Leave the strategy to the high IQ, chopOriginally Posted by chop2chip
Leave the strategy to the high IQ, chop
Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe he's as bad or worse than McCarthy.
I think we have started to depart the “but he’s just doing what Kevin McCarthy would do” territory
Ever since Johnson stopped the border bill (something McCarthy would have passed) he's pretty much gone downhill.
Johnson has used the excuse that we can't have Putin running over Europe. Putin doesn't have the capability for that. That's been pretty much proven.
Last edited by Garmel; 04-18-2024 at 08:07 AM.
April 18, 2024
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
APR 19
I will not spend the rest of 2024 focusing on Trump and the chaos in the Republican Party, but today it has been impossible to look away.
In Trump’s election interference trial in Manhattan, Judge Juan Merchan this morning dismissed one of the selected jurors after she expressed concern for her anonymity and thus for her safety. All of the reporters in the courtroom have shared so much information about the jurors that they seemed at risk of being identified, but Fox News Channel host Jesse Watters not only ran a video segment about a juror, he suggested she was “concerning.” Trump shared the video on social media.
The juror told the judge that so much information about her had become public that her friends and family had begun to ask her if she was one of the jurors. Legal analyst Joyce White Vance noted jurors’ fear for their safety was a concern normally seen only “in a case involving violent organized crime.”
Nonetheless, by the end of the day, twelve people had been chosen to serve as jurors. Tomorrow the process will continue in order to find six alternate jurors.
It is a courtesy for the two sides at a trial to share with each other the names of their next witnesses so the other team can prepare for them. Today the prosecution declined to provide the names of their first three witnesses to the defense lawyers out of concern that Trump would broadcast them on social media. “Mr. Trump has been tweeting about the witnesses. We’re not telling them who the witnesses are,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.
Merchan said he “can’t blame them.” Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche offered to "commit to the court and the [prosecution] that President Trump will not [post] about any witness" on social media. "I don't think you can make that representation," Merchan said, in a recognition that Trump cannot be trusted, even by his own lawyers.
An article in the New York Times today confirmed that the trial will give Trump plenty of publicity, but not the kind that he prefers. Lawyer Norman L. Eisen walked through questions about what a prison sentence for Trump could look like.
Trump’s popular image is taking a hit in other ways, as well. Zac Anderson and Erin Mansfield of USA Today reported that Trump is funneling money from his campaign fundraising directly into his businesses. According to a new report filed with the Federal Election Commission, in February and March the campaign wrote checks totaling $411,287 to Mar-a-Lago and in March a check for $62,337 to Trump National Doral Miami.
Experts say it is legal for candidates to pay their own businesses for services used by the campaign so long as they pay fair market value. At the same time, they note that since Trump appears to be desperate for money, “it looks bad.”
Astonishingly, Trump’s trial was not the biggest domestic story today. Republicans in Congress were in chaos as members of the extremist Freedom Caucus worked to derail the national security supplemental bills that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has introduced in place of the Senate bill, although they track that bill closely.
The House Rules Committee spent the day debating the foreign aid package, which appropriates aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan separately. The Israel bill also contains $9.1 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza and other countries. A fourth bill focuses on forcing the Chinese owners of TikTok to sell the company, as well as on imposing sanctions on Russia and Iran.
At stake in the House Rules Committee was Johnson’s plan to allow the House to debate and vote on each measure separately, and then recombine them all into a single measure if they all pass. This would allow extremist Republicans to vote against aid to Ukraine, while still tying the pieces all together to send to the Senate. As Robert Jimison outlined in the New York Times, this complicated plan meant that the Rules Committee vote to allow such a maneuver was crucial to the bill’s passage.
The extremist House Republicans were adamantly opposed to the plan because of their staunch opposition to aid for Ukraine. They wrote in a memo on Wednesday: “This tactic allows Johnson to pass priorities favored by President Biden, the swamp and the Ukraine war machine with a supermajority of House members, leaving conservatives out to dry.”
Extremists Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) vowed to throw House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) out of the speakership, but Democrats Tom Suozzi of New York and Jared Moskowitz of Florida have said they would vote to keep him in his seat, thereby defanging the attack on his leadership.
So the extremists instead tried to load the measures up with amendments prohibiting funds from being used for abortion, removing humanitarian aid for Gaza, opposing a two-state solution to the Hamas-Israel war, calling for a wall at the southern border of the U.S., defunding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and so on.
Greene was especially active in opposition to aid to Ukraine. She tried to amend the bill to direct the president to withdraw the U.S. from NATO and demanded that any members of Congress voting for aid to Ukraine be conscripted into the Ukraine army as well as have their salaries taken to offset funding. She wanted to stop funding until Ukraine “turns over all information related to Hunter Biden and Burisma,” and to require Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to resign. More curiously, she suggested amending the Ukraine bill so that funding would require “restrictions on ethnic minorities’, including Hungarians in Transcarpathia, right to use their native languages in schools are lifted.” This language echoes a very specific piece of Russian propaganda.
Finally, Moskowitz proposed “that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene…should be appointed as Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”
Many congress members have left Washington, D.C., since Friday was to be the first day of a planned recess. This meant the partisan majority on the floor fluctuated. Olivia Beavers of Politico reported that that instability made Freedom Caucus members nervous enough to put together a Floor Action Response Team (FART—I am not making this up) to make sure other Republicans didn’t limit the power of the extremists when they were off the floor.
The name of their response team seems likely to be their way to signal their disrespect for the entire Congress. Their fellow Republicans are returning the heat. Today Mike Turner (R-OH) referred to the extremists as the Bully Caucus on MSNBC and said, “We need to get back to professionalism, we need to get back to governing, we need to get back to legislating.” Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) told Juliegrace Brufke of Axios: "The vast majority of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives...are sick and tired of having people who...constantly blackmail the speaker of the House.”
Another Republican representative, Jake LaTurner of Kansas, announced today he will not run for reelection. He joins more than 20 other Republican representatives heading for the exits.
After all the drama, the House Rules Committee voted 6–3 tonight to advance the foreign aid package to the House floor. Three Republicans voted nay. While it is customary for the opposition party to vote against advancing bills out of the committee, the Democrats broke with tradition and voted in favor.
The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to make sure he doesn’t get a gun.
^ moron
She really is one of the dumbest people on the planet.
Harvard
Sounds like TR
Sint awe what is so dunb advocating for people iwithout that voice is kinda her job
I don't know what you're saying here but I understand why one of the few people dumber than her thinks she's smart
Apple does engage in anti-competitive behavior with regards to the app store. I'm aboard with going after them for that.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Runnin (04-21-2024)
Costco engages in anti competitive behavior by prioritizing the kirkland brand over competitive brands.
Bastards!
iMessage is a messaging app just like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, etc. are messaging apps (all available for free on iPhone). People are free to use whatever platform they want to communicate with whom they want.
acesfull86 (04-19-2024)
MAGA MIKE JOHNSON!
The "problem" is that iMessage and apple message ar ethe default messaging service from Apple. They're going to be integrating RCS.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
Thank you Matt Gaetz!!!
Maybe one day we'll get a good Speaker.
Lest anyone forget both McCarthy and Johnson are treason weasels who voted to disenfranchise the voters of Arizona and Pennsylvania on January 6th. They are fitting leaders for a conference that largely consists of treason weasels. The fun part is that it turns out that treason weasels are cannibals.
Last edited by nsacpi; 04-20-2024 at 04:58 PM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
lol
Bon Appétit
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
Brian Tyler Cohen
@briantylercohen
·
23h
Still can’t get over the fact that Republicans insisted on pairing
foreign aid with border security… GOT EXACTLY WHAT THEY ASKED FOR…
only to then KILL IT because Trump told them to… and
ended up passing only foreign aid anyway.
Masterful gambit, Republicans. Well done.
The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to make sure he doesn’t get a gun.
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