it’s going to be depressing watching New Zealand pass strict gun laws after only one mass murder
— Cake or Death (@Johngcole) March 15, 2019
Welp:
One day after 28-year-old white supremacist Brenton Tarrant killed 49 people in a mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that her country’s “gun laws will change.”
Attorney General David Parker took those statements further, announcing at a vigil at Auckland’s Aotea Square on Saturday that New Zealand will ban semi-automatic rifles.
These statements were praised by gun control advocates in the United States, who have seen lawmakers in Washington fail to enact gun reform time and time again after mass shootings.
Apparently, we are the only country who can’t figure this shit out. I’m always reminded of this Jim Jeffries skit on guns:
guachi
Good for New Zealand.
My sister works in Christchurch and was terrified and on lock down during the shooting.
FelonyGovt
I have a friend originally from Christchurch who is devastated.
Good for New Zealand. I really wish our country had reacted so swiftly and appropriately to our myriad gun massacres.
J R in WV
Only One!!! Zounds, what a horror!!!!!!!!!
More power to them!! Making New Zealand Safe Again!
Now if only we could Make America Safe Again.
WaterGirl
I don’t know who that guy is but I have seen the video before. Somewhere. I recall it being so good that I am going to watch it again.
debbie
@FelonyGovt:
Better action than thoughts and prayers.
SiubhanDuinne
@guachi:
OMG
WaterGirl
I want to marry this guy.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I remember seeing it too, although it’s been a while.
Somewhere, there’s a lengthy, powerful blogpost by Jim at Stonekettle Station — a righteous rant about guns that he wrote after one of our countless mass shootings. Unfortunately, it’s evergreen, requiring only to have date, location, and casualty numbers adjusted from one incident to the next.
Brickley Paiste
Interesting chart for people interested in fact-based discussions: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/2016/10/us_murder_rate-664×355.png
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Now I want to watch the video – was it Chris Rock? – where the guns are legal but bullets cost $5,000 each.
edit: the google says yes.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwiSp7SX5ofhAhWr6oMKHRHjBDAQ3ywwAHoECAUQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVZrFVtmRXrw&usg=AOvVaw2bho-xeJjcozg50cKvabIi
Ruviana
@SiubhanDuinne: a couple of other excellent ones, T-Bogg’s recollections of growing up with guns and how attitudes around him changed, and John Scalzi’s “Thoughts and Prayers.” No links since I’m on my phone but easy to find.
Starfish
Dear bozo, up thread, not worth naming, mass casualty incidents make the news because they are mass casualty incidents. Stopping mass casualty incidents is a noble goal.
I had to watch all the nonsense all week about how many cyclists are killed by cyclists after that airplane crash, and they do not for a moment think about how they are using the death of a bunch of Ethiopian people to flog their hobby horse of making the streets safer for white cyclists.
Pete Downunder
Australia enacted strict gun laws after just one mass shooting in 1996. We’ve had none since.
WaterGirl
@Pete Downunder: You guys are way smarter than we are. Your comedian up top is pretty damn awesome.
Let’s see.
Smarter about guns.
Awesome comedians.
I have relatives who live in Australia.
Maybe I am living in the wrong place.
Brickley Paiste
Don’t know how reputable this site is, but the numbers match my recollection: https://crimeresearch.org/2014/03/comparing-murder-rates-across-countries/
WaterGirl
@Starfish: All I see is somebody talking about pie.
Mike in NC
Sadly, the NRA has a stranglehold on too many of our gutless pols, including the Fat Bastard they spent $30M on to put in the Oval Office.
Pete Downunder
@WaterGirl: depends on how you feel about deadly snakes, spiders, crocs, sharks …..
Juju
@Starfish: Are you referring to School Paste?
Brickley Paiste
@Pete Downunder:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
Sebastian
@Mike in NC:
You mean $30m they laundered.
WaterGirl
@Pete Downunder: Umm.
ixnay on the snakes, the crocs and the sharks. Is Australia… Florida, then?
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Totally, totally O/T, but was it you who provided a link early today to Pete Buttigieg’s interview on his book launch? THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Am reading the book; will have a great deal more to say in the next Open Thread.
Sorry to derail. As you were. And every possible respect to New Zealand for their immediate and uncompromising response to the two mosques’ massacre (which has just claimed a 50th life).
Pete Downunder
@WaterGirl: our snakes are deadlier than those wimpy FL snakes (of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world we have all 10) and our salt water crocs could eat an FL gator for breakfast (or brekkie as it’s called here).
Brachiator
This is what happens when you let a woman be a nation’s leader: wisdom, compassion, and hopefully decisive action related to gun worship.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruviana:
I’ll have a look. Many thanks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Juju: he’ll always be Steve to me. I’m a traditionalist
J R in WV
@Starfish:
Actually, while the plane was Ethiopian Airlines, it was full of scientists on their way to an international conference on Global Climate Change in Nairobi! Brilliant people from all over the world, not that “a bunch of Ethiopian people” are less worthy than scientists working to save our world, but there you go, more facts!
Brachiator
@Brickley Paiste:
Holy shit. A chart without context. Not interesting or much of a discussion.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pete Downunder:
Blimey, mate, and you don’t even mention the PM-eating sharks just off your coast.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Consider the source.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
One of steve’s steve costumes was gun nut steve
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I’m not where I can watch/listen right now, but I’m bookmarking this entire thread for good viewing and reading suggestions.
HinTN
@WaterGirl: Been there and unpied because pie statements were too frickin’ weird. All in all, it’s not a bad creature.
ETA (change) untied to unpied. FY autocorrect
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: I’ve been told Wall will do that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember Molly Ivins saying that she was fine with concealed carry, as long as carriers were required to wear propeller beanies so the rest of us could see them coming. Boy did that piss them off.
Brickley Paiste
@Brachiator:
You can lead a horse to water …
HinTN
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Molly pissed off a lot of sanctimonious folks.
Another Scott
Yay! No guns for me, nor you!!
In other news, Biden is speaking on C-SPAN (giving a speech to Democrats in Delaware) now.
Cheers,
Scott.
sukabi
Good for NZ. Too bad our pols lack the brains and spines to do the same.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, that was me. The more I see of him, the more I like. I get so frustrated with all the tearing down of various democrats who are running that I thought I would try instead to post good videos of the candidates I am impressed with. (Wilmer is not a democrat so I am not including him in this.)
I definitely want to marry the comedian up top – I definitely recommend coming back to watch it when you have time, as long as you won’t fight me for him.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
It looks like the NRA didn’t pay that money. They paid it for a foreign government. The name starts with an R, can’t remember exactly how to spell it. But if my figures are right they spent a fuckton less than one sub would have cost them and got far more in value to their precious leader.
WaterGirl
@HinTN: Yeah. No promises, but hoping the site rebuild will offer options for what we see if we pie someone.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: As expected, he didn’t announce he was running. He sounded kinda like a candidate (“Damnit – there’s no other country that has the capacity of the United States of America!!”), and he apparently made some slips earlier , but what I heard was “I mean this sincerely – whether or not I’m a candidate…”.
He doesn’t sound to me, from the few minutes I heard, that he has the fire to want to run. He seems to still be thinking that politics is the same as it was when he was in the Senate. It’s not.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I love Joe Biden, but I find myself getting cranky with him. He really is not reading this moment in time correctly, and the time of “comity in the senate” and making nice with Rs and Nazis is long past.
Joe, Joe, Joe, timing is everything.
Pete Downunder
@SiubhanDuinne: for those not familiar one of our prime ministers, Harold Holt, went for a swim in December 1967 and disappeared. There is no evidence he was taken by sharks and that part of the coast has notoriously bad rips.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: Joe Biden is not a wartime consigliere.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott: @WaterGirl: Biden kinda seems like he should be a Chief of Staff for the next Democratic President. Like that one old guy at the staff meeting who doesn’t do much anymore but remembers in minute detail many decades’ worth of institutional history.
zhena gogolia
That is a great routine. I never heard of that guy.
zhena gogolia
@FlipYrWhig:
Haha, we used to have someone like that at my place of employment. He was consulted about everything.
Now it’s me, but nobody listens.
Yutsano
@Brachiator: Non sequitur is non sequitur. There was a point there, but it had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Not that I expect any less from our resident troll.
tobie
@Another Scott: I live near Delaware and will sometimes go to Democratic party events there and have helped out in special elections. The long and short of this is: it’s a small state, the governor and lt gov will often show up, I’ve seen Sen. Coons a few times, and Biden phoned in on a few occasions. So a speech in Delaware doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s not out of the ordinary.
Starfish
@Juju: Thank you and WaterGirl for reminding me about the pie filter.
Ruckus
@Ruviana:
As always, I’m an old. And grew up with guns. But in CA we still had not unreasonable gun laws even then. We hunted ducks and geese and it was cool. For about 3 yrs. Then I started to notice that more people would come on our hunts and some of them were, well, fucking careless. I came reasonable close a couple of times to getting shot and decided that I really didn’t need to hunt any more. Since that decision I’ve been shot at twice more, once by “accident” and once someone was actually shooting at me. Thankfully it was night and they were not good shots, and I was running, I believe about a 3:30 mile, at the time. Since then I’ve swung completely against guns. First there are a fuck lot more of us and in most places if you fired a gun it’s likely that you will hit someone, even if it isn’t the person you are aiming at. Second, Jim Jefferies is 1000000% correct in the video. Third, I was assigned to the Shore Patrol for about 4 weeks, in between ships. We didn’t carry guns, we didn’t need them. And I have, on duty in the navy, carried a loaded side arm. Did that in port, on duty for the 2 years before that Shore Patrol duty, whatever country we in while in port. Never took it out of the holster, other than to unload it and hand it to the next man on watch.
Richard Guhl
The reason why New Zealand can enact gun control laws so easily and we can’t is simple — they have a parliamentary democracy that allows things to get done with a simple majority. We have, however, a Presidential democracy with multiple veto points that’s designed to protect the most reactionary policies.
sukabi
@WaterGirl: so he didn’t actually announce? From what I could tell, the run up to his turn at the mic, the other folks were building up like there was going to be an announcement.
He dithered around in the lead up and thru primary season last time, he got a pass last time because of his son’s death, but he also hurt Clinton with his “I might be in, or maybe not” messing around. Uncle Joe needs to make up his damned mind. Until he does the press corps’ gonna follow him around wasting countless articles on his potential run, rather than covering the folks that have already declared and have put out policy platforms.
B.B.A.
@Richard Guhl: also, we have enshrined in our Constitution the absolute right of white men to carry weapons of mass destruction and shoot anyone they want. I think that’s what the Court decided in Heller.
TheOtherHank
re: Australia
Don’t forget the blue ringed octopus and the box jellyfish.
Jim Jeffries bit on vaccination is very good as well.
jl
@sukabi: After reading yesterday that Biden is the Dem candidate that worries Trump sorry little noggin the most, I want him to run. Trump can waste his time thinking up clueless dumb ass nicknames for Biden. But, OTOH, Trump will obsess and do that anyway, so maybe Biden should just keep teasing and decide no.
But I agree with other comenters that Biden’s approach seems out of date, from the recent speeches and interviews I’ve seen him do. Too much emphasis on, as you say, comity, reaching out for compromise, selling a political personality brand. I think a critical mass of Dem voters think “been there and done that, time to bring some brass knuckles and bat’. Others going in that direction are, IMHO, Booker, and oddly enough, Beto, and maybe Klobuchar. That says nothing about their policy positions or merit, just I am not sure they understand what voters want to seal the deal on serious support.
I don’t understand why Booker and Beto are going in that direction. Klobuchar is clearly making a conscious decision, and it might work for her, since if you read her closely, she is firmer on standing up for core of some big progressive issues than the others, including Biden. So, maybe she has the best chance.
I don’t see a problem with a big field early on in the Dem primary. I’m with Kamala Harris who says ‘the more the merrier’.
But, as long as Biden does whatever drives Trump the most nuts, then he should do that.
zhena gogolia
I know I’m way behind on this story, but I’m in the middle of the New Yorker piece on Dan Mallory, and in googling about it I ran across this amazing thread by Anand Giridharadas, about filling in when Mallory suddenly canceled for a PEN benefit.
https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1093175227272564736
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: I think he’s dying to run but between befuddled resentment at the “new left” and worries about Hunter becoming a chew toy he’s holding back (what it must be like to both know you’re an albatross around your father’s ambitions and constantly hearing your dead brother lionized).
On “new left”, repost from below
so weird to be a 51 YO pragmatic, phlegmatic, old political fart, Wilmer-hater and AOC skeptic and be referred to as part of the “new left”.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
This would make an interesting author’s panel: Dan Mallory, James Frey, and Jayson Blair. //
eemom
k, it seems to be kind of a dull Saturday evening, so imma say something I’ve been thinking for a long time.
With due respect to Cleek, the “pie filter” is one of the most glorified idiocies in blogdom. You don’t like someone to the point you don’t want to read their comments? Scroll the fuck past them. It’s, um, easy as pie. I’ve been reading this blog for 10 years, have had plenty of enemies, and it’s never once failed me.
With, again, due respect — do any of y’all who are constantly pontificating with extreme seriousness about who you have and have not “pied”, “unpied”, or “repied”, have any idea how ridiculous you sound? (Making an exception for the Pie King in WV, for whom that appears to be his sole purpose in life; he’s pied me anyway, so no harm done.)
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl:
I honestly don’t know. I mean, I feel completely pissed off and fed up and want my favored candidates to be forthrightly combative and partisan, but I also know that I’m atypical. Are people who feel this way numerous enough to swing a general election? Or are there a whole lot of Americans, maybe older, not Extremely Online Americans who aren’t really into politics, who get “both sides” disgust from Trump’s antics, who just want the heat turned down and for things to get back to some kind of normal? As stupid as we think it may be, they might be as turned off by a fire-breathing progressive as by Trump, and the Biden kind of positioning might be what they’re looking for. It’s not what I think the country needs, but the country doesn’t care what I think.
ThresherK
@WaterGirl: If you can find it, Jim Jeffriies was also the lead on an FX comedy called Legit from 2013-14. His character was autobiographicalish, it was pretty neat.
Aleta
@WaterGirl: For a start we could license the purchase of bullets. Treat bullets like we do meds. No sharing, limit stockpiling, accountable for the ones you buy. Number them to trace them when needed. And revoke the license to purchase bullets for an OUI or reckless use or endangering others. It’s invasive, but we already do it for driving, flying and buying medications. The Constitution doesn’t mention bullets. And tax them. [Get some $ back if you return them …. and some $ back if you pick up and bring the casings to recycling. : ) ]
(I know the Right to Kill movement is already paranoid about bullets.)
catclub
@zhena gogolia:
Did he quit because nobody listened to him, either?
Brickley Paiste
@zhena gogolia:
Clicking through his twitter stream, there’s this: https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1106955561248149510
Amazing, if true.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I’m watching a C-SPAN rebroadcast of Gillibrand in Iowa from yesterday. She’s making a big point that she won by listening to people in deep red upstate NY and in deep blue boroughs of NYC and finding things that they all agree on. She seems very good at putting a progressive spin on pushing those things that Republicans and Democrats can agree on. “I worked with Ted Cruze – yes Ted Cruz – on a bill that was pass[ed] unanimously by the committee!!”
You’re right. We’re atypical and close to half of the country doesn’t really want to vote for a Democrat. Finding a way to get enough people to listen to a Democrat is important.
But I don’t know if it’s as important as getting as many Democrats as possible to turn out on election day…
I’m looking forward to the debates.
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe so.I’m not too worried about the field, since we have good candidates who span the ideological, and also race/ethnicity and gender spectrum. So, let’s get going on the debates, campaning, and primaries and let the voters decide.
In terms of the contrast between ‘let’s get back to normal’, versus ‘let’s get tough’, I think it is more than temperament, I think it’s also trust and feeling that we need to move on from failed strategies. Some of my ‘new left’ AOC fan friends, there is a feeling that with today’s GOP, there is just no point in trying to work with them anymore, they have not interest in working on anything and are a purely destructive force. And trust is an issue, since a large camp is suspicious of any ambiguity on policy, since they interpret that as a signal that a candidate will go wheel and deal with big money.
I’d certainly like to go back to some kind of comity, but there is just no reasonable opposition party left needed to make that work right now. And I think the GOP needs to suffer some electoral catastrophes before it can reform itself. And they won’t reform themselves even then as long as the temptation of big money PACs and filthy rich donors remain to bankroll them into some bank shot win by a few points in swing districts, or bankroll their dominance in deep read districts. So, for me, supporting a ‘get tough and beat their asses’ approach is just a reluctant recognition of the current political reality.
It will be interesting to see what most of the voters are thinking, after the primaries start. I’m backing Warren now. I wanted her to run in 2016, but there are several candidates who I think will do very well on policy, electoral politics, and governance.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin: pundits say that non-online-type Democrats and leaners like the healing rhetoric and talk about bipartisanship, and I think there’s a lot to that. I think the trouble with Biden is that he believes it. I think one of the reasons Obama picked him was because, besides his long career, he was one of the most beloved members of Senate. It meant dick-all to all his good friends when Mitch McConnell told them the strategy was “NO”. Does he think they’ll do for President Biden what they wouldn’t do for Obama’s Vice-President? I think he thinks so. It’s pretty fucking arrogant, if not as dumb as Hickenlooper and Schultz.
Also, I don’t know how many of old Joe’s good R friends are left in the Senate
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin: pundits say that non-online-type Democrats and leaners like the healing rhetoric and talk about bipartisanship, and I think there’s a lot to that. I think the trouble with Biden is that he believes it. I think one of the reasons Obama picked him was because, besides his long career, he was one of the most beloved members of Senate. It meant d!ck-all to all his good friends when Mitch McConnell told them the strategy was “NO”. Does he think they’ll do for President Biden what they wouldn’t do for Obama’s Vice-President? I think he thinks so. It’s pretty fucking arrogant, if not as dumb as Hickenlooper and Schultz.
Also, I don’t know how many of old Joe’s good R friends are left in the Senate
ETA: Seriously what’s the damn filter trigger here?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: I agree.
TS (the original)
@Richard Guhl:
It is absolutely simple in both countries. A Mass killing happens – politicians decide whether or not they want to ban semi-automatic guns. In NZ a majority will say yes. In the US a majority will say no.
Don’t pretend it can’t be done in the US. Accept that people keep electing politicians who do not want guns controlled.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin: @Baud: I also agree in a comment that got sent to moderation limbo for, I’m assuming, a bad word but I can’t see which one
Viva BrisVegas
Is Jim Jefferies well known over there? In Australia he’s pretty much unknown.
Kind of like Steve Irwin was for years. We’d have American tourists wandering around asking where they can see Steve Irwin, and we’d be going, “who?”. It wasn’t until his show from the US got onto local TV that anybody heard of him.
By the way, gun laws in Australia have been under constant pressure to be watered down since they were introduced. There were even right wing populist parties created for the purpose. The main one being known as the “Shooter’s Party”. While they don’t have a hope of attaining government in their own right, they do have hopes of being the tail that wags the conservative dog, like the DUP in the UK.
raven
It ain’t slow if you’re a hoop fan!
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
If you don’t see a use for Cleek’s pie filter, feel free not to use it. I don’t myself, because I don’t like the effect on the thread; like you, I just scroll past the commenters I don’t like.
But it was added to the site because other jackals find it helpful. Live and let live, I say.
Mike in NC
@Viva BrisVegas: Jim Jefferies has had a show on Comedy Central for a few years and also has several stand-up shows on Netflix.
Mary G
@eemom: I do like you, scroll past anyone who’s annoying and never use the pie filter. I would constantly be un-pieing to see what people were saying. Ignoring them is easier.
My pet peeve is people who argue with trolls at length.
Mr Stagger Lee
@TS (the original): I hear there is proposal in Missouri that would require every home to have an AR-15.
tobie
@jl: I’m not sure the party is as hungry for progressive populists as you, Josh Marshall and much of the MSNBC evening lineup think. My sense is that the results of the 2018 election point in the other direction. In the largest blue states, NY and CA, mainstream Dems beat progressive candidates. Cuomo trounced Nixon in NY, and Feinstein had a pretty commanding victory over De Leon. Whitmer beat El-Sayed in the primary in MI. And then you have a bunch of solid Dem but not Wilmer style candidates who won in the midwest: Kelly as KS Gov, Sharice Davids (KS), Elissa Slotkin (MI). Lauren Underwood (IL), Sean Casten (IL), etc. Things could have changed since then but I’m not so sure. I do think the field is too crowded and worry about that. I saw what happened in the Maryland governor’s race last year and it was not pretty. Jealous won a plurality but not a majority in the primaries and never expanded beyond that core group.
Baud
Here’s the WaPo story on Biden’s speech
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hes-running–almost-joe-biden-gets-ahead-of-himself-in-saturday-speech-to-cheers-from-the-crowd/2019/03/16/afdb83ee-4847-11e9-8aab-95b8d80a1e4f_story.html
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: this, as the kids used to say
I don’t worry too much about the crowded field, yet, I’m sure I will. But I also think the winnowing process is going to happen quicker than a lot of people think.
Brachiator
@eemom:
I thought that the whole point of commenting was to sound ridiculous.
I agree with you about pie, but others find it useful or comforting. Variety is a spicy meatballs.
Baud
@tobie:
My concern is slightly different. I think there’s a feeling that we need to some how “make up” for Trump. Not just right the ship of state, but actually turn Trump’s election into a positive by doing extraordinary things quickly. It’s laudable and I would like to see that too, but it’s probably not doable and I worry that we’ll realize that too late.
Ladyraxterinok
@WaterGirl: He grew up and learned politics in much different era.
His time is past.
Gin & Tonic
Those of you who may have been worried about the slippage of quality work in the US, as evidenced by the really sloppy hit on Franky Boy Cali, can rest assured that it was, in fact, an amateur job. Some non-mob dope who’d been in a beef with Cali about attention paid to a woman decided to get revenge. He was an idiot, though, and within 3 days he was arrested with what seems like ample evidence of his guilt.
Lalophobia
@eemom:
I agree wholeheartedly.
jl
@tobie: We’ll find out when we count support and votes for the candidates come in as things progress. don’t have any big arguments with what you say.
I will note that while I am currently supporting Warren, because of her progressive stands, when I talk about being tough and taking unambiguous stands on issues, that is different from backing progressive policies. Harris is not the most progressive candidate in the race, but she certainly signals seriousness and focus. Despite the ‘Kamala is a cop’ BS, and super progressive carping, she can signal that she is not fooling around.
Similarly, Klobuchar is not the most progressive, and I was very unimpressed by the clips and transcript bites that CNN put out after her town hall. But after reading through the whole transcript, she is not the corporate centrist that CNN might have wanted to portray. So while she is marketing herself as a ‘reach across the aisle’ type, she is firm on some core issues. Her backing of the climate change emergency core of the green new deal is one example, even if she doesn’t back it as a super progressive economic policy wish list. I contrast that with Beto, whose policy stands have become so vague, from what I have seen and read, that it is hard for me to figure out what he would do. So, I think Klobuchar will do better in the long run, if she can keep her head above water in the early going.
There are several candidates that I’d be happy with, and not all of them are at the forefront on progressive policies, and I think that is a separate issue from toughness, and force and clarity on policy stands.
NotMax
@Ladyraxterinok
Yup. Politically speaking, he’s Tweety with better hair.
Chyron HR
@eemom:
Look, can we just skip the pleasantries and get to the part where you’re screaming obscenities at half the people here?
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hope the winnowing happens fast. Whoever is the party nominee will need a majority. My experience in Maryland has left me wary of crowded primaries. Bad things happen when 70% of the vote is split among several ideologically similar candidates, and the one outlier candidate sneaks ahead with the remaining 30%.
jl
@Baud: IMHO, some of that is frustration with what has been perceived as Dems bargaining themselves down on what they propose, when the Obama years indicate that whatever you propose will be attacked and bit to pieces by a malicious GOP and corporate conservaDems.
So, signaling that you are NOT going to ask for the whole damn loaf, and then bargain hard to get at least half a loaf raises suspicions that you are not very serious about policy. That is my sense of some the lefty friends and family I talk with in CA.
Of course, whether you will ask for the whole loaf and they throw a tantrum if you don’t get it (bad), OR, ask for whole loaf and then bargain hard for what you can get (good) is an issue of what a candidates governing style will be, and that is maybe the hardest thing to figure out from the various and sundry campaign festivities and rituals.
jl
@tobie: Well, BS has said repeatedly that he will support whichever Dem wins, so we have to hope he is sincere about that. I don’t trust him enough to be really comfortable with his statements in interviews and on talk shows, but it is something.
Sab
@Chyron HR: C’mon guy. The night is young. And it’s Saturday.
Omnes Omnibus
@tobie: It is basically a year before primary season. I remember John Edwards being rather popular at this point in the run-up to the 2008 election. How did that work out?
WaterGirl
@ThresherK: I just checked netflix and it’s not on there. :-(
Amir Khalid
@Mary G:
I had to learn not to do that.
eemom
@Amir Khalid:
Bien entendu. And I may likewise find it helpful to point out that those who feel a need to advertise their use of it ad nauseum are drama queens, and likewise be allowed to live, I hope.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Jeez. We also liked him. My dogs look at me sadly because we are their masters and they doubt our judgment.
WaterGirl
@Aleta: There are an infinite number of things we could do, many of them really good ideas, but we have to bust the NRA first.
jl
@eemom: I am in a constant battle to keep my weight under control, so I need to exercise. I pie manually by scrolling right on by. After I see endless babble about pie, my main problem is that I end up wanting to eat some, preferably berry, then lemon meringue, and if I am feeling very naughty, pecan.
Suzanne
@jl:
Most of them are acceptable to me on a policy front. I definitely have my preferences, but no one other than Gabbard (or Schultz) is truly unacceptable to me.
Where they differentiate themselves to me is on articulation of a compelling vision and forcefulness against the GOP.
eemom
@Chyron HR:
hmmm. I’m beginning to see what they mean.
tobie
@jl: Right now, I’m most interested in O’Rourke, Harris, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg. To me, all of them have pretty clearly rejected nostalgia for some imaginary past, and that matters to me inasmuch as one of the national conversations we’ve avoided is what jobs in the future will look like. I have no idea but with more baristas in the US than coal miners and more warehouse workers than assembly line workers and more home care workers than welders, I feel like the worship of the hard hat has got to end. This matter aside, I think the ideological commitments of most of the major contenders are fairly clear and definitely left of center. Some are further left but I don’t see any candidate running in the mold of centrist a la McCaskill or Heitkamp. I also think they’re all very smart and capable. This means that style will matter more than we think.
@Baud: Trump makes us all hungry for change. If only we could erase this era from the history books!
Gin & Tonic
@eemom: Well, I spent pi day at a pie-making class at King Arthur Flour in Vermont, so I hope my mention of that doesn’t also make me a drama queen.
WaterGirl
@Baud: @Matt McIrvin:
We have some very good options that are not fire-breathing progressives. Listen to Beto. Listen to Pete Buttigieg. What we don’t need is somebody old like Biden who has not grasped that times have changed.
Personally, I think Pete might just surprise people just like Barack Obama did. He is a different kind of candidate and he might be just what we need.
eemom
@Amir Khalid: @Mary G:
There has never been so futile a command as “don’t feed the trolls.” It is contrary to human nature. Until you finally get bored enough to stop.
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: About 10 minutes before I read your comment, I pasted his name into Netflix and it came back with nothing. ???
Sab
.
tobie
@Omnes Omnibus: True. It’s a year before the primary and I’m already exhausted. Maybe it’s just the eagerness to have the election and vote out Trump already!
Baud
@WaterGirl: Beto and Pete, like Obama, have very disarming personalities. That could break through to some people that more forceful (or sadly, female) personalities would not reach.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: @Mary G: That’s what I like about the pie filter – because it’s super easy to skip over all the replies to the troll.
Sab
@Chyron HR: Yep. Thar she goes.
She is often quite rational in the a.m.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Agree! If Pete Buttigieg doesn’t get the nomination, I think he should be given the toughest job in the cabinet – he is one smart cookie and I am super impressed by the his thoughtful approach to problems. But I’ll put my marker down now. I will not be shocked if he ends up as the nominee.
eemom
@Sab:
Smartest thing you’ve ever said. More please.
Suzanne
@tobie:
Agreed. For some reason, people only care about dying industries when they’re male-dominated. I mean, retail workers, who are mostly women (and in urban and suburban areas), are getting absolutely decimated in the retail apocalypse, but instead of sympathy, we are treated to more dispatches from rural America lamenting the loss of coal and steel jobs.
OTOH, I am seeing more and more women in construction management, and that pleases me.
Sab
You’re late to the party. Deleted that because referred back to wrong comment/commenter. Fixed.
Sab
@eemom: Did you notice I said you are rational in a.m.?
Annamal
@Richard Guhl: They are two very different political systems but passing laws in New Zealand is (usually) not as quick or as easy as you are implying. NZ has a multi party system (mixed member proportional representation) which means that unless an election goes really screwy no party can pass legislation on its own.
The current parliament is made up of a left centrist party (labour who would still qualify as very left wing by the standards of the US), a right leaning populist party (who have been known to scapegoat immigrants in the past) and the extremely left leaning Greens (who are weirdly the most reasonable and well-informed party unless it comes to GE). The coalition has a confidence and supply agreement which means that all parties will vote for key budget matters but may not support any individual bit of legislation.
Having said all that, I can just about guarantee that at a bare minimum semi-automatic weapons will be moved into E class license (which is much harder to get than an A class license where they currently sit) if not banned outright. Everyone is hurting and angry right now and this is a healthy outlet (I am hoping that we also get an increase to the refugee quota as that seems to be another healthy outlet).
I suspect this act of terrorism will also end the right wing centrist National party’s brief flirtation with Trump-lite populism (they’ve already quietly taken down their petition about the UN compact) which is all to the good.
Brickley Paiste
@Baud:
Yes. I think Trump is really just a symptom of America’s embedded racism, xenophobia, resentment of “people who think they’re better than me what with their fancy colleges and whatnot and why do all those mexicans get to have my job down at the chicken slaughtering place while I sit here on disability chewin’ on Oxy?”.
There are tens of millions of people who think like that and thousands of them could have put on a presidential campaign because he was a “dealmaker” or some such shit.
In a perverse way, we have benefited from the fact that the guy who fell into the role was such an incompetent moron.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I’m getting a powerful BHO aroma from Buttigieg. At some point (I say this because I am a Democrat) I expect something will emerge about him that will.be a big disappointment. Actually, I am kind of braced for that wrt any of our. candidates.
I really want a woman and/or/both POC on the ticket. Right now, my dream pairing would be Harris/Buttigieg. That can, and probably will, change as we get into debates and primaries.
Early this morning, I downloaded from Amazon free samples of Kamala’s and Mayor Pete’s autobiographies/presidential campaign books. The samples were both impressive enough that I ordered the full books. Buttigieg in particular is just a wonderful writer — elegant and graceful language, with a powerful story to tell. In the Politics & Prose interview, he says that if he hadn’t been a politician he would probably have become a novelist, and I can well believe it.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Then there are those of us who IRL don’t care for pie….
;)
Juju
@Richard Guhl: We also have the 2nd amendment and the most recent interpretation of that amendment by a pro killing numerous people quickly with military style weaponry Supreme Court, preventing us from doing anything about the mass shooting situation in this country.
tobie
@Suzanne: Glad to hear that from your perch you are seeing more women in construction. A friend of mine had a female roofer at her house recently and that impressed me to no end.
I’ve been meaning to ask if you managed to solve your nose bleed problem. That sounded like hell.
Mo MacArbie
A sports forum I read turns your comment green if it gets 3 recs, and they often pick a thread on St. Pat’s Day to just turn every comment green for the hell of it. Guess I just missed the chance to pie everybody for pi day.
Brickley Paiste
@eemom:
Oh my God, you mean J.R.?
He announces again and again that he has pied me but then keeps taking issue with things I say in my posts and makes sure I know that I am so awful that he’s so glad that he has me pied.
I love that little dude.
tobie
@Brickley Paiste: That’s an amazing story, if true. Buttigieg learns Norwegian to read a rarely translated Norwegian author. Wow! This makes me wonder: Do any of the other candidates know more than one language? I didn’t vote for John Kerry in the primary in 2004 but I came to like him a lot during the campaign and it did matter to me that he spoke French, even if the right attacked him mercilessly for this.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
I have no idea what your reading preferences are, but if they’re as eclectic as I think, you might enjoy Kate Carlisle’s “Fixer-Upper” mystery series, whose protagonist — a female contractor named Shannon Hammer — restores and renovated old Victorian homes, and keeps tripping over dead bodies, the way one does. I like them a lot; realize they may not be to everyone’s taste.
Sab
@Brickley Paiste: I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that JR (who might actually be jr) and JR in WV aren’t the same person.
eemom does love to sow discord. In the p.m. she thinks that’s normal. In the a.m. she doesn’t do it. Pattern here?
Another Scott
@Juju: DC v Heller was wrongly decided by Tony and his cohort, but it doesn’t really say that.
Even under Heller, things can and should be done to control access to guns.
(IANAL)
Cheers,
Scott.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@tobie: For a white guy, Beto has some nifty Spanish-Fu (video)
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Scott:
Boy howdy, me too! So many really bright, thoughtful, personable candidates. Am really looking forward to debate season, for once.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
People underestimate Handsome Joe.
Women go crazy for his vintage Trans Am
Bill Arnold
@Brickley Paiste:
From that twitter thread, this New Yorker piece details (a bit more) part of the Norwegian language story:
Pete Buttigieg’s Quiet Rebellion (Benjamin Wallace-Wells, February 9, 2019)
SiubhanDuinne
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I know, right!? Almost as good as Pete Buttigieg’s Norwegian-fu!
Tenar Arha
@jl: QFT
Juju
@eemom: Well I know who I’m going to pie next. ?. Actually I don’t use the pie filter either, I just see School Paste in my mind every time I see a post with his actual screen name and scroll by. I didn’t even know he was known as Steve. I thought Steve is John Cole’s cat, and my guess is the cat can’t type, so this is a different Steve.
tobie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: @SiubhanDuinne: Okay, now I’m humming, “Everybody was language-fu fightin, those guys were fast as lightening,'” except the 1980s music thread was last night, not tonight, and the goofy hit I’m thinking of may be from the 1970s. Damn…yet again out of step with the times.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Speaking of pie — would be grateful if someone could explain to me, as though I am 5 years old, who the fuck is PewdeePie, what the fuck he/she/it signifies, and why the fuck I should care. TIA.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@SiubhanDuinne: Here’s a neat trick: the Jedi Knight using The Force to speak Malay (video)
Brickley Paiste
@tobie:
I know, I’m wary of story, too, but damned impressive if true.
Brickley Paiste
@Sab:
She works the swing shift at the library so she’s coming off work.
Tenar Arha
@SiubhanDuinne: The short version is he’s a video game player and reviewer who is a worldwide YouTube star who keeps “accidentally” saying racist, sexist, anti-semitic, Islamaphobic, and other offensive sh*t way too often to be an accident. TLDR; Ironic fascism is still spreading fascism.
ETA We are who we pretend to be so we should be careful who we seem to be.
Bill Arnold
@Brickley Paiste:
Some more numbers. (US, though the title doesn’t say so.)
Mass Shootings Are Getting Deadlier, Not More Frequent – Data show that mass public shootings are roughly as common now as they were in the 1980s and ’90s. What has changed? The death toll. (Politico, GRANT DUWE October 04, 2017)
Some interesting bits, but I’ll cherry-pick these (bold mine):
Brickley Paiste
@Tenar Arha:
C’mon, doesn’t he have like tens of millions of subscribers? Especially popular with tween girls? What’s up with that?
I have tried to understand this guy but his popularity tells me that I really don’t understand some things about this country.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@tobie: Here’s one of the all time greats showing she wasn’t just a pretty face (Spanish) (French)
Brickley Paiste
@Bill Arnold:
Yeah, it’s crazy there isn’t more research into this.
The most popular “solutions” offered demonstrate that people have no clue what the real problems are.
Just baffling.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Never heard of her/him/it.
Brickley Paiste
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That accent, though. She’s no Bradley Cooper.
tobie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I knew Jacky spoke French, but the Spanish is a surprise. Here’s Madeleine Albright reading a text in Serbian just to add another language to the mix.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: Really I’m just dreading what the online left is going to do to anyone the Democratic Party nominates. I see people on what is supposed to be our side going completely fucko bazoo at each other’s throats over these arcane meta-meta-meta-controversies that it isn’t even possible to follow after the first few hours and at the moment I just can’t imagine them uniting behind anybody in sufficient numbers to elect them. I hope this isn’t that relevant to the real world.
Another Scott
@Tenar Arha: The first I heard of him was when (IIRC) As It Happens from the CBC had some sort of story/interview with him on the occasion of him having more YouTube subscribers than anyone. I didn’t care and didn’t pay any attention to it.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@Brickley Paiste: Really? That’s what she does? I will substantially tone down my comments. I thought she was a lawyer. They are supposed to be tough. Librarians are suposed to be helpful. A whole day of being helpful would fray anyone’s nerves.
Matt McIrvin
@Tenar Arha: And if you so much as say his name in an unflattering context in certain fora you will get bombed by a thousand junior edgelords with meme JPEGs making fun of people with Down syndrome.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@tobie: Here’s Zbig speaking polish (video)
Duane
@Mr Stagger Lee: I’m from Missouri and I hope you’re kidding but can’t be sure. The state capitol’s belfry is full of dingbats.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: That was specifically what the New Zealand shooter was referring to just before he started shooting: the effort to get that guy more YouTube subscribers than some Indian music company. It’s ironic, see!
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Yikes.
Sick.
And not in a good way.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
TomatoQueen
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Ease and style and grace in French and Spanish. Too good for us, sometimes.
Origuy
Jim Jefferies has a talk show on Comedy Central. Nothing on Netflix as far as I know. He became an American citizen last year.
Tenar Arha
@Brickley Paiste: PDP is beginning edgelord stuff for the lulz, where the line between serious & just joking melts away under constant repetition & edgier & edgier “content.”
Anyway, I won’t pretend I’m an expert on the radicalizing effects of “just joking” poseurs making money piggybacking on YouTube algorithms that basically are designed to keep people online playing videos continuously, but I’ve read enough to know most experts point at his channel as a starting point.
Heidi Good
Jim Jeffries Show is on Tuesday nights starting March 19 on Comedy Central. It’s a hoot and the tagline at the end is, we can all do better. enjoy!
WaterGirl
@Origuy:@Heidi Good: @Mike in NC:
The thread is dead, but I want to say thank you for the info on the new Jim Jefferies Show AND also correct the record – Jim Jefferies IS on Netflix — you just have to be sure to add the “e” after the “ff” in his name.
All 3 netflix shows added to my list and I’m about to add his comedy central show to Tivo. thanks again.