DL Open Thread: Friday, April 19, 2024

D’s Rescue SINO (Speaker In Name Only) Mike Johnson.  As they should have:

House Republicans took a critical step late Thursday night toward bringing up the long-stalled foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, after being forced to rely on Democratic votes to move a plan to consider it out of a key committee and onto the floor.

The 9-to-3 vote in the critical Rules Committee was an early step in the convoluted process the House is expected to go through over the next couple of days to approve the $95 billion aid package. It reflected the extent of far-right anger over Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to push through the legislation over the opposition of ultraconservative Republicans, and underscored how heavily the speaker will have to rely on Democrats to push it across the finish line.

In a spasm of anger, three far-right Republicans on the panel, which controls what legislation comes to the House floor, refused to back the rule needed to bring up the foreign aid bill, putting it on track to die in committee. But Democrats on the panel stepped in to save it in an extraordinary breach of custom.

All Democrats voted to advance the plan out of committee.

Guess we’ll see during the floor vote which Rethugs are not wholly-owned subsidiaries of Putin.

Biden Saves Alaska From Environmental Despoliation:

The Biden administration expanded federal protections across millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness on Friday, blocking oil, gas and mining operations in some of the most unspoiled land in the country.

The Interior Department said it would deny a permit for an industrial road that the state of Alaska had wanted to build through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in order to reach a large copper deposit with an estimated value of $7.5 billion. It also announced it would ban drilling in more than half of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an ecologically sensitive expanse north of the Arctic Circle.

As the planet warms from greenhouse gas emissions linked to oil, gas and coal, Alaska is heating up at a faster rate than the lower 48 states. That means the state is experiencing more coastal erosion, melting permafrost and sea ice, unstable ground and more wildfires.

Let the lawsuits commence.

Voter Fraud MAGA-Style.  Sad:

A top leader of the national conservative group Turning Point Action, which has amplified false claims of election fraud by former president Donald Trump and others, resigned Thursday after being accused of forging voter signatures on official paperwork so that he could run for reelection in the Arizona House.

Smith submitted his resignation to Turning Point Action on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about it publicly. Smith also publicly ended his reelection campaign.

Smith’s withdrawal drew immediate reaction from members of his own party, some of whom faced death threats and harassment for upholding the will of voters — and Republican losses — during the 2020 and 2022 elections.

Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman (R), who lives in Smith’s district west of Phoenix, cast Smith as a hypocrite. Hickman rejected attempts by Trump to talk to him in the weeks after the then-president narrowly lost the 2020 election. Hickman has faced death threats, threats against his family and protests at his home. On Thursday, he called on Smith to resign from office.

“This is a man who has lied to the people of Legislative District 29 and the entire state about our election operations for at least three years,” Hickman said in a statement. “And now he is accused of lying about the signatures he personally collected to get on the ballot again. An investigation will reveal the truth.”

Louisiana To Child Workers:  “No Lunch Break For You!”:

The bills, which head to the full House, are part of a broad effort by Republicans to weaken labor unions and strengthen employers’ hands in Louisiana. They are aligned with steps other Republican-led legislatures have taken in recent years, and on Thursday, GOP lawmakers attributed the moves to Gov. Jeff Landry’s directive to “reform” the business environment and remove bureaucratic red tape.

First-term state Rep. Roger Wilder, R-Denham Springs, who sponsored the child labor measure and owns Smoothie King franchises across the Deep South, said he filed the bill in part because children want to work without having to take lunch breaks. He questioned why Louisiana has the requirement while other states where he owns Smoothie King locations, such as Mississippi, don’t have them, and criticized people who have questioned the bill’s purpose.

Who would dare to suggest that perhaps the Smoothie King magnate had a blatant conflict of interest with this bill?  I can’t even…

It’s Inescapable–Or Soon Will Be.  New Taylor Swift Album Is Out.  I really like her, don’t think I’ll listen to the album though…:

At 2am EST on Friday, Swift announced the surprise release of a second half of the album with 15 additional songs: “The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” she wrote. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second instalment of TTPD: The Anthology … And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”

But, given Swift’s history of peppering songs with deeply personal reflections on failed relationships, some Swifties were not happy about the lack of allusions to her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn in contrast to the many clear mentions of her next ex, the 1975 frontman Matt Healy, with one lyric in the titular track likening Healy to a “tattooed golden retriever” attracting some mockery.

“All that for an album about Matty Healy,” one fan wrote on her Instagram, a comment liked thousands of times.

On Friday social media was filled with videos from listening parties around the world and screenshots of receipts after a reliably extensive range of Tortured Poet merchandise dropped online. A 10 second-long preview for a new music video was dissected frame by frame.

What do you want to talk about?