#politics
Republicans are treating immigration just like they treat education: cut funding, harass the people in charge, then demand to know why the system isn't working.

Did I hear someone on NPR say House Republicans are wasting their time on impeaching Mayorkas because they don't have enough votes to get any legislation passed? Because that doesn't make any sense.
OK, it makes a little sense--I can believe House Democrats don't want the Rethugs to be able to take credit for anything come November. But there's this thing called compromise, politicians are supposed to negotiate towards it.
#politics

#politics
Washington State, like others, is considering phasing out diesel school buses and replacing them with zero-emission buses. Diesels emit greenhouse gases, nitrogen compounds, particulates, bad for the planet and kids. Electrics are clean and cheaper in the long run. Who could be against that?
Conservative Ladies of Washington!
Why? Probably because the Dems are for it--what anthropologists call "schismogenesis," doing something different from the other guys just to show you're not them.

Gosh, I feel safer already! Don't you?

//
The compromise NDAA prohibits “the display of any unapproved flags, such as the LGBTQ Pride flag at military installations”.... And it “reiterates” that no Defense Department money is to be spent on drag shows or other events involving drag queens....
//
Washington Post,
https://wapo.st/3uYNbhH

#politics
#GOP (Gullibility, Obtuseness, and Prudery)
#NDAA

Some people have a swear jar. Rudy Giuliani should have an "open your mouth" jar. The guy's family should rein him in before he blows the entire family fortune on damages for slander.

https://wapo.st/41i49nk

#politics I guess, but maybe also #aging. If he were my father I'd be worried about him.

#GOPDebates
#politics

One thing that cracked me up was Haley (and others, right?) saying we need to get foreign money out of US universities.
Hey kids, the pioneer of defunding public universities was Saint Ronald Reagan (pause while all genuflect). Universities take foreign money because you won't give them no damn American money.

Is this a #metapolitics or #politics post?
Elsenet a fellow I respect very much lamented that his political posts don't get near the traction of his others--strange and alarming in a country that may be drifting toward dictatorship.
I know political debates often get unpleasant. But not long ago, a top political question was, is it OK to keep people enslaved? And we didn't answer it with politics, so we ended up answering it with civil war.
I prefer political flamewars to actual wars.

We put two, maybe three, Gen Z candidates on the county and Port boards, plus an enrolled member of the Makah tribe. As one organizer said to me, "Land acknowledgements are fine, but putting an indigenous person on a regional board means more."
Plus another candidate who I don't think wants much made of her ethnicity, but Anglos have trouble pronouncing her last name.
And four out of five are women.
Not bragging; describing what's possible.
Let's make 2024 a banner year!🤝
#politics

#politics
GQP getting the job done:
%
Since Republicans took control of the House in January, a small group of far-right lawmakers forced the longest speaker nomination contest in U.S. history, paralyzed legislation on the House floor, threatened to breach the U.S. borrowing limit, then deposed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) ....
And yet for all that, the federal government is currently spending the same amount as it did before House Republicans took office.
%
https://wapo.st/49JbKix

#politics
Ramaswamy follows the patriarchal tradition of blaming it all on a woman:

"...since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022."

Or as Adam put it, "The woman ... tempted me, and I did eat."

It warms the ecumenical cockles of my heart to see this point of agreement between Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions. Polytheists and monotheists may disagree about everything else, but their men know who to blame.

#politics
#language
I get so fucking sick of "conservative" misogynist morons like Mike Johnson blathering about "sanctity of life" and "protecting the unborn." They don't give a rat's ass about the life of a person with a uterus, or a person without housing, or a person without health care, or an LGBTQ person. I'd call them Pharisees, but that'd be unfair to the Pharisees, none of whom were as stupid, wilfully blind, or hypocritical as Johnson and his ilk.

#politics
Jenna Ellis has flipped.

Yep, that makes three.

I can hear the ketchup-laden plates hitting the wall all the way out here in Olympia.

No paywall:
https://wapo.st/3tMutJB

WaPo subscribers:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/24/jenna-ellis-plea-deal-georgia/

#politics
The political situation is dire -- we still have a third of the electorate solidly for Cheetolini, and another big-enough bunch that could go either way -- but headlines like this give me consolation and hope.

Jim Jordan on path to losing third vote for House speaker

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/20/house-speaker-vote-live/

#politics
It's up to Congressional Republicans to do the right thing (*hollow laugh*). Having Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker would be a dreadful humiliation for them, exposing them for the dysfunctional mob of lackeys, grifters, and fanatics they are. Having Gym Jordan as Speaker would -- hmm, actually it would do just the same thing, only with less actual legislative work getting done between now and 2025.

Gym Jordan as Speaker w

Who wants to tell Lauren Boobert that apologizing only after the video comes out doesn't count?

Śeriously, the golden rule in #politics is apologize truthfully right up front, get ahead of the story; after that, you can go back to lying.

I just wrote to one of my senators about this stupid stunt Tommy Tuberville is pulling (https://apnews.com/article/senate-military-nominations-holds-tommy-tuberville-e38d853526de044ac59338d32d7a0e10).

But the Democrats (1) can't easily change the rules to defang this moron, and (2) have little incentive to do so: there's an election coming soon, and a Republican who serves himself up as the epitome of stubborn obstructionism, on an issue where most voters agree with the Democrats, is not something you just throw away. Not till after the election, anyway.
#politics

The election chief in my county -- a blue country in the Pacific Northwest -- is asking for better security. People have been sending death threats to poll workers, and taking advantage of our mail-in ballots' privacy sleeves to send in powders -- baking soda in one case, fentanyl in another.
MAGAts are cowards. To paraphrase one of Mark Twain's characters, one is safe from ten thousand of their kind -- as long as it's daylight, and they're not behind him.
#politics

#politics
The bad news is TFG's organization will, by its own admission, use his mugshot for fundraising merch.
The good news is there'll be no copyright on it, so the rest of us can have our fun with it too.

#politics
Do Republicans really think women go through 9 months of pregnancy and the day before their due date go "Eh, I don't think so" and pop down to Planned Parenthood for a D&C?

#politics
The guy gets stupider by the minute. 10% tariffs on *everything*? And he wants to call it "ring around the collar"? Who in hell is writing this movie?

Trump vows massive new tariffs if elected, risking global economic war
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/22/trump-trade-tariffs/