The President has a green lantern. Why won’t he use it?
We really need to get Biden a red lantern.
And some coffee. Actually, a lot of coffee, some coke, and steal his ice-cream.
Manchin and Sinema wouldn’t be a problem for Bernie… because we’d have lost both Georgia senate races.
Biden picked the wrong year to quit sniffing glue!
Yet another, “Trump is about to be indicted,” article. As always, I’m highly skeptical at this point but man I’d love to have a better 2022 than 2021.
That reminds how during the Mueller era there were always tweets from guys basically saying ‘the dam is about to break!111!!!1!’
Happy to be wrong of course. Trump deserves prison time, but as Clint said, ‘deserve’s got nothing to do with it.’
One thing to understand about policy in the US that only now are Democrats on Capitol Hill finally coming to grips with as they see internal polling of their own:
There is a very, very large group – not a majority, but definitely significant in size – of white American voters who make one very chilling determination about whether they like a new public policy or not. That determination (whether it’s conscious and deliberate, or part of an existing implicit bias) is this: will non-white people benefit from this as much as white people will?
If whites (even whites who are at income and wealth levels FAR above where these voters exist) benefit more than non-whites? Good policy.
If whites and non-whites benefit equally? Bad policy.
If non-whites may get some perceived or existing degree of help more than whites? Policy is unamerican, unchristian and must be stopped at all costs including violence.
And the thing that’s super scary for a lot of politicians to realize: a not-insignificant number of the folks making this calculation somewhere in their conscious or subconscious were Democratic voters as recently as November, 2012.
In a serious take, though, the reason for the take is the disappointment, if there even is any, is that the grown-ups in the room don’t even pretend to care. At best, there’s no real propaganda for the measures, no real protest when it inevitably fails, no support of workers pressuring employers, no attempt at rising people against the roadblocks in general. At worst, empowerment of the same police and the same judges, and no criticism of CBO nonsense, financial gambling (with pensions on the line) and asset speculation, no fight against demand-driven inflation hysteria, and so on. And fuck all about the climate, again. Hell, the environment.
Would it matter? Who knows. But it’s hard to see it doing worse than rah rah Russia, rah rah China, but their Covid parties! Whether they should or not, voters don’t care, move on.
Honestly, when Nancy came out AGAINST blocking lawmakers from holding and trading individual stocks, it took most of the remaining enthusiasm out of my party support.
How does one attract smart, educated, capable persons of experience and knowledge to serve as congresspersons if they are not allowed to even hold individual stocks that may be already existing in their possession?
Note: I’m actually not too bothered about this, but:
On the one hand I have no doubt there is a very large population of smart, educated, capable people of experience and knowledge who either have no individual stock (I count myself) or are willing to give them up to be a Congresshuman. On the other, maybe it’s the case that Democrats have a recruiting problem? I really don’t know if it’s difficult to recruit potential Congresscritters.
I’m happy for there to be rules involving trading (or in this case non-trading) and requiring the use of blind trusts or financial vehicles to prevent acting on information and pending legislative procedures. And for full disclosures of holdings and transparency of holdings in general.
I’m generally pretty skeptical of gordian knot solutions to complex issues.
The current system is a great way to repel smart educated, capable folks with knowledge and passion from getting involved with the Dems. I think back to the candidate I supported for House here in 2020.
I always forget how everything in the world that happens occurs within the sphere of Alstein’s personal experience. :)
Is this let’s say a data driven perspective or an informed opinion perspective?
I guess the One Easy Trick out of this if true would be to ask what it means to be white.
How do you attract judges, without letting them rule on cases they are involved in? How do you attract doctors, without letting them have sex with comatose patients?
Anyone who defends this sort of corruption has no place in our politics.
I also have a very strong inkling that Pelosi’s blanket statement is covering for some congresspersons who are very popular with the Left who have private stock holdings and do not wish to divest themselves of them, even as those same persons give lip-service support to such divestiture.
In what way does holding private stocks equal “corruption”?
I am unwilling to make that particular leap. Vive la difference, I suppose!
Think of it as a way to discourage people who would run for elected office as a tool to financially benefit themselves.