Biden pours cold water on Fight for $15, pessimistic on conquering COVID
Yang puts himself in fundraising lead for NYC mayor
Joe Biden did a presidential town hall.
The following prepared talking points he acted out with Anderson Cooper are the ones that I think matter:
He is for a pathway to citizenship. This may not matter since even Marco Rubio (who backed the last major immigration compromise) is a border hawk now.
Minimum wage is something we need to raise “gradually.” Fight for $15? More like $15 in 15 Years From Now.
White Supremacists are the greatest threat to America. Patriot Act 2 incoming. Buy your Onion Routers now.
Country will not be back to normal by next Christmas. I think this is him trying to reset expectations so he doesn’t get burnt like Mr. “We should be open by Easter.” But man, it sucks to hear.
Is Ron DeSantis “Competent Trump”
A review of COVID statistics as we are hopefully entering into the beginning of the end of the worst. Trump declares war on Cocaine Mitch. Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) of Politico joins us to discuss the moment Ron DeSantis is having in Florida.
THE REST OF THE NEWS…
Andrew Yang unlock fundraising match that makes him prohibitive frontrunner
BUSINESS INSIDER
Congress is bringing back earmarks
CNN
Q theory leads to DC police preparation
NEWSWEEK
I honestly don’t think there is much to the Q stuff directing violence. The heat was on the election, the election has passed.
Friend of princess of Dubai urge UN investigation into royal family holding her hostage
BBC
COVID has been hard on all families.
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22 hours and counting without power here just south of Waco. No significant updates from oncor all day other than a message that they "may shut off power for up to 60 minutes at a time as part of rolling blackouts to avoid a larger outage". House quite cold by now, wife and I are taking shifts cuddling with the baby on the couch to keep her warm while the other one naps.
This is insane. - MATT
Stay safe Matt, our thoughts are with you. This is turning into quite the fiasco.
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The acquittal was a foregone conclusion not just because they didn't have enough support in the senate to push it through, but because it was fabricated BS from start to finish.
The "moving, emotional video" they opened with was cut and spliced to hell, missing context, and was just the start of the lies and misdirection they pushed out.
As someone with a lot of video on the internet, the thought that something like that might be acceptable should give you cold shivers.
I've always thought of you and this newsletter as partisan but at least trying to be fair. It kind of seems like you've given up on the charade? - ANDY
You are always welcome to think of me how you like. Specifically when discussing politics I’d sooner try and jump over the moon than to presume I can control how I come off in a partisan environment. But this is a teaching moment…
This newsletter, a free one, is the piece of content I probably spend the least time on. I gather stories, I write a little something, I copy/paste the emails I like and I am done. In that, I hope readers understand this is my skin-deep take on the day that was in politics. For deeper thought I’d greatly encourage you to listen to the podcast or watch our Twitch streams.
I have said on other outlets like my podcast that the use of that specific video DID make me a bit queasy and I wasn’t a huge fan of “trial by YouTube.” Counter to that though is that impeachment is NOT a legal process and rather a political one. No one involved has any incentive to behave in a way that preserves dignity or honor. It’s basically a rally or political ad.
In short: did I find it gross? Yes. Was it unexpected? No. Did I say that here? I don’t remember writing it in the newsletter. Did I explore it somewhere else? Yes.
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Are you sure it isn’t all those “Florida and Ohio” transplants in TX brining the rolling blackouts with them? - MIKE
We don’t live there yet.
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Given his diet and lifestyle, not to mention all the money he apparently owes to sketchy characters overseas; and his pending legal problems, what are the chances our former President will be healthy and/or a free man in 2024? - GARY
Despite it being a tremendous blow to the already flagging industry of Trump-centric fan fiction… I suspect Big Chungus will likely be alive and free in four years.
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Finally, a congressional fact-finding commission that I support (and gets headlines, let's ignore the ones I am not aware of). You definitely hit the nail on the head, with the intelligence agency questions. Your discord had links to plans that were in the open leading up to 6th; not support, but merely sharing what people were seeing. How about every time an intelligence agency lets something bad happen because they didn't share information we remove $10,000,000,000 from their budget? That still leaves them with TRILLIONS of dollars but might incentivize them to play nice and keep us safe. - SEAN W
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Congrats on the move to Austin! Now you’ll get to see first hand how incompetence in government can happen on the local, state, and federal level all at once!
Mayor Adler encouraging people to not use power while live streaming in front of a painting with accent lighting.
Governor Abbott saying “teachers will be in the front of the line” for COVID vaccines and then last minute changing the priority so that they’re not even considered 1B, and Sunday night tweeted about how Austin defunding police would be bad, instead of anything about this storm.
And don’t even get me started on how gerrymandered Austin is for the House and do I even need to say anything about Ted Cruz?
But yeah! Welcome! Austin is a great city as I’m sure you know! I just hope you enjoy partisan wins, because that’s all we get around these parts. - ED
You know I’m from Florida, right?
Wake me when the guy who came within a percentage point of the governorship is found incoherent with meth and two male escorts, one of whom gives his professional email to the cops as HoneyHammock@gmail.com.
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Where is your outrage on the continuation of the eroding of freedom of speech? Hasbro has now removed the toys associated with Gina Carano's Star Wars character after Disney fired her. Outspoken conservative actor Kevin Sorbo just had his FB page removed without any warning or explanation. I thought blacklisting of people in the entertainment industry was a thing of the past but I guess not. Pretty soon we will have nothing but information that has been vetted by the government to make sure it is proper for the American public's consumption! Wait, don't the communist nations already do this? - HALFNORMAL
Okay, let’s run these through the outrage matrix.
Hasbro removing Gina Carano’s Star Wars character toy: This story (based on 3 Google searches) popped up because a toy blog said Hasbro was no longer accepting orders for an unreleased toy. I have no idea how much of this is true, I will withhold outrage. Am I annoyed that an actor could be denied merch money she would have otherwise earned? If I knew for sure that her contract said she was owed that money, maybe? But I don’t. So, no.
In fact, I really, really, really don’t care about actor’s political opinions. I honestly care much more about yours, HalfNormal.
Kevin Sorbo’s Facebook page removed: I don’t care about actor’s political opinions. Sorry, Hercules. Besides, if you built your audience for the benefit of Zuckerberg you are at his will.
We are facing a new blacklist: Alright! We hit on something! Yes! I do agree we are moving in a more authoritarian direction. However, we need to understand the differences between the Hollywood Blacklist of the 50s and our situation now. Then, a communist screenwriter had few other options to ply their craft. Now, we have the internet. The harder gatekeepers squeeze the more slips through their fingers. Carano signing on with Ben Shapiro to make an almost certainly terrible movie was covered by liberal trade sites like it was James Gunn going from Disney to Warners.
Am I scared I’m wrong? That we are sliding into 1984? Sometimes. But I am not outraged.
I have a religious faith in the chaos of the internet.