Open thread will be late today due to supply chain interruptions related to the closing of the Ambassador bridge which links Detroit and city of Windsor, Canada.
Talk amongst yourselves. Here are some possible topics:
Hopefully this is the last Winter Olympics.
Happy Valentines Day! Enjoy your S&M thruples, or whatever.
Groovy Baby!
The science of Mascot Matchups ™ deals with probabilities. It isn’t perfect. It hasn’t “solved” the NFL in the same way IBM’s Deep Blue has solved chess, or the way the GOP has “solved” politics in America.
The trucks protests in Ottawa are two parallel protests. One has very dark goals and is hiding in the shadow of the other.
Still, each call I made went similarly: the police are very much aware of the site, and they are very worried about the presence of a hard-right-wing, organized faction that isn’t there to protest mandates and vaccine passports, but to directly create conflict with the government. This hard-right element probably includes some non-Canadians, here for the party. The broader complaints of the protesters are a cover for the group seeking open conflict. Most of the convoy protesters aren’t part of this smaller, nastier group, nor linked to it in any overt way. Many of them will think any concern about it at all is just some MSM lamestream media conspiracy.
My government and security sources do not agree. What’s happening in Ottawa, they were clear, is two separate events happening in tandem: there is a broadly non-violent (to date) group of Canadians with assorted COVID-related gripes, ranging from the somewhat justified to totally frickin’ insane. But that larger group, which has knocked Ottawa and too many of our leaders into what my colleague Jen Gerson so perfectly described as “stun-fucked stasis,” is now providing a kind of (mostly) unwitting cover to a cadre of seasoned street brawlers whose primary goal is to further erode the legitimacy of the state — not just the city of Ottawa, or Ontario or Canada, but of democracies generally.
Some of them are ideologues, others just grifters, but they’re real, and they’re in Ottawa. Maybe not in that parking lot. I certainly didn’t get the chance to take any names. But local officials know they’re out and about, and are worried that any move they make will trigger an incident that can easily result in dead cops, dead truckers and delighted far-right agitators.
What flag is this? No cheating.
Joe Biden (and to be honest most Dems and all DC beltway types) still cleave to 1980’s political norms. So when a “scandal” breaks, its all “OH MY! HEADS MUST ROLL!”
Whereas Republicans operate on 2020 political norms. So when a “scandal” breaks (up to and including scandalously trying to overthrow the republic) they say “LOL. Nothing matters! Fuck You.” And presto! No scandal.
I know many Dems, even commenters here, feel good about themselves and believe that they are destine to live eternity in heaven because they have the right norms. That’s comforting, I suppose.
Last week I asked what actual policy goals centrist like Coons are trying to enact. The answer is that there are no goals other than to cool the passions of the left and ensure that all political outcomes are far right of center thereby further enriching the rich and keeping existing class structures in place. And at that, they’ve been very successful.
I also sometimes wonder – what are the actual policy goals of the right? I’ve been all over the place on that question. Any given day I will say that the policy goals of the right are simply to keep the grift going and fleece their moronic followers for all they are worth. Trump, for example, doesn’t;t appear to have a cogent ideology beyond stuffing money in his pockets.
Other days, and more often lately, it seems clear to me that the Republican goals are to replace the American Republic with a Christian Fascist state. Certainly recent Supreme Court appointments are pursuing that goal.
On this question, Steve Newton steered me to this by Aaron Ross Powell, a Libertarian who is convinced that the goal the American right win is to completely overturn the liberal consensus that has held sway in America since the end of WWII.
Roughly, the idea is that the radical self-authorship that markets and liberalism’s individualistic ethos enable and encourage have led our society away from not just the common good, but also meaningful, personal happiness. We’ve become hedonistic, atheistic, and unmoored from the traditions that give us meaning. We choose to abandon traditional faiths, explore non-binary genders and non-traditional gender roles,
Given the world view, the Republicans have policy goals that are very simple:
Sound nuts. Some fringe lunatic, right? Well, no. that’s Adrian Vermule. A Harvard law professor, Catholic integralist, piner for theocracy, and a leading intellectual of the post-liberal conservative movement.
Crack Pipe Joe is now cowering in the corner begging Tucker Carlson to stop kicking him. It is truly pathetic and perhaps not a great strategy going into midterms.
Someone in the Democratic Party’s “leadership” must have said “Maybe if we apologize harder and compromise more ardently, the Fox News personalities will come around.”
Another person in “leadership” rejoined: “It’s worth a try I guess.”
How do I know that exchange took place? Just get a load of this headline running on CNN right now:
I didn’t read that CNN article. I don’t have the stomach for it.
“If all the right people hate me, I’m doing my job.” REV may or may not have said that. But it sounds like something he would say.
State Representative Madinah Wilson-Anton joins Rob in the bunker to talk about the retirement of John Kowalko, what is going on in Dover, how she balances electoral and legislative work, and handling ethics violation in the politics.
Show Notes:
Paused
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R–TN) is incensed that President Biden is not including Republicans in the search for the next Supreme Court justice.
“The Biden White House is not even consulting with Republican Senators,” she complained on Fox today. “They’ve sent the message that Republicans Senators are irrelevant. … They want to just put the people that they want!”
In a statement Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said that he agreed with Blackburn and stated that he was “gravely concerned” over President Biden’s lack of bipartisanship.
That second part isn’t true. Coons isn’t gravely concerned. He finds it regrettable.
If you aren’t fucking joining your fucking RD committee, or working for a fucking candidate you believe in, or all your activism takes place in the comments section of some dumb blog, you are just wanking.
WFP is hosting a training on how to run a grassroots campaign this Saturday: Every day, our political system seems less and less responsive to the needs of working people. One of the best way to break through the frustrations of politics is to join a local campaign.
Join our “How to Run a Grassroots Campaign” training to learn:
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I blame Hillary Clinton, and Democrats for nominating her. The worst candidate ever, defeated by the second worst presidential candidate ever.
#Neverforget
This is fucking nuts.
As reported by WDEL’s DJ McAneny here is the exchange between Trey Paradee and Kathy McGuiness AFTER Paradee pointed out that Park City was trying to shift half-a-million dollars from general funds towards “contractual services”. (Sen Lawson interjecting some dumb bullshit has been removed by me.)
Paradee: “An interesting thing about 1787 Consulting–it looks like they were incorporated….less than a few months ago…They actually incorporated in July of 2021. And they used a Registered Agent. And so, in other words, the owner of that company is not listed. They have an agent listed that you can contact. And that’s typically done when a company is trying to cover up who actually owns the company, right? But interestingly, we’re able to figure out, through the state checkbook, where those checks, those payments are being made, so we were able to find the address of that company.”
McGuiness: “Okay.”
Paradee: “Okay, so, can you tell me who runs it?”
McGuiness: “Isn’t that, like, an LLC, right?”
Paradee: “Yeah.”
McGuiness: “Yeah.”
Paradee: “No, but somebody owns that LLC.”
McGuiness: “Yeah.”
Paradee: “Can you tell me who that is?”
McGuiness: “Yeah, I have a an employee right now that–a current employee that owns that.”
Paradee: “And I believe that employee is seated behind you?”
McGuiness: “Mm hmm.”
Paradee: “I have a hard time understanding why your office, who has someone on the payroll as an employee of your office, is then sending another almost $10,000 in compensation to that employee.”
Jesus fucking christ! Do you think she was trying to shift that money from the General fund to a slush fund to pay her employee/consultant? I wonder….
Ho hum. The NYT doesn’t think Trump breaking the law is much of a story.
On Tuesday, Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman co-authored their newspaper’s first attempt to define the contours of bombshell news by The Washington Postabout the National Archives and Records Administration recovering documents illegally removed from the White House by Trump and his staff and stored at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
According to the Times, Trump was forced to return “15 boxes of documents, letters, gifts and mementos,” which “he had been legally required to leave in the custody of the federal government” before leaving office. The article explained the materials were handed over to the National Archives “after several months of back and forth” with Trump’s legal team, and that those items may not represent the full extent of federal records still held in secret by the Trump estate. As per the Times’ sources, the “hasty” removal of federal records wasn’t driven by a desire to commit a crime, but instead was just the “latest example of [Trump’s] lack of strict adherence … to the laws intended to preserve government documents and shield classified information from foreign enemies.” Indeed, according to reporting from the Times, this was an honest mistake because White House staffers were too distracted by Trump attempting to overthrow the United States government. – Via Media Matters
That may or may not be true. Coons might not have commented on the crack pipes thing yet. But it is a fact that these types of attacks by the GOP, were they take a kernel of truth and stretch it 20 miles in every direction typically work. The media plays along and since “Democratic” Senators like Coons typically have Fox News on in their office 24/7/365 – they can usually get Dems to pile on.
It is a shame. Some of these were very nice.
Read RAE KRANTZ’ coverage of the sham RD4 session in the Delaware Call. Then become a patron.
….a group of people who had previously decided that racism was not a big deal was in charge of deciding between a woman of color and a white man to represent their district in the upcoming election. In short, it was pretty much the epitome of the old-boys’ club “Delaware Way” that so many in Delaware are tired of being controlled by and are working to eradicate.
Also – If you haven’t yet, JOIN YOUR RD COMMITTEE!
Here is a bunch of stuff that happened.
Biden sounded a little Trumpy in the coverage of this development:
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday said the U.S. would “bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine.
“If Russia invades — that means tanks for troops crossing the border of Ukraine — then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Biden said while standing next to the new chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, at a White House news conference.
When pressed for details on how he would keep that promise given that the pipeline is not under U.S. control, Biden did not elaborate.
“I promise you, we will be able to do it,” he told reporters.
“LOL, Fuck you!” was sighted as the controlling precedent.
Here is more on Machin’s compromise voting rights bill. I’m not getting very excite because the Supreme Court will rule this unconstitutional based on the longstanding legal precedent “LOL, Fuck you!”
Our criminal President regularly and casually broke many laws.
Poor Canada. So close to American fucknuts.