11/10/23

Good morning! It’s Friday, November 10th.

The Marine Corps Birthday.

Fun fact – it’s pronounced “core” but spelled “corps” because it comes from the Latin term Corpus, meaning body. And then it beep bop booped on over to the French, where they kept the vibe but dropped the pronunciation of the the letter “p.”

Thus – Corps.

And now, the news.

Israel-Hamas War

-via AP News

Let’s start with the Israel-Hamas war, where Israel has agreed to a 4-hour daily pause to the fighting in northern Gaza, as President Biden asks for a three-day pause. The three-day pause has not been settled yet, but the four-hour pause was announced on Thursday and will come with an announcement at least three-hours in advance with the goal being, of course, that this would allow civilians in northern Gaza or flee to the south.

Government Shutdown Looms (Again)

-via NBC News

Stop me if you’ve heard this before… we’re a week out from a government shutdown and the House Republicans are no closer to a budget.

In 48 hours, those crazy kids and their in-over-his-head weirdo Speaker have cancelled votes on two party-line bills because, again, stop me if you’ve heard this before, they couldn’t get the party together to cast a unified vote.

But surely things can’t be too bad between the Republicans, right? Let’s hear from some of them…

House Rep Troy Nehls from Texas: “I don't think the Lord Jesus himself could manage this group."

Thomas Massie, of Kentucky: "But with what's going on on the floor today, I think that indicates the honeymoon might be shorter than we thought."

Another House Republican, this time an anonymous one: "We’re still dealing with the same divisions we always have had. We’re ungovernable."

We’re ungovernable.

Ladies and gentlemen… that’s the 2024 message!

We’ll see what today brings.

GOP Debate

-via AP News

But that’s the House. Let’s see how things are going with the people that want to be the president. How was Wednesday night’s GOP debate?

As the field narrows, the stage only saw DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, Christie, and Tim Scott. Trump, who is leading the group by leaps and bounds did not attend, as he is wont to do.

To be honest, I didn’t watch because I was having a lovely evening away from their voices but let’s play the low-lights:

Vivek Ramaswamy called Ukraine’s Jewish president a Nazi… They tried to walk it back but it’s hard to walk this back: “Ukraine is not a paragon of democracy. It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks. A comedian in cargo pants. The man called Zelensky. That is not democratic.”

Not only is that patently false, Zelensky lost family in the holocaust.

His campaign says that’s not what he meant: “He was talking quickly and kind of oscillated in his words.”

By all accounts, Nikki Haley came out strong, leaning especially hard on her UN Ambassador experience.

DeSantis did what he’s done in the prior two debates – terrified to push back against Trump, which is why he never has any non-weird meaningful moments from any of these debates. And by that I mean, the only two things I’ve seen from him at this debate are a gif of him trying to smile again but doing a weird tongue thing where he seemingly forgot that when we smile, we keep our tongues behind our teeth, and also a weird video of him walking in his boots that, this is real, footwear experts and designers have confirmed time and time again are, at best, lifts. If not full on heels.

Which is fine! Wear heels! But stop being weird about it.

Christie went after Trump, as he does.

And as has been the case, and only becomes more obvious as time passes, no one likes Ramaswamy. But Nikki Haley REALLY doesn’t like him.

At one point he made a comment about Haley’s daughter’s use of TikTok and she told him, “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” (which is so close to the actual saying) and then added, “You’re just scum.”

And Tim Scott was… there.

2024 Candidates

-via CNN & Vox (Jill Stein) and CNN (Joe Manchin)

And hey, just for some Friday fun… here are two stories that made me want to throw my phone across the room:

I’m just gonna tell you these stories in the order I heard them:

First, Joe Manchin. Joey Manchy.

Joey Manchy, who has a houseboat and is also, apparently, a democratic Senator from West Virginia.

Well, Joey let us know on Thursday that he will not be running for re-election in the state that Trump won by 68.6%, and that he, in 2018, only won by 3.3%

So yeah… so obviously that’s going to be a TOUGH seat for Democrats to win back, in an election where the Senate was already going to be a toughy. Winnable! Winnable but tough.

What’s worse is that he will be “traveling the country and speaking out, to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle, and bring Americans together.”

So Joey, in November of 2023, is soft-launching a presidential campaign. He obviously wouldn’t be a Democratic candidate, shockingly he’s not a Republican (out loud at least), which means… if he runs, he’s running third party.

Third party candidates don’t win elections! They hand Donald Trump elections.

And I’ll give you an example.

Michigan.

Michigan and it’s 16 electoral college votes. In 2016, Trump got 47.3% of the votes and Hillary got 47%. Gary Johnson, a Libertarian got 3.6% and Jill Stein, of the Green party, got 1.1%. If either of those last two yahoos had bowed out, Trump would have lost Michigan.

Political scientists studied is actually believe that, while it’s not cut and dry, Jill Stein was a 2016 spoiler.

So you can understand, of course, my frustration at the idea that Joey Manchy may run as a third party candidate.

You can also understand, then, why this next headline made it even worse…

Jill Stein has announced a 2024 bid as a Green Party candidate.

FLAMES. ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE.

This will be her third bid. She also ran in 2012.

Someone people distract these people with something shiny, like a houseboat, and tell them to go away.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of Marines. Two of my Grandpas were Marines.

It’s also Vanilla Cupcake Day and more than vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles inside of them… because you are also the absolute top-shelf selection when it comes to dessert… I’m proud of you.