US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI

alternately
Dingus Dingus Dingus Dingus Dingus

many xposts

what a time to work for a government contractor (as I do)

LIFE IS WINNING

Dingus Ah Um

― Empire Burl Ives (Hadrian VIII)

why so sick and ridiculous?

!!@SenDuckworth: "I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft-dodger. And I have a message for cadet bone spurs: If you cared about our military, you'd stop baiting Kim Jong-Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops .. in danger." pic.twitter.com/BBXVna819m

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 20, 2018

oof

good on her. now she'll get her own nickname from our president.

TAMMY

yesss

"draft dodger" still has a 1971 hardhat whiff to me. I like draft dodgers.

The phrase for Yam (and so many other war-promoting coddled cowards) is "chicken hawk."

JM Rieger shd've at least properly capped "Cadet Bone Spurs"

he resembles at times an amateur jazz musician

I know the moment has passed, but... Cantaloupe Lie-land?

"draft dodger" still has a 1971 hardhat whiff to me. I like draft dodgers.

The phrase for Yam (and so many other war-promoting coddled cowards) is "chicken hawk."

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius)

can't do it. can't use "chicken hawk" to refer to anybody other than an old creep with a taste for the barely legal. i should get with the times i suppose...

I think Lt. Colonel Duckworth gets to use "draft dodger" as a pejorative

By far the most surprising guest here at the @Cernovich event: Chelsea Manning!

— Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) January 21, 2018

"draft dodger" still has a 1971 hardhat whiff to me. I like draft dodgers.

The phrase for Yam (and so many other war-promoting coddled cowards) is "chicken hawk."

Morbs real otm here. stop using their shit brand framing

I agree but in context they're clearly using the GOP's own bullshit pejorative labels against them.

Obv conscription is gross and shaming those who avoid it is worse....

sure and I’m not knocking Duckworth, who’s (generally) pretty rad (other than fisa) and who better to take the shot. I’m talking more generally. Like the ‘resistance’ prob shouldn’t make a whole lot of noise about draft dodgers.

chicken hawks otoh. no one but lobbyists like those

*shot?

yeah we need a better/richer language here. i dig draft dodgers in the fuck-this-war-i'm-going-in-hiding sense. vietnam was bullshit - dodge away. but the specific thing of "i used my wealth and connections to get myself out of harm's way while letting the draft, and war, hum murderously along for others" is worth calling out. trump's record here is pathetic of course. but "chicken hawk" doesn't capture why either, plus no one knows what it means. i think duckworth could have just said "...from a rich kid who stayed out of vietnam by having his daddy's hired doctor make up phony medical excuses, while the kids of the people who rented apartments in his daddy's buildings had no such option" .... or some pithier version thereof.

yeah “chickenhawk” a misnomer in this instance.

but ppl should know what means and the GOP should absolutely be synonymous with it

Chelsea was ostensibly there to "crash it" but bb you gotta do more than show up and get seen at a white supremacist's party if yr gonna call it crashing

God her ad is so bad, all signifiers aimed at people who think voting doesn't do anything

I want better things for her than this

probably a better option than "draft dodger" or "chicken hawk": "shithead"

Meantime

oh my god https://t.co/uudoz4Z6Ps pic.twitter.com/2YgXIVqdaO

— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) January 21, 2018

When I find myself in full agreement with Morbius, consecutively over a series of days, that’s a fucking sign.

― El Tomboto, Saturday, January 20, 2018 5:41 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sigh, tying the knot. finally. looking for rsvp.

pic.twitter.com/Vl3Q2ucHQz

— Alex Nichols (@Lowenaffchen) January 21, 2018

That's an adorable dog. I refuse to see what's in the rest of the picture, tho.

let’s hope the dog enjoyed a long, full life and was not eventually murdered by noted dog-murderer david huckabee

I want better things for her than this

I think what you actually want is a better version of her than the one that actually exists.

uh oh someone's suggesting the "nuclear option" in the Senate again

Did Rand Paul hack Josh in Chicago's account?

Ha! I love the government and want it to be even bigger. (Except the military, which is big enough - Rand Paul likes big military, doesn't he?). My point (as such) was that the GOP is constantly harping about the size of government, and the current administration is actively trying to shrink things or shut them down, while leaving several posts unfilled (we still don't even have an ambassador to South Korea!) or pressuring other workers to quit or retire or take buy-outs and leave. Which I find so disingenuous, the party of small government or, lately, no government, suddenly concern trolling for ending the shutdown. This is their dream come true! Or should be. As for the shutdown itself, yeah, it hurts people financially, at least in the short term, but so does the massive cutting and dissolution of government programs under Trump, right? Because of Trump GOP strategy, a working government means a government working to limit or shrink government, which is kind of a Catch-22. The irony is that congress is *not* shut down, but they've been the least productive or effective branch of government the past year.

(I fully acknowledge any illogic and stupidity to my reasoning, it's just that my gut instinct is if ever there was a government I'd want shut down, it's this one!)

You could have just said that!

if ever there was a government I'd want shut down, it's this one!

Josh in Chicago otm

See?

I think what you actually want is a better version of her than the one that actually exists.

― grawlix (unperson), Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:03 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, but thanks

xp As a rhetorical device "look, shutdown is a sneak peek at the logical extension of your libertarianism" or "this is what you get when you drown government in the bathtub" is just the sort of rhetorical device the Dems remain too clumsy/lumbering to make

It doesn't seem that hard an argument to make! "You republicans have been calling for cutting and slashing for years, and now here you go, government is on hold. Happy? We want CHIP. We want DACA. We want lots of things. You want nothing, because if you wanted something you'd be voting on it, like you voted on lowering taxes or ending the ACA some 50 times. So to sum up: fuck you."

No I don't think it's hard at all. I wish they'd do it.

what it boils down to is that we have to make their arguments for them and sell them for them. if the democrats wind up getting shit on for the shutdown, it's our failure more importantly than it is theirs.

lol fuck that

That’s not what these shutdowns are. All of DHS’s essential functions are staffed. All the military functions are staffed. All the contractors are still getting paid. The mail is being delivered. Social Security checks included.

Nothing is “shut down” in any meaningful sense.

uh oh didn't we do this already?

xposts whether the blame lies with the electorate or the party, this is why leadership has gotta be flipped. The legislative muscles necessary to become a Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer are built up incrementally over decades of navigating an arcane system, and they're important and necessary esp. for maintaining power. But in the process it seems that the muscles that help you punch above your weight, in fighting to take it back, tend to atrophy.

What these shutdowns amount to is that all of the activities the federal government does to further its ability to provide services, or improve our way of life, or advance the state of practice in various fields of study that venture capitalists tend to ignore, those things stop cold.

All of the civil servants who manage and/or do that work are going to get paid leave for however long this takes, so taxpayers are just getting ripped off for nothing.

Oh good I’m glad we’re using this time to whine some more about the fecklessness of Democrats

i'll stop when they get some feck

They should demand an immediate vote on feck.