Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Open Threads / An ancient menace stirs…

An ancient menace stirs…

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Sometimes it’s hard to be optimistic about politics in Florida:

Fernand Amandi, a Florida-based Democratic pollster who is not a crackpot, says the state is the center of a new confederacy movement that he believes will lead to a “break with our American democracy.” I didn’t see the whole segment, and I’m not sure what he means by that.

The GIF with Bugs Bunny sawing off the state comes to mind, but even America’s Wang isn’t large enough to contain the MAGA virus, which means to take a run at the larger host again in a couple of years. Meanwhile, and not coincidentally, an ancient menace stirs:

She’s right. As you’ve no doubt heard, one of the world’s most toxic rappers went on another antisemitic bender this weekend, as did the toxic orange fart cloud who used to befoul the Oval Office before Joe Biden opened the windows. Tangerine Baal took to his tumbleweed-choked knock-off Twitter platform to tell American Jews they better appreciate Trump and Israel like evangelicals do “Before it is too late!”

I liked David Rothkopf’s response:*

Trump, the mob boss, tries to shake down American Jews. “Love me, or else.” We’ve been menaced by fascists before, you two-bit goon. We recognize the the threat you represent from the darkest pages of our history. That’s why we’ll never submit to your threats.

Of course, Hair Furor isn’t the only Republican who’s trafficking in antisemitic tropes — his afterbirth Ron DeSantis is beloved by Nazis and takes calls to denounce them as a personal affront, which is an interesting choice. His former press secretary/current campaign “rapid response” director referenced a gross antisemitic conspiracy theory involving the Rothschilds.

And now it’s routine for GOP pols to use the name “Soros” as an antisemitic dog-whistle. Not just the MTG trash — even the milquetoasts like Rubio. This is who they are.

In related news, Trump isn’t the only deplatformed, antisemitic piece of shit who’s looking for an unmoderated receptacle for his hatred and bile. From Axios:

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, plans to acquire Parler, a Twitter-like social media app that has become a haven for conservatives.

Why it matters: In a statement, Ye said he’s buying the platform to ensure people with conservative opinions “have the right to freely express ourselves” online.

Earlier this month, Ye’s Instagram and Twitter accounts were restricted in response to antisemitic posts.

Axios says Parler was kicked off the Apple and Google app stores after the insurrection but reinstated by both. Will they continue to host apps if they’re owned by a vicious antisemite with untreated personality disorders? Since they host Trump’s tumbleweed-choked knock-off, probably.

I have no idea how a society that prioritizes free speech deals with this problem, but I hope we figure it out because more and more, it seems like the Nazis are getting the band back together.

Open thread.

*I quoted Rothkopf instead of embedding the tweet because it contained a screencap of the malignant orange meat-sack’s ersatz tweet. You can click through to see it. I don’t think ignoring Hair Furor’s bile is an effective way to address the menace he represents, which must be confronted. But maybe it’s a good idea to quote him sparingly?

Reader Interactions

244Comments

  1. 1.

    Matt McIrvin

    The tricky thing about modern American antisemitism is that it frames itself as pro-semitism and insists that its opposition, including most American Jews, are the real antisemites (because of Israel).

    Just like American racism.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    @Matt McIrvin: It’s of a piece with russians saying Jews are the real Nazis.

    It’s so fun knowing that there are a fuckton of people who want me dead.

    It’s also a good reminder that one of the age-old beliefs they hold–that Jews run secretly run everything–is obvious bullshit. For one thing, if we did, shit would be running a lot better. For another, all these fuckheads would be living on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

  3. 3.

    Damien

    Tolerance paradox has entered the chat.
    We’re literally seeing its predicted consequence emerge: the evil are using the levers of power to kill the very tolerant society that allowed them to speak.

    Quite frankly, and I hate this, but my expectations of ongoing political violence only grow :(

  5. 5.

    oatler

    The MAGA on the site I hate-read is a practicing Jew who floods the site with hateful drivel and her only complaint is “Democrat” anti- semitism; never finds space to rail against Israel’s abortion policy but spells God “G-d”.

  10. 10.

    Llelldorin

    “We love Jews because our eschatology requires them to exist and be powerful so they can die horribly at the appropriate moment!”

    Ummmmm…. yeah. Not really feeling that these are the best friends ever.

  11. 11.

    West of the Rockies

    I am one of 12 people in America who can’t name a Kanye West song.  But I am astonished that he is now a RWNJ.  I mean, Dennis Miller was surprising as well.  He seemed too hip and smart to be that stupid. I hear 9/11 changed him and others.

    Humans are stupefying.

  12. 12.

    JanieM

    But maybe it’s a good idea to quote him sparingly?

    Totally agree. I also make sure never to type his name: I’ve referred to him as Clickbait since 2016. Others have other monikers for him — TFG, Ruckus’s SFB — but I like the little twist involved in Clickbait, which is a deliberate attempt to avoid giving him one of the things he most craves and feeds off of, which is clicks. His real name will get clicks; our nicknames for him will pass under a search engine’s radar. Well, except maybe for TFG at this point.

  14. 14.

    ian

    Betty, did you see the other Florida mal-governance story of the weekend?  DeSantis is allowing early voting to be extended after Hurricane Ian, but only in counties that lean Republican

    NPR

    Guardian

    Democratic leaning Orange County gets no similar consideration.

  16. 16.

    Matt McIrvin

    @West of the Rockies: Everyone who was working on Saturday Night Live back then says Dennis Miller never changed–he was always like that in person. The SNL writers just wrote both-sidesy, above-it-all material for him, it was a time when liberals could consume that and not see anything amiss, and he avoided getting too far into the agitprop in his standup. 9/11 just turned him into a sincere commentator and it all came out.

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    I far prefer Google and Apple providing an app for the fascists, where at least we can keep on eye on the fuckers, than one that is not under their control and any and all sorts of bullshit could be going on.

  18. 18.

    NorthLeft

    I hope that most Americans understand that the evangelical “love” for Israel has more to do with that country’s role in the end times rather than any concern for the well being of Jews who live there and especially not for Jews who live anywhere else in the world.

  20. 20.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: Left antisemitism is more like the European style where they can’t separate criticism of Israel from fear of the shadowy Jewish octopus controlling everything. I’ve known some of those people myself. They have much less political pull in this country though.

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    @JanieM: I vacillate on this issue because it does seem like Clickbait’s deplatforming and belatedly deployed special handling protocols by many MSM outlets allows his increasingly loopy hate-mongering to fly under the radar a bit. For example, Clickbait is all in on the Q lunacy now, but I bet most Americans don’t know that.

  25. 25.

    kindness

    I hate to say it but the fascists here don’t care what we think and if Republicans win it would take no time at all for them to start demanding they could dictate who is and who isn’t a citizen.  Just like they did in Germany in the 20’s & 30’s.  Some areas of the country won’t be safe for my kind.  Some already aren’t.  The thing is we don’t want to break up the country in order to achieve total control, but many of them are fine with that idea.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NorthLeft: There’s another element, which is the fascist right’s fantasy of everyone being sorted neatly into ethnically pure nations, of which they imagine Israel is a prototype. They want all the Jews to go there.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @kindness: They are very big on somehow repealing or nullifying the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for people born in the US (often with crackpot legal reasoning that sounds like tax-protester stuff), and Trump always liked to go on about whose citizenship should be taken away. And of course Obama birtherism always had an element of this–there are Kamala Harris birthers who know she was born in the US but insist that this isn’t good enough because [racist gobbledygook].

  28. 28.

    JanieM

    @Betty Cracker: That’s a good point, and as so often is the case, I don’t know where the right balance lies. My basic urge in using Clickbait has been to make sure not to give him one of the things he most wants. (All the focus to be on him all the time.)

    It’s hard to grasp/accept that giving him what he wants in that sense might actually be the less bad course of action.

    Anyhow, I’m just an obscure semi-anonymous blog commenter….

  29. 29.

    Ten Bears

    There are times, for all the yelling at clouds and running around like a little chicken, when I am actually a fan of global warming, of rising sea levels. Go Mother Nature!

  30. 30.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @The Moar You Know: Well, it’s been my impression for a number of years now that 21st-century Democrats are a fractious coalition, while 21st-century Republicans are a fascistic cult. I’m also reminded of the old saying that “it takes two to make peace but only one to make war”.

    Between them, those two things make for unsettled sleep.

  32. 32.

    Ivan X

    Jew here. In 2017, a whitey friend of mine couldn’t understand why I was quite so bent out of shape when Trump got elected (of course he was a Bernie Bro).

    This was my answer. I wish I’d been disproven. Thanks for saying something, Betty. I’m hardly the type to feel like “they’re all coming after us” but the shit that’s brewing is not cool.

  33. 33.

    The Moar You Know

    But I am astonished that he is now a RWNJ. 

    @West of the Rockies: I wasn’t.  I shared a commuter flight with him and his “posse” back in 2003 and he went out of his way to be a stone-cold asshole to every single person – all 15 of us – on that flight.  Takes a special kind of person to start shit on a puddle-jumper.

    Add money to that and…you get what you have.

    Dennis Miller, in retrospect, was not a surprise, but he was at the time because of MY ignorance and youth.  The kind of person who is smart, snarky, and disrespectful of everything is just one short step away from being a self-righteous asshole.  Which is what he became when he left SNL and his career tanked.  We forget that.  Dennis Miller would have gotten there without 9/11.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    As Debbie Dingell’s late husband used to say, we once gave medals to people who killed Nazis. Perhaps we should revive that tradition.

  37. 37.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @West of the Rockies: There were signs in his early music (which is actually rather brilliant) where he would complain about how he wasn’t allowed to rap about his love of Jesus without being mocked.  It definitely had the Christians Are The REAL VICTIMS vibe that is so common among Evangelical Xtians, so I’m not real surprised that he had anti-Semitism in him too.

    The thing about Kanye is that he seemed like a fairly normal guy in his early years.  Attention-seeking and cocky sure, but not openly problematic.  It was after his Mom died and his mental illness started surfacing when he really started being toxic and eventually MAGA.

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: Yeah, it could have been worse, could have NOT tanked his career.

    In hindsight, the environment in which Dennis Miller seemed like a smart politically-charged comic who told it like it was was kind of pathological.

  39. 39.

    Tony G

    “ye”.  By the way, I’ve told “all my fans” that from now on, I’m no longer “Tony”, and I should be addressed only as “ny”.  I am not mentally ill at all.

  41. 41.

    tokyokie

    I’ve long wondered whether Trump’s sonnerkommando kapo, Stephen Miller, figures that because he’s a good Jew, that’ll they’ll feed him decently and kill him last.

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    @West of the Rockies: When Dana Carvey did Dennis Miller in front of Dennis Miller on SNL, I could tell from actual Dennis Miller’s face that he was 1. not amused and 2. knew he deserved better. Not proof he was a winger at the time but I would not be surprised if her had been an enthusiastic Reagan voter and felt HW Bush was too squishy.

  43. 43.

    Tony G

    @UncleEbeneezer: Mental illness fueled by a lot of money.  If Kanye was stocking shelves at Walmart he would just be muttering to himself and none of his craziness would matter.  Sometimes money makes a bad situation worse.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    There were signs in his early music (which is actually rather brilliant) where he would complain about how he wasn’t allowed to rap about his love of Jesus without being mocked.

     
    I wonder how Kanye met eversore.

    I vaguely recall a period several years ago when Christian music was getting mainstreamed a little. That silently died off.

  49. 49.

    brantl

    In keeping with “The Ancient Menace Stirs”, can we start calling the Orange Fart Cloud SourDon?

  50. 50.

    MattF

    I guess it’s not a huge surprise that TFG now dabbles in Jew-Blaming. But it’s certainly an open sign of the Republican descent into fascism, and TFG’s got to follow the trend. Once upon a time, American (so-called) conservatives knew better, but no longer.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin: Right?! Like Dennis Miller of all people labors under the delusion that he matters?! I bet significant coin, if I had it, that I am about the only person under fifty who even remembers him on SNL (another thing that no longer matters).

    I am convinced that most of these right-wing “celebrities” “come out” as “conservatives” because they can find no other avenue for their careers. They attempt to become big fish in a tiny, shitty, garbage-ridden pond.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    Our friends in Tampa are now retired and will flee the Gunshine State as soon as their new home is built in Asheville NC where they grew up. Gone forever in about six months.

  57. 57.

    jonas

    I never thought I’d live to see the day when a governor of *Florida* could pal around with neo-Nazis and everyone would shrug. I guess the ex-pat NY Jewish vote in Miami isn’t what it used to be. In another decade, we’ll probably have some governor slagging on all Latinos down there, including Cubans, with impunity.

  60. 60.

    Suzanne

    @oatler: If there is anything that merits an “OK Boomer”, it is those clowns. OMG. Just go work at a Subway or something. I am sure they need more sandwich artists.

  62. 62.

    The Moar You Know

    I thought he was actually dead and I had missed the news.

    @Baud: if you believe he’s dead, he is to you.

    In seriousness, he hasn’t worked for decades and he’s radioactive as far as the media goes, so how would anyone know if he was alive or not?  Maybe he has a family or some equivalent group of people that give enough of a shit about him that they’d bother to see if he’s alive or no, but I’m betting that’s a pretty small group.

    In case anyone is wondering why he doesn’t have a career anymore, it’s not politics:  it’s because of that season he spent commentating Monday Night Football.  The season where Al Michaels was obviously, visibly restraining himself from strangling Miller during the last four or five games.  The season where the salt of the earth ‘muricans asked “who the fuck is this showoff brainiac?  I thought he was funny.  He’s not funny.”  He took his own career and murdered it in America’s front yard, with all the neighbors watching.

  63. 63.

    trollhattan

    Some Monday good news (in addition to Tuesday always arrives, eventually).

    October 17, 2022 at 12:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    “Booster shots against current SARS-CoV-2 variants can help the human immune system to fight variants that don’t exist yet,” Nature reports.

    “That’s the implication of two new studies analyzing how a booster shot or breakthrough infection affects antibody-producing cells: some of these cells evolve over time to exclusively create new antibodies that target new strains, whereas others produce antibodies against both new and old strains.”

    Get the jab!

  66. 66.

    Alison Rose

    @NorthLeft: Most of them do not understand this. I can’t tell you how many times in my adult life someone has asked me why I don’t support Republicans when they love Israel so much. I’m like…bitch, I’m not from there, and I have about 100 other things I care about more.

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: Yeah, it might be the other way around–if you can’t hack it in the mainstream any more, try for that conservative-martyr niche; they’ll swallow anything.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Alison Rose: The other relevant question is whether the current political zeitgeist of Israel is, in fact, good for the well-being of Israel. I can understand how it got the way it is, and still really, really doubt that.

    (Much as with, much of the time, my own country.)

  72. 72.

    Tony G

    @jonas: I live about 15 miles away from “ground zero” of 9/11.  I could smell the toxic fumes (which Christine Whitman lied about) 15 miles away for about a week afterwards.  I don’t think that 9/11 changed anybody.  It just provided an excuse for assholes to be loud and proud about being assholes.

  75. 75.

    Suzanne

    I just had to google the name of the shitty kid from Growing Pains because I could not remember. But RIP to Robin Thicke’s dad!

  76. 76.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tony G: 9/11 uncovered some bad tendencies in me, that I spent decades repenting for, I’ll say that right now. But some of us eventually got sense knocked into us and others didn’t.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @MattF: trump’s vanity comes into play also. He knows that a sizable majority of American Jews rejected him in 2020 and he takes it very personally.

    His statement about Jewish Americans made a big splash. I saw it several places on Twitter right after it was released. The Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post both had articles about it that included rebuttals by the heads of leading American Jewish organizations.

    For me, it inspired a new, Willie Nelson-based theme song for trump:

    Off the rails again.

    Just can’t wait to go off rails again.

  79. 79.

    Joe Falco

    Off I-85 in the Atlanta area, the Repukes and their winged monkeys have gone on a billboard blitz the last week or so to try and fire up their base right before the midterms. Their latest disgrace to darken the Atlanta sky are billboards with a white background, the picture of Uncle Sam from the classic poster and a message in big bold letters, “DEMOCRATS HATE YOU”. What a fun next few weeks this is going to be.

  80. 80.

    Alison Rose

    @Baud: Right?? Even mild criticism of Israel’s government is thin on the ground here on both sides of the aisle.

    It’s such a frustrating thing, as a liberal Jew. I support Israel’s right to exist, and it is simply a fact that many of their opponents in that part of the world would like nothing more than for it to cease existing, and, you know…all the Jews along with it. But plenty on the other side just want everyone to chill out and coexist, and Israel doesn’t do itself any favors by being like “oops we need 50000 more settlements” and shit.

    I almost went on a birthright trip when I was younger, but I’m glad it never happened.

  82. 82.

    The Moar You Know

     James Woods

    @jonas: if I’d had James Woods’ experience I would probably be a profoundly different person.  I give him a pass.  He had contact with the hijackers on one of their training flights, he correctly figured out what they were up to, spent the next few weeks trying frantically to get someone at the FBI to listen to him and they just told him to fuck off and 3000-plus people died.

  83. 83.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Right?!  They claim that Dems don’t support Israel and I’m always like “are you F-ing kidding me?!”  There’s only a handful of Dems who are openly pro-Palestinian or critics of America’s devotion to Israel (even when people like Netanyahu are leading it).

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Alison Rose: I do think the Obama administration was perceptibly, if gently, more critical than just about any other one since Israel existed, which resulted in Obama getting on many shit lists.

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    @Tony G: The same could be said of Trump, though to give the antisemitic POS rapper credit, he earned his own money whereas the antisemitic POS former president just hoovered up and squandered his antisemitic POS father’s money.

    This comment isn’t directed at you (or anyone else in this thread), but I don’t believe mental illness is a mitigating factor for any antisemitic (or racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.) POS. Like alcohol, maybe mental illness reduces their inhibitions so they don’t realize they should STFU to avoid social consequences. But the bigotry was already there, IMO.

  87. 87.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    I’m 55 and I never thought that Dennis Miller was funny.

    Though I felt the same way about Johnny Carson and David Letterman, so I’m probably an outlier among my generation.

  89. 89.

    Soprano2

    Skipped down here to post a couple of things. First, the O’Boys did an interview with Obama that’s worth listening to. He made a few points that are worth hearing. To me two of the best ones are a) characterizing all Republicans as stupid is wrong, dangerous, and won’t get you much and b) one problem is the tendency of some on the left (note I said some, not everyone, and it’s not directed at anyone on this blog) to attack people who aren’t “up” on all the latest ways to talk about things like transgender people and the like (for example, I’m still not sure what the “correct” way is to talk about my friend’s husband who came out as a transwoman when he/she (?) was 60). He said that a lot of people are our allies, but when they feel attacked because they said something the extremely online left considers wrong it’s not good for us as a whole, and I think he’s right. It’s one reason I still listen to Bill Maher, because while he’s often an asshole sometimes I think he’s right. For example, he talked a few weeks ago about how wrong-headed it is to say that only gay people should play gay people, and that Tom Hanks shouldn’t be apologizing for playing a gay character in “Philadelphia”. Do we think gay people should only play gay people? How about trans people, should they be limited to playing only trans characters? This idea that actors need to be put in little boxes as far as the roles they can “properly” be cast in seems wrong and counterproductive to me, but I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that there are people who think that’s how it should be.

    Second, I heard Rachel Maddow talking about her new podcast “Ultra”, about an attempt by fascists in America to take over the U.S. government in the early 1940’s, aided by the German government. I think I’m going to listen to it, sounds fascinating. Now I’m going to back out of the controversy I probably created with my previous paragraph.

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: Republicans are less hip on actual Jewish people in the US in part because they’re skeeved out by people who went to college or live in cities.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    He had contact with the hijackers on one of their training flights, he correctly figured out what they were up to, spent the next few weeks trying frantically to get someone at the FBI to listen to him and they just told him to fuck off and 3000-plus people died.

    @The Moar You Know:

    @Matt McIrvin:

     

    Assuming that the story is true, why TF wouldn’t he hate Bush with the heat of a thousand suns, rather becoming a wingnut?

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @James E Powell: In terms of actual party support, Florida is a purple state. It’s just that it swung a centimeter to the right of center and the Republicans there are fanatical about antidemocratic measures to retain and leverage power, and about red-meat demagoguery.

    This happens to be the story in most of our large swing states at the moment. It’s the central problem of the American constitutional system that it gives them tremendous power. (A bigger problem than the famous small-state bonus.)

  94. 94.

    Alison Rose

    @MattF: It’s absolutely not a surprise. I wrote this in 2017 (notably: BEFORE the Charlottesville “very fine people” debacle) and despite his occasional claims to the contrary, it was always very clear he didn’t give a shit about Jews. The article was precipitated by trump cutting funds from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    When something as simple as a relatively small amount of money to help keep alive the knowledge and memory of one of the darkest moments in our history is deemed dispensable, it sends a clear message.

    Jewish Americans do not have a friend, a supporter, a defender in this White House. We have an adversary wholly unconcerned with the unnerving new reality he has helped to shape around us.

  95. 95.

    John Revolta

    @The Moar You Know: I had thankfully forgotten about that, but you’re right. Miller was not only insufferable on MNF- he was pointless. Just sitting there waiting to throw in some shit like “The Dolphins’ defensive line looks more like the Maginot Line here”. Gawdamighty.

  96. 96.

    Alison Rose

    @Soprano2: It’s not that an actor can’t play a role with which they don’t share particular traits. But there are gay and especially trans actors out there who struggle to get roles, and to see straight and/or cis people getting massive paychecks and awards for it can rankle. In particular, movie studios still don’t understand how to cast a trans character. If the character is a trans woman, you either cast a trans woman or a cis woman, NOT a cis man dressed as a woman. This matters. If we lived in a world where gender divergence was completely accepted and normalized, maybe it wouldn’t. But we don’t live in that world.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman): Although Carson did jokes and skits, I don’t think he is known more for interviewing than comedy.  A little odd nowadays, since so many people who have similar jobs today have a background in comedy

    ETA: Of course, Carson was around for so long, I’m not sure if he was a comedian before he got the Tonight show gig.

  98. 98.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2:

    For example, he talked a few weeks ago about how wrong-headed it is to say that only gay people should play gay people, and that Tom Hanks shouldn’t be apologizing for playing a gay character in “Philadelphia”. Do we think gay people should only play gay people? How about trans people, should they be limited to playing only trans characters? This idea that actors need to be put in little boxes as far as the roles they can “properly” be cast in seems wrong and counterproductive to me, but I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that there are people who think that’s how it should be.

    I think this is specifically a contingent labor issue, rather than an absolute artistic one–it arose because there was a problem with, say, openly gay actors not being able to get parts at all, and it was particularly absurd that they still couldn’t get parts while straight people were getting applauded as brave for playing gay characters. In a fairer world we wouldn’t have to be so particular about this.

    And on top of that, there’s always the dicey history of minstrelsy, etc., and the danger that members of dominant groups playing marginalized ones are doing some kind of mockery. But with respectful portrayals like Hanks’ that’s not really the issue.

  99. 99.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Betty Cracker @ Top:

    Of course, Hair Furor isn’t the only Republican who’s trafficking in antisemitic tropes — his afterbirth Ron DeSantis is beloved by Nazis and takes calls to denounce them as a personal affront, which is an interesting choice.

    It does hint at a level of self-awareness I didn’t think DeSantis possessed.

  101. 101.

    hueyplong

    Just pausing here to acknowledge the satisfaction derived from reading a reference to DeSantis as Trump’s afterbirth.

    Don’t take this the wrong way, B Cracker, but I hereby issue a death threat if you fail to live blog Trump’s funeral.

  104. 104.

    FelonyGovt

    My dad was a great admirer of Israel, as were most Jews of his generation. I still have love for Israel, but I can’t agree with their current right-wing, war-mongering policies (just like I can’t agree with Republicans here). I don’t understand why that distinction is so difficult for these people.

    I do find that I get more overtly Jewish – I’m more likely to “come out” as a Jew- as anti-semitism rises (it’s not obvious that I am from my last name).

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2:

    He said that a lot of people are our allies, but when they feel attacked because they said something the extremely online left considers wrong it’s not good for us as a whole, and I think he’s right.

    I think that’s right too and am in favor of extending some grace to people (who aren’t trying to be assholes) as they get accustomed to changing social standards and sort out what it means to issues they care about. Being a preachy scold isn’t helping the ostensible cause and sometimes seems like a form of preening.

    That said, I do think some folks use that real phenomenon to justify their own bigotry instead of sucking it up and trying to do better. I mean, if someone chewed me out for a pronoun mistake, I might be pissed, but I’m not going to pull the lever for a fucking fascist, you know?

  108. 108.

    Barry

    @jonas: “I never thought I’d live to see the day when a governor of *Florida* could pal around with neo-Nazis and everyone would shrug. I guess the ex-pat NY Jewish vote in Miami isn’t what it used to be. In another decade, we’ll probably have some governor slagging on all Latinos down there, including Cubans, with impunity.”

     

    People get comfortable and then Republican.

  109. 109.

    Barry

    @Baud: “I didn’t know wolves killed squirrels. I assumed they went after larger prey.”

     

    That’s what they *say*, in the bar, with a few beers in them.

  110. 110.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: Agreed on all points.  Lots of people use their favorite cause to be assholes to other people. It’s a human condition not limited to liberal causes.

  114. 114.

    Citizen Alan

    @Soprano2:

    Tom Hanks shouldn’t be apologizing for playing a gay character in “Philadelphia”. Do we think gay people should only play gay people?

    I can’t imagine Philadelphia becoming the hugely successful cultural touchstone it did if, instead of mega-star Tom Hanks, they’d gone with an unknown gay actor (because when that movie came out, there were no only gay actors with the star power to carry the movie). It’s like I said about Scarlett Johanssen playing the lead in Ghost In the Shell. if you think that only a Japanese actress should allowed to play the Major, then you’re really saying the movie shouldn’t get made, because there were probably fewer than ten women in world who could secure over $100m in studio funding for a live action movie based on a 30yo Japanese manga/anime, and none of them were Japanese. Maybe Lucy Liu in her prime, but that’s assuming you don’t see any difference between Japanese and Chinese ancestry which is nearly as racist as just casting a white woman in the first place.

  115. 115.

    ARoomWithAMoose

    @James E Powell: “How the hell did Obama win Florida twice?”

    OFA built their own campaign and GOTV apparatus in Florida, not funded by the usual in-state donors, no need to use the same staff, contractors, and operatives that have been loosing statewide here since 1998.

    The long term loss here was the Florida OFA org didn’t challenge the local state party (Obama being a coalition builder, not a bomb thrower), and AFAICT, that local aspect of OFA dissolved after each of those two elections.

  116. 116.

    MisterDancer

    @Soprano2: Do we think gay people should only play gay people? How about trans people, should they be limited to playing only trans characters?

    No Respect to Maher, because he knows the answer. It’s just more useful to his shit-stirring to pretend like he doesn’t.

    The answer is to actually talk to, and listen to, people from those groups. That’s it. And people treat that  — or, more accurately, the risk of someone saying, “no, don’t do that” — as such a harmful act that they put up wall after wall against it.

    Can’t/won’t ask an actual person? It’s the 21st Century. We have multiple resources online for educating oneself on opinions from a group on how they feel. As long as you don’t demand a consensus opinion — which is the flip side of the “bad response,” where people don’t want to read criticisms of their opinions from people from marginalized groups — you can get a good sense of how people from such groups might opine on these topics.

    Maher has researchers who find people for the show. Those people could be presenting this information to Maher, to discuss on the show. It’s really not hard to find, and I cannot imagine they have no awareness of Gay and Trans people in NYC to connect with, if needed.

    It is worthy of note, that they do not avail themselves of those resources, save to drop them, on occasion, in chairs with their opposites. Opposites who are very well paid by the Mercers and Koches of the world, to spread misinformation on shows like Maher’s.

    —

    So, I’ll give an example, to your “how to refer to a Trans person’s past” question. I’m actually involved, indirectly, in discussing this now for a project I’m working on, and do happen to have multiple Trans people I know who’ve helped guide me some.

    And from that, I’ll say the general opinion is to use the name and gender they are — the one they worked damn hard to get to — when you talk about them in the past. It can be hard for you, yes, yet it’s the best option in general to honor that work.

    And that doesn’t come to me just from having Trans friends. It comes from a lot of reading, and listening to a variety of Trans people, including ones who, yes, might disagree with that approach, personally for them or in general. In these things, you need to understand the difference, and come to a conclusion you can live with — and that, preferably, one that honors the people around you who’ve lived through some shit.

    And that’s why people like Maher are BS. They could have this discussion with those people in an honest way. He could make clear what I expect Gay and Trans people have been telling him for YEARS about a host of topics around those identities, including the ones you say he just raised (likely, again). But he’s more interested in churning up eyeballs through faux outrage and “whataboutisms”.

    (I love Barack, but if he said similar, he’s doing his head in the sand thing again. And that’s a whole other topic, frankly.)

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    @FelonyGovt:

    I don’t understand why that distinction is so difficult for these people.

    It does seem to be extremely difficult. People think in terms of teams, and simplified stories of heroes and villains, and everything just gets flattened out.

  118. 118.

    Paul in KY

    @Ivan X: Pretty sure I heard Bernie say back in 2016 that Trump was ‘a 1000 times worse than Hillary’ (ringing endorsement there, Bern).

    Anyway, why the Hell would the ‘BernieBro’ be bumfuzzled about you despairing over Cheetolini’s/Putin’s steal of election?

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    @Suzanne: I have worked in Anti-Klan and Anti-Racism jobs. I’ve been at depositions of Klan members in rural Alabama and even served process on the Grand Wizard of the Imperial Knights of the KKK at a Klan rally. The white power, pro-Israel christian right in the US supports Israel for 2 reasons: they admire the segregation policies there — but more importantly — they believe that is where they will send Jews when they get in power. It is part of their eschatology.

  121. 121.

    The Moar You Know

    Assuming that the story is true, why TF wouldn’t he hate Bush with the heat of a thousand suns, rather becoming a wingnut?

    @Baud: I think it would be real easy to take the attitude “we gotta ban ’em all and kick them out of the country and then burn their home nations to the ground, for our safety” which seems to be what happened to the pre-9/11 reasonably sane version of grifter Dick Cheney and quite a few other people.

    I get what you’re saying but would also ask “well, why didn’t the whole country do that?”  We should have, really.  The Bush admin flat out fell down on the job of preventing this and every single American knew that within a few days of the event.

    Instead we gave the FBI more money and gave W two terms in office.  Don’t look to America to do the rational thing, ever.

  122. 122.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MisterDancer: It’s a pattern that’s typical of his sort-of-libertarian type. Things get abstracted into this thought experiment that happens in a vacuum–is this OK or not OK in some platonic sense? —rather than the messy world in which people actually live.

  125. 125.

    Betty Cracker

    @ARoomWithAMoose: Excellent point. They parachuted in, recruited volunteers among local Dems (including me) and closed up shop after each election was won. I really thought we’d lose FL in 2012, but Obama won in a squeaker!

  131. 131.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MisterDancer:

    And that doesn’t come to me just from having Trans friends. It comes from a lot of reading, and listening to a variety of Trans people, including ones who, yes, might disagree with that approach, personally for them or in general. In these things, you need to understand the difference, and come to a conclusion you can live with — and that, preferably, one that honors the people around you who’ve lived through some shit.

    Yep, yep. All this about deadnaming, pronouns, etc. was not obvious to me AT ALL, and I could never derive it from any set of ethical or logical axioms–I had to actually listen to people talking about their lives and their preferences. And sometimes arguing with other people in similar situations about them, since of course no group is a monolith.

  132. 132.

    Paul in KY

    @Baud: They’ll certainly eat one if they can catch it.  Like a messed up one (fell out of a tree) or an old, deaf one.

  133. 133.

    Nelle

    @Alison Rose: My daughter went (Jewish father, Mennonite mother).  She wasn’t raised Jewish, though.  She was grateful to go..said she felt like she found people like her at last.  She was able to see the propaganda for what it was.  Coming back, she tried to join other Jewish student groups but never felt accepted there. The trip itself, though, was valuable to her.

  135. 135.

    A Man for All Seaonings (formerly Geeno)

    @Baud: Carson was (briefly) a game show host before getting into the talk show circuit if I remember correctly.

  136. 136.

    NotMax

    @Paul in KY

    Already spoken for, I’m afraid. :)

    Ullr or Ul is the son of Sif and stepson of Thor. Is mentioned as being unbeatable in archery and skiing and is a warrior, and a cunning magician. Temporarily replaced Odin when he was exiled. Source

  138. 138.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Great point. I can’t remember if Obama used the same tactic (campaign separate from the state party apparatus) in every state in the general — any idea? It was definitely the right move in FL.

  141. 141.

    Bill Arnold

    even America’s Wang isn’t large enough to contain the MAGA virus,

    Fournier’s Gangrene

    Fournier’s gangrene is a type of necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease) that affects your …

    Just noting this, since this obvious comparison will be made by others.

  142. 142.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Paul in KY: The thing about Ilhan Omar specifically… she can say she’s anti-Likud but she’s stumbled into expressing it with rhetoric that raises red flags.

    The lefty antisemite I knew more directly was way worse, though–an old Usenet Marxist who became one of the first bloggers; went from deploring the treatment of Palestinians to making Olympian announcements that it was because Judaism is an inherently racist religion.

  144. 144.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: I think Kay said that is what Obama did in Ohio too

    ETA:  I don’t know if this approach would work with a candidate that doesn’t have a lot of star power.

  145. 145.

    cain

    @Paul in KY:

    Can’t blame em – I’m pretty anti-Lukud.

    Israel is probably cackling with glee in regards to the situation in Iran. It seems things are really take a turn for the worst.

  147. 147.

    Baud

    @cain: I can’t really fault them on that.  Iran is pretty hostile to Israel for reason that have little to do with the treatment of Palestinians except as pretext.

  149. 149.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Meh. Florida is gonna Florida.

    Somebody might want to point out to the alte kakers that distort Florida’s politics that the things that made Florida economically attractive for migrants from colder places in the north were stable retirement funds supplemented by social security, with a local economy dominated by all the family tourism to Disney/Universal/Seaworld/Busch Gardens, and other tourism for beachtime/watersports to Miami/Keys/Destin/Tampa/Sanibel.

    Take that away the good times by economic collapse and civil conflict, and suddenly you’re competing with Haitian/Venezuelan/Cuban immigrants and rednecks to find pythons, armadillos, key deer and poodles to eat.

  150. 150.

    Whereaway

    @Damien: Tolerance paradox has entered the chat.
    We’re literally seeing its predicted consequence emerge: the evil are using the levers of power to kill the very tolerant society that allowed them to speak.

    For many reasons, I don’t like using the word ‘Tolerance’ in framing discussions of rights.

    To say I ‘tolerate’ something implies that I can withdraw that ‘tolerance’ at my whim.   If I then condemn something, I am ‘intolerant’, even when what I’m condemning is intolerance.  Even criticism can be labelled intolerance.

    I think using ‘Tolerance’ as a framing for the discussion of rights is a pretty ugly trap.

    Instead, I think the discussion should be about Rights (yes – capitalized).   A person should have a right to freedom in their own lives, as along as those actions don’t limit another’s freedom (I’m ignoring for now the complexities in boundaries).   It’s possible to make clear statements about Rights.   ‘Tolerance’ can be a very squishy term.

    I usually try to -not- use the word ‘tolerance’, it’s a very double edged sword.

  151. 151.

    Paul in KY

    @NotMax: Well, I’m not going to tangle with him (archery and magician)! Ul, my man, you have it.

    Thank you for researching that. I’d hate to have him conjure himself into my house one night.

  152. 152.

    Betty Cracker

    @hueyplong: There is definitely something in my fridge that will outlive Trump (at least if I do), but not by much: the bottle of celebratory bubbly I plan uncork when news of his demise reaches me. I don’t care if it’s 6 AM. 🍾 Or if I’m on a Zoom meeting for work. 🍾

  155. 155.

    Geminid

    @FelonyGovt: I think the current Israeli government is pretty good. Interim PM Lapid and Defense Secretary Gantz are promising politicians, and the Labor, Meretz, and Arab Ra’am parties are sound.

    It’s only a caretaker government now though. Their 5th election since 2019 will be held November 1. Right now polling shows Netanyahu’s four party bloc hovering between 58 and 61 projected MKs. He needs 61 to form a government, and I really hope he does not get them. With the toxic, racist National Religious party forming a quarter of his bloc, another Netanyahu government could set the country back many years.

    If Netanyahu cannot form a government, Gantz and his National Unity Party could. He’s been wooing the two “Haredi,” or Orthodox Jewish, parties that have been partners with Netanyahu. They’ve been out of government for almost two years now and they really don’t like it.

    Gantz has good relations with Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party is projected to come in second behind Likud. The two would be able to get the more liberal parties in the current government on board too. The alternative would be another election with no prospect of a different result.

  157. 157.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Betty Cracker: I seem to remember a lot of butthurt from progressive activists over the very clearly marked dividing lines between Obama’s organization and the rest of the party.

  160. 160.

    Paul in KY

    @Matt McIrvin: If that’s so, then she needs to be more precise in her language. Israel ain’t going anywhere, so peace has to be made with them at some point (IMO).

  161. 161.

    CaseyL

    @FelonyGovt:

    I do find that I get more overtly Jewish – I’m more likely to “come out” as a Jew- as anti-semitism rises (it’s not obvious that I am from my last name).

     

    I do the same thing. Which really bugs me, since I’m less religiously observant than your average floor lamp.

    I mean, it doesn’t bug me that I’m Jewish, or become more overtly so in the presence of Anti-Semitism: it bugs me no end that this is a thing, again, and that I need to “Be Jewish” for reasons of courage and pride – and simple humanity – when I neither believe in nor practice the actual religion.

  163. 163.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: I’m about as Anti-Likud as a Methodist can be. I hate those fuckers! That scumbag that murdered Gen. Rabin and those weirdo ‘settlers’ who strut around with their uzis. Horrible people with horrible beliefs, IMO.

  164. 164.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Whereaway:

    An acquaintance who went the way of bona fide nazi leanings once whined in my presence that his intolerance should be tolerated.

    I said some words back.

    On another note, I hope the ACLU is no longer taking up the cudgel on such things as the Skokie case. There’s a very large number of awful, evil asshole lawyers that are more than capable of taking that sort of thing up. No need to spend leftish resources on it.

  165. 165.

    dm

    @Citizen Alan:

    It’s like I said about Scarlett Johanssen playing the lead in Ghost In the Shell. if you think that only a Japanese actress should allowed to play the Major, then you’re really saying the movie shouldn’t get made….

    I think I know a lot of people who’d find that offer acceptable.

  167. 167.

    Geminid

    @cain: If you were to read Israeli newspapers you wouldn’t find anyone cackling. Politicians are restrained also.

    They hope that protesters can topple the Islamic Republic, but they also know how hard that will be. The last big round of protests, “Bloody November,” 2019, ended when the regime suppressed them by mowing down protesters with machine guns. The US State Department estimated the toll at 1000 killed. Reuters said 1500.

  168. 168.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: My parents tell me Carson had a Letterman/Conan-like subversive hipster comedian image when he started out. I wouldn’t know.

  169. 169.

    A Man for All Seaonings (formerly Geeno)

    @NotMax: I couldn’t remember the show and didn’t want to google. I didn’t think it was that long – like maybe 2 or 3 tops. Oh well.

  172. 172.

    dm

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I remember that, too.  I don’t know if it was what the online progressives were saying, but what I was hearing was: don’t the Obamists remember their community-organizer roots that this isn’t just a Presidential campaign, it’s going to take continuous grass-roots organizing to get stuff done?”

     

    Sort of like FDR’s response to some political activists: “I agree completely.  Now go out and make me do it.”

  174. 174.

    azlib

    @trollhattan:

    Digby seems to think Kari will be Trump’s running mate in 2024. She is a perfect imitation. I got into it with the editorial writers at the AZ Republic.  They have run 5 pieces on Katie Hobbs refusal to debate Kari and made a big deal out of it when debates are of marginal utility in any election.

    I am waiting to see if they make a big deal out of Kari’s Trumpian refusal to conceed if she loses. Keep in mind that conceding an election is not necessary – it is a polite nod to the transfer of power which Trumpian Republicans are refusing to do routinely.

  175. 175.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Damien: We somehow need to show their underlying intolerance for ALL viewpoints. to the world Maybe posting pro-Biden memes on truth.social and Parler and noting how fast the accounts are blocked and deleted? It’s going to take someone with a stronger stomach than me though to do it.

  176. 176.

    rikyrah

    Did you see the debate between MTG and her opponent?

    She went on this crazyazz rant, and Brotherman responded..

    ” I’m gonna pray for you.”

    I still LOL everytime that I think about it.

    I realized that ‘ I’m gonna pray for you.’ is the Black version of ‘ Bless your heart.’

  177. 177.

    sturgeonmouth

    Hey all. I’m mostly a lurker here, and I don’t do social media, but I created my first meme, and I would appreciate your help. I can’t vote in Georgia, but I can do this. Remember “Walker: Texas Ranger”? Let me introduce “Walker: Fake-Ass Ranger”. Use the image anywhere you’d like. Help make it go viral.

    http://sturgeonmouth.blogspot.com/

  181. 181.

    rikyrah

    I will continue to fight about this.

    I don’t believe Florida is a Red State

     

    I believe Florida is a VOTER SUPPRESSED STATE.

     

    NO STATE that has denied the franchise to ONE MILLION PLUS People is anything but Voter Suppressed.

     

    Phucking Poll Tax for Ex-Felons.

  182. 182.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:

    :-)

    Could also be an Italian nana thing. When the spouse and kid attended a fundraiser with Nancy SMASH the topic of then-president [patooie] Trump came up, she said “I pray for him every day.” Guessing it’s literally true she prayed that he not destroy the nation for Just One More Day.

  183. 183.

    geg6

    @Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman):

    Both Carson and Letterman could be absolutely hilarious.  And they never talked down to their audiences.

    Miller was an absolute asshole, from the start of his career (here in Pittsburgh where he is from, where we try not to claim him) to the end.  My BIL worked at the CBS tv affiliate here and Miller was the warmup for an afternoon talk show there.  My BIL loves everyone.  But he hates Dennis Miller because, even though Miller was a nobody at that point, he talked down to the director (my BIL) and producers, in addition to the on-air talent.  He didn’t last long there.

    I prefer to brag about our native sons like Michael Keaton, Mark Cuban and Billy Porter, who teamed together to produce a doc on the the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting and the aftermath:

    https://www.tvinsider.com/1065131/a-tree-of-life-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-idina-menzel-trailer-hbo/

  184. 184.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah: ​Yep. Arguably true too about Texas, Georgia and in the balance, North Carolina.

    Shelby County was as horrid and impactful as Dobbs.

  187. 187.

    cain

    @Baud:

    @cain: I can’t really fault them on that.  Iran is pretty hostile to Israel for reason that have little to do with the treatment of Palestinians except as pretext.

    I can’t either – Iran has been cashing checks with no money in the bank. They’ve been more focused on terror and political theater than working on economy – the fact that all they do is fuck around about social issues was probably the last straw.

  189. 189.

    West of the Rockies

    So the badge Walker flashed is demonstrably bogus? I hadn’t heard that definitively but am not surprised.  He is wretched.

  190. 190.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Not just the underdog.  A whole lot of the Democratic Party apparatus in this country was explicitly for Clinton, at least at the outset.  So building his own apparatus was a smart move.

  194. 194.

    Ruckus

    @West of the Rockies:

    I wouldn’t know Kayne if he knocked on my door.

    “Humans are stupefying.”

    They sure can be. It seems to me that trying to be better is an advancement upon trying to find someone worse than you so you can be better than someone. Maybe that’s just my twisted view of life……

  195. 195.

    Geminid

    @cain: I think the leaders of the Islamic Republic see it as a revolutionary force, to be used to bring what they consider justice to the Middle East. They remain determined to destroy the Zionist state of Israel, even as Arab countries like Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE forge diplomatic and trade ties with a country they have not recognized since its founding.

    This is part of why Iran has spent so many resources in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Many Iranians think this is a waste in addition to the hostility it creates, and they don’t neccesarily buy the notion that Israel is a threat to the Muslim world. This sceptism is sometimes expressed in the protests.

  197. 197.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: You’re right to be skeptical — Woods did see four men acting “suspiciously” on a plane, and possibly they were the hijackers (unconfirmed according to Snopes). But he didn’t talk to the FBI until after the attacks. He told airline employees about it at the time, but the men’s behavior wasn’t all that weird: they didn’t eat, drink, sleep or read for the six-hour flight and conversed among themselves in whispers. Hardly actionable information unless you assume anyone who looks “Middle Eastern” is a potential terrorist.

  198. 198.

    Ruckus

    @West of the Rockies:

    Thing is, he doesn’t know any better. I believe he no longer holds the concept of reality in his head that the rest of us usually do. Poor dude gave up his brain for football. I have over the years met people who played professional football, one of them has two super bowl rings. His list of health issues is scary. He still has his original personality and intelligence though. He knows a few who don’t. Another one I know had hip and knee replacements and a drinking habit at 40 yrs old. Neither of them were sorry that they played.

  199. 199.

    cain

    @Geminid:

    This is part of why Iran has spent so many resources in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Many Iranians think this is a waste in addition to the hostility it creates, and they don’t neccesarily buy the notion that Israel is a threat to the Muslim world. This sceptism is sometimes expressed in the protests.

    100% – and it’s at the expense of Iranian people – it doesn’t help them in any way and with no economic benefit. Also what makes you so morally superior to Israel if you’re busy doing all this shit.

  201. 201.

    jonas

    @Suzanne: You mean Kirk Cameron. I think he was being an outspoken evangelical (criticizing gay rights, evolution, etc.) long before 9/11. Sinise, iirc, is more or less a Never Trumper. No idea about Harmon. Both have been gainfully employed on tv and elsewhere in recent years, however, so the whinging of c-listers like Kevin Sorbo about how conservatives can never find work in Hollywood is mostly bs.

  202. 202.

    zzyzx

    I’m glad that the reason why Rapturists support Israel is becoming widely known instead of just me throwing that out there to people’s surprise.

  203. 203.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Why it matters: In a statement, Ye said he’s buying the platform to ensure people with conservative opinions “have the right to freely express ourselves” online.

    First: Parlor, what is that?

    Second: The whole point of Conservative On Line discourse is to piss other people off. So it will be Conservatives trolling Conservatives. The Great Circle Jerk of the Right, if you will.

    Third: Sounds like the Parlor’s investors will be very happy, West, not so much. There really that many rich conservative idiots to support this kind of crap?

  204. 204.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Llelldorin: “We love Jews because our eschatology requires them to exist and be powerful so they can die horribly at the appropriate moment!”

    The same with Russia; to the Millianalists Russia is Magog from The Bible.

  205. 205.

    john b

    @trollhattan:

    @rikyrah: ​Yep. Arguably true too about Texas, Georgia and in the balance, North Carolina.

    Shelby County was as horrid and impactful as Dobbs.

    NC it’s more about gerrymandering and the state legislature usurping power from cities and the governor more than direct denial of the vote to large groups of people. They just give large groups of people no good reason to bother voting (because it’s all but pre-determined what will happen in many elections).

    edit: unless of course, you consider the specter of alternate electors.

  206. 206.

    GibberJack

    @The Moar You Know: The FBI brush-off sounds way too much like what happened with Jan6.

    Not trying to make another 9/11 rabbit hole for sanity to disappear into but the similarities in denying the evidence of a credible threat are disturbing.

    At the very least they have shown to be unable to get past their preconceived ideas of what a threat looks like.

  207. 207.

    hueyplong

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: He’s in the Little Orphan Annie Club, and the honorary secret that’s been shared with him is Drink More Ovaltine. FFS, literally nothing disqualifies a GOPer.

  210. 210.

    Old School

    The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service “exorbitant rates” – upwards of $1.4 million over four years – to protect the former President and his family at properties they owned, according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday.

    The committee found that the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service “excessive nightly rates on dozens of trips” as high as $1,185 per night despite claims by the former President’s company that federal employees traveling with him would stay at those properties “for free” or “at cost.”

  211. 211.

    AM in NC

    @Ruviana: Pretty woman, but a total one-note on that show in terms of her acting ability.

    Pretty, privileged, Southern, white girl turns out to be a right-winger?  I went to college with a lot of these types. Very unsurprising. She is Texas to her core.

  212. 212.

    Geminid

    @cain: Another factor influencing Iran’s interventionist foreign policy is its influential military industrial complex. The regime has devoted a large portion of its industrial base and trained engineers to weapons development and production.

    Iran is not a socialist state; rather, ownership of munitions companies is concentrated among people with ties to senior Revolutionary Guard Corps officers and/or powerful civilian leaders. The recently reported missile and drone shipments to Russia, for instance will put a lot of money into many people’s pockets.

  213. 213.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    We have gone through this before and I’m sure that we will have no problem finding another General Sherman (or a few), if necessary. Why should we fight them? Because the first order of business for a new confederacy would be to declare war on what remains of the United States.

    They have to have enemies to demonize, that’s what they thrive on. You can fight them now or you can fight them later, but you are going to fight them.

  214. 214.

    AM in NC

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:   I got a letter back from one of my Senators, Thom Tillis, who invoked the ACLU to make a rightwing point.

    I’d asked him why he voted against the Democratic bill to get money out of politics and he wrote back saying, yes, we need to get money out of politics somehow, later, in another manner, but THIS actually-existing bill was an infringement on FREESPEECH and even the ACLU is against it on those grounds.

    With friends like these . . .

  215. 215.

    Betty Cracker

    @GibberJack: Check out my Snopes link at #197 — Woods didn’t even talk to the FBI until 9/12/2001. Not saying the feds didn’t blow off other evidence. As info tricked out in the days that followed, it became clear to me that the FBI ignored people who might as well have had blinking red neon TERRORIST signs on their foreheads. But the Woods story as recounted above isn’t accurate.

  216. 216.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @MisterDancer:

    I cannot imagine they have no awareness of Gay and Trans people in NYC to connect with, if needed.

    Real Time is filmed at CBS Television City in the Fairfax District in LA, though I’d imagine they’d have the same difficulty finding gay folk in adjoining West Hollywood.

    /s

  217. 217.

    Geminid

    The connection by some Evangelicals of Israel to the Last Days prophecies* has been fairly well known for at least a couple decades now. I think two other factors motivate  conservatives to back Israel.

    First, they have a reputation for fighting Arabs, who are  as a group, many believe, rightly or wrongly, hostile to this nation.

    Second, some people are very impressed by Israel’s military prowess, and want to identify with it. I sometimes liken these to Yankees fans. I think it fortunate that Israel’s military leasership does not share their fans’ extravagent notions as to their military invincibility.

    * I’ve seen knowledgeable contrarian Baptists credit Hal Lindsey’s 1970s best seller, The Late Great Planet Earth as the impetus for the explosion of these ideas among evangelicals.

  219. 219.

    sab

    I know yard signs don’t mean much, but I am noticing Democratic yard signs in yards that have always had Republican signs. Some for Tim Ryan and Emilia Sykes, others for various judges.

    The yards where I actually know the people are doctors, or old fashioned law and order Republicans.

    Maybe the Ohio redistricting mess, Jan 6, Dobbs and the low caliber of Trump judicial appointments has been noticed.

  220. 220.

    BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️

    @cain: I can. Reconstruction was short-circuited for a reason. The lack of, well, dilligence in dealing with the former Confederates is IMHO directly responsible for the situation we’re in right now.

    It is, of course, possible that we were always going to wind up here whether Reconstruction had been completed as planned or not.  I would have loved to have been in a position to find out.

  221. 221.

    Geminid

    @BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: A lot was changed by Lincoln’s assasination. Lincoln envisioned a relatively moderate policy towards the former Confederates, but he would never have tolerated the KKK and other oppressions of Black people like Andrew Johnson did.

    Selecting Tennessee War Democrat Johnson as his running mate in 1864 was one of Lincoln’s few political mistakes, but it was a very consequential one.

  222. 222.

    Citizen Alan

    @dm:

    And I’m one of them, as I’m of the opinion that all animes are basically unfilmable.  The visual and stylistic characteristics that anime fans associate with the genre just look ridiculous in live action.  But that doesn’t change the fact that you would need a bankable female star to even attempt to make a movie based on an anime property with a female lead. I never actually watched it. Did scarjo spend the whole movie in hot pants like the major did in the anime?

  223. 223.

    GibberJack

    @Betty Cracker: Thank you. I saw that and thought, Whew, but didn’t respond.

    Considering the history of the FBI meddling in politics, I do wonder if they aren’t sometimes looking the other way. Or as with Comey, putting their thumb on the scale.

    We actually did see that with Comey, though. And we have learned some of the insurrectionists are coming from inside the house. That would’ve seemed crackpot a week ago.

    They do their credibility no favors.

  224. 224.

    Anyway

    Iran and KSA have a centuries-old hostility that has little to do with Israel – US was/is completely in the tank for Saudi Arabia but thanks to MSB we’re maybe/slowly questioning it.

  227. 227.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m sure there are other characters waiting in the wings to play act SFB’s idiotic stepchild, because they are as ignorant, stupid and racist as he is. But please, as much as he tries to imitate some non human character, and as badly a job that he does at that, he is human, just an incredibly shitty one. The world has seen them before and will agin, the world isn’t actually ready for perfection, and I doubt it ever will be. It would be nice if we could get a bit closer but still it is an impossible quest to find perfection unless your definition is flawed and you can see how that circle just goes on forever.

  229. 229.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: My concern is that it happens when they’re in control of the United States, and the rest of us end up having to play the role of the Confederacy in this reenactment. It’s not a good part.

  232. 232.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    I believe that Lincoln was trying to reunite a broken nation and felt that he had to not be too against the south or they never would have at least settled back into the nation, even if they weren’t actively fighting. IOW he was trying to put the civil war behind us and move on as one nation. It took a while and a lot of those feelings I don’t think have ever really gone away, even as the people have, mostly 3-4 generations ago.

  233. 233.

    red4751

    @rikyrah: I believe it was this morning that DeSantis himself reported for the first time Florida has 300,0000 more registered republican voters then Demorcate.

  237. 237.

    eddie blake

    @Citizen Alan:  (knows this is probably a dead thread)

    the problem with the live action ghost in the shell movie had NOTHING to do with scarjo being white, internet trolls notwithstanding.

    the problem was the god-awful writing. just AWFUL writing that just made NO sense in the context of the movie, which was based on several long-running television shows and other feature-length (animated) films.

    they turned allies of the major, friends and companions of years into co-conspirators who only knew her for a period of months.

    fucking awful, fucking mess.

    …didn’t matter that the major was a white woman, she wasn’t a woman. she was a woman’s brain in a full body-replacement cyborg. she coulda been pink and purple polka-dots.

  238. 238.

    Geminid

    @leeleeFL: Also, Barak Obama was an exceptional candidate. He also carried Ohio twice, and it has since swung red even more than Florida has.

  242. 242.

    Tony G

    @trollhattan: My own experience is that pleasant-sounding euphemisms are a characteristic of Italian-American women of a certain age.  My mother’s kid brother was in the infantry in 1944-45 including the Battle of the Bulge and Hurtgen Forest (thankfully making it through in one piece).  Throughout my mothers life she referred to those years as “the time when her brother was overseas” — as though he had been on a pleasant European vacation.

  244. 244.

    Paul in KY

    @Cheez Whiz: Good point. I do think straight actors can play gay roles and gay actors can play straight roles.

    My comment above was too snarky, IMO and didn’t acknowledge that gay actors are generally unemployed much more than straight actors.

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