In the face of grave threats to democracy around the world, the JFK Library Foundation will honor five individuals with the #ProfileInCourage Award.
These honorees have demonstrated acts of extraordinary courage to protect democracy at home and abroad. https://t.co/ut2UNbdkUh pic.twitter.com/GLYBwGkvTD
— JFK Library (@JFKLibrary) April 21, 2022
Biden comes down from the podium and speaks directly to people at a Portland, Ore. fundraiser, about two feet away from them. “We’re gonna go through a tough period,” he says to this friendly crowd. “This is the United States of America. There’s not a damn thing we can’t do.”
— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) April 21, 2022
U.S. President Joe Biden marks Earth Day with a trip to lush but fire-prone Washington state and the signing of an executive order to protect old-growth forests https://t.co/5x0BJ8Kff4
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 22, 2022
The Biden administration is restoring federal regulations that require rigorous environmental review of major infrastructure projects such as highways, pipelines and oil wells. The longstanding reviews were scaled back by the Trump administration. https://t.co/1ryaCf4jhG
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 19, 2022
*NEW* Biden Admin is piloting a Rural Partners Network in 25 communities. Teams of federal employees will serve as “community liaisons” in economically distressed rural areas, who will work with designated bureaucracy busters in 16 agencies. https://t.co/wX92VzWIpl @GovExec
— John M. Kamensky (@JMKamensky) April 21, 2022
Biden thanked reporters in Ukraine documenting “brutal and bloody” acts by Russia. “I don't say this often, but I think we should give enormous credit to folks from your agencies on the ground in Ukraine in these spots,” he said. “I've spoken to several of them. So. We owe them.” pic.twitter.com/QqDtyElgqP
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 21, 2022
"Our view on this is that the 'Don't Say Gay' bill – is really crystal clear: it's wrong. That's our view, it is just wrong. We oppose the governor taking action against a company because their opposition to that bill," Biden spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters on AF1 https://t.co/ARbdCNND8s
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 21, 2022
The Washington Post has lifted its paywall on all stories past and present until midnight Friday. Read today’s paper. Read the stories you missed. Read the series that is still shaping the congressional investigation into Jan. 6:https://t.co/a8Z5SLjM5V
— Aaron C. Davis (@byaaroncdavis) April 21, 2022
Baud
?
SFAW
I would like to see someone with a figurative megaphone talk about, on a daily basis, that since it’s all about projection with Rethugs — in FL and elsewhere — and since Every Accusation Is A Confession with them, one wonders which of the Rethugs are “groomers.” Are they talking about Matt Gaetz? Given Josh Hawley’s bizarre focus on pedophilia, are they talking about Josh Hawley (even though he’s in MO)?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
ETA: I have no special love for Disney, and at some level would not be upset to see them lose their “we’re our own not-so-magic kingdom” status, but allowing DeathSantis’s (and the FL lege’s) fascism to go unpunished is A BAD THING.
Kay
NY Times has a good article on the Florida textbooks. I was surprised they were so direct in identifying the far Right activist and online influencer DeSantis takes direction from:
It’s funny because conservatives supported textbooks like this in the past because they said these “5 core skills” are essential in the workplace. Rufo has so radicalized and dominated them they abandoned their own theory:
Also-there’s no critical race theory or “grooming” in the textbooks, but you knew that :)
Steve in the ATL
In the spirit of the day, I’m not going to do my usual practice of printing all my emails, then stuffing the printouts into plastic bottles and throwing them in the river.
SFAW
@Kay:
When I get declared God-Emperor of this country, there are a number of individuals who will have some ‘splaining to do. Rufo is one of them, of course. [Of course, the list is pretty effing long, but it’s almost completely populated by Rethugs and other RWMFs.]
debbie
Wonderful that the president acknowledges and appreciates the reporting from Ukraine!
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
I feel confident that the bottles you use are completely recyclable, so you’re good either way.
Leto
Was listening to a report about the Disney fiasco and it’s such a self own. Apparently people in the county/district will have their property taxes go up by almost 20% (and it’s already some of the highest taxed property in the country), and Disney paid for all the EMS services there. Idk if this will finally blow back in Deathsantis’ face, but we can all hope.
Nicole
@Kay: I should be unsurprised that the GOP are lumping Social Emotional Learning in with CRT (which, I know, is not actually a thing in K-12 anyway). My son’s school focuses a lot on SEL in K-5, switching to calling it Life Skills in middle school (it’s even its own subject, included on the report card), and it really does affect the way kids treat each other and how they learn to articulate how they’re feeling. The school culture is extremely kind. No wonder the GOP hates it so much. Bunch of insecure white guys figuring there are two kinds of people: the bullies and the bullied. The idea of another kind of world terrifies them.
Baud
I wish someone had taught me social emotional learning.
Kay
@SFAW:
They had a whole theory about this! They promoted it in schools as “character training” and said it would develop “grit” that students were lacking. My own public school system adopted it.
These textbook publishers must be baffled. They are going to have to start following far Right social media influencers to ascertain which direction conservatives are going with textbooks. Which lunatic they’re all following.
Soprano2
Lots of people here call him the 3rd senator from Virginia, since that’s where his actual house is. He uses his sister’s address in Ozark as his Missouri address, and claims he’s building a house here, but he and his whole family live in Virginia! I’ve often wondered why Democrats don’t talk more about the fact that most conservative people who wax poetic about the benefits of the heartland still live in big cities on the coasts.
SFAW
@Leto:
It would not surprise me if the FL lege were to pass a bill mandating that Disney pay for any tax burden that might otherwise have to be absorbed by the residents. I have no idea whether something like that would be legal, but they’re such dickheads, I can see them trying it, even if not legal.
Soprano2
@SFAW: Going after private companies because they disagree with the government is an extremely bad precedent to let stand, no matter how you feel about the individual company.
Elizabelle
@Leto: Do you recall where you listened to the report? Would be interested. Thank you.
Re Anne Laurie’s Biden items above: I am struck by what a fundamentally decent guy he is. No wonder the right wants to scream over his head.
Spanky
@Baud: So do we.
Kay
@Nicole:
I like it too and those skills are, IMO, also really important at work. I’ve grown to appreciate over the years how valuable they are at work, actually.
Rufo’s just another wholly negative, poisonous person they’re all following like sheep. They’re lousy judges of character. They pick bad leaders, consistently.
SFAW
@Kay:
I know you already know this, but expecting logic or consistency from Rethugs is like me expecting to wake up good-looking.
Soprano2
@Leto: It’s really like they’re giving Disney a huge tax cut, because all of those services Disney pays for now will fall on the people of Florida. I think Florida will challenge this in court, and from what I’ve read they’ll probably prevail, but DeSantis will get his talking point about trying to punish Disney for daring to have an opposing view to that of conservatives.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
As I said, their fascism should not go unpunished. Of course, since TFG was big into going after private companies to punish them for not (figuratively) fellating him, they figure it’s OK.
Spanky
@Leto: Did I not read somewhere that those are blue counties? DeSantis is the type to think that bumping up the tax burden is additional punishment for them.
Matt McIrvin
@Leto: The counties involved are Democratic-voting, so the prospect of punishing then is probably a plus to DeSantis.
But this is likely not going to happen regardless of passage. The state government doesn’t have the power to repeal the district over the votes of locals, and it’s a thinly veiled bill of attainder aimed at punishing one entity for political speech disagreeing with the governor, making it massively unconstitutional two ways. It’s possible that doesn’t matter any more, but of course Disney’s lawyers are famously energetic.
Soprano2
@Nicole: I have to believe that saying teaching kids to be nicer to each other is bad isn’t going to end the way Republicans think it will, just like calling everyone who disagrees with them about anything “groomers” isn’t going to end well for them either.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
Do you mean Disney? If you really mean FL, I’m not getting what you’re expecting they would actually challenge
Kay
@Baud:
They did. It’s “perseverance” and “treat people like how you would like to be treated” and “listen to others with an open mind”. Only in Rightwingland could something so basic be depicted as something new and scary and evil.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
just like calling everyone who disagrees with them about anything “groomers” isn’t going to end well for them either.
You are much more optimistic, or less cynical — or both — than I am.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I don’t know how that will end, but I’m confident if the roles were reversed, we would treat it as a defeat.
John S.
@Leto:
FL-9 and FL-10 (which encompass Disney) are both blue districts. Deathsantis is more than happy to punish Democrats. They weren’t going to vote for him anyway.
Baud
@Kay:
Trust me, they didn’t.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s not just “nice”. There’s a heavy character component. Try hard. Persevere. Keep you word. Don’t lie. That’s why conservatives embraced it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they’re abandoning “character” huh?
SFAW
@Kay:
” ‘Character’ for thee, but not for me”
Soprano2
I think these days they’re constantly angry that everything around them doesn’t neatly align with what they think and how they believe the world should be, so they like other angry people – it gives them an excuse for how they already feel. It started with Limbaugh – he would get them riled up about some little thing no one would have heard about before him. It’s hard to understand the stuff the ones who are really in the weeds say, because they refer to things most people don’t know anything about. They loved TFG because he was angry about the same things they are – immigrants, black people and women getting out of “their place”, the “sluts” having unapproved sex, Muslims, hearing languages other than English in the store, and so on.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
Excellent crystallization of their “mind” set.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Kay: Well, they’re all-in on whatever will give them power. Since the question of character is now heavily skewed away from TFG, they’re desperate to minimize it, and to see how much mileage they can get out of Two-Minute Hates back to back to back to back to back to back to…
Soprano2
@SFAW: I live among them, it’s not hard to understand what they’re angry about -it’s anything that doesn’t exactly conform with how they think they world should be. If you want to be different, they want you to go somewhere else so they don’t have to see or hear about it. I have a co-worker who said he wanted to run for mayor to do something about the homeless here. I asked him what his idea was, and he said “Just run them out of town. Get rid of them. Make them go somewhere else”. This is what I live among all the time.
Soprano2
@SFAW: Yeah, I meant Disney, it’s morning brain.
Baud
@Soprano2:
There’s a reddit thread right now about how the wingnuts are mad about and harassing people voluntarily wearing masks.
They are a deeply insecure people. It’s why they work so hard to make our side even feel even more insecure.
germy
Soprano2
@SFAW: Well, “pedophile” is about the nastiest insult you can call someone, and they’re now calling everyone who disagrees with them at all that word. I think the average person who doesn’t follow politics that much will be turned off by that. Maybe I’m wrong, time will tell.
Soprano2
@Baud: I’m sure we would. All he wants is to be able to campaign on his effort to punish the “Woke” Disney company, and show them who’s really boss. He probably knows it won’t hold up in court, but that ruling won’t be final for at least a year or two, long after the election is over.
OzarkHillbilly
Surprise surprise surprise! Just like when he was AG and didn’t live in Jeff City as required by the state constitution.
germy
zhena gogolia
@Baud: We went to pick up a pizza yesterday, and although nobody said anything, we were stared at as if we were space aliens because we were masked. 7.8% positivity rate. I don’t get it.
Soprano2
Nope, they’ve decided those things don’t much matter anymore, because TFG has none of these traits. I was using “nice” as a catch-all, the way a politician would. Maybe ‘being a good citizen’ would be a better way to characterize it. What matters to them now is your ability to force how you want things to be on everyone else, even if most of those people don’t want that. They’ve normalized being a bully, making it seem like the “cool” thing to be.
debbie
@Leto:
I’d like to see Disney announce they’re relocating to a friendlier state, if only to see DeSantis’s face.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
It’s because they are insecure about their decisions.
gvg
They aren’t just repealing the Disney district but 5 others too, one of which is in a red county. One of them is something to do with sewage…I have no idea why they are trying to do this. I mean, I don’t see the point. They seem to be acting on the odd theory that any attention is good for politics, but I don’t think it is.
Also I think the law should be called the “require our teachers to lie” so that kids grow up knowing adults lie and have no faith in authority. Its repeating the mistakes of communism. I am struck by how many republicans don’t know history at all.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Remember those dishonest commercials where he used ladders, and said he wouldn’t use the AG’s office to “climb the political ladder”? Yeah, that lasted about two seconds after he was sworn in. Figures his family would live down here. They probably are building a huge house somewhere down in Ozark, but will hardly ever live in it.
Baud
@gvg:
They want to be able to tell the court that they didn’t single out Disney.
Soprano2
@Baud: I actually think it’s because the ones who do it can’t stand any reminder that there is someone who thinks differently than they do. Seeing a masked person reminds them that there are people who think we should still be wearing face masks at least some of the time, and they can’t stand that.
Baud
@Soprano2: I’m not sure we’re saying different things.
Soprano2
@Baud: In the face of all their very public statements, that’s going to be an extremely hard lift unless they get the “right” judges.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I agree. But they might get the right judges.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: They will come for one week in April and take a photo of the family with a sack of morels somebody else picked and another during deer season so he can parade around with a rifle and pretend to be a manly man.
eta and no, I never saw any of those commercials because I don’t have TV. And that is one of the many reasons why. :-)
Soprano2
@Baud: I don’t think it’s just insecurity, but that’s a big part of it. They can’t stand the idea that there are people who think and believe differently than they do. I think they see it as an insult to their decisions. It’s why they are fighting more and more among themselves – they are distilling down, down, down. It’s inevitable.
Betty Cracker
Just straight-up authoritarianism here:
Florida has trended redder in the last two cycles, and the conventional wisdom is that DeSantis will be reelected handily. That’s probably true.
Still, I’ve gotta think there’s a chance that being so rabidly partisan will blow up in their faces. God, I hope so. I’ll have a bigger party than I had when Trump went down in flames!
NotMax
@SFAW
Obligatory? The names may change but the isms don’t.
We’re after Rosie Clooney
We’ve gotten Pinky Lee
And the day we get Red Skelton
Won’t that be a victory
– “The John Birch Society“
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I shouldn’t read that when I’m drinking coffee, I almost spit all over my monitor because you’ve summed up what he’ll do perfectly!! The idea of him trying to be a “manly man” is just…….geez, hard to imagine.
Scout211
Here in NorCal, we had a day yesterday that was a clear example of climate change—the stormiest stormy day of severe weather I have ever experienced in California. All day long we had rain, hail, wind, and downpours with few breaks. Then severe thunderstorms all afternoon and late in the afternoon we got emergency alerts on our phones screaming at us to get to the basement! because there was tornado activity in our area. [Narrator: “There are no basements in California homes.”]
I guess our little corner of the world got top billing on the evening news because I got texts from family and friends checking on our welfare. We got through it with less damage than was expected around here but it was a day full of unexpected weather. I’ve lived in California over 40 years and have never seen a day like this. It felt like I went to sleep and woke up in the Midwest.
The climate, it is changing.
Baud
@Soprano2:
What do you attribute that to other than their own insecurities?
Geminid
This morning’s Politico Playbook opens up with some reporting on Minority “Leader” Kevin McCarthy. Then it moves on to some interesting excerpts from a “Politico Deep Dive” podcast interview with Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallegos. The excepts include a critique of Democritic outreach to Latinos:
Gallegos is not making this critique from a “centrist” position but rather from the viewpoint of a Latino member of the Progressive Caucus who is often described as a liberal.
The Gallegos interview excerpts also include some very caustic criticism of Kyrsten Sinema’s role in the Arizona Democratic party.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Maybe he can label Disney an inoagent (foreign agent). Every Disney movie must be preceded by a statement of self-denunciation.
ETA:
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s a real embrace of what is anti-social behavior. A reveling in it.
“Works well with others” is now coded liberal? Because Rufo says it is?
ryk
@Soprano2: My daughter lives in the same gated neighborhood as Hawley’s sister. He purchased a lot in that neighborhood, but the last I heard he still hadn’t started building.
Baud
@Geminid:
Hmmm.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s ugly out there for Republicans, though. I don’t think you can discount the effect of this radicalized base they have developed. I went to a GOP primary debate last night for a county comissioner race. The first part was questions from a local reporter as the moderator and it was fine. Normal local stuff. Then they threw it out to the local GOP base and it turned into the loudest 20% of people belligerently demanding the candidates address whatever conspiracy theory they’re currently fixated on.
There’s supply, but there’s demand too. The base they have created want this red meat. They gotta keep throwing it to them.
japa21
@Geminid: Exactly the point Kay has been making over and over.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Thank you. Sounds like a good read/listen (audio with transcribed excerpts), even if it is Politico.
PLAYBOOK DEEP DIVE
‘You only win if you fight’: Will Gallego unseat Sinema?
On this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive, co-author Ryan Lizza chats with Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego, a Marine veteran and rumored primary challenger to Senator Kyrsten Sinema in 2024. Gallego has an unsparing take on challenging Sinema, Jan. 6 and why Democrats need to lead more.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
The Emoluments Clause is dead, the guarantee of a republican form of government, ditto, and the Ninth Amendment too. Bills of attainder? The RWNJs love ’em because they get to use the powers of government to bully those they dislike, so I’m sure the FedSocSix will love ’em as well.
Oh, and state constitutions? That Federal court in Ohio has said they don’t really matter either, OKing one of several redistricting maps that Ohio’s Supreme Court had struck down as violating the Ohio Constitution.
Geminid
@John S.: I bet there are a lot of people in those counties who are not registered to vote. Yet.
A lot of the unregistered are not reachable, but some are. And if Democrats can get these residents to register and vote just once, the previously unengaged might decide they like political life in the big Democratic tent.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
One exchange was interesting. One of the candidates is a former sheriff. One of the 20% demanded he address the drugs coming over the border (like all red state rural areas we have a huge drug problem which they have all decided to blame on Mexicans) and he said “at some point you gotta look at demand- our people are buying it”. Off script! I clapped.
He won’t win though.
Soprano2
@Baud: Because of the religious ones. They are not insecure about their beliefs – in fact, they think everyone should believe the same way they do. What enrages them is the evidence that other people live differently is “in their faces” all the time because they don’t dominate the culture anymore. Especially in small towns, like the one where I grew up, it used to be easy to hide that fact that other places were different. (I didn’t even know there was a such thing as homosexuality until I was in college, and I didn’t meet anyone who wasn’t a Christian until then either.) They don’t want their kids to know that homosexuality is an acceptable way to live, because they truly believe that it’s “of the devil”. They don’t want their kids to think that sex before marriage is socially acceptable, because to them it’s not. And so on. Their rage doesn’t come from insecurity about their beliefs; it comes from their belief that the whole culture is trying to “ruin” their kids and do away with their “way of life”.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I think he’s absolutely right, the Democratic approach to Latin people treats them as if they are all the same. It’s dumb and needs to change. Quit thinking all they care about is immigration, because some of these people have been Americans longer than my family has!
Soprano2
@ryk: I’m sure they’ll build a house someday. *snark* But it’s so expensive to build right now I’m sure he’s using that as an excuse. The truth is he wants his kids to go to the expensive private school in Virginia, not the excellent public school in Ozark.
OzarkHillbilly
That has not been my experience, especially with the hardcore Christianists: “The Bible is the inerrant word of God!”
“Then why are there 62 versions of it?”
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s why they’re fighting more among themselves now – they’re distilling down, down, down into the truest of true believers. No daylight between them is allowed on anything! That’s hard to keep up.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: But you can’t shake them in their core beliefs no matter what you say. They believe the Bible they use (usually the King James version) is the one true Bible. They are truly offended that the culture no longer bows to their every wish. They can’t believe there are things on TV that offend them now, because they used to have the power to keep that stuff off TV and out of the movies. They have lost control of the culture, and they cannot stand that!
Kay
@Geminid:
Gallegos has the power to create his own campaign though. I agree with him on Latinos. I;ve said it here myself that we don’t approach them as Americans, we approach them as “Latinos”, which is really ridiculous and weird. But he’s ideally situated to take a wholly new approach to that and run it himself.
Obama thought the Democratic Party campaign apparatus was weak and loaded with people who didn’t actually contribute to winning elections. So he made his own. He didn’t ask permission. He just did it. Now, it didn’t last without him and his people running it, but 8 years is a good run. Worthwhile.
Who would be better at designing the new thing than Gallegos? Just don’t hire any of those people. Get his own people.
taumaturgo
“We oppose the governor taking action against a company because of their opposition to that bill. And we’re just going to leave it there for now; we’re not going to say anymore to that,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing.
For those in Florida, how do you interpret these remarks?
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Ask them if Adam gained entrance to heaven.
After all, he never accepted that Jesus dude as savior.
//
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ?? ?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I went with my husband and as I have said I’m a “public Democrat” and there was a couple sitting close to us who kept up this running commentary pre-debate on how horrible liberals are that I think was directed at me.
It had like…everything. God and voter fraud and Elon Musk and how mad I’ll be when they take back Congress. Okay, these people live in a 70% Trump county. I am AT a GOP primary debate. Republicans as far as the eye can see. That is not enough for them. Just my presence enrages them.
Nicole
@Kay:
The more it’s studied, the more evidence shows that the single best indicator of success at work is if a person gets along well with other people. “Plays well with others.” It’s not just a comment written by a kindergarten teacher; it’s a life goal.
And school culture really can influence. One of my son’s friends came in from a different school with a much stricter, more “traditional” culture and I’ve watched the kid’s character evolve to much less aggressive over the two years he’s been in this school. Some of it may just be developmental, but I think the school culture deserves credit, too.
Less aggressive boys? No wonder the GOP hates SEL.
lowtechcyclist
They’ve been keeping it up for 40 years. They keep on sawing off the more moderate end of the GOP, over and over again, yet it hasn’t really hurt them even now.
MazeDancer
Marjorie Taylor Greene hearing live stream:
https://youtu.be/LeSIMDEf7S0
Law schools need to have courses on “How Not to Be Boring When Your Case is Live Streamed”.
Baud
@Kay:
Nice.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
They won presidential elections more easily between 1972 and 1988.
And we’ve moved to the left. It’s not symmetrical, but it’s not like we haven’t changed either.
OzarkHillbilly
No, you can’t, but that is the first sign of how insecure they are. A secure person can entertain the possibility that they may be wrong about something. These folks on the other hand, can’t even bare to have their beliefs questioned. Every single bit of them has to be the absolute word of God. And yet a single chink in the wall threatens the whole edifice. Their God is a paper tiger.
And it terrifies them..
Kay
@Nicole:
I’m a believer. It so shortchanges kid’s capacity to assume they can’t reach a higher bar as far as treating other people decently. I really think it goes back to “Lord of the Flies” and old ideas about kids as barbarians. It was a NOVEL, people.
The success of the anti-bullying approach amazed even me and I thought they could do it. I knew they could do it. But boy they took to that like they had been waiting for someone to tell them to stop fucking savaging each other. Like it was a relief. Maybe it is a relief for the bullies too.
It’s a higher bar for behavior, at base. It says “I don’t care if you’re 7, that’s not an excuse for cruelty or being unkind”. They’ll do better at work because they’ll do better at life.
Cameron
The sudden enormous concern over pedophilia displayed by various good citizens at school board meetings, local political debates, etc. has me wondering how many of them think that ‘pedophilia’ means ‘a sexual attraction to bicycles.’
Geminid
@Elizabelle: The account of January 6 that Gallegos gives must be fascinating. A Marine and a combat veteran, Gallegos is quoted:
Gallegos recounted how he trained other Representatives for impending combat:
bluegirlfromwyo
@Baud: No one could have predicted that those cheering on beating up masked clerks were lying about mask choice.
Mike E
Ugh, do I have to read the WaPost? Oh alright, just for today.
Baud
@Geminid:
?
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Believe it or not, I’ve had some argue that Jesus was a Christian.
Betty Cracker
@taumaturgo: I’m not a lawyer, but DeSantis using state power to punish a business for wrongthink seems like a 1st amendment issue to me, and it may run afoul of other laws too, for all I know.
My hope is Jean-Pierre’s reluctance to address the question means the legally appropriate entity DOES plan to take it up. Presumably that would be the DOJ, and maybe the Biden people don’t want to say anything that could be construed as influencing DOJ actions. Just speculating.
OzarkHillbilly
I still have all the glass in my truck, I’m not at all sure why.
Omnes Omnibus
Apparently, there is a TERF group meeting at the Madison Public Library tomorrow. A protest is being held. Looks like I have some plan for tomorrow.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think it’s a fine statement. As much as I loathe DeSantis Disney is what, a 200 billion dollar company? I think they probably have a plan to address this if it does in fact damage them.
Soprano2
You get what I’m saying then. I think it’s hard for liberals who live in liberal areas to understand what this is like. I have to be careful what I say at the bar because so many of our good regular customers who spend a lot of money are TFG fans. I can’t afford to lose their business. If I had only customers who didn’t like TFG I would be out of business in no time. They all know what my opinion is, and sometimes they needle me about it. I’m never dishonest, but sometimes I refuse to engage because it wouldn’t be productive.
Calouste
@Kay:
I think I’ve spotted the problem conservatives are having with this.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly:
We’re not sure either.
We docked in Ghent today in order to go to Bruges, which is a largely presented medieval town. There are a ton of buildings from the middle ages, included a set of them from a kind of commune women formed as an alternative to the convent. They took vows of obedience to the woman in charge, whom they elected every two years. They used their money to build housing for themselves and poor women who wanted to join. And they vowed chastity as long as they stayed in the community. They were free to leave whenever they liked. They treated the sick and served the poor. They offended the pope greatly.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
My husband always think they’ll get physical but I never do. I think they’re chickens, basically. That may be delusional but it is what I think.
It genuinely doesn’t bother me. I have pretty thick skin and I’m really confident in my views.
Geminid
@Kay: I think Gallegos will run against Sinema, and do it his way. Right now Job 1 for Arizona Democrats is reelecting Senator Kelly and putting Secretary of State Hobbs in the Governor’s chair this November. After that, I look for Gallegos to announce his Senate candidacy for 2024.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think living in a really conservative area forces you to clarify your views and learn to defend them. The trick for me was kind of embracing political minority status. There’s more power in that than feeling outnumbered, which is inherently defensive. I do smile when I read about the poor widdle conservatives who have to live in liberal areas. “I am being CANCELLED!” It never occurs to these people that liberals live in conservative areas too? We could whine a lot!
satby
@Steve in the ATL: Shit, what will I tell the partners who are awaiting replies from you at Dewey, Cheattham, and Howe?
danielx
From that Twitter thread earlier…yeah, it does seem like an easy win. But that is a misunderstanding of Protestant evangelical thought and mindset. My sister-in-law and her entire brood are converts to that faith, if you can call it that. She is formerly Catholic and now regards Catholicism as next thing to pagan worship. Idol worship! Ritual cannibalism!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’m not clear on how the feds decide which rights violations cases to take up, but you’re right about WDW being capable of handling its own legal affairs. It’s also not clear that the Reedy Creek revenge bill will be harmful to WDW, aside from loss of control. It may get to offload its debt and service obligations onto taxpayers and ultimately benefit.
If the statement is all the Biden admin is going to say on the matter, it comes up short, IMO. It’s not just WDW’s free speech rights at stake here. The government of the third most populous state in the union is going full authoritarian. It’s openly intimidating businesses (some without such deep pockets) as well as citizens. As Biden might say, that’s a big fucking deal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Bruges is gorgeous. It is almost impossible to take a picture there that is not postcard worthy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: so you’re beginning with the Beguines?
The Moar You Know
@Steve in the ATL: I’m parking my wood powered car in the garage today.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: That’s true, but the cycle has sped up a lot, and at some point there won’t be enough of the “true believers” to sustain the party. Maybe they’ll never pay a price for it, but I have to believe that someday it will bite them in the ass.
danielx
@satby:
I thought he left that firm and went to Gutt, Cutt and Flense.
Soprano2
@Kay: It’s not even true, either. There was a real life “Lord of the Flies” situation, and the kids cooperated with each other!
JPL
@MazeDancer: omg I was concerned that the judge was going to nod off.
Kay
@Geminid:
Agreed, except this:
Arizona Democrats, all Democrats, need a long term plan and project. Frantically responding to “cycles” is no way to work. They have to do both. Gallagos can insert himself in disucssions of how campaigns to reach Latinos are run, as he is in the article you read. He can tell other Democrats running in Latino districts to stop hiring people who don’t help them get elected. He’s credible, right? Which white Democrat is going to second guess his ideas on Latino voters?
Soprano2
@Geminid: My husband would have been the same. He says almost anything can be used as a weapon if the need arises.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was stunned by it. Unfortunately, it’s cold and windy so, after three hours, we decided we needed shelter. Mr DAW is currently snoring on the bed behind me.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes! I had to look that up because I couldn’t remember what the guide called them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: Gallegos needs to study John McCain and see if he can replicate that trick of talking about his military service in a way that makes doughy (mostly) white (mostly) male (mostly) journalists who never served think he really doesn’t like to talk about his military service
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: From what I’ve seen in Virginia, moderates leaving the Republican party by one door were replaced by bible thumpers and tea party cranks coming in the other. I think the moderates started leaving around 2004; now there are very few left. I’m hoping that the party has maxed out it’s additions from conservative evangelicals and there radical secular allies. It’s hard to tell because those folks make so much noise.
November’s Congressional midterms will be a good test of their strength. Republicans know their best shot to take out Elaine Luria (VA-2nd) and Abigail Spanberger (VA-7th) is this year. Luria has the tougher district.
The big showdown will be in next year’s legislative elections when all 100 Delegate and 40 Senate seats will be contested. This will be on a new map for the first time since Republicans gerrymandered the old one in 2011.
Kay
@Soprano2:
When it came up on our school committee there were basically two camps. A larger group who thought perhaps they could be taught to stop smashing each other in the face and a smaller group who insisted this was “natural” and maybe even desirable in a sort of hyper competitive way.
There was overreach at the beginning, I admit. Schools are rule-bound places and they tend to hyper interpret rules in an ultra cautious way so we had “bullying” that was not even close to bullying but they got the nuance eventually and used their own common sense and the excesses petered out.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Kay: I’d rather have that than the conservative attempts to be open minded and reasonable. That’s what the guys at my husband’s Knights of Columbus do, and it’s just them trying to get us to admit how horrible we are for being Democrats. They asks us to hate ourselves as much as they do, and like them for pointing out the error of our ways. Then they get pissy when we don’t oblige.
Just talk trash about me instead. I can take it. I never asked for their version of reasonable. They took that on. I don’t have to play.
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: Yep. Dems persist mightily in not understanding the Latino vote, and they’re about to lose it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: Speaking of Elaine Luria
I’m becoming a long-distance Louise Lucas fan
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know: confusing the loudest voices on twitter with the voters they claim to speak for has been one of the biggest mistakes of a handful of prominent Democrats since 2016, and more than a few internet commenters….
Geminid
@Kay: I’m not saying that Gallegos can’t do a lot now!
I’m saying that his primary fight with Sinema is something better left implicit than explicit until after the polls close on Election day. And I think that Arizona Democrats are going to work very hard on the current contests, but this in no way inhibits longer term investment if they are good practical politicians.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: A buddy of mine had a restaurant in Mountain View, AR. I spent a long wkend at his house in ’17/’18, drove into town to have breakfast at his diner every morning. The customers were overwhelmingly trumpist of course. Every morning he’d “argue” with them, actually they just traded insults, but the next morning they’d all be back there for another round of coffee, pancakes, and insults.
At any rate, it worked for him. You know your crowd.
Kay
@bluegirlfromwyo:
Knights of Columbus is too far Right even for me. One of my idiot relatives plugged his car battery charger into their outside outlet and left it there “charging” for I don’t know, two days, and it started this big dispute I had to resolve. They were really mean about it :)
Kay
@Geminid:
Oh, I agree with that. Democrats need help with reaching Latinos. He can and should help them and they should accept the help. Kelly seems smart enough to take advice.
MisterDancer
I’ve been thinking a lot about this.
One of the things that I suspect anti-Reconstruction efforts, and esp. the KKK, did, was create a demand in poorer Southern whites for self-promoting racism. That demand was already there — after all, Oregon began and spent decades as a “No Blacks Allowed” state.
But the Lost Cause really helped kick-start this belief that it was in the hands of every white person to stop Blacks from, well, doing anything important. Fueled by Southern oligarchs, that became generational propaganda, I think, became something that was “true” to them. It made doing what they knew was wrong, easier.
The 1970s on gave room, society-wise, to get out of that, to do what they knew was “right” in their hearts. But it’s clear hate still hid in the minds and anger, of far too many, spoken of in “safe” spaces of prejudice. And now that hate has so many and diverse targets, so many people to brutalize,literally and “legally,” to keep fueling that hate they have grown up in, marinated in for so long.
They rule thru fear. And the pushback starts with refusing to give fully not that fear — to stay safe, yet also to fight back.
satby
@danielx: He did, but still emails the partners.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Senator Lucas is hitting Youngkin hard and having fun while she’s at it. She now has her own line of blue fleece vests for sale.
Early in her working life Louis Lucas worked at the Portsmouth Naval Yard as a draftsman. She was the first woman at the yard to become a Master Shipfitter. While working for the Navy Lucas earned a B.S. and a Master’s Degree from Norfolk State University. Then she ran for office and has represented Portsmouth as a Delegate and then a Senator since 1991.
OzarkHillbilly
I think they are like most people: they don’t want to stand out from the crowd. It’s a human thing. So if everybody else is just accepting my presence, they will too. But… if you find yourself among a more assertive crowd, it’s possible things could get ugly.
I don’t know. The only places where I came even close to fitting in were the ones that didn’t care that I didn’t.
Kay
@MisterDancer:
The part I can’t bear is how they also insist they are victims while behaving so belligerently. Pick one. Strut around and call people names OR whine constantly about how no one lets you talk. They talk plenty. They never shut up. Half the country is jerked around by whatever ridiculous panic they’re promoting on a given week. How much do they want? What would satisfy them as far as “respect”? They are miserable now and they were equally miserable when Trump was in power.
kalakal
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Bruges is wonderful. I hope you had a great day there
kalakal
@danielx: And from there to Sue, Grabbitt & Runne
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I loved “Lord of the Flies” when I read it because it accurately described my experiences in junior high PE class. But looking back I now realize how much of that was happening because of tacit support from the teachers, who played the amiable goof but would always be looking the other way at just the right moment
I think a large part of controlling bullying was just to not actively encourage bullying.
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That sounds so amazing. You’re not on the same program we were, because we didn’t go to Bruges. Sounds like you have the same weather we had, though. I had to buy a scarf to put over my head because of the cold wind. We went in early October, and it was colder than I’d thought it would be.
tam1MI
Dems treat everything as a defeat.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Awful. I’m so sorry. I once had a 70 year old magistrate have to leave the bench and recover after bullying testimony. He had a childhood illness that left him with a jerky walk and a built up shoe and he was just brutalized for years. It brought it all back and he was overwhelmed. It harms people for a long time. It’s unacceptable behavior and we can insist it stop.
Soprano2
@Kay: I had an hour long discussion on the patio with one of our regulars last summer. Everyone else was holding their breath, but it was OK because we’re both relatively reasonable people. He’s from Illinois, so we were talking about that. He kept saying that people in downstate IL should have more say in the state government, and I said they have a say they vote for their representatives and that’s how it works. He just kept saying it, but could never articulate how it would work. He kept saying Chicago has too much power, but couldn’t really say how to change that. We all know that’s about wanting the downstate white people to control the state government even though they’re in the minority, but of course he’ll never actually say that because then it would show he’s biased against black people. He grew up in the city so thinks he can’t be prejudiced, but I know that’s not how it works.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m glad to know that there is an effective school program against bullying. I was bullied when I was in what they call middle school now; it was an experience that scars me to this day. I have this deep-seated belief that people aren’t going to like me, and I think it comes from that time in my life when it seemed like most of my classmates and the other kids didn’t like me. It was a damaging, toxic experience no one should go through.
zhena gogolia
@The Moar You Know: Fuck them if they can’t realize what’s at stake. Really. I’m sick of this discussion.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I grew up at the west end of Fairfax County in the 80s when that was deep Republican territory and the whole country was voting Reagan anyway. To this day, I still wince when someone I’m with expresses liberal opinions in a loud voice in public because I expect some kind of confrontation. I think things have gotten worse, though– the chance that someone might actually kill you instead of just shouting is higher than it was.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The kids with cerebral palsy or some other kind of visible physical difference always got the worst of it. I was just a nerd with weird posture and it was bad enough.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
It makes me cry because it was all just such unnecesary pain for people and they carry it so long. This magistrate didn’t even like me. We battled all the time. He abruptly left the bench and told me to follow him into chambers and just told this halting, awful story. His parents were Mennonite so they may have not gotten him medical care he needed. They avoid doctors and hospitals.
I think it helps all of them. Kids who have ordinary empathy and observe and don’t intervene feel shame because they know it’s wrong. The bully makes everyone complict.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: They thought you needed to learn to be “tough” because life was hard. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, as a grade schooler, that if I just wouldn’t react they would stop. This is true, but how was I supposed to control my reaction – I was 8 and 9 and 10!!! It was an unrealistic expectation. No one said “maybe we should stop those kids from bullying you”. No, I was supposed to adapt to them. I’m glad that’s not the expectation anymore.