Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Petty moves from a petty man.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

White supremacy is terrorism.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

This really is a full service blog.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Don’t You Think He Looks… Tired?

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Don’t You Think He Looks… Tired?

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182Comments

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    If concern over the climate crisis or revulsion over the contamination of the food chain are not enough to change consumer behaviour, one grocery store is hoping that another emotion may persuade people to shun single-use plastic bags: shame.

    Customers who don’t bring their own bags to the East West Market in Vancouver will instead have to carry their grocery home in bags reading “Wart Ointment Wholesale” or “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium”.

  8. 8.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Lovely Dr. Who reference in the title AL. (any non-Whovians please feel free to ask).

  13. 13.

    tobie

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m in Germany right now, where you’ve always had to pay for large plastic bags at the supermarket. But I was delighted to see this time that my local supermarket no longer has plastic bags at all at the checkout counter. Instead you have paper, cloth, canvass, and something that looks like jute. All biodegradable. On the other hand, it ends up that all the plastic packaging put in the recycling bin gets sent to poorer countries. That’s not good.

  15. 15.

    JoyceH

    @OzarkHillbilly</a

    >:Customers who don’t bring their own bags to the East West Market in Vancouver will instead have to carry their grocery home in bags reading “Wart Ointment Wholesale” or “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium”.

    Honestly? I think that will backfire. I think those bags will become highly sought after collectors’ items. People will go to that market and buy a thing or two specifically to get those bags. They will then use them for other purposes, and carry them Ironically.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The Black Godfather: the untold story of the man holding up Hollywood
    In a new Netflix documentary, the incredible tale of music executive Clarence Avant is told by people he worked with, from Barack Obama to Snoop Dogg

    A legacy like Avant’s comes with a certain magnitude, which shows in the spectrum of people who chose to speak on camera about the impact he has had on their lives. Initially, Hudlin thought it would take only a year to make, but it soon swelled due to the scores of major names that Avant mentored. In the end, the director conducted over 75 interviews over the course of three years.

    “It’s just a vast array of people who he’s touched in so many different fields that we just had to keep going, if we were going to do the story justice,” says Hudlin. According to him, it was really the only huge hurdle they had to tackle during the film-making process. “So many powerful people saying amazing insights. Combing through all that material and figuring out the story was definitely a challenge. A lot of times, I would ask people about the same stories because I wanted to hear all these stories from different perspectives, mainly because some of these stories are so unbelievable you have to hear it from multiple sources to confirm that they’re true.”

  17. 17.

    Brachiator

    I like this one.

    Ham sandwich 45%, Trump 43%

    These polls are suggestive, I guess, but otherwise largely meaningless. I do enjoy the fact that they worry Trump, who needs to believe that he is the most beloved president ever.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @tobie:

    But I was delighted to see this time that my local supermarket no longer has plastic bags at all at the checkout counter. Instead you have paper, cloth, canvass, and something that looks like jute.

    I’m so old I remember when people were badgering stores to switch to plastic bags to save the trees. If we keep experimenting, maybe we will get it right.

    Reusing cloth and canvass bags is unsanitary. Washing them reduces the environmental benefit to some degree.

    I saw a guy trying not to use any bags. He dropped stuff on the way to his car.

    And so it goes.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Trump hailed what he called a “beautiful” letter he received from Kim. “I think that something will happen that’s going to be very positive,” he said, while giving no details.

    I don’t understand how the GOP leadership lets this stuff pass.

    And not letting the CIA do their freaking job? Madness.

  26. 26.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Baud: After having had a disagreement with the PM’s decision to destroy a spaceship that was already retreating from Earth after its occupants had been beaten by the Doctor, he tells her he can destroy her career at any time. She disagrees. After she turns away The Doctor thr s to one f her aides and says “Don’t you think…”

  29. 29.

    Bruce K

    @Brachiator: What bothers me is how he manages to stay so far above the floor set by the Crazification Factor.

    Honestly, at this point, when ranking Presidents, I’d put him just ahead of Jefferson Davis, and a little behind George Windsor. Everyone else laps him, including Harding and Nixon.

  31. 31.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    Reusing cloth and canvass bags is unsanitary.

    How so?

    From an old USA Today article.

    Research shows the vast majority of shoppers are like Norton. A 2011 study from scientists at the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University found only 3% of shoppers with multi-use bags said they regularly washed them. The same study found bacteria in 99% of bags tested; half carried coliform bacteria while 8% carried E. coli, an indicator of fecal contamination.

    usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/06/reusable-grocery-bag-germs/4341739/

  32. 32.

    Chyron HR

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Lovely Dr. Who reference in the title AL

    Thirteen years later, I no longer find it charming that a self-righteous progressive hero used slander to destroy the career of a female politician whom he unfairly accused of being a warmonger, only to result in a literal madman who destroys the world taking office instead.

  35. 35.

    tobie

    @Brachiator: I’m not worried about germs affecting my juice bottles or laundry detergent. And, like most people, I wash my veggies and fruits before cooking or eating them. I’m frankly more worried about pre-washed greens and other veggies in the US given e-coli contamination in spinach packaging facilities and the like.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @Bruce K:

    At the lowest point in the Depression, Herbert Hoover got 40% of the vote. It’s hard to move people against their presidents.

  37. 37.

    Nelle

    @Brachiator: So no perfect solution means what?

    In the town I lived in in New Zealand, most people kept couple of large boxes, some cardboard, some the dreaded plastic, in the car boot. They wheeled their trolley (cart) right out to the car and packed their groceries into the boxes.

  38. 38.

    JR

    @Brachiator: Reality is that you will find coliform bacteria everywhere. We touch and place food on all sorts of surfaces, most of them unclean. Source contamination (slaughterhouses, irrigation with contaminated water) is a much bigger concern.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Breathing is unsanitary

    Not really Not even if you breathe through your mouth all the time.

    Of course, people used to think that air could be bad for you, malaria.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: The problem with Joe is he may not keep moving in the right direction. Supporting the Hyde Amendment is in my view a mortal sin. Women have full bodily autonomy or they don’t, and fuck the fundigelicals and their fucking opinions.

  43. 43.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    imagine the all-out media feeding frenzy if a Democrat was losing by 13 points

  45. 45.

    Cermet

    @Brachiator: The E. coli most likely came from the hands of the people who use the bags – not likely from the food (hopefully!) Certainly, not good but since likely from their hands, their food items are covered with E. Coli anyway even if they used new plastic bags. As for bacteria – LOL. Everything, and I mean everything around us, and all over every surface – food, door handles, our hands – has vast numbers of bacteria. If one places their hands on items and put it into a new plastic bag – oops, bacteria all ovcer said new plastic bag. Yes, a new plastic bag doesn’t start with any bacteria but to imply “bacteria” on reusable bags is bad is utter nonsense. Actually, the exact opposite is more likely – the vast majority of most bacteria is harmless, some is very good, and very, very rarely, bad. Lets not even try to discus viruses … . Since plastic bags are a terrible source of plastic killing marine life, I’ll take the minuscule risk of reusing my bag (lol.)

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @satby:

    Yes. Hoover was aces compared to Trump. But his economy was in much, much worse shape than ours is. And he still got 40% of the vote despite 3 solid years of economic decline.

  48. 48.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Brachiator: Do you have any idea how much bacteria one inhales with every breath? Not to mention viruses, pollutants, particulates, second hand smoke, etc etc, but I guess my hay fever is just a figment of my imagination.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    Interesting. This article seems to come down in favor of a specific type of green bag.

    It should be noted that these figures refer specifically to the “green” non-woven polypropylene bags and not canvas bags.

    The energy and water consumption and environmental pollution to produce cotton canvas bags was assessed as having a greater environmental impact than conventional plastic bags in seven of nine categories in one British study.

    But if you would use these bags for the recommended 2 years to maximize environmental benefit, I would think that an occasional wash might be a good idea.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @satby:

    Agreed. I was responding to Bruce K’s comment in. #28 about why Trump’s poll numbers aren’t lower.

    I think the more frustrating thing for us is that a Dem president’s poll numbers would get a lot lower. For better or ill (probably a little of both) our voters are less loyal to their president than the other side is.

  52. 52.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A headline to warm the cockles of my heart:

    Wimer to defend his brand of socialism in speech

    If you are on the defensive…

  54. 54.

    Brachiator

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Do you have any idea how much bacteria one inhales with every breath?

    And yet people are not dropping dead. We’ve got another poster noting that most bacteria is harmless.

    Not to mention viruses, pollutants, particulates, second hand smoke, etc etc, but I guess my hay fever is just a figment of my imagination.

    Sorry about your hay fever. But it’s not quite unsanitary, even though it can obviously be unhealthful.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Dave Weigel
    ‏Aaaand a third abortion protest interruption, this one from Randall Terry himself

    They’re following Biden from event to event.

    I’m with you, btw. I never thought it was legit. No one else in the country gets a line item veto on spending other than these people. It didn’t matter anyway! They HAD Hyde and they held up the health care law for two weeks anyway, and then immediately demanded an expansion of it where they didn’t have to cover birth control in employee health care plans. Obama had to make statements on how he supported access to birth control, which they all treated as an outrage. They moved further Right just during that one debate. So that’s what the special carve out got Democrats- a demand for another line item veto in legislation and an insistence that Democrats abandon support of birth control even though we’ve had federal funding for birth control for 40 years.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    There is one substantive area, however, where Biden genuinely seems to stand out from the pack, and that is his position on China. In Iowa last month, Biden said, “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!… They’re not competition for us.” More recently, as Politico’s Nahal Toosi reported, Biden told a New Hampshire audience: “Our workers are literally three times as productive as workers … in Asia. So what are we worried about?”

    As Toosi noted last week, President Trump’s campaign has been eager to castigate Biden over his comments playing down the China threat. But “several current and former Biden aides said his recent rhetoric calling fears of China’s rise overblown was no gaffe. They say Biden relishes going to battle with Trump over China, certain that his message of confidence in American might will prevail over Trump’s alarmist rhetoric and tariff-driven trade war with Beijing.”

    washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/12/bidens-china-gambit/

  58. 58.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Since recycling seems to degenerate into shipping the plastic elsewhere, I’d like to generate less single-use, non-biodegradable waste in the first place. So I’ve been thinking about the container when I buy stuff. But just this morning I was noticing how many of those plastic sandwich bags I go through as I pack a bag lunch or take a bagel out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. I do carry reusable grocery bags. Everything that goes in them is either packaged or washed when I eat it.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Agree. If we get the Senate, I hope we can get rid of Hyde. We’ll still have a fight with our more conservative Dems, however.

  62. 62.

    satby

    @Baud: it could be attributed to tribalism then, as it certainly is a factor today. And since our “tribe” is more of a conglomerate of tribes and has been since Will Rogers’ famous quote it’s a harder group to hold together. But we’ve got a pretty good idea what we have to do, and we can do it.

  63. 63.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    They’re both wrong. Biden should talk with all the businesspeople who have lost market share to Chinese products and Trump should be bitch-slapped into the 21st century.

  66. 66.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @OzarkHillbilly: more like desperation and an empty playbook.

    he actually hasn’t been under attack in recent times. But he’s doesn’t know how to add new supporters or how to persuade possible voters. His only play is to mobilize existing supporters by playing to their persecution and inferiority complex by manufacturing an outrage (ie “they are trying to stop us!”). But his act is so worn out and boring, and without an actual predicate, it’s just going to fall flat.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @satby:

    Hoover was a more interesting guy than what I was taught. And he wasn’t known for being an evil schmuck, unlike the current dipshit.

    Well, of course — he was an engineer.

  70. 70.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I wanted to switch to the biodegradable cardboard jars for body butters I sell, but they would double the price of my product. And then, like the paper bags, add greenhouse gases decomposing. Not even counting the environmental affects of making them in the first place. Trying to be environmentally ethical about stuff like that isn’t quite as easy as it seems.
    I give people a discount for bringing them (the plastic jars) back to me for recycling.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Brachiator: Woooooo… No shit Sherlock. Funny how you ignored all the other things I mentioned. Here let me simplify it for you: Life is hazardous to your health.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Catholic hospitals have de facto monopoly coverage of the market in some areas. Saying this is just about them is a lie. They’re national health care providers. If you’re a woman in an emergency situation what you’re being asked to do is travel 30, 40, 50, 60 miles to find a provider who won’t refuse what could be life-saving care. Your only option is to move to an area where they haven’t bought every provider. You could be there first! Living there, and thru no fault of your own – thru a series of mergers and purchases- find yourself with no option other than fundamentalist religious beliefs directing your medical care.

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    His only play is to mobilize existing supporters by playing to their persecution and inferiority complex by manufacturing an outrage (ie “they are trying to stop us!”)

    Didn’t Wilmer come out with some kind of economic agenda the other day. I watched part of some YouTube clip from his supporters. The weird thing was how they were trying to sell Wilmer as the One True Democrat, declaring that if the other presidential aspirants did not fully endorse this plan, then they were obviously impure and must be shunned.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Dave Weigel
    ‏Verified account
    @daveweigel
    1h1 hour ago
    More Dave Weigel Retweeted Gabriel Debenedetti
    Emblematic of the Sanders campaign rn; not so much making converts as trying to rebuild what it had at the end of the 2016 primary.

    Bernie has a fundamental problem. He lost ground from ’16 to ’19. That’s just bad no matter how many other excuses they make. He’s now having to bring people BACK in that he used to have. Like Trump. That’s 100 times harder than getting them in the first place.

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Randall Terry and crew hounded Buttigieg too. It’s probably a good thing for Democrats when a nutjob like Terry makes himself the center of attention. He’s a walking reminder of how unhinged the anti-choice extremists are.

  79. 79.

    Cermet

    @OzarkHillbilly: And ignored my indisputable points; fact of life – cart handles, public door handles and surfaces will have some E. Coli. Its the amount that matters. In low levels E. Coli will not harm anyone who is healthy – otherwise, we’d be dropping like fly’s after using a walmart cart – lol. There is evidence that exposure to most normal arrays of bacteria actually improves our health – only when certain bacteria is in levels (ok, here he is correct) get high, then it is dangerous. Allowing meat fluids or wet food to exist in a reusable bag by not cleaning could be deadly. So, cleaning under those circumstances is critical – will people do this? That requires learning about these issues and that, a certain segment of our population, will not do. Then again, maybe that is for the better since they tend to vote republican anyway …

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I feel vindicated to a certain extent by the extremism. The laws they’re passing right now? In 2010 those same laws were the position of a small minority in the Ohio legislature. Local Ohio reporters were tut-tutting women, saying this would never come to pass, accusing them of fear-mongering. Nine years ago. Now it’s, what? Six states?

    So the Hyde Compromise worked well, right? That got us a lot. They did it anyway.

  83. 83.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Kay: Since he lost to HRC in 2016, he always had the challenge of attracting some of her voters to him, and given his attacks on her as corrupt etc., that was going to be hard. But he seemed to assume he would be starting from the base he had, and that has proven untrue. There’s too much competition.

  84. 84.

    Brachiator

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Here let me simplify it for you: Life is hazardous to your health.

    You went from breathing is unsanitary to life is hazardous. Neither statement is quite right.

    Whatever. We agree that it is good to try to do right by the environment. The trick is to review those efforts and to try to fine tune them where necessary.

  86. 86.

    zhena gogolia

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    How anyone could look at Harris, Warren, Gillibrand, Booker, etc., etc., hell even Biden, and say “I want Sanders” is as big a mystery to me as why anyone can even stand to look at Trump, let alone vote for him or adulate him.

  87. 87.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    This guy sounds like me when I’m desperate for a plot twist. Except I never believe my plot twists actually happened.

    It is past time to STOP the harassment of the President and the first family. We need to figure out how an accusation was able to be funded by the DNC, cooked up in the Obama White House, and then polluted by Russians. We're gonna figure out what happened.— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) June 11, 2019

  88. 88.

    mad citizen

    As we head towards the big 73d birthday party on Friday (extra ice cream for the birthday boy!), the cartoon made me want to post: I will never accept that this guy sat in the Oval Office. And a big chunk of the blame for me will always be on the rank and file Republican voters. As you all have been saying in other threads, this guy isn’t an aberration, the whole party is rotten to the core. That this criminal isn’t in prison shows where are nation is at.

    As for the carbon emissions, etc., I’m guessing in the U.S. it’s the oil and gas industry moving us up, because a lot of coal plants are shutting down. Granted, a lot of new gas-fired burners that are still spewing carbon, but at a lower rate. I always wonder why no one is hitting upon that fact there are too damn many humans on the planet.

    Happy Wednesday everybody!

  90. 90.

    satby

    @Kay: I do too. I’ve told people since the early 2000s that the goal was to go after not just abortion but birth control as well, and was treated as a huge tinfoil hat crank about it by young women and men who had no memory of how it was before. I was already 10 when Griswold was decided, and a senior in high school for Roe. Those wins were so recent, and so rapidly taken for granted. And now very endangered.

  92. 92.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Brachiator: I missed that. I saw him on CNN on Sunday; he looked really depressed. He sees Warren in his rear view mirror holding a sign saying “object is closer than it appears”.

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    @Cermet:
    Didn’t ignore your points and even credited you in my response to Ozark. And we are mostly on the same page.

    only when certain bacteria is in levels (ok, here he is correct) get high, then it is dangerous. Allowing meat fluids or wet food to exist in a reusable bag by not cleaning could be deadly. So, cleaning under those circumstances is critical

    Long term use of re-useable bags, folks should consider a little washing.

    There ain’t much controversial here. I notice folks using bags with dried stains from something that was leaky. Stuff may not be deadly, but it sure looks funky at times.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    David Heath
    ‏Verified account
    @davidhth
    22h22 hours ago
    More
    Linda Fairstein is trapped in a dilemma. If the men known as #CentralPark5 are innocent, then the police may have coerced them to “confess.” She refuses to accept the latter, so she’s stuck insisting that these men are guilty of something.

    I read her defense in the WSJ because I’m open to the idea that the filmmakers got it wrong. Really dishonest. One has to read it carefully but when one does you see her glide over problems with her case, use sneaky inferences instead of facts, omit nearly the whole issue with the DNA and on and on. She does this because she has to get past the truth that her case was based on their confessions, which she refuses to accept. She is now admitting that parts of the confessions were invented and aren’t consistent between the five, but she’s insisting that she can pick and choose which parts. Some has not been DISPROVEN so she focuses there, which is dishonest and misleading.
    Here’s the thing with these defenses by prosecutors of bad work that they are “for victims” so therefore shouldn’t be held accountable- she didn’t catch the rapist. She can’t call herself a good victims advocate unless she catches the actual perpetrator. She blew the single most important part of her job. They have to SOLVE crimes. So even that excuse fails.

  97. 97.

    tobie

    @satby: Eliminating our carbon footprint is going to be about the toughest challenge we face. Oliver Geden, director of a German climate change think tank, had an article on this in 2015 during the Paris Climate Accord negotiations. According to him, to reach net zero emissions, we would not only have to cease using fossil fuels but plant an area the size of India for carbon capture. The figures have likely gotten worse since then:

    To achieve the negative emissions that are an essential component of the I.P.C.C. models, we would have to plant around 500 million hectares of biomass crops — an area one and a half times the size of India.

    Pretty sobering stuff. You gotta try everything all the same.

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @MomSense:

    I knit reusable bags out of recycled cotton yarn. They are sort of a mesh, durable, and easy to wash

    This sounds very cool. Ingenious, even.

  102. 102.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t understand how the GOP leadership lets this stuff pass.

    White power.

    @Bruce K:

    What bothers me is how he manages to stay so far above the floor set by the Crazification Factor.

    White power.

    Seriously, this isn’t a crazification factor case. Trump represents Republicans cheating to maintain minority rule and making the Other suffer. That they may dislike some details of his presidency, mostly that he’s so embarrassingly publicly an idiot, is a small price to pay. He stands for the principles they consider most important, overriding all other considerations.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @satby:

    I have no proof of this but I work with teenagers in a conservative area and I am convinced they are conflating birth control with abortion. I hear them. I listen to them talk to one another. They think using birth control means “you don’t want the baby” Which is exactly what it means in the context they use. Using birth control does mean you don’t want a baby. True. They take this and run with it.
    “The baby” has gone from an actual pregnancy to a prospective pregnancy. Preventing a pregnancy is now killing the prospective baby. Hence, this county has had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state for decades. One year it was THE highest.

  104. 104.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie: Dump should be bitch-slapped to Mars to be honest.

    “Wanna go to the red planet, you Soviet shitpile? Here you go!” *SLAP*

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think it’s one of the reasons they’re losing public support. Their clearance rate is terrible. They’ve become fine collectors. There has to be an upside for people. “Sure I’ll get bugged for this minor offense but they will catch murders and rapists and I’m afraid of murderers and rapists”. They have to do that second part. Have to. For all her bleating about how much she loves victims she would have left the rapist out there. Did we hire her as a social commentator on victim’s rights or as a prosecutor? Do THE JOB. Not the other job you invented and prefer.

  107. 107.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    He stands for the principles they consider most important, overriding all other considerations.

    They have only one principle: Power. Everything they do is in service to that principle.

  108. 108.

    satby

    @Kay: conflating birth control as an abortifacient has been a goal of the forced birthers for decades. And in conservative circles they’ve succeeded.

  109. 109.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Chyron HR:

    Thirteen years later, I no longer find it charming that a self-righteous progressive hero used slander to destroy the career of a female politician whom he unfairly accused of being a warmonger, only to result in a literal madman who destroys the world taking office instead.

    Yeah. That uh… that didn’t age too well did it.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    I read her defense in the WSJ because I’m open to the idea that the filmmakers got it wrong

    Wait. What? The convictions were vacated in 2002, and the state withdrew all charges against the unfortunate men. The filmmakers could have got some things wrong and you would still have a huge miscarriage of justice.

    She blew the single most important part of her job.

    Yep. Totally agree.

  111. 111.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    I am convinced they are conflating birth control with abortion.

    I expect that’s because the RWMFs who are Their Elders have been conflating that for decades, culminating (temporarily) in the increasingly-codified idea that a fertilized egg is a person. It’s immaterial that the Pill prevents fertilization — if they weren’t willing to ignore facts, science, and reality, they wouldn’t be RWMFs, after all — because the goal is not really to protect the lives of those poor, four-cell “babies.”

    I wrote “temporarily” because, if the Rethugs and other RWMFs get their way, we’ll be approaching Gilead soon enough. And THAT is the the goal.

    ETA: Or what satby said @ 108

  112. 112.

    satby

    Just realized NotMax hasn’t been on the thread. He mentioned he was wiped out yesterday, hope he’s just catching up on some sleep. It’s only about midnight his time, right?

  113. 113.

    zhena gogolia

    @Brachiator:

    This is the thing Russian grannies have been carrying around forever. The “avoska,” meaning roughly “a mesh bag I can keep scrunched up in my purse ‘in case’ (‘avos’) I run into a big line of people waiting for something that just got dumped on the market.”

    You see a line, you get at the end of it, without even knowing what they’re waiting for.

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Missouri Sheriffs’ Association responds to Vehicle Stops Report: ‘Race alone not dispositive of why stop was made’

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A recent report from the Attorney General’s Office showing an extremely high disparity between black and white drivers who are pulled over in Missouri doesn’t necessarily paint the full picture, the Missouri Sheriffs’ Association has said.

    The statewide statistics in the 2018 Vehicle Stops Report released late last month showed black motorists were stopped at a rate 76 percent greater than expected based on the portion of the population who are at least 16 years old. And when compared to white motorists, black drivers were 91 percent more likely to be stopped by police — the highest disparity level since at least 2000, when the annual reports began.

    Lawmakers and activists immediately called for swift action in the wake of the report. But the Missouri Sheriffs’ Association pushed back Monday, saying use of census data in the report is “inappropriate” and doesn’t “serve as an effective data analysis benchmark or baseline.”

    “It is not difficult to measure whether there is disparity between racial/ethnic groups in terms of stops made by police; census benchmarking does that well,” Kevin Merritt, executive director of the association, said in a statement. “The difficulty comes in identifying the causes for disparity. Race alone is not dispositive of why the stop was made; neither is a disparity index.”

    The report expanded this year to include a breakdown of data based on whether the motorist lived in the jurisdiction where he or she was stopped. Attorney General Eric Schmitt said he plans to add more changes to the report during his tenure for “clarification and context in certain questions and modernizing the data collection infrastructure for more accurate and insightful data.”

    Merritt wants to see that expansion include data related to whether the officer knew the race of an individual before the stop was made.

    “Black people are just really shitty drivers.”

  115. 115.

    trnc

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Customers who don’t bring their own bags to the East West Market in Vancouver will instead have to carry their grocery home in bags reading “Wart Ointment Wholesale” or “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium”.

    I can guarantee you that a not insignificant number of people will go to the store specifically to get those bags.

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I don’t understand how the GOP leadership lets this stuff pass.

    White power.

    You might be right. But sucking up to North Korea and subverting the CIA in the name of white supremacy is way off the crazy scale. It’s wild that they don’t see how risky their actions could be. Or maybe they just don’t care.

  117. 117.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Aside from the disparity in stops, the 2018 report also found the statewide search rate for black and Hispanic drivers was greater than white individuals (black: 8.93; Hispanic: 8.44; white: 6.04) in 2018, but the contraband hit rate was higher among white drivers (black: 33.82; Hispanic: 29.15; white: 35.68). Arrest rates were also higher for black and Hispanic people (black: 6.37; Hispanic: 6.26; white: 4.25).

    So they found more drugs on white people but arrested fewer of them.

  118. 118.

    SFAW

    @Brachiator:

    You might be right. But sucking up to North Korea and subverting the CIA in the name of white supremacy is way off the crazy scale.

    I agree. And there’s NO way someone like — oh, I don’t know, the Senate Majority Leader? — would let his desire to have a white supremacist president overcome his patriotism, especially if there were evidence of an adversary meddling in our elections. He’d be the FIRST to get on-board with countermeasures.

  120. 120.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    So they found more drugs on white people but arrested fewer of them.

    Look, if they didn’t want to get arrested, they shouldn’t Live While Black, right?

  121. 121.

    SFAW

    @satby:

    I just found the T-shirt that defines me.

    I said something similar in a job interview once. Surprisingly, I was not offered the position.

  125. 125.

    Scotian

    I’ve been watching the modern NA conservative movement work to destroy the most essential of core truths where human rights are concerned, namely that all rights start from having control over your own body and its integrity. For males this is seen as obvious, yet for females somehow it is not, but until and unless this is clearly understood and treated as such there can never be equal rights for all people.

    Regardless of the reasons they claim they want it, ranging from the most benign to malicious, this is a reality of modern conservatism. So anything that permits women to control their own lives and bodies is to be attacked and destroyed. It was birth control that truly freed women to have the ability to have that control and freedom, so no surprise it remains a core target of these filth.

    It saddens me to see from my childhood to my dying days this is still as far from won a battle for Americans as it is, thankfully we have done better up here but we still have our own conservatives trying to follow in the successes as they see it of their spiritual brethren in America.

    I hope this fight ends with victory for the side of those that believe all humans were created equal and therefore have all the same basic human rights for that is IMHO the only truly ethical and/or moral position to hold. All else shows the willingness of someone to see different categories of humans in a greater/lesser mindset, and that is at the heart of xenophobia be it racism sexism, homophobia, all of it, but it does tend to be mostly widespread against women first. At least it looks that way to me and has throughout my life.

  126. 126.

    Another Scott

    @SFAW: Yup. And an illustration of the principle that engineers should not, a priori, be trusted to know anything about economics.

    Seriously, Hoover was a good guy before he became president.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    Betty Cracker

    @Brachiator: I think it’s more complicated than that — greed also makes Trumpism acceptable to people like McConnell. White supremacy and plutocracy are interrelated for sure, but I don’t think establishment Republicans like McConnell would embrace a David Duke-like figure unless he also committed to allowing them to continue to loot the Treasury, as Trump has done. It would be a real conundrum for them if a truly populist ethno-nationalist came on the scene with sincere demands for herrenvolk socialism that cut into corporate profits. I suspect establishment Repubs would quickly remember how icky racism is if that happened.

  135. 135.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    . It would be a real conundrum for them if a truly populist ethno-nationalist came on the scene with sincere demands for herrenvolk socialism that cut into corporate profits

    Has that ever happened though?

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    @Scotian:

    Beautifully said. Thank you.

    How are you holding up? I lost my dear friend to breast cancer in the wee hours Tuesday. She had been in a prolonged state of no consciousness for months and months so I feel sadness and also relief for her. It’s a complicated way to feel.

    I’m really glad you are sharing your thoughts with us. I’ve valued them over the years and feel grateful for the wisdom you are sharing with us now. Sending a hug to you and your wife.

  139. 139.

    mrmoshpotato

    @satby: Re:NotMax It’s a little after 3am out in Hawaii.

    I’d imagine the long pantsless wonder is still asleep.

  141. 141.

    gvg

    @satby: Hoover was racist and yes evil in that way. Purged his administration of whites, showed the Birth of a Nation in the white house, viewed blacks as inferior. I think he may have implemented some anti Chinese immigration laws too but I am not sure. trying to Google it was getting me some flaky stuff and making me a little sick…I was getting stuff not about him but still strange.
    He was good about white welfare, not everyones. Before the great depression, people didn’t really understand much about economics. He didn’t know what to do. Also Tariffs were imposed at bad moments…funny that Trump is bring back so much of the same ignorance.

  142. 142.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Not that I know of. For as long as I’ve been alive, the Republican scam has been to gin up the rubes on racism and culture war bullshit and parlay the resulting power into a loot-fest for the wealthy. I don’t think that’s sustainable indefinitely.

  143. 143.

    Scotian

    @MomSense:

    About to go visit dad in hospital for the last time. He discontinued his IV drip the other day and is nearing the end of his cancer, I expect to be doing his funeral within the next week or so. For myself, hooking up with palliative care this afternoon, so will have access to their services from then onward. Aside from that though I just keep going as best I can.

  144. 144.

    MomSense

    @satby:

    I think they are having a heatwave, a tropical, tropical heatwave. The heat was getting to him. Hopefully he has adequate AC.

    Notmax check in with us!

  145. 145.

    Kristine

    @satby: I wish people would get their prepositions right. It’s “tolerance of,” not “to.” I like that T-shirt, but I wouldn’t buy it because that ‘to’ is all I would see.

    But then, I still haven’t adjusted to “bored of.” It’s “bored with,” dammit. (Or “bored by”)

    Yes, I know language changes. I verb nouns all the time. But the preposition switches irk me.

    I guess I’ll find a seat over by the far wall with the rest of the pedants.

  146. 146.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    and parlay the resulting power into a loot-fest for the wealthy. I don’t think that’s sustainable indefinitely.

    Oh the bastards could certainly find something still worth looting in the barren hellscape they’re trying to create. People’s vital juices just for the fuck-the-poor (no more middle class here) aspect of it?

  148. 148.

    MomSense

    @Scotian:

    I’m really sorry about your dad. Such a gauntlet of emotions for you and your wife.

    Do you have emotional/spiritual support person(s)?

  150. 150.

    NotMax

    @satby

    All present and partially accounted for. Don’t bounce back the way I used to (who among us does?) but still kickin’.

    ;)

  152. 152.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Bernie has a fundamental problem. He lost ground from ’16 to ’19. That’s just bad no matter how many other excuses they make. He’s now having to bring people BACK in that he used to have.

    But, he hasn’t corrected what made them leave him in the first place.

  155. 155.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    They were 13-16 years old.
    They were COMPLETELY INNOCENT.
    They didn’t get out on a technicality.
    THEY WERE PHUCKING INNOCENT.
    SHE helped take away their childhoods and destroy their lives.

  156. 156.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Here’s the thing with these defenses by prosecutors of bad work that they are “for victims” so therefore shouldn’t be held accountable- she didn’t catch the rapist. She can’t call herself a good victims advocate unless she catches the actual perpetrator. She blew the single most important part of her job

    Correction..she didn’t catch THE MURDERER.
    Because, she railroaded these children, the ACTUAL criminal was still out there, able to do it again-which he did. And, he killed someone.

  157. 157.

    satby

    @Kristine: LOL. Didn’t even notice that because the sentiment was so on the nose.
    “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” applies to a lot in life besides politics.

  158. 158.

    satby

    @NotMax: at my present girth I can bounce sitting still ?.
    About to restart my walking routine to work on that. Take it easy today, sounds like you earned it.

  159. 159.

    rikyrah

    @gvg:

    @satby: Hoover was racist and yes evil in that way. Purged his administration of whites, showed the Birth of a Nation in the white house, viewed blacks as inferior

    I think you’re conflating Hoover with Woodrow Wilson, who DID show Birth of a Nation and purged the federal government of its Black work force.

    I dunno about Hoover, but Wilson was a stone cold racist of the highest order.

  160. 160.

    satby

    @rikyrah:

    But, he hasn’t corrected what made them leave him in the first place

    And he never will because he’s unable to even admit he isn’t the unappreciated answer to our prayers.

  165. 165.

    satby

    @rikyrah: that sounds right. Wasn’t defending Hoover anyway, I just learned he was a more complex man than the simple “Hoover stubborn” story I had learned back in school.

  166. 166.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Her defense was really weak. She did this gross waving toward “the record”- it’s a common tactic- “there are 500 pages proving me RIGHT” except the record doesn’t prove her right and she’s hoping you don’t read it. She’s CONFIDENT very few people will read a 500 page file, so she does this amatuerish sleazy lawyer trick of leaning on it and hoping no one follows up.

    Not impressive.

  167. 167.

    NotMax

    @rikyrah

    People seem to conveniently forget that Wilson, although associated professionally with New Jersey, was the first southerner to win the presidency since the Civil War. His parents were slave owners.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Oh, I could go on. She conflates the semen of the rapist on the victim with the traces of the boys semen they found when they tested the boys clothes. It is not at all unusual to find traces of a teenage boy’s semen in his own pants. It “means” absolutely nothing in relation to this crime or any other crime. I mean, come on. She thinks we’re idiots. I started with an open mind. By the second paragraph I thought she all but implicated herself because no one dodges and bobs and weaves that much if they have actual facts. It isn’t necessary. She NEEDED to mislead.

  170. 170.

    laura

    @rikyrah: she destroyed the lives of innocent children, their families, their community, and she ignored the fact that the actual criminal rapist was out continuing as a predator. She rested on her laurels, made serious coin off her misplaced righteousness, and she has made it all worse by her stuborn, ego-feeding refusal to admit she was wrong since 2002. A complete absence of decency and humility. It negates any good work she might have done, and it calls into serious question whether other innocent individuals were similarly railroaded.
    No apologies. No redemptive or reparative efforts for these five innocent men. Just doubling down for the benefit of herself.
    She is filth.

  171. 171.

    joel hanes

    @SFAW:

    [Hoover] was an engineer

    And a notable Latinist who translated several classic texts himself.

    I took Latin in middle school and high school mostly because a wonderful great-aunt gave me a book “President Hoover Answers Letters
    From Children” and in that book, Hoover tells one kid that the best advice he can give to a child hoping to get a good education is to take Latin.

  173. 173.

    J R in WV

    @Ken:

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Wait, are you talking about Sanders or Trump?

    Doesn’t matter, they’re both stupid antiques, they’re both stooges for Russia, no difference which one of them you’re talking about.

  174. 174.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Kristine: After coursework in 4 non-English languages (français, deutsch, italiano, čeština) & putzing around with teachyerself books in over a dozen more, it seems to me that the use of prepositions (in Hungarian, postpositions) is about the toughest part of an unfamiliar language to get right – & (as you note) t’ain’t zackly a slamdunk for most native speakers either.

  175. 175.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t honestly care what prompted his change of heart or stance – I am just glad to see a politician of his stature embrace the idea of overturning the Hyde Amendment. I hope that if there is a Hell, that that evil mofo Hyde is screaming in it. The number of times I had to listen to poor, desperate women on the phone and counsel them to try the Chicago Abortion Fund, as the clock ticked inexorably on and made the whole process of getting an abortion even more arduous and expensive, gave me such a visceral hatred for the man that I would have spat in his face if I had ever encountered him.

  176. 176.

    J R in WV

    @joel hanes:

    Hoover tells one kid that the best advice he can give to a child hoping to get a good education is to take Latin.

    I took Latin in HS, got up to reading Cicero and Caesar, which was interesting. I eventually got a good education, both in real life and in a technical field I could work into a career. Have had a successful life.

    Related to having two years of Latin in HS? nope.

  178. 178.

    Captain C

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Customers who don’t bring their own bags to the East West Market in Vancouver will instead have to carry their grocery home in bags reading “Wart Ointment Wholesale” or “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium”

    This is the kind of thing that could backfire if people decide that they want those bags. Kind of like how underwear theft went up in Sheriff Joe’s jails after he started issuing pink underwear to prevent underwear theft.

  182. 182.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I know you’re long gone, but the filmmakers are not wrong. Linda Fairstein is. Believe me.

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