looks like mitch mcconnel was having a stroke?

OR... One of them D.C. babes happened to be behind the cameras and the guy froze for 28 seconds, the fuck else could he do.



What, never happened to ya?

Too many investigations for you to follow? Can't be on top of every prequel and sequel of this shit? No worries! Welcome to The New York Times' TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS TRACKER!

 

This is the most useful thing ever.
:D

Also from the NYT, the following is by turns fucked up, hilarious, and scary:

lmao yes. i've become tongue-tied in the face of extraordinary hotness in the past. could happen again i'm sure.

that one there is the junky widow from deadwood though. she almost had a thing with justified.

but re: mitch: i'm thinking mini-strokes, possibly.

Never watched Deadwood. That's Jackie Sharp from House Of Cards. :cool:

McConnell definitely had something at least similar to a stroke. They've been wheeling him around for a while now, apparently... Yo Mitch, you already put three total fuckers in SCOTUS, you saved Trump (even though that idiot can't seem to understand it), go away already.

card sharp. that was the name! yeah i do remember her, just in multiple incarnations. it's teevee!

i'm of 2 minds about mcconnel. he's now an enemy of trump. and the lesser of two evils.

that's right, we live in a world where mcconnell is the lesser evil. like how trump makes dubya look like a holy man.

we're in the shit already, very deep in the shit lolol.

and if mcconnell goes... we could go deeper, no joke.

let's see what happens

lock him up! lock him up! lock him up!

xD

I read the 45 pages last night and even though I'm no lawyer at all I understood every word. Unfortunately, you just can't make it simple enough for the average mook, who inevitably falls for "but Hunter Biden" and "but free speech" bullcrap.

from the financial times:

US government debt on Wednesday shrugged off Fitch Ratings’ unexpected decision to downgrade Washington’s top-tier sovereign debt rating, while stocks were hit with fresh declines.

Treasuries rallied in early trade, before giving up their gains after the US government announced plans to boost its issuance of long-term debt this quarter. Ten-year Treasury yields were 0.04 percentage points higher at 4.08 per cent early in the US morning, having earlier fallen slightly. Yields rise as prices fall.

In stock markets, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 declines 0.8 per cent at the New York opening bell, extending losses from the previous session, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite gave up 1.2 per cent.

The moves came after Fitch cut the US credit rating from triple A to double A plus after markets closed on Tuesday, citing a mounting government debt burden and the debt ceiling stand-off two months ago that brought the world’s largest economy close to a default.

Investors said the muted reaction of Treasuries reflected the fact that funds were unlikely to be forced to sell US debt as a result of the downgrade. Meanwhile, Fitch’s announcement helped fuel a global equity sell-off.

etc etc...

if no ft lik see here: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/f...ch-2023-08-01/

--

additionally, reuters reports a fitch official confirmed that january 6 riots and a "deterioration in governance" are partly behind the downgrade:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/f...on-2023-08-02/

^ So: 1.- The markets went, "Eh, it ain't that bad"; and 2.- Republicans should SHUT THE FUCK UP because the "debt ceiling stand-off" (aka extortion/blackmail/shakedown) and Jan. 6 were Republican-fueled and Republican-executed shit.

#2 is never gonna happen, of course.

yah... but i think it's a fair downgrade perhaps. and don't miss the part where equities (stocks) actually had a sellof.

anyway i found the actual source! check it for truthiness:

--

RATING ACTION COMMENTARY

Fitch Downgrades the United States' Long-Term Ratings to 'AA+' from 'AAA'; Outlook Stable
Tue 01 Aug, 2023 - 5:13 PM ET

Fitch Ratings - London - 01 Aug 2023: Fitch Ratings has downgraded the United States of America's Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. The Rating Watch Negative was removed and a Stable Outlook assigned. The Country Ceiling has been affirmed at 'AAA'.

A full list of rating actions is at the end of this rating action commentary.

cont:

https://www.fitchratings.com/researc...ble-01-08-2023

i agree with a lot of what it says there. it is not the end of the word but there are serious concerns.

^ Sure they're not talking about batteries?

The Prophet:

no. here's a user-friendly explanation of what this means:

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/02/11782...s-debt-economy

it has real consequences that are well worth understanding. it's a pity that many of these things are not taught as a part of basic education. everybody lives in the economy, but most people don't understand it (i often wonder if this is on purpose).

then voters get distracted by "issues" and scandals and the personality circus, but these are the numbers that most affect the course of their lives. and yet...

On the other hand, massive amounts of people with a basic education (a high school degree, let's say) don't know jack about the things they were indeed taught, and end up saying that the first person to walk on the face of the SUN was LANCE ARMSTRONG. (Seriously, that's what a couple of "American" chicks on a beach said; at the moment I can't remember where I saw it but I could find the YouTube link for ya...)

sure, some people attended high school stoned. but still... basic economics is basic economics.

the fucking republican clown refuse to understand that the status of the us dollar as reserve currency is paramount. but they like to play russian roulette.

and they only care about the debt whenever they are out of power. trump blew an enormous gaping hole in the budget and they cheered him on.

democrats on the other hand... are good for the economy, but let's face it, their propaganda department pushes the notion that there are no limits on spending and borrowing.

Yes, I do, after all, agree it should be taught as a key course (over several years) and not as an afterthought of math or civics.

Paul Krugman said that if and when the debt becomes a clear and present danger he's going to turn into a "debt hawk". Hasn't happened yet, so I'm cool. ;) Sure, the guy leans left, but he's not Bernie Sanders.

Putin you fucking piece of shit.

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny sentenced to 19 years

Navalny wrote this before the sentence was read:

i love it:

"please do not show solidarity with me with wails and cries"

"To be honest, we always help Putin's strategy of intimidation by throwing hysterics and clutching at our hearts over every arrest, and frightening both ourselves and others even more"

"There is no shame in choosing the safest way to resist. There is shame in doing nothing. It's shameful to let yourself be intimidated."

this is really really good. i will study and memorize it.

I wonder how he was able to express that from jail. There's no way they let him have a cellphone there, and as a letter this would not have passed the censorship, so... in a "regular" phone call to his wife, maybe?

Speaking of debt and da Krug, here's his newsletter from today:

Oh this is fucking rich:

https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqNggKIjBDQklTSGpvSmMzUnZjbmt0TXpZd1NoRUtEd2piOX JEUUNCSHZSWnh4T0RoT0dTZ0FQAQ?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen


THAT guy's gonna get charged RIGHT AWAY with "inciting a riot"? Shit, too bad the NYPD wasn't running the show in D.C. on Jan. 6...

From Politico:

Feds alert judge to Trump’s ‘If you go after me, I’m coming after you!’ post

Prosecutors say the former president’s message on Truth Social raises specter he might use evidence to target witnesses.

To all who say the "founding fathers" never envisioned the current shit:

"The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. [...] When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, [...] despotic in his ordinary demeanour, known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty, when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity, to join in the cry of danger to liberty, to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion, to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'"

—Alexander Hamilton, early 1790s

Here we go with The Cannonball Run...

Judge Aileen Cannon Comes Out Swinging in Trump’s Favor—Again

In a Monday ruling, Cannon questioned the “legal propriety” of using an “out-of-district grand jury” in Trump’s classified documents case.

i don't know to which one i should reply.

re: the krugman, yes, he's more progressive than, say, larry summers, but summers said fitch was "flailing for relevancy" with the rating.

and sure the debt is money we owe ourselves but there's such thing as foreign exchange, and when your currency devalues you might export more but you pay more for avocados from mexico, chilean copper, canadian steel, japanese cars, etc.

the founding vaters yeah they saw that and more, they were against political parties even.... hamilton and madison for example.

anyway re: demagogues, i'm trying to brush up on my political philosophy but those existed in athens and rome already. i'm looking for a good translation of thucydides but can't find one that i like 100% yet. thomas hobbes did one, and i am not suprised, he has the same view of the "state of nature."

as for cannon: fuck her

OH!

Makes me think of the time Ohio was a swing state. Remember, back in the day...?

I want to believe this is a warning to the GQP. SCOTUS may have fucked us, the Republican Legislatures may have fucked us, but keep it up with this shit, assholes, and you're gonna LOSE.

From Politico, something we already know but is very well stated here, so:

Opinion | Here’s the Intelligence Assessment of Donald Trump that the Government Can’t Write

Homeland Security officials can’t use politicians’ names in their assessments. But I can.

Yup, he could see the likes of the Biden Family Crime Syndicate from over 200 years away.

that was a good read and i shared it in other places, thanks.

you're right that it's stuff we already know but it's very well put together.

anyway, in the meantime: democracy won in ohio, and the republican strategy of turning away voters and blocking legislation has blown up in their faces.

also in today's news, florida stopped teaching ap psychology (ap courses are high school courses that count as college credit) because it's "against the law" :D

lol @ american taliban

Not a single mention of the special counsel appointed to the Hunter Biden investigation? This is the politics thread, right? I would say that’s a pretty big political story, no?

...Aaaaand there goes TangoTown:

Far-right populist emerges as biggest vote-getter in Argentina’s presidential primary voting

hahahahaaa yeah

i think this speaks more of the fatigue with the utter failure of kirchnerism and exhaustion of peronism in general than anything else.

argentina has been ruined economically by leftist populism. it's a country rich in resources, with a fairly well educated people, but hamstrung by consumer subsidies and rampant kleptocracy.

you say "there goes..." but they've been gone for a while already, their resources wasted, their middle class reduced, their poor multiplying and getting poorer every day, their currency worthless, their debts mounting beyond the stratosphere, their economy stuck in the mud, their international influence reduced to... nothing really, except in football... which is mostly played abroad these days because whoever can flee does so immediately.

milei may be a clown, but until peronism arrived in the middle of the last century argentina was a very rich country, and an important one in latin america. sure they had their problems with inequality and a shit history (same as the rest of the continent), but they were extremely prosperous. then, decades of populism, cults of personality, a tragic military dictatorship interim, more leftist populism afterwards, statism and infinite political corruption have pulverized their chances at prosperity. when they had a brief chance at normalizing their economy with macri they just got deeper into debt.

that poor country is a walking disaster. crisis after crisis, bank run after bank run, national banrkuptcy always around the corner (remember menem?), and the politicians always thieving. kirchner would be in jail if it weren't because of her current post.

so i... understand these sorts of protest votes. argentinians are fucked, have been getting fucked for a very long time now. milei offers no real solutions, just fake libertarian scams, but where are they going to turn to now? they're ready to burn it all down.

montana utes:

"In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels.
The court determined that a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act has harmed the state’s environment and the young plaintiffs, by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional, the court said.
The win, experts say, could energize the environmental movement and reshape climate litigation across the country, ushering in a wave of cases aimed at advancing action on climate change."

fuck yeah! go utes!

Indeed. I meant it specifically in the Trump Tumor Global Metastasis sense.