Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

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

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Repubs in Disarray!…

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Repubs in Disarray!…

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Massie got a degree from MIT; he’s not dumb enough to believe that Ray Epps was a mastermind double agent, instead of just another hapless middle-aged authoritarian out of his depth. Massie and his cronies are desperately flinging spaghetti (with ketchup) at the walls, hoping that something will stick — or at least provide enough of a distraction they can escape in the ensuing chaos.

Back among the sane people:

Another job for the internet defense squads!

Please, Murphy, let this be a overdue, party-wide extinction burst…

Reader Interactions

187Comments

  3. 3.

    Chief Oshkosh

    It is truly crazy how the “suddenly” part is going, and we’re not done yet. An entire major political party completely divorced from reality.

  4. 4.

    p.a.

    chatham harrison is tending his garden
    @chathamharrison

    The Obama years stripped Republican of their already questionable reason, the Trump years stripped them of shame, & Biden has so far stripped them of power. All that’s left now is noise.

    No: noise, and guns🤬

  6. 6.

    evap

    I filled out the “is student loan forgiveness unfair” form, listing my state as Denial and using a fake name from the National Lampoon high school yearbook.   It gave me a giggle anyway.

  8. 8.

    lowtechcyclist

    Heads up. Republicans are recruiting plaintiffs for a lawsuit to stop student debt relief. Definitely DO NOT take 30 seconds fill this out with fake information to make it impossible for the GOP to move forward on this

    I was happy to take the hint and fill it out.  Under the name Rufus Firefly, and I gave the zip code for Fredonia, NY as my zip.  Hail, hail Fre(e)donia!  I even quoted a Groucho line from Duck Soup as my reason for being ‘frustrated’ (in the words of their form) with student debt relief.

  13. 13.

    BellyCat

    The Obama years stripped Republican of their already questionable reason, the Trump years stripped them of shame, & Biden has so far stripped them of power. All that’s left now is noise.

    True, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The next two elections will either make or break authoritarianism. Collective public insight/intelligence will be the balance point (providing measure 1), with judicial integrity serving as the backstop (providing measure number 2) because these two elections (and possibly every future election ) will no doubt be bitterly litigated regardless of voter results.

  15. 15.

    germy shoemangler

    Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) makes an argument for admitting D.C. as the 51st state:

    “The 713,000 people who live in Washington have a real political grievance, not an imaginary one like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and Donald Trump’s mob had.” pic.twitter.com/a7AUfNYXyc

    — The Recount (@therecount) September 20, 2022

  16. 16.

    germy shoemangler

    For weeks, Bernie Sanders and Tim Kaine have searched for a GOP senator to join their resolution declaring the US won't recognize a Bolsonaro coup in Brazil.

    Not one Republican has joined, Sanders tells us.

    Now it may not get any vote at all.https://t.co/gzU58RylBQ

    — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 21, 2022

  25. 25.

    lowtechcyclist

    2010 was the tipping point where the GOP’s new blood proved legitimately ungovernable & uninterested in governing (even for their own sake,) though that wasn’t clear until 2014.

    Oh, that was clear in the spring of 2011, when they kept threatening to shut down the government for no apparent reason.

  33. 33.

    germy shoemangler

    As Trump has been out of office over the last 20 mos, a rotating cast of aides has been tasked with following him around the golf course at the club he’s at and giving him positive reinforcement from Twitter and wherever else they find it on the web, per ppl told of the practice.

    — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 20, 2022

    How do you like the job so far?

    — You can’t order democracy like it’s instacart (@GregProops) September 20, 2022

  36. 36.

    Kropacetic

    @germy shoemangler: “We’ve not been able to get one Republican member of the Senate to make it clear that there must be free and fair elections in Brazil,” Sanders told us.

    Or the US, for that matter…

  38. 38.

    eversor

    Funny that Raskin seems to have more compassion and understanding for Epps than team R does.  These fuckers eat their own.

  41. 41.

    Low Key Swagger

    Throwing this out there for the smarter than me crowd, (which is comprised of an awful lot of people, btw) about the midterms. Seems pretty obvious that there will be attempts to suppress by intimidation, particularly in the swing states.  Under what conditions can the President deploy the National Guard to protect voters as they go to the polls?  A single act of violence?  Can he do it as a precaution?   If so, should he?  Lots at stake and the hard core MAGAs are desperate.

  44. 44.

    Kropacetic

    @jonas: HIs Plan B if the banks ever cut him off was to go to the Russians. That’s….a little more complicated these days.

    Trump shouldn’t have called so much attention to his own grift.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @satby:

    I got that.  What was unclear was whether this was exposed prematurely, or whether it was always intended to be secret so that the GOP could say one thing to the zealots and another to the normies.

  49. 49.

    eversor

    @Low Key Swagger:

    POTUS can invoke the insurrection act and deploy the nastyguard, this has been done before by president Grant.  So it’s a done deal.  Usually though governors are the ones that deploy them and that’s a whole nother issue.

  51. 51.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    So yesterday afternoon I got this email from a person I didn’t know: “Hi, I am a student at UIC and I am taking a writing class. It is required to do an interview so would you be open to doing an interview?”

    I asked what they wanted to interview me about and they said my writing. OK. Fine. Students being what they are, I assumed they needed to do this soon, so I gave them a bunch of available times over the next week. They write back: “I’m sorry, but it’s due Friday.”

    LOL. I love college students. I miss them. We’re doing the interview tonight at 7pm. So plenty of time before it has to be turned in.

  52. 52.

    Kropacetic

    @Low Key Swagger:Under what conditions can the President deploy the National Guard to protect voters as they go to the polls?

    That seems like it would be a contentious solution and may be held up as an example of voter intimidation itself.

    Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a solution to be taken proactively.

  58. 58.

    Layer8Problem

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  Check real carefully they’re not from Project “Veritas” looking to blow the lid on the whole Balloon Juice com-symp liberal seekret plan.  That’s passworded, right?

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I agree. When I auditioned, they said my tweets were too nasty, and they were right. :-(

    (Kidding, though it’s true my tweets can be pretty nasty.)

  61. 61.

    Low Key Swagger

    @Kropacetic: Good point but I am on the fence about it.  There is a good chance that there will be armed people standing “watch”, and so much potential for bloodshed that it seems prudent to have more than just a local police presence to counter it.

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

     

    Nope. Don’t trust them
     The Feds need to be investigating.😡😡

    A.J. Perez (@byajperez) tweeted at 0:12 AM on Thu, Sep 22, 2022:
    BREAKING: The former head of Mississippi’s welfare agency entered into a plea agreement with federal and state prosecutors — a huge turn in the scandal that could spell major trouble for Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. https://t.co/IsalUezzCj
    (https://twitter.com/byajperez/status/1572816191378309120?t=LIMWjV-Bq6enA6WCGTshwA&s=03)

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy shoemangler: I saw that the other day and laughed out loud. Love those deadpan zingers! One of my favorite tweets ever was during Trump’s accursed term and he tweet-announced he was sending Ivanka to some global meeting to rep the U.S. and said “we couldn’t send anyone smarter,” and some rando replied, “Why not?” LOL!

  69. 69.

    eversor

    @Baud:

    The normies don’t pay attention to politics.   I know a lot of upper middle class team R voters who do it because they own a business.   These people are all basically democrats on all social issues but really hate taxes and regulations.   They view democrats as dangerous to capitalism and that’s all they need to know.   I also know a ton of military officers who robotically punch for team R because the republicans are good for the military.

    None of this works out in reality when you look at crashed economies and bad wars but these people are checked out.  They go do their jobs and go home to their families and live in liberal ass greater DC area but something somethinig muh bidness taxes.

    You also have to keep in mind that generally Republicans in places like the DC to Boston corrodor are often sane.  So people here see governor Hogan doing well and being not a crazy a person and assume governor Abbot is just some lunatic Texan religious nutter.

    It’s starting to hit critical mass though in that the democratic party is now openly pro upper class and business so you can vote for them, and team R keeps nominating raving religious lunatics.  Which has sort of put a mark of shame on voting R, that’s what white trash does.

  70. 70.

    Geminid

    @Cameron: The U.S. and Venezuela have been taking tentative steps towards normalizing relations. The arrest of Leonard could be a result of this process.

  71. 71.

    jonas

    @rikyrah: ​
      This whole shipping migrants to blue states to pwn the libs is a huge own goal for the GOP. For two years, they’ve been going on Fox and any other media venue that will have them crying hysterically about the hordes of vicious orcs overrunnung the southern border, looking about frantically for white women to violate, etc. This narrative was actually starting to stick, namely that we don’t have an ongoing refugee crisis triggered by violence and chaos in Latin America, but Biden is just throwing the gates open to every cantaloupe-calved malcontent in the southern hemisphere.

    So they take the one successful talking point they have in the post-Dodds campaign landscape and decide to go to 11 with it. But now, thanks to sending these migrants to huge media markets in blue cities, people across the country are getting a first-hand look at these fearsome criminals and they’re… actually poor, scared people with children looking to escape violence and poverty and being exploited as political pawns by asshole Republican governors. The MAGAts are obviously thrilled with this performative cruelty — if anything, they’re annoyed DeSantis flew them on a nice jet rather than locking them in an airless truck trailer for the ride — but I think most people see this and even if they don’t like Biden’s border policy, feel it’s really wrong.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: There may also be some trouble for the Mississippi governor and other top officials, but Favre is the only reason the media’s paying any attention to this, so I’ll live with it.

    The good news for Favre is this makes him a shoo-in for that website that does an annual all-felon fantasy football team. They’re never short of choices, but “multimillion dollar fraud” is a nice change of pace from the usual murder, aggravated assault, domestic violence, and rape charges. That differentiation is what earned Michael “Dogfighting” Vick the QB slot a few years ago.

  77. 77.

    jonas

    @Amir Khalid: That Fat Leonard saga is something else. Someone should make a movie about it. I presume they took his passport after he was given house arrest — how the hell did he get all the way down to Venezuela? (Or, given how the rest of this story has played out: “Now Fred, you remembered to seize his passport after putting the ankle bracelet on him, right? Right? Godammit!”)

  79. 79.

    eversor

    @Cameron:

    They weren’t always on our shit list and other than a few head cases on both sides of this mess nobody likes the current situation.

    They are still a member of the OAS.  Also there are people there named usnavy because of Navy sailors in the past.  They’d much rather go back to the way things were and frankly we need the oil and for all their faults they aren’t the Saudis or Russians.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    I am somewhat encouraged by how the DeSantis stunt plane fiasco is playing here in Florida. The local dailies I read (Tampa Bay Times, Orlando Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald) have been mostly scathing in their coverage, correctly identifying the trafficking scheme as a cruel and wasteful stunt. Even the right-wing rag in my county featured several letters to the editor that sound like they could have been written by commenters here (minus the swears).

  82. 82.

    satby

    @germy shoemangler: Me too. And tagging media in critical posts about coverage (tags needed so they see it) because decades of right wing criticism created the current media wusses we have. I’m hoping the avalanche of criticism they get on twitter helps rebalance in less than decades. Not holding my breath though.

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    None of the 9 Republicans who voted for tbe elections bill are on the ballot this November. Rice (SC). Meijar (MI), Cheney (WY) and Herrera Butler (OR) lost primaries.Gonzales (OH), Kinsinger (IL), Upton (MI), Katko and Jacobs (NY) retired.

    Jacobs was the last to retire. He proposed tightening gun laws aftef the Tops Grocery shootings in Buffalo. The backlash among 27th CD Republicans was so fierce that Jacobs announced his retirement within a week.

    I tbink the only Republican Impeachers on the midterm ballot are Valedao in California and Price in Washigton. They both advanced in open, “jungle” primaries.

  90. 90.

    jonas

    @eversor: ​
      The Biden administration I think started having some back-channel conversations with the Venezuelans to ask them to help with the oil crunch last year and perhaps this has led to some movement on other fronts as well. They’re still under some pretty harsh sanctions, and the Chavistas will never forgive the US for supporting the attempted coup against Chavez back in 2002. We’ll see where things go. I would think stabilizing that country should be a pretty damn high priority for the DOS Latin America desk right now.

  92. 92.

    eversor

    @jonas:

    This was done for the base.  In the conservative news bubble the libs are freaking out and crying that the migrants will break their welfare states and commit crimes.   That’s all the say, the libs are owned and are actually just as racist.  Nevermind that they were welcomed with open arms both on humanitarian terms and because hey, we have a worker shortage so come on up!

    Also the notion that places like Chicago, DC, and NYC can’t absorb a few thousand people and put them instantly to work in productive industries like the constant construction and restaurants here is lunatic to start with.   People here already know the drill when you go to a Home Depot there are two types of trucks.  There’s the super truck that’s obviously new with a person who gets like nothing and takes it home.  Then there’s the army of dirt crusted trucks stacked with stuff who go to get all sorts of things and fuel the massive housing boom and these guys make good cash on it as well.  Guess which one is driven by a white trumper who goes to church?

    This reminds me of when we had people campaigning against taco trucks.   There will be a taco truck on every corner, do we want that?   Which was greeted by a giant “wait, what’s the issue with taco trucks, people love taco trucks, more of them yes please”.   Hell our local taco truck did so well they opened up restaurants, his kids went off to college, but he still operates the truck cause that’s where his original customers came from and we are there at least once a week.   Guys a pillar of the community and sure as hell pays more in taxes than he gets from the state.

    But the right is in a bubble.  I had someone toss a bitching fest about “section 8 housing” and I had to point out that’s already here.  We have locked low income housing all over Arlington VA it’s a few blooks away from your 2000 a month HOA condo.  You just didn’t bother to notice, so what’s the harm in another?  You know how housing here is like 2k a month per studio and 5k a two bedroom and some units are like 20k a month?  Did you ever bother to look at those units that are 1.5k a month for a two bedroom, all low income communities.   A more funny thing was my fiancee once complained to me about the low income housing and how they made noises at her and I told her to take me there and show me.  We showed up and it wasn’t low income, it was fucking Fort Meyer Henderson Hall Joint Base.  You didn’t get cat called by the poors, that’s the Army!

  93. 93.

    Starfish

    @Ken: Clearly, you are not familiar with politics in Mississippi. At the top are some men who lie and cheat. They are well-connected to local power structures, and there is usually not a price to pay unless the Feds decide they are going to do something about it, which they usually do not.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @Ken: Also, Vick served a prison sentence for his involvement in the dog fighting. People were inclined to think he had “paid his debt to society” and deserved another chance. Vick was still a damn good quarterback too, and that made it easier for Philadelphia fans to accept him.

  96. 96.

    Ksmiami

    @Baud: have you seen the leaked post of the Republican Congressional priorities- ? Full on nutso fascism from destroying democratic elections to imprisoning obgyns… they must be pounded into sand yesterday

  97. 97.

    eversor

    @jonas:

    Venezuela as a failed state is nobodies interest.  They are one of the biggest oil reserves out there and unlike Russia or Saudi have been a functional democracy in the past.   I have full faith this will be fixed in time, in fact I’m sure of it.  We just have to let it play out.  I used to deal with that area and while it’s dangerous as hell it’s not a “shit hole”.  Also I’ll stand by arepas being one of the better breakfast options.

  98. 98.

    sab

    OT I discovered yesterday that the pie filter doesn’t work for nyms with emoticons.

    Don’t worry BenCisco. I am not trying to put yours in my pie filter.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @jonas: Russia’s situation may incline the Venezuelan government to patch up relations with the US. Along with Cuba and Nicaragua, Venezuala have formed a Russia aligned bloc. Now their alliance with Russia may be a depreciating asset.

  101. 101.

    Peale

    @jonas: Yeah. Someone posted up a poll where the country is evenly split 44% vs 44% on whether or not this stunt was a good idea. At first I was disheartened, but then I realized that that’s actually better numbers for us than if this had happened in 2010.  Its not changing anyone’s mind, but at least I don’t get the sense that 20% of the Democratic Party voter base likes it this time around.

  102. 102.

    Rusty

    A pet peeve. “Massie got a degree from MIT; he’s not dumb enough to believe that”

    There is this assumption that because someone went to a fancy school, they “know better” or are “playing to the crowd”, but wink-wink, it’s all just performative.  The same gets said for DeSantis (Yale!), Stefanik (Harvard!) and so on.  They are all showing us exactly who they are.  We do ourselves a disservice by making out that they are something different in private.  Having a supposedly fancy gold-plated education myself, I can tell you that there are plenty of people with the same that believe all the right wing craziness.  We should also push back on reporters that do the same thing, reporting that politicians in private hold different views.  The reporters are getting played, and we shouldn’t let ourselves get played too.  What you see is what you get.

  103. 103.

    Betty Cracker

    @Rusty: I agree — judge them by their actions. I think it’s fine to speculate about why some pol does a particular thing here or in an opinion piece. I don’t doubt that many pols act in a cynical way and are fine with that as long as it brings the power they crave. But that sort of psychoanalysis should be used very sparingly if at all in political reporting. We need to know what they did and how it affects us. That’s it.

  105. 105.

    topclimber

    @Peale: As others have pointed out, that poll was seriously flawed because it said migrants were undocumented, which they are not. They are in US legally while their asylum cases are being weighed.

    I think many voters are put off by a stunt meant to harm people who are playing by the rules.

    It all comes down to how you frame the issue. As time goes by, this doesn’t get any better for DeSantis. Red meat for his base; red flag for everyone else.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Rusty: People so often equate intelligence with liberalism that this is often taken to be the truth. But it’s not. I think life experience including upbringing have a greater effect. A person’s  capacity for empathy might be the greatest factor, and I don’t think that neccessarily tracks with intelligence even though it ought to.

  112. 112.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: I think John Stuart Mill said it best: “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

  118. 118.

    Kristine

    @sab: Where did you find the pie filter? All I could find was the link to old code.

    It’s probably right under my nose, but that’s the way life has been going lately, so.

  124. 124.

    thruppence

    @Kristine: At the top of the comments is a picture of a pie with the word “Filter” right below it. Click on the pie and it will give you a list of commenter nyms that you can select to be filtered. I’ve only used it once, but it works well for me.

  126. 126.

    Roger Moore

    @Rusty: ​
     
    This. People don’t believe this stuff because they’re stupid; they believe it because it plays to their cognitive biases. They want to believe, so they never bother to think about it critically. We see this happen all the time online. Think about how many times you see people uncritically repeat satire as if it’s gospel. It’s not because they’re too dumb to recognize satire but because their desire to believe short-circuits the part of their brain that would normally recognize it.
    Of course the big difference is our willingness to admit when we’ve been had. Really smart, reality-connected people will admit these kinds of mistakes when they’re pointed out. True believers will never admit they’ve been had. Instead, in a classic example of the sunk cost fallacy, they’ll double down because they’re too embarrassed to admit their mistakes.

  127. 127.

    SFAW

    @The Moar You Know: ​
     

    The judge did everything to help him escape save for buy him his tickets.

    Was he short of cash? Waiting for the money TFG owed him, and promised to pay him, any day now?

  128. 128.

    lowtechcyclist

    @jonas:

    But now, thanks to sending these migrants to huge media markets in blue cities, people across the country are getting a first-hand look at these fearsome criminals and they’re… actually poor, scared people with children looking to escape violence and poverty and being exploited as political pawns by asshole Republican governors.

    Also, there weren’t enough of them in Florida to round up, so DeSantis had to borrow some from Texas.

    Which totally drives a stake through the notion that Florida has an immigrant crisis of any sort.

    AFAIAC, there’s no immigrant crisis.  If anyone says there might be one in Texas even if there isn’t one in Florida, I’m just gonna say they were lying that there was one in Florida, and they’re probably lying about Texas too.  Hell, they were gonna do a second trip from Texas, but they couldn’t find any more migrants. No crisis, buddy.

  131. 131.

    germy shoemangler

    If you have any words of strength, hope, appreciation or love to send to Judy Tenuta, @JudyTenuta is the place to send them and now is the time to do it.

    — Merrill Markoe (@Merrillmarkoe) September 17, 2022

    Roseanne stole Judy’s persona and material. So guess who got her own tv show and millions of dollars? Judy? No.

    Roseanne treated everyone like crap during her reign as sitcom queen and they just ate it up and gave her more seasons. Judy spent decades touring little comedy clubs without much interest from the networks.

  133. 133.

    WereBear

    @Roger Moore: Really smart, reality-connected people will admit these kinds of mistakes when they’re pointed out.

    Which is where the nature/nurture angle comes into play because while I believe the brain scans that show conservatives have higher activity in fear, I think they weren’t born that way.

    I think they are made that way, living in oppressive states. This is a Red State effect I don’t see discussed enough. In Illinois, Chicago is plenty big and diverse, with enough out-state population, to give a multi-faceted experience to the seeker.

    In Oklahoma, getting out to Oklahoma City is not that far. You are surrounded by a larger small town, that’s all.

    Which is how these states stay Red. Even the Austin art crowd is still under draconian Texas laws.

  134. 134.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Geminid: It absolutely does not.  I know some incredibly smart people who still lack basic empathy and some incredibly ignorant people who have incredible empathy.  And yes, I agree, that empathy is, imo, the real difference in our gigantic political and cultural divide.  You can really see it in spades with the current assault on Transgender kids/students.  Passing laws to mandate that teachers verbally abuse vulnerable children by dead-naming them and forcing them to dress as the wrong gender, pushing them towards suicide, is just…I have no words.  Fucking deplorable.  And completely devoid of empathy.

  137. 137.

    dww44

    @germy shoemangler:  presumably he’s tasked with tilting the scales towards the GOP. Currying the favor with his new Trump supporting boss? Why else would anyone with good sense posit that Biden should be the bigger person and invite Trump onto Air Force One to travel to the Queens funeral?  Tapper couldn’t be that stupid: he’s been bought.

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker:

     

    @Omnes Omnibus: Interesting. Of course, Mill was speaking from his observation of upper and middle class Britons at a particular period of the 19th century, and was a liberal and not free of bias himself. So I don’t neccesarily think he has the final say on this  question and I stand by my comment.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @topclimber:

    As others have pointed out, that poll was seriously flawed because it said migrants were undocumented, which they are not. They are in US legally while their asylum cases are being weighed.

    This detail is so universally wrong in every single media story about asylum seekers that it seems like they’ve all just decided to take Republican lies at face value.

  142. 142.

    Matt McIrvin

    @UncleEbeneezer: I like the one from New Zealand that specifically names gardening as an inherently masculine activity that men have abandoned to their detriment. I’m not sure we even have that stereotype.

  143. 143.

    Kropacetic

    @Matt McIrvin: This detail is so universally wrong in every single media story about asylum seekers that it seems like they’ve all just decided to take Republican lies at face value.

    What? The MSM amplifying right wing lies with inadequate scrutiny? You don’t say…

  145. 145.

    dww44

    @germy shoemangler:  it should not be tolerated that major media outlets slant their coverage to please the suits in the board rooms.  We need a 21st century version of The Fairness Doctrine. We need laws and/or regulations that restrict how much control wealthy individuals have over our news outlets.

  147. 147.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Matt McIrvin: Yup.  It’s like cooking which was historically (and at still is) dominated by men if it’s professional (chefs), but in everyday life is somehow ridiculed as being a feminine interest.

  148. 148.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Matt McIrvin: I like the one from New Zealand that specifically names gardening as an inherently masculine activity that men have abandoned to their detriment. I’m not sure we even have that stereotype.

    There is a very popular garden near us. While it’s fairly common to see men there as part of couples, I long ago noted to my wife that the men almost universally are carrying a camera. They can’t just “look at the flowers” (which everybody knows is girly). They have to be Doing Photography, much more manly.​

  149. 149.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @UncleEbeneezer: Music also, too, though this has gotten much more equitable in recent decades. Your local music teacher: woman. Orchestra musician: man.

    And in teaching, it’s high school: men, elementary or middle school: women. That’s how it was when my wife was teaching in public schools. I don’t know if that has changed.

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    Reports from Iran are that protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have continued and spread to 86 cities and towns. The most recent confirmed death toll from security forces’ gun fire is 31, but the regime has severely restricted mobile phone networks and the internet so it’s likely more people have been murdered. Some protesters are fighting back with gasoline bombs.

    Iran’s new hardline President, Ebrahim Raisi, is currently in New York awaiting his UN General Assembly speech scheduled for Saturday.

  151. 151.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I have zero interest in gardening but not because of gender issues.  I just don’t enjoy the work (it’s HARD!!!), the dirt, heat, bugs etc.  But I love wandering around Huntington Gardens and admiring the pretty flowers and trees :)

  154. 154.

    Anyway

    Curious about Saudi Arabia – any protests there about womens status? It’s pretty repressive there as well.

  155. 155.

    Anyway

    @Betty Cracker:

    Here’s hoping those courageous people kick that rotten, murderous theocracy over.

    In addition to the protests in the streets the artistic community in Iran has always been engaged — I find that heartening. They have a vibrant film, literary and generally artistic culture.

  156. 156.

    Matt McIrvin

    @UncleEbeneezer: Unless it’s outdoor grilling, which involves a lot of fire and danger and you can imagine it’s like camping out in the wilderness.

    Decades ago, people (generally men) used to occasionally mention it as some kind of unexplained imponderable of the universe: “Women do our cooking, yet all the great chefs are men! I wonder why? Go figure!”

  157. 157.

    cain

    @dww44:

    A lot of these media companies are publicly traded companies, just hit their bottom line. You don’t have any other power. They need ad revenue, don’t give it to them.

  158. 158.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I am hopeful, but this is a scary situation. These protest are already more intense than those of “Bloody Nevember,” 2019. The 2019 demonstrations were triggered by price hikes for fuel and other commodities, and were ruthlessly suppressed with machine gun fire. Reuters put the death toll at 1500.

    I think the question now is whether the security forces will stand by the regime or mutiny.

  160. 160.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Your local music teacher: woman

    Not a gender-related observation, but my son-in-law, who teaches piano at a serious conservatory, often refers to “neighborhood piano teacher syndrome” in some of his students. It is not intended to be positive.

  162. 162.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Matt McIrvin: Right, completely missing the obvious point that the dominance of men (when it pays), but not when it’s free, is a pretty perfect example of systemic Patriarchy.

  163. 163.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: A person’s  capacity for empathy might be the greatest factor, and I don’t think that neccessarily tracks with intelligence even though it ought to.

    Many extremely intelligent people are psychopaths, who by definition have no empathy. Amanda Marcotte thinks that TFG’s babbling in interviews is all a con man’s act, since in other instances he doesn’t talk like that. It’s certainly possible, he’s been a con man his whole life.

  165. 165.

    Tom Levenson

    @jonas: Also: FL had to go to TX to find forty eight (48!!!!) whole refugees “swarming” across the border and threatening America’s dangly bits from (checks notes) four states away.

    DeSantis’ “onesies and twosies” gave the game away. There is no invasion. It’s all performative bullshit.

  167. 167.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: I don’t know, my BIL and his wife came down here from Chicago, and I think they are plenty racist. They don’t say it openly, but I’ve heard comments that make me believe they think that way. I do agree that in red places like where I live, there isn’t much exposure to people who aren’t white and Christian, so it feels dangerous and foreign to people when they are exposed to these things.

  168. 168.

    Soprano2

    @Gin & Tonic: The long-time director of the university choir I sing in often said disparagingly that we weren’t in a church choir, or that it wasn’t a sing-along.

  171. 171.

    Ken

    @Tom Levenson: I saw a twitter comment that it was… convenient that DeSantis knew “vendors” who would lie to convince people to be transported, and others who would then fly persons without identification across the country. Almost makes you wonder if he’s done it before, for other purposes….

  174. 174.

    NotMax

    @Anyway

    Repeated, from a short time ago.

    A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for retweeting activists through her Twitter account and sharing posts that spoke in favor of the right of women to drive. Salma al-Shehab was a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds in the UK and was detained in January 2021 after returning to Saudi Arabia for a vacation. Source

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    “A person’s  capacity for empathy might be the greatest factor, and I don’t think that neccessarily tracks with intelligence even though it ought to.”

    Why should a capacity for empathy track with intelligence? How are these related as human traits? Is that intelligence supposed to correct other flaws? Do you think Vlad is not intelligent? Or any number of other leaders, workers, authors, doctors, ditch diggers, etc? Intelligence is an ability to process thoughts, likely faster and or more involved thoughts. A lack of intelligence is an inability to process more involved thoughts. Say the theory of relativity. Emotions are responses to events, thoughts, surroundings. Fear, happiness, anger, despair, etc. A very intelligent person can still be a massive asshole and a very unintelligent person can be as nice as can be imagined or as big a massive asshole. There may be some connection between the two things, intelligence and emotions, but it is not a straight line connection either way. They may come from the same brain but they are not necessarily connected in said brain.

  178. 178.

    Ruckus

    @The Moar You Know:

    “The judge did everything to help him escape save for buy him his tickets.”

    How do you know he didn’t?

    Sorry, I’m having a bit of a week… Of course that could be said of a lot of us….

     

  179. 179.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @lowtechcyclist:

    If anyone says there might be one in Texas even if there isn’t one in Florida, I’m just gonna say they were lying that there was one in Florida, and they’re probably lying about Texas too.

    You can say that, but it gets undermined by others like Rep. Cuellar. The number of immigrants flowing to the border from Central and South America really is VERY high. What we need is immigration reform and to help some of these imploding countries get it together.

  181. 181.

    Geminid

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: That interview of Henry Cuellar is interesting. I am interested in what Representatve Veronica Escobar says about the border situation. Escobar represents El Paso and her husband is an immigration judge.

    Ms. Escobar succeeded longtime political ally Beto O’Rourke when he gave up his Congresional say to run for Senate in 2018. Around 2004 they and two other El Pasoans reacted to the defeat of El Pasos’s liberal mayor by organizing to supplant the city’s entrenched power structure and they succeeded.

    They all went on to win public office, and were known locally as “the Progressives.” Escobar was the El Paso County Judge, a powerful position in Texas, before she ran for O’Rourke’s seat. Her Wikipedia biography is a good read.

  182. 182.

    Roger Moore

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I like the one from New Zealand that specifically names gardening as an inherently masculine activity that men have abandoned to their detriment. I’m not sure we even have that stereotype.

    It’s probably a dead thread at this point, but I think this gets to the heart of the issue.  So many of the markers we use for masculinity and femininity are just social conventions that are subject to change.  As social mores change, there will always be things we used to treat as key signs of how masculine or feminine you are that are becoming less important, and people will freak out about it.  At the same time, other things are becoming more important, but people don’t see those as a sign of increasing gender differences because they aren’t important to them yet.  The net result is that every generation can see declining differences between the genders even when there’s no real change.

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @kalakal: Either planting vegetables or planting flowers, as opposed to more general “yard work” or landscaping. And flowers are coded as feminine.

  185. 185.

    Jess

    I definitely DID NOT fill out the student loan survey! ;-

    Signed, Morticia Thunderbottom from Dallas TX

  187. 187.

    Bill Arnold

    @germy shoemangler:

    People complain about twitter but I like how ordinary randos can reply to “elites” like Haberman.

    This is true, but better to go for the journalists with lower reply counts, or do both.

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