First Dog Beat: The president's puppy, Commander, in the West Wing. (?? White House staff image) pic.twitter.com/R5jYQsrbrp
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) January 23, 2022
This week's surprise: A government website worked well. Americans rushed to order free Covid-19 tests through the mail. And the site didn't crash. It worked! It wasn't perfect, but it worked. Here's why I think this should qualify as big news… pic.twitter.com/iX7kS4hUAN
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 24, 2022
if you want refrigerated dough you are outta luck though https://t.co/heFModpSgi
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) January 24, 2022
Are any prominent “anti-war” voices saying “hey Russia, don’t send your military into Ukraine,” or is it all “hey NATO, let Russia kill, or at least militarily intimidate, Ukrainians”?
— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) January 23, 2022
Meidas Touch just released a new, five-minute video – #A Coup in Plain Sight. Linking instead of embedding, for now, so that y’all have a choice as to whether to face TFG’s Crime Cartel over your morning coffee…
Baud
I have long felt that the most difficult position in football to play is field goal kicker.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
@Baud: Coming this summer! A mysterious thriller starring Baud!: the Chosen Toe
Spanky
WHERE’S THE WHITE HOUSE CAT?
Kathleen
@Spanky: Mainslime Media: The Bidens had a cat. Then Major saw it.
MattF
Rick Wilson is right about this. I do wonder how it happened that he split off from all of his old pals, but he knows these people, and he ain’t lying.
OzarkHillbilly
I have to call my KC Chiefs fan son this AM. I need to see if he and his rabid fans family have managed to put their hearts back where they belong yet.
mrmoshpotato
“Hello, human. One question. Just how much do you wanna boop this snout? It’s right in front of you. It’s huge. And oh so boopable.”
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah!
WereBear
@mrmoshpotato: It is indeed magnificent.
mrmoshpotato
It’s a well done video. Watched it last night. But thanks for being considerate.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Why? Having to aim a weirdly-shaped ball with your foot?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: After watching Butker miss 2 (3?) kicks earlier in that game, I had my doubts about that end of regulation time kick, but he nailed it.
Chris
Almost certainly yes, but since those “anti-war” voices aren’t using the rhetoric as a pretext to punch Democrats, don’t expect them to be given a microphone anywhere.
It’s funny. Growing up, I heard the “you’re not anti-war, you’re just pro-[insert American enemy here]” all the time growing up in the war on terror era, but I never really met anyone of whom that was true (at least not in the U.S.), it was just a standard wingnut slander. … until 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at which point people who were claiming to be anti-war but were in reality “whatever RT says, updated daily” started popping up everywhere. (Balloon Juice is one of the first places I encountered the phenomenon, in fact). And they’ve definitely stuck around since.
Naturally, now that the phenomenon is actually real, Republicans who always claimed to be morally outraged by it are largely for it.
WereBear
Personally, I don’t understand the apathy. Sure, burnout, we’re all there. But I am vitalized by how this would be so much easier if more people would not the two years of denial and realize the actual threats… and that THEY can do something about it, simply by voting. Despite any barriers, we can still push past this thing.
I’m still hoping the litany of crimes staying in the news will suppress R turnout.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
The mental aspect. Everyone is counting on you to do a simple thing, and you’re basically all alone with your thoughts, with everything on the line.
Anne Laurie
If his old paymasters get their wish, Wilson will never earn another dollar, because they won’t need his skills.
If his old paymasters lose — and, given what he’s saying right now, IMO that’s how Rick is betting — he wants to be able to say ‘Remember, I told y’all TFG was a monster. Want to see my latest campaign proposals, currently discounted for my new Democratic market?’
Baud
@WereBear:
Our side has difficulty with the long game. Whether that’s an inherent trait or due to manipulation by the powers that be, I don’t know. But IMHO, it’s a big reason we are where we are.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Gotcha.
Kay
@MattF:
We’ve become inured to it, but it is really shocking that Gingrich said it. I saw Liz Cheney responded, so she’s another Republican who sees the escalation. Personal for her, because they’re coming for her specifically, but she sees that it’s jumped another barrier.
Remember when there were weeks of discussions over Trump screaming that he would imprison Clinton? This is what having no standards gets you- you don’t stay at the status quo- you slide.
Kay
@WereBear:
I think the GOP base actions are a big unknown. They’re really radicalized and there’s splintering, even at the county level. We’ll see what happens in their primaries. I know they’re going to come out- their turnout will be there- but there’s a substantial faction who won’t even accept someone like Mike DeWine now. It’ll have an impact. They may get some real losers for the general.
Kay
@MattF:
It’s why I’m impatient with all the “back to normal” polling. It’s like telling me you want go visit your deceased grandma. I’m sure you do, but things have changed.
They aren’t going to be able to return to 2012, much as they might like to.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Probably not! You should have heard the screaming and groaning and celebrating. At 13 seconds we all thought it was over; thank goodness the Chiefs didn’t think that way! That was the most amazing 2 minutes of football I’ve ever watched, although that’s not saying much because I haven’t watched that much football. I’m rooting for the Chiefs because a) they’re from MO and b) it means more people come to my pub and spend money! LOL
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: He missed 2 kicks in the first half. I kept thinking about that 4 points during the last 2 minutes; Chiefs would have won in regulation if he’d made both kicks.
Baud
@Soprano2:
That’s one relieved kicker.
Nicole
@Kay:
I hope you’re right, because that Wilson thread made me want to go lie down for the rest of the day.
Woodrow/asim
This is true — and this is why people like Gingrich escalate.
I don’t agree with Wilson’s overall thesis. As right as he is about Gingrich acting as a Terrorist, he misses that McConnell is a Terrorist, as well, just a more genteel one. And I use that word “genteel” very explicitly.
The enslaver who sat at the head of his (or her) plantation and claimed to “love” their slaves enough to whip them into Christianity is a Terrorist, just as the later KKKers were. The people who used the Filibuster to stop Civil Rights are as much using Terror, as the people who passed the laws restricting Rights.
The solution to all that — to not bow to fear, to fight back — is hard. It’s esp. hard to do in a country you’ve been told is damn near perfect, where you’ve been taught has systems to strive towards perfection. It hurts me, too, to see those systems fail, and I won’t pretend I have every answer as to how to work the problem.
But it is a problem, and it’s one that really — to my eye — Wilson provide a lot of heat for, and not so much the light we really need, right now. I’m not sure he sees deeply enough into the problem, and it’s roots, to be as useful as all that. It’s dangerous to treat, as I submit Wilson does here (as do a lot of “converts”) Gingrich, Bannon, etc. as Outliers, and not people continuing a push that’s been part of American political and culture for a long, long time.
…after all, we so easily forget that there were, at one point, 22,000 Nazi lovers who managed to fill Madison Square Garden.
Baud
@Woodrow/asim:
Nah, man. Only 13 seconds left. It’s all over.
OzarkHillbilly
With one stone cold heart of steel. To block those 2 missed kicks out of his mind and focus solely on the one he had to make… I’m with you Baud, got to be one of the hardest jobs in the world.
Kay
@Nicole:
I think they’ll have election fraud accusations in their primaries. Trump has really unleashed them and I don’t think anyone knows where it goes. I had door to door canvassers for the GOP governors race primary on Sunday. They had a bad list because I shouldn’t be on it, but I don’t think they had a list. I think they are knocking every door.
Woodrow/asim
Related: Why There’s a Civil War in Idaho — Inside the GOP
NOTE: I have not yet had a chance to read in full; it popped up on my feed this morning. Also, it’s Politico, but the Magazine side, which I find has done some good work, overall.
Kay
@Nicole:
I know people disagree but I think The Lincoln Project is a little griftery. I just don’t think they can avoid it. The people who were campaign operatives just drift to that without a campaign. They have to get paid. So IMO Rick Wilson doesn’t have to tell you what the import of Gingrich’s saying this is- you can just evaluate that.
lowtechcyclist
I don’t know. Who are these “prominent ‘anti-war’ voices”? It’s not like there’s been an antiwar movement since 2003.
Guy named Obama ran for President in 2008, and ending the war in Iraq was a major part of his platform. I guess he’s the closest thing to a prominent antiwar voice I can think of. Has he said anything about this?
As an antiwar person, sure, I think we should be doing what we can to support Ukraine, short of putting American boots on the ground. There are good reasons why we don’t want American and Russian troops facing off directly. I don’t know if there are things we can do to make life tougher for Putin if he invades; I gather much of Europe is dependent on natural gas from Russia to keep from freezing in the winter, which limits our options.
But having an antiwar march on the Mall to protest what Putin is threatening to do in Ukraine would accomplish exactly what?
Chief Oshkosh
With regards to Gingrich saying the quiet parts out loud, I sure hope that the Dems in the House and Senate understand that rabidness of the unwashed masses outside of the DC Beltway. The Republican base is completely onboard with flat-out violent theft of all elections going forward. From what I’ve seen in my recent travels into red lands, they genuinely think that the last honest election was in 2016 and that, since libs have already stolen elections, it is justifiable for them to do the same and more. A lot more.
OzarkHillbilly
A bit long, but well worth it: Life, in Dog Years
Don’t know where all this dust came from.
Baud
@Kay:
What did you tell them?
I hope it was “STAY AWAY FROM ME I’M VACCINATED SAVE YOURSELVES!!!”
Soprano2
@Kay: This is true in the MO legislature. There’s a group of about 6-10 legislators who call themselves the “Conservative Caucus”; they are the Trumpiest of Republicans, and they cause problems for the rest of them. The Republicans in the legislature had a meeting last fall to discuss legislative strategy where they deliberately didn’t invite members of that group. Now they’ve lost their supermajority in the House due to people resigning to take other jobs, so they may have to look to Democrats for some things. It’s not as cut and dried as people think it is, even when Republicans dominate things.
Soprano2
@Baud: Yep, it was bizarre – he missed an extra point! That’s a gimme, and he missed it. People tell me he just doesn’t miss those kicks until this game for some reason.
Nicole
@Kay:
I don’t disagree. And I’d take away the “little.”
I like the idea of fraud accusations in their primaries, and I hope you’re right. I can unabashedly root for injuries.
Woodrow/asim
Ohh, and I failed to login, again. Shoot!
Soprano2
@Kay: I was also shocked that he went on TV and said it, even if it was on Fox. Maybe he’s trying to psych Democrats out, I don’t know. That’s the kind of thing you hear in Third World countries when a dictator takes over. IMHO Mike Flynn’s comment that they could do what happened in Myanmar didn’t get nearly enough play. That’s really how they think now, that they are entitled to take over the government and rule for the good of “the people”, as if we are children and can’t decide what we want.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, God no. I think I’m good at getting people to tell me things- whether it’s true not this is what I believe. I tried to get them to talk to me after saying I’m a Democrat and won’t be voting in the GOP primary, but they wouldn’t. They said “God Bless” and left. I would be interested! Their lit said (I think) “we can save America” but they wouldn’t give me that either.
Kay
@Soprano2:
He looks terrible, I must say. He looks unwell. I always loathed him. I hate how you can HEAR that he loves the sound of his own voice. Trump has the same trait. They are listening to themselves and loving it.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m really impatient with all the press people who believe that somehow a miracle is going to happen and transform all the Republicans back into the kind of people they were before Obama was elected (that’s what I trace it to, although the tendency was there before the election of a Black man as president drove a significant number of them around the bend). I’m sure most of them thought the first Black president would be a Republican! Did you see that the NY Times wrote an execrable, sympathetic piece about the people who were there on 1/6. They glossed right over the people who said they all should have been armed so they could “take back” the government, as if it belongs to them alone.
rikyrah
meta (@metaquest) tweeted at 7:23 AM on Mon, Jan 24, 2022:
MSM are working overtime to convince everyone that the majority of Americans want to vote back in office the party that put us in this whole mess in the first place. That we want to give all the power to run this country back into the hands of a bunch of lunatics and criminals.
(https://twitter.com/metaquest/status/1485604171633999877?t=GkektZuOxxIoHCqxaTgA_g&s=03)
Baud
@Kay:
That’s their genteel way of saying “go to hell,” I think.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think there will continue to be a LOT of resistance to the idea that the environment has changed. I think it drives a lot of their coverage, which has always been “THIS is like THIS other thing” and they’re somewhat adrift without an easy comparison. They need to find another gear. Just like everyone else is going to have to adapt and reexamine, they must too.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, it is. It’s “you’re going to hell and I’m fake-sad about that”
Soprano2
@Kay: I hate him too, I hold him responsible for starting this slide down into awfulness with his list of words he gave Republicans to call Democrats. Many, many people are involved in this, but I believe he started the whole thing. And yes, he looks bad on TV; he’s probably sustained only by the evil in his heart.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: The equivalent of a Southerners, “Bless his heart…”
Kay
@Soprano2:
To me it’s a lack of imagination. So, a “period of unrest” could be not at all like the 1960s. If your frame is “I compare periods of unrest to the 1960s” you need a broader frame. They don’t have to predict it! They just have to allow for the possibility.
Geminid
@Kay: Ohio Governor DeWine has been a success by normal Republican standards. Same with Brian Kemp in Georgia. Perdue’s challenge to Kemp is Trump’s doing, but Perdue will be riding the radical “populist” wave that was ascendant even before Trump turbocharged it.
Renacci’s primary challenge to DeWine is an example of an ambitious politician trying to ride that wave. Here, the pandemic and DeWine’s response has been a radicalizing factor.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think that’s because they mostly talk to members of Congress, who I’m sure talk differently to them than they do when they give an official statement. They see how “reasonable” these people seem in private, and think that means they’ll be reasonable in public if only the circumstances are right. They don’t get out into areas like where you and I live enough (other than to talk to voters in diners, LOL) to understand that the “average” Republican voter has changed a lot. This person expects politicians to be completely loyal to TFG, and to repeat everything he says. I submit that in most parts of the country a Republican cannot win a primary unless they claim to believe the Big Lie. These reporters just don’t have any idea what the base voters are expecting now, they haven’t internalized it yet.
Soprano2
@Kay: Oh yeah that drives me nuts, that they think something new has to be like something old. As I said above, I don’t think comments like Flynn’s “we should do what they did in Myanmar” get nearly enough coverage. They’re telling the press what they want to do, but the press isn’t listening because they don’t believe it could actually happen here.
rikyrah
Dan Helmer (@HelmerVA) tweeted at 2:59 PM on Sun, Jan 23, 2022:
Want to know what the new @GlennYoungkin @JasonMiyaresVA Administration is all about?
Just fired: Tim Heaphy who investigated the Nazis who led the Unite the Right rally
Just hired: Elizabeth Schultz who says we should teach “both sides” of the Holocaust
(https://twitter.com/HelmerVA/status/1485356543331770375?t=1B9SOy7OBQdmKO3TmwVGHA&s=03)
Kay
@Soprano2:
I just think if they didn’t predict Trump and they didn’t predict the insurrection and they didn’t predict covid it might be time to admit that the recent historical comparisons they rely on are not serving them very well, and they should find a bigger way to look at it, with both more downside possibilities and more upside possibilities. It’s uncomfortable because it’s uncertain, but that’s the reality.
Anyway
@WereBear:
I’m still hoping the litany of crimes staying in the news will suppress R turnout.
Va and NJ saw higher turnout of R voters — from counties that were not bright Red.
frosty
@Baud: You should watch this 60 Minutes clip from a week ago then. It was really interesting; lots of stuff I didn’t know about.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/nfl-kicker-60-minutes-video-2022-01-09/#x
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: More than dust go to my eyes. Thank you so much for passing that on, and we all can use a little sweetness in the world.
WereBear
@Anne Laurie: The significance of the Lincoln Project was solely in the “smartest guys in the room” leaving the party.
If some of the few people who can work the different parts of their brain in the Nazi party… when Nazis jump ship, it’s bad.
Which, for us, is good.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
It’s almost like decades of batshit crazy crap to get monsters elected was a bad idea! Sorry, Rick. You built this!
Jeffro
@Soprano2: We did, too! Even Mrs. Fro and Fro Jr were carping about it throughout the game.
Whew. It still feels like it happened in some movie I watched. Have to go watch highlight reels after breakfast or something!
Geminid
@Anyway: Last year’s Virginia election is worth studying (although maybe not generalizing from too much). It seems that Youngkin pulled in extra voters from red counties that may have stayed home when Trump led the ticket.
My favorite political scientist still likes to analyze Virginia politics, even though she has moved back home to Oregon and taken up political engineering. Rachel Bitecofer says that the Board of Elections will release more detailed voting information next month, and that then it will be worth taking a deeper dive into last November’s vote.
Chris
@Soprano2:
What pisses me off is that they’re doing this while working overtime to kneecap the Democrats in every way possible, just like they did Hillary in 2016, and simply hoping that things go back to normal anyway, either by the Democrats winning anyway or the Republicans being suddenly visited by three ghosts or something.
Everybody wants things to be back to normal, but nobody wants to actually do anything that might lead to it being normal again. Like, say, ostracizing and concentrating all your fire on the people who made it not normal.
JPL
Elections have consequences, and trump’s reign will haunt us for a long time.
#BREAKING: #SCOTUS agrees to take up two major cases on race-based affirmative action in higher education; grants both Harvard and UNC cases. Cases will almost certainly be argued *next* Term (this fall):
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So you know about essential workers, and how people are leaving jobs for better paying ones with better work life balance, right?
One piece of shit Wisconsin judge says “no”.
Judge grants ThedaCare temporary injunction in stroke team case (msn.com)
It being Wisconsin, the facility is overrun by spreadnecks. Seven out of eleven members of the unit left, and these clowns had a month. Even better:
https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/21/what-we-know-ascension-thedacare-court-battle-over-employees/6607417001/
Gosh, you think that a management audit might be necessary if 7 of 11 quit? And as I understand it, the whimpering VP was the one who said “it’ll cost too much long term to give you raises, so we’ll be fine.
Keep also in mind that the executive team takes home about 15 million on an annual basis.
À la lanterne
debbie
So I was listening to an NPR report about Ukraine, and it said some Ukrainians were worried that Germany would side with Russia. Is this really even a possibility?
Geminid
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It sounds like the Invisible Hand gave Thedacare the Finger.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Geminid:
It did, but then a judge in that benighted state said “Not so fast. ‘At Will’ only counts if an employer invokes it, and that 13th Amendment thing is only a suggestion if a team of wealthy director docs needs it to be otherwise. I am Majesty itself in a glorious black robe, and you must seek a release from your master for better pay and working conditions.
I decree it thus.”
sab
@debbie:I don’t know anything, but just guessing. They need their natural gas.
zhena gogolia
@Chris: The NYT Sunday Review was all “BIDEN IS FAILING TO MAKE THINGS NORMAL AGAIN!!!!!”
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Yes.
KjsBrooklyn
I’m glad you posted the picture of Commander. I have been wondering about how you housetrain a dog in the White House. I mean, what if you puppy has an accident in the Oval office? Is there a white House staffer assigned to train and clean up after the pup? Inquiring minds want to know.
Geminid
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I guess this order will be appealed. Please keep us posted.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Thanks for that great comment! Following right on the heels of the MattF link, it lessened my anxiety, even if just for a few moments.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@KjsBrooklyn: I’ve wondered how the dog finds the door to ask to go out
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Geminid:
Supposed to be a longer hearing this AM going on right now. There was a GoFundMe over the weekend that raised 57K, and I’m imagining that the Appleton 7 are hiring their own lawyers to intervene and make contemptuous sounds at this goat fucker. Plus, by now he and the ThedaCare Directors have received enough hate male and death threats to make them realize that they’re despised from sea to shining sea, and you may see some walkback.
WaterGirl
@Nicole: You forgot to mention the part about curing into a ball and then escalating to rocking in the corner.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Better be some runback.
hitless
@debbie: In terms of supporting Russia’s demands, yes. Germany is captive to Russia’s supply of natural gas.
WaterGirl
@Woodrow/asim: Well, you made me happy because I miss that Woodrow fellow. :-)
I thought maybe you decided to be MisterDancer on the front page and Woodrow/asim in the comments.
Ken
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Were I the Ascension worker directed to go back to ThedaCare, I would carefully explain to my Ascension bosses what I intended to do. I would then go to ThedaCare and file my nails until I was fired for cause. Then I would go back to Ascension. (Hence the reason for chatting with them in advance.
Oh, and I might keep a bedpan in the freezer in the hopes that the judge was admitted to ThedaCare on my shift.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly:
ThedaCare Director: Well, you know I really hardly knew the guy.
Reporter: But it was YOU!
ThedaCare Director: Let me tell you about this new cutting edge stent technology…
debbie
@sab:
Yeah, but consigning them to Putin’s rule?
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, that certainly sucks.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Let us know how the interview goes today.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Was the TRO ex parte? Judge should have known better, but could have been misled by the hospital.
lowtechcyclist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
AIUI, ThedaCare is suing Ascension, and on account of the employees not even being party to this suit, the judge seems to have overlooked their rights entirely in issuing this injunction. Just “Company A is suing Company B for doing what they claim is Bad Thing X, and I’m telling Company B to stop what they’re doing until we can have a proper hearing on this.”
Bad Thing X was that Ascension was supposedly ‘poaching’ ThedaCare’s employees (is that even actionable? Seriously??), but what Ascension was told to stop doing for the moment was employing these people.
As far as I can tell, the ThedaCare Seven are free to work anywhere else in the world today, except for Ascension. But obviously getting hired somewhere takes time, so that ain’t happening.
But again AIUI, the more complete hearing is supposed to happen today. So with any luck, they ought to be able to start work tomorrow. But the employees’ interests should have been represented here from the get-go. If I were them, I’d be in that courtroom today, with a lawyer
ETA: Looks like a bunch of this has been covered while I was typing.
But I don’t believe the employees were ordered back to ThedaCare; my understanding is that they weren’t even considered. They just can’t work at Ascension today, because Ascension has been ordered not to employ them for now.
germy
Scout211
Pelosi 1, McCarthy 0. Nancy Smash!
Supreme Court declines to hear McCarthy’s challenge to Speaker Pelosi’s proxy voting rules.
dww44
@WereBear:
I wouldn’t count on that. An increasing numbers of Republicans/independents voted for Trump in 2020 after witnessing the prior 4 years. I hope to live long enough to ask my many relatives who did that to explain their vote. Voted for him in 2020 when they didn’t in 2016. They bought into the messaging that Biden was weak, feckless, and couldn’t string 2 sentences together. They still buy into that. We need to figure out a way to get off defense. Truly.
sab
@debbie: Germans in the 21st century seem to mostly worry about Germans, pretty much like everyone else in the world.
AliceBlue
@rikyrah: Heaphy is also assisting the January 6 committee.
debbie
@sab:
I thought Merkel was better than that, to be honest.
Baud
@debbie:
She’s retired.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: You keeping a dossier?
Baud
@dww44:
If history is any guide, people will just complain about that everyone else is doing it the wrong way.
lowtechcyclist
This. There was precious little pushback over the “Lock Her Up!” chants. That was actually the final straw that got me to stop listening to NPR altogether.
The morning after the 2016 GOP convention, Morning Edition had a single commentator (can’t remember who) that they brought on for his take on the convention. He said nothing about “Lock Her Up!”, he said nothing about “I alone can fix it.” Instead, he talked about what a great job Manafort was doing, and how impressive his kids were.
It’s hard to decide which of those two comments of his has aged more terribly, but both of them pale next to the things he didn’t mention. And there was no pushback from the hosts.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Jen Psaki said in one of last week’s press b.riefings that all our allies and NATO partners were all on board with sanctions and other bad consequences if Russia set one foot in Ukraine.
I’m not sure how that squares with what you wrote.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I care, man.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: agree. It was treated like fun and games and now here we are.
lowtechcyclist
I keep saying: the Dems need to go on the attack against the vaccine refusers, and especially against the people pushing anti-vax, anti-mask propaganda. They’re the reason we’re still here.
I believe in the power of negative partisanship, and a lot of people, not just in our camp but in the mushy middle, are ready to be angry at those fuckers.
It would have been better if they’d started with this back in the fall, when Delta was still the main problem. Because then when Omicron hit, it would have reinforced the message. But better now than later.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: No apologies! Yours was the most helpful comment i have seen as this has been discussed.
germy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-blocks-nato-ally-from-transferring-weapons-to-ukraine-11642790772
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: As Baud pointed out, Angela is no longer in office.
But while gas supplies are an issue, of course, more distressing ( to this viewer) is the various German leaders who speak of Germany owing a moral debt to Russia – due to the unpleasantness of 1941-1945. As if the Nazis had not also occupied Ukraine and killed millions.
The real concern is maybe not active support of Russia but more sitting on their hands with respect to Ukraine.
ETA: And what germy pointed out above, although weapons are making their way into Ukraine regardless.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: That is great news!
debbie
@Baud:
Is there that much difference in her predecessor? That news never made it out to Ohio.
WaterGirl
@germy: Well, fuck. Thanks for the information.
Baud
@debbie: I don’t know. I was just pointing out that Merkel is no longer in charge.
debbie
@debbie:
I also noticed last night that the GOP is shrieking for sanctions before Putin does anything. Wonderful, if we did that, he’d be better able to prepare for them.
germy
@WaterGirl:
Maybe Merkel would have had a different policy, but I honestly don’t know enough about German politics to have an opinion on that.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Has a Presidential press secretary ever lied?
WaterGirl
@debbie: Wait, the GOP doesn’t like Russia anymore? After being in their pocket for years? It can be hard to keep up with those who have no morality and no moral standards.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
am I the only one who had no idea Sarah Palin was suing the NYT?
dr. luba
@Gin & Tonic: Molotov Ribbentrop Pact–Russia and Germany were allies, and started WWII together.
And then Germany turned on Russia, and Russia suffered in the war.
But Belarus and Ukraine bore the brunt of WWII and Nazi atrocities/murders. They lost 25.3% and 16.3% of their 1940 populations, respectively, much of that civilian deaths. (The US and UK, in contrast, lost 0.32% and 0.94%, almost all of that military deaths.)
Germany’s concern is misplaced.
Old Man Shadow
@WaterGirl: I think they’d like to push us into making a hawkish move first, to give Putin the moral high ground.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I kept seeing reports on TV news about it.
Maybe she’s hoping for a big payday, as her various grifts dissolve.
I didn’t know she had covid. I have to assume she’s fully vaccinated and boosted, and just lying about it to impress her base. Maybe I’m wrong.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: With, I’m sure, zero suggestions for how he could “make things normal” again. They can criticize, but never have any actual ideas for what to do.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl: Sounds like a 1984 line. The GOP was at war with Russia. The GOP had always been at war with Russia.
They’d keep poor Winston Smith working overtime, memory-holing all that old stuff.
Steeplejack (phone)
Redacted.
germy
@Steeplejack (phone):
Yes, I know what she said to the judge. But isn’t being a liar her whole thing, really?
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Germany has been hanging back some. They won’t join other NATO countries in sending weapons to Ukraine, or grant licenses for countries to send weapons they have supplied on to Ukraine, like we have done. The Germans have said that they will send a field hospital to Ukraine and take in wounded Ukranian soldiers to be treated at Bundewehr hospitals.
Many ascribe Germany’s qualified support of Ukraine to it’s reliance on Russian gas supplies. I saw one analyst explaining it as a reversion to the 19th century German policy of favoring Russia at the expense of smaller nations between the two “Great Powers.” (this policy broke down when Kaiser Wilhelm II fired Bismarck).This may be overthinking the matter, though.
A high ranking Geman Navy officer had to resign three days ago for making remarks favoring Putin’s point of view. Some say the admiral was ditched not so much for his beliefs as for stating them in public.
Old Man Shadow
Things in Ukraine are probably going to suck for some time.
It seems highly unlikely that we’ll send troops to Ukraine, but we can and probably will do a lot of financial, intelligence, and technological things to try to thread the needle of making Russia and Putin suffer while not kicking off WW3.
I doubt Ukrainians will be happy about that, but it is unrealistic to imagine the EU and the US to go to war with a fellow nuclear power about it.
And when their advance bogs down, and their economy tanks, Putin will have the West to blame on the homefront instead of his own thievery and corruption.
dr. luba
Putin overestimates his popularity in Ukraine. He is deluded there…like GwB was when he said we would be greeted in Iraq with flowers and chocolayes.
Putin gives his reason for invading/occupying Ukraine that he is only defending Russian speakers in Ukraine, using the assumption that language=ethnicity=nationality=loyalty. I mean, the Irish speak English, so they must have loved being under England, no?
Language doesn’t equal identity!!
I found this on Twitter today. The man in the video is a Russian speaker, from a city (Kharkiv) that’s considered Russian-speaking, and very near the Russian border. Putin’s target demographic. But he decidedly wants nothing to do with Russia the country–he’d rather take up arms to defend Ukrain
– Does your family have a plan of action in case of Russian invasion into Ukraine?
⁃Yes. We have.
⁃Do you mind sharing?
⁃I will take a gun and go to war.
⁃And what about your family?
⁃Well. I will drive my family to the dacha/summer house. They will live in there. We’ve already bought food, gasoline. All the necessities, just in case.… And as for myself I am ready for war. If they will give me a gun, I will go to war. I will do whatever it takes. I will beat them however I can.
Yarrow
@debbie:
Yes. As Gin & Tonic pointed out, there’s plenty of Russian friendliness among German elected officials. Also, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has particularly close ties to Putin. Link.
There’s a lot gong on there that Americans don’t follow or understand much.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t think Jen Psaki lies.
I do think that things can change quickly, especially in a situation like this, and that something she said last week could be different from what is happening this week.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: Makes you wonder how many people in the press secretly agreed with the “Lock her up” chant, because it seemed that they uniformly despised Hillary.
WaterGirl
@Old Man Shadow: Oh, that makes sense.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Not ex parte, which was surprising.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy:
I was completely unaware. Last time I saw her she was wearing a silly costume on one of those talent shows. I thought that was her life now.
Also, I think she’s dumb enough to actually be un-vaxxed. I saw all the Bari Weiss clips from teh Bill Maher show over the weekend (didn’t bother to hit play), I just today saw that Maher boldly (in his mind) refuses to get boosted. Maher isn’t precisely stupid (he went to Cornell, as he used to manage to work into the first few minutes of every interview back when I paid attention to him), but he does have an adolescent fascination with what he thinks is his intellect
Yarrow
@Steeplejack (phone): OT – I saw your possible pipe freezing issues a few days ago. Just a suggestion as a final check that once you think you have good water flow you turn off all the taps and go check the meter to be sure it isn’t moving. If it is moving you could have a leak somewhere that isn’t immediately obvious.
Gin & Tonic
@Old Man Shadow: Ukrainians do not want nor expect US troops in Ukraine.
germy
This is why they’d rather everyone talk about m&m character redesigns:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: I wonder if the people espousing “moral debt” to Russia have expressed these feelings in the past in any way that doesn’t directly benefit Vladimir Putin and would actually potentially cost Germans.
dr. luba
@Old Man Shadow: The markets are already tanking in Russia, and the ruble losing value. And it’s not like most of non-oligarch Russia has a standard of living anywhere near western standards; I mean, outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, not much has improved in the last 100 years.
There’s a reason most oligarchs and their families live abroad.
Starting wars to divert the Russian people’s attention from their shit lives has been Putin’s SOP forever.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: I’ve seen people arguing that the Brits, and the French, could do a lot more to make Russian oligarchs’ live uncomfortable by taking a closer look at money-laundering, but the banks don’t want anyone taking that closer look.
I haven’t seen it mentioned specifically in the context of Ukraine, but I can’t imagine Deutsche Bank wouldn’t also be caught up in that laundering.
RaflW
I went down quite a warren of rabbit holes yesterday, after reading a news item on Ukraine forces beefing up patrols inside the 30km Chernobyl exclusion zone — could be a sneaky way for RU troops to get close to Kiev as part of the zone is really in Belarus (separately administered and ‘patrolled’).
I hadn’t given much thought to the world’s biggest nuclear fuckup in quite some time. At least the giant steel outer containment structure got done and installed.
Hopefully as that part of the world experiences greater Putiny destabilization, the half-life legacy of those atoms can remain (more or less!) ‘contained.’ The poorly marked burial sites for hot scrap and salvage waste is no small matter either. Blergh.
jonas
@Gin & Tonic: This history is important for understanding the current mood in Germany wrt Russia-Ukraine. After what Stalin did to the Ukrainians in the 30s, a lot of them joined the Nazi invasion as anti-Russian partisans, which in turn led to all kinds of atrocities and reprisals when the Russians pushed the Germans back out towards the end of the war. Gulags were stuffed for years (and mass graves filled) with Ukrainians suspected of pro-German sympathies and Russian media still likes to portray the Ukrainian government as filled with anti-Russian Nazi sympathizers. So I get Germany’s reluctance to be seen as intervening in Ukraine again. But the barely-concealed pro-Putin sentiment among some sectors of the government and military is deeply disappointing. And unhelpful.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There is so much Russian money sloshing around in the UK it’s pathetic. The London real estate market has arguably been kept at its ridiculous highs by Russian money. Russians are not the only ones, of course, but for the past 10-20 years (give or take) they’ve been all over the UK with their money.
They’ve also invested heavily in the British conservative party, which has been in power for 12 years. Those elected officials aren’t going to upset their paymasters.
dr. luba
@Yarrow: Putin has bought many western politicians, and not just in the GOP.
Yarrow
@dr. luba: Oh, yes, of course. See my above comment about Russian money in the UK conservative party.
RaflW
@MattF: Yep.
Newt Gingrich is coaching guys like Jim Jordan to manufacture authority to arrest and jail J6 Committee members. And bragging about it.
He’s figured out one of the ways to snake charm the Beltway: tell in advance what your corrupt & illegal acts will be. It removes the shock value so that it feels substantiality less “newsy” when it actually happens.
But he’s serious, I’m sure of it. And he isn’t just an edge commenter. He’s former Speaker. He advises GOPs. His wife was an ambassador for the Trump Admin just a year ago.
Miss Bianca
Evidently I missed it. What exactly did Newt Gingrich go on the teevee machine to say?
dr. luba
@jonas: And Russia and some of the press like to tar Ukrainians as being nazis, even though 1) the far right didn’t qualify for any seats in parliament, and 2) the current president is Jewish and was elected in a landslide.
And I would venture to guess that there are probably more nazis in the US military than in Ukraine’s.
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: Hell, Kolomoisky owns half of Cleveland. The money laundering is everywhere.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Almost since the pandemic started Maher has been pushing the line that it’s mostly people’s bad lifestyles (being overweight and not eating right, not taking the right supplements) that have caused them to get sick and die from Covid, and that health authorities have been negligent to not constantly talk about how if only people would lose weight and eat better they could avoid dying from Covid. But of course he’s not victim blaming. *rolleyes* It’s the “Covid is a disease of the elderly, already sick and obese, how come the rest of us are being inconvenienced by measures to contain it?” argument, and he’s been making it almost the whole time. It’s dumb, like his griping that no one will laugh at his jokes anymore because they’re too “woke”. Other comedians don’t have any problem with that, why does he? Maybe he needs to get some new material.
Joe Falco
@Miss Bianca:
Basically, Newt said that if and when Republicans control the House again, Republicans would lead investigations into Democratic lawmakers and imprison them.
dr. luba
@Yarrow: Yes. Putin has been supporting far left and fr right parties throughout Europe for decades, but is particularly close to some politicians, like Gerhard Schröder.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: You know, whenever I see shit like this – and then the follow-up “wow, *who knew* that this apparently “moderate” Republican could possibly be a Nazi just like all the others!” – I am reminded of Renee Zellweger’s character in Cold Mountain, who finally loses it and screams, “Every piece of this is man’s bullshit. They call this war “a cloud over the land” but they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say “Shit, it’s rainin’!”
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: It is. We turn a blind eye to it for some reason. Wonder why…
dr. luba
@Soprano2: Maher has been blaming fat people for everything since forever. Except, of course, when in the presence of an overweight celebrity on his show. I mean, in 2019 he said “Fat shaming doesn’t need to end it needs to make a comeback.”
I’m 63, and find it hard to remember when he was actually funny. Was he ever?
RaflW
@Soprano2: If only old people wouldn’t be so old!
Just saw that Maher says he will “never” take a booster. Fine.
If variant theta comes along in a few years and evades all the 2021-22 vaccines, and kills him? Ehhh, too bad.
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@lowtechcyclist: I imagine Inskeep “had to leave it there.” He usually did.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
Really sad to see the press admit that they also bought into the “Scary Black Man” narrative, and that the Republicans are not really responsible for this ongoing political madness.
But this current GOP obstructionism can probably be directly traced back to Newt Gingrich, and the idea that the GOP is the only legitimate, true and patriotic political party in America. Newt opposed everything that Bill Clinton wanted to do, tried to shut down the government, and tried to claim that only the GOP agenda was valid.
Jackie
@germy: This is her second bout of Covid. She also got it last spring. She swore she’d never get vaccinated – “over her dead body.”
Here’s hoping!
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: Yeah, ask McConnell and Baby Doc Paul about Deripaska’s aluminum plant in Kentucky.
zhena gogolia
@debbie: It’s the SDs.
Miss Bianca
@Jackie:
How’s that immortal line go?: “Your offer is acceptable.”
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Leaves me wondering how somone would even go about trying to defame Palin. What would it take, and where would they start?
Geminid
@dr. luba: Some U.S. lefties have latched on to the “Nazis in the Ukrainian army” story. Their critics point out that the lefties get all hot and bothered about nazis in the Ukraine, whereas they explain away nazis in the U.S. as a matter of the white working class’ economic anxiety.
Basically, the lefties will take any side opposite to that of the Biden administration. So will Republicans. The lefties will argue that we and the Ukrainians are bullying the poor Russians. The Republicans will argue that under Biden the U.S. is weak and ineffectual. But whatever the stated rationale, the practical intent is to tear down Democrats.
zhena gogolia
@jonas: Oh, that is ancient history and is just being used as an excuse.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: one of the recent Inspector Rebus novels (and I am so fucking happy that Ian Rankin can not seem to let go of either Rebus or Big Ger Cafferty) is about Russian money-laundering in the elegant neighborhoods of Edinburgh
RaflW
@germy: I don’t know if folx are familiar with Chocolonely? They make the claim (and i surely hope it’s true) that they’re 100% slave labor-free. It’s darn delicious chocolate.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: Oh, yeah. So odd it involved those two guys. Who could have imagined them having any interest or ties to Russia.
*pointed look
Kay
@dr. luba:
The Youths think fat shaming is socially unacceptable. Maher is showing his age. It’s a good change. It sucked and people needed to stop doing it.
I think a lot of the pushback against “woke youths” stems from middle aged or late middle aged people who were really invested in being considered edgy and hip in their younger years, and are now just considered nasty and out of step. There’s a real “look at ME! I’m still a rebel!” vibe to it.
No one ever wants to just let the up and comers invent their own way of looking at the world. They can’t run youth culture if they’re eligible for Social Security. Youths will run youth culture.
Almost Retired
@jonas: Yup, on this point (Ukraine/Belarus’ horrific mid-20th Century history), I highly recommend Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands” – but not as a beach read or a book club choice (unless your book club is particularly morbid and ghoulish).
RaflW
@Jackie: Consider me not shocked if the shelf life of “natural immunity” is quite a bit shorter than the vaccine course. Humans get the same dang colds over and over (as I am too aware, pre-masking & distancing). I’m no immunologist, but shouldn’t we expect similar behavior from our bodies & this stronger (or maybe just more novel) coronavirus?
BTW, this (caution NYT – still a good source for non-political news) about Japan and their rapid understanding of aerosol transmission and mitigation was echoed by Zeynep Tufekci.
Given all the other shitshows of American life, I have low hopes. But improving indoor air quality & filtration would do wonders for our health. Not just coronaviruses, but also flu and other risks.
Kay
It’s just so sour and ungenerous. Why can’t younger people make a new social norm where they aren’t cruel to people because of the person’s weight? And why are 60-something grown ups clinging to such a nasty, dated social norm? Are they losing something? It’s vital to them that people are mean to other people?
If you’re relying on fat jokes in 2022 you probably need some new material.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Well said. I see the whole effort to promote Bari Weiss as a replay of Andrew Sullivan thirty-odd years later: “What? He’s openly gay (as was said at the time) and a conservative? And a devout Catholic? How interesting!” Joe Klein wrote like five blog posts congratulating himself for attending Sullivan’s wedding.
Now: “A young (ish) Upper West Side Ivy League bisexual who speaks out against left-wing cancel culture (and used to date Kate McKinnon)? What a fascinating independent thinker!”
As someone asked on twitter: Whatever happened to that “university” scam that Weiss and a handful of other Establishment-accredited grifters were looking to make bank on? Elon Musk or some variant of him pull the plug on the money?
Yarrow
@RaflW: Immunity from the original flavor Covid and also Delta seemed to last longer but not as long as vaccine immunity. But Omicron immunity is apparently quite short.
There is evidence of people in South Africa getting reinfected with Omicron. I don’t know if those reinfections are BA.2 when BA.1 was their first infection. It’s possible. I don’t know if that’s being sequenced.
Tenar Arha
This. I think it takes a rare comedian who remains funny out of their first era. Unless their writers room is filled with young people writing jokes that they actually use, they’re just less funny as time passes.
Another Scott
@MattF: The trouble with Wilson’s description is that heads-he-wins, tails-he-loses. It’s political wankery. If it happens, he’s the grand Nostradamus. If it doesn’t, he’s the person who raised the alarm and defeated the Fascists. (grocho-roll-eyes.gif)
As driftglass reminds us, Wilson was more than happy to push all the “mainstream” GQP policies when he was on the inside and making bank on it. They haven’t really changed, they are just saying the quiet parts out loud now – they have put power and party over country for decades and decades…
If Wilson really wanted to be helpful, he would be working to defeat his old buddies efforts rather than kibitzing and making videos.
Where are his exposes’ of what his buddies were doing when he was on the inside? Where’s his money going to defeat these monsters and their efforts to negate the vote?
“I tried to tell you, y’all shoulda listened to me…” is just distracting noise without actual proposals for action to get us to where we need to be.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Michael Cain
@Soprano2:
Since they moved them farther back, missed extra points happen more often. This year the league’s success rate is about 92%. There was one weekend this season where 13 or 14 extra points were missed.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think it is embarrassingly obvious with Greenwald and also Matt Taibbi.
It’s 22 years past 2000. My youngest wasn’t even born yet. He doesn’t need middle aged men telling him what a “liberal” is. They won’t even allow them to think through and define their impressions or thoughts of the covid era that they just lived thru. Bari Weiss feels she needs to tell them what to think about it.
I don’t know what “college students” think about covid restrictions. I just have one to ask. They could…ask some? Or maybe just wait until the 18, 19, and 20 year olds define it themselves?
Yarrow
@Michael Cain: I still think they should do the extra point kick as they do in rugby. The kicker kicks the ball a certain number of yards back from the point at which the touchdown was made. It makes for a far more interesting extra point kick because the ball could be kicked from any point across the field.
trollhattan
A dog 100% composed of ears and nose, now that’s pretty fetching.
Baud
@Kay:
Boomer jokes!
Old Man Shadow
@Tenar Arha: George Carlin was funny until the day he died. And while he was pretty profane, his edge was directed towards the assholes with money and power.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In fairness, Wilson thinks his videos are work to defeat his old buddies. I never sent them any money, but I was a bit surprised at how ineffectual the Lincoln Project was in 2020, for all of Wilson’s swagger and flair with an insult and Steve Schmidt’s monotone yet passionate bellowing. Dan Pfeiffer, the smartest of the O’Bros, was making the point in real time that LP’s stuff appealed to people who knew who Rick Wilson et al were: political junkies and the kind of people who host and appear on MSNBC. Brian Williams loved to smugly and sarcastically complain, right up to his last show, that the most effective voices for Democrats were former Republicans. There was never any evidence to back this up.
Yarrow
@Kay:
Isn’t that what a pundit does in a nutshell? Tell other people how to think and feel about something they’re living through.
At best pundits seem to be a waste of space, imho. At worst they’re portrayed as “independent thinkers” when in reality they’re being paid to use their platforms to influence people in certain directions.
Baud
Do young people even laugh nowadays?
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Conservatives have been playing the “liberals are now the tight-assed prigs and conservatives are the new cool guys!” game ever since I was a teenager. It was actually closer to being true in the 1980s–there was a real Reaganite youth movement. Today, eh.
All I really know are the opinions of one high-school-age teenager whose worldview has been heavily influenced by me in the first place. I know she is an open evangelist for COVID vaccination, is fine with masks and thinks remote education is at least an acceptable workaround when things are particularly bad (in fact, I think she likes it more than its academic effect on her would indicate is prudent).
Geminid
@Brachiator: You would probably appreciate M.D. Russ’ article “Trump is the Republican President,” Bearing Drift June 26, 2020. A self-described “independent conservative,” Russ traces the dynamics that made the Republicans elect Trump back to Newt Gingrich and his 1994 “Contract for America.” Trump did not hijack the Republican party, Russ concludes, “he just answered the casting call.”
Tenar Arha
@Old Man Shadow: Yep. He’s one of the rare ones.
I’ve thought about this, & I’m not sure, but I think the ones who never really wanted to punch down, even when they started, have more staying power.
trollhattan
@Kay: Mine was born Dec 2001 and when the last plane departed Kabul, I texted her (as one does to interact with a child) my congratulations for living in a country not at war for the first time in her life. She was genuinely perplexed at what my point may have been.
The “new normal” is a hellofa lot different than that of 2000.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree.
Kay
@Baud:
I was with my father once as an adult and he hates disorder, well, people, so someone was driving too close to us as we were walking and he yelled “four eyes!”. I said “four eyes? Is that even an insult in modern times?”
That’s what fat jokes are to a 19 year old. They’re yelling “four eyes!” at people who wear glasses, as a super clever retort.
trollhattan
@Old Man Shadow: So true. He never lost focus, never took his foot off the gas pedal, never let success get to his head.
Baud
@Kay:
Oh lord. No wonder so many old white guys are angry Republicans. We took away all their best insult jokes.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: All the time. What they laugh at, you may find incomprehensible.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
I see why I stopped watching the show.
Also, Robert Kennedy Jr has been going nuts and making a fool of himself. For him it’s Big Pharma is always evil.
What is happening is that these people are bringing their non-science quackery to Covid discussions. They are stuck in their stupidity and cannot adjust to reality.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
One thing that has helped them is that haven’t really been able to regulate sex in a long time. It’s what they want to do most though, so it’ll be interesting to see how that will be received once they are able to do so again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin:
Remember Alex P Keaton, the witty teen-age Reaganite who acted as a foil to his aging hippie parents (who worked for non-profits and lived in a Crafstman-style mansion– But I digress)? Somebody on twitter dug up a clip from a Family Ties episode when Alex planned a high school dance on the theme of the Ante-Bellum South. Full disclosure: I liked that show in real time, but even without seeing that clip I’d be afraid to see how it’s aged
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The weird rash of cultural attention paid to nerds in the popular culture of the mid-1980s… well, a lot of it was terrible for various reasons, but one of the oddest reactions to it was a bunch of articles sincerely arguing that the bullying and ostracism of nerds served an important social purpose and that something awful would happen if it was openly OK to be like that and not OK to pick on them.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Bill Maher has been an alternative-medicine crank with antivaxxer tendencies from the beginning. I think animal rights was his pathway into it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
And that something is Elon Musk.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Teenage Gen-X Reaganites were real and numerous, but the thing that was inaccurate about Alex P. Keaton was that they generally weren’t the rebellious children of boomer hippies; they were the obedient children of Silent Generation reactionaries. The boomers were their weird older siblings, aunts and uncles.
Suzanne
@Kay:
I think it’s also about investment, in a weird way. Like, if you worked your ass off to stay skinny, developing an eating disorder or a drug habit or spent tons of time in the gym or denying yourself things you like…. some people want a reward for that. The reward is social status, feeling higher on the hierarchy because you adhered to a beauty standard.
It’s just a different flavor of sparrows and curtain rods.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, Maher used to rein in his professional scold side but it’s been out, loud and proud the last few years to the point of making him watchable. If it’s not bad diets killing us it’s “wokeism” and squshy college liberalism. Just nope. Also in the habit of congratulating right wing guests for being steely enough to brave appearing in front of his squishy liberal audience, all while seldom pushing back on their reflexive lies.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Very good article. Thanks very much. A link to it here.
The GOP thought that Trump was their dream candidate. He has turned out to be an ongoing nightmare for the country. Moderate Republicans have nowhere to go. And Trump only cares about himself and his bruised ego, and doesn’t care what happens to the GOP or to America.
trollhattan
@Brachiator: The RFK Jr. “vaccine be Holocaust” thing happened here in Sacramento seven years ago. It’s not new, it’s not even covid, it’s an evil person unleashing his inner demons while capitalizing on the (now entirely disgraced) family name.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: You’re welcome! ???
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: RFK Jr.’s antivax preoccupation got a huge amount of national oxygen back in 2005 when Rolling Stone published his conspiracy article about thimerosal and autism. They eventually retracted it, but I hold them responsible for a lot of the insanity going on today.
Brachiator
@Brachiator:
Wow. I know that I tried to create a link to the article, but it did not stick. Anyway, easy to look it up.
A key idea from it:
Trump, aided by McConnell took it further.
satby
constantly. At us.
Miss Bianca
@Old Man Shadow: Gee, almost seems like “punching up” as a comic mode remains more consistently funny than “punching down”. Imagine that!
@Tenar Arha: oops, I see that you came up with this insight way before I did!
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
There have always been people who simplistically lay America’s problems on Big X.
Big Tech, Big Money, Big Pharma.
There is often some truth behind it, but the nut jobs add perpetual conspiracy and eliminate nuance. So if you believe that Big Pharma is evil, all medicine and vaccines must be bad.
Scout211
@Brachiator:
Fixed it for ya. You’re welcome!
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: For the most part, I viewed the Lincoln Project as a way for Wilson et al to make money when their natural base of funders went too ‘far’ even for them (Wilson had no problem pushing all the racist tropes and bullshit right up until Trump).
LP wasn’t about reaching Republicans. And it was too pointy-elbowed to reach the squishy ‘independents’. Maybe a handful of R-leaning indies who’d already left the GOP.
But mostly, it was a way to rake in pissed off prog/Dem dollars. If that meant less money for actual Dems, well I’ve always believed that George Conway is a complete con job and totally in on the scam with his scumbag wife.
George wants all the shit-ass Federalist judges, and doesn’t care what the means of installing them is. He just wants to keep his hands from having orange poo on ’em.
Soprano2
@Kay: It does seem to be people like that. He cites Seinfeld as another comic who can’t play college campuses anymore because “the youth” are “too woke” and don’t have a sense of humor. Funny, Colbert and Trevor Noah, for two, don’t seem to have a problem with that! It’s just laziness – those who are complaining want to keep using their 30-year-old material, they don’t want to do new stuff.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: Punching down is way easier and safer, though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think we need more breakdowns like this on Covid reporting
Baud
@satby:
It’s cuz I’m fat, isn’t it?
Yarrow
@satby: Same as it ever was.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes! I’ve been saying this forever.
Soprano2
@Kay: Paul Campos wrote a good book about how “fat” is seen by many people in our culture as something that’s almost contagious, as if you can catch it from people. It’s called “The Obesity Myth” and talks a lot about how BMI is a terrible measure of health that was never intended to be used that way, and how being fat doesn’t mean you aren’t fit or healthy (although I personally believe morbid obesity is always unhealthy), and how our perceptions of who is fat are shaped by media. Maher sounds like one of those people who is repelled by anyone he believes is the least bit “fat”, so he blames them for all our Covid problems. Gee, if only we didn’t have elderly, sick and overweight people, Covid would be no problem at all! *rolleyes* He’s a prick about it.
Yarrow
@RaflW: I wonder why the LP people left the Republican party. Was it as they claimed because the Republicans became too authoritarian, not “conservative” (whatever that means) anymore? Or were they pushed out? Republicans stopped hiring them for some reason? Or maybe paid to leave and set up the LP?
Agree with your about George Conway. He and his wife were working both sides of the Republican split so that one of them would still be in good standing no matter which side won.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: 100% agree. Should have been done from the start.
James E Powell
@lowtechcyclist:
Because the press/media hate Hillary Clinton. It’s a job requirement at the FTFNYT.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I remember listening to RFK Jr. being interviewed about 20 years ago. I heard the quaver that never left his voice and thought, that is a psychologically damaged man. I assumed this was from his father’s assassination. That of course does not excuse the harmful course he has taken, but it may help explain it.
JoyceH
When I saw that recent Gingrich clip, my very first thought was that there was some sort of embarrassing document or proposal in the Trump White House with his name on it, and he’s worried the commission has it.
Soprano2
@Brachiator: I think it’s even simpler, it’s wishful thinking. They want it to be true that if only we isolated the elderly and those who are already sick with other things the rest of us could just go about our lives as if nothing happened. That way they wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced in the slightest.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Do I recall correctly that they took thimerosal out of vaccines, and the incidence of autism in children didn’t change?
Soprano2
@trollhattan: Maher used to have guests on who disagreed with him, and who pushed back and argued with him, but that hasn’t really been true for a couple of years especially when it comes to his griping about “wokeness”. They all nod in grave agreement when he opines about that, even the liberals he has on. I’m not sure he realizes that it’s made his show much less interesting.
jnfr
USPS sent me a notice that my test kits should arrive today. A week earlier than I expected.
lowtechcyclist
Yeppers.
My WAG is that there were millions of people out there who were and are racist as fuck, but weren’t picking up on the dog whistles which went right over their heads.
It took Trump saying the quiet parts out loud for them to say, “hey, that guy speaks for me!” and go from being apolitical to being the core of Trump’s support.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2: even before her appearance this weekend, I got hit by a pop-up video ad for Maher’s show and the only guests I could identify were Weiss and Rick Wilson (on topic!)
I know he was a big Naderite in 2000, a big Obama supporter (which did not stop him from making racist jokes and tropes). I had stopped paying attention to him by ’16
debbie
@Baud:
Lotsa eye rolling mostly.
Jerzy Russian
@jnfr: Same here. My kits should arrive today. The original estimate was Friday of this week.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think they’re right about some things, the youths, and it’s just a process of shifting norms. You can’t tell jokes about beating your wife anymore. The world just moved on from that as being acceptable or amusing because it’s horrible. They don’t get to freeze culture and norms at what it was when they were young. Young people may or may not believe Glenn Greenwald’s “neocons” are the axis around which all political views revolve. They have their own horrible topical issues to deal with. I know it was his earth shattering moment of realization! HIS. They’ll have different ones.
I really started thinking about this because I was on a school council and they were addressing “bullying” There was what can only be called a pro-bullying faction, because people were bullied when they were in high school and they seemed to think this was some rite of passage. But is it? What if you just said “that behavior is no longer acceptable” and students accepted that and there was a new norm, where bullying was shitty and uncool? Maybe Lord of the Flies isn’t a direction manual and you could ask and expect people to treat one another decently, and then some of them would?
lowtechcyclist
The bright side is, you don’t have to worry about whether some pair of pants makes your butt look fat.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
IIRC thimerosal is used rarely and in very low concentrations at that. Autism diagnoses are most likely higher because we both screen for it and are better at it.
The 1998 Wakefield paper that most responsible for this mess was pulled more than ten years ago but the damage it did, lingers.
Baud
Via reddit
RepubAnon
@Spanky: “Commander” is a good cat name.
Chief Oshkosh
@RaflW:
Actually, that’s quite a pleasant thought. I saw his show in-person many years ago, during the W’s first term. He was funny then. Now, he’s just another AGING, raging asshole.
germy
germy
@Chief Oshkosh:
Geminid
@debbie: Have you checked out the Van Gogh exhibition in Columbus? The Washington Post reviewed “Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources” in this Sunday’s art section, and it looked pretty good. The exhibition will be at the Columbus Museum of Art through February 6, next stop the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
J R in WV
@Soprano2:
The don’t seem to be able to grasp that al those Republicans who turned out to be racist fascists after Obama was elected and then re-elected — they were all evil Nazis long before Obama ran for Senate.
They were Hateful Evil people by the time they learned to talk. Look at who taught them to talk, evil people who missed Jim Crow so hard… they are doing their best to recreate Jim Crow right now.
Evil.
Plain old evil.
germy
@trollhattan:
In case you missed it, here’s the gawker interview with Robert Kennedy Jr. He didn’t do too well.
https://www.gawker.com/politics/a-very-weird-interview-with-robert-f-kennedy-jr
JoyceH
@Kay: Your post gave me a flashback – remember when TV variety shows would have COMEDY skits about the boss chasing his secretary around the desk?
Almost Retired
@Geminid: Wow, thanks for the tip! I love Van Gogh, and I hadn’t heard about this exhibit. Day trip to Santa Barbara!!!
Kay
Our new policy of no federal civil rights protections for voting going well, I see:
Let the states set the rules with no oversight or enforceable federal protections. It’ll be great.
The ID thing is amusing because it started with assurances that they just wanted ID, then it went to photo ID, then certain photo IDs, and now they’re at fingerprints.
No telling where it ends because we pitched the civil rights laws on voting in the trash, so that might come back to bite us when we need one.
debbie
@Geminid:
I’ve watched a bunch of friends’ videos they took while there. Seems more VR (which makes me dizzy) than immersive, at least to me. ?
ETA: The Columbus Museum of Art is also exhibiting Van Gogh, along with lots of work by the artists who influenced him. There was a great show like this at the Met back in the 1990s (Origins of Impressionism), and if this exhibit is anything like that, it’s very much worth seeing.
satby
@Baud: Oh, jeez, I hope not, cause I am too ?
sdhays
@germy: I am generally one of the more optimistic (or, at least firmly non-doom) people around here, but most of the people on this list are, unfortunately, not going anywhere due to Democratic voting (unless it’s in massive numbers in a GQP primary, which isn’t going to happen).
What, exactly, is the path for Democrats to unseat Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert (isn’t she getting a more conservative district?), Madison KKKawthorn, Gym Jordan, or Tim Scott? If you squint hard enough, you can pretend that there’s a semblance of a chance to replace Rand Paul and John Kennedy since their states have Democratic governors, but it’s still incredibly unlikely.
The only one on this list that has a decent chance of losing his seat is Ron Johnson to a Democrat is Ron Johnson. Most of the rest are pipe dreams, and I don’t see how pretending otherwise is productive. I mean, challenge them, yes, but don’t oversell.
Ohio Mom
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines, I believe it’s still in the flu vaccine.
It’s a preservative, used in multi-dose containers of vaccine — after the first dose is extracted, the seal is broken, hence the need for a preservative. I don’t know if another preservative was substituted for childhood vaccines, or they went to individual dose sized containers. Maybe they do some one way and some the other.
There was never thimerosal in the MMR vaccine because it’s a “live” vaccine and a preservative would render it ineffective. Without getting into too much detail, the argument that the MMR vaccine causes autism described a completely different mechanism than the thimerosal one did.
Is the incidence of autism stable or increasing, no one can tell you. The criteria for the diagnosis is always being changed.
There are certainly many different autisms with many different etiologies and outcomes — think of cancer, many different etiologies, many different potential outcomes. Except the biology of cancer is better understood and the treatments are based on that biology.
At this point, most of us in the autism community don’t care about causes anymore. We want a better-funded and more widely available social services and supports, as well as acceptance, not awareness.
Sign me,
An autism mom
Soprano2
I think this is a lot of the reason older people gripe about “wokeness”. They can’t tell their racist jokes and misogynistic jokes anymore, and it makes them mad. They characterize these as unreasonable changes instead of what they actually are, progress toward seeing everyone the same as white men have always seen themselves. White people don’t want to give up their position on the top of the heap.
J R in WV
@jonas:
And don’t forget — there were plenty of Germans in East Germany who willingly worked for and supported the East German/USSR alignment. People who were young supporters of the STASSI back then are now old enough to have political power in unified Germany.
I don’t know how to untangle that situation, but just assuming right off that all the former East Germans love Democracy and the West and NATO and hate Putin and Russia seems wildly shortsighted and stupid.
Soprano2
Well, you know those were the bullies. No one who was bullied in school would want that to happen to others. It’s why it’s so hard to get rid of hazing – “I survived that just fine, you aren’t part of the group if you can’t survive it too”.
Kay
@JoyceH:
Different norms, right? But you can ask and get better norms. It’s a higher standard. I’m sure people will find plenty of new ways to be mean and degrading to other people, but they’re going to have to put some effort in. They can’t use the 1982 version.
Soprano2
@Kay: It will only end if they ever find a way to absolutely make sure only Republicans can vote, and especially if they can keep non-white people and liberal women from voting. Because yeah, just a photo id doesn’t seem to be enough now.
Suzanne
@Chief Oshkosh: Apparently Sarah Palin also said that she would take a Covid vaccine “over [my] dead body” and I’m like, “Okay”.
Geminid
@debbie: The “Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit” is another exhibit that’s been in New York and other cities. But your friends may have caught the one in Columbus reviewed in the Post. The exhibition:
Fleeting Expletive
@dr. luba: The answer is no. He was not. Ever funny, that is.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
100%. It is all about status. White dudes are used to having it.
Geminid
@Almost Retired: “Through Vincent’s Eyes” is scheduled for February 27 through May 22, at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Ohio Mom
Ugh. The car repair place just called. My oil is changed but they’ll tell me more when I get there. My little Civic is 11 years old and has been running rough. Probably not good news.
Benw
@Ohio Mom: hopefully they just want to replace the wiper blades!
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
Thanks for the tip.
Lyrebird
@Woodrow/asim: I don’t have solutions, but this here is what I want to be acknowledged in every US history class, in every US politics class, so well wrapped up:
@Woodrow/asim: and I think the “genteel” part that you highlight too, is important. I might disagree with the Thin Black Duke a little, in that I don’t think all white people understand the code, and staying in code helps McConnell keep on criming because of privileged people in denial or just not paying attention. Helped Youngkin get elected. Trump made everything more dangerous, but he lost some R-leaning support by being so brazen.
Just my two cents, if that.
debbie
@Geminid:
Right. That’s not the immersive one with things flickering around to Enya-like music. That’s the exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art.
germy
Jinchi
The almost universal contempt for “anti-war” voices from the American media is unbelievable. Especially since they rarely define what exactly they expect of the American government.
There is no war in Ukraine today, only the threat of it. Is he “pro-war” in Ukraine? Just how committed should we be to trading blows with a nuclear-armed superpower? What does victory look like if we start on a war-path? Maybe our thought leaders should spend a little time thinking through non-military responses to Russian aggression (aka the actual US and NATO point of view wrt Ukraine).
Just for clarity, Nicholas Grossman was explicitly “pro forever- war”, so this is the type of mind we’re dealing with.
trollhattan
@germy:
Holy shit, he’s Donny Trump without the swearing.
And especially for 27, I thought that reported did a damn good job.
germy
A poem by Laura Gilpin:
MattF
Very OT and very good news. The JWST (that space telescope) has reached its destination at the sun-earth L2 point after a five minute mid-course correction burn. It is now fully and successfully deployed. The next few months will be spent cooling down, focusing the optics, and calibrating/commissioning the scientific instruments.
germy
@trollhattan:
Should have called the interview “Enough Rope”
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Actually I can believe that Big Pharma CEO level people are evil thru and thru, and still believe that Pharma companies actually do develop and produce some valuable products, like vaccines and antibiotics.
Believing Pharma Bro Michael Shkreli (or whatever that bastard’s last name is) is a stone evil bastard doesn’t mean I can’t believe Pfizer and Moderna vaccines might save our world civilization by keeping enough tech support people alive to keep the power grid up. Keep the utilities running, etc, etc.
germy
@Jinchi:
Jinchi
This Sarah Palin?
One of the weirdest things I’ve noticed during this pandemic is someone tosses out a hypothetical:
‘Covid-19 is be like chicken pox. Once you’ve caught it you’re immune forever.’
And it instantly and permanently becomes universal common knowledge. Even after we’ve seen multiple cases of well-known people catching the virus, twice.
Starboard Tack
@lowtechcyclist: The US could choke off high tech components that Russia needs for military and industry. Third party countries supply the components but many are licensed from US.
Jinchi
@germy:
That isn’t even parody
RaflW
We here at Balloon Juice have known for several years now that the flip to pro-Putin & pro-Russia in US conservatism was under way. It’s just flat out here, now. This NJ Congressman has a remarkable update:
I expect that Condi Rice over at the Hoover Institution has been paid hush money? She had a huge forehead slap back in 2011: Bush’s phrasing had been a serious mistake. “We were never able to escape the perception that the president had naïvely trusted Putin and then been betrayed.”
RaflW
@Jinchi: My sense in the natural immunity set is that they’ve adapted the fundamentalist notion that only bad people get sick.
Of course, if that’s what they mean, then Palin having Covid twice indicates … what, now? Hmm.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
You are sane. Robert Kennedy Jr and others are not. They believe that natural supplements (which I guess grows on trees) are good and medicine is, by definition, bad.
Suzanne
@Jinchi: Jesus FUCK.
I mean, I too enjoy getting something for nothing. I’m not stupid enough to making it an organizing principle, though.
Suzanne
@RaflW: Would I be a bad person if I cheered on Long Covid?
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: the quaver is from a physical issue, spastic dysphonia I think it is called. Born that way, apparently.
Agree that he’s really disturbed, but it wasn’t how he was saying things, it was what he was saying.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: Whew! Just the gas in the struts is gone but as long as I don’t go on any long trips, which I don’t (we take Ohio Dad’s newer car) I’ll be fine.
My goal to drive this car until it falls apart under me, continues on, unimpeded.
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: Thanks, I did not know this and was extrapolating from personal experience with depression. I thought RFK Jr. sounded like he was intensely depressed.
Suzanne
@The Moar You Know: Spasmodic dysphonia. Diane Rehm has it, too.
RaflW
@Suzanne: As opposed to, say, the short Covid Herman Cain had? That’s a tough call.
(I’m slightly aghast that I’m even making that joke. The coarsening of American discourse led by those f*ks on the right feels inescapable.)
Baud
@RaflW:
I don’t wish death or illness on antivaxxers. I am just indifferent to it when it happens
ETA: People have been amused by the Darwin Awards since 1993. The only thing that’s changed are the number of people who are competing for the prize.
WhatsMyNym
@Ohio Mom: Replace the struts with good aftermarket ones. The ride will be better than new. Really shouldn’t cost that much and the car last longer.
JWR
@debbie:
On Face the Nation yesterday, Margaret Brennen kept pressing Antony Blinken on why the U.S. hasn’t done that yet. (And I mean NOW!) Blinkin told her why, but she kept going back to her “but why?” complaints. Her next guest was Republican rep Michael McCaul (R-TX), who agreed with (fellow Repub?), Brennen wholeheartedly.
You know what? I’m beginning to think they’re all (Repugs & our media), in this together. //
J R in WV
@JWR:
That’s because the Republicans and a large part of the media ARE in it together.
I don’t mean that they have dinner and drinks and decide what to do together, just that many (not all, thankfully, just many!) members of the main stream media strongly approve of Republican leadership and direction, no matter how crazed the Rs become.
That must be crazed also too, of course, just a different flavor or crazy!
trollhattan
@Ohio Mom: Sounds like “mission (nearly) accomplished.” :-)
Cars in road salt country all have a sell-by date baked in. Was always flabbergasted at the difference in Iowa cars when I’d visit granny, versus the typical condition of the same model/year on the West Coast, where they can soldier on far longer. (During our December Hawaii trip we parked next a surfer-dude Econoline van that I could literally see through. It had no remaining rocker panels, just intermittent paint skin suspended over rust.)
Starboard Tack
@Ohio Mom: Social support is crucial. Easy access to free speech and occupational therapies starting at age 2 made a huge difference for my nephew.
dr. luba
@Geminid: Tankies. For some reason they hate evil capitalistic America, but seem unaware that Russia is no longer a socialist workers’ paradise.
JWR
@J R in WV:
Hey, you missed my sarcasm tags! // (just making sure they were seen by all.) But yeah, I agree about our “liberal” media and Repugs appearing on the same cocktail weenie party lists.
Miss Bianca
@germy: Wow, I like that!
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom:
Yeah, the argument shifted as the facts changed. By the time RFK Jr. was writing about it he wasn’t even talking about MMR or the mechanism Wakefield had alleged. He was probably hooked because of the idea that this was mercury poisoning, something he’d encountered in environmental contexts already.
Suzanne
@Starboard Tack: Mr. Suzanne is a bilingual speech-language pathologist and he thanks you for your strong endorsement of early intervention. ;)
cain
@Kay:
GOP almost always overstep. They’ve radicalized to point that they will now go after everyone – and even people like Lil Marco will be shut out. They all tried to play the game so they can become top politician but it’s not gonna work.
We are going to have some very unhinged people and even if they become authoritarian, I bet you did – that economy is going to turn into a shit show – and these people still have guns. For now.
Peale
@Jinchi: Might as well be asking “Where are the Open Borders Activists” rallying behind Putin trying to reduce the number of borders in the world by 1. Hypocrites!
sab
@Starboard Tack: Same for my granddaughter.
Mo MacArbie
Am I the only one who remembers George Carlin toward the end as an angry ranter who barely even told jokes anymore?
Myself, in my edgy youth, I affected an old-man asshole voice and said outrageous shit for laughs. Now, for some reason, I can’t seem to pull that off anymore. So I stopped.
No One You Know
@WereBear: From where I seat, apathy for people has been redefined as failure to give and do more than we can afford to buy democracy back, because ads are votes.
“Whatever you’re doing is not enough,” Obama has said. Voting, signing petitions, giving within our means, demonstrating– it’s not enough.
Meanwhile the wheels of justice grind slowly. Perhaps to a halt.
It feels to me as if this has been coming since the spectacularly public interference with the election in Florida in 2000. Did any of those people ever face consequences?
neldob
I like how it’s not at all cool among the younger set to drive drunk. When I was growing up it was acceptable behavior, and thanks to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Progress.