US Politics, December 2022: "They're now the working class party, man."

...or "GET OFF YOUR COMPUTER & MEET A GIRL"

My b how am i supposed to meet girls w/o computer

has he even met a girl, do we know

Incels rise up!

has he even met a girl, do we know

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, December 21, 2022 1:16 AM bookmarkflaglink

is this the new Geldof/Bono charity collaboration

Never forget

https://i.imgur.com/yJTZUJJ.jpg

The tax returns are out:

Nice for some https://t.co/shQiIh2wT2 pic.twitter.com/c7Pkpp65vO

— Cory Doctorow (see pluralistic.net) (@doctorow) December 21, 2022

The couple paid $650 in taxes

The tax paid by the Trumps was $0 and they claimed a refund of $5.47 million.

What a tax genius.

That's precisely how his most fervent nutbags will greet this news ("He cheated the IRS? What a hero!").

I can’t get a girl because of microplastics

"We underperformed in 2024 midterms because men are becoming sissies thanks to plastics" is going to rock as an argument. https://t.co/7GACc6OcOK

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) December 21, 2022

T’s a wish fulfillment fantasy for all those who want to “beat the system”.

"But if you talk about it--wow, that's weird. Right?" for Jan. thread title

Yeah, I have no idea what the top-level takeaway is supposed to be for the tax returns. I assume that most wealthy people with access to savvy financial advisors use various strategies to minimize their tax obligations, simply as a matter of course. I have no idea what's above board based only on the summary in that tweet.

No way to know without seeing the returns, but those look like massive losses. Which may or may not be legitimate.

It just comes down to whether the deductions that led to such a low tax bill year after year were legit or not. For example, were they based on accurate valuations of his properties?

if ppl don't have time to digest and must choose their hero vs a bunch of nerds with fake news, it's not hard. you need his "allies" to break pretty hard. majority never never will as i see it, they roll the same grift.

Pay very close attention as you read the final report, to where the bipartisanship around the Jan. 6 Committee recommendation begins and ends. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have done yeoman’s work to shore up the rule of law and accountability for Donald Trump and the worst of his confederates. But the work will also provide a pretty flawless map to which legal and ethical lapses are disqualifying and which are tacitly encouraged. One branch of government is checked and the other is given a pass. It’s clear that whatever part law enforcement, House Republicans, MAGA election deniers still in office, and particularly any Supreme Court justice or their spouse may have played in an attack on the republic in 2021 will be forgiven and forgotten. They’re still all on one team, and—law and ethics notwithstanding—that team is all in on winning the fights that really matter

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/12/january-6-report-summary-clarence-thomas-ginni-ethics.html?via=rss

I got my hands on a 37-page guide for Kyrsten Sinema’s staff

Aides weren’t only expected to get her groceries and fix her internet but follow a… very detailed set of instructions about where to seat her on an airplane.

Lots more here:https://t.co/UDXv8j9ma2

— Sam Brodey (@sambrodey) December 22, 2022

B-b-but what about the M&Ms?

What about the salad served with a comb?

did she make them shave her legs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhH8CUG9lfg

The document outlines that Sinema should keep all meetings with constituents in her D.C. office limited to a block on Wednesdays. Her former aide told The Daily Beast that Sinema would stack as many constituent meetings as possible, usually no longer than three minutes, into a half-hour period on Wednesdays.

That meant that Sinema likely spent more time during the work week in physical therapy appointments and massages than with constituents. The document also outlines that scheduling “coffee meetings with lobbyists and donors are fine” and to allot those 15 to 20 minutes—a comparatively lengthy stretch of time for a senator routinely scheduled down to the second.

3 minutes!

she doesn't represent democrats, or republicans. she represents hardworking arizonans, and she knows they're angry. she has heard constituents angrily saying stuff at her, or at least near her, as she checks her phone during the entire duration of their elevator pitches that are delivered on real life elevator rides to the fitness center. she knows that they are angry and they demand results

for example, "why are you staring at your phone and why is the next constituent walking in the room when there are 25 seconds remaining on my 180 second meeting?" is one thing that real americans are asking more and more

a three-minute hero

A little time for the little people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7YVouuS6Cs

Midterm so surprising they’re writing about people who voted democrat https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/22/red-wave-midterm-elections-2022-what-happened/

pretty funny this guy turned out to be exactly what his haters thought, except worse

Years of fawning McElwee profiles characterized the leftist case against him as a naive obsession with purity, when all along the argument has actually been that he was building a personal brand at the expense of left politics. https://t.co/0UoZIALSk8

— Natalie Shure (@nataliesurely) December 22, 2022

do his best friend the "popularist" guy next

Sean McElwee drinking beer in a hammock as a debate between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole plays during a happy hour at his friend David Shor’s apartment in Manhattan last year.

honestly i kind of enjoyed that washington post profile! worth it for this alone:

“People here do not like change,” said Connie Underwood, the clerk at the Citgo, explaining life in Fairmount one day. “Like if I moved the beef jerky, they’d get mad.”

yep

If we can't trust the jerky to be next to the sunflower seeds, who can we trust? And what is Citgo trying to distract us from by doing this?

Citgate

That Post profile does a great job conveying what life is like in that part of Georgia and why its politics are what they are

there's not nice gossip about the behavior of sh0r in the nyc tech/ds community (beyond the ludicrous NYT profile)

agreed by the low low standards of "let's talk to lobotomized swing voters because we're embarrassed that we don't live in real america" that was a solid piece.

“I feel like it’s like Game of Thrones, when everyone was fighting with each other over land and ignoring the Night King,” said Danielle Deiseroth, who replaced McElwee as interim executive director. “We have real fights we need to focus on and not this ongoing drama. The Republicans are the Night King.”

At least it’s not a Harry Potter reference.

could die happy never hearing HP's name ever again

“So the Republicans, they’re Valcheck. Progressive ideas, those are Frank Sobotka. The Greeks, uh, that’s Joe Manchin.”

So the vice president is the dead parrot, Biden is the pet shop man, and progressives are John Cleese in a fully-buttoned up plastic mac.

that rumor that mcelwee was betting on election results was something. just so many things dropping at the same time that blew up his spot

on certain days near christmas the washington post opinion section goes into really champagne mode

https://i.imgur.com/qY1DLd6.png

Petri's usually hilarious.

And the Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticised Zelenskiy for wearing green fatigues to Congress.

he should have gone naked with only a ball tanning light for modesty

Alfred, on this, we do not agree. but politically themed humor is a tough genre. even the best of it usually produces the stifled "hmph!" reaction in the nostril area, the one where something is kind of mildly amusing enough so we feel compelled to acknowledge it by hmph-ing some air out of noses. Petri is not horrible (she's no borowitz report) but it's not for me i guess

McArdle's still funny

i have a friend who still sends me links to borowitz reports captioned, inevitably, "😂", and would it surprise you to learn he is a a non-elected dem public relations official