The GOP Base Wants the Fight Instead of the Victory.
Plus: Republicans Are Lying About a Special Counsel Report, Again
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MONA CHAREN: The GOP Base Wants the Fight Instead of the Victory.
THE BORDER BILL CIRCUS IS THE LATEST demonstration of a bedrock reality of todayās Republican party: It does not exist to achieve political outcomes. Its chief function is fan service. Once you understand that, it becomes hard to think of the GOP as a political party at all.
Political parties can serve as social clubs, identity markers, and entertainment, but those are secondary qualities. Their chief function, dwarfing all others, is to achieve political goals. If members of a political party cease to be concerned about achieving political ends, then the organization has become something else. Massive group therapy? A pyramid scheme? Iām not sure. But the border bill fandango strongly suggests that Republicans no longer care about outcomes.
STEVEN PIFER: Why Speaker Johnson Must Allow a Vote on Foreign Assistance
TWENTY-TWO SENATE REPUBLICANS joined with Democrats to pass a foreign assistance package for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. Their action comes none too soon. Ukrainian soldiers are dying in greater numbers because of shortages of arms and ammunition.
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Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Robert Draper: The Talented Mr. Meadows [Ad-Freeš]
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WILL SALETAN: Republicans Are Lying About a Special Counsel Report, Again.
REPUBLICANS HAVE LAUNCHED a propaganda campaign to deceive the public about Special Counsel Robert Hur. Specifically, theyāre claiming that Hur found President Joe Biden cognitively unfit to stand trial for unlawfully retaining classified documents. This is a lie, and Republicans are using the lie to bolster their contention that Biden should be removed from office under the Twenty-fifth Amendment or defeated in this yearās presidential election.
JILL LAWRENCE: Whatever Donald Wants, Donald Gets.
āYOU DONāT LET A FIRE BURN because Donald Trump wants to campaign on ashes,ā Sen. Patty Murray told her Republican colleagues last week. But thatās just what they did minutes later, by killing off a historic bipartisan border deal at the behest of Trump and his subservient GOP House.
šØOVERTIMEšØ
Tucker Carlson discovers Russian Aldiā¦ and demonstrates how out of touch he is. I hope somebody close to him gets him an Aldi gift card for his birthday and tapes a quarter on it.
Meanwhile, in Russiaā¦ The government is telling people to grow bananas.
ā¦and in the āFree State of Floridaā¢āā¦ Ron DeSantis announces his book ban statute needs to be fixed because itās being abused by far-right trolls. (Which is what critics said was going to happen.)
Worst gig in the world? Being an āinformantā on the GOPās baseless conspiracy theories (Daily Beast) (Charging doc).
What makes someone vote against their political party? Now you can see the long-awaited Sarah Longwell TED talk.
Bewareā¦ A cheese crisis looms (Vox).
āļøA Quartz to Keep Me Company in My Twilightā¦ Prasanth Parmar on his Grand Seiko SBGX261, accurate to 10 seconds a year.
How Cleveland built a city devoted to parkingā¦ And how itās trying to undo the damage and win over skeptics (CleveScene).
Rob Manfred wants one more termā¦ To continue to change baseball in his image. Will we recognize the game in 2029? (ABC).
What Does the U.S. Space Force Actually Do? Inside the highly secretive military branch responsible for protecting American interests in a vulnerable new domain (NYTimes).
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