DL Open Thread: Thursday, July 7, 2022
Bye Bye Boris. He proved Badenov that not even he could survive it:
He delivered the address to the nation after he was prompted to resign by a Conservative Party revolt and a list of scandals — including parties that violated his own pandemic lockdown rules and the appointment of a lawmaker to a key post despite sexual misconduct allegations.
Looks like any progressive elements in Britain won’t even get to play:
Here’s how the process works. Any lawmaker from within the Conservative party can put themselves forward for the role — provided they receive nominations from at least two colleagues. The party holds several rounds of secret-ballot votes to whittle down the field, eliminating the person with the fewest votes each time. The final two candidates are then put before the grass-roots members of the Conservative Party, a group of about 200,000. They then select the winner.
A poll by YouGov on Thursday found that Ben Wallace, the defense secretary, was the favorite among Conservative Party members to be the next leader. Other names include Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, former chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
It’s not always the case that the winner is selected by the party membership. In the case of Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, her main opponent dropped out of the race before they could be presented to Conservative Party members. In Johnson’s case, he went head to head with Jeremy Hunt in the runoff ballot. Johnson became prime minister about two months after May resigned.
Activists Take Control Of West Virginia Democratic Party. Manchin had ruled the Party with an iron fist forever. Didn’t work out too well for us, now did it?:
For decades, Sen. Joe Manchin has presided over West Virginia’s Democratic Party, crowning candidates and throwing cushy appointments to allies while the state’s jobs, wages, and environment have gradually been ground to dust. But earlier this month, a grassroots slate of over 50 Democrats took control of the West Virginia Democratic Party after winning a majority of seats on the executive committee and ousting party leadership, thus ending Manchin’s de facto control of the state party apparatus.
Now, after a six-year organizing push, every old guard party apparatchik — save for the treasurer — is out of office, replaced with activists from across the Democratic spectrum set on revitalizing the state and forcing renewed support from the national party. The June 18 victories mark the beginning of the end for an era defined by atrophy, nose-diving voter rolls, and just a single Democratic statewide representative: Manchin.
This, to put it mildly, is a great development.
Yep, Biden Planned To Nominate Anti-Abortion Judge From Kentucky. To, you know, kiss Mitch McConnell’s ass. He can’t disavow running for reelection soon enough:
The office of Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, has shared emails confirming that Joe Biden intended to nominate Chad Meredith, a conservative lawyer who has previously defended anti-abortion legislation, to a federal judgeship.
Reports of Meredith’s potential nomination have sparked outrage among progressives and abortion rights advocates, even as the White House has dodged questions about the matter. Biden is already seen by some as not taking a strong enough lead on defending abortion rights.
But the emails released by Beshear’s office confirm that the White House had planned to soon submit Meredith’s nomination. According to reports, the nomination was part of a deal with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, to avoid holding up Biden’s other judicial nominations.
That explanation failed to appease Meredith’s critics, who warned that he would use his post as a federal judge to further attack abortion rights. They noted that, as the chief deputy general counsel for former governor Matt Bevin, Meredith defended a Kentucky law requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound and describe the image to patients before performing abortions.
“My understanding right now is it has not been submitted, which I hope means at the very least means it’s on pause,” Beshear said of Meredith’s nomination on Thursday. “If the president makes that nomination, it is indefensible.”
Charles Booker, a progressive running against the Republican senator Rand Paul in Kentucky, said on Twitter, “The president is making a deal with the devil and once again, the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process. At a time when we are fighting to protect human rights, this is a complete slap in the face. This is some bullshit.”
This is what ‘bipartisanship’ gets you.
Killer Cops Kill Again Before Initial ‘Investigation’ Concludes. Hey, they’re open-ended, and never result in sanctions anyway.
‘Satan’ Suffers Setback In Georgia. Monument believed by idiots to be satanic destroyed:
A peculiar granite monument that some have dubbed “America’s Stonehenge” but a conservative politician condemned as “satanic” has been torn down by authorities in rural Georgia hours after it was heavily damaged in a bombing by vandals.
The collection of gray monoliths was erected in 1980 in the middle of a large field near the town of Elberton, Georgia, off Highway 77 and was listed as a tourist attraction by the state’s travel site and the Elbert county chamber of commerce.
The slabs were engraved with an enigmatic message in 12 languages calling for the preservation of humankind by limiting the world’s population to fewer than half a billion people to live “in perpetual balance with nature”, according to official translations of the text.
Prominent among them was the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor, a third-place finisher in the 24 May Republican primary, who made removal of the monument part of her campaign platform, a stance spoofed by the TV comedian John Oliver.
Following news of the Guidestones’ bombing, Taylor suggested on Twitter that the monument’s demise was an act of divine intervention. “God is God all by Himself. He can do ANYTHING He wants to do. That includes striking down Satanic Guidestones,” she tweeted.
What do you want to talk about?
A manifesto for our times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/opinion/work-busy-trap-millennials.html
Can relate, I ditched the rat race 12 years ago and damned if I didn’t feel better, less money, but much less stress. As for West Virginia good for them, they fought their version of “the Delaware way” and won, would we could do the same here.