The entire Republican party is just a whiny bunch of twats:
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said on Thursday that he won’t attend a White House signing ceremony for a bipartisan infrastructure deal that he voted for and has touted while in Kentucky this week.
“No, I’ve got other things I’ve got to do other than go to the signing ceremony,” McConnell said during an interview with WHAS, a Kentucky radio station, when asked if he would be attending.
McConnell is one of 19 Senate Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill in the Senate earlier this year. The House passed the bill last week with the support of 13 House Republicans.
But his support for the bill has sparked criticism from former President Trump, who lashed out at the Senate GOP leader as recently as this week, questioning in a statement why “Old Crow Mitch McConnell voted for a terrible Democrat Socialist Infrastructure Plan.”
The crazy party is also lashing out at the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill, a group that included my representative, David McKinley. I doubt anything will happen to him, but you never know with these lunatics:
It’s the party against critical race theory, “woke-ism” and vaccine mandates.
And now, it would seem, the Republican Party is against bridges and roads.
The ferocity of the reaction against the 13 House members who voted with Democrats on the House-passed infrastructure bill appeared to signal a new stage in the party’s evolution, marking the GOP as so reflexively anti-Biden that even spending on infrastructure — an issue that Donald Trump once obsessed over as president — is too radioactive to support.
It’s a hardening of the party that’s already shaping its approach to the midterms, ensuring not only that Republicans up and down the ballot will be running against the sitting president, but that they will not support anything that might help Biden improve his sunken public approval ratings in the interim.
And they’ll punish any moderate Republicans who do.
“That’s the way the place works now,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who served as National Republican Congressional Committee chair. “That’s what we have devolved to.”
Circular firing squads are my favorite.
God I hate these people.
And while I am at it, this was not really a 1.2 trillion dollar bill. Only $550 billion was new spending. The rest was the usual highway funding bill.
Betty Cracker
Yes. Yes they are.
LongHairedWeirdo
It’s amazing how political journalists can describe a perfect, objective, textbook case of corruption – hurting the country to help their political prospects – and act as if it’s normal, and even expected.
Sure Lurkalot
And deficit financed.
Complain about gas prices but not about the pothole that breaks the axle. The price of milk but not about having to boil water when the water system breaks down.
zhena gogolia
@Sure Lurkalot: The NYT had a huge colorful front-page chart about “BOOGABOOGA INFLATION” this morning.
scav
They claim to love America, but they certainly won’t put their money where their mouths are‡. Guess unlike the old ad, they believe the USA isn’t worth it. Empty the libraries, trash the bridges, kill the kids, but don’t lay a hand on the statues of confederates and slavers — catnip for 40% plus? Break everything with cries of glee, and then complain about the wreckage.
‡ See their donations to TFG for actual location of tongues.
satby
When I lived in Michigan under the maladministration of the Republican governor who poisoned a city they were busy ripping up paved roads to turn them back into dirt ones because they refused to tax enough to maintain them. Of course the wear and tear on a regular car meant most people drove trucks or SUVs: more expensive to buy, own, fill with gas, and maintain. An invisible and very regressive tax, but my Republican neighbors never saw it that way.
Jackie
I called each of the 13 republicans who voted for the Bill and thanked them for putting America before Party. I hope others did, too. I can only imagine how awful it is for staff members to have to listen to all the hate and vitriol VMs.
sdhays
Well, the midterm elections are a year away, but having your opponent (or his/her frothing supporters) scream about how they hate “hard” infrastructure is a good place to be. I hope Democrats are able to capitalize on this next year as the programs this funds kick in.
Mary G
I am outside and just enjoying a balmy evening after watering those of my succulents that needed it. It’s never as many as I think. We had the hottest day we’ve had in weeks, a whole 81 degrees.
Housemate threw husband ex-housemate out in May, before I could. He’s got issues he avoids with drugs and alcohol, which is too bad because he has many wonderful qualities too.
He’s also a hoarder who had filled up 2/3 of my garage with “finds” of dubious value. I finally got a crew together to help me put it all out on the driveway and sent a picture of the piles with a text. He came this morning and spent a grumpy two hours putting it on his truck and disputed ownership of things I know he bought, but not as many as I feared.
I wanted to go back to bed with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy (still putting off dealing with the pre-diabetic condition, yes), but instead came outside. I do not look at news much right now except on here. Nice to see you blogging a lot, John.
West of the Rockies
The GOP: dicks and twats, oddly interchangeable.
O. Felix Culpa
Speaking of the Turtle, he’s got an op ed in the WaPo today: “Democrats, leave the Supreme Court aloooone.”
Spoiler alert: It’s self-serving tripe.
Keith P.
Why is it that every tweet Joe Biden makes, the media has to immediately stop whatever they’re talking about to talk about the tweet? It broadens his message and essentially delivers his orders to Congress. Oh, wait, sorry, wrong guy…media doesn’t spent time on that shit any more.
debbie
I wonder how many of these haters will end up being hired for infrastructure-related jobs?
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: I remember the Michigan roads going back to nature. Fun times, if you like a bumpy ride.
dmsilev
@O. Felix Culpa: I know why he writes stuff like that: because he can. The real question to ask is why the Post sees fit to give him a platform.
Kay
Ohio senate primary continues racing to the bottom
“Reminding”
Roger Moore
With the Republicans that could be a literal circular firing squad. And I’m OK with that.
O. Felix Culpa
@dmsilev: You terrible wokist!* Free speech = an obligation to publish arrant bullshit, or something like that.
*Not that I have anything against Chinese cooking utensils.
dmsilev
@O. Felix Culpa: I tend more towards skilletism myself.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Wow. Saying the quiet parts out loud gets louder.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Another reminder from Mark – just FYI
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I think they give twats a bad name…..
And I mean that in that they actually elevate twats by being far lower on any scale, evolutionary or whatever.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: Oy.
Here’s a write-up from Wonkette’s legal eagle on the Rittenhouse trial. Basically, the judge AND the prosecutor suck. She might be right.
O. Felix Culpa
@dmsilev: Heh. Cast iron? Stainless steel? Nonstick?
ETA: It’s a quiet night at Lake Balloonbegone. I’m off to read the fourth installment in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Literary potato chips. Can’t read just one.
Ruckus
@LongHairedWeirdo:
For the current day redumbasslican party it is normal and we should expect them to dig even lower.
This is no longer an actual political party, it’s a gang of twits, morons, imbeciles and idiots who think that always doing the opposite of reality is better for them. We’d know if Jesus is real, because he’d come down and smite every last one of them for being so self and otherwise destructive, ignorant, selfish and hateful. Welcome to the world, as it’s being deconstructed by Murdoch and friends.
randy khan
Primarying the two NJ reps who voted for the bill would be a great way to help the Dems keep the House. Those are both potentially vulnerable seats, particularly after redistricting by the Dem-controlled legislature (not to mention the Dem governor). And voting against it likely would have been suicidal.
Chetan Murthy
@O. Felix Culpa: The murderer’s gonna walk, and I won’t be surprised to learn that the prosecutor was in on the fix.
Josie
@O. Felix Culpa:
That is interesting. My son, who is an assistant D.A., gave me that exact opinion this afternoon.
O. Felix Culpa
@Chetan Murthy: @Josie: Yeah, questioning the defendant’s choice to remain silent is a curious mistake for a seasoned prosecutor to make.
dmsilev
@O. Felix Culpa: Cast iron. I guess you could say I’m a member of a fundamentalist skilletism sect.
Urban Suburbanite
StringOnAStick
I’m dealing with the never-ending political BS by doing hard labor landscaping projects. Today I finished up tripling the volume of a gravel-filled dry river and pond that previously wasn’t quite enough to replace the useless French drain. I got all fancy with cobbles for the edges and a top dressing of pea gravel for that authentic stream bed look.
I’ve got 4 more days of nice weather to finish building a raised bed with a wall made of basalt blocks, fill it with soil and be done for this season so I can obsess over my scale maps and the plant selection process. Then I’ll get back to following politics; I needed this break to keep my sanity.
Tony Gerace
I wish I could believe that the Republican Party would be punished for this kind of toxic idiocy, but I was telling myself that 41 years ago when Reagan was a newly elected president and, nope, the GOP is about as powerful as ever. This is partly because of the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of the U.S. senate, and state senates and the Electoral College. But the real problem, as always, is white Americans. An awful lot of white Americans are among the most toxic idiots on the face of the earth. (Yeah, I’m “white”. I know my people.) Just a hellhole of a country.
Urban Suburbanite
Weird. I had a previous comment turn blank.
What I meant to say is that all of this is normal behavior for McConnell – he fought to keep anything from happening while figuring out how to dole out money, and refuses to do even the most ceremonial parts of governance.
J R in WV
@dmsilev:
I’ve got a couple of cast iron pans I like pretty well, but also All-Clad stainless pans I use pretty often as well. Depends upon what I plan to do, really.
Agree that the Rittenhouse trial is a total fucked up festival. Kid is obviously guilty of many crimes, murder, maimed the other guy, illegal gun, crossed a state line to commit murder — and what was his mother thinking, anyway? Giving her kid a gun and driving him across a state line to kill people?
Why isn’t she part of this clusterfuck? Still hoping it’s a hung jury, though. I wouldn’t vote to acquit that murderous little bastard on a bet, no one could talk me into that! IANAL, but I was foreman of a jury in a 2 week long murder trial and sat on another 2 week long murder trial, when that jury wanted me to be foreman I told them I had already done my time, was just a couple of months after my first murder trial. Of course, law is different in WV than in WI…thank god.
ETA: And fuck Mitch McConnell with a rusty iron frying pan!!! A Hot One!!!
ETA 2: Spent several hours this afternoon trying to repair my bushhog, no luck…. Some extra parts we don’t need, some parts missing, will visit a hardware store tomorrow on the next day for new bolts and nuts… Grrr! Like the 4th day over the past couple of months, $400 in parts out of Indiana. Getting close now, tho. Wish us luck!
O. Felix Culpa
@dmsilev: I, too, am a member of the True Cast Iron Believers. Although my orthodoxy is somewhat compromised by a nonstick side piece.
debbie
@Kay:
New name to me, so I googled. The banner at the top of his site is a photo of him talking to a man wearing a cap decorated with the American flag in the shape of an AR-15. Nice.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Rittenhouse is doomed as a person, though. Imagine how incredibly fucked up he is at this point. They created this whole fantasy around him – which he believes- that he is a hero. He’s not. Nothing about this was heroic. He lied on the stand several times at the trial – he no longer lives in reality and all the adults around him have fed this and encouraged it. They don’t care about him.
Mike in NC
Turtle has to rearrange his sock drawer.
JoyceH
Ha! Lawrence O’Donnell just named and shamed a couple of these guys who leave threatening messages to election officials. Bet they weren’t expecting that.
Zelma
My traitorous Republican Congressman – the infamous Jeff Van Drew – voted for the infrastructure bill. This was something of a shock as he has voted straight Rethuglican ever since he switched – even though these votes were contrary to most of the positions he had previously taken. I am not quite sure why he did it. I am sure that attacks are coming fast and furious. I don’t know the impact this will have in 2022. South Jersey seems to have turned quite red and I would say the local Dems are indeed in disarray.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: I suspect the kid was ruined a long time ago, and being used as a tool by the right-wing seals his doom as a person. They will drop him when he’s no longer of use to them. He’ll be a young adult (and murderer) with no education and no skills, other than Kavanaugh-caliber crocodile tears. Here’s The Root’s take on his crying performance at the trial.
RaflW
McConnell has never been as smart or as powerful as he like to project or the press seems to believe.
I mean, shitty little Kevin McCarthy has Mitch cowering? Hahahahah.
Chetan Murthy
@Kay:
I can spare not one iota of empathy or sympathy for him. Justice for the people he murdered, the person he tried to murder, will be denied, and that’s the only thing that concerns me. I can only pray that he will be in turn murdered, but that’s not typically how things work in this world.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo , fka Edmund Dantes
So the wife is away still in Punta Cana with eldest daughter, and I’m alone with the dog and cats. As I was getting ready to take trash out after feeding the little gluttons, I got one of those creep ass reported sounds out of the Alexa Echo in the kitchen, kinda like a woman’s laugh or squeal.
Or at least, I hope it came from Alexa.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So the wife is away still in Punta Cana with eldest daughter, and I’m alone with the dog and cats. As I was getting ready to take trash out after feeding the little gluttons, I got one of those creep ass reported sounds out of the Alexa Echo in the kitchen, kinda like a woman’s laugh or squeal.
Or at least, I hope it came from Alexa
RaflW
I don’t know if elected Democrats will run ads in rural markets reminding those voters that the GOP doesn’t care if they’re still creaking along on phone-based DSL. But independent expenditure groups sure as hell should.
The GOP doesn’t care about anyone’s day to day problems. We have to make that crystal clear. Every day till next November, and for Nov ’24.
Oh, and: “The ferocity of the reaction against the 13 House members who voted with Democrats … appeared to signal a new stage in the party’s devolution”. They’re sliding through another of the circles of hell. Just gotta hope the GOP doesn’t take the whole thing down in the process.
[eta: or what Tom Davis said.]
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
They should have put it in the juvenile system. The possible sanctions wouldn’t have been as harsh but the longer term benefit to “society” would have been greater. They’d keep him on paper until he’s 21 and he’d get “services” – a safe place to live, access to people who work with juveniles, someone to tell him “you know, you’re not actually in nursing school, despite what you say and appear to believe, just so we’re clear”. He killed two people and his response was to put on a tshirt that said “free as fuck”.
“I didn’t do anything wrong”. That’s what he said. Ok, Kyle. That’ll work.
WV Blondie
John Cole – have you called McKinley’s offices (DC and district) to thank him? I have, and in every case the staffer was thrilled to hear something positive. I’m not in his district, yet, but even as a Republican he’ll be a huge improvement over my current representative (I’m hoping McKinley beats him like a drum in the R primary – and I told the staffers that, even though I’m a staunch Democrat).
Omnes Omnibus
Is this really a path you want to choose?
O. Felix Culpa
@Chetan Murthy:
I don’t pray any such thing and oppose capital punishment, whether random or state-sanctioned. I do hope he learns remorse for his crimes and finds better friends.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: hell to fucking yes. you really think anything other than retribution exists for people of color who are murdered by the White Power?
MisterForkbeard
@RaflW: Mitch isn’t cowering. He’s doesn’t need anything, really – as long as he doesn’t make the base truly angry and get primaried he’s ser for life and no one can touch him.
Skipping the signing party is cowardice because he’s not telling Rs that some things are more important than party. But it doesn’t cost him anything to do it.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: Omnes, my entire life in America, I grew up and lived culturally as a “white” person. You know, “potato”. These last five years have been a crushing lesson in just how stupid I was, just how blind I was. I’ll never live in an area that isn’t majority-minority, and I will never trust white people’s justice to avenge wrongs done to me. I already know I can’t trust the police, b/c even with all my accomplishments, all the things I’ve done in my live, I still “fit the description” until they spend at least fifteen minutes talking to me. And that isn’t something that will be accorded to me.
Think about what message this trial sends to anybody who thinks about protesting:
1. we’re gonna fuck with you anytime we want
2. and when you try to protest this treatment, we’ll ignore you
3. and when and if somebody murders you for protesting, they’ll be a hero to us, and they’ll get off
4. So stop protesting
5. Accept your oppression
That’s the message. And unlike in the 50s, there’s no vast mass of not-yet-overtly-racist people, who could be convinced to support people of color in resisting their oppression. The Great Sort has done for that. All white America needs, to get back on the Racist Bandwagon, is a little “ooga booga”, a little “Beloved is bestiality”, and boy howdy, they’re ready to jump back on the the ride to Jim Crow.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Was that an option? It might have been the better route, if the authorities were truly interested in justice for the murdered and for Kyle’s possible redemption, or at least exposure to reality.
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa: It was not. In WI, all 17 y/os are tried as adults. Not something I agree with, but there you have it.
RaflW
@Kay: Maybe that course would have had some impact, who knows (and Omnes @56 clears up the non-possiblitly).
I hate to even think it, but he seems like the sort of totally f’d in the head kid that will probably shoot someone else before too terribly long. The circumstances will be different, like a bar fight with a redneck or something, and he won’t have the same GoFundMe lawyering he has this go-round.
mrmoshpotato
?? This little girl seemingly has no bones!
Via bluegal
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
I don’t think so. I think Wisconsin is “17 is an adult” for certain crimes. But, they could have charged differently, perhaps, to avoid that. I recognize people might find that unsatisfying or too lenient but this result is worse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy:
@Chetan Murthy:
Okay, I guess. If you have thought through what it means, you are entitled to make your call. I think choosing that way of looking at things, wishing for someone else’s murder, is the kind of thing that is going to eat at your soul. But you will say I am too white to understand and you may well be right. Hatred is ugly, and it is possible to fight back without it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. Having raised two boys (now young men), it appears the state of Wisconsin has an inflated sense of the reasoning capacity of 17-year-olds. But so it goes.
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa: There is a movement to change the law, but with a GOP lege it won’t happen soon.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Indeed it is. Living in fear is, too. I don’t know how Black Americans do it, I really don’t. Certainly, I was never raised to have those sources of resilience. [and needless to say, I don’t know how women do it either, for they also labor under a regime in which life-altering consequences can arrive randomly with no recourse and no justice afterwards]
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus:
[I don’t mean this in the harsh way it’s going to come out]
Don’t you get it? IT IS FUTILE TO FIGHT BACK. That is the message from the non-response to the 2020 George Floyd protests and this trial. And there’ll be other trials, and those also will reinforce the message that resistance is futile.
RaflW
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m watching Borgen on Netflix. There’s an episode that revolves around Denmark considering lowering the age of adult charges from 14 to 12. They reference the UK being 12, but I see in real life that the UK age is (g-d help them) 10. Ten!
Our cousins across the pond. ?
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m a foreigner in my own country. I literally wouldn’t feel safe visiting my own hometown. Vast swathes of what ought to be “my country” are off-limits to me.
How, how, how am I supposed to feel anything other than white-hot hatred for these fuckers?
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: Kids as young as 10 can be tried as adults in the US. It isn’t automatic here, nor is it in Britain. But it is possible.
Omnes Omnibus
Bullshit. But I am probably not the best person to say this. Ask around though.
Dan B
@J R in WV: My partner is very concerned about toxins in natural gas so I bought a couple of countertop induction burners. Then I had to buy induction ready pans. I got a set of triple layer stainless pans from Avicraft that are amazing: handles stay cool, no need for hotels so I lit a hotpad on fir when I needed to use a burner on the gas range. There are many details on Avicraft pans like no need for a drainer because the glass lids work as strainers. Avicraft works on gas and electric stovetops too. And there are some non-stick PFA free brands like Cannasweiss that are cheap and amazing.
Plus, what you said about Rittenhouse and his mom. AR15’s blast huge holes in their targets. They are designed to destroy anything living. If Rittenhouse mom bought one for 40 year old son she would be rewarding unending hatred and loathing fed by Murdoch and his successors like Zuckerberg and others.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
It just kills me what bad models the adults are – this is what they want? They want to tell teenagers “you did nothing wrong and are really a hero”? It’s a lie. They’re lying to him and then he’s lying to everyone else and that just won’t go on forever without it somehow being resolved. He can’t walk away from this. He takes it with him. That smirking judge- he’s a grown ass man. This is a game to him?
O. Felix Culpa
@RaflW: Ms. O watched Borgen and really liked it. I was too stressed with political work at the time to watch any television, much less political drama. Will have to give it a go now that my term is over. As for our European friends’ age of putative adulthood–yikes.
Dan B
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Do you have a hive of Asian bees and Murder Hornets inbound to hive? Apparently the bees rub their legs on their bodies to generate a screaming sound when Hornets approach.
Be afraid!
Sorry if I disturbed you in the dark of night….
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: Other people are just tools to them. They don’t care about Rittenhouse or the murdered men as human beings. They’re just means of scoring points.
UncleEbeneezer
@O. Felix Culpa: It’s amazing! Really one of the best series out there.
Martin
#9. “Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy” because “Life is Permanent Warfare”.
SWMBO
@Omnes Omnibus: Never change,Omnes. You could point out what happened to Derek Chauvin. That was a pretty much foregone conclusion too. Until it wasn’t. I find the KR is going to walk gloom and doom a bit overmuch. All everyone talks about is the prosecution and judge. No one has a clue what the jury thinks yet. They have to see that a 17 year old man crossed state lines with a gun to shoot 3 people. They have to get around that to acquit. I have faith in people. Probably more than I should. But this hasn’t gone to the jury yet. And they get a say in this.
Martin
They’re not going to give you a choice. They’re going to force the issue.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: Your, or my, or anyone else’s hatred isn’t going to change the behavior of the bad actors.
We have to work to make sure that positions of authority are filled by sensible people – that’s the quickest way to change the direction of society (and lay the foundation for even more fundamental changes).
Think about what people like Stacy Abrams and Rev. William Barber and Four Directions and even our own H.E. Wolf are doing.
OO’s right that letting your anger eat at you isn’t the way.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus: I think even the U.N. lower bound of 12 is questionable. Ten, no g-d damned way.
But this is the punitive, grotesque worldview we circulate in.
I do understand that these lower bounds don’t mean all kids are tried as adults, but even as someone who only knows kids, didn’t have any myself there is no way 10 or 11 year olds understand adult decision making in any putative adult criming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hyundai is bringing back the K-Car as an EV
SWMBO
@Chetan Murthy: Derek Chauvin. Amber Guyer. And the trial of Ahmad Aubrey is still ongoing. Maybe we are fighting back. Just a little at a time. Until justice finally is brought to bear.
RaflW
@O. Felix Culpa: Borgen was recommended to me by someone (can’t recall who, now, lol). I tried it dubbed – how it’s set up in the US automatically, I think – and did not like it.
I know subtitles aren’t for everyone, but I want the tone and energy of the original, and have long been comfy with foreign films. The pacing usually works for the subtitles for me with this show, and I thought the acting improved immensely when the voices matched.
So, ymmv but that’s how I’ve liked it. I’m keeping on at it. (I almost never watch two episodes of any of these shows back to back, so I have several I bounce between)
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Apparently the Hyundai Grandeur was a model they produced in the halycon days of velour everywhere.
Another Scott
@J R in WV: Everything about the Rittenhouse situation is horrible.
dick_nixon thread:
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
@O. Felix Culpa:
@RaflW:
Love Borgen. I’m with RaflW on the subtitles.
Dan B
@Chetan Murthy: Speaking as a gay man (Kinsey 6. How, why? Biology is weird.) who grew up when we were imprisoned, subjected to electroshock and lobotomies, run out of jobs, kicked out of school (my thrill) it was apparent that we were a tiny cohort that would be picked off by the J. Edgar Hoover’s and other closeted people protecting themselves by doing the nastiest dirty work for their paymasters. Fortunately there was a revolt, but not murderous. It was angry, righteously angry, and the powers that be were simultaneously afraid the angry queen bees would come to disrupt their lives, and, in some cases, expose them, and thought that sissy boys were weak. The parallel tactics of being in their faces – no longer hiding or invisible – and telling our stories, thus garnering empathy worked but only after AIDS forced the formation of institutions to maintain a constant presence in the public consciousness.
Now there is horrendous pushback on BIPOC because of fear and loathing. Is this an AIDS moment when institutions will be birthed that can exert strong and constant pushback to oppressive forces. At least the Rittenhouse judge is exposing the malignancy that is the old white judiciary.
It’s a crisis and an opportunity. But, calling for death to the status quo and to opponents of equal justice will empower a resistance and lose potential allies who are in many places on the spectrum of wanting Kum Ba Yah to wanting to maintain the simple modes of getting along: pausing, calming down, listening, and responding with suggestions of how to respond.
The approach you may appreciate is Act Up. Not nice but powerfully disruptive of the status quo and the “well meaning people” MLK despaired.
It is truly horrifying to witness your people dying. Own your feelings. Go with them and through them. That is usually the shortest way through because there will be a sea of critics and a community of helping hands.
Ruckus
@O. Felix Culpa:
All’s fair in love and war.
I heard that long ago, I don’t actually believe it has any truth to it. It’s only fair if you are a bully and don’t give a damn about anyone else. Even in war. Maybe especially in war. We detonated 2 atomic bombs to win/end a war. We knew then what the results would be for those people. We know now, over 75 yrs of science later, how to make them far more powerful. And we are no longer the only country to have them. We’ve fought 3 major wars since and including WWII have lost 506,850 humans. Add in the lessor wars and military losses over the last 75 yrs and it goes higher. Yes wars can be rationalized, how many of those over half a million people can be rationalized away? How many of those that aren’t in that 506,850, those non Americans? How many in our current country wouldn’t mind adding a large segment of a supposed democracy to that number?
Sorry just feeling a bit veteranish today.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw that on twitter and was sickened.
Chetan Murthy
@Dan B: Dan, I had forgotten to mention LGBTQ folks. Again, I don’t understand how you do it. But then, IIUC, rates of suicide are high in that community. So some don’t manage it. I know that I have it pretty good: I’m lucky, I have rare skills and live in a somewhat-safe place. But it doesn’t feel like it, when basically everywhere except the biggest city centers is off-limits.
Omnes Omnibus
I just found out that Prime has a new series of P.D, James’s Adam Dalgliesh stories out. I need to go check them out.
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: Honestly, it’s fucking horrifying. But, to tie in to other parts of this thread, that’s where hatred and retribution get you.
sab
@RaflW: The UK determines kids’ whole educational life path by a single set of exams when they are eleven. No late bloomers allowed. No excuse for sick days or family catastrophes. Just over and done at age eleven.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ruckus: Thanks for your comments, and no need to apologize. War is a primary arena in which we humans deny the humanity of others, thereby losing our own.
RaflW
@Dan B @Chetan Murthy: I came out in 1990. In Austin, TX. Now if you lived in Texas back then, that was probably the best possible place to come out. But it still felt pretty vulnerable. It was definitely still Texas.
My response was to go from out to no one, to having a boyfriend and being on the board of the U.T. Austin Gay and Lesbian Student’s Association (as it was called then) in less than six months.
BF and I would walk around campus holding hands. We’d kiss in the car at stoplights (dang near caused an accident more than once as people gawked and forgot they were controlling 4000 lbs of steel).
My pink hair, don’t care style wasn’t for everyone (including my trying-to-be-supportive-but-nonplussed parents). I got involved fairly quickly in OutYouth Austin so that other people might not have to wait till 24 to figure things out and bust down the closet at warp speed. I have very little to do with it,* but it warms my heart that OYA is still going 31 years later!
* I’ve lived in Minneapolis for 26 years
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It seems to be a design exercise, and fishing for clicks, at this point.
Jalopnik:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@RaflW:
Shudder. I have a good friend whom I went to college with in Houston. He grew up in the Houston area. He came out to me during our first week in grad school in Ithaca, NY. I cannot imagine having your courage.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ruckus: Dok Zoom has a good writeup on today: https://www.wonkette.com/fine-here-is-your-kurt-vonnegut-on-the-first-armistice-day-since-the-latest-war-ended
gwangung
I dunno. I think righteous anger and even rage are justifiable. Even needed.
But I’m not going out of my way to hate and hurt.
But I’m not going to refrain from inflicting pain in the course of survival and in being just.
Another Scott
@O. Felix Culpa: It’s a great piece. Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I will admit to missing those old sedans – they were so roomy! (my first car was an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, and I adored her) but aside from the gasoline thing, they could be a bitch to corner in.
Another Scott
Good, good. Never give up. We can get the country (and the whole world) vaccinated.
(via CherylRofer)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@O. Felix Culpa:
I look at it as we live on a reasonable sized planet with about 7.9 billion other humans and there actually is enough for all of us, surprisingly enough, but not if we are all greedy, selfish, reckless and hateful. Took well over a million years to get to 1 billion and 200 to get to 7.9 billion. Absolute fuckers, the lot of us. We can’t throw an atomic hissy fit without taking out a lot of millions, likely billions. We can’t really afford war any longer and that means we have to find a way to end the major cause – fucking greed. Greed for money, greed for power.
We – the world – can not keep going on a path of piss-ant greed, it’s too crowded, it’s too polluted, hell we are in a world wide pandemic, can’t make enough vaccines and industry isn’t willing to forgo property rights to allow us to fight it fast enough. If ONE percent of the world dies of Covid, that’s 78 MILLION people. We have fucking billionaires building rockets for a day trip into fucking space and people dying because we are too fucking greedy and too fucking stupid to take amazing vaccines that you don’t even have to pay for. We should come out with a new one, made by a new company, Conservative Deluxe, The New All Purpose Vaccine that protects you from Democrats. $50/shot. Assholes would be lining up, maskless to take that. End the pandemic and make a profit, hot damn!
West of the Rockies
@Another Scott:
Good heavens, that’s an ugly car.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
@O. Felix Culpa:
Scott and Felix. Yes it is very good. I wish that I had some idea on how the rest of us could do better. I was born less than 5 yrs after WWII, I’ve seen military wars for most of my life. Now I see the war of greed. Neither seem to be actually necessary for the world and even more it seems that if we could find at least a cease fire on the greed crap, we might just have something.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
A move backwards for those who are blinded by the sunshine of an actual clear day. Cars today are better. They can get better still. But cars of old were crap. I know this because my first car was made in 1960. It wasn’t the worst car of it’s day, in fact it was better than most of the far worse cars that came before it and many of the others of the day. But my current car is far, far better still and it’s 5 yrs old. Engineering and manufacturing have come a very, very long way. Better, faster, safer.
People on the other hand….
NotMax
@Another Scott
Waiting for
Godota hybrid iteration of the Flying Wombat.;)
pablo
Order 19 cardboard cutouts and prop them up in the Oval. You know the Repugs would do that.
Citizen Alan
@O. Felix Culpa: Not only have the last 5 years led me to reconsider my prior opposition to the death penalty, but if, God forbid, I have to move to a red state once I finish my degree, I will buy a handgun and become certified for open carry and carry that gun with me everywhere. Because I know that living in a red state means being surrounded at all times by evil people.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Another Scott:
Hoppie
I am so glad to be old, but I still fight for my granddaughter’s future. Coyote, I hate how much these evil idiots are trying to destroy us and the energy it consumes fighting back.
Kalakal
@sab: Not really true any longer. The 11plus exam determined whether you went to grammer school ( yay you!), secondary modern or technical (thicko!), it still exists in some areas but is voluntary and mostly for grammer schools.
where the uk really narrows you down is at around 16. Up till then you study a broad range of stuff , after that ( if you stay on at school ) you are really narrowed down to about 3 subjects w hich determines what you do at university ( no majors or minors) where you study one field only for 3 years.
It’s changed a bit since my day but from 15 on I did Maths, physics & chemistry and at university Chemical Engineering, after 15 there was never any prospect of me doing any university course that wasn’t science based eg history, languages, art etc. Really stupid system, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do at 15
rikyrah
Phuck the Turtle?
rikyrah
@O. Felix Culpa:
Might be??
evodevo
@Ruckus:
Yep…if a car made in the Forties and Fifties made it past 50k miles, it was a miracle…or a completely rebuilt drivetrain…
topclimber
@Sure Lurkalot: I like this formulation and will steal it next time someone yaps political about the price of gas.
ETA: I will try to catch you in a live thread.
Dave
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Omnes Omnibus: no it’s not possible..I see a long term system of reprisals coming if this stuff continues.
TheTruffle
@Tony Gerace: I want to believe that a backlash against these people is finally building. This can’t continue. If it does, this nation will finally split apart.
Ruckus
@evodevo:
My mom’s car when I was a little kid was a 47 Ford. Olive drab color, 3 on the column, needs a valve job and new rings every 10,000 miles. (I bet it was a war surplus car bought at auction) Cars used to leak oil almost like it had been designed in. Every intersection had an oil patch in the center of the lane behind the crosswalks. I started riding motorcycles as a teen and we never, ever rode in the center of the lane, you’d be on your ass in no time.
Shana
Fun fact: former GOP Congressman Tom Davis lives in my voting precinct, for which I’m the Dem captain. After he wisely decided not to seek reelection in 2010 having seen the growing tea party movement coming, he laid low for a few years. I don’t mean he stopped being involved in GOP politics, he just took a job at a Pac or a think tank or something like that and stayed more or less out of the public eye.
He always struck me as a smart man, and not a crazy Republican which is why I think he decided to retire when he did. However he popped up again on Election Day this year while I was at the polling place wearing a rain coat with a big Youngkin sticker on it, about 6″ in length, the kind you put on a windshield or something, not the usual sticker you’d wear if out canvassing. So I guess he’s decided to get back involved, at least more publicly.