"A cry for racial justice… will be deferred no longer"
In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden says a "rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism" must be defeated https://t.co/hQBfBFbUvQ pic.twitter.com/eD0HCHbGib
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) January 20, 2021
Ed Kilgore, at NYMag — “Biden Touting Equality Is Anything But Routine” :
… It’s easy to treat Biden’s assertion of the central importance of equality to the American experience as banal. Don’t we all at some level, conservatives and progressives alike, believe that “we are all created equal”?
Not during the administration that just left office, or for some years before, as white racial resentment, homophobia, hatred of nonwhite immigrants and refugees, and anti-feminism gradually gained a toehold and then a stronghold in one of our two major parties. While Trump made more extreme expressions of racism acceptable for the first time in decades, he was hardly the first apostle of anti-egalitarian backlash in recent years. The tea-party movement that formed in reaction to the Obama-Biden administration was violently hostile to any sort of redistribution of resources to promote equality, and many tea-party folk blamed the housing and financial crises of 2008 and the Great Recession that quickly followed on those people who lacked the moral fiber to take care of themselves. Some began to call themselves “constitutional conservatives” on the theory that limited government and property rights, not democracy and definitely not equality, were the eternal underpinnings of the Republic, as provided for by divinely inspired Founders.
While no one would call Donald Trump a “constitutional conservative,” he conquered the GOP by weaponing white grievances and marrying them to culture-war passions. The MAGA movement accepted as axiomatic that white Christians are the primary victims of discrimination these days; that recognition of racial injustice is “political correctness”; and that intolerance toward racists and other apostles of privilege represents a “cancel culture” incompatible with liberty…
The unity Biden seeks will depend on Republicans repudiating this lurch into the kind of authoritarian thinking necessary to restore the “American greatness” of the white Christian patriarchal society of the 1950s. Yes, my colleague Jonathan Chait is right that if Republicans eschew Trump’s hatefully divisive rhetoric and find some practical areas of bipartisan agreement, the tone in Washington can be improved to the point where armed gangs of MAGA rebels won’t be tempted to overthrow the government in an “uncivil war that pits red against blue,” as Biden put it in his Inaugural Address. But more fundamental progress is going to require unity not just in programs and projects but in fundamental values and a sense of what the country needs to do to live up to its promise. So long as the GOP views itself as a bulwark for denying equality on behalf of those who fear the loss of privilege, the “uncivil war” will never be more than a crisis away from resurgence…
Proof of concept, from some of the GOP’s leading lights:
WSJ ed board member on Fox saying there can be no unity as long as Democrats keep talking about white supremacists
— Tom LoBianco (@tomlobianco) January 20, 2021
Current Fox News segment is criticizing Biden for calling out racism and nativism in his address; they are especially bothered by his line about about "telling lies for power and profit."
(I'm not kidding.)
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) January 20, 2021
Sen. Rand Paul on Fox News: "If you read his speech and listen to it carefully, much of it is thinly-veiled innuendo calling us White supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book, calling us people who don't tell the truth."
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) January 21, 2021
you mean joe biden is not just a nice version of donald trump and will pursue different policies? outrageous! he should have run as a different party than donald if so! https://t.co/LF6D3HaV1m
— kilgore trout, brad r’s brother (@KT_So_It_Goes) January 20, 2021
.
Special sidebar for the latest Cruz-ifictions!
Pay attention to this.
Trump was too stupid to understand that the Paris Accord was a global treaty signed in Paris and not some French thing.
Cruz is deliberately mimicking Trump in a pathetic, servile attempt to inherit the basket of deplorables. https://t.co/FsWAuzwC0L
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) January 21, 2021
To be fair to Ted, he probably isn't a fan of the Geneva Convention either. https://t.co/9X3LScry63
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 21, 2021
That Ted Cruz would wear a “Come And Take It” mask to President Biden’s inauguration – especially when Biden and Harris are the target of assassination threats – tells you everything you need to know about this pathetic man. pic.twitter.com/BrtpnJlADx
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 20, 2021
Open Thread: PRESIDENT Biden Live on Covid-19
PsiFighter37
McConnell being a little bitch about the organizing resolution for a split Senate. Schumer and Biden need to tell Manchin he won’t get chair of Energy if he doesn’t blow up the filibuster to get the OR through and allow him the seat. Leaving the Senate in de facto control of the minority (the committee chairs are all still Republicans) is bullshit to the highest degree.
MattF
It’s certainly true that the yelps from the right about the need to identify white supremacists are revealing. But we’re apparently not getting yelps about the whole truth vs. lies thing… which is also revealing, in a way.
jeffreyw
I keep hearing unity arguments that come at from the view that the republican sons a bitches that fucked it all up due something extra just for showing up to the table.
Freemark
Just finished watching the White House briefing and I am developing a crush on Jen Psaki. Don’t know if it’s because she’s that good or if I’m projecting my joy at seeing such total competence of this administration onto her. Probably some of both.
Villago Delenda Est
The vile animated malignant tumor that is Kkkarl Rove is “offended” that Biden brought up “the race thing”.
Go pound sand, Turdblossom.
Villago Delenda Est
@Freemark: If we can’t have CJ Cregg, we’ll take Jen.
dmsilev
Well, Biden did promise to bring truth back to the government, so …promises kept, even in the first few minutes.
VeniceRiley
You want a vaccine NOW? You got a 2/3rds chance: https://www.novavax.com/PREVENT-19
Elizabelle
Could you hear me laughing when I got to the tweet about Rand Paul’s comments?
ETA: you could hear dmsilev laughing too, apparently.
Rand is … such a dick.
Roger Moore
I find the whole “come and take them” business to be more than a bit stupid if you know the history. Leonidas challenged the Persians to come and take their weapons if they wanted them so badly, and it was a brave and impressive sounding challenge. But in the end, the Persians did come and take the weapons from the Spartans’ (and their allies) dead bodies, and the stand at Thermopylae barely even slowed the Persians down. The idiots who quote the line today should think about that when they brag about how they’re going to stand up to the government to keep their guns.
Mary G
The Republicans will never change; we just need to stop being Charlie Brown falling for the Lucy with the football again:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I saw this nugget in a Politico story about trump’s last days in the White House, I think it merits some attention. They’re already planning to gin up the racism for 2022. It’s all calculated
Jinchi
Yikes! I didn’t realize that was meant seriously until I saw the photo. WTF is wrong with these people.
hells littlest angel
Rand Paul: You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? … Well, I’m the only racist moron here.
Geminid
@PsiFighter37: I am not sure if the Democratic Senate Caucus is trying to blow the filibuster up now. I have the impression that Schumer is reserving it as a future option, and McConnell wants a set of rules that foreclose this. In any event, Manchin was quoted today by Axios saying: “Chuck has the right to do what he is trying to do. He has the right to use [the filibuster] to do whatever he is trying to do….they’re not going to grind this place to a halt.”
Woodrow/asim
Yeah, these assholes know when their little trial of Dog-Whistlin’ White Supremacy Values is getting called out. They’ve had a long run of this attempt to mine racism (among many prejudices) for votes, and are scared spitless that someone’s now noticing their little operation, since Trump pulled back too many curtains.
That don’t mean they won’t find another way, or make it worse in future. Just means, for now, they’re back-peddling and blame-shifting like the cowards all white supremacists are, at heart.
Sandia Blanca
@Roger Moore: There is a Texas-specific reference to “Come and Take It,” referring to the Battle of Gonzales in the Texas Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gonzales
Woodrow/asim
@Geminid: My gut — for what that’s worth — says McConnell wouldn’t be trying so damn hard to foreclose killing the ‘buster if he was confident we couldn’t pull 50 to kill it.
I think he’s playing his cards from a weak position, and a place of fear that, for once, the Democratic caucus is united and ready to push the GOP fully aside. If so, these negotiations are more about setting that stage, if needed, than the Democratic Leadership presenting our neck.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@hells littlest angel: You forgot lying. Rand’s the only lying racist moron here.
debbie
@dmsilev:
What Rand is listening to are the goblins inside his head.
trollhattan
Two items:
Who could have possibly guessed?
What a difference a day makes:
trollhattan
@debbie:
Technically, those goblins are also his accountants.
sab
Whenever I get a little crazed reading Balloon Juice I go read Connie Schultz,very lefty spouse of lefty Senator, both very aware of where they need to be publicly. Read Connie then I breathe for another day. Left but electable, even in Ohio.
Freemark
Rand has used dog whistles so often that he now imagines hearing them in every breeze.
Baud
Big signal to McConnell
gwangung
Just remember….Rand was the voice delaying the passage of the anti lynching bill last year.
If the hood fits, wear it, Sen. Paul…..
BruceFromOhio
Is our children learning? Nothing thinly-veiled, Randy, the President made it pretty clear what he was calling you.
Damned_at_Random
Is Cruz implying that climate change is a problem for Paris and not for Pittsburgh? Because my Mom said in the ’60’s that Pittsburgh’s climate had changed since her childhood. (Of course my mom didn’t have her head up her ass, so she noticed that sort of thing)
zhena gogolia
I’m loving all the Fauci clips today and the Bernie-mittens meme.
Geminid
@Woodrow/asim: I think you are right that McConnell sees a united Democratic Senate Caucus. Not neccessarily a Caucus that is ready to blow up the filibuster now, but one willing to make that move if and when necessary. President Obama got my attention at John Lewis’s funeral, when he said that if the John Lewis Voting Act was stopped by the filibuster, then the filibuster must go. Mr. Obama stays in touch with Senators, and I think he spoke advisedly. But the shrewdest course may be for the Democrats to get what can be gotten with 50 votes through the reconciliation rule, and then move on vital and popular legislation like voting rights and comprehensive immigration reform. By blocking these, Republicans will make the case for filibuster reform. What is blocked in March can be passed in April, if the Democratic Caucus hangs together.
Amir Khalid
I think I get it: when Biden speaks of inclusiveness, he names those groups who have been left out before and need to be included now. His Republican, um, friends*, themselves wholly dependent on a shrinking majority of white Christians, seize upon this naming of the marginalised as proof that he and his party are pandering to identity politics. Is that about right?
*I find the American use of this phrase to describe bitter political opponents to be wryly ironic.
debbie
@Baud:
It will be too late by then, you idiot
(ETA: Angus being the idiot.)
Sister Golden Bear
While Biden didn’t repeal the ban on trans military members on Day 1 as promised (although it’s coming), he did issue a hugely significant executive order that the federal government should comply with last June’s Supreme Court rulings outlawing discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation — which the Trump administration had been trying to undercut every since.
Predictably TERFs (who are really Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes) here and in the UK, who’ve allied themselves with reactionary Christians, are now pining for the Trump Administration and starting spam trends on Twitter, claiming it “Biden erased women” and “erased the sex-based rights of half the population.” (Narrator voice: It doesn’t.) They’d rather to see legal protections for all women and LGB people rolled back than see trans people included.
Yeah, I couldn’t even have one day to celebrate the new administration without organized transphobia rearing its head.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen states — including Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas — are currently considering cookie-cutter anti-trans legislation to ban trans youth from sports. Unsurprisingly the focus in invariable on trans girls/women. (Narrator voice: Notably, none has qualified for the Olympics or dominated elite sport, and the photo they love to pass around of a high school wrestler is actually a trans boy, Mack Beggs, who Texas prohibited from competing in boys wrestling, even after he started hormones. Trans men and boys being generally invisible to FARTs.)
Being trans is the front line in the culture wars now. I am so, so unbelievably tired of this shit.
p.a.
I don’t/won’t follow him but when someone posts a Cruz tweet I go over and ask him if he’s apologized to Officer Sicknick’s family yet.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
Everyfuckingthing
RSA
Senator Cruz, no one is coming to take your e-cigarette away.
MomSense
@Sister Golden Bear:
It’s appalling and infuriating. I’m so sorry and pissed off that you are treated this way.
Baud
The funny part is that Cruz would have totally let Trump come and take anything of Cruz’s and given Trump bonus points for insulting his family while doing it.
BruceFromOhio
@Freemark: There’s little doubt about competence, and it shows in her resume. Looks like they’ve had her lined up since November.
rikyrah
@Woodrow/asim:
I think that the GOP is not reading the room in the SENATE
Unlike Mike Pence,
Most people hold a grudge when muthaphuckas that you are instigating and collaborating with COME CLOSE TO KILLING YOU.
Everyday that more of this comes out.
That stuff about being phucking GASSED IN THE TUNNELS?
You don’t think people take that shyt PERSONALLY?
Just like Hawley and Cruz.
Naw, muthaphuckas.
People don’t let being almost killed go
And, the more they try to phucking gaslight them, the angrier folks will get. .
Mary G
jl
Most of the state capitol Trumpster demonstrations (planned invasions?) were busts.
I’ve seen twitter tweets indicating outrage from some of the Trumpster base that he didn’t come through for him, calling him a loser. So we’ll see how much of the hard core Trump base deflates. If your main message is that losing is the worst thing, then you better be careful to never lose.
The Trump base is bigger than the core of dangerous white supremacists and insurrectionists, so we still need to to watch that closely. But some of the types that saw it as a chance to have a fun riot, bust into public buildings and take selfies, might just drop out.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
An old saying about sparrows and curtain rods comes to mind.
Just Some Fuckhead
Did we unity yet? Someone needs to let Ted Cruz know.
Mary G
So happy to see something besides a horde of pasty, pudgy, old white men in these types of photos:
Baud
@Just Some Fuckhead:
We are unified against Ted Cruz.
Major Major Major Major
mini-rant re: senate rules slapfight for this congress
There is no such thing as a set of senate rules that prohibits changing the rules.
People are getting way too worked up over the rules deliberations. Committees have to be split, that’s how it works when the senate is 50-50. Dems get the gavel and ties allow bills to proceed.
There are not, currently, the votes in the Dem caucus to eliminate the filibuster. That was always going to come after Republicans proved their bad faith. A pinky-swear not to eliminate the filibuster right now doesn’t mean shit.
ETA: we have two years for chrissake, and Dems seem to have (mostly) learned their lesson from 2009-11.
Jinchi
Wait!? I thought Balloon-Juice was the little haven of calm against the crazy world.
(Have I been doing this wrong?)
jl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Cruz is trying to find the sweet spot between the facade creative destruction and the reality of destructive destruction.
jl
@Baud: “We are unified against Ted Cruz.”
Cruz is signaling that you’ll pry his mask from his cold dead hands, so hints of some progress. I’ll get unified behind Cruz wearing a mask. Also an astonishing improvement for the landscape.
Roger Moore
@Jinchi:
I realize this is a rhetorical question, but I think a large part of their problem is that they’re incapable of looking deeper than the surface. They mistake prayer for religious belief, flag waving for patriotism, and- most relevant in this case- swagger for toughness. That’s why they were taken in by Donald Trump’s pretense of leadership, and why they feel it necessary to brand themselves with slogans announcing how strongly they feel about everything.
Related, they also seem to be lacking in originality. That’s why they’re always adopting slogans like “Molon labe”, symbols like the Gadsden flag, and historical analogies like the Tea Party or Neville Chamberlain. They can’t come up with their own original ways of expressing their ideas, so they grab something from the past that seems to approximate what they’re trying to say or do.
FWIW, this last point is also part of the reason I’m suspicious of the people who label themselves as Antifa. No matter what they say, our current situation is not the same as inter-war Europe. Modern ethnonationalists are different from the fascists in important ways, and the United States is not Weimar Germany. And, in case they hadn’t noticed, the original Antifa wasn’t successful in stopping the fascists anyway. We need to try something new, different, and appropriate for today rather than just copying the past and hoping for a different outcome.
Baud
The ultimate victory.
Redshift
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’s one of the masterminds behind the Orwellian attempt to redefine “playing the race card” from its real meaning of race-baiting to any mention of race at all. The new era of truth-telling is here, Karl, and your tired schtick of pretending to be offended doesn’t work any more.
VOR
@Sister Golden Bear: Meanwhile Caster Semenya, assigned female at birth but intersex, has been barred from competition. Yes, intersex is a real thing which gets conveniently ignored by people who want everything in nice clean little boxes. Sorry, God made humans in a range, not just only two sexes.
debbie
@jl:
I’d kind of like to see someone run up and rip the mask off Ted’s face, just to see what he would do.
Yutsano
@Major Major Major Major: I’m personally a fan of the rolling filibuster. It fails at 60 the majority party can call for a revote after like 5 more hours of deliberations. That gets 55 to pass, then 52, and finally 50. Minority rights are respected but eventually the majority retains its rights to advance legislation. I always thought something like that was a decent enough compromise.
Major Major Major Major
Oh, right, and fuck Ted Cruz.
StringOnAStick
You know, I feel like the whole “property rights” aspect of the modern GOP tribe has always said something about the deeply selfish nature of these people. I see it in the hard R relatives I have, they constantly worry about “what they are trying to take from us”; the fact that all of them are deeply materialistic is instructive.
Sometimes I wonder if some of this is an expression of angst from the dawning realization that if humanity is to survive then we all need to live a lot lower on the hog, as it were, and I have relatives that will fight until their dying day to deny this. You’d have to be incredibly willfully blind to not notice the AGW changes happening everywhere now, so maybe some of the bravado is to cover their fear that the thing Rush told them isn’t real, actually IS.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’m sorry. This shit pisses me off. Why can’t people just leave trans folks alone?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@StringOnAStick:
Even the US Chamber of Commerce has recognized ACW is real
dmsilev
@Yutsano: Same here. Senate floor time is a valuable commodity, so a majority would only go through that long process for something it felt was truly important, but they could do it.
Kent
Former Texan here. It has nothing to do with that. As someone else noted, it is a reference to the Battle of Gonzales during the Texas Revolution. Basically what has happened in Texas, even pre-Trump is that the racist hillbilly types have gravitated away from the confederate flag because even that was a bit dickish for them. And they choose one of 3 other flags to fly from their pickups and wave at HS football games.
First, the state flag of Texas is very popular among the MAGAt crowd.
Second, the Gadsden Flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag
And third, the Come and Take it Flag from the Battle of Gonzales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_take_it which has mostly been appropriated by gun rights nuts but I guarantee you see it flying at most TX HS football games too. And that was long before Trump and the Trump flags.
Baud
Ugh. Michael Moore on Ari’s show.
We keep talking about the next generation of leaders, but MSNBC hasn’t gotten the memo.
Sloane Ranger
CNN reporting that McConnell is asking for Trump’s trial to be delayed to February. When interviewed, Chris Coombs indicated that Senate Democrats would be open to this, subject to the Republicans using the free time to confirm Biden’s Cabinet nominations on a bipartisan basis.
What this says to me is that McTurtle knows he’s negotiating from a weak position since he’s signaled he wants a delay in the trial and that’s totally in the control of the House Democrats who can delay or bring forward depending on the behaviour of Republican Senators.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
I saw this with MAGAts when they named that one protest back in November or December the “Million MAGA March”. Not original and absolutely racist for appropriating the name of a black protest from the 1990s
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: They can’t all be a reference to the Texas thing considering like half the ones I see are in Greek.
StringOnAStick
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, the Chamber of Commerce does, but my RW father goes incandescent with rage if it is mentioned and says it is NOT REAL!!!! I don’t know why he can’t read a graph given that he’s a PE 9Professional Engineer); must be all that Bircher stuff he’s believed since I was a kid.
danielx
@Elizabelle:
Gotta hand it to Rand, he doesn’t miss a thing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
I’m hoping Trump’s loss has discouraged them and they’ll drop out of politics again.
On a related note, it was fun watching the QAnon faithful freak out yesterday and some seem to have realized they were duped. The ones I’m concerned about are the ones who just think Trump/Q lost and the “santanic pedophiles” are in the White House now. That could potentially be dangerous from a domestic terrorism POV
@Major Major Major Major:
Agreed. I think Manchin and King are warning McConnell and the GOP that they’ll destroy the filibuster if they act like dicks. It won’t take long for that to become apparent
HumboldtBlue
Fuck the GOP, fuck Trump and fuck everyone who voted for him.
Here’s a piece a good friend wrote about a beloved restaurant owner.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Wowser. Happy to hear that.
RandomMonster
My feeling is that waiting this time allows us to strengthen the case against Trump with more evidence, including testimony of the people who thought they were following the president in insurrection. It could be that McConnell wants this, too.
Sister Golden Bear
@VOR: Barring Caster Semenya is a real injustice, especially since by definition Olympic-caliber athletes are different than 99% population.
And intersex folks definitely face their own challenges. Some overlapping with trans issues, some unique — such as the (now much reduced) widespread practice of “fixing” them in infant-hood without their consent.
The Pale Scot
Att Florida inmates, Publix is opening up registrations for appointments for vaccination at 6am on their website
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@StringOnAStick:
I don’t get that either. I mean, to me, the climate/weather has been noticeably wacky since 2014 or so. Spring and the fall don’t really exist anymore. Some years there is no winter and other times it’s as cold as the artic where I live; the summers are noticeably warmer too. In the last few years there’s even been a few downbursts in my town
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: maybe the third time Moore helps to get the worst president in US history elected, the star-fucking fuckers at MSNBC will notice he’s full of shit, and a has-been
Salty Sam
Cruz’s “Come And Take It” mask is based on the Texas Revolution- in 1835, the Mexican government had loaned a small brass cannon to Texian settlers in Gonzales, realized the Texians were getting “obstreperous”, and asked for their cannon back. “Come and take it!” was the response, and the first shots were fired.
Notice the cannon on Cruz’s mask.
And yeah, he’s one of the biggest assholes on the planet…
ETA- and I see Sandia Blanca got here before me @17…
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
Saw Dr Fauci on the TV News, and he looks 15 years younger today than the last time I saw him. Smiling too. Good news for all of us.
Darkrose
@Sister Golden Bear: I saw the bullshit from the LGB Alliance last night. Fuck the FARTs. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this nonsense.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I will point out that the “Come and Take It” article you pointed me to references it coming originally from Leonidas at Thermopylae. That’s where the people at the Battle of Gonzalez got it from. Plenty of gun nuts use the original Greek “molon labe”, so they know that’s where it comes from, too. It’s actually common enough among gun nuts that the people who make fun of them joke about it being “moron label”.
Sloane Ranger
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
As I understand it, some QAnon loonies are trying out the idea that Biden and Trump are working together to destroy the Deep State Cannibal Pedophiles. If this becomes a thing, we could, ironically, see some of them coming out in support of Joe.
Ken
Was that the one that was off by a factor of 1,000 or so?
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: Transphobia baffles me. The bathroom predator is a joke, horribly bad joke, but are there armed guards and locked doors on public restrooms? What’s keeping cis het men out?
There’s huge fear of not fitting into majoritarian norms that is not acknowledged. When Tony Perkins wants us to stick with gender binaries I want him to talk to doctors who make gender decisions on infants whose genitalia are ambiguous. It’s not a small number. What God does this? Are there lessons for us about the value of diversity?
India held hijira to be sacred for millenia. They were essential to bless weddings. Then the British arrived. Few can afford surgery or even hospital deliveries so hijira are common. They are family.
Ken
So has anyone tried saying something like “We must someday find and arrest the Zodiac killer” to see if Cruz complains that he’s being singled out for arrest?
Roger Moore
@Sloane Ranger:
I suspect Biden’s win is going to splinter the QAnon people. Some of them are going to realize they were played, and they could either return to more sane politics or drop out of politics completely, likely depending on how interested they were in politics before Q.
Others are going to dive ever deeper into the crazy, but they will splinter into factions with different explanations for what’s really going on. I hadn’t heard about the “Trump and Biden are cooperating” people, but I had heard some real lunacy about them transplanting Biden’s face onto Trump, so “Biden” is really Trump in disguise. I’m sure there will also be a faction that claims Trump really won and everything since the election has just been an elaborate plan to lure the child molesters into a false sense of security.
Jay
@Roger Moore:
Modern Antifa take their symbols from pre-war Antifa, but their tactics and strategy are totally different.
eg. Molly Conger, Socialist Dog Mom.
1% of what Antifa does is confront Nazi’s when they try to with Police and Government help, take over our streets and public places in our communities.
1% of what Antifa does is doxx Nazis,
98% of what Antifa does is build strong, interdependant local communities amongst the marginalized.
Jinchi
My take was that McConnell wants to push this back until the outrage of the riot is cooled somewhat and Republicans have time to find some Democratic outrage to take a stand against. You know like, “We would have convicted Trump, if only Joe Biden hadn’t worn his flag pin on the wrong lapel.”
geg6
Ted fucking Cruz should stick to Texas and quit spewing decades old bullshit about Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh isn’t steel mills and coal mines and Frick and Carnegie anymore. We’re Google and CMU and UPMC. We’re education, healthcare and IT. People in Pittsburgh voted for Joe Biden and you tried to erase our votes, you disgusting piece of traitorous shit.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: David Plouffe and Steve Schmidt has an expert on QAnon on a recent show, and all 3 of them are seriously concerned that we will be seeing the QAnon people running for office and being a significant problem going forward.
I hope they are wrong.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sloane Ranger:
Wow. These people are out there. I also figure somebody somewhere believes that Trump actually has Biden/Harris right where he wants them, is still president, and will have them arrested. Or Biden/Harris have been tried before a military tribunal, have been executed, and have been replaced by clones. To what end, I don’t know
Kent
Oh…well I’ve never seen those. But the ones with the cannon on them have been super common and popular in Texas for years.
Someone should do a whole sociological study on flag fetishes amongst the MAGAts. They have so many damn flags one can’t keep up. I have a neighbor down the street who has both the Blue Lives Matter flag and some bizzaro take on the US flag except that the stars and stripes are all little machine guns.
Citizen_X
@Roger Moore: Others have pointed out the particular Texas connection; I’ll add that you see a lot of modernized versions of the flag in Texas, showing an AR-15 instead of the little original cannon. (Which was some sort of scattergun/antipersonnel weapon.)
But the Spartans, hoo boy. If you’ve got some time, a good read for a few nights is this series of posts by ancient-military historian Bret Devereaux. He takes apart the Spartan myth, for their entire recorded history. Spoiler: they weren’t all that successful militarily, their greater strategy and diplomacy was a disaster, the Spartiates (the people we’re really talking about when we say “Spartans”) ran one of the most slave-heavy societies in the ancient world, and they weren’t even equal among themselves. And he really lays into 300.
But yes, the Texas revolutionaries were fans. As were the USA’s founders, and Rousseau, and the 20th Century Fascists, and the Communists (Trotsky especially?). But Devereaux does a good job of demolishing the Spartan myth that entranced so many.
Kent
Ummm……yeah. Just a bunch of misunderstood community organizers. Right.
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est:
@dmsilev: they know full well that if the Dems keep it up, stand their ground, insist on calling racists racists…the GOP will have to either full-on throw in with the racists or have it out with that half (4/5?) of their part.
Their only hope is that the Dems back down/fuck it up.
So, let’s not back down/fuck it up.
RandomMonster
That’s certainly the other take. I guess it comes down to how you interpret his strategizing: Is delaying better for Mitch and the Republican Party, or worse?
Jay
Jeffro
I hope they’re wrong, too, but if not…the GOP becomes the QNP and drives even more people away (even as younger, more progressive cohorts of voters are coming up and voting), and/or the GOP establishment keeps trying to have it both ways with its Q wing, which will probably drive even more people away, too.
I don’t see how they come out of this as the Q party and grow and win statewide or national elections. They’re just going to be easier and easier targets for progressives.
PJ
@Citizen_X: Eh, I mentioned this on another post a few days ago, but, for a backward, cruel, culturally poor society, the Spartans were the dominant military power in Greece for a couple of hundred years, and were hegemons in the region for about 35. I am not a fan of them in any way, but to dismiss their military accomplishments is just contrarianness.
And I’ve read those Devereaux posts – he’s basing them on the same classical sources (which are not many) that I’ve read and that anyone can read. Posting stuff on the internet does not make anyone an authority.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Antifa isn’t all Black Bloc either
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
It’s really lucky that Biden and Trump have identical body types, posture, and gaits. Wouldn’t have been able to pull it off otherwise.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Jay: Which percentage does this fall into?
Newsweek: ‘F*** Joe Biden’: Portland Protesters Vandalize Democrat HQ After Inauguration
Thanks antifa…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@geg6:
This. Ted Cruz is such a stupid piece of shit
Ken
@SiubhanDuinne: The real tell will be if Biden suddenly starts golfing every weekend and calling Fox
Newsall day long.mrmoshpotato
@PsiFighter37:
Fixed.
Feathers
@Sister Golden Bear: Part of the issue is that high school sports has turned into a huge college admissions/scholarship boondoggle. What if a trans woman takes my darling precious baby’s spot on StateU or Nearly Ivy U? That is what these assholes are worked up about.
If I had my druthers, I’d get rid of athletic scholarships and lowered admissions standards for athletes. If Major League Sports and the Olympic Committee want to run some sort of scholarship program, they can offer them to athletes to take to whatever school they can get into. We built this whole insane system to support the amateurism of Olympic athletes back in the Cold War days. Now the Olympics doesn’t require athletes to be amateurs, but the NCAA does. It’s a scam supporting very well off suburban kids whose parents can pay for very expensive travel and coaching, with the justification that it’s to get into a good college.
It has completely corrupted our education system, high school and college. That allowing trans athletes is seen as mucking up the system is a reason to ditch the system, not the trans kids.
eta: formatting
debbie
@Jeffro:
Do they believe anything beyond their conspiracy theories? I know they thought Trump would save them and the world, but do they also support his economic, immigration, etc. policies too?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ken:
I also think that was the one where all the MAGAts pathetically rushed to see Trump drive by in his motorcade
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
The real proof of the switch will be when Biden arrests Trump.
PsiFighter37
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They aren’t warning Mitch in loud enough terms. I suspect that this is going to be resolved by the end of next week. If it is not, I would not be surprised if both Biden and Harris start rhetorically going after McConnell. There is no excuse for one man, who is now in the definitive minority, to hold up anything being done at all, because he wants a promise to be allowed to obstruct everything in perpetuity.
I hope that slack-jawed turtle fuckface gets what is coming for him.
germy
Baud
Via reddit, heh.
https://i.redd.it/zahydz8klqc61.jpg
Jay
@Kent:
Here, “Antifa” runs the local food bank, the “need it take it” store, the Interfaith Services, medical care for the unhoused, Adult Education Programs, Advocacy Offices for people dealing with Welfare, EI, OAP and minor legal issues, Drag Queen Story Time, Community Safety Patrols,
As a long hauler, I don’t get to work on the streets anymore, now my volunteer time is spent training others, paperwork and other backroom tasks,
But when I was “on the street”, 99% of my time was spent providing medical care to the unhoused and marginalized, 1% providing medical care at protests.
But I understand, Antifa is a scary boogieman for when the IRGC under your bed just won’t do.
Citizen_X
@PJ:
Seriously? No, it doesn’t, but a Ph.D. in ancient history does.
“The dominant military power in Greece” for a couple of centuries? He pretty clearly shows that’s wrong. They had a great reputation, and dominated the Peloponnesian peninsula. But if you’re going to argue that they were more than that, you’re going to have do quite a bit more writing. Don’t forget your citations!
Jay
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
ICE Protestors.
People active against ICE arn’t all Antifa, and have a long grudge going back a long way, not just Trumptime when the evil ICE got ramped up to 11.
they don’t trust that having the Democratic Party in power will solve the problems their communities have with ICE. ICE will still raid businesses and haul away workers, while Management goes free.
Citizen Alan
@WaterGirl:
All of which is completely foreseeable. Because if you gerrymander the hell out of ever state to ensure you have guaranteed GOP districts, then you inevitably reach the point where the election is decided by the primary … which is increasingly decided by the obsessive nutcase demographic because most sane people don’t vote in primaries. I can say that from personal experience because I genuinely think it’s a form of mental illness on my part that I vote in every election including Dem primaries even though I live in North Mississippi!
Jay
https://knock-la.com/vons-fires-delivery-drivers-prop-22-e899ee24ffd0
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Oh shit. I saw that “Biden Erased Women” trending on Twitter but didn’t (wisely) click on it. Gross. And predictable, for TERFs.
Calouste
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And even a stupid piece of shit like Ted Cruz can get degrees from Harvard and Princeton. Which tells you a lot about the worth of those degrees.
UncleEbeneezer
@Feathers: As SGB notes, Transgender athletes aren’t taking away scholarships from Cisgender athletes in any noticeable measure. When the scholarships, trophies and record books are suddenly dominated by Transgender athletes, then (maybe) we can talk about it being a problem. Until then, it’s just thinly-veiled Transphobic bullshit. As one of my fave Black podcasters says often “For Black people to get to the highest levels, some White people need to be willing to give up a spot on the podium.” Same thing applies to Cisgender athletes.
patroclus
@Major Major Major Major: I disagree. Under no circumstances should Schumer promise to not challenge the filibuster rules for the entire Session now, pinky or otherwise and certainly not in writing. McConnell should instead be satisfied by a promise by King/Manchin not to vote for it now. Abiding by one’s word is very important in the Senate and if Schumer promises anything now, it will be used against him later.
In fact, I think Schumer should move on the organizing resolution now and challenge the parliamentarian’s ruling after the expected filibuster. That way, King and Manchin could save the filibuster now, but only after warning McConnell that their votes could change if he keeps it up. This hold-up is prohibiting Ossoff, Warnock and Padilla from even getting committee assignments; thereby rendering their Senatorial status to that of second-class. This is not fair. In my view, capitulating now dooms the entire Session for two years.
trnc
@debbie:
That isn’t necessarily true. Mitch ditched the judicial filibuster as soon as dems said they were going to use it on Ice Truck Killer. When dems introduce a do or die bill and repubs say they’ll block it, Chuck ditches it (assuming King and Manchin agree on the bill).
trnc
@Baud:
Hell, Biden’s in person attendance was probably better, even with the pandemic and a locked down DC.
Subsole
@Amir Khalid: Yes, got it in one.
Also, as you note, it is a bitter irony that the identity group demanding a perpetual monopoly on being coddled and pandered to hurls invective about Democratic “pandering”.
When conservatives yell about something, more often than not it’s because they think they should be the only ones getting it.
Witness food stamps, farm subsidies and ‘strapping young bucks’.
Subsole
@debbie: I think (hope) that’s Sen. King’s way of saying “you get one shot, Mitch. One. Then, we nuke your ass.”
So, basically, “don’t even think it, bucko.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Calouste: The degrees are based on meeting the degree requirements as determined by the schools. No more, no less.
Kent
I have a daughter who is a competitive swimmer. Not super serious, but HS level. One thing I am concerned about is the whole area of performance enhancing drugs. We know what happens when female athletes are built into competitive swimmers using testosterone. That is what the East Germans did in the 1980s to dominate the medal stands using systematic doping with anabolic steroids and testosterone.
I don’t know how you reconcile strict testosterone limits on cisgender female athletes to prevent doping, but then toss out those same limits for transgender athletes. If male levels of testosterone are going to be allowed in female competitions, then are all the female athletes going to be allowed to bulk up with testosterone and steroids? That seems problematic. Do we just toss out all drug testing and say anything goes? Because measuring testosterone is biased?
I don’t have all the answers, but I think it is more complicated than “transphobia”
Subsole
@Baud: Good. Then they can be surprised again when we whip their ass again with people they dismissed as irrelevent.
Fuck em. They get burned enough, they’ll learn.
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think it is simpler.
These folks like to project being hard-nosed unsentimental pragmatists who are unswayed by sissy little girly-man emotions and have the big swinging BALLS! to be cruel.
But in truth? The most hysterically emotional weepy-eyed sentimentals you will ever meet.
These folks generally think with their emotions; the brain just cobbles together some post hoc bullshit to justify it all.
They reach for these things because it makes them cry manly tears a la Kenshiro. These are emotionally-charged sentimental instances of heroic sacrifice and defiance. The fact they were futile and wasteful and actually (as in Thermopylae) an utter fucking debacle for the polity is entirely beside the point. Never mind the effeminate amateur Athenians were the ones who actually defeated Xerxes. They latch onto a feeling because they want to feel that they have the BALLS! to die heroically.
They are looking for validation, not success.
That’s the appeal.
Subsole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If you’re getting played, and you know you’re getting played, and you keep lining up to get played by yhe same people who just played you, either:
1. You are an idiot, in the clinical sense
2. You ain’t really gettin’ played, are you?
Subsole
@geg6: I apologize. We’re aware of the problem and attempting to correct it.
God, that voting rights act needs to pass, and soon…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Subsole: you don’t think Joe Manchin is scared, then?
@Subsole: Melber often tries too hard to be edgy with his guest invites, but Moore has a big fan club at MSNBC. Even Brian Williams has him on from time to time.
Subsole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think the Chapo Chudhouse Club really do NOT want to be the assholes who cost us a senate majority by running a splitter who gets 27% of the vote in a general election.
Well, actually, those infantile little fucks probably do want that. Their allies and footsoldiers actually trying to change things are very much not going to enjoy having it. And make no mistake, the chudhouse crew won’t be the ones getting the smoke – they’ll be waaaay too busy counting patreon dollars.
Manchin? I think Manchin is at least as sick of the bullshit as everyone here is.
I also think The Forms Must Be Obeyed before you execute kanly.
ballerat
No, Ed Kilgore, we don’t all believe that. You haven’t been paying attention to what conservatives actually want to conserve.
They have always started from the position that “all” means “all white men like themselves”.
Captain C
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’m stealing this.
brantl
@debbie: Nope, the rules of the Senate can be brought up for a simple majority vote, at any time.
Kent
@Jay: Here in Portland, the local ANTIFA folks are currently busy protesting Powell’s bookstore, which is a wonderful local institution struggling through the pandemic on a thread. I have had many friends who have worked there over the years. They are trying to censor a book by one of their critics, which Powell’s only sells online anyway. It is a mind-numbingly stupid protest. All they are accomplishing is (1) driving sales away from a local store to Amazon if they actually get their way, and (2) providing the book author with unbelievable free publicity and are goosing his sales beyond belief.
Oh, and they broke a bunch of windows downtown protesting Biden’s inauguration.
Community organizers, my ass.
Starboard Tack
@Freemark:
It is a pleasure watching someone smart and prepared like Jen Psaki disabuse the mediocre white men. And I say that as one of them. Nobody knows you like your own.
ballerat
@Kent: Fascists fetishize flags.
Wapiti
@dmsilev: I’ve decided that going forward I am going to use “Rand Paul, self-described racist and White supremacist” whenever possible.
The Moar You Know
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): no, but they roll together. And that’s their perogative, but if you live in a community that has to deal with those shitheads, their shit gets real old real fast.
Pick better friends.
LongHairedWeirdo
Oh.
My.
God.
I just realized that Donald J Trump said something insipidly moronic, hatefully unclassy, or indicative of his deep and abiding corruption… and nobody (except possibly future prosecutors) had to know, or give a flying fornication to a rolling doughnut, about it.
Just thought I’d share.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Baud: You don’t understand the proper use of irony, in my opinion.
They should let the least senior member of the FBI team perform the arrest… “after all, we’re not arresting someone *important* or anything.”
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): More importantly, black bloc can’t be trusted to belong to any group. It’s the perfect false flag disguise (for either side, to be brutally honest).
@StringOnAStick: The idea that Republicans care about property rights is idiotic. They support civil asset forfeiture. It’s almost as stupid as their pathetic, puling, profession of reverence for the Constitution. (Maybe they’re actually referring to Old Ironsides?) When was the last Republican President who tried to see that the laws were faithfully executed? Not Nixon; not Reagan; not Bush (who pardoned people who deliberately broke the law); not Bush 2, who may *not* have said the Constitution was just a piece of paper, but who certainly seemed to feel that way. And we don’t even have to mention Trump, because no one needs their intelligence insulted like that.
Original Lee
@Sister Golden Bear: As someone who has friends and family who are trans, I am also tired of the bullshit. I especially am tired of the TERF label being slapped on people for raising what seem to me to be reasonable points. I like your alternative characterisation much better.
An example of a reasonable point is, we really need to convert to unisex bathrooms where the stalls are floor-to-ceiling cubicles with lockable doors, and there are no urinals out in the public area. Apparently this something only TERFs want.
Aziz, light!
@Kent: I recently retired from 20 years of reporting to work in downtown Portland. The core area is now a boarded up, heavily vandalized shithole thanks to our local lefty hotheads (who tore down statues of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt last fall), and I don’t think we are ever going to get it back from them. Visiting downtown is disheartening for most Portlanders, and retailers there are all in trouble because people are staying away in droves. And yet Jay’s community organizers still find time in their busy schedules to keep breaking store windows and spray painting whatever surface hasn’t been tagged yet lest anyone get the idea they are not sufficiently righteous about their cause, whatever the fuck it is, hell, I can’t tell what it is as it it so incoherently nihilist.
latts
@Roger Moore:
Yes, this is what I eventually concluded after wrangling with deep-south “niceness.” It’s not entirely phony, or at least no more phony than anywhere else, but it’s very shallow and highly conditional. And the obvious lack of conservative self-awareness supports this as well. It’s basically a paint-by-numbers culture.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kent: As far as trans girls who are athletes in school (since nobody really talks about trans boys) puberty is typically a horrifying experience.
So it’s likely that most of them are on either puberty blockers or testosterone blockers, both of which cause large drops in testosterone. When I started my testosterone blocker, my levels quickly dropped to the same levels as someone assigned female at birth. Estrogen has an even stronger effect, leading to a significant loss of muscle mass, in particular upper body strength.
The Olympics permit trans women to compete as long as their testosterone is under a certain limit for a year, which I think is a reasonable accommodation. There are no restrictions for trans men. (Note: No trans athletes as of yet have competed in the Olympics.)
Obviously, it’s trickier at the high school level, where a year can have a significant effect on eligibility.
Honestly, I think the far bigger problem is forcing trans boys to compete in girls league (as Texas did with the wrestler I mentioned). Especially because trans boys/men need to take testosterone. Even Mack Beggs, the wrestler involved, thought it was unfair to his female competitors, but it was either compete in the girls league or not compete at all — the latter of which was the real intent of Texas’ action. Since he plans to compete in college, quitting the sport wasn’t an option.