F**king Mondays: HUGE 2024 News!! Plus "Jack" Speaks, And Ukraine Fights

Happy Monday everyone!

by Ben Cohen

It’s that time of week again, so we are here to help you prep for the next few days with a healthy dose of sanity. Here’s what you need to know:

He can’t and won’t

Original Twitter founder and tech bro millionaire Jack Dorsey (known as “Jack” to his adoring fans) told the world that Elon Musk was “the singular solution I trust,” for his ailing platform. “I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness,” he went on.

Elon’s extension of “the light of consciousness” has consisted mostly of boosting MAGA trolls like “Catturd” and falling for every single right wing conspiracy theory imaginable. It’s safe to say that “Jack” isn’t quite the predictive genius he imagines himself to be. But never one to be deterred by the mere mortals of three dimensional reality, “Jack” is back in the prognosticating business, this time lending his supernatural foresight abilities to politics:

No, “Jack”, he can’t, and won’t.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr maybe gaining some media attention for himself in the silly season of politics, but the serious business of campaign politics hasn’t begun yet. And when it does, the excitement around Kennedy’s campaign will turn to frustration when he starts having to answer real questions — like whether 5g really is microwaving people’s brains, or why he was banned from Instagram for spreading idiotic Covid vaccine misinformation.

Having run Twitter into the ground, then passed the company onto an equally bonkers right wing conspiracy theorist who is further destroying the company’s value, one would expect a certain level of humility from Mr Dorsey. But as David Frum noted:

“Jack” likely thinks Kennedy is another extension of “the light of consciousness” and will no doubt rail against the “Matrix” conspiring to stop his ascent. In reality, 80% of Americans have taken the Covid vaccine and a large majority of those people won’t be comfortable voting for a man who thinks government efforts to vaccinate people is comparable to the Holocaust.

But what do I know. I’m just a rube living in a world created by our tech billionaire overlords. As Jack Dorsey sayeth, the w'rds becometh flesh…

Ukraine goes on the attack

From the NYTimes:

Ukrainian forces stepped up their artillery strikes and ground assaults in a flurry of offensive military activity that by Monday was raging along multiple sectors of the front line, American and Russian officials said.

Ukraine has remained silent about military operations after months of preparing for a major counteroffensive in the war. But the American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the surge in attacks was a possible indication that Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive against Russian forces had begun.

The US military seems believes the Ukrainian counteroffensive will be very successful, with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley saying that Ukraine was “very well prepared” for the upcoming battle. Reading between the lines, this indicates the US has worked incredibly closely with Ukraine on logistics and expects significant territorial gains in the coming months. My guess is that the Biden Administration is also factoring in the presidential election next year and wants a severely diminished Russia for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the longer the war goes on, the harder it will be for Biden to get funding from Congress to fund Ukraine. Secondly, the better Russia does, the weaker Biden looks going into 2024. So now is the time to strike, and strike hard.

In other positive news, Russian unity over the war appears to be cracking quite severely:

Synder has outlined his thinking on this in a brilliant essay he published last year, where he argued that “a Russian conventional defeat in Ukraine is merging imperceptibly into a Russian power struggle, which in turn will require a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine. This is, historically speaking, a very familiar chain of events.”

The timing of the Ukrainian counteroffensive then couldn’t be better.

Big 2024 news!!

In truly seismic news sure to rock the political world to its core, Mike Pence is officially entering the 2024 presidential race!

With at least 50% of Jeb Bush’s charisma and 150% of his religious nuttery, Pence is well positioned to make major inroads in the GOP primaries. That is before they actually begin, and only in his Jesus addled mind.

Pence, it must be remembered, is so despised in GOP circles that many of them want to kill him. Given the party has moved on from old fashioned religious bigotry to outright fascism and race hate, Pence isn’t just old news, he’s a literal dinosaur. It is hard to gage Pence’s true intentions here, but one suspects he wants one last burst of media attention to flog his book. Either that or he genuinely loves being humiliated by his former boss so much that he’s signing up for another round of merciless abuse. Either way, it’s going to be pretty funny to watch.

Reader comments

We love it when thoughtful readers leave us comments, like this one from our latest episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast:

I really think the gig is up with this new incriminating evidence regarding the audiotapes made by Donald Dumpf concerning the "lost" documents taken from Mar-a-Lago. Jack Smith's reputation would be shredded if, for some inexplicable reason, he doesn't indict this son of a bitch. Dumpf has lied about being able to classify these documents and this is the literally the smoking gun in this case. How he could not be charged with espionage now is beyond me! Millions of Americans are expecting this second indictment and it must come soon. The Georgia indictment is just icing on the cake, in my mind.

I think Dumpf is now freaking out about these last revelations. How anyone could still support this twice-impeached, sexual abuser and initially indicted soon-to-be felon is beyond me! This has to hurt him somehow. I hope then that we will see "Little Donnie in handcuffs," as Ben referred to this possibility in the podcast.

I agree that the debt ceiling deal is very good for Joe Biden. Maybe not so good for Kevin McCarthy who still has angered his lunatic fringe with less than what they hoped for. The American people ultimately won with this deal. I hope Justin enjoyed his lobster dinner on Friday.

How could anyone with a brain think that Dumpf is more cogent than Biden. We all know that he's not and cannot even debate the better contestant who is Biden here. Many of us underestimated Biden's strengths from the very beginning. Let him walk over Dumpf in any debate if the latter even decides to participate in them. As of now, I've heard that Dumpf is sitting out all debates if this is even true. Dumpf must know inherently that he would be beaten by Biden in any real debate.

I thank Justin for acknowledging hard-working teachers since I was an elementary school teacher until 2017 and I did all of the extra work that Justin mentioned in his homage to the teaching profession. Tuberville failed to mention how many dedicated teachers are leaving the job because of politics - the same sort of divisive politics that his own party has endorsed ever since the Reign of Dumpf. I also condemn this Tommy Tuberville (what a freaking loony tune name anyway) who disparaged the teaching profession in ridiculous comments he recently made. He is a jerk and there's no two ways to say it.

The assault on the transgender community from the far right is just plain ugly and there must be a way to stop this juggernaut. Exposing them for the cruelty that they used in such campaigns could be the first step. Maybe writing letters to such retailers like Target to tell them to bring back Pride merchandise is another!

I missed your podcast last week and I'm glad you have returned.

You can listen to the latest episode for free right here.

See you all next Monday!

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