Stephen Miller is only 38 years old. He sounds like somebody’s crotchety old grandfather there, living in some pre-1960s world. I suppose he’s speaking to the aging Fox boomer audience but I hate to tell him, purple and pink hair and piercings and tattoos have been around for decades now. We’ve been hearing an awful lot about appropriate dress and proper decorum from Republicans lately. But seriously, don’t you think they should take a look in the mirror? How about whatever this is? Let’s just say that the left doesn’t have a monopoly on wild hairdos and garish fashion. And those Fox News boomers need to take an extra dose of their Prevagen. This is from 1972: Miller’s idea seems to be that liberals and progressives are out of step with mainstream America but that requires a very creative definition of mainstream. Here’s how the dictionary defines it: having, reflecting, or being compatible with the prevailing attitudes and values of a society or group To put this into political terms, all you have to do is look at the popular vote counts since 2016 to see where the mainstream of America really is. Not that this is anything new.
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He has a novel (final) solution for Social Security funding Asked in New Hampshire whether he plans to raise the retirement age he had some great news. It isn’t going broke after all! “What I don’t think people are acknowledging the way they should is that life expectancy in this country is declining. And so, you know, we used to think it was just gonna keep going up. I mean, it’s been a pretty steep decline. So I don’t see how you raise it if life expectancy is declining.” What a relief, huh? The old people are dying early! Whew! DeSantis said that the decrease in lifespans isn’t “just from COVID,” but is “from a lot of other things,” including “deaths of despair, overdoses” and “other things, that have happened that I think the government hasn’t been willing to really be honest about.” Apparently, he didn’t express any particular concern about this decrease. He clearly sees it as a big plus, saving him from having to support raising the retirement age. He’s here to tell you the truth which the government refuses to do! We’re all gonna be dead soon!
Clay Higgins is on the case Brandi Buchman’s offering was the first thing that popped up on the hellsite this a.m. Clearly, former Louisiana lawman Rep. Clay Higgins, perpetually in high dudgeon (I love that phrase), is enjoying his moment in Lara Logan’s Truth in Media spotlight. “The Cajun John Wayne,” the man who accused the FBI of sending “ghost busses” filled with agents to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 to impersonate Trump supporters and spark the riot, has “done his research.” Again. Higgins insists that the Biden administration has weaponized the government (MAGAs love that phrase) to track Trump supporters. Higgins is gonna gear up, lock and load, expose ’em, flush ’em out, nip it in the bud: “I’m telling you, we’re in uncharted waters as it relates to the weaponization of our government against the American people. I am not frightened of these people. I’ve spent my life serving others, and I love my country. This thing is not going to just slip away. They’re not going to take us without a fight.
Animals opening their presents! Aaaaand kids opening their presents: Happy Hollandaise, folks. I know some of you like the Friday Night Soother more than anything else I do. If so … 🙂
Wouldn’t you rather try Hopium? Many of us have them in our lives or in our families, people who over the Trump years slid from left to right. For some it was the terror and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. For others it began sooner than 2020. Most are unknowns, but they often follow better-knowns down the rabbit hole. Michelle Goldberg considers the phenomenon in light of an In These Times essay by Kathryn Joyce (“The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption“) and Jeff Sharlet (“The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War“) and with a little help from Naomi Klein’s “Doppelganger.” Goldberg writes: There have been plenty of high-profile defectors from the left in recent years, among them the comedian Russell Brand, the environmentalist-turned-conspiracy-theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the journalist Matt Taibbi, a onetime scourge of Wall Street, who was recently one of the winners of a $100,000 prize from the ultraconservative Young America’s Foundation.
And his cult will probably believe it. I don’t know how many of you are watching the Trump videos on his web site but almost all of them are terrifying. But among the atrocities are a few comic gems. This is one of them: Former President Donald Trump on Friday proposed building up to 10 futuristic “freedom cities” on federal land, part of a plan that the 2024 presidential contender said would “create a new American future” in a country that has “lost its boldness.” Commuters, meanwhile, could get around in flying cars, Trump said – an echo of “The Jetsons,” the classic cartoon about a family in a high-tech future society. Work to develop vertical takeoff and landing vehicles is already underway by major airlines, auto manufacturers and other companies, though widely seen as years away from reaching the market. “I want to ensure that America, not China, leads this revolution in air mobility,” Trump, who announced his third bid for the presidency in November, said in a four-minute video detailing his plan.
He manipulated the court’s norms to overturn Roe. And he’ll do it again whenever he chooses. This piece in the NY Times about the deliberations in the Dobbs decision is a barn burner. I’ve included a gift link so that you can read the whole thing, but here is how it opens. Alito is a beast, as are those in his thuggish crew: On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion. At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words. But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes, according to two people who reviewed the messages. The next morning, Justice Clarence Thomas added his name, then Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and days later, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. None requested a single alteration.
It’s a mess and it’s getting messier It appears that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s honeymoon is coming to an early conclusion. The Freedom Caucus is hopping mad that he allowed the Defense Authorization Bill to pass with Democratic votes, a big no-no signifying that the bill was obviously much too good. According to Puck’s Tara Palmieri, they accused Johnson of going behind their backs and using a “page ripped from the Boehner playbook” referring to the former speaker who, like Kevin McCarthy, was also chased out of the job for passing bills with Democrats. Palmieri reports that a senior GOP aide told her that “people are turning on Mike fast; he won’t make a decision” because he wouldn’t choose between two competing bills. And apparently it has finally occurred to them that his lack of experience and expertise might be a problem, quoting the same aide saying, “his operation is minor league compared to Kevin’s team. At least they knew what they were doing and how the place ran. Mike’s team has no idea what they’re doing, and it’s pissing people off.
What happened to all the missing secrets? You may remember Cassidy Hutchinson saying that Mark Meadows took a binder full of information about the Russia investigation home with him during her January 6 Committee testimony: According to transcripts released by the Jan. 6 committee last year, in closed-door testimony, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the committee she was “almost positive” the binder went home with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “I don’t think that would have been something that he would have destroyed. It was not returned anywhere, and it never left our office to go internally anywhere. It stayed in our safe in the office safe most of the time,” Hutchinson said, adding that she realized the binder was no longer in the safe on her last day at the White House. CNN has new reporting on what went on and the enduring mystery of the missing binder continues.
Or is it just more hopium? I’m hoping to spread a little bit of hopium during this holiday season, not because I’m trying to blow smoke but because I’m honestly not as pessimistic about this coming election as a lot of people are. It’s not that I’m not extremely nervous. I know as well as you do that anything can happen and this political situation is extremely volatile. After all, just two years ago we had an attempted coup! But after having lived through some earlier panics that inform my feelings about this election, I’m just not ready to call for the hemlock. Yet. I know it will take hard work and close attention to what’s going on over the next year, but I do believe it’s possible. I’ll try to bring you analysis that I find as I scour the internet everyday that may at least give you some pause. JV Last of the Bulwark is a bit of a curmudgeon. Sometimes he is down right dark but I often find his analysis interesting. Today he discusses a conversation with economist Noah Smith about Biden’s chances in the election and why Smith believes he will win.