All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Kirby101]

His prison sentence was for something else (evading bank reporting requirements; he had structured withdrawals to pay a blackmailer.)

So a child molester and a bank cheat. Nothing but the best and brightest lead the GOP. When do you think Boebart and Greene will be in leadership?

[Amadeus Arkham]

[babyblob]

Trump to meet with McCarthy in Florida on Thursday



Oh please......seriously? What is *bleeping* wrong with Kevin McCarthy???

It is sad if they had any kind of balls the GOP would push Trump to the the back and make him a nonentity. A nothing. Make his followers not a force. But they are still kissing his ass and towing his line. it is sick how this man was able to do this to the party. But the direction the GOP has been taking the last few years it was only a matter of time before someone like Trump came along.

[Tami]

[DrNewGod]

Trump is the new Kingmaker.

Com'On SDNY! Get this Spray-tan Capo di Tutti Capi Off The Board!

[BeastieRunner]

Com'On SDNY! Get this Spray-tan Capo di Tutti Capi Off The Board!

Something to think about is that if Trump goes down, it forever taints all these little princes he anointed.

[Hypestyle]

https://news.yahoo.com/mike-pence-wi...135455120.html

Word has it the former Second Family is staying at the Indiana governor’s cabin or crashing with kinfolk back in their home state.

Former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, are reportedly looking for a new home after their free, taxpayer-funded housing officially ended just over a week ago.

The story was originally shared by Business Insider but reposted to other outlets: Pence is reportedly staying at a cabin that Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb uses as a retreat, while two other Indiana Republican insiders say that the former second-in-command and ex-Second Lady are staying with family.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and ex-Second Lady Karen Pence are reportedly looking for a new home in Indiana after their taxpayer-funded free housing officially ended just over a week ago. (Photo by Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images)

And here I thought Dan Quayle had the Hoosier Goober legend status on lock, but Mr. Pence just keeps blowing past those roadblocks at 100 m.p.h., White Evangelical Tupac style:

Just picture me rollin’
Flossin’ a Benz on rims that isn’t stolen
My dreams is censored, my hopes are gone
I’m like a fiend that finally sees when all the dope is gone


the MAGA-Geddon crowd ere surely inspired by his YOLO example! Oh, wait... A bunch of them want homebody to be hanged? daaaaang..

Well, he could always borrow some hair dye from Rudy, buy some fake beards, and see about renting an apartment near a Wal-Mart or Big Lots store. I hear they’re looking for part-time managers...

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump to meet with McCarthy in Florida on Thursday



Oh please......seriously? What is *bleeping* wrong with Kevin McCarthy???

Trump still commands millions of supporters more loyal to him than the GOP, and Republican bootlickers like McCarthy need the support of those lemmings for the 2022 midterms and beyond.

Com'On SDNY! Get this Spray-tan Capo di Tutti Capi Off The Board!

And the sooner the better.

[Steel Inquisitor]

There were calls for RBG to retire way back in 2013 and 2014 when the Dems had the senate. It was only in the 2014 Midterms that McConnell became Sen. Maj. Leader (a position he enjoyed until early 2021).

At the time she was 81 years old, the oldest on the bench.

By who?

Like I said, she's not psychic. Attacking an 80 year old because she wasn't able to predict what Trump or McConnell would do later on is terrible. How about focusing on the bigger issues about why she wasn't able to get replaced by a Democratic president?

[DrNewGod]

Something to think about is that if Trump goes down, it forever taints all these little princes he anointed.

I hope that you are right. I recall, however, that Nixon's G. Gordon Liddy got a second life during the Reagan Era, after being declared radioactive. All it takes is a more palatable successor of the philosophy.

[Mister Mets]

By who?

Like I said, she's not psychic. Attacking an 80 year old because she wasn't able to predict what Trump or McConnell would do later on is terrible. How about focusing on the bigger issues about why she wasn't able to get replaced by a Democratic president?

It was foreseeable that if Republicans had the White House and the Senate, they would replace her with a Republican if the opportunity emerged.

She might have thought the filibuster could protect her, not predicting how the filibuster was nuked for Supreme Court candidates in 2017 in the fight over Gorsuch (which meant the more controversial Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett would enter with simple majorities.)

[Tendrin]

She might have thought the filibuster could protect her, not predicting how the filibuster was nuked for Supreme Court candidates in 2017 in the fight over Gorsuch (which meant the more controversial Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett would enter with simple majorities.)

Of course, the GOP would always have nuked the filibuster for the supreme court majority they always enjoy. There are no principles but the continuance of minority GOP rule in the Republican party.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

By who?

Like I said, she's not psychic. Attacking an 80 year old because she wasn't able to predict what Trump or McConnell would do later on is terrible. How about focusing on the bigger issues about why she wasn't able to get replaced by a Democratic president?

https://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/683609...g-not-retiring
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...0G12V020140801

These are 2014 articles where people from liberal voices ask her toa retire all citing fears of her dying on the watch of a GOP. Fact is she gambled that she would die with a Dem in the WH, and she came close but second-place winner of the SCOTUS deathmatch means squat. Some articles in 2018 and one in 2020 highlighting the same. The fact is RBG's advanced age meant that the situation last Autumn was entirely forseeable. People repeatedly pointed this out.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...g-obama-trump/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...-question.html

In politics when you gamble, you usually gamble with other people's lives and if your gamble works, you get the praise for landing on your feet. But if you lose, your action and decision to take that gamble doesn't look so hot. RBG focused a lot more on her career as a SCOTUS judge and a jurist and maybe she did good but the fact is that as a result of her refusal to step down a whole lot of innocent people are going to suffer under a fascist and fascisizing ideology of the GOP, while she shuffles off stage with a state funeral.

I don't think it's being disrespectful to call that out. Yes, it should never have come down to that. Yes it's unfair that we have a SCOTUS system without term limits or without court packing or other measures that doesn't put so many undue stakes on the court...but given that was the governing rules as far as RBG was concerned, she should have retired when she had the chance to hand her seat to a Dem appointee.

[AnakinFlair]

Here's an interesting thought- what if she had decided to retire shortly after Scalia died? Do you think Mitch would have held open TWO seats on the court for almost a year? Do you think he could have gotten away with it? Or would the pressure be too great and maybe he would have caved and done his f'ing job?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Here's an interesting thought- what if she had decided to retire shortly after Scalia died?

At that point, the die was cast, and the window had closed. She should have retired when the Dems had the Senate and the WH but once the GOP got the Senate in Fall 2014, that was the ball game.

But anyway, if she had declared that...then maybe that energizes the Dem base and drives up voter turnout and the Democrats go with fire in their belly to talk about issues and campaign harder that year but the Republicans would also be super-energized because judicial supremacy is a real party thing for them.

Do you think Mitch would have held open TWO seats on the court for almost a year?

Is the Pope Catholic? McConnell would absolutely have done that.

Do you think he could have gotten away with it?

Barring a backlash in midterms, yeah would have.

Or would the pressure be too great and maybe he would have caved and done his f'ing job?

McConnell is a constitutional and procedural nihilist, completely amoral, and profoundly corrupt.

If HRC won in 2016, Mitch would have refused to seat Scalia's seat and let it gather dust, which HRC might have gotten around had she done it via a recess appointment (which Obama arguably should have done with Scalia's replacement, SCOTUS have had recess appointments).