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wildcat09

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Posts posted by wildcat09

  1. 3 minutes ago, Red Five said:

    About six months ago I said something about how a decent percentage of maga would suddenly become very comfortable with child rape if the files were to ever be released. I got a bunch of “Dude. Not cool” replies.

    We all on the same page now?

    The real uncomfortable question is how many MAGA posters on Surly are child abusers?

    • Like 3
  2. 10 minutes ago, Tuco said:

    That was always the case.  The right wing focus on pedophilia and sex trafficking was always the replacement for calling their opponents faggots.  As gay marriage became more accepted by society as a whole, pedophilia accusations is what they started attacking liberals with, despite there being zero evidence liberals are more likely to be pedophiles.  They had to maintain this fantasy they were morally superior to the perverted liberals.  And then they push into it into any kind of discussion of gay rights.  

     

    I'm curious if the House can release whatever information they possess.  I get they would need a law to compel the Executive Branch to release everything, but I wouldn't think the Executive Branch could restrain the House from releasing what they have.  It wouldn't be a law, just a decision on how the House operates. 

    They just did.

  3. 38 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    We have the same lawyer to blame for that. After he originally issued his extreme fatwa based on the 19th century anti-deficiency act, he moderated it by clarifying the “life, safety, etc.” exception that formalized making people work without pay. Instead, he made the threat of shutdown just painful enough that it became useful as a weapon. 

    It can’t be said enough: before this opinion Congress would get lazy and let funding lapse before getting around to it. People just kept going.  No one cared. We could even argue things were more sane. 

    This whole thing reminds me of dysfunctional self-harm rituals on a societal level. “If I fail this test I’ll cut myself, that will motivate me to study.” 
     

     

    It's every bit as stupid as the debt ceiling. 

  4. 10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    You mean, Ken Starr, Baylor president and vigorous defender of....Art Briles?

    Gosh.  It seems that rape, covering up rape, explaining away rape, and generally being "pro-rape" is a pretty consistent characteristics of pretty much every one of these fascist authoritarian scold fucks.  Wholda thunk it?

    Not discussing with the Baylor guys in the firm who are all MAGA is going to take all of my self restraint the next few days/weeks.

    • Hook 'Em 3
  5. 2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Yeah, that's evidence that they are shook.

    Trump's base is going to go for him, regardless, and he's going to be able to bullshit over this for them.  But he also won't be on the ballot in 2026.

    However, I still think that the vote that won him 2024 was not the base, but a bunch of people who were convinced their life was not any better in 2024 than it was in 2020.  That message should work for Ds this time.

    In other words, the absolute dumbest people to ever walk the planet. 

    • Hook 'Em 3
    • Rage+1 1
  6. 11 minutes ago, horncyclist said:

    I think Epstein believed Trump may have instigated the 2011 investigations/prosecutions. “dog that didn’t bark” refers to situations when something/someone isn’t being heard from is significant. That’s what the “75%” meant. I think their supposed falling out was around this time? Epstein always had the goods on Trump. Of course Trump had him killed in jail.

    I'm pretty sure Epstein was misusing that phrase and meant something more along the lines of "the shoe that hasn't dropped." 

  7. 4 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

    I don't think they think they can use Republican votes for anything.  That would be stupid.  As you rightly say, nobody will remember who voted for what.  You're dead correct that we have waaaay too many examples of Republican officeholders taking credit for shit they flamboyantly opposed (e.g., the Biden Infrastructure Act).

    They think that without the ACA subsidies, the cost of healthcare will go up both this year and, importantly, next year.  The premiums for 2027 are going to come out right before the midterms, and they're going to be catastrophically awful.  Trump and the Republicans will be rightly blamed--not because of anything anybody voted for/against, but for the far more basic reason that a Republican is in the White House.

    That's why I say it is a cynical play.  And I love a cynical play.  Because those are really the only plays that work.

    This is what happens when elected officials try to play pundit.  They just can't help themselves.  They love to tell you how much more they understand about electoral politics than you do.  But playing pundit gets in the way of effective messaging.  

    So you're right.  They need to cut that shit out.  The message is the Republicans were going to starve people, and we couldn't let that happen.  Period.  Then shut the fuck up.

    How's that going to play in the next election, a CNN reporter might ask?  "I don't really know, and it really doesn't matter--the Republicans were going to starve people, and we couldn't let that happen."

    Are you concerned that your base is going to be angry that you didn't get more, an MSNBC correspondent might enquire?  "I's hope not, but it really doesn't matter--the Republicans were going to starve people, and we couldn't let that happen."

    But these people are all fucking assholes who are super-eager to let you know that they know more than you do.  Dumb fuckers.

    I think part of it is that in their minds they're thinking "well we got a vote, and then when the Republicans vote against restoring the ACA subsidies we can send out fundraising emails about how they just voted against healthcare!" It's classic too-clever-by-half Dem nonsense, as if going on tv every day and saying "they wanted to starve 40 million people to death" wouldn't be more effective for fundraising.

    • Hook 'Em 4
  8. Bozo's not wrong, he's just an asshole.  By most measures, the Dems still "won" the shutdown. But they won this like Auburn beat Mississippi State 3-2 in 2008, when they had the chance to run up the score.

    Most of the people who will be marginal voters in 2026 in potential swing districts/states will have completely forgotten about this within a month, probably sooner. The undecided American voter has the memory of a goldfish and the tidal wave of shit Trump and the GOP have been and will keep dumping on everyone will overwhelm everything else. Dems should absolutely be better at messaging, but the GOP is about to make things so bad that dysfunctional Dem messaging likely won't even matter.

    My preference would've been for them to stick it out another week or two after which time I think Trump would've gotten the Senate GOP to cave and abolish the filibuster, because that needs to happen and this set of Dems won't do it if they manage to take both houses and the presidency in 2028. That would've also made it easier to pin the entire thing on Trump and the GOP, which would've been a nice bonus and probably would've shifted the odds in 2026 further in our favor, but the gains would've been marginal. 

    What's frustrating is that there's still somewhere between 8 and probably 20ish Senate Dems that for various reasons just can't really adequately fight GOP fascism.  We all want those fuckers to wake up and understand that the Republicans who are smiling to their faces are killing their friends and family and that they need to stop pretending that it can still be politics as usual, but it's pretty clear that's asking a leopard to change its spots. So the debacle in March and this cave are at least useful in illustrating who need to catch some primary challenges. 

    • Hook 'Em 3
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  9. 2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

    You're not missing anything.  The Senate Democrats played this to maximum cynicism.  And as a cynic myself, I appreciate it.

    Plenty of Democratic voters and unrealistic expectations about what was achievable in this shutdown.  But realistically, very little was achievable through this (or really any) shutdown.  That should've been clear once it became evident that Republicans would starve Americans and crash the air-transit system.  Once that happened, it just became a game of maximizing blame on Trump and the GQP.

    Is there a possible universe in which the Republicans cave and extend the ACA subsidies?  I mean, maybe.  Probably not.  But maybe.  But in that universe, it works to the GQP's electoral benefit.

    And while there are plenty of us who would be happy to see the shutdown continue through the 2026 midterms . . . that wasn't realistic.  The political impact of that would've been highly unpredictable.  Right now, Trump is getting the blame.  But he has a larger microphone and a lot of corporate media at his back.  The narrative could've quickly swung.

    So the Dems took their fairly modest winnings and went home.  I understand that move.  I don't particularly love it.  Maybe I kind of hate it.  But I definitely understand it.

    My complaint about their behavior in this shut down is almost entirely that they fucked this part of it up. Hell, the easy message right now would be "they threatened to starve people and we weren't willing to let Americans starve" and they can't even consistently say that. Durbin is whining about nobody understands senate procedure, others are talking about how if the GOP doesn't vote for the ACA subsidies at an unspecified later date then people will know the GOP doesn't like the ACA, and King and Fetterman have basically just said "I am personally a pussy." I'd say it's stunning how inept their messaging has been, except it's entirely consistent with what we typically see from elected Democrats over the age of 40.

    • Hook 'Em 4
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  10. 21 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    I thought this guy would be one of the saner ones, but he's a complete piece of shit.

    "Took a job with the Trump administration" didn't tip you off?

    • Hook 'Em 7
    • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
  11. 49 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

    he's not. it's bullshit social media. if the algorithm catches words like rape, murder, etc it will flag it and it will be automatically taken down. this is a workaround and it's fucking annoying

    But he just copied and pasted from an nbcnews.com article and went through it and censored those words himself.

  12. 2 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

    Given the inability of the Democratic Party to act as anything other controlled opposition to the the thriving billionaire and corporate oligarchy, the easiest path to Medicare for All is for progressives may be to promise Trump a spot on Mount Rushmore if he cuts big insurance out of healthcare in America. He can pardon Luigi, credibly claim he is saving the country $150-500 billion annually, and cut off a huge donor pipeline that props up Democratic Party politicians who oppose single payer healthcare. 

    Shit-libs are soulless slaves to their masters who are actively enshitifying this country. With friends like them, who needs enemies. 
     

    IMG_1609.thumb.jpeg.1adadc6f43422f74af6bb54fabedbdcb.jpeg

    I see Ana has hacked Washpark's password.

  13. 13 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    There has always been a dark, pessimistic view of most Democrats as being just as crooked as Republicans, and on the take from the wealthy just like Republicans, but they just hide it behind a bunch of ineffective, bumbling actions. On purpose. I’m starting to believe this.  

     

    They're less organized and more bumbling than you could possibly imagine. The result of all that bumbling though is that their behavior is for all practical purposes indistinguishable from what it would be if they were secretly colluding with the GOP.  

    • Rage+1 1
  14. Greenblatt has effectively killed the ADL, he just doesn't realize it yet. Turning what was probably the most widely respected civil rights organization in America into a pro-Israeli hard right PAC that is all but officially a wing of the Republican party is one of the dumbest fucking things you could possibly do with an organization like that. If I were more conspiratorial, I'd say he was a Republican plant. The truth though is he's just a racist little shit who hates Palestinians and was willing to sacrifice everything else to hurt them. 

    • Hook 'Em 3
  15. On 11/8/2025 at 8:58 AM, TwiceHorn said:

    Back on topic some things have become more clear.

    Remember the indictment alleges that Comey lied about "authorizing" someone "at the FBI" to "leak anonymously."

    There was some question about who that someone could be.  One speculation was Chris Wray, who apparently did leak anonymously, but even according to his testimony to Congress and elsewhere, did so without Comey's prior knowledge or approval.

    The other person was Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia, with whom Comey communicated about various things as a friend and consiglieri.  And Richman was in fairly constant contact with the press, but rarely, if ever, anonymously.

    And Richman was not an FBI employee, fairly obviously.  

    He was, however, a "special employee" uncompensated consultant for the FBI.  But the terms of his "employment" are murky and it appears that he was not actually so employed in the relevant timeframe.

    https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/more-trouble-for-the-comey-indictment

    Another hole in the government's already flimsy case.

    The most glaring problem with the case is that what Comey said to Congress, within the limitations period, was "I stand by my earlier testimony."  And that is a statement that is not really capable of being proven false.  Certainly not by proving 2017 testimony false.

    Chris Wray wasn't with the FBI when Comey was in charge.

  16. 5 minutes ago, gernblansten said:

    Killing the filibuster would remove any remaining guardrails reining in the majority party. Neither party should be able pass everything they want without challenge. I'm shocked anyone thinks it's a good idea when the Senate is close to 50/50, voted by the people, that the entire Country is subjected to all the worst impulses of the majority party. "Nothing ever gets done" is a hell of a lot better than the party in control getting everything it wants done. 

    That's called democracy. People should expect to get what they vote for. 

    • Hook 'Em 5
    • Like 1
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  17. 1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

    That's not what they did last week, nor what polling is indicating with the decline in Trump's popularity. 

    I'm with @David Dennison that this was always going to be a losing effort.  The only silver lining would have been the elimination of the filibuster, but that's still on the table if the Democrats regain Senate control.  

     

    It's very clearly not, unless several Dem Senators lose primaries. Some caved today because they're worried about people going hungry, others caved because they're worried about the impact to air travel a longer shutdown would have, but they all caved to protect the filibuster. Trump was leaning hard on the GOP Senators to eliminate it and they would've folded to him sooner than later. It's very likely that all Dems actually needed to do was wait another week, but they didn't want to risk it because there's still too many Dems who think the filibuster is important. 

    • Hook 'Em 2
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