KA SEMENOVA

@kasemenova.bsky.social

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Writer, editor, lapsed Russianist

https://substack.com/@kasemenova?utm_source=byline

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KA SEMENOVA

Follow Mak, who’s covering this on the ground

Today: a chaotic scene, with the acrid smell of smoke drifting throughout the hospital grounds.

Biden strategist (inadvertently) encapsulates how we got here: “We have to get them [voters] to think the threat to their fundamental way of life is worse than the president dying in office.” That’s ok strategy for D base, which is mostly there. But as a strategy for low-info & swing voters?

Ruth Ben Ghiat on forming counterrevolutionary cadres, from her piece in TNR:

The New Republic devotes June issue to American Fascism: What it Would Look Like

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I will bang this drum forever: in THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS, 1933-45 Milton Mayer interviewed 10 ordinary Germans after WW2 to learn how fascism took hold. There was never a moment when everyone woke up:

if you’re waiting for everyone around you to wake up, you’ll wait forever. this is how the people grinding our bones to make their bread WANT you to be. paralyzed, alienated & purposeless

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A must read from Monbiot on the implications of a Trump win for the rest of the world: "In short, the UK and Europe will need to find the means of defending ourselves against a Trump regime and its allies." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Axios/CNN first out of the gate with "What did Kamala know & when did she know it?" twitter.com/AlexThomp/st...

Alex Thompson on X: "Me on a hurdle for VP Harris: "She has been one of the main public validators of [Biden's] health. You remember after the Hur report, she went out there and said he is with it, he is commanding everything in the room. She is going to have to sit down & answer tough questions." https://t.co/MLoKDamdiK" / Xtwitter.com Me on a hurdle for VP Harris

Awful news that Vladimir Kara-Murza is in a gulag hospital. Reported by his wife on Twitter. Authorities won’t let his lawyers in so virtually nothing known abt his condition.

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Through my childhood, on election nights, my dad was the man under Peter Snow’s desk putting interesting facts on notecards into his socks. That’s how it was done before Google, kids. You got a very clever ASD man with some Oxford degrees to just remember interesting constituency histories.

I’ve seen a lot of derisive comments abt Biden supporters being blind or cultish or MAGA-like, etc & I think that’s not just uncharitable but a misapprehension. I think it’s a process, similar to a terminal diagnosis for a loved one. Anger, denial, bargaining, etc, which usually leads to acceptance.

Putin feeding Trump his lines for the RNC. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Putin 'prepared to SHARE Crimea with Ukraine in new peace plan'www.dailymail.co.uk Vladimir Putin is ready to share sovereignty of Crimea with Ukraine, according to an astonishing 'new peace plan'.

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This fucking guy voted in the last two elections voteref.com/voters/MI/vi...

How many times does Matthew Walther get to publish his essay about why he doesn't vote in a prominent outlet? Because two seems like too many bsky.app/profile/greg...

Voter Referencevoteref.com VoteRef.com is dedicated to ensuring transparent, accurate and fair elections in the United States of America.

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The New York Times found it appropriate to publish this drivel on Independence Day just one week after the Supreme Court ruled that Republican presidents are above the law.

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“They have spent the past decades transferring power away from Congress, away from the rational bureaucracy, and to the lobbyists, the courts, and the personalist presidency.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-courts-a...

The Courts and the Personalist Presidencywww.liberalcurrents.com The erosion of democratic institutions on behalf of lobbyists, courts, and arbitrary personalism.

I tried to turn my brain off by watching a movie but I still kept muttering abt Adam Fucking Serwer, who argued today that a genuine constitutional crisis is the best way out of a campaign crisis, so I’ve given up. Finding something different to be mad about counts as improvement, right?

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the exploitation of this Chevron ruling is just getting warmed up and is going to ratfuck every last effort at policy reform or corporate oversight across every sector and issue in the country

of course www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/p...

Judge cites new Supreme Court ruling in blocking health care anti-discrimination protections for transgender Americans | CNN Politicswww.cnn.com The Biden administration cannot enforce new anti-discrimination rules in health care for transgender Americans, a federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday, citing a recent landmark Supreme Court r...

Adam Serwer argues that 1. Biden resigns & 2. Harris takes over as potus — even tho it’d require confirmation of her new VP in the R House — is “best” chance for Ds. Bc what cld go wrong w/giving Speaker Johnson a role in determining your VP & D ticket? WTAF? www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Biden Must Resignwww.theatlantic.com If the president wants to protect American democracy, he should hand over his office to Kamala Harris.

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Reply to

b-boy bouiebaisse

HCR says people are not recognizing that the foundation of our democracy HAS BEEN TORN UP. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Historian discusses Supreme Court's immunity decision and shift in presidential powerswww.pbs.org The Supreme Court's landmark decision on former President Trump's immunity from some legal prosecution has the potential to transform the powers of the presidency. Jeffrey Brown and Heather Cox Richar...

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Mississippi is the poorest state in the US. Even though the state gets federal welfare funds, it is difficult to get welfare. The money was all getting stolen, and they got away with it. Now the journalists who exposed the story are facing a lawsuit and jail. www.nbcnews.com/investigatio...

She exposed how the nation's poorest state spent federal welfare money. Now she might go to jail.www.nbcnews.com "The rabbit's got the gun now," said a lawyer for former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who is trying to force reporter Anna Wolfe to reveal her sources.

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He's right. They're stealing the country from us and ending democracy. "Bloodless if the left allows it to be" is a threat to kill anyone who fights back

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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CNN's new poll doesn't establish some failsafe alternative to Biden for Democrats. But it does run against the twin ideas that the debate itself doomed Biden and that Harris isn't a viable alternative. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Analysis | A new national poll turns post-debate conventional wisdom on its headwww.washingtonpost.com As always, though, we should be cautious about reading too much into one poll.

“Biden admin told ER doctors they must perform emergency abortions when necessary to save a pregnant woman’s health, following last week’s SCOTUS ruling that failed to settle a legal dispute over whether state abortion bans override [EMTALA]...” apnews.com/article/abor...

In wake of Supreme Court ruling, Biden administration tells doctors to provide emergency abortionsapnews.com A copy of the letter was obtained by the Associated Press. It comes after the Supreme Court failed to settle a legal dispute.

Oh what a surprise! Maybe one of the problems is the Ukraine plank? Manafort is working for trump again & I bet he will avoid the cameras & cough/explaining it after, this time.

For the first time in decades, the RNC won't allow cameras/media into its platform meeting. Further evolution of the Trump-era RNC's aversion to the press - they see only downsides for transparency, though this hasn't prevented damaging stories when reporters dig in www.semafor.com/article/07/0...

In a shift, the RNC will decide its platform behind closed doorswww.semafor.com The decision to skip the usual cameras comes as the party is in a difficult debate over abortion.

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National Politician Don't Kill a Dog Challenge

Bizarre photo surfaces of RFK and ‘barbecued dog’: ‘The f--- is wrong with this man?’www.nj.com "Kennedy told the person, who was traveling to Asia, that he might enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog on the menu."

“The element of truth … which people are so ready to disavow, is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who … defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.”

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Feels extra relevant this morning: Preferring a white* king to a Black* president

Preferring a white* king to a Black* presidenti-know-how-much-you-care.ghost.io Samuel Alito makes the case for a particular kind of dictatorship. One silly thing I used to believe is that serious Republican thinkers held to a principle that has often been described as the “un...

This is bullshit. DNC is doing the nom early bc Ohio Rs threatened to keep Biden off our ballot. DNC scheduled the virtual nom *before* the debate. Btw, OH Rs cld have passed a clean bill to fix this but loaded it with antiabortion & vote suppression BS bc they thought they had leverage.

DNC Mulls Mid-July Biden Nomination to Quell Swap Chatter

DNC Mulls Mid-July Biden Nomination to Quell Swap Chatterdlvr.it The Democratic National Committee is mulling a formal nomination of President Joe Biden to be the party's official candidate as early as July 21 in an effort to remove any scenario - and speculation - of a convention swap, Bloomberg reported Monday.

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Popehat

If anyone wants to understand why Mexico has such problems with corruption, it's LITERALLY because their Constitution actually PROHIBITS prosecuting presidents, sitting or retired. That has meant Mexican presidents can and thus generally do whatever they want, legal or not.

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www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

‘It’s Like Christmas’: Team Trump Stunned by Massive Supreme Court Immunity Winwww.rollingstone.com Conservatives are planning to use the Supreme Court’s immunity decision to help them implement Trump’s extreme policy agenda, sources say.