Tag: 2024 presidential election

Joe Biden In Chicago Like Common Obama To Brag On ‘Bidenomics,’ Damn Straight!

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While Donald Trump and the Republicans who want to run against him keep competing to see who can be meanest to people Republicans hate, Joe Biden is rolling out campaign themes that emphasize how quickly the US has recovered from the economic morass that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. The White House yesterday released a statement touting the economic record of the Biden-Harris administration, with a title that’s a little big for a bumper sticker but gets the point across: “Bidenomics Is Working: The President’s Plan Grows the Economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down.”

Mind you, it’s not a campaign document, because after all that would violate the Hatch Act. It’s just the administration tooting its horn, because there’s a lot to toot about.

“Bidenomics” is all about recognizing that “the best way to grow the economy is from the middle out and the bottom up,” a phrase that Barack Obama loved too, but which has been a central part of Biden’s messaging.

And yeah, the numbers bear that out; as Oliver Willis notes, a 2021 report from the Congressional Budget Office projected that it would take until 2026 to get the unemployment rate back down to pre-pandemic levels. At the time of the report, unemployment was around six percent. Biden’s policies brought unemployment down to the pre-pandemic rate of 3.9 percent by December 2021, and since then the unemployment rate has stayed under four percent for 18 straight months. In May, it was 3.7 percent, continuing a period of low unemployment that hasn’t been seen since 1969. No, we will not embed “Whitey on the Moon” again, but we’ll darn sure link it.

The White House reminds us of some of Old Handsome Joe’s greatest successes: continued job growth (12 million new jobs since Biden took office), inflation coming under control, and a real industry policy focused on creating good-paying union jobs for the clean energy transition, including 150 battery plants and 50 new solar manufacturing plants since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

New data released just today shows the clean energy workforce added nearly 300,000 jobs in 2022 and clean energy jobs grew in every state in America, in part because of the investments in clean energy and manufacturing by the Biden-Harris Administration.

On Monday, the administration rolled out one of the big achievements in 2001’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, announcing $40 billion in funding to “make sure everyone in the United States has access to affordable, reliable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.” Other parts of the broadband program have been coming out in piecemeal allotments, such as the Agriculture Department’s programs to grow rural broadband, but now we’re getting the main course, to be administered by the Department of Commerce through the “Broadband Equity Access and Deployment” (BEAD) program, which will offer $42 billion in grants for broadband development and expansion in every state, territory, and whatever the District of Columbia is.

Every state and territory will get a minimum of $107 million, with 19 states that need the most broadband development getting allocations of over $1 billion. We aren’t only talking rural broadband, although that’s often where there’s little or no fast internet available; the funding will also address areas all over the country where internet service is “limited or unreliable,” too, which often includes lower-income areas of cities where there’s a “digital divide” in too many neighborhoods.

Monday’s announcement was the first event in a three-week “Investing in America” tour, which will involve Biden and Harris and their spouses as well as top administration officials going around the country to point at new investments and make darn sure people know where they came from.

Like, say, right now in Chicago. Everybody say hi to Joe!

youtu.be

Heck, Biden’s even willing to be gracious to the odd Republican — and few come odder than Alabama’s Sen. Tommy Tuberville — who voted against the infrastructure law but now touts it. Mind you, Biden’s social media team is also graciously pointing out who gets top billing. We also rather like that the Twitter community notes people were on top of that detail, too:

Running on the economy seems like a pretty smart idea, especially if people’s mood about the economy continues in this direction, as “Wallet Hub” reports:

Consumers feel 18% more confident about their financial outlook this month than they did one year ago, according to the latest WalletHub Economic Index, released today (with accompanying expert commentary).The WalletHub Economic Index is a monthly survey that evaluates economic prospects based on 10 components of consumer sentiment. These components revolve around how people feel about their finances, purchasing plans and employment opportunities.

• Decreasing stress: Consumers’ stress levels regarding money are lower (-10.6%) in June 2023 compared to the same period last year.

• Increase in optimism: In June 2023, consumers’ optimism about whether their finances will improve in the next six months is noticeably higher (+12.1%) than it was last year.

• Rising interest in auto purchases: The share of consumers who expect to buy a car in the next six months rose by roughly 9% in June 2023 compared to last year.

• More new employment opportunities: The share of consumers who feel new employment opportunities are “abundant” is 10% higher in June 2023 compared to last year.

This is where we feel obliged to say that November 2024 is still a long way off and it would be premature to take anything for granted, but with that in mind, we really do think that “Have you noticed that you’re doing better lately?” is a hell of a more inviting message to voters than “Woke drag queens are going to make your children hate America, please panic more!!!!!!”

Good thing Joe Biden has those shades, because as the song says, the future isn’t looking half bad at all.

[White House / American Independent / Heather Cox Richardson / WalletHub / Image created using DreamStudio AI and photoshoop]

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It’s The 2024 Republican Primary, And Everyone’s A Loser!

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As we keep getting further and closer to the eventual Republican presidential primary debates, we have no shortage of Republicans jumping into the already cramped clown car. Let’s take a look at the three we saw this Sunday!

Bottom Of The Barrel

We begin with Donald Trump’s former loyal sycophant Vice President, “Hanging” Mike Pence, on Fox News Sunday.

Host Shannon Bream began by pointing out how Pence is unable to reach the base of Republican voters (on account of the whole wanted to murder him on January 6 thing) and that he’s still in single digits in the polls. So what “bold” strategy does Pence have to get elected?

PENCE: […] I authored the first legislation to defund Planned Parenthood that had ever been authored and passed in the House of Representatives. […]

Not sure pointing out you were first in line to snatch away women’s bodily autonomy is a winning strategy with independents there, Mikey.

Bream followed up by asking further about Pence’s theocratic stance on abortion, pointing out he wants a 15-week national abortion ban (so much for “states’ rights”). Bream then read a USA Today article showing polls pointing out Pence’s (and most of the GOP’s) abortion policies are actually very, very unpopular.

BREAM: “Americans overwhelmingly oppose […] a federal law banning abortion nationwide. By 80 percent to 14 percent, those surveyed opposed the idea, including 65 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of independents.” So how do you sell this to the American public that, according to these numbers, doesn’t want a national ban?

So how did Pence react when confronted with these statistical facts?

PENCE: This weekend we are celebrating a historic victory […] when one year ago, the Supreme Court of the United States sent Roe vs. Wade to the ash heap of history. […] I couldn’t be more proud of the some 20 states that have advanced protections for the unborn and support for women facing crisis pregnancy. […] As men and women step forward for office in the Republican Party all across the country, that we speak with clarity about a commitment to the sanctity of life. That we make it clear we’ll stand on principle, but we’ll also stand with compassion. […] That’s how we are gonna win hearts and minds. […] I also think it’s a winning issue.

It’s not. She just showed him that it’s not. These people are not good at taking in new information.

Pence also supported Sen. Tommy Tuberville holding military promotions hostage over abortion policy because religious fundamentalism outweighs whatever hollow pandering “support our military” slogan that Republicans blather out.

It’s clear that Pence is just gonna keep spewing the same canned, rehearsed garbage that ensured he was a horrible talk radio host, governor of Indiana and single-termvice president. All with Pence’s trademark disingenuous smirk someone mistakenly told him was “charming” rather than smugly condescending. It will be a genuine pleasure to watch Pence’s political career truly be sent to the “ash heap of history” once and for all.

Hail Mary

Meanwhile, over on ABC’s “This Week,” former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was continuing his Sisyphean attempt to win the Republican presidential nomination.

Host Jonathan Karl asked thorough questions regarding Russia’s almost coup, the continuing Ukraine conflict, and Christie’s differing view from Pence on abortion.

But we’re going to focus on Karl asking Christie about being booed in New Hampshire while speaking to GOP voters and criticizing Donald Trump. Karl, in light of this reception, asked if Christie thinks his message is resonating. Christie gave an answer that was very optimistic for himself.

CHRISTIE: Absolutely evidence it’s resonating, Jonathan. I’ve been in the race for less than three weeks and have already in third place in New Hampshire, only four points behind Ron DeSantis, who’s been in the race for a longer time and is supposed to be the co-front-runner. […]

Christie sure has high hopes.

But we don’t know if that’s as successful for Christie as he believes it is when Trump is beating everyone by more than 34 points and Christie’s “third place” is single digits. If anything, the latest New Hampshire poll reflects the ever-faster plummeting of DeSantis’s campaign.

After criticizing Trump’s latest incoherent speech, Christie gave a preview of what his general election strategy would be if he ever makes it that far.

CHRISTIE: This guy [Trump] lost in ’18. He lost the Senate and the White House in ’20. The House in ’18. He lost two more governorships and the Senate race in 2022. He is a three-time loser. We do not need our party to go to a fourth loss because Joe Biden, in my opinion, Jon, is an awful president. And we can’t afford to have him from age 82 to 86 in the White House or even worse have Kamala Harris assume the presidency. That’s the stakes here.

While we are here for any time people are reminded that Trump is a huge loser whose only real victory was getting elected in 2016, Christie’s critique of Biden is precisely why some in the GOP are freaking out about Trump being the nominee. They would love to run on Biden’s age, but Trump being the nominee takes that away due to his age.

Long Shot

We conclude with this week’s newest entry to the Republican presidential primary race: Former Texas Congressman Will Hurd.

Also appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Hurd gave an interview placing himself in the very crowded “moderate” lane. Since Wonkette has written many times about how much Will Hurd sucks previously, we’ll just summarize with this tweet from Tim Miller of The Bulwark regarding Florida Sen. Rick Scott possibly entering this race.

When your candidacy’s low standing is being used to measure how badly delusional someone else’s is, maybe you shouldn’t waste everyone’s time.

We’ll save our readers’ time by not wasting more of theirs.

Have a week.

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Donald Trump Support Slipping After Indictment, But MAGAs Still Love Their Saviour

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A new poll from CNN and polling firm SSRS suggests that support for Donald Trump may be “softening” a little bit following his indictment and arrest on federal charges of mishandling top-secret documents, but that he remains the top choice for Republican primary voters, who have repeatedly shown their willingness to overlook a little light treason.

CNN says that while Trump is still leading the rest of the Republican primary field “by a large margin,”

the poll suggests that his support has declined, as have positive views of him among Republican and Republican-leaning voters. Nearly a quarter now say they would not consider backing his candidacy under any circumstances. The survey also finds that those GOP-aligned voters not currently backing his 2024 bid have different views on his indictment and behavior than those in his corner.

Still, there’s little sign that Republican-aligned voters who aren’t backing Trump are consolidating behind any one of his rivals. Nor are they unified around wanting Trump out of the race entirely, or in feeling that his primary opponents ought to call him out for his alleged actions in this case.

Translation: Republican-ish folks not already on the MAGA bus aren’t sure they want to hop on, but they aren’t crazy about their other options and are currently standing around hoping maybe Ronald Reagan might be reanimated so they could get behind him before they end up going for Trump or staying home.

But those already on the crazy train are loving the ride and wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else, are you kidding? They’ll love Trump even more if he’s convicted, because that would just prove how much he scares the Deep State.

The poll shows that “47% of Republicans and Republican-leaning registered voters” pick Trump first among the announced primary candidates, which is down from 53 percent in May’s CNN poll. But none of the other Rs are anywhere close, either:

Support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held steady at 26% in the latest poll, with former Vice President Mike Pence at 9%, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at 5%, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott at 4%, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3% and the remaining candidates at 1% or less.

The other notable changes were a 10-point slide in Trump’s “favorability” rating among Pubs and Pub-leaning voters, from 77 percent in May to 67 percent in the new poll. There was also an uptick among Rs and R-leans (Arlenes?) who said they would never ever ever support him, no not ever (unless they change their minds) from 16 percent in May to 23 percent now. This is your cue to sing “What, never? No, never! What, never? Hardly ever!” from HMS Pinafore, and to wait to see where that number goes in the next few months. Trump’s overall favorability rating is at 33 percent, which is also where Joe Biden’s is, and if that isn’t enough to drive you to drinkin’, you’d best find yourself a Hot Rod Lincoln.

Also, for a brief chortle, CNN adds that

At the same time, there has been a similar increase in the share saying they would not back DeSantis under any circumstances (up 6 points to 21%), while the shares ruling out other top candidates have held roughly steady.

None of this necessarily means that Trump is any danger in the GOP primary anyway, since a “54% majority of Republican and Republican-leaning voters say that Trump’s conduct doesn’t matter much to them as they consider his candidacy,” because they think a president’s “effectiveness” is more important to them, although we suspect “effectiveness” in this case measures whether they believe Trump still hates the same people they hate.

For the most part, Rs and R-leaners would prefer other Republicans not make too big a fuss about Trump’s little boxes problem, unless it’s to yell at the DOJ and maybe whine about Hunter Biden:

Just 12% say that in responding to the indictment, other Republican candidates for the nomination should focus on publicly condemning Trump’s alleged actions in this case, with 42% saying candidates should do more to publicly condemn the government’s prosecution of Trump, and 45% that they shouldn’t take a stand either way. Even those who do not currently back Trump for the nomination mostly want to see other candidates remain quiet on the indictment (54% say so), with 21% calling for Trump’s rivals to condemn his actions and 25% saying they should condemn the prosecution.

Our analysis is that most Republicans and leaners agree that pollsters should move on to questions that aren’t about the indictment, because they have a vague sense that normies may have problems with it, the fools. Only 26 percent of the faithful and almost-faithful said Trump should drop out of the campaign, and another 16 percent added that well, OK, if he were convicted, he should drop out then. Otherwise, they’re apparently ready for Trump to report to jail and then pardon himself as soon as he’s sworn in, and then the Reaping of the Unfaithful can begin. (We really do expect future polls to ask whether Rs support him governing from prison when he wins, no not if, how dare you?)

Outside the Republican bubble, normal Americans seem to think a former president being accused of federal crimes is bad. Among all Americans, 59 percent say Trump should end his campaign; an additional 11 percent say he should drop out if convicted. That goes to a whopping 85 percent when Republicans and leaners are taken out of the survey. More numbers? Why not?

Most US adults, 55%, say that Trump acted illegally in the situation involving these classified documents, with 30% saying that he acted unethically but not illegally, and just 15% that he did nothing wrong. The partisan divide in views of Trump’s actions has widened since earlier this year. Compared with a January survey, more Democrats (up 10 points to 89%) and independents (up 7 points to 59%) now say they believe Trump acted illegally, but the share of Republicans who feel that way has dropped (down 7 points to 18%).

Oh, come and see the polarization, what a shame, etc.

There’s more, but we are disappointed that CNN and SSRS did not ask respondents if they thought their mental health would be significantly better if Trump had never been born, which seems like a gap in the data.

[CNN / CNN/SSRS poll (PDF file) / Image generated using Stable Diffusion AI 2.1 and tweaked in photoshoop. Thanks also to the gentleman we met at the crossroads at midnight who volunteered his help.]

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RFK Jr. And Elon Musk: Two Great Dicks That Taste Like Sh*t!

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sure has come a long way from 2014, when he angered fossil fuel lobbyists by saying that climate change deniers should be jailed. Or maybe not such a long way; by 2005 he was already spreading the anti-vax gospel and falsely claiming that childhood vaccines cause autism. And now he’s running for president and everyone is reminding you what a complete freakass whackaloon he is.

We’ll do our part. Hey, remember that long-ago time in 2022 when he said, of COVID vaccine mandates, that at least in Nazi Germany “you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”

Kennedy did his part to help out that educational endeavor Monday night by sitting down with chief Twitter troll Elon Musk, who seems to love conspiratorial bullshit nearly as much as Kennedy does. He started out by thanking Musk for ending all the terrible “censorship” on the platform — by making it a free-for all for COVID and vaccine disinformation, not to mention for Nazis, far-Right conspiracy theories, and rampant hatred of transgender people, but also by actually censoring people on behalf of authoritarian governments. Kennedy also explained that in 2021, “the government pressured Mark Zuckerberg” to ban him from Instagram, although now his account has been restored because he’s running for president. Talk about ineffective censorship!

Rolling Stone reports that for the first 40 minutes of the Twitter Spaces chat, Kennedy barely talked about his candidacy, because he and Musk were too busy telling each other how much they admired each other for being courageous and shit, which is honestly what free speech is for.

At one point, Kennedy asked where Musk got the courage to be like one of America’s Founders by being “willing to take this huge, massive, unspeakable economic hit on behalf of a principle for a country in which you weren’t even born?” Musk, who does kind of have US citizenship after all, replied, “I should say I do very much consider myself an American.” Musk also acknowledged that advertisers had deserted the platform because he was so very committed to democracy, at least for people who think he’s cool, so it’s been “frankly a struggle to break even” (he is not breaking even) and then everyone with an $8 blue checkmark felt very warm that they had done their part to save America and/or Twitter.

After they both agreed that free speech is the very best, and that they both really love free speech the most, Kennedy bemoaned the sad fact that “we’re no longer living in a democratic system,” because Big Pharma controls the government and silences brave advocates of medical disinformation, which would explain why we only hear from anti-vaxxers everywhere on social media but not yet in (most) doctors’ offices.

Among other great trolls, Musk and Kennedy were joined by Tulsi Gabbard and Michael Shellenberger, author of books about how environmentalism is bad for everyone and global warming is happening but is honestly no big deal, yeesh, calm down. UPDATE/CORRECTION: I initially had a brain fart and confused Shellenberger with a different “contrarian” dipshit, Alex Berenson, formerly of the New York Times. Wonkette regrets the error.

Kennedy and Musk agreed that America shouldn’t be supporting the Ukrainian government, since as Kennedy put it, the Ukrainian people are “almost equally” victimized by America as by Russians. Musk added that the war was kind of our fault anyway, since “We are sending the flower of Ukrainian youth and Russian youth to die in the trenches, and it’s morally reprehensible,” and when you think about it, we probably shouldn’t be ordering Russia’s youth flowers around like that, how would we like it huh?

The conversation got even more sane when Gabbard added that

the U.S. had turned Ukraine into a “slaughterhouse” and blamed the conflict on an “elitist cabal of war-mongers” who had seized control of the Democratic Party.

Those war-mongers, Kennedy warned, hadn’t just taken control of the Democratic party: They were in control of the Deep State as well.

He recalled being told by Donald Trump’s former CIA Director Mike Pompeo that the “top layer of that agency is made up almost entirely of people who do not believe in the American institutions of democracy,” which is pretty rich coming from a top guy in the Trump administration.

Kennedy also said he opposed an assault weapons ban, because the Second Amendment is pretty awesome, and anyway, the problem isn’t guns, it’s antidepressant meds, which turn people into mass shooters, explaining that

“prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country. […] The one thing that we have, it’s different than anybody in the world, is the amount of psychiatric drugs our children are taking.” He then alleged that the National Institutes of Health won’t research the supposed link between these drugs and shootings “because they’re working with the pharmaceutical industry.”

It’s pretty convincing until you remember that antidepressants are prescribed worldwide, but in countries where there aren’t more guns than people, there aren’t a bunch of school shootings. Also, maybe someone could have pointed out that only about a quarter of mass shooters use antidepressants, while 100 percent of them use firearms, albeit not usually with a doctor’s prescription.

Along the way, Kennedy also insisted that COVID was a “bioweapon,” lied that after the passage of the Affordable Care Act the “Democrats were getting more money from pharma than Republicans” (it’s the other way around, according to STAT News, but then STAT News believes vaccines work), and promised to go to the US-Mexico border to “try to formulate policies that will seal the border permanently,” so he really sounds like the mainstream Democrat that everyone on the far Right has been looking for, the end and OPEN THREAD.

[Rolling Stone / Insider / NYT]

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ChatGPT Writes Stunningly Awful Megan McArdle Column … Wait, No, It’s The Real Megan McArdle

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There are bad political opinion columns. (We have written a few ourselves!) Then there is whatever the hell this is from the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle. Is this an early contender for worst column you will read about a candidate during our interminable presidential campaign season? It’s early, but yes.

Seriously. Our eyes are bleeding. She’s Peggy Noonan without style.

Lord, the things we read for you people. You’re welcome.

Anyway:

Vivek Ramaswamy is emerging into the spotlight. His poll numbers are still pretty low, not even 4 percent, but they are rising at a brisk clip, which is more than anyone else in the Republican presidential field except former president Donald Trump can say.

That link goes to a poll tracker from Real Clear Politics. Ramaswamy is that second green line (WHY, Real Clear Politics?), the one in the lower right corner:

Screenshot: Real Clear Politics

Ramaswamy’s polling average actually dropped by four-tenths of a percent this past week while McArdle was writing this column. And when you start out at 3.3 percent, four-tenths is a good-sized drop.

If you’re going to take these averages this seriously nine months before voting starts, at least describe them somewhere in the universe of accurately.

So far, Ramaswamy’s rise is broadly in keeping with the historical GOP tradition of regularly catapulting some long-shot primary candidate into his 15 minutes of fame — and then out again onto the rubber-chicken-dinner circuit.

Here we have the pundit’s self-fulfilling prophecy: The obscure candidate is rising (again, not according to the polls) because the nation’s bored political opinion columnists are writing columns in the nation’s most widely read newspapers telling you he’s rising. All this means is that whatever consultants Ramaswamy is overpaying to get him some earned media are actually doing their job.

It’s fair to wonder because, eight years on, no one understands exactly what made Trump different from predecessors such as Herman Cain. I have a theory and so do you, but no one can say for sure.

Sure we can. Trump had already been a national celebrity for 40 years, he was a genius at saying outrageous horseshit that kept the media’s attention on him, he had personal relationships with the president and owner of the nation’s most-watched 24-hour news network that he leveraged into hours upon hours upon hours of free media. Herman Cain was a Black man with a business career consisting mostly of running a sixth-rate national pizza chain who was trying to break through with a GOP base composed of suburban white people who think the 1964 Civil Rights Act is one of America’s greatest historical tragedies. Also he had all the personality and on-camera charisma of soggy Cheerios. This isn’t hard.

But if such a plan can work, Ramaswamy is the candidate most likely to execute it successfully. Imagine a Trump Scale running from 1 to 100, where 100 is Trump and 1 is a soft-spoken social worker who has been happily married to the same man for 43 years. Ramaswamy is about a 63, by far the closest match in the current primary field.

What … what even is this? You can’t just make up some sort of numerical scale to try and capture unquantifiable properties and then awkwardly shoehorn them into some sort of supporting evidence for your thesis. What if we said “Imagine a Christopher Rufo Dumbass Wingnut Scale where 100 is Christopher Rufo and 1 is an angry suburban dentist writing a Substack with fewer subscribers than Colonoscopy Monthly. Megan McArdle is about a 63, by far the closest match in the field.”

That would make zero sense, right? Also we’d rank Megan “Train Six-Year-Olds to Rush School Shooters” McArdle much closer to 100 if we were inclined to make up such a scale. Which we are not.

Ramaswamy’s fortune allows him to self-fund and puts him beyond economic sanction — and he has used that advantage to raise a giant middle finger to the liberal thinkers of the professional managerial class.

Most of the current Republican Party claims to be raising a giant middle finger to the liberal thinkers of the sneeringly dubbed professional managerial class. Ramaswamy is no more unusual in this regard than, like, this lunatic.

Also would it surprise you to learn that McArdle follows up this point by complimenting Ramaswamy for making Don Lemon mad during an early-morning interview that most of CNN’s audience probably has on as background noise while they’re trying to get the kids off to school? That’s not a feat akin to raising a middle finger at the professional managerial class, that’s just Tuesday.

Let Ramaswamy insult a moderator at a primetime debate badly enough that people are still talking about it eight years later and get back to us.

If he has a shot, it will be because he hits many of the same notes while remaining a little more upbeat, a lot more in command of policy details and even, occasionally, something of an old-fashioned market conservative.

Totally. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about beating Donald Trump, it is that his fans care deeply about his command of policy details.

Also, remain upbeat? The current second place candidate in that polling average chart McArdle linked to earlier is Ron DeSantis, who is about as charming and upbeat as one of those mutant fish that live at the bottom of the Marianas Trench and go their entire lives without ever seeing light. And he’s ahead of Ramaswamy by almost 20 points.

He suggests we might curb the excesses of woke capital with an even stricter version of shareholder capitalism that forces companies to focus on profit — a solution a lot of CEOs might also prefer.

Woke capital is a nonsense term that we should not even indulge. But in the context in which the right wing uses it, plenty of companies manage to be extremely profitable while also remaining “woke” – that is, by embracing diversity in hiring and in their customer bases or by being environmentally conscious or whatever. You would think a libertarian would understand the whole concept of maximizing profits by maximizing your customer base. Hell, you’d think a seven-year-old understands that concept.

Of course companies can’t help it if conservatives are whiny piss babies who don’t want to share their shitty beer or their cheap, made-by-Indonesian-slave-labor T-shirts with gay people or transgender Instagram influencers. Fine. More Bud Light and knockoff Batman tees for Target’s customers who are not judgmental assholes.

Nor could he resolve conflicts over social issues by directing corporations to focus on profit rather than politics. If LGBTQ+ creatives quit Disney over its storylines, that is an issue of profitability.

That’s what we just said! If McArdle already knows policing the business of “woke corporations” is a bad idea, why is she telling Ramaswamy in the previous paragraph that it might be a winning one?

Is Megan McArdle secretly a shill for Donald Trump? Don’t know, but if we were Ramaswamy’s campaign consultant, we’d tell her to stop helping.

[Washington Post]

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Ron DeSantis Achieves New Dickishness Personal Worst

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has had a busy week, signing several bills that will further encrappen the state and make life miserable for LGBTQ folks, all in the hope that he’ll prove himself authoritarian enough to appeal to Republican primary voters next year. He’s been traveling across America’s Dangling Appendage signing bills restricting people’s freedom while claiming that Florida is the home of freedom, as long as you’re a rightwing evangelical. (We think we’ll just stop at “evangelical” from here on, since adding “Christian” to it just makes baby Jesus sad.)

Monday, DeSantis went to New College of Florida in Sarasota, the nice little liberal arts school he’s ruining to turn into a rightwing indoctrination center, to sign several bills aimed at purifying Florida colleges and universities of “wokeness.” It was his way of twisting the knife a bit, to remind the Liberal Elites who’s in charge. Your fascists love that kind of symbolic humiliation shit, like how a former German corporal insisted in 1940 that France surrender in the same railroad car where the 1919 Armistice was signed.

But sometimes the vanquished just won’t cooperate and admit they’ve been crushed, darn them. As Yr Wonkette noted Saturday, the official graduation speaker for New College’s commencement was Dr. Scott Atlas, Donald Trump’s Infect Everyone and Let God Sort ‘Em Out COVID adviser, which was supposed to be a sick burn on the libs. Instead of going along, New College students scheduled their own commencement for tonight, and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley will deliver the keynote speech. It’s as if those libs don’t even know they’ve been owned. Sad!

We Don’t Need No Education

As we say, DeSantis went to New College to ritually defile the corpse of his enemy, by signing bills that will further his goal of ramping up white grievance against higher education and nonexistent “liberal indoctrination.” The biggie is Senate Bill 266, which defunds and prohibits “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs in higher education, because as we all know from racist memes, diversity is just code for white genocide. DeSantis kept a lid on the open racism and went for the respectable old dog whistle of “reverse racism” instead, saying,

“If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination. […] And that has no place in our public institutions.”

DeSantis proclaimed an end to diversity, crowing that “This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida. We are eliminating the DEI programs.”

In addition, the bill also cracks down further on academic freedom, specifying that general education classes — the core of classes for all undergrads — may not “distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics,” and must not be based on

theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.

Lasting effects of Jim Crow? Certainly not in Florida! America is perfect in Florida! A history prof could teach about redlining, presumably, as long as they don’t suggest that it created a structural imbalance in how wealth is accumulated in the US, because it’s just pure coincidence that some people inherited homes in neighborhoods that had restrictive covenants, while other people never saw such generational wealth transfer. Discrimination vanished after the Fair Housing Act in 1968, because it’s right in the name of the law, and how dare you suggest that the playing field was never level?

The bill also demands that gen ed classes of all kinds emphasize “Western Civilization,” the best civilization there is, and requires that humanities classes include works from the “Western” canon, although studying inferior books from less important cultures will be tolerated for now at least.

Other bills DeSantis signed Monday included House Bill 931, which prohibits colleges from requiring a “political loyalty test” — i.e., from committing to diversity or anything like it. It also requires that all “public policy events” include equal time for opposing views, which as far as we can tell means that if you have a Pride event you have to invite Matt Walsh.

Finally, another measure will weaken tenure protections for professors, who need to be kept in line with the threat of being fired if they get too mouthy about any of this.

‘Don’t Say Gay’ On Steroids, And Worse

To mark yesterday’s International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, which commemorates the World Health Organization’s 1990 removal of LGBTQ+ identity from its list of “mental disorders” — Jesus H Christ on a Segway, it took that long! — DeSantis signed four anti-LGBTQ measures into law, ensuring that civil rights attorneys and activists will at least have a booming business for the next few years as they work to shut that shit down. Honestly, it’s well past time that, instead of the Bugs Bunny gif, we instead force Florida back into the US of A and make it respect all its residents’ rights.

Florida’s state medical board last year adopted rules restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth. Yesterday, DeSantis made it a matter of law by signing Senate Bill 254, which prohibits puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery for minors (as we always point out, gender-affirming surgery is already extremely rare for patients under 18).

As indy journalist Erin Reed notes, this one’s far worse than the usual run of such bills, because it also bans nurse practitioners from providing any gender-affirming meds, which won’t just deny care to minors but to adults, since according to Florida healthcare provider SPEKTRUM Health, up to 80 percent of gender-affirming care in Florida is provided by NPs. As Reed reports, this has already led to appointments being cancelled and people losing access to medication.

The bill became effective as soon as DeSantis signed it, and the Human Rights Campaign reports that parents who are already suing to block the state medical board’s anti-trans measures are seeking an emergency order to block SB 254 immediately. Other lawsuits are certain to follow.

DeSantis also signed what might be the most restrictive “bathroom bill” in the country, HB 1521, as Reed explains.

The wording of the bill states that if a cisgender person is in the bathroom with a transgender person, an employee can tell the transgender person to leave. Should the transgender person not leave immediately for any reason, they will be charged with criminal trespass, which can carry sentences of up to 1 year in jail. […]

While the provisions do not ban all bathroom usage, they cast a wide net over an alarming number of locations that would fall under definitions of “public” in the bill. This includes all buildings owned or leased by any governmental entity, educational institutions spanning from elementary schools to private colleges and universities, numerous hospitals owned by universities, many sports arenas, convention centers, city parks, beaches, airports, and more.

The bill makes no exceptions for trans folk who have updated their gender status on official documents like birth certificates or drivers licenses, instead defining sex as a matter of chromosomes and genitalia, which opens the hellish possibility that people trying to relieve themselves in a stall with a locked door will be subjected to freaking medical investigations. It’s also a no-win situation, as Reed notes, since

Transgender people who are androgenous or pass as their gender identity will likely be challenged in the bathroom of their birth sex. Those trans people will then be forced to undergo the same investigation into their gender. In essence, it amounts to a ban on bathrooms for transgender people entirely.

HB 1521 goes into effect on July 1 — avoiding Pride month, isn’t that cute? — by which time the lawsuits challenging it may have made headway, we hope. If it isn’t already enjoined by then, get ready for lots of pushback, too, from cisgender folks who are challenged by toilet vigilantes. Sadly, in Florida, those cases may get the most media attention, because oh no, the “wrong” people are being harmed.

DeSantis also signed HB 1069, which expands the already awful “Don’t Say Gay” law to 12th grade, and will prohibit trans students from asking to please be addressed by their correct pronouns, as well as encouraging even more vicious censorship of books in classrooms and school libraries. It too becomes effective July 1. A final member of the shitshow quartet, SB 1438, expands Florida’s “obscenity” laws to include drag shows; it’s almost certain to be used to attack Pride parades. Reed notes it has “already led to cancellations of pride events, including the Treasure Coast Pride Parade.”

All of the bills DeSantis signed this week are blatantly unconstitutional, so this might be a good time to donate, if you can, to groups like Lambda Legal, the Human Rights Campaign, or the ACLU of Florida. As the inevitable lawsuits against this fuckery ramp up, we’ll bring you more information on how to help. As Yr Wonkette likes to point out when we discuss the climate crisis, things are pretty fucked, but we have the advantage of being on the right side. Americans do not want this crap, and there’s a lot of mobilization to do — like the major federal lawsuit that’s just been launched by Florida parents, PEN America, and Random House against school library censorship, about which we’ll have more shortly.

Be an activist. Be an ally. Fight this shit with love and passion and smartassery (but don’t mistake snark for activism, you in the back, there). This humbug shall not stand, man.

[NBC News / NPR / Erin in the Morning]

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Peggy Noonan Travels The Dusty Texas Plains, Where Deer And Third-Party Candidates Roam

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“Dang it! Wake up, woman!”

She was at the bottom of a well, was Sister Peggy Noonan of the Order of the Amytal Tepidness. Or not a well, but some deep, dark night of the soul, an abyss of a blackness so dark that no light could penetrate it that stretched above her, an abyss for which there was no end, an abyss in which time and space meant nothing and everything …

“Confound it!” The voice rang in her ears again, a tinny, high-pitched whine with a distinct Texas accent, like a leprechaun born in Amarillo.

“A lepre-what now? Peggy, you’re makin’ less sense than a steer in a salad bar. Come on now, stop with the dramatics. You’re just asleep.”

And so she was, she realized as she opened her eyes. That insistent little voice had reached down and pulled her back into consciousness. She had been dozing while sitting upright, her backside firmly planted on a hard and unyielding surface. A wooden bench, she realized. And what was the rest of this space? It was a tiny, enclosed carriage bumping across the ground. Frilly curtains. No legroom. Hot Texas air spiraling in through open windows. The scent of tobacco and body odor and horse manure assaulted her nostrils like Indians charging a wagon train. She was … she was in …

“Yep, it’s a stagecoach,” piped the leprechaun voice. She looked across at the face sitting atop a neck so skinny that the bolo tie knotted at its throat looked as large as a beach towel. Ears jutted from either side of the skull like flaps on an airplane wing. Something about the face was so familiar.

“It’s me, Ross Perot!” He did not so much say his name as squeak it. “And yeah, you’re in my stagecoach and we’re lighting out for the prairie! I coulda had us take my limo or my private jet, but where’s the fun in that? What would you rather do, get where we’re goin’ in modern comfort, or sit here and listen to me talk and talk and talk for days on end as we roll through this scorching and vast nothingness where there ain’t so much as a Howard Johnson or a Sizzler where we can take a break? Sure I’m dead, but I can still have opinions!”

“Ain’t no sense in that,” he added as she scrabbled for the door handle. “It’s a hunnert degrees outside and we’re a two-day walk from the nearest road. Maybe longer in that petticoat. Nah, best you just settle in. We’ll talk politics, that’ll pass the time, and if you want to, you just go on and scream. Nothin’ out there to hear you but some lizards.”

Seventy percent of his own party doesn’t want Joe Biden to run. More than half his party doesn’t want Donald Trump to run. Yet here at the moment we are, with this growing sense of sad inevitability.

“Well shoot, it’s April of 2023. There was pretty limited enthusiasm for Joe Biden in April of 2019, too. People like Biden, but they ain’t like MAGA folks, they’re not goin’ feral over it. And the primaries ain’t for but ten months yet, people got other things to do. As for Trump, the half of his party that doesn’t want him seems to mostly consist of wealthy donors who are constantly anonymously telling reporters they sure wish someone else would do somethin’ about stopping him. Not what you’d call a groundswell of anti-Trumpism, that’s for sure. Here, have some hyena jerky.”

Mr. Biden is unopposed because his party couldn’t rouse itself to do what Democrats have almost existed to do, have a big, mean, knockdown, drag-out brawl. Sometimes party discipline is a failure and a mistake.

“Peggy, the last time Democrats had a big, mean, knockdown, drag-out brawl in a primary where the incumbent president was running for re-election was 1980. You remember a brawl with Clinton in ’96 or Obama in 2012? Not too many Democrats at the end of the day will want to damage the incumbent like Teddy Kennedy did to Jimmy Carter. Not if the stakes are keeping Donald Trump out of office.”

He ran an arm across his forehead. “This jerky’s dang salty, ain’t it? Probably shouldn’t have drunk all the water I brought an hour into the trip.”

I agree with those who say the problem isn’t only Joe Biden’s age but the implication his age carries: that if he is re-elected there’s a significant chance Kamala Harris will become president.

“George H.W. Bush won an election with Dan Quayle on the ticket. Then he got sick in Japan and nobody exactly ran for the fallout shelters. People are votin’ for the guy at the top of the ticket. They’re not seriously thinkin’ about the unthinkable when they’re in the votin’ booth.”

“Except with Sarah Palin,” he added after barely a moment’s hesitation. “Whew, doggie, that woman didn’t exactly inspire confidence in John McCain’s decision-making capabilities. Kamala Harris at least ain’t nuttier than an armadillo trapped in a oil well. Say, you sure you don’t have some water on you? Juice? Gatorade?”

I’m not going to pick on [Ron DeSantis] on the Disney fight. I thought Disney wrong to come forward, as a major corporation, and use its beloved name to take sides on a delicate state educational issue.

“Disney comes forward, they’re takin’ a side. They don’t come forward, they’re still takin’ a side. They didn’t want to take the side that would purposely exclude a good chunk of their customer base. Their whole brand is that anyone is welcome! Anyway, they ain’t gonna rise or fall on whether a bunch of bigots in Jacksonville won’t let their kids wear Mickey Mouse T-shirts.”

Perot’s left eyelid had begun to twitch.He took another jerky stick and shoved it down his throat like he was swallowing a sword.

[A] big challenge for corporations is to remember their mission. For more than a century Budweiser’s mission was to make beer and sell it at a profit. Disney has been entertaining America for nearly a century. They should do that. Except in the most extraordinary and essential cases they shouldn’t give in to the temptation to put themselves forward as deep-thinking cultural leaders.

“Wasn’t but a few years ago that conservatives were screaming about corporations having free speech rights. Now y’all want them to shut up and just put on Snow White costumes and cheerily wave to all the heterosexual nuclear families and not admit that trans people drink beer. Make up your dang minds!”

He licked his lips as his eyes rolled in their sockets like marbles soaked in grease. “Coca-Cola? Iced tea? Sweat? Nothin’ at all? Okay. Don’t know how you’re not going crazy with the thirst either. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

Second, watch a third-party bid. The centrist group No Labels says it’s provisionally attempting to get on the ballot in all 50 states. We’ll see how that works.

“Same as it works every cycle: Credulous pundits will keep saying it could happen right up until the moment it doesn’t. There hasn’t been a solid third-party candidate since I did it thirty years ago, and back then the GOP wasn’t controlled by a bunch of pissed-off suburban used-car salesmen. Again, Donald Trump. Back in office. Lordy.”

Third-party enthusiasts tend to be moderate, sober-minded.

Perot began screaming. He threw himself at the stagecoach door and rolled himself into a ball and kept rolling across the dusty Texas countryside, still screaming. She watched as this little rolling ball of a man faded into the distance, a cloud of dust and his ever-more-distant screams the only indication that she was not having some sort of hallucination borne of a combination of medication and salty hyena meat.

She reached out and pulled the door closed and promptly forgot about the strange little man. There were miles of stagecoach travel to go, and a column to turn in at the end.

[WSJ]

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Peggy Noonan And The Case Of Gutter Punk Ron DeSantis

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She had left the Upper East Side behind. It had been an unseasonably warm winter in New York and Peggy Noonan, sister in good standing of the Order of the Triazolam Numbness, felt a need to stretch her legs, to stop staring at the same view out the same windows of her rooms. So she left her pied-à-terre and wandered in the general direction of Lower Manhattan. It was nearly eighty blocks. She was feeling spry.

She noticed things as she walked. Noticing things was her specialty. She noticed the store windows full of dresses and hats and the ladies walking in and out of them. She noticed rundown apartment houses. She noticed what looked to be a ’57 Buick, tailfins angled back just a bit as if bent there under speed. She noticed cafeterias where lonely men took their supper, dawdling over turkey and mashed potatoes and apple pie, in no rush to return to their small and lifeless apartments. There were a lot of ’57 Buicks. A lot of fifties-model cars, come to think of it.

A cloud crossed the sun. She looked up and noticed the sky had gone gray. The next moment, rain poured down in a rush. The strangest storm, she thought. There had been no warning, no drizzling ahead of the main force. The clouds had rolled in on a dime and wasted no time releasing their moisture on the stunned denizens of New York.

Of course she had not brought rain gear. The forecast had called for sun and warmth. Now here she was, caught out, becoming soaked right down to her socks. That was when she noticed the neon sign dully shining behind dirty glass. She hurried for the shelter it promised.

Fortune was with her, for she found herself in a bar. A rundown saloon of the sort one didn’t see much in New York anymore. Battered wooden tables, battered wooden chairs, battered wooden-faced men and women hunched over chipped glasses filled with glorious amber-colored liquids. This was a serious bar, for serious drinkers, people for whom drinking was not for lubricating social outings or celebrating milestones. Here drink was not a means to an end, but the end itself.

She found an empty stool, right near the cigarette machine – a cigarette machine! How quaint! – and the hard-looking gentleman leaning against it. He wore a fedora, a long raincoat, and a suit of an older style and vintage. He had a Lucky in his mouth, which he only removed to take a swallow from the glass of rye in front of him.

He waited until she had ordered a gin and tonic from the surly bartender. Then he spoke.

“Don’t see dames like you in this place much.” The voice was growly, well-cured by alcohol and tobacco. “Not with that fancy outfit. You people stick to uptown. It’s no less of a sewer, but you can go to cocktail parties and tell each other you’re keeping your fingernails clean.”

He stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. “Name’s Hammer. Mike Hammer. I’m a private detective. I got an office, a great secretary with fabulous legs and I spend too much time crawling around in a gutter with the worst scum that ever oozed off the sidewalks of this city. But my forty-five shoots straight. What else can a man want?”

The first GOP presidential debate is five months away, in August. Primaries begin about six months after.

“You go to hell, lady.”

Mr. DeSantis is a big dawg, and it isn’t only Donald Trump trying to take him down. A prospective competitor called recently to share his thoughts: “DeSantis is a cheap imitation of Trump, it’s Fox News soundbites and cowboy boots with 2-inch heels.”

“Sounds like quite the punk. Listen, the only man alive who should be wearing cowboy boots is Lorne Greene. Anyone else is a sharpie running a game on you. Say, is this Trump fella any relation to Fred Trump, guy who owns a bunch of slums out in Queens? The papers don’t say nice things.”

I don’t think he’s running as Trump without the psychopathology, I think he’s running as a serious, forward-leaning, pro-business, antiwoke conservative with populist inflections.

“The hell is antiwoke? Sounds like something those Greenwich Village beatniks would hang their berets on. You think the lushes in here care about something like that? They want a bed to lay down on at night, a little security. If they had those things, they wouldn’t be in here pouring bourbon down their throats day and night.”

“Maybe someone to take care of the communists too,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “If they think about it at all. Does this DeSantis fella hate commies? I’d vote for him, if I voted. Which I don’t. Whole goddamn system’s rotten. You want a smoke?”

His leadership in Florida has been “a rebuke to the entrenched elites who have driven our nation into the ground.” They are a “ruling class” that controls the federal bureaucracy, big business, corporate media, big tech, the universities. “These elites are ‘progressives’ who believe our country should be managed by an exclusive cadre of ‘experts’ who wield authority through an unaccountable and massive administrative state. They tend to view average Americans with contempt.”

“This guy wants to be president and he talks like a goddamn Columbia professor.” He gestured at the bartender, who brought over a bottle of rye and poured three fingers into Hammer’s glass. “Oh, did you want a clean glass for your second gin and tonic?” Hammer said to Peggy. “Not that kind of place, sister. Bar at the Waldorf’s probably open, though.”

My favorite part had a Mickey Spillane feel. Assigned as a naval officer to Northeast Florida, he sees a beautiful woman on a golf course. “She was dressed in classy golf attire and was generating an impressive amount of clubhead speed.” He thought her a college golfer: “She looked the part and had a great swing.”

“Golf, huh? The mug who hates elites wants to brag about nailing some tomato because she was wearing classy golf attire and could drive a 3-wood. He married her? I expect the coppers down in Florida are going to find him in his yard brained with one of those clubs someday.”

Does he connect with voters on the trail? How does he play it when he gets smacked around in debate?

“Smacked around? Like he’s some wretched scum who thought he could put it to some capo’s daughter without a fuss?” He went to light another cigarette and found the pack empty. A few coins and a handle pull brought him a fresh pack of Luckies from the cigarette machine. He crumpled the old pack and lobbed it onto the floor.

“Let me tell you something,” Hammer snarled as he touched a lit match to the cigarette and pulled on it greedily, like a baby with a milk bottle. “This boots-wearing phony sounds like he’d fold like a bad poker hand if some fairy so much as looked at him crosswise. He’s not impressing you, is he? ‘Cause when you walked in here I thought you looked pretty smart. For a chippy.”

You’re not stooping when you explain your thinking, you’re spreading.

“Something’s spreading around here, anyway.” Hammer finished off his whiskey and threw some coins on the bar. “Sounds like a hell of a guy, this DeSantis. A damned sleazeball if you ask me. Anyway, that’s enough letting you bend my ear. Gotta be a murder being committed somewhere.”

Hammer pulled his fedora low and tightened his raincoat around him. He slunk out of the bar into the street, trailing cigarette smoke and midcentury machismo with equal aplomb. Peggy thought about taking leave herself, about going home to begin her column. Instead, she ordered another gin and tonic. After all, it was still raining.

[WSJ]

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Republican Losers Club Update

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The first Republican presidential debates are still a long way to come, but already we have seen those delusional enough to try to run for the 2024 nomination make fools of themselves. Two weeks ago, we saw Nikki Haley face-planting while defending her candidacy on Fox News. Last week, we saw Sen. Tim Scott repeat the same mistake as Haley while Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel offered up loyalty oaths and failed to condemn coups.

So let’s check up on two more 2024 Republican presidential contenders and see how their early attempts are faring.

Chris Sununu: The Susan Collins Of Mitt Romneys

“Meet The Press” with Chuck Todd hosted New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu because he’s considering running for the Republican nomination and the media will give anyone time who says so — especially those who have made their public image being a “good” or “sane” Republican. But this interview did a lot to both prove what a fraud Sununu is and how subservient a lemming he will ultimately be.

Sununu discussed his hopefulness for the future and the next generation of Republicans made up of optimistic, inspirational conservatives. Todd pointed out Sununu had spoken to the Club For Growth, which Todd pointed out supported Donald Trump and all his unhinged MAGA-endorsed candidates in the midterms instead of those that Sununu claims he wants.

Sununu tried again to explain how his supposed “change in approach’ is what the Republican Party really wants, but then Todd pointed out reality and how his sugarplum wishes for different primary voters won’t materialize.

TODD: I understand what you’re trying to do. At the same time you heard the former president at CPAC, and he certainly has as stranglehold on 25 to 35 percent of the party, we can have a debate about the specific number, and you know what those folks want. They want to make liberals cry, right? Like, that’s the message they want. They want that more than they want a big tent. So how do you appeal to those voters?

Sununu kept insisting that Republican primary voters want “leadership that is results-driven, that gets stuff done” and “if there’s that part of the party that wants to, as you said, ‘make liberals cry,’ or whatever it might be, you do it by winning, and you do it by getting stuff done, passing it through Congress, working on both sides.” The problem is that the old days of acting normal to get elected but then passing draconian laws won’t get you elected. You don’t win a primary unless you vow to make “the libs cry,” which then makes it infinitely harder to win the general election when suddenly those liberal and independent voters can tell you to kick rocks.

Sununu was also asked about the RNC’s required loyalty pledge to participate in RNC-sanctioned debates. Did Sununu, like Asa Hutchinson, say how bad the oath is if it supports insurrectionists?

Nope! Sununu will support anyone with an ‘R’ by their name, even if they tried to overthrow the government or actively represent the very things Sununu claims to oppose. Need further proof? Let’s see who Sununu could see winning the Republican nomination today.

SUNUNU: […]Right now if the election were today, Ron DeSantis would win in New Hampshire, there’s no doubt about that in my mind. I think Ron DeSantis would win in Florida. […]

Sununu didn’t say this in disgust or fear but to point out how the “new generation” of DeSantis would defeat Trump, even though ideologically DeSantis is the same as Trump. Sununu is basically selling “New Coke” to replace “Old Coke,” and that is not going to age well.

About as badly as the first time. For the product and the pitch person.youtu.be

Sununu was also asked about the Fox News/Dominion case revelations and he tried to “both sides” the issue, which Chuck Todd disputed (either out of journalism or fear of losing his “both sides” crown).

TODD: Yeah. Intentionally lying to viewers, though, that to me seemed to cross a line.

SUNUNU: Well, look –

TODD: You can make a mistake, but that wasn’t a mistake.

Sununu tried to bring up Hunter Biden’s laptop (which mainstream media never repressed but wanted vetted before reporting on it) and the possibility of COVID-19’s origin in a lab (which was reported based on the credible available evidence at the time). This proves the Wonkette theory of No-Good Republicans still holds strong — that and the Republican obsession with NSFW pics of Hunter Biden.

Pompeo Continued Delusional Tour Continues

Mike Pompeo, like the weasel he is, has been trying to distance himself from Trump and his administration despite leaning heavily on his past experience in said administration to justify his presidential run. Pompeo has hit Trump on the deficit and made a direct jab at CPAC on March 3. On “Fox News Sunday,” Pompeo was more subtle about it. He didn’t mention Trump by name but made the same case.

These are pretty strong words coming from a guy who helped add to that debt while serving as CIA director and secretary of State for the Trump administration. Pompeo was asked by Shannon Bream about his critiques of Trump and again Pompeo made vague allusions to him while avoiding his name.

Pompeo added:

[…] the moment for celebrity, the moment for stars is not with us. It’s the moment for America to go back to it’s conservative founding and it’s conservative ideas. And I am very confident […] we are headed that direction.

Three things:

  1. The Republican Party that has elevated Ronald Reagan, Trump, Fred Thompson, Clint Eastwood, Sonny Bono and Arnold Schwarzenegger have always been “star fuckers.” It’s why they bow for any conservative celebrity when they reveal themselves.
  2. The thing those celebrities have is some type of charisma or charm, which is why they are elected.
  3. Pompeo will never be president.

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Donald Trump Tosses Hamberders, Lies At East Palestine Residents’ Heads, Crisis Over

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Donald Trump made a campaign stop in East Palestine, Ohio, yesterday so he could pretend to make everything better there, bringing along a couple pallets of bottled water from his cheesy resorts and lying that his visit was the only reason the Biden administration is “finally” helping the community.

In mere reality, federal agencies have been in the small town on the border between Pennsylvania and Ohio since right after the February 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train resulted in a huge spill of toxic chemicals. President Joe Biden has been in regular contact with Gov. Mike DeWine, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited East Palestine last week.

During a 10-minute speech in the town’s firehouse, Trump lied to the small crowd, claiming, “They were intending to do absolutely nothing for you.” Trump also

bragged about having a strong working relationship with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, noting that it initially had not planned to assist relief efforts. Trump claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration only directed more resources because he announced that he would visit East Palestine.

“They changed their tune,” Trump said. “It was an amazing phenomenon.”

DeWine said last Friday that FEMA turned down his request for assistance because the agency is “most typically involved with disasters where there is tremendous home or property damage” following natural disasters. A few hours later, however, FEMA announced it would send a Regional Incident Management Assistance Team to the area, which arrived on Saturday. The team will “support ongoing operations, including incident coordination and ongoing assessments of potential long-term recovery needs,” according to FEMA’s announcement.

The agency probably didn’t mention that it was all Donald Trump’s doing because it’s jealous of how much better he is at throwing paper towels to disaster victims than it is.

On Monday, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to take full responsibility for cleaning up the toxic mess, warning that if the railroad slacks off, the EPA will do the cleanup and charge the company triple the cost.

Trump also made a few other brief stops in the town, accompanied by Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway. He drove around in a motorcade so he could pretend to be president still, and during his visit, he posed for a photo next to a pallet of Trump-labeled water that’s normally sold at his trash resorts. He claimed he was “bringing thousands of bottles of water—Trump Water, actually. Most of it. Some of it, we had to go to a much lesser quality water. You want to get those Trump bottles, I think, more than anybody else.”

He also rolled up to the town’s McDonald’s, where he made a show of ordering food for first responders and everyone in the restaurant, so his idiot sycophants could post fawning tweets about how Trump had done far more for the people of East Palestine than Joe Biden, who didn’t buy anyone any fast food at all. Professional rightwing trolls Brigitte Gabriel and Nick Adams both enthused that Trump water is in fact the very best water known to humanity, because even if it’s bottled by some generic company that slaps a Trump label on it, that makes it the best. We’re absolutely sure the McDonald’s food in East Palestine also tasted better than at any other franchise in America, at least for the five minutes Trump was there.

In a pathetic attempt to diminish the miracle of water and fast food, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates pointed out that, at the urging of railroad lobbyists, Trump had rolled back Obama-era regulations requiring faster electronic braking systems on some trains carrying hazardous liquids. Bates said in a statement, “Congressional Republicans laid the groundwork for the Trump administration to tear up requirements for more effective train brakes, and last year most House Republicans wanted to defund our ability to protect drinking water.”

The New York Times, not worrying too much about technical matters, notes that a “person close to Mr. Trump countered that federal officials said the cause appeared to be an axle, not a brake issue, and the repealed brake-related regulation had no bearing on the crash.”

This is where we point out, again, that if the train that crashed had had an electronic braking system, it may not have derailed at all, because the train’s old-fashioned air braking system applies brakes from one car to another as the air pressure changes, which causes cars at the end of the train to bump into those slowing ahead of them. Electronic brakes apply evenly to all cars at the same time, so that even if a car derails due to an axle or wheel bearing problem, there’s less likelihood of a pile-up of multiple cars following the derailment.

That said, the Obama regulation had been watered down by lobbying so that it didn’t apply to all trains, so it is indeed possible the Norfolk Southern freight might not have had electronic brakes. (Or maybe it would have, since the regulation might have led to wider adoption of the systems industry-wide.)

In any case, now that Trump has graced East Palestine with his presence, everything will just naturally be fine. Transportation Secretary Mayor Pete Buttigieg will visit the town today, no doubt because Trump made him do it, and the cleanup is continuing. But we bet Buttigieg won’t be anywhere near as wonderful as Trump, who, in typical bizarre fashion, told folks in East Palestine to “have a good time.”

You know, just like he did to the Puerto Rico hurricane victims. And after Hurricane Florence.And Hurricane Harvey. It’s just one of those mangled ways he speaks.

[NBC News / AP / Newsweek / NYT]

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