This is arguably the perfect metaphor for America https://t.co/PjsOU5w5mi
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) July 6, 2022
(Actually, that this was recorded on SimpliSafe is the perfect metaphor, because obviously this household is all about keeping their family protected!)
He ridiculed Mitch McConnell for threatening to scuttle legislation that would boost semiconductor manufacturing. He called a plan from Rick Scott “shameful.” And he triggered boos at the mention of Lindsey Graham’s name. Our look at Biden from Cleveland: https://t.co/dhWzMxWpeI
— Matt Viser (@mviser) July 6, 2022
Don’t know about you, Matt, but he sounds good to me!
… Speaking before an audience of union workers, where he touted the benefits that his policies will have on pension plans, Biden offered a sharper distillation of how he views the Republican Party and called out several Republican senators by name for voting against some of his policies not out of principle but out of fear.
“They’re afraid to … afraid to ― because the Trumpers would literally take them out,” Biden said. “Not a joke. That’s how bad it’s gotten.”
He ridiculed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for threatening to scuttle legislation designed to boost semiconductor manufacturing. He called a plan from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) “shameful.” And he triggered boos from the crowd at the mention of the name of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.)…
Biden came to a high school in Cleveland to announce new protections that could help some 3 million Americans whose retirement benefits have faced potential insolvency amid the financial fallout of the pandemic. Aid for the multi-employer pension plans was included in the coronavirus relief package Biden signed into law last year…
“You all remember what the economy was like when I was elected — a country in a pandemic with no real plans how to get out of it. Millions of people out of their jobs, families and cars, remember, backed up for literally miles,” he said.
“The previous administration lost more jobs in his watch than any administration since Herbert Hoover ― that’s a fact,” Biden added. “All based on failed trickle-down economics to benefit the wealthiest Americans.”
He lingered in the room long after his speech was over, spending 45 minutes mingling with attendees, taking selfies and shaking hands…
I’ll believe it when I see it (or when Tony Jay sends a sufficiently inflammatory / explanatory rant):
BREAKING: British media say Prime Minister Boris Johnson has agreed to resign, ending an unprecedented political crisis over his future. https://t.co/IoLVFOxWK1
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 7, 2022
Baud
Why do we think it’s real and not a foreign government?
bjacques
I really expected better from David Neiwert.
Baud
I’m so old that I remember when we wanted a president who would take in trickle down economics.
Baud
@bjacques:
I don’t know who that is.
MagdaInBlack
@bjacques: Ya, surprised me too.
debbie
I’m very happy to see this Mr. No More Nice Guy Joe. Tell it like it is, Mr. President, they were playing you for a fool.
debbie
@Baud:
He’s earned my undying devotion and loyalty simply for calling out trickle-down.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Anne Laurie @ Top:
Lately, I’ve been thinking that the perfect metaphor for America is a family that gets killed by the guns they were collecting to “protect” themselves.
Baud
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Doesn’t that happen all the time.
Spanky
Bye bye, BoJo.
Has someone done a welfare check on Tony Jay?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone
R-Jud
BoJo is speaking now. He plans to stay in post until the autumn, when a new Tory party leader/PM is chosen.
“Our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader.” U mad, bro?
rikyrah
TonyJay,
We are waiting for your take.
Why now?
He should have been gone…so, why now?
Betty Cracker
I’ll probably get yelled at for saying this, but maybe this is just how it works? Lots of disgruntled, angry and scared Democratic voters complained that elected Dems and the administration weren’t sufficiently pugilistic, and lo, elected Dems and the admin became more pugilistic. They didn’t yell at voters for being insufficiently deferential; they listened and responded.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker: Kinda how I see it.
Spanky
@R-Jud: Ahhhhhhhh… shit.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Nope. I have had that thought too. I fear our voters like feeling they “made” politicians do things and don’t like supporting politicians who do things on their own accord.
Cameron
I thought David Neiwert used to be sane. Do I have him confused with somebody else?
bjacques
BoJo NoMo
Tony Jay
A LETTER FROM BREXITANNIA
‘Floberdammerung Now!”
You may or may not be aware that I’ve never exactly been the greatest fan of the United Kingdom’s current (doublechecks newsfeed) former (triplechecks newsfeed) whatever the fuck that all means sub-Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. This studied ambiguity has been a deliberate choice on my behalf as I dislike projecting bias into political discussions and prefer to be subtle about it, but I think that if you read between the lines my mild distaste for the (doublechecks biology textbook, raises an eyebrow) man comes through strongly enough.
With that said, however, I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep admiration for and unstinting sympathy towards the right honourable gentleman in question for the upright, dignified and, dare I say it, statesmanlike way in which he has dealt with the no doubt shocking revelation that every single person on the planet outside of a small and shrinking circle of talentless grifters, wormtongued sycophants and people being bombed flat by Vladimir Putin’s Russia think he’s a complete and utter shitbird.
I’d like to, but I won’t, because fuck you seismically you overgrown splat of needy taint-dew. Fuck you and fuck all of your lying defenders and sneery enablers, fuck your malignant Party, fuck your rouble-rich donors, fuck your friends, fuck your family and, maybe, most of all, fuck your electorate. Fuck every single miserable one of you. Fuck the ones who voted for this baggy tarpaulin tossed carelessly over a week-old mass grave, and fuck the ones who either didn’t vote or ‘voted their conscience’ because, while they’d tell you they didn’t necessarily want to see the liposuction dumpster from Fight Club as Prime Minister, their delicate fee-fees simply could not stomach the pain of putting an X in the column for British History’s Greatest Monster ZOMG!!!
Fuck all y’all. This is what you voted for. You fuckers.
But I digress.
Yes, the moment has come. While he fondles his hair through his hands, he knows what he’s done. Flobalob Johnson, the World King of Greater Albion and the closest this country has ever come to having a reincarnated George IV back in the saddle, has bowed to the inevitable and agreed that he should step down as Prime Minister. Sort of. More or less. Eventually. As is always the case with this mendacious prick he’s trying to tell people what they want to hear “I’m resigning!” while still giving himself enough wiggle room to wait on events and see if anything or anyone emerges from the gloom to make his problems go away.
He will resign as Tory Party leader, yes, but he still wants to stay on for a few months longer as a sort of caretaker PM, just until the Tories have had a good, long, drawn-out leadership election where he can – presumably – act as a completely unbiased referee, a safe pair of experienced hands, as it were, before then enjoying a last big bash hosting the Party Conference in the Autumn and ceremoniously handing over the keys to Number 10 to whoever emerges from that shitshow with the majority of votes.
And if, in the meantime, enough MPs come to the conclusion that maybe they’ve made a mistake in turning against the Big Dog…. well, let’s just say it wouldn’t take very much convincing to get him to forgive everyone and turn that conference into a Grand Restoration Ball.
It’s all bullshit, of course. Just another dollop of headline-friendly drama heaped onto the plates of the people who have always been his most consistent, loyal and adoring constituency, the British News Media. They know there’s no way on this or any other version of Earth that the Tories are going to withhold the final thrust of the stiletto and let him remain in office past today. It took this interminably long for enough of them to find the absolute base-level courage to mob up and go after the World King, they’re not going to pop him back on the throne for a few months to plot his revenge. This isn’t the final season of GOT, FFS! But ah! The drama! The excitement. The nosehair-singeing frisson of sympathetic va-va-voom newsrooms around the country get when they know that everyone whose opinion they actually care about is riveted to the Breaking News bulletins and wondering what in heaven the crazy mad bastard is going to say next.
If this was 1945 and the same pseudo-journalistic standards were in place, the BBC would have breathless correspondents standing outside the Fuhrerbunker in dented tin helmets parsing every bonkers statement to emerge from the madhouse below for clues as to the great man’s next move, and crowded studios back in Blighty would feature an ‘expert panel’ of Bomber Harris, Rudolph Hess and Jacob Rees-Mogg opining over the likelihood of General Steiner’s divisions possibly intervening long enough for Herr Hitler to give a barnstorming speech at the Nazi Party Conference that “might turn this whole saga on its head once again”.
The truth is, this is all way overdue and should have happened months ago. In any properly functioning, modern political system it would have been, but this is the UK, and that’s not how we roll. Since the scandal of Patersongate first ripped the bloody doors off it’s been obvious that Flobby was going to have to be ditched sooner or later, but the Tory Party is so inherently fractured between old-school greedy bankers and quasi-fascist LiBrexitarians that no one had the numbers or the profile to convince enough of the Party that they needed to at least start the painful process of staunching the gaping wound his style of self-obsessed, massively corrupt, headline-before-bottomline ‘leadership’ has inflicted upon their reputation before it became necrotic.
Well congratulations, arseholes, you waited far too long and now it’s almost certainly too late to convincingly decouple the Flobby brand from its Tory host without killing off most of the patient. It still astounds me how cowardly they’ve been over this. His ‘electability’ argument has been gone since the North Shropshire by-election. His capability to bribe MPs with juicy ‘levelling-up’ funds gutted by the U-turns on rail expansion and the humiliating way he dead-friended the newly elected Northern Tory MPs so he could scuttle off for photo-ops in Ukraine. Even his ability to threaten MPs with demotion or deselection has gone poof in the wind, made most clear when 148 of them voted against him in the recent No Confidence vote and none of them were punished. In fact, even with all of the chaos of the last couple of days, the only person he’s actually sacked himself has been Michael Gove, and that was basically only done for the long-delayed LOLs.
And he thinks they’re going to let him remain Prime Minister just on sufferance for a few months because….? What? Because Flobby wants to outlast May’s Premiership? Because he needs a bit longer to destroy all of the evidence and the shredder in his old flat needs a new plug? For fucking old times sake? The bloody ego on this sonofabitch. Standing in a room with it must be like falling down the back of a bouncy castle, you just can’t escape the hot, bulging friction of it!
In reality, the only question remaining on the table revolves around the secret terms agreed for Flobby moving aside without blowing the whole thing wide open (and risking a genuine, no question about it, Constitutional Crisis) by calling a General Election. I swear to Dog that I hope he does it. One last spiteful flinging of shit into the horrified faces of his ‘friends and colleagues’ before pissing off for a long, extended sulk on some billionaire’s Caribbean island where he can hide from his creditors and wait for his latest divorce to be finalised.
Do it, you soulless slug. Go on, I dare you.
Meh, I’m sick and tired of talking about the creature. The real story is about the desperate scrabbling around amongst various Tory grouping factions to authorise a set of leadership election rules that will limit the number of no hope dopes eager to throw their clown hats into the ring. Bear in mind, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was their best candidate for leadership back in 2019, and the field has only got weaker and sicker as time has gone on. It’s going to be a bloody, ideological clash of rampaging egos that could (oh, please) leave the Tory Party a gutted, smouldering husk of fragile charcoal led by hollow-eyed wraiths who can only mutter “The horror…. The horror…” into BBC microphones.
And yet Sir ‘Where?’ Starmer will probably still prefer going into coalition government with them than allow a single, solitary left-winger anywhere near his NuNew Labour project.
I’ll leave you with this. A few years back I was asked for my opinion on then-candidate Johnson, and this is what I said.
“What can be said about this splatter of half-boiled chicken fat in a swollen pig’s testicle that hasn’t been said before? Eton thug and Oxford vandal, fake journalist and television stereotype, a chillingly solipsistic gush of relentless, cynical, self-serving deceit obscured behind the carefully crafted personae of a bumbling, stumbling but ultimately well-meaning upper-class buffoon. His entire career has been littered with the same accusations and the same excuses. He lies, he cheats, he gets caught out, he shambles off denying any ill-intention and leaves the mess for the proles to clean up. Relationships, jobs, political appointments, it’s all the same to this slovenly fuck. Boris wants, Boris takes, Boris makes the Press laugh and gets away with it. It’s all an act, a big old joke that the Media thinks it’s in on, because more than anything they want the Boris Show dragging eyeballs and clicks to their product. The fact that the Tory Party membership seems to want this shallow creep in the top job is as clear a testament to their callous imbecility as you can imagine, and the fact that a majority of Tory MPs (supposedly) would rather see virtually anyone else (other than Esther McVey) get the job is possibly proof that the Parliamentary Party hasn’t entirely lost its senses. That’s why so many other candidates have jumped into a race that – if you listen to the Tory membership – is Johnson’s to lose, and why Johnson himself has been so loath to step outside the bubble of his well-paid column in the Telegraph; a lot of Tory MPs can see the disaster he represents galumphing towards them and will try to do whatever it takes to make sure doesn’t take them with him. OTOH, a lot of other Tory MPs just see how much the Media love him and hope his talent for dodging responsibility for multiple failures can be widened to include the Party as a whole.”
And so it was, until it wasn’t. So long, fucker. Thanks for nothing.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
You won’t have BoJo to kick around any more.
Betty Cracker
@R-Jud: He said that for real? LOL!
Cameron
I remember hearing stories that the previous president was involved with some sort of trickle-down thing. Don’t think it was economics, though
Lacuna Synecdoche
Frank Luntz via Anne Laure @ Top:
Says a consultant for the party that elected Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
I’ve said it before, I’m sure I’ll say it again: Projection – It’s not just a booth in a theater.
snoey
@Cameron:
Someone posted a picture of their bloody face after being hit by a rubber bullet, and someone else responded with a “so sorry, hope you are registered to vote”.
Fair comment by Neiwert given the context.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Good. It’s like kicking a mostly deflated sex-toy up the stairs.
I want something bonier so I can hear a nice, loud snap with each impact.
Baud
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
You scoff, but that’ll be David Neiwert’s* next tweet.
*Whoever that is.
R-Jud
@Betty Cracker: He really, truly did. What an asshat.
OzarkHillbilly
I had thought to pay them a visit if ever the chance came, but I guess I can skip it now.
Yeah, sure you do. I’m not gonna say what I’d really like to say.
Baud
@snoey:
Not really a fair comment at all unless you believe in collective responsibility for our side. Do we know whether the tweet was from a bona fide liberal rather than a troll?
FWIW, I agree that that response to the photo was inappropriate.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
How does one arrest God?
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: Hahaha
Cameron
@snoey: OK – that makes a lot more sense.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay:
From your keyboard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s delicate al dente oreccheiette, brother.
snoey
@Baud:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Neiwert
Baud
@snoey:
Thank you.
Cameron
@OzarkHillbilly: She wants to arrest God? These people get stranger all the time.
Betty Cracker
Re: the Blowed Up! clip at the top of the post: I’ve watched it at least half a dozen times over the past few days and have made others in my orbit watch it too. I believe it should be broadcast into space as a warning/casus belli to alien civilizations.
Spanky
@Tony Jay: Too early for day drinking?
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It was 30 minutes from here but we never made it. They do have security cameras so, hopefully, they’ll nab the mad bemmber!
Cameron
As this is an open thread, I’d like to link an article I read last night that sort of has me scratching my head. Maybe I just don’t understand what our capabilities are, but I don’t know if we could move the amount of equipment the author thinks is necessary in a short time frame.
https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/ukraine-is-losing-and-the-west-is-to-blame/
satby
@Cameron: No, and it’s a pretty disappointing tweet from him.
Amir Khalid
That AP tweet is glaringly wrong. The crisis is not over. BoJo is not coming out with his hands up. It has actually entered a new phase: he is making a strategic withdrawal so he can work out a plan to fight his way back into No 10.
Matt McIrvin
Niewert is an expert on the violent far right–he’s been watching them for years. One thing I like about him is that he’s lately been trying to cool down people who want to meet right-eliminationism with left-eliminationism; he sees eliminationism as the enemy. That puts him head and shoulders above your average Twitter Left screamer. It makes him better than me on bad days.
Erik Loomis recently argued that voter-registration drives are useless from a partisan standpoint because you generally don’t register more Democratic than Republican voters–the people most likely to vote for Democrats are already registered; it’s more useful to put those resources into making sure the voters you know are on your side turn out. I’m not convinced that’s always true but it may be true in a lot of circumstances. Certainly for midterms the biggest problem Democrats have is that Democrats who would vote in presidential elections don’t turn out for midterms. Those people are presumably mostly registered.
germy shoemangler
“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and was arrested on the seventh day”
satby
@Baud: “He went to work at MSNBC.com in 1996 as a writer-producer, and continued there through late 2000. Since then, he has focused on writing books and producing his blog Orcinus, which tends to report on the crossover between the mainstream and the far right.” Wikipedia
@snoey: may be it would be in context, though that’s hard to track in Twitter. And right now there’s way too much ” quit telling people vote harder” commentary from our purported allies that is just as likely to suppress votes as motivate whatever authoritarian magic they think the Democrats can pull out of a hat.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
People lose their cool and slip up. Even here. I take y’all’s word that he’s a good guy. But anyone is subject to being called out when they slip up.
OzarkHillbilly
Cutest goat ever. The picture alone is worth the trip.
Baud
@germy shoemangler:
On the Eighth day, the Lord made bail.
germy shoemangler
@satby:
Tony Jay
@Spanky: Hey, they call it day drinking for a reason.
@Amir Khalid: Yup. He’s still PM. Still appointing a Cabinet. Still claiming he has a unique mandate and all of this is everyone else’s fault but his.
satby
@germy shoemangler: good quote, because it’s so often true.
Edit: but even so, given Niewert’s area of expertise and his writing ability, he had to know how a quick take like that would be used.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Am I the only one getting the sense that the British Government has just been decapitated, but the severed head is still in denial? I don’t see how the man can govern right now (and yeah, I know, governance isn’t his strong suit, which should be a damning disqualifier but somehow isn’t in the 21st century)…
OzarkHillbilly
Say WHAT??? Why, I nevah…
Ksmiami
@debbie: let’s have this fight Rt now. I wonder if it coincides with a comms team shake up
raven
The water oaks in our neighborhood were planted after two tornadoes 50 years ago and they are dropping like flies now that they have reached the end of their lifespan. We lost power at 10:30 and, after the power dudes worked all night, it came back on at 5am! The internet says we should be throwing perishables out after 4 hrs!
narya
@Baud: Agreed. I’ll note that I’ve been reading him (off and on) for two decades or more, and he’s the person who really raised the alarm–even back then–about far-right extremism; it wasn’t nearly as on my radar before I stumbled on to him, and he’s done the work. I thought the tweet was a bad response to a bad response to someone’s trauma.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Yeah, the internet is wrong again. Shocking, I know.
Baud
@satby:
I don’t know the idea got normalized that a political party is acting inappropriately when it asks people to vote for its candidates.
That’s like expecting Amazon to tell shoppers to save their money
Starfish
@bjacques: Being a condescending doorknob is not actually “getting people to vote.”
A lot of the disappointed folks are very ordinary Democrats. I have not seen people say they are not voting. I have seen people say that they want people who will fight for them. A desire for a different style from the Democrats is not refusal to vote.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: History professor Eric Gloomis says voter registration drives are not productive. Practical politician Stacey Abrams thinks differently.
Of course Democrats must work to turn out their existing voters for elections. Gloomis says voter registration efforts conflict with this but his case is not at all convincing.
Ksmiami
@Starfish: our rights as well as our ability to survive agw are being decimated- if now isn’t the time to fight back with everything we’ve got when would it be? I vote Dem in every election and I want us to be fierce in defending liberty and us institutions against the fanatic theocratic mob
Booger
IIRC Niewert used to post a lot of really cool content on the killer whales of the PNW in addition to his political stuff. Orcinus used to be one of the top stops on my early-oughts blogroll.
satby
Also noted this tweet from the incredibly mediocre Matt Viser, for which he got deservedly dragged:
Apparently after that spanking from Twitter replies he coughed up the above tweet with some slight context of the speech.
debbie
Ah, Kandiss. Isn’t she the chick claiming fraud because she only got 30% of the primary vote?
Doug R
@Baud: Considering the proven ratfukking and the proven NRA ties in 2016, the anti-vax propaganda for decades, the anti-mRNA vaccines propaganda, even the proven support of Bernie vs Hillary-what makes you think the Russians aren’t DEEP into discouraging voting.
Amplifying current messages IS the putin way.
satby
@Starfish: @Ksmiami: there’s fighting going on constantly from our side which is never or barely mentioned in the press unless you dig for it. That’s a media problem and it’s a long standing thumb on the scale for Republicans.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Awww. Texas Longhorn, Alpine version.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Does this count as “fighting”?
I don’t know if it’s normalized outside of an extremely noisy, attention-seeking (and getting) subset of twitter-focused pols and pundits, but as Geminid points out above, you know who doesn’t sneer and huff and puff at the idea of “vote harder” and “raise more money”? Successful politicians. Including the people who spent fifty years getting Roe overturned (or, maybe more precisely: The people who spent fifty years telling people like my fundie Catholic aunts they gave a fuck about Roe so they could get votes for tax cuts and gutting the EPA
satby
Via a John Cole Tweet, this was interesting:
debbie
@Ksmiami:
Nope. Dude knows how to read for himself. I also like his statement that the GOP is more interested in hurting Democrats than helping America. I think that should be pushed non-stop.
debbie
@satby:
satby
Bolding mine. Incremental changes, like water on a rock, eventually create a new landscape. Our side has forgotten that and assumed history is static.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m fundamentally an amoral piece of shit. But even I couldn’t like a pregnant 10 year old in the eye and tell them that I sat back and let this happen because I wasn’t excited by the pro-choice party’s messaging decisions.
Anne Laurie
@satby: Re Matt Viser — check my late-night post!
Jeffro
That sounds like a pretty accurate take to me!
It should be noted (which you did) that this is *only * how it works on the *Dem * side…in the GQP, their pols and candidates understand that they will never be sufficiently pugilistic/insane to satisfy their base and/or hurtful to the country, so they keep moving further right without any prompting at all.
Cameron
@debbie: That’s definitely true. They’ll take any shot – real, false, or in-between – at Democrats, but are only interested in tax cuts and power over others. No useful policies at all. They luck out because so many people vote with their grievances, not with their brains.
artem1s
@debbie:
She’s the one claiming God is so omnipotent he can strike down a pagan idol with fire from heaven but can’t rig an election on her behalf.
satby
@Anne Laurie: Ahh, gracias! That burned me up.
I think Biden’s control of his stutter is so good people forget he has one and so fall into lazy hot takes about the old guy just repeating himself. Insulting to stutterers, older folks, and those of us interested in the actions and words of the very capable man who is now our President. I certainly learned not to underestimate him.
debbie
@debbie:
Correction. She received 3.4 percent of the GOP vote. I don’t know why I make these things so difficult for me. The more ridiculous and absurd, the more credible.
Soprano2
@Starfish: OK, I understand that, but I think you have to be more specific when you say “fight for them”. What exactly does that mean? Use harsher rhetoric? Act like a liberal version of Republicans? Just saying “fight for us” seems useless to me, because it’s so generic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I guess I just don’t notice a big shift in Biden’s rhetoric
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Boris Johnson told a bunch of lies about parties at Number 10 and other stuff.
It was so bad that his own MPs tried a vote of no confidence. Boris survived and promised he would be good and do better.
Bigger scandals erupted. Boris tried to lie his way out of it again, but did not promise to do better.
He lied to MPs and had them go on TV to defend them. The lies were exposed by new revelations even while MPs were on TV defending the previous lies.
Cabinet ministers started resigning to save their own hides. A total of 36 ministers resigned.
More revelations swamped Johnson’s ability to BS. His government collapsed.
It was incredible. Early this week his faithful defenders predicted that he might be prime minister for 30 years.
He has lasted a little more than 3 years.
topclimber
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Perhaps Art Thief is new at this twitter thing. TIP: Don’t spread GQP talking points, even when you have the great response. All you do is amplify the profile of hacks like Luntz.
Soprano2
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Had exactly that happen with a co-worker. He killed his live-in girlfriend, who he had a baby with, with a firearm they had “for defense”. If they hadn’t had the firearm, she would probably still be alive and he wouldn’t be in prison now, and the baby wouldn’t be without parents.
mrmoshpotato
Bur will he also suck a horse’s ass and shove Brexit up Nigel Farage’s ass? The lying, shitstain, ******** *****!
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
One of the reasons I left dailykos back in the day was because of all the comments that said “Why doesn’t Obama say this?” right after I heard Obama say exactly that. Evergreen problem.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Well, if people aren’t registered you can’t ask for their vote, right? Seems like getting people registered is a key part of it.
Soprano2
@satby: I followed that terrible tweet and saw that all his other tweets were actually about the speech – there were several of them. So yeah it was a bad tweet, but the others were good.
topclimber
@OzarkHillbilly: Jackals never lose their cool because they are all…so cool.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Like Trump, Johnson will leave behind a lot of damage that will be almost impossible to undo
Starfish
@Ksmiami: That’s right. My Democratic Senator is touting a bipartisan bill that lets people borrow against their retirement plan for emergencies as having a successful bill that should pass.
Impoverishing your future self for current emergencies is NOT building a social safety net.
Soprano2
So, it looks like the Supreme Court that ruled that a 35 ft buffer around abortion clinics was too large, and that protesters must be able to get right up next to people, have had their security people put bike racks on the sidewalk on Constitution Ave to keep protesters away.
https://twitter.com/charlesallen/status/1544721401189482497
https://twitter.com/parkerpoling/status/1544664982536814597
Baud
@Starfish:
Which Senator and which bill?
People can already borrow against their 401(k).
Mike in NC
Adios, BoJo. Like Trump you were a daily national disgrace.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I noticed that in a recent poll, Brian Kemp was preferred over Stacey Abrams by likely voters age 50 and older, while Abrams was the choice of a majority of those under 50. Kemp’s overall lead probably was a matter of older voters being more politically engaged. Abrams is right to push voter registration, for it is the cohort of younger voters who lag behind in registration. I think such efforts are complementary to base mobilzation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: and from their IRA, no? which as I recall is considered a bad idea
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Mike in NC: How can we bid him goodbye if he won’t go away? Latest from the BBC says he’s staying on as Prime Minister until there are new elections.
Starfish
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is what is inappropriate. A girl gets shot in the face. Someone tells her to vote. WTF. That is not okay.
satby
@Soprano2: Happens all the time. My father was a homicide detective in Chicago in the ’60s and 70’s, and the stress of dealing with the suicides, children shooting other children, drunks at Thanksgiving recreating the OK corral, etc. killed him at age 55. Even now, most gun deaths are suicides or between people who know each other, not strangers.
Mai Naem mobile
I think some BJrs here forget that most people aren’t political junkies and don’t have the want or the time to follow the sausage making. Also lots of people get their info via social media. This ain’t your daddy’s media environment. The way you come across on social media matters. Call it performative, branding or whatever. Bottom line it matters and ignoring that is not going to help keep the House or Senate in November.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@satby: Talking about Biden’s fight against his stutter reminded me of a wonderful episode of MASH in which Major Winchester stood up for a private with a stutter who was being dismissed and bullied as lacking intelligence. It closed with a tape from his beloved sister, describing events back in Boston … with a pronounced stutter of her own.
Baud
@Starfish:
We all agree that was inappropriate. But who was it? Joe Biden? Nancy Pelosi?
satby
@Starfish: it’s twitter, dumb people are everywhere. Not a well worded take, but not worth seizing on as a thought crime.
And ya know, the point is she was grazed by a bullet in a mass shooting enabled by a political party that has leveraged gun violence to divide the country and nearly stage a coup. And they’re still trying. That’s top of mind for a lots of people these days.
satby
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: yes, that was a beautiful episode.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s hard to get an honest read on tone shifts unless you read every transcript because media gatekeepers throw out click-bait, and people who are trying to make a point will gravitate toward content that supports their view.
Example: I could just as easily quote Biden at the national prayer breakfast calling McConnell an honorable man and a man of his word, then point to the quote ripping McConnell in the OP as evidence that Biden’s tone HAS shifted. It’s a subjective thing, I guess, but my opinion is Biden has become more combative because he’s reading the room.
Isn’t that one of Biden’s chief selling points anyway — that he’s responsive and capable of change? It was certainly a key talking point I used to keep my DSA pups onboard for the 2020 election. With rare exceptions (like getting ahead of Obama on marriage equality), Biden is and always has been a human fulcrum at the center of Democratic Party consensus.
Starfish
@Soprano2: The thing where Biden was trying to make a deal with McConnell to seat an anti-abortion judge the moment that Roe v Wade was being overturned was very bad. A bunch of people here were accusing the people pointing out this obvious thing of being liars.
Democrats are respecting blue slips which are a custom. They are a custom that were not honored by Republicans.
If we expect to lose some seats, why are we working at a pace that will leave seats for judges open?
Baud
@Starfish:
This is false. Dems follow the same rules that the GOP put into place. No blue slips for appeals judges, only for district court judges.
ETA: And Biden’s pace for judges has been faster than Trump’s.
ETA2: And whatever happened to that “deal”. There was a firestorm and spurious reporting, and then nothing.
satby
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s a bad idea until you’re out of a job, the kids are hungry, and you have to keep a roof over their head. Then it’s essential.
SFAW
@Soprano2:
A number of years ago, a selectperson candidate in my small MA town ran ads saying we should vote for her, because “she’s for us!”
As Shakespeare or someone else once opined: no fucking shit? She’s not AGAINST us? Outstanding, she has MY vote!!!
That ad (obviously) pissed me off, because I thought it was talking to us like we’re idiots. Probably says something about how (ir)rational I am.
Starfish
@Baud:
Michael Bennet. During the pandemic, they made it easier to borrow against your retirement, and they are trying to pass a larger version of that with the Lankford-Bennet bill.
kalakal
Pretty soon Downing Street will be sending out an order for some cans of petrol.
Johnson can say what he likes, he’ll be ex PM by next week, probably by the end of today. The only way he’s in No 10 beyond that is if it turns into a siege with him hiding in the
bunkerfridge.Personally I thinks it’s just a delaying tactic to give Carrie time to steam off that 80,000 quid gold wallpaper ( bet she wishes they’d used velcro ) off the walls.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Starfish: wow, you really nailed it with a link to that one viral tweet you saw from a person neither you nor I nor 99.999% of the population had heard of before that one tweet went viral!
satby
@Baud: Starfish often asserts a lot of things that aren’t accurate. Not sure why, but it’s an example of the disinformation we constantly have to fight.
Baud
@Starfish:
Thank you. For people who don’t want to click through.
I don’t have an opinion yet. I’d be curious to know how borrowing from 401(k)’s and IRA’s has worked.
Starfish
@satby: I am seeing people shouting down any and all critique of the Democratic Party as an attempt to demoralize Democratic voters and get people to stay home.
Another Scott
@Starfish:
It’s Twitter. And it’s getting worse.
I’ve severely cut back my clicking on Twitter links and have closed most of the T tabs I’ve had open for years. The incessant demands to create an account – to the point now that it won’t show me more than a page or two in a feed – just keeps getting worse. Plus, the medium is intentionally broken for nuance.
YMMV, but I am not missing it much.
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@Starfish: see comment #110. A lot of people got laid off during the pandemic.
Baud
@Starfish:
I prefer a strong Democratic Party to a weak one. That means debating and challenging critics when we disagree with them.
Starfish
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The girl who was shot deleted her original tweet, and the thread is a mess.
I do not blame her.
Baud
Deleted
satby
@Starfish: and that’s a you problem, since most of the criticism is inaccurate or misleading garbage. IMO.
Tony Jay
@kalakal:
Frankie Boyle quipped that they’d been reduced to trailing a pair of used knickers on a line to lure him out.
Sounds right.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Elon Musk will fix it!
Starfish
@Baud: That’s less bad than I thought it was.
Bennet was also one of the people who put into place the free school lunches that should have stayed in place forever.
The lunch shaming going on in some districts is gross. Some districts are making kids throw away food or giving them lesser meals if they are in lunch debt. All these amounts of money are pretty small, and kids should not be punished for their parents being poor.
AxelFoley
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
LOL it’s funny you say that, because on my way into work this morning (usually I work midshift, but have to work dayshift this week), I was listening to BBC World News and right before Johnson came out to make his announcment, the guy I heard reporting compared BoJo to the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Article in today’s WaPo:
Doesn’t look like the initial reporting was spurious, though we never did get details on a deal.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: LOL!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks. Still no confirmation on the nature of the “deal.” I guess that’s water under the bridge now, if Meredith isn’t getting the nod.
satby
@Starfish: schools are locally controlled, not nationally. People often don’t vote for school board or council members, those are some of the lowest participation elections there are. I won a school council seat as the highest vote getter (non-partisan race) with the whopping total of (IIRC) 180-ish votes. In an area with about 1k eligible voters.
Your unhappiness with the local school lunch program prompts me to ask, did you even vote in the last election for the school board?
Leto
Boris Johnson Has Resigned As The Leader Of The Conservative Party Following A Mass Exodus Of More Than 50 MPs
Baud
@satby:
School board is hard to vote for, especially when they are non-partisan. I know enough to check the candidate websites for right-wing buzzwords. After eliminating those, I mostly rely on endorsements.
Ksmiami
@satby: But that’s why Biden has to get out in front of it and lead- because as a Dem president he can get the media attention and some Dem senators squawking get the back page. Buckle up- it’s time to fight.
ian
@raven: If the refrigerator lost temperature(like 60+ degrees), then you should. Most fridges will hold cold for quite a few hours even without power. Hard to say more without knowing how hot your fridge got.
Ksmiami
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: no where in those quotes does Biden say anything about how it’s the GOP- the Republicans who have brought us to this point.
Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker: This is good. The message is sharpening up (it has taken a lot longer than it should have but at least they are learning), and explicitly telling people what the stakes are and why more is needed.
Versus just assuming it’s self evident. Cause most Americans aren’t politics obsessed like us. Most don’t have time to think through it all. Most don’t have a clue how government works. And as much as it sucks you go to the ballot box with the electorate you have. Not the one you want.
The reason I get so upset with Dems a lot is not because they aren’t talking to me, or doing enough to convince me to vote. It’s because they aren’t doing enough to earn the votes of the people that live day to day lives that don’t allow them to stop and think.
I’m voting democratic all the way. Always have been always will (barring Dems nominating Hitler, but then I’d probably take a look at who he was running against before I didn’t vote democratic). A lot of voters and non voters just vote on style, vague feelings, etc. so you better be out there showing them that. Showing them it is an existential crisis. Etc.
satby
@Baud: This was the early 90s, no candidate websites. But endorsement is often a good guide. As is organizing. Kay often mentions the school campaigns and bond issues she’s worked on. And they’re still low turn out. The election I ran in was highly publicized in Chicago, as it was the first year of elections for locally controlling school councils for the CPS. And still, shitty turnout.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ksmiami:
satby
@Ksmiami: you didn’t even read the thread did you?
Beginning to think Upton Sinclair was describing you.
been fun, but satby is leaving the chat. Work calls.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
One of the biggest problems we have is, that no matter how fascist the country gets, we will NOT do positive reinforcement outside of sub-10,000 blogs.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: It did its job of distracting from the swearing-in of Jackson.
Baud
Wasn’t it Mark Halperin who was infamous for “Why won’t Obama lead?” screeds?
Geminid
@Starfish: Some of these criticisms are attempts to get voters to stay home.
Many are not and are made in good faith. But I don’t see commited Democrats shouting them down. Some fiercely push back on the critics, others like Mangy Jay do this more dispassionately. When the critics see that their ideas are not accepted by Democrats outside their “Do-Something” bubble they cry that they’re being shouted down rather than admit that theirs is a losing argument.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Sorry, I was distracted. Who is Jackson?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: also, Ron Fournier, for whom leadership was “embracing common sense entitlement reform!” He was the totally objective head magoo at IIRC AP.
Jesse
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Don’t forget Schwarzenegger!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I’m assuming that’s a joke, but Ketanji Brown Jackson. On a day we should have been celebrating her, we were arguing about a Kentucky district court judge.
ETA: It all seems small, but it adds up.
artem1s
The media and GOP is always trying to dis Joe and make him look ineffective or out of control or whatever. It’s the same for Nancy Pelosi. Both of them do just fine despite it all. And it doesn’t change my opinion of them or trust in them as leaders. Since we have lots of competent people in the Democratic Party, there is plenty of room for different styles of leadership and messaging. Screw anyone who thinks a ‘my way or the highway’ and ‘I’m the only one who can fix this’ approach would be better for the voters or the party.
Soprano2
@satby: I think the press is irresponsible when they report on killings, because most of the time it’s people who know each other and there is some motive connected to that. The chances that you will be hurt or killed in a random act of violence is a lot lower than most people think it is.
Cameron
@artem1s: Yeah, “I alone can fix this” was a Trump thing, and we saw where that got us.
Citizen Alan
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Hell, the GOP elected Sonny Bono and gopher from the love boat!
prostratedragon
@satby: Found it. (Maybe someone upthread of me already has.)
Kristine
@Betty Cracker: A little late to this thread, but…
…I agree somewhat, but I do take exception to the argument that Joe didn’t expect to get his hand slapped away when he reached out to members of the GOP. He’s known some of those people for decades, knew their opinions behind closed doors, and was likely briefed by aides about his chances. Still, he gave them one last chance in the hope that they’d do the right thing and begin to repair the wreckage their party had become. Also, one of his (perceived) weaknesses is also one of his strengths–he’ll do what he feels he needs to do despite the rotten tomato flinging he knows will follow. We often discuss here how we really do need two functioning political parties in this country. I believe he knows it, too.
I just think the people who call him naive are…naive.
prostratedragon
@germy shoemangler: Wise man, that Benchley.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
you’re gonna wanna see teh picture
Kay
It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that a violent “movement” that bombed abortion clinics and murdered doctors for 30 years will insist on charging women with homicide if one of their religious/state tribunals determines the pregnancy was ended with an abortion anytime after conception.
Buckle up. They’re just getting started. The base runs the Right in this country and this is the anti-abortion base. They can’t enforce this without tracking every pregnancy.
zeecube
@raven: My general rule is 24 hr for freezer if ice had not completely melted (keep door closed while power out) . For fridge, if the item is one that could be taken out and sit on a counter at room temp for 2 hrs before spoiling, ok if left in unopened cooler fridge. Of course, for all items, must pass smell test before use.
Chris Johnson
This person seems otherwise cool, but for fuck’s sake! It literally is a Russian influence op. What the fuck do you mean ‘if it weren’t real’. Russian influence ops are predictable, effective and real. Stop the denial.
Kay
Women will stop going for medical care after miscarriages to avoid a criminal inquiry. US women will get sub standard medical care in the US by avoiding treatment and some will die- those who can should travel to an advanced, modern country for reproductive/pregnancy care.
Tony Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“I say, flobbidy-bobbidy, dead mushroom wingy-thingy here, pinky-winky feathery-poo, excelsior.”
“Second door on the left, Sir.”
“Jolly good.”
Newly brave journolicks now reporting that the ‘real’ reason Flobby wants to stay on as Prime Minister is because the PM gets to use the Chequers country estate, where he and Current Matrimonial Model CS-3 have already scheduled a (publicly funded) wedding bash for later this month.
Wouldn’t surprise me, but they still cannot stop lapping up the headlines that trail after him like slug-juice.
Mnemosyne
@bjacques:
To be fair to Niewart, the guy has been screaming about exactly this happening since blogs first became a thing in the 1990s. He must be feeling like Cassandra right about now.
Kristine
@Kay: “fetus equal protection” IOW “let the mother die.”
I just can’t.
trollhattan
@Kristine: +1. Biden’s the first president in a long time with deep Senate experience. It makes all the difference, even if he served in a senate rather different than today’s, with a low Josh Hawley count.
trollhattan
@Tony Jay: This guy’s sense of entitlement and belief the public Can’t. Get. Enough. of him exceed those of Trump, himself.
Would not have thought it possible.
Speaking of random-spawners, it seems Elon has sired twins with some other employee. He imagines himself a Hollywood producer or NBA player or something.
Scout211
The media and GOP have already started to attack any and all Democrats who speak out against the GOP and Republican policies. Even though Democratic pols certainly have flaws and are not perfect, IMO we need to have their backs.
Case in point: Since Newsom attacked the GOP and DeSantis specifically, the local media (and now also the national media) are pointing out what a hypocrite Newsom is because he and his family are on vacation in Montana!!
The state has a ban on spending state money for travel to states that have restrictive policies for trans people. So he is a hypocrite, according to the media. Even though he paid for the family vacation himself and his wife’s parents have a ranch there, it’s still suspect. The fine tooth comb of the media declared his security team is paid by the state!! Oh my! It’s the a French Laundry all over again!!!
Baud
How’s this for a reason to vote in November?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-05/gmail-spam-filter-rules-anger-republican-politicians
Baud
@Scout211:
Good example of what we’re up against.
germy shoemangler
Cheryl Rofer has an essay up at LGM
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well to be fair, George IV did cast a larger shadow on Britain than Boris does.
catclub
@germy shoemangler: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and… uh, rested on the seventh day”
Sure Lurkalot
While some may decry Bennet’s solution to tapping emergency funds, which sounds fairly prudent to me, compare and contrast to Rubio’s “compassionate conservatism” ideas to help children and families. A child tax credit that excludes the poorest of families and parental leave funded by future Social Security benefits that have to be repaid via reduced benefit at retirement or via one’s estate if you should die.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2022/07/07/in-rubios-plan-your-estate-must-repay-your-parental-leave-benefits-if-you-die-early/
(Sorry, Bruenig link but good synopsis),
satby
@Soprano2: The chances that you will be hurt or killed in a random act of violence is a lot lower than most people think it is.
It is, but it’s a bit higher than it used to be; and that’s as much a failure of our side not being single issue voters as anything else.
cain
@Betty Cracker: I think a lot of Democrats want the same perfomative bullshit that the Republicans are doing. The GOP is perceived to be getting things their way – and they aren’t wrong. It’s quite an achievement to finally pack the SCOTUS and get rid of Roe v Wade. Regardless, they are angry and want to see fiery speeches, angry fist waving – something that shows that they have our people in the party’s back. All they see is bill after bill dying in the senate.
I’m quite surprised though that Sinema hasn’t changed her tune – surely with women’s rights on the table that she would at least change her stance on the filibuster – the minority is already in charge. The press should be pushing her on this.
I have no idea what needs to be done to get the GOP off their charted course to fascism. We have voting, but the SCOTUS looks determined to make sure to stack the deck against the country in regards to voting rights.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
The myth that Dems need a national unified message for the hundreds of unique state and local elections in November is baffling.
It’s also not surprising, given that so much of our political discourse is dominated by centralized nationwide media and social media.
But I still think individual Dems need to create their own political identities and messages that play to their own districts.
satby
@prostratedragon: I saw the original in real time, I spend much more time on Twitter than here. And equating “register to vote” as the “liberal version of thoughts and prayers” was, frankly, offensive.
Tony Jay
@trollhattan: He’s been nurtured and loved and protected his entire professional life by people who should have – but didn’t – let him pay the price for his mistakes and learn from them. A true Son of Eton, self-regarding and whiny to the last.
And I keep on saying this, he hasn’t resigned as Prime Minister. He says there’s going to be a Tory leadership election, but he’s also said it would be a mistake for the Tories to pick anyone else but him to lead them. Plus, also, too, he hasn’t lost a VONC, which means there’s nothing stopping him from throwing his hat into the ring and standing for re-election as Party leader.
They’re going to have to shoot him and remove the head. It’s the only way to be sure.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Only from certain unflattering angles.
kalakal
@Tony Jay: I am enjoying this so much.
I can’t even begin to imagine the number of ‘work events’ there will be today.
As for the idea that Johnson should be brought down by a sex scandal that didn’t actually involve him, priceless.
And the icing on the cake
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/07/07/the-benny-hill-theme-is-being-played-very-loud-outside-parliament-and-it-was-all-hugh-grants-idea/
As proof that the secret of great comedy is timing the guy playing the music has been protesting Brexit outside parliament for years. A few weeks ago the Tories got his PA confiscated. He appealed, won, and got his PA back a couple of days ago
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
No kidding.
People died for your right to vote. Don’t let some troll on Twitter tell you it’s worthless.
eachother
Encountering people from other counties or states who are not yet registered ‘here’ while registering people generally brings the opportunity to them for convenience and encouragement.
>>>>>
Nice early call Tony Jay on PM going down.
UncleEbeneezer
@bjacques: As I responded on Twitter, it’s also really gross when you consider that the Klan literally killed people for helping getting voters registered.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: one group I’ve noticed is over-represented in “How Dare You Tell Us To Vote!” twitter is white, thirty-ish television writers in Los Angeles. I don’t see a lot a Black people in Georgia sending out that message.
Ladyraxterinok
@Baud:
First came across him on Salons Table Talk. T-Bogg was there too
Tony Jay
Oh, and where is the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition while all of this is going on? Meeting with senior Shadow Cabinet figures? In talks with other parties about forcing a VONC in Parliament?
Nah. He’s in the Royal fucking Box at Wimbledon tweeting away while he waits for his strawberries and cream.
Truly, the hollow gonads advising Sir Plastic Underpants have got to be the most politically inept bunch of double-barrelled toilet crystal sniffers in this or any other galaxy.
UncleEbeneezer
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: There are simple framings like “Republicans Are Corrupt” that can be used everywhere, but yeah, every district is different and we usually win by appealing to voters with messaging that works for THEM.
Tony Jay
@kalakal:
The very first thing they did after getting their No Protests, No Problems Bill through Parliament was to send a dozen coppers after the guy who has been protesting against Brexit on the same site for years. And they couldn’t even get that right!!!
Because that’s just who and what they are. Replacing the hood ornament doesn’t change what’s under the bonnet.
@eachother:
To be fair, I’ve been saying he’s doomed for about a year now. I just continually underestimated the atomic weight of each Tory MP’s cowardice.
bjacques
Interesting. The original context of lili’s picture is “Look at my face and tell me we don’t need gun control.” Links to a (paywalled) Daily Beast article. It makes me wonder if her picture was hijacked for a fake tweet about nothing ever changing, but her account is private now, so I can’t tell. On the other hand, Twitter is full of insenstitive idiots.
J R in WV
@Tony Jay:
So, from your screed, I take it de Pfeffel Johnson ISN’T actually resigning, then? He’s just pinky sworn to resign someday in the distant future, if they still want him to leave. In the meantime he is still responsible for the Crown
JewelsTurds?Jim, Foolish Literalist
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m still low-key surprised, like a chronic pain that I have just accepted as part of life after many years, that the cheap, glaring instances of trump’s corruption never seem to sink in, from the comically pathetic– having Mike Pence drive all the way across Ireland in an attempt to make a commercial for his golf course– to the true abuses of power– the IRS audits of Comey and McCabe that are already just white noise.
The harassment of Ruby Freeman and Share Moss should have been a national scandal. I just hope they have some substantial redress in civil court.
zhena gogolia
@Chris Johnson: I know.
UncleEbeneezer
@germy shoemangler: I love Cheryl, but the idea that Dems don’t have a vision for the US that has been consistently championed by Obama, Hillary, Biden is just silly.
Dems vision is for: Equality (for women, Black/LGBTQ/Indigenous people, Muslims etc.), Voting Rights, Livable Planet (Environment), Livable Wages, Healthcare, Robust Public Education, Sane Gun Laws, Compassionate Immigration Policies etc…All of these have been central to EVERY Dem’s messaging for years. This was Hillary’s platform in 2016. And everyone knows damn well which party supports those things and which one opposes them.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Amen.
Redshift
What particularly pisses me off is the prevalence of people claiming Dems said to “just vote” and meant they shouldn’t do anything else. Literally no one said don’t do anything else. It’s a pattern I first observed from my friends in the Wilmer campaign, though it probably goes back further, where in the course of about a week the game of circle-jerk telephone would run through:
1. “Mainstream Dems won’t support (our exact) MFA, and we could die without it.”
2. “They aren’t supporting it because they want us to die.”
3. “They’re literally saying they want us to die! Somebody said they heard them say that!”
(I wish I was exaggerating any of that. And yes, not all BBs, there are plenty who worked on that campaign who are doing good work since, but the reason I know about it is that people I thought were smarter than that got caught up in it.)
So now “be sure to vote” becomes “they mean the want us to shut up and just vote!” becomes “they’re saying ‘just vote’ and do nothing else!”
(Of course, these are mostly the same people who insist the Dems could give them what they demand without them voting or doing anything else…)
Helen
I’m League of Women member and help register voters. The truth is that if registration isn’t convenient, most people are not going to register. Mostly we pick up those who have moved, which includes almost all young people. But very rewarding to register new citizens, and those who haven’t participated in a while.
Tony Jay
@J R in WV:
900+ words in his ‘resignation speech’, not one of them “resign”.
He’s basically said he’s not moving until there’s been a leadership election (that he can be a candidate in, if he wants) and is daring anyone to make him.
I suspect he – wants – a Labour Vote of No Confidence vote in Parliament so he can either force Tory MPs to vote in his favour (because they can’t possibly go down as voting with Those People to remove one of Our People) or to bite the bullet and force him out, at which point he’s got his Dolchstoßlegende signed, sealed and delivered for future “I told you you’d lose without me!” speeches.
Truly, the UK is ill served by its political ‘elite’.
Ksmiami
@cain: then destroy the Court… that is where we are headed
taumaturgo
@Starfish: They are coming for the people’s retirement money. You realize this legislation was most likely written or bought and paid by “investments professionals” and heavens know they always have the customers’ best interest at heart. This is a clear example of Gore Vidal’s quip; ‘There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.’
Uncle Cosmo
Call from Futurama on the Union-Jacketed courtesy phone. It’s Richard Nixon’s Head…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@taumaturgo: Yeah, I remember Vidal giving interviews like that from his villa on the Italian Riveria as he endorsed Ralph “Not A Dime’s Worth Of Difference’ Nader and helped bring us, among other joys, the current Supreme Court and the Iraq War. I think he died before he could see the consequences of his pampered, self-indulgent, old money stupidity. I understand his luncheons were delightful affairs, fresh seafood on the terrace, good wine, discreet servants. I do hope dear Susan was able to motor over from her little place in Tuscany so they could discuss how Al Gore’s mother owned stock in Occidental Petroleum.
TerryC
@Baud: Works well for us. We have now borrowed from our 401ks twice up to $100,000 (2 people) at low rates paid back in five years.
prostratedragon
@Baud: (Wandering around today) I don’t know Anne B. either.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He was Chief of Bureau in AP’s DC offices, where he did have lots of control over their political reportage. Now on staff of a business publication out of Detroit, IIRC. Was a terrible CoB,
The AP tends to promote reporters into management with no training in management at all. So there’s a lot of really poor mid-level management, with misogyny and favoritism in charge. Not even a Mgt handbook with rules and examples. Sad!
Soprano2
@Baud: I’m generally not big on people taking money from their 401K or IRA, but that actually sounds like a good plan. You cannot overestimate how many people don’t want to save any money when you tell them they absolutely cannot touch it until they retire. A long time ago I sold a small retirement plan, and I actually had people tell me that they were afraid to put $10/month in a plan where they couldn’t get to it if they had an emergency! It’s a barrier to saving.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: So this is a case where the pushback worked, but I doubt the people who were the loudest critics will give Biden credit for listening to them. Instead, it’ll forever be “But look what he was going to do, he sold us out!!!” THAT is the problem, in a nutshell.
JML
Here’s one question I have, watching the chaos & mayhem in the British government from afar: WTF is a “Levelling Up” Secretary?
The rest of these resigning ministers I mostly understand their jobs, but this one I must have missed along the way…
prostratedragon
@Mnemosyne: He has, but this is a bad time to wobble. We talk around here about knowing when to pause; maybe Mr. Niewert could use a break.
The Lodger
@OzarkHillbilly: And the Guardian worked “greatest of all time” into the story, without the acronym. Kudos to them!
Citizen Alan
@Kay: Evil. Just fucking evil.
prostratedragon
@satby: Oh, I quite agree, if it wasn’t clear. We mock “thoughts and prayers” because they’re offered as substitutes for action. Voting is an action that could address the problem, and furthermore is an action that the person pictured can take.
Mnemosyne
@taumaturgo:
Way to quote a guy who died a decade ago and pretend that his words from 50 years before that are actually relevant.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
The anti-abortion base are very, very different than the paid, trained speakers from elite schools who speak for them on television. They want women punished. All the touchy feely “we LUV mommies and babies!” goes away and they start talking about state criminal codes.
The elite, “presentable” political professionals in the “movement” will bow to the rabid far Right base. That’s how the Republican Party rolls now.
The investigations are going to be incredible. Unprecedented. Can you imagine? Every county prosecutor in these states will be hauling women in on alleged abortion charges. It will absolutely destroy trust between women and health care providers.
kalakal
@JML: One of Johnson’s Wizard Wheezes was to announce that he was going to ‘level up’ the country ie reduce inequality between the richest & poorest areas (STOP LAUGHING). To this end the invented a sinecure aka the “levelling up secretary” – nice salary, cabinet position etc and appointed a specimen called Michael Gove. Yesterday Johnson demonstrated his unique grasp of strategy when, after 40 people had resigned, he’d improve his position by sacking Gove
cain
@Ksmiami:
That doesn’t seem very viable – I don’t think you’re going to find much support within the elected Democratic party members for that. It’s a form of extremism that will be too high a bar for them to go over.
I think we just need to really organize and vote. But you can bet that whatever it is, these red states are going to challenge any democratic win and send it to the supreme court in order to overturn it.
SCOTUS better be careful though – you go too extreme and nobody is going to listen to you.
Ksmiami
@cain: the next phase of our polity will be destructive af but hopefully the results will evolve into a cleaner system.
Kristine
@Baud:
I borrowed from my account twice, the last time 20 years ago to buy my car. Both times I paid myself back with interest via payroll deductions. I guess you could argue that I’d have made more if I’d left the money alone but I’d need a spreadsheet with interest rates etc to determine that.
FWIW, I’m still driving that car.
Ksmiami
@Kay: they want women removed from public and professional life entirely even if it means we all sink
Soprano2
@satby: True, but my point is that the press makes people feel that crime is a lot more immediate for them than it really is. Most of the time when there is a murder here, it’s people who know each other and have had some kind of argument or altercation. For example, if you aren’t dealing or buying illegal drugs you probably aren’t in danger of being killed by a drug dealer or drug buyer unless you are collateral damage.
Soprano2
Yep, 100% correct. To them being able to get an abortion, or even using birth control, is the wicked woman’s way of getting out of the consequences of having sex, especially for single women who they think shouldn’t be having any sex at all. Now they’re going to try to put their beliefs into laws that will affect all women of childbearing age, most of whom have no idea these people exist because the press hasn’t bothered to talk much about them. I think it’s going to be a huge shock to a lot of people when it happens.
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
was looking for this insight
Soprano2
I continue to believe that the biggest reason it doesn’t seem that the Democratic message breaks through to people the way the Republican message does even though most of it is popular with people is because we don’t have a major news network and a series of talk radio stations all across the U.S. constantly putting out our message. The Republicans have been building that system since the 1990’s, and what we have now is partly the result of that. For fuck’s sake, we have a newspaper that most people will tell you is “liberal” just this week publishing an op-ed that outright says that an ectopic pregnancy can be “delivered”, so a woman doesn’t have to have an abortion for it, she just needs the right “gentle” doctor!!!!!! This is a paper all the Republicans tell people is always on our side. We have a supposed liberal radio network, NPR, that literally has a story about high inflation and/or high gas prices and how they’re hurting people every damn day, thus reinforcing in people’s minds that everything is terrible right now!!! The same radio news network starts every story about Afghanistan with boilerplate language about how the withdrawal was “bungled” – it’s just an assumption now that it happened that way because on one day one guy was so desperate he tried to hang onto the wing of an airplane that was taking off! Anyone who wonders about why our messaging can’t break through has to acknowledge that these outfits are seen as liberal by most people. It’s frustrating as hell, and I don’t know what to do about it, but we have to acknowledge the reality of it.
Subsole
@Brachiator:
“They predicted thirty years. He lasted barely three…”
I am viscerally reminded of Umberto Eco’s assertion that protofascist movements are forever condemned to eventual defeat because the mental emasculation they inculcate in their followers robs them of the ability to accurately gauge strength. Theirs, or anyone else’s.
Sic semper fascisti…
planetjanet
@Geminid:
Gloomis is showing how he has never worked on a campaign before. There are different time cycles for voter registration and GOTV. Registration typically closes a month before election day. You can staff up for registration for months and have full staff trained and ready, volunteers engaged for the final stretches. He should not be listened to on this topic.
Subsole
@taumaturgo:
See, I know that’s bullshit, because if there really were no difference and both sides really were the same, then Gore Vidal (or one of the myriad snivelling, self-absorbed fuckups sprouting from the asspipe of the salted-dildo-hydra he spawned) would manage to yell at Mitch McConnell, occasionally. Or even just once. If only by accident.
But they don’t.
How utterly strange, he said.
Without
A
Single
Hint
Of
Irony
Or
Sarcasm
debbie
@prostratedragon:
Maybe the answer is to make the sentence more specific: “You’ll have the most impact on the direction for this issue if you register AND vote.”
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: I hope someone puts up one twice the size, and with Klingon inscriptions too. That’ll fuck with them.
Bill Arnold
@bjacques:
Should really stick with one sentence, something like
– Voting is necessary, but not sufficient
or maybe
– Voting is essential, but not by itself sufficient
or some other variation.
Tehanu
@Tony Jay: Another fantastic screed today. Thanks! Wish I had your mastery of invective.