Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: One Day At A Time

Thursday Morning Open Thread: One Day At A Time

by | 120 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Positive-in-its-way note:

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  2. 2.

    Fair Economist

    I so appreciate not seeing Trump’s posts. I had him blocked on Twitter and still had a firehouse of poop coming in from screenshot tweets and non-Twitter mentions. I feel so much cleaner now.

  7. 7.

    Fair Economist

    An important part of the RW noise machine is they *don’t* quote or show clips from honest folks. They make distorted claims and misleading paraphrases.

  12. 12.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Barrett’s assertion that women don’t need abortions anymore (because they can just give the baby up for adoption) reminds me of Roberts’ assertion that the country no longer needed the Voting Rights Act because racism is all done now.

  13. 13.

    Chris

    @Fair Economist:

    I almost never turn on the news anymore, but my sister had one of the “mainstream” channels on at Thanksgiving and it was really blatant how half the talking heads were Republicans spreading Republican talking points, with no one calling them on their bullshit.  This simply doesn’t happen on right-wing media.  Oh sure, you get a couple EvenTheLiberal tokens, but they’re inevitably people who even if they have a D after their name or have some prior history of being on the other side, agree with them on everything they say – Glenn Greenwald, Tulsi Gabbard, in a few years Kristen Sinema. The equivalent would be if CNN and the rest had no Republican talking heads except members of the Lincoln Project and converts like Jennifer Rubin, which would never happen.

    The asymmetry is real.

  15. 15.

    Shalimar

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s not that many steps from forcing women to carry someone else’s babies for 9 months to locking them in the house while their husbands are at work.  Eventually we will live in Barrett’s perfect world.

  18. 18.

    Matt McIrvin

    In case you’re wondering when today was “lost,” it was in 2016 when Mitch McConnell decided to steal a Supreme Court seat and people let him get away with it.

    It was in 2000, when the US left first convinced itself that telling people to vote Democratic because of abortion rights was “blackmail”.

  21. 21.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: We have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, and they talk about pregnancy and childbirth like it is just putting a batch of cookies in the oven for nine months,

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    Team of so called “Rivals:” Vice President  Kamala Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg travel to Charlotte, North Carolina today and will deliver remarks at the Charlotte Light Rail Center. North Carolina has an open Senate seat next year, and Biden administration officials have been “shaping the battlefield” for the eventual Democratic nominee. The Infrastructure bill is the  centerpiece of their efforts right now. I notice that Senate candidates Tim Ryan (OH) and Val Demings (FL) have tweeted about it many times. One of Demings’ tweets was very simple: She voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and Marco Rubio voted against it. This won’t be the last time Demings makes this contrast.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I think I must have taken that in the opposite way that you did.  I assumed the sentiment was “it’s not about presents until my aunt sent me this totally cool gift, and now I think they are important!

    edit: And now I see that Gvg agrees with me.

  24. 24.

    Soprano2

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s disgusting, as if going through a pregnancy just to give up the baby isn’t a wrenching process all of its own. She makes pregnancy sound like it’s not any more consequential than having a slight cold. I wish Democrats talked even more about how Republicans are trying to bring back the time before we made progress on so many things.

    Speaking of the press allowing conservative groups to amplify their message without any pushback, I listened to part of an interview with the attorney for Concerned Women of America on “Morning Edition” this morning. The interviewer asked him whether, in light of their strong opposition to abortion, they advocated for expanded access to Medicaid for pregnant women and expanded childcare. She let him say “Yes, of course” without a follow-up asking something like “So are you advocating for that now? Are you supporting the bill the House just passed that would do both of those things?” They just let these people lie about supporting actual services that would help pregnant women and mothers, it’s infuriating. He also said that “of course” they supported laws against abortion that don’t penalize pregnant women. I wish every interviewer would ask the simple question “Why not? Aren’t women who seek abortions at least accessories to murder in your eyes? Why shouldn’t the woman be charged with that?” Make it plain how schizophrenic their message really is – we believe abortion is murder, but the person who seeks to commit what we believe is murder shouldn’t be charged with a crime. It’s a nonsensical position for them to take; they only say it because they know charging (white) pregnant women with the crime of seeking an abortion would be unpopular.

  25. 25.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I’m aware of why Simone Biles deserves the honorific and Dolly Parton seems more than deserving of said honorific or any other honorific anyone wants to give her any time they feel like handing one out, but why is Sandra Oh on the list? She’s a fine actress but I’m completely in the dark as to why she deserves a “person of the year” award. I assume it’s for doing something beyond acting but I don’t know what that something is.

  26. 26.

    Josie

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I am just gobsmacked at the cruelty of her assertion, which totally ignores the physical and emotional aspects of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, going through labor and delivery, and then giving up the baby.

  27. 27.

    Soprano2

    @Josie: I have a friend who had to go through an early-term delivery of an already-dead fetus a long time ago. She said it was a horrible experience, to go through all that effort and pain all the while knowing you won’t have a baby at the end of it. And Barrett talks about this as if it’s no big deal! What an awful person she must be.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sab:

    We have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world,

    And these are also the same people who say how the US is the best country in the world

  29. 29.

    sab

    @Josie: I know you can now anonymously abandon a baby at hospitals so that you don’t need the father’s permission. But he is going to notice when the child disappears after a full term pregnancy.

    One reason for early abortion is to get out of dangerously abusive relationships without the complication of a custody battle.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    @sab:

    One reason for early abortion is to get out of dangerously abusive relationships without the complication of a custody battle.

    Exactly.

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sab:

    One reason for early abortion is to get out of dangerously abusive relationships without the complication of a custody battle.

    That is an excellent point, and one I’m ashamed to say I have never really considered until now. It needs to be added to the things we shout from the rafters.

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    AlJazeera:

    The hundreds of femicides occurring in the country each year touch the pious and secular, the wealthy and the poor.

    “These murders are not specific to one part of the society,” Bozkurt, the lawyer, says in the film on the way to meet another client. “Violence is where a woman wants to have a modern life, where a woman wants to make a personal choice, so violence is not about lower education and financial deprivation or anything, it’s actually about a woman’s decision and men trying to suppress and prevent that decision-making process.”

    The documentary’s look at what drives violence against women, Fairweather said, is one that viewers outside Turkey will also find familiar. “When I was making the film, I never felt it was an extreme or otherising situation,” she said. “It is extreme when you look at what Arzu experienced, but the way in which women are not protected, not heard, I think that is a situation you can see in many countries.”

    It sounds like a powerful film. And it is a warning of what the future may hold if we don’t do the work to defeat the monsters and make sure that only sensible people have positions of authority.

    The work continues…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    @debbie: The article about the Ohio  Republican State Committee that you reported the other day was very interesting. That state party is pretty fractious considering that they have been winning most of their recent elections. The incumbent Governor faces a strong challenge from the unsuccessful 2018 Senate nominee. And you might as well call the Republican Senate primary “The Crab Bucket Challenge.”

    Now the orange churl has poked his little fingers into the Senate race. The Club for Growth is all in for Josh Mandel, and has been tearing down rival J.D.Vance with ads reprising Vances harsh criticism of trump in 2016. Politico reports that last month trump told Club President David MacIntosh to knock it off because the ads made him look bad. Apparently to no avail: “on Wednesday the organization escalated the offensive by plowing another $500,000 into the effort.”*

    * “Trump Intervenes in Ohio Senate Race- For Himself.” Politico Dec. 2, 2021.

  35. 35.

    Gravenstone

    Not to make light of the valuable discussion involved, but that poster in Sec. Fudge’s tweet makes it appear as if Sec. Becerra is sponsored by Pfizer.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    I saw the text for the first tweet before the picture loaded, and thought briefly that Golem was a brand name. I was also wondering if it might be an 8-port USB hub, which would be Hannukah-appropriate.

    It’s cute, but unless the USB can be detached it’s also what I call a “rude device” – when you plug it in, it covers adjacent ports. A certain computer company which boasts of their slim devices and connectors obviously never looked at their electrical plugs.

  37. 37.

    sdhays

    @Soprano2: Oh, yes. She is a truly awful person.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that women are fucked no matter what the Court decides, so I’m hoping for overreach that triggers a backlash. Whatever they decide will be functionally the same for most people, the difference will be trying to continue to boil the proverbial frog or announcing that we’re all having frog soup for dinner.

    Just pull the plug on Roe v. Wade and let’s have that debate in the election. Don’t let people delude themselves that “they’re never going to actually do it” or “it won’t affect me or my family”. Let them show in dramatic fashion how radical they are and unworthy of having a majority. Create a mandate for actually reforming the Court.

    I’d certainly prefer they rule against the Texas and Mississippi laws and fully uphold Roe v. Wade, but I just don’t see that as a possibility, so I’d rather they just make what they’re doing and who they are so plain that no one can miss it.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gravenstone:

    I really hope it’s merely terrible graphic design, and not that a major pharmaceutical company is sponsoring a speaking gig by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I want to think the Biden Administration would never permit that.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    Love the Biden quote in the first Epstein tweet:

    “It’s always easier to complain about a problem than to try to fix it … One Republican senator even said that rising prices were, ‘a goldmine,’ for Rs politically. Imagine rooting for higher costs for American families just to score a few political points.”

    More of this!

    I also liked what Psaki said as quoted above, where she linked Trump’s decision to recklessly expose people to covid to his minions putting the “rights” of anti-vaxxers above public health. Dems need to shout that shit from the rooftops.

  41. 41.

    Dan B

    @debbie: Spreaching of heartlessness Ron Johnson R-Wis. claimed that Fauci “Overhyped AIDS”.  He made the statement on World AIDS Day.

    These people confuse heartlessness with strength and practicality.

    See also: Dr. Oz and mass infection of children.

  42. 42.

    VOR

    @sab: Wait, you are suggesting pregnancies happen outside a marriage? Unpossible!

    Rape, incest, abusive partners, medical issues, maternal mortality – none of those exist in their perfect world. And where is the funding for adoption services? Or services to help women cope with pregnancy?

  43. 43.

    Betty

    I found my first PA voter for Dr. Oz. So much for my belief his candidacy was a joke. Apparently after his appearance with Hannity, this white college-educated woman loves him even more. The rest of the media is being so unfair to him, doncha know?

  44. 44.

    Kay

    More collateral damage from the critical race theory panic the substackers created and promoted:

    The document states that pressures have been mounting since the passage this year of House Bill 233, which requires the state’s public colleges and universities to measure the level of “intellectual diversity” on their campuses through surveys.
    It also states that UF has held meetings discussing race in light of newer legislation seeking to prevent teachings on race that might make students feel uncomfortable. Two bills, HB 57 in the House and SB 242 in the Senate, have been filed ahead of the legislative session that begins Jan. 11.
    In a statement, the university said grievances are confidential and it could not comment. But, in response to a copy of the grievance sent by the Tampa Bay Times, it said “the documents you provided contain a number of inaccuracies, and we will address them through the appropriate processes.” The university said it could not specify what was inaccurate.
    Paul Ortiz, president of the faculty union, said the grievance was based on extensive notes from multiple people who attended recent meetings with university officials, and he believes them to be accurate.
    The complaint states that, at a late September meeting between associate provost Chris Hass and faculty and administrators in the College of Education, faculty were warned to steer clear of curricula that touch on race or anti-racism.
    According to Busey’s notes from the meeting, Hass said the provost’s office was told that the College of Education was viewed favorably by the state and to “not raise any issues that might jeopardize this relationship.” The specific combination of the words “critical” and “race” were an issue.

    The grievance was filed by the union representing the faculty. The faculty organized and joined a union in the late 1960s because some of them were active in or supporters of the civil rights movement and they were targeted for that reason.

    So full circle .

  45. 45.

    Winston

    So I finished watching SG1 through Season 8, which is the best season of all, in that it explains a lot of the plot headaches of the previous 7 seasons. The replicators and the gua-uld are defeated. In season 9 the Ori are introduced along with a totally new sg1 team that includes Claudia Black and Ben Browder (of Farscape fame) and Beau Bridges replacing General O’Neal. I don’t care to watch the last two seasons again. SG1 is leaving streaming soon I’m told. By far, the best SciFi series ever, IMO.

    Going to start Lost in Space season 3 after catching up Season 1 and 2 which I will enjoy watching again. “Danger Will Robinson”.

  46. 46.

    Dan B

    @Josie: The Right Wing mentality is convinced that their approach is practical and that the Libs approach is emotional.  For Coney Barrett nine months of pregnancy and tens of thousands for delivery is “practical” because it doesn’t place the burden on the state.

  47. 47.

    wenchacha

    @sab: People giggle about pregnancy and childbirth “war stories.” Maybe too many of them are offered to a newly pregnant person, at times. We ought not scare them!

    That said, I know of lots of horrific pregnancy/birthing stories. My niece, a very dynamic flight nurse practitioner, nearly died giving birth to her second child. She just kept bleeding. My mom had a stillborn baby girl, who she never saw or touched or held, an acquaintance had to carry a fetus with no brain to term. Me, I just had excruciating, days-long migraines through both pregnancies, to the point where I was unable to care for my toddler.

    All of this is of no importance to forced-birthers. And adoption? Does anyone truly think it’s no biggie for the person who surrenders a child? Nah, it’s all just something women have carried forever, so they just keep doing that.

    People worry over the “risks of vaccination.” Seriously! The risks of pregnancy and childbirth are far greater, and nobody bats an eye.

  48. 48.

    Winston

    Going to war:

    The reason they make them so damn cute is so you don’t kill them in their sleep.
    Don’t get me wrong, I love the little buggers to death.
    But Trust me. having four kids makes going through war and facing off against bad guys look like nothin.
    This is relaxing.
    “Then why’d you have four?”
    One’s pretty bad, but you gotta have two so they can have either a brother or sister, right?
    Then you have two boys and then the wife says she wants to have a girl, right? So you figure three can’t be much worse than two, right?
    What you don’t realize is that your brain isn’t right because you haven’ slept.
    After three, four is no big deal and you’re so deep into it nothing seems to matter anymore.
    It’s chaos. You just try to make it through every day, alive.
    In the end you just spend all your energy trying to get them all into bed. Only to lie awake, praying they don’t get hooked on drugs, hurt or worse. or wind up dead in an alley somewhere.
    Yeah, miracle of birth my ass.

  49. 49.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: Very true.  Dislike, and worse, of black and brown people by the white working class has been inflamed by the Soutgern Strategy and RWNJ Think Tanks.  Now it’s spread through social media and FOX + spinoffs.  Division is spreading like a contagion while reason and empathy is stuck in the house.

  50. 50.

    OGLiberal

    @Bex: Fun fact.  My wife went to high school (Catholic) with Amy Coney.  She didn’t know until, during the confirmation process, I read her Wikipedia page and saw what high school she went to and when she graduated.  Then she remembered when I show her Coney’s HS yearbook photo.  She was, per my wife, pretty unremarkable (as was my wife, as were most of us).  Pretty standard Catholic school in New Orleans – not some nut factory…looks like her family did the cult stuff on the side.

    The valedictorian was not Amy Coney – it was an African American girl.  My wife remembered her because she was remarkable, unlike Coney.

  52. 52.

    L85NJGT

    @L85NJGT:

    Same for Kavanaugh, who is apparently so dumb as to not understand he is the designated heel on Roe.

    Terrible picks by Trump, but also the result of what was cynical electioneering forty years ago, being internalized by the GOP.

  53. 53.

    oatler

    The Guardian has a story about a kettlehead who got busted for super-glueing the locks of a vax center. Additionally a Canadian woman reported anti-vax harassment when she went to the vax center with her  young daughter. It’s like half the world is consumed by self-extinction, sort of like the ending of Asimov’s “Nightfall” (the short story, not the turd movie).

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    The blinking with the GQP in the Senate will start soon…

    JUST IN: House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro says a deal has been reached to fund the government through Feb. 18. @ylanmui reports. pic.twitter.com/HKnJXKmtBJ

    — CNBC (@CNBC) December 2, 2021

    Yet more delay in the federal budget (FY 22 started October 1 and a delay until February is a huge problem for many agencies), but things are moving.

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  55. 55.

    OGLiberal

    Was reading an interview with a pollster that Third Way (I know) hired to do a post-mortem of Virginia.  Pollster noted that a big problem was voters felt the Dems were too focused on social issues and not the economy even though every thing Biden is pushing is economic.  Another thing that stood out what the pollster said that “a big part of the problem was the people didn’t know enough about McAuliffe and what he had done.”  The fuck?  Was 2018, when he left office as fucking Governor, too far in the past for you to remember?  If I recall he left office pretty popular.  What the fuck are you talking about.

    It’s all just BS when what really drove your vote was “teachers making me and my kids feel bad about the fact that slavery existed in this country”.  And the non-existent but potentially civilization ending CRT threat.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   Does anyone know which Republican senator (if only one) described rising prices as a political “goldmine?”

    Name names, Biden.  Maybe Jen Psaki will …

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    The Independent (@Independent) tweeted at 4:05 AM on Thu, Dec 02, 2021:
    BREAKING: Meghan Markle wins privacy battle against Mail on Sunday publisher.

    I am pleasantly surprised at this outcome. Even more than US media, the British press believe that they have an absolute right to invade people’s private lives for the amusement of their readers, and to destroy the reputation of anyone they do not like.

    Even at the BBC News site, their Royal Correspondent tries to undermine the Markle victory by suggesting that she just should have quietly endured any attack on her privacy or dignity.

    Meghan has won a significant victory in this courtroom battle to protect her privacy….

    Meghan divides public opinion – with vocal supporters and critics both seeing bias and prejudice on the other side – and this court case is unlikely to change that.

    But she has succeeded in a legal battle that previous generations of royals would probably have avoided.

    I am so glad that Markle refuses to play their game.

  59. 59.

    sdhays

    @OGLiberal: Yeah, if you “don’t know enough” about the former governor from 4 years ago, who was the leader of the governing team that included the current governor, but you know enough about a guy no one had heard of 6 months ago…you’re either stupid or lying.

    Or both.

  60. 60.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    There’s a very long tradition of Hannukah gifts not rising to the level of Christmas gifts. Children’s disappointment is a feature of the holiday, reinforced by the fact that there are eight nights’ worth of lousy presents. That’s what I was referring to.

  61. 61.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Josie:”@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am just gobsmacked at the cruelty of her assertion, which totally ignores the physical and emotional aspects of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, going through labor and delivery, and then giving up the baby.” ​ Indeed.

    Another factor is that homicide, often by intimate partner, is one of the leading causes of pregnancy-related death in the US.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03392-8

  63. 63.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    “Chanukah is not about presents”

    According to my Jewish in laws; Chanukah is about fuel efficiency.

  65. 65.

    Geminid

    @OGLiberal: Was that a poll, or a focus group? I know that Third Way sponsored a “focus group” interview with a group of women, I think mainly suburban Biden-to-Youngkin voters.

    I’m not surprised that woman did not know much about McAullife’s accomplishments. Most people do not pay much attention to state government. McAullife left the state in good shape economically, but people may have taken this for granted. McAuliffe also helped lay the groundwork for the Democratic legislative gains in 2017 and 2019. But it was Ralph Northam who got to sign legislation expanding Medicaid and enacting gun safety laws.

    That said, I think that McAullife’s campaign was slack in comparison to that of his opponent. This was a winnable race for McAuliffe.

  67. 67.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Ken: I saw the text for the first tweet before the picture loaded, and thought briefly that Golem was a brand name. I was also wondering if it might be an 8-port USB hub, which would be Hannukah-appropriate.

    Even better: the lettering on its front is the traditional inscription written on the clay of a golem when it is made: אמת

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    @sab:

    We have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, and they talk about pregnancy and childbirth like it is just putting a batch of cookies in the oven for nine months,

    Public radio station KPCC 89.3 here in Southern California had an excellent discussion of the Supreme Court arguments on the program Air Talk. Two women law professors were interviewed. One of them noted that the conservative justices reacted with nonchalant boredom when one of the lawyers spoke about the burden that a pregnancy might impose on a woman.

    The discussion is available as a download of the Air Talk podcast. It is very insightful. They also note that a decision is expected by mid to late June.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Big Pharma Shill and Murdoch family business partner who helped create the Roberts-Barrett (Bush-Trump) Court has thoughts

    Susan Sarandon @SusanSarandon
    If only the Dems had the Presidency, Senate & House and the power to kill the filibuster, codify Roe v Wade, expand the court & protect voting rights among other things…

  71. 71.

    cain

    @Dan B: I see grifting Dr. Oz (thanks for that gift, Oprah!) – is now trying to run as senate. What a disaster that asshole would be on public health.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @cain: Oprah has much to answer for… hopefully she will seek to make amends in Georgia. IIRC she got interested in Abrams’ campaign pretty late in the game in ’18 and made a splashy visit to Georgia. We’ll see if she opens her checkbook, or if that was just a band-wagon jumping photo-op.

  73. 73.

    UncleEbeneezer

    For any Pasadena Juicers:

    “We are calling for a proclamation to declare the City of Pasadena a champion and defender of health equity and reproductive freedom and that our city welcomes anyone seeking to fully exercise their reproductive rights and access a safe, legal abortion.

    We respectfully ask that you join us in protecting abortion services in our community by sending a clear message to anyone who may need to come to Pasadena for their reproductive health care. A proclamation in support of abortion access would be a powerful statement and a public way to say: abortion is health care and Pasadena stands with you.”

    Please call/email Mayor Gordo (626) 744-4111
    [email protected]

    As well as your District Councilmember

  74. 74.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Geminid: McAullife did Youngkin’s work for him by trying to tie him to Trump instead of going after Youngkin for being a social parasite.. All Youngin had to do was show the Never Trumpers that Youngin wasn’t a deranged loon and would do the racism under the table to get their vote and the Maga hats were all worked up to vote for Youngkin because of McAuffife’s campaign  had convinced them Youngkin was a deranged loon.

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid: you’re there, I’m not, but I think he also shot himself in the foot by saying, when he belatedly noticed the polls tightening, that it was, somehow because of the infrastructure negotiations in Congress

    and American voters have the memories of goldfish. It’s a rare thing for an opponent to make your successful past an issue like Meg Whitman did for Jerry Brown

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Talk about coming full circle, I read about the grievance in The Independent Florida Alligator, which is the student newspaper at UF, and a damned good one too. The reason it has “Independent” in its name is because when the paper was part of the university, administrators pressed it to stop printing the addresses of abortion clinics. The paper refused and moved off campus in 1973. :)

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    PEOPLE giving some props to the nation’s teachers is a very nice, and greatly appreciated, recognition.  Here’s hoping more publications, institutions, and officials follow!

  80. 80.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid:That said, I think that McAullife’s campaign was slack in comparison to that of his opponent. This was a winnable race for McAuliffe.

    Yup.  McAuliffe kept trying to tie Youngkin to trumpov, and it didn’t stick.  He (McAuliffe) also didn’t talk about much else until the very end.

    Having said that…whew, the media sure let Youngkin slide on a host of issues.  Just ‘smile and wave, Glenn, smile and wave’.  Ugh.

    Now that Youngkin has appointed Amanda “trumpov in heels” Chase to his transition team and has supposedly pushed abortion & guns to the back burner (there’s a surplus to loot and schools to demagogue, after all) I’ll be interested to see how long it takes VA’s GQP-nuts to get agitated.  I’m thinking it probably happened earlier this morning and I just missed it.  =)

  81. 81.

    Geminid

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I remember how at the end of the campaign McAullife was talking about racist dog whistles. Meanwhile, Youngkins team astutely rotated from negative attacks to a radio ad with the earnest Youngkin talking about how cutting the sales tax on groceries would help Virginia families. It was an adroit piece of political aikido. I could imagine some suburban woman unloading groceries and wondering, “how is cutting the sales tax a racist dog whistle…and is McAullife calling me a dog?!”

    A lot of the analysis right after the election was shallow, I thought, although the voting data from different jurisdictions is useful. More valuable voter information won’t come out until February, or at least that’s what an interested political scientist says. I’m hoping some good reporting on McAuliffe’s campaign will come out also. I have the impression that McAuliffe was overconfident and took Youngkin lightly. But that’s just an impression. Some insider accounts could shed light on the question.

  82. 82.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Geminid: I’ve seen several Virginians cite VA schools being closed longer than most, as one of the driving issues of the election (and that ThirdWay report backs that up to some extent) but I have yet to see anyone clarify how much longer VA schools were closed compared to other states.  Like what are we talking: a week?  two?  months?

    Contentiousness about school closings due to Covid have been present EVERYWHERE (just look at your local news) but I haven’t seen any good explanation on why it would drive VA’s election the way it did, but barely made a blip in CA’s recall election only a month earlier (trust me, there are plenty of Red district Californians who’ve been screaming bloody murder about school closings too).  Something just doesn’t add up.

    So far, the most believable explanation for VA has been a boring combination of Covid fatigue/frustration, mid-year turnout challenges and the GOP working really hard for a win after their complete ass-whooping they took in CA Recall (and GA, and 2020). GOP got their voters out at Presidential Election rates, we didn’t.

  83. 83.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Winston: I really like SG1, although I’d not call it the best SF show — I mean, BSG for all its flaws (that ending!) is a far better show from around the same timeframe, as one example. I know fans of the franchise who consider Atlantis more consistently better, although I cannot stand McKay.
    And just to continue to be difficult — I actually adore the last 2 seasons of STARGATE SG-1. The first few seasons, for me, really struggle, tonally and character-wise. Carter and especially Teal’c are really poorly served, and it takes the show a long time, and I’m sure a lot of work on the part of the actors, to find a good footing for them to be more than “The Smart Chick” and “Black Alien Warrior Guy”. That’s on top of the other flaws you note yourself, in your comment. Much of my love of the Franchise doesn’t really start until a certain actor temporally leaves the show, and it kind of locks into the storytelling mode that seems to work best for that Franchise.
    And them. the last 2 seasons really balance all of that out well, with the Ori a brutally effective look into how religion can be perverted, in my opinion. Specifically, there’s a bit very relevant to a lot of “Road to Damascus”-style GOP conversions, from our John Cole on, that Teal’c monologues. It’s the single best speech I’ve ever heard on how to recover from doing/supporting evil acts, and what self-sacrifice really is about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzuxhOh80M
    I wouldn’t say it, alone, makes those last 2 seasons “worth it.” I will say there’s a lot of excellent and actually thought-out material there, although I accept the show does have a different tone and style than the earlier seasons.​

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Youngkin deliberately downplayed the issues of women’s health rights and gun safety. The media did let him slide on these questions, but McAullife may have also. My Monday morning quarterbacking says that the McAuliffe campaign should have come out swinging on both issues and made Youngkin own his positions. They could have run ads saying that Youngkin would support a Texas style law on abortion, and made the Youngkin campaign say, that is not Glenn’s postion. Then McAuliffe could respond, then WHAT IS GLENN’S POSITION ?!! Same with gun laws: “Youngkin wants AK-47s to be handed out with no background checks. He’ll make our schools and churches into shooting galleries!” Let Youngkin deny it, and say what gun safety laws he would roll back, and which ones he wouldn’t. The media might have followed up on these matters, but in any case McAuliffe had the money to pound them.

  86. 86.

    sab

    @Geminid: Do you think Winsome Sears made any difference to modetate Republicans who weren’t paying attention? She seems rather horrible as she gets slightly more attention, but I can see my moderate Republican family members seeing her as a plus and proof of Youngkin’s reasonableness.

  87. 87.

    Another Scott

    @UncleEbeneezer: +1

    McAuliffe hit the issues hard.  He hit the dangers of GQP control hard.  I think that he probably conceded too much of the state to Youngkin and thought (like most pundits) that VA was blue because of the swing in the suburbs in the past few cycles.

    But the biggest problem is history.  He’s the only guy in the last 50+ years to win when the same party held the presidency.  It’s a heavy lift.  Especially running on a decidedly liberal platform in a Blue but not lefty state.  Northam might have won reelection, maybe, but it would have been a fight, too.

    There are no One Weird Tricks.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @sab: All the statewide candidates had essentially the same votes.  It was party-line for Red and Blue.  The GQP turned out their voters, especially outside the suburbs.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  89. 89.

    Brachiator

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    GOP got their voters out at Presidential Election rates, we didn’t.

    What was the total voter turnout? Was GOP turnout significantly higher than previous elections? What did the GOP actually do to get out their vote?  Where did Democrats fail?

    I presume that political strategists dig into this. If not, they are not worth whatever they get paid.

    Do people compare where the Dems succeeded, like NJ, with VA?

    Seems like there are a lot of assumptions without any actual information about what happened in VA.

  90. 90.

    mrmoshpotato

    It’s ok to stop confusing people and just blame Republicans for the things Republicans willingly do. I promise.

    Haha.  Never stopped.

  91. 91.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: In October, I caught DC’s WTOP radio interviewing someone about the race. He was talking about historic Virginia voting patterns, and the typical dropoff in off year elections. Hmm, I thought, that doesn’t sound like Larry Sabato or JMU’s Bob Roberts. It turned out it was Terry McAuliffe! Playing elections pundit instead of kicking Youngkin in the nuts! I just shook my head. Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, or Ralph Northam never would have done this.

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @UncleEbeneezer: I don’t think Virginia voters were making comparisons betwen their state and others on school closings. Unease about school closings may have been an underestimated issue, though, that Youngkin took advantage of.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: When comparing turnout numbers for last years Presidential election and this years Governor’s election, it is hard to factor in the number of Biden voters who came out but voted for Youngkin this time. Swing voters are not plentiful these days, but they do exist and may have delivered Youngkin’s two point victory.

  95. 95.

    Ancient Atheist

    Amy Barrett and everyone else knows there is a thin line between giving up a newborn for adoption and selling a newborn.

  96. 96.

    Ohio Mom

     

    @debbie:  My reaction to your tube socks comment was, “Wait! How does she know what I gave Ohio Son the second night?!!”

    it was actually a quartet of regular socks in bright colors, but really, might as well be tube socks. Tonight he’s getting undershirts!

  97. 97.

    satby

    @Bex: And I firmly believe those adopted kids are restaveks, under the cover of adoption. Look at the video of Amy Coathanger’s Rose garden intro, the younger adopted child was clearly charged with taking care of the youngest white kid. The rest of the family completely ignore the littlest.

  98. 98.

    Chris

    @Winston:

    SG-1 was the first TV show I really followed, and I still think Season 8 was the perfect closing season and it should have ended there.  I remember it airing during my last year of high school, and even without knowing what came next, the whole thing had a “wrapping it up” vibe to it.  It felt appropriate; my childhood heroes were closing up shop at the same time that my childhood was.

    I didn’t watch the last two seasons until years later.  They’re largely fine, actually better than I expected, but 1) they’re different enough that they really should have been their own show (as they were originally intended to be), and 2) literally all of the “secondary” plots – the Trust, the Lucian Alliance, the Free Jaffa – are more interesting to me than the “main” plot with the Ori, which feels like it’s just “okay, what if we had Goa’uld, but they’re WAY WAY MORE POWERFUL!”

  99. 99.

    Chris

    @OGLiberal:

    Pretty standard Catholic school in New Orleans – not some nut factory…looks like her family did the cult stuff on the side.

    The nuts pop up everywhere.

    I went to an international high school in the DC area – racially and nationally diverse as hell.  We had conservatives, we even had a couple Republicans among the Americans, but we didn’t have fascists.  You’d think it would be impossible for someone to come out of that diverse and cosmopolitan an environment to go fascist.  And yet, per Facebook, one of the French kids now devoutly votes Front National.

    If there’s a way of fascist-proofing people, I don’t know it.  More’s the pity.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @sab: Youngkin was a slick operator who spread a lot of money around while securing his nomination by the 34,000 vitual delegates to the Republublican “Disasembled Convention.” He may well have shaped the ticket with a white man at the top, and a Jamaican immigrant and second generation Cuban American in the  two and three slots.  That might have blunted the accusations of racism that Democrats so readily make. Youngkin’s a clever motherf##ker.

  101. 101.

    Chris

    @OGLiberal:

    It infuriates me that this narrative happens.  Time after time, Democrats get elected and do nothing but focus on bread-and-butter issues (Obama’s big focus was the stimulus bill and the ACA; Biden’s is Covid relief and infrastructure, for God’s sake).  And yet over and over, the media and enormous parts of the public piss and moan that they need to stop focusing so much on identity issues.

    Well, we haven’t focused on “identity issues” since we passed civil rights, and now we’ve got a Supreme Court that’s about to ban abortion.  And still the fucking morons mewl “but whyyyy do we talk so much about ideeeeentity politiiiics!“

  103. 103.

    satby

    @sab: a few days ago. But you bought as a guest and the email looked funky, so I was concerned it didn’t go anywhere. Email me back at skinluvvers (at) g mail (dot) com and I can reply.

  104. 104.

    Chris

    @Woodrow/asim:

    SG-1 is a show that couldn’t happen today in a lot of ways.  Part of that is that, like multiple other sci-fi shows from that era, it was allowed to take time figuring itself out – there’s plenty that I like in early seasons but I would argue that it doesn’t become consistently really good until Season 4.  Part of that is that it aired in that sweet spot between purely episodic and purely serialized TV, which means you had long-term overarching plot lines but that doesn’t mean it’s all written as one continuous story.

    As far as the main characters go, I think Carter is the one who got screwed.  They did a lot of good things with Teal’c, some of which you point out.  And Jack and Daniel were obviously well-covered, though Jack started to get flanderized towards the end.  Daniel gets the best treatment overall, and remains one of my favorite cases of character development on television – in that the transformation from geeky bookworm to military badass is so gradual, over the course of multiple seasons, that you don’t really notice it happening at first and there isn’t any one transition point where you can say “okay, he turned from Daniel 1 into Daniel 2.”

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: Precinct vote totals are already available, but evidently in February the state Board of elections will release some more data for analysts to mine. I’m guessing it concerns who voted and who did not.

    While she now lives in her home state of Oregon, political scientist (and now political engineer) Rachel Bitecofer spent her prior career at Christopher Newport University in Southeastern Virginia. She did a lot of polling for the Wason Center there and may, along with others, do a deeper dive into this election this winter.

    And I hope there is some in-depth retrospective reporting on the McAuliffe campaign. It seemed sub optimal, to say the least.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @oatler: Sounds like Lynchburg has its own den of vipers. Some women students filed a lawsuit a few months ago and their allegations about Liberty’s practices regarding sexual assault reports are pretty shocking.

    My odious VA-5th congressman was a Liberty U. fundraiser before he ran for Congress last year (I won’t mention his name because it’s lunchtime). The District’s Democrats are fired up, though, and we hope to make him a one termer.

  109. 109.

    Chris

    @Geminid:

    You’ve got to love how incredibly on the nose it is to have the religious right’s primary university set in a town called Lynchburg.

  110. 110.

    Winston

    @Woodrow/asim: You’re right, but I can’t stand S9-10 because of the religious overtones. The writing in the SG series is excellent. It gets better in Atlantis and I was so disappointed that Universe was cancelled.

    Yes I agree that BSG was great, until the last episode.   But Starbuck is still here. I am desperately awaiting the expanse S.6, though I can’t imagine how they could end it now that the entire universe becomes explorable.

    That said. Other favorites ;  Firefly could have been the best

    Wait a minute. There are Jaffa outside my door.

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    Imagine rooting for higher costs for American families just to score a few political points.

    We don’t have to imagine, this is the rethuglican party.

    And it’s more than a few political points, it’s money in the pockets of the people who own them, which gets them continuing support to continue to be complete assholes. How could they resist?

  112. 112.

    StringOnAStick

    I read that Jack stepping down from Twitter is going to allow Elliot Capital Management to continue it’s effort to pack the Twitter Board.  The owner of Elliot is a Mango Moron true believer who just moved his HQ from the Wall Street region to within a couple miles of Merde a Lardo, his goal is to get the orange thug’s Twitter platform back.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @Chris: I used to work with a Lynchburg lefty who hated Jerry Falwell. He talked about how Falwell’s father and uncles were big time bootleggers. Evidently it’s common knowledge. Hatefull as he was, Fallwell Senior seemed to be personally upright. There may be some generation skipping outlaw gene, though, because Fallwell Junior is a crook, a lush, and a libertine.

    Liberty U. is trying to move on from it’s sinful ex-president. They have a kind of political machine staffed by employees and alumni that is an actor in Virginia politics. They keep it on the downlow, but you can see its fingerprints in Central Virginia politics, most notably in the convention that rolled 5th District Congressman Denver Riggleman and replaced him with the odious Bob Good, a Liberty man.

  114. 114.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: McAuliffe did the same kind of thing that Claire McCaskill did in her primary  with Todd Akin, except that it backfired big time for McAuliffe. McCaskill convinced Republican voters in a Republican primary that Akin was the “most conservative candidate”; McAuliffe did Youngkin a favor by saying he was just like TFG, because all the MAGA’s needed reassurance that he wasn’t a “squish”. I’ve heard since that some MAGA’s have already turned on Youngkin because he has a trans staff member!

  115. 115.

    OGLiberal

    @Chris: My guess is that “social issues” is code for “giving free stuff to lazy black people”, because while all of the wallet/pocketboot legislation the Dems pass is for everybody, they just think it all goes to those “undeserving” people.  They’d be more than happy with, “Universal healthcare and pre-K for everybody but black and non-white immigrant people!”

  116. 116.

    OGLiberal

    @Geminid: I think – and this is just my perception/opinion – that Liberty’s decision to be a player at the D1 NCAA sports level made them make a lot of changes.  Lots of money to be made on revenue sports but you aren’t going to get top athletes when you are not so comfortable about interracial dating or wearing jeans.

  117. 117.

    Geminid

    @OGLiberal: Liberty University may be in the middle of some changes. It certainly made a big move going to Division I football. They  had a rotten culture so far as sexual assault and the University’s response. That has caught up with them now in a lawsuit by woman students that I think may be settled for tens of millions. That will force changes.

    But they had to get rid of Fallwell Jr. His personal problems and financial self-dealing were surely known to high level administrators and board members before he blew up in public last year. I expect the board was very relieved to get rid of him.

    Junior’s brother Jonathon has a greater role at Liberty now. When Fallwell Senior died, Junior got the college and Jonathon got the Thomas Road Baptist megachurch. So the Fallwell connection remains. Johnathan seems to be a straight arrow, and unlike his brother, he has not sought national political power. At least, not yet.

  118. 118.

    OGLiberal

    @Geminid: Yeah, Falwell Sr. was a horrible person but unlike his minion Jim Bakker or many other media “preachers”, scandal seemed to avoid him.  Junior, though..jeez, it was just one thing after another.

  119. 119.

    Tony Gerace

    Good point about de-platforming.  I wish I could slap each and every person who confuses de-platforming with censorship.  Trump (or, for example, American Nazis) can spew their garbage all day long, every day — they just can’t do so on certain privately owned social-media platforms.  The practical effect of this is that their garbage is primarily consumed only by true believers who seek it out.  Normal people will not be bothered by it.

  120. 120.

    dnfree

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: if a woman already has as many children as she wants or can support in all senses of the word, she’s going to go through a whole pregnancy and explain to her existing children that she’s giving their sibling away to someone else?  And she’s also going to explain that to friends, family, and random strangers?  Yeah, that will work well.

    What if the baby is born with a defect that makes them less adoptable?

Comments are closed.