US Politics, August 2023: "Dear Kamala, I wrote you, but you still ain't callin'..."

... continuing from July: DeSantis, he writes letters...

In case anyone gets nostalgic for July's thread:

U.S. Politics, July 2023: The SCOTUS Shelves Its Instruments of Torture for Some R&R

Nostalgia is a fall/winter emotion. In July and August I wallow in exhaustion and langour. But you do you.

I for one yearn for the days of arguing about 14 and 88.

August usually just delivers tiny political scandals and gossip, but maybe this month we'll finally get some more of the really serious indictments brought against Trump. Or maybe some geriatric politician will die or Rand Paul will get tackled by another neighbor. So many unrealized possibilities.

Mitch McConnell might go to his final reward.

Strongly suggests indictment(s) could be imminent. https://t.co/EXasTphQcp

— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCNN) August 1, 2023

this is the federal election case.

I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President, me, at 5:00 P.M. Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!
1.15k ReTruths 2.96k Likes Aug 01, 2023, 3:41 PM

lol at "Why didn’t they do this 2.5 years ago?"

Trump OTM

Lol this thread title

Texas is the reason...

These breaks are obligatory under local law in Austin. But recently, amid a record-breaking heatwave, the Texas governor signed a bill that will rescind existing mandatory rest and water breaks for construction workers starting in September.

A Republican who introduced the bill justified it on the basis that “progressive municipal officials and agencies have made Texas small businesses jump through contradictory and confusing hoops.”

https://img.freepik.com/free-photo/uncertain-boss-young-man-face_1194-7951.jpg

"It's 103 degrees and I have workers outside all day. The law says I have to let them take water breaks but that's contradictory to my gut feeling, which is to let 'em work until they pass out to maximize my profits. What's a poor guy like me supposed to do?"

The fuckwithery in Texas never ends. The state has moved into Houston's school district, dismissed the superintendent and school school board, bringing in their own stooges who've just decided to downsize the libraries of around 45 'underperforming' schools and repurpose the spaces for expanded in-school detention areas.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/education-news/hisd/2023/07/31/458255/turner-miles-houston-isd-libraries-discipline-centers-relocate-librarians/

If Texas has state-specific restrictions on books in schools, that suggests that it will need a building just to hold school books. Maybe call it a "repository" for school books.

What could possibly go wrong?

Detention has a great track record for improving academic performance.

Texas keeping our judeo-christian heritage alive: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-food-not-bombs-texas-18270531.php

A volunteer with Food Not Bombs who was ticketed by Houston police for feeding the unhoused outside the downtown public library was found not guilty in a criminal court on Sunday.

Phillip Picone was handing out food to unhoused people with fellow Food Not Bombs volunteers at the corner of McKinney and Smith Streets in downtown Houston on March 6 when trouble began. Food Not Bombs had served meals to unhoused people at that same corner four nights a week for the past twenty years, even as the Houston police had started handing out tickets for allegedly violating a city ordinance against giving unhoused people food in the downtown area, per FOX 26.

a city ordinance against giving unhoused people food in the downtown area

Has DeSantis heard about this? he doesn't want to be outcrueled

https://wtop.com/government/2023/08/senate-office-buildings-locked-down-over-reports-of-gunman/

WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order and began searching Senate office buildings near the U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon amid reports of an active shooter.

And we'll see how this plays out.

The United States Congress, a famously pro-gun institution, weirdly opposed to people pointing guns at it. Huh.

sounds like a possible false alarm

A migrant was killed today by one of Abbott's border buoys

https://abc13.com/texas-border-news-deaths-buoys-on-body-found-buoy/13589844/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/02/broke-state-gop-parties-across-the-country-00109387

good stuff

It's surprising that so many state Republican parties have gone woke

I for one yearn for the days of arguing about 14 and 88.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 1 August 2023 19:21

Christ, I don't think anyone was defending it, just questioning whether it was intentional.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux)

Questioning whether a dogwhistle was intentional is effectively defending. (Maybe some alternate term would be more apt but it’s not coming to me rn.) This is the point of these dogwhistles, to poison the well with this sort of tangential speculation about obvious racist memes. I get some folks might be oblivious to how prevalent this code is on much of the internet but it didn’t need to go on and on. Once it was noted this is indeed a common racist rallying cry, that should have ended it.

Clearly at this point it needs to go to another thread but let’s be clear that semantics aside this shit is indefensible.

you know what's a personal low point for you viborg? projecting your own fantasy posts onto map

― rob, Tuesday, 1 August 2023

Do I really need to dig up specific quotes to shut these knee-jerk clowns up and show this isn’t just “fantasy”? Yeah map said some really dumb shit in the past, that’s the hill rob wants to die on? Lmao who the hell is rob anyway? Map has a posse smh.

Questioning whether a dogwhistle was intentional is effectively defending.

Mmmmkay.

Anyway, we got more indictments, so.

Viborg I flagged you for beating a very dead horse

“I heard you wrote a book!”

“No, I *was* booked.”

No more 'heads are gonna roll'
Always a charmer, isn't he

DeSantis made the remarks at a barbecue campaign event in Rye, N.H., hosted by former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).

“We’re going to have all of these deep state people, you know, [/b]we are going to start slitting throats on day one,”[/b] DeSantis said.

Why don't dorks like DeSantis and Trump just start naming Deep State names, if they love the country so fucking much? Why leave the Deep State to Deep State things up even more?

Y’know, one thing DeSantis does capture effortlessly is the hopeless stunted adolescent aspirational violence of the American incel

He really just embodies that specific type.

desantis is going to debate newsom? that is going to be fucking brutal

Yeah but come on, Newsom isn't going to do the homework and is going to make own goals.

Eric otn

Newsom has already done all of the homework and is going to eat DeSantis alive

Two creeps one stage

US political "debates" are little more than regurgitation of pre-chewed talking points and attempts to insert carefully memorized zings. Nearly all that gets said has been lifted directly out of stump speeches that the participants have delivered dozens of times. Nobody eats anyone alive, regardless of how much homework they did.

Newsom has already gone on Fox, debated Hannity, and held his own quite well.

Newsom is about as loathsome as a Dem politician can get, the vibes in the debate room will be “hell”

Good morning!

Y’know, one thing DeSantis does capture effortlessly is the hopeless stunted adolescent aspirational violence of the American incel

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb5f3de3-f8e2-4fba-9b90-bb70d9ad94e1_4753x3169.jpeg
"Please, lord, let every one of the Republican candidates pass gently in the night so that I may finally lead. Heck, take me with them so that I may finally serve."

In Penceland, even the chairs bow their heads in prayer

Our media in response to a basically good jobs report, my god… pic.twitter.com/n1XYGi4Kqw

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) August 4, 2023

why would Biden do this?

Reps. Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville, the two TN statehouse members who were expelled by the GOP for being black, are back in office after comfortably winning their special elections

Times are tough for CEOs and people who live on investments, there are more jobs than bodies to fill them, and now these bodies are making unreasonable demands out of their talk holes like "sick leave" or "a living wage".

Unemployment is at a 50-year low. Ocean surface temperature is at an 80-year high. Sea ice at a 50-year low. Last month had, apparently, the warmest day in recorded history. Restaurants are beginning to serve lab-grown chicken.

I feel fine

Ye know ye said so.

leonard bernstein

imagine if he dies in office

I mean like literally at the lectern

"Republicans insist McConnell is still capable of performing duties despite recent death"

imagine there's no turtle

i wonder what he and feinstein talk about when they get together for coffee

McConnell appears to be having ischemic strokes on a regular basis.

It seem like little strokes to me. (xp!) (I am not a medical professional, it might also be him thinking "can I toot a little without sharting?")

doubt it's that, p sure most Republican politicians already smell like unwiped ass

"felt lightheaded and paused momentarily"

McConnell appears to be having ischemic strokes on a regular basis.

Do those hurt?

a family friend had a few and no, they did not hurt when she had them. she just got slightly paralyzed and confused.

my dad's probably had a ton. not even noticeable when they happened but noted by a gradual loss of motor function each time

One of my best friends is a son of a former (GOP) senator, and he has nothing but nice things to say about McConnell, the person. I feel bad for what McConnell is going through in public, but on the other hand, as a politician he is a bastard that has made this country worse.

Add Scalise to the death pool. Cancer is a terrible thing, but so is Scalise.

I've never known McConnell existing as a person.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-idalia-florida-governors-mansion-oak-tree-falls-casey-desantis-twitter/

Probably the same tree that tried to take out Greg Abbott, take the hint, assholes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnC88xBPkkc

lol

I feel bad for what McConnell is going through in public.

esp since KY has a Dem governor

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Wednesday, August 30, 2023 1:53 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

kentucky changed the law in 2021 to prevent this exact thing from happening: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/31/1191034037/mcconnell-facing-health-questions-says-he-ll-serve-full-term-keep-leading-senate

it's the kind of cynical, nakedly-power-preserving move that i wish the democrats would try (against republicans anyway, they things like this to primary opponents all the time)

well fuck

The pleading of so many of the higher profile Jan. 6 defendants once they face serious time has been ... something. There have been so many cases of these jerks shedding crocodile tears that it's impossible to feel bad for them. I mean, they travelled to DC in paramilitary garb, often with weapons, certainly with ill intent (however righteous they thought it), and then assaulted police in service of a cancerous goal. And yet they somehow expect anyone to feel bad that their time in prison will keep them from spending time with their kids? These fuckups *started* with that gift and sacrificed it all to be assholes on a historic scale.

Those same assholes cheer when people of color are incarcerated or killed by police.

yeah, hearing a lot of 'I got caught up the moment!' whimpers, but you also drove 900 miles to get there wearing tactical gear, so shut it

the judges involved look like they can see through such things

And they've been pretty consistent, no matter who appointed them. The Proud Boy Briggs guy just got sentenced to 15 years by a Trump judge, who iirc made a point of noting that never has he sentenced someone to such a high number that was still half that requested by the prosecution. Some people seem to be suggesting that he got off easy, but 15 years is a long fucking time. To put it in Jan. 6 perspective, that's essentially four presidential terms. By the time they get out of jail, they might not even know whether to storm the capitol again or not.

He might get out early for whatever reason, but it'll still be a few years... and then he can't own a firearm ever again

...and that's how we got all their guns!

You do not have to hand anything to Nikki Haley, but still lol

After Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) public health scare yesterday, Nikki Haley calls the Senate "the most privileged nursing home in the country." pic.twitter.com/F3odbJhOYS

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) August 31, 2023

The most privileged and they're still unable to retire? What a country!

They need the health care!

I hope he dies a slow, painful death.

that's what's happening.. remember his leprosy hands awhile back?

Our old friend Max R. says Vivek and Pete are Millennial Ambition Psychos.

xp Oh, yeah. All blotchy. He looked bruised.

He has done more than any other single person to destroy the federal judiciary. He can go to hell.

Andy

he can't own a firearm ever again

Wait, walk me through that. Is someone going to make him surrender weapons? Who will know whether he has or hasn't? Or whether he's keeping a couple that he somehow forgot to mention that he has?

What will keep his homies from just accidentally leaving a gun or two at his house?

Lately gun nuts love to boast about how they're accidentally "losing" their guns in "boating accidents" so as not to have to have them reported as registered to them. Fuckin ammosexuals. I cannot even.

afaics, the main enforcement of the laws banning felons from possessing firearms happens when they commit a crime and are caught with one. then the prosecutor tacks that charge onto the list of indictments. If someone just reports them in possession and they're still on parole, it's possible that may bring some serious consequences. Otherwise it's anyone's guess if the police or prosecutors will lift a finger.

btw, tomorrow someone should start a new thread for September. That "most privileged nursing home in the country" quote has real possibilities.

what Aimless said... there are probably many, many felons in possession, but if he gets caught with one - even in a simple traffic search - that would be a parole violation and a trip back to the pen

Ope, here's another contrite Shame Boy:

Proud Boy Zachary Rehl was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison after being convicted of leading an inflamed mob toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.

Addressing the court Thursday, the former Philadelphia Proud Boys chapter president said he let politics consume his life, causing him to “lose track of who and what mattered most.”

Jan 6., he said, was a “despicable day.”

“I’m done with politics, done with peddling lies for other people who don’t care about me,” Rehl said, taking breaks from speaking to wipe his tears and catch his breath...

crocodile tears. he released tear gas against capitol police and then lied about under oath, and then was caught on video

Wait til this quote starts circulating:

In an urgent appeal to wealthy Republicans who had assembled in Milwaukee ahead of the first GOP presidential primary debate, top brass for the super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told donors they needed an injection of $50 million over the next four months, according to leaked audio obtained by CNN.

“If you have an education, if you have higher income, if you read the Bible and if you go to church regularly, you happen to be a DeSantis supporter,” Roe told the room.

Not quite a 'basket of deplorables,' but close

Ahhh, that feels goooood.

in response to Andy

I feel like "educated high-income Bible-reading regular churchgoers" may not be quite enough people to fill a high school auditorium, much less rescue a flailing campaign.

he was definitely reading the room

watching the DeSantis campaign decay has been one of the few bright spots in the current political sphere

DeSchadenfreude

Uh, is someone gonna do a nü thread?

US Politics September 2023 - education-getting, income-having, Bible-readin church-goin MOTHERF*****