Charlie - just listened to your discussion with Will Saletan about Hakeem Jeffries A-Z speech the other night before McCarthy became the SINO. I am 100% of your view that that Jeffries barn-burner speech was right on the money. I loved it. Well-delivered and with both humor and deadly serious content. Will mentioned that Nancy Pelosi left that type of indirect confrontation to others. Not always... What do I remember most - what defined her and what the Dems stood for in the face of Trump? What will live forever: the day she ripped up Trump's State of The Union Speech right behind him. I think Jeffries accomplished the same thing.
I am assuming the Matt Schlapp incident (grabbing one of Herschel Walker's male staff by the crotch) is a nothingburger as there has been no follow up in the last several days.
[Sarcasm Alert]
I am inclined to believe Schlapp's denials considering his accuser was working for Herschel Walker and, as such, has no credibility when it comes to telling the truth.
It makes one ponder the "Two Santa Claus" theory as more correct than most admit. Jude Wanniski --whom it is said influenced Reagan in the 1970s, particularly in terms of voodoo economics -- said the GOP should play a new type of "Santa Claus" to stop the Democrats from creating popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, and even Obamacare. So when the GOP controlled the federal government, and particularly the White House, Wanniski proposed Republicans spend as much money as possible to run up the US debt as fast and far as they could. This spending would stimulate the economy,and they would take credit for it. When a Democrat was then in the White House, some in the GOP would scream about the 'national debt' as loudly possible. These types then advocate for spending cuts to infrastructure bills, pay scale bills, and every single social program seen as a Democratic "Santa Claus" program. (They even have added military spending on Ukraine to their list to scream about these days!) All of this hyperbole is in a form of gaslighting about the very debt they piled on to the deficit to begin with.
Just listened to the pod. What are you talking about, Will? After 5 days of a clown show, Jeffries should be calm and serious and not speak? It wasn't nasty. It was clever and it encapsulated the differences between the two parties in what, 4 minutes?
“three of the first 12 bills that the House will vote on are designed to tighten abortion restrictions.”
Inconsistency and hypocrisy are nothing new to the Freedom Caucus (an ironic name, isn't it?) and their stance on abortion is no exception. These are the same people who gave the SCOTUS a standing ovation when it overturned Roe, singing Hosannas on high. "Abortion decisions are states' rights, not the Fed," they proclaimed. The states' rights seemed to last only until the "New GOP" took control of the House. Now, the personal decisions made by the pregnant mother take a back seat to what the (supposed) Evangelicals declare as Holy Writ.
Expect the House PseudoRepubs, PseudoCons and RINOs - made up of predominantly old, predominantly White and predominantly male members - to try to pass new legislation overruling the states' rights that they raised up just a few short months ago.
I'd say "please pass the popcorn" if the pending catastrophe that is the 118th Congress weren't so scary.
Here, fellow Bulwarkers , is an update from Brazil from somebody who lives there.
-- the morons attacked on a Sunday when all three branches of government were on break, in an enormous plaza covered by cameras everywhere. So they did some damage to buildings, but they mainly succeeded in generating a lot of evidence against themselves.
-- about 1500 of them were arrested on the scene or nearby, which puts us a step ahead of the authorities the day after January 6. The principal papers are reporting that the Federal Police are tracking down others. Of course, we'll have to see how the trials go to judge the real effects.
-- The Secretary of Security of the Federal District, Bozo's ex-Minister of Justice, went on vacation to Orlando (where his old boss is hiding out) on Saturday, although rumors of an attack were already circulating. He was fired yesterday, and plans are under way to arrest him when he comes back.
-- The Bolsonaristas who have been camping in front of the military headquarters in Brazil's major cities are being cleared out. The government had been trying to wait them out, but that patience apparently has reached its end.
Bottom line: it's not over 'til it's over, but so far, we're doing all right. 👍🏻
Browsing channels and I caught 10 seconds of traitor Tucker. Spreading lies about the US election isn't enough - he's telling the same lies about Brazil.
Remind me again why Bannon and the other insurrectionists including the disgraced, defeated, former president are still at large, haven't been indicted and remain free to pursue their anti-freedom and anti-American nonsense.
I don't know about a shriveling gavel, but let me be very clear, at this juncture McCarthy's manhood is way more then shriveled, he's been neutered and is little moire than a gelding. Oh my.
Every time I think about what’s ahead, I feel like hyperventilating. This version of the GOP is going to spend tax payers money and precious time investigating the FBI, the DOJ, Hunter, and God knows who else. Never mind investigating Trump’s deal with the Taliban, or the fact his off spring had unfettered access to highly secret information. They all looked the other way when he pulled out of Syria, nobody complained about the 2 trillion tax cut, and they still can’t fill a Kleenex box with any evidence about election fraud. And watching Brazil today just made me cringe - he’s probably hiding out at M-A-L.
Kevin is going to fold and fast because his right wing psychos are going to do zero legislation. That should take care of all the concern about debating a bill because they will be too busy investigating the FBI which is one of the most conservative organizations in the government.
Listening to Kevin thank TFG and Gaetz was one of the most pathetic things I have ever witnessed. It’s like he has Stockholm Syndrome. God help us. While his caucus was spinning their wheels, Biden was honoring the people who withstood the assault from Trump and his insane base and traitors in Congress. Shameful.
Caught a bit on MSNBC interview of a D - sorry didn't catch the name. Apparently McCarthy has a secret rules package that almost no one knew about. Among the horrors is that those clowns (we need a new name) can stop every single legislation moderates want and can go after any government employee they don't like. The new SS, and I mean the one from the 1930s, is in charge. We are in trouble. Imagine what happens when Garland or the FBI go after Trump and his co-conspirators.
I totally agree with you. It’s going to be ugly. And now this thing with Biden. At least they turned over the documents right away - there’s no comparison. Plus Garland is looking at obstruction. McCarthy has screwed the House for the next two years. I did see a republican from Texas - Gonzales who said he won’t vote for the rules package because all it’s going to do is bring the government to a halt and it’s stupid. So we’ll see.
Most of it has passed WITHOUT the House knowing what's in those secret conditions Kevin agreed to. So much for transparency. Daily Kos has several articles on it. Ds kept the faith; 99% of Rs agreed to be rule by the idiot caucus.
Isn't Bannon supposed to be in prison serving time for contempt of Congress?? Why isn't he there already? There must be some law that would allow the US to expel Bolsanaro as an undesirable alien. And what's up with Florida becoming a haven for insurrectionists and a net exporter of terrorism?
That needs to change. Whenever a court convicts someone the presumption of innocence disappears and they should begin their sentence immediately and when their appeal process is over only THEN released if their appeal was successful.
In many cases serving the original sentence would be shorter than waiting for an appeal to conclude. Further it would prevent criminals like Bannon, continuing to commit crimes while they are free "on appeal".
Balsanaro just went into the hospital. Florida is a haven for terrorists, the governor is one. He paid to have people captured and flown across the country.
I suspect that Bozo's sudden admission to the hospital has more to do with his mental health than with his physical health, i.e. dodging the Brazilian Press, which is hot on the story of the insurrection and is well-represented in Florida.
As someone who only started to vaguely pay attention to politics starting after I got back from war in 2008, this has been the GOP's game all along. Nothing has changed. And then I started looking at the kind of deficits Reagan ran and I realized that this game went back to before I had been born in '86.
The only president who has run a surplus budget in my lifetime was Clinton. Everyone else ran deficits, it just was a matter of degree. For instance, under Obama, the deficit shrunk at the fastest rate since we had gotten out of WW2. This was partly a reduction of the government no longer doing bailout programs post-'08, and also winding our physical footprint down in both Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush had been writing blank checks to the Pentagon since 9/11 while expanding Medicare Part D and signing off on revenue cuts (tax breaks for the rich). Reagan also ran large Cold War military budgets (relative to his time) and cut revenues (tax cuts for the rich) while still spending plenty domestically. You've already covered that Trump spent more in one term than Bush or Obama had with their two on--you guessed it!--tax cuts for the rich to the tune of trillions.
When emergencies like global pandemics or recessions or wars happen, I get it. Uncle Sam needs to step in and spend a bunch of money to make sure Bank of America doesn't become Bank of China when it collapses under its own leverage or to launch a Warp Speed program and lock down public activities to make sure excess deaths don't happen. But when you're running deficits in good economies like Reagan and Trump and had and their "fiscally conservative" party doesn't give a shit, it tells you exactly what you need to know about that party. The GOP has always been an unhappy marriage between the culturally-resentful and the business elite who want less regulation and lowered taxes. It is a gentleman's agreement between resentful working class voters and rich conservatives whereby the rich conservatives get lowered taxes so long as they use the political power that the resentful working class gives them with their votes to punish the people they don't like in the culture wars. That's why they don't care about the deficits they run in the good economies they had. George Bush Jr put the whole Global War on Terrorism on the credit card and congress gave it to him on a platter via the AUMF. The GOP has a looonnnggg history of hypocrisy on "fiscal conservatism." Ask me about their hypocrisy on being competent with the military and foreign policy next and I'll give you an earful lol.
It is difficult to negotiate with people who don’t know what they want, but who are upset and whose method of discussion is to throw a very public temper tantrum. I have dealt with this kind of behavior many times, but usually it has been with a two-year-old and a juice-box made things better.
Are these people really angry, or do they just enjoy the power of being able to disrupt and destroy?
I have been a psychologist for over fifty years. Long ago I learned that the definition of intelligence is the ability to anticipate what comes next; how behavior A will lead to consequence B. I see no evidence that many of the Republicans in the House of Representatives show any signs of intelligence. Certainly their new leader, McCarthy, seems to have arrived where he always wanted to be. He has no concern about, or control over, what comes next. This is a very frightening situation because it is so unpredictable.
I worked with a guy that liked to cause chaos. This meant that he was in charge. Were there any positive outcomes? Rarely, but that was not the point. If chaos was occurring, then something was happening. See, what a great leader he was!
I had a similar work experience. Our Business Unit manager built a reputation for herself as an effective firefighter/crisis-solver. If there wasn't a real fire, she would either start one or define something innocuous as a fire, then flog her entire Unit to put it out. She got to report to upper management many cases of avoided disasters that would have destroyed the company if not for her eternal vigilance. She was eventually forced out by someone else's nefarious power play. Our Department Manager learned the technique from her, but the constant effort ruined her health, and she had to resign on her doctor's advice. She wasn't replaced for months, and the department ran like a well-oiled machine and was far more productive without her.
Watched it again this past week. Still is a wonderful movie, albeit the script is a bit dated but then it was shot in 1950. The plot, acting, and cinematography is fantastic.
I can't imagine what of its aspects the Insurrectionist-in-Chief' considers good, considering his inability to think deeply about anything other than his putz.
The movie I think he secretly reveres is "Chinatown" with the ever great John Huston playing Noah Cross, a multimillionaire and political player, who treats people like garbage, plays games with names (i.e. he calls Jake Giddis, "Mr. Gitts") and raped his daughter.
While the last example may only be the Porcine Pol's fantasy, Trump probably thinks the Cross character is a fraud because his home in Bel Aire actually has class compared to the over-ripe décor of Norma Desmond's mansion and his Mar-a-Tasteless hotel/home.
Norma murdered her enemy and got her picture in every newspaper in the country. She was the star! The fact that she would spend her life in a padded cell escaped her feeble brain. I think it escaped Trump's as well.
Norma was famous and beloved by her fans but got dumped out by the studio. I see Trump was famous and beloved by his fans, but the big Manhattan muckily-mucks never accepted him and the political "elites" didn't either. So he and Norma are alike. I doubt the thinking went beyond that.
If a pet peeve is something trivial that annoys you, I want to register my peeve that the word zero is used as a synonym for the words no and none, which have entirely dropped out of use.
Charlie - just listened to your discussion with Will Saletan about Hakeem Jeffries A-Z speech the other night before McCarthy became the SINO. I am 100% of your view that that Jeffries barn-burner speech was right on the money. I loved it. Well-delivered and with both humor and deadly serious content. Will mentioned that Nancy Pelosi left that type of indirect confrontation to others. Not always... What do I remember most - what defined her and what the Dems stood for in the face of Trump? What will live forever: the day she ripped up Trump's State of The Union Speech right behind him. I think Jeffries accomplished the same thing.
I am assuming the Matt Schlapp incident (grabbing one of Herschel Walker's male staff by the crotch) is a nothingburger as there has been no follow up in the last several days.
[Sarcasm Alert]
I am inclined to believe Schlapp's denials considering his accuser was working for Herschel Walker and, as such, has no credibility when it comes to telling the truth.
[End Sarcasm Alert]
It makes one ponder the "Two Santa Claus" theory as more correct than most admit. Jude Wanniski --whom it is said influenced Reagan in the 1970s, particularly in terms of voodoo economics -- said the GOP should play a new type of "Santa Claus" to stop the Democrats from creating popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, and even Obamacare. So when the GOP controlled the federal government, and particularly the White House, Wanniski proposed Republicans spend as much money as possible to run up the US debt as fast and far as they could. This spending would stimulate the economy,and they would take credit for it. When a Democrat was then in the White House, some in the GOP would scream about the 'national debt' as loudly possible. These types then advocate for spending cuts to infrastructure bills, pay scale bills, and every single social program seen as a Democratic "Santa Claus" program. (They even have added military spending on Ukraine to their list to scream about these days!) All of this hyperbole is in a form of gaslighting about the very debt they piled on to the deficit to begin with.
Just listened to the pod. What are you talking about, Will? After 5 days of a clown show, Jeffries should be calm and serious and not speak? It wasn't nasty. It was clever and it encapsulated the differences between the two parties in what, 4 minutes?
Charlie is 100% right on this one!
“three of the first 12 bills that the House will vote on are designed to tighten abortion restrictions.”
Inconsistency and hypocrisy are nothing new to the Freedom Caucus (an ironic name, isn't it?) and their stance on abortion is no exception. These are the same people who gave the SCOTUS a standing ovation when it overturned Roe, singing Hosannas on high. "Abortion decisions are states' rights, not the Fed," they proclaimed. The states' rights seemed to last only until the "New GOP" took control of the House. Now, the personal decisions made by the pregnant mother take a back seat to what the (supposed) Evangelicals declare as Holy Writ.
Expect the House PseudoRepubs, PseudoCons and RINOs - made up of predominantly old, predominantly White and predominantly male members - to try to pass new legislation overruling the states' rights that they raised up just a few short months ago.
I'd say "please pass the popcorn" if the pending catastrophe that is the 118th Congress weren't so scary.
Here, fellow Bulwarkers , is an update from Brazil from somebody who lives there.
-- the morons attacked on a Sunday when all three branches of government were on break, in an enormous plaza covered by cameras everywhere. So they did some damage to buildings, but they mainly succeeded in generating a lot of evidence against themselves.
-- about 1500 of them were arrested on the scene or nearby, which puts us a step ahead of the authorities the day after January 6. The principal papers are reporting that the Federal Police are tracking down others. Of course, we'll have to see how the trials go to judge the real effects.
-- The Secretary of Security of the Federal District, Bozo's ex-Minister of Justice, went on vacation to Orlando (where his old boss is hiding out) on Saturday, although rumors of an attack were already circulating. He was fired yesterday, and plans are under way to arrest him when he comes back.
-- The Bolsonaristas who have been camping in front of the military headquarters in Brazil's major cities are being cleared out. The government had been trying to wait them out, but that patience apparently has reached its end.
Bottom line: it's not over 'til it's over, but so far, we're doing all right. 👍🏻
Browsing channels and I caught 10 seconds of traitor Tucker. Spreading lies about the US election isn't enough - he's telling the same lies about Brazil.
Remind me again why Bannon and the other insurrectionists including the disgraced, defeated, former president are still at large, haven't been indicted and remain free to pursue their anti-freedom and anti-American nonsense.
Apparently Bannon is appealing and since he's white and maybe rich, of course he's free.
I don't know about a shriveling gavel, but let me be very clear, at this juncture McCarthy's manhood is way more then shriveled, he's been neutered and is little moire than a gelding. Oh my.
Every time I think about what’s ahead, I feel like hyperventilating. This version of the GOP is going to spend tax payers money and precious time investigating the FBI, the DOJ, Hunter, and God knows who else. Never mind investigating Trump’s deal with the Taliban, or the fact his off spring had unfettered access to highly secret information. They all looked the other way when he pulled out of Syria, nobody complained about the 2 trillion tax cut, and they still can’t fill a Kleenex box with any evidence about election fraud. And watching Brazil today just made me cringe - he’s probably hiding out at M-A-L.
Kevin is going to fold and fast because his right wing psychos are going to do zero legislation. That should take care of all the concern about debating a bill because they will be too busy investigating the FBI which is one of the most conservative organizations in the government.
Listening to Kevin thank TFG and Gaetz was one of the most pathetic things I have ever witnessed. It’s like he has Stockholm Syndrome. God help us. While his caucus was spinning their wheels, Biden was honoring the people who withstood the assault from Trump and his insane base and traitors in Congress. Shameful.
Caught a bit on MSNBC interview of a D - sorry didn't catch the name. Apparently McCarthy has a secret rules package that almost no one knew about. Among the horrors is that those clowns (we need a new name) can stop every single legislation moderates want and can go after any government employee they don't like. The new SS, and I mean the one from the 1930s, is in charge. We are in trouble. Imagine what happens when Garland or the FBI go after Trump and his co-conspirators.
I totally agree with you. It’s going to be ugly. And now this thing with Biden. At least they turned over the documents right away - there’s no comparison. Plus Garland is looking at obstruction. McCarthy has screwed the House for the next two years. I did see a republican from Texas - Gonzales who said he won’t vote for the rules package because all it’s going to do is bring the government to a halt and it’s stupid. So we’ll see.
Most of it has passed WITHOUT the House knowing what's in those secret conditions Kevin agreed to. So much for transparency. Daily Kos has several articles on it. Ds kept the faith; 99% of Rs agreed to be rule by the idiot caucus.
Isn't Bannon supposed to be in prison serving time for contempt of Congress?? Why isn't he there already? There must be some law that would allow the US to expel Bolsanaro as an undesirable alien. And what's up with Florida becoming a haven for insurrectionists and a net exporter of terrorism?
Bannon's appealing everything - that's why he's free.
That needs to change. Whenever a court convicts someone the presumption of innocence disappears and they should begin their sentence immediately and when their appeal process is over only THEN released if their appeal was successful.
In many cases serving the original sentence would be shorter than waiting for an appeal to conclude. Further it would prevent criminals like Bannon, continuing to commit crimes while they are free "on appeal".
Balsanaro just went into the hospital. Florida is a haven for terrorists, the governor is one. He paid to have people captured and flown across the country.
I suspect that Bozo's sudden admission to the hospital has more to do with his mental health than with his physical health, i.e. dodging the Brazilian Press, which is hot on the story of the insurrection and is well-represented in Florida.
As someone who only started to vaguely pay attention to politics starting after I got back from war in 2008, this has been the GOP's game all along. Nothing has changed. And then I started looking at the kind of deficits Reagan ran and I realized that this game went back to before I had been born in '86.
The only president who has run a surplus budget in my lifetime was Clinton. Everyone else ran deficits, it just was a matter of degree. For instance, under Obama, the deficit shrunk at the fastest rate since we had gotten out of WW2. This was partly a reduction of the government no longer doing bailout programs post-'08, and also winding our physical footprint down in both Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush had been writing blank checks to the Pentagon since 9/11 while expanding Medicare Part D and signing off on revenue cuts (tax breaks for the rich). Reagan also ran large Cold War military budgets (relative to his time) and cut revenues (tax cuts for the rich) while still spending plenty domestically. You've already covered that Trump spent more in one term than Bush or Obama had with their two on--you guessed it!--tax cuts for the rich to the tune of trillions.
When emergencies like global pandemics or recessions or wars happen, I get it. Uncle Sam needs to step in and spend a bunch of money to make sure Bank of America doesn't become Bank of China when it collapses under its own leverage or to launch a Warp Speed program and lock down public activities to make sure excess deaths don't happen. But when you're running deficits in good economies like Reagan and Trump and had and their "fiscally conservative" party doesn't give a shit, it tells you exactly what you need to know about that party. The GOP has always been an unhappy marriage between the culturally-resentful and the business elite who want less regulation and lowered taxes. It is a gentleman's agreement between resentful working class voters and rich conservatives whereby the rich conservatives get lowered taxes so long as they use the political power that the resentful working class gives them with their votes to punish the people they don't like in the culture wars. That's why they don't care about the deficits they run in the good economies they had. George Bush Jr put the whole Global War on Terrorism on the credit card and congress gave it to him on a platter via the AUMF. The GOP has a looonnnggg history of hypocrisy on "fiscal conservatism." Ask me about their hypocrisy on being competent with the military and foreign policy next and I'll give you an earful lol.
It is difficult to negotiate with people who don’t know what they want, but who are upset and whose method of discussion is to throw a very public temper tantrum. I have dealt with this kind of behavior many times, but usually it has been with a two-year-old and a juice-box made things better.
Are these people really angry, or do they just enjoy the power of being able to disrupt and destroy?
I have been a psychologist for over fifty years. Long ago I learned that the definition of intelligence is the ability to anticipate what comes next; how behavior A will lead to consequence B. I see no evidence that many of the Republicans in the House of Representatives show any signs of intelligence. Certainly their new leader, McCarthy, seems to have arrived where he always wanted to be. He has no concern about, or control over, what comes next. This is a very frightening situation because it is so unpredictable.
I worked with a guy that liked to cause chaos. This meant that he was in charge. Were there any positive outcomes? Rarely, but that was not the point. If chaos was occurring, then something was happening. See, what a great leader he was!
I had a similar work experience. Our Business Unit manager built a reputation for herself as an effective firefighter/crisis-solver. If there wasn't a real fire, she would either start one or define something innocuous as a fire, then flog her entire Unit to put it out. She got to report to upper management many cases of avoided disasters that would have destroyed the company if not for her eternal vigilance. She was eventually forced out by someone else's nefarious power play. Our Department Manager learned the technique from her, but the constant effort ruined her health, and she had to resign on her doctor's advice. She wasn't replaced for months, and the department ran like a well-oiled machine and was far more productive without her.
RE: "Sunset Blvd."
Watched it again this past week. Still is a wonderful movie, albeit the script is a bit dated but then it was shot in 1950. The plot, acting, and cinematography is fantastic.
I can't imagine what of its aspects the Insurrectionist-in-Chief' considers good, considering his inability to think deeply about anything other than his putz.
The movie I think he secretly reveres is "Chinatown" with the ever great John Huston playing Noah Cross, a multimillionaire and political player, who treats people like garbage, plays games with names (i.e. he calls Jake Giddis, "Mr. Gitts") and raped his daughter.
While the last example may only be the Porcine Pol's fantasy, Trump probably thinks the Cross character is a fraud because his home in Bel Aire actually has class compared to the over-ripe décor of Norma Desmond's mansion and his Mar-a-Tasteless hotel/home.
Norma murdered her enemy and got her picture in every newspaper in the country. She was the star! The fact that she would spend her life in a padded cell escaped her feeble brain. I think it escaped Trump's as well.
Norma was famous and beloved by her fans but got dumped out by the studio. I see Trump was famous and beloved by his fans, but the big Manhattan muckily-mucks never accepted him and the political "elites" didn't either. So he and Norma are alike. I doubt the thinking went beyond that.
If a pet peeve is something trivial that annoys you, I want to register my peeve that the word zero is used as a synonym for the words no and none, which have entirely dropped out of use.
And yes, the nation is fucked.
Fiscal inanity for as far as the eye can see. And then some.
Fiscal inanity for as far as the eye can see. And then some.