I’m so ashamed of my alma mater right now that I was almost tempted to say “Go Dawgs,” which is heresy on today of all days. (Stifle yourself, Raven! :) From The Post:
The University of Florida barred three faculty members from testifying for plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging a voting-restrictions law enthusiastically embraced by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), which activists say makes it harder for racial minorities to vote. The university’s action raises sharp concerns about academic freedom and free speech in the state.
The public university said the three faculty members — political scientists Daniel A. Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Wright Austin — could pose “a conflict of interest to the executive branch” and harm the school’s interests if they testified against the law signed by DeSantis in May.
“As UF is a state actor, litigation against the state is adverse to UF’s interests,” school officials said, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
You know what’s “adverse to UF’s interests”? Denying professors their First Amendment rights. I’m no academic, but I suspect schools that silence professors and suck up to authoritarians tend to incur reputational damage. Maybe even to the extent that it interferes with much ballyhooed rankings.
This isn’t the first time the spineless administration and corrupt board have knuckled under to DeSantis’s authoritarian tactics and engineered rewards for his cronies.
Fortunately, the professors who are being denied their fundamental rights aren’t just rolling over and screaming “please don’t defund me, bro” like UF President Kent Fuchs does:
"The academics will file a legal challenge against the university if it does not change its stance, said Paul Donnelly, an attorney representing Smith, McDonald, and Austin."
— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 30, 2021
Here’s hoping they prevail.
This latest outrage further demonstrates how dangerous DeSantis is and why those of us in Florida need to go all in on defeating him next year, not only to save our state but also to protect America. This week, wingnut media outlets rolled out a coordinated campaign to assert once again that DeSantis “won” the pandemic, never mind the 60K dead.
Wingnut media figures see this sociopath as a housetrained Trump, and they’ll work tirelessly to impose him on the nation if we’re not vigilant. We better be because DeSantis would be worse than Trump.
Open thread.
Baud
Why can’t the attorney just subpoena their testimony?
Geminid
Yeah, DeSantis would be worse than trump. He’s not lazy and self-absorbed, two traits that limited the scope of trump’s damage and kept him from winning a second term.
Eljai
You would think some of the more mainstream DeSantis media fluffers (looking at you Politico) might take a look at this and see the writing on the wall for journalism under authoritarianism and, I don’t know, do something.
sab
I thought the right was whining about cancel culture. I am holding my breath until JK Rowling chimes in, since free speech in employment was so much apart of her reasoning.
scav
I think the individual University administrators that instigated and signed off on that abject groveling diktat need to be publicly and professionally named so that their bodies of “research” and publications can be re-evaluated in light of their revealed standards of academic conduct.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That sounds like a fine way to short-circuit this bullshit censorship to me, but I’m not a lawyer.
debbie
Jesus. I hope they prevail.
Baud
Hard to believe there haven’t been any wingnut professors who have testified in a lawsuit against the state.
MattF
DeSantis sees a road to power before him, and he’s on it. He’s going for ‘worse than Trump’, we’ll see if it’s a go. I’m assuming Fox is right behind him every step of the way. A mass UF resignation might be noticed.
Immanentize
@Baud: They can just subpoena them.
Immanentize
I like FIRE even if they tend to love wingnuts most:
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Fox News is 100% behind him, and the wingnut media whitewashing campaign on his handling of the pandemic is really something to behold. They’re crowing about the low case rates in Florida now, which is like looking at blackened, smoldering stumps where a forest used to stand and bragging about how the fire is out NOW, woohoo! Just unbelievable.
One question is whether a Trump imitator can inspire the levels of loyalty and devotion Trump himself somehow inspires. The jury is out, IMO, but DeSantis sure is taking “own the libs” to Trumpian levels, all the while degrading democracy behind and in front of the scenes.
Another Scott
TheFire.org:
Good, good.
It’s infuriating that RWNJs continuously use their powers badly to make good people go to court to fight their unconstitutional actions. All of us need to elect sensible people!!
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Eljai: They don’t care. They already write what they are told for above average pay. That’ts what they do. Journalism as we idealize it hardly enters in. It’s just cynical write for pay and contacts.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Good for them.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: I think DeSantis is just too simian to win the Rep. primary. Not since Nixon has a GOP candidate looked more like a monkey. ?
Tony Gerace
If there’s any logic in the world (big “if”) both the University of Florida, and the state of Florida as a whole will suffer negative consequences as a result of this type of thing. It remains to be seen how much logic there is in the world.
Barbara
@Immanentize: Well, then they wouldn’t necessarly be able to get the same advantage if they were able to qualify them as experts and get an expert report and opinion.
I hope someone objects on the basis that UF is a taxpayer supported institution that is not part of the executive branch and therefore not summarily subject to executive orders. A lot of public universities in Florida are actually established as legislatively chartered corporations that are only indirectly overseen by the state.
Dorothy A. Winsor
As someone who spent a lot of years in academia, I was shocked by this story. I see the statement from FIRE, but the UF faculty should be acting too.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: DeSantis is ape-like for sure, but we have to remember that less than a year ago, the sitting POTUS was a spray-painted sack of lipids topped with a piss-colored wad of hairbrush scrapings. So ugly ain’t disqualifying…
scav
There’s an industrial-sized hearse’s opportunity to raise questions about University-affiliated research into — and reporting of — Covid in light of the UF Administrations stated policy of aligning itself with the political apparatus of the state.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I suspect that wingnut media has a very very very secret desire to dump Trump. So, here’s DeSantis— youthful, coherent, and ready to go in case Trump drops dead. And… maybe… even if he doesn’t.
sab
@Immanentize: He already got elected govenor once.The last governor looked like a space alien.
Ohio has its faults electorally, but at least we usually go for grumpy old white men that look and act like they could hold a real job in the real world.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, every accusation is a confession, part MMXXI… BlueVirginia:
They’re pathological.
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
Totally unsurprising in the fascist dictatorship of DeathSentence.
Just Chuck
Fascism doesn’t start with throwing people into ovens, but with destroying careers for perceived disloyalty to the state.
MattF
@Just Chuck: Also makes political thuggery a possible career choice.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: I hope that most people would have the same reaction as I do to hearing DeSantis speak: he sounds like a goober idiot to my ears.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Why the hell would people with that kind of money got to a massage parlor? There are other options.
Just Chuck
@StringOnAStick: Considering their last guy had an even more grating voice, I think they consider that a benefit, since it makes libs cringe.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: trump has his own personal appeal, and the loyalty it inspired. But trump stumbled into something bigger: the emotional appeal of the fascist strong man. DeSantis and others like Pompeo are testing their abilities to harness this force to their own fortunes.
Trumpism without trump is somewhat harder to pull off when trump is still around. But his would-be successors are smarter than he is and thus, in a practical sense, more ruthless. They’ll find a way to get past trump and the second-rate people who surround him.
So like you say, it is very important to knock out DeSantis next November. In 2018, he only won by less than 40,000 out of over 8 million votes cast. Now there are three potentially strong candidates on the Democratic side. I am particularly impressed by Nicky Fried’s political skills and persona. On the Senate side Val Demings will be a well funded, appealing candidate.
Florida is a very complex state demographically, and I think the only certainty about next year’s elections is that they will be close.
Cameron
When I moved to Florida in 2016 I knew there were problems here, but nothing I couldn’t manage. If DeSantis is reelected next year, I’m leaving. Life is too short for this kind of shit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT, but you need to see this video of little dogs in panda costumes. You’ll feel better if you do.
Betty
Does anyone know if there is any fundraising in place to help pay the professors’ legal costs?
Gvg
@Barbara: I don’t think so. All public universities are part of the state university system. I don’t know of any “corporations”. We get state benefits, paychecks and pensions and yes we are controlled by the executive, much more than most states, as a legal fact. Other governors haven’t bothered to make this clear.
I don’t think the state can stop testimony, but I don’t know where you heard about corporations. That is not correct.
Ksmiami
@Tony Gerace: the state is a dumpster fire that should be given back to nature… Sorry Betty
Redshift
This is an actual First Amendment situation (government constraining free speech), unlike so many our self-appointed “free speech advocates” bray about.
Citizen_X
This is also a part of the ongoing fascist attack on academia and education. See also the anti-“CRT” movement, a thinly-veiled attack on any historical mention of racism.
AliceBlue
@Betty Cracker: I don’t understand it, but I think the fact that Trump is so physically repulsive is part of what attracts people to him.
Mike in NC
Governor DeathSentence down in Floriduh needs to prove his Trumpian values by appearing on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and dancing with a bunch of people wearing chicken costumes, like TFG did. That will prove he has what it takes to lead the GOP and debase himself at the same time. Do it, Ron!
Chief Oshkosh
@MattF:
Mass resignation of faculty? I guess it could happen…
Ruckus
@Eljai:
They see the writing on the wall.
They just can’t understand anything but authoritarianism and the dollar signs on their paychecks. IOW they like what the writing on the wall.
David Fud
Florida faculty should count themselves lucky if they still have tenure and even have an independent platform to speak truth to power. Georgia just removed tenure, so I don’t know if I would hold them up as a shining example. This wouldn’t happen in Georgia without the faculty being fired, as things stand now.
Ruckus
@Tony Gerace:
I believe you are/will be correct in the end.
Problem is all the death and destruction of, well everything that deathsantis will be responsible for along the way getting to that end.
PsiFighter37
So…what do people think is going to happen in Virginia?
To me, it seems like it’s going to be a pure tossup. It also exposes that McAuliffe’s support isn’t terribly deep in the state, despite having been governor already. I hope VA Dems actively work to promote their bench so that they can have fresh faces ready to step up next time, perhaps with Hala Ayala at the helm (if she wins).
RaflW
Meanwhile, UF has hosted such luminaries as Don Jr and Kimberley.
They are who we know they are: Floridians thru and thru.
(Sorry, Betty)
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I like your description but I wonder why you held back……
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Chief Oshkosh: I don’t know about resignations, but I can imagine a walk out
Ruckus
@Just Chuck:
It’s not the state disloyalty that is in play here.
It is disloyalty to deathsantis in his goal of being far worse than TFG. And in trying to surpass TFG’s Covid death rate percentage.
RaflW
Oh, and on the topic of Florida, author/photographer Chris Arnade is walking 17 miles across Orlando today. He grew up in FL, and is documenting various pedestrian outings around these United States.
His photos are really capturing how much of a pure (and to my eyes, gross) distillation of American shoddy capitalism so much of Florida is.
For several years, the bf and I did beach vacations in FL, mostly around Stuart/Hutchinson Is. We’ve more recently switched to Puerto Rico. It’s a little more flying, and lodging costs more, but man the people are so nice, there’s no maga vibe, the beaches in San Juan are excellent, and for this next trip – woohoo! – P.R. leads the U.S. in vaccine uptake.
Ksmiami
@AliceBlue: have you seen his supporters? They are some of the ugliest Americans ever
Edd Arisian
FWIW, I know Kent Fuchs personally, as well as other people who share his last name. They use a variety of pronunciations. Kent pronounces it “Fox”.
Barbara
@Gvg: Corporately, Florida organizes a lot of public agencies this way. It might not necessarily be legally significant for this purpose. It’s an outrageous abuse of state authority no matter how they’re organized.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Geminid: DeathSentence is also far less stupid than TFG.
Captain C
@Omnes Omnibus: Perhaps the squalid aspect is part of the appeal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Captain C: I guess.
trollhattan
Can we accept that in 2021 we have a class of universities that exist primarily to produce football and basketball players, and the “other stuff” they do is just secondary to the prime mission? “But, football makes money” is tacit admission academics is just a pesky boat anchor.
ETA Task #2 I suppose is producing future Federalist Society judges.
mrmoshpotato
Really captured the disgusting essence there!
PsiFighter37
@trollhattan: Given that the NCAA has finally given in on letting student-athletes make money off their name, I think it’s pretty much accepted fact at this point. That said, I would argue that the money these schools bring in for athletics do help many students who are not athletes get a good education. But the whole sham around holding student-athletes, especially those in football and basketball, to some kind of academic standard, should really drop. I have no doubt that there is still plenty of chicanery around athletic grades going on at many of the major athletic-oriented campuses in both sports.
Mike in NC
Pretty much every strip mall in Florida that I ever passed boasted a gun shop, a liquor store, and a tattoo parlor. Probably a strip club as well, though I didn’t look hard enough.
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid:
Might as well quote you and agree when you say it first.
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
Comparing Rick Scott to a space alien. Horrible! Everyone knows Scott is Batboy!
trollhattan
@PsiFighter37:
It’s not easy to track university sports income and expenses. Recently found financials for the UCLA sports department that show football is the sole income-generator and a good chunk of that money subsidizes the other sports. (Was surprised to learn both men’s and women’s basketball are money-losers, women’s especially.) If there’s a net benefit it’s all those non-football students getting partial scholarships and who actually study, because they’re headed to the real world and not pondering a professional lacrosse career.
Will
Jesus, Desantis will be worse than Trump? When does the crackpot shit constantly being dialed to 11 stop? It’s exhausting and borderline depressing. I can see why others say they are drifting away because I can feel myself drifting away. If midterms were today, I wouldn’t bother to turn out and vote, and that’s with never having missed even a local election before.
Betty Cracker
@David Fud: I was making a feeble (albeit topical!) joke about a football game and did not mean to endorse UGA tenure policy.
@RaflW: Arnade specializes in seamy underbellies, so it’s no surprise he ferrets it out in target-rich Orlando. I support all potential visitors’ decision to boycott Florida, but I do want to note that Big Mouse tackiness and the Atlantic beaches are only a small fraction of the state. Most casual visitors don’t know that, which is fine with me — keeps the truly fun and amazing parts from getting too crowded. ;-)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Interesting, this was a repeat of the whole Tory Assassination thing; suddenly a bunch of idiots showed up start praising DeathStana on Facebook all at once. I was looking at their profiles and there were Florida residents but with jobs like “short order cook”, beyond who in the F boasts about being a short order cook makes me suspect AstroTurfing – hire a bunch of luzer for cheep.
PaulWartenberg
As a fellow Florida alum, I am horrified and sickened by my university’s cowardice. In the face of watching DeSantis and the state Republicans suppress our constitutional voting rights, they would rather roll over and play dead than fight for the civil rights of their own students and faculty.
What do they think they’re doing, saving their payroll, their budget, their jobs? The Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated their anti-education anti-intellectual bias, and would likely close down most of the colleges (or worse, turn them into for-profit boondoggles) for shits and giggles.
The independence and reputation of our state’s higher educational institutions are at risk from political censorship and suppression. The students at Gainesville and every other college campus in Florida should rise up and protest this enforced silence.
PaulWartenberg
@Will:
DeSantis will be just as racist and demagogic – and incompetent – as trump, but he has a better understanding of how politics works and won’t undercut himself with his own ego.
Geminid
@trollhattan: College sports are the the ceiling for almost all athletes. Very few football players, even from programs like Alabama, make it to the NFL, and most understand this.
JPL
@AliceBlue: trump is going to the game tonight and released a statement thanking the commisioner for inviting. The Braves told a reporter that trump picked up the phone and demanded them.
He’s repulsive.
JPL
Democracy dies with our eyes wide open.
Baud
@JPL:
Thanks. I can skip tonight’s game then.
ETA: The last time Trump attended a World Series game, it was awesome.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@RaflW: Obviously you need to be exposed to China if you think that’s bad.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/20/chinas-ugliest-buildings-contest-to-celebrate-unsightly-architecture-begins
Anonymous At Work
Betty,
Best way to show your disapproval is to root for the only liberal~ish team in the SEC…
…
Vanderbilt
(I know)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@PaulWartenberg: I still don’t see Death Santa getting the GOP nod. First, he’s been in political office which gives him a record to be attacked on and lot of GOP voters are pissed at the party establishment and second, he’s just not viscous enough to give the party base the rage boner they want.
Here, look at the Cal Recall and VA governors race, in both the GOP voters went for political outsiders. Who ever they going to in 2024 is going to be some talk radio show host or some self funding rich douch.
Gvg
@Barbara: the universities aren’t. They are state, period.
Anonymous At Work
Front Pagers:
Can we get someone or a link to some analysis of the Anti-Union-Busting (everyone wave in the direction of Walmart HQ in Bentonville) measures in the BBB bill that seem to be flying under radar?
patrick II
@Immanentize:
Nixon won three Republican presidential primaries.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: The frozen fake grins and frantic clapping in a vain attempt to ignore/drown out the boos. Yep, checks out as awesome!
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
Nein, er ist Nosferatu.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: hahahahahaha
Raven
Go Dawgs!
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Lovely!
WaterGirl
@Anonymous At Work: Maybe we should let them fly under the radar until they make it into law? :-)
I would hate to draw attention to something good when they still have time to fight it.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Hey, I’ve been told there is no bill, so there is nothing to talk about anyway.
germy
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Over 7 years of Snowbirding we’ve never been to Big Mouse. We love the state parks (The Real Florida) and we’re disappointed that everyone decided to buy an RV during the pandemic. Used to be it was only impossible to get a campsite at one of the Keys parks. This year we couldn’t even get one at Anastasia.
West of the Rockies
Why do Democratic presidents always have to make an effort to appeal to Republican voters but Republicans never do? Is there any issue at all, Florida Men and Women, on which would-be-future-president DeSantis pays even lip service to liberal thoughts and preferences?
Mallard Filmore
Florida is suing the Biden administration over the Federal vaccine mandate. Is there discovery involved in suits like this? Can the Feds demand an audit of the Florida body count and classifications? Determine if there is an undercount?
germy
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
They do it all the time. They try to appeal to the party’s right flank though. I always see ads featuring self-described lifelong Dems who decide to support the GOP.
Reboot
@Will:
Damn straight DeSantis would be worse than Trump. I guess you never had the pleasure of having him as a state rep and then governor.
Baud
@Reboot:
Has DeSantis played footsie with white nationalists? I think he’s done just about every other Trump thing but I can’t recall if he’s done that.
Mallard Filmore
@Another Scott:
There are plenty of desperately poor women around the world where Childs could have his way while parting with a piddling sum. I am not rich, but is it so hard for a person THAT rich to travel anonymously?
germy
@Baud:
Remember what Gillum said during the debate? “A hit dog will holler.”
germy
And thanks to Biden for appointing her.
Baud
@germy:
I remember that now. I don’t recall what that was in reference to though.
germy
(an old WaPo article)
germy
@Mallard Filmore:
https://bluevirginia.us/2021/10/billionaire-charged-with-soliciting-prostitution-in-connection-with-a-florida-spa-tied-to-an-international-human-trafficking-ring-gives-100k-to-glenn-youngkins-campaign
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … TheHill:
Good, good.
Tuesday is election day in VA and NJ. Today is the last day of early voting in VA.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
John Yoo and John Eastman together at last.
Reboot
@Baud:
When he was running against DeSantis, Andrew Gillum said, ‘Racists think he’s a racist.’ Miami Herald had this article about his anti-immigration ways: DeSantis can’t restrain his white-supremacist instincts, but maybe Florida voters will
Hopefully this will show up as a text link. As for direct, out and proud contact with white nationalists, I don’t know. But they’d be all in for him, I think.
Jay
It’s clear sky sunny here, after weeks of rain, rivers of rains, and one exponential storm,
and I have the day off,
which makes me laugh, because as crappy as the past few weeks have been at work, ( understaffed, pumps, dehumidifiers, sewer snakes, plus the usual) today will be hell,
and I have the day off. Slept 15 hours last night.
debbie
@germy:
They’re such Karens (wrinkles nose).
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@debbie:
There’s a house a few miles from my house with a “Fuck Biden” banner next to his American flag. He had a Trump flag for a long time after the election, but that came down to make room for his new statement.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Really? All I heard was blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.
edit: I should have said BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Ha!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow, that’s a match made in
heavenhell if I ever saw one.Just as Barack and Michelle found each other, so have those two.
Just Chuck
@WaterGirl: Eastman just can’t quit Yoo.
Frankensteinbeck
@sab:
If it’s not Rowling herself being oppressed, she doesn’t care.
I spotted long ago from reading the Potter series that Rowling has a mean, bullying sense of humor. What truly opened my eyes about how Rowling went TERF was realizing that Voldemort, the Purebloods, the whole struggle in the books has nothing to do with bigotry as Americans understand it. It’s all about British social class conflicts. Hogwarts is a stereotype of the boarding schools the British upper crust famously send their children to. ‘Pure blood’ means noble blood, an obsession that has never died in the British aristocracy. And they act like British aristocracy. Notice their contempt for any of their fallen brethren who has to – ugh – work. Every depiction of Muggles in the Rowling books is a cliche about the British lower classes, like the gin drinking orphanage manager and the bar full of people who pull the “I never liked him!” heel-toe turn. We misunderstood the message because we don’t have a British context. Rowling was never particularly anti-bigotry. The big British racism is against Eastern Europeans, and Rowling makes sure to single them out with stereotyped looks and put them mostly on the bad guys’ side. Remember, Krum was a ‘the good one’ depiction.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
We won’t recognize the 2024 field until 2023, when we will merely be wildly wrong about how it will turn out. That’s how it usually works.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
There is no blah.
Tony Gerace
@Betty Cracker: Physically ugly (for a man) is probably an advantage. The base wants somebody who’s just like them.
WaterGirl
@Just Chuck: Ha!
Citizen Alan
@Eljai: Why should they worry about that? I’m sure every single “journalist” working at Politico thinks they’ll do just fine under a fascist white supremacist dictatorship. And they’re probably right.
Another Scott
High turnout is good!
(As of yesterday, over 1M people had voted early in VA. https://www.vpap.org/elections/early-voting/november-2021-election/ )
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim Appleton
@Just Chuck: I saw what yoo did there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Because they’re cheap motherfuckers, that’s why.
Citizen Alan
@Reboot: I don’t even live in FL, but I’m still bitter that the fucking Bernie Bros dragged Gillum over the finish line in the Dem primary over Gwen Graham. I still think she’d have beaten DeathSantis.
germy
@Citizen Alan:
But I’ve been told here time and time again hat bernie bros are all white elitists who don’t care about people of color. ?
MattF
Note, fwiw, that UF has granted the FL surgeon general, Ladopo, a (I assume tenured) professorship. Ladopo is no dummy, went to Harvard, etc. But this is the guy who refused to wear a mask when around a cancer patient.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF: I think the professorship comes with the Surgeon General gig. I may be wrong though.
Baud
@germy:
Not all.
Baud
Test
Raven
Dan Mullen is a great coach.please keep him.
Craig
@Raven: WOW! Quite an end to that half. Sheesh.
germy
@Baud:
Apparently not! The ones who aren’t dragged Gillum over the finish line. What next from them?
Baud
@germy:
I don’t know if they have a preferred candidate. I’d imagine it isn’t Charlie Crist.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I noticed quite a few “deleted” comments from you toward the end of the week. I wondered whether you were having technical issues or were just thinking better of something after you posted it.
Your “Test” reminded me that I wanted to check with you on that.
Matt McIrvin
The more people say DeSantis won the pandemic, the more I post the video of Zapp Brannigan explaining how he defeated the killbots by letting them kill his men until they reached their pre-programmed kill limit, those are the rules.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
When the edit box disappears on a comment, I will make another comment to correct a typo. That sometimes causes the edit box to reappear, so I make the correction and delete the subsequent comment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen a couple of tweets indicating big turn-out today in VA. Fingers crossed that it’s good for MacAuliffe
Betty Cracker
@germy: Bernie Bros aren’t really a big force in FL. I voted for Graham in the primary and think she probably would have beaten DeSantis, but I don’t blame Bernie Bros for nominating Gillum.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Interesting.
jonas
@germy: Yeah, we got a couple of those in our neighborhood, too. Which totally makes sense, you know, because Biden is such a belligerent asshole, it’s really the only conceivable response to disagreeing with his policies.
Geminid
I don’t think any of the three major candidates for the Florida Governor nomination are very left on policy. These would be Congressman Crist, Secretary of Agriculture Fried, and State Senator Taddeo. I suspect the hardcore Sanders supporters, at least at the national level, will ignore this race.
On the other hand, Lt. Governor John Fetterman up in Pennsylvania was a solid Sanders backer in 2016 and 2020, and the Sanders people have high hopes for his Senate candidacy. With at least two other good candidates in the race, Fetterman has a good shot at the nomination.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: I’ll be interested to see how Fetterman polls in light of my own theory that many people, especially self-styled independents, vote on affect. I’m curious to see how his bar-bouncer image plays against Marine vet Conor Lamb.
Along those lines, I gather Laura Ingram has been harping on the decline of masculinity or something, leading to this rather unkind response that I hope she saw.
jonas
@MattF: With MD’s (esp surgeons), being talented at doing the medicine thing is absolutely no indicator that you have any intelligence or an ounce of common sense in any other area of life/the world, etc. See Carson, Ben. And Jackson, Ronnie. And…the list goes on.
Same with engineers for some reason. Brilliant at building a remote-control flying drone from scratch in their garage, but usually huge, fucking libertarian assholes everywhere else.
Apologies, of course, to any fine doctors and engineers here…
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fetterman is a very singular politician when it comes to affect and appearence. His admirers believe he looks like a tough, steely spined fighter for the working class. Fetterman’s detractors say he looks like “the gas station attendant in a 70’s horror movie.”
sab
@Frankensteinbeck: I haven’t read any Harry Potter yet. I love her Cormoron Strike books, so my husband gave me boxed set of Harry Potter that I haven’t read yet.
I had been hesitant because I was shipped off to boarding school for one year and I really really really hated it. Don’t want to read about it.
I cut her a lot of slack for many months on the trans issue (maybe Europe is dealing with it differently….so I just don’t umderstand…) and I finally had to accept that she is just misleading us on the science because she has her own point of view and has no intention of letting facts get in the way. Sigh.
Baud
@Geminid:
There’s a difference?
Suzanne
@Geminid: I think he looks like an orc, personally. The SLOP got all the good looks in that family.
Our little neighborhood had a costume walk with trick-or-treating for the kids along the boulevard, and most of the businesses gave them treats. Conor Lamb for Senate had a table out there, though I didn’t see the candidate.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Conor Lamb is working hard, and has been appearing at a lot of local party meetings. I can follow his campaign through @Sasha Beauloux, who really does not like Fetterman, and talks up Lamb a lot.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Why the Fetterman hate? I don’t have a strong feeling about either of them. I also want to learn more about Kenyatta.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne:
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I heard about that incident, but I also heard that Fetterman apologized. So I have been trying to develop an opinion about his politics. The thing that has left more of a bad taste in my mouth in that regard has been a thing here about the expansion of the steel plant. Fetterman was very strongly in favor, but the company decided against expansion because they said the County Health Dept. was being a pain in the ass. Fetterman had some strong words for the ACHD and said that the air here would never be really clean. He went all over the local media, saying “the Union way of life is sacred!” and all this other blah blah blah. Fuck, no, it isn’t sacred. It’s no more “sacred” than any other job. I’m not anti-union, but I am also pro-clean air, and if US Steel is going to be polluting, then FUCK THAT.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m pro-union, too, but that strikes me as the kind of hard-hat fetishism of his fellow Pennsylvanian Tweety Matthews.
Geminid
@Suzanne: I don’t know how representative Virginian @Sasha Beauloux is of Pennsylvania voters, but her grudge against Fetterman stems from the 2013 incident when he heard shots fired, grabbed a loaded shotgun, jumped in his truck and chased down a jogger he suspected of the shooting. There was contemporary reporting on the incident by a local tv station. The stories of Fetterman and the jogger disagreed on two points: Fetterman said the jogger was masked, the jogger said he wasn’t; and the jogger said Fetterman pointed the shotgun at his midsection, Fetterman said he did not. The jogger turned out not to be armed. Fetterman was never charged for carrying a loaded shotgun in his truck, a clear violation of Pennsylvania law. Some people also find Fetterman’s later explainations and justifications of his actions disqualifying.
Also, this contest is another proxy war between national “moderates” and “progressives,” similar to the OH-11 special election primary between Nina Turner and Shontel Brown.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Funny how only jobs that men do, and mostly white Christian men at that, are sacred. Everyone else’s life is inconsequential.
Baud
@Geminid:
That explanation doesn’t sound like Rittenhouse or the Aubrey case to me, even under the joggers version.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, no difference at all – unless you count that fact that he didn’t torture anyone – and he didn’t fucking kill anyone, either.
I’m not saying what Fetterman did is good, but geez, it’s hyperbolic bullshit to say there’s no difference between what he did and what the other two did.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: I also think it’s hyperbolic, but she didn’t say there was no difference.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She said:
I stand by my original point. “Other than pulling the trigger” is a lot like asking how Mrs. Lincoln liked the play.
What Fetterman did is absolutely and totally different than what Ahmaud Arbery’s killers did. And totally different than Kyle Rittenhouse shooting people because he apparently thought he was entitled to, and could get away with it, and he was apparently right.
Reading what you linked from her makes me question her credibility on anything. And I’m not even a big Fetterman fan, and I certainly think that what he did was wrong.
I’m not yelling at you; I’m yelling at her.
Geminid
@Baud: No, this was different. But I think the jogger may have had a civil case against Fetterman, maybe for assault, false imprisonment, maybe deprivation of civil rights under color of law. He did not go to an attorney, so we’ll never know.
Fetterman definitely should have been prosecuted for an obvious violation of Pennsylvania gun laws. The DA at the time made news this spring when he had to retract instructions to his assistants that they not grant plea deals to clients of one defense attorney. The attorney in question was a Black man who had accused the DA’s office of racism. Some say this casts a harsh back light on the lenience the DA afforded Fetterman.
Fetterman’s supporters make a lot of Fetterman’s explaination that the jogger was running towards a school, and this was not long after the horrific school shooting in Connecticut. That makes him seem almost heroic. But the incident was on a Saturday, and there were no children in the school. Fetterman knew this because he had gotten his own son in the house before he set off on his chase. So on this point I give Fetterman a “D” for Disingenuous.
Fetterman now states that he has said all he’ll say on the matter, and will not discuss it further. He is leading the race at this point, and may be able to hold to this course.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I tend to discount the racial aspect of this incident myself. I think Fetterman would have chased the guy if he’d been white. But Sasha Beauloux is Black and sees this differently.
I would add that Fetterman is the type of politician that Bealoux is going to dislike intensely, even without this incident. I know because I have a lot in common with Beauloux when it comes to Democratic party politics, and I can’t stand Fetterman!
But I think that even if I try to be objective, Beauloux may have a point regarding electibility. If Fetterman is the nominee, this matter will be used against him in the general election. Maybe not in statewide advertising- some white Republican voters may like the idea of a mayor taking a proactive approach to strange joggers- but in advertising on radio and social media targeting Pennsylvania’s Black communities. We’ll get some idea of the issue’s potency in the primary, as at least one independent PAC has been running ads about it on Black radio stations.