You are better off now than four years ago I took a cue ten days ago from the Bulwark and every morning began posting the New York Times front page from four years ago. Remember those grim headlines? The GOP’s idiotic attempt at campaigning in 2024 on “Are you better off?” relies on Americans having short memories and on our collective PTSD from the COVID-19 pandemic. We’d rather blot out images of empty store shelves, 6-ft distancing stickers, bodies in refrigeration trucks, mass graves, daily infection and death plots, etc. At one point, I was tracking how many preachers who claimed they were protected by the blood of Jesus had died of COVID. I stopped counting at 50 about this time four years ago. Donald Trump and the GOP want to play “Are you better off”? I’m happy to oblige. On this April Fools’ Day, the Associated Press is running a series of articles highlighting the miriad ways Americans can be fooled.
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Sliding into the 1930s The Silent Generation generally avoided speaking directly about anything deemed uncomfortable in polite society. TV’s Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds, fergawdsakes. It was a thing when Lucille Ball was “expecting” (never pregnant) and they wrote it into the series. One of my old roommates had been a junkie as a teen before I knew him in college. My My Silent Generation mother was distressed that I seemed to know people with “problems.” It’s like a throwback to the 1950s that today the news media has a problem openly discussing “problems.” Digby on Sunday referenced the Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn dealing plainly with uncomfortable truths about the immediate past president. Jay Rosen took note as well. Rosen has been particularly vocal about reporting that dances around the objective facts.
Nobody can stand to be in congress anymore Staffers are sick of it too: When it comes to job satisfaction, members of Congress aren’t the only ones considering calling it quits. Only about one in five senior aides on Capitol Hill believe that Congress is “functioning as a democratic legislature should,” and about the same margin believe that it is “an effective forum for debate” on key issues. Given those assessments by the people who live and breathe these issues, this particularly glum finding should not come as a surprise: Almost half of senior congressional aides are considering leaving the Hill because of “heated rhetoric from the other party.” These are just some of the findings from an investigation by the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofitthat aims to improve both lawmaker effectiveness and constituent engagement. Situated seven blocks away from the Capitol in Eastern Market, the foundation conducts seminars for staff and offers research to outside groups trying to figure out the byzantine ways of the House and Senate.
Good luck with that. Apparently, they’re getting upset with Trump’s revenge obsession. Go figure: Donald Trump’s bid to oust a Florida Republican who backed Ron DeSantis over him is reviving a long-running GOP anxiety: that he can’t be dissuaded from the grudges and inflammatory rhetoric that plagued his party’s lawmakers during his first term. Trump’s call for a challenger to Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), the only House Republican from DeSantis’ state to endorse the Florida governor in the primary, reveals a campaign with little interest in courting his former rivals and their supporters. But as President Joe Biden makes a play for Nikki Haley voters who might be reluctant to back Trump, Republicans are starting to nudge the former president to at least try to tone it down. They’re concerned about a rerun of the hair-pulling past — where GOP candidates in battleground races are constantly challenged to answer for their presumptive nominee’s more erratic and boisterous statements.
That seems to be what they have in mind Trump has often told his ecstatic followers that he planned to stay in office beyond eight years. The media has always taken it as a joke. Now the ultra-MAGA website American Conservative has developed a “serious” rationale: Lost in the Left’s endless babbling about Donald Trump’s alleged threat to democracy is a very simple but inconvenient truth: Trump’s re-emergence as the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 is a triumph of democracy. Not only did Trump secure the nomination following his defeat in 2020—a rather incredible feat in and of itself—but did so in spite of every obstacle the mainstream media, the Republican establishment, and the lawfare apparatus have put in his way. The primary voters and caucus-goers who chose Trump did so in spite of January 6, the prosecution of the former president, or even the popularity in some MAGA quarters of Ron DeSantis. They chose him because they damn well felt like it. This is democracy in action: The voters surveyed the scene, tuned out the noise, and selected the man the rest of the world loves to hate.
Jena Griswold, the Colorado Secretary of State was on Chris Hayes talking about the threats she got and revealed that there was a 600% increase in threats to her and staff. 600% WTF? That day, she received an email declaring: “We are coming for you bitch.” Another person emailed, “If you have kids, I hope they get murdered by illegal aliens,” adding, “Seriously, just die.” In a voicemail, someone said, “I can’t wait to find you and follow you to your house and expose your address.” Another person left a voicemail saying, “I’d love for you to die.” Some time this month, a person told Griswold on social media, “Take my advice and wear Kevlar … a lot of Kevlar!!!” ‘Just Die’: Colorado Elections Chief Who Took on Trump Sees 600% Spike in Threats, By Andrew Perez, Adam Rawnsley, Ryan Bort, Asawin Suebsaeng March 28, 2024 On these cable news segments we often hear some specific threats, but unless someone counts all the threats, and then tells the media about them, we never know just how huge the problem is.
They never miss a chance to be racist garbage Look at what they’re saying about the mayor of Baltimore: It was just after 1:30 Tuesday morning when Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) says he received the call from the city’s fire chief. “He said, ‘Sir, the Key Bridge collapsed,’’ said Scott, who was awake with a 3-month-old child when the call came in. “I said, ‘Repeat that.’ He said, ‘The Key Bridge collapsed, a ship hit it, it’s gone, sir.’ ” Scott, 39, said he threw on his official Baltimore city jacket and headed for the scene, calling the governor, the presidents of the state Senate and city council, and the city administrator along the way. When he arrived at the shore of the Patapsco River to see the wreckage, “you could still hear it moving at that point,” he said of the Dali, the 985-foot ship that had taken down the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Just before daybreak, as Scott began appearing in national television interviews to speak of the “unthinkable tragedy,” the attacks started.
It appears to be on the table: Rep. Don Bacon on Sunday warned that “it’s possible” that Speaker Mike Johnson could face a vote to oust him if he moves to pass Ukraine aid in the House. “I’m not going to deny it,” Bacon, R-Neb., said when asked by moderator Kristen Welker on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” whether it’s possible Johnson could lose his speakership over Ukraine aid. “We have one or two people that are not team players. They’d rather enjoy the limelight, the social media,” Bacon added, though he did not name any members. “It’s a very narrow majority, and one or two people can make us a minority,” he said. Bacon favors some support for Ukraine and highlighted his partnership with Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Ed Case, D-Hawaii, on a Ukraine aid bill.
That was a lie. Meidas Touch reports: David Zere, host of the MAGA Real America’s Voice show Breaking Point, kicked off a firestorm of social media misinformation Friday when he falsely claimed that disgraced former President Donald Trump had paid off the mortgage for the family of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller. Trump used the wake for Officer Diller, who was killed at a traffic stop on Monday, as a photo op, posing for cameras in front of a line of NYPD officers and railing against crime in the U.S. “We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently. This is not working. This is happening too often,” Trump said, despite violent crime rates being lower now than they were during his presidency. Zere said in an interview with Jack Posobiec prior to the wake, “The story here is that Trump gave a donation to Tunnels to Towers, I believe he paid off the mortgage for this family.” Trump himself never claimed he would be donating to pay off Diller’s mortgage, but the lie quickly spread on social media following Zere’s interview.
Oh, the outrage! Politico: President Joe Biden on Friday issued a proclamation recognizing March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility, just as he has commemorated the day every year since he has been in office. March 31 does not move around. Easter does. This year the two coincide. Cue the culture warriors who paused from biting the heads off chocolate bunnies to work themselves into another manufactured tantrum. Oh, the frumious affrontery! Oh, the Antichrist of it! Oh, the persecution of Christians by a Catholic president who attends mass each Sunday! House leadership voiced their outrage, as did the Trump campaign, demanding an apology from the White House. The White House pushed back, saying that “as a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American.” The Transgender Day of Visibility, observed on March 31 each year, was started by advocates 15 years ago as a way to celebrate transgender people and raise awareness of the discrimination they face.