Linda Paulsen should be your next President!!


Vote Linda!!

I don't think Truss will ever recover form this Three-Stooges-like start to her reign.

i could not stop laughing when i saw earlier

the financial times has an opinion article with the headline "Truss becomes a zombie prime minister in record time"

here we call it lame duck. same difference?

one paragraph there says:

The scale of her defeat is even greater when one considers the position of those economic institutions Truss and her allies rubbished. The organs of economic orthodoxy, the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Treasury, which she meant to bend to her will, have now been strengthened. Having sacked the permanent secretary to bring in someone less conventionally focused on fiscal orthodoxy, Truss was forced to replace him with a near Treasury lifer. The OBR, shut out from the “mini” Budget, is now enshrined as arbiter of discipline. It is very hard to imagine any government riding roughshod over it again.

https://www.ft.com/content/3e9b1ea1-...1-a6b2216e5a64

im laughing at this whole situation thanks to an entertaining education provided by "yes, minister"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/yesminister/

yes minister + the wire basically explain the world

LIVE: Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce?


see also:Will Daily Star's 60p Tesco lettuce or PM Liz Truss last longer? Watch live feed

Yeah, it's all pretty sad. (And entertaining.)

Meanwhile, Garland strikes back:

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...pecial-master/

Yeah, fuckit: I hereby predict that Truss will set the record for the shortest term of any British PM. (And I don't see myself as being particularly clairvoyent.)

Christ!! It might be before Wednesday. The knives are out.

Opinion | The Justice Department is doing its job. Will voters?

By Jennifer Rubin
Columnist

President Biden spoke for many rational Americans on Saturday when he described recent testimony released by the House Jan. 6 select committee as “devastating.”

Biden noted that he has not spoken with Attorney General Merrick Garland about the Justice Department’s investigation into the coup attempt, taking care not to influence the department’s inquiry. But at this stage, Garland needs no further pushing. After what seemed to be a slow start, his department seems to be moving swiftly on multiple fronts against former president Donald Trump.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, acknowledged in an interview with ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday that “the Justice Department appears to be pursuing this pretty hard.” It has plainly indicated that its investigation has moved beyond the events that took place on Jan. 6, confiscating phones of key players such as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump lawyer John Eastman and summoning high-level witnesses such as Marc Short and Greg Jacob before a grand jury.

Garland himself has stated that if there are sufficient facts to prove a case of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding or defraud the United States against someone, his department would be compelled to bring charges against them regardless of who they are. Likewise, if there are sufficient facts to hold Trump responsible for violence on Jan. 6, a seditious conspiracy charge is hardly out of the question.

In other words, the Justice Department is not the player that should worry democracy defenders. More important is whether voters will do their part to keep election deniers out of office in November.

Asked about such candidates on the ballot, Kinzinger observed, “I don’t think this is just going to go away organically. This is going to take the American people really standing up and making the decision that truth matters.” He added that the challenge with these Republicans is that they “can’t even agree on basic facts or will lie to the American people.”

This is despite the efforts of the Jan. 6 committee, which has exceeded all expectations in debunking the “big lie” of a stolen election and detailing Trump’s deliberate attempt to retain power by whatever means necessary. Voters might still decide to hand the House to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his band of election deniers. And they might still elect election liars such as Republican Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake, who on CNN’s “State of the Union” once more refused to say whether she would accept the results if she loses. If she and others like her are put in charge of their state’s election machinery, they will deal a grievous blow to democracy.

There is no backstop for democracy, as we saw on Jan. 6, without responsible people in key positions. Had Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger not denied Trump’s demand for him to “find” enough votes to swing his state, or had Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers not refused to reconvene the legislature to revoke the electors whom voters selected, we might have fallen into a constitutional crisis.

Next time, if McCarthy insists on entertaining spurious objections to electoral votes, or if Lake and other MAGA governors refuse to certify the actual winner in their states, the ensuing chaos could make Jan. 6 look like a picnic. This could deal a fatal blow to our democracy.

Inflation will pass. Budget deficits will rise and fall. And border problems will persist. But once democracy is lost, it is very hard to retrieve. The most important question is no longer whether Garland will fail democracy, but whether the American people will.

Sadly, I get the sense that the average person does not give a fuck about these "larger" things. Only immediate things matter - the price of groceries/gas etc.

A NYT poll has Trump ahead of Biden in a 2024 matchup. (NYT, not Fox!)

same as so many damn fools rate "aliens" over "alien".

anyway, whatever happens, happens, and then we deal with it, because that's how life works, and not in any other way, but of course to deal means also to prepare for it. we live in "interesting" times...

What Will Happen to America if Trump Wins Again? Experts Helped Us Game It Out.

The scenarios are ... grim.

yes, but i don't think the gloom and doom is going to motivate the voters as much as i think you think so.

i mean, i'm certainly preparing for all of that, realistically. but the average cabbage is more interested in cheap gas.

if this is the end of the liberal order--and by liberal i include the "classic liberals" one used to call "conservatives"--and the rise of the fascist kali yug, then we really are all fucked and there's nowhere to go.

i mean if the u.s. falls, then who's left to defend the liberal order? individual rights, the rule of law, democracy and free elections--adiós amigos.

i read today that europe has plans for a missile defense system of their own... but they also have traitors and authoritarians in their midst and they require unanimity for all sorts of stuff so i wouldn't pin my hopes on them.

I'm not sure why you'd think I think so. I didn't post that link (or any other, or made any comments, for that matter) in order to get the vast masses who partake of this board to go into panic mode and vote D ASAP. Not that you shouldn't! Anyway, nothing can prepare me to, say, see Jim Jordan become Chair of the House's Judiciary Committee...

i don't know, haha, i was looking for a purpose and made assumptions--but yeah i was a ware of my own projection. i guess i conflated you with the washington post, after i read the whole thing.

and i see worse thsn them, i see catastrophic global consequences and a new dark age, a "no place to run" kind of scenario. tyrants running rampant everywhere, unchecked.


you really should try your hand at writing horror movies... the thought alone makes me wanna projectile vomit. worst of all is, it's not even some fantastic scenario. reality is the kind of shit that terrifies me the most.

and on small good news, meloni still can't form a government

It is literally what's gonna happen if the House falls. He's the ranking member.

i know, i know... precisely that. the worst nightmares are real. you really picked the right detail to induce dread. that takes talent.

but i need to sleep so i'm looking for some good news


https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...ate-candidates

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...ericas-latinos

Butters vs Dr. Mehmet Quack Oz:

Speaking of the PA race, I got a message from Kurt Vile: