US Politics, January 2020. Because we hate ourselves.

Who, at long last, is going to be our Ron Reagan?

so the neo-nazis descending on Richmond this weekend

Despite his scolding the poor generals he didn't take away their pocket money did he

on MLK day no less xp

where is Grant to take Richmond when you need him?

Grant's tomb

NEWS from Hell: Roy Cohn disappointed he was left off impeachment defense team.

one explanation:

"Cohn's last visit (to Mar-a-Lago was) a few months before he died of AIDS. Trump recalled to his guests that after Cohn had left, 'I had to spend a fortune to fumigate all the dishes and silverware.'"

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-roy-cohn-aids-florida-resort-book-1482672

Seriously how does anyone like this choad

he brought back Merry Christmas

Great stuff from On the Media this week, including this segment on political engagement -- which some people apparently define as tweeting, watching MSNBC, etc.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/politics-power-on-the-media

forget dennis perrin -- asking me to listen to podcasts really crosses the line

you can listen over the air on WNYC Sunday morning, dear :)

When i take photos of sherman and nike in nyc and insta “the north’s gonna do it again,” i _know_ his issues, and i _still_ feel it. it’s a baad problem of feels eh?

Richmond, VA. Charlottesville, SC. For some reason these neo-Nazis seem to feel a strong affinity with the deep Confederacy. I wonder what's up with that?

Charlottesville, VA

lol

theyre just upset about them statues bein removed

richmond was or is ranked three for cities in the US with the most tattoo shops. It's a weird place. They do have Po-white Parkway though.

It's a tired trope by this point but dude really is a Saturday-morning cartoon villain:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/17/trump-administration-school-lunch-michelle-obama-rules-roll-back

Is Chris Murphy's twitter feed account of the trial legal if he's directly involved?
I've heard jurors and trial participants in other situations being held to silence during the trial process.
So wondered when I saw he was going to give a daily update.

Apparently that is OK. They are not jurors in the traditional sense. They have to be quiet during the proceedings and can't question witnesses, those are a couple of similarities, but there are a lot of differences. For example, they can speak outside of the trial about the trial, don't need to be sequestered, and over the course of the trial they can even overrule the judge (Roberts), among other unique powers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/us/politics/trump-vaping-azar.html

“I never should have done this vaping thing,” Mr. Trump said, adding an expletive, according to two of the people familiar with what happened.

BIG NEWS: New study by Chris Cai et al. just up at @PLOSMedicine.
-First ever systematic review of economic analyses of single-payer.
-Researchers analyzed 22 cost estimates over 3 decades
-20 of the 22 predicted net savings
-Median net savings of 3.5% https://t.co/8v7mBig4aT pic.twitter.com/3HPqZ3Necl

— Adam W Gaffney (@awgaffney) January 15, 2020

What about the paper towels? https://t.co/OxlWtfwSpN

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) January 18, 2020

omg Big Vape got to him

I know it's a different insane thing every day but that Sea Wall tweet is just chaotic on a whole new level

same level, imo

I mean, what does he care if New York gets flooded? He's moving to Mar-a-Lago, and everybody knows Florida is totally immune to rising oceans.

acknowledges that seawall will be "needed," owns the libs anyway

Sea walls are ugly. Border walls are beautiful.

#allwallsmatter

Sea walls won't work. Border walls will work.

so appropriate

It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2020

so relieved to hear the Youth numbers are the best

So thoughtful and generous of him to take some time to talk about himself on this day.

I was thinking the other day, as I often do, about how confounding it is that Trump is so obviously a bullshit artist, so clearly a buffoon who somehow stumbled pinwheeling backwards into the presidency, so plainly a grifter who is out to enrich himself at every opportunity, a wannabe fascist with dreams of being Supreme Leader for Life, a corrupt villain who clings to power by dividing, by attacking, by bullying, by lying, and by literally any means necessary, and yet somehow there are so many people who buy into his bullshit! How can people believe in someone who is so painfully obviously a fraud? He doesn’t even try to hide it or pretend otherwise! And then I thought about professional wrestling, because that’s another thing that always confounded me. How do people possibly believe it is real? And of course Trump has the pro wrestling connections, he’s been in the ring, he knows it gets people fired up no matter how transparently fake it is. The over-the-top showmanship, the tough-guy posturing, the trash talk. People eat it up and don’t care that it’s not real because it’s a macho fantasy with good guys and bad guys, alliances and backstabbings, surprise attacks and killer put-downs. It’s as though he somehow managed to pose himself as the good guy in his own Wrestlemania tournament, with the ability to turn his adversaries into cartoonish evil strawmen to be taunted, to be hated, to be set up and knocked down like bowling pins while the crowd roars. And so he managed to get enough true believers fired up enough to build political momentum, leading others in the GOP to realize one by one that at some point they would have to jump on the train or get run over by it. And now they’re all on that idiot’s train and I hope it goes off a fucking cliff.

he’s a heel. A lot of people have decided they want to cheer for the heel because he feels like their heel.

Yeah Trump is a heel. From the boasting to the obvious cheating to the constant whining about being wronged/disrespected. Heels are far more fun to root for than good guys.

leading others in the GOP to realize one by one that at some point they would have to jump on the train or get run over by it. And now they’re all on that idiot’s train and I hope it goes off a fucking cliff.

― epistantophus, Tuesday, January 21, 2020 12:11 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

And as I say often, they're also all dedicated to playing a game where if anyone else tries to point out something that is supposed to make them reconsider or even just reflect on their position in regards to any GOP talking point, they will instead dig in their heels out of spite. Nobody is to get the satisfaction of seeing any of them concede to any point regardless of counterarguments or new information. Dig in those heels every time, that's the game. And it's a game because context does not matter at all. The only rule is the more pushback you get the more you dig them in.

happy anniv

On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down one of its worst and most activist decisions ever. https://t.co/PggwjFzN9l

— Nathaniel St. Clair (@NatStClair) January 21, 2020

And as I say often, they're also all dedicated to playing a game where if anyone else tries to point out something that is supposed to make them reconsider or even just reflect on their position in regards to any GOP talking point, they will instead dig in their heels out of spite.

This is not a game, it's human nature

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

I framed it that way semi-sarcastically because i've never seen such a stubborn dedication to that "rule" (as I described it) before the Trump era, to this much of a cartoony extreme degree.

such a stubborn dedication to that "rule" (as I described it) before the Trump era

When your job depends on figuring out what an amorphous blob of hundreds of thousands, or millions, of voters might "think" in the aggregate, you adopt a very heuristic attitude. Trump did things no professional politician would have dared to try before 2016, but he succeeded, so it became monkey-see, monkey-do time in DC.

Del. Lee Carter, the Virginia General Assembly's sole Democratic socialist, just passed his first bill. It prevents employers from classifying workers as tipped employees if they're prohibited from soliciting tips. https://t.co/ucRe1p5Mpi

— Ned Oliver (@nedoliver) January 22, 2020

He appears to be celebrating by shitposting from the House floor https://t.co/Z5jyeC3dvT

— Ned Oliver (@nedoliver) January 22, 2020

that's a good tweet

I agree w TRAINS

Ruining the non-sequitLOLs a bit, but if you click on Lee's tweet, it's in regards to a separate train bill that passed afterwards

Still a good tweet tho