watch this pic.twitter.com/sko4Bh3HhN
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) July 17, 2022
Madam @vp being greeted with thunderous applause by more than 13,000 members of her beloved sorority! #AKABoule2022 #AKAExcellence pic.twitter.com/uGfVmcafuu
— Alpha Kappa Alpha (@akasorority1908) July 15, 2022
Harris’ appearance comes at a time when our freedom is in the balance. Black women have long been an integral part of the backbone of the Democratic Party, & mobilizing the resources of this network will play no small part in confronting the challenges we face in midterms &beyond
— Denise Oliver-Velez ?? (@Deoliver47) July 16, 2022
Grudging pundit credit is still credit:
… Harris has a difficult task before her, trying to organize and satisfy a demanding coalition of elected officials and activists facing steep odds of restoring abortion rights nationwide. And there are questions about whether an administration led by a president she once criticized as behind the times on abortion rights — a Catholic who once described his views on the issue as “middle of the road” — will be willing to go far enough for the mission to succeed.
“Every crisis gives leaders a chance to be known in another context,” said Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat. “And overturning Roe is the crisis of the past half century. Many people will get to know Kamala again through this fight. And I’m glad of that — I think she has a lot to say.”
Harris has a deep history with abortion rights, dating back to her time in California as a prosecutor and the state attorney general. Her focus has intensified since a draft of the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked in May showing the court’s conservative majority was poised to overturn Roe. In fact, the day before the final court decision was released in June, Harris hosted seven Democratic state attorneys general at the White House to discuss ways they could use their authority to mitigate the impact of such a ruling.
Since late last year, Harris has held more than 10 meetings, calls, or events with different figures in the abortion rights movement, including state lawmakers, attorneys general, activist groups, medical providers, faith leaders, and privacy experts. Her staff has been included in most White House meetings on the issue. She’s taken the administration’s message to four states already, with significantly more travel expected. People who have attended those meetings said Harris has done a lot of listening and asked others to share what they’re experiencing on the ground, as well as prodding them for ideas about what to do next…
Harris’s staff says she is looking into all avenues to produce results, but that most significant change is going to require voters exerting their power in elections.
“She looks at it as the various levers you can pull,” said Josh Hsu, counsel to the vice president. “The focus on the states is not by accident; it’s where you can get something concrete done in the moment.”…
”I think that people are ready and honestly in need for her to be the leader that we all know that she can be,” said Amanda Brown Lierman, executive director of Supermajority, a progressive women’s advocacy and political organization. “[It’s] a tremendous opportunity for her, but also for women across the country to … give her the backing and the confidence to get this over the finish line.”
H/t Rikyrah –
11 Olympic medals ?
18 world championship medals ?
Most decorated female track and field athlete in history ?
20 years of incredible memories ?Today, Allyson Felix bids farewell to professional competition. We will miss you on the track, @allysonfelix! ?? pic.twitter.com/UOzCDQ2dLQ
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) July 15, 2022
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Sunday / Monday, July 17-18
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
rikyrah
Ms. Lewis and Ms. Felix are both treasures
The love shown to MVP by her Sorors
OzarkHillbilly
Commenter Kathy over at OTB nailed it when she described our schools as becoming Maximum Security Child Internment Centers, and now it’s becoming reality.
oldgold
Harry Callahan: “Now you know why they call me Dirty Harry: I get every dirty job that comes along.“
Dirty Kamala?
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Wow, that’s so disturbing. It’s also maddening that options like steel bunkers are even being considered because we know exactly how to create a society where that sort of extreme remedy isn’t necessary, and it needn’t even inconvenience hunters or sports shooters. And yet collectively, we choose not to do it.
zhena gogolia
I love Kamala.
rikyrah
@zhena gogolia:
Me too
OzarkHillbilly
There it is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: It’s the guns. The presence of a weapon of war enabled both the slaughter and the reluctance of the police. Let’s not lose the plot
debbie
Whoever put all those little threads together in various shades of genius, was a special work of geneius. I thank your for them and of course all he little nuggets of poltical wisdom they contained.
Doug R
Sensible gun control measures poll in the high 60-80s per cent. It’s not the collective that’s stopping us.
Anyway
Happy retirement and kudos on an amazing career to Ms Allyson Felix! Long-time Track & Field fan here with a deep appreciation of her great run. GOAT indeed.
Baud
@Doug R:
Kind of is, since people don’t vote based on guns unless they are on the right.
Betty Cracker
@Doug R: If that 60%-80% made gun safety a priority and voted accordingly — like the minority of gun nuts make unfettered access a priority — we’d have sensible gun safety laws. Too many choose not to make it a priority, which results in a collective failure.
mrmoshpotato
@oldgold:
Gotta go with No on that one.
OzarkHillbilly
Sullivan Misery ain’t much better. As long as you don’t see them, it’s not a problem
……………………………
Trigger warning: That last link goes to a pic of a really terrifying thug.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Sure! Why not? /S
We’ve already fucked up generations with “active shooter drills”. Why not have steel bunkers in each classroom “just in case.”?
(I didn’t even get beyond the article title. Good lord…)
SFAW
I’m embarrassed to say I don’t recognize the woman in the Parkhomenko tweet. [I guess her name is Jenifer Lewis, but that name is unfamiliar to me.]
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Despite your warning, I clicked on the link. OMFG!!!!1!!2!! My psyche will need at least 10,000,000 femtoseconds to recover!!!
UncleEbeneezer
America in one picture.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I know, the horror, the horror…
satby
@Betty Cracker: @OzarkHillbilly: et al: what this guy says
Anthony Atamanuik @TonyAtamanuik 19h
marklar
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, it’s the guns.
But remember, it was Ben Franklin who equated a pound of cure with an ounce of prevention– at least that’s how the Supreme Court interprets the wisdom of one of our Founders.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Some fun facts for vagina-owners of childbearing capacity, and those who love them:
1. Placental abruptions happen, and 15% result in fetal death even with the best of care. How many obstetricians are going to remain in abortion ban states (much less be willing to treat), and how eager do you believe they’ll be to keep you under care? And what will the facility rules be, given the shitshow we’ve seen on ectopic implantations?
2. If you have to leave your ban state for care on your ectopic implantation or your placental abruption to a place that will treat you in a more responsible fashion with a focus on your health, congrats on finding care, BUT you’ll be out of network, and thus on the hook for massive expense.
But please, suburban and exurban white women, let manufactured right wing hysteria on a global supply chain and excess death-generated inflation rate govern your voting choice to make your lives (and your daughters’ lives) much, much worse.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Agreed.
satby
@Baud: you beat me to saying it.
And until the sane among us can convince enough of the people who vote R for “lower taxes” that they’re losing much more than they’re gaining, it will continue to be a collective problem of will.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Gun safety is an issue that varies in salience to voters. Virginia Democrats did make it a winning issue in state legislative elections in 2017 and 2019.
Then they passed 6 gun safety laws that had 70%+ support among registered voters (in Wason Center polling). There was a big uproar among gun rights fans when the legislation was in prospect, but when the measures became law that July I saw scarcely a whimper
Ten years ago Democratic politicians in Virginia were afraid to touch the gun safety issue.
UncleEbeneezer
fancycwabs
Morning all–early voting started last Friday for the August 4 primary in Tennessee and the latest exit polls have me winning the Democratic nomination for congress with 100% of the vote.
(Source Tennessee exit poll of 1 voter, conducted July 15, Margin of Error plus or minus 100 percentage points)
OzarkHillbilly
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Texas hospitals are putting pregnant patients at risk by denying care out of fear of abortion laws, medical group says
It gets better, and by that I mean worse.
satby
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Those of us who predate the Roe decision by decades already know how this ends. In the death of women. Though it will be worse this time because of the fetal personhood laws impacting care more than before. And it will swing back when enough nice, white, married with children women die for no good reason. With the ritualistic sacrifices of school children numbing the population to constant needless death, the body count from Dobbs will be appalling.
UncleEbeneezer
Good thread by Marcus Johnson about White voters, racism and Dem messaging. (Spoiler: there’s no Dem messaging that will make White voters come back to the Dem Party)
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@satby:
The gun-numbing is a shitshow, and I am certain that the shooter in Indy that got shot after “only” taking out a few will be hailed as a great triumph among gun humpers.
I have a fear that white women are so culturally responsive to the “colored people, wasted tax money, gays, high taxes, sluts, overregulated business” messages that they won’t budge even as their own die.
zeecube
@SFAW: Jenifer Lewis played the mother/grande dame (Larry Fishburne played the father) on the ABC series, Blackish. She was a hoot.
Geminid
@Geminid: Democrats in Virginia’s General Assembly punted a proposed assault weapons ban to the State Crime Commission for further study. That proposal got ~55% approval among registered voters, with ~45% disapproving. The narrow majority Republicans won in the lower house last year prevented advancing a ban on new sales this year (the proposed law would also require a licence for current owners).
Next year, I expect that Democrats in my state will make defending existing gun control laws an issue in House of Delegates and state Senate races. Candidates in some contested suburban districts may push an assault rifle ban and make their opponent die on that hill. The deadliness of those weapons has come into focus, and sadly more of these terrible massacres will keep this issue in the public’s mind
A ban on large capicity magazines is also a winning issue politically, I think.
rikyrah
Peanut says to me,
” You are always about politics.”
I responded
“Politics is all about your life. What quality of life you have.”
We have had quiet conversations about abortion and gay rights.
The right wing thinks that, what, they are going to shove people back in the closet?
Peanut asked me if it was bad to be gay back when I was growing up. I told her, it wasn’t as accepted. I told her that the LGBTQ community, couldn’t marry. Couldn’t have kids. Could be fired, thrown out of their homes. That homosexuals were routinely beaten, and violence was brought down on lesbians, especially those who looked more butch. She let that go for a few minutes, then came back and quietly asked,
“Cause they thought it would get rid of the gay?”
I said yes, and she sadly went away.
Does the right wing really think that young people, like my Peanut, who have lived their lives knowing openly gay people; who are respectful of proper pronouns; who have family members who are openly gay; who go to school with kids that have gay parents, are going to be okay with the “don’t say gay”, and ” gay marriage is wrong” bullshyt?
About abortion, I told her this was about her body autonomy. Period. I asked her if she understood that I was the first woman in our family to grow up and mature in an America where I had body autonomy from the moment when I started menstruating. Not my older sisters, certainly not my mother, Aunts, Grandmother.
Me. I am the first woman in our family.
And, now, the right wing expects me to accept FEWER RIGHTS for Peanut.
I don’t think so.![]()
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And, no, I am not going to be polite about it.
WereBear
@rikyrah: Good morning. Loved the sorority pictures!
satby
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: As a white woman all too aware of the faults of much of my cohort, I still object to the assumption that most white women are as stupid as you describe. Or most white men, ftm. White supremacy is strong for hardcore R voters, true; but it can be overcome with the legacy R voters when a more compelling vision of the future is offered. We saw it in Obama’s first election because he made that case and had a charged up electorate ready to promote him. Republicans face no accountability for how they lie to the public because the news media in this country abet them in the lies. So it’s up to all of us who understand to make the case that we keep losing more than we ever gain under R governance.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: You sound like you are grooming her. To be a good and thoughtful person. The horror.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Exactly right. I’m for framing the debate in those terms — not “gun rights” but the right to feel safe at school, grocery shopping, in a mall food court, etc.
Baud
@rikyrah:
When is Peanut going to be old enough for Balloon Juice?
satby
@rikyrah: exactly what I’m talking about! We have to constantly educate what the stakes are, and not just to younger people.
Simple example: in MI under Governor Lead Water there was an initiative to DEpave roads because the tax revenues weren’t available to maintain them. Farmer argues with me that’s a good thing because no one needs paved roads anyway, they all drive heavy duty vehicles. I pointed out they all started driving SUVs more as the roads were deteriorating, and that those SUVs cost more to buy, maintain, fill with gas, insure, etc. And as a result of not wanting to pay some miniscule portion of taxes for decent roads, he paid THOUSANDS of dollars more for that tax freedom. It was revelatory for him to hear it that way. People don’t understand how policy affects them directly in many cases; when they do votes change.
A lot of votes have been changed by Dobbs.
Ken
@Baud: I don’t think we want to add a maturity test for Balloon Juice comment access.
Baud
@satby:
This is more of a meta comment, but I’ve often felt that our side focuses more on what we want to say rather than what voters want to hear.
Obviously, you can’t take it too far because then you don’t stand for anything. But I feel the balance is off in the other direction and has been for some time.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I actually had a co-worker tell me that the way to “solve” the homeless problem was for the authorities to run them all out of Springfield. I told him “That’s not doing anything about the problem, it’s just relocation”. He told me that was fine with him as long as he didn’t have to deal with them. This is what most people think if they felt they could be truthful with you. They don’t care if anyone solves any of the problems that cause homelessness, they just don’t want to have to deal with homeless people.
Kirk Spencer
@satby: Agree. As I’ve stated before, I voted for Reagan back in the day. And Perot. My wife has since successfully educated me on the issues I so blithely ignored back then and I’ve been a reliable Democratic voter since.
satby
@Betty Cracker: That’s it. As long as people still have internalized the idea that “those things don’t happen here” it will be a hard sell, because they’ve been told their own gun protects them at home. Once the accurate knowledge that “those things” happen everywhere, especially including homes with guns, we will see changes. It was why the Rs moved to defund any studies of guns as a public health issue. Because those studies uniformly showed guns contribute to an increase in deaths at home (from suicides, accidents, and domestic violence).
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: I would never pass.
satby
@Baud: purity kills Now literally.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Yep. No matter where you go, there they* are.
*the intolerant
Geminid
@Baud: I think that the party’s practical politicians understand this. Some people go after them for being insuffiently aggressive but I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt because I think that they have a better base of knowledge regarding actual voter behavior.
Baud
@satby: My comment was more about “purity” in messaging rather than purity on policy. Nonetheless, I do believe that many people think of voters as sheep and the only pertinent issue is whether leaders are leaderly enough to guide them to wherever they want to go.
Baud
@Geminid: Right. I think candidates should always try to be confident, but that doesn’t necessarily mean being ideologically strong. I think those two things get mixed up.
WereBear
@Baud: Republican voters are sheep, especially NOW after years of only listening to what they wanted.
Still, Beau of the Fifth Column got a letter: “I realize now Trump conned me, but I don’t want liberals to make fun of me for it.”
They are always fearing the wrong things… but this fits with what I’ve been noticing how the J6 hearings have been working to get the word out on what is really going on, and Faux News can’t stop it.
SFAW
@zeecube:
Thanks. The amount of TV I watch is minimal, other than Mets baseball games.
ETA: I was going to attempt a joke along the lines of “But I loved Anthony Andrews in Blackish,” but it would have been a bit abstruse. [Anthony Andrews played an upper-class Brit in Brideshead Revisited, and (at least in the series) was about as white as they come.]
satby
@Baud: my response was also about purity in messaging. Look at how much flack the Biden administration gets about their “poor messaging” while they just keep governing good things for everyone within the constraints they’re in. As people scream about how Dems fail to create nirvana in spite of their “majority”; including people who certainly know better like Oliver Willis and Robert Reich.
The Moar You Know
@OzarkHillbilly: Hey, that’s a great idea. The vents are on the outside. Who designed this atrocity? A small can of pepper spray and those kids will come right out.
Of course, the kind of person who does school shootings won’t use a can of pepper spray. They’ll use a can of gasoline.
different-church-lady
Good morning. Welcome to another day of “Everything sucks and nobody knows what to do about it.”
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly: whats’s OTB?
raven
@Soprano2: Sounds a lot like the “strategic hamlet” program.
Geminid
@SFAW: Man, you’re lucky to see Max Scherzer pitching for your team! That guy’s intensity is fun to see. I see that he’s back up and running after a few weeks on the DL
I now root for the Mets every fifth day, and hope they lose on the other four.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
Off Track Betting? [At least, when I lived in the NYC area, that’s what it was.]
Baud
@different-church-lady:
We know what to do. It’s just hard to do.
The Moar You Know
@Soprano2: For decades the Bay Area (CA) used to deal with the homeless this way. First, it was a bus ticket out of town. Then, it was a bus ticket to Santa Cruz. Which Santa Cruz allowed for decades. Finally Santa Cruz started putting them on buses and sending them back to SF, Palo Alto, Oakland, etc. Very evenly distributed population of homeless in the Bay Area these days.
Living in SF for a decade was a revelation. You either get to one of two places WRT to the homeless very quickly. One is “kill them all and shove them into woodchippers, this shit sucks”. I understand those people (I really do, not kidding about that) although I can’t condone the solution. Having to step over people as you leave your house in the morning is infuriating. Having to deal with them shitting on the sidewalks, stealing shit, attacking people, attacking YOU, it gets real old quickly. I quickly got to place #2, because I can’t sign on to mass murder, which is “tax the shit out of me and get these fucking people off the streets and my doorstep ASAP, thanks.”
SFAW
@Geminid: Scherzer’s a HoF-class pitcher, but I’m not as high on him as many are. But I guess that’s because I (mentally) compare him to a healthy Jacob deGrom. [When deGrom is healthy, he’s the best in baseball.] But, yeah, watching Scherzer (on a good day) is fun. Heck, even on not-so-good days. He IS an intense mofo.
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: Outside the Beltway. James Joyner, Steven Taylor, and Matt Bernius are the main writers.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@The Moar You Know:
Actually, I see those as likely being more frequently used and abused as a sin bin, particularly for middle schools:
”One more word from you, Tommy, and it’s three hours in the box. See if I don’t…”
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
rikyrah reads Balloon Juice so Peanut doesn’t have to.
Ken
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I wonder how long it will be before some kid locks themselves in the box (accidentally or otherwise), and the school district realizes that the security system doesn’t allow it to be opened from the outside.
(Which reminds me of one of my favorite O. Henry stories, “A Retrieved Reformation”.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Oh yeah, that was the first thing I thought of.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Pepper spray and gasoline aren’t protected by the Second Amendment. Checkmate, librul!
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@The Moar You Know:
I really hate the fucker that accosts people outside my office and passes out pissing and shitting himself on the nice benches out front (making them unusable). As awful as he is, there’s another dozen or so that are worse; plus, this is actually a tourist corridor, and LMPD has gotten so accustomed to policing window tint, failed turn signals, marijuana odors and wide turns that they don’t come and deal with the disorderly conduct from assholes.
I quit giving any of them money several years ago, and am in the “we need to be inhospitable” camp.
lowtechcyclist
I just got a fundraising call on behalf of Rep. Elise Stefanik. (Don’t ask me how I got on their list, I have no clue.)
Almost immediately, the guy started talking about “when Nancy Pelosi formed her sham January 6th committee,” and it was fun to remind him that the Republicans had been offered the opportunity to participate in a 1/6 investigative committee on an equal basis, and had turned it down, so the Dems went ahead on their own and did what they did, and he had no grounds to be complaining about it.
Then I wished him a good day, and hung up.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My internet was down for about 90 minutes. That was unpleasant
satby
@SFAW: @different-church-lady: never mind
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: I won’t get one, because I won’t answer anything remotely spam, but I bet they are calling EVERYONE in the district…
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Ken:
I’m guessing there is an administrator code keypad on each box, each of which will rarely be reset from its factory default of 0000.
Then there will be the ones that get reset by clever kids just screwing around at the end of a term, making them unusable for the next year until somebody realizes they need a god level reset. Of course, nobody will actually check…
Another Scott
@fancycwabs: Good luck to you!
Seriously, thanks for stepping up. It’s important, even when it seems hopeless.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
First World Problems..LOL
FelonyGovt
Good morning. I am in Twitter purgatory because I responding to Rick Wilson about some awful Jewish commentator (don’t even remember who) with “He is a shanda fur die goyim.” (Meaning he should be ashamed). I guess they thought I wanted someone to die.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: Yes indeed.
satby
The great Charlie Pierce:
Geminid
@SFAW: Dodgers manager Davy Roberts told a funny story about Max Scherzer. The Dodgers acquired Scherzer in a trade last year and Roberts did not know him personally, so when Scherzer was going out to pitch one game Roberts gave him some encouraging words and patted him on the butt. This is an act common in baseball society. Later when he did it again Roberts thought he heard Scherzer say, “Don’t fu*king touch me.” Dodgers who knew Scherzer better cautioned Roberts “Hey Cap, he doesn’t like to be touched!”
Once Scherzer came out after the 7th inning and cooled down, Roberts sat down next to Scherzer and asked him, “Did you just tell me ‘don’t fu*king touch me’?” Scherzer answered, “Yes, and that’s the most polite way I could put it. Pitching is my job… and I don’t need any encouragement from anyone to do my job.”
Roberts left Scherzer alone after that.
Miss Bianca
@mrmoshpotato: @oldgold: “Dirty Harris”?
On second thought, nah…
Dorothy A. Winsor
Miss Bianca
@fancycwabs: Congratulations!
raven
They installed breast-feeding “pods” in one of our colleges and they had to lock them because people were doing the deep in them!
catclub
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My internet was down for about 90 minutes.
That was unpleasant… I received no unpleasant emails during this time.
The Moar You Know
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I never give them money, I know what they end up spending it on…it’s not food or shelter.
I don’t know what we need. I don’t know how to approach the problem. It needs to be dealt with because it is ruining our society in many ways.
Another Scott
@different-church-lady: OTB = “Outside the Beltway” – one of those olde-timey weblog things, I think.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@FelonyGovt: I was hoping Twitter jail was for you because you called Rick “Confederate flag cooler” Wilson a grifter pile of shit.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Tomorrow, Kyle? Tomorrow.
SFAW
@Geminid:
That is a GREAT story. Thanks!!!
SFAW
@satby:
I thought we didn’t like Charlie Pierce, because reasons?
Geminid
@FelonyGovt: You probably ended up in “Twitmo,” as Ragnarok Lobster calls it, for using the word “goyim.” It’s not neccesarily a slur, but some antisemites try to make it one and the Twitter censors don’t look at context and nuance.
Ksmiami
@The Moar You Know: I got to number 2 because it’s embarrassing and shameful that a country as rich as America has such a large homeless issue and humane care and a clean dorm pod could alleviate suffering. We should strive to make. Life better for everyone.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: Really? I think he’s terrific.
Ken
@The Moar You Know: During COVID, Illinois found it was cheaper overall to house the homeless in places like hotels. The tricky part is that many of the costs for someone living on the street are hidden — police time, unbillable emergency room expenses, etc. But it does work out, and now many programs have switched to this full-time housing mode.
FelonyGovt
@Geminid: Could be. I deleted the tweet. I rarely tweet or retweet anyway. These days I mostly look at Mets Twitter and try to avoid a lot of the political accounts because they raise my blood pressure.
Geminid
@SFAW: As the youngs say, no problem!
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@FelonyGovt:
Ah, the Ari Fleischer tweet.
dww44
I’m tying to find what/who actually generates their news feed but I’ve always recognized that they tilt rightwards. In this instance, they are just one more source trying to undermine Biden in a totally unfair and egregious way. This morning saw a clip on MSNBC where some reporter asked him if he felt bad about his fist-bump with MBS. Biden responded that he’d answer a serious question, but not this one. I applaud him.
He and we have to push back against this. All of us, including those who don’t want Biden to run again in 2024.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
As do I. But I recall seeing him trashed because (I think, it’s been awhile) he was spouting “lefty” talking points (or something like that). You know, kinda the way dKos is blogona non grata here, as is (sometimes) LGM (for their “doomposting”).
But maybe that’s just my assholic take on things, and everything’s really sweetness and light regarding those entities.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: My first husband, whose first language was Yiddish, always told me that “goy” and “shiksa” were terrible slurs.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Same. He’s a great writer.
Soprano2
@satby: You should have listened to “1A” this morning, which was all about how terrible Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia was, it looked terrible, how dare he fist bump MBS, he didn’t get anything of value anyway why did he go, and so on. I suppose some of those are valid criticisms, but to me it gets lost in the constant “let us tell you how Biden sucks today” messaging of the mainstream press. I posted on their FB that most people struggling with high inflation and high gas prices that are finally coming down don’t give two craps about any of the stuff they were talking about. I mean we all care about those things, but the average person probably doesn’t.
Soprano2
@raven: Yep, although not as radical. My co-worker thinks the whole thing can be “solved” by putting them on a bus to somewhere else. He doesn’t know that every sizable city in America already has a program like that, where they try to find any relative or friend they can to send homeless people to, as long as it’s somewhere else.
Kelly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Is anything ever really deleted from our modern communications devices? Even is you run the device thru a chipper there seems to be tracks on the net somewhere.
satby
@SFAW: huh? must have been while I was away from this joint.
No one writes like Pierce.
jonas
@Betty Cracker: This is exactly it. Same with choice. Large majorities, even in southern states, support abortion access, but politicians listen to the 10-20% of voters who will crawl over broken glass to vote on that one issue and punish anyone who doesn’t toe the line. Until those majorities decide to punish out-of-step politicians with their votes, nothing will change.
satby
@Ken: J B Pritzker has turned out to be an excellent and progressive governor. In spite of his sin of being born rich.
Soprano2
@The Moar You Know: Oh I totally understand the frustration. Lucky for me I don’t have to deal with them as a business owner, but I do see them camping out on a city ROW across from City Hall and the police station (not kidding about that). The roads we take to and from our bar have sizeable populations of homeless people living near them, so when I drive it at night I have to keep my eyes peeled for people walking and pushing bikes and carts and wagons beside the street, or trying to cross where there aren’t cross walks. I just know that sending them “somewhere else” doesn’t do anything to fix the actual problem, because those places quickly send them right back to you. Every city in America believes they have the best amenities for homeless people because they think all of them come there for those things.
geg6
@SFAW:
I don’t fault DKos for some of the garbage on it. I have no problem with their actual staff posts. I mostly stay out of the community posts and never, ever, ever, ever wade into the comments sections.
As for LGM, I avoid most of Loomis’ posts (excluding the graves series). His picture should be in the dictionary next to the definition of doomsayer. And, again, I avoid the comments like the plague. It’s all too precious there for me–condescending, very male and much too convinced of their own brilliance and cleverness. Horrible comments section. Much worse than at GOS.
jonas
@Soprano2: I know, right? I mean, he didn’t even stand around and place his hands on a glowing orb! *That’s* how you do mideast diplomacy!
lowtechcyclist
I would’ve guessed ‘off-track betting’
@WereBear:
I’m in Maryland, two states and a couple hundred miles away. I’m a registered Democrat, and I have a busy ActBlue account. So I have no idea how I got on some GOP fundraising list.
satby
@Soprano2: 1A? if it’s a regular news broadcast, I haven’t seen one in over a decade. I’m an extremely online creature.
different-church-lady
@SFAW:
Pierce is a rare breed: a stunt writer who hasn’t gone off the rails.
Soprano2
@Ken: We have some crummy rundown hotels that have turned into weekly rentals. One of my co-workers said they should be torn down, and I said “But then those people would be homeless, and you’d be complaining about them. What’s better, those kind of unsightly hotels or even more homeless people?”. He did then agree that the hotels were better than them being homeless. The truth is that there are no easy answers, or this problem would have been solved already. I know higher housing costs are making it worse in a lot of places.
SFAW
@satby:
Seconded, thirded, etc.
different-church-lady
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
See, now when I was a kid, if they had threatened me with that I’d be thinking, “Three hours by myself, away from all the other kids terrorizing me? Yeah, I’m all for it!”
Soprano2
@satby: It’s an NPR program that’s both broadcast on their stations and streams from their Web site. I listen to it streaming at work.
Old Man Shadow
@OzarkHillbilly:
What flaws? We drive the homeless out of town and out of sight of the wealthy people who live in an area and then they die out in the desert. It’s win win for the NIMBY crowd.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Huge fan, yuge!
The man can turn a phrase like an elite second baseman can turn a double play (to extend the beezeball theme).
“Zombie-eyed granny starver”
lowtechcyclist
@jonas:
I guess I’m missing something here. If large majorities in Southern states are pro-choice and pro-gun-control, that’s two pretty significant issues. What are the issues that have them voting for Republicans anyway? Are they all going, “but socialism“?
different-church-lady
@Soprano2:
The homeless thing and the mental health thing have a huge overlap. Gotta attack the second before we make a dent in the first.
randy khan
I read a great piece in the NYT on Ms. Felix after her last race. The extent to which other track athletes are in utter awe of her tells you all you need to know, not to mention that everyone thought that Tokyo was her swan song.
I do think that one under-the-radar factor in this year’s elections is the extent to which Biden has made good on his promises to Black people, with choosing Harris high on that list, but also buttressed by nominating Jackson for the Supreme Court. It’s important to harness the enthusiasm that’s been created by those actions. (And if anybody can do that, it’s Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. – those women are a force for good.*)
* A little AKA anecdote: The City of Alexandria’s Commission on Women for years had an annual awards dinner, which highlighted women who had done public service work. My wife and I used to go to that dinner, and it was kind of a running joke how many of the nominees (and winners) had “Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated” in the bios that were included in the program for the dinner. After a while, though, we realized it was because there just were a ton of AKA women doing the work to make the city a better place.
different-church-lady
@jonas:
Well, that and the fact that modern politicians agree with that hoard.
Old Man Shadow
@Soprano2: The truth is that there are no easy answers, or this problem would have been solved already.
The easy answer is to build more affordable housing and more transitional housing with attendant support staff and community services.
A neighborhood of modest homes that people can move into and pay rent based on their income, then apply that rent to the cost of the house so they can become homeowners one day. If they are unemployed, then hire them to maintain and upkeep the neighborhood and pay a living wage.
Put a community center, a park, a community garden, and social services center right there in the middle of the community and offer addiction and mental health care out of it. Have a farmer’s market every week so they can sell some of their produce if they want. Connect them to public transit lines and provide free community wifi.
Doing that would just cost money and probably bring out a ton of NIMBYs complaining that no offered to give them a house on such good terms, so it doesn’t get done.
Old Man Shadow
@lowtechcyclist: That and Democrats want to empower Black people and let more Messicans into the country and force teh gay lifestyle on their children making them trans and shit and making the baby Jesus cry.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist:
Cultural oppression and vote suppression probably have a huge amount to do with it. The public base is not the same as the voting base.
If we could clone Stacy Abrams we’d probably sweep the south — she’s leading in breaking the cultural part of getting out our vote.
Jinchi
Unfortunately, I expect the reaction of the Texas governor to this will be to sign a law protecting hospitals from liability for refusing to treat pregnant women with complications.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Yes! And who could forget the “bobble-throated slap-dick from Arkansas” for Tom Cotton.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
There IS an easy answer, from a purely functional POV: build more housing, especially near where the jobs are, and near public transportation, rather than way out in the exurbs.
It’s the political part that’s next to impossible. America’s crazy zoning laws make it nearly impossible to increase housing density, and essentially give the NIMBYists a veto over anything like that.
Villago Delenda Est
As I said over at Wonkette, if you’ve got Jennifer, you don’t need no Samuel L.!
Kelly
Oregon is one those high cost places. Oregon zoning laws are limiting sprawl but that raises the cost of building sites. Nobody wants multi-family housing or smaller lot sizes in their single family neighborhood. A recent law that requires all cities over 10k population to allow multi family in current single family zones will eventually help this but eventually is probably at least 10 years. Thing is sprawl eventually gets expensive as initial infrastructure roads, utilities age. Transit is much more pleasant in denser communities.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@lowtechcyclist:
Socialism, CRT, and mixing “the colored” in with their precious white babies.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist: It’s not the zoning laws, it’s the investors. Build more housing and allow the same hoard of parasites to buy it all up and the problem doesn’t get fixed in the least.
ETA: should have said not just the zoning laws.
lowtechcyclist
@Old Man Shadow:
I’d figure most of those people would be totally pro-gun so they could fight off the rioting black people and the Mexican invasion all by themselves, and would be kinda hoping they’d get the opportunity.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Jinchi:
As it turns out, the big ass national association of obstetricians is headquartered in Texas.
They had to go to an all-virtual qualification exam/continuing education later this year as a number of the members are fearful of coming to Texas because Texas threatens to prosecute OB/GYNs who work in other states but may have treated Texas residents.
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist:
That, also voting against godless lib’ruls who will take their guns, turn their churches into rainbow coffeehouses, make their kids gay( or worse, curious), and worst of all, make them treat [people they don’t like] as equals, not servile inferiors.
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
I disagree. The reason the investors are buying up housing is that there’s a shortage in the first place. I fully expect residential housing values to rise much faster than inflation over the coming years, even after the jump they’ve taken in the past year or two.
The way to undermine their investment is to build more housing: more supply to satisfy the same demand puts downward pressure on prices. Unfortunately, I can’t see that happening, so I’m wondering if there’s the residential equivalent of an index fund to put retirement money into.
dww44
@Soprano2:
So maybe the source of the AOL News Feed I saw earlier is your 1A, or vice-versa.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing and concerted effort to paint Biden as a loser. So, I’d like to know where is a fair take on his recent trip. I kinda believe that Biden’s foreign policy forays have been good ones and am disappointed in the reporters from the MSM, visual and print, trying to undermine him by focusing on the trivial.
lowtechcyclist
Wait, these are the people who are for gun control that we’re talking about here.
Jinchi
Really? Sounds like a variation of their plan to prosecute women who travel out of state for abortions.
They really do think of women as state property, don’t they.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Good chance the Supreme Court will declare zoning laws an unconstitutional restriction on property at some point. (Of course, there’s also a good chance they will bring back restrictive covenants. )
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist:
There’s a shortage because the investors are buying it all up, and will also buy up all the new housing as well if we do nothing to change it.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Buying something that exists doesn’t create a shortage of it.
ETA: You get an artificial shortage when an investor monopolizes a particular area.
Kelly
Yep. Oregon zoning drew very loose urban growth boundaries back in the 1970’s. Moving the developable land bottleneck way out to the future helped pass them. We’re there now. Infill is the way to forward but you can’t build many large projects within the existing lot lines. Some large developments go up in brownfields, old industrial areas,. Salem has a downtown apartment tower going up in an old retail site. Most infill will be small, single family to duplex thru fourplex. All the new stuff will be too expensive for homeless folks but it should reduce the rents on older housing. Eventually. If we build faster than population growth.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
I take your point, but it drives an affordability crisis.
All that aside, I go back to my point that homelessness is not going to be solved by affordability alone. A lot of the homeless are never going to have their heads together enough to function normally in society without mental health improvements. It’s a multi-pronged problem and nobody wants to confront it on all the prongs.
brantl
@fancycwabs: Hot Zot!
scav
@different-church-lady: Homelessness is also just a symptom of multiple discrete and otherwise distinct issues. No way there’s going to be a single cure-all.
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: I didn’t have a one of those. Was sweating it out a few times! Thanks for sharing it.
Soprano2
@Old Man Shadow: This is not easy. Where do you build it? Where do you get the money? How do you overcome community resistance to building it no matter where you put it? How do you continue to pay for it in a community that already believes they are taxed too much? What about people who don’t want to come into any kind of community and actually reject all help? Like I said, if this were an easy problem to solve it would have been fixed already.
I’ll give you an example from my own community. People say “Build places for them to stay”. So, some people in our community put in a teardrop trailer park for people to rent for overnight at $10/night. Seems like something good, right? Well, there are non-stop complaints from people and businesses in the area about homeless people gathering there every evening, how they piss and shit everywhere, how they harass people at nearby businesses, how they cross the street anywhere (a woman was killed near that area over the weekend) and so on.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Hear, hear!!! Peanut needs those same rights that you & my sister and all the other women have enjoyed.
Soprano2
@Kelly: They’ve built a lot of apartments in my community the past 10 years, but it’s not a solution since they’re built for college students and young adults. Their price point for rent is over $1,000/mo. That may sound cheap to some of you, but in my city that’s expensive. Many of the newer ones are over $1,500/mo.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@fancycwabs: What can we do to help? What can people on the ground in TN do? I am not in TN but some of my husbands Dem/not batshit family members are
Kelly
@Soprano2: Yes, the new buildings will be rented to prosperous, “market rate” people. If construction outstrips population growth older rentals will become more affordable. The problem in most places is construction is lagging population growth so demand exceeds supply so rents rise.
Also folks have rediscovered living close to city centers is darned convenient so neighborhoods full of neglected old homes that used to be low rent are in demand further squeezing the low rent markets. This leaves the remaining low rent housing out at the periphery which is hard for folks whose income limits transportation choices. Zillow thinks a house in inner SE Portland I bought in 1985 for $45,000 sold in 1988 for $55,000 is worth $800,000 today. Taxes alone are more than I was paying for mortgage, insurance and taxes.
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist: Perhaps they’ve been convinced that voting for Democrats means their no doubt well-regulated guns will be confiscated?
Villago Delenda Est
@Doug R: Ammosexual psychopaths and their merchants of death suppliers are stopping us.
way2blue
My SF Bay Area county is 90% fully vaccinated for those 5 & older. Nonetheless new case average is stuck bouncing between 400-500 each day, and hospitilzations are creeping up. Albeit, deaths remain below 1/day.
I know a number of people who’ve avoided CoVID-19 infection the past 2+ years, but have recently gotten the omicron-5 variant. We seem stuck in in a mode where we need to assume indoor public spaces are risky w/o masking. Alas.
Gravenstone
I lived in Downriver Detroit a bit over 30 years ago. That shit was already a thing then, in Wayne County. Shocked this shit out of me the first time I turned onto a gravel road that close to a major urban center. Can’t say I’m surprised to learn it was being spread throughout the rest of the state because Republicans are too cheap to take care of things (beyond lining their own pockets, of course).
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: apartment REITs are a good play…