Before I took office, I promised you that help was on the way. Today, I signed the American Rescue Plan into law, and can officially say: help is here. pic.twitter.com/uuEZAkGloz
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 11, 2021
President Biden in this speech was being the empathizer in chief and the commander in chief.
He told Americans he understands their loss & pain. He laid out dates to circle on your calendar — May 1, May 31, July 4. And he said hate crimes against Asian Americans must stop.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) March 12, 2021
I like being able to let my children watch a speech by the President of the United States.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) March 12, 2021
WH "Help is Here" Tour Next Week:
Monday
FLOTUS to Burlington, NJ
VP Harris & Second Gentleman to Las Vegas, NVTuesday
POTUS to Delaware County, PA
VP & Second Gentleman to Denver, COWednesday
Second Gentleman to Albuquerque, New MexicoFriday
POTUS & VP to Atlanta, GA— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) March 11, 2021
Yeah, everyone says the same thing about Lincoln & FDR. https://t.co/huMqQWZUs3
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 12, 2021
Biden 2020: Make America Boring Again
Promised made, promises kept.https://t.co/U470xP1vsc pic.twitter.com/GU1Z2tgg1k
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) March 10, 2021
Business confidence amongst US CEOs hits highest level since 1983. @LongviewEcon
Via @soberlookhttps://t.co/gcTCnoAO8U pic.twitter.com/E2LhgJL5PM— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) March 11, 2021
“competent” is the single most underrated character trait in history. tired of all sizzle no steak. so yeah, i liked that speech. i’m not excited by soaring rhetoric. i’m excited by jobs getting done properly.
— Peloton InfoSec Analyst (Incident Response) (@CalmSporting) March 12, 2021
Biden's ability to present popular progressive policies in evolutionary rather than revolutionary terms is why he is such a successful politician. It's not about the policies. It's about the persona. Politicians raised on Twitter, which rewards extreme rhetoric, don't get this. https://t.co/ArLSNjqRgI
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) March 12, 2021
This is a moment where I think there’s a ton of flux in how people see government —a lot of opportunity to build trust and reset the role of government in Americans minds. https://t.co/n70oBJrztn
— Loren DeJonge Schulman (@LorenRaeDeJ) March 12, 2021
Hot off the presses: It's the new American Rescue Plan site!
You can learn how the bill will help families like yours, find out how the checks will be distributed, and tell us how the President's plan will help you. https://t.co/kPVtUApvCf
— Rob Flaherty (@RFlaherty46) March 11, 2021
Never in my lifetime has it been so stark that there's one party that wants government to work and one party so convinced government can't work that they actively sabotage it.
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) March 12, 2021
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
debbie
That ARP website is slick and it works! Thanks, Joe!
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Mary G
#BidenCalm is trending on my Twitter. That says it all.
Baud
One of the “silver linings” about Trump was that he really drew people’s attention, which had the effect of placing a spotlight on the GOP Congress and their behavior. The GOP was used to having the media whitewash what they were doing. Trump pulled back the curtain and opened a lot of people’s eyes.
The partisan tax cut and Amy Comey Barrett hypocrisy, I think, are the two things that really undercut their credibility among the normies.
Baud
@Mary G:
Biden should create one of those relaxation/meditation apps.
Butter emails
Did you not get the memo that Trump not Biden really deserves the credit?
I find it refreshing that the press is finally recognizing that all the good things that happen during Democratic administrations is due to the efforts of the most recent Republican administration and all the bad things that happen during Republican administrations is really the fault of Democrats.
Baud
I’ve raised this question a couple of times. Does being progressive require being provocative? It’s an interesting question to me – when do you stop trying to speak truth to power and start being the power?
RandomMonster
Biden (softly): “Breathe deep. Cut the malarkey.”
Baud
At some point this summer, we’ll reach a point where the people who are not vaccinated are people who choose not to be vaccinated. People, including current mask wears, are going to resist keeping up measures to protect those people.
Baud
@RandomMonster:
Is malarkey a type of cheese?
Geoduck
@Butter emails: Plus Joe Biden is a doddering senile wreck. That’s one the wingnut sites are leaning heavily into.
raven
@Baud: I’m wavering now. When I go places like auto parts stores where there has been resistance from day 1 I keep thinking, fuck these assholes.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: It’s an interesting question, but maybe we need to work out our semantics. I’d propose “left populist” rather than “progressive.” The terms are used interchangeably on this here blog, but I don’t think they should be. I do think populism, left or right, connotes provocation, whereas progressivism doesn’t necessarily.
Baud
PJ O’Rourke was quipping about this in the 80s.
Ken
@Baud: Yesterday one of the commenters speculated that there will be a turnaround on that once the vaccines complete the approval process. Right now they’re on emergency-use, so no one can be forced to take them; once approved, employers (and their insurers) can say “you must be vaccinated as a condition for work here”.
SiubhanDuinne
Oooh, Biden and Harris coming to the ATL next Friday! I don’t like crowds, but it’s tempting, it’s tempting…
The RWNJ/RW media reaction to Biden’s measured and aspirational goal of small family gatherings by the Fourth of July: “How dare he dictate who we can spend Independence Day with?!” Lying motherfucking snowflakes.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yes. We have a labeling problem. I think part of it isn’t our fault. Sometimes, the left populists call themselves progressive to free ride on the benefits of that brand.
And even if we had clear delimitations, we would have a tough time agreeing on who falls within each bucket.
satby
When you want to accomplish things rather than just posture your purity bonafides.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
They sabotage it because they know it can work, and that is the last thing they want.
Cameron
@Geoduck: I like Yertle’s take, too, that the economy was actually rebounding already and Biden will get credit for Trump’s work. I’m sure we all agree that nothing boosts the economy like an unchecked plague. Right?
John S.
@raven: Harbor Freight is the worst around here. It’s like the memo went out: “Are you an asshole who wants to let your asshole flag fly? Then go shop at Harbor Freight!”
Good thing it’s on very rare occasion that I need to buy their shitty tools.
satby
@Ken: in several jurisdictions they can be required now (I checked) but most employers want to wait for full FDA approval. I hope the FDA hurries up.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: This is true. Populism can be useful, IMO, but in the sense that fire is useful. Heat and energy can reinvigorate an endeavor, but if it gets out of control, it can destroy everything around it. That’s how I look at it, anyway.
raven
@John S.: I hear ya, ours is in a contiguous county that is famously Kempy. Speaking of I bought some rivnuts to mount a mirror on my truck and I may have to go there for the right sized bit!
germy
So I can schedule my distemper and my COVID shot for the same day. Excellent.
debbie
@germy:
And get treats!
M31
@John S.: Harbor Freight does tend to get the doofus variety of bad maskers, not like they’re protesting but they they just can’t do anything right.
Last time I went there I needed some clamps that were quite wide — turns out they are called “deep throat clamps” so make sure your safe search is on max when you google that, folks.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The last thing the GQP wants is a functioning government that’s responsive to the needs of their voters. Why? Because it’s harder to con the public into thinking “the government is the problem” when the last four years brutally illustrated what happens when the government doesn’t help at all.
Betty Cracker
Ported over from Twitter because it’s too dumb NOT to share:
Presumably millions of viewers tuned in to watch Carlson’s idiot face wordlessly oscillate between the tiny number of facial expressions he’s capable of producing while Biden was speaking. The mind. It reels.
M31
@germy: HAHAHA I saw a quote from a vet saying they’re very quick at shots and will do even better when the patients are not trying to bite them
Amir Khalid
Biden and his administration have been competent and confident so far, and that makes it hard to attack him. And in America, it’s hard to demonise a kindly old white man with a reassuring, Mr Rogers-like manner.
Princess
Zeddy is only partly correct. The GOP are convinced government CAN work but they don’t want it to because it will ruin the grift, and that’s why they sabotage it.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: For many, it’s just being part of their asshole/asshat crowd. I suspect that most of them will quietly get vaccinated. There are, of course, some who are truly worried about the vaccine, sadly due to The Last Guy’s efforts to fuck with everything, including simple public health messaging.
Ken
And don’t forget to get spayed or neutered! — Bob Barker
(Who according to reports could have benefited by neutering…)
Ken
During the campaign some RW moron actually did compare Biden to Mr. Rogers, as if that was a bad thing.
satby
@Betty Cracker: My RWNJ neighbor at the farmer’s market made a crack yesterday about “will they be able to wake him [Joe] up enough to sign the bill? Poor man’s in pretty bad shape!” They’re delusional.
Amir Khalid
@Ken:
Mercedes Schlapp is clearly one of those whom Mr Rogers would find deeply disappointing.
satby
I endorse this message, especially for most RW humans
Another Scott
@germy: I was listening for that and didn’t hear it in the speech. It’s a great idea. Maybe I missed it.
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
“Vote no and take the dough”!
Ksmiami
@satby: they’re going to keep underestimating him through his second term (God-willing) aren’t they?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Love the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup headline over at Kos:
Republicans Don’t Govern, They Perform
In that piece, one of the latest polling tidbits is that 49% of Republican men claim they won’t get the vaccine. This will result in how many well-deserved deaths?
NotMax
Color me noncommittal, but if you might be in the market for something a little different for St. Paddy’s Day….
Another Scott
@Princess: Yup.
It’s like what LOLGOP says: If the Teabaggers didn’t care about Black people voting they wouldn’t work so hard to make it so difficult. They ignore things they don’t care about (like 540,000 Americans dying in a pandemic).
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
Brian Kilmeade: “We don’t need to go over the 500,000 dead, we had that moment.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
@germy:
And a root canal!
p.a.
The obvious reich wing targets, PoC, women, will remain vulnerable to smear campaigns because reasons, but Joe being white, male, and relatively unscathed is really an anomaly, since those characteristics didn’t help Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, and Gore escape the puke-funnel assault. Is his age that much of a factor? or is it too much to hope that the tactic is finally wearing thin? For Joe’s demo at least.
germy
GOP gov candidate poised to take credit for Biden recovery:
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Rush used that tactic a lot. It’s not a new thing with them.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Pro-Life my ass,
Baud
I’m so old I remember when Trump took credit for inheriting Obama’s economy.
randy khan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Bingo. They’re afraid that if they let it work people will like it.
Frankensteinbeck
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help” was a reference to desegregation. It doesn’t have nearly as much visceral power to anyone younger than a Boomer. Younger bigots hate American culture itself.
@Baud:
The Sanders appeal is anger against the rich. To that mindset, calm and incrementalism are at best signs you don’t get the real problem.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: I think the problem they’re having is how do you attack the guy following trump without looking like a brain dead idiot?
rikyrah
@Baud:
I am going to be double ? ? until September at the earliest.
Not going anywhere that I don’t need to. We gotta get way more people VACCINATED.
I am waiting for the employers to start laying down the hammer-no Vaccination no Employment.
Cheryl Rofer
Something I noticed last night during the speech was that my Twitter feed was much less active than it was during the former guy’s speeches. I think people were actually listening to, and feeling, the speech. Seemed quieter here, too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Haha! Joke’s on them!
rikyrah
@germy:
Been seeing something on Twitter about dialysis centers being able to give the vaccine. I think that is a smart idea. Would be taking care of a very vulnerable population.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
Tell that truth ?
OzarkHillbilly
Speaking as one who absolutely despises the filthy rich, I don’t have a problem with “calm and incrementalism”, especially since firing squads just ain’t gonna happen.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Chief Oshkosh: I live in an over-55 condo building full of well-off white people who nearly all vote Republican. Off about 300 residents, only 10 are unvaccinated.
My guess is that once the vaccine is easy to get, they’ll take it.
SFAW
@Baud:
I think Zeddy has it slightly wrong: it’s not that the Partei of Traitors is “so convinced government can’t work”; it’s that they don’t want it to work. Because once a large majority of the electorate starts — or returns to — believing government can and does work, the GOP will have no real platform. [Yes, the racism and hate will still be there, and more intense, but the so-called “Reagan Democrats” will become “Biden Democrats,” and I think it would be a long-lasting structural (so to speak) change
ETA: I see Princess beat me to it.
Nicole
@Betty Cracker: And, outraged, he shouted how dare Biden tell him who he could spend the 4th of July with!
I mean, it’s parody at this point, except it’s not.
(Well, and Tucker’s family probably doesn’t like it when he’s around and he has no friends so maybe Biden just hit him where he lives.)
Betty
@RandomMonster: My Biden inner voice used for calming: “Hey kid, don’t worry. We got this. It’s gonna be alright.”
germy
Nicole
@rikyrah:
My best friend is a social worker at an elder care facility that has made it a requirement of work and they’ve already had a few employees quit, rather than get the shot. :(
rikyrah
germy
germy
@rikyrah:
Lock them up.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I hear “left populist” and these days it reminds me of the kind of fools who think Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson are the true leftists.
germy
@Nicole:
I prefer anti-vaxers quit rather than work closely with vulnerable populations.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@germy: Benghazi!
germy
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Never forget!
Anne Laurie
@NotMax: Around here, a number of pub-style eateries offer ‘Irish egg rolls’ — corned beef, (sometimes) swiss cheese, sauerkraut & russian dressing deep-fried in an eggroll wrapper. The only ‘Irish’ part is the ingenuity at repurpurposing, but if you like reubens, you’ll love their deep-fried derivative!
Groucho48
@SiubhanDuinne: shouldn’t matter to them. They’ll all be in Russia, anyway.
Geminid
@germy: I suspect candidate Yunkin(sp?) will go nowhere. I’ve been hearing ads attacking him for weeks now, with tape of him talking about his Carlyle Groups investments in China. Each time the word “China” is said, a loud gong is heard.
But Yunkin can’t go nowhere until the Republicans can figure out how they will nominate their candidate for Governor. The drivein convention at Liberty U. blew up, so the State Central Commitee will meet again this evening to cobble together a plan. A Zoom to doom.
p.a.
Does the US have some unpopulated Pacific atolls the willfully unvaccinated can emigrate to? Beautiful weather.
What do you mean, “sea level is rising”. Aren’t you the ‘Fake News’ people? Here’s some boots, bootstraps included.
Soprano2
@Baud: Yes, and I’ll be one of those people who is resistant to that. I haven’t seen much discussion about what happens if we can’t get to whatever percentage is considered “herd immunity” because there are too many people who refuse to get vaccinated. Do we have to wear masks in public forever? No more concerts, no more big sporting events, no more big gatherings at all? I just can’t see people being tolerant of these restrictions once everyone who wants to get vaccinated has had ample opportunity to do so. I do understand that children might not be able to get it until the beginning of 2022, so that’s a factor, but no we’re not going to live like this forever because of anti-vaxxers. My city has a plan for releasing all restrictions, and it doesn’t key on everyone being vaccinated.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: It just proves that for the “NEVER FORGET” people, remembering 9/11 wasn’t about the dead, it was about a symbolic injury to America’s manhood that required payback.
With the pandemic, there’s nobody to kill–the manly thing to do, by the middle-school-tough-guy code of the American right, is to pretend that it doesn’t exist or that you can beat it by force of will. Wearing a mask or getting vaccinated is like carrying an umbrella on a rainy day, the act of a sissy.
schrodingers_cat
@Geoduck: Wingnut sites picked up on what the Roses started during the primaries. Tara Reade too emanated from the leftist fever swamps.
Ken
I’ve been noticing that in general. The late-night threads used to get hundreds of posts, now they rarely break a hundred. Maybe people are feeling better in general, and need less of the (somewhat unusual) group therapy and support that BJ provides?
(Or maybe the frist and second spots are now so coveted, that once they’re taken people say “eh, fuggetaboutit”.)
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole: I just started outpatient physical therapy, and they tell me that all the staff at the place have been vaccinated “except one who sold her slot on eBay.” OK… well, I don’t work with that therapist at least…
Jeffro
@Geoduck: that’s the one my mom has been spouting off about on FB every week or so.
Because, you know, the former guy was so eloquent, and on top of his game…
rikyrah
???
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: The fire is more often than not directed towards the minorities who don’t toe the populist line.
Geminid
@Ken: Maybe people are sleeping better.
Honus
@randy khan: someone, maybe McConnell, actually said that about the Affordable Care Act. That people would like it and that would hurt republicans.
Jeffro
@Baud: I feel like progressives are learning how to ‘flex’, as the kids say, in more and more productive ways. It’s encouraging to watch!
And they – we – seem to be speaking truth to power, just by talking amongst ourselves? After all, we’re the only real party, the only real set of policies left in America. (Well, the only ones that work, anyway).
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
I thought Biden would be a good president because Dems are good at being president.
But this skill level is blowing me away.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: they…they just had a little box so he could scowl and roll his eyes all through President Biden’s speech?
Isn’t that the most obvious and pathetic “Ok, audience, here’s how you should feel about what President Biden is saying…don’t just, you know, watch it on your own without any guidance from me” EVER?
WOW
Jeffro
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:Republicans Don’t Govern, They Perform
I. Love. That.
‘perform’ or ‘act out’ – works great either way!
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
All those idiots in the media trying to give him credit for the vaccine even though he was against it.
Matt McIrvin
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: I think it’s not just the executive. Even though the Democratic Senate majority is absolutely the thinnest possible, our legislators have had a rude education over the past several years and are willing to ram through progressive legislation on a party-line basis. We complain about Manchin and Sinema, but the Democratic caucus used to have a lot of out-and-out conservatives; they by and large got replaced by Republican wingnuts so they’re not a force in the party any more.
I see Chuck Schumer complaining about the uselessness of Susan Collins and calling the compromises of 2009-10 a mistake, and I think back to all the complaining about Schumer the spineless DINO squish that I used to read on the blogs. I think this isn’t just a change in hot takes; something changed in him.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
I’ve mentioned before that corned beef is actually an Irish-American thing; what they eat in Ireland is
pork and cabbage.
Here in Malaysia there’s a chain of sandwich shops that calls itself O’Brien’s and uses a lot of green in its decor. I don’t think it sells anything that an Irish person would be familiar with. When will this global scourge of fake Irishness end?
Ken
Yes, sadly it wasn’t part of a ratings-grabbing stunt where a mysterious figure strangled Carlson during the speech, and POLICE NEED YOUR HELP FOX VIEWERS to identify the murderer.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: His face should have gotten gradually more and more bloody and bedraggled, like the DOOM guy taking damage.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, I’d put people like Dore and Greenwald into that bucket for sure. I think there’s also overlap between progressivism and left populism that captures people who aren’t wingnut-fluffing idiots, IMO: e.g., politicians who are agitating for policies to the left of where the Biden admin currently is and using populist tactics to build movement in that direction but who at the same time recognize that the Democratic Party is the only vehicle that can realistically take us there. I’d put The Squad in that category.
Ken
I agree in theory, but cringe at the thought of what might replace it. Fake Swedishness, perhaps, with everyone eating open-faced sandwiches and meatballs, and speaking like that Muppet.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: For all intents and purposes, progressive has come to mean those who worship at the altar of Struggle Hair from Vt.
Somehow his anti-immgrant and pro gun voting record of over 20 years has been memory holed.
Jeffro
110% spot-on
Matt McIrvin
@Ken:
Ikea is the vector, infecting us with pseudo-Swedishness through flatpack furniture.
Nicole
@germy: I agree with you, but it makes me sad and frustrated at how deep the anti-vax fervor can be.
Nicole
@Matt McIrvin:
WUT
Jeffro
@Ken: don’t get my hopes up
@Matt McIrvin: what was the video game that used to blast out “BODY BLOW!” “BODY BLOW!” ‘Punch Out’, right? Good lord, a Tucker Carlson version of that game would practically mint money for the arcade owner.
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
His wife seems nice, though.
old story from 2016:
Bernie Sanders’ wife on Thursday said “it would be nice” if the FBI speeds up its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
“We said right from the beginning, right after the debate where he said, ‘enough of your damn emails,’ he also said, ‘there’s a process…it’s going forward,'” Jane Sanders said Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto Coast to Coast.”
“It’s an FBI investigation…we want to let it go through without politicizing it and then we’ll find out what the situation is and that’s how we still feel. I mean, it would be nice if the FBI moved it along,” she said with a laugh.
Jeffro
Ok, here’s a fun article and then I gotta run: Republican freshman class is a tribute to our nation’s notorious local bozos. Excellent insight!
SFAW
@Baud:
That’s an interesting phenomenon: typically, an incoming Rethug (mal)administration blames the previous Dem administration for all ills; the duration of that blaming is often more than two or three years. And yet, when an incoming Dem administration, in the first six months, dares to “credit” the previous Rethug maladministration for various problems, the Rethugs whine and pule and spout some variant of “stop blaming others!”
And, as you have pointed out, they reverse that behavior when they are the beneficiaries of Dem policies (such as the Obama-NOT-Trump Recovery/Boom). That is, they take undeserved credit, and screech when Dems take well-deserved credit (e.g., Traitor Turtle harumphing about the “boom” that would be coming anyway).
Nicole
@Matt McIrvin:
I think it’s getting to be Majority Leader. As an NYCer, I’ve always respected Schumer’s political acumen. It was no small feat back in 1998, beating Al D’Amato, and it was because Schumer got into the gutter with him. He also, while in the minority, managed to stave off that awful bankruptcy reform law for awhile because he jammed in a provision that anti-abortion groups couldn’t declare bankruptcy to avoid paying legal fines for being assholes. He’s smart and he works within the constraints of what he can do. It’s just that Minority Leaders can’t do a whole lot in the Senate. He kept his powder dry, and now he’s able to go in, all guns blazing.
Ken
At the relatively-benign end of the spectrum of reasons.
(I started reading the linked article, then realized it was mostly biographies of the nutcases and decided that cutting my toenails would be more productive.)
BruceFromOhio
That was GREAT! Do voting rights next!
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: This is the kind of thing that makes false equivalencies between Fox News and MSNBC so…false. Imagine MSNBC doing a PIP so viewers could watch Rachel Maddow mug and guffaw live during an entire Turnip speech! I mean, she’s got a more comprehensive range of expressions in one eyebrow than Tucker does on his whole stupid face, but the very idea is absurd.
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
I give more credit to Arte Johnson and John Qualen.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: What changed is that Schumer went from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. Speaker Pelosi caught a lot of similar flak when she was Minority Leader 2017-2018.
BruceFromOhio
@Jeffro:
At some point, reporters, journalists and talking heads not on the Fascist Cable Network are gonna finally realize – VOTERS IN THESE PLACES WANT THIS. You can’t ‘represent the GQP interests in Congress’ unless you get elected. And they are getting elected exactly for being ding-dongs and loose cannons.
Hoodie
@Amir Khalid: Speaking of fake Irish, I once spent a misbegotten evening in a place called O’Kim’s in Seoul. I didn’t realize it was an Irish tradition to chug beer out of giant glass horns.
BruceFromOhio
@M31: If I get skritches afterwards I am SO DOWN FOR THIS.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker:
I still think that liberal is a good word.
Ken
Creeping Swedishiness! Well, Vikingness, but close enough. Come to think, it rather surprises me that fake Viking pubs aren’t a thing except maybe at Ren fairs.
Immanentize
@Geminid: I feel like, when the Dems were not in the majority in the Senate after Reid, that Schumer (who I think is quite a savvy politician) did not exercise the whip function sufficiently on the minority. Now that he actually has the whip hand, he is excersising old muscles not used in a while. Manchin’s gonna Manchin. He is too old and too tuned to his deep understanding of WV politics to not be a “maverick.” But when he is needed, he votes right. Likewise Tester.
Sinema is another story. She is new and weak and probably growing friendless. I bet that Schumer is paper training her these days from directions she never imagined. Like her funding sources. We’ll see.
Omnes Omnibus
The GOP is giving it the old college try.
geg6
@Baud:
How about just using the word that means someone who is left of center and supports things like a strong safety net, unionism, women’s rights, civil rights, etc.? I refuse to even call myself a progressive, which is what I suppose you would call me. I don’t and I really don’t want to be lumped in with Teddy Roosevelt, who was an actual progressive. I’m a liberal and very proud of it. Always have been and always will be. But too many people got scared away from the actual term. I’m a fighting Dem liberal and not a wimp who is scared of being called names by wingnuts and GOPers. It really pisses me off that people keep wanting to force us all to be just as afraid to use correct terminology.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: Interesting. Seems to be more evidence that fighting excessive and incorrectly targeted immune response is very important.
Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott
Immanentize
Off topic but funny/frightening.
On Twitter, I almost never post, but I comment. At some point, I commented about “Evacuation Day” here in Beantown, other places known as “St. Patrick’s Day”
Two days later, I get a Guinness advert in my notifications thanking me for mentioning St. Patrick’s day (and beer). That is some powerful bot algorithm.
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid:
It is most accurately a british/Irish shipping thing — salted beef was what filed the British sea empire.
But let’s not talk about chipped beef….
WaterGirl
@germy: I’m guessing that the bosses have private offices and don’t have to mingle closely with the great unwashed.
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: Bjorkvalla!
(My bedroom furniture set.)
Immanentize
@SFAW:
Verrrry Interesting. But dead.
Gin & Tonic
This is a funny Tweet
Immanentize
@geg6: “Democrat” is not a bad signifier, either. Put ’em together and got yourself one Liberal Democrat! Me!
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Funny, there’s a fake-Irish pub in downtown Kyiv called O’Brien’s.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Perfect!
I bet you could do that in almost any country.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Most of the time, the answer is yes. Just a fact of history.
When you actually have power.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Wasn’t she being investigated for some financial boondoggle at the now defunct Burlington College
rp
@Immanentize: The term “corned” comes from british shipping, but my understanding is that the Irish in America picked up corned beef from their Jewish neighbors. They couldn’t find the ham they were used to serving with cabbage, so they adopted the corned beef that was more readily available.
JPL
@Immanentize: That just brought back memories of chipped beef on toast. ick
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Did none of them originate in Russia?.
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: Sinema insisted that her vote against the minimum-wage amendment was a process quibble instead of actual opposition on the merits. Which makes me think she has some kind of sincere but garbled notions about correct process that come from a vague desire to be (or appear) nonpartisan, but don’t have a coherent ideology behind them.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed — “liberal” is a good word with a fair amount of overlap with “progressive” in certain contexts. ¿Por qué no los dos?
@geg6: Maybe some folks got scared off the use of the word “liberal” when “conservatives” demonized it. But “progressive” is a useful word in its own right with specific connotations that fall outside the strict definition of “liberal.”
I generally don’t give a crap how people choose to label themselves politically, but I do feel compelled to point out that conflating “progressive” with “Sanders supporter” isn’t even close to a universally shared definition of a political label that’s been around for centuries and that is self-applied by many folks who never voted for Sanders in their lives.
Outside the “We Hates Bernie, Hates Him We Does!” club, the word’s misapplication in that way looks like a Fox News-style bizzaro-world shibboleth, where people rage on cue at an innocent suggestion, like school lunches should include vegetables.
H.E.Wolf
“employers (and their insurers) can say “you must be vaccinated as a condition for work here”.”
Receiving a smallpox booster shot (I’d been vaccinated as a child, and had the scar to prove it) was required by my first full-time, non-temp, job after college. (At a state university on the East Coast.)
Our local state university requires proof of measles vaccine (or proof of immunity from having had the disease) in order to register as a student. That’s how I learned about the titration test. College is educational! :)
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: That’s the joke.
Ken
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, that’s the joke, though I had to look them up to figure it out. “Plov” for example is “pilaf”.
Another layer to the joke is that Russia got most of them from areas that were once in the USSR – Ukraine, Georgia, etc.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Amir Khalid: Remember all the Onion jokes about Biden as The Dude from the Big Lebowski. I think Biden is a master at political judo and turned everything that should have been a liability about his personality into an asset.
There go two miscreants
French Frigate Shoals is available!
(Also, yay, Visual tab!)
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: “Liberal” got hit from two directions: conservatives successfully turned it into a dirty word in the Reagan years, and then the further left started riffing on the UK/European meaning of the term to refer to laissez-faire economics (and its derivative “neoliberal”) as a stick to beat Democrats with from the left, basically implying that they were functionally the same as Republicans. And sometimes they lose track of the difference and start basically parroting Republican insults, just with the adjective “corporate” thrown in for flavor.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s a global conspiracy, I tells ya.
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: I agree. Frankly, the 15/hr vote was 100% kabuki from start to finish as it was not gonna be in the bill. But she didn’t need to be embarrassing about it. Her statement that it was procedural is the type of thing a savvy pol would say — without the drama attached.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I guess I am with geg6 on this. I’ve always seen progressive as a label for people who accepted the conservative demonization of the word liberal. I can get a bit stubborn about that kind of thing.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
I remember the Phil Ochs song from 1966 “Love Me I’m A Liberal”
I go to civil rights rallies
And i put down the old d.a.r.
I love harry and sidney and sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don’t talk about revolution
That’s going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, i’m a liberal
I cheered when humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I’m glad the commies were thrown out
Of the a.f.l. c.i.o. board
I love puerto ricans and negros
As long as they don’t move next door
So love me, love me, love me, i’m a liberal
The people of old mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can’t understand how their minds work
What’s the matter don’t they watch les crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, i’m a liberal
etc.
Ken
@Amir Khalid: Faith and begorrah, sure and yer right.
rp
I’m proud to be a liberal and a Democrat, and anyone who says those are bad things can suck it.
Immanentize
@rp: Are you Jewish? Because that seems oddly and specifically culturally apocryphal. The British — and especially those in Ireland — were producers and exporters of corned beef since the 17th century. Including to the Iberian Peninsula and France. It was exported to the new world by all three countries in their expansionist/slaving days. My guess is that the tradition of salted/salt petered preserved beef went in the opposite direction than the one you suggest.
Fair Economist
I think the PiP idea is great for dealing with Republican speeches. Have running commentary from sane people as they’re talking. Do it like Mystery Science Theater 3000. *Especially* Trump. Never let even a word from him go by without mockery or rebuttal.
Immanentize
@JPL: I said we wouldn’t talk of it….
Technocrat
@Omnes Omnibus:
I call myself a liberal because I am, and also because I’m genuinely not sure what a progressive is.
Doesn’t help that the Miriam-Webster definition is:
“one believing in moderate political change and especially social improvement by governmental action”
Which is clearly not what the InterWebs believe it to be.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Very interesting stuff about potential use of antidepressants in treating Covid. Thanks for the link.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: I have seen right-wingers using the Ochs song to bash liberals, seemingly without recognition of what Ochs was actually advocating (or not particularly caring, since bashing liberals as hypocrites/the real racists was the only relevant content).
rp
@Immanentize: I’ve read it in a number of places. It’s possible that it’s apocryphal…this study attempts to get to the root of the story: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=tfschafart
The writers don’t dispute that corned beef became more associated with the Irish and St. Patricks day in the U.S., and likely bought it from Jewish butchers, but that it was more a function of beef being far cheaper in the U.S. than in Ireland than bacon and ham being hard to find.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
They usually misinterpret song lyrics. It seems to have become a tradition with them.
zhena gogolia
@Ken: They were in the Russian Empire before that.
germy
@Brachiator:
Last Sunday 60Minutes did a segment, but they gave me the impression only one specific anti-depressant was effective. This linked article mentions several. Interesting, but it’s sad the treatment wasn’t discovered sooner. Maybe more lives could have been saved.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia:
That’s one of the reasons that has such wide variety of food. And London. And probably why you can get really good Indonesian food in Amsterdam.
Kristine
@germy : @Matt McIrvin:
When they bother paying attention to them at all.
jeffreyw
Way OT, but Woot! has a great deal on the Note 20 today. New phones @ 38% off. I bought one a few weeks ago and it is a great piece of kit.
link
The Thin Black Duke
@geg6: And geg6 drops the mic. Well said.
Benw
Today’s crazy COVID news: a positive test and contact tracing in the Virginia men’s basketball team has eliminated them from tonight’s semi-final game in the ACC tourney. That means Georgia Tech advances to the conference finals having only needed to win 1 game!
Brachiator
@germy:
I will try to find a clip of the 60 Minutes segment online. Thanks.
I wonder about potential side effects of the anti-depressants. I also wonder whether people in the general population who might be taking these anti-depressants had protection from the virus.
Ken
@germy: I dunno. Every TV ad I see for anti-depressants warns that they can cause depression and suicidal thoughts. Though possibly the depression is because of the other possible side effects on your liver, kidneys, colon….
Patricia Kayden
Geminid
@Benw: But the Cavs are still reigning NCAA Champions! I don’t think they will repeat, though, even if they get past this Covid outbreak.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: Often SSRI-type antidepressants increase your general level of activation and willingness to take action, and if a component of your depression is suicidal thoughts, that can be very dangerous because the action you take could be killing yourself. It’s definitely a known risk.
Benw
@Geminid: yeah, not sure how long they’ll be out. The ACC’s been pretty weird this year.
Geminid
@Technocrat: I like to call forward looking policies progressive, and the people who advocate them liberals, or moderates as the case may be.
I’ve noticed a tug of war over the label “progressive” on twitter. Some on the pragmatic side actually are renouncing the term because of the overbearing rose twitter people. Other pragmatic progressives just fire back at the rosie ones, pointing out how anti-progressive their political program is in effect.
Geminid
@Benw: One wierd aspect of the ACC this year is that Duke and North Carolina are both crappy. Breaks my heart.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: One thing that I think is becoming harmful to left of center politics is the association of all left of center folks with with the Rose Twitter people. You can see it here on this blog.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
This was a retrospective study, so we can know exactly that in the group of people that they followed.
Benw
@Geminid: I mean, Duke always sucks, even when they’re good at basketball
;)
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, and an important goal of the amplifying trolls and in some cases the actual performative leftists is discrediting genuine far-left voices with the center-leftists they *must* work with for any progress to be possible.
We remain in a fight for the country against real fascists in spite of currently *barely* having the upper hand. The trolls want to disrupt alliances between the various not-always-aligned groups that *must* work together to stop them.
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole: I dunno, I’m just saying what they told me…
Miss Bianca
@Ken:
My pal D and I, while we were in the phase of seriously considering our own mead-brewing business (COVID put the kibosh on that, at least for now), were seriously considering fashioning a Quonset hut mead hall – think “Cowboys meet Vikings” vibe.
Of course, getting high on our own supply (of mead) might have had something to do with that design concept…
mrmoshpotato
Also, St. Ronnie can still go fuck himself.
James E Powell
@rp:
I read that in 97 Orchard: an edible history of five immigrant families in one New York tenement.
It’s an interesting study of how immigrants adjusted their diets to the new country. Also a fascinating look at day to day living in 19th century NYC.
Uncle Cosmo
Zeddy’s tweet is misleading in the extreme & needs to be edited, e.g.:
That’s more like it.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: What you got against brain-injured goats? :)
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: YES!
dfh
Reading this post and Anne Laurie’s Covid post, seeing the number of vaccinations given (2.4M yesterday), and after watching Biden’s speech last night makes me think this morning that once we’re coming up for certain, when we see the light at the end of the tunnel, the chances of a Republican getting elected without cheating is nil, zero, won’t happen.
jeffreyw
@mrmoshpotato: Tucker was the subject of certain classified staring experiments that the government will never acknowledge.
mrmoshpotato
@jeffreyw: Yes. We also don’t know all the details of the Look-like-a-dog-being-shown-a-card-trick experiments.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: You’re getting a distemper shot? How in the hell will we recognize you???
Gravenstone
@germy: It absolutely still could save many lives if it’s applied to regions that don’t have robust vaccination underway yet.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: The junior senator from Vermont is an especial focus of hostility here. Some will never forgive him for the role he played in Hilary Clinton’s loss in 2016, and trump’s consequent reign of terror. I am more inclined to let bygones be bygones. But I am a native-born white man, and did not feel these threats like many others here did, and still do.
Technocrat
@Geminid:
Yeah that’s fair, and I think I’d agree. But it does seem to go back to “liberal” being a completely sufficient description. I think it’s the distinction that escapes me.
Geminid
@Technocrat: The distinction s muddled, I think, because the use of the term progressive changed over time. We came into this century with the label “liberal” apparently damaged, and I noticed “progressive” being used as an alternative. In the last decade, though, progressive seemed to be used more as a descriptor for those on the left who thought that the moderately liberal incrementalism they attributed to Presidents Clinton and Obama and was an impediment to real progress. Here we go beyond policy differences to practical political question: how liberal actually is the American electorate? This is obviously debatable, as this blog demonstrates. But this a healthy debate, as are those regarding policy.
Geminid
@Geminid: The American electorate is itself complex, and not static. In the short run, base motivation can vary, as a comparison of turnout in the 2018 midterms to that of the 2014 midterms. And deeper shifts might occur also. People here have remarked that the electorate now seems to be in flux. If this is so, the next two cycles will show it.
misterpuff
@Amir Khalid: Amir, what does Leprechaun Satay taste like?
patrick II
@Princess:
They see the government as a competitor for power, not to be subjugated to or compromised with, but defeated.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: I am morally certain that the GQP over the last few decades has done a bang-up job insinuating their operatives into positions in the media where they are responsible for writing the headlines and the chyrons. So long as the headline or chyron conveys the message they want, they don’t give a shit if it’s exactly the opposite of what the full story says; in fact they prefer it that way – because they know that most folks don’t read any further than the blurb.
Bastards.
Uncle Cosmo
@Anne Laurie: That sounds pretty tasty! You think a flour tortilla (with a shpritz of oil for browning) in place of the eggroll wrapper would work?
Uncle Cosmo
Johnson Atoll‘s been available since they took off the last of the chemical weapons. Of course the birds might object…and if the sea level rises by more than 30’ the new denizens would be, to use a technical term, fucked.
dnfree
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I find your description of the demographic in your building interesting. We now live in the Del Webb over-55 development in Elgin, and I assumed a Republican lean, but on the precinct maps I saw after the election, our area was light blue. I hope your building has more (quiet) Democrats than you think.
Dan B
@rikyrah: I saw the 60 Minnutes report on the effect of the anti-depressant Fluvoxamine inhibiting cytokine storms in sepsis and the same in Covid-19 cases. It can be prescribed “off label” because the FDA has already approved it for other uses – OCD / depression. They’ve already determined its side effects to be negligible.
Sounds amazing!
Still glad to be a week out from Jab I. 5 weeks to probable immunity if my achy jab site is any indication – immune system was not amused.
Uncle Cosmo
Considering that the “fiery red hair” often considered typical of the Oyrish is in fact due to Norsemen as they looted, burned & raped their way down the Emerald Isle’s coasts…
Seriously. Redheads found in & from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Holland, Germany and Czechia all owe their incarnadination to the passage of berserkers from the frozen North some (de)generations back.
Uncle Cosmo
Creamed chipped beef? BKA SOS, “shit on a shingle”?
@JPL: Ick, indeed.
topclimber
@satby: That’s one way to look at it.
Or perhaps: When you are strong enough to do something positive you are the power, and when not the power, militant in fighting the negative.