How About That OPSEC?

 

Look at that Murderer's Row in the above picture. You've got NSA Mike Waltz, who added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat, you've got very pompous VP JD Vance, SECDEF Pete Hegseth. who let us know America USED to be foolish (whatever we look like now, he will probably have to face in the morning after he's slept it off a bit), Secretary of State Lil Marco (Alleged Adult) Rubio, DNI Tulsi We Don't Compromise Classified Intel Gabbard, and Steve Witlesskopf--who was using his cell phone to join in from Moscow where Putin was making him wait. 

Everyone on that chat should have known better than to be on that Signal chat. If they preferred Signal for some reason, it's hard not to think it was to avoid FOIA. So, they chose being potentially open to access by GRU (known to try to exploit apps like Signal by following people of interest) over institutional transparency. 

Playing a Weak Hand of Trump Cards

 

Trump has been saying that Ukraine "doesn't have any cards" but I've noticed that Trump kept publicly sweetening the deal (no NATO for Ukraine? cede territory?) just to get Putin to this point--a phone call, as if suspecting Putin is the actual harder person to bring to the table and hoping he could do it with an "all carrot, no stick" approach. 

People sometimes ask what Lincoln or Reagan would have made of the peculiar character who leads their party. Today I'm thinking of Theodore Roosevelt, who said, "Talk softly and carry a large stick." Trump might talk loudly, but who knows what "big stick" he would ever use on the one man he never criticizes? 

 He got his phone call, though--after being made to wait and being cut up by Putin amongst his real homies. His 30-day ceasefire was pretty much rejected, as Putin heaped thoroughly unacceptable conditions into the mix. Trump seems unfazed that he has been disrespected, again. 

Trump, the irascible, the petty, the critic of or his critics--he doesn't feel any need at all to respond to Putin? What gives? 

TWGB: Resorting to Crimes

 

Former President Donald Trump "resorted to crimes" to attempt to stay in office after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, federal prosecutors allege in a newly unsealed court filing released Wednesday.

In the filing submitted by special counsel Jack Smith,… pic.twitter.com/lr2ut8tFn2

— PBS News (@NewsHour) October 2, 2024

You know, it seems like it was just yesterday that current Trump running mate JD Vance was trying to focus on the future instead of discussing whether Trump lost the 2020 election, and I love that for him. Corey Lewandowski was also stuck in the same groove when asked--unable to admit His Nibs lost in 2020. 

Judge Chutkan has done the world a favor by airing out Jack Smith's brief regarding how the Trump Team, with reckless disregard for the truth, democracy, the Constitution, public safety or any other damn thing, resorted to crimes in an attempt to defraud the American people regarding our presidential election. Trump and his people did everything they could to delay his reckoning regarding January 6th, but he can't actually delay people being forewarned and forearmed--he lied about one election, and he is just bound and determined to lie about this one. 

What Trump tried to do in 2020 was election interference. This right here right now, is letting you know what he does and plans to try again. Disenfranchising people in swing states, by fraudulently messing with our votes, is something I take very personally. He says bad things happen in Philadelphia, and I may be a bad thing happening in Philadelphia myself, but I am a very legitimate voter and you DON'T try to throw out my vote without me taking it very personally.  

My feminist foremamas didn't hit picket lines and get forcefed in prison for me to not get pissed when someone tried to first of all steal my vote and then use it to support anti-woman policies like banning abortion, birth control, or any other thing that liberates me and my sisters. And I fucking mean as a White lady to correct the past by supporting the right to vote and the right of having the votes counted of the Black and Brown people Trump (and the Republican party) want to exclude.

The Things They Say

 

The desperation is hilarious. https://t.co/8OZ0H0y44C pic.twitter.com/Owr6iTAPaO

— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) September 1, 2024

(This post been busted--here's a link adjacent as fuck.) I should have saved the image. 

The same kind of people who think Kamala Harris never saluted also are mad Barack Obama saluted once with a coffee cup or wore a tan suit that one time.  The same kind of people will boldly assert she doesn't know where Arlington Cemetery is, when she knows the route. Someone like Senator Tom Cotton, who wrote a book about Arlington, can say with some confidence that Biden and Harris should have attended an event to which they were not invited on his weekly Sunday chat shot hit. (Yes, weekly, and why? Do people want to see this mook?) He says it with confidence not because it's true, but because he doesn't expect to be thrown out on his ear. 

This is the guy who wrote the letter ages ago that recommended we back out of the JCPOA, and it was literally one of the dumbest foreign policy decisions ever. He's an open partisan whose opinions aren't to be trusted--ergo, he's on tv every week. 

Apparently, the media just exists to air opinions without context. 

TWGB: The Thrill of the Crowd

 

Donald Trump falsely claims on Truth Social that Kamala Harris' campaign "faked" the size of her crowd at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, saying that "there was nobody there".

The crowd at the airport in Detroit was very real, as numerous videos and images from the rally prove. pic.twitter.com/mRx34gvBRe

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) August 11, 2024

There are a handful of stories percolating around TrumpWorld that are pretty fascinating to me--for starters, yesterday, we found out that the Trump Campaign had been HACKED! Possibly by foreign actors hostile to the United States, with the intent of influencing the election! 

To which my first reaction as a 2016 Clinton voter is:

 <<<<HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA>>>>

 But no, really, that is horrible. The details are a little funky, though. The hack seems to have been an exploit due to a phishing email--shouldn't campaigns be totally training their people on how not to get "reeled in" by now? Also, Politico got a trove of docs from "Robert" from an AOL email address which included a dossier on JD Vance. 

So, let me get this straight: a hacker using a basic scammer skillset, with an AOL account, dumps docs on a Trump-friendly outfit that includes info on the Appalachian-adjacent Yale albatross that rumor has it some Trump advisors want to deep-six? And of course, having learned their lesson from eight years ago (and Trump being Republican) the very scrupulous media will not lend our enemies aid and comfort by divulging wrongfully obtained materials?

I'm just saying you could be forgiven if a little part of you wanted to believe this was an inside job. I mean, I don't doubt the campaign could have been exploited But there is exploited, and then there is....

I don't know what this is. 

TWGB: Art of the Deal

 

Trump claims he can free a journalist imprisoned by Russia, after he wins the election, but before he takes office, definitely. There's tons of reasons to be skeptical or, I would actually say--extremely appalled. Tom Nichols knows a bit about Russia, and he's pretty sure Trump is full of shit, but isn't the interesting part that he wants him there until after the election? 

I would add--isn't it pretty interesting he has this special relationship, and never used it during his presidency?

As a former wrongful detainee in Russia, I would just like to remind everyone that President Trump had the ability to get myself and Paul Whelan out of Russia for years and chose not to. I would be skeptical of any claims about getting Evan Gershkovich back in a day.

— Trevorrowdyreed🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@trevorrowdyreed) May 24, 2024

I mean--he did things that were great for Putin--but not for the US?  He thinks he has a relationship but what he isn't going to have is leverage because he is a soft weak pudding of a man who never cared about anything but himself. Because he made an imprisoned journalist, just now, about himself and his election. 

Sort of in the way he made a border bill about him, and deferred it until he was (he hopes) back in office, and could take credit. The way he shut down the government in 2018 because he panicked about his future and wanted border wall money when he no longer had control of the House. And what did he get?

Impeached. Because he was still making deals for himself and not doing whatever it was he promised he would do in office. 

The Elephant at the Protest

 

I am completely opposed to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, I genuinely think the Rafah operation will be a bloodbath and should be reconsidered, and I am highly skeptical that the eradication of Hamas is fully possible without what already are proving to be unacceptable human casualties. I want to believe that in a different political situation, Gazans might want something more like Fatah (which Hamas exterminated in that region) leading them in an autonomous state. I support the free speech rights of the protesters at various colleges, even to the extent that I am dubious of the effect of the protests and don't truly believe they are as well-informed as they need to be.

I do not want a recap of National Guard breaking heads at Berkeley, or Kent State. Reactionaries are looking for the opportunity to have hardhat riots and so on, and some people are openly fantasizing about the Democratic National Convention being another 1968. 

Given my feelings about all of the above, let me be that wet-blanket Gen X asshat who wants to tell the children, ever so delicately--the hell you are doing the same thing my parents' generation did. When pro-Palestinians all say "Genocide Joe", maybe they think they are just echoing their grandparents' asking LBJ how many kids he killed that day. But Joe isn't dropping the bombs, and Israel is getting incoming missiles all the time from Hamas, Hezbollah, and there is a threat of war from Iran.

Which leads me to point out that young man in the picture above with the Hezbollah flag--with a machine gun on it. Almost a gentle hippie, just repping something that is by no means a peace movement, but terrorism. 

When 1968 begat Nixon, he prolonged the Vietnam War. No, really. My dad's generation was drafted. He (Nixon) on the advice of Kissinger, prolonged the war. 

Biden Isn't Your Goddamn Dartboard

 

🚨 BREAKING President Biden convened a call this afternoon with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, President Macron of France, Chancellor Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Meloni of Italy, and Prime Minister Sunak of the United Kingdom regarding the ongoing conflict between Israel… pic.twitter.com/4NRHaYDkJE

— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) October 22, 2023

This week, I unfollowed a lot of people on social media for unloading on President Biden for shit that wasn't exactly his call. The US has been in Israel's corner since Biden was in short pants. He had to go to Israel and embrace Netanyahu--not man to man, but as one world leader to another under a brutal circumstance, because he's trying to hold back a more brutal and fucked up outcome. 

Young people are taking to the streets calling for a ceasefire worldwide and in Israel, a major demonstration for Netanyahu to resign just now (and also earlier this year, and last year, and jn 2021...) tells the tale: maybe there is some reasoning behind a military operation to rout out all of Hamas for Netanyahu, but it will not be a successful mission at saving Israeli lives. It's like a trap, Hezbollah and other players are looking for the go sign. They want the US sucked in, too.

How do I know? How the hell does anyone know? Reading the tealeaves. The Hamas attacks were calculated to invite an extreme response. Netanyahu and IDF intelligence got caught sleeping on a two year old plot, when his "brand" was always that the harsh treatment of Palestinians that made negotiations impossible were to "keep people safe." 

Safety is a lie. 

TWGB: Flipping Bricks

 

Well, here's to having the kind of week in the news where a journey into TrumpWorld actually feels like a bit of a vacation. And before I get things started, let's hear it for this week's TrumpWorld winner, though he doesn't even know it, Jim Jordan, for not becoming Speaker of the House. I used to joke about a tough job as "leading the clowns and following the elephants"--and that's what GOP Speaker would look like right now. Jimmy--enjoy doing less. I hope to enjoy you doing less and less in the future. It suits you. 

Now on to TrumpWorld--obviously, the big story this week is out of Fulton County where Sidney Powell and now Kenneth Chesebro have entered plea agreements with cooperation.  This does a handful of things--shocks TrumpWorld because some folks probably thought Powell was too batshit to get flipped: nah, she's a lawyer and figured out how screwed she was--and with the addition of Chesebro, um, probably Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani should be getting on the phone about getting correct, you think? 

By admitting guilt, they are highlighting that the conspiracy was real and by agreeing to talk about it without Trump and the other co-conspirators getting the benefit of watching those speedy trials get played out for them, they are giving some folks specters of not a penny or a dime dropping, but a whole Coinstar machine falling out. Happy Halloween being haunted with the ghosts of felonies past and sentences future, you guys!

TWGB: You Don't Have to Hand it to Hezbollah

Trump's reckless stream-of-consciousness diatribes are sometimes more revealing than he thinks they are. What does it say about the man when he feels the need to say that "Hezbollah is very smart" and that he has some beef with Netanyahu going back to the US strike on Iran's General Soleimani? You have to wind of the tangled thread of his speech; he might not know that Hezbollah is based in Lebanon making striking Israel in the north sort of logical: what should they do, go around?  He mentions the failure of Iran's intelligence. He says Netanyahu was unprepared...

Many people are saying, as the formulation goes, that Trump is really actually made at Netanyahu for acknowledging Biden's win over him in 2020 and for his gratitude at US support now. Trump is, in other words, jealous and feeling upstaged. This might make sense of another weird detail of Trump's ramblings lately, his insistence that Barack Obama is Joe Biden's boss. He needs to credit the competence of his political rival to someone else.

This Was Not Resistance

 

“And as you might have seen, there was some sort of rave or desert party where they were having a great time, until the resistance came in electrified hang gliders and took at least several dozen hipsters” Speeches held at the ‘All Out For Palestine’ protest outside the Israeli… pic.twitter.com/JXLpPIvW6A

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) October 8, 2023

Hundreds of young concert-goers were killed, survivors were raped. They were young people: not the oppressors. Resistance discriminates. It uses necessary force. This was blood lust. This is why I don't feel a part of the far left: they suck. The DSA constantly uses division and smug up-fuckery to fail to accomplish even the merest goals. I noticed fucking PLO posters carried during the anti-Iraq war march 20 years ago. Fuck, people. Concentrate on one clear atrocity and stop being fellow travelers with bullshit. 

For example, Codepink dressed in weird costumes and played Pick-me Progressives and did nothing to end the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars because no one took them seriously. They protested against striking on ISIS. Also against striking Assad for the chem attacks, which I in retrospect wish Obama did. Because fuck that guy.

And here's Code Pink seen just recently snuggling up to Marjorie Taylor Green's gym-sweaty armpit:

The war in Ukraine must END!

Today, I met brave @codepink activists who protested for peace in Bernie Sanders’ office. He had 11 of them arrested!

Peace & free speech shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

We don’t agree on most things, but we do agree Congress should STOP fueling the… pic.twitter.com/uFzenFyMNn

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) October 4, 2023

Being exactly who one might expect:

Palestinians have every right to resist with force up to and including the murder of civilians and rape currently being committed by HAMAS, but Ukraine does not have the right to resist the murdering and rapist Russians who are hell-bent on occupying them? Ok. That's certainly...a take. 

The Hamas Assault and the Great Opportunity

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel says the deadly attack on Israel is a “great opportunity” for Republicans pic.twitter.com/hfcZhHG4Mu

— DNC War Room (@DNCWarRoom) October 7, 2023

There is nothing, nothing, like a tragedy to awaken the urge in Republicans to blame Democrats for it. I don't need to go further back than Benghazi. But I don't want to dwell on that--I will. I don't want to.

The missile strikes on Israeli citizens by Hamas is an unpardonable and wretched provocation that does nothing to liberate a single soul in Gaza. You can empathize with the cause of everyday Palestinians, and still nothing should come more naturally to you than to condemn this appalling and coordinated, obviously long-planned attack on Israeli civilians. They have slaughtered and terrorized families and kidnapped children. Whatever good will I have for Palestinian people and their plight, this is no answer for that. And long history shows the response will only be more misery for the Palestinian people. Hamas is a bad actor, and backed by Hezbollah. The competence of the attack and its failure to be caught ahead of time is owing to materiel support from outside and systemic intelligence failure within Israel's borders.

What does that mean?  It means this wasn't planned in a minute or on the fly, and yeah, I think Iran had something to do with it. I also think it's likely that strategic intelligence and military attention was directed elsewhere (the settlements) instead of expecting intifada. And while I deplore what is happening and the terror Israeli people are facing, that the retaliation will be on Palestinian people as a whole and will not just likely decimate Hamas is tragic. 

The problems of the ME are tragic. I can support the human problem without wanting to see genocide as an answer. For many Americans, however, the troubles in Israel's borders are abstractions. And that is what uncanny valley-faced RNC chair Ronna McDaniel is talking about--abstracting the conflict to be somehow the fault of the Biden Administration. 

You hear that? The deaths of hundreds of people in the nation of our ally was "a great opportunity". And all the little pischers jumped to lying about what happened and blamed the recent hostage deal for what happened just to smear Joe Biden. 

Take J. D. Vance:

Vance already has horrific takes on Ukraine, so why not be fucked up about Israel? Actually, is he going to finish up by sucking Bashar al-Assad off, because that's the usual trajectory for people with this much Putin-enabled shit-opinions. Israel has every right to defend itself (does Ukraine?) But didn't Vance KNOW the unfreezing of $6B assets of Iran oil money located in Doha banks and being watched over by the US Treasury, can only be spent on food and medicine and not a penny has even been touched yet? 

And are a whole mess of other Republicans also repeating the same lie Vance is?

TWGB: The Tale of the Tape

 

"I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case you know.... Except it is like, highly confidential."

That's a quote from the tape CNN played last night as an exclusive. It's Trump, at Bedminster, talking about one of the documents that proves his case. What case--does it absolve him of the Russia Hoax or the first impeachment? 

Nah. Just a pissing contest he's having in his own mind with chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, FGen Mark Milley. 

That audio comes from open pissing and moaning about, among other things, Trump's need to be right, and a discussion about how, supposedly, Hillary Clinton handled secret documents. "Please print" was a joke between Trump and a suck-up aide of his that can be heard on the tape. Irony of ironies: he knows having this stuff printed out is wrong, and here he is, with the actual paper in his hand.

Triggering My Hippie-Punching Reflex

 

Yes, the anti-war left is starting to rise! Here we are in Detroit calling for negotiations in Ukraine. We are holding teach-ins, marching, lobbying Congress. Join us. #peaceinUkraine pic.twitter.com/LYfQIf6FcJ

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) October 17, 2022

I am the part of the left that actually thinks you should actively fight aggressors because oppression is bad and human rights violations are always wrong, and I think the people who don't understand that are actually unprincipled cowards who stand for pacifism at any cost because they can't fathom any cause worth fighting and even dying for.  Me, I fight fascists. I support the fight against the rashists. 

Russia is a terrorist state. They oppress Ukraine, and their own people. They are press ganging people in ethnic minority enclaves to fight this war and are basically intentionally using them as cannon fodder. They have announced militia law in the "annexed" territories which I think means press-ganging Ukrainians to fight other Ukrainians. This might go as well as the event where a low-level officer harangued ethnic Russians about their religious affiliation, to a sound and fatal fragging. 

There is no negotiation with people who have left behind all decency, and even mouthpiece Lavrov is telling us that Russia isn't open to negotiating with "the West".  Not if we're all hung up on who started what and committed genocidal activity upon whom and all that. They can send their useful idiots to talk about negotiation against the day they need it, but they are still on the brutal path that merits no quarter.

Bella Ciao

 

Persian version of the 19th century Italian protest folk song, Bella Ciao. #MahsaAmini #IranProtests pic.twitter.com/DZq4MHJbbU

— Habib Khan (@HabibKhanT) September 24, 2022

Bella ciao,

Ukrainian soldiers singing the the Italian anti-fascist resistance anthem 'Bella Ciao'.pic.twitter.com/918S2NQK9o

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) September 28, 2022

Bella, ciao, ciao, ciao.

UPDATE: So, I have always associated this song with anti-fascism, but there is some historical doubt whether the Italian antifascisti used it during WW2 (it certainly became a thing afterwards), but I came across this neat thing when checking Wikipedia about the melody:

A possible origin of the melody was identified by researcher Fausto Giovannardi, following the discovery of a Yiddish melody (Koilen song) recorded by a Klezmer accordionist of Ukrainian origin, Mishka Ziganoff, in 1919 in New York. According to the scholar Rod Hamilton of The British Library in London, "Koilen" would be a version of "Dus Zekele Koilen" (The bag of coal), of which there are various versions dating back to the 1920s.^[13][14]

So, in being sung by the Ukrainian soldiers, it was like the song found its' way home. The song Italians know as being a song that was about field workers in Italy, is in Yiddish about finding coal to heat one's home because without it, it means disaster for everyone's health. 

And Russia is threatening Europe about interrupting a part of their winter heating supply in order to try and gain some kind of leverage they have no business asking for over other peoples' freedom and right to choose their government.  It is beautiful to me that this song has been used by movements for human dignity all over the world. Because what it speaks to, in the Italian lyrics, is resistance. It means there are conditions under which no one would want to live, and the fight against the intolerable.

My support is always with those who fight for their dignity, and against the oppressor. Fuck Putin. Fuck the Ayatollah. Fuck Christian Nationalism. Fuck every death-dealing oppressor of the human spirit and denier of human dignity. 

Blowback Isn't Always Immediate

 

Breaking News: The Justice Dept. charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday for plotting to kill John Bolton, a Trump-era national security adviser. Prosecutors said the man had offered $300,000 to hire someone to kill Bolton. https://t.co/oHbuJ5ocXG

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 10, 2022

Amidst Trump's Mar-a-Lago search warrant drama and the recent serving of several PA legislators over the false electors' scheme, the story of an assassination plot against John Bolton as a late retaliation over the slaying of General Suleimani surfaces for me as an example of something that US foreign/military policy sometimes fails at: theory of mind. The idea that our allies and enemies alike have the agency and will to respond in proportion and according to their own schedule is something that the "deciders" sometimes miss--almost as if they believe they are playing a game where the "other side" consists of NPC's.

That there would be blowback of some kind should have been obvious. That former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also a possible target of Iran's Revolutionary Guard would not shock me. And naturally, none of this helps the attempt to renew the JCPOA that the Trump Administration fecklessly scuttled. 

The decision to escalate tensions with Iran was a Trump Administration fuckup we will be dealing with for some time. It wasn't necessary--it was ideological, and yes, Bolton and Pompeo were obvious anti-Iran antagonists and I nonetheless do not endorse their mortal peril because of the decision that ultimately came down to a green and under-prepared CinC who may have thought the exercise was about dick-measuring and clout.

It is simply as natural as night following the day--actions do have consequences. It's not that the IRG's assassination plot is acceptable--no! But it isn't unexpected when you appreciate the other side has a side.  

The Totalitarian Dysfunction

 

It makes sense to me to start this post with Madison Cawthorn and his disturbing embrace of Putin and Hitler. I don't know enough about Cawthorn's family to judge anything from them but that Cawthorn was homeschooled and got his biases somewhere. The love evangelicals have for Putin feels wrong after hearing conservatives for so long decry "godless commies" in Russia. But the big problem they have is with the godless, multicultural liberals here, so they can kind of ignore the necessary multiculturalism of Russian imperialism and the dictates that actually exclude evangelism in favor of his nods to the orthodox church and the total capture of the state apparatus, from media to military. It's like Putin got all seven mountains going for him.  (And weirdly, atheism is not actually how most Russians identify--it's about 13% according to one poll. The jury is out on the number of actual US atheists. I'd like to think it was that high.) 

But anyway based on whatever, somehow the youngest GOP Rep. decided it was okay to demonize Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president who is a former tv actor and won a democratic election, as a thug and called him woke to just add extra stink on the shot. 

The GOP Still Supports Putin's Puppet

 

You know, the more time goes by, the more I wonder what exactly was said between Trump and Putin at Helsinki, because the physical attitude of Trump and Putin couldn't have looked more like a smiling owner and a chastised pup. I think about this now because of the stark contrast between the attitudes of Trump and Biden, naturally. I also think of it because Republicans who want to criticize Biden at this moment seem to have lost the plot, if they ever even had it. 

Take today--Devin Nunes doesn't entirely understand why the Biden Administration is telegraphing the moves of Putin before they are made. Why have intelligence, and act on it? It seems deliberately dense to not understand that circumventing disinfo like a false flag operation is acting in a time-sensitive fashion to derail Russia's plans, and that the revelation is about advising Russia and the region that the US has eyes on. If Nunes does not get this, he's daft. But I think he might understand this, and is merely grousing that things are being made harder for Team Trump's favorite dictator. 

After all, one upon a time, Republicans like Nunes would have totally thought that sharing is caring regarding Trump talking to Lavrov and Kislyak in the Oval Office, of all places, about highly sensitive things. That was an amazing act, as much as his obligingly servile claim to have gotten rid of Comey just to end the Russia, Russia, Russia investigation (which did not happen). 

So before I hear shit about Biden in any foreign policy capacity, I need Republicans to admit that Trump came off during his four year learning experience of how to almost world leader like Peter Griffin at his terrorist pool party. 

And I need to them to also admit that unlike Trump, Biden is capable of putting American interests actually first. Which I think they are too scummy to admit, but which he actually does, and kiddos, this is why we never trust Republicans. 

 

I also think it's funny when a certain party suggests that the White House release the transcript of Biden's calls with Zelenskyy. Oh, this sweet summer child, someone in the White House has access to the transcripts of many of Trump's "perfect calls" and I doubt that game is something they want to actually play. And no, it isn't a game.  This is real life, where many Ukranians can die and we should support democracies as the supposed leader of the free world. And not extort their leaders or just be ignorant anti-NATO puppets of Putin. 

Republicans Aren't Patriots Anymore, They Admit

 

New: Nearly 200 House Republicans have written to President Biden warning any nuclear deal made with Iran without Congress' approval "will meet the same fate" as the 2015 agreement by President Obama later abandoned by President Trump. w @zacharybasu https://t.co/OEzlmxdg40

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) February 17, 2022

Look, this isn't new. Obviously, this is the same fuckery as we saw in 2015 when freshman Senator Tom Cotton decided to get very fresh and formulate a movement against the one thing a reasonable democratic government could do: multilaterally negotiate in good faith and encourage inspections backed with relief of sanctions--to encourage Iran to step into a better 21st century agreement with us. And the GOP House contingent backing this is not accomplishing anything, actually, except for stating their willingness to fuck things up.

It's sort of weird that this is a theocratic thing: people wanting to do what certain Israel right-wingers prefer because of end-time reasons that you could look up if you felt like being really depressed about humankind. But in the real world, it would be actually great if we did actually useful things to discourage people thinking nukes are a solution because nuclear war is bad.  

Nearly 200 House Republicans don't think diplomacy regarding a nuclear Iran is worth admitting that diplomacy is a thing or Democratic government is legitimate. They are goddamn near revealing themselves to be lower than Iran hardliners on this score. They want to positively state that the very nature of democratic government is not to be trusted. They will never put US interests first if there is a specific political need for their party. They will always fuck over Democrats if they can. 

Even if it makes things demonstrably worse.  

I really can not stand these fuckers. They have no moral core, and don't know a good thing from a bad thing. They only know signifying for an audience that is dumb as hell. They can't even show the leadership needed to explain why their dumbass people are wrong, they would rather be popular than right. And this is wrong on so many levels. 

UPDATE: I'm the least professional person writing about this, because I'm literally putting out statements like "I hate these fuckers" (but I do, because acting like when the US government switched from a Democrat to a Republican in the WH means we are a whole new entity, as if we aren't one of the longest running democracies, is entire ass)  but there's kind of a FU clause in the new dealings:  

The Middle Eastern diplomat and an Iranian official indicated, however, that Tehran was prepared to accept a lesser measure - that in the event of a U.S. violation of the pact, Iran would be allowed to enrich to up to 60% purity again.

And frankly, I'm cool with that, because the US is the party that withdrew from the multilateral deal and the party whose participation undergirds whether Iran stays on target, so yeah, put in writing that reneging has a consequence because the soft skulled crabs who want no part of it don't seem to understand what the whole deal is about. 

We Don't Live in Bipartisan Times

Sen. @ewarren is 25 minutes into a fiery speech on the Senate floor about voting rights and the filibuster. Go watch.

“Today’s filibuster doesn’t encourage debate, it promotes cowardice.” pic.twitter.com/Nn3RbA68Yr

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) January 19, 2022

Professor Warren explains the truth--cowards can hide behind the rationale that "We can't get to 60, so what does taking a stand matter." That's what infuriates me about Manchin and Sinema right now. They are pretending that they are standing up for a principle of bipartisanship and not making the divide between Republicans and Democrats worse, but what they are really doing is failing to make a stand. Absent the filibuster, the votes fall where they may. 

We all know we'd be hard-pressed to find a Republican right now putting their vote on limiting state legislatures' ability to suppress voting because they are going to talk about federal power grabs and states' rights, and if that doesn't sound familiar! I'd love to make the Republican party expound at length on that subject so we could tell exactly where they stood. 

Please, have them defend everything from restrictions to mail-in voting to DeSantis' possible vote cops (I imagine crackers with bullet heads and necks exceeding their jawlines carrying blackjacks and being prone to saying shit like "You don't look like you're from around here" and "Who all is your people?"). In lieu of that, though, just based on our current composition in the Senate, I'd like Sinema and Manchin to put their vote where their ideals are supposed to be, let VP Harris settle the matter, and go forward with voter rights better protected.

Where we are now is at a stupid state where Senator Romney pretends it is a darn shame President Biden didn't reach out to him. If Senator Romney was so moved to think voting rights needed to be protected, he could have reached out his damn self. Senator Murkowski might be persuaded--but is she not a grown woman who understands politics? Ditto all GOP senators. If they have an opinion, fuck it, put it on the damn table, like grown people. But also, explain voter purges, and defend poll places miles from where some voters live, and long lines, and how unequal access impacts outcomes. And if that wasn't even the intent of such voter suppression laws in the first place. They need to be put on notice that they can't bitch about being called racist for supporting those "states' rights" bills if they can't defend the obvious demographic choices that made them what they are.  Put the GOP on the spot for what they have come to stand for, after the Voter Rights bill had been so universally approved-of not so long before.