43 thoughts on “Freefall”

  1. boss, pleeease, can’t we just wait at least these next 109 days before bashing biden?   the mid-terms will determine whether we have much of a future as a democracy.  maybe whether we have much of a future period. 

    in any case, that poll shows 71% of dems still approve of his performance and a discontented 18% don’t.   

  2. this is the part of that poll that’s important to watch and worry about:

    Among registered voters, if the election were held today, 45 percent say they would want to see the Democratic Party win control of the United States House of Representatives, while 44 percent say the Republican Party, and 11 percent did not offer an opinion. In Quinnipiac University’s June 8, 2022 poll, 46 percent of registered voters said the Republican Party, while 41 percent said the Democratic Party, and 13 percent did not offer an opinion.

    don’t waste time on 2024, dembats, get to work on making sure everyone’s registered, motivated to vote, allowed to vote and those votes are counted 3+ months from now.   

  5. the hill:

    […]
    With their focus on Jan. 6 itself, investigators are aiming to dissect the chaos at the White House as anxious staff sought Trump’s intervention to end the violence, only to be dismissed by an angry president. The 187 minutes under scrutiny will feature his actions at the White House in the time when he returned from his speech at the Ellipse, at 1:10 p.m., to when he sent out a video asking his supporters to stand down, at 4:17 p.m. 
    The committee is expected to hear from two members of Trump’s staff who resigned to protest how he handled Jan. 6: Matthew Pottinger, former deputy director for the National Security Council, and Sarah Matthews, then deputy press secretary. 
    The panel is also expected to show ample footage of its July 8 deposition with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who was one of the few figures to confront Trump in the White House during the riot.  
    The committee has previously described Pottinger as “in the vicinity of the Oval Office at various points throughout” Jan. 6. And snippets of testimony from both Pottinger and Matthews show they were critical of Trump’s actions that day, including his decision to fire off a tweet criticizing his vice president, Mike Pence, who quickly became a target of the mob. 
    “One of my staff brought me a printout of a tweet by the President and the tweet said something to the effect that Mike Pence, the vice president, didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done. I read that tweet and made a decision at that moment to resign,” Pottinger told the committee behind closed doors. 
    “That’s where I knew that I was leaving that day, once I read that tweet.” 
    Matthews also described the Pence tweet as a pivotal moment in the day’s long unfolding.
    “It was clear that it was escalating and escalating quickly. So then when that tweet, the Mike Pence tweet was sent out, I remember us saying that that was the last thing that needed to be tweeted at that moment. The situation was already bad. And so it felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire by tweeting that,” she said in an earlier deposition aired by the committee.
    […]
    “We’re going to demonstrate who was talking to him and what they were urging him to do in that time period. We’re going to talk about when he was made aware of what was going on in the Capitol. We’re going to hear testimony from individuals who spoke to the president. We’re going to hear testimony from individuals who were in the West Wing, what the president was doing, what his aides were doing, what his family and his allies were doing,” the aide said.
    [continues]

  6. So the prosecution in the Bannon case called two witnesses and rested. I guess they see it as a slam dunk or dead duck. I’m not sure that “negotiating” testimony and production of documents without reaching any agreement to do either will fly. 

  7. I love POTUS Joe.  Who is being polled?  Gas is down 60 cents per gallon.  Prices at the store have stopped rising, and because it’s the season, produce is finally coming down.    Go after the corporate profiteers creating this mess, not those with slightly increased wages, and certainly not President Biden.   He inherited a crapfest.  I predict that history will look very kindly on him, but for now, let the man do his job and stop with the polls, please. 

  8. Ok that’s 3 strikes and I’m out.
    I can handle republican negativity but it makes my skin crawl to be any part of negativity coming from democrats at this critical time. So see ya after midterms unless gop wins something.
    Pat, to answer your first question, apparently Craig just can’t help it.
    Check, please.

  10. Oh c’mon folks I’d be thrilled if he had better numbers, but they aren’t and acknowledging it isn’t bashing. We need a strategy to deal with it. Denial isn’t a strategy. Like I said there, time to push up.

  11. Who are they polling?

    And, knowing how human brains work, there is a tendency to follow what they say others are saying, despite what your own eyes and ears tell you. It just feeds the low numbers story, which drives the numbers lower.

    On the upside, as things get incrementally better, folks will feel relief.

  12. Bullshit 
    The way forward is support Biden, Harris,  and Clyburn. If you can’t do that you might as well be a Bernie freak. 
     

  13. My morning entertainment has been watching a video of a man trying to remove ticks from a hedgehog.  The ones on top, even in the spikes, were “easy” to get out.  Even one in an ear.  But, trying to get the ones off her belly was weird.  He would move her one way and she would uncurl. When he would bring the tick remover tool, she would curl up. He would put the tool down to uncurl her and keep repeating.  Yes life can be fun(ny).
     
    I live a protected life.  I have not heard anyone bashing or disliking President Biden, except for known gqp cult members. Even people I know who are republicans have muttered but acknowledge he has done a lot.  The dissatisfaction that I know of is not the economy, the pandemic or even him not golfing.  The upset is the Afghanistan withdrawal.  Even I am not happy with that action. It seemed pushed and not thought out at the military level, only a limited politcal view.  Something on the line that “it will be all better in a year”.

  14. We’ve been thru this befort (2016) and  wound up with trump because “her emails” (and other loser points) messed up Hillary’s poll numbers and fomented dissent Don’t you remember?  
    Gosh,  let’s see if we can fuck up again,why don’t we?  

    No.

     

  15. craig, a rose by any other name would still stink.  ok maybe it’s more passive aggressive behavior than bashing, but it’s still best to hold off until after mid-terms.  there ARE other things to talk about y’know.

     

    sturge, please don’t bail.  pretty please? 

  16. Pat…oh, please don’t do that, this is not a play for attention or adherents….…..I’ll be back to bitchin’ and moanin’ after the midterms…provided we’re all still around…..3 strikes is 3 strikes.. It makes my blood boil to read what I take to be willfull loser-ism. I got enough to worry about without that crap.

  18. For starters, shift midterm message away from a referendum on Biden to choice against Republicans as American Taliban. I kinda like Dem strategy of helping MAGA maniac candidates win nominations. 

  22. The chicken-fried taliban, as I like to call them, is the problem.  White supremacists hiding behind the Bible. I’ve also heard them referred to as “vanilla Isis.”   Potato, potah-to. 

  26. I’m sure Biden is fully vaccinated and boostered.
     
    Sturg… I’m with you on not bashing Biden… but Craig does have a point about not sticking our fingers in our ears and singing la la la.
     
    On that note… the gop are hard at work trying to win where they perceive weakness.  They are going very hard at NH’s senator Maggie Hassan.  Methinks the Supreme Court has helped her cause.

  27. OK, we know the poll numbers aren’t great.  No need to repeat it.  
    Republicans only like white men who run large corporations.  It’s a small tent.  Everyone else should be ticked off enough to vote ‘em out. 
    I’m not sure the Dem strategy of boosting  Q/MAGAt candidates is such a good thing, though.   There seem to be a lot of folks  with a real taste for crazy.  I mean, if we weren’t living in Bizzaro World or the Upside-Down or whatever this is, I’d say that was a good plan.  

  28. Here’s an ad that writes itself. 194 House Republican Chicken-fried Taliban want to ban contraceptives. 

    Protect Access to Contraceptives: Democrats (220 Yeah & 0 Nay), Republicans (8 Yeah & 194 Nay)

  29. Who doesn’t like fried chicken?
     
    November is a political eternity away.  Everybody chill.
     
    i realize CNN used a screencap of trailmix 15 years, ago, other than that, i never saw it quoted in any other media except that time the New Yorker blatantly stole my RNCC joke
     
    Still fuck you, hack at the New Yorker

  31. Actually, if i remember correctly it was a team of 3 creatively-bereft hacks, it takes a village to steal my shit

  32. It’s very facile to casually discuss presidential issues and pretend that discussion is of merit, but the real prize is House control, keep your eyes on that
     
    ok my work here is done 😇 
     

    • The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog has opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of Secret Service phone text messages related to the days around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

  35. It’s not hyperbole to say there are over 200 Republican House Representatives and 40ish Republican Senators engaged in a conspiracy to coverup the truth about the Jan 6th attempted coup
     
    It’s just as fair to state that Republicans as a point of policy value a zygote higher than a living, breathing 10 year-old girl- your niece, your granddaughter, your great-granddaughter… they’d throw her to the wolves just to keep their job in Congress.
     
    This election isn’t about Biden, it’s about them

  36. Their remedy for mass-shootings is MORE & EASIER GUNS, which is objectively insane anywhere outside of America
     
    There are very persuasive arguments to make.  Partisans will be partisan, we’re not concerned with them, it’s that sweet middle 👀
     
    ok throwing this phone off an overpass✌️

  38. Secret Service Bio for Tony Ornato Says He Was Responsible for “All Aspects of” “Military Operations” that Supported Trump (wallstreetonparade.com)

    The official government website for the Secret Service has a bizarre and alarming bio for Anthony (Tony) Ornato, the Secret Service agent who was allowed by his superiors to become Assistant to President Donald Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the White House. The bio notes that Ornato “was detailed from the Secret Service” to assume these highly political roles.
    […]
    According to the Carol Leonnig book released last year, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, Trump first offered Ornato the job of Director of the Secret Service. Ornato turned the job down according to Leonnig, but recommended the man, James Murray, who assumed the post of Director. That might explain how Ornato was allowed to return to the Secret Service after the disastrous security failings that produced the attack on the Capitol.
    The official bio for Ornato at the Secret Service website lists the following sprawling responsibilities assigned to him during his political stint at the White House: (See screen shot below of this text — in case it also ends up erased from the link we have provided.)
    “Prior to joining the Office of Training, he served as an Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the White House, where he was detailed from the Secret Service. During his tenure, he was responsible for all aspects of security, travel, information technology, military operations, scheduling and operational logistics required in support of the President. Additionally, he managed an unclassified budget of approximately $800 million and led more than 5,000 personnel who provided management and administration services, personnel and human resources, financial oversight, medical support, and the Residence staff who support both the president and the Executive Office of the President complex. In addition, Mr. Ornato oversaw several offices within the White House, to include the Presidential Airlift Group (Air Force One); the Presidential Marine Helicopter Squadron (Marine One); Camp David; the White House Communications Agency; and Presidential Continuity Policy, Plans and Requirements.”
    Four words particularly stand out in the above bio outlining Ornato’s responsibilities: “information technology” and “military operations.”
    [continues]

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