Oh, it 100% is. If being a total fuck knuckle didn’t consistently get them like ~50% of the national vote, Republicans would pivot. But they’ve realized that the worse they are, the more votes they can squeeze out of the hateful pieces of shit who infect us like a cancer.
Despite spending a lifetime living with this reality, it still seems so fucking wild to me that one of the two major political parties in this country is just entirely peopled with assholes. It’s like they have a secret competition amongst themselves to see who is the biggest bag of dicks.
I’m super disappointed in him. Was a big fan of his when I saw him run, and I really liked some of the things I heard about him, like how he got a tattoo marking the date of death for each of 9 people in his city who were murdered while he was mayor. It really made me think that he felt the heavy burden of responsibility and wanted to make the world a better place.
But this… I mean, this ain’t it. It does get a little complicated because of his stroke. I don’t know how much of the personality he’s currently displaying to the world was endemic in him before the stroke. It could be that this has been who he was the entire time, and he just hid it from the world. Either way, though, I think it’s clear that he represents a lot of unfulfilled hope. Granted, he’s likely still better than Oz, but that’s a pretty damned low bar. Fingers crossed he gets beat in the next election by someone who delivers on the hope that Fetterman originally promised.
Being unable to stay awake for his criminal trial is one of the least surprising things about a man whose aides had to dumb his daily presidential reports down to one page, with bright colors, pictures, and bullet points in order to get him to pay any attention to them whatsoever. You know who is surprised about him falling asleep in court? People who have paid 0 attention for the past 8 years.
I really have no idea how these two idiots aren’t in prison already. I mean, there’s the voter intimidation schemes and that time they fabricated allegations that Robert Mueller raped someone. And this is on top of Wohl committing securities fraud in 2015. The fact that they’re still breathing free air is astounding.
So, Kobach et al’s complaint is that the plan to replace lead pipes is underfunded and so probably won’t cause enough of an impact on lead levels in drinking water to even bother, and yet the reason it’s underfunded is because Republicans specifically voted to not fund it properly. So instead of funding it 100% (or close to 100%), they chose to only fund about 1/3rd of what it would cost to replace all of the lead pipes.
It almost seems like Republicans want potential voters to imbibe neurotoxins that will negatively impact their IQ, harm their ability to concentrate, and make them more easily swayed by emotional appeals. I wonder why that could be?
Whoops, my bad. You are absolutely correct, of course.
In the immortal words of Romeo: “It’s all gravy”, baby.
I really can’t comprehend the level of hate that these motherfuckers must possess to write or support such a bill. I mean, let’s say you’re an incredible asshole who doesn’t think that trans people exist, like you think that you know who they are much better than they actually know themselves. Even with that as a baseline, isn’t it still just the polite thing to treat them with basic respect?
If I found out that someone I just met preferred to use their middle name instead of their first name, I would 100% use that person’s middle name when addressing them. It’s just common courtesy. The same thing goes with a person who’s transitioning - I will use their preferred name, because I’m not a completely deplorable piece of shit.
But this guy is way worse than someone who intentionally antagonizes people by using their disliked name when addressing them. This guy wants to actively punish anybody who has the rock bottom bare minimum of civility by destroying their lives and livelihoods.
I just can’t grasp that level of hatred. How is it that this piece of shit shares enough genes with everybody else that he’s recognized as human?
I think the best solution to this issue is to change the calculus of representation. The article mentions that rural areas have out-sized representation, but it only discusses the senate. The house, as well, has out-sized representation for rural areas. For example, California has approximately one Representative for every 749,000 people, while Montana has one Representative for every 560,000 people.
I think that to truly honor the idea of “one person, one vote”, 3 steps need to be taken:
I’d love to see, for example, 1 representative for every 250,000 people, or something similar. That would push us from the current 435 to about 1,340 representatives, which would definitely require a new chamber for sessions. But it would also mean that demographic groups would be much better represented, and it would be much more difficult for batshit insane people like Marjorie Taylor Green to get or remain elected. If you’re representing fewer people, those people have more incentive to vote.
And it’s not like growing the House is a far-fetched idea. In fact, it is baked into the constitution. Article I, Section 2 says that the number of representatives should be directly tied to the population, with each representative representing no more than 30,000 people, and that adjustments to the size of the House should occur after every 10 year census:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
And this is what happened, with the size of the House growing every 10 years up until, in 1929, they decided to keep it constant based on the figures from the 1930 survey. Having a cap on the number of representatives harms democracy. We can see the results in the decaying towns of rural America, and the batshit insane cultists who want to overthrow our government and install a fascistic theocracy.
You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
I’m sorry… couch gun??? Like they just shove a gun into the couch cushions? What the hell kind of purpose would that serve? Opening a beer can or turning on the tv? Or are they all just living in constant paranoia of someone kicking their door in and trying to kill them?
So he’s on record saying that he believes Trump is a traitor (“What former President Trump did to undermine faith in our election system and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable”), and he is on record stating that he believes that America would not re-elect such a traitorous piece of shit (“I have faith in the American people, and the strength of our Democracy”), and yet he’s now endorsing this same traitorous piece of shit because reasons (“Together we must put an end to the disastrous Biden-Schumer agenda. Our country cannot endure another four years of Bidenomics, continued lawlessness at our southern border, and American weakness on the global stage.”). So he apparently thinks that having a traitor as president is a better alternative than having someone who has helped stabilize the economy, has a practically indistinguishable racist approach towards border control, and pledges to stay in NATO.
Considering Thune was one of the 8 traitors who celebrated July 4th, 2018 in Moscow… how much you want to bet that it’s the last thing that really pushes him over the edge? America supporting NATO is bad for Russia, after all.
Oh hey - catturd2; isn’t that that sycophantic piece of shit who fawns all over Elon Musk every chance he gets? Maybe it’s a different catturd2 on bluesky.
Edit: Actually, yeah; it does look like it’s a different person entirely:
I recently read Neil Stephenson’s book called “Fall”, in which a significant chunk of the novel is set about 30 years in the future. At that point in time, large swathes of America are referred to as “Ameristan”, because they are break-away territories ruled by evangelical warlords. It feels surprisingly prescient.
Well, there wouldn’t have been prison in any case from this trial, as it was a civil suit, not a criminal one. But, he is facing 91 felony charges in total spread across a few cases that are currently working their way through the court, so maybe. Probably not. But maybe.
Ah, a fellow “Cracking the Cryptic” lover, I see.
What a terrible day to be literate. :(
A bit torn on this, tbh. 'Cause on the one hand, good - fuck that guy. He’s trash and he deserves to be thrown out for being trash. But on the other hand, as far as I’m aware, none of those priests that fucked children were excommunicated. So according to the head of the catholic church, slagging off the pope is worse than fucking children? Seems like a weird set of priorities.