And still great at doing stuff Watching Ryan Gosling and the Barbie cast perform “I’m Just Ken” at the Oscars last night was the highlight of the wekend. Enjoy. Digby has a viral moment from late in the show in the queue. Come back soon. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
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When underdogs fight back “When people feel uncertain, they’d rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right,” President Bill Clinton advised Democratic leaders in 2002. Enter Donald John Trump, the seven deadly sins on two legs. No way would Americans vote for that walking atrocity, I thought in 2016. Hoo-boy, did I call that wrong. So did Bill’s wife Hillary. Americans chose strong and wrong. The pivot point in the Hero’s Journey comes when, after refusing the call to adventure, she/he crosses a threshold out of the ordinary world into one of challenge and quest. Young Luke Skywalker crosses that threshold early in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Did President Joe Biden reach one of those pivot points last week? Some think maybe. Reflecting on the 2008 HBO film, Recount, about the 2000 presidential election, Joe Klein writes in The New York Times: Democrats litigate; Republicans fight. Democrats float toward an almost helium-infused state of high-mindedness; Republicans see politics as a no-holds-barred cage match. President Biden’s pugilistic State of the Union address last week may represent a new direction.
A lot of people won’t believe this post was actually Trump, but it was. The punchline isn’t so funny.
It was the day we all were told to stay home or die There has been a lot of talk in the last week or so about “the week before” meaning the last normal week before the country (sort of)locked down for COVID and changed everything. The trauma of that experience is still with us as it should be. We lost well over a million people from that plague and the government did not handle it well. But as Melissa Ryan explains in her great newsletter, it was way more than COVID: … The week before is a unifying event that all Americans experienced. I’ve also learned that most folks who share their story experienced one or more seismic life changes during the pandemic. Losing loved ones, moving to a new location, and everything in between. We all seem to have a version of that story, and I always find them fascinating. At the same time, I bristle at the idea that this was the week that changed everything. At least in America. In early 2020 we were in the 4th year of Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. Things hadn’t been normal for quite some time, and a seismic cultural and political shift had already taken place.
They held their breath until they turned blue and nothing happened Awwwwww: House conservatives are furious about the government funding bill negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson that sailed through Congress last week, calling it a betrayal of Republican promises to cut spending and reshape the federal budget. But in a twist, this time they aren’t threatening to overthrow the man in charge of cutting those funding deals with a Democratic-led Senate and White House, even as they’ve begun to paint him as a functionary for status quo policies. House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., has blasted the first of two funding packages and said he doesn’t expect a better deal in the second one, which must pass by March 22 to avoid a partial government shutdown. “Because the speaker doesn’t want to do that. He just wants to pass what the Senate wants so that we avoid any conflict,” Good told NBC News, saying that Johnson, R-La., wants to “join hands with the Dems” to “increase spending” and yield “no policy wins.” “The speaker is unwilling to tell the Senate no,” he said.
You don’t have to imagine it: The list goes on. Lara is going to be a rich source of MAGA BS, isn’t she?
Trump’s ally Orban spells out Trump’s Ukraine plan Not that we didn’t know this was his plan to “end the war in 24 hours,” but it’s now been confirmed. He will hand Ukraine to Vladimir Putin and leave Europe to its own devices: Donald Trump will totally stop funding Ukraine if he wins the U.S. election in November, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said following a meeting between the right-wing figureheads. “He will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war,” Orbán told Hungarian state media Sunday. “Therefore, the war will end, because it is obvious that Ukraine can not stand on its own feet.” The longtime allies met last Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a summit which was lambasted by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Britt is as phony as Joe Biden is real It was baked in that Saturday Night Live would use Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s “absurdly overdramatic” SOTU performance as it’s cold open. My problem with SNL’s sketch? “Bless his heart” Britt will probably just be flattered that SNL asked Scarlett Johansson to play her. “What was the point of that nonsense?” The American Conservative asked, descrbing Britt’s appearance as a ” hyper-emotional speech that verged from creepy to hormonal to giddy within the span of twenty minutes.” It’s a wonder SNL did not just replicate Britt’s address almost word-for-word, as Tina Fey once did in mocking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But The American Conservative‘s response to Biden’s SOTU was just as bizarre, judging it a declaration of war on half the country while calling Biden a liar and Britt “authentic.” Judge for yourself which of the likely 2024 presidential candidates is the kind of authentic you want sitting in the Oval Office.
Will SCOTUS now revisit Dobbs and Heller? Need I repeat that conservatives principles always seem to be a mile wide and an inch deep? Democracy, the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power, peace through strength, the sacredness of the Constitution, etc. “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism,” Congressman Paul Ryan insisted four years before becoming House Speaker. Relativism was for years a charge conservatives levied against liberals. Until it was no longer useful. My memorable first introduction to Rick Perlstein in 2005 included something Richard Nixon once told a staffer, “Flexibility is the first principle of politics.” Expediency conservatives hold sacrosanct. Jill Lepore asks in The New Yorker whether, having sacrificed the 14th Amendment in pursuit of political expediency, “originalists” on the Supreme Court now feel free to rexamine other amendments: There’s more than one way to skin a Constitution.
From the “you can’t make this stuff up” files She is totally shameless so this won’t embarrass her. But it should embarrass someone. The following won’t embarrass this looney tunes either. But it should: I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Kevin McCarthy about anything. But his loathing for this woman is well taken. I hope he succeeds in using his network to take her out. She’s almost as nuts as George Santos. And then there’s this piece of work: Oh really? Imagine that … As I said, you can’t make this stuff up.