Maybe I should have put this in the thread where we were talking about the other Republican human trafficking schemes, but I felt like bumping this thread instead.
I was listening to John Oliver the other day and he was talking about Brett Kavanaugh. Oliver noted that there were plenty of other people that Trump could have nominated for the Supreme Court who were just as politically conservative as Kavanaugh, had more impressive résumés -- and notably, did not have multiple accusations of sexual harassment.
So why were Trump and his cronies so set on getting Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court? Oliver made a claim that seems kind of obvious in hindsight: Trump and his supporters didn't want Kavanaugh in spite of the fact that he was clearly lying during his nomination, his clear contempt of "Liberals", and the fact that he was pretty clearly guilty of sexual assault.
No, they were determined to get Kavanaugh onto the Court because of all these things. Putting Kavanaugh on the Court was a great big "Fuck You" to Democrats -- and in particular to women -- on the part of Trump and his supporters.
Yeah, I think that Oliver pretty-much nailed it with that observation.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
Thanks to a blunder, the Texas Republican Party’s 2020 election strategy has ended up in the hands of Texas Democrats, according to the The Dallas Morning News.
. . .
Another big revelation from the document is the problems President Trump is causing for Republicans in 2020.
... and I can be persuaded that I've wrong-threaded it. After all al-Aqidi seems to have impeccable credentials for her views, and her views are not, on the face of it at least, as egregious as we have come to expect from Republicans in general. In short, just because she opposes Omar doesn't mean she sucks.
But al-Aqidi could have chosen to stand for congress as a Democrat and she hasn't. It's clear she doesn't just want to represent a section of Muslim America that she feels Omar is misrepresenting. She wants to silence Omar's voice completely and she's willing to join Trump's deplorable parade to do that.
I think Dalia al-Aqidi sucks as badly as the rest.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is sending fundraising mailers in California and other states that look like the official U.S. census, a move critics worry will confuse people and skew actual census results.
Sure that seems to fall somewhere on the Shitty-Treasonous Continuum, but let's not lose track of Republicanism's true appeal, namely the fact that there's one answer to every question:
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is looking into options for possible targeted tax relief as a response to the coronavirus, a spokesman for the senator said Monday.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
As seen on the Internet, the Black Death was a huge problem primarily because barbers and other 14th Century healthcare providers didn't know about tax cuts.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
And Senate killed that sick pay bill, no surprise there. That scene in Metropolis comes to mind, the worker dropping dead and his replacement being brought in before the body is carted away.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
A key sticking point in the talks appears to be GOP demands to include Hyde amendment language in the bill to prevent federal funds from being used for abortion
brink·man·ship
/ˈbriNGkmənˌSHip/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: brinkmanship; noun: brinksmanship
the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.
"in any game of brinkmanship, it is possible that one side will collapse suddenly"
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
And I'm already seeing Facebook posts about how its all the "Evil Democrats'" fault. Because, according to the posters, the Democrats are "demanding" that "pro-abortion" language be inserted into the bill.
I don't know what's more disgusting: that the GOP shows not the slightest hesitancy about brazenly lying to the American people, or that their supporters lap it up like honey.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
Extra special how after the years of propping up the stock market the whole latest pump and dump scheme will be blamed on a virus and set up for the next round of deregulation. I'm sure it'll trickle down soon, tho.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
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In loyalty to their kind
They cannot tolerate our minds
In loyalty to our kind
We cannot tolerate their obstruction - Airplane, Jefferson
Extra special how after the years of propping up the stock market the whole latest pump and dump scheme will be blamed on a virus and set up for the next round of deregulation. I'm sure it'll trickle down soon, tho.
Tucker Carlson calls for Senator Burr to resign and await prosecution for insider trading if he cannot provide a reasonable explanation for his actions. He goes on to say it appears that Senator Burr betrayed his country in a time of crisis pic.twitter.com/q7yJa5wjuA
Loeffler is the second known senator to sell off large stock holdings between that Jan. 24 briefing and the dramatic drop in stock market indices over the last week. The Center for Responsive Politics reported on Thursday that Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold between $500,000 and $1.5 million in stock in February, shortly before markets tanked—and before Burr privately warned of the havoc that coronavirus was poised to wreak.
…
When Loeffler assumed office she immediately became the wealthiest member of Congress. The Atlanta businesswoman, whose husband is the chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, is worth an estimated $500 million.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
If Burr does indeed resign, Governor Roy Cooper will get to appoint his replacement. While Cooper is a Democrat, NC law requires that he appoint a Republican from a list given by the NCGOP. However, if Burr's resignation comes before mid-September, there will be a special election in November, and NC is very much a winnable state. Recent polls have put Biden ahead of Trump, and the Democratic nominee for the regularly scheduled senate election ahead of Republican Thom Tillis.
*Mark Foley was the one who was sending sexual messages to teenage boys who were congressional pages. The Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, was reported to have heard about Foley's behavior but to have done nothing about it. I can only imagine the bloodbath 2006 would've become had we only known that Hastert did far more than send inappropriate messages to teenage boys, but was literally a fucking child molester himself. Which probably explains why he saw no problem with Foley's behavior.
Never forget: the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House was a child molester who covered up the sexual harassment of children in the Capitol.