Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

So many bastards, so little time.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

This really is a full service blog.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Thursday Evening Venting Open Thread: Steam Relief

Thursday Evening Venting Open Thread: Steam Relief

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It is very romantic to imagine yourself and your comrades as the Brave Underground Resistance, meeting in dark bars to plot the overthrow of the state. (Just look at the MAGAts — they got everything they wanted, and *still* never stop whining about their victimhood.)

Far less exciting, to the perennially adolescent mind, to support the unending grind of normal political work, trying to execute legislative compromises between mutually resistant forces. This is not what they signed up to accomplish! It must be a plot by their enemies…



And furthermore…

… Do you know who my great-grandparents were?

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I love the fact that she sees herself as a heroic revolutionary because she can type incredibly stupid things and hit publish.

  4. 4.

    CaseyL

    FFS.  I just saw another thread on Twitter, from Sarah Silverman (yes, that Sarah Silverman) wondering why Biden can’t codify abortion rights into law via Executive Order.  And in the thread were lots and lots of people saying the Dems haven’t codified Roe because they don’t want to lose the fundraising they can do off of it.

    They’re “our” MAGAts: Ignorant and proud of it, angry when you try to give them facts.

  6. 6.

    MisterDancer

    Far less exciting, to the perennially adolescent mind, to support the unending grind of normal political work, trying to execute legislative compromises between mutually resistant forces.

    That is certainly another way of saying what I noted in a comment I just dropped in the prior thread:

    I know for certain a lot of the people on Twitter of a certain style and type — people who’s understanding of political movements and history has some real gaps — think that posting on the hour about what they want pols to do, is somehow “change”.

    Twitter has real, and important, uses. That’s not really one of them. Moreover, it passes off all power and control over the situation to “them,” washing our collective hands of any responsibility to organize and push for the change we want.

    (In this, I should note I’m excluding those who have put shoe leather and sweat equity into making change.)

    But it’s not really about Twitter. It’s deeper than that. It’s about the belief that civic life shouldn’t have to involve We, The People, doing much work. And how “We” really means “I”.

    It’s about how marching and protesting and engaging our Representatives has been utterly devalued, denigrated, and insulted all too often, in media…

    ….and how we buy into that framing, leading into that “they work for me!” mentality.

    For me. Not for (all of) us. For me, the single person who voted for them anonymously. Who may have gave some money.

    This comment elide a host of issues. I’m sure someone can poke massive holes in parts of this brief analysis. But I’m feeling more and more it’s core to why so many seek to fight online, and in the way that they do.

    But I don’t insist upon that opinion.

  11. 11.

    cintibud

    Media matters stared too long at the Fox news abyss. The Fox news abyss stared back

  12. 12.

    Ken

    @Baud: I blame Lincoln for the civil war.

    I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter twitter feed.

  13. 13.

    different-church-lady

    People have said stupid shit ever since they invented language. But social media has allowed them to say stupid shit louder and faster than any other time in history.

  14. 14.

    brendancalling

    This is why I stopped reading Eschaton, who’s associated w/Media Matters (MM Fellow, IIRC). His site is a steady stream of “democrats can’t do anything right.” In fact, on the days they DO do something right, he ignores it and writes about how the media is bad instead. At this point I visit only to point and laugh, and to undermine whatever nonsense he’s spreading.

    I say that as someone who used to visit that site multiple times a day, and as someone who knows Black personally. People like him, sites like that, are part of the problem. It’s the most facile garbage, and people are influenced by it. It makes me as mad as the Young Turks, a group of people who should be strapped to a rocket and launched into the sun.

  16. 16.

    TheTruffle

    @CaseyL: So Sarah Silverman is as intelligent and well-informed as she is funny

    On an unrelated note, I like Biden and I am fine with him. Yes, I have my criticisms of the guy. But I think he could very well be the one Dem candidate who could have handled this particular moment in history. Am I weird?

  17. 17.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: Good point. Fifty years ago, they’d have had to stay up all night turning the crank on their mimeograph, then stand on the street trying to get people to take their flyers. Now the effort has gone down, and the quality has tracked it.

  22. 22.

    different-church-lady

    @Ken: When the aliens land and wonder what happened to our civilization, the answer will be, “The monkeys got to be too clever for their own good.”

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ken: Beshear is saying her heard the same thing from “the White House”.

    This is the part that makes no sense to me

    “Given that a judicial position isn’t currently open on the Eastern District Court, it’s clear that this is part of some larger deal on judicial nominations between the president and Mitch McConnell,” Yarmuth told the paper.

    It’s actually not clear at all. Also, since even Manchin and Sinema have been cooperating on judges, what does McConnell have to offer here?

  26. 26.

    Buskertype

    It’s a bad take, but save your heat for the other side. Media Matters isn’t working against the democrats. Pull yourselves together people.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ken: the fact that Hillary won’t tell us what’s in her emails is proof that she’s trying to cover up crimes we have evidence took place!

  35. 35.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Karen: i would like to know what this deal with McConnell is. McConnell shouldn’t be getting anything from Biden after what he’s done with just Merrick Garland. Forget all the other crap. Also I know this isn’t some big deal but why is Bobby Engel on the BJA board – can’t link to it as a POTUS nominee of TFG and one of the other guys is a nominee of the majority leader(McConnell) and not Schumers. I know it’s not some super important board but its a year and half in and we can’t have Biden nominees yet? Rahm Emanuel was recently voted in as the ambassador to Japan. The Ukrainian ambassador was recent as well. What the fuck? The important ambassadors should be done within 6 months. Even the South Korean one took forever.

  37. 37.

    Percysowner

    @Karen: ​ Well, 1) There are no current vacancies on the Federal courts that cover Kentucky. There are no expected upcoming vacancies on any Federal Court in Kentucky, the court district where this supposed deal was made. Re U.S, Court site
    2) The original reporting newspaper is paywalled. I haven’t heard of it before so I have no clue if it is a reliable source.
    3) Maybe Biden is an idiot. Or maybe he isn’t doing this. Or maybe he has reason to trust McConnell. Whatever this is, I’m not sure how he appoints someone to a seat that doesn’t seem to be open. Also, He can’t just wave a wand and make it happen. There are Committee hearings, and a full Senate vote.
    I don’t know, maybe we should wait until he ACTUALLY DOES make this nomination before we get all het up?
    If he does make the nomination after all this, I WILL get all het up.​
     

    Thanks @Ken: ​
      for noting that, I haven’t been in the comments for a while.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    @CaseyL: ​
     

    I’m so fucking furious – these stupid motherfuckers don’t know what the fuck they are talking about. They just cannot allow themselves to entertain for even a fucking second that their failure as voters to defend the courts, and by extension our rights.

    The Clean Air Act was codified – fuck all it did for us. This is an extreme court hell bent on fulfilling its crusade.

  44. 44.

    zhena gogolia

    @geg6: Me too. The stupidity, it burns.

    THEY COULDN’T BRING THEMSELVES TO VOTE FOR HILLARY BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO STUPID TO SEE THIS COMING.

  45. 45.

    Martin

    I’ll have some ability to participate once my rage dies down a bit. I have nothing productive to offer right now. Maybe in a few days.

    Current mood: I want to send Cole a plane ticket to fly out and visit me, we’ll drive up to Sierra Army Depot, train my fellow state residents to use that equipment and finish Shermans march to the sea. We’ll need to detour over CO and NM, and we’ll spare Atlanta, but not Tallahassee.

  48. 48.

    Ksmiami

    @TheTruffle: I think he’s done as good of a job as any human can in this situation but America has gone friggin nuts and we can’t exist as a country where half the ppl want to move forward and try to make life a bit better while the other half wants to re-enact the Inquisition-

  49. 49.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Mnemosyne: Glad you’re back! Beshear is quoted. I know it’s Insider but I don’t see Beshear being quoted and saying something stupid.

  52. 52.

    Tony G

    I’d never heard of Madeline Peltz before today.  Apparently she’s either a dope or she’s one of those entitled fake “leftists” who believe that the Democratic Party is the real enemy because a Democratic president refuses to invoke his imaginary superpowers.  I can tolerate that from some ignorant kid on a college campus, but it’s depressing to see that someone like her has a high position at Media Matters.  Maybe the Murdochs bought Media Matters recently.

  53. 53.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Actually, I’m glad when assholes inform us that they’re unreliable allies.

  54. 54.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @MomSense: get ready for the next term of the Supreme Court. Its the Clean Water Act next. Apparently Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas and the other 3 crazies think that they will be breathing special air and using special water just set aside for them and all their Koch/Mercer/GOP pals. Dontcha know water doesn’t travel down the Mississippi or Colorado going through multiple states and air just stays static over their mansions.

  55. 55.

    raven

    Supreme Court Will Hear Case On Radical Voting Rights Theory

    The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its fall 2022 session on whether state courts play any role in judging the constitutionality of election laws and legislative district maps passed by state legislatures.

    The case of Moore v. Harper is brought by Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature who claim that state courts have no say on whether the voting laws they write or the district maps they adopt are unconstitutional under their state’s constitution.

  56. 56.

    brendancalling

    @Baud: Good. He doesn’t even live in the US anymore—he’s in Britain. He’s a person of privilege—like a lot of the progressive purists—and he never ever has anything remotely constructive (or even coherent) to say. “Dems are bad and stupid,” lather rinse repeat.
    sorry, for the rant but that whole line of thinking pisses me off.

  57. 57.

    piratedan

    @Tony G: if Uncle Shades had the authority they implied, he would have disbanded the Supreme Court, issued articles of arrest for all of the GOP that voted against certifying the election, issued an executive order taxing Churches that politicize the pulpit and have the FCC shut down Rupert and the Newsmax/OAN hustles.

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    @raven: Gonna be very very VERY interesting to see how the SCOTUS argues that State supreme courts have no say in State constitutions, yet they have a say in the US Constitution.

  61. 61.

    raven

    @different-church-lady:  The argument presented by North Carolina Republicans is that the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause grants state legislatures alone the power to set the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections. That power includes the ability to draw legislative district maps and to set rules for voter registration, polling locations, accessibility of alternatives to in-person Election Day voting and any other form of election law imaginable.

  62. 62.

    Redshift

    @different-church-lady:

    Gonna be very very VERY interesting to see how the SCOTUS argues that State supreme courts have no say in State constitutions, yet they have a say in the US Constitution.

    I’m betting it will be the legal theory of “the law is whatever is best for Republicans today,” like all their recent decisions.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @raven:

    Right.  But the Constitution also gives Congress the same right.  By that logic, Congress isn’t bound by the U.S. Constitution either.

    Maybe that’s the next case.

  66. 66.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: ​
     

    It is one person, but I didn’t realize Media Matters had gone to pot.

    Nothing wrong with going to pot, it’s the bad shrooms that can really mess your head up.

    But JHC, what an idiot. And all too damn useful (to the wrong people) an idiot.

  67. 67.

    Redshift

    I have no problem with people criticizing Biden or other Dems for not doing what they want, especially if they’re pushing them to do what they want, not just whining on Twitter. That’s what advocacy is all about, and getting worked up and passionate or angry about it is fine, too.

    But if your first response to something awful Republicans do is “the Democrats could have stopped this if they wanted to,” or “why aren’t the Dems doing anything about this?,” that’s just bullshit.

  69. 69.

    RSA

    Some of y’all are doing the work for Republicans.

    Some of my own lefty friends are so fucking annoying with their hot takes.

    • Democrats lost Roe in 2016 by not nominating someone acceptable to Green voters for President.
    • Biden should pardon doctors in red states who carry out abortion procedures and put abortion clinics in national parks.
    • After the praying Bremerton coach case, public Satanist rituals will show everyone how misguided they’ve been.
    • Democrats are no different from Republicans.

    FFS. Let’s live in the real world, where politic movement takes work and time. There are no easy solutions.  Republicans spent 50 years working to overturn Roe v. Wade.  I hope we can reverse that, but it won’t happen tomorrow.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    Democrats are no different from Republicans.

    Yet they always get upset when we lose to them.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Terry Watkins Jr. @TerryWatkinsJr1
    You all treat the Democratic Party like a babysitter responsible for every mishap or misdeed the Republican Party commits. Yet rather than equip them with basic tools necessary for them to operate, you begrudgingly give them the bare minimum needed to exist (if that much).

    The loudest will never take responsibility for their own incompetence. And I will be hogtied before I take advice from the very people who sidelined these issues for years only to pretend they care about them and are offering solutions in good faith.

    Stop being lied to.

  74. 74.

    Miki

    @Baud: Marbury v. Madison – overruled per “history and tradition” from 213 AD or whenever Paul first spewed his misogynistic bullshit.

  76. 76.

    Eolirin

    @raven: Let me tell you how quick NY and certain other blue states will put out super gerrymandered maps if that ruling comes down. Red states weren’t the only ones that got smacked down by their courts this cycle.

    I’m sure they’ll try to figure out some way that it’s only okay if it benefits Republicans but it’s getting harder and harder to make that not look absolutely insane. They’re trashing any credibility the court had at an accelerated rate.

  79. 79.

    anon

    Biden wh has done a superb job with judicial nominees, better than Obama I dare say.

     

    Biden was chair of judiciary I think they know what they’re doing. Chill ….

  84. 84.

    Burnspbesq

    @raven:

    It’s much worse than that. In its most extreme form, the independent state legislature theory posits that state legislatures can ignore the result of the popular vote in choosing presidential electors.

  85. 85.

    Mike E

    @Redshift: my Holocaust-surviving mom, who fled to Italy when the Nazis invaded her country, took up with a homegrown resistance outfit called the Red Brigade. She could give a shit about what their name was, all she wanted to do was fuck up some Fascists (heh but really, it was to keep an eye on her little brother who wanted to singlehandedly slay them). Real life communists would rule her birth country after the war ended and the RB didn’t change her into Red anything, she was coming to the land o’milk n honey come hell or high water!

    So when she got here she allied with the Dems because who else would fight these battles? I joke about it often, that my momma didn’t raise no repubs or commies, neither.

  86. 86.

    Poe Larity

    When Thomas overturns naturalization laws, can she be deported because her mom was an anchor baby?

  87. 87.

    brianm

    I don’t care about twitter trolls, but I do note that Biden shifted his position on the filibuster (for Roe and its lineage of opinions). It seems likely to me that some intemperate messages influenced that switch. If so, good for the shouters. (I very much doubt twitter shouting had anything to do with the switch. I think it was more likely the pushback came from where the Democratic institutions connect with activists/steady supporters.)

    I worry that the fact that the Wrong and Ungrateful People wanted to push Biden/Pelosi/etc to move faster and stronger will make us think slow and weak action is good, because we don’t want to see that bad motives(etc.) might have good effects.

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    Isn’t there some old weird conservative theory that the courts are not allowed to decide whether or not legislation is constitutional? It dates back to, like, 1803.

    I would say that the Supreme Court isn’t stupid enough to put themselves out of a job, but these assholes probably are, especially since they now have to work with a Black woman. The horror!

     

    ETA: Aha! Marbury v Madison it was.

  89. 89.

    Baud

    @brianm:

    The problem with Wrong and Ungrateful People is that they undermine our message and cost us elections.

    ETA: I work with activists all the time. The vast majority of them are Right and Grateful People who are doing yeoman’s work.  I agree with you that those are the people the administration is listening to.

  90. 90.

    Eolirin

    @Eolirin: Like, there is an actual risk for them in pushing things this far. The left has remained constrained by the fact that our side isn’t really interested in trying to destroy norms and engage in unfair tactics. We don’t like to cheat.

    But if we get pissed off enough, and it feels like we’re getting really close to that tipping point, we’re not going to be constrained by that anymore.

    It’ll be destroy them by whatever means necessary. And we have more resources than they do. We have more people. We don’t have as many states, and that’s a real problem, but we haven’t yet lost enough states to their complete control that we can’t get enough EC votes. Or enough senators.

    Not yet. It’s going to be fucking messy and fixing the damage after the fact is going to suck. But there’s a path still.

  91. 91.

    brianm

    @brianm:

    (I’d be ecstatic if Biden’s switch were an FDR-style “I agree with you, now force me to do it” moment. It would suggest they gamed this out. I’ve been a bit surprised that the messaging engine wasn’t on top of this opinion.)

  92. 92.

    Lyrebird

    @The Thin Black Duke: Actually, I’m glad when assholes inform us that they’re unreliable allies.

    Agreed… particularly when Anne Laurie wades into the morass and boils it down so I don’t have to read all of it!

  93. 93.

    different-church-lady

    The thing that pisses me off the most about the whole “Biden is to blame for not preventing this” is that THIS CAKE WAS BAKED IN 2016. We could probably dip into our recently recovered history and find several people warning that it was all going to unfold exactly as it is unfolding. Other than assassinating judges on January 21, 2021, what the fuck was he supposed to do about it?

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack

    * DVR Alert *

    TCM is showing Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) at 11:30 p.m. EDT, starring the now universally reviled Johnny Depp. Excellent movie, highly recommended! Trailer here.

    (Also available to stream on HBO Max and the Criterion Collection.)

  98. 98.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: Well, we just finished watching Marry Me with Jennifer Lopez. Truly terrible and terribly enjoyable flick. Best part: Jen dancing with middle school students in Owen Wilson’s math classroom.

  99. 99.

    livewyre

    @brianm: It’s not that I don’t share that concern on some level, but at the same time it doesn’t seem worth the fuss as to which group is more right or what their motives might be. Action is taking place on all different levels, and some of it is going to look stronger than others – that’s fine. It’s not only what looks powerful that works. What works is what we’re after.

  101. 101.

    Bobby Thomson

    @different-church-lady: it’s misdirection from people who didn’t vote for Clinton, encouraged others not to vote for Clinton, and now are terrified Democrats might actually win the midterms because it bolluxes their 2024 strategy

  102. 102.

    MobiusKlein

    So suppose that Biden did make some deal with McConnell, where one anti-abortion judge is nominated, and in return a whole bunch of other judges get thru the Senate.  (say 60?)

    Would that be considered a good deal?   Or at least acceptable?

    From a net improvement, I can’t say it is terrible.

  106. 106.

    MobiusKlein

    @Eolirin: Sure, it sounds like BS.

    My question is what deal would be acceptable to the normal Democratic folks for a single anti-abortion judge in Kentucky?  Speaking for myself, I would not be mad at a 1/50 ratio.  Heck, I imagine some judges nominated by D’s may not vote our desired way, even without a McConnell deal.

  109. 109.

    Feathers

    This has been a problem of the Left since at least the French Revolution. That man is born with certain inalienable rights is true and obvious, therefore if I don’t have these rights, somebody done fvcked up.

    It’s the “why are people saying we need to vote? I voted and things aren’t perfect yet!” that drives me mad.

  111. 111.

    Ivan X

    I realize we’re all addicted to fresh news and new people to loathe, but, in this idiot’s “defense,” I also think we consistently underestimate how great righteousness feels, how stupid most (even educated) people are, and how Twitter is like a Tesla coil for immediate takes without thought.

  112. 112.

    stinger

    @MobiusKlein:

    My question is what deal would be acceptable to the normal Democratic folks for a single anti-abortion judge in Kentucky? Speaking for myself, I would not be mad at a 1/50 ratio

    Do you live in Kentucky? Are you a woman?

  114. 114.

    Bnad

    It’s a fine fine line between privileged marxists’ views and the views of their rich capitalist great grandfathers.

  115. 115.

    Ken

    @TheTruffle: Most people who want a theocracy think that they’re going to be the theocrat. History shows that most of them have been been wrong.

  116. 116.

    LeftCoastYankee

    In a land where few remember what a functional legislature looks like (thanks to 40 years of R monkey-wrenching and vandalism), watching the fascist vandals breaking things as fast as they can, it is not too surprising that people are flailing towards imaginary and magical “fix it now” ideas.

    The alternative is to realize making and fixing things takes much more care and work than vandals breaking shit, but that would also cause the realization they started freaking out much too late.

    Hot takes “crushing” Madison Cawthorn may feel good in the moment, but stopping Christo-Fascist home schooling of this now grown idiot and his ilk would have been much more work, less dramatic and more effective.  As one example…..

  117. 117.

    eddie blake

    @LeftCoastYankee:  i would imagine since they killed off civics class and largely neutered social studies, most people have only the slightest idea of how things are supposed to work when they haven’t worked that way in decades.

    like, how the media NEVER says that the republicans have CHOSEN to filibuster everything, that it wasn’t like that for decades and that the slow disintegration of our country was all written down in and gamed out in their powell memo…

    but how many of the people working in our media today (andrea mitchell notwithstanding) REMEMBER how things are supposed to work?

  118. 118.

    LeftCoastYankee

    @eddie blake:

    Good point, the media amplifies Repub BS bad faith changes on governing processes as “strategy”.

    I was thinking that back in the day, Congress was always working on many specific issues (hence all the committees), and passed many bills.

    Now, it’s pass one big bucket o’ stuff bill where many of the individual fixes have been whittled down (or neutered) to fit in the “bucket o’ stuff”, and then everyone heads off to fundraise off of it, whether they actually voted for it (or read it) or not.

  119. 119.

    eddie blake

    @LeftCoastYankee: i almost think it’s worse than that. they dont portray the filibuster as a part of gop strategy, they report on it as if it’s a fact of life. Hell manchin and sinema and the rest of the press corps seem convinced the filibuster came down from on high and has been a part of the republic since the beginning instead of the high anomaly the filibustering of everything actually is and how it only began relatively recently during the obama years as one of the more blatantly visible aspects of gop obstruction.

  120. 120.

    LeftCoastYankee

    @eddie blake:

    So basically, those in government have internalized the norm changes to their processes as “how it works”, and those outside see no evidence of a working process and expect the president to wave his magic wand to fix it all.

    And the press…. yup it’s bedtime.

  121. 121.

    lurker

    @TheTruffle: not sure of you are weird or not.  I am weird, and it takes one to know one…

    But, based on the take in the comment in question, no you are not weird for believing that.

    ; – )

  123. 123.

    Tony Jay

    Jeebus Fekking Christopher.

    Is Biden keeping his mouth shut on major issues for fear of offending ‘socially-conservative’ Trump voters in Rust Belt states? (If ‘No’, then shut the fuck up)

    Is Biden constantly to be found currying favour with the pro-GOP Media and issuing statements disparaging pro-Democratic groups and organisations? (If ‘No’, then shut the fuck up)

    Is Biden backed up by a team of politically inept ideologues who couldn’t find a picture of their arse if spotted a map, a native guide and an actual picture of their arse. (If ‘No’, then shut the fuck up)

    Is Biden constrained policy-wise by the output of right-leaning focus-groups and a bunch of superannuated ‘advisors’ who haven’t had a new thought since the turn of the millennium? (If ‘No’, then shut the fuck up)

    Is Biden systematically purging anyone to the Left of Bill Clinton from the Party and blocking popular candidates from standing for election on spurious grounds? (If ‘No’, then shut the fuck up)

    Is Biden employing AIPAC and its way-out-there redefinition of what constitutes antisemitism to silence the majority of Democratic Party members while he does all this? (If ‘No’, then shut the fuck up)

     

    I could go on, but there’s not enough coffee in the world. Bottom line, if the fake-Leftists of America want to play funny buggers and undermine Biden in the run up to some pretty damned important elections, I’ve got a centre-left Party over here in the UK that could really, really do with his particular brand of ‘failure’. The one we’ve got now is worse than useless and the best friend the Tory Party could possibly hope to have.

  125. 125.

    Matt McIrvin

    @HumboldtBlue: Circumhorizontal arcs are often described as extremely rare, but they’re not actually *that* rare from contiguous US latitudes, in the summer, if you look for them; I’ve seen them on a couple of occasions.

    The “extremely rare” description seems to be a relic of UK-centric literature because they really are very uncommon to see at that high a latitude.

    What’s more common to see is a circumzenithal arc, which essentially the same phenomenon but above the sun rather than below it, appearing as a sort of disconnected rainbow floating directly overhead. You see those when the sun is relatively low in the sky.

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    @eddie blake: Since the people who ARE old enough to have had civics class mostly turned into Trump voters, I’m skeptical that anyone was paying attention anyway.

  130. 130.

    Urban Suburbanite

    @MobiusKlein: That’s assuming McConnell is actually negotiating in good faith, rather than just blocking everything as soon as the handpicked reactionary weirdo gets his lifetime gig.

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