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Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

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Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

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

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The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

And so it is for the politically and morally bankrupt Kevin McCarthy.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Good Time to Be A Democrat

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Good Time to Be A Democrat

by Anne Laurie|  November 22, 20228:24 am| 82 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality

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U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden headed to North Carolina to thank Marines based there during a ‘Friendsgiving’ dinner pic.twitter.com/ycwZFvbUql

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 22, 2022

“I hereby pardon Chocolate and Chip” ??

US President Joe Biden pardons two turkeys as part of Thanksgiving traditionhttps://t.co/rQpMc2fr4R pic.twitter.com/zQQN9nm0EY

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 22, 2022

“How many turkeys you got down there?”
“…about nine and a half million turkeys.”
“God love ya. Nine and a half million turkeys. I tell you what, that’s like some of the countries I’ve been to.” pic.twitter.com/TdKbWyF1gP

— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) November 21, 2022

the combination of Very Online chief of staff and Extremely Offline POTUS seems to be working reasonably well https://t.co/hYjcugkR3A

— a vindicated archaeologist (@merovingians) November 21, 2022

… Energized by the White House’s actions on key priorities such as climate, student debt and marijuana, progressives are openly rooting for Ron Klain to stay on as Biden’s top aide. And they view better-than-expected midterms as vindication of the president’s decision to pursue an expansive agenda.

“A lot of people see him as one of the few avenues they have to have a glimpse into the dynamics and considerations of what’s happening in the White House,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said of Klain. “When I think about some of the conversations that build trust, build the sense of open communication, he’s usually part of that.”

An around-the-clock communicator who courted Democrats’ grassroots groups even before Biden took office, Klain has become a critical conduit between liberal leaders and the administration’s upper echelon, according to interviews with more than a dozen leaders and lawmakers on the left. He offers a level of access the left has rarely enjoyed — and that progressives now say will be crucial to maintaining a united Democratic front in the face of divided government.

The outpouring of support comes amid growing speculation over whether Klain will exit the White House, triggering a West Wing shakeup that could reshape the remainder of Biden’s presidency and reverberate through the Democratic Party. Biden has asked Klain to stay, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO…

Since Politico can’t find anyone to complain about Klain or speculate on his possible replacement for the record, I’m guessing this is 99.9% the Media Village Idiots whining that they’re *boooored* with competence, and would prefer some hair-pulling & sh*t-flinging, such as could always be expected under You-Know-Who.

Former President Barack Obama is returning to Atlanta for the second time this campaign season, this time to hold a rally for U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff. https://t.co/GdBDFwTEzc

— Atlanta Journal-Constitution (@ajc) November 21, 2022

Kevin McCarthy is not ready for House Democrats led by Hakeem Jeffries ?? pic.twitter.com/acuxH0155o

— Qondi: A #SaveSenatorBae Account (@QondiNtini) November 17, 2022

Hakeem Jeffries is about to become the Republican Party’s worst nightmare. pic.twitter.com/exNAkFGNAh

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) November 17, 2022

Meanwhile, across the event horizon aisle…

Amazing work by Rick Scott, truly. Bilking thousands, tens of thousands?, of Republicans out of their money to pay off NRSC debts that he caused through mismanagement and ripping off their donor data to build a donor universe/database for his failed 2024 Presidential run https://t.co/Wmsl1ez1Lg

— Blake Allen (@Blake_Allen13) November 21, 2022

The foundation of the RePuBLiC NoT DeMoCrAcY nonsense is that the more known writers from that time period were kinda-sorta on the side of the Spartan puppet government that got overthrown by the comeback of the Democrats and they were seething about it.

— A. Bartaway????????? (@Bartaway) November 22, 2022

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Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Leto

    November 22, 2022 at 8:32 am

    When Michelle Obama was on the The Late Show last week, Colbert asked her if Barack still pardoned the turkey. She said, thankfully that was one tradition they didn’t keep.

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    November 22, 2022 at 8:32 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊

  3. 3.

    Nicole

    November 22, 2022 at 8:33 am

    At this point in our nations’s history, all the time is a good time to be a Democrat.

     

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

  4. 4.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 8:38 am

    Rare instance of a national media org speaking with women affected by the abortion bans:

    Abortion bans have put women’s lives at risk across the country—yesterday, the Associated Press spoke to some of the women who have been denied care and the doctors put in the impossible situation of deciding just how sick is sick enough to be able to legally give someone an abortion. One 35 year-old in Texas, for example, had a nonviable pregnancy but was in the hospital in agony for days before being able to find a doctor to help. She said she thought, “What am I supposed to do, just lay here and die?” And a Colorado abortion provider recounted seeing a cancer patient who had traveled from out-of-state for care who just kept thanking her, grateful that her toddler wouldn’t be left without a mother. The whole piece is an absolute-must read.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 22, 2022 at 8:40 am

    Amazing work by Rick Scott,

    A whole party of grifters. Anyone surprised by this fact deserves to have their bank accounts stripped clean by the GOP.

  6. 6.

    New Deal democrat

    November 22, 2022 at 8:40 am

    Some of the comments in response to the Bad History Takes tweet are hilarious:

    “When a student asked one of my professors if history was always written by the victor, he responded ‘Well, Sima Qian wrote the most comprehensive history of ancient China. And that was after the emperor castrated him. I don’t think he was much of a winner.’”

    “ Asked by reporters why Pickett’s Charge failed, Pickett frequently replied, ‘I’ve always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.’”

    Also – pet peeve – It is absolutely true that the US is a republic. But all republics for thousands of years have relied on elections to select their leaders. Thus the US is a republic that functions by representative democracy.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 8:41 am

    Also? When they say they aren’t jailing women they’re lying:

    Remember the Alabama county who has been jailing pregnant women in an attempt to ‘protect’ their fetuses? Well one of the women they put in jail wasn’t even pregnant. Stacey Freeman was arrested for “chemical endangerment of a child”—they said she was using drugs while pregnant—and held in Etowah County Detention center. Freeman offered to take a pregnancy test, but they booked and held her anyway; once she was released, Sheriff Investigator Brandi Fuller warned Freeman not to get pregnant lest she face additional charges. This is a distressing precedent: Law enforcement officials are already using abortion bans to go after pregnant women—now they’ll go after any woman just by claiming she’s pregnant??

     

  8. 8.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 8:42 am

    @rikyrah:

    Good morning.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 22, 2022 at 8:46 am

    Well, one things for sure, this goldfish wasn’t found in any aquarium.

  10. 10.

    lowtechcyclist

    November 22, 2022 at 8:46 am

    @Nicole:

    At this point in our nations’s history, all the time is a good time to be a Democrat.

    I was about to say the same thing, but you beat me to it!

    It still feels weird to actually be happy with what my party is doing, but they’re really firing on all cylinders these days.  I love it, and may it continue long enough for me to take it for granted.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 8:46 am

    @Kay:

    If only that were as newsworthy as CRT or email best practices.

  12. 12.

    lowtechcyclist

    November 22, 2022 at 8:48 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    A whole party of grifters. Anyone surprised by this fact deserves to have their bank accounts stripped clean by the GOP.

    Indeed.  Then they’ll really know ‘economic anxiety.’

  13. 13.

    CliosFanBoy

    November 22, 2022 at 8:55 am

    @New Deal democrat: ​
      technically all “republic” means is that we don’t have a hereditary monarch. The “Republic not a Democracy” bit was popularized by the segregationist John Birch society in the 1950s as a rationale to disenfranchise African Americans.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 22, 2022 at 8:55 am

    Colorado Springs shooter had allegedly threatened his mother with a bomb. Why could he still get a gun?

    A year and a half before Anderson Lee Aldrich was arrested as a suspect in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub shooting that left five people dead, he allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb, forcing neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering.

    Despite that incident, there’s no public record that prosecutors sought any felony kidnapping and menacing charges against Aldrich, or that police or relatives tried to trigger Colorado’s red flag law that would have allowed authorities to seize the weapons and ammo the man’s mother says he had with him.

    In 2019, Colorado’s governor Jared Polis signed the state’s Violence Prevention Act or red flag bill. The legislation was named after Zackari Parrish, a sheriff’s deputy for Douglas county – about 50 miles from El Paso county where Colorado Springs is located – who was shot and killed while responding to a mental health call. Prior to the deputy’s death two versions of the red flag bill failed in committee. The version that did pass was met with fierce opposition from the county where public records indicate Aldrich lived.

    El Paso county became one of the first counties in the state to declare itself a “second amendment sanctuary” in protest of gun control laws. The county passed a Second Amendment Preservation Resolution in March 2019, with the county board of commissioners arguing that the red flag bill didn’t address mental health issues and imposed on people’s gun rights.

    “I’m saddened that, as a local elected official, I’m even faced with a resolution to affirm a right that was guaranteed in our constitution,” Commissioner Cami Bremer told The Gazette newspaper in 2019. “I honestly believe that this bill was crafted by well-meaning people, but that does not make it a good bill.”

    The county’s self-designation as a second amendment sanctuary does not exempt residents from state gun restrictions like background checks. Rather, it indicates the county’s decision to “actively resist” the bill by refusing to put any money, staffing or law enforcement power behind local implementation of the red flag bill. More than half of Colorado’s 64 counties have also declared themselves second amendment sanctuaries, according to KUSA, Denver’s NBC affiliate.

    Though these resolutions are mainly seen as political rhetoric and do not legally disallow law enforcement from petitioning courts to have someone’s guns removed, they can have a potential “chilling effect” on local police who may believe their local community do not support the use of extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), according to Dr Christopher Knoepke, an assistant professor in the University of Colorado’s Department of Medicine.

    Fcking cowards, every last one of them.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 8:55 am

    @Kay:

    What am I supposed to do, just lay here and die?

    GOP: Yes.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 8:59 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s all good. The shooter hurt the people that he needed to hurt. /Red CO Counties

  17. 17.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 8:59 am

     

    @Baud:

    the logistics interest me. The travel to The Free States.

    Texas was sort of a powerhouse in leading edge health care – now women can’t even get ordinary cancer treatment.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 9:01 am

    @Kay:

    Blue cities in red states are always in a precarious position.

  19. 19.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    November 22, 2022 at 9:02 am

    Is there a way we can point and laugh at Rick Scott siphoning off all the donor money, but not letting the GOP donors know that’s where their money is going?

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 22, 2022 at 9:04 am

    @Baud: I’m just completely disgusted by it all.​
     

    eta: to me this is a no brainer but I guess some people are totally morally bankrupt

  21. 21.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2022 at 9:04 am

    @CliosFanBoy: I’ve always assumed that about 80% of the viability of “we’re a republic, not a democracy” just comes from the idea that “Republican” is more American than “Democratic”–a chance association of words.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 9:04 am

    I Am glad to see some providers in the states run by far Right religious are doing the right thing and immediately referring women with pregnancy complications to providers in free states.

    that’s the ethical thing to do. Refer it out to a state that still permits modern best practices health care for women. My own state, Ohio, no longer does but IL and MI are options. It’s the right thing to do if patients come first.

  23. 23.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    November 22, 2022 at 9:06 am

    It does feel good to be a Democrat even though we just lost the House. I think it has something to do with the other side being both crazy and evil.

  24. 24.

    bbleh

    November 22, 2022 at 9:08 am

    Since Politico can’t find anyone to complain about Klain or speculate on his possible replacement for the record, I’m guessing this is 99.9% the Media Village Idiots whining that they’re *boooored* with competence, and would prefer some hair-pulling & sh*t-flinging, such as could always be expected under You-Know-Who.

    It is a mildly amazing testament to the professionalism of the Biden White House (as it was under Obama as well) that, except when they want you to, you just don’t hear about anyone else from the Executive Branch.  Not WH staffers, not Cabinet members, not senior military … almost nobody never.

    Of course the Village media want TFG back.  He made their lives easy: people clamored to talk sh!t to them, and he kept the rubes entertained constantly.

    It’s a shame the WaPo has begun to sink back into the mire again — they were the best under Baron — but they’re just too much of a Village paper.  Except for its political coverage, TFNYT is once again beating them hands down.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 22, 2022 at 9:10 am

    Turns out there are some things in the twitter trash bin that not even Elon will touch.

    eta:

    Elon Musk has said he will not reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Twitter, saying he has “no mercy” for people who capitalize on the deaths of children for personal fame.

    but he has no problem with abusers like trump ripping children out of the arms of their parents.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    November 22, 2022 at 9:10 am

    The post-election in my country remains murky. His Majesty the Agong gave all parties until 2pm Monday to submit a governing coalition plan, if they had one, so he could appoint a PM. That deadline came and went — nothing. It was extended to 2pm today: that deadline too has passed, and still bupkes. The Agong says he can’t tell the the nation anything about a new government because he hasn’t been told anything. His Majesty urges us all to be  patient.

  27. 27.

    Warblewarble

    November 22, 2022 at 9:11 am

    What Magats actually believe is less important than what they are  invested in ,ALWAYS,

  28. 28.

    kalakal

    November 22, 2022 at 9:11 am

    Anyone who puts Rick Scott in charge of the money deserves all they  get

    On a different note NASA seems to be using Hubble to recreate Kubrick’s stargate sequence

    https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221121.html

  29. 29.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 9:13 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ll admit, the last few months is the first time in a long time that I sensed that the Proud to be a Democrat tag wasn’t limited to Balloon Juice.  There were a lot of good vibes throughout my info bubble, and a lot of confidence as opposed to the usual hand-wringing, as if people understood the challenges we faced and felt we were up to it.

    I hope it lasts.

  30. 30.

    New Deal democrat

    November 22, 2022 at 9:16 am

    @CliosFanBoy: “technically all ‘republic’ means is that we don’t have a hereditary monarch.”

    I don’t think there’s any one accepted “technical” definition of “republic.”  But, fwiw, here is the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

    “ republic, form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body…. The term republic may also be applied to any form of government in which the head of state is not a hereditary monarch.”

    https://www.britannica.com/topic/republic-government

    So, how have those “representatives of the citizen body” historically been chosen? In the 3000 year history of republics, occasionally some representatives have been chosen by lot, but almost always it has been via elections, the rules of which had been set in advance.

  31. 31.

    VOR

    November 22, 2022 at 9:18 am

    @lowtechcyclist: Let all the small dollar donations be swallowed up by the grift and wasted. Let TFG and Scott take such a large chunk of the donations that viable Republican candidates are left wanting.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2022 at 9:20 am

    @New Deal democrat: And then there’s North Korea, which purports to be a republic even though it’s obviously an absolute hereditary monarchy in all but name.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 9:22 am

    Keep an eye on this. Yesterday we found out mainstream Republican presidential candidate Pompeo is targeting Randi Weingarten as “the most dangerous person in the world” (she’s the president of a teachers union)

    He’s not alone in ramping up the violent rhetoric around public schools:

    Jennifer Berkshire

    @BisforBerkshire

    It’s not just Pompeo. The rhetoric from the right re teachers & schools is getting increasingly menacing and martial BECAUSE the GOP ran on this stuff and lost. Here’s Hillsdale’s Larry Arnn warning violence may be necessary against *education bureaucrats*

    The anti-wokeism campaign mostly flopped in the 2022 cycle. Rufo’s agenda alienated suburban parents, who were the target. They’re angry about this so doubling down on the the anti public school campaigns. They won on it in dark red areas they would have won anyway without it.

    Jennifer Berkshire

    @BisforBerkshire

    Here’s Heritage head Kevin Roberts, whose #1 priority is moving kids out of public schools, ‘putting lead on the target’ and ‘looking to take more prisoners from the radical left.’

    They haven’t moderated at all. They’re angry that the culture war wokeism/CRT bullshit didnt resonate with normies (outside of the NYTimes editorial page, where they  LOVED It) so they’re ramping up the rhetoric.

  34. 34.

    kalakal

    November 22, 2022 at 9:24 am

    @New Deal democrat: in the last century or so “Democratic Republic” in the name of a country was a pretty big clue that the place was/is a dictatorship. Bonus points if the word People’s was in there too

  35. 35.

    RobertB

    November 22, 2022 at 9:24 am

    @Matt McIrvin: I thought that this, “Republic not Democracy” horseshit was an attempt to short-circuit the issue of a Republican POTUS getting elected while losing the popular vote.  I saw it more than once while I was still on Facebook.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    November 22, 2022 at 9:25 am

    @RobertB: I see it used in two situations: (1) justify minority rule and (2) oppose Democratic initiatives that they claim impinge on their freedoms.

  37. 37.

    Kathleen

    November 22, 2022 at 9:25 am

    @Kay: I read an article about a month ago and do not remember the source but it included many interviews with Ohio doctors detailing the situations they’ve encountered and their frustrations about the effect on patients. Ohio is jeopardizing women’s lives every day and one of my fears is that Ohio won’t have enough doctors to serve them. What doctor would want to work under conditions imposed by men who enjoy watching women suffer? To be even more pragmatic, how many companies would Ohio attract if state has poor health outcomes?

  38. 38.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 9:28 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Their whole free speech theory is a mess though. I mean, Jesus Christ. This is the best our “public intellectuals” can come up with on speech? It’s garbage. It contradicts itself constantly. It doesn’t hang together logically when given the slightest tap, the slightest pressure.

    Their (idiot) hero, Musk, is picking and choosing who posts on Twitter. That’s what he’s doing. That he’s choosing depending on his personal experience doesn’t change that.

    They don’t have a coherent speech theory. The one they think they have is sloppy, trash that doesn’t stand at all.

  39. 39.

    Soprano2

    November 22, 2022 at 9:28 am

    @Kay: I heard part of the NPR interview with Pence this morning. When he said the standard Republican line that Democrats support abortion “up to the moment of birth”, there was zero pushback from Inskeep. Plus, he never asked Pence about the real consequences of these laws, about whether he supports women with miscarriages being sent home to bleed in a bathtub because doctors are afraid to give them regular medical care because they might be charged with a felony. Does Pence think it’s OK for women to be denied life-saving drugs because of the theoretical idea that they might affect a future pregnancy? How can we get reporters to challenge these people who have such radical views on abortion with the real-life examples of what their laws do?

  40. 40.

    RobertB

    November 22, 2022 at 9:34 am

    Regarding the serious point of this blog post, Thucydides couldn’t carry Herodotus’ jock.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 9:34 am

    @Kathleen:

    I’m completely sympathetic to providers. I think most of them get into it to serve others.

    It is tough but it is the truth. They may not be able to serve the oath they took AND the law in Ohio. They may have to refer to other providers in free states or relocate.

    It’s the standard they’ll be held to as professionals, it’s the deal they entered into. With the prestige and the pay comes a duty. They treat one patient at a time (properly). If what’s safest ad best for that patient is a referral to Michigan, I think they have to refer. Will there be fewer providers in Ohio? I don’t know, but it isn’t the duty of women to give their lives to the cause of public policy on providers. There aren’t X number of Ohio women who have to take one for the team to further access to health care. Get them to state where they can get the care they need.

  42. 42.

    kalakal

    November 22, 2022 at 9:36 am

     

     

    @Soprano2:

    Republican line that Democrats support abortion “up to the moment of birth”

    or C-section as everybody else calls it

  43. 43.

    New Deal democrat

    November 22, 2022 at 9:36 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    After November 2016, realizing that it really could “happen here,” and inspired in part by Ben Franklin’s famous comment (“A republic, madam, if you can keep it”) I spent the Presidency of Donald Trump reading as much about historical republics as I could find.

    It turns out some republics have been very resilient. Venice lasted 1200 years and only fell because Napoleon’s cannons could finally fire across the lagoon. The Swiss Republic is 700 years old and still going strong. Rome’s republic lasted 500 years – not too shabby! (And Carthage was a republic too).

    I had a few exchanges with Prof. Edward Foner a couple of years ago (who wrote the authoritative history of Reconstruction) and told him that there was a prize awaiting some young historian who wrote “A History of Republics” (because, surprisingly, aside from a college-entry level book written by a high school AP history teacher, there is none). Someone should also write “A History of the Judiciary” because then it would be clear just how revolutionary (and tragically mistaken) Article III of the US Constitution is. Until the Glorious Revolution in England, courts had always been an arm of the Executive, in republics and all other forms of government.

    Also, Happy Thanksgiving.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    November 22, 2022 at 9:39 am

    @Soprano2:

    Inskeep probably doesn’t understand the anti abortion code.

    The reason they say Democrats support abortion up until birth is the exceptions, not the rule. They don’t want exceptions for rape or incest or health or life of the mother.

    He doesn’t even know the question to ask. This is far Right dogma. You have to decipher the code.

  45. 45.

    danielx

    November 22, 2022 at 9:39 am

    @Soprano2: ​

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    How can we get reporters to challenge these people who have such radical views on abortion with the real-life examples of what their laws do?

    But…but…my access! My precious access! If I’m mean to them they won’t talk to me anymore!

  46. 46.

    James E Powell

    November 22, 2022 at 9:40 am

    @Kay:

    I Am glad to see some providers in the states run by far Right religious are doing the right thing and immediately referring women with pregnancy complications to providers in free states.

    I think we need to start referring to the states where women’s right are guaranteed by state constitution as the Free States and label them with a 21st century American version of Liberty Leading the People.

  47. 47.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    November 22, 2022 at 9:41 am

    @Soprano2: That lie about supporting abortion up to the moment of birth infuriates me. It’s so easy to disprove. Just check the state laws.

  48. 48.

    Soprano2

    November 22, 2022 at 9:46 am

    @Kay: When we went to Peoria I saw that as soon as you cross the border from MO to IL there’s a big billboard declaring that abortion is safe and legally available in IL. Now women in MO have to go to IL or KS to get the care they need if they have a problem pregnancy, because our soon-to-be newest senator refers people to crisis pregnancy centers when they need care for a miscarriage! Just a total abdication of care for women.

  49. 49.

    Leto

    November 22, 2022 at 9:49 am

    @New Deal democrat: slight correction there: it’s Dr Eric Foner. I’m currently reading his latest book, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. Highly recommended. It pairs well with Dr Jill Lepore’s, This America: The Case for the Nation.

  50. 50.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2022 at 9:49 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s a good rhetorical trap for liberals, though.

    Do I believe there should be a law specifically banning abortions that someone 8+ months pregnant with healthy fetus and no complications decides on a whim to get one week before the due date? No, I do not, in part because that doesn’t actually happen, and the consequences of such laws are dire–you could never craft it to just ban that case and leave other vital health care unaffected. And, confronted with such a purported case, I’d always suspect there was more to it. But that means you can easily accuse me of supporting infanticide and so forth. They always want people to focus on an unrealistic scenario.

  51. 51.

    CliosFanBoy

    November 22, 2022 at 9:59 am

    @New Deal democrat: OTOH, Swiss women didn’t fully get the right to vote until 1990!!!!  (they could vote in some elections starting in 1971)

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    November 22, 2022 at 9:59 am

    @RobertB:

    I was under the impression that the republic/democracy thing went back to Ben Franklin. Somone asked if the founding fathers  had created a democracy, and he replied something like, “A republic, if we can keep it.”

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    November 22, 2022 at 10:00 am

    @Matt McIrvin: I say turn it back on them.  “Do you really want see a young woman dying in pain because she is being forced to deliver her already dead fetus?  Don’t you think she has already suffered enough?  Let her doctor help her.”

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    November 22, 2022 at 10:01 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    Imma say it….

    anyone believe that if this had been a non-White young man, and he was actually taken alive with an incident like this with HIS mother…

    that he wouldn’t still BE IN JAIL.

  55. 55.

    Cameron

    November 22, 2022 at 10:01 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: That might be just what little animal sense of survival Musk has – he associates Jones (correctly) with the massive legal judgments hanging over his head

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    November 22, 2022 at 10:04 am

    @Amir Khalid: Apocryphal story.  But the version was first told was that the woman simply asked “What do we have?”  There are other versions though.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 22, 2022 at 10:06 am

    @Kay: They are hypocrites. They don’t believe in freedom of speech, never have. If they did they’d have no problem with cancel culture which is just the plebes telling them to STFU because nobody wants to hear what they have to say anyway.

  58. 58.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 22, 2022 at 10:12 am

    The “pardoning of the turkeys” is such a weird tradition.

  59. 59.

    New Deal democrat

    November 22, 2022 at 10:16 am

    @Amir Khalid: Just like the term “republic,” there’s no on accepted definition of “democracy.”

    But the two terms get at somewhat different axes of government.

    ”Democracy” generally refers to equal voting rights by all citizens, and a majority of the vote rules.

    A “Republic” gets more to the structure of the government itself, where each office has limited rights and responsibilities.

    Thus a “democracy” can be authoritarian, where the citizenry, once having voted, have no civil rights against the power of government.

    Whereas, in a “republic,” citizens have rights against a government office that is attempting to exercise power in excess of that which is granted by the pre-set ground rules. But the citizens in a republic might not have equal voting or other rights. For example, Venice was a republic but by no means a democracy. It was an aristocracy, where families who were members of the “golden book” (if I recall correctly) had voting and other rights much moreso than citizens who were not.

    But a “republic” (in the sense of limited government with pre-set ground rules to prevent overreach) can also be a “democracy” (where all citizens have equal voting and other rights).

    Hope that isn’t too confusing.

  60. 60.

    New Deal democrat

    November 22, 2022 at 10:16 am

    @Leto: Thanks for the correction.

  61. 61.

    RobertB

    November 22, 2022 at 10:21 am

    @Amir Khalid: I was getting it from Trump supporters.  To me it felt like Baud’s definition 1.  They didn’t give a tinker’s damn if Trump lost the popular vote, because “It’s a Republic, not a Democracy.”

    I do remember seeing descriptions that matched what you’re saying, way back when, as a definition.  A ‘true democracy’ would be every voter voting on issues, and a ‘republic’ is where the voters elect representatives.

  62. 62.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    November 22, 2022 at 10:24 am

    @mrmoshpotato: Well, there’s always Sarah Palin’s way of observing Thanksgiving and the sanctity of life..

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    November 22, 2022 at 10:25 am

    I really liked the Hakeem Jeffries clips. My encounters with and observations of New Yorkers have led me to see them as having a very direct style of speaking. This can put some people off, but I like it and I see it with Jeffries.

    Now, both Democratic Congressional leaders are from New York City, and from the same Borough of Brooklyn to be exact. This would have been unthinkable 100 years ago, and maybe even 25 years ago. Now times have changed, and Mr. Jeffries’ merits outweigh older conventions.

    I’ve heard enough broadcast “soundbites” from Chuck Schumer to believe that he too is an effective communicator, New York style. So I am glad for the Borough of Brooklyn, and I am glad for the Democratic Party as well..

  64. 64.

    Cameron

    November 22, 2022 at 10:26 am

    @mrmoshpotato: For all his many flaws, Donald Trump was always willing to pardon the turkeys.  Provided they came up with the cash, of course.

  65. 65.

    lowtechcyclist

    November 22, 2022 at 10:28 am

    @Kay:

    [Inskeep] doesn’t even know the question to ask. This is far Right dogma. You have to decipher the code.

    He’s had frickin’ decades to learn the code.  This is his day job.  People like us who do other things for a living shouldn’t be able to routinely point out where they’re falling short in their job.

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 22, 2022 at 10:31 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: 🎶I love the fishes ’cause they’re so del…🎶 – woah! look at that beast!

  67. 67.

    Ken

    November 22, 2022 at 10:33 am

    @kalakal: Like the Democratic Republic of the Congo under Mobutu. At least they got “Congo” right (sort of reminiscent of the Holy Roman Empire being none of the three).

  68. 68.

    NutmegAgain

    November 22, 2022 at 10:37 am

    It’s been said before, but you can tell so much about the inside of a person by how the babies & kids react. (Also, animals of course). Those kids are not afraid they’ll get cooties from Biden!

  69. 69.

    Citizen Alan

    November 22, 2022 at 10:46 am

    @rikyrah:  Oh certainly. I have taken to referring to Kyle rittenhouse as the poster child of white privilege. Imagine if you kept every aspect of his story exactly the same down to the the fine details except that he was black (i.e a black boy adopted by white parents who worshipped trump and really did want to bring a gun to that protest to “protect white businesses”).  In that scenario, Rittenhouse house would have never killed anyone because he would have gone down in a hail of police bullets before he could ever open fire himself.

  70. 70.

    Subsole

    November 22, 2022 at 10:48 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yeah. Sure thing, Elmo.

    Boot that Libs of Tiktok lady, then we’ll talk.

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 22, 2022 at 11:23 am

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m not going to refresh my memory on the Wasilla Wingnut. :)

  72. 72.

    Subsole

    November 22, 2022 at 11:24 am

     

     

    @RobertB: I think you got that exactly backwards, man.

  73. 73.

    rikyrah

    November 22, 2022 at 11:29 am

    The Spry Old Lorax (@SpryOld) tweeted at 10:53 AM on Mon, Nov 21, 2022:
    Joe Biden and Democrats promised that if voters gave them the House and two additional seats in the Senate, that they’d deliver the things they couldn’t the last two years.

    Voters failed to deliver on their part of the bargain.
    So don’t get upset when nothing much happens now.
    (https://twitter.com/SpryOld/status/1594735812981276673?t=uvdRFymHGMa4whS0xKwijg&s=03)

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    November 22, 2022 at 11:46 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Granted, even the most liberal states do usually have legal restrictions on very late abortions without some kind of associated medical situation, like Dorothy said. But they also generally aren’t sniffing around trying to police abortions.

  75. 75.

    brantl

    November 22, 2022 at 12:17 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: You are, right now; they don’t read balloon-juice.

  76. 76.

    Mart

    November 22, 2022 at 12:51 pm

    @bbleh: “a West Wing shakeup that could reshape the remainder of Biden’s presidency and reverberate through the Democratic Party.” Trump fired his National Security Advisor (and later coup plotter) on Flynn’s fifth day at work, and Trumps 25th day in office. Sure the article pointed out the shitshow of only the best people, er cronies that followed.

  77. 77.

    Soprano2

    November 22, 2022 at 1:06 pm

    @Kay: That might be part of it, but I also think they are still living in terror of being accused of “liberal bias” if they push back on this ridiculous right-wing talking point. I’m more angry that he didn’t ask Pence about any of the real consequences of these laws. The people who promoted these “no exception” abortion bans should have to answer for women who are sent home to bleed in the bathtub, for hospitals where the doctors have to consult hospital attorneys before they treat a pregnant woman who is miscarrying. The question should always be asked “Was this your intention when you promoted these laws? Is this what you wanted to happen? Because activists warned about it, but they were ignored”.

  78. 78.

    Jess

    November 22, 2022 at 1:36 pm

    @New Deal democrat: Check out the book “The Dawn of Everything”–fascinating stuff about how societies have organized themselves across space and time.

  79. 79.

    Iron City

    November 22, 2022 at 7:45 pm

    @Geminid: I don’t know where Mr. Schumer was born but he was Borough President of Queens.

  80. 80.

    Geminid

    November 22, 2022 at 7:53 pm

    @Iron City: Interesting. Schumer served in the House before he ran for the Senate. I wonder if he was an inter-borough carpetbagger.

  81. 81.

    sab

    November 23, 2022 at 8:16 am

    @Kay: So women are still having to display their most private health issues on the front page of every local paper.

  82. 82.

    Hokotomi

    November 23, 2022 at 4:50 pm

    @Jess:
    Re “The Dawn of Everything”

    “The Dawn of Everything” is a biased disingenuous account of human history (http://www.persuasion.community/p/a-flawed-history-of-humanity ) that spreads fake hope (the authors of  “The Dawn” claim human history has not “progressed” in stages, or linearly, and must not end in inequality and hierarchy as with our current system… so there’s hope for us now that it could get different/better again). As a result of this fake hope porn it has been widely praised. It conveniently serves the profoundly sick industrialized world of fakes and criminals. The book’s dishonest fake grandiose title shows already that this work is a FOR-PROFIT, instead a FOR-TRUTH, endeavour geared at the (ignorant gullible) masses.

    Fact is human history since the dawn of agriculture has “progressed” in a linear stage (the “stuck” problem, see below), although not before that (http://www.focaalblog.com/2021/12/22/chris-knight-wrong-about-almost-everything ). This “progress” has been fundamentally destructive and is driven and dominated by “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room” (http://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html ) which the fake hope-giving authors of “The Dawn” entirely ignore naturally (no one can write a legitimate human history without understanding and acknowledging the nature of humans). And these two married pink elephants are the reason why we’ve been “stuck” in a destructive hierarchy and unequal class system , and will be far into the foreseeable future (the “stuck” question — “the real question should be ‘how did we get stuck?’ How did we end up in one single mode?” or “how we came to be trapped in such tight conceptual shackles” — [cited from their book] is the major question in “The Dawn” its authors never really answer, predictably).

    “All experts serve the state and the media and only in that way do they achieve their status. Every expert follows his master, for all former possibilities for independence have been gradually reduced to nil by present society’s mode of organization. The most useful expert, of course, is the one who can lie. With their different motives, those who need experts are falsifiers and fools. Whenever individuals lose the capacity to see things for themselves, the expert is there to offer an absolute reassurance.” —Guy Debord

    A good example that one of the “expert” authors, Graeber, has no real idea on what world we’ve been living in and about the nature of humans is his last brief article on Covid where his ignorance shines bright already at the title of his article, “After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep.” Apparently he doesn’t know that most people WANT to be asleep, and that they’ve been wanting that for thousands of years (and that’s not the only ignorant notion in the title) — see last cited source above. Yet he (and his partner) is the sort of person who thinks he can teach you something authentically truthful about human history and whom you should be trusting along those terms. Ridiculous!

    “The Dawn” is just another fantasy, or ideology, cloaked in a hue of  cherry-picked “science,” served lucratively to the gullible ignorant underclasses who crave myths and fairy tales.

    “The evil, fake book of anthropology, “The Dawn of Everything,” … just so happened to be the most marketed anthropology book ever. Hmmmmm.” — Unknown

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