Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

This fight is for everything.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The willow is too close to the house.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Everybody saw this coming.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Open Thread: International Women’s Day

Open Thread: International Women’s Day

by | 157 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

… Much the same as the charging bull, the little bronze girl by artist Kristen Visbal was put up in the wee hours of the morning as “guerilla art,” McNally said. But, unlike the bull, the firm discussed it with the city beforehand so that it could remain at least temporarily.

“We’re actively pursuing that it stays for a month,” she said. “If the city decides that it should stay in perpetuity, we’re absolutely on board with that.”

At the Washington Post, “Five women changing their world for the better“:

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, a holiday now more than a century old, is “Be Bold For Change.” It’s a message intended to push people toward concrete action on gender equality. Here are the stories of five women from around the world who are doing just that in their communities.

England: ‘You either just give up, or you think, ‘one life at a time’
Sarah Fane is an optimist, a smile never far from her lips. Ask her about educating girls in Afghanistan, a nation where the literacy rate for women is among the worst in the world, and she beams…

India: ‘Why am I tolerating it?’
Vimla lost her father when she was 14. A year later, she was married to a man 16 years older than her. He began beating her on the first night of their marriage… After years of abuse, Vimla, 64, who goes by just her first name, asked herself, “Why am I tolerating it?”

She started attending a workshop held for women and eventually began working in the slums… She started the Women Progress Council to educate women across 12 slum colonies in Delhi about domestic violence, health and their rights. “Once they get support, it gives them confidence,” Vimla said. “They understand the unfairness and then they stand up for themselves.”…

Russia: ‘Everyone has a story’
Women facing the threat of domestic abuse or sexual assault often don’t have free use of their hands, are under immense strain, and may not be able to access their telephone to call for help. Kathy Romanovskaya, 42, a co-founder at the Russian startup Nimb, says her company’s product has those women in mind. It’s fashionable ring that doubles as a panic button, allowing the wearer to discreetly send a distress signal to a support circle, including friends, parents or the police…

China: ‘Women around the whole world should unite’
It was March 2015, two days before International Women’s Day, and Wei Tingting was preparing to mark the occasion. She and a small group of friends wanted to raise awareness about sexual harassment on public transportation. They planned to hand out stickers on the bus — but they never got the chance.

Instead, Wei and four other women were taken to a detention center on the outskirts of Beijing and held for 37 days. They were interrogated again and again about their plans to organize for LGBT and women’s rights.

The Chinese government’s campaign of intimidation did not work. Word of their arrest spread quickly and spurred global campaigns to #freethefive, turning them into feminist heroes. Two years later, Wei is still working for gender equality as the founder of the nonprofit Guangzhou Gender Education Center. She is also preparing a report on sexual harassment….

Egypt: ‘Now, it’s a critical time for Muslim artists’
Deena Mohamed is not your typical 22-year-old, and neither is her creation: Qahera, a Muslim web-comic superheroine who wears a hijab, or headscarf, wields a sword and can fly. Her mission, in part, is to help women who face sexual harassment…

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Yeah, new thread.

    So I’m depressed because WaPo had an article that Hillary’s approval has continued to fall and she is less popular than Trump. I don’t understand it since she’s out of the picture. I hope it’s because people are mad at her for being right.

  3. 3.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: Do you have a link for that? I did a quick search but didn’t find the article. It could be because she’s not speaking out. She’s been pretty invisible except for an occasional tweet and being seen hiking. I think she gave one speech. Maybe people want her to do more?

  7. 7.

    satby

    She’s still being smeared, and she was defeated on a technicality. With a little distance, I think she’s going to someday be as revered as Jimmy Carter. I hope so, because it would be partial payback for being robbed in Nov.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Uncle Ebeneezer: It’s OK, they planned it. Civil disobedience. Highlight the injustice. Heaven forbid that traffic should be tied up near a Trump property!

  12. 12.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud: I wouldn’t worry too much. I suspect her approval ratings are pretty well down the list of things she gives a rat’s ass about.

    As for what it says about our country, “Hillary’s ratings slumping” is also well down the list of things that are making us look like a lost cause these days.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    That guerrilla art is great! I hope the city allows it to remain for a while.

    I suddenly remembered I had a read sweater I hadn’t worn for 15 years, way back in my closet. Dug it out and wore it to work. I also glared a lot, but no one noticed since I’m usually glaring anyway. Not too many women participated, unfortunately. The publicity on this sucked.

  16. 16.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: Thanks. Not sure why I couldn’t find that.

    I’m not sure why it matters that Hillary’s approval ratings are up, down or neutral. She’s not running for anything. I’d guess that some people are upset that she “couldn’t” win against even such a big loser as Trump so they’re blaming her for it. Some of it is just being out of the public eye. Some of it is generic loser-stink that gets on you when you lose a big race. But I can see a lot of “Dammit, Hillary. Why couldn’t you win and save us from this toxic asshole being in the White House” kind of anger at her. Along with the usual misogyny, of course.

    If she does some good stuff now but doesn’t run for office, her ratings will probably go up.

  17. 17.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    I don’t understand it since she’s out of the picture.

    That would probably be why.

    She ran away.

    That’s the optics of it.

    A real ‘man’ would have still been fighting and making Trump’s life hell.

    Double standards, I know. But the Democrats needed to go on the attack (still do, for that matter) and do so as a unified front.

  18. 18.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    Judging by the bodies crowding around the girls, the statue attracted lots of attention. Yay!

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @TenguPhule: That would be worse IMHO. If non-Dems continued to hate her, that would be one thing. If Dems and the left of center dislike her for “running away,” than that says something horrible about us.

  23. 23.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I couldn’t find a date for that poll. Maybe the lunatic stuff he’s said the past couple weeks hasn’t registered in the numbers yet. Also, as more and more of TrumpCare makes it into the news, I’m sure his numbers will tank again. Mr. Roller Coaster!

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @debbie:

    I was at the public library for a few hours this afternoon, and all the women librarians as well as the woman volunteer staffing the Friends of the Library room were wearing red. And there was one little girl, not older than 3 or 4, who was wearing red from head to toe! Shoes, tights, dress, sweater, and the ribbon in her hair!

  31. 31.

    dr. bloor

    @debbie: It’s going take a lot more than TrumpCare being in the news to tank his ratings. If we’ve learned nothing else, it’s that a solid 38-40% of the electorate don’t think about policy until it directly, personally trashes their lives. These people like what they’ve seen so far.

  33. 33.

    Linda Binda

    Hopefully, this comment isn’t too facetious, or makes me look stupid, but…

    The highlight of my day today: some dude argued with me on YouTube that abortion is evil and wrong, concerning Godfather II and III.

    *cough* Who’s dumber, him for arguing… *that* or me for engaging in the first place? Ha ha. :)

    My life is so boring. :/. I blame Trump. :)

  34. 34.

    Kryptik

    @rikyrah:

    Pretty much. Hillary is stuck in a no-win situation. You have conservatives mocking her for losing and making it out to be a rejection of all things left, BoBers demonizing her as the source of all evil and failure, if she comments then she’s a sore loser, if she doesn’t, she’s running away.

    It’s all bullshit, but it seems to perfectly encapsulate the double standards in politics we’re surrounded with.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This was a Suffolk poll. I know nothing about them, but then I know little about polls.

    @dr. bloor:

    And when they find out they will lose healthcare in 2020 or lose access to their current provider or see that people making $500,000 or more get a much larger healthcare tax break — or any number of other things — it will impact Trump’s ratings. And this is in addition to people learning that they in fact will be responsible for paying for the wall, etc., etc.

    Trump Tanking Is Inevitable.

  37. 37.

    delk

    I wore a red shirt to the hospital this morning. All the other guys in my cardiac rehab session were wearing red as well. The nurses appreciated it. I told them I could not imagine how nightmarish hospitals would be without women.

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    @debbie:

    And when they find out they will lose care in 2020 or lose access to their current provider or see that people making $500,000 or more get a much larger healthcare tax break — or any number of other things — it will impact Trump’s ratings.

    Facts not in evidence.

    Republicans are betting voters are too stupid to remember that long.

    Sadly, they have a good track record so far.

  39. 39.

    Peale

    @Baud: Yep. And I wouldn’t worry about it. The new leader hasn’t emerged. Lots of Dems still want to re litigate the primary but that’s over, too. Bernie will not be running again. Hillary will not be running again. People can blame her for losing all they want, but no one worries about what Jimmy Carter is doing. It’s a rather stupid poll to have at this point, but then they did post election polls like that with McCain/Obama and Romney/Obama and sometimes Obama finished behind. Who cares?

  40. 40.

    ? Martin

    I hope they keep that statue. I love it.

    I let my female staff know that I was 100% supportive of their decisions regarding today. They all came in anyway. I bought everyone breakfast and worked out based on pay gaps for each persons demographics when they should leave today. They all offered to stay but I stressed that this would serve as a good reminder for everyone in the office – not just gender but also ethnicity pay gaps. We could easily afford to do it once a year to keep that in our consciousness. It’s not a tremendous burden on those staying, but it’ll be a stark reminder.

    The first person left a bit before 2PM. The guys will be the only ones left after 3:30. Every time someone leaves I announce the demographic gap. Have some more to do now.

  41. 41.

    Ian G.

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Well, Theranos was a start-up that had a Trumpian arc in that it was complete bullshit with a narcissistic fraud at the front trying to pretend that she was some kind of business genius (and many people bought it).

  42. 42.

    laura

    @randy khan: I nominate a 6th -Margeruite Dore. Australian granddaughter of Gustave Dore. She makes beautiful art glass and many of her plates are used as symbols of excellence and achievement.
    She’s a life long friend of my sil and joined us for Christmas. I’m a fan.

  44. 44.

    geg6

    @debbie:

    Maybe it was only big news in certain places. I’m thinking that some local organizers did a better job than others. It was publicized here for several days previous with organizers being interviewed on air and in print. The march in Pittsburgh looked well-attended and is still happening, shutting down some major downtown streets in the city, according to local news. If I didn’t have this respiratory crud thing going on, I’d be there. At least you showed your solidarity and, hopefully, were able to discuss the issue with your co-workers.

  45. 45.

    Major Major Major Major

    I regret to inform everybody that the World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017 is not the name of the main ACA repeal/replace bill, but merely the one Pete Sessions introduced.

    I am disappoint.

  46. 46.

    Pogonip

    @debbie: I noticed no difference where I worked. I wasn’t aware of it till I read this article, maybe no one else was either.

  49. 49.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: That’s exactly how I feel. Why does she have a responsibility to do anything for a country which rejected her when they could have elected her in a landslide given the idiot she ran against? She deserves some peace and quiet to get back her strength and self-esteem. I feel bad for her that this is how her political career has ended.

    Once she regroups, perhaps she’ll have the energy to help with the #Resistance. But that is completely up to her. She owes us nothing.

  50. 50.

    Pogonip

    @satby: While I think a good case can be made that Hillary would have been the lesser evil. I don’t think you can reasonably describe the Electoral College as a “technicality.”

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @debbie:

    Many people in my office are wearing red today, including some men. But I’m in deep blue Southern California.

  53. 53.

    MomSense

    That last tweet gave me all the feels.

    We fight for her female empowerment club.

  54. 54.

    Pogonip

    @geg6: Why do they want to shut down major streets? Having suffered through a lot of that when I lived in Columbus, Ohio, home of THE Ohio State University, I can testify that tying up traffic for a few hours is not the way to get people to view your cause favorably.

  55. 55.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    I think you’re right. The only place other than BJ where I heard anything about International Women’s Day was on NPR, so not an overwhelming number of ears in my area. Most of my co-workers were disappointed that they didn’t know to wear red. Most of them are working moms, so they’re totally sympathetic to the cause.

  56. 56.

    ThresherK

    @Yarrow: Maybe people want (Hillary) to do more?

    Several FurnieFroze of my (ebbing) acquaintance had asked, loudly, why she wasn’t more visible with the womens’ marches and such. I think she been as visible as during the campaign the same folks would have been telling her to shaddupansiddown.

  58. 58.

    geg6

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I heard on the morning news that she was doing some International Women’s Day thing in DC today. Not sure exactly what. My heart breaks every time I think of her. This country didn’t deserve her, as has been amply demonstrated since November. I don’t think we deserved Obama, though I am eternally grateful that we had him.

  59. 59.

    ? Martin

    @? Martin: With just guys in the office we had a quick stand-up (most of my staff is female). The guys are all glad I did this – they’re all completely supportive of this and happy to stay the rest of the day. And everyone here is wearing something red, so I think we did okay.

  60. 60.

    Pogonip

    I am now getting Balloon Juice ads wanting me to date Ukrainian women. International Women’s Day, indeed!

  61. 61.

    geg6

    @Pogonip:

    Because nobody gives a shit when you march on side streets? And because the entire event’s purpose was to inconvenience people?

  64. 64.

    Pogonip

    @debbie: Our pool driver usually listens to Nice Polite Radio, but lately he’s wanted a little variety, so I guess that’s why I didn’t hear about it. Or I was reading and it didn’t penetrate.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @Pogonip:

    I’m totally comfortable calling it a technicality. There have been only three times in our country’s history where the Electoral College and popular vote did not match up, and two of those times were directly manipulated by today’s Republican Party.

    As I keep asking people, if you found out that your team had lost the Super Bowl because the opposing team had poisoned your quarterback and bribed the referees, would you say that they won it fair and square?

  71. 71.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud: Well, she did owe it to us to kick her campaign advisors in the Hoohas. Repeatedly. Republicans execute their idiot advisors, Democrats keep rehiring them.

  74. 74.

    Pogonip

    @Mnemosyne: That’s not quite the same, as poisoning the other team is not allowed in the rules.

    I myself think the Electoral College is ridiculous, and one-man-one-vote ought to apply in the presidential election as in all others, but until there’s a constitutional amendment, that won’t happen.

  75. 75.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Enhanced Unscientific Post Truther On Line Role Play Poll(tm) has some interesting results.

    So I am admin for this one line role play game. So even though these are gaming geeks they are human too and have their political discussions. Majority seemed to be Hillary voters with a vocal minority Trump supporters. Seems to follow Cal polling numbers 60% H, 30% T in Enhanced World.

    Well last night the Trump supporters figured out a way to weasel Trumps Wall into the rp, it was clear they were mocking the whole idea of The Wall as obnoxious, ludicrous and little more than trolling. And this is line with various little snarky comments they been making about Trump, so I sense buyers remorse with this little group. It’s also worth noting with none of them I have ever heard a pro-Trump statement, it was always anti-Hillary.

    But it does make me wonder how deep that 40% approval rating Trump has in those polls really is. Is it more that Trump’s base is against things, liberal things, than they are for Trump things, like they were for Bush.

  76. 76.

    ? Martin

    “If the city decides that it should stay in perpetuity, we’re absolutely on board with that.”

    Holy shit, how do we make that happen?

  77. 77.

    geg6

    @Pogonip:

    What other purpose would “A Day Without Women” have? The idea being that it sucks when women aren’t there doing their jobs and that there are a lot of us who could make your life hell if we so choose. A little stopped traffic is the least of it.

  78. 78.

    Pogonip

    @TenguPhule: From what little I read post-election, the Ada program and that Mook mook blew it. The few articles I read said she listened too much to Mook and Ada and not enough to personnel in the field and to her husband–I always wondered why she felt she needed Mook and Ada in the first place when she had Bill. The man’s a political genius.

  79. 79.

    Linda Binda

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Thank you. :). You’re right. :)

    But, yeah, this is what I distract myself with because I’m too anxious (too many anxiety attacks) to be at work right now, and I’m starting to run out of money, and I’m worried that Trump and Co. will come for my job, too (The USPS) like he’s been coming for everyone else, even though the USPS is one of the few semi-independent government agencies there is. For instance, during the last shutdown, we still came to work, our vets couldn’t go to the VA (which, of course, was when the VA controversy happened, too, right?), but they could come to work and get paid. Even with nuclear fallout, you’ll still get your mail!

    …And playing video games all day was starting to get boring. Wow. Irony. Arguing about abortion on International Women’s Day. Funny. And my friend thinks the troll was a bot.

    I’ve been trying to see if I should file for disability, already, and my checking account keeps going into the red… I avoid most of the news now to keep my anxiety down..

  82. 82.

    ? Martin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Is it more that Trump’s base is against things, liberal things, than they are for Trump things, like they were for Bush.

    Yes. This completely. There is simply no conservative vision for governance any longer. The problem the GOP have as an opposition party is that problems don’t have binary options. The opposite of a liberal idea isn’t a conservative one – it could also be a libertarian one, a totalitarian one, even a socialist one, which is why the GOP policies are so fucking calvinball right now.

  85. 85.

    Pogonip

    @? Martin: I agree, that’s why they worry me. They’ve been an opposition party so long they don’t know what to do now that they’re in charge, they flounder around.

    I want a 3rd party.

  88. 88.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud: Puzzling decision, unless they have pictures of him screwing a goat. No power, 100% chance of being tainted by any eventual fallout of Trump’s love affair with Vlad.

  89. 89.

    Debbie1

    @Baud: Re: Hillary’s approval rating and your hope that it’s low because people are mad at her for being right.

    Yeah, that and the fact that it’s a WaPo poll.

  90. 90.

    joel hanes

    Open thread ? Wish I’d seen this sooner.

    Shamelessly copy/pasted from slashdot :

    Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution that would overturn new privacy rules for internet service providers. “If the Federal Communications Commission rules are eliminated, ISPs would not have to get consumers’ explicit consent before selling or sharing web browsing data and other privacy information with advertisers and other third parties,” reports Ars Technica. “The measure would use lawmakers’ power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking ‘shall have no force or effect.’ The resolution would also prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future.” From the report:
    Flake’s announcement said he’s trying to “protect consumers from overreaching Internet regulation.” Flake also said that the resolution “empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared,” but he did not explain how it will achieve that. The privacy order had several major components. The requirement to get the opt-in consent of consumers before sharing information covered geo-location data, financial and health information, children’s information, Social Security numbers, Web browsing history, app usage history, and the content of communications. This requirement is supposed to take effect on December 4, 2017. The rulemaking had a data security component that required ISPs to take “reasonable” steps to protect customers’ information from theft and data breaches. This was supposed to take effect on March 2, but the FCC under newly appointed Chairman Ajit Pai halted the rule’s implementation. Another set of requirements related to data breach notifications is scheduled to take effect on June 2. Flake’s resolution would prevent all of those requirements from being implemented. He said that this “is the first step toward restoring the [Federal Trade Commission’s] light-touch, consumer-friendly approach.” Giving the FTC authority over Internet service providers would require further FCC or Congressional action because the FTC is not allowed to regulate common carriers, a designation currently applied to ISPs.

  92. 92.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @joel hanes: Flake is full of shit.

    None of these assholes gives a rat’s ass about the public. Only private profit, without any ethical or legal bounds.

  93. 93.

    Cacti

    @Mnemosyne:

    As I keep asking people, if you found out that your team had lost the Super Bowl because the opposing team had poisoned your quarterback and bribed the referees, would you say that they won it fair and square?

    Patriots fans would.

  96. 96.

    Cacti

    @Pogonip:

    While I think a good case can be made that Hillary would have been the lesser evil.

    I had no idea Susan Sarandon posted here.

  98. 98.

    amk

    @Baud: If even after winning bigly and with still two months left in his ‘honeymoon period’, his poll nos. are better than his loser’s is what the pathetic twitler could manage? Sad!

    Besides, hillz doesn’t give a rat’s ass about ‘favorability numbers anymore’.

    also. too? ‘analysis’ from fucking cilliza’s outfit? Really, baud?

  99. 99.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud: Maybe not. He never struck me as the sort who thought the best thing to do with a billion dollars was to find it another billion to play with, although I don’t know very much about him. It certainly won’t help any political aspirations he might still hold.

  100. 100.

    tobie

    I gather ADP is out with a pretty amazing number for new jobs in Feb, 298,000. This is the Obama recovery but expect the fat pig in the White House to gloat when the BLS figures come out on Friday. So friggin’ undeserved.

  103. 103.

    mapaghimagsik

    I posted about the statue on a writing site — they have a ‘casual convo’ area. Sure enough, the usual suspects stepped in screeching that the statue of the girl was too confrontational and we needed moar Bill Gates.

    But, like most places on the internet, the GamerGate runs deep

  104. 104.

    seaboogie

    @dr. bloor: What would we approve or disapprove of, WRT to Hillary? That she likes to take hikes, hang with the grandkids, or take in Broadway shows?

    In a similar vein, always happy not to see my pic on the supermarket mags for any possible reason, especially during the “beach” issues of summer.

  105. 105.

    Pogonip

    Amazon has a whole bunch of e-books about famous women on sale today.

    Also more Fern Michaels titles than usual.

    And I suspect they know perfectly well that Fern Michaels is a man. He’s been in the romance field for 30 years. I once read an interview with him in which he explained that his wife helps him with the sex scenes so they don’t sound too masculine and give the game away; it seems that, even as little boys won’t read a book if they know the author is female–thus, for example, J. K. Rowling–women won’t read a romance if they know the author is male. At the time of the interview there were several guys in the field. Pseudonyms are widespread anyway, as a book sells better with a name on the cover like “Arabella Wakefield” than “Jane Kozlowitz.”

  107. 107.

    weaselone

    Hillary’s poll numbers are driven by a decline in her popularity among democrats. Most likely, it’s just a function of her having loser stink on her and some people disappointed that she has not kept a higher profile. They can go fuck themselves in my opinion. Another option is that there has been a shift in how people a self identify on these polls. Republicans shifting to Independents and Independents to Democrats which the poll company hasn’t identified yet and as result the weighting of the groups in the poll is incorrect.

  108. 108.

    Mnemosyne

    @Pogonip:

    That’s not quite the same, as poisoning the other team is not allowed in the rules.

    Republicans prevented American citizens from voting based on their race, and publicly admitted that was what they were doing.

    But, hey, I guess it’s okay for your fellow Americans to be deliberately and systematically disenfranchised on the basis of race as long as That Woman didn’t win. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing, amirite?

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Pogonip:

    Fern Michaels is a man

    Did not know this, although it’s not my genre so there’s no reason I would.

  113. 113.

    Mickee

    Regarding the statue thing–it’s a child, not a woman. The fact that our culture continues to infantalize women and only feel comfortable with them being strong or defiant when they are children is actually a big part of the problem. However well intentioned, I am not a fan. It’s cute, but I did not think the intent of the messaging for this, of all days, was for females to be ‘cute.’

    Still a long way to go.

  114. 114.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @TenguPhule:

    And when they find out they will lose care in 2020

    Just in time to blame the incoming Dem POTUS and majority in Congress…

  115. 115.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mickee:

    Regarding the statue thing–it’s a child, not a woman. The fact that our culture continues to infantalize women and only feel comfortable with them being strong or defiant when they are children is actually a big part of the problem. However well intentioned, I am not a fan. It’s cute, but I did not think the intent of the messaging for this, of all days, was for females to be ‘cute.’

    Oh wow, I read it entirely the opposite way. It’s not an infantalized woman, it’s an empowered girl who is not daunted by society’s expectations. I don’t think the statue is “cute” at all — it’s strong, and I think that’s the message. Never too early in a female’s life for her to stand up for her beliefs. Was more than appropriate for this, of all days. I hope it stays up for at least a month, maybe longer.

  116. 116.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    For what it’s worth, I just watched Paul Ryan talking about the Republican replacement for the ACA and he actually described it as…

    BOLD!

    I swear… I guess it probably does take a pretty big pair to yank healthcare away from 10 million poors AND be proud of it…

  117. 117.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    None of these assholes gives a rat’s ass about the public. Only private profit, without any ethical or legal bounds.

    Watching them with the ACA replacment I think corporate profit is even to sane and rational a motive for the Republicans now. I think the Republicans are playing to the rules of some private little conservative world of theirs. They could quite easily be demanding these privacy rules because they think their ISP is selling their data to Barrack Obama, the shadow president.*

    * Which would make an awesomely cool movie. .

  118. 118.

    dm

    @Major Major Major Major: W-e-l-l, I suppose, but that summary is a little tendentious. After all, what the Y-Combinator guy says in the article is:

    “Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology is flipped,” said Sam Altman, a prominent technology leader, chief executive of Y Combinator and a major Hillary Clinton donor. “He’s an outsider. He took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he got to know his users well and tested his product early and iterated rapidly. That’s the start-up playbook. That’s exactly what we tell our start-ups to do.”

    (I found myself thinking of Pets.com.)

    … then, much later:

    “I think all of this — the current start-up revolution, Trump and lots of other things — is largely a consequence of the internet breaking down traditional barriers,” Mr. Altman, the Y Combinator executive, wrote in an email. “This societal openness has some great consequences in my opinion, like the start-up boom of the last 20 years, and some bad ones, like Trump.”

    “Startup mentality” is being used as a metaphor. It could be “startup mentality”, or could be “guerilla war mentality”, “asymmetric warfare mentality”, too.

    The argument seems to be that Trump’s campaign did {clever/stupid} things to circumvent the short-comings of their resources: all that free media, no ground-game to speak of (but attention to low-resource-requiring, leverageable states), a claim of radical decentralization (which I think is basically bullshit).

    I said “{clever/stupid}” above because the assessment of those steps would be completely different if about 100,000 votes in three states had gone the other way (or not shown up). Or if Comey hadn’t written his letter.

    I might as well chime in on the declining Clinton popularity: it’s just that there’s precious little news about her, and what news there is tends to come from the right-wing noise machine. The prevailing wind is always anti-Clinton. Most people who responded to that poll probably hadn’t thought about Clinton since November 10th or so, and the last thing they remember being said about her was probably something said by their crazy uncle.

  120. 120.

    dogwood

    @Baud:
    Mook worked for Clinton in ’08 as head of field operations in Ohio. He might have worked for Obama in ’12, but he’s not an Obama political insider. He’s a Clinton guy.

  122. 122.

    amk

    @dm: Lotsa bs self-serving ‘analysis’ when the simple fact is the twitler appealed to the typical ugly murkan racist’s ego and was aided and abetted by the third rate fourth estate and squeaked through, even to his own surprise.

    Funny why the msm minions are not doing one to one comparison of ‘polls’ of Obama after his first month vs twitler after his first month.

  126. 126.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    Republicans trying to defend their ACA replacement on the evening news…

    If you get a chance, find Scott Pelley (CBS) interviewing Leon Panetta about Trump’s wiretapping claims…

    Pelley asks at one point:

    Is it appropriate to ask whether the president is having difficulty with rationality?

    You can see Panetta fighting to not break down laughing… he has the strangest look on his face as he pauses to formulate his reply…

    I know… I know… lots of problems w/ the MSM, but Pelley is trying… yeah, CBS did cover the latest Wikileaks controversy but they spent damn little time on it and did not lead w/ it…

  127. 127.

    Mike J

    KY-03’s MoC tweets:

    Rep. John Yarmuth‏ Verified account @RepJohnYarmuth 3 hours ago
    The @WhiteHouse won’t tell us where @POTUS is headed to in Louisville. Must be a private meeting with victims of the Bowling Green Massacre.

  132. 132.

    dm

    @amk:

    Lotsa bs self-serving ‘analysis’ when the simple fact is the twitler appealed to the typical ugly murkan racist’s ego and was aided and abetted by the third rate fourth estate and squeaked through, even to his own surprise.

    I remember when Scott Adams predicted that Trump might win a couple of years ago. His argument: Trump knows how to propagandize (well, he described it as “sell”). It worried me a little, when I read it.

    So: our candidates are going to have to overcome those “typical ugly murkans” (either by beautifying them, or by finding other Americans to out-vote them) and is going to have to find a substitute for the third-rate fourth estate to do it.

    But, really I was just curious about the article Major^4 cited, so I went and took a look at it.

  135. 135.

    danielx

    @Pogonip:

    MUCH less evil, and a hell of a lot more competent. Granted, achieving the latter doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting.

  137. 137.

    Gin & Tonic

    So tying together this thread and the previous one, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs (equivalent to the US’s SecState) of Canada is a woman, Chrystia Freeland. She has familial ties to Ukraine (as do many Canadians) and ever since her appointment by Justin Trudeau, she’s been the target of a wide variety of smear campaigns from the usual pro-Russian sources. This article is a good summary of the current state of play.

    Funny, isn’t it, how anyone in the West in a position of authority who is critical of relations with Russia comes under the same sort of attacks. Almost as if it were planned and orchestrated. no?

  138. 138.

    rikyrah

    Oliver Willis‏Verified account @owillis

    Republicans in Kentucky are trying to strip the Democratic Attorney General of power

  139. 139.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @JPL: I just watched that clip again… the look on Panetta’s face as he struggles to frame up his reply is priceless…

    He looks for a second there as though he’s going to break down laughing…

  141. 141.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    Juliet Lapidos‏Verified account @julietlapidos

    Trump cuts $35 million in aid to NYC public housing, a.k.a. cost of 10 trips to Mar-a-Lago

  144. 144.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Baud: Republicans are making it plain: they are to rule, or there is no rule to be had.

    And our media can’t, or won’t, accept this reality.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    Sources: Brownback in talks with Trump administration about an ambassadorship
    March 8, 2017

    Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) will be named the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for Food and Agriculture, the Kansas City Star reports.

    “A possible appointment to the Trump administration for Brownback has been rumored since November, but the governor has been tight-lipped about his prospects. His office would not confirm the accuracy of the report from Kansas Public Radio when asked for comment late Wednesday afternoon.”

  147. 147.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    I haven’t read the thread, but maybe people think that she’s behind the resistance to Twitler, the people who are in the middle, don’t like the protests and turmoil, so maybe they’re blaming her for it. Women and especially democrats are expected to be the bigger people for some reason. The only mentions of her name are ll negative, Twitler needs an opponent so he’s still attacking her and no one’s defending her.

  148. 148.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @BlueDWarrior:

    Republicans are making it plain: they are to rule, or there is no rule to be had.

    Yup… as Bill Maher said back in November…

    There’s a right wing coup going on…

  150. 150.

    weaselone

    @rikyrah:

    New York should cut the security for Trump Tower to a single traffic cop and an elderly German Shepherd.

  153. 153.

    Grover Gardner

    I dropped my 13 yo daughter off at school this morning and was wondering why she wore an old red fedora we bought years ago at Old Navy. She hasn’t worn it in years. Then, as I sat in the car watching her strut toward the door, it dawned on me. I was bursting with pride. :-)

  154. 154.

    Pogonip

    @SiubhanDuinne: Not mine either, but for some reason the interview stuck in my mind for decades (there’s plenty of room in there, after all).

    You are erudite and enjoyable–you got a “The Yellow Wallpaper” joke!–and I wish you a long, happy, and entertaining life.

  155. 155.

    Mickee

    @debbie: Here’s the thing…I felt the need to couch my disagreement very carefully because women are not supposed to get angry or be critical of anything, ever, especially a cutesy statue–even on our own day. Relevant or not, my immediate reaction to this was ‘this is a child, not a woman.’ I stand by that. If you don’t agree, that’s fine. But my reaction is every bit as ‘relevant’ as any one else’s and mine is that this sort of representation of ‘strong womanhood’ (as a defiant child) is not helpful and plays into existing stereotypes. Cute statue for a park. I just don’t appreciate women being reduced to children on International Women’s Day

    Still a long way to go–even with each other.

  157. 157.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Pogonip:

    you got a “The Yellow Wallpaper” joke!

    Ah! That was a while ago, and was mostly because of my friend who used to do one-woman shows based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s life and writings.

    –and I wish you a long, happy, and entertaining life.

    How very kind! It’s already been long, and despite everything has been mostly happy and entertaining :-)

    Thank you so much, and the same thing right backatcha!

Comments are closed.