Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

Republicans don’t trust women.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Truck Off and Other News (Open Thread)

Truck Off and Other News (Open Thread)

by | 166 Comments

This post is in: 

American wingnuts were prominent funders of the Canadian “trucker” protests, so we knew it wouldn’t be long before they imported that ersatz uprising to their home country. The US “truckers” have quite a grab-bag of grievances, according to one jamoke:

Bob Bolus, who owns a towing company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said he and a convoy of truckers plan to shut down the Beltway Wednesday.

“We’re challenging the high prices of fuel,” he said.

Bolus said they are also protesting vaccine mandates, critical race theory and people in jail facing charges related to the Capitol insurrection. He said he respects the truckers protesting in Canada.

He respects the people who were dragged out of their cabs and transported on their asses to squad cars while their rigs were impounded? Good. Here’s hoping Bolus and compadres meet a similar fate, only more swiftly. Perhaps the DC gendarmes can house them in the Insurrection Wing, where they can check on the condition of the 1/6 seditionists.

Meanwhile, here’s the least surprising news since yesterday’s announcement that the Trump social media app glitched:

AXIOS: The enactment of “stand your ground” laws was associated with an “abrupt and sustained” national increase in firearm homicide rates in America, according to a new study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open.

Why it matters: “Stand your ground” laws, which allow for the use of deadly force in self-defense with no obligation to retreat, have come under fire in recent years after high-profile deaths like Trayvon Martin’s. Critics say the laws enable unnecessary violence, while proponents claim they offer self-protection.

A retired Tampa cop is on trial today for shooting an unarmed fellow movie-goer over an argument about cellphone use while the previews were playing. The cop’s SYG defense was disallowed, but it helped the now-79-year-old delay his trial for eight years. They’d hoped to string it out until he died of natural causes, but it’s possible justice will beat the Reaper. SYG is a terrible concept that everyone with a lick of sense knew would increase homicides. This is just the latest proof.

Speaking of Florida shitheads, statehouse Republicans are coming after birth control in the wake of the proposed 15-week abortion ban (hoocoodanode), and rural homophobes want to require public school teachers to out LGBTQ kids within six weeks of learning that a kid is other than straight. No, really:

I’ve been watching these extremists get more extreme every year and have hoped in vain voters would smack them down. Still waiting for that. If there’s not huge blowback in the next election, I’m going to have to accept the fact that I live in Mississippi with a longer coastline.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I’m morally certain that there is something wrong with the Democratic Party that counterbalances all of this.

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    1. They were always coming for birth control
    2. Them coming after LGBTQ kids isn’t surprising. Evil as phuck, but not surprising.
    3. What the phuck should a trucker care about Critical Race Theory.

    Phuck Outta Here.

  3. 3.

    Mike J

    Funny how they talk about truckers and interview the owner of a trucking company.  Truckers do have a long list of legitimate grievances, most of them because of the actions of the owners of trucking companies.

  4. 4.

    The Moar You Know

    I was told specifically that birth control was off the table.  Are Republicans lying about this as well?

  5. 5.

    Yarrow

    Speaking of Florida shitheads, statehouse Republicans are coming after birth control in the wake of the proposed 15-week abortion ban

    Also in Michigan:

    All 3 Republicans running for Michigan Attorney General just stated that they oppose the ruling in Griswold v Connecticut which outlawed prosecuting married couples for using contraception.

    You read that right.

    Terrifying.

    — Dana Nessel (@dananessel) February 19, 2022

  6. 6.

    Cermet

    Sorry, but Mississippi requires vaccines’ and allows no exceptions (State mandated vaccs that is, which is everything except covid.)

  7. 7.

    Hungry Joe

    These trucker dudes will squeal like stuck pigs* ** when they get hauled out of their rigs and tossed in the clink. Their idea of civil disobedience isn’t the standard I Allowed Myself to Get Arrested for This Cause, Doesn’t That Make You Think A Little?, but the privileged I Get to Fuck Things Up Until I Get My Way.

    * My late father’s favorite expression. I don’t hear it nearly enough.
    ** I don’t actually know what a stuck pig sounds like.

  8. 8.

    The Moar You Know

    Bolus said they are also protesting vaccine mandates, critical race theory and people in jail facing charges related to the Capitol insurrection.

    These fucking people.  I don’t know how they get through the day being so pissed off about everything.

  11. 11.

    MisterDancer

    In horrific related news: https://twitter.com/GBBranstetter/status/1496094091058290696

    Texas AG Ken Paxton has declared all forms of gender-affirming care for trans youth child abuse under existing law, threatening parents and doctors with prosecution and forcing all mandated reporters of child abuse to report trans kids to state agencies.
    [Emphasis mine]
    As noted: this is the Ken Paxton, so-called Attorney General of Texas, who is under investigation for fraud and under pressure in a primary race (not that any of the field are winners in this race to make being Trans Hell of Earth). This is the kind of shit pressures that gave us George Wallace, among many other horrific intersections of Othering innocents to (re)gain political power.
    Assholes.
  14. 14.

    MarkPainter

    I’ve been watching these extremists get more extreme every year and have hoped in vain voters would smack them down. Still waiting for that.

    Back in 1980, after Reagan was elected, I told myself the silver lining was that once the public got a good look at how crazy he and his followers were, they would come running back to the Democratic Party.

    41 years later, I’m still waiting.

    Everyone likes to pull out the boiling frog metaphor, but it’s true. In reality, frogs are smarter than that, but a lot of Americans are apparently not as smart as frogs.

  16. 16.

    Lum’s Better Half

    They are going to try to shut down the beltway, and they think things will be as pleasant for them as they were in Ottawa?

    Hopefully the police will arrive in time to save a few of them.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @MisterDancer: Ugh. Some months ago, I read an article about a family with a trans kid in Houston or Dallas (I think) and what they were preparing to do as the GOP tightened the screws on that vulnerable population. It gave some insight into how this culture war garbage affects real people. Will see if I can find it.

  19. 19.

    MisterDancer

    @The Moar You Know: You know they were lying. Anyone who actually did more than 10 minutes of looking can find dozens of historical statements on killing Griswald, going back decades.

    Privacy, in conservative circles, gives too much power to the “wrong” kind of people. They want public displays — of guns, of hetronormality(sp), of patriotism — and as long as you’re rich and powerful enough, they don’t care what you do behind the curtain, as their support of Trump made very clear.

    Hell, Strom Thurmond had a daughter with a Black Woman, silently supported her and even paid for her college, and no one said shit to him.

  21. 21.

    Scout211

    @MisterDancer:

    In other Paxton news:

    The whistle blowers who used to work under AG Paxton accuse him of lying.

    AG Paxton lying? Imagine that.

    Four whistleblowers who accused Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of bribery and other misconduct issued a detailed rebuttal Monday to what they called “numerous false and misleading public statements” made by Paxton in recent weeks.
    The four former high-ranking officials in Paxton’s agency said they had hoped to let their fight play out in court, where their whistleblower lawsuit argues that they were fired in retaliation for reporting illegal activities to the FBI and other authorities in September 2020.
    “The people of Texas deserve the truth,” the four former officials said in a joint statement. “The most basic qualifications of an attorney general are respect for truth and respect for the law. Ken Paxton has neither.”
     

     

  22. 22.

    Yarrow

    Move along football fans, nothing to see here….

    ++UPDATE++

    UEFA confirms that this year’s Champions League final – the world’s most prestigious footballl club match – will be held in Russia at the Krestovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg…despite Russia’s invasion of fellow UEFA member Ukraine.
    — Nick???? (@nicktolhurst) February 22, 2022

  23. 23.

    Mike R

    There is no gravity the world sucks.  What is wrong with people,how can anyone support the right wing in this country.

  25. 25.

    H.E.Wolf

    Here’s one way to help with the creation of huge blowback:  encourage registered Democrats in FL to sign up for Vote By Mail.

    https://postcardstovoters.org/volunteer/

    I’m probably their slowest and most intermittent writer, and their system is great for me:  4 or 5 postcards at a time, 3 days to write them, and exact wording provided so that I don’t have to think up persuasive phrases on my own. :-)

    Incidentally, if the current “forever” postcard stamps don’t thrill you, 2 of the 20-cent valued “extra-ounce” stamps equal one postcard stamp, and have bunnies on them. (I’m on the bunny bandwagon, because I think they’re cuter than the Uncle Sam option.)
    https://store.usps.com/store/results/stamps/0-2/_/N-9y93lvZ89bero​

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    Of course the wingnuts don’t want an exception to their outing law in cases where the kid may be abused, neglected, or abandoned.  The whole point of the law is to out kids to parents who aren’t going to support them.  A law that allows you to out kids only to parents who will be supportive isn’t what they want at all.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @The Moar You Know:

    I was told specifically that birth control was off the table. Are Republicans lying about this as well?

    Yes.  SATSQ.  Seriously, they’ve been telegraphing this for a very long time with their “birth control pills are actually a form of abortion” lie.  Anyone who acts surprised is either dangerously stupid, not paying attention, or only pretending.

  34. 34.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    Bob Bolus? Isn’t he an idiot cartoon character? It sounds like he’s “challenged” by economics and reality.

    TFG really did turn over a lot of rocks.

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    @MisterDancer: I think it was in Texas Monthly, and it was a longish piece that wasn’t focused on a particular event but rather on the affected families specifically and what they were planning and doing. Wasn’t able to find it with a quick search. It might have been longer ago than I thought.

  38. 38.

    lowtechcyclist

    Perhaps the DC gendarmes can house them in the Insurrection Wing, where they can check on the condition of the 1/6 seditionists.

    Probably not. Other than one small sliver of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, no part of the D.C. Beltway is in D.C. So it’ll be the MD and VA state troopers (hopefully) busting them.

    I wonder what time of day the truckers are planning to drive to the Beltway. Because if they choose morning rush hour, they’ll probably get frustrated and head home.

  39. 39.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: I’ve been telling people for years that once they get rid of Roe they’re coming for safe, effective birth control under the guise of “preventing/outlawing abortion”, and I’ve been told that’s hysterical, Republican women use birth control too so they won’t dare try it, etc. Too many people don’t understand that the opposition to abortion has little or nothing to do with “life”, but instead is all about controlling the sex lives of young women and putting our sexual mores back to the 1950’s. They want to stop the “sluts” from having unapproved sex, full stop, and they think this is how they can do it. They don’t care that married people use all kinds of birth control, they are determined to somehow stop sex outside of marriage (that this is futile is something they don’t or won’t understand at all). They don’t acknowledge that married women get abortions, so why should they acknowledge that married women use hormonal birth control? They want to leave us with no choices other than condoms, foam, and diaphragms.

  40. 40.

    Percysowner

    @The Moar You Know:

    I was told specifically that birth control was off the table. Are Republicans lying about this as well?

    Well, Duh! Every thinking woman has known for years that outlawing BC in the hands of a woman was the ultimate goal. Condoms will get a pass via “prevention of infection”. Male BC, if it EVER happens, will be labeled as not abortion because nothing ever gets fertilized and women will just have to be pregnant forever.

    I told my daughter that once she’s done having kids, she needs to do something permanent, because otherwise they are coming for her.

    I’ll put on my tin foil hat now.

  41. 41.

    Old Man Shadow

    Anyone who has been a part of the right wing could tell you that they were coming for birth control.

    They wish to force women to conform to their religion’s gender hierarchy: keep them out of the workforce and stuck at home married to one of them and churning out babies. There really is no difference at all between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims except the latter have retained the violence of the State to force conformity, a project our fundamentalist Christians are working hard to get themselves.

    All of this… every last bit of it, is an attempt by white Christian men to hold onto their position at the top of the racial and gender hierarchy and punish everyone else for daring to fight for equality. They see themselves and the hierarchy as blessed and ordained by God.

    So yes, birth control is next. National abortion ban will happen if they control Congress and the Presidency. Voting suppression is happening now. Evangelical fundamentalism will be brought back into schools. Segregation will be allowed if it is someone’s sincere belief that God wants it. LGBTQ rights will be even further assaulted and rolled back.

    Pretty much everything those of us who really knew Evangelicals were warning folks about in 2015, but hey, at least some folks got to remain political pure and spotless by not voting for Hillary, so we got that going for us.

  44. 44.

    subcommandante yakbreath

    Of all the ways for Northeast Pennsylvania to get noticed on Balloon Juice, it had to be Bob Bolus. He’s on the local news a couple of times a year, mostly for being an asshole, and now this. Paradoxically, he throws an open dinner for needy people every Christmas. Still an asshole, though.
    Happy Birthday to Betty, too. I’m a day (and some years) older.

  45. 45.

    Roger Moore

    @Soprano2:

    It’s not like they’ve been quiet about coming after birth control. They’ve been claiming hormonal birth control is a form of abortion for a good long time, so it should be no surprise they want to ban it.

  46. 46.

    Percysowner

    @Soprano2:

    They want to leave us with no choices other than condoms, foam, and diaphragms.

    Diaphragms can cause UTIs in some women, foam can cause irritation. They will be extra special sure that they “protect” women from making choices that could hurt them because their poor little minds can’t make proper decisions. The original movement against BC did criminalize Diaphragms. It will be a full out assault.

    Condoms, in control of men, will be the only available option.

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Turned on MSNBC to check the news in time to have Andrea Mitchell introduce John Bolton

    the liberal network….

  48. 48.

    Tom Levenson

    @Hungry Joe: You don’t want to know.

    I once filmed a pig getting slaughtered in rural Veracruz state in Mexico.  The village butcher was sick, so the job fell to the second string slaughterer.

     

    Trust me on this: you never want to hear a pig being killed by the second string guy.

     

    @Hungry Joe:

  53. 53.

    Peale

    Yep. Any progress against conversion therapy in the past decade is about to go out the window. The state of Texas will decide whether your LGBTQ+ kid gets to go to adulthood without having minister feely hands subject your kid to months of confined behavior modification. They want to know who these kids are before they have actual rights.

  55. 55.

    H.E.Wolf

    @MisterDancer: @H.E.Wolf: Thank you for the Postcards to Voters reminder! I’m gonna sign up, myself!

    @UncleEbeneezer: @H.E.Wolf: Here is a great link for finding cool postcards, stamps etc. for these efforts.

    Hooray!  Honored to write alongside of you. (And thank you to Uncle Ebeneezer for the link.)

    I have a lot of stamps from the “Black Heritage” series (1970s, mostly), and I’ve been using Rev. Carter Woodson stamps for the past few weeks. :)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_G._Woodson

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    @The Moar You Know:

    I don’t know how they get through the day being so pissed off about everything.

    Are they really pissed off or do they just want to control everything they think they can so they have some power over other people’s lives?

    Because they very, very likely ignore any and all restrictive laws for themselves. They are “better” doncha know…..

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @ian:

    Perhaps the DC gendarmes can house them in the Insurrection Wing

    Are either of those things real?

     
    I believe DC Gendarmes is the new name of Washington’s football team.

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    Crummy Rethuglican Theory

    It was intended to be a nothing, otherwise they would define it, but it gives them a chance to say RACE out loud and proud. It’s just code for “We hate everyone who doesn’t look and sound as fucking dumb as we are!”

  60. 60.

    Kay

    That all of these disgusting hacks get to weigh in on the health care American women are “allowed” to receive is appalling. Everything with women is up for “debate” – there is nothing that is off limits. I watch clips of these GOP primary debates where one or another GOP politician feels perfectly entitled to go on and on about what victims of rape should be “allowed” to do – it’s suffocating.

    They never take a pass. They’re asked about birth control, as if it’s any of their fucking business, and they cannot WAIT to weigh in and start butting in. This is a mindset. Only someone who feels they have kind of superior claim over someone else’s body would intrude here. Birth control isn’t mandated. Right wing religious are perfectly free to abstain- no one gives a shit. But that’s not enough. They have to go poking into every woman’s life and asserting their authority.

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: I believe DC Gendarmes is the new name of Washington’s football team.

    Pate hoagies and Burgundy rouge at the concession stands? I’m in!

  63. 63.

    Jim Appleton

    FUDesantis recently touted “Vacation to Freedom,” presenting his state as a refuge for those fed up with COVID restrictions.

    Those same “freedom refugees” no doubt also feel safer because of FL’s draconian offenses toward LGBTQ’s and women’s reproductive rights, and its preoccupation with racist, anti-science, corrupt … “virtues” instead of actual problems its leaders can choose to acknowledge, let alone address.

  64. 64.

    MisterDancer

    @Ruckus: I’ve wandered in and out of the “enemy camp” over the decades.

    They really don’t spend day and night angry, not the people who fund and drive a lot of this crap. They just posture for the cameras when needed, and otherwise just depend on driving up the fury of the masses a few times a year to push things around. Otherwise they just present as “normal,” which helps when the NYTimes or some other rag comes around to do yet another bit on the “‘ordinary American’ who’s angry” bit that “forgets” the interviewee has deep ties to the Right Wing, which is how the reporter likely got their name.

    That “Joe the Plumber” cosplay taught the Right a LOT about how to manipulate media.

    Hell, even these asshole laws are written, in many cases, by “conservative” firms, just as the Federalist society has taken all the thinking out of choosing justices. The groups have worked like mad to make Being Right-Wing, and in power, as easy and lucrative as possible, and it’s been that way, on and off, since at least Jim Crow.

  65. 65.

    The Moar You Know

    Wow, I need to make my sarcasm clearer.

    One of my professors in college was one of the plantiffs (technically a defendant) in Griswold.  I can’t imagine what he’s thinking today but I hope very much he is not surprised.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @Jim Appleton:

    I think that’s why the Right started this campaign- because with the speech laws and the abortion laws and the birth control laws they’ll be the opposite of “free states” so it was defensive.

  69. 69.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    THIS – absolutely this!

    There is nothing more to rethuglican bullshit other than pure unadulterated power. They get to feel “superior” because they are “better”, and they are “better” because they get to control everyone else, all the while ignoring all of it themselves. IOW they are just, as an old saying I heard in the navy, “Shit on Toast,” more commonly known as shit on a shingle, a completely uneatable meal served occasionally on board ship when they run out of actual food.

  71. 71.

    The Moar You Know

    Ahhh.  Was wondering WHY Griswold.  It’s because all these cases depend on it:

    Right to birth control for unmarried couples, 1972
    Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)

    Right to abortion for any woman, 1973
    Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

    Right to contraception for juveniles at least 16 years of age, 1977
    Carey v. Population Services International (1977)

    Right to homosexual relations, 2003
    Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

    Right to same-sex marriage, 2015
    Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

    One shot and you take them all out.

  72. 72.

    Spanky

    @ian:

    Are either of those things real?

    DC gendarmes and an Insurrection Wing? Second one first: No.

    DC has a police force, of course, since most of DC is outside Federal jurisdiction. But our happy truckers plan on blocking the Beltway, which as noted above, is 99% in VA or MD. They have announced plans of blocking the MD portion, which to my thinking is stupid on their part, so one point for consistency. I would think that the VA govt as currently mis-constituted would be more friendly to their antics since it’s now reactionary Right Wing. And besides, blocking the VA Beltway would hose those libtard Northern Virginians, which of course are not True Virginians.

    Maryland State Police will take a very dim view of the proceedings, as will commuters. I’m looking forward to the video.

  76. 76.

    The Pale Scot

    From twitter:

    Transnistrian (Moldova) leaders are in Moscow asking for recognition of ‘independence’ according to a Romanian MP … already Russian troops in that area that have been mobilised.

    Russia has staged military drills in Transnistria, the pro-Moscow separatist region of Moldova, amid Western fears of military actions in neighboring Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday. ~ Feb 1st, 2022

  77. 77.

    citizen dave

    (Would link but on mobile)  Thinking of the brilliant Monty Python  Every Sperm Is Sacred tune.

    Also thinking, how will our nation keep going with all these idiots and reprobates.

  78. 78.

    Jim Appleton

    @Kay: I hope you’re right.

    The cynic in me thinks FUD is capable of this calculation, but his heart is all fuck your feelings and that he’s serious about promoting tourism to the anti-woke.

  81. 81.

    Ruckus

    @The Moar You Know:

    The soldiers in the rethuglican party are angry. The officers in the rethuglican party are not motivated by anger but by money. The officers are also the ones who set policy and dream up crap like CRT, to make the soldiers angry. An angry mob is a hell of a lot more intimidating than a happy mob.

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    If anyone is confused about Putin’s aims, this astonishingly comprehensive thread is worth a read:

    when foreigners casually drop ‘bombing of kyiv’ these pics always come to mind. this is what #RussianColonialism did to chechnya and grozny when they tried to leave the empire in 2000. a war crime of horrific scale, but the rest of the world was like ‘meh’, so moscow continued pic.twitter.com/ysiKKArGFz— maksym.eristavi ?️‍? (@MaximEristavi) February 20, 2022

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    Now it will be the duty of women to argue why they should be permitted birth control. We better make our case!  The default is that Right wing religious have graciously allowed us this, and it’s well within their rights to take it away.

    No other group of people is talked about like this. Only women. In 2022 they somehow have to “win” the right to basic bodily autonomy and adult rights. It’s a coin flip! They lose a senate seat and a couple of House seats and all bets are off!

    This is acceptable in the United States, in 2022.

  89. 89.

    FelonyGovt

    My daughter had behavioral issues in middle school apparently related to her being bullied as gay- BEFORE she came out to us. I would not have wanted her teachers to violate her privacy by telling us before SHE was ready to tell us. This law is so very wrong

     

    Happy birthday, Betty!

  92. 92.

    catclub

    @Kay: Guffaw. They just throw that in to everything now.

     

    So expect to see: “I am an anti-critical race theory architect/plumber/accountant.” advertising.

  96. 96.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: if you are a Republican today, you are a terrible person unfit to live in a democracy let alone the 21st century. We will be better off if they all do themselves in out of stupidity and drug addiction.

  97. 97.

    Mike in NC

    I battled traffic on the DC Beltway for 20 years, so I don’t think a few redneck truck drivers will have much of an impact.

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @Percysowner:

    Condoms, in control of men, will be the only available option.

    Pre Griswold, the dumb idea was that the state had an interest in making sure that married couples had children, the way God intended. Men were not so much in control, but were expected to hold up their side of the bargain.

    Birth control also meant “no condoms.” And I am so old that I remember when condoms sold in vending machines in some restrooms were labeled “for prevention of disease only.” Wink wink nudge nudge.

  102. 102.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Jim Appleton: Yep. My wife and I just changed our Spring vacay plans from Key West to Sonoma/Napa. We’ve never been to KW, been to S/N several times, but we’re not spending one thin dime in Floriduh for the foreseeable future.

    Sorry Betty and other fine people in Florida, but somehow this latest was just a bridge too far for both of us.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s hard to explain what it feels like to me listening to it. Just the sense of being suffocated and crushed. It’s so CLEARLY control to me, the constant sense that women have to be reined in, are presumptively outlaws and unless they’re strictly controlled someone else loses power.

    I don’t know why people don’t see it. It so neatly fits within everything we know about abuse. People who have no trouble seeing the power dynamic in abusive realtionships don’t hear it happening on those debate stages. If an adult male is standing at a podium opining on how a 13 year old incest victim must carry to term and deliver for her own good…how can you miss what’s going on there? It’s power over her. It’s control.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Kay: A lot of them are killing themselves to own us libs.  That takes precedence.

    I don’t quite understand why the normies aren’t reacting to all this though.  Where is their mental block?

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    … as an old saying I heard in the navy, “Shit on Toast,” more commonly known as shit on a shingle, a completely uneatable meal served occasionally on board ship when they run out of actual food.

    This derives from a very odd story in the Bible where God wants to punish the prophet Ezekiel by making him eat bread cooked over human feces. They compromise on cow dung. Ezk 4:9 and 4:12

    Anyway, I agree with you that conservatives are crazy. But it is not just conservatives here in the USA. Other supposedly advanced nations are falling back into this odd need to control people, to govern using hate and resentment.

  111. 111.

    Peale

    @The Thin Black Duke: Same reason that there’s a notable contingent of gay, largely white, men who think to themselves that this was only about racial issues (that don’t apply to them) or those Trans people (who if we could just jettison from LGB, we’d be more accepted) get onboard with the fash. (Hello, Mr. Sullivan. Hello, Mr. Thiel). Twas rather quickly apparent when gay YA novels were on the list of “CRT” books that Texas was looking to get out of libraries that “CRT” was not about “Race” and anti-Trans kid laws aren’t going to be limited. But here we are. Hey, teen kid. Come out at school and your parents will be visited by social services to decide whether your parents are sufficiently abusive and willing to take corrective action or you’ll be placed with good Christian parents who will take those steps.

    But hey….I’m just being overdramtic here. Gays are popular now, right? Gay marriage is accepted, right? Griswold can fall without Bowers falling? Right?

    I’m left wondering – will they repeal them one at a time so that anyone who got married in the past decade will just find their marriage annulled, or will they do it in combination so that anyone who got married can immediately be arrested for sodomy?

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Why do white women in America continue to vote for Republicans? Why?

    Some white women are happy with the power that derives from their social and economic position and from their relationships with their families, sons and husbands.

    Some people believe conservative bullshit, especially if they believe that it works for them.

  114. 114.

    Miss Bianca

    @Hungry Joe:

    ** I don’t actually know what a stuck pig sounds like.

    I do. It’s terrifying.

    But to be clear, when I say a “stuck pig”, I don’t mean a pig that’s been stuck with a pointy object, which I’m sure is even more terrifying. I’m talking about the sound a pig makes when it gets its head stuck under a fence.

  115. 115.

    Jim Appleton

    @The Thin Black Duke: At lunch in a cafe the day after the genital-grabbing video, two early middle age white ladies were comparing notes on voting.

    The iDJT supporter was cautious but clear.  She felt reassured for her personal safety.  Much of it was fear of immigrants.  But also keeping the libs from bringing commie hell.  The least of it was his “businessman” studliness, plus her gut feeling.

    Anecdata, and I wonder how representative.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    I am not disagreeing with you in any way.

    And no it is not acceptable in any reasonable country. It is however demanded in any conservative country. It is the basis of conservatism – bullshit control, the concept that some humans have control and power over other “humans,” the right and power to demand homage and superior status based upon genitalia. And it is 1000000% bullshit.

  119. 119.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Why it matters: “Stand your ground” laws, which allow for the use of deadly force in self-defense with no obligation to retreat, have come under fire in recent years after high-profile deaths like Trayvon Martin’s. Critics say the laws enable unnecessary violence, while proponents claim they offer self-protection.

    Totally incorrect framing, IMHO (h for “humble” – as it was supposed to be!). The correct framing is “this allows people to be killed, with no legal protections, if the situation arises in which a defendant can claim self defense.”

    Self defense vs none loses; “people have the right to live, even if confronted by cowards” is a better framing, IMHO.

    (PS: hypomania reduced – still not gone. Seriously: sorry for the rude mega-comments. They seemed so obviously brilliant. Oh: and if you’re going to make a fellow feel good for the first time in 30 years, it seems only fair for it *not* to be a medical condition requiring treatment. Just sayin’. Not that my body has ever listened.)

  121. 121.

    Ruckus

    @FelonyGovt:

    I had a sister that came out 50 yrs ago. Her first partner was with her 9yrs and passed away 6 yrs ago, 8 yrs after my sister. I’m still friends with her first gay partner’s second partner of over 30yrs and have met/know lot of their friends. I have seen the crap that they go through and it’s all wrong.

    –It is nobody else’s business.-

  125. 125.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Watched a documentary shot inside Aleppo as Russia (supposedly also Syrian regime) gradually bombed the entire city out of existence, hospitals included. Horrifying doesn’t begin to describe.

  126. 126.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: if white women stop voting for Rs in the numbers they do, the politics of this country will change in a heartbeat. Try to convince a friend who votes R.
    @The Thin Black Duke: Because they bask in the reflected glory of white patriarchy. It is the same with upper caste women in India who vote for the BJP in even bigger numbers than upper caste men. Women are the biggest upholders of tradition. When I go to India it is the other women who police me not men.

  128. 128.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Thin Black Duke: Sure the GOP constantly oppresses women, but being a White Woman, still puts them at #2 in the hierarchy of White Supremacy, which isn’t so bad for them.  Add endless FoxNews Racism and a hefty dose of Evangelical Christianity (anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, Islamophobia etc.) and you can pretty quickly see why so many White Women would still support Republicans despite GOP constantly fucking them over.  I’ll certainly never AGREE with it, but I get it.

  129. 129.

    Soprano2

    @Percysowner: Maybe, but they can’t make the case that those forms of birth control cause abortions (which is dumb, no birth control causes abortion), so it will be harder to outlaw them.

  130. 130.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    IUDs and Plan B are considered birth control, but they prevent implantation rather than conception, and conception is when the anti-choicers start the abortion clock.

  132. 132.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: That’s the reason for it, though – the right-wingers don’t want their kids to trust anyone except them, or feel they have any allies outside the right-wing church they attend.

  133. 133.

    Soprano2

    @Baud:I don’t quite understand why the normies aren’t reacting to all this though.  Where is their mental block?

    They just don’t believe it could happen. I had this conversation just today at lunch with a co-worker. When I said once they get Roe they’re coming after birth control next, she said something like “Oh, that’ll never happen, too many people use it”. I replied that now that they sold their soul to TFG to get the Supreme Court they’ve always dreamed of, it’s entirely possible that they will be able to outlaw birth control in individual states under the guise that it “causes abortions”. She still didn’t believe it.

  134. 134.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat:When I go to India it is the other women who police me not men.

    I listened to an interview with Deborah Tannen where she talked about her book about mothers and daughters, and she talked about how often mothers “police” their daughter’s appearance (I didn’t know I had a butt that was somewhat bigger than average until my mother mentioned it to me when I was a teenager!). She said the mothers know that society will judge their daughters by their appearance no matter how much we want to deny the truth of this, so they are expressing concern about how their daughter will be treated by society when they police in this manner. It was an interesting conversation.

  135. 135.

    gene108

    @citizen dave:

    Also thinking, how will our nation keep going with all these idiots and reprobates.

    It won’t.

    It will collapse to some extent.

    And since these folks are doing the Lord’s work, the problems aren’t their fault.

    They will look for others to blame. The further away you are from straight white conservative Christian, the closer you will be on the list of others who are to blame and to be punished for things going wrong.

  138. 138.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    I guess I’m asking why they don’t believe it though.

    Also, even without trying to predict what Republicans will do next, there’s still lots of awful things that Republicans are obviously doing now that doesn’t seem to move normies all that much.

  140. 140.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: Because it’s horrific, and most people can’t comprehend that people can be that level of horrible.

    It’s the same reason why we still have people who can’t wrap their head around the Holocaust. It’s inconceivable to their experience that people can act like that, so they won’t believe that they do, until it’s right in their faces. At which point it’s usually way too late.

    ETA: When I say most I mean most white people; oppressed groups have far less difficulty understanding that people can be fucking evil.

  141. 141.

    Tenar Arha

    @Soprano2: I usually have to bite my tongue when people respond that way. Otherwise I turn bright red and get obnoxiously emphatic, while I point out that they’ve worked decades on taking over state governments & the state & federal courts & are now on the verge of eliminating Roe. And btw that they’ve been talking about Griswold for a long time too…including making birth control extremely difficult to impossible to get. Even propagandized against plan B (where they worked to make sure it was expensive & only available behind the counter & thus harder for teenagers to get) before & even after the ACA. And then I get really mad…

  142. 142.

    Captain C

    @Yarrow: What they should do is:

    a) Move the Champion’s League Final (to Kyiv if possible, elsewhere if not)

    b) Ban Russian teams from playing in any UEFA-sanctioned competition until Putin is gone, starting immediately (this includes this year’s various European competitions)

    c) Have FIFA ban the Russian national teams, both men and women, from all FIFA-sanctioned events until Putin is gone, effective immediately.  Even if Putin is gone tomorrow, they should still be banned from this year’s World Cup no matter what

    d) The English FA should announce that Chelsea is either banned from all competition until Putin is gone AND Abramovich has accounted for all of both of their money, OR penalized 100 points/year for the next five years until they’re in the National League South, AND subject them to very strict Financial Fair Play rules, with a two-level drop for the next season if they’re found breaking them by even a penny.

  144. 144.

    GoBlueInOak

    @Ksmiami: Most successful of the WW2 resistance movements in the war, for a reason.

    Not suggesting it in literal fashion for the present day, but the spirit of it in response to what is going on today.   Its like that argument a few years back about “is it wrong to punch a Nazi in the face?”.

  145. 145.

    JaneE

    SRG was always thinly disguised legalized murder.

    Outing kids – that is intended to get them beaten, abused and tossed out.  Because that is what parents who think like the legislators do to their kids if they come out.  If the kid winds up on the streets and dies in a couple of years, one less problem kid.

    There is no limit to what Republicans will do to foster violence and harm to the American public, individually and collectively.

  146. 146.

    Tenar Arha

    @Baud: I think it’s just the same problem as when you tell people what the GOP will do to budgets or roads or schools or parks or anything once they get in power. You tell people the truth about what the GOP actually stands for now, and what their plans are for when they get that power. And yet people don’t believe you, because it isn’t ever really explained in the news every day. Or maybe it’s softened & layered under so much pablum they can’t see it, unless they take the time to dig. & unfortunately these are the ones who haven’t the time or energy or desire to dig.

  149. 149.

    Mallard Filmore

    @GoBlueInOak: 

    And thus do we see the wisdom in Tito’s philosophy on dealing with Nazis.

    In the hope that this thread is still active, I disagree with this. In the case of normal soldiers, killing them by ones and twos may be very satisfying but it is wasteful. Many on both sides will die.

    It is much better for all if the enemy surrenders by the thousands. They need a good reason to do so.

    War crime trials can come later.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @The Thin Black Duke:

     Why do white women in America continue to vote for Republicans? Why?

    I don’t know. I’m not the spokesperson for white women in America. Obviously they don’t agree with me.

  152. 152.

    Brachiator

    @Tenar Arha:

    I think it’s just the same problem as when you tell people what the GOP will do to budgets or roads or schools or parks or anything once they get in power.

    I see something like this often in California (and elsewhere).

    “The state (or fed) is wasting your money instead of spending it on roads and potholes and services you need. Plus they are giving your money to immigrants and the homeless and undeserving poor. Vote for us and we will run government like a business.”

    If they get voted in, this is what they say.

    “We never said that we would give you services, or fix the roads. We need to cut taxes and have smaller government. Things will be better because we say so.”

    I recently saw a news story about PA that said that 4 billion in gas tax money that was supposed to be used for infrastructure and bridges instead went to help fund police departments.

  153. 153.

    Peale

    @Tenar Arha: They’ll cut my taxes!!!!! And won’t spend spend money on roads and when the bridges fall down, they’ll take their GD time to fix them, but blame the immigrants for how shitty everything is looking.

  154. 154.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Lum’s Better Half:

    FYI: With an apostrophe in your nym, which the blog software doesn’t like, every comment is going to have to be approved by a front-pager. Take out the apostrophe or replace it with, say, an asterisk, then comment with abandon.

  156. 156.

    Malovich

    …meanwhile in Ottawa…

    Two of the organizers have had their bail hearings.

    Tamara Lich was denied bail and will be held until trial after her wackadoodle husband tried to act as a surety and face-planted in a pile of conspiracy-fueled ramblings and tried to completely dismiss the severity of the crimes she is accused of.

    https://twitter.com/JamesDBowie/status/1496126848949960709?s=20&t=w46rXpnZO6C5n2_1R16r9Q

    Pat King, the main personality that lead the convoy, presented Kerry Komix as his surety. Her lawyer prepped her well but on cross-examination collapsed like a house of cards revealing that she was neck-deep in the convoy herself and while she’s willing to put up half the equity of her house as bond, is independently wealthy and probably perjured herself multiples times trying to conceal the nature of her relationship with King and also vividly demonstrating why she should not act as surety to King if she is that oblivious about him.

    https://twitter.com/CarymaRules/status/1496140000320270340?s=20&t=rrPWfUJ6fujCQ7PXr4d2hg

    The court is going into overtime and had weekend and holiday sessions (it was a provincial holiday yesterday) to process these goons and they’re entertaining as fuck.

  157. 157.

    different-church-lady

    It’s never been about saving babies. It’s always been about making women pay some kind of moral penalty for having sex.

  158. 158.

    trollhattan

    @Malovich:

    How many are sticking with the “First Amendment” defense? That judge last week cracked me up, “What do you mean, first amendment? What’s that?”

    Wait until he hears about the Second.

  159. 159.

    J R in WV

    @The Thin Black Duke: ​

    Why do white women in America continue to vote for Republicans? Why?

    To keep their loving husbands from beating the shit out of them if they learned somehow that wife voted against the theocratic hegemony.

  161. 161.

    trollhattan

    @J R in WV:

    ‘Fraid I know too many who came to that decision wholly on their own, no coercion necessary. All are not named Karen, but a couple definitely are.

    One disconnect is folks here on a top-10,000 poliblog can’t grasp how few care about or pay attention to politics. They just don’t.

  162. 162.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Same, and you said something once here that resonated with me, i.e., (paraphrasing) that the subtext is often “shut up.” No. I won’t shut up. :)

  163. 163.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan: 

    folks here on a top-10,000 poliblog can’t grasp how few care about or pay attention to politics. They just don’t.

    They don’t until suddenly they can’t vote or can’t get birth control or can’t get an abortion or can’t get access to some other right they used to just take for granted. Then they angrily want to know who’s responsible for that.

    And then blame Democrats, probably, because, “YOU’RE the adults in the room! YOU were supposed to stop them!”

    Le sigh. I’m just fervently thankful, personally, to be beyond childbearing age myself. I mean, until the powers that be decide that old broads who can’t spawn anymore are just supposed to be put out on the ice floes.

  164. 164.

    Dopey-o

    @different-church-lady: It’s never been about saving babies. It’s always been about making women pay some kind of moral penalty for having sex.

    I am not saying that you are wrong, but I think it runs much deeper than that. My RWNJ brothers have a deep and obvious streak of misogyny, coupled with an Old Testament Catholic culture.

    Their hatred of the feminine is central to their personality, it is like a serpent curled around their heart, and it really is a pathological condition. It is the unrecognized psychiatric disease that will kill us all.

  165. 165.

    villiageidiocy

    So I’m thinking I need a stack of bumper stickers in my car to attach to participant vehicles for blockades like this – “Proud Plague Rat” with a covid image and a rat . . .  or something like that.

    Every time I see somebody who refuses to wear a mask, I think – “there goes another plague rat”

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