Trump is a piece shit that has managed embed itself into pop culture, despite be extremely foul. Gaetz is some shithead that few outside his district knew about until he helped with insurrection. The dynamics don't strike me being as such that he'll get to walk away; especially, when the DoJ is run by people that don't feel a need to keep the GOP's shit hidden because they fear making the party look weak. Plus, it seems like there is plenty of damning evidence that he did what he is accused off. It doesn't sound like it's stuff that can be mucked up by claiming "hearsay" or being implied by other evidence. Finally, he is some shitty low ranked republican representative and doesn't hold a position strong enough that much of the GOP will feel inclined to cover for his ass.
Gaetz is a fucking nobody, and when even tucker carlson won't carry water for you you know you're well and truly fucked.
And frankly, after the past 4 years theres a good chance the DOJ wants to clarify that they aren't republican toadies.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Also Matt Gaetz doesn’t actually mean anything.
From a purely numbers game the republicans can cut him loose, and it doesn’t cost anything because he’s a house rep from Florida in a heavily gop district. So they’ll burn him, let him go to prison their republican governor will appoint someone milktoast republican so they can safely keep the seat. He’s a nobody with no leverage.
Tough to say if Gaetz will see any actual punishment from this. Things going against him include that Greenberg's system was bad enough to catch the attention of Bill Barr's DoJ, and Gaetz is way too dumb to have kept his nose clean enough for plausible deniability. Also, Gaetz seems to think this is a "you have to tell me if you're cop" situation in that he really seems to believe that the wink wink "you're my girlfriend right?" bit absolutely means he can't be found guilty of sex trafficking underage escorts. Which like, good luck with that Matt.
Things going for him...this involves the State of Florida so the dumbest outcome is the most likely one. And neither the Republican voters or the judicial system believe in holding guys like Matt Gaetz accountable.
If I'm being serious though, I don't think Matt is ducking federal charges and a guilty verdict unless he turns tattle on Greenberg, and it sounds like they already have all they need to convict Greenberg.
Dark_Side on
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Man, remember when Matt Gaetz was going to Wyoming to shit on Liz Cheney?
Liz Cheney, the third most powerful Republican in the House remembers.
Honestly though, what the fuck? That excerpt from his “book” posted a little bit ago says it all: get on tv, the policy is secondary. For him, making noise is governing, being a cable celebrity is statesmanship, being a pariah is validation. That’s what it is to most Republicans. Cool, you have to pay minors to hang out with you, you fucking nobody.
Edit: And why the fuck isn’t Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for Gaetz to resign or be executed? MTG, open and avowed member of the Q movement, whose sole aim is to protect children. It’s downright fucking weird that she isn’t making noise about this. It’s almost as if all that shit is made up and even the diehards know it.
ouchies on
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
QAnoners give as much shit about children as anti-abortion activists do, which is to say, they only care about hypothetical imaginary kids which can be used for their self-aggrandizement. They would throw actual children in woodchippers if given half a chance.
Of course Greene doesn't care - she only cares about her tribe of rabid insane ultra-right-wingers who worship power, and Gaetz is a part of her tribe. Gaetz will probably get a boost instead of any sort of censor or punishment, become more powerful and influential instead of less. There aren't just no consequences for wrongdoing - there are rewards. Look at their lord and messiah Donald Trump.
House Seats cannot be appointed. It's left vacant until the results of a special election.
I didn’t know that, but even still his number doesn’t account for anything.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
House Seats cannot be appointed. It's left vacant until the results of a special election.
I didn’t know that, but even still his number doesn’t account for anything.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
And it also improves the optics of those who come out against him because “they are above partisanship, and will fight the good fight even if it is one of their own.”
Like, any congressman who has hinted at morale supperiority/family values/strong faith that doesn't condemn this is basically writing attack adds for their opponents.
Man, remember when Matt Gaetz was going to Wyoming to shit on Liz Cheney?
Liz Cheney, the third most powerful Republican in the House remembers.
Honestly though, what the fuck? That excerpt from his “book” posted a little bit ago says it all: get on tv, the policy is secondary. For him, making noise is governing, being a cable celebrity is statesmanship, being a pariah is validation. That’s what it is to most Republicans. Cool, you have to pay minors to hang out with you, you fucking nobody.
Edit: And why the fuck isn’t Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for Gaetz to resign or be executed? MTG, open and avowed member of the Q movement, whose sole aim is to protect children. It’s downright fucking weird that she isn’t making noise about this. It’s almost as if all that shit is made up and even the diehards know it.
Nah. You see the deep state is framing Gaetz because he has been so instrumental in exposing them
House Seats cannot be appointed. It's left vacant until the results of a special election.
I didn’t know that, but even still his number doesn’t account for anything.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
And it also improves the optics of those who come out against him because “they are above partisanship, and will fight the good fight even if it is one of their own.”
all that is a detriment to the current crop of gop
Man, remember when Matt Gaetz was going to Wyoming to shit on Liz Cheney?
Liz Cheney, the third most powerful Republican in the House remembers.
Honestly though, what the fuck? That excerpt from his “book” posted a little bit ago says it all: get on tv, the policy is secondary. For him, making noise is governing, being a cable celebrity is statesmanship, being a pariah is validation. That’s what it is to most Republicans. Cool, you have to pay minors to hang out with you, you fucking nobody.
Edit: And why the fuck isn’t Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for Gaetz to resign or be executed? MTG, open and avowed member of the Q movement, whose sole aim is to protect children. It’s downright fucking weird that she isn’t making noise about this. It’s almost as if all that shit is made up and even the diehards know it.
With Q Anon, it's not "democrats are PEDOPHILES" it's "DEMOCRATS are pedophiles'. They only care about trying to generate hate and violence against their political enemies, they give precisely zero shits about the victims of sex trafficking. Pedophilia and sex trafficking, along with the Satan worship and cannibalism, are just the worst things they can think of to slander anyone they disagree with.
Sorry, this whole thing has left me so baffled that I was trying to be a little too flippant about the whole Q thing. Of course all that “Save the Children” shit is window dressing for their fascist bigotry. Those people don’t give two licks about sex trafficking or child abuse or any of that stuff. It also doesn’t do anything to dissuade me of the idea that if someone is shouting about how much they are disgusted by something, it might mean they’re actually really into that thing.
It’s just so out there in the open that here we have a prominent member of the Trumpist wing of the GOP engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor (allegedly, etc) and the person waving the “Save the Children” banner hasn’t said a single word. It makes the whole thing nakedly stupid and I wish this could be the thing that finally makes these people go away as frauds but why would it at this point.
None of them cared about the many, many credible allegations - or his own recorded words - that Trump was a serial sexual assaulted. Or the many credible rape allegations including from minors. Or the generally creepy and widely documented backstage behavior at his teen pageants. Or his long and close friendship with pedophile sex trafficker to the stars Jeff Epstein.
They never cared about pedophiles or rapists except as a bludgeon to win points or get people on their side. There is no good faith there and no good faith or consistency should be expected.
What you can expect is self preservation and lack of loyalty to a man who - by all accounts - is just behind Cruz and MTG in being despised by all of their peers. If they throwing Gaetz to the wolves helps them they will, and really if they can avoid taking sides on anything on the record and everything can play out that would be the ideal outcome for most of the GOP.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Gaetz skate on this, but he's not Trump and nobody owes him anything.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Plus there’s already an investigation by the feds, video, screenshots, receipts, witnesses, and a cooperating conspirator who’s already in the hole
Yeah. Maybe I have a different perspective, coming from Chicago, but the idea that politicians are incapable of being locked up just... does not ring true at all.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Mostly I've heard it in relation to the senate, but I'm not convinced that there is going to be a resurgent republican congress particularly since the democrats are in a position to un fuck the gerrymandering that benefited the republicans for the 2010's
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NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Mostly I've heard it in relation to the senate, but I'm not convinced that there is going to be a resurgent republican congress particularly since the democrats are in a position to un fuck the gerrymandering that benefited the republicans for the 2010's
Depends a lot on how well they can slap down all the anti-voting stuff the gop is busy trying to get in place
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Trump caused a realignment. Democrats lost big in the "fuck the system, I want change" voters and gained big in the suburban NIMBY types. The former though, are low propensity while the latter are high propensity. When Trump's off the ballot, turnout of the former drops drastically, and you get results like 2018 (e: 2018, not 2010) or the Georgia runoffs. On top of that, the cult of personality and conspiracy built around Trump polarized and dug people in hard. Nate Silver has been talking about this a fair bit on Twitter, specifically about how Republican suppression efforts may not actually help them because they're using the old playbook and targeting low income, low propensity voters which is the base that Trump brought in and is activated by shitbirds like him, Gaetz, Crawford, etc. If the realignment holds, and there's no Trump on the ballot, Republicans could very much be in trouble, even with their suppression efforts.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Mostly I've heard it in relation to the senate, but I'm not convinced that there is going to be a resurgent republican congress particularly since the democrats are in a position to un fuck the gerrymandering that benefited the republicans for the 2010's
Depends a lot on how well they can slap down all the anti-voting stuff the gop is busy trying to get in place
Yeah, and according to their own strategists, if the Dems don't pass HR-1, they could retake the house, even if the turnout numbers stayed the same
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Trump caused a realignment. Democrats lost big in the "fuck the system, I want change" voters and gained big in the suburban NIMBY types. The former though, are low propensity while the latter are high propensity. When Trump's off the ballot, turnout of the former drops drastically, and you get results like 2010 or the Georgia runoffs. On top of that, the cult of personality and conspiracy built around Trump polarized and dug people in hard. Nate Silver has been talking about this a fair bit on Twitter, specifically about how Republican suppression efforts may not actually help them because they're using the old playbook and targeting low income, low propensity voters which is the base that Trump brought in and is activated by shitbirds like him, Gaetz, Crawford, etc. If the realignment holds, and there's no Trump on the ballot, Republicans could very much be in trouble, even with their suppression efforts.
Well, also, Democrats spent $Texas on the ARP, and are proposing $California for infrastructure spending to make the economy go gangbusters in 2022. Which helps incumbents. Contra Matt Gaetz, good policy is good politics.
"I'm sure that Fox News will eventually stop booking Pete, but in the meantime, he'll keep doing this:"
*clip of Pete Buttigieg absolutely dunking on a Fox News host*
- Unfamiliar with Brian Tyler Cohen, but he's a blue checkmark, and it's the clip that's relevant.
I may not have ranked Pete highly in the primaries, but he appears to be doing a decent job, and he just dunks on FOX whenever they have him on.
Expect the bad faith arguments to keep coming. That the host complains that it's "only 5.6% being spent on roads and bridges", when infrastructure covers a shit-tonne of stuff now. Pete lists a good chunk of them, but there are clearly other things that also count.
I mean, if you WANT to frame it as only a ~$110B Road and Bridges expenditure, fine. It's more than Republicans have proposed in forever.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, aren't most "road and bridges" expenditures supposed to be at a state/county/municipality level? Federal highways, sure. Maybe some other specific bits? Or am I wrong here?
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Sorry, this whole thing has left me so baffled that I was trying to be a little too flippant about the whole Q thing. Of course all that “Save the Children” shit is window dressing for their fascist bigotry. Those people don’t give two licks about sex trafficking or child abuse or any of that stuff. It also doesn’t do anything to dissuade me of the idea that if someone is shouting about how much they are disgusted by something, it might mean they’re actually really into that thing.
It’s just so out there in the open that here we have a prominent member of the Trumpist wing of the GOP engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor (allegedly, etc) and the person waving the “Save the Children” banner hasn’t said a single word. It makes the whole thing nakedly stupid and I wish this could be the thing that finally makes these people go away as frauds but why would it at this point.
It's not baffling - more like terrifying - when you realize that the GOP is the party of "words have no inherent meaning." Words are just signifiers of their tribal affiliation, just like everything else. They drive big trucks and carry big guns and wave flags and scream "FREEDOM" because that's what their tribe does, and their tribe is all about conformity and obedience to their internal authority. They scream "CANCEL CULTURE" and then plan to boycott Coca-Cola because Coke executives said some wishy-washy things against georgia's Jim Crow 2: Fascist Boogaloo. They scream about their liberties while pushing a society with no freedom at all. They scream "PRO LIFE" and froth at the mouth at when capital punishment might be eliminated. Greene is all the time screaming about this, that, and the other being unconstitutional, and then introduced an unconstitutional bill of attainder. She doesn't know the difference, nor does she care, because words have no meaning to her or her ilk.
They are completely detached from reality or the very concept of reality, and a lot of them are in Congress right now.
Sorry, this whole thing has left me so baffled that I was trying to be a little too flippant about the whole Q thing. Of course all that “Save the Children” shit is window dressing for their fascist bigotry. Those people don’t give two licks about sex trafficking or child abuse or any of that stuff. It also doesn’t do anything to dissuade me of the idea that if someone is shouting about how much they are disgusted by something, it might mean they’re actually really into that thing.
It’s just so out there in the open that here we have a prominent member of the Trumpist wing of the GOP engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor (allegedly, etc) and the person waving the “Save the Children” banner hasn’t said a single word. It makes the whole thing nakedly stupid and I wish this could be the thing that finally makes these people go away as frauds but why would it at this point.
It's not baffling - more like terrifying - when you realize that the GOP is the party of "words have no inherent meaning." Words are just signifiers of their tribal affiliation, just like everything else. They drive big trucks and carry big guns and wave flags and scream "FREEDOM" because that's what their tribe does, and their tribe is all about conformity and obedience to their internal authority. They scream "CANCEL CULTURE" and then plan to boycott Coca-Cola because Coke executives said some wishy-washy things against georgia's Jim Crow 2: Fascist Boogaloo. They scream about their liberties while pushing a society with no freedom at all. They scream "PRO LIFE" and froth at the mouth at when capital punishment might be eliminated. Greene is all the time screaming about this, that, and the other being unconstitutional, and then introduced an unconstitutional bill of attainder. She doesn't know the difference, nor does she care, because words have no meaning to her or her ilk.
They are completely detached from reality or the very concept of reality, and a lot of them are in Congress right now.
Another way to look at it is that since they've surrenedered their ability to critically review Q they just have to wait for Q to tell them why the thing that the republicans did was OK or how the thing that the democrats did was in fact worse. Because at this point it isn't about facts, it's about blind faith and devotion.
I know bridges, roads, electrical grid, and internet are all more imprudent, but I'd love to see high speed rail across the USA
We all would. I think if standard Amtrak passenger travel was 120 mph. That would help. If standard Amtrak passenger travel was 200 mph. That’s the sweet spot. That’s me going NYC in less than an hour from B-More.
I think the 80 billion will help get a lot of rail to the 120mph level, but. I would like to see a trillion on it. Every train is high speed. East coast and west coast are maglev.
That being said even if we were able to do that today, we wouldn’t be able work ride that train for 20 years, and we would have to pray future administrations don’t gut it.
"I'm sure that Fox News will eventually stop booking Pete, but in the meantime, he'll keep doing this:"
*clip of Pete Buttigieg absolutely dunking on a Fox News host*
- Unfamiliar with Brian Tyler Cohen, but he's a blue checkmark, and it's the clip that's relevant.
I may not have ranked Pete highly in the primaries, but he appears to be doing a decent job, and he just dunks on FOX whenever they have him on.
Expect the bad faith arguments to keep coming. That the host complains that it's "only 5.6% being spent on roads and bridges", when infrastructure covers a shit-tonne of stuff now. Pete lists a good chunk of them, but there are clearly other things that also count.
I mean, if you WANT to frame it as only a ~$110B Road and Bridges expenditure, fine. It's more than Republicans have proposed in forever.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, aren't most "road and bridges" expenditures supposed to be at a state/county/municipality level? Federal highways, sure. Maybe some other specific bits? Or am I wrong here?
I’m fine with roads being in maintenance mode rather than expansion mode at this point at a federal level. States can build out if they want but the current interstate system is more than adequate for a society that should be starting to transition away from long distance road travel.
The main federal focus for the roads system should be making sure bridges are safe and don’t have giant chunks of concrete fall off, and that chunks of interstate highway aren’t falling into sinkholes and the like.
Sorry, this whole thing has left me so baffled that I was trying to be a little too flippant about the whole Q thing. Of course all that “Save the Children” shit is window dressing for their fascist bigotry. Those people don’t give two licks about sex trafficking or child abuse or any of that stuff. It also doesn’t do anything to dissuade me of the idea that if someone is shouting about how much they are disgusted by something, it might mean they’re actually really into that thing.
It’s just so out there in the open that here we have a prominent member of the Trumpist wing of the GOP engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor (allegedly, etc) and the person waving the “Save the Children” banner hasn’t said a single word. It makes the whole thing nakedly stupid and I wish this could be the thing that finally makes these people go away as frauds but why would it at this point.
It's not baffling - more like terrifying - when you realize that the GOP is the party of "words have no inherent meaning." Words are just signifiers of their tribal affiliation, just like everything else. They drive big trucks and carry big guns and wave flags and scream "FREEDOM" because that's what their tribe does, and their tribe is all about conformity and obedience to their internal authority. They scream "CANCEL CULTURE" and then plan to boycott Coca-Cola because Coke executives said some wishy-washy things against georgia's Jim Crow 2: Fascist Boogaloo. They scream about their liberties while pushing a society with no freedom at all. They scream "PRO LIFE" and froth at the mouth at when capital punishment might be eliminated. Greene is all the time screaming about this, that, and the other being unconstitutional, and then introduced an unconstitutional bill of attainder. She doesn't know the difference, nor does she care, because words have no meaning to her or her ilk.
They are completely detached from reality or the very concept of reality, and a lot of them are in Congress right now.
Another way to look at it is that since they've surrenedered their ability to critically review Q they just have to wait for Q to tell them why the thing that the republicans did was OK or how the thing that the democrats did was in fact worse. Because at this point it isn't about facts, it's about blind faith and devotion.
Q is basically a religious cult.
Q dogma is crowd-sourced. The foundation was built on that account in its early days but shifted to the "do the research" motto which allows the Q account holder to sit back and then just give his blessing on whatever crackpot theory resonates the most.
"I'm sure that Fox News will eventually stop booking Pete, but in the meantime, he'll keep doing this:"
*clip of Pete Buttigieg absolutely dunking on a Fox News host*
- Unfamiliar with Brian Tyler Cohen, but he's a blue checkmark, and it's the clip that's relevant.
I may not have ranked Pete highly in the primaries, but he appears to be doing a decent job, and he just dunks on FOX whenever they have him on.
Expect the bad faith arguments to keep coming. That the host complains that it's "only 5.6% being spent on roads and bridges", when infrastructure covers a shit-tonne of stuff now. Pete lists a good chunk of them, but there are clearly other things that also count.
I mean, if you WANT to frame it as only a ~$110B Road and Bridges expenditure, fine. It's more than Republicans have proposed in forever.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, aren't most "road and bridges" expenditures supposed to be at a state/county/municipality level? Federal highways, sure. Maybe some other specific bits? Or am I wrong here?
I’m fine with roads being in maintenance mode rather than expansion mode at this point at a federal level. States can build out if they want but the current interstate system is more than adequate for a society that should be starting to transition away from long distance road travel.
The main federal focus for the roads system should be making sure bridges are safe and don’t have giant chunks of concrete fall off, and that chunks of interstate highway aren’t falling into sinkholes and the like.
Remember also that badly maintained and surfaced roads contribute to poor energy efficiency in the cars driving on them, by requiring more braking and acceleration and not providing a flat surface for even grip. This seriously impacts mileage efficiency of cars, and makes smaller cars less comfortable to drive and feel less safe. Rolling efficiency and smooth travel without pulsatile flow is important to gas vehicles, but it’s critically important to electric ones since efficiency is how they deliver good miles per minute of charge. There may be some argument to make that massive battery cars are only ok for the environment, because you could drive a tiny hybrid instead and they are only truly awesome if you have low co2 power, but small battery cars are uniformly great but their adoption is limited by their range, which can be increased with smoother, better maintained roads.
Trucks are also not terrible in the US for long distance freight transit, and they also suffer massively from shitty roads which also increase co2 emissions by wrecking their tires.
Building more roads is a poor plan. Making the ones we have smooth, well signed and improving on ramps etc is a good one. I’d be happy to see Democrats push for a bill which literally did only that, but, clearly a broad ranging bill is much more effective.
I mean come on. If this entire bill was for roads, Fox News would be whinging and carrying on about how there are other types of infrastructure in this country than just roads. And aren't the Democrats the party of saving the environment? Why would they now be trying to make people drive even more?
Dark_Side on
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Plus there’s already an investigation by the feds, video, screenshots, receipts, witnesses, and a cooperating conspirator who’s already in the hole
Yeah. Maybe I have a different perspective, coming from Chicago, but the idea that politicians are incapable of being locked up just... does not ring true at all.
I mean 2 of your last 6 governors have served time, so there is that.
Plus there’s already an investigation by the feds, video, screenshots, receipts, witnesses, and a cooperating conspirator who’s already in the hole
Yeah. Maybe I have a different perspective, coming from Chicago, but the idea that politicians are incapable of being locked up just... does not ring true at all.
I mean 2 of your last 6 governors have served time, so there is that.
Honestly, I consider it a point of pride. It's a shame we didn't at least bring it to 3.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
Plus there’s already an investigation by the feds, video, screenshots, receipts, witnesses, and a cooperating conspirator who’s already in the hole
Yeah. Maybe I have a different perspective, coming from Chicago, but the idea that politicians are incapable of being locked up just... does not ring true at all.
I mean 2 of your last 6 governors have served time, so there is that.
Honestly, I consider it a point of pride. It's a shame we didn't at least bring it to 3.
I am surprised Rauner is just chilling in Florida, bribing their governor to get a vaccine rather than being under investigation.
Posts
Literally what we thought before, and yet nothing happens. Cuomo has a better chance of facing consequences than Matt Gaetz.
pleasepaypreacher.net
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
And frankly, after the past 4 years theres a good chance the DOJ wants to clarify that they aren't republican toadies.
From a purely numbers game the republicans can cut him loose, and it doesn’t cost anything because he’s a house rep from Florida in a heavily gop district. So they’ll burn him, let him go to prison their republican governor will appoint someone milktoast republican so they can safely keep the seat. He’s a nobody with no leverage.
Things going for him...this involves the State of Florida so the dumbest outcome is the most likely one. And neither the Republican voters or the judicial system believe in holding guys like Matt Gaetz accountable.
If I'm being serious though, I don't think Matt is ducking federal charges and a guilty verdict unless he turns tattle on Greenberg, and it sounds like they already have all they need to convict Greenberg.
Liz Cheney, the third most powerful Republican in the House remembers.
Honestly though, what the fuck? That excerpt from his “book” posted a little bit ago says it all: get on tv, the policy is secondary. For him, making noise is governing, being a cable celebrity is statesmanship, being a pariah is validation. That’s what it is to most Republicans. Cool, you have to pay minors to hang out with you, you fucking nobody.
Edit: And why the fuck isn’t Marjorie Taylor Greene calling for Gaetz to resign or be executed? MTG, open and avowed member of the Q movement, whose sole aim is to protect children. It’s downright fucking weird that she isn’t making noise about this. It’s almost as if all that shit is made up and even the diehards know it.
Of course Greene doesn't care - she only cares about her tribe of rabid insane ultra-right-wingers who worship power, and Gaetz is a part of her tribe. Gaetz will probably get a boost instead of any sort of censor or punishment, become more powerful and influential instead of less. There aren't just no consequences for wrongdoing - there are rewards. Look at their lord and messiah Donald Trump.
This really needs to be empasized; whether Gaetz goes to jail or not it doesn't change the calculus in congress and as has been pointed out his district is basically blood red so it isn't likely to change for the forseeable futrue.
As such there isn't any point in protecting him, particularly not when the republicans are eyeballing a rough 2022 and supporting a stupid creepy fucker could have knockdown effects on other congress critters in the party of family values.
Nah. You see the deep state is framing Gaetz because he has been so instrumental in exposing them
all that is a detriment to the current crop of gop
it's partisanship or death or preferably both
With Q Anon, it's not "democrats are PEDOPHILES" it's "DEMOCRATS are pedophiles'. They only care about trying to generate hate and violence against their political enemies, they give precisely zero shits about the victims of sex trafficking. Pedophilia and sex trafficking, along with the Satan worship and cannibalism, are just the worst things they can think of to slander anyone they disagree with.
It’s just so out there in the open that here we have a prominent member of the Trumpist wing of the GOP engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor (allegedly, etc) and the person waving the “Save the Children” banner hasn’t said a single word. It makes the whole thing nakedly stupid and I wish this could be the thing that finally makes these people go away as frauds but why would it at this point.
They never cared about pedophiles or rapists except as a bludgeon to win points or get people on their side. There is no good faith there and no good faith or consistency should be expected.
What you can expect is self preservation and lack of loyalty to a man who - by all accounts - is just behind Cruz and MTG in being despised by all of their peers. If they throwing Gaetz to the wolves helps them they will, and really if they can avoid taking sides on anything on the record and everything can play out that would be the ideal outcome for most of the GOP.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Gaetz skate on this, but he's not Trump and nobody owes him anything.
Is there evidence about anything remotely "rough" for Republicans about 2022 house elections? The world where Trump isn't constantly in the headlines could be a vastly different one.
Yeah. Maybe I have a different perspective, coming from Chicago, but the idea that politicians are incapable of being locked up just... does not ring true at all.
Mostly I've heard it in relation to the senate, but I'm not convinced that there is going to be a resurgent republican congress particularly since the democrats are in a position to un fuck the gerrymandering that benefited the republicans for the 2010's
Depends a lot on how well they can slap down all the anti-voting stuff the gop is busy trying to get in place
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Trump caused a realignment. Democrats lost big in the "fuck the system, I want change" voters and gained big in the suburban NIMBY types. The former though, are low propensity while the latter are high propensity. When Trump's off the ballot, turnout of the former drops drastically, and you get results like 2018 (e: 2018, not 2010) or the Georgia runoffs. On top of that, the cult of personality and conspiracy built around Trump polarized and dug people in hard. Nate Silver has been talking about this a fair bit on Twitter, specifically about how Republican suppression efforts may not actually help them because they're using the old playbook and targeting low income, low propensity voters which is the base that Trump brought in and is activated by shitbirds like him, Gaetz, Crawford, etc. If the realignment holds, and there's no Trump on the ballot, Republicans could very much be in trouble, even with their suppression efforts.
Yeah, and according to their own strategists, if the Dems don't pass HR-1, they could retake the house, even if the turnout numbers stayed the same
Well, also, Democrats spent $Texas on the ARP, and are proposing $California for infrastructure spending to make the economy go gangbusters in 2022. Which helps incumbents. Contra Matt Gaetz, good policy is good politics.
"I'm sure that Fox News will eventually stop booking Pete, but in the meantime, he'll keep doing this:"
*clip of Pete Buttigieg absolutely dunking on a Fox News host*
- Unfamiliar with Brian Tyler Cohen, but he's a blue checkmark, and it's the clip that's relevant.
I may not have ranked Pete highly in the primaries, but he appears to be doing a decent job, and he just dunks on FOX whenever they have him on.
Expect the bad faith arguments to keep coming. That the host complains that it's "only 5.6% being spent on roads and bridges", when infrastructure covers a shit-tonne of stuff now. Pete lists a good chunk of them, but there are clearly other things that also count.
I mean, if you WANT to frame it as only a ~$110B Road and Bridges expenditure, fine. It's more than Republicans have proposed in forever.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, aren't most "road and bridges" expenditures supposed to be at a state/county/municipality level? Federal highways, sure. Maybe some other specific bits? Or am I wrong here?
It's not baffling - more like terrifying - when you realize that the GOP is the party of "words have no inherent meaning." Words are just signifiers of their tribal affiliation, just like everything else. They drive big trucks and carry big guns and wave flags and scream "FREEDOM" because that's what their tribe does, and their tribe is all about conformity and obedience to their internal authority. They scream "CANCEL CULTURE" and then plan to boycott Coca-Cola because Coke executives said some wishy-washy things against georgia's Jim Crow 2: Fascist Boogaloo. They scream about their liberties while pushing a society with no freedom at all. They scream "PRO LIFE" and froth at the mouth at when capital punishment might be eliminated. Greene is all the time screaming about this, that, and the other being unconstitutional, and then introduced an unconstitutional bill of attainder. She doesn't know the difference, nor does she care, because words have no meaning to her or her ilk.
They are completely detached from reality or the very concept of reality, and a lot of them are in Congress right now.
Another way to look at it is that since they've surrenedered their ability to critically review Q they just have to wait for Q to tell them why the thing that the republicans did was OK or how the thing that the democrats did was in fact worse. Because at this point it isn't about facts, it's about blind faith and devotion.
Q is basically a religious cult.
I think the 80 billion will help get a lot of rail to the 120mph level, but. I would like to see a trillion on it. Every train is high speed. East coast and west coast are maglev.
That being said even if we were able to do that today, we wouldn’t be able work ride that train for 20 years, and we would have to pray future administrations don’t gut it.
I’m fine with roads being in maintenance mode rather than expansion mode at this point at a federal level. States can build out if they want but the current interstate system is more than adequate for a society that should be starting to transition away from long distance road travel.
The main federal focus for the roads system should be making sure bridges are safe and don’t have giant chunks of concrete fall off, and that chunks of interstate highway aren’t falling into sinkholes and the like.
Q dogma is crowd-sourced. The foundation was built on that account in its early days but shifted to the "do the research" motto which allows the Q account holder to sit back and then just give his blessing on whatever crackpot theory resonates the most.
Remember also that badly maintained and surfaced roads contribute to poor energy efficiency in the cars driving on them, by requiring more braking and acceleration and not providing a flat surface for even grip. This seriously impacts mileage efficiency of cars, and makes smaller cars less comfortable to drive and feel less safe. Rolling efficiency and smooth travel without pulsatile flow is important to gas vehicles, but it’s critically important to electric ones since efficiency is how they deliver good miles per minute of charge. There may be some argument to make that massive battery cars are only ok for the environment, because you could drive a tiny hybrid instead and they are only truly awesome if you have low co2 power, but small battery cars are uniformly great but their adoption is limited by their range, which can be increased with smoother, better maintained roads.
Trucks are also not terrible in the US for long distance freight transit, and they also suffer massively from shitty roads which also increase co2 emissions by wrecking their tires.
Building more roads is a poor plan. Making the ones we have smooth, well signed and improving on ramps etc is a good one. I’d be happy to see Democrats push for a bill which literally did only that, but, clearly a broad ranging bill is much more effective.
Honestly, I consider it a point of pride. It's a shame we didn't at least bring it to 3.
I am surprised Rauner is just chilling in Florida, bribing their governor to get a vaccine rather than being under investigation.