Post by the Scribe on May 1, 2021 1:36:21 GMT
mailchi.mp/salon.com/standing-room-only-republicans-get-big-mad-after-bidens-big-speech?e=fb5d1447d4
Welcome to Standing Room Only, the biweekly politics newsletter for Salon readers who like to be plugged in and a little bit rowdy. I’m your host, Amanda Marcotte. Grab a beverage and let’s review what’s rocking in politics right now.
That high-pitched whining you hear is Republican desperation
Despite the fact that they have a wildly disproportionate amount of power, Republicans are plainly still worried about that whole “the public hate our policies” problem. So no surprise that, in a week when they knew Biden would be delivering a major speech on policy, right wing media amped up the culture war idiocy: Falsely accusing Joe Biden of wanting to ration beef. Lying about Kamala Harris’s book being in “welcome kits” for migrant children. Telling audiences to call the cops on people wearing masks.
www.salon.com/2021/03/21/robert-reich-on-how-to-unrig-the-gops-minority-rule-_partner/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2021/04/26/why-joe-bidens-popularity-baffles-the-media-and-angers-the-opposition/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2021/04/26/plant-based-beer-and-beef-bans-how-larry-kudlow-set-off-a-right-wing-anti-biden-smear-campaign/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2021/04/27/kamala-books-at-the-border-lie/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2021/04/27/tucker-carlson-tells-his-fox-news-audience-to-call-the-police-if-they-see-children-wearing-masks/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
They pull this crap because it’s easier than admitting that they’re the bad guys in the American political drama. It’s hard not to laugh at the silliness of fake scandals and petty grievances. But it’s also important to keep an eye on these tactics, since this kind of BS can insinuate itself into the public imagination, where it can do lasting damage.
www.salon.com/2021/04/27/fake-burger-bans-and-other-peoples-masks-republicans-crawl-deeper-into-their-imaginary-victimhood/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2021/04/28/right-wing-lies-like-bidens-beef-ban-and-kamalas-book-spread-too-fast-for-corrections-to-counter/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
Biden gave a pretty good speech! And Republicans have big sadface about it
Wednesday night, of course, was Biden’s “don’t call it the State of the Union” speech, i.e. the first big speech a president gives before a joint session of Congress. Biden did a good job, prompting lemon-sucking reactions from Republican politicians and Fox News pundits. Readers should not feel even remotely bad about enjoying it all.
Before the speech, author David Rothkopf told Chaucey DeVega that Biden is “not just paying lip service” to progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Even though Biden often likes to talk about bipartisanship, his actions show he has “decided to go big instead of embracing compromise.”
bookshop.org/a/2464/9781250228833
www.salon.com/2021/04/29/democratic-insider-david-rothkopf-on-bidens-historic-first-100-days--and-the-danger-ahead/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
Biden re-confirmed this during his speech, in which he said that he likes to meet “with those who have ideas that are different,” but — with a pointed look at the Republicans in the gallery — that “doing nothing is not an option” when it comes to reinvesting in American infrastructure and families.
And boy, were Republicans salty about that speech! Sen. Tim Scott carped in his rebuttal that it was a “liberal wishlist of big government waste.” (Things Republicans view as “waste”: Childcare. Jobs. Better roads and bridges. Elder care. Broadband. Clean energy.) Stephen Miller called the speech “tedious & unoriginal,” as though his speeches for Donald Trump were anything but Dirty Harry scripts brought down to the third-grade reading level his boss could understand. Ted Cruz seemingly pretended to fall asleep during the speech, for the apparent purpose of making the convoluted claim that Biden “is deliberately being boring” to hide that “what he's saying is radical.”
www.salon.com/2021/04/29/twitter-shuts-down-uncle-tim-from-trending-after-republican-senator-offers-gop-response-to-biden/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2020/12/02/donald-trumps-mini-monster-stephen-miller-wasnt-born-that-way/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.salon.com/2021/04/29/ted-cruz-visibly-dozed-off-during-biden-speech-right-wing-pundit-claims-he-was-praying/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
Yeah . . . the public isn’t buying it. The idea that we should get more for our tax dollars than adventure wars overseas and pictures of Cruz’s Cancún vacay is starting to get real popular with voters.
www.salon.com/2021/04/29/joe-biden-turns-the-tables-on-republicans/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
Meanwhile, the Trump loonies find all this money talk boooooooring. Instead, they’re mad that Biden opened his speech by correctly describing the January 6 insurrection as “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” Their reasoning is that Biden totally stole the election and they’re going to prove it and Trump will be president and those violent marauders who stormed the Capitol will be vindicated any day now. Just you wait, you reality-based meanies!
But like, Trump’s going to get the White House back any day now, right?
Speaking of the Trump faithful, how are things going in their world? Readers will not be surprised to find out that the answers are “not very well” and yet “in a way far more bizarre than you could have imagined.”
For one thing, as the reactions to Biden’s speech show, a lot them are still convinced that they can successfully gaslight the nation about the January 6 insurrection we all watched live, claiming it was not at all what it seemed on television and on Facebook and Instagram and wherever else participants cheerfully documented their crimes in real time.
www.salon.com/2021/04/14/right-wing-propaganda-is-annihilating-the-truth-about-jan-6--democrats-must-fight-back/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
This pressure campaign has not slowed down the rate of indictments and or what will hopefully be the first in a series of guilty verdicts. Nor can the red hats shut up people who were actually there, such as Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who suffered a heart attack while fending off the insurrectionists.
www.salon.com/2021/04/24/you-havent-seen-anything-yet-when-it-comes-to-legal-troubles-for-capitol-riot-attackers--expert_partner/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyregion/brendan-hunt-verdict.html
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/28/michael-fanone-trump-gop-riots/
“Jan. 6 was real. It didn't happen in a fucking movie studio in California,” Fanone told CNN in an interview this week. “I want people to understand that thousands of rioters came to the Capitol hell-bent on violence and destruction and murder.”
www.salon.com/2021/04/28/dc-cop-beaten-on-jan-6-calls-out-trump-supporters-for-whitewashing-maga-mob/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
Meanwhile, the Trump dead-enders have turned their eyes towards Arizona, where Republicans are conducting a theatrical recount in order to appease the Trumpists, even though the chance of turning up any irregularities is low and the chance of overturning the election is zero. Seriously, they’re livestreaming the charade so that shut-in QAnons can stare at it all day, sure that any minute now, the cheat code that will reinstate Trump as president will reveal itself.
www.salon.com/2021/04/28/qanon-fans-are-obsessed-with-arizona-vote-audit-still-hoping-for-trump-comeback/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
Oh yeah, and Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment got raided by the feds this week. As you can guess, he is absolutely reacting like someone who has nothing to hide, and not at all like a guy about to drown in a sea of shoe polish-laced flop sweat.
www.salon.com/2021/04/28/rudy-giulianis-attorney-accuses-the-fbi-of-legal-thuggery-after-agents-raid-his-home/?user_id=robtempe@yahoo.com
What we're reading this week
“‘Alarming,’ ‘Disturbing,’ ‘Amusing,’ ‘Frustrating’: When Your Beef Study Becomes A Rightwing Distortion,” Kate Riga, Talking Points Memo talkingpointsmemo.com/news/beef-fox-news-study-rightwing-red-meat-biden-climate
“The Chauvin Trial’s Jury Wasn’t Like Other Juries,” Sonali Chakravarti, the Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/what-was-different-time/618735/
“A Capitol invader left a note calling Nancy Pelosi a b-word. His attempt to walk it back has been . . . really something,” Monica Hesse, The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/nancy-pelosi-capitol-riot-note-richard-barnett/2021/04/27/727ef956-a6bc-11eb-8d25-7b30e74923ea_story.html
“To Keep Women in the Workforce, Men Need to Do More at Home,” Daniel L. Carlson,
Richard J. Petts, and Joanna Pepin, Harvard Business Review hbr.org/2021/04/to-keep-women-in-the-workforce-men-need-to-do-more-at-home
Best of Salon’s comments
“Most likely, every president enters the office hoping to be a transformational one. Given what the country has been facing, Biden is leaning into it. Perhaps he's trying to avoid Obama's mistakes, which is why he's embracing liberal policies more stridently than we've seen in awhile.” — indyotto on “Joe Biden turns the tables on Republicans”
“Good, I'm glad Biden has finally drawn a line in the sand. He is spot on the attack was one of the most shattering attacks in our history. This was the first time our citizens had attacked the very seat of power they despise, but yet want to have to themselves.” — kcwookie on “Right-wing erupts after Biden declares Jan. 6 ‘worst attack on democracy since Civil War’”
“To some extent the core of this is the cultural right's absolute childish petulance at even the slightest suggestion they might be wrong. Beef as a food source, is inarguably about the worst thing you can eat vis a vis the environment. Beef is also, delicious. So the conservative tack appears to, instead of dealing with any gray areas is to simply deny the first fact, claim it's an evil hoax perpetrated by whomever and then do whatever they want to do without having to self-examine in any way.” — DutchVandal on “Fake burger bans and other people's masks: Republicans crawl deeper into their imaginary victimhood”
“Fantastic Man” by William Onyeabor