Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

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

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

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

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

You are here: Home / Books / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Dangerous Enticements

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Dangerous Enticements

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One study, on fruit flies, so don’t give up your screen time — but maybe consider amber glasses / blue-blocking filters?

Our Failed Mainstream Media…

Lemonade from, err, lemons:

Can’t argue with the reasoning, since Salem, Massachusetts has pretty much turned itself into a witchcraft theme park… and the single most photographed tourist icon is a statue of Elizabeth Montgomery.

… Local politicians including Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller mixed with “Breaking Bad” stars Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and director Vince Gilligan to help unveil the artwork, donated by Gilligan and Sony Pictures.

The 2008-2013 show and its ongoing prequel “Better Call Saul” helped fuel a renaissance in filmmaking across New Mexico, while also cutting close to Albuquerque’s real-life struggles with drug addiction and crime.

Gilligan said he recognized that the statues of “two fictional, infamous meth dealers” won’t be universally cherished in New Mexico.

“In all seriousness, no doubt some folks are going to say, ‘Wow, just what our city needed.’ And I get that,” Gillian said. “I see two of the finest actors America has ever produced. I see them, in character, as two larger-than-life tragic figures, cautionary tales.”…

The show and its iconic lead characters already are lionized on T-shirts and airport merchandise, while tour guides in Albuquerque shepherd fans to former film locations in a replica of the RV from the show that doubled as a meth lab.

New Mexico has long struggled against the toll of addiction, with more than 43,000 deaths linked to alcohol and drug overdoses in the last three decades. Albuquerque also currently contends with a record-setting spate of homicides.

Surging overdose deaths from meth and fentanyl surpassed heroin and prescription opioids as the leading causes of drug overdose deaths across the state in 2020.

Keller heralded the positive economic impact of “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” on Albuquerque, acknowledging the dollars and delight it brings to a city he jokingly called “Tamale-wood.”…

Reader Interactions

335Comments

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Now that we got that out of the way, a little something for all the baseball nerds out there:

    LONGPORT, N.J. — A 45-gallon rubber barrel sits in a cluttered garage along the Jersey Shore, filled waist-high with what looks like the world’s least appetizing chocolate pudding. It is nothing more than icky, gooey, viscous, gelatinous mud.

    (NYT link) Ah, but what mud. The mud that dreams are made of.

    This particular mud, hauled in buckets by one man from a secret spot along a New Jersey riverbank, is singular in its ability to cut the slippery sheen of a new baseball and provide a firm grip for the pitcher hurling it at life-threatening speed toward another human standing just 60 feet and six inches away.

    Tubs of the substance are found at every major league ballpark. It is rubbed into every one of the 144 to 180 balls used in every one of the 2,430 major league games played in a season, as well as those played in the postseason. The mudding of a “pearl” — a pristine ball right out of the box — has been baseball custom for most of the last century, ever since a journeyman named Lena Blackburne presented the mud as an alternative to tobacco spit and infield dirt, which tended to turn the ball into an overripe plum.

    Consider what this means: That Major League Baseball — a multi-billion-dollar enterprise applying science and analytics to nearly every aspect of the game — ultimately depends on some geographically specific muck collected by a retiree with a gray ponytail, blurry arm tattoos and a flat-edged shovel.

    But M.L.B. executives do not exactly get all misty-eyed over the whimsical tradition of what is called Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud, which they say is too often inconsistently applied. In their quest to make balls more consistent — and the game more equitable — they have tried to come up with a substitute, even assigning chemists and engineers to develop a ball with the desired feel.

    The score so far:
    Lena Blackburne: 1
    Major League Baseball: 0

    Glen Caplin, an M.L.B. spokesman, said that “pre-tack baseballs” are continuing to be tested in the minor leagues. But the reviews have been mixed. “If you change one property of a baseball, you sacrifice something,” Caplin said. “The sound off the bat was different. The ball felt softer. The bar to change a ball is very high.” Still, he said, “It’s an ongoing project.”

    Bintliff knows the game isn’t over. He said that baseball’s apparent efforts to displace him and his mud used to disrupt his sleep. Now, he said, he’s become more philosophical.

    “If they stopped ordering, I’d be more upset by the end of the tradition, not my bottom line,” he said, standing in his garage in red shorts and white high-top Chuck Taylor sneakers. “If they don’t want the mud, they don’t have to buy it.”

    The tradition began with Russell Blackburne, a.k.a. Lena, a feisty, weak-hitting infielder who banged around the major leagues in the 1910s before settling in as a major-league coach and manager. A lifer, seen in black-and-white photos beside the likes of Ty Cobb and Connie Mack.

    This is the kind of arcane shit I love about baseball. Much more at the link.

  4. 4.

    Spanky

    I don’t in any sense subscribe to weird conspiracy theories, but is the question as to whether the Saudis tried to give covid to Biden so weird? It seems like it has been accepted that Trump tried to during the debates.

    Asking it during a press conference, though … Yeesh.

  5. 5.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m curious. Who do you like in the Missouri Democratic Senate primary? A couple days ago I put up a poll by SurveyAmerica that showed Valentine ahead of Kunce 45%-20%. Yesterday  I saw one by Emerson that showed Kunce much closer, trailing 39%-36%. Both polls were taken within the last eight days.

    Two very different candidates. Last year Kunce was driving around Missouri in a beat up Ford Taurus. Valentine has her own bison herd.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Geminid: We talked about this here before. I’m going with Kunce, mainly because I think his CV is a better sale to the Misery electorate. Others disagree. Some think I am being unfair to Valentine because of the history of the Busch crime family and my belief that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I am.

    Whoever wins, I will vote for in the general, not that it will likely matter very much. This state is sure to go with whatever amoral, overtly religious, whackadoodle, unindicted co-conspirator the GOP puts up.

    eta: even better if they’ve been indicted. No reason we should let Texas out do us on that front.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    ::sniff sniff::

    What’s that rank odor?

    Oh, it’s a stinkeroonie grande which popped to the surface on Prime video listings.

    If only there existed a universal scale by which to award fewer then zero stars.

    :·)

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @Percysowner:

    Yeah, I’ll need more proof before believing that NJ taxing authorities will bite on that gambit.

    Not that I would put it past Trump for thinking that it would work.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: I love the fact that MLB made and sent an instructional video for “the mudding of a ball” to all the teams and that there is a poster in every clubhouse listing the proper “howto” steps.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    Just filled out my primary mail-in ballot, and man, was that depressing! I was happy to fill in the oval for the statewide Dems, but the local choices — yeesh! Had to pick the least-awful Republican for FL statehouse rep (no Dems got enough votes to qualify), and I settled on a goober who is at least against running a turnpike extension through the county.

    Our horrific outgoing county commissioner — the idiot who made international headlines for refusing to allow the library to subscribe to the NYT because he thought it was unfair to Trump — will probably be replaced with an even dumber Republican (again, no Dems qualified). I picked the chamber of commerce drone over the culture warriors.

    And the schoolboard race, sweet weeping Jeebus! The candidate I picked is a retired teacher who says politicians should butt out of schools, so she’ll probably lose to the DeSantis superfan who told the local newspaper that she is against “cross dressing” and “LGBTQ” in schools.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Look out House of Windsor:

    The manuscript is, reportedly, written; the ink now dry. Publication is said to be on course to capitalise on the lucrative Christmas market.

    Few crumbs, if any, of the contents of the Duke of Sussex’s much-anticipated memoirs have so far emerged. “It’s juicy, that’s for sure,” one source told the Page Six website, with another adding: “There is some content in there that should make his family nervous.”

    From the prince, the palace, the publishers Penguin Random House, and the Pulitzer prize-winning ghostwriter, JR Moehringer, there has been silence. Yet royal observers expect it to be a serious book, and one not easily dismissed.

    Novelist and journalist Moehringer, who ghostwrote the autobiography of former world No 1 tennis player Andre Agassi, “is a powerful and psychologically exploratory writer, so we can expect a powerful and psychologically exploratory book,” said the historian and royal biographer Robert Lacey. The Agassi book “is profound, serious, a forensic demolition of his parenting, which goes beyond the normal ghostwritten books,” added Lacey. “ It makes me think there is no point in even speculating what skeletons he’s going to uncover because he is a skeleton exhumer. He is going to do the business”.

    A publishing source told the Sun: “The manuscript has been finished and gone through all of the legal processes. It’s done and out of Harry’s hands. The publishing date has been pushed back once, but it is on track for the end of the year.”

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    One positive thing about filling in my ballot: it usually counts twice, not because of voter fraud but because my husband copies my ballot while filling in his for the down-ticket races. He trusts my research. I think this year we are in accord at the top of the ticket too. We usually are — probably 99% of the time.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: The Survey America poll showed Valentine 6 points behind Schmitt in a general election matchup. She was 1 point behind Greitens, tied with Hartzler. Kunce ran a few points worse but that may be because TV advertising has boosted Valentine’s name. Schmitt had a good lead over Greitens in their primary, at least according to that poll.

  23. 23.

    eclare

    @Baud:   As I learned in my years of state tax, the PO Box for the New Jersey Division of Taxation is 666.  They will not be fooled.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: My Congressman, Bob No-Good (Bigot VA-5th) made the local news yesterday telling Campbell County residents they need cameras in their classrooms so they could be sure teachers aren’t subverting the school kids. No-Good worked for Liberty U. before his current gig.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @NotMax: I think they have an agreement: DeSantis won’t interfere with Jeb!’s edu-grift empire if Jeb! doesn’t interfere with DeSantis’s plot to take his Florida-brand fascism nationwide. Jeb! did publish an op-ed recently that some viewed as a shot across the bow. He said charter schools should be held accountable by test scores, graduation rates, teacher certification, etc. Maybe he’s mad because DeSantis is getting cozy with evangelical Hillsdale College and cutting Jeb! out of the charter school profits. Or maybe Jeb! is up to his beady eyeballs in Hillsdale too — I don’t know.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Geminid: Schmitt is just plain and simply zealot scum of the worst kind. Burning at the stake would be too good for him.

    eta: my lack of TV and radio as well as my ad blocker continues to serve me well. I have neither seen nor heard any campaign ads.

  31. 31.

    oatler

    @NotMax:

    Hatred of FDR is part of the Nihilist Pantheon, like hatred of Jimmy Carter and JFK (Jack stole the 1960 election) and Hillary C.   Jesus Christ? They put that little bitch to work for the NRA.

  32. 32.

    gene108

    @NotMax:

    The trailer makes the movie seem like it could be very entertaining.

    Did they just put the few good scenes in the trailer?

  34. 34.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Reading about the Senate ‘race’ back in Misery reminds me of how glad I am that after 22+ years in the reddest/second reddest county in the state, I moved to bluer pastures.

  35. 35.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    Someone in Ohio won the big lottery. I hope it’s Kay.

    Ohio?  Illinois lottery app says Des Plaines, IL.  (It wasn’t me. :( )

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    @gene108

    Full disclosure: did not watch. The W-T-ever lovin’-F trailer was more than enough. As always, YMMV.

    Zounds, they weren’t even clever enough to title it Moonrise at Campobello.

    What, oh what could be next down the pike? Silent Cal: Demon Slayer?

    ;)

  37. 37.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Other MJS: I heard him speak once at Wiscon. He showed pics of the Rockies and talked about how they formed, etc. He also gave a reading in which he had the lights dimmed while he read about sailing through space

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: No-Good beat Cameron Webb last time by 5 points. Webb was a strong candidate but that couldn’t overcome the 5th’s demographics. Redistricting made the district redder, so the Democrat doesn’t have much of a chance this year. The district may get more purple over time, but NoGood is probably safe for a couple cycles.

    Redistricting is putting me in the 7th CD and I’m glad. I just saw my first Spanberger yard sign this morning! Gotta git me one, as we say in Greene County.

  40. 40.

    O. Felix Culpa

    As for Walter White et al., we’re starting our move to Albuquerque…[checks notes]…tomorrow.

    There is a large population of unhomed people in that fair city. We support a local shelter that provides wraparound services, but a lot more work needs to be done.

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Although I might in a moment of letting my guard down give Millard Fillmore, Secret Ninja a test drive.

    :)

  49. 49.

    Emmyelle

    “Stand up to him”. Yes, yes, stand up to the man who is trying to ensure some non apocalyptic future.

    Jesus the amount of male ego fragility dominating our politics is so fucking scary to me.

  51. 51.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Immanentize:

    Thanks! The house-selling process has so far been more stressful for me than the moving, but thankfully we’ve passed every hurdle and are now hurtling towards closing. Will be sooo very glad when it’s all done.

  55. 55.

    eclare

    @rikyrah:   I got through the first season of Breaking Bad (it was beautifully shot), then decided I didn’t care about the characters.  Never saw the rest.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Would you be surprised to learn that Native Americans used toothbrushes? Or would you be more surprised to learn this from a Predator film? At the same time as giving us the usual invisible alien-inflicted butchery, Prey, the fifth and latest instalment of the franchise, delivers its first history lesson.

    This lithe, primitivist reinvention takes place in 1719, when a band of Comanche find themselves becoming quarry for one of the intergalactic trophy-hunters who has turned up a few centuries too early to run into Arnold Schwarzenegger. Packed with authentic period detail (such as the Indigenous oral hygiene), it’s probably the first big-budget film about Native Americans since 1992’s Last of the Mohicans.
    ……………………………..
    That this Hollywood-produced film doesn’t step into any cultural mantraps is down to its Comanche producer, Jhane Myers. She was hired by the director, Dan Trachtenberg, to ensure this frontier sci-fi remained grounded in Native American reality. With her CV – Comanche and Blackfoot advocate, traditional artist and craftsperson, and world-champion buckskin dancer – she reminded him of the film’s resourceful protagonist. “He said talking to me was like talking to the grownup Naru,” says Myers.

    I’m not much of a fan of the Predator movies (I did enjoy the one with the crew of military rejects) but I’m gonna have to make time for this one.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, Defense.gov:

    While last month’s Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization means each state now makes its own laws regarding abortion services, the health care that the Defense Department provides to service members has not changed, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness said.

    VIDEO | 1:03:41 | Experts Testify About Reproductive Health Services, Part 1

    VIDEO | 1:16:05 | Experts Testify About Reproductive Health Services, Part 2

    “Service members can receive the same reproductive health care after Dobbs as they did before the ruling,” Gil Cisneros testified today before the House Armed Services Committee. “Consistent with long-existing federal law, ‘covered abortions’ — those cases that involve rape, incest or where the life of the mother would be endangered — will continue to be authorized to use federal funds and facilities. There is no interruption to this care.”

    Travel policies related to health care also remain, Cisneros said. If a service member must travel to obtain a covered abortion, she may do so on official status and will not be charged leave.

    While the department will continue to be able to provide to service members the same level of health care it has always provided, Cisneros said the department is aware that the Dobbs decision will change available options for some service members when it comes to abortions that are not covered under department policy. Based on laws that may be in effect in the state where a service member is stationed, abortion services may not be available.

    “Service members are now having to navigate additional challenges to access essential women’s health care services,” he said. “Service members and their families, who were previously able to make very personal decisions about when to have a family, may now face greater burdens depending on where they’re stationed.”

    Cisneros told lawmakers that the DOD continues to review its personnel and medical polices as a result of the Dobbs decision.

    “We understand the very personal nature of how the court decision impacts families,” he said. “We are being very deliberate in analyzing Dobbs with both focus and compassion. We want to make sure we get this right because it impacts access to essential women’s health care and reproductive care.”

    Another aspect of reproductive health care that lawmakers were interested in concerned the availability of contraception within the military health care system. Seileen Mullen, the acting secretary of defense for health affairs, testified that until recently DOD had contraceptive clinics set up at 18 military treatment facilities across the department. Now, she said, the plan is to have those clinics at all military treatment facilities across the department.

    “We have expanded where we have military treatment contraceptive clinics — walk-in clinics,” she said. “A woman or man could come up, get counseling, and decide what contraceptives they need that day.”

    Cisneros said the department is changing policy on one form of contraception in particular — the intrauterine device, or IUD — to make it available to more service members.

    “We are currently updating our policies so that service members and their families will be able to receive those IUDs through the TRICARE health care system without having to pay a copay, which is currently the thing right now,” he said. “We’re changing our policy, updating it, so that the copay will be eliminated with that.”

    Mullen also told lawmakers that the department will soon release results of a survey on women’s reproductive health conducted by the RAND Corporation, which reveals a lack of knowledge among service members regarding contraceptive options.

    “It’s the first time that has been done in 30 years,” Mullen said. “It’s given us quite a bit of information … includ[ing that there’s] a lack of education about women’s options around contraceptives, which are free in our MTFs. All active-duty service members get free contraceptives within the MTFs and in our retail pharmacies.”

    Right now, Mullen said, there is a small copay for active-duty service members to get contraceptives, but congressional legislation might change that — making contraception totally free to service members and their families.

    “We also … have an app called ‘Decide and Be Ready’ that men and women can use to go through their contraceptive options to decide what’s best for them,” she said. “We also have those walk-in clinics that are … being expanded this year, as well. But … it’s sort of astonishing how our young men and women really don’t fully know of what their reproductive rights and health care consists of, and we need to do a better job.”

    It seems like there’s an “equal protection” argument in there that should be exploited when Roe (and more) is codified. We can’t have an effective national defense system when members health care is treated differently in the USA depending on where they are stationed (or on TDY) at a particular moment.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    Immanentize

    @O. Felix Culpa: I have started seriously considering down sizing or multi sizing or, whatever. I have come up with a method for thinning my book collection which seemed like a daunting task. I am going bookshelf to bookshelf and just picking out what I know I must keep. It ends up I can donate about 80% of the novels. I haven’t done any non fiction yet.

    I was wishing all the Jackals were able to teleport to my home and browse my books and take however many they wanted. But then I thought they all would probably want a meal, or at least snacks and beverages.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: We’ve had our 2 youngest STL granddaughters the past 2 days and last night my son showed up with his eldest daughter too. The youngest woke up crying and I went in and picked yer up as Daddy was stirring on the bed. I got to snuggle her a little bit until she started complaining again, so I asked, “Do you want to see your daddy?” and laid her on his chest.

    Was treated to just such a moment as she settled in and fell back to sleep again.

  66. 66.

    Ken

    @Geminid: What a wonderful full-employment program. They’ll need at least one person for every three teachers, to watch the videos. Plus the enforcers on stand-by to burst into the classroom and beat the teacher with the butts of their rifles if they say anything that might upset the students.

  69. 69.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    My small-press publisher has a new book out today: The Hush. It’s listed as a literary dystopia about climate change and politics (among other things). I have it on my kindle but haven’t read it yet so I can’t make promises for whether it’s a good read. But I like to support Inspired Quill because they’re good people. The link is directly to them, but the book is also on Amazon.

  72. 72.

    Danielx

    70 degrees on the back porch and low humidity on the back porch. Great morning for back porch tabbies.

  73. 73.

    Josie

    @rikyrah: Good choice on your part. I started watching it, but never got past the early episodes. I hated the main character so much that it was unwatchable for me. I was sorry I ever started it.

  74. 74.

    Immanentize

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: My local library takes them, or more accurately the “Friends of Medford Library” which is like a booster club, for their semi regular book and bake sales. They use the proceeds to fund highschool student interns and the guest speaker programs (which end up being largely for the elderly in the community.) They are gonna get like 1000+ books pretty soon.

  78. 78.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: Same problem here in Manatee.  Two choices, bad or worse.  Didn’t have to do any research, as all of them sent me flyers.  Christ, these people are proud to believe this shit.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    Thanks for sharing, I guess. Surprised at the number of recognizable actors in what looks like a steaming pile of dreck.

  80. 80.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Immanentize:

    I hear you about the books. I have been transporting tonnage (only slight exaggeration) from place to place, country to country, for years. This time around I’ve been ruthless about lightening the load.

    Ms. O read an article that suggests a target of 15% reduction of stuff in any given category, which perhaps makes the process psychologically easier and maybe even rewarding. I have a lot more to winnow across the board, but there is a certain pleasure in stuff reduction, not to mention the practicality in having less to pack, move, and find a place for at the other end.

    ETA: Like OH, we have a local library that takes donated books to raise funds. Giving my books to them makes me feel better about releasing my beloveds into the wild.

  81. 81.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Re: the book sign.

    I was passing through NYC last weekend. I had maybe an hour, hour and a half between trains, coming in at Penn Station and leaving from Grand Central.

    So if you’re planning a subway ride anyway and you have only an hour or so in New York, where do you go?

    A bookstore of course. Went to The Strand, did some high-speed browsing through the bargain bins, then zipped uptown to catch my train.

    Coincidentally (or perhaps not) one of my two pieces of luggage was a bag from The Strand.

    @O. Felix Culpa: Marie Kondo says you can keep your books.

  83. 83.

    Immanentize

    @raven: Thats funny, because gifted books always end up low on my reading list, too. I wonder why that is? Never thought about it. For me, I guess I know I only have X number of books in me until I go blind or die, so I wants what I wants?

  84. 84.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    I am disappoint. I will have to console myself with the paltry $101 million (cash option) Powerball tonight.

  85. 85.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: When my old running buddy Timoteo got married for the last time, he asked me to be his best man. I asked him if he wanted a bachelor party (I had done one once before but it wasn’t the standard version) and he said, “Nah.” Than 2 weeks before the big day, he comes to me with tears in his eyes saying how he changed his mind and wanted one because he’d never had one before. He said, “You don’t even have to get any girls or anything for it.”

    Oh really? One week to put something together? Oh boy, are you gonna pay for this.

    Sent out invites to a couple dozen of his closest friends and male family members and got affirmative replies from about 18 or so. Which was pretty good for a last minute thing with a single requirement: Everybody had to be in drag.

    So the next Saturday we all assembled on the anointed gravel bar in our best (read “hottest”) dresses (I thought I looked rather fetching in my skintight mini skirt with thigh high knit stockings and stilettos (all black of course) and I was the first thing he saw when he pulled up.

    “You have got to be the ugliest thing I have ever seen!”

    Of course, he didn’t yet know what we had in store for him to wear. A lacy little thing that didn’t really cover his ugly parts.

    Lots of pictures were taken, most of which mysteriously disappeared over the next few months. I was very happy when his wife informed me at his memorial that she had a complete set of the incriminating evidence in her possession.

  87. 87.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @raven: @Immanentize:

    Same. But funnily, I kept most of the gifted books, especially those from my children because maybe I’ll get around to reading them now that most of the other books are gone.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: My wife is largely responsible. We get them every week for at least one day and when requested 2 days. She has bonds of iron with the older of the 2 and she is working that magic with the youngest. We didn’t get the opportunity (situations) with the eldest and my wife is dead set not to allow that again.

  91. 91.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    The local library bookstore will only take 2 or 3 books at a time so my mom keeps the boxes we outsized in the trunk of her car and drops a few off every couple days.
    I’m not sure what to do with the obscure stuff – my kids will probably have to bury me with those books.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @O. Felix Culpa: It was epic. Ludicrous. Lewd. Disgusting. A night to remember. The only thing that could have made it better was a Sheriff’s Deputy pulling up.

  94. 94.

    JPL

    @OzarkHillbilly: The three-year-old is visiting Monday through Wednesday.   The Montessori program he attends is in between camp and school, so I’ve been helping out.   His visits actually help me more.  Being a grandparent is the best job that I’ve had.

  100. 100.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: Coincidentally, I guess, there was a video game back in 2006 called Prey that had a Native American protagonist fighting aliens–at first glance I assumed this was an adaptation of that, rather than a movie in the (unrelated) Predator franchise.

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    @MomSense: Around here in NoVA there are half-a-dozen or more “Free Little Library” boxes in nearby yards (at least one yard has 2) that are stuffed full.  There used to be a BetterWorldBooks drop box fairly close, but they seemed to have removed it.  Our county library system stopped taking donations during the pandemic, but their “Friends of … Regional Library” groups seem to be active again now, taking books and doing sales.

    There are just so many books now, it must be a huge job for libraries to deal with all the paper and weight and space required.  I’m sure they would love for everyone to use an e-reader instead, and love to find ways to digitize their entire collections, if the payment and copyright issues weren’t such a minefield…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  104. 104.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    I wish! I’ve got old theological treatises I picked up when different seminaries were giving them away, I have books of humanist essays, amateur bound books of Italian renaissance architecture organized by city. Then there is my angry poetry phase – not sure anyone, myself included, will want to read those books.

    I also have books that belonged to family members.  I’ve got basic penguin classics books where my dad, grandma, and great aunt argued about the meaning in the margins.  They all underlined and reunderlined passages. My great aunt tried to be a peacemaker, but even she got a little salty at times.  She was a devout Christian (also a real Christian!). My grandma was a militant anti-theist and my dad at that time (college) was an “emerging deist”.

  105. 105.

    MomSense

    @Another Scott:

    We have a neighborhood free little library.  The HOA ladies decided to put their fascist stamp on it with a list of what books are and ARE NOT acceptable. I used to put subversive books in under cover of darkness.  Those always were borrowed first!

  107. 107.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @MomSense:

    I finally dumped my theology books. They were of a time that has passed for me. (Except for the requisite nod to St. Augustine in my nym, of course.)

    ETA: I got a chuckle out of you stashing the “subversive books” in the LFL in the dead of night.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

     

    GET THEE VACCINATED OR GET THEE A TOE TAG. (@JamesMWilliam18) tweeted at 4:48 PM on Thu, Jul 28, 2022:
    David Hogg is 22. At 22 John Lewis desegregated Nashville and started SNCC. Diane Nash who led Lewis organized the Freedom Rides. James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were 20 when they were lynched. Bobby Seale and Dee Oliver Velez were 22 in the Black Panther Party.
    (https://twitter.com/JamesMWilliam18/status/1552773110071427088?s=02)

  109. 109.

    Betty Cracker

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yep — he’s going after a Miami bar and restaurant, trying to put them out of business by yanking their liquor license. Fascist move. I keep hoping he’s out over his skis and will get punted in November, but everyone assumes he’ll be reelected.

  110. 110.

    MomSense

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    When you say “dumped” do you mean brought them to the dump?  We have to pay for trash bags so I may have to resort to dumping them off the Piscataqua River Bridge on the live free or die side.

  111. 111.

    MomSense

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    It turned into a kind of madness.  I was actually buying twilight books at yard sales to stash in the library. One of my neighbors guessed it was me and said she was grabbing them to read so she could be cool with her granddaughter.

  112. 112.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Betty Cracker: Does he plan to enforce the law across the board? Perhaps arrest someone from every amateur production of South Pacific that includes men in grass skirts with coconuts on their chests? Or is planning to discriminate?

    Rhetorical question obviously. But how can that be legal?

  113. 113.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @MomSense:

    Volumes of more general interest I donated to our local library for their book sale. Others were literally dumped at our “waste transfer station.” We have the option of buying bag tags or punch cards. The latter allows us to dump as much as we can bring in one haul, so that’s what happened.

    I tried to donate my best books to our local Episcopal church library, but they required me to submit a list for vestry approval, and they’re not meeting until the end of August. So, never mind.

  115. 115.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: As long as you give me more than one week to put it together, you should be safe. The previous “bachelors party” was also on a gravel bar and the girls involved were wives, girlfriends, and fiancees.

  116. 116.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: When David Hogg was 18, he and fellow Parkland survivors led an effort that resulted in the wingnut-supermajority Florida statehouse and wingnut governor Rick Scott enacting gun safety legislation that has saved thousands of lives.

  119. 119.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: This was worse, Crawford County.
    @Immanentize: Unfortunately, no. The look on his face would have been worth the price of admission* alone.

    *to jail, no doubt.

    “What are you arresting us for?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something!”

  122. 122.

    VOR

    @Geminid: …telling Campbell County residents they need cameras in their classrooms so they could be sure teachers aren’t subverting the school kids.

    In the name of freedom, I’m sure. Because how can we be free without Government watching our every move?

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: I’m gonna try and get a set from his wife. You’d have to blur out the faces of anyone not me, lest I be murdered.

  126. 126.

    MomSense

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    No YA fiction. Nothing racy. They don’t want anything about politics or religion but biographies or autobiographies about politicians or religious figures are ok. Vampires are verboten!!
    Completely  unrelated,  I discovered that William F. Buckley jr. looks much better with a handlebar mustache and Groucho Marx glasses.

  128. 128.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @MomSense:

    How did you find out about the improvements to Fuckley’s visage, I wonder? (rhetorical question)

    No YA fiction? That’s just sad. What’s wrong with these people? (rhetorical question #2)

  132. 132.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Outrage is the fuel of grifters. Vt senator has taught them well.

    Step 1: Performative poutrage

    Step 2: Criticize those actually doing the work if you don’t get your ask immediately.

    Step 3. When a deal is done, claim credit, gloat on various media platforms. Even though your actual contribution is nothing but tweeting or 5 hour hunger strikes.

  133. 133.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    Thread.

    I see and hear you all saying this the reason why I can’t is because I’m on a board of a non profit and we have to be especially careful because of how polarizing we are. Our lawyers have instructed me not to risk our tax status in anyway by working close with candidates. https://t.co/WV1ogn7hrW

    — David Hogg ☮️ (@davidhogg111) July 30, 2022

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    Geminid

    @Baud: After the assault weapons ban passed Mr. Hogg did put out a tweet expressing satisfaction and saying the task now is to register young people for the midterms. It was quite a contrast to previous tweets. He was on a Dem-bashing roll for a while. Got a lot of people mad.

  135. 135.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Young Mr. Hogg’s activism seems to rubbing some of you the wrong way. Is he saying “don’t vote”, or something?

    Because if not – that’s legitimate activism and is part of the politics game.

    It’s not like he’s saying Ds and Rs are equally to blame, right?

  137. 137.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @zhena gogolia: Everybody always blames Democrats when things don’t change because Republicans are a lost cause and are gonna ignore them anyway. Is it fair? No, but it’s the way the blame game works.

  138. 138.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Thanks. I’m not on Twitter so I’m not going to comment on Hogg to any great degree.

    Betty C. notes that he and others got the FL legislature to pass limited measures after Parkland, and kudos to them for that. But I wonder if they used the same rhetoric against the GOP when they were lobbying them as I’ve heard about in recent tweets.  It gets under my skin when the good guys get worse treatment.

    All that said, all’s well that ends well.  The vote happened, and I hope Hogg and his allies have enough power to turn that vote into votes in November.

  140. 140.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @schrodingers_cat:

    tweeting or 5 hour hunger strikes

    In today’s saturated and atomized media environment, activities that draw attention are real contributions. They can be used for good (real activism or awareness-building) or ill (grifting, trolling), but they’re not without impact.

    Why be so dismissive of these methods?

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MomSense: A perennial problem with those “free little libraries” is people just junking all the books and replacing them with religious tracts.

  143. 143.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    Akshully, his recent tweets tilt towards Dem-bashing, with a dollop of ageism. Quote from memory, so not necessarily exact: “Might as well replace the useless Dem leadership with bricks.” So I get the criticism.

  147. 147.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I just encountered a reference to laws against transvestism in a 1950s science-fiction story and was marveling that they were still on the books then. I guess they still are.

  148. 148.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    If I’m understanding s_cat’s comment correctly, it’s because those methods–unlike other civil rights/disobedience actions–require no personal sacrifice almost to the point of being laughable. Recent example is the young congressional staffers who occupied Schumer’s office for a couple of hours and posited that sitting on his office couch while looking at their phones made them resistance heroes, or some such.

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    @Baud: A small correction: Actually, Hogg spoke to turnout, not voter registration.

    Now we need to bring the assault weapon ban to a vote in the Senate and show young people why we need to turn out to expand our majority in the Senate.

    DavidHoggTwitter

    Now Mr. Hogg is tweeting hard supporting veterans trying to get the burn pit bill passed.

     

    @Geminid:

  150. 150.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Does he plan to enforce the law across the board?

    “Dear Mr. DeSantis, Last week I went into a supposed ‘house of worship’ in what I thought was a safely conservative town. Imagine my horror when the pastor introduced a special guest and a man walked out wearing a dress covered with fancy embroidery and a tall, jeweled hat! The pastor then knelt down and kissed this man’s hand! There were children present at this abominable display. Please arrest this ‘Father James’ and ‘Bishop Timothy’ at once and send me the $10000 finder’s fee.”

  151. 151.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Geminid:

    This is good, and a great way for Mr. Hogg to use his considerable platform for good.

    I find it thought-provoking that most of the criticisms of Mr. Hogg that I’ve seen on Twitter are from persons of color, and most of his defenders are white. Perhaps there’s something to think about there.

  153. 153.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Thanks.  I don’t think anyone has an issue with Hogg’s causes, just his tactics.

    Since I haven’t followed Hogg or this controversy, I’ll state this as an abstract principle:  I don’t believe any amount of good works earns anyone the right to say harmful things (or express legitimate points of view in a harmful way) without pushback.  What a history of good works may earn someone is the right to forgiveness if they make a mistake and own up to it.

  155. 155.

    Barbara

    @Geminid: ​It’s not every politician who aspires to meet the daunting standard set by North Korea but Good is apparently up for the challenge.

  156. 156.

    Burnspbesq

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Busch crime family

    Say what, now? Other than trampling all over the antitrust laws (which is so commonplace that it doesn’t count), what have they done?

  159. 159.

    Another Scott

    @Ken: Someone should set up a Guérewol there:

    Young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attentions of marriageable young women. The Guérewol occurs each year as the traditionally nomadic Wodaabe cattle herders gather at the southern edge of the Sahara before dispersing south on their dry season pastures.

    […]

    The male beauty ideal of the Wodaabe stresses tallness, white eyes and teeth; the men will often roll their eyes and show their teeth to emphasize these characteristics. The Wodaabe clans will then join for their week-long Guérewol celebration, a contest where the young men’s beauty is judged by young women.[1]

    Music and dance

    The music and line dancing is typical of Fula traditions, which have largely disappeared among the vast diaspora of Fula people, many of whom are educated, Muslim, urbanites. This is characterized by group singing, accompanied by clapping, stomping and bells. The Wodaabe Guérewol festival is one of the more famous examples of this style of repeating, hypnotic, and percussive choral traditions, accompanied by swaying line dancing, where the men interlink arms and rise and fall on their toes.

    The Guérewol competitions involve the ornamented young men dancing the Yaake in a line, facing a young marriageable woman, sometimes repeatedly over a seven-day period, and for hours on end in the desert sun. Suitors come to the encampment of the woman to prove their interest, stamina, and attractiveness.[2][3] The participants often drink a fermented bark concoction to enable them to dance for long periods, which reputedly has a hallucinogenic effect.[1]

    Maybe they can get Hawley to be the MC??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  160. 160.

    prostratedragon

    @Immanentize: Weirdly, looked at the link just as the Akhnaten playlist hit the Funeral of Amenhotep III, and it was bizarrely appropriate. I’m probably going to be made by Amen to do some kind of penance.

  161. 161.

    Barbara

    @eclare: ​I watched the last season (on a transatlantic flight) and felt zero interest in going back to watch the rest for the same reason. Jessie is the only sympathetic character.

  162. 162.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: ​ Well, my price would be a reciprocal agreement to take a few of my books — as I get ready to donate my latest round of books to the local library.

  163. 163.

    ArchTeryx

    From dead thread below:

    Pendant: That’s ‘Glass Joe’ the first opponent you face in Punch Out!! and sure enough, he can’t block worth crap, so only the greenest newbies can’t KO him first round.

    They mixed him up with Soda Popinski, a much harder opponent with a nasty habit of grabbing a bottle of soda and healing himself with it; you have to learn his patterns before you can properly KO him. (Funnier: His original arcade incarnation was Vodka Drunkenski, but that was deemed too offensive to Russians).

    OT: Mitt Romney as Glass Joe is perfect. That’s exactly what he is, and Obama beat him like a rented drum.

  164. 164.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @O. Felix Culpa: require no personal sacrifice almost to the point of being laughable. Recent example is the young congressional staffers who occupied Schumer’s office for a couple of hours

    FTR, they got arrested. Not exactly what I would call “no personal sacrifice”.

  165. 165.

    HRA

    You can call your local university or college to ask if they accept book gifts. I worked as a catologer at my university and they were accepted.

  166. 166.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I had a very good friend (sadly passed a couple years ago at over 100), Mac Klein, who owned Mac’s Club Deuce in Miami Beach.  Club Deuce is the greatest bar I have ever frequented. And frequent it I did in the 80s, but those are other stories.

    Mac was in the army in WWII and ended up in Miami doing runner/pick up work for the post-war entertainment boys (i.e. the mob). He was careful and successful and eventually opened his own little place that was a drag club in the late 40s/early 50s. Made a bunch of dough, but kept up the runner job because he found he could buy debts cheap from his partners, but then get things the debtor owned for his “help.” Which was how he became owner of Mac’s Club Deuce. But the history of drag clubs, mostly serving service members and “the boys” is a part of Miami stitched into history. Including in the Cuban community.

    I keep expecting DeSantis to overreach, but who knows.

  167. 167.

    Burnspbesq

    @Another Scott:

    The Bell County authorities know better than to mess with Fort Hood, but don’t rule out Paxton sending theTexas Rangers to try to arrest an Army doc. There is, after all, an election coming up.

  172. 172.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Are you sure that group got arrested? I remember that some Congresspersons were arrested for blocking traffic protesting Dobbs, but not this crew. I rescind my comment if I’m wrong.

  173. 173.

    schrodingers_cat

    The 5 hour hunger strike was outside Feinstein’s office in 2018, IIRC. Also notice that these BS brats only target the D office holders. I have never ever seen them outside Mitch McConnell’s office for one of their little stunts.

  177. 177.

    prostratedragon

    @Steeplejack: Whoopi Goldberg once described such movies as being made so that stray contract remnants of many people can be finished off in one steaming pile. (That last is my version.) Her example was this winner, aka The 12 Stooges, that she appeared in along with many other actors who have usually had better things to do.

  180. 180.

    Ivan X

    @eclare: yeah, I reached that same conclusion about BB after only the first episode and a half. I just didn’t want to spend time with those people. But I found the first several seasons of Better Call Saul to be sublime, with the same amazing photography, great writing and acting, and characters I was really absorbed by. (The rest of it is also excellent, but different in tone as they start to weave its narrative into that of BB.)

  181. 181.

    schrodingers_cat

    @O. Felix Culpa: When your lives are on the line these faux protests and voter suppression tactics that help Rs don’t seem all that revolutionary.

    Speaking for myself. I could not visit my family in India for 8 years. (Orange Error’s policies + COVID). And I am going right now because it is  impossible to get a visa for an Indian citizen to come visit even now. No one is getting younger. Initially MIL was going to visit us and then go to California.

  182. 182.

    Immanentize

    @Burnspbesq: I was even figuring that in. Texas is in many ways very Yankee — you mind your business, I’ll mind mine — which in these cases translates to something like, “I’m just keeping my head down and mouth shut until something happens to me.”

  183. 183.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Burnspbesq: To start with, Auggie III* has been involved in the deaths of 2 different women** at his home at Grant’s Farm. Then there is Petey. I forget what all he’s been arrested for. That boy had serious problems. Maybe they actually got him help. A couple others had a few small time run ins with the law. No repercussions to speak of.

    *I think I have the right Auggie, if not my apologies to III
    **iirc both died of drug overdoses that Auggie had “nothing to do with”.

    TBH, it is really the sense of entitlement they live with and the high priced lawyers that aid and abet them. The last incident that I am aware of is when Auggie (again, I think it was III) landed his helicopter in an east side strip mall parking lot, and then disappeared for, iirc, 24 hrs.

    No charges. I do believe when he finally turned up, he answered a few questions and the cops let him get back in and fly off. No muss, no fuss.

  184. 184.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud: Heh. IOW, still looking for the personal sacrifice of our resistance heroes, who curiously only target Democrats, as s_c pointed out. When was the last time they occupied Mitch McConnell’s or Kevin McCarthy’s office?

  185. 185.

    ian

    @Geminid:

    they need cameras in their classrooms so they could be sure teachers aren’t subverting the school kids

    Such a terrible idea.  Bad for kids, bad for learning, and bad for teachers.

  189. 189.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @schrodingers_cat: My phone is being balky, so I can’t quote, but your first paragraph speaks to the essence of privilege. Which is very, very hard for even the most well-intentioned members of the privileged group to see.

  191. 191.

    James E Powell

    @Steeplejack:

    I am disappoint. I will have to console myself with the paltry $101 million (cash option) Powerball tonight.

    I wanted the Mega Millions prize so much that I almost bought a ticket.

  192. 192.

    Steeplejack

    @prostratedragon:

    Huh, I can see that. There’s also the “beach house isn’t going to pay for itself” factor, or, probably more likely in this case, “This’ll pay for the kid’s Prius.”

  193. 193.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @O. Felix Culpa: From NY Post:

    Six congressional staffers were arrested on Capitol Hill on Monday after staging a sit-in at the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, demanding legislative action on climate change.
    ……………………
    According to reports, some 17 House staffers took part in Monday’s protest.

    I had read the other day that some got arrested but hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to the whole affair as I was ignorant of the particulars. The NY Post was the first headline I saw giving particulars, so I did not know it was 6 of 17.

    They were photographed peacefully occupying Schumer’s office with banners and handmade signs that read “Keep Negotiating, Chuck!” and “Our Cities Are Sinking.”

    As it turns out, he was.

  195. 195.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Immanentize: I like the attitude of her husband: ‘I’m busy being less crazy than you.’  Regardless, it’s a hilarious bit of writing!

  197. 197.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: They definitely weren’t booked or charged with anything, I’m pretty sure.

    If you aren’t “booked or charged”, you aren’t arrested. I have experience in that department.

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    @O. Felix Culpa: I follow some of those persons of color on Twitter, and they are fierce defenders of the Democratic Party and it’s leadership. It’s no surprise they would push back on Hogg’s recent attacks on Democrats. Several of them cited an article by Haley Taylor Schlitz that appeared in The Grio last September 17.

    Ms. Taylor Schlitz addressed a series if tweets Hogg had just made accusing Democrats of letting his generation down. She differed with Hogg on the issues he was centering. She also felt that the media was regarding him as a generational spokesperson and he was embracing that role:

         David should take a moment to think how in the future he will ensure he is expressing his views as his own and not the views of an entire generation of diverse Americans. But Black Generation Z also has the power to speak out and continue to be engaged.

    We shouldn’t be shocked that one of the few Generation Z members the mainstream media has selected as a generational leader for us, may not have the same personal and community experiences we bring to the table.

    ….We must remember and follow the words of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm when she said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” Black Generation Z, it’s time to get your chairs.

  202. 202.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @O. Felix Culpa: A climate activist lit themselves on fire outside the Supreme Court this spring, didn’t they? That’s a pretty personal sacrifice. It didn’t get as much attention – why was that?

    What gets our attention here at B-J? Lecturing activists about “doing it wrong”, and pointing fingers at the “wrongest” examples we can find.

  207. 207.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I have to say that looking down on someone’s protest because they didn’t make a “personal sacrifice” sounds more than a little silly to me. As far as I know nobody complained about the lack of people getting arrested at the Women’s Marches or said it was an empty gesture because of that.

  208. 208.

    Geminid

    @O. Felix Culpa: I think they got arrested. At least, the “Sauuul” guy tweeted out a picture of them later, captioned “We’re out!.”

    They were all smiles and looked fresh as daisies, as if they had come back from a lark. But then, it’s not like they were going up against Bull Conner.

  209. 209.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    I get that the point most are trying to make is against stupid or counterproductive activism, but it comes off to me as anti-activism overall.

  210. 210.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ok, take away the words “personal sacrifice.” The incongruity of sitting on a comfy sofa and tweeting whilst posing as a resistance hero still stands, IMO.

  212. 212.

    Geminid

    @ian: It is a terrible idea. I suspect the Campbell County authorities will shine Good on. But he’s trying to stir up shit among citizens. This is just another good reason to keep Republicans in a minority in the House, so  people like Good can’t do harm.

  214. 214.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: No I am not against activism in general. Just the performative activism that disses elected Democrats while keeping silent about Republican complicity

    David Hogg is telling his huge following that voting for Democrats is useless. That message deserves all the pushback he is getting.

  215. 215.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I think that activism is much like advertising in that, as Charles Saatchi said, half the money spent on it is wasted, but the problem is we don’t know which half.  For activism, substitute effort for money.

  218. 218.

    Eolirin

    @schrodingers_cat: He’s not doing that though. He’s telling people to vote for Democrats. It’s never not been part of his message.

    He got monetarily frustrated at an action in the house and said some stupid things and got pushback for it, but never once has it been don’t vote.

  219. 219.

    James E Powell

    @schrodingers_cat:

    David Hogg is telling his huge following that voting for Democrats is useless. That message deserves all the pushback he is getting.

    Did he really say that? I didn’t see that anywhere.

  220. 220.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: +1

    I’m not accusing anyone here, and we all have our buttons, but I think it’s good to remember MLK’s letter from a Birmingham jail:

    I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

    (Emphasis added.)

    Public politics is hard – really hard – especially these days when everything is recorded and everything is forever. I try to be willing to cut people doing the work some slack, even when I want to put an onion on my belt and yell at them that they’re doing it wrong.

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  221. 221.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Lucky you. When they’re not saying they’ll defeat the Biden/Pelosi/Schumer agenda they’re saying their opponent is for that same agenda. It’s gross.  Kunce and Valentine are running some ads, too.

    Right now we’re enjoying the rain.  July will have more than 0.11″ of rain. It was getting seriously dry here. In a week everyone complaining about the heat and no rain will be complaining about mowing their yard. Looks like you’ll be getting some rain later today.

  222. 222.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Yes, but the creators don’t know they are bad until after they air.  A protest technique may seem like a good idea but go over poorly.  We can’t expect all ideas to be good.  And we can applaud the effort while acknowledging that the outcome was rather less than.

  225. 225.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    In the case of the Schumer protest, its hard to applaud.  The subject is noble, but the protest itself was kind of lame, the target made no sense, and the message (“keep negotiating”) was weak.

  228. 228.

    cain

    @Betty Cracker: Ugh – that’s terrible. Is it because the Dem candidates weren’t good? I know the Florida Democratic Party hasn’t been very strong.

    You’d think that some up and coming Dem would take up the challenge and move to Florida to do politicking – they seem ripe for some late Gen Z type to start cleaning up.

  229. 229.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: We actually got a couple inches of rain here the past few days, (and as mentioned earlier, looking for a high of 80 today) I’m glad we weren’t in the band of 10+ inches that bypassed us to the north. Dawg only knows what that much rain would have done to our roads and bridges. Not to mention my driveway.

  231. 231.

    germy shoemangler

    Member of the “problem solvers” caucus has an opinion:

    Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips says he would NOT back Biden running in 2024. “I think the country would be well-served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats who step up.” https://t.co/MdNQgZXKAL

    — Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 29, 2022

    Centrist Democrat explicitly saying Biden is the wrong choice for 2024. Keep that in mind when people point fingers at progressives as not doing enough to support the president. https://t.co/yklahDOvJ3

    — Eva McKend (@evamckend) July 29, 2022

  232. 232.

    germy shoemangler

    You are conservatism, and inside you are two wolves. One is Bret Stephens. One is Steve Bannon. Neither knows which gate they're departing from. Both are angry. Both have erectile dysfunction.

    — Dennis B. Hooper (@dennisbhooper) October 19, 2019

  233. 233.

    Tony Jay

    In today’s Community Shield, the English Football season’s curtain raiser event, the Reds of Liverpool are currently beating the Blues of Manchester City 1-0.

    I am quite happy about this.

  239. 239.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: Dean Phiips is one Congressman and in this matter represents no one but himself. Why is Ms. McKend trying to turn this into a “centrist” v. “progressive” issue? Is she bored, and wants to see who’ll fight over a crabapple of discord?

  240. 240.

    Jackie

    Saw this on Political Wire:

    “Democrats Are Dangerously Close To Changing Laws So Our President Is Elected By Popular Vote”

    — From the conservative website, The Federalist.

    I couldn’t read the actual story, as it requires a subscription, but, the title made me chuckle.

  241. 241.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    I was under the impression that if a goalkeeper had two hands touching the ball he was ‘in control’ and a player kicking it away was committing a foul.

    But then I remembered that the rules don’t apply when Manchester City are behind and need a goal.

  243. 243.

    germy shoemangler

    @Geminid:

    “I think it’s time for a generational change,” said Phillips, who told host Chad Hartman he expects more Democrats to start speaking out about their concerns. “And I think most of my colleagues agree with that.”

    I strongly disagree with Phillips.  (I guess Ms. McKend is trying to cause a split in the party by reporting on this independent gentleman’s harmless words?)  It sounds like Phillips is the one who’s “bored”

  245. 245.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Another Scott:

    Agreed that politics and getting into good trouble are difficult and don’t always come off as intended. I was young and dumb once* and engaged in some young and dumb activities thinking I was clever.

    That said, I’ll note that the most prominent voices criticizing Hogg and groups like the Extinction Rebellion are POC. Might be worthwhile paying attention to them.

    *Now I’m no longer young.

  246. 246.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl:

    Can’t the person who lives next door put up an alternate Little Library with all the good stuff? 

    A Little Free Library filled with baggies of pot?

  249. 249.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott: I think the distance between Letter From a Birmingham Jail to A Tweeted Selfie From Chuck Schumer’s Couch says a lot

  250. 250.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: I strongly disagree with Phillips too. But where is the basis for McKend making this into a “centrist” v. “progressive” issue? She’s just stirring up shit.

  253. 253.

    Anotherlurker

    @Ruckus: Me too. I lasted about the same length of time.  “Breaking Bad” really had nothing for me.   I don’t feel diminished in any way by excluding this show from my life.

  255. 255.

    eachother

    Vampires keep inverted hours. Up all night. Sleep all day. Midnight mass conflict?

    Opposite of garlic eaters. Repulsion actually.  Possible ethnic food ingredient conflict?

    A cross, holy water, and the son sun burns them. Pretty opposite a specific religion’s applications.

    And unlike religious scholars, vampires don’t reflect.

  258. 258.

    schrodingers_cat

    @James E Powell: Well not in so many words. But one could draw that conclusion based on his rants about the Democratic leadership.

    Democrats are so fucking stupid young people should just start taking over state and local parties and eventually the national one. They are as organized aa a herd of cats. We need to vote for competent democrats in primaries.

    The only thing that gives me any hope is all the young people have the one thing on our side these leaders- I mean fucking failures- don’t have on their side- time. We’re going to outlive these idiots, thank god

  261. 261.

    trollhattan

    @Tony Jay: ​Now on to the important matter of England – Germany tomorrow at Wembley. The Lionesses really seem up to the task and the joint is sold out.​(ESPN+ ensures I will not be watching over morning coffee.)​

  263. 263.

    Geminid

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I was impressed with Kunce when I read the Politico Magazine article about him that came out last November. That article is a good read; the reporter followed Kunce on the campaign trail, while giving a good history of the Missouri Democratic party and the political shifts in the state going back to the 1980s.

    Kunce ran for a state legislative seat in 2003, while he was in his third year of law school. He lost, and followed the adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, join the Marines.” I sometimes hear Democrats complain about the party running  military veterans, but I think that’s an asset in most places.

  264. 264.

    germy shoemangler

     We need to vote for competent democrats in primaries.

    Yes, he’s definitely telling people not to vote.

  267. 267.

    schrodingers_cat

    The current Democratic leadership is competent and effective, slandering them in favor of some hypothetical young Democrats who have achieved perfection is in effect voter suppression.

    I used to say I have 0 faith in Democratic leadership I was wrong. I now have negative faith.

    YMMV.

    One more example.

    We should replace Democratic leadership with a bunch of bricks. We would have a better chance in midterms.

  268. 268.

    sdhays

    @germy shoemangler: I agree we need generational change. We need to ditch the generation of Biden with a slim majority in Congress and elect a Biden with a Manchinema proof majority.

  270. 270.

    Ivan X

    @schrodingers_cat: Thank you for posting the original text, because, now having read it, I don’t in fact see how one can come to the conclusion from it that he is telling his huge following that voting for Democrats is useless. He in fact states the importance of voting for Democrats. Yes, he’s intraparty fighting, but I don’t think your representation of what he said is fair or accurate.

    ETA: After I posted this, I saw some of the followup tweets you posted. Those are bad and I agree send a bad message. I do think that the competency of the Democratic party is fair game for argument, and it’s unsurprising from the perspective of young people who feel alienated from political representation by old people, but this is a counterproductive way of talking about it.

  272. 272.

    germy shoemangler

    @sdhays:

    I say we keep Biden and replace trust fund brats like Rep. Dean Phillips.  Biden is great. Dean only inspires his corporate donors.

  273. 273.

    Tony Jay

    @trollhattan:

    It’s been a great tournament. The quality of the football has been so high all of the usual suspects appear to have shut their pie holes. England’s extra-time game management against Spain in particular had me quietly salivating. That’s how you play keep ball under pressure.

    It would have to be the Germans in the Final. As far as they’re concerned this is their Cup and they damned well want it back. Should be a hell of a game.

  279. 279.

    Scout211

    A Democrat on the internet criticizes Democrats on the internet. Then someone on Balloon-juice criticizes the Democrat for criticizing Democrats.

    IMHO, criticizing Dems for criticizing Dems is also criticizing Dems.

    Okay, I’ll scurry off now.

  281. 281.

    trollhattan

    @Tony Jay: ​
    IMO any team that can pull off this, is a “team of destiny.” One of the sickest goals I’ve ever seen.

    Deutschland is no walkover, and Popp presents a nearly unstoppable force, but England simply has too many scoring threats to effectively defend against.

  283. 283.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    Well we do have a neighborhood garden with a subcommittee that is called the cannabis society.  We are the fun neighbors. My three plants are all doing very well!!

  284. 284.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: Dean Phillips must be inspiring  more than his corporate donors (if he in fact has any). Phillips won the Minnesota 3rd CD in 2018 with 55% of the vote, and won it by a similar margin in 2020. He won his last primary with 90% of the Democratic vote.

    When Phillips beat incumbent Erik Paulson in 2018 he became the first Democrat to win that seat since 1961. You may not value Democrats who flip Republican seats, but I do.

    And since you are disparaging Dean Phillips as a “trust fund brat,”  I will point out that this was because Philips’ mother married into the Phillips Distilling family. Philips’ father died in Vietnam in 1969, 6 months after Philips was born.

  286. 286.

    germy shoemangler

    @Geminid:

    And he’s out here publicly insulting Biden.    Fuck him.

    I guess we’re too tired from bashing David Hogg and Greta Thunberg and (gulp!) The Squad to pay any attention to what this winner is telling reporters.

  287. 287.

    Baud

    @germy shoemangler:

    I’ll gladly bash him for his message.  He should have handled the question with more finesse than to give talking points to the media and the GOP.

    Unfortunately for us, however, there are a few Juicers who have expressed the same message about Biden seeking reelection

    ETA: To be clear, the voters of his district still need to reelect him.

  288. 288.

    germy shoemangler

    @Baud:  there are a few Juicers who have expressed the same message about Biden seeking reelection.

    Isn’t it an insane message, though?  Biden’s the most pro-labor president we’ve ever had.  He’s making great appointments.  The only problem is that he needs more D senators.  So the solution is… get rid of Biden?

  289. 289.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: Some people here say they want someone other than Biden to run in 2024. They’re not insulting the man.

    I don’t know about you, but I think this McKend lady isn’t mad at Phillips because he said he wanted someone besides Biden to run in 2024, but because he is a moderate. Why else drag in the Problem Solvers Caucus and interject the “centrist” v. “progressive” angle?

    I suspect she’s one of the “progressives” who resent sharing a party with moderates. Fortunately the two wings of Congressional Democrats have mutual respect and understanding, and work productively together. It’s their respective boosters like McKend who try to create bad blood between Democratic moderates and liberals.

  290. 290.

    Baud

    @germy shoemangler:

    The argument centers around whether his health will hold up through January 2029.  I haven’t heard anyone here suggest he shouldn’t run based on the quality of his leadership.

  291. 291.

    germy shoemangler

    @Baud:

    The choice whether or not to run should be his, based on how he feels and his physician’s advice.   I don’t think Phillips is showing much unity with his “Biden’s too old, we need a new generation” talk

    I think it’s also an insult to his VP.    I like the Biden/Harris team.

  293. 293.

    germy shoemangler

    @Geminid:  Fortunately the two wings of Congressional Democrats have mutual respect and understanding, and work productively together. It’s their respective boosters like McKend who try to create bad blood between Democratic moderates and liberals.

    Yes, blame “this McKend lady” for “creating bad blood” because she’s reporting what your guy is saying about Biden.

  294. 294.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: Philip’s not “my guy” except in so far as he is a Democrat who flipped a red seat.  And it’s clear that I did not say McKend was creating bad blood by reporting what Phillips said, and I think you know this. She’s gratuitously dragging in the Problem Solver Caucus and projecting this “centrist/progressive” conflict. It’s not hard to see through her attempt to create bad blood.

  295. 295.

    Citizen Alan

    @NotMax:  I assume it is a Z grade rip off of Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Which, ehile a bomb, got serious studio backing and had a Hollywood level cast

  297. 297.

    Baud

    Just wanted to bring together the Dean Phillips comments and the Taylor Swift comments.

    ‘Cause baby, now we got bad blood
    You know it used to be mad love
    So take a look what you’ve done
    ‘Cause baby, now we got bad blood (hey!)

  298. 298.

    satby

    I stayed out of this thread because getting sucked into the whirlpool of analysis on what a 22 year old kid says about almost anything is kinda nuts. But delighted to know that no one here ever said or did anything idiotic when they were that age.

  299. 299.

    Geminid

    @satby: Speaking of staying out of threads, have you noticed Debbie commenting lately? I haven’t. I hope things are OK in Columbus.

  301. 301.

    Scout211

    @satby:

    Yes, co-sign.

    Your message is much clearer.  My subtle attempt a few comments up is way too subtle.  I just don’t see how trashing Dems who trash Dems is not just one big circle jerk of Dems trashing Dems. Is that what we want here?

    And does this help Dems get elected?

  302. 302.

    Baud

    @Scout211:

    This is a dead thread, but I disagree.  We’ll never have a no-criticism-of-anyone rule, so people have to have both a right to criticize and the right to criticize the critics.  Otherwise, you’re just picking a favored side and giving it an entitlement.

  303. 303.

    Miss Bee

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I generally throw them out, too.  There was a time when I wouldn’t dream of tossing a book, but when I consider the fuel costs and other forms of labor that go into handling book donations, it just makes sense to throw all but the most pristine copies away.  Plus, I live in a town where trash is burned to generate electricity.

     

    P.S. I suspect you once lived here.

  308. 308.

    schrodingers_cat

    You can’t have it both ways.

    Listen to young people, they are the leaders of tomorrow

    Oh no he is just a child , you can’t take what he says seriously.

    22 is not a child BTW.

    He has over a million followers, is a verified account.

    He is using his influence to depress the turnout among Democrats 3 months before the midterms. He deserves all the pushback he is getting. He is a typical shit posting BS bro.

    Why is a gun control activist a BS bro?

    BS who voted against the Brady Bill, IIRC 5 times. An independent senator and his acolytes is his definition of good and better Democrats. He prefers them over Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

  309. 309.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby: Well, we didn’t have platforms that reached and potentially influenced over a million people when we were 22. (A good thing, I might add!) Technically, we and he were/are also adults at that age. Hogg has used his platform and public position for good, and also for destructive shitposting. So criticism of the latter is warranted, in my view, given his reach and influence.

  310. 310.

    Citizen Alan

    @Another Scott:

    Honestly, this is the same bullshit argument they used against Al Gore:  That no one who supports laws to address climate change should ever be allowed to fly on a plane or a helicopter or even live in a house bigger than a one room shack,  or else they’re just hypocrites who can be ignored.  Never mind the fact that if Taylor Swift swift flew around in a helicopter 12 hours a day every day, it would probably take her a 1000 years to match the carbon footprint of one day from a coal fired energy plant.

  311. 311.

    Geminid

    @satby: I think “Dangerous Enticements” was a fitting title for this thread! It’s been very argumentative and I’ve sure done my share.

  312. 312.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: You’re punching down, IMHO.

    He takes things like the assault weapons ban personally.

    Did I burn a lot of bridges and piss off a lot of people? Yep I did. But we got it through the house. I would do it over again if I had to. My number one focus is getting justice for the survivors of gun violence and families.

    — David Hogg ☮️ (@davidhogg111) July 29, 2022

    He’s bringing that same passion to PACT (which he also takes personally because it affects his father among others):

    Watch this right now and if your in DC come join these veterans on the steps of the capitol demanding action on the packed act

    Senate Republicans basically just fucked over veterans across America https://t.co/iMVrMJir7y

    — David Hogg ☮️ (@davidhogg111) July 30, 2022

    He’s in the trenches using his voice calling for action from elected representatives on what he thinks is important. He’s not the enemy.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  313. 313.

    Jackie

    @stinger: Since it’s rebound Covid, I was just thinking if he’d taken it easy a few days more… not very much is understood about rebound; why some get it and others don’t after taking Paxlovid.🤷🏼‍♀️

  314. 314.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Your points are well taken except- how is it punching down when Mr. Hogg has hundreds of thousands of followers on his Twitter account? He has a far bigger platform than anyone here.

  315. 315.

    trollhattan

    How about a Republican amuse douche?

    Jarrin Jackson, a radical antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ right-wing activist and conspiracy theorist who is running for a seat in the Oklahoma Senate, has a long history of making outrageous comments, as The Oklahoman documented Friday. As if to prove that point, Jackson used his livestream Friday morning to suggest that former first lady Michelle Obama is a man and to accuse her of promoting “evil godlessness*” with her forthcoming book.

    Obama is set to release “The Light We Carry” later this year and recently filmed a promotional video to promote it in which she explained that the book contains tips for those who may be feeling “out of balance” on how to remain “centered” during these difficult times.

    For Jackson, Obama’s use of such terms means that she is promoting “Luciferianism**.”

    “She ain’t a Christian,” Jackson said. “In fact, you know there’s a song I want to play.”

    Jackson then played a short clip of Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady” before mockingly pretending that he mistakenly played that song.***

    “I didn’t mean to play the first one,” Jackson asserted facetiously. “Michelle Obama is new age. She’s lying. She doesn’t know Jesus.”

    “She’s occultic****,” he continued. “She’s talking about balance. Balance. It’s the light and the dark. That’s occultism. She’s balancing this, and whenever she’s saying the light, what light is it, Michelle? See, Jesus is the light.”

    “Michelle is talking about balance, bringing the light, centering herself,” Jackson griped. “That’s yoga. That’s Hinduism. Kundalini crap. That’s evil godlessness. That’s Luciferianism. Stay far away from that. But yet there’s gonna be very many people that are deceived because they like her, they think she’s nice and sweet and Black. … That’s godlessness right there.”
    https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gop-candidate-jarrin-jackson-accuses-michelle-obama-of-promoting-evil-godlessness-and-luciferianism/

    *Not your everyday godlessness.
    **Do not confuse with Rastafarianism
    ***Feel free to find the cleverness hidden here
    ****Pretend it’s a word and move on

  316. 316.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott:

    But we got it through the house

    Old lady Pelosi whose death he’s eagerly anticipating got it through, but whatever

    He’s not the enemy

    Not yet, maybe, but he’s starting to develop a Nadery, Moore-ish, Sarandon-y smell

  317. 317.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Another Scott: Heh. Read the comments to the first-quoted tweet. Credit for passing the bill goes to the incompetent, old (his words!) Democratic Speaker of the House. And he lacks the grace to acknowledge that she and others he so gratuitously insulted had something to do with achieving his goals. So no, he sucks as an ally, even if we agree on some policies.

  320. 320.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid:

    Land Twitter followers don’t vote. People vote.

    1M Twitter followers isn’t that big a platform (see above). People don’t follow Hogg to figure out how to vote, they follow him on Twitter (if they’re actually humans) because they want action on gun violence and related issues.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  321. 321.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    It’s not.  People use “punching down” to silence dissent. He’s a public figure and subject to criticism, even wrong criticism.

  322. 322.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: A Twitter following of 1.2 milion is a hell of a lot  bigger than mine! I was surprised today to see I have three followers.

    More seriously, Mr. Hogg may have been traumatized but it’s not like he’s the only one. Hogg likes to dish it out, and he can damn well take it.

  323. 323.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Another Scott: Way to miss the point. And by the way, X Gonzalez uses their platform to call out the real obstacles to progress, such as Mitch McConnell and Greg Abbott. Gotta wonder why Gonzalez gets it and Mr. Hogg doesn’t. Could it be…privilege?

  324. 324.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott: Oh, and it’s punching down because Ms. Cat knows that he’s a young kid* who is obviously letting his passion for his cause get him to say intemperate things that he probably wouldn’t say with a few more months/years to think about it.

    I’m sure many of us remember how fired up and idealistic and impatient we were in our early 20s.  That doesn’t mean we were bad people back then.

    I don’t see Pelosi and Hoyer and Biden and the rest of the oldsters in leadership getting upset by criticism like this, myself.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  325. 325.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bingo. He is going for the Michael Moore slot.

    @Another Scott: How am I more privileged than Hogg. I am mere commenter on a not so prominent political blog.

    Hogg’s tweet after the bricks under NP (ineffective and old in his words) passed the assault weapon ban. Check out who he credits first.

    We just got an assault weapons ban through the house for the first time in my life time. FUCK YOU
    @NRA
    we are going to destroy you. Gun owners, Republicans and Dems are against you. Enjoy what little time you have left in existence. You killed our kids. Now we end your org

     

  326. 326.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: ​Not to forget the “arrested development” aspect of watching many of your friends be splattered by rifleshot around your high school campus, while still a teen.

    Rub some Tussin on it and shake it off.

  327. 327.

    Another Scott

    @O. Felix Culpa: Maybe.  I dunno.  I have paid almost no attention to Hogg since the first March for Our Lives.  I had the impression back then that Gonzalez was a more natural advocate for the cause than him.

    He’s in the trenches doing the work.  He has many more significant political successes in issues that I care about than I do.  I don’t think that metaphorically beating up on him for a few ill-advised tweets is worthwhile, but others feel differently.  That’s Ok.

    I think Twitter is horrible for actual expression of ideas, as I’ve said many times in the past.  Numbers of followers seems like a very, very poor metric of importance or influence.

    FWIW.

    (Wikipedia (above) says that he plans to run for Congress when he’s 25.  We’ll see how that turns out.)

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  328. 328.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: He’s calling out the NRA leadership there.  Why would an argument directed at the NRA start with Democrats being against them??   When most of the NRA’s membership is gun owners and Republicans??

    I think you’re misreading him.  But, it being Twitter, it’s hard to say with certainty…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  329. 329.

    Ruckus

    Hogg sort of stunned me with some twitter comments but then I look at what he’s been through and what he’s lost and that he’s seeing a very slight turn in US politics, and then nothing. Well not actually nothing but a 22 yr old, even with his life story is very likely to think that everything is going against him or his age group given the last 5 or 6 yrs. And in some ways parts of it are.

    As I’ve said here many times, I’m an old fart. Not the oldest old fart here but damn sure up near the top. And I’ve had the displeasure of seeing crappy politics way too much in my lifetime, like any of us have. I think that he likely deserves a bit of a break, he has passion, he has youth, he’s seeing that life can be cruel, deadly, crappy, illogical, senseless, satisfying, exciting, worth everything and in a second, worth jack and shit. He seems far more on our side to me that to the opposition, he’s politically in the same arena as that 12 yr old girl who gave an extremely passionate speech to the WV legislature, Addison Gardner.

    Conservatives are lashing out at things they stupidly think they should be able to control for everyone else, no matter the costs/consequences of that control. Yes it’s insane that they think this, that they call this a christian nation, when one of the entire premises of this country is that we don’t get to control your religion, no matter what it is or isn’t, or that we should all be armed with maximum firepower so that we can kill large numbers in seconds because we don’t like something, something, bullshit. We have to change the story, all of us, because there are way too many shootings/deaths, too many assholes telling me that I have to hold some bullshit religious concepts or I’m not a citizen, too much no representation with taxation, too little taxation of those that hold most of the wealth and it goes on. David Hogg is, like most of us, caught between the rock and hard spot of religious stupidity, conservative bullshit, under taxation of the wealthy, and a government with operating rules that help all of that. I’m actually sort of amazed that more of us aren’t as pissed off as he is.

  330. 330.

    Geminid

    David Hogg was on a roll a couple days a ago and was hitting Democratic leaders hard on Twitter. One of the more egregious tweets (I think) was this one:

        The only thing that gives me hope is all the young people have on their side what these leaders- I mean fucking failures- don’t have their side- time. We’re going to outlive these idiots, thank god.

    @DavidHogg111 July 28 2022.

    Denise Oliver-Velez isn’t having it. Oliver-Velez has also fought for human rights since she was 17, which was 60 years ago. She’s no stranger to gun violence; when she was 22 she lost a comrade and mentor, Black Panther Fred Hampton, when he was killed, in fact executed, by Chicago police. Oliver-Velez responded to the above tweet:

        Someone tell this David Hogg kid that us old folks who are Democrats are fighting to keep young children from being slaughtered every damn day (who aren’t outliving us) and that  he’s helping the slaughterers with this ignorant display. God has nothing to do with it. Rethugs do.

    @deoliver47 July 30 2022

  331. 331.

    Geminid

    @Ruckus: David Hogg has every right to be angry. But why does he take his anger out on Democrats instead of Republicans? That’s what people are pushing back on.

  332. 332.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: When you have the leadership, even if only by your fingernails, you’re responsible for getting the job done.

    Yeah, it sucks sometimes.  But it beats the alternative – by a lot!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  333. 333.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Geminid: ​
      It seems to me that most of Hogg’s arrows are headed in the right direction. For those that aren’t criticism is warranted, but it should be tempered by the fact that he is on our side. Everyone says something intemperate on occasion.

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