Comments

1

I used to sell plasma in college for beer/walkin' around monies. I bet the covid antibody plasma will get you a whole keg of beer in one sitting!
No but seriously that's irresponsible.

2

& trumpf used to sell other people's kidneys
but we needn't get into that now
in the Middle of an Election.

4

'Herd Immunity'?
Herd Mentality!

be the First one on
your block to Die* [alone]
for the trumpf Plague cum
Desperate re-election efforts.

*or Worse

5

On Sen. Mark Mullet, one reason unions may be targeting him - he supports charter schools. Unions? Not so much. (But Pedersen doesn't and Carlyle can be a bit cagey on his stand).

6

@esotericCD has a good thread on Hunter Biden on Twitter basically saying how Hunter Biden's fuck ups dont reflect on Joe Biden and if you were in Joe Biden's shoes you would likely do the same thing.

7

Sheldon Whitehouse Made the Case That
Amy Coney Barrett's Nomination Is a Bag Job

It was planned and executed by a vast and single-minded network of which no parallel exists on the other side. By Charles P. Pierce; Oct 13, 2020

The general feeling that the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is the capstone of a lavishly funded, long-term conservative plan to own the federal judiciary for the foreseeable future, and that Barrett's career is altogether a product of that project, has hung over the confirmation hearings like a foul mist. On Tuesday afternoon, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave that feeling form and substance, and charts, too.

[Senator Whitehouse] … tied all that research [articulated in the excellent, full Esquire article] into the current full-court press across the federal courts to kill the Affordable Care Act, curb reproductive freedom, and reverse marriage equality, to say nothing of the dozens of cases regarding the money power and corporate control of government that are the real goals of most of the people funding what Whitehouse called, "the schemes."

Whitehouse even worked in his favorite statistic—that on those kind of cases, there have been 80 decisions handed down by the current court as 5-4 decision, and the business/conservative side of those cases, which almost always coincides with the interests of Republican donors, is 80-0.

It's really all the Democrats have for a role in this puppet show. They can educate the public as to how we came to this pass, and they can educate the public as to what will happen when the curtain finally gets rung down on the performance. As Whitehouse said to sum up his presentation, when you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for the power in the shadows.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a34362944/sheldon-whitehouse-federalist-society-amy-coney-barrett/

8

The American people have a right to know just how shitty Joe Biden is. It is not "heavy lifting for the Trump campaign" for news organizations to critique Joe Biden. This is the worst collection of pols to run for the presidential election in the last 40 years. It is Trump derangement syndrome to say otherwise.

9

I have discovered proof that Trump is a Russian agent.

My evidence is these arcane things called "tweets".

Which came from his official Twitter account.

You may now pay me $1,000,000 in small unmarked bills

(easiest oppo research I've ever done)

10

"The American people have a right to know just how shitty Joe Biden is."

Oh, we know, petey, we know.
but compared to the Alternative
he's a fawking SAINT.

If you aren't Fighting to get Big Money -- aka Corporate/Billionaire Rule -- the fuck OUTTA electoral politics then you're yet another Proponent of Perpetual Derangement Syndrome Syndrome.

12

@5 I think it is much more likely they are targeting him because he has consistently opposed any type of capital gains or income tax. Unions would love nothing more than to have those revenue sources to bolster their own coffers. I expect once the dust settles from this election you'll see Inslee immediately propose a carbon tax and a capital gains tax to bridge the revenue deficit the state is facing with the hope he'll have a much more sympathetic legislature to work with.

14

You'd have to be sunk deep into the Fox News Expanded Universe to have any idea what is supposed to be scandalous about that email. That is came out in the New York Post by way of the smoldering ruins of Rudolf Giuliani and Steve Bannon is perfection itself.

17

@17 however in good times like we have had for the last 10 years those revenues are also higher than the less volatile income and property taxes so it is incumbent for states that rely on those taxes to manage their budgets better to prepare for inevitable downturns. I don't know anyone who feels our state government has done that. Beyond that there is zero talk of reducing the regressive taxes and replacing them with these taxes. These are just more, more, more which is why only the most gullible believe these types of taxes if enacted would be limited to the "rich".

21

@18,

Others might point out that it's fundamentally and indisputably undemocratic to allow for a body like the senate that is so wildly disproportionate in it's representative makeup to wield so much power in the form of SCOTUS confirmations.

22

@21 I think the process Bess was referring to was the complex of shady non-profits that work to bring about policy outcomes through the courts that could not be accomplished through legislation. Which, you know, at least its an ethos.

But its hard to square with "just calling balls and strikes".

24

@22,

Ha, yeah, I was a little confused by the exchange and upon re-reading it, your comment makes sense. Whatever, I'm always happy to bitch about the Senate which shouldn't freaking exist. I've said before that if the Dems should actually manage to win it, they should immediately take action to do whatever is needed to self-disband and kill it outright. Would involve a serious amount of self-sacrifice on the part of those serving within it's ranks, but it also would be the right thing to do from both a political and moral standpoint..

27

@24 Oh, a fellow Lets Abolish the Senate! We need a secret handshake.

@25 That would be an improvement on what we have today where its the minority that does the shoving.

29

@28 "Calling balls and strikes" is John Robert's phrase and I used it to allude to the pretense that judicial work is technical rather than political. And such is the pretense under which our government operates, isn't it?

My point was that if the courts are an arena for the raw deployment of power, fine. But then they can't also be technical-not-political. So, lets pack the courts - politics!

30

Trying to justity this authoritarian power grab by buying your own court is essentially taxation without representation and the most un-American antidemocratic and corrupt ceding of control to multinational special interests to squelch the many. Trying to justify it as just politics evinces a fundanmental character flaw and lack of concern for the spirit of the Constitution.

32

@18 -- yep -- some might call it that.

here's what Chas called it today in another
one of his insightfully brilliant columns:

"This is what Barrett will do during her entire time on the bench: make money more powerful, which only means making those with money more powerful, which results in making those without money, the poor (Jesus's people), weaker."

Dystopia.
or trumpftopia is
what I Like to call it.

meanwhile we keep handing
America over to the Billionaires
& sell our own asses down the River.

33

@31 Roberts most certainly gives a flying fuck about public opinion. His whole shtick is to kneecap progressive policy without producing a big splashy ruling that might galvanize political action to restrict the court's authority. His dimwitted re-write of the ACA is a prime example of this. Also that wretched ruling on the Voting Rights Act a few years back.

The other two branches together have ample power to write the courts out of government entirely should they decide to use it. This hasn't happened because the courts have always been careful and, in fact, they've never been particularly out of line with general public sentiment. But with this Barrett appointment, that will change.


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