Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

In my day, never was longer.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

No one could have predicted…

Second rate reporter says what?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“woke” is the new caravan.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Let there be snark.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Hot air and ill-informed banter

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Saturday Night Open Thread: The (R) Is All the Clue You Need

Saturday Night Open Thread: The (R) Is All the Clue You Need

by | 117 Comments

This post is in: 

I like Bess Levin’s explanation at Vanity Fair — “Joe Biden Reminds Trump He’s a Has-Been Who Lost the Election”:

Cue Trump screaming in a pitch only dogs can hear.

During the four anni horribiles that Donald Trump was in office, he and his lawyers regularly tried to hide behind the office of the presidency when it came to legal issues…[H]is personal attorneys made the bold claim that it was unconstitutional for presidents to be investigated for any crimes whatsoever while in office, including shooting a person on Fifth Avenue.

Now, of course, Trump is not president. Yet he still seems to believe the powers and the privileges of being president should apply to him, an assumption that the actual president has now, on two separate occasions, been forced to explain is about as laughable as the idea of Ivanka Trump being qualified to run the World Bank…

After the White House refused to keep secret the initial batch of documents requested by the House committee, press secretary Jen Psaki explained that Biden had “determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives,” adding that the West Wing would “evaluate questions of privilege on a case-by-case basis, but the president has also been clear that he believes it to be of the utmost importance for both Congress and the American people to have a complete understanding of the events of that day to prevent them from happening again.”…

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  1. 1.

    burnspbesq

    Glenn Youngkin could have run as a pragmatic, not-too-far-right-of-center guy. Instead, he chose to fellate Donald Trump. Virginia voters, one hopes, have noticed.

  2. 2.

    ProfDamatu

    The idea that Youngkin is a nice moderate Republican is….an idea, I guess. A very, very stupid, mendacious idea.

  3. 3.

    Jerzy Russian

    The cats are going bonkers now.  This involves them chasing each other around the house.  Going bonkers is not trivial on the hardwood floors, so props to them I suppose.

  5. 5.

    Suzanne

    So, since it’s an open thread, I guess I can tell y’all about Mr. Suzanne’s podcast that he started doing during this weird pandemic. It’s called Barks Remarks, and it focuses on the Donald Duck comics drawn by Carl Barks. Anyway, I just recorded an episode with him. It was really fun. If anyone remembers those comics with fondness and feels like hearing more, look it up on any of the typical podcast sources. He also has a Facebook page for it.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    @burnspbesq: the problem is, Youngkin did both, and the media didn’t challenge him on it in any way, shape or form.  And McAuliffe has run against Youngkin as trumpov Acolyte 2.0 without pointing out the two-faced nature of Y’s campaign.

    Youngkin does present as being mild-mannered and gosh golly gee just trying to stand up for parents, dontcha know.  (ugh)

    McAuliffe should have been saying, “it’s nice that you’re trying to come across as a nice guys with super-malleable positions, Glenn, but 1) endorsement by trumpov = automatic DQ for VA, and 2) endorsement OF trumpism = double-plus secret DQ…so what do you say, Glenn?”  Keep asking the questions b/c the horserace media sure hasn’t/didn’t/won’t.

  9. 9.

    Suzanne

    @Benw: Dude I know. I had literally never read a comic book before I met my husband. And he has this very specific slice of the comic book universe that he just adores. But I’ve been surprised to come across other people who also were really into these comics. My uncle apparently read them when he was a kid. Oddly, apparently the Donald Duck comics were (are?) very popular in Scandinavia.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    No Republican is a moderate because nothing in their principles or governing philosophy is moderate.

  11. 11.

    Benw

    @Suzanne: I was a comics colorer in high school and college. The coloring for the Disney/Archie books was basically paint by numbers compared to the creative freedom of the superhero comics. But we cranked out those Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck comics. It’s really fun to hear about someone super deep into those Disney books!

  12. 12.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: Yup.

    DCist (from May, after he won the nomination):

    More than 30,000 Republican delegates to Saturday’s convention — which took place at 39 sites across Virginia — cast ballots using ranked-choice voting, under which they ranked the seven candidates in order of preference. A simple majority was required to win, and if no candidate reached that threshold after the first count, the lowest performer would be eliminated and their votes redistributed to the remaining contenders.

    […]

    Youngkin’s victory could provide some solace to establishment Republicans who feared that [Amanda] Chase — a self-declared “[TFG] in heels” — would become the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, especially in a state that voted decisively against [TFG] in the presidential election and has become more fertile ground for Democrats over the last decade. It also follows the victory Sunday of Del. Jason Miyares (R-Virginia Beach) in the attorney general’s nominating race; he defeated Chuck Smith, who Chase had endorsed.

    Youngkin also brings to the race what many political analysts say will be critical to defeating the Democratic candidate, especially if it is former governor Terry McAuliffe: money. Of the $8 million Youngkin raised for his campaign ahead of the nominating convention, $5.5 million came in the form of a personal loan.

    Still, Youngkin will face a challenging balancing act in firing up a Republican base that remains close to [TFG] and large numbers of suburban voters who have moved away from him over the years. (In the first round of voting, Youngkin won much of the Republican vote in Northern Virginia.) This balance was already on display in the lead-up to the convention: Youngkin touted his business credentials and said he would move to reopen all schools and businesses, while at the same creating an election integrity task force, linking himself to [TFG] in a campaign ad, and criticizing Democrats over the teaching of critical race theory and their support for ending qualified immunity for police during an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

    The Virginia GQP has been trying to thread the needle and Youngkin is doing the same. They need their crazies to win the nomination, but need normal people to win in the fall. He won that contest because he played both sides (as he had to) and was able to buy the nomination over the others trying similar things. Not appealing to the crazies was not an option.

    As Terry Mac said, he’s beaten that type of candidate in the past.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Shalimar

    So the guy who wants to abolish public education is pragmatic and moderate?  What the fuck do the extremists want to do?

  17. 17.

    Jeffro

    @Another Scott: I know the local and national media will paint this horribly for Dems no matter whether McAuliffe wins or loses.  I see it another way, as being incredibly instructive for Dems no matter the outcome:  make. the. republican. answer. the. questions.

    And then point out the obvious: they are wolves in fleece vests.

    Point out the obvious: they are offering nothing that will materially improve their constituents’ lives, economically or otherwise.

    Point out the obvious: there is a reason they always go straight to culture-war issues where they can lie at will to enrage their base.

    And keep asking, constantly: what do these GQP candidates like about trumpism?  What parts do they want to bring to bear on the voters of ______ (state) or _____ (district)?  Just how closely do they embrace the former, disgraced, under-investigation, one-term, president*?

    We can keep it simple (which would certainly help our snooze media): just ask them to ask GQP candidates, “On a 1-10 scale, how close would you say you’re aligned with donald trumpov?”

    ASK

  18. 18.

    HumboldtBlue

    So wait, Democrats are painting people who supported an attempt to overturn the results of an election, who regularly threaten violence and harm to fellow citizens, and who are actively trying to suppress the vote of anyone not on their side as political extremists and that’s the Democrats’ fault?

  21. 21.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Suzanne: The Swedes have a tradition to watch Donald Duck on Christmas Eve.

    Donald Duck just set a new record for Sweden’s most-watched TV show
    https://www.thelocal.se/20201228/more-swedes-than-ever-before-watched-donald-duck-on-christmas-eve/

    …More than 4.5 million people – almost half of Sweden’s entire population – watched Donald Duck on Christmas Eve, making its 2020 incarnation Sweden’s most watched TV show since modern records began…

  22. 22.

    Mike in NC

    Watching “The Comey Rule” on Netflix, about the guy who almost as much as Putin put Trump in the White House. Stinking GOP asshole.

  24. 24.

    Steeplejack

    Great thread by Tom Scocca.

    Zaid Jilani is way out there. He continues in that thread:

    Glenn Youngkin is basically a suburban Republican dad running on Mitt Romney themes with a side of please don’t cover up assaults in our schools or teach kids to sort each other by skin color. And Biden says he’s a Capitol rioter. Really sad.

    And a good response from Colton Long:

    “basically a suburban Republican dad” . . . except opposing LGBTQ rights, refusing to condemn the Big Lie, embracing Donald Trump, and admitting he wants to restrict reproductive rights. Oh, right, that IS the suburban Republican platform.

  27. 27.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Suzanne: Not sure, I found this old article though which indicates it was an accident of history that started in 1959.

    Nordic Quack
    https://slate.com/culture/2009/12/sweden-s-bizarre-tradition-of-watching-donald-duck-kalle-anka-cartoons-on-christmas-eve.html

    …The show’s cultural significance cannot be overstated. You do not tape or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing. You do not eat or prepare dinner while watching Kalle Anka. Age does not matter—every member of the family is expected to sit quietly together and watch a program that generations of Swedes have been watching for 50 years. Most families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka, from the Smörgåsbord at lunch to the post-Kalle visit from Jultomten. “At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, you can’t to do anything else, because Sweden is closed,” Lena Kättström Höök, a curator at the Nordic Museum who manages the “Traditions” exhibit, told me. “So even if you don’t want to watch it yourself, you can’t call anyone else or do anything else, because no one will do it with you.”
    To Kättström Höök, Sweden’s affection for Kalle Anka is tied up with older holiday traditions. “It’s the dream of the old peasant village before people moved to towns,” she said. “Kalle Anka is almost like gathering around the fire in old times and listening to fairy tales.”
    But how did these tales become part of Sweden’s folklore? It was largely an accident of history, specifically the history of television in Sweden. The show first aired in 1959, when Swedes were just starting to own televisions. “You couldn’t have done this in 1970,” said Charlotte Hagström, an ethnology professor at Lund University and archivist of the university’s Folk Life Archives. “It had to be 1960 when television was new.” The fact that there was only one channel in Sweden until 1969 and only two—both public-service stations run by Sweden’s equivalent of the BBC—until 1987 helped, too. As did the fact that, for years, Christmas was the only time when Swedes could see Disney animation—or any American cartoons—on television.
    Over the last half-century, the characters and sketches have become as much a part of the holiday as the Christmas tree, so much so that each time TV1 has suggested modifying the schedule, public outcry has forced the network to back down. In the 1970s, Helena Sandblad, then head of children’s programming, attempted to pull the show off of the air because broadcasting a Disney program didn’t jibe with the prevailing political ethos. “Everything was pretty serious in the ‘70s and anything that was commercial, or considered commercial, was not good, was considered an ugly word,” said SVT publicity officer Ursula Haegerström. After newspapers got wind of the plans to cancel the show, the station was bombarded with letters, phone calls, and negative press. Sandblad received personal threats. “That was one of the worst audience storms in our history,” Haegerström told me…

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: He is against fighting COVID (opposes mask and vaccine mandates), also too.

    Yeah, Youngkin is very bad news and is not “moderate”.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    Ugh. None of the anti cancel culture people will admit the public school “anti crt” campaign is a panic, but it is.

    It’s like Andrew Sullivan has been cloned 500 times- just like him, they don’t have to know anything- they just have to have a vague theory. They don’t know anything about public school curriculm. They don’t know anything about public schools, period.

    Their story on that Virginia school assault was riddled with errors. They got most of the facts wrong. Yet there hasn’t been a single admission by any of them that they got it all wrong. If there hadn’t have been a criminal case the bullshit story they all spread would have never been corrected.

  34. 34.

    RaflW

    @debbie: I wonder how many millions of dollars were poured into Susan Collin’s various past runs for office over her (now proven false!) claim that she was pro-choice.

    She screwed over a ton of people with her support of Kavanaugh & Barrett. She marches lock step with McConnell now. Mitt is a shadow of himself, resorting to sad self-own ‘joke’ tweets with Sinema.

    There are no moderate Republicans now. None. Liz C? Not insane vis Jan 6th, but very right wing policy-wise. I just don’t think the broad electorate has a f**ing clue, in no small part due to the media tiptoeing around Rs out of mass, gross timidity (and for some, ideological agreement with the foaming Rs).

  35. 35.

    Chetan Murthy

    @RaflW:

    Liz C? Not insane vis Jan 6th, but very right wing policy-wise.

    IIRC, both her and Kinzinger were (are) anti-voting-rights.  Yeah: they get some credit for not wanting to, y’know, get us to Fascism right-fuckin’-now, but that’s it.

  37. 37.

    phdesmond

    @sab:

    @Jerzy Russian:

    w.h. auden wrote

    How will you look and what will you do when the basalt
    Tombs of the sorcerers shatter
    And their guardian megalopods
    Come after you pitter-patter?

  38. 38.

    Kayla Rudbek

    I’ve been kidding around with my brother and sister-in-law tonight. I found a cookbook titled Epic Vegan which has a recipe for vegan lobster rolls (among many other things).  My sister-in-law’s family have a summer place in Maine. My Midwestern brother’s attitude is that he will eat vegan food before he eats cockroaches of the sea aka crustaceans….

    personally, I’m not vegan, but it makes the “no dairy, no eggs” cooking or eating out easier to deal with. Although I suppose that I do owe easier access to that dietary code to the fanatics…

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    All these people who make their living writing and opining on the issues of the day, and who are now opining on public school curriculum could do some WORK. They could review Virginia’s state standards- every state has them and they’re published and easily available. They could review textbooks that are used and books that are assigned. They could find out what is taught in US public schools.

    But they don’t do any of that. Instead they want to weigh in on this specific issue, be listened to and taken seriously without doing any work at all other than scanning news stories.

    It’s the Andrew Sullivan model. “Ask questions”, but never do any of the work that would be required to answer the questions. Instead other people have to scramble around and respond to their demands for information. These people are full time professional readers and writers and speakers. Maybe they could gather some actual information before penning the next substack essay?

    “Are public schools in Virginia teaching CRT?” is not unknowable.

  43. 43.

    RaflW

    @Kayla Rudbek: I love that at least some crawfish fans call ’em mud bugs. I like em, though I only eat the tail & claw meat.

    And OMG a few really fresh, good Gulf shrimp with some cheese grits. Dang! So good. If some people won’t eat them because they’re trash eaters, well that’s more for the rest of us.

    I also love most varieties of flat fish. I just draw the line, personally, at filter feeders like raw oysters. That’s a nope for me. But I don’t judge if others want ’em. Oddly, I think steamed mussels are the bomb.

  44. 44.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Earlier today I posted a tweet that made this great point:

    If this CRT stuff feels amazingly fake to you, it’s probably because most kids were learning at home remotely right in front of their parents for a whole year before and nobody mentioned this stuff once during that whole time.

    That was in reply to @DeathCar72:

    It’s weird because last year many of us had the opportunity to literally watch what the teachers were teaching literally all day yet I don’t recall people freaking out about CRT then. ?

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @Steeplejack: Anyone who thinks their kids are being indoctrinated with CRT is really showing their ass. I always go to the Curriculum Night or Open House events, where parents actually find out what their kid is going to study all year. And I, you know, look at their homework, talk to them, etc. Complaining about CRT is a way you tell me that you don’t have any involvement in your kid’s education.

  50. 50.

    Redshift

    @Jeffro:

    I see it another way, as being incredibly instructive for Dems no matter the outcome:  make. the. republican. answer. the. questions. 

    Umm, how? I don’t disagree it would be great, but what forum or medium do Republican candidates appear in where Dems can make them answer their questions?

    That’s the real problem , not Democrats doing it wrong

  52. 52.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: I really loved the tweet Steeplejack linked.

    There is a group of Diversify Our Narrative groups by students around the country. They are pushing to have like one book by an author of color in the literature curriculum every year of high school.

    What they are fighting for is tiny incremental progress, so this CRT nonsense is particularly exhausting.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    Going to a school board meeting and screaming is not what people do when they want to find out. They ask. You can ask the individual teachers. It actually got ten times easier than in the old days when you had to wait to speak to them- now you can EMAIL teachers. They all respond.

    The bizzareness of saying “my 6 year old said ….” and taking that as some kind of reliable source of information just blows me away. So you just took that right to the bank? No follow up with an adult at all? And now you’re standing at a public podium presenting it as fact?

    Christ. They all have to go back to school. They don’t do the slightest bit of work to prepare. And they want to RUN the school? They’re too lazy to email the teacher or review assignments for ONE student, let alone 2000. That’s why they can’t run the school.

  55. 55.

    eddie blake

    @HumboldtBlue:  apparently it’s also the democratic party’s fault that we keep reminding people that they keep perpetuating the fucking plague and are killing hundreds of thousands.

    clearly we shouldn’t do that.

  56. 56.

    StringOnAStick

    @RaflW: I used to be good with raw oysters, and then one time I ended up at an urgent care because the virus I caught from them made me think my brain was going to explode.  $6,000 later because to get an IV to push the meds means it bumped it up to an ER visit.  I decided then and there that raw seafood is just not tasty enough to go through that again.

  58. 58.

    Starfish

    @Kay: No one’s six-year old said anything.

    It is just that the six-year old is not going to show up at their school board meeting and tell you that their mom is a liar.

    Hell, a lot of these people do not even have kids in the school district.

    Some of them are the “Sure, we would send our children to school if you built this conservative charter in the district even though we are homeschoolers who would never send our kids to public schools.”

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    The VA principal or superintendent lied about not being aware of an assualt in the bathroom. Bad. Should not have lied. But that is the single fact in that story they’re all telling that is in damning. The rest? The school is correct. They really can’t reveal the names of juveniles prior to an investigation. They really can’t expell without due process. They really do refer to school security officers, who are school law enforcement. If you don’t know any of this, should you be opining on it in national newspapers?  How about do some actual reading and investigating first? They are, after all, a professional readers and writers.

    There have probably been at least 10,000 school assault incidents this year. There is easily one per district. There are more than that but we’ll go low end. But only this one became a national Right wing cause.

  61. 61.

    mvr

    Ronald Reagan was already an extremist. He was when he was governor of California and he ran against Ford as a right wing extremist in the mid-70s. That the press won’t say this is both demoralizing but nothing new.

    There’s a joke on one of the live Woodstock albums where one of the emcees say something like “1980, President Reagan . . .” That’s like the whole joke.

    And yet here we are and we aren’t yet ready to label every fucking one of them what they are . . .

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

    @eddie blake:

    apparently it’s also the democratic party’s fault that we keep reminding people that they keep perpetuating the fucking plague and are killing hundreds of thousands.

    clearly we shouldn’t do that.

    We should totally stop that.  Trying to save lives and all.  Us bastards!

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mvr:

    There’s a joke on one of the live Woodstock albums where one of the emcees say something like “1980, President Reagan . . .” That’s like the whole joke.

    in the later seasons of All In The Family, it was a recurring joke that Archie liked Reagan. If I ever find myself, say, sitting on an airplane next to a never-trumper, I’m going to ask them for the non-racist explanations of Philadelphia MS and “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps.

  70. 70.

    JoyceH

    @Suzanne: ​
     

    Complaining about CRT is a way you tell me that you don’t have any involvement in your kid’s education.

    You’re making assumptions that it’s even THEIR kid. CNN interview an older fellow at a school board meeting, asked if he had a kid in that school, and he said no, he was retired, but by golly, he was just so upset about this CRT business. Then they showed video of the same guy at school board meeting after school board meeting, all different schools, showing up to complain about it.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    University of Florida
    October 30, 2021
    Recent news reports have indicated the University of Florida denied requests of some faculty members to participate in a lawsuit over the state of Florida’s new election laws.
    The University of Florida has a long track record of supporting free speech and our faculty’s academic freedom, and we will continue to do so. It is important to note that the university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom of professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin. Rather, the university denied requests of these full-time employees to undertake outside paid work that is adverse to the university’s interests as a state of Florida institution.

    So the University of Florida supports free speach, unless you work at the University of Florida. A real conundrum for their professors, I imagine. They support it! You just have to work somewhere else to excercise it.

  74. 74.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish: Like, every year, my kids’ schools host an evening event at which I meet all of their teachers, see the classroom, and hear in detail what the class is studying all year. Every book, every standardized test, every major assignment is discussed. I really do not know why anyone thinks seriously that their kids are being indoctrinated at school in secret. Ten gets you twenty their kids are sleeping through their classes. SOH CAH TOA is not some leftist plot to make you feel white guilt.

    I will also note that a lot of people who never went to college seem to think that they know what happens there.

  75. 75.

    mvr

    @Kay: Consulting as a prof is always something that brings in dicey issues that universities don’t recognize. But I’d like to see what other consulting work the U of F has said no to. (Could be cause for a lawsuit right there.) And I’d like for these folks to do the work for free and then see what the U of F has to say about it.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    that is adverse to the university’s interests

    Its just gross. Just stop pretending to be a “university” and be a for profit entity. Be a business. Don’t skim off all the benefits of being a public non profit while taking orders from the sleazebag governor and his cronies.

  77. 77.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: So a high school near to where I lived in AZ had a sexual assault hazing case. A bunch of football players were putting highlighters up freshmen players’ asses in the locker room. At least one of these football players raped a girl. They all managed to do this without transgender kids in the bathroom.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @mvr:

    We’ll see. Two of the three were experts in a lawsuit that uncovered a GOP gerrymandering scandal in 2012. The lawsuit was in 2014 (that’s when the scandal broke- there were emails).

    In this one the state government in Florida is trying to assert privilege and deny testimony. They’re going all out to block or delay this lawsuit, which adds to the stink around UF getting involved. There’s more to this. DeSantis really, really doesn’t want this litigated.

  79. 79.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​ 

    ESPN does an excellent 30 for 30 on former running back Marcus Dupree who is from Philadelphia, and it focused on his rise as a high school football star (he was ridiculously talented but got some seriously bad advice during an era when college football was rife with corruption) and one of the most repellent aspects was that Cecil Price, one of the klansmen who murdered Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman was right there throwing his support behind one of the most physically gifted black men to play college football.

    His son reports that his daddy loved Marcus.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    Oh, God, we’ve had so many over the years. They’re all bad. There are different issues around investigations of juveniles though, and there are good reasons for that. The defendants get privacy protections adults don’t get. That’s in the juvenile justice system. That’s layered with the state code on students right to process before they’re expelled. That’s important too. If they’re found not guilty – it’s “not true” in juvenile process- they will have missed months of school.

  84. 84.

    Ohio Mom

    Ohio Son finished high school in 2016 so maybe this is not completely recent but I was driven nuts by his economics curriculum. Started in elementary school and was neoliberal propaganda all the way.

    I didn’t throw a tantrum at a school board meeting because I knew they weren’t responsible, it was people in Columbus. I could not help myself though from pointing out to the middle school social studies teacher that contrary to the worksheet, a public good is not “a business run by the government.”

    For a while, I keep a folder of the worst examples but made myself toss it for the sake of my mental health. There’s something new to be appalled at almost every day, I don’t have to make a permanent collection.

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    @mvr, @HumboldtBlue:

    When I worked at Barnes & Noble and the Beatles remasters came out in 2009, I would ask customers why they were buying the particular Beatles CDs they did. One guy who was there with his tween daughter turned out to be a professional drummer, and in the course of an interesting discussion he said Ringo Starr was a superstar for three reasons:

    1. His drumming style changed and adapted organically as the Beatles’ music changed and evolved.

    2. He had absolutely metronomic timing. There are many stories about complicated, multi-track songs where the drumming never had to be rerecorded because Ringo’s drum tracks were exact.

    3. He was a stabilizing influence in a contentious, high-pressure environment with two, possibly three musical geniuses.

  86. 86.

    Redshift

    @Another Scott:

    Yeah, Youngkin is very bad news and is not “moderate”. 

    It doesn’t really matter. Jilani’s “they’ll call any Republican an extremist” is just another version of wingnuts’ “liberals will call anyone who disagrees racist” to avoid responding when they’re actually racist.

    (Which itself goes back at least to Reagan’s asinine “there you go again.” He was basically saying “you keep accusing me of things,” as if that was a response or a defense, and the media insanely decided it was folksy and clever.)

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    Jeeze. Last few Saturday nights have been tumbleweed city ’round these parts. Tonight have a lot of catching up to do.

    ;)

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    A “stranger” assault woud be really unusual in a high school just because of how high schools work, how they all know one another or at least see one another every day. I have never seen one where there wasn’t some kind of prior relationship. That doesn’t mean they don’t happen and it doesn’t excuse “non stranger assaults” but the scenario they’re afraid of, a trans kid laying in wait for another student to enter the bathroom, is not the real risk. There IS a risk of assault in high schools- it just isn’t that one.

  91. 91.

    HumboldtBlue

    Sweet mother of effective offense, no defense and absolutely bonkers football, Virginia at BYU is madness!

    They combined for 80 points and 832 yards in combined offense at halftime and no they are back at it end of 3rd quarter, 49-45.

  92. 92.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne: As people sharper than me pointed out, one way you can tell the crt uproar is bullshit is that last year literally everything their kids were taught in school was appearing on a computer screen in their home, and they didn’t scream about it then.

    Even more so for people like David Fucking Brooks, trying to claim that it’s really hard for parents to find out what’s being taught. Of course, what he’s really doing is whitewashing the conspiracy theory for his nice polite Republican audience – “it’s hard for parents to find out” means “when you demand school officials respond to your Fox outrage and they tell you it’s not true, they’re hiding what’s really going on.”

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: I listened to a 1A program about the VA race this week. One pundit’s message was that unless McAuliffe wins by a lot the message will be good for Republicans. He said it would be good for Republicans even if Youngkin loses by 2 or 3 points! Wired for Republicans indeed!

  97. 97.

    NotMax

    @Soprano2

    It’s like no one has ever covered an election before. Absent any massive misstep by one candidate or another, any gap nearly always narrows during the last 10 days or so.

  100. 100.

    JWR

    @NotMax: I don’t know jack about VA politics aside from what I read here, including assorted links, but as a Californian who remembers all the way back to when all the polls had the recall practically tied, I had my own prediction, which had Newsom winning 60-40, and we know how that worked out for Larry Elder. And yes, I know, VA ain’t CA.

    So here, I offer my prediction for the VA race: McAuliffe by at least 10. (And if I’m wrong, I’ll eat this comment.)

    :)

  105. 105.

    Zinsky

    Yes, yes, and Hell yes!  All great tweets.  I know this phrase is uttered at least every four years, but let me say it in boldface type:  2022 is going to be the most consequential midterm in American history!  Democrats need to work like Hell and get every living human being to vote, so that the margins of victory are incontestable!  If Republicans get back control of either House, we are in a world of hurt.  The fat orange con man from Mar-a-Lago WILL run if they control Congress going into 2024, bet on it.  If we lose Congress, pray for a massive stroke or heart attack for the slob.

  106. 106.

    JWR

    @JPL: Jack Ciattarelli? Never heard of him, but if Fox said it, you can believe it!

    How’s that for prognosticatin’? ;)

  107. 107.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RaflW: ​
     

    @debbie: I wonder how many millions of dollars were poured into Susan Collin’s various past runs for office over her (now proven false!) claim that she was pro-choice.

    She screwed over a ton of people with her support of Kavanaugh & Barrett. She marches lock step with McConnell now. Mitt is a shadow of himself, resorting to sad self-own ‘joke’ tweets with Sinema.

    There are no moderate Republicans now. None. Liz C? Not insane vis Jan 6th, but very right wing policy-wise. I just don’t think the broad electorate has a f**ing clue, in no small part due to the media tiptoeing around Rs out of mass, gross timidity (and for some, ideological agreement with the foaming Rs).

    I’d given up on Collins after Kavanaugh. Romney never was moderate. And John McCain is pushing up daisies.

    Lisa Murkowski was the only other Senate GOPer that would occasionally cast a sane vote. But she seems to have quietly disappeared into the GOP Borg this year as well.

    So ‘moderate Republican’ is an extinct species at the national level. There are a few who are allowed to exist in Dem-controlled states like Maryland and Massachusetts, where there’s no way a standard-issue Republican would have a prayer, but that’s like a species where there’s still a few left in zoos, but they’ve gone extinct in the wild.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @Zinsky: It’s possible that trump might not even be the strongest potential Republican candidate in 2024, or the most dangerous one either. But you are100% correct about the importance of next year’s midterms.

  109. 109.

    Zinsky

    @Suzanne:  I saw the back and forth about Donald Duck comics and had to share one little tidbit from my family.  I collected comics as a child and had many of the Donald Duck comics, as well as Marvel, DC and other comics.  I used to read some of the Donald Duck comics to my three kids when they were growing up.  One of them had Donald saying that he was “going to make himself a big, fine lunch” before he took his afternoon nap.  Now, 25 years later when they are all adults we still joke about getting a “big, fine lunch” when we are out traveling together or on vacation!  Fun memories….

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: A handful of Republican senators have been joining the “Yeas” on Biden’s judicial nominations, and I expect Murkowski is one of them. But she’s looking forward to her reelection campaign next year, and having voted to convict trump, she knows she will face strong opposition on her right.

    Alaska’s novel election system all but guarantees Murkowski a spot on the November ballot. First, there will be a ranked choice, “jungle” primary. Then the top four finishers will go on to a ranked choice general election.

    Assuming she wins reelection, Murkowski might cross the aisle more on legislation. Alaskans place a premium on federal spending in their state, so there is potential for trading votes for provisions favorable to Alaska. But until she’s reelected, Murkowski will be cautious.

  113. 113.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kay: They’re just digging the hole deeper, the flaming assholes. Every university I’m aware of permits faculty to have outside activities that may come with compensation (though it’s bullshit to pretend that that is what is happening here). Typically the “percent effort” allowed is 20%. It’s entirely transactional/mercenary. The universities “allow” this because most of these outside activities bring prestige and additional dollars to the university (e.g., serving on study sections, editorial boards, pursuing intellectual property, serving as expert witness, etc.).

  115. 115.

    Gvg

    @Kay: once a year we have to fill out a form disclosing outside work for possible conflicts of interest. I work at UF and at first reading of this I was outraged, but catching this detail….now I want to hear more. It is possible the two “suppressed” professors are grifters using us. It depends on who was going to pay them to do what.

    Using your status as a UF professor to make money in a way that harms the University might be bad. It depends. If you are going to sell some harmful testimony based on lies…to say sell fake medicines, that would be bad. On the other hand testifying that UF didn’t do enough to protect students or faculty, if that is true, would be legitimate even if the school didn’t like it.

    The thing that is giving me 2nd thoughts is the suggestion that they are getting PAID for testimony. That makes me suspicious. It’s also my understanding that this is the reason the disclosure rule exists.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gvg: Dead thread, but there is nothing weird about paying experts for their testimony at a trial.  Doctors, accountants, mechanics, astrophysicists, statisticians, etc., all frequently get paid for offering their expertise as witnesses.

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