DL Open Thread Tuesday November 16th 2021

Everybody hates Joe Biden because gas is expensive, so he passed some gimmicky pork barrel bill to try and buy back some approval points.  That's what the very objective DC press corps is saying, so it must be true. Kevin Goff, the defendant's lawyer in the murder trial of Ahmaud Arbery keeps trying to make the trial about his own racism.  “How many ministers are there in the Arbury family?” Said Goff,  “The seats in the court’s public gallery are different from the courtside seats in the Lakers game.” Steven Bannon is a fine upstanding member of the Republican Party. Liz Cheney has been removed from the Wyoming GOP. In these days of glorious bipartisanship, I guess that means Coons will be reaching out to Bannon instead of Cheney going forward (?) The UK is still being haunted by its ill-conceived, Brexit vote.

Johnson Says It'd Be 'Legitimate' to Suspend Brexit Deal Over Northern Ireland

Boris Johnson said it would be “perfectly legitimate” for the U.K. to suspend part of the Brexit deal with the European Union, though his government still wants to negotiate a solution to their escalating trade spat. The U.K. is demanding a major overhaul of the divorce agreement it signed with the bloc, arguing that its implementation is causing significant harm to businesses and communities in Northern Ireland. Johnson has repeatedly threatened to suspend parts of it by using Article 16 of the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, if the bloc doesn’t agree to rewrite it.

Yet doing so carries the risk of severe retaliation from the EU. On Monday, the bloc’s top negotiator, Maros Sefcovic, told Irish lawmakers that any such move would call into question the EU’s broader trade deal with the U.K., signed at the end of 2020 to ensure tariff-free commerce.

     

DL Open Thread Monday October 15th 2021

I am very happy to be living in an era bipartisan cooperation in which everyone puts the country first and petty tribalism doesn't run the show.   But can the current golden age of Coonsian bipartisan cooperation and happiness survive the Colorado River drying up for good?  I sort of doubt it. Also today... only 16% of Americans are hard line anti-vaxers. But they sure get a shit ton of media attention. And speaking of airtime, UD Alum Lydia Cole joins Rob in the bunker to talk about current protests and what demands need to be made to make sure that sexual assault is taken seriously on campus. And finally, if you never want another decent night's sleep, read this article El Som linked to over the weekend and marvel at how hard republicans are working to install trump as President for life, while Democrats can't be bothered to lift a finger to stop it.

Don’t get excited about the Bannon Indictment

Bannon's case is assigned to Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee. He clerked for Clarence Thomas
As Scott Lemieux notes at LGM. It it is entirely predictable that Judge Nichols will invent some broad new form of executive privilege that applies retroactively, contemporaneously, and prospectively to anyone who has ever had a conversation with Donald Trump.
Nichols has been a member of the Federalist Societysince 2003.