I serve with some real scumbags! Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.
A Texas Republican unburdens himself.
A whole new desert for Arizona, as California fast-tracks Arizona’s women’s health care providers to practice in that state instead of in the land of no abortions.
‘I am now hoping the country will become a more secular country, respecting human rights, women’s rights and childrens rights.’ Yesim Albayrak, Nurse [photo, bbc]
Score one — a big one — for our side.
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UPDATE: Given Mr Erdoğan’s grip on institutional networks of patronage and influence, consolidated over the course of more than two decades in power, it would be premature to see these results as marking a definitive turning point. But they offer considerable grounds for optimism among secular, liberal voters… [I]n a period in which a similarly authoritarian brand of politics is making inroads in countries around the world, a dramatic night at the polls is a cause for wider celebration.
UD will let everyone else make the obvious points about Biden’s state of the union: Aggressive, feisty, high-energy, confrontational, polemically sharp, etc.
UD will simply note that the dude is an inspiration to oldies everywhere. Eighty is the new fifty.
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From Heather Cox Richardson, via my pal Al S.:
… Trump’s team has dismissed Haley supporters, saying he doesn’t need them. In contrast, President Joe Biden continued to broaden the Democrats’ tent. Biden reached out in a statement, saying there was a place for Haley supporters in his campaign. “I know there is a lot we won’t agree on,” he said, “But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”
… He asked Republicans to “speak the truth and bury the lies.” He urged them to “[r]emember your oath of office to defend against all threats foreign and domestic. Respect free and fair elections. Restore trust in our institutions. And make clear—political violence has absolutely no place in America.”
As Democrats stood to applaud, Republicans remained resolutely in their seats…
Age makes “certain things become clearer than ever before,” he said. “I know the American story.”
“Again and again I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation. Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future. My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy. A future based on the core values that have defined America. Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.
“Now some other people my age see a different story,” he said, in a reference to Trump, who will turn 78 in June. “An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.”
“[T]he issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are,” Biden said. “Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas, but you can’t lead America with … ideas that only take us back.”
… [Republicans suggested that commentators describe their rebuttal choice] as “America’s mom.” [She gave the speech] in a kitchen.
‘[H]is high-decibel performance seemed to confound Republicans, who have spent years seeking to portray Biden as a near-catatonic dementia case.‘
LOL
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OTOH…
Julia Ioffe, Washington correspondent for Puck News, said: “Imagine you’re sleeping over at a friend’s house and you get up in the middle of the night to pee and you hear a weird sound so you follow it to the kitchen, where your friend’s mom is drunk, crying, and rambling about the national debt. Those are the vibes from Katie Britt right now... “
“The acting chops … are somewhere between porn and high school play.”
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And more porn! What exactly are people picking up on?
As someone who covers the far right and the Christian nationalist movement, Sen Katie Britt’s speech was the closest thing to porn they’ll consume.
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“The sheer scale of her cringe became an instant legend.” Andrew Sullivan
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Andrew Weissmann, MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, wrote: “I don’t think Katie Britt is going to get the lead in the school play this year.”
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‘There’s nothing I can quote from Britt’s speech that can convey the strangeness of it — the mismatched emotions, the smiles in the wrong places, the jaw clenched when it shouldn’t have been — just the indescribable weirdness. It was something that had to be seen, but even then, couldn’t be understood — like postmodernism, avant-garde performance art or an involuntary behavioral science experiment... [S]he came off as the aunt who’s been spending too much time on Facebook, and if you don’t change the subject soon, she’s going to tell you about sex dungeons beneath the pizza parlor.‘
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The MAGA reply from K. Britt
Hit home like a big piece of shit
She sat in her kitchen
Abitchin and bitchin
When she should have just read holy writ
Almost three-quarters of Iranians want a secular government instead of a theocratic dictatorship, an anonymous state-run poll has revealed.
The survey also revealed that less than one in 10 people think women should be forced to wear a hijab.
[The last survey] was in 2015.
[This one] shows a sharp uptick in demands for secular rule, up from 31 per cent to 73 per cent, indicating the push for secularism will probably grow in coming years.
… Only 7.9 per cent of respondents said they agree women must be made to wear hijab, down from 18.6 percent.
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The survey was apparently leaked.
… UD invites you to revisit my posts about a woman who indeed does seem to me too dangerous to return to a country she tried to destroy.
Her lawyers, I guess, will go to the Supreme Court, but they won’t get what they want there either.
Begum could have tried for Bangladeshi citizenship, but didn’t apparently bother to; her best move now is to gather a bunch of money from her supporters and try to buy citizenship somewhere.
UD’s old friend Peter argues that Begum should be repatriated to the UK here.
You betcha. There’s something about losing your medical license and spending a long stretch in jail, where you’ll maybe share a cell with one of your abortion-seeking patients, to concentrate the mind, huh?
Poland’s new PM represents an inspiring victory for democracy against the tyranny of the now-deposed Law and Justice party, whose bitter senile leader rushed the podium at the conclusion of the vote in favor of Tusk. “YOU ARE A GERMAN AGENT!” he shouted at the PM.
… Ohioans enshrined abortion and other reproductive rights into the state constitution.’
And that’s Ohio, mes petites.
Yes. La lutte continue.
A big [Republican] majority has embraced a figure whose life’s mission is to disable government, including its system of justice…
Jordan has not passed a single piece of legislation in his 16 years in Congress. John Boehner, a former Republican Speaker whose career Jordan helped to end, called him a “legislative terrorist”… A Jordan speakership would be the most troubling sign of US democracy’s declining health since the January 6 2021 storming of Capitol Hill. Jordan spoke extensively to Trump in the lead up to that failed putsch and ignored a subpoena to testify to the committee that investigated the assault…
Jordan has tried to overturn a US presidential election. Some might consider it reckless to give control of the people’s house to a counter-revolutionary.
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“The Kamikazes on America’s Capitol Hill”
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“A vote today to make the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and insurrection insider the speaker of this House would be a terrible message to the country and our allies,” [Pete] Aguilar said…
[Jim McGovern said:] “[Jordan] is like—rock bottom of who they could have picked to be their nominee.”
It crosses the river Jordan.
He wages partisan wars against Democrats. That’s it. He does not try to meaningfully improve the lives of the members of his district. He does not sponsor legislation that would affect people’s day-to-day lives, even from a conservative point of view. He serves on committees, harangues the witnesses before them, and goes on Fox News afterward to tout his own actions… He beat the drum for Trump’s lies about a stolen election after Biden was declared the winner in November 2020 and sought to weaponize the House to spread those claims ahead of the electoral vote count on January 6, 2021. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, Jordan voted to carry through their ultimate goal and overturn an election for Trump’s benefit… If Jordan prevails on Tuesday, it will feel like the natural progression of the House GOP’s approach to Congress over the past 30 years. Starting with Newt Gingrich in 1994 and continuing to the present day, Republicans have done everything they can to transform the House of Representatives from a functioning legislative chamber into a vehicle for performative lawmaking and partisan stunts. Jim Jordan’s career, as it were, is a testament to how thoroughly that impulse has overwhelmed everything else. To elect him as speaker is to simply give up on basic governance.