place in the next week. Russo and Antonio, who voted against the adopted meeting schedule and the Republican-backed maps, argued that the timeline was rushed and that the locations were not spread out in a way that was conducive to all Ohioans.

Open thread.

 

What’s the Matter with <s>Kansas</s> Ohio?Post + Comments (37)

That Should Be The End of Him

by | 105 Comments

This post is in: ,

If you scratch any conspiracy theorist, you’ll find an anti-Semite underneath:

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dished out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer portion of raucous booze and fart-filled dinner at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

I think I have had my fill of this asshole.

BTW- thank you all so much for the donations!

That Should Be The End of HimPost + Comments (105)

Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Feinstein Situation

by | 205 Comments

This post is in: , ,

From what ‘we’ can tell, the people who know Senator Feinstein best think she wants to die in office — and there really isn’t a good mechanism to make her give up, right now. This is suboptimal in many ways, but I can’t see an argument for breaking a loyal old fighter’s heart just to give the Republicans what they want.

Politico:

Dianne Feinstein has taken on a noticeably lighter schedule since she came back from California. She appears in the Senate only at committee hearings or on the floor when her vote is essential.

Her party is holding its collective breath as the 89-year-old returns.

As relieved as Democrats are to have her back to break the logjam on party-line judicial nominees that her absence created, they’re loath to openly discuss her condition beyond generic well wishes. Fellow senators say they aren’t hearing much from her at all.

“We need her in committee and on the floor,” Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, alluding to the need for Feinstein to vote on judicial nominees who lack any GOP support. “We’re doing our best to be sensitive to her medical condition.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) spoke for many of his colleagues when he said: “She’s been ill and she’s elderly. And I really shouldn’t be talking, actually, because it’s just a difficult situation.”…

I’ll admit it’s something of a reassurance to me that Feinstein’s close friend, Nancy Pelosi, has not called for her resignation:

When she arrived at the Capitol last week after a more than two-month absence recovering from shingles, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, 89, appeared shockingly diminished…

Ms. Feinstein’s frail appearance was a result of several complications after she was hospitalized for shingles in February, some of which she has not publicly disclosed. The shingles spread to her face and neck, causing vision and balance impairments and facial paralysis known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome. The virus also brought on a previously unreported case of encephalitis, a rare but potentially debilitating complication of shingles that a spokesman confirmed on Thursday after The New York Times first revealed it, saying that the condition had “resolved itself” in March.

Characterized by swelling of the brain, post-shingles encephalitis can leave patients with lasting memory or language problems, sleep disorders, bouts of confusion, mood disorders, headaches and difficulties walking. Older patients tend to have the most trouble recovering. And even before this latest illness, Ms. Feinstein had already suffered substantial memory issues that had raised questions about her mental capacity…

Ms. Feinstein, a pioneering woman in Democratic politics who was once a major party power broker and a legislative force in the Senate, has stubbornly refused to consider leaving. The same force of will that led her nearly a decade ago to resist pressure from the Obama administration to keep secret a damning torture report still rears its head when she is confronted with calls to step down. The senator still sees the job as her calling and is no more receptive to a conversation about stepping aside than she was in 2018, when she decided to seek another term despite questions about her mental acuity.

People close to her joke privately that perhaps when Ms. Feinstein is dead, she will start to consider resigning. Over the years, she and many Democrats have bristled at the calls for her to relinquish her post, noting that such questions were rarely raised about aging male senators who remained in office through physical and cognitive struggles, even after they were plainly unable to function on their own…

Predictably, here comes the double-reverse backflip: Blame Nancy Pelosi!

show full post on front page

Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: The Feinstein SituationPost + Comments (205)

Open Thread: A Photo for Our Time

by | 256 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Is it just me, or does this not seem like a photo for our time?

Not just in Tennessee, but everywhere in this country.  White man with the power and position and all the trappings.  Arms folded, standing his ground against, well, everything.  Looking like he has a cob stuck up his behind.

Wait, what?  Who’s this guy?  He has no right to be here!  He doesn’t know his place!  He has no right to challenge me!  They must be stopped!  WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives, their nice little white power structure, their status quo.

Seth Herald, Getty Images

All of us.  Black.  Female.  Gay.  Different.  Open to people who are different.  We are a huge threat.

Hopefully the iconic photo for our next phase is the white guy in the suit, with the folded arms and the angry look, lying on the ground near the podium, throwing a literal temper tantrum with arms and legs flailing, like a child in the grocery store.

And, hopefully, the one after that will be the adults (Democrats and sane people) walking him out of the store.   If one of you guys have the skills to put that guy on the ground, flailing in a temper tantrum, in front of the podium, in a photo, video or animation, I will be forever grateful.

Open thread.

 

Open Thread: A Photo for Our TimePost + Comments (256)

Open Thread: The 2024 DNC Convention Will Be In Chicago

by | 43 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

… The convention will take place Aug. 19-22 next year. It is expected to draw 5,000 to 7,000 delegates and alternates and attract up to 50,000 visitors to Chicago.

Evening events will be at the United Center — the main site of the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago and the largest arena in North America — with daytime business to be conducted at the McCormick Place Convention Center, the location of the 2012 NATO Summit.

Delegates will be housed in about 30 hotels in Chicago.

For more than a year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a co-chair of the Democratic National Committee and Mayor Lori Lightfoot have led a drive for Chicago to host the Democrats in 2024.

Chicago won the convention with a bid package of about $80 million…

By selecting Chicago for the convention, Democrats are highlighting the importance of the Midwest “Blue Wall” states — Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. The governors in these states, all Democrats, were all reelected in 2022.

Chicago’s convention backers highlighted the abundance of downtown-area union hotels; the large, centrally located convention venues near hotels; Midway and O’Hare airports; and the restaurants and museums in the city…

The Sun-Times earlier reported that Pritzker and others pledged that the DNC would not realize any losses from the convention. The DNC requires an extensive financial package from the host city to cover a variety of costs, from festivities connected to a political convention to paying for the venues…

Atlanta’s convention argument focused on its important history in the civil rights movement and its status as a swing state sending two Democratic senators to Washington.

But Chicago and New York slammed Atlanta because Georgia is a right-to-work state and has only two union hotels. Organized labor and union voters are an important part of the Democratic base…

show full post on front page

Open Thread: The 2024 DNC Convention Will Be In ChicagoPost + Comments (43)

An Un-Holy Alliance (and Kittens!)

by | 198 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

The Republican Party.  It’s an ugly coalition, surely an un-holy alliance of hate, but this alliance is how the Republicans get to nearly 50%.

Roger Moore wrote this a week or two ago, and I have been thinking about it.

I would put it a little differently.  I think they fundamentally recognize their ideas are losing popularity.  They wouldn’t be trying to cheat if they thought they could win fairly.

The fascist wing of the party are the ones who think it’s more important to get their way than to have free and fair elections.  The remainder of the party is a mix.  Some of them are willing to give up on some facet of the party platform to try to win, and some of them still want to stick to the platform but think they’ll get their turn to implement it once the Democrats show their asses and lose.

I guess some of them also want to implement the platform and think they can weasel their way to a victory by lying about their goals.  That group is less significant, though, because this is obviously a very limited strategy.

It’s hard to win reelection when you have a track record of doing stuff the electorate doesn’t like, though people like Glenn Youngkin have shown it can be effective as a short-term approach.

They have formed an unholy alliance, but it’s working.  For now.  Is it working because they all care about power and about winning more than they care anything else?  Is it their ugly version of “Just win, baby!” ??

It may have started as a quest for power, but now it seems to be all about hate.  Or maybe hate is just a means to hang on to power?

I mean, think about the religious right.  So-called Christians.  They have signed on to all the hate and ugliness that is the antithesis of christianity.  Truly, Jesus wept.

So what’s our ultimate driving force, the thing that can bring us all together?  That can allow us to drive the current iteration of Republican ugliness right into the sea?  Are we partly there already?  What other pieces do we need to put in place?

Something to think about maybe, on a quiet weekend afternoon? :-)  Your thoughts?

Oh, and here’s a photo of the new kitty that Beautiful Plumage is bringing home today!  (fluffy kitty on the right)

An Un-Holy Alliance 1
Black kitty is staying in her current home, Marie is the fluffy kitty that is coming to live with Beautiful Plumange, and the baby is her friend’s granddaughter.

Black kitty and the new dog get along fine, but apparently the new dog and Marie are not doing well together, so Beautiful Plumage gets to have Marie all to herself, and no doubt will spoil Marie the way she should be spoiled by her new servant.

Open thread.

An Un-Holy Alliance (and Kittens!)Post + Comments (198)