Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How stupid are these people?

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Giving up is unforgivable.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Work Goes On

Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Work Goes On

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  2. 2.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    That last tweet seems to be of a piece with 21st-century Republican philosophy: they want to hurt people, through words or deeds, without suffering negative consequences for doing so.

    And to think that thirty years ago I thought that people were too complicated to be simply evil.

  3. 3.

    Matt

    Ms. Luther is a perfect distillation of what people who whinge about “wokeness” are actually complaining about: they’re terrified that the people they enjoy bullying might push back.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    Addressing the root causes of the southern border situation, voting rights and now Russian aggression against Ukraine. Why does the Biden admin assign all the easy stuff to Harris? /jk

  10. 10.

    Ken

    I don’t think the confusion will be that bad. When was the last time you even heard the name of one of the Fed bank leaders?

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    “What’s this world coming to, if our kids aren’t even allowed to make fun of out-groups?  How are we supposed to maintain our hold on power THEN, huh?”

    These people literally have nothing to offer anyone except the politics of resentment.  And it works…unless perhaps we keep pointing it out, over and over.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Bullwinkle he ’twere not.

    A large bull moose spent more than an hour stomping on the sled dog team of a rookie Iditarod musher in the wilds of Alaska last week — and the attack didn’t end even after Bridgett Watkins emptied her gun into the animal.

    She said on Facebook Friday that the moose, after seriously injuring four of her dogs, wouldn’t leave and that the ordeal stopped only after she called friends for help and one showed up with a high powered rifle and killed the moose with one shot. Source

  16. 16.

    Soprano2

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: Did you watch that video? After she says the other kids couldn’t make fun of them, she pauses for a long time and then babbles something else. This is what they want, to be able to make fun of those who make them uncomfortable and get social approval for it.

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker: And of course if Putin doesn’t tearfully step down and resign immediately, calling for free and fair elections for the next president of Russia, Harris will have failed woefully.

  21. 21.

    prostratedragon

    Sorry I missed last night’s trickster god post, so I couldn’t reminisce about the people in the villages lying back on their balalaikas, playing their samovars.

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: I predict at least one ‘crusty’ (i.e. senile) Repub rep will get in trouble for calling *this* Susan Collins “uppity” in a public rant.

    Who’ll be the first — Paul Gosar, or Chuck Grassley?

  24. 24.

    sdhays

    It’s “hilarious” that everything that Harris does is “a major … test of her vice presidency”, while Mike Dense’s portfolio amounted to gazing lovingly and wistfully at his Dear Leader and practicing his “steely gaze” once in a while.

  25. 25.

    sab

    Shelly Luther, just what you always wanted teaching your kids. When she realized she could not let her favored kids tease other different kids. Jeez.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    There’s a story in today’s Tampa Bay Times about the culture warrior mommies who now routinely attend Hillsborough County School Board meetings to protest the AP English reading list. Here’s a quote from one of them:

    “If you want to look at the light at the end of the tunnel as far as COVID goes,” said fellow parent and speaker Jessica Graham, it is “the awakening of parents to what is happening in the school system, and letting them realize that their voices matter. I think that is amazing, and I’m glad that parents are now standing up and saying, ‘You know what? As a parent I have rights.’”

    Did you catch that? The silver lining of COVID is that now all the focus is on them, the parents. Jesus Christ. It doesn’t seem to concern them that the kids — THEIR KIDS — have had their education severely disrupted and that teachers and administrators are pulling their hair out trying to find ways to help them catch up academically and address a burgeoning mental health crisis.

    That sort of thing pales into insignificance in comparison to mom’s disquiet after discovering that The Bluest Eye, which has been taught in AP English for a couple of generations now, contains harrowing scenes because it’s about a harrowing topic: oppression. Only happy stories about oppression allowed!

    What a bunch of whiny, self-centered assholes. I haven’t Googled the concerned mommies who’re quoted, but I am confident they’re Republican operatives. As usual.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @sdhays:

    Hey now.  Mike Pence didn’t overthrow American democracy despite enormous pressure on him to do so.  When has Harris ever had her mettle tested in that way?

  30. 30.

    khead

    Coach Donner seems really upset that the other reindeer can’t call Rudolph names and keep him out of the reindeer games anymore.

  33. 33.

    sab

    Granddaughter is getting her first taste of active shooter drills today.

    I was scared by Cuban missile bomb drills as a child, but they were actually useful for later tornado and earhquake situations.

    Active shooter drills? Not so useful.

  34. 34.

    Soprano2

    @satby: My guess is a lot. She was probably a bully when she was younger, too. It’s funny to hear them say what they really mean, and then realize they said it out loud.

  35. 35.

    sab

    @Betty Cracker: The nice thing about living in a city in Ohio is that all those mommas fled with their parents to the white flight suburbs. My white stepkids were very happy in minority majority city schools.

  36. 36.

    sdhays

    @sab: Fuck this country for subjecting her to this shit. The same people screeching about children having to wear masks in school don’t give a single shit about terrorizing them with active shooters and active shooter drills. It’s just the “cost of freedumb”.

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sab: Active shooter drills? Not so useful.

    But those kids can handle it, unlike the traumas of wearing masks and learning American history.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    have had their education severely disrupted and that teachers and administrators are pulling their hair out trying to find ways to help them catch up academically and address a burgeoning mental health crisis.

    It was never about students or schools. If they actually cared about students and schools they would not have launched a politically motivated panic in public schools just as public schools were trying torecover from the pandemic. I thought schools should be open- that too much of the burden was falling on kids and young people- but I didn’t pair that opinion with attacks on public schools because I actually want them in functioning schools and I recognize that this has been very very hard for public schools.
    They offer nothing positive, productive or of practical value to public schools. It’s all performative outrage and banning things.
    Early on on the pandemic we had a public meeting (in the parking lot) about all the pandemic changes at school- people who actually support public schools and want them to do well, so no Right wing screechers, no political professionals planning protests, not bullshit talking points about “CRT” . That is not what this is. I know because I’ve seen the real thing.

  41. 41.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: She is only seven. Hopefully she won’t know the why of what she is doing. Just another odd activity. When I had bomb drills I had no idea what a Russian was. Just climb under your desk because.

    Aren’t all the actual shootings in suburban and exurban schools? Are they getting the same drills?

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    I am starting to wonder about all of this stuff – CRT, book banning, the truckers, the anti-mask protesters – can it be as simple as a bunch of stupid people acting out like a little kid who throws himself on the floor of the grocery store, having a tantrum?

    What works with kids who are having a tantrum? I don’t think reasoning with them works.  You are supposed to Ignore them, right?  What else works with tantrums?

    Of course, it’s bigger than that because powers that be (with money, influence and power) are using al lot of these people as pawns in their bigger game to disrupt democracy.  These protests are astroturfed just like the tea party was.

    My mom used to accuse my two sisters and I of staying up at night thinking of ways to drive her crazy.  As a sassy 10-year-old I told her no, this just comes naturally, we don’t have to stay up at night.

    But I think these people actually do deliberately trying to figure out how to take down democracy as we know it.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    The helicopter parent aspects of this should not be ignored either. If your child is old enough to take an AP course they’re old enough to not have you taking the AP course with them. Do your own fucking work and let high school students do theirs.

    Conservatives are raising a generation of perpetually aggrieved whiners who can’t function without mommy and daddy vetting every page they read and essay they write. They’re really going to sit by their computer all day and watch live video of the 6th grade class? Can we skip the video and just have Right wing parents park a desk next to their snowflake and sit there and protect them? That way normal kids won’t have to filmed every minute of every day. Attend school with them. It’s the safest option and as a side benefit it leaves normal families out of this lunacy.

  49. 49.

    sab

    OT My sister made me text my RWNJ brother on his birthday.

    Me: happy birhday

    Brother: Thax

    Wasn’t that exchange cuddly warm?

  51. 51.

    Eunicecycle

    @Kay: I knew a mom who literally took the courses with her kids, purchasing duplicate textbooks for herself, even when the kids were in college. They had to pass tests themselves, and they did, so I guess the kids turned out okay, but I thought it was insane.

  53. 53.

    JMG

    The obvious goal of the current GOP furor over public schools is a desire to return to full-blown de facto segregation and mandatory “Christian” education. This will be legalized by the Supreme Court within five years.

  54. 54.

    Skepticat

    @Betty Cracker: The Maine edition should change her name.

    I’d be a lot happier if she changed her residence (even better if she’d just resign, of course) and stopped embarrassing my state.

  57. 57.

    Josie

    @WaterGirl: I’m guessing that all these disruptions are happening because the “powers that be” are realizing that they might be overtaken by demographics and are throwing everything they can think of against the wall to sew things up before that happens. Sorry, that may be a mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean,

  58. 58.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: I was reading a book by Godse on his reasoning(specious) about why he was justified in killing Gandhi. A smutty Harold Robbins book and a book about Saibaba (a seer respected by both Hindus and Muslims) all when I was 12. Plus several magazines in both Marathi and English ranging from literary magazines, to film gossip rags, newsmagazines and everything in between.

    I was not choosy I would read any and everything.

    My parents never stopped me from reading anything I wanted even if they were not ecstatic at all my choices

    I was also taking trains and buses by  myself to get around in the city by the time I was 13

    I don’t get this helicopter parenting business.

  59. 59.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I had a similar thought when I saw the Youngkin ad with the woman who whined about how McAuliffe didn’t care if her snowflake had nightmares after reading “Beloved.” He was a high school student in AP English!

    He grew up to be a lawyer for some rightwing outfit, so the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Still, it was probably embarrassing for him to hear his mom describing how a book made him blubber in terror. Oh well. It worked. That’s all they care about. He’ll probably be on the SCOTUS someday, a little Kavanaugh.

  62. 62.

    JAFD

    Been listening to WQXR this morning.  They’re celebrating Leontyne Price’s 95th birthday.  Also news that the Coney Island Mermaid Parade is on for June 18th, and some discussion between DJ and newscaster, who amongst listeners has mermaid costume stashed in back closet, awaiting return of normalcy ?

    So, Jackals, if you do, shake your tails proudly

    Meanwhile, is sunny and 50F in New Jersey today.  Am going outside.

  64. 64.

    Eunicecycle

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I wouldn’t have dreamed of talking to a college professor about my kids. I know there were times when I told my kids to go talk to a professor about a problem; sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t, but it didn’t cross my mind to call them myself.

  65. 65.

    ian

    @sab:

    I was scared by Cuban missile bomb drills as a child, but they were actually useful for later tornado and earhquake situations.

    Active shooter drills? Not so useful.

    No snark here- it is good when they are useless.  There are far to many times when they are very valuable training

  66. 66.

    Eunicecycle

    @sab: she was a really intelligent woman (by academic standards) who was the comptroller of a large company. I’ve lost touch although her daughter is a lawyer now and I assume passed the bar by herself! She always said she was a “let the kids suffer the consequences of their behavior” type person. Obviously not!

  68. 68.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: Helicopter parenting is done by parents who have been convinced that there are pedophiles hiding behind every bush in the public park and that every institution is trying to actively brainwash their child with beliefs different from the parent’s beliefs. I wasn’t helicopter parented either – I read pretty much anything I wanted, and my mom let me stay in the car and read while she was grocery shopping when I was 10.

  69. 69.

    Ocotillo

    This business about the White House plumbing having documents that had been flushed down the toilet.  Now it makes sense why he was always bitchin’ about water pressure in toilets and showers.

  70. 70.

    Mike in NC

    Even a right-wing hack like Jonah Goldberg can take only so much GOP stupidity, and his latest column goes after Ronna McDaniel’s “trademark incompetence” in trying to whitewash the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building as “legitimate political discourse”. The title of the pieces is, “My first question” What about the feces?”.

  72. 72.

    mrmoshpotato

    WATCH: Shelley Luther, a Texas GOP candidate and former teacher, said transgender children make her uncomfortable, and she complained that their classmates weren’t allowed to make fun of them.

    Fucking hell.  What a walking pile of shit.

  77. 77.

    A Ghost to Most

    If you think that the hissy fit that “conservatives” ::spit:: are throwing about Black women SC candidates is pathetic, and it is,  consider for a moment the absolute war that would break out if the chosen nominee were an atheist. Even many Democrats would be up in arms.

  78. 78.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker: I had a similar thought when I saw the Youngkin ad with the woman who whined about how McAuliffe didn’t care if her snowflake had nightmares after reading “Beloved.” He was a high school student in AP English!

    Which of course are classes being taken for college credit.  I’d love to explain to that lady that if her kid wasn’t emotionally ready to deal with college-level material at the time, then he shouldn’t have taken college courses.

    Nobody’s required to take AP classes in high school.  It’s college, and college isn’t mandatory.

  79. 79.

    ian

    @sab:

    They can happen anywhere.  Columbine was a wealthy high school, Sandy Hook was a suburban elementary school.  They happen all the time in low-income schools, though often those are smaller scale.  Laramie high school has had 3 bomb threats this year alone- it is a typical Wyoming small town/rural high school.  Active shooter drills in schools are a tragic condemnation of where we are at as a society, but lets not lose sight of the forest for the trees.  It isn’t the drill part we should be mad at.

  81. 81.

    J R in WV

    Wife is doing OK in the hospital — spent all day (well mostly) yesterday in cardio stress test, aimed at someone in her condition, not running full tilt on a treadmill. But to see if she could tolerate planned surgery. Came back to her room around 4:30.

    Leaving soon to be there as early as allowed, that might get me to see a doc to ask questions. So glad I get to go in to see her, The hospital is so very quiet now, not like any time before when I was there with her. V few visitors, even staff quiet and subdued. Strange.

    You all take care, be safe!

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker:

    @Kay:

    there’s a good op-ed up in the Post noting that public school teachers have borne the brunt of the pandemic and the right’s BS and need a) retention bonuses b) free tuition for new teachers/loan forgiveness for veterans and c) a national minimum starting salary of $75k

    (among many other good ideas)

    A national crisis needs a national response.  They oughta do these things for frontline health-care workers too.  ESPECIALLY before we start doling out state surpluses as rebates to the blessed taxpayers

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Axios @axios
    EXCLUSIVE: While Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper, @maggieNYT scoops in her forthcoming book, “Confidence Man.”

    Eric Boehlert @EricBoehlert 53m

    weird

    Haberman *just* wrote an article abt how Trump taking 15 boxes of docs from WH was honest mistake due to “hasty exit” in Jan 2017, but she knew he was flushing docs down toilet?

  87. 87.

    Jeffro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just have this funny feeling that if literally any other president – ok maybe not St. Ronnie, but DEFINITELY all the rest – did this and a reporter knew about it, it’d be headlines for a week and Congressional hearings for a month.

    He’s fucking nuts and has been for years, and they all. just. sat. on. it.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: he must have, I missed that

    I don’t watch CNN, but I gather Brien Stelter’s show on the media isn’t bad, NPR has a show too that I can’t even think of the name of. Do they ever talk about this phenomenon of reporters withholding information to sell books? Or is it considered business-as-usual because Old Man Woodward has been doing it for decades?

  91. 91.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Oh I don’t know.  Even when I was more tuned in, it was always tv or print, not radio or podcasting.  I know Kay has been on this issue of elite reporters saving the good stuff for books for a while.

  92. 92.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lowtechcyclist: That was always my reaction – you’re taking AP classes to replace college-level classes. You need to demonstrate you have a mastery of college-level scholarship and topics. Those are explicitly adult-level classes.

    If you can’t handle something like reading about an upsetting situation, you’re not ready for the AP class. And as a parent, you should have stopped your kid or talked about it ahead of time.

  93. 93.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The “honest mistake” thing is so DUMB, too: He tried to overthrow the country and failed, and didn’t plan for what he could take with him as a result when he left. We can’t blame him for that!

    We can’t? That’s fucked up. Of course we can – he didn’t perform the basic requirements of the job or perform due diligence, and he hid that he did this from the public. He also hid the fact that he was (apparently) flushing documents down the toilet after he found out that his aides were taping his documents back together.

    Stop assuming good faith. He committed crimes multiple times after being warned, and he committed more after trying to literally overthrow the entire government.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    @MisterForkbeard: if this money-laundering, rage-tweeting, Russian stooge of an ex-pres ends up going down* for stealing a Sharpied hurricane map or trying to flush his Saudi check stubs down the toilet, it would be beyond poetic justice.

    No more “they got Al Capone for tax evasion” – no sir!

    For the next hundred years, it’ll be “they got* the orange clown for taking home his love letter from a North Korean dictator!”

    *’going down’ and ‘got’ could be as simple as disqualifying him from future office and the rest (SDNY, GA, IRS) can take care of itself, I don’t care.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’m the only one mean enough to bring it up :)

    It just bugs me because I feel like timely information is part of the value of the newspaper. These people DO influence public perception by when they release it and they are choosing to release it according to when it is most useful or profitable to them.

    They’re a newspaper! They can’t say “well, this year or next, no matter”.

    “At the time it happens” is a big part of what they sell. Are they…recent historians?

  97. 97.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: actually this is a great theme to try and sell the GOP establishment on: “you’ve got him dead to rights and can take him out of the picture almost entirely if you’ll just agree that he violated the Records Act (or whatever it’s called) and can’t serve”

    What do you say, Mitch?

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I used to like the books- I didn’t buy a lot of them but I did buy some- and midway through one of the books about the invasion of Iraq I was “WTF? They’re telling me this now, 3 years later? Hey, thanks, news reporter! Better late than never, I guess”.

  100. 100.

    Eunicecycle

    @MisterForkbeard: Someone suggested that one of the main reasons Trump didn’t allow a normal transition was that all the departments and the White House needed time to destroy evidence.

  101. 101.

    Baud

    Some more progress. Story is old.  The Senate passed it just now.

    Senate poised to pass bill to end forced arbitration in sexual assault, harassment cases

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    @J R in WV: It was the same here last July and August. Very strange, always before it was a bustling place with lots of people coming and going. Last year it felt empty and weird. It’s good that you can go in with her – I know of people who were unable to see their loved ones in the hospital, and I cannot imagine how awful that was.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Call me crazy but if you genuinely care about public school students being out of school- as I did, I was worried- you don’t then launch your giant bullshit political campaign about crt IN those same public schools.

    Was that to help public schools? Really? So in addition to the fucking catastrophe that was covid schools also get 10,00 screaming Right wingers for 6 months on a completely different topic? That’s definitely in good faith. Sure. That’s what helpful people do- they make it impossible to run the school.

  104. 104.

    Brachiator

    @A Ghost to Most:

    If you think that the hissy fit that “conservatives” ::spit:: are throwing about Black women SC candidates is pathetic, and it is, consider for a moment the absolute war that would break out if the chosen nominee were an atheist.

    You are probably right. But this is a battle that no one is looking to fight right now.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    There is no evidence at all that masks harm children. None. If they were really harmful to children I think Asian countries might have noticed. Now maybe these people don’t want children in masks for reasons of their own, but stop saying the masks are harming them. Just say “I’m DONE with this” and flounce away.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Doug Farrar @NFL_DougFarrar 1h

    Your occasional reminder that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein put forth the reporting that brought a corrupt and dangerous president down, didn’t hold anything back…

    …and THEN, they wrote their books.

    @Kay: I bought one of Woodward’s books way back in the Clinton days, in the beginning of my descent into political-junkie obsession. Even then I was mildly amused by the way he fluffs his sources

  107. 107.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kay: I think there was a study that said “kids are generally happier when they don’t have to wear a mask to school”, which is… yeah! We would all prefer not to wear them and things are easier when you don’t.

    But also? The same studies said that kids were fine and that it didn’t actually cause any problems. Just that kids were happier when they don’t need to wear them.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    Republicans lost the complicated cover when SFB ran for office because he showed exactly who and what he is, and millions voted for him, showing exactly who they are. And now that this concept of DON’T SAY THE BAD PARTS OUT LOUD is dead and buried, they are going full steam ahead to pass asinine laws to fuck over the people they hate because of their asinine “ideals.” Which are, “Anyone the slightest bit different than our bullshit ideals has to be banished, bullied, beaten, because we are correct, just ask us.”

  110. 110.

    Nelle

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Reminfs me of the time my English 101 student’s mother was the doc doing a colonoscopy on me (she was a friend, too).  I formally said, before getting whatever drug it was that had me talking but wiped out memory, “Federal law forbids me from sharing any information regarding your son in my classroom.”  Who knows what happened after that.

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    It certainly isn’t hard to learn, the people in the press learn it in their first hour on the job, if they didn’t know it before….

  112. 112.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @mrmoshpotato: There’s a heartbreaking episode of the Southlake Podcast where a non-binary student tells their story of being mocked, having their pronouns dismissed etc., in a snapchat group by fellow students.  They complained to the school and got lectured by the Principle essentially that boys will be boys, toughen up etc.  Then the parents in the community circled the wagons (predictably) to protect the boys who did the bullying/harassing.  This sort of sentiment that white kids should be allowed to make fun of girls, black people, gay and especially Trans kids, and suffer no consequences, is sadly pretty pervasive amongst Conservatives.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @sdhays:

    You mean his “steely gaze” where he was attempting to find the words to utter and the task was completely beyond his capabilities?

  114. 114.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kay: THANK YOU!  I teach (tennis) primarily Asian-American students and they have no problem with wearing masks, even outside and spread apart (where they really don’t NEED them, technically).  I haven’t seen a single Asian-American parent express any concern over how masks are effecting their kids’ mental health, development etc.

  115. 115.

    Brantl

    @WaterGirl: I think most of them are going to have to FA&FO. There are going to have to be punishments for these meatheads, whether it’s catching COVID, or being fined for parking their trucks in other peoples’ way, etc. But it’s going to have to cost them, or these tantrums will continue, unabated.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I saw this truckdriver interviewed yesterday- stuck for 5 hours on the bridge so the Right wingers could throw their hissy fit- and he said “just stop- this isn’t fun for anyone- everyone’s frustrated”

    The pile on to public schools was gross and that it seemed to coming 90% from the private school alumni association just made it grosser. They always punch down.

  117. 117.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ruckus: Adam Serwer coined his famous “the cruelty is the point” watching the howler monkeys gleefully hoot and stamp their hooves (mixed metaphor, I know) at trump’s mocking of Christine Blasey Ford

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: the voices in my tin-foil hat have been urgently whispering about the news that the Ambassador Bridge blockade will really fuck up the auto industry, and shortages of cars new and used has been a major driver of inflation and general feelings of malaise, and those things are major downward drivers of Biden and Dem approval ratings…

    Jacob Lorinc @jacoblorinc 15h

    NEW: Toyota’s three Ontario auto plants will stop production for the rest of the week due to the Ambassador Bridge blockade, I’m told. That’s at least six auto plants shut down/reducing production over the protests (incl. the two Ford plants and one Stellantis plant).

    that won’t be limited to Canadian plants

  121. 121.

    Kay

    Morgan Polikoff
    @mpolikoff
    1h
    I asked my freshmen if they’d done active shooter drills in k-12 and they all raised their hands and I thought “what are we doing to children?”

    Not a word about this from the Right. Instead they blame the public school FOR the school shooting.
    Public schools are magical. They can cure any and all societal ills. Just dump everything on them.
    Make them “harden” and “prepare” for the school shooting then blame them when the shooter gets in.
    They can’t fix all our problems. I know they’re a convenient dumping ground for blame in this collapsing country but it’s because they’re the only public institution left. Whatever happens OUT THERE lands in a public school. They’re a mirror.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I don’t think it’s all paranoid. It has been apparent for a while that the far Right will burn this country to the ground unless they’re completely in charge and everyone else bends to their will. Every fucking months it’s a new disruptive, negative event, supposedly “spontaneous” They never stop screaming. They don’t care that most people in Canada support vaccinations. They will destroy everything in their path until they get their way. They don’t give a shit how many auto workers go on shutdown. “Me, me, me”

  125. 125.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    What owner operator can take this much time off, btw? They’re all making payments on those trucks and not going anywhere? Bullshit. The whole business revolves around keeping the truck moving and earning. The meter is running for them whether it’s moving or not.

  127. 127.

    scuffletuffle

    @MisterForkbeard: I read a disturbing book in high school, too, one that has stuck with me.  I spoke to the instructor myself and said I found it too disturbing to write about and asked if I could choose another book.  He said “yes.”  Problem solved.

    The book, by the way, was Johnny Got His Gun.  And don’t even get me started on The Painted Pony…

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