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

imagine believing a system where candidates have to win over a clique of big money, billionaire, and establishment party interests while feigning concern for the working class weeded out sociopaths rather than creating them.

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) January 26, 2018

Putin is laughing his ass off right now

Breaking now on WSJ: Steve Wynn’s pattern of sexual misconduct. Wynn is the lead fundraiser for the RNC. https://t.co/OKakaJx8ej

— Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz) January 26, 2018

but what about hillary in 2008

Trump whining about the "fake news" then immediately falsely claiming that the cameras in front of him are turning off is about as on-brand as you can get

when he talks about "cameras going off" he's referring to the clicks and flashes of active cameras, i think, not that they're turning them off. he seems to have this idea that whenever he talks about fake news, the media gets really excited and photographers take a bunch of pictures. i've seen him mention this several times now, it's really fucking weird

― Karl Malone, Friday, January 26, 2018 12:00 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, he's joking. Another way he could put it is "...and all the FAKE news out there- I can see all the journalists starting to sweat right now. They're panicking! Look at them. Anyway..."

I wouldn't overanalyze it. He's just being a dick like usual.

Adam NYC expressed some serious concerns earlier this week over what he referred to as the “woke deep state”

my bad on the trump camera thing - i was always completely misunderstanding him. hundreds of years from now there will be a field dedicated to him in schools of translation, trying to decipher what exactly he meant, what was meant sarcastically or as a joke, what he ever really thought about anything. even as a native english speaker i have no fucking clue what he's trying to say half the time

thank god the most watched 'news' network is here to tell us what he means 24 hours a day

message for scholars of the future: he really is as dumb as he appears. don't give him the benefit of the doubt, he actually is saying these really dumb things all the time

It's just my opinion though. There is a strange overlap where if when it appears he's joking at first he'll just keep rolling with it if his followers latch on to it. So, sure who knows.

so weird.

also, looks like a kennedy has won the honor of delivering one of the most reliably awkward speeches in politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts will deliver the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address next week.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer made the announcement in a statement Thursday night. They say Kennedy is “a relentless fighter for working Americans.” The 37-year-old Kennedy is serving his third term in the House.

Pelosi and Schumer say Elizabeth Guzman of Virginia will deliver the Spanish-language response to Trump’s speech. Guzman, 44, is an immigrant from Peru who was recently elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates.

The Democratic leaders say Kennedy and Guzman will emphasize that “Democrats are laser-focused on enacting policies to benefit middle-class Americans, not special interests or the wealthiest.”

wasn't there a year (or multiple years?) where the networks all broadcasted a Tea Party response to obama's SOTU, in addition to the republican response? or am i just making shit up? u.s. politics is starting to look and feel like a broadcast you might see on a broken television in the background of a scene in Brazil

they should *just* do a Spanish response

wonder if the Dems will push the RNC to return Steve Wynn's money the way Republicans spent weeks loudly chastising the DNC for Harvey Weinstein

probably not

lol never that would be rude

DACA has been made increasingly difficult by the fact that Cryin’ Chuck Schumer took such a beating over the shutdown that he is unable to act on immigration!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2018

even a stopped clock, yada yada yada

wasn't there a year (or multiple years?) where the networks all broadcasted a Tea Party response to obama's SOTU, in addition to the republican response? or am i just making shit up? u.s. politics is starting to look and feel like a broadcast you might see on a broken television in the background of a scene in Brazil

― Karl Malone, Friday, January 26, 2018 5:25 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes. the networks were so fucking dumb they thought the tea party was separate from the GOP. in spite of being run by former gop apparatchiks and voting with the gop on just about everything.

re Joe III

that this nonentity is even in Congress is an embarrassment. at least they're sending him out to die doing the response. https://t.co/3fEtaLWGER

— slackbot (@pareene) January 26, 2018

joe kennedy's anti-marijuana legalization stance should excite the kids

— Atrios (@Atrios) January 26, 2018

but what about hillary in 2008

Come on, man. If we can talk about the Kevin Spacey stuff from 20 years ago and deservedly take him down, we can talk about Hillary from 2008. (And 1992 and 1996.)

Joe Kennedy III seems pretty good. I’ve seen a few people point to the anti-marijuana legislation thing because it was the one thing they could find probably. Also his name allows for the “elite” thing.

Rep Joe Kennedy won't tolerate the GOP's hypocrisy on healthcare #MorningJoe pic.twitter.com/m94eXa6dnh

— #LaquanMcDonald (@ifuaskmee) July 5, 2017

I have no doubt he seems 'pretty good' at keeping the Dem Death March going

It's an embarrassment that the left has to keep calling on Kennedy's and Clinton's. There should be a 3 generation ban on anybody named Clinton or Kennedy or Bush being elected to any office.

fuck joe kennedy

big plusses for Chuck & Nancy:

Kennedy's net worth is estimated to be $15-55 million.

On July 24, 2013, Kennedy was one of seven members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) who voted against the Amash-Conyers amendment to limit Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which tried to restrict NSA surveillance programs.

that slot doesn't matter, and i'm glad none of the potential presidential candidates are taking it.

Agreed. I’m not saying let’s build the party around this Kennedy but the dismissiveness is definitely coming from an ignorant place.

kinda forgot about bobby "digital" jindal's career ending response

a potentially career ending gig of no import

Almost no one had heard of Marco Rubio or Tim Kaine, and they still haven't.

“Kennedy's net worth is estimated to be $15-55 million”

WHAT!!!! okay I didn’t know that. h”Hey everybody nevermind how he speaks about or votes on health care, it doesn’t matter now if this politician agrees with you on something important it’s not good now.

Pretty sure the only memorable SOTU response was when Rubio took his fateful sip of water

Has the SOTU response ever had an effect other than jokes about the awkwardness of whoever delivers it? It’s always a shitty speech bc it’s some dumbass in an empty room talking to a camera, attempting to respond to a speech that hasn’t been delivered yet, so it’s either super vague platitudes or focused on issues that aren’t mentioned in the SOTU. If you want an inspiring and momentous speech wait for an event with an audience imo.

Full new piece by Mariotti worth a read

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/26/mueller-trump-obstruction-of-justice-russia-216532

hey watch this not matter at all as Hannity, the crew of Fox & Friends, and the entire GOP Congress vehemently claim that a sitting President cannot "obstruct" justice

if they delivered the SOTU response before a crowd, it's go over great, but they wouldn't do that because they're the Democrats and the possibility of something going amiss would terrify them

fuck joe kennedy

― marcos, Friday, January 26, 2018 12:55 PM

a crowd would be better than the current hostage-video setup, but you still can't compete with all the pomp and ceremony of the actual SOTU. in doesn't matter which party is in power, the person repping the opposition is always going to look like some loser-ass nerd.

i've got no real beef with Joe Kennedy III but he's exactly 18 days older than I am. He's possibly too young to have even understood all the jokes the first time "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" aired.

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E20/540038/m/IENPTUUgQkFDSyBIRVJFISBJJ00gTk9UCiBUSFJPVUdIIERFTUVBTklORyBZT1Uh

xpost This year, though, Jimmy Kimmel is interviewing Stormy Daniels right after. They should just make that the official response.

this guy should do it

Eminem: A "f--king turd would have been better as a president" than Trump https://t.co/V15c84mrA1 pic.twitter.com/YSh4j9216L

— The Hill (@thehill) January 26, 2018

I read Renato Mariotti's article in Politico that Ned linked. It is especially interesting in that it carefully considers evidence already made public and constructs the bare outline of a legal brief against the president, considering how the available evidence can be used to meet various legal standards and counter certain defenses. As a summary, it is a model of clarity and economy.

What struck me most is that Mariotti did not even consider whether Mueller has strong evidence of crimes perpetrated by Trump himself, so that his interest in obstructing justice was to protect himself rather than merely protecting those near him.

I expect such strong evidence of personal criminal activity by Trump will be critical to any proceeding to impeachment by a Republican congress. Obstruction of justice, by itself, will be quibbled away by Ryan as excusable, and anything short of the country exploding in anger and taking to the streets would result in no impeachment articles emerging from the House. Ryan would not even grant hearings if he thought he could get away with it.

Renato is a straight shooter. I think we're hosting a small fundraiser for his IL AG campaign.

I Love Attorneys General

I expect such strong evidence of personal criminal activity by Trump will be critical to any proceeding to impeachment by a Republican congress. Obstruction of justice, by itself, will be quibbled away by Ryan as excusable, and anything short of the country exploding in anger and taking to the streets would result in no impeachment articles emerging from the House. Ryan would not even grant hearings if he thought he could get away with it.

― A is for (Aimless), Friday, January 26, 2018 7:36 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed. I feel like this is the part of mueller's case that will take fucking forever to tie-in with obstruction.

senate is another matter, but assuming the democrats take the house in november, it doesn't matter whether ryan wants impeachment articles to emerge from the house.

it would take *a lot* (as in a whole lot of damning evidence of explicit wrongdoing, presented in a convincing, straightforward manner) to get people marching in the streets en masse on this for more than a couple of days imo

Best timing for a Mueller report would be about Labor Day, may be late August, in time for it to become the only issue of the 2018 election. This election will mostly be a referendum on Trump anyway, but Mueller dropping his report would superheat the issue and frame it in terms of "is our country run by criminals? the evidence says yes."

People didn’t go to the streets after he repeatedly threatened to use nukes.

Exactly.

assuming the democrats take the house in november

I don't see this as assumable or even >50% probable

(though definitely plausible in a way it wasn't 6 months ago)

the DNC is convinced elections are won by going for sensible moderates with policies that no one likes. if the mueller investigation wraps up this summer they will find a way to avoid saying "we're running on an impeachment ticket" in the same way they avoid saying "single payer".