They're teetering on the edge of supporting school shooters so probably.

Dems just got a huge boost to keep the senate with the Trumpy candidate winning the NH republican primary.

I mean.....yes....this is the course the Republican party is on now.

Lathum, I have learned better than celebrating a bad Republican candidate. Some of those nuts actually win.

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Yeah, I’m not crazy about that strategy. Especially when employed against a republican who voted to be remove Trump from office.

I love it. I think it is great. The Dems have been playing nice far too long. Time to mix it up and try something different. MAGA candidates are so toxic at this point not sure how anyone can say they would rather go against a more centrist republican who may draw the independent vote. When you run against a MAGA candidate the election become all about Trump, the big lie, Jan 6th, etc...as opposed to having to defend inflation, the border, etc...

The danger is they bring out more crazies to vote, and you still get X percent of GOP identifiers who vote for the party regardless of who the candidate is. Like, they would prefer a sane candidate but any GOP is better than a Democrat.

And that is likely countered by people who come out to vote against the MAGA candidate and the crazy that comes with it.

We bash the Dems for trying to stick to the norms in what is clearly not a normal cycle but then when they try something different we say they shouldn't do it.

Obviously remains to be seen if the strategy works, but if the goal is to win seats IMO they have an easier time defeating MAGA over a centralist who will still strip away abortion rights, etc...Just look at Glen Younkin.

I get it. But if a couple MAGA get elected along the way, that just props up the Jim Jordan wing that much longer.

Thomas Massie (KY) has voted consistently with MAGA (and Russia), and he's eyeing Mitch's seat when he decides to leave. He's so confident of winning (and will) that he's not even campaigning. His signs are just the same signs from the past 4 years. The Dem who is running against him is a good, solid candidate and by and large should be getting attention, but it doesn't matter Massie is untouchable in spite of this shit he's said and done. Once these fucking cockroaches get in, they never get out.

Apples and Oranges to the situation in NH.

Unfortunately some parts of the country won't be salvageable.

Agreed. Massie's district is R+19

New Hampshire as a whole is dead even..

Rail Strike averted
Monkey Pox not a pandemic

One of the problems, politically, with competent administration is that when you do things well you keep them out of the news. It is hard to get voters excited about avoiding disasters that didn't happen.

As a citizen who cares more about quality of life than politics, I love competent administration. But it does not poll as well as it should.

Dark Brandon getting shit done.

Bad candidates are still scary. I gotta sleep for the next nearly two months hoping that Droz and Insurrection Dougy don’t win here. Droz over Fetterman would suck. On a statewide level, though, Dougy would gut this state whereas Shipiro is likely to just be competent no drama leadership.

This is why I love the strategy. We all know MAGA voters are idiots, but he already has them. There are very few, if any, voters who will be fooled by this. If you are that stupid and gullible you are likely already MAGA.

On Fox News, New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc tries to distance himself from comments he made just last month (!) claiming Trump actually won the 2020 election pic.twitter.com/V1NgkNs4Am

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 15, 2022

GOP pundits are so upset that they won't have a rail strike to blame on Biden.

I don't think we disagree on Trump supporters. I think the mistake you are making - the same one that was made about Trump himself - is that there is a certain percentage of people who simply don't care about the actual person they are voting for. They don't like Trump, but they know capital gains is going to be cut by virtue of GOP control. That kind of stuff. And if "the cray cray" doesn't tangibly impact your life, what does it matter, it's a non-issue.

He also believes military leadership is too liberal and wants all generals "fired' and replaced with "the most conservative colonels".

It's also not a one off comment. He's mentioned it several times.

There is also the possible "October Surprise" factor. What if the Democratic candidate has pictures in black-face come out right before the election? They had hired nanny not legally in the country? They secretly flew to Argentina to sleep with a lover on tax-payer dime? These nut bags can still win, and do damage to our democracy. Remember the celebration among Democrats when Trump won the nomination against Hilary? Never again.

Masters is part of the Thiel crowd that wants to do away with democracy and move toward some sort of monarchy where tech guys are made Kings of regions. I'm not kidding.

Sound familiar?

To embarrass Northern liberals and humiliate Black people, southern White Citizens Councils started their so-called "Reverse Freedom Rides," giving Black people one-way tickets to northern cities with false promises of jobs, housing, and better lives.https://t.co/xLpTjxG0PD pic.twitter.com/voiPBbwRuN

— JFK Library (@JFKLibrary) September 15, 2022

How does DeSantis spend $12 million dollars of Florida taxpayers money to fly immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts? Is he just begging to get arrested?

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I'm still not clear on where they are from. I thought I saw something about these people actually coming from Texas? So they aren't Florida immigrants and Abbott and DeSantis appear to have coordinated flights going through Florida so DeSantis could get publicity for sending them to MA?

I think the electorate is a lot different than it was 6 years ago.

I've talked to enough people who are seemingly "normal," don't really like Trump but are loyal to the GOP and/or self-interest, and the best answer I've heard is someone's said they just won't vote. The rest are still anti-Democrat above all else and wish Trump was gone, but they aren't changing their vote.

They were apparently promised expedited work visas once they got there in order to get them on the plane.

I'm not sure how this isn't breaking multiple federal crimes.

Those people right there are the ones I genuinely do not understand. It's like they are willing to go along with just about anything in the name of "these people want what I want even if they are bad people doing bad things". Come to think of it, that's what the Germans said after they found out about the gas chambers. The Nazi's were Germany, and they supported Germany, even if they were doing back things, then found out just how bad those things were and thought, "how did they do this and we did nothing? or We just went along, but we really didn't know or understand what was going on." That makes more sense to me now honestly.

It's human trafficking but legal for people who are powerful and white.

The 5th Court of Appeals upholds the TX social media law that makes it all but impossible for any content moderation.

4Chan for everyone!

Businesses have the 1st Amendment right to determine whether you can get birth control on your health insurance plan but do not have the 1st Amendment right to ban someone from their site if they are a Nazi.

So technically can this forum even ban people now without getting in legal trouble in Texas?

It also has to be so weird for lawyers when the rules are just arbitrarily enforced. I mean I know there were weird aspects of the justice system before, but how do you interpret anything anymore? It's all based on whether the judge likes the politician who made the law.

Does this mean if I get banned here then I can sue FOFC?

The law bans email spam filters which is going to be hilarious. We are going back to the early days of e-mail.

Cruz and these other idiots are doubling down on this shit with flying migrants to places like MV. Do they actually think this plays well with anyone but their base? Do they honestly think some suburban mom is going to watch images of migrant children walking off planes looking traumatized and vote for more of that?

Pretty sure that's what makes their base hard. And at this point, I feel like they've given up on winning popular votes and will just restrict access to voting and hope the courts will legislate for them.

These are also the people that pretend to be Christians.

Not exactly a surprise but bears repeating:

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

NEW: income inequality in US & UK is so wide that while the richest are very well off, the poorest have a worse standard of living than the poorest in countries like Slovenia https://t.co/gtHvhNsnuT

Essentially, US & UK are poor societies with some very rich people.

A thread: pic.twitter.com/fXFsULsrQ3

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) September 16, 2022

(Thread by author)

This is also why the discussion over that 'Moonshot' on cancer is low key infuriating. Because you know what would lower cancer rates, too ? Better access to cheaper healthcare and less poverty (with which generally comes better health). You know what, ironically, would slow the decline of that rate? A higher age, meaning people not dying of other shit way earlier than in other somewhat comparably wealthy countries and a ton less wealthy.

We're already in an economic and (undeclared) technology war with China, so why not. I think we've pretty much decided to decouple from China in many areas (let's call it selective globalization) and Taiwan is a key chip manufacturer for us (or until we ramp up our own domestic production).

I like what Biden is doing in Asia. He's developing ANKUS, QUAD and not trying to rejoin TPP. Kudos to him, he's come a long ways in recognizing the real threat and from his "com'on man" statement on China.

Not convinced that India is a true, dependable alliance partner though. And Chinese investments will be hard to say no to for many countries in Asia.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62951347

I knew there was at least one other time when Biden said similar and the Whitehouse walked it back. Apparently it's been 3 times. My guess is this is intentional and not Biden misspeaking.

bold strategy is it pays off Cotton

Breaking: Herschel Walker speaks the truth: “I'm a country boy. I'm not that smart. He's a preacher. (Warnock) is smart and wears these nice suits. So, he is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate Oct. 14th, and I'm just waiting to show up and I will do my best.”

— Duty To Warn �� (@duty2warn) September 19, 2022

Caveman Lawyer strategy.

I don't think there's a debate I've ever wanted to watch more.

I mean, that's the question, right? Do we really want smart people running things? The answer to that for a lot of people is, assuredly, no.

As long as he's on "your" side, the smart(er) people can just tell him what to do. It's not him they care about, it's the +1 seat he occupies. They'd vote for a potted plant if it meant +1 GOP Senate seat.

This is why all that matters is turnout.

If this is true, surely this violates SOMETHING, right? RIGHT?!

!!! a fake brochure promising eight months cash assistance, food, job training/placement, help with housing + more was given to migrants who were lured by @GovRonDeSantis into boarding a flight to martha’s vineyard. @JuddLegum obtained a copy: https://t.co/nSIwWOE6Zh pic.twitter.com/RLtqoeLPC8

— Marisa Kabas (@MarisaKabas) September 19, 2022

And people have, of course, been investigating (i.e. trying to find) the "companies" that transported the asylum seekers to Massachusetts. But it is looking more and more like they are shell corps that don't really exist.

But (and here's the good part), they also were companies that got PPP loans, representing that they had 30+ employees. Which seems like complete and total fraud at this point.

So it may be that someone decided to use their PPP fraud company as an essential part of a scheme designed to draw lots and lots of public attention and scrutiny.

We will have to see how it all shakes out, but this seems to be going into "Are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?" territory.

dola: to continue to describe this with movie/TV quotes, I imagine that this was one of those get high on your own supply moments.

I am sure the folks behind this were so convinced that the people in liberal Massachusetts would act so horribly that that would be the only story to come out of it. They didn't think that anyone would have any other reaction. The problem with living only in your own bubble.

I'm curious to see how it plays out. I'm not a legal expert but I'm not sure what laws, if any, were broken by transporting them. It's not kidnapping or trafficking. I think misuse of government funds and fraud are the most likely investigation targets, but again I'm not a legal expert.

Federal kidnapping requires force or threatened force. I think that some states have a kidnapping by fraud type law. But I really am not sure.

I don't know if the stunt itself was illegal. But it seems like a pretty shady conglomeration of organizations was behind it, and they have now shown a pretty big spotlight on themselves.

But with those two, you can add the RICO statute as well I'm pretty sure. There is definitely a multi-state conspiracy to commit multiple crimes.

What's been so transparently ridiculous is the "Libs DEPORTED the migrants from Martha's Vineyard" narrative they've tried to spin. I suppose it works with the people they want it to.

The sheriff were this happened is investigating charges. He was pretty clear they took people here legally by fraudulent means.

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Who thought it was a good idea to pull the migrants from San Antonio? You have an entire red state and you go to one of the more liberal areas to commit your crime?

I absolutely believe DeSantis hopes to get charged. He wants to be a martyr, and claim it as a pure political persecution like Trump.

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There's a bunch of twitter chatter going on regarding a charter flight into a Destin airport that was only there for 10 minutes and supposedly was missing any tail markings. Nobody on or off. Wonder if we're going to be hearing about another batch of migrants landing somewhere tomorrow.

How can they possibly think this caters to anyone other than the base?

Also being reported that a plane used in the original stunt is schedule to fly tomorrow from San Antonio to Florida to a small airport near Biden's house in Delaware.

This is like tracking college coach movements during the off-season.

These numbers are grim. I say there is still a better than even chance Walker wins Georgia.

The latest @ajc poll paints a bleak picture for Georgia Democrats in November, with every statewide candidate aside from U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock facing a sizable deficit less than two months before the election. #gapol https://t.co/bOj2ZwlG0B

— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) September 20, 2022

I truly do not understand how someone could vote for Walker. He is an all time unqualified candidate in every way.

"Because Warnock loves open borders, high inflation and wants your son to wear a dress."

It's all those independent voters.

I'm neither a democrat nor a republican, but rather a secret third thing (a republican)

— John Brown stan account 🐒 (@thejb_stan) September 19, 2022

Now I probably shouldn't call him out (he's typically stayed out of these discussions) and he doesn't live there any more, but I'm curious to know who Ben would vote for in that race (or indeed, "a secret third thing").

Understatement...Walker is the final form of all future Republicans. Qualifications mean nothing.

If Alabama can elect Tuberville...

100%

He's not smart enough to have his own opinions or original thoughts on issues so he'll vote as he's told.

The GOP electorate have shown time and time again that they don't really care who they elect, as long as they vote a certain way and/or own the libs.

Great job Biden & Saudi Arabia. I assume the swap was somewhat equitable.

2 Americans captured by Russia in Ukraine freed in prisoner swap | CNN Politics

Confirmed that this was planned and canceled. Probably because people found out ahead of time and they didn't have the element of surprise of dropping another batch of human beings off in an unsuspecting city.

Why the frak haven't we normalized relations with Cuba? I'm sure it's because FL is a battleground state. Regardless, Joe, do the right thing here.

I don't really know how big or serious those protests are in Iran, but sure hope they keep up and bring about change.

You can hope that is true, but it's really the future look at the US after the Christian Nationalists take over government in the name of Republicanism and Democracy. I mean, they have a fully implemented "Morality Police" and the US is still working theirs through the court system.

When you're being called out for lack of compassion by Jared Kushner, perhaps your stunt backfired.

I heard that the Nazi, Jewish relocation program had it's problems at first too. Maybe this one will fare better?

I don't know where to put this, because it is a rumor and nor worth a thread until confirmed. Reports are saying there has been a coup in China.

Just took a quick look and I'm not seeing any major western news service report on this yet, but wow how crazy would that be?

Yeah, it moat likely not true. It seems to be coming out of India media. The fact that planes have been grounded in Bejing as well as high speed rail closed gives it some momentum. But the probability is they are just having military drills.

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Newsweek has an article about the rumors, for whatever that is worth.

Li Qiaoming: General at Center of China Coup Rumors on Social Media

You kind of had to look for the rumor to find it. As someone noted, that means that the social media filters designed to stop fake stories from spreading sort of worked.

Great opinion piece from Fetterman.

Access Denied

I've been monitoring r/China which is anti-establishment (vs r/Sino). There's a thread and the majority consensus is wishful thinking.

There were reports of former Premiers (or top officials) in discussion with Li, but not a coup attempt.

Would be nice though.

I think by now if there were any truth we would know. The only thing of interest there is that there does seem to be some weakening in his position. Like this trip outside the country recently was to shore up his power.

I am going to put this here instead of the Severe Weather thread. I don't want to have to make a Non Political Severe Weather thread.;)

I have seen a bumper sticker on a few vehicles locally over the last six months or so. The bumper sticker says "Don't New York My Florida.". My interpretation of the message based on talking to a couple of people I know who have one on their vehicle is you left New York for a reason (liberal politics), don't bring that down here. It represents a undercurrent of resentment among long time residents to newcomers who may speak the same language as far as hatred of the left, also want to bring parts of the City down here as well. It is not a new story and not one that is unique to this area.

Fast forward to today. Hurricane Ian is coming to visit and everyone is getting prepared. Of course most of the long term residents are moving a little slower than others because to be frank, most have already done most of the prep earlier in the hurricane season. One thing that most people don't prep early for are sandbags. Every county has multiple sand bag locations. What that means is the county has brought a couple of dump trucks filled with sand to an empty location like the parking lot of the local little league baseball fields. They dump the sand, drop off bales of sand bags and maybe a few shovels. If you need sandbags, you fill them, you haul them away. Pretty simple process and more often than not, there are folks with extra shovels if you happen not to bring your own. It is rare but if there is a senior citizen who came to fill sand bags without an capable shovel-er in tow and is struggling to do the work themselves, they might be helped out. Sadly that is becoming rarer but it is what it is. Other than that, it is DIY and everyone knows that coming in.

I give all of that background because there are people complaining on Facebook this evening that is it ridiculous that the county does not provide workers to help people fill their sandbags and put them in their cars at the very least. They are saying that no one has time to waste filling sand bags when there are so many other things they need to get done to prepare for the hurricane. Someone mentioned that NYC distributed inflatable dams and sandbags for people in flood zones. Needless to say, the natives are not super receptive to talk about how they do things up north and are making that known in response. It has definitely provided a bit of levity as we await the end of the world.

I have always noticed that people that complain the most about "government interference" and paying taxes are the ones that also complain the most when the government doesn't provide them with services they want.

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Yup. I moved down here to get away from high taxes. And now I'm complaining that the government doesn't have enough resources. And I will go to my grave not seeing the connection between those two things.

Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general, allegedly ran from person serving subpoena on abortion civil suit, according to affidavit | CNN Politics

Can someone explain how any subpoenas ever get served if you can just run away from the stranger trying to serve the subpoena? Also a much more darker question, if you can run away from a person serving a subpoena because they are a stranger, does that mean that you can "defend" yourself with a weapon because you are being threatened by this stranger who is trying to attack you with this subpoena?

Yeah, I mean, it's Texas. I'm kind of surprised that Paxton didn't just shoot the process server in his driveway.

It's like Daffy and the Little Man from the Draft Board.

Regardless of my personal belief, I thought the t-shirt was kinda cute.

Is this really the first time you have seen that expression?

Yes

Gotta get out of your echo chamber my dude

So despite a FPOTUS who stole classified docs and a hurricane likely so severe due to climate change smashing half the state of Florida all FOX, et al. are going to cover today is "where's Jackie?"

I agree it is an awful gaffe and a terrible look, but it will be wall to wall.

Would it be comparable to say that if DeSantis handled this hurricane like trump initially handled covid, that his response here should be that the counties are soley responsible to rescue, rebuild and provide aid, and that the entire state shouldn't be made to deal with this 'localized' issue?

Biden should have gone down to Florida and tossed paper towel rolls to DeSantis and his staff.

No kidding. What a great statesman! What leadership! He would be welcomed as a conquering hero!

Has he considered asking "Whose boat is this boat?" and stating "at least you got a nice boat out of the deal".

SI

I know full well that there is no bottom and soon something else will be worse, but currently, there is nothing more stupid than the right-wing freak out over Lizzo and James Madison's flute.

There's always a next tan suit. Always.

Government funding bill passes Congress. President to sign.

Especially if if you have idiots, let's call him Ben S., claiming it's some deliberate provocation where "the libs" are then unhappy about deserved backlash. Like it's a reversed "own the libs" (call it " I'm not even sure anymore if it's projection (this is quite simply the business model of every right wing talking head under the sun) or an utterly stupid attempt at trolling.