I miss the little mob money laundering pizza place that I went to as a kid. Absolutely amazing pizza. Never the same after the feds shut down the drug trafficking ring behind it all and deported the owner.

On the flip side, there’s a local pizza place where I currently live that’s fucking terrible. Some of the worst pizza I’ve ever had. It made me wonder how they could stay in business. Then I found out that name of the business happened to also be the name of the local mafia family.

Kasper will remain an adviser at the Pentagon in a special government employee role, limited to working no more than 130 days a year.

And also consequences are for show, he’s not really fired.

Pretty sure the only way I’ll get to be done with working is when I’m done with breathing.

Not like they were going to get any help from this administration anyway.

It’s long since become clear that the time we are trying to go back to in order to “Make America Great” is a time when we had no rights and were under the rule of a mad king.

He may have 0 qualifications, but I wouldn’t say his judgement is exactly equivalent. His judgment goes much more into the negatives, since everything he says and every decision he makes is actively causing harm. We would be better off simply having the role vacant, or giving the job to someone in a coma.

Ironically, even the most profoundly autistic people, the ones that resemble his characterization of the condition, would still be better at the job than he is.

He has done (and sold) a lot of drugs. So, no surprise there.

They did it because they wanted to trot out the mother of a victim to endorse their unlawful deportations and didn’t want to ruin the PR stunt by risking someone asking questions and injecting a little reality into the event.

Friendly media will run with a story about an emotional plea from a grieving mother that makes it sound like the only thing standing between mass rape and murder is the Trump administration deporting illegals before they get a chance to strike. The rest of the media will describe the event and basically let the same message get through with a footnote about the lack of questions and maybe a quote from someone on the other side for balance. Any outlet that would lead with the refusal to answer questions is one that was going to be critical anyway. There’s really no downside for them.

At this early stage when there isn’t an obvious choice (like an incumbent or VP), this is really a measure of name recognition more than anything.

I don’t know what the field is going to look like when the primaries roll around, but I highly doubt that Kamala will make it anywhere near the nomination again. She had her chance, she’s extremely unlikely to get another one. The last time a Democrat got the nomination a second time after a loss was Adlai Stevenson in 1956, and he only got it because most of the other possible candidates stayed out of the race because they expected Eisenhower to win in a landslide.

Actually no. Pardons cannot cover future actions.

Also, as long as the crime happens outside of DC, the pardon wouldn’t be able to prevent charges from being filed at the state level.

That said, it’s still a ridiculously broad power that should absolutely be severely restricted or eliminated with a constitutional amendment. Which would probably only happen if a Democrat started using the pardon power to protect people who were going after Republicans.

Legally? Absolutely.

Realistically? Not a chance in hell. Not while Republican votes are required.

I mean, if the mid terms go badly for Republicans (as they really, really should) the Democrats would take the house and could certainly start the impeachment process. But they would still need two thirds of the senate to vote to convict. And the only way that happens is if the democrats win every senate race, even the ones in safely red states. That or the necessary number of Republicans would have to decide that Trump is a liability after getting absolutely devastated in the mid terms. Given the fact that January 6th wasn’t enough to make that happen, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

What the fuck does that have to with access to medical care you absolute fucking waste of flesh‽

No one is living off of Medicare or Medicaid. No one is able to not work and instead play video games all day because of these programs. All a work requirement does is make it harder for these programs to help the people who need them. Which of course makes it more likely that they will be stu k with deteriorating health issues which will make it harder for them to work.

This is just an attempt to cut benefits for the poor to make room for tax cuts for the rich. It’s all about obfuscating the cuts so they can try to dodge accountability.

Fuck you Mike Johnson. You are net drain on humanity. You are actively working to increase suffering and death. Stop pretending to love Jesus because the last time he met someone like you he whipped them and drove them out of the temple.

Also an episode of Babylon 5.

And yet, they are even more incompetent than that. Because even if we go along with the idea that all trade deficits are bad, that still wouldn’t explain why they would put tariffs on the countries where we already have a trade surplus.

“Free”

Hmm. Need bigger scare quotes.

About 44% too high.

They spent an obscene amount, used horrible scare tactics, lied, slandered, and bribed people into voting for their pro-Trump shill and after all that, they lost in a blowout.

This was a must win, and Wisconsin came through for us. Not only will this help protect the rule of law in Wisconsin, but it could very well determine the outcome of both the mid terms and potentially even the next presidential election. Or at least, it likely prevented the other guy from letting the Republicans get away with blatant voter suppression and gerrymandering that they almost certainly would have reinstituted once they controlled the courts again.

He gets away with it because no one has the balls to just arrest him.*

It’s illegal to buy votes. It’s illegal to offer anything of value in exchange for voting, not voting, registering to vote, or not registering to vote. It’s illegal to offer employment in exchange for voting or not voting. It’s illegal to offer entries in a lottery for voting or not voting. It’s illegal to offer a lottery that isn’t actually random.

It doesn’t matter which way he tries to spin it, they’re all illegal.

* A little bit of the hesitation could be blamed on the authorities not wanting to get attacked for being political (I’m sure Fox News would love to show footage of Elon getting arrested at a political rally). But lets be honest, the bigger issue is that he’s the world’s richest man, his defense would have limitless resources, and there’s a good chance that the feds would interfere to get him out.

I would love it if he undermined any potential candidates to replace him, convinced that he would be able to get elected for a third term, only to lose a long drawn out fight over eligibility. Or just die. It would be a wonderful irony to have the Republicans scramble for a last minute replacement candidate because their octogenarian incumbent refused to back down.

No need to be alarmist about it. They can just apply for SNAP benef- oh wait nevermind. But there’s still plenty of support for food banks which will- oh, right. But… uh, I’m sure they’ll be fine if they have 401k or something, stocks are up and food prices are down again… right?

[*whispering with unseen person*]

Really? Oh! Well shit.