Hot takes are a renewable resource pic.twitter.com/hskBNs71gC
— CeaseAndDeceaseHat (@Popehat) January 10, 2022
Bethany Mandel’s job is being a MOMMY, who homeschools. Her side gig, for pin money, is running point for the deranged ideas that her fellow Realistic Conservatives mutter among themselves.
If (usually when) Bethany’s hot takes prove a little too ‘prescient’ for the bulk of us normies on social media, she pulls back in to her safe little bubble — how can you libtards be so cruel to a MOMMY?!? — secure in her husband’s guaranteed lifetime sinecure(s) in the Wingnut Wurlitzer. And her professional fellows take note, and wait for the next opening.
Which is why I usually ignore Mandel’s ‘provocative takes’. But we should have this on the record: She, and the people who run with her, consider 800,000 dead Americans mere collateral damage on the road to FREEEEDUMB!
No amount of optimist on my part about the eventual end of the pandemic mitigates the rage and despair I feel about being stuck in the same country as these fucking people. pic.twitter.com/fp1l1FesZN
— Daniel “dietary course correction” Summers, MD (@WFKARS) January 9, 2022
Tuesday Evening Open Thread: What’s the Word(le)?
rekoob
Reprehensible.
Chetan Murthy
Even if one takes her seriously [which one should not], the distribution of human lifespans is going to following something somewhat like a normal distribution, and even assuming that all these folks lived “well beyond life expectancy”, if we remove them early, that will reduce that same “life expectancy”, since it’s an average. And hey presto! ISTR we saw reductions in life expectancy these last two years.
What a maroon. But also, of course, what a ghoul.
Middlelee
I just want to slap that nasty bitch. And on that note I’m shutting down the computer and going to bed with a book. JFC
Suzanne
Moving to Middle of FuckNowhere to be by myself sounds pretty good when I encounter people like this.
Poe Larity
Should we tell her how many of them were expectant Trump voters?
BigJimSlade
She can fuck off into the sun, though she can be preceded in that by at least 100 conservative men.
sdhays
I find it hard to wrap my mind around the idea that Fucker Tarlson can go on national television and claim that vaccines make it more likely that you’ll get infected by omicron and he won’t be forced off the air or suffer any legal consequences.
Is there literally no threshold for lying that makes a person and their network legally liable? Is it because the vaccine can’t sue for libel that makes it possible for him to say this? Can Moderna and Pfizer sue like Dominion? It’s unconscionable.
I also don’t know how much longer these people can fan the flames like this before some of the violence they’re fomenting blows back on them.
JoyceH
More to the point, I’d like to know how many of that 800k+ were unvaccinated.
zeecube
OT: He was a good rat
Another Scott
“Republicans don’t lie to be believed. They lie to be repeated.” – LOLGOP
Meanwhile, …
Good, good.
(via harrisonjaime)
Cheers,
Scott.
Patricia Kayden
NotMax
Gonna take a wild stab in the dark that the homeschooling is not of the first water.
mrmoshpotato
Deplorable.
Benw
OT I just took the big man for a late night walk. Brrrrr. I don’t know how Hudson does it at 13 degrees F, since he’s not a floofy guy, but cold has never bothered him, sometimes even bounding through single digit temperature walks in the snow!
Nice stars tonight. Even though the moon was more than 50%, both Orion and Cassiopia were up. The dipper, too, so I could find Polaris, which is always fun.
sdhays
@NotMax: I have a feeling the kids will be plenty clear on which race Santa belongs to. And, really, what more does one need from an education?
debbie
I’m sad that her children have her as a mommy. They may never recover.
NotMax
@sdhays
“I’m confused, Ma. You said only dirty hippies have beards.”
//
Barbara
Life expectancy isn’t supposed to be like the expiration date of a perishable food product where it’s okay to throw the thing away once it has expired. The idea is that we make the average even higher by helping individuals exceed it. Yeah, maybe a little subtle for someone who isn’t perturbed by the prospect of her grandmother’s death.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
The battle is never over, and all hope is never lost.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: Roy Cooper won re-election narrowly as NC governor, Joe Biden lost the state narrowly and even the PG-13 sexter lost the Senate race slightly less narrowly.
We should be paying more attention to NC. IMHO.
PIGL
@NotMax: of the second, I’m sure.
Omnes Omnibus
This isn’t one of the Real Housewives of Someplace is it? Oh, she can go piss up a rope.
Eljai
@Omnes Omnibus: I think you’re thinking of Bethany Frankel, the creator of Skinnygirl wine, which I do not recommend
ETA: Either way, these Bethanys are not redeeming themselves.
delk
Are her kids knocked up or substance abusers yet?
Steeplejack
Just did the Wordle for Wednesday:
⬜⬜??⬜
??⬜??
?????
.
HumboldtBlue
Some good old boys have some thoughts on Covid treatment.
Fake Irishman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And we lost the NC state supreme court Chief Justice race by several dozen votes (a Dem was the incumbent and running for senator in 2022) and another state Supreme Court race by a close margin. If that court were 6-1 Dem instead of 4-3 Dem…. (Also thinking about that WI court race we lost by 5,000 votes in 2019, that would have flipped that state’s majority and really changed things.
NotMax
@Eljai
The canned Skinnygirl lard, also too.
//
Quinerly
@Omnes Omnibus: First time l heard about this chick and her Tweets, l wondered the same thing.
West of the Rockies
Boy, Clarence Thomas looks like a walking cardiac event.
The Dangerman
Wouldn’t putting the old and infirm on ice flows been more cost effective?
ETA: I rather admire the way that the Right wants to decrease life expectancy. Sounds like a political winner. Couple it with privatizing Social Security and watch the returns.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@West of the Rockies: I share your optimism in that regard. Kavanaugh and Alito too.
West of the Rockies
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thomas looks like a miserable man who is in perpetual pain. Being married to his wife can’t help.
LeftCoastYankee
So there’s a link through to her Wiki page from her husbands.
She had a very “poor” childhood, where she had the indignity of not receiving her full inheritance.
Honestly, she sounds like the NE version of Kristen Sinema, where she becomes a shit version of what can be passed off as contrarian (and attention-getting) in her locale.
Another “hey look at me” fuckhead….
Elizabelle
Why amplify this crap? Read wiki on this couple, and now know more than I ever needed to about Bethany and Seth. Enough. They have their own wurlitzer. Putting shameless people on record on a non-conservative blog … why give them the publicity?
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Know thy enemy, I guess.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Hello there! Waving from the other side of the pond. Sipping coffee and about to watch Biden’s speech from yesterday.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Somehow focusing on the dregs seems to always happen on late night posts.
We correct coast people don’t get no respect.
;)
West of the Rockies
@Elizabelle:
I get what you mean. In a world where so much is genuinely and importantly enraging, this sort of vain pinhead is not worth wasting emotions on. What did Barbara Bush say? Why should I waste my beautiful mind on such nonsense?
I agree, however, that we must know what the enemy is up to (even when it’s utter crap).
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
? Early morning in Germany, I presume. About to retire, myself. Just finishing a glass of cheap red plonk and winding down.
Brachiator
Your average life insurance agent could explain why Bethany Mandel is full of shit.
So, for example, in 2019, the average life expectancy of men at birth in the U.S. was 76.3 years. However, a male age 76 who died of Covid in 2020 did not necessarily live “well beyond his life expectancy,” or even up to his life expectancy. The average male age 76 will live 10 more years.
Covid deniers were making this false claim about life expectancy early on. And like young earth creationists, flat earth morons and other conspiracy freaks, they keep coming back with the same false claims no matter how often and completely their lies are debunked. They use repetition to try to fool others and to convince themselves.
Gretchen
I found out today that three people in my life are covid positive. My pregnant daughter’s mother-in-law, who was mad that daughter didn’t want to travel through choked-hospital rural PA to get to choked-hospital Ohio for Christmas. Daughter would have been there when she got it. Getting covid during pregnancy is super-dangerous, but the whole family was mad at her for not wanting to risk it for their matching-pajama Christmas party. Son’s girlfriend, a healthy vaccinated 26 year old who felt like she was suffocating, went to doc and was sent home with an oxygen saturation of 90 (normally would put you in the ER) because FL hospitals are packed. Friend’s vaccinated 8-month pregnant daughter in Tennessee, an elementary school teacher. Very sick with covid. People who want to keep schools open for the psychological health of the children don’t consider if the kids bring a fatal illness to school that kills their beloved teacher. I am enraged.
Elizabelle
I doubt that Nancy Pelosi or Stacey Abrams gives a … fig about what either Mandel here says. (I thought topic might be Josh Mandel of Ohio.)
The Mandels’ schtick is getting people to pay attention to them. There is a whole craptastic wurlitzer system for that. Why take the bait? They are ignonimous people with ignorant views. I prefer to hear what smart or snarky people are saying.
@ Steep: night night. Heading back to the US next week. I will miss Germany. This is a rural little town, and there is a silence here (but for the birds) that I love. It is so quiet, I can hear the hourly trains as they pass, actually rather silently. (Yes. One train an hour. And they are not like the freight trains I enjoy hearing in Virginia.)
@ Not Max: indeed. Do come up with some good topics!
Elizabelle
@Gretchen: Oh my gosh. Please keep us posted on how these folks fare. Please let them all recover, especially the pregnant teacher.
Fair Economist
@Gretchen: Those are scary situations. Hope they all turn out OK.
Elizabelle
Thinking more on the topic of this blogpost.
These people will not get it until Covid strikes someone near and dear to them. Perhaps then, they might have a come to yahweh moment.
And mommy is homeschooling their little vectors, so they may not face the same risks other families do.
Brachiator made a great point about life expectancy, too.
And, FWIW, it sounds like Betty White had a stroke on or about Christmas Day, and died on New Year’s Eve. Her cause of death was “cerebral accident.”
We can toast her on January 17th, and remember her on NYEs, too. With pleasure.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Enjoy the rest of your time in Germany and have a safe trip home.
Gretchen
@Elizabelle: thank you
Gretchen
@Elizabelle: that’s what’s enraging. If it doesn’t happen to them, it didn’t happen. Talking Points Memo had a reader letter today asserting that omicron is « harmless » if you’re vaccinated or a child. The 500 kids who died of it, or the hundreds in ICU, or my vaccinated sick friends disagree, but these people go with things that we thought in the early months of the pandemic, and don’t adjust their views when new information tells them that we still have to be careful. He’s tired of it. He wants to live his life. So my pregnant teacher friend can just suffer so he can do as he damn well pleases. I’m really shocked at how selfish and callous so many Americans are.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Will do. Thank you. I may be coming back for a few weeks in late February; to hear.
It’s going to be interesting being back in the US. Germany and just about all of Europe takes Covid way more seriously. You have to show your vaccination status to be seated in restaurants; they spot-check it on trains. People mask up. Home test kits are readily available in grocery stores and, I guess, apotekas (pharmacies, which sell higher end beauty products too).
Happy to be missing (sigh) Youngkin’s inauguration this weekend. We can outlast him. We must. Maybe we will need popcorn for the lt. governor. To find out.
Gretchen
@Elizabelle: I’m thinking mommy’s homeschooling isn’t going to produce intellectual giants. Why they think they know everything their little darlings will ever need to know, so they don’t need any outside instruction, I can’t imagine.
Elizabelle
@Gretchen: Maybe they will end up spawning one or two great proponents of public education. Once the kids escape the family circle.
It happens with evangelicals, cult members, ultraconservatives. Of course, the problem with this family is they practice remunerated idiocy. They are paid for their smallmindness and cruelty. So, some of the kids may take to the grift.
To see.
cain
@West of the Rockies:
Just imagine what kind of pretzel logic that McConnell and others would put forth if we were to replace another SCOTUS.
They would absolutely demand that we replace them with another conservative. I would so enjoy McConnell getting fucked with that since he has nothing to really defend anything with – he’s already broken every norm in regards to SCOTUS stuff.
But you know, the media will have to do both sides all the same.
Elizabelle
@cain: re the media: they can try. I think a lot of even normies have noticed the media is behind the curve.
I sometimes wonder if we despair here at this blog, because we pay too much attention to mainstream (ie. corporate owned and serving) media.
There may be more people than we know who have decided it is pravda. Or irrelevant.
Of course, there’s also the social media cesspool. Alas.
Redshift
@Gretchen:
Yeah. I read a good essay not too long ago (by Will Bunch, if I recall correctly) about the thing that was missing in so much of this was the idea of “the public good.” I blame a lot of it on Reagan and the conservative movement, indoctrinating people with the idea that they should only care about what’s best for them, and whatever is profitable is automatically good. Thatcher and her “there is no such thing as society” are another thread.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
“The party of life”
Chris T.
@sdhays: It’s totally true! Just like being shot with a .44 Magnum increases the chance you’ll survive COVID-19!
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Ironic. An article about the loss of the public good, and it seems totally immured behind a paywall. Several paywalls that I have tried.
It dates from early December. I really think paywalls should expire after a week or two. As it is, we cannot read or share Mr. Bunch’s column without a paid subscription. Sucks. If you can provide a link or excerpt, that would be great.
Meanwhile, the Mandels’ shit is out there, free of charge.
Journamalism and its finest minds need to rethink some of their practices.
Elizabelle
Sharing some links I pulled up so far, from commenters on the Biden voting speech thread.
Chicago Magazine article about Lauren Underwood. Lauren Underwood’s Long Game.
Martin mentioned this site. Birds Aren’t Real. It’s a spoof on trutherism? Snark flies.
opiejeanne
@Gretchen: I hope everyone recovers well. That’s just terrible.
My middle child’s domestic partner has tested positive and they are quarantined in Portland, OR. She says he’s got what would normally be considered a mild cold, and the symptoms only lasted for a day, but he’s going to miss an in-person meeting in San Diego on Friday. Oh, well…. At least this meeting wasn’t in Florida like last March. I’m glad he’s not very sick, and I hope she doesn’t get it.
My youngest is working from home for the next 2 weeks because Covid is ripping through her company. I’m pretty happy about that.
Gretchen
@Elizabelle: that’s on of the many problems. Will Bunch and real journalists are behind a paywall, while Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro are free, so more widely distributed. I know journalism needs to be paid for, but we need some white nights to pay for progressive journalism to counter the Koch Network
Warblewarble
Murdoch“s willing executioner`s.
Sloane Ranger
@Barbara: I suspect her position will change 180 degrees when she reaches life expectancy and she will be demanding every possible medical intervention to extend it – for her.
Elizabelle
@Gretchen: Needs to be paid for, but also must come out from behind the paywall after a period of time, as a public service.
No one insists that only the purchaser is allowed to read a paper newspaper.
Perhaps “news”, once it is not as new, should be shared more widely.
MattF
Still, it pales beside the head-to-desk stupidity of Tom Friedman’s suggestion of a Biden-Cheney ticket for 2024. Beyond cringe-worthy.
Elizabelle
@MattF: LOL! I saw that and decided not to click. The Mustache of … something. It sounds like its own parody.
Rusty
Anyone who is getting all excited about comorbidities is on the same path as dear Bethany. It has been muttered a lot as a kind of “well they deserved it”.
bjacques
@Rusty: nowadays I count stupidity as a co-morbidity.
One point I never saw raised, regarding the idea that the olds would die anyway, was that with COVID they would almost certainly die alone, at least away from family or friends. And I wish I had raised it a year and a half ago when I first heard it in person.
Rusty
@Brachiator: They are utilitarians at heart. Once you can no longer be exploited to work for crap wages, and you are no longer earning any money (for the wealthy betters to hoover up), you are useless and just go die because you are a burden on society. Lovely people.
satby
Yes, another example of the peculiar idea spread by the radical right that good, moral people have nothing to fear from a “minor flu” but the lazy, indolent, fat, old, takers of society are the ones who will be struck down. Social Darwinism, except they don’t believe in Darwin and don’t understand science. Not when there’s money to be had. I think it’s worth taking note of these deplorables, Elizabelle. Most normies are not aware of how deeply repellent these people and their fellow travellers are, and are disgusted by learning. But lack of countering these people lets them spread their vile thoughts and slowly it is absorbed into the right wing talking points, to spread further.
lowtechcyclist
I don’t know about Mandel specifically, but she and her ilk sound like the same sort of people who fought like tigers to keep Terri Schiavo’s body alive.
Because sanctity of life. Which seems to have gone missing here.
Mimi Haha
What a hate filled git. I hope her children flee as soon as they are able.
lowtechcyclist
@Rusty:
Again, they sure seem to be willing to forget about the “sanctity of life” at the drop of a hat.
As I’ve said before, the linchpin of the antiabortion movement is the notion that the life of a fetus is worth just as much as the life of a born person. Their willingness to put approximately zero value on the lives of whole classes of born people…well, if A=B, and B=0, you can do the math.
JAFD
Good morning, fellow jackals,
My brain may be still frozen from yesterday – coldest day in 3 years in the mid-Atlantic – but the article by Will Bunch, that Elizabelle mentioned, may be read by going to
https://www.inquirer.com/author/bunch_will/
and at December 5th, right-clicking on “3 words America forgot that explain gun insanity, vaccine denial, student debt, and more | Will Bunch” * , then clicking ‘Save As’ or whatever the equivalent is in your browser
Let me know if this works, will just zap you the column off line if not.
Have great day, regardless
* https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/america-public-good-student-debt-vaccine-refusal-20211205.html
should be the URL
“
sab
@bjacques: Yes, this so much. My brother in law died rather suddenly in January 2020 just before Covid hit, after a brief illness. It was a shock, but he died in hospice surrounded by his children and siblings who loved him
A year later one of my husband’s closest childhood friends died of something similar, almost alone and very lonely in a hospital surrounded by overworked medical personnel in PPE spacesuits while his children could not visit him at all.
satby
@JAFD: Thanks JAFD! Good to see you!
Steeplejack (phone)
@JAFD:
Just going directly to the URL you provided works for me.
matt the somewhat reasonable
Shoot the plague rats.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Is “the first water” like “the two dirts”?
[Note: Please pardon the extremely obscure reference. Kaye Grogan, maybe? From around the turn of the century? She was nuts before it became de rigueur for RWMF bloggers.]
SFAW
Every day, especially after reading stuff like this, it becomes more and more difficult for me to refrain from wishing for a latter-day Kevin Uxbridge to deal with the RWMFs in his particular fashion.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I see Steve Iniskeep pressed TFG on the Big Lie and TFG hung up on him.
SFAW
@matt the somewhat reasonable:
Stop dehumanizing* those poor people who have “concerns” about the Gates/Soros vaccine(s)!
* A term used by a commenter at LGM, during a “discussion” re: whether anti-vaxxers/ vaccine-resisters should be kicked out of hospitals if they’re admitted for COVID. Not a majority sentiment over there, of course.
SFAW
@NotMax:
You moved back to NY? When did that happen? I must have missed it.
Elizabelle
@JAFD: Yippee! Thank you so much.
Soprano2
I disagree – I don’t think most of them really care about “the sanctity of life” at all, as illustrated by the attitude of the Mandels. No, the anti-abortion movement is mostly about wanting to control the sex lives of young women, and taking us back to the situation in the 1950’s when there wasn’t any safe, reliable birth control, and what was available was hard to get. They think this will somehow make all the “sluts” quit having sex before marriage. They don’t think married women get abortions, because they never talk about it – only about teenagers and women in their early 20’s.
Soprano2
@sab: As shocking as my mother’s sudden death was, at least she was able to have me and a few friends come and see her at the hospice home. My hair stylist told me about a 36-year-old woman who was a friend of his, who died of cancer in the summer of 2020. Her parents and husband had to sit in the parking lot of the hospital and talk to her over Facetime as she was dying because no visitors were allowed in the hospital. I think we all have PTSD of some kind over the past two years, and things like this are one reason why. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been if my mother had been in the hospital and I hadn’t been able to visit her at all.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack (phone):
Worked on my phone, not on my computer. “Reached your article limit.” Will read on the phone.
khead
Yeah I’m sorry if this makes me a bad human being, but not only have I been hoping for this “person” to get covid…… I also hope she has an Officer Nordberg style trip to the hospital when the time comes. Lost all patience with these folks.
Also, that Will Bunch article is pretty good.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW:
If we tried doing this, I would like to know how we can tell who is vaccinated with enough certainty to justify withholding life-saving care, given the state of record-keeping on this matter. It should not be a matter of life and death to retain your dumb little paper slip.
louc
@bjacques: That’s what happened to my father. He caught COVID in the nursing home and died alone. My rage at people like this Bethany Mandel knows no bounds.
Greg
Just as a note. I just heard a version of this argument at work. “How many of those that died would have died anyway?” was the comment.