Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

The revolution will be supervised.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

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

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

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

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Making Amends, However Gradually

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198Comments

  1. 1.

    Professor Bigfoot

    This makes one wonder when will the Republicans start “shelling Fort Sumter?”

    (Come to think of it, though, 1/6 pretty much qualifies, doesn’t it?

    [edit: first? me? wtf?]

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Another:

    Meanwhile, dozens of family members have streamed into a reunification center set up in a county building. “They’re just sitting and holding hands and crying,” said Jeff Rosen, the district attorney of Santa Clara county, describing the scene. “It’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s raw.”

  11. 11.

    J R in WV

    Criminaly stupid of UNC trustees to publicly fuq up the appointment of the Journalism professor like this — way to prove structural racism is alive and well in North Carolina’s most prestigious state school…

    Though my friend Professor Dr S would  beg to differ as a graduate of NC State.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: A certain populace are angrier at us for not ending gun violence than they are at Republicans for doing everything they can to keep us from doing a damn thing about it. You know, both sides are the same.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: Boehlert’s newsletter is the one I actually subscribe to. He is just great pointing out media bias, especially in the FTFNYT

    ETA – Karine Jean-Pierre’s yellow dress is a great statement in itself. She reminds me of Michelle Obama.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Sounds about right.  I’m in a bad mood because I had a real life experience with that attitude yesterday.  I feel like it’s why we can’t have nice things.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    NYT had a really interesting infographic thingy about the Tulsa Race Massacre, exploring all the businesses that were prospering, short bios on the businesses’ owners, etc.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    What I really want to know about Karine Jean-Pierre is her skin care regimen.  It’s amazing.

     

    ETA: Although it’s too late for me….

  18. 18.

    Spanky

    @J R in WV: It’s not “the trustees”, it’s one trustee, “Chuck” Duckett, who’s in a position to gum up the existing process. And he is.

    Ms. Hannah-Jones is handling the situation with aplomb.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    Civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging West Virginia’s new anti-trans sports law, arguing that the measure banning transgender girls and women from participating in school sports unconstitutionally “discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status.”

  20. 20.

    Baud

    Angus King doesn’t sound optimistic on infrastructure because of the pay-fors.

    I would prefer a Dem only bill because it would be better.  Hopefully Machin and Sinema will be on board.

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    Eric Boehlert and Soledad O’Brien are my two go-to journalists and media critics.

    The majority of the media are wired for Republicans.  They pushed the same biased reporting with Pres Obama – glossing over successes to focus on what they considered his weaknesses.  It definitely affected the midterm elections with too many Dems parroting back the “disappointed” memes constantly promoted by media.
    I really think we need to go after media and constantly point out what bullshit their coverage is.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Apples:

    Sweden’s gun violence rate has soared due to gangs, report says

    Sweden is the only European country where fatal shootings have risen significantly since 2000, leaping from one of the lowest rates of gun violence on the continent to one of the highest in less than a decade, a report has found.

    The report, by the Swedish national council for crime prevention (BRA), said the Scandinavian country had overtaken Italy and eastern European countries primarily because of the violent activities of organised criminal gangs.

    “The rate in Sweden ranks very high in relation to other European countries, at approximately four deaths per million inhabitants per year. The average for Europe is approximately 1.6 deaths per million inhabitants,” it said.
    ………………………..
    Last year the country of 10.3 million people recorded more than 360 incidents involving guns, including 47 deaths and 117 people injured.

    Oranges:

    Gun violence takes a devastating toll on Missouri

    • From 2008 through 2017, 9,590 people were killed with guns in Missouri.1
    • Missouri is among the deadliest states for gun violence. From 2008 through 2017, Missouri had the 11th-highest rate of gun deaths of any state, with a rate of 15.91 gun deaths for every 100,000 people. This rate is 46 percent higher than the national average.
    • From 2014 through 2018, there were 55 mass shootings in Missouri. A total of 61 people were killed and 196 were injured.

    Missouri has some of the highest levels of gun-related crime in the country

    • From 2008 through 2017, Missouri had the fourth-highest rate of gun murders, with a rate of 6.2 gun homicides per 100,000 people. This rate is 61 percent higher than the national average.
    • From 2008 through 2017, a gun homicide occurred every 23 hours.
    • Missouri has high rates of aggravated assaults committed with a gun. From 2008 through 2017, there were 104.8 aggravated assaults with a gun per 100,000 people in Missouri, giving it a rank of fifth highest among all states.

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    * Garland won’t release the memo on Trump and obstruction.
    * Yellen won’t release Trump’s tax returns.
    * Wray won’t investigate the elites behind the attempted coup.
    * Biden won’t restructure board to get rid of DeJoy.
    * Dems won’t pass voting rights.

    You catching on yet?

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) May 25, 2021

    Somewhat alarmist, as Kendzior often is, but I have to confess I have been feeling a little anxious lately at how slowly things seem to be progressing on multiple fronts.

    Brian Williams and his guests gummed it around a bit last night—not very satisfying.

    Some progressives are blasting Hill Democrats for not doing enough to fight the Trump wing of the Republican Party.

    We discussed that with @Eugene_Robinson & @Timodc.

    Learn more: t.co/HqwhdwqNcL #11thHour
    pic.twitter.com/Kk6qx1Sygn

    — 11th Hour (@11thHour) May 27, 2021

  25. 25.

    Kay

    Arizona Republicans are looking to put an end to the state’s top election official’s ability to defend election laws in court. Recently added language to the state’s budget package, which could be passed by the legislature as soon as this week, deprives Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of any role in elections-related litigation. The bill rests that authority solely with the state’s attorney general, who currently is a Republican, Mark Brnovich.
    But there’s a catch. The measure sunsets in Jan. 2023 — presumably because, come the 2022 election, the attorney general could be a Democrat. Or, perhaps, the secretary of state could be a Republican.

    They’re showing us over and over and over they will no longer allow elections results they disagree with to be defended or certified.
    I think we’ll see them refusing to certify elections they lose in the next cycle.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    Some progressives are blasting Hill Democrats for not doing enough to fight the Trump wing of the Republican Party.

    I wonder what the overlap is with progressives who support Nina Turner.

  28. 28.

    WereBear

    The Southern Baptist Conference, which is most of the taproot this poisonous tree springs from — the religious arm of the Confederacy! — is in trouble. Their decline sped up last year.

    While it can be seen as more dangerous, QAnon is the new wingnut religion… and the partially-sane continue to fall away and grope themselves back into society.

    I’m seeing it that way. It makes me cheerful.

  30. 30.

    JMG

    Some progressives are utterly unfamiliar with the history of the US Congress as it relates to speed of legislation. Also, not good at math. The 50-50 Senate split means that Joe Manchin and Sinema have as much power as Biden, more in some aspects.

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Baud:

    Some, I’m sure, but there also appears to be rising concern among the non-nutbag left.

    Maybe the wheels are grinding away behind the scenes, but it would be nice to hear a little rumbling now and then.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: So it’s possible for AZ statehouse Republicans to say the state’s top election official can’t defend the state’s election laws in court? Huh. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems like there should be some check on their power to encroach on executive functions.

    I’m sure you’re right about the coming refusals to certify elections that Democrats win. I also expect wingnut statehouses to try to usurp the role of citizens in selecting US Senators if Republicans lose, e.g.,  if Val Demings defeats Marco Rubio.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    There’s no problem that’s not made worse by people whose rhetoric casts Dems in the same or worse light than Republicans.  If that’s the only tool in their tool belt, then, again, it explains why we can’t have nice things.

  37. 37.

    Mary G

    I know it’s frustrating, but wheels are slowly turning:

    Don’t look now, but Democrats in the Senate unanimously passed much of Biden’s climate jobs plank out of Committee today. Trains are moving. pic.twitter.com/sSnSwO3c6C— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) May 27, 2021

  39. 39.

    germy

    Central Park Off Leash Dog Walker is suing her former employer, and blames the Black guy:

    In the filing, she claims that he was “an overzealous birdwatcher engaged in Central Park’s ongoing feud between birdwatchers and dog owners.” Claiming discrimination against her and dismissing the clear racial intentions of her threat seems to suggest that she is not ready to admit — after a year of racial reckoning started by the police murdering a Black man — being in the wrong for leveraging the police to threaten a Black man. That she frames the encounter as dog owner vs. birdwatcher also suggests she hasn’t absorbed the lessons of the therapy sessions on racial sensitivity she was ordered by the court to attend — a prosecutor described them as “focused on the ways in which Ms. Cooper could appreciate that racial identities shape our lives but we cannot use them to harm ourselves or others.”

  41. 41.

    Baud

    @Mary G:

    People’s views are shaped by what’s trending in the media and social media.  Workaday methodical progress tends not to trend.

    I’ve long believed that we suffer from the same problem that we assert that the Wall Street suffers from — an emphasis on short term thinking instead of long term investments.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I noticed that in her Twitter feed, Nina Turner made a very big deal out her endorsement from Katie Porter. On the other hand, Porter seems to have kept the endorsement almost on the down-low.

    Porter’s endorsement got a lot of pushback from some Black Twitterers I follow. The earnest Sasha Beauloux and the salty Lobster Ragnarok were two, but there were others.

    The OH 11 Democratic primary is already starting to heat up. It’s a D+30 district, so the Democratic hold is not in danger, but it is being nationalized as an ideological fight, despite Turner’s effort to soften her rhetoric and broaden her appeal.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Yeah, we discussed the Porter thing the other day.  It’s still early though.  I recently heard that Yangmemtum has stalled in NYC as people started paying attention to that mayor’s race.  I hope something similar happens in Ohio.

    ETA: I wonder if Porter didn’t realize that people would care.  Most endorsements fall under the radar.

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    There was a bad Senator

    who swallowed a fly

    I don’t know why he swallowed a fly.

    Perhaps he’ll die.

  50. 50.

    Gin & Tonic

    Apparently Russia denied entry into Russian airspace to an Air France Paris-Moscow flight – because the Air France flight re-routed to avoid Belarusian airspace in compliance with EU sanctions. To make it abundantly clear who is pulling Lukashenko’s strings, I guess.

    No matter, Macron will fold. Probably already has.

  52. 52.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense:

    I really think we need to go after media and constantly point out what bullshit their coverage is.

    For sure. But be prepared for backlash that is essentially “criticism of media = war on the First Amendment.” It’s nothing of the kind, of course, but there are plenty of unscrupulous journalists who will say it, and even more gulls who will believe it.

    (The argument is not unlike our old friend “Criticism of Israeli government = anti-Semitism.” It’s such a garbage argument.)

  54. 54.

    sab

    @MomSense: Thanks. You just implanted an earworm into my entire household. My husband is going off to live coffee klatch. Perhaps it will spread.

  64. 64.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Do you think it’s a coincidence that there’s a tsunami of “Democrats In Disarray” bullshit in the news lately when it finally looks like huge changes are happening in America? Eyes on the Prize, people.

  65. 65.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: Still, that is a list that includes some items that drove votes.

    Relatedly, I wonder if the media would slant away from GOP-bias if the Dems went ahead and did everything without any R support, and just kept doing it over and over. I realize it’s a chicken and egg thing, and won’t ever even begin as long as we have such a narrow margin in the Senate.

    Still, I wonder.

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: Oh, they absolutely won’t certify Democratic wins unless they’re by huge margins (and since most of these measures are taking place in ‘purple’ or swing states, there won’t be huge margins).  We’ll be taking every election fight in the country all the way to the Supreme Court, which should be really interesting.  Or maybe we won’t with this Court – they’ll just wash their hands of the whole thing.  Ugh.

    Related: it dawned on me today that all of these crazy voter suppression measures + all of the insane pro-gun and anti-trans and pro-vehicular manslaughter bills that the GQP is dropping…yes, they’re there to suppress votes and hate on trans kids, etc etc…but they are also desperate attempts to keep their base riled up and unified after the orange moron got his ass kicked and the party nearly split over 1/6.

    Someone oughta big-picture point that out to American voters – these hateful, stupid, dangerous laws are being inflicted on multiple states because the GQP has nothing to offer, and is on the verge of cracking up.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    It is impossible to give everyone who voted for us everything they want right away.  If that’s the standard, we should all give up and focus on sports or knitting, because we will always fail at politics.

  70. 70.

    zhena gogolia

    Will be off the internet until Saturday night — I’ll miss discussing everything with the jackals. Take care.

  74. 74.

    artem1s

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    It’s time to stop enabling the twits who think the job of the government is to spend all their time punishing their political enemies.  Garland is doing his job.  Yellen is doing her job.  Biden is doing his job.  What they refuse to do is replay the last 3 GQP administrations who think their job as to put on Kabuki theatre hearing for the MSM.  Biden’s not interested in doing the bidding of a bunch of whinging children who have the attention span of a gnat and wouldn’t know what good governance was if it bit them in the ass.  Good for him and the great people he’s hired.

     

    BTW, the tweets you quoted are bullshit disinformation.

    mobile.twitter.com/radiocandied/status/1397185392407896066

    1) the board is now restructured 2) his tax returns are currently subject to investigation in the state of New York and cannot be released 3) see the images 4) Wray is investigating, I’m sorry you want instant gratification This is legitimately embarrassing for you

    UPDATE ON GARLAND SITUATION — Judge Berman has now responded to the appeal with a demand that he release the full report. The best of both worlds: Garland appeals for show to look apolitical and we still get the full report released.

  76. 76.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: An enormous amount has been done by Biden and the Dems in the House and Senate. Covid is down and the economy is up. It’s damned near a fucking twofer miracle.

    There’s still a list of items that drove votes, headed by voting rights and infrastructure/jobs. It’s an uphill battle for the Dems to communicate ongoing work, probably mainly because nascent negotiations need to be private to give people wiggle room, but partly due to press bias and partly due to Dems being reluctant to admit (to themselves) the importance of PR.

    PS: I missed the part where I said to give everyone everything they wanted immediately.

    PPS: But DeJoy has to be kicked to the curb immediately. Hard. Publicly. …Hey, I’m just as irrational as the next guy.

  77. 77.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: A Double Triple Men. I love Boehlert and subscribe to Press Run. I’m convinced beltway political media are willfully engaging in propaganda. There are still excellent reporters but the hacks hold too much power over the conversation.

  78. 78.

    germy

    Someone referred to Peter Doocy as a “Psaki Hack” and it took me a moment to get the pun.

    I was reminded of him because last night I saw a brief clip of a press conference.  A different reporter was asking a (normal) question, but Peter’s face was prominent on the screen anyway.  He looked like an uncomprehending child at a birthday party magic show.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    but they are also desperate attempts to keep their base riled up and unified after the orange moron got his ass kicked and the party nearly split over 1/6.

    I would have agreed with you completely prior to 2016 but the newest efforts aren’t just voter suppression on an individual voter level- they’re levers and mechanisms they can use to defy results. No longer “politics”- these are state levers to deny a majority not from “being elected” but from governing. That’s a major amping up- it’s a whole different level.
    They’re afraid their base isn’t enough to win so they’re backstopping potential losses with measures to deny the winner either the seat or power to actually govern.
    We’ll see it in action in the midterms and we’ll know more after that. It’s good that we’ll get a bit of a preview before 2024. I don’t really blame Democrats for not “responding” to it. I don’t know what to do myself and neither of the big D election bills really addresses it. I was thinking federal lawsuits might reach some of it because at it’s crux it’s really an effort to deny small d democratic governance, but conducted from the state level. The question then becomes can the federal government require states to adhere to the norms of democratic governance – how far can the state go before they’re no longer recognizing elections as a change in power.

  83. 83.

    hueyplong

    @debbie:  Surely I’m not the only one who is totally unsurprised to learn that Ted Cruz eats flies.

    Only his pudding-like softness precludes an assumption about an exoskeleton.

  84. 84.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: But some crank, who apparently can’t let things go, responded to my observation that some items on a to-do list drive votes, with: “It is impossible to give everyone who voted for us everything they want right away. ” as if that’s what I said. And my fragile ego can’t handle that!!

  91. 91.

    Splitting Image

    @MomSense:

    There was a bad Senator

    who swallowed a fly

    I don’t know why he swallowed a fly.

    Perhaps he’ll die.

    There was a bad Senator

    who followed a horse.

    A horse’s ass, of course.

  92. 92.

    Subsole

    @Geminid: By and large our party’s base does not fuck with the e-Left.

    Probably at least in part because black women took the brunt of the damage when the e-left sat on their collective (heh) asses five years ago…

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    It’s an uphill battle for the Dems to communicate ongoing work, probably mainly because nascent negotiations need to be private to give people wiggle room, but partly due to press bias and partly due to Dems being reluctant to admit (to themselves) the importance of PR.

    I think there’s some truth to the PR charge. We can’t do much about dicey ongoing negotiations or press bias. But when your policies are the most popular by far and your opponents have lashed themselves to a widely despised, wannabe dictator loser, you have to make some hay off of that.

    Dems have done a better job than in the past on not only implementing but publicizing wins on the policy front, IMO. Maybe we’ll see some action on the latter issue once the Repubs tank a 1/6 investigation today.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I wonder if federal lawsuits will be more effective in states like Georgia that are covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1966(?). Court ordered redistricting under the VRA yielded one new Virginia Democratic Representative* in 2016, and two more in North Carolina in 2020. But racial gerrymandering in Ohio seems to be as bad or worse than in these two Southern states, and has not been touched.

    These voter suppression and election theft initiatives don’t neccesarily involve districting, but might still be challenged under the VRA. I guess we’ll find out, since Florida and Texas are covered by the VRA. (Arizona too, I believe). The provisions relating to usurpation of local election authority might have to be challenged closer to election dates, though, as they are neutral on their face, and their discriminatory nature will not manifest itself until they are selectively applied.

    *The excellent Dan McEachin (D-Richmond).

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker:But when your policies are the most popular by far and your opponents have lashed themselves to a widely despised, wannabe dictator loser, you have to make some hay off of that.

    Too many Democratic politicians don’t understand that you can’t just do good things and hope that people give you credit for them; you have to tell people over and over and over again what you did for them. Biden’s people understand this; the e-mail that I got telling me my application for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund had been approved said “Because of the American Rescue Plan, signed into law by President Joe Biden”. You can’t just hope people will give you credit. I think many Democrats are afraid to sound like they’re bragging, but you can’t just hope people will know you did something for them. Others will swoop in to take the credit if you don’t.

  97. 97.

    Danielx

    @debbie:

    Big whoop – a Republican congresscritter has to bite the head off a live bat for it to be noteworthy.

  102. 102.

    Subsole

    @Chief Oshkosh: I don’t think so.

    I have come to the conclusion most media folks just like Republicans and agree with them and want them to succeed.

    They enjoy the race-baiting and queer-stomping and poor-crushing and rampant misogyny. They like watching pious frauds lecture us about Jesus while voting to throw children in disease-camps. Half a million dead Americans? Light opera and dinner theater. More please.

    It’s the only explanation I have left.

  103. 103.

    germy

    @Kathleen:

    I know people here sometimes get irritated with twitter, but it’s fun to see the hacks (Vogel, Haberman, etc.) get challenged by the little folk.

    And the hacks sure get pissed off when that happens.

  104. 104.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: I used to sing that while playing my guitar for my grandsons when they were little. They loved it. Now they tower over me and they’re adults. Sniff.

  105. 105.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: Yep. We got a letter from Biden after our stimulus check was deposited. Good for them!

    Taxing the rich is an incredibly popular policy, and every Republican, including the ones trying to rebrand themselves as “populist,” oppose it. They have to be made to pay for opposing it in public.

    If Sinemanchin won’t blow up the filibuster, they must be persuaded to at least make it a talking filibuster so Repubs attract publicity while opposing popular policies. Sure, it’s PR. But PR is important.

  107. 107.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    The provisions relating to usurpation of local election authority might have to be challenged closer to election dates, though,

    Aren’t these, especially relating to the stripping of authority from the AZ SOS, a bill of attainder and a violation of separation of powers?

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    @Subsole: There are also some very hard feelings left over from last year’s primaries. Sasha Beauloux expresses her feelings about this very concisely in the pinned tweet that heads her Twitter account:

            Like it or not, the Democratic Party is one of the ONLY forms of institutional power Black people have in this country.

    Bernie Sanders running on a promise to destroy the Democratic Party and all it stands for?

    Damn right I heard that as a threat.

    A lot of Black people did.

  110. 110.

    Cameron

    @Soprano2: Modesty about your own accomplishments is commendable; modesty about your party’s accomplishments is suicidal.

  114. 114.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @rikyrah: OMG.  In 2016, just before the election, I had a contentious conversation about BLM with one of my high school friends who was a flight doctor in the USAF (both of us are White).  His mom was a Trump supporter (which shocked me at the time) and while he was/is definitely not, he started making excuses for her “she’s not racist, she just watches too much Fox News etc.”  After several of his defenses of her started including not-so-subtle racist-bingo shit (what about black on black crime, where are the parents, everyone is a little racist etc.) I asked him if he had ever talked to and more importantly LISTENED TO Black People about the realities of racism.  His response was that the Air Force has lots of Black soldiers and there’s very little racism…sigh…

    I encouraged him to read, listen to and try to really start understanding this stuff from actual Black voices because he was acting “painfully white” and parroting a whole bunch of harmful tropes about something he clearly hadn’t spent any time trying to understand.  Sadly, our friendship has mostly dissolved since then.  If I ever moving back East, I’ll probably try to reconnect with him, but with 3,000 miles between us, there’s not much need currently.  Anyways, this article is just SO RELEVANT for me.

  117. 117.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Geminid: A conservative I follow there said it really well.

    ‘Of course that crew wants to burn the world down. They know, on some level, that they don’t actually have anything to contribute to it.’

  118. 118.

    L85NJGT

    @Baud:

    Porter lost her seat on financial services through unforced errors. Results are suggesting not all that good at politics.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    These voter suppression and election theft initiatives don’t neccesarily involve districting, but might still be challenged under the VRA.

    I don’t know how. Arizona can gut the Sec of State role so she’s only in charge of vehicle registrations if they want to. There’s nothing in the VRA that goes to roles, duties and powers of officials if they change the definition of the job. I don’t even know what that would look like. That’s why I think it’s a wholly new front in the battle. One GOP majority anywhere along the line from voters to certification can upend a result and they’re not “violating” laws- they’re changing them.

  121. 121.

    Subsole

    @L85NJGT: Which is a pity, because she actually is damn good at putting the shiv to people during hearings.

    Kinda like AOC that way.

  124. 124.

    Wapiti

    @rikyrah: Yeah. The part of it is that the services draw from the general population, so there’s always an influx. Part of it is (I think) that deliberate decisions were made in the Bush/Cheney years to mass the ROTC programs at southern universities, where they wouldn’t be protested – this leads to officers from southern states with all that entails. Rooting out racism is a never-ending task.

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    Two presidents, in a nutshell.

    Biden:  Of course we should mark the 100th anniversary of the horrific event that was Tulsa race massacre.

    T****: Hey, I want a race massacre of my own.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JMG:

    Some progressives are utterly unfamiliar with

    any political reality outside of their twitter feed, and sadly that includes a whole bunch of high-profile electeds.

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I was thinking along the lines of disparate treatment of voters. Limiting drop boxes in minority heavy areas, starving these areas of election resources like voting machines. As you say, there is no application of the VRA to the limitations that the Arizona legislature is placing upon the Secretary of State. I wonder if there will be recourse under the VRA when the Georgia legislature rolls the Fulton County election board. The Republicans might say, though, that they sadly had to do the same thing to Habersham County.

    The courts will be kept busy in the run up to the midterms. As you say, it is good that we will get to experience Republican election rigging before 2024 comes around. That election will be winner take all, I suspect. If the the Republicans can’t steal it by hook-or-crook, the Democrats will dominate the rest of this decade, fair and square.

  130. 130.

    germy

    @WaterGirl:

    Biden: Of course we should mark the 100th anniversary of the horrific event that was Tulsa race massacre.

    Former Guy:  This event should be erased from all school history textbooks. Liberal teachers want their students to hate America and we can’t let that happen.

  131. 131.

    L85NJGT

    Tulsa riots caused maybe $200 million (in today’s dollars)  in property losses. But the hit on wealth and financial services was in the neighborhood of $50 – 100 billion. That city will never, ever, have that kind of economic engine again. It’s like one of those dead port towns where the harbor silted up. But the yokels complain about renaming a street from some klan asshole.

  132. 132.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: There is zero likelihood that enough Rs will vote for this – I want Biden to say fuck it and then pass his ORIGINAL bill through reconciliation.

    That is no reason to honor anything he was willing to give up in order to get Rs to vote for it if 10 of them won’t pas the fucking bill.

    Teach them that it only gets worse when they obstruct.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I just think you’re not recognizing that mainstream Democrats are re-examining some of their priors.

    In this article, Obama says that both he and Clinton were perhaps operating too much within Reagan-era constraints. He says there was an over-reliance on market solutions to too many intractable problems. I think it’s great he retains the capacity to look critically at his own work. That’s a great thing.

    The article is overblown in the nature of political journalism- it (of course) has to insist we’re “entering a new era” because these people are incapable of not being grandiose, but there IS a shift going on in the Democratic Party and it’s bigger and more broad than AOC. Biden is proposing more federal investment than at any time since after WWII. It’s a shift.

  134. 134.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WaterGirl:

    I want Biden to say fuck it and then pass his ORIGINAL bill through reconciliation.

    Biden is not in the Senate. 96% of Senate Democrats want to pass the bill by reconciliation. We should not elide these disticintions. That way lies Green Lanternism and the Cult of the Presidency (while Republicans in state legislatures advance against voting rights), to “Obama (Biden) didn’t even try!” and “Bernie’s going to give us free health care and free college by telling Mitch to look out the window!”. That way is a lot of willfully, and narcissistically, naive “progressives” endorse Bowl-Of-Shit, Stein-endorsing Nina Turner because she speaks the shibboleth of M4A.

  135. 135.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I think it’s great he retains the capacity to look critically at his own work. That’s a great thing.

    I agree.  And TBH, it’s this ability that draws me more toward “establishment” Democrats than (some of the) online progressive community, even though that’s not necessarily where I would be policy-wise.

  136. 136.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: What makes you think that I haven’t noticed that? I like what Biden is doing. Peacock progressives, like Spandan likes to call them hamper progress by constantly whining and attacking the Ds. Case in point, Elizabeth Warren  pissing and moaning about Biden’s economic recovery plan on PBS while shilling her book that it was not enough.

    I am making a different point. Attacking the Biden administration from the left like these so called progressives do all the time achieves nothing. Their politics of economics before all else is as centered on white grievance as any MAGA’s. And nowhere do I propose adhering to Republican norms. I was a child in India when Reagan was the President, he is not even a distant memory for me

    (edited for clarity)

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: it speaks well of Obama that he’s willing to criticize his own presidency, and Clinton’s, by taking them out of the historical context they operated in an effort to create a new ethos of “Yes, We Can!” in the party.

    But I will always maintain we shouldn’t gloss over the realities of politics, either now or in looking back. Bill Clinton wouldn’t have been elected if he hadn’t campaigned within “Reagan-era” constraints– even if I’m the first to say he went too far for reasons that reflected his own political flaws (“the era… of Big Government…. is over!”, “I think I raised your taxes too much, too!”) and underestimating how petty and vindictive Senators could be (Joe Klein had some kind of look back at Old Man Moynihan in the NYT, that I haven’t yet read but I gather is a paean to a myth). Obama hadn’t yet been inaugurated when Evan Bayh, a firm believer in both “Reagan-era constraints” and his own political destiny, started to form an official Blue Dog caucus in the Senate, and he had as I recall a dozen Democrats who wanted to join. Kent Conrad, Max Baucus and Byron Dorgan were also true believers in “fiscal responsibility”. Mark Pryor and Robert Byrd were halfway to Boll Weevil, fercrissake

    All of which to say: AOC(!) and the other Bowl-of-Shit cheerleaders might well be the future of the party– my personal aversion to their quasi-religious zealotry and general obnoxiousness notwithstanding, I think that would be a fine thing.  But that future isn’t 2022, and I don’t think their self-righteous sloganeering and pissing-inside-the-tent is a good strategy in this moment when it is not an exaggeration to say democracy is in real peril.

  140. 140.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: I heard and continue to hear that from “The Left” and so called “Liberals” in Mainslime media.  I maintain what Sasha is talking about is the reason I hear it so much and I’m white.

  141. 141.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: In the alternative universe that AOC, BS and other assorted “true progressives” inhabit only Dems have agency and there is a majority in this country that loves their agenda and the only ones standing in their way are mean “centrist” (meaning those who don’t bow at the altar of artisanal Vt mittens) Democrats like Nancy Pelosi.

  145. 145.

    schrodingers_cat

    @germy: Oh these poor little rich kids. Does she complain about being made fun of, for her food in the cafeteria. These hot house flowers wouldn’t last a day if they were in India.

  148. 148.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    and speaking of fanatics:

    Ana Cabrera @AnaCabrera
    Sen. Joe Manchin: “I’m not ready to destroy our government. I’m not ready to destroy our government, no” when asked if he was willing to break the filibuster over the 1/6 commission. “It’s time to come together. I think there’s ten good people,” he said.

    This man thinks adhering to the Constitution is “destroying our government”. How do you argue with that?

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    @schrodingers_cat: I am a native born white man, and I can’t feel this the way you and Ms. Beauloux do. But I am a Democrat, and I really am heartened by the way Sasha Beauloux stands up for the party. She is a very good thinker and communicator..

  151. 151.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It’s time to come together. I think there’s ten good people,” he said.

    LOL.  I like the Sodom & Gommorah reference.  I just wish Manchin saw himself as a vengeful god when it comes to the GOP.

  152. 152.

    schrodingers_cat

    @germy: OMG what a whinefest and her parents were probably as insular in India as they were over here, she can cry me a river. She seems to have gotten a taste of her parents medicine when she wasn’t fawned over by people here

    Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitizer and encouraged all these first gen Indian immigrants to share their uninteresting childhood sob (not so sad, actually)  stories as profound literature

  153. 153.

    Soprano2

    @Cameron: modesty about your party’s accomplishments is suicidal.

    I don’t know why Democrats haven’t learned this after spending 40 years watching Republicans hammer home how they cut taxes for everyone. They talked about it constantly, until it became ingrained that Republican=low taxes for me. Republicans do that with a lot of things, and it’s not successful just because they have Fox News.

  160. 160.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: No, you say that AOC, et al., are doing it wrong.  I wonder if you have suggestions for how to do it right.  Is there someone you could point to as a good example?

  161. 161.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    But I will always maintain we shouldn’t gloss over the realities of politics, either now or in looking back.

    But he isn’t talking about “politics”. He’s talking about himself. He perhaps had an over-reliance on market-based solutions to intractable problems.
    I just think some of this veers toward “tides and phases of the moon” territory. He was IN “the politics”. He’s not completely borne along by inexorable tides and public opinion. If he was there really would be any point to “politics”. We’d all just say “looks like it’s going that way!” and ride along.
    It’s not the first time he’s said it, incidentally. He had a very funny riff in one interview where he talked about a variety of wealthy Democrat who say “we’ll do some charter schools and that’ll fix it”. This is something he thinks about and good for him.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    And TBH, it’s this ability that draws me more toward “establishment” Democrats than (some of the) online progressive community, even though that’s not necessarily where I would be policy-wise.

    True but that’s the luxury people have when they don’t get what they want. They can say it woulda been great. Obama on the other hand has the burden of getting some of what he wanted and thus having to defend it.
    I’m with you though, generally. I think the online Left are really comfy being “out” and really prefer to stay there. As I’ve said many times the local Dems who are Lefties are often fucking insufferable. I don’t object to the criticism of Democratic officeholders as much as I object to their real rigidness. It’s just not for me. They’re brittle.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    There’s also the fact that the online Left are not in any way reliable allies. This penchant they have to go fucking running off for people like Snowden, or the bizarre Trump flirting as if Trump wasn’t a complete liar so WTF on even pretending he has some “agenda”, to me, as a fairly conventional team-player type person makes me think not that they’re creative and innovative but that they’re not to be depended upon. It still kind of amazes me that people who yammer about collective action are at the same time completely opposed to any solidarity, with anyone. They can’t get there from where they are.

  171. 171.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: I still think there is a place for a public airing of dissent.  Also, I don’t see a problem with acknowledging when we got half a loaf. I would say that such an acknowledgement should be more along the lines of “Look, we just got you some bread where you had nothing before.  We are going for the rest of the loaf next,” rather than “We only got you half a loaf.”

  173. 173.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @rikyrah: The performative stuff has value if Manchin uses it to eventually be “convinced” that he has no choice but to come around in the end.  It will play well to the small, but influential, both sides class.  And it will probably help him at home.

  177. 177.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think Joe Manchin is stumbling and bumbling through these infrastructure negotiations. He has a plan. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not saying it’s a good plan. But I’m not getting strung out over what he said yesterday or what he says tomorrow. There will be a consequential vote on the infrastructure package before too long. I’ll wait to see if Manchin blocks it before I cuss him out.

    But I think that in the event, Manchin will help push Biden’s package through. And then people will start driving themselves crazy over Manchin’s statements on the next important issue to hit the Senate.

  178. 178.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: As do l.  But I am also more tolerant than many on this blog of the performative shit on left and right of the Party as long as they vote the correct way on the really important issues​
     

    @Geminid: ​
      See, above.

  179. 179.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, I was using a lot of words, but basically I was echoing what you said

    But I’m curious. Do you think Wisconsin Democrats will come up with a good candidate to fight for Ron Johnson’s Senate seat next year?

  180. 180.

    J R in WV

    @WereBear: ​

     

    The Southern Baptist Conference, which is most of the taproot this poisonous tree springs from — the religious arm of the Confederacy! — is in trouble. Their decline sped up last year.

    While it can be seen as more dangerous, QAnon is the new wingnut religion… and the partially-sane continue to fall away and grope themselves back into society.

    Somehow in surfing the Innertubes of the Web I stumbled upon a site called The Wartburg Watch — the site is intended to cover neo-calvinism and patriarchal Theocracy churches like the Southern Baptists, evangelistic churches that cover up pedophilia and refuse to allow women to hold any position of power past teaching Sunday school. And sometimes not even that

    It’s a pretty well managed site thanks to the woman — “Dee” — who runs it, a Lutheran who fled the calvinism and patriarchal leadership of Evangelistic churches. She has a guide to help people exit their membership contracts, which can require a household to tithe their income to the church leadership.

    Some churches put a lot of pressure on people to keep paying members paid up and silent about abuses suffered at the hands of church leadership. Esp silent about abuse.

    There appears to be an infinite quantity and quality of religious abuse of (mostly) children and women for such sites to address. Sad!

    I am personally an unchurched person who thinks that the known or suspected sayings and advice of the Jesus dude is valuable advice for living a good life, and that it is a shame that more church-goers and church leaders do not appear to believe more than a tiny smidge of the requirements of Jesus in order to get past the eye of the needle.

    I personally know a church leader who actually does their best to follow the teachings of Jesus, but way less than the number of church leaders who are in it for the power and money. Which is a whole lot of them.

  181. 181.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I still think there is a place for a public airing of dissent.  Also, I don’t see a problem with acknowledging when we got half a loaf.

    I would say that such an acknowledgement should be more along the lines of “Look, we just got you some bread where you had nothing before.  We are going for the rest of the loaf next,” rather than “We only got you half a loaf.”

    This!  Absolutely this.

  182. 182.

    Geminid

    @J R in WV: I will have to check out this Wartburg Watch site. Last year I was looking up the small amount of Southern Baptist pushback against trump’s hold on the denomination’s leaders. I caught the story of Beth Moore. An inspirational speaker very well known among Baptist women, Moore left the church last year. She questioned the oppressive patriarchy of the denomination, and it’s uncritical embrace of trump was her last straw. I’m curious to see if this is a story for the Wartburg Watch people

    My 5th VA Congressman, Bob Good, exemplifies the toxic side of Baptist politics. He was a Liberty University administrator before an alliance of tea party cranks and evangelical dominionists got him the Republican nomination, displacing the mediocre Republican incumbent. Good is as bad as Boebert or Greene, just less flamboyant. He won last year by only 5%, so his seat will be a prime target for Democrsts in 2022.

  183. 183.

    Captain C

    @Kay:

     It still kind of amazes me that people who yammer about collective action are at the same time completely opposed to any solidarity, with anyone. They can’t get there from where they are.

    Solidarity to them means everyone else bends a knee and obeys.  And takes the blame when their orders turn out to be insipid and unworkable.

  184. 184.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Captain C:

    Solidarity to them means everyone else bends a knee and obeys.  And takes the blame when their orders turn out to be insipid and unworkable.

    Bingo

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat: ​

    I was a child in India when Reagan was the President, he is not even a distant memory for me

    Then you should study up on the Reagan presidency, because he created the modern Republican Party, which is currently attempting to end democracy in this country.

    He was a loathsome ignorant monster, but he was important because he parroted the right-wing platitudes well enough to be elected even while losing his mind to age-related dementia. And then again later on re-elected after his mind was pretty much gone.

    You need to know more about him and his presidency in order to understand current American politics, as unfortunate as that is. I can’t believe a competent and bright man like Jimmy Carter lost to a monster like Reagan!

  186. 186.

    lurkypants

    @germy: “overzealous bird watcher,” my ass.

    Sweetie, you were WRONG. That area is on-leash only, and your dog was off-leash.  No ifs, ands, or buts about it.  If you encounter a birdwatcher and he asks you to leash up, you leash the fuck up.  Otherwise, you just ruin it for all the other dogwalkers. Dipshit.

    Source:  I used to walk my dog in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and would take her off-leash in a wooded area off the Peninsula.  I knew damn well it wasn’t allowed in the woods, which is why if a birder came along, my friends and I LEASHED OUR DOGS and got out of there so the birder could do their thing without a bunch of doofy dogs creating a stir.  If the birder wanted to push it, they could have called in park rangers to ticket and fine us, and we would have deserved it.

  189. 189.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    PPS: But DeJoy has to be kicked to the curb immediately. Hard. Publicly. …Hey, I’m just as irrational as the next guy

    I want the muthaphucka arrested.

    Fired, investigated, indicted, perp walked, no bail, too rich, can flee the jurisdiction too easily. But yeah, me too!

  190. 190.

    J R in WV

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Jean-Pierre is also the first gay Black woman to host a White House press briefing. ?️‍?

    I noticed that —  did not cheer, all alone but for Wife in the next room, didn’t want to scare the comatose dog next to me. But Yay!! was the emotion.

    Yay!

  192. 192.

    Geminid

    @J R in WV: I had never heard of Beth Moore. But she seems well known among Baptist women. Moore’s books are big sellers.

    One sad thing about the current state of the Baptists is that they used to have a strong tradition of separation of church and state. The last two generations of Baptist preachers sold that birthright for a mess of political pottage.

  194. 194.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat: ​

     

    And I don’t mean to harass you, either, far from it. Just saying. Sorry if I was over the top too far!

    Also, best of luck to all your friends and family back home!!

  197. 197.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    Yes, Ol’ Joe Biden has really turned out to be a great President, already~!!~

    I hoped really hard, maybe that helped?     ;~)   He does have great staff, I know that helps… and a great work ethic!

  198. 198.

    Just Chuck

    I think it’s time to declare AZ in rebellion and send in the fucking army.

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