Tag: yep

Listen to Atrios

“That reporters are not willing to deal appropriately with regular lies and liars is not a new thing, but I do think what is new with the Trump administration is that they lie about everything. There is no interest in in attempting to lie plausibly, or even to stick to the truth when that would serve them just as well. […]

You can’t report on this administration by fronting the lies and having the rebuttal 3 paragraphs – or 3 days – later. That they lie constantly has to frame all coverage of them. Nothing is the truth.”

Duncan Black, writing for Eschaton

70 point “Yep” in the print edition of Lemkin. Media doing their job won’t fix our Current Situation, but they can help by being, oh, 97% less credulous of the daily spew. Especially when they know it’s a bald faced lie. Push back. Early and often.

Then they get bitter, they cling…

Basically, every time a Fox News viewer sees a commercial with an interracial couple, he’s reminded that America’s status as a white Christian nation is under assault, by people (progressives) who don’t want America to be either particularly white or particularly Christian. That viewer’s definition of “patriotism” is precisely the embrace of America as the white Christian nation of the viewer’s highly idealized youth, and he interprets the rejection of that vision as a kind of treason.

Paul Campos, writing for Lawyers, Guns & Money.

The president of the United States incited/commanded a mob to attack a joint session of Congress, in order to stop through murderous violence […] the legal installation of his successor. The president of the United States is quite literally guilty of felony murder, as well as sedition. He came close to getting his own vice president murdered in front of the man’s own family.

Paul Campos writing for Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Every time the microphone is turned on, this needs to be said by every Democrat. Every member of the GOP needs to be asked to acknowledge this as fact any time they are in public and every time forever from now on until Trump is removed from office, prosecuted, and if found guilty sentenced to jail. Any member of our government who denies these facts should be, at a minimum, censured. Insurrectionists like Cruz and Hawley (among many others) should be expelled and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[Bloomberg] clearly was not prepared for these rather obvious questions, perhaps because he is a cloistered plutocrat surrounded by yes men and toadies, or perhaps because there is no defense at all. He appeared very much like what he in fact is — a very rich man who is likely facing bitter, unfiltered criticism to his face for the first time in years.

Ryan Cooper writing for The Week.

While I’m sure we’ll get plenty of “why are they so mean to Bloomberg” takes today, I’d say his ~$500M attempt to buy his way into both the Democratic party and the White House are effectively over.

I am not interested in someone’s heartfelt account of their near-collision with actual integrity.

Charlie Pierce captures the essence of the whole Anonymous leader of The Resistance inside the White House thing. This is shameful, not brave or daring and should be characterized as such.

[Assuming] a wildly optimistic scenario in which Dems do about as well as they can be reasonably hope to do in the 2020 Senate elections and a majority decides to eliminate the filibuster, passing any legislation will require at least two Democratic senators who are refusing to even commit to endorsing the Democratic nominee in 2020. Medicare For All is not going to be passed in the next Congress. Joe Biden’s robust public option, for that matter, is not going to be passed by the next Congress. This is true no matter who becomes president. This is about establishing long-term goals and mobilizing voters — that’s it. So Warren’s plan is fine, Bernie’s plan is fine, and to act as if difference in minor details in them will have policy consequences for the next administration or should influence anybody’s primary vote either way is nuts.

Scott Lemieux, writing for Lawers, Guns, and Money. This seems so self evident as to be utterly banal were we living in any reasonable simulacrum of a shared reality, yet here we are. It’s almost as if those fanning the flames of this “disagreement” have motives that aren’t entirely pure.

…kids are in danger when they go to school and their peers offer them a Juul hit in the bathroom, but they’re also in danger when their peers show up with semiautomatic rifles and shoot them. Yet while e-cigarettes constitute something people choose to put in their own body—that is, not an express violation of other citizens’ rights—they’re up for a ban. Insanely powerful weapons of war, which are regularly used to infringe on the rights of other citizens, must be freely available to all in perpetuity.

Mango Juuls don’t kill people, people smoking Mango Juuls kill people. Which is why we’re banning Mango Juuls.

Charlie Pierce writing for Esquire. Nothing else to say but: Yep.

Why Nancy Pelosi Won’t Impeach

Required reading from Elizabeth Spiers. Two particularly salient excerpts:

By implying that impeachment in the Senate is the point, Pelosi denies the importance of the process itself—without which impeachment in the Senate wouldn’t happen in any case. And others have argued better and more persuasively than I could that Senate impeachment isn’t the primary or best reason to do it. Referral to the Senate may be in fact be unnecessary and undesirable.

[…]

A slim minority—just 19 percent—of polled opinion supported Richard Nixon’s impeachment at the outset of the Watergate scandal, and by the end of the House Judiciary Committee’s televised impeachment hearings, a strong majority supported it. And that shift in opinion translated into a massive wave of Democratic gains in the 1974 midterm balloting.

Why Nancy Pelosi Won’t Impeach

I won’t miss the Weekly Standard even a little bit, as I have never considered it an honest enterprise. I do understand the longing some people on the left have to find some decent interlocutors on the right [… and it would] be nice if someone would pay right-leaning journalists to do honest work, but I’ve seen no evidence that that ever occurs. And since it doesn’t, there is no such thing as an honest debate on the issues between the left and right. If the Standard dies, nothing of real value will be lost and we can be grateful that they won’t use an opposition to Trump as a cover to advocate for the things that Neo-conservatives really care about, like permawar in the Middle East.

Booman Tribune neatly sums up my thoughts on all the weeping and rending of clothes over the end of the God awful Weekly Standard. Good riddance to bad garbage.