Caught irrevocably in a trap in which they will be forced to nominate the successful president with the incumbency bonus https://t.co/8tS7CDQbff
— Happy Nute Year To All (@DawnNute) February 24, 2023
Conflating 2 unrelated issues:
1) Dem voters are worried about Biden’s age and would hypothetically like a younger candidate, but they also love Biden and would vote for him over any real alternative2) Liberal pundits/staffers never supported him and do want rid of him
— Happy Nute Year To All (@DawnNute) February 24, 2023
IMO, this framing only works when you define ‘liberal pundits / staffers’ as a narrow band of ‘more purist than thou’ activists, and the cosplay socialists they’re forever hoping to impress. The actual practicing liberals of my acquaintance made our peace with Joe Biden shortly after the 2016 South Carolina primary, and President Biden has been (almost entirely) a blessing for those of us on the left-hand side of the graph. Our failed ‘liberal’ media, OTOH…
well the commentator and their friends would prefer that he didn't
— Happy Nute Year To All (@DawnNute) February 24, 2023
For the record, most of the twitter responses to David Graham’s ‘Oh, not this boring old dude again’ article disagree with his assessment, and one commentor dug up evidence that Graham thought Biden would lose back in 2020…
"If Biden was never going to be the nominee, then Trump wasted nearly a year methodically poisoning the well," writes @GrahamDavidA: https://t.co/C9T2866m3w
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) February 13, 2020
Mr. Trump, who I do not support…
Fear not, Media Village Idiots! — Andrew Yang assures Chris Cillizza that better times just might be coming.
My god. I just loathe what the artificial intelligence movement has done to podcasting. Neither of these persons can be proven to exist, & everything they are saying is erroneous and toxic. https://t.co/LMW1MiiVvg
— Cullen Martin (@CulRMartin) February 25, 2023
(I’m sorry, Mr. Yang, you’re not gonna be the Democratic candidate this time either, and I really misdoubt the GOP will accept you.)
Gonna be a long march till November 2024. But at least we’re not Republicans!
On The Road – Albatrossity – Ngorongoro Crater 1
Baud
Catch-24?
p.a.
Here’s my priority list for Dem Presidents,
1) successful
2) successful
3) successful
.
.
.
.
.
x) age
Baud
Aside from the issue being tired, the premise of this article is wrong.
Biden will run even if he has to face a competitive primary. Such a primary would be damaging, but it wouldn’t stop Biden from competing.
schrodingers_cat
The funniest part is that many of the media bros most concerned about Biden’s age are pining for an even older candidate.
Baud
Also, too, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that none of these Not Biden folks have gone the next obvious step and advocated for a Draft Kamala movement.
Maybe she’s too old too. Or too something.
Baud
TIL to misdoubt = to doubt
lowtechcyclist
AL, I think you mean the 2020 South Carolina primary, not 2016.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: She scares these journobros.
Lapassionara
I never heard of Andrew Yang until he decided to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Where did he come from? Why does anyone think he is qualifies to be president?
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Hard to believe that was only three years ago. Seems like a lifetime.
Soprano2
The only way I can understand these “concerns” is that they don’t want Kamala Harris to be president for some unstated reason. /s/s They act like a Republican would become president if something happened to Biden. And the ones who then say they want Bernie should just shut up about age as a factor, because they are obviously lying.
Matt McIrvin
One data point: My wife wants Biden to step down, and regards my arguments about incumbency and the risk of a new primary fight as a foolish adherence to conventional wisdom. Her favored alternative is Pete Buttigieg.
I have other liberal normie friends who want it to be Harris.
Obviously these aren’t leftier-than-thou or Bernie-dead-ender types, because those folks hate both Buttigieg and Harris. I’m also sure that none of them would withhold a vote for Biden in a general election. But I think the feeling that Biden is too old and a wish for someone younger is in fact widespread among Democrats.
Kay
There is a lot of pundit/media opposition to Biden but by no means does all or even most of it come from the Left. I mean, come on. That’s delusional. The two examples used aren’t even from the Left. Cillizza and Yang are Right-leaning centrists, if they “believe” in anything (which they don’t).
The year-long media freakouts over leaving Afghanistan or inflation or crime didn’t come from the Left- they came from rigidly conventional centrist media – the same people who will predictably freak out about Biden’s age because anything that slightly veers from the norm sends them into a panic.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I don’t think it’s malice so much as wishful thinking from these guys. They want a primary race because it generates easy to write analysis pieces about whose message is resonating, whose a threat to the incumbent (or could be if you squint just right) whose playing spoiler, etc. Without a primary they have to write about boring old policy rather than the horse race and that’s, like, too much work.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I can see why. It would be tough for her to overcome racism and sexism, but if she managed to win, there would be no greater proof that the haters are defeated.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Sometimes wisdom becomes conventional for the right reasons.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: well, Buttigieg and Harris will not run against Biden. With him for sure, but not against him.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: actually I think in a way every little thing does at least spook us all a little these days. We know we can’t afford to lose so minute flaws do get some worry. So naturally I would prefer that Joe was a perfect health 35 year old until the fascist plague has receded again while also wanting to keep the image benefit that he gets from having been known to most voters as a non extremist sane guy forever who is not new and threatening….this however is not possible.
I am a natural worrier and I have valid reasons to worry. I know that I have fellow citizens who are stupid and some are to put it carefully mean fuckers. But we are doing pretty well with Joe.
And I am not a journalist with some reason to want drama an exciting news for it’s own sake so these writers can just go jump off a cliff in my opinion.
Baud
@Kay:
Righties don’t care about age or anything else. They just want Dems to lose. If they have to make age-related arguments to manipulate Dem voters, they’ll do so with the utmost sincerity.
different-church-lady
It’s not just the being wrong over and over; it’s the being wrong in exactly the same way over and over. Like a roadrunner cartoon that has just one gag that runs eleven times.
Kay
I think Biden’s age is a negative with normies – mostly because he looks (appears) old, not that he acts old- but he’s so clearly the best option it doesn’t matter. It’s outweighed by positives.
sab
I am getting up in years myself and Biden’s age does not worry me at all. He comes from a long-lived family, with no history of dementia. He is an utter extrovert who is energized rather than tired by interacting with people and by helping people. And he has an extremely competent VP whom he trusts and respects.
Baud
@Kay:
Agree. It’s not as if we have someone like Obama waiting in the wings. Every alternative carries risk of some type that can be exploited.
Kathleen
@Baud: My vote is “something”. Actually 2 “somethings”. Also, I wonder who listens to podcasts featuring Yang and Cillizza. Just typing that makes me pine for hot needles plunged into my eyeballs.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
@Baud:
His age is one thng I think he can address with patience and good humor – I think it’s better to hash it out, have him defend. That isn’t true for all media themes but I think it is true of this one just because normies will care about it.
His response “watch me” – I suppose meaning “look at my work” is good.
rikyrah
I have no problem casting another vote for Joe Biden/Kamala Harris👏🏾👏🏾
satby
The entire discussion is because we still have a media that prefers to pit personalities against each other rather than the policies those candidates and their parties would put in place. That allows the media to gloss over the extremely unpopular positions and intended laws of the Republican party (other than tax cuts!!!), while simultaneously downplaying or ignoring the more popular Democratic platform.
As long as we allow them to do that, and in some ways play into their framing of the personalities rather than policies, the media will always cover politics like Entertainment Weekly.*
* And that’s where the normies get their impressions of candidates.
bbleh
@Matt McIrvin: perhaps it’s just the usual tendency of people to “prefer” an ideal candidate and then to point out the ways in which actual candidates fall short. “Where oh where is the candidate with Obama’s suave glamor, Biden’s political cunning honed over many decades, Harris’s combination of experience and relative youth, and Buttigieg’s polished media presence?” But as the election draws near, and one is presented with the actual Democrat and the actual Republican, a lot of that evaporates.
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: this. I’m something of a political junkie, but I have basically stopped reading ANY of the political “journalists” at the national publications, and when I do, about all I look for in their stories is actual data. Most of the rest is clickbait, access maintenance (aka beat-sweetening), or just something to fill column-inches cuz they have a deadline. You probably get more insight into American politics from watching “reality TV” or today’s equivalents of Jerry Springer than you do from reading / listening to those fools.
Baud
@Kay:
The age issue is actually “easier” to deal with because there’s no real solution in the form of fake litmus tests that critics can come up with.
schrodingers_cat
@Gvg: What is your problem with Biden’s VP.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Same
Baud
@bbleh:
We need a Dem Voltron.
NotMax
Normally would share something like this on a weekend when people ostensibly have more time, but wasn’t around for Sunday’s morning thread.
In a word, fascinating. (Long-ish report from Dutch public TV.)
Amir Khalid
I don’t see why people need to be worried about Joe Biden. He has had a very successful presidency so far. His physical vigour has yet to fail him — indeed, he is far more robust than TFG, and if his health holds up he should have no trouble with a candidate’s travel schedule. A primary challenger would have to promise Democratic voters they’ll be more effective than Joe, and it will be hard to make that promise sound plausible.
@Lapassionara:
Sometimes I think Andrew Yang was the UN Ambassador under Jimmy Carter.
Kay
I don’t know if these “health share” fake insurance plans are national but they advertise heavily on Christian, Right wing talk radio and country music stations in Ohio and they are a complete and utter scam. No one in law enforcement in Ohio seems to care but this has to be a federal issue too. They should be shut down.
rikyrah
@Lapassionara:
He was NEVER a Democrat😠
Baud
@Kay:
They’ve been around for decades and they are scams.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Gritting scammers
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Those most Christian principles of “a sucker born every minute” and IGMFY.
sab
Watching from home in Ohio, I am again impressed by how nimble Buttigieg is. My husband tends to overreact to press coverage. He fell for the outrage over Buttigieg’s “slow reaction” to the East Palestine derailment.
As the dust settles, it is looking like Buttigieg let the Ohio local and state officials respond first, allowed the appropriate Federal agencies step in to help, and only then stepped in (with succinct comments about criticisms of his performance) to offer appropriate assistance.
There is a hiearchy of precedence about who should be responding when, and he did not make the mistake of stepping on local and state and Federal toes in order to get good short term publicity.
lowtechcyclist
Dunno about staffers, but the left-of-center pundits in the MSM aren’t far enough left to want to trade Biden in on a more liberal alternative. The pundits who engage in Biden doubt are more your standard centrists who feel their job is to find something wrong with the Democrats.
Baud
@sab:
So many do.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Liberty is not Obamacare” goes the radio ad and all I think is “fake insurance designed to trick people and not subject to insurance regulations”.
Gotta love Ohio. They will come after ordinary people who are deliquent 100 dollars on taxes with the prosecutorial zeal of a police officer with a stun gun, but they have allowed this guy to rob and steal for 20 years:
Kathleen
@satby: Torally agree.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: isn’t that the article excerpt you shared yesterday? I shared it on FB, for my less politically obsessive friends, so thanks.
sab
@Kay: These guys are based in Ohio near me, but the fact that they operate with impunity nationwide does sort of amaze me. Why would Idaho or Nebraska or wherever allow a family of grifters from Ohio rip off your own citizens? Don’t your states have attorneys general with big salaries and big budgets to protect your people? My state (Ohio) is utterly corrupt, but why are these other states allowing the corruption to infect their people?
AnonPhenom
Calling dibs on bumper stickers.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: That’s a good point about media focusing on personalities rather than policies
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
They shouldn’t be legal. I suspect they technically stay within the law by not claiming to be insurance, in so many words, while giving their marks the impression that they will act as insurance. Which is certainly fraudulent from a moral perspective, though they may have figured out how to stay in the blurry zone from a legal perspective.
My attitude is that as long as they’re marketing themselves as performing the same basic function as insurance, then they ought to be regulated as insurance, which would put them out of business in no time flat.
Kay
@sab:
They’ll defend by saying it was never insurance and it’s a voluntary “ministry” so therefore protected by religious rights, just like how so many of their ministers live lavish lifestyles off of donations.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: You could substitute “Missouri” for every mention of “Ohio” and it would be just as true.
@satby: I don’t think so, something similar but not this one.
Barbara
@Kay: It’s utterly infuriating. Some states require brokers to put a disclaimer on HSM “coverage” documents stating that it’s not a regulated insurance policy. It’s ridiculous that a licensed broker can even sell these scam insurance schemes.
I predict that many providers will stop accepting their cards as proof of insurance.
sab
@Baud: Husband was outraged for about three days, but now he thinks Buttigieg handled it very well. He thinks that not because of my commentary, but because of how Buttigieg handled it. Local and state officials were deferred to publicly, so now they cannot complain about the Federal response. Federal response was as fast as state would allow. We all (mostly) see that.
OzarkHillbilly
More like religious wrongs.
Baud
Baud
@sab:
👍
Kay
@sab:
It’s just..don’t conservatives get tired of getting ripped off? Obviously liberals get ripped off too – we have some grifters- but there’s this whole giant grift operation on the Right that gets bigger every year. It’s no longer just poltiical grifters- it’s now health care with the fake remedies and education with the rip off colleges and scammy charter schools. There’s an entire sector of Right wingers ripping off other Right wingers.
Republicans actually admitted it after their loss in 2012. Part of their analysis of the 2012 election was the role of Right wing grifters lying to and ripping off their voters, but it’s so much worse now. It gets bigger every year.
OzarkHillbilly
God’s will be done.
Kay
@sab:
They are pouring public money into the fake clinics for women that Right wing religious are setting up all over. They’re staffed by people in scrubs – a deliberate attempt to trick women into thinking the employees are trained health care workers. There’s already been a scandal in Texas where millions disappeared into some “church” or “ministry”
It’s another publicly funded business opportunity/employment program for far Right religious.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: They (so-called Liberal media) are not afraid that Biden will lose, they are afraid that he will win. Their jobs were much more interesting during the Orange Error’s reign of terror. Plus the books they wrote lined their pockets. Biden is boring and not so good for their bottom line.
Baud
@Kay:
The only solution is for states to pay them directly. #RedStateThinking
Kathleen
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
The new thing is they won’t use banks so they do land contracts but they don’t do the contract or note right or record the mortgage so they are all going to end up in court because there will be huge fights over who owns what- some Right wing grifter must be pushing it on you tube because it’s exploded and they all use the same language to talk about it.
You can do a land contract in Ohio but you have to do it properly or you will pay for a decade and find out you’re actually just a renter.
Lapassionara
@rikyrah: Me neither. All the questioning comments now are made in the abstract. In the next election, Biden will have an opponent, likely Trump or Desantis. The choice then will be very clear and should favor Biden. My concern is that Putin will interfere again, and maybe effectively this time.
sab
@Kay: Land contracts should be useful but instead are a huge scam.
It kind of enraged me that law school classmates of mine who were utterly bored by property went on to successful careers without learning the basics. I passed the Michigan bar only because I did so well on the multistate that they didn’t even look at my essays. That didn’t mean that I could be a good lawyer, but it did mean that I knew the basics of rules based law (property and commercial paper) even if I wasn’t good at the fuzzy stuff (tort and constitutional law.)
Jeffro
I really don’t get the horror (from the media, from low-info voters, from whatever low-info voters the media manage to corral into a “focus” “group”) of a Biden-trumpov rematch.
I mean, from a Democrat’s perspective? That’s pretty close to ideal, man.
From a “politics is supposed to entertain us” perspective, yeah, pretty boring, so been-there/done-that. Sorry for the lack of clicks or eyeballs or whatever, snooze media. I guess you’ll have to try…just…reporting…for once.
sab
@Lapassionara: Putin might well be busy elsewhere.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: A buddy of mine got involved in such an arrangement. I don’t know how legal it was or was not but when he told me about it, it sure sounded scammy. I told him he needed to get the money together to buy the land outright and then get a loan from a bank to pay folks back.
He did just that and at least then he had rights guaranteed by law and he could know what they were.
Gin & Tonic
@sab: Hopefully, he will be busy feeding earthworms.
Jeffro
This is exactly the problem. The requirements for office are far too low.
Now, if he’d had to have put in some time as a Rep, Senator, or Gov first…plus tax returns and a background check…the Yangs and Williamsons of the world suddenly find other things to do.
Kay
@sab:
They still are useful where I live- I kind of like them as property financing for small business because it’s traditonally been a way here to pass a business to the next owner/operator who usually can’t borrow say 200k on a ten year term business loan. You can do a lot with them that banks won’t do – backload the payments so the new owners can get the thing off the ground etc. But you have to do it right and inform and protect both parties. They’re making these catastrophic mistakes that are going to land all of them in court, fighting. I just saw one where the owner let the insurance lapse and didn’t require the purchaser to insure the house. It burned down.
trnc
@Lapassionara:
You’ve touched on one of my hobby horses. Yang complains about the combined age of DT and Biden. Meanwhile, the combined age of Yang holding any elected office and running for any office except for prez is exactly zero. I’d like to see a constitutional amendment that requires presidential candidates to have served at least one full term in elected public office at any level.
JMG
Do I wish Biden was 20 years younger? Sure. I also wish I was. But neither of us is, and those wishes have no bearing on reality. The political reality is that barring some unforeseen health disaster, something that can happen to children as well as old people, Biden will run and win the Democratic nomination without opposition. Should something happen to him, Harris would become President and receive the nomination without opposition. Whatever worries Democratic voters express about Biden’s age, I think they will accept the reality of Vote Biden 2024 cheerfully if not joyously.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: My dad’s nurse’s aide bought a house by land contract and did everything right. Paid every month on time, never late, for fifteen years. When she went to close she discovered that her landlord had demolished the house next door and tacked that lot onto her lot, but the property tax bills had bounced since not deliverable to a vacant lot. So she had voided the land contract by non-payment of a bill she never knew she owed.
This is the fucked up shit that Ta-nehisi Coates wrote about in his famous Reparations article in the Atlantic that nobody actually read.
JWR
About 1 of those 2 unrelated issues:
I think it’s Tamara Keith from PBS who’s always putting on her very serious person face when discussing the number of poll respondents who don’t want Biden to run again as if it’s a very serious issue, presenting the answers as “I think Biden’s too old, so I think I’ll vote for the R.
ETA, Keith was quite impressed with Biden’s trip to Ukraine.
Kay
@sab:
So in a dying midwestern town one way to keep the town alive is to keep the existing small businesses alive and one way to do that is to pass to a new (younger) owner with a land contract with favorable terms. The retiring small owner gets monthly income and the new younger owner gets a small business with a good reputation and phone that rings on day one. A lot of times banks won’t help with that so we do owner financing and if it’s done correctly it’s really a nice option to have.
randy khan
I have to admit all the will he run/should he run stories just serve to annoy me. He’s running until he says otherwise (not to mention that Dr. Biden strongly hinted that she’s already told him it’s fine with her), and nobody else credible is going to jump in unless he says he’s not running. So it’s all just an excuse to blather.
trnc
Bingo. Their official party platform is a bunch of vague platitudes. The only thing that actually represents a position on anything is ballot access, which, SURPRISE, is really about making it easier to get their candidates on a ballot. Will be interesting to see what happens when their candidates have to take positions on anything besides Yang’s farts.
sab
@sab: She still loves the sellers because they gave her a roof over her head when she was looking at homelessness with two young children. There is that.
Kay
@randy khan:
Biden has been scandal-free. His administration is not corrupt – also true of Obama who was squeaky clean and over two terms so very impressive to me. I’m sick to death of corruption.
But it means they have nothing to talk about so they go on and on about his age :)
EarthWindFire
It is. And it never came up until after he was inaugurated and the pundits kept harping about it. Repetition works.
Sure Lurkalot
If anyone is interested in the perils of installment land contracts, here’s a good primer. Sold as a way to allow credit challenged persons to acquire real estate, there are risks of loss that can be mitigated by state statutes to some extent. As with the health care ministry and fake pregnancy center scams, some states way of protecting its citizens is not much more than caveat emptor
https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2022/02/summary-of-state-land-contract-statutes.pdf
Uncle Cosmo
@Kathleen: The only thing I’d watch featuring YinYang and the SillyZilla is a death-cage match. And then only with lethal force waiting outside to send to his infernal rest whichever one might have survived. (SillyZilla is, like yerstruly, half-siciliano. Che vergogna!)
Kay
@sab:
Obviously I love land contracts and I swear I am not selling you one but I can roll in the property taxes too just like a bank sometimes does!
Banks just aren’t useful or helpful for real people who want to start or take over a business. 25 year olds are never going to qualify for financing and you have to be a starry-eyed 25 year old to want to set up in these dying burgs :)
Betty Cracker
Someone who used to serve in the Obama White House counsel’s office has a guest essay in the NYT suggesting that, since Biden is old, Dems should hold a VP primary in 2024 to give voters a say in the Democratic line of succession. (Gift link but no rec!) Maybe the author is a good lawyer, but it sounds like he doesn’t know shit about politics.
Jeffro
I have to confess, even though it’s in That Paper, I’m a little shocked at seeing this nonsense:
Democratic voters, not Biden, should pick his VP in 2024.
Yes really. OMG.
“Since Biden is old old old, what you need to do, Democrats, is abandon a couple hundred years’ worth of tradition and cause problems in your party by making the current very capable Veep have to campaign for the office she already holds.”
Whew. Beware all the bad “advice”, Mr. President. It’s going to come in a flood for the next 18 months.
The level of pundit freakout about a possible President Harris is just…whew.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I see you and I just read and commented about that same insane article! LOL
ETA: and the op-ed under it is – you can’t make this shit up! – “My fellow liberals are exaggerating the threat of Ron DeSantis”
It’s February 2023. The mind simply BOGGLES at the crap we’ll be wading through a year from now.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
@Jeffro:
Why does the NYT care about the opinion of a former White House lawyer on this topic?
It reminds me of a few days ago when someone here said that Tucker Carlson had on Tara Reid to talk about Ukraine.
sab
@Kay: If it is done correctly. And fancy lawyers from fancy schools (Hillary Clinton from Yale flunked her first bar exam. Me from Vandy passed mine) don’t always learn the basics and apparently aren’t penalized for not knowing the basics.
When I was an accountant in Nevada my boss’s son had a law degree from CA and passed the CA and the NV bar and came to me with a very basic land contract question. He was clueless about the basics, but he was admitted to two state bars.
Question was if land contract holder who had been sporadic about paying could assert rights as if he had a mortgage.
That just blew my mind. How could a lawyer not know the answer? And not knowing the answer charge his client for advice.
moonbat
To me all the pundit worry over Biden’s age is another racist dog whistle. Because if he should die in office the worst thing in the world would happen…we’d have a black female president and history would come to an end. /s
Baud
@Jeffro:
So what? NYT op-eds are valuable real estate, but it’s effectively being used as a comic strip for the paper’s liberal readers. I’m glad I don’t give them any money.
Layer8Problem
@Kay: It’s the path of least resistance to get to a clickbait article, since we seem to be in a slack period regarding his son’s laptop foofaraw. “Administration with few to no problems is led by an old, prompting chin stroking and furrowed brows by Certified Deep Thinkers and Republican Diner Loiterers.” Those clouds and shadows aren’t going to generate themselves.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I am so sick of silliness being substituted for substance in public discourse. It’s like living in a reality TV show. People can’t identify obvious scams or scammers.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Agreed.
schrodingers_cat
@moonbat: Bingo
sab
Whenever I wonder about what is wrong with our news media I remember that they think they are entertainment media. Then I watch Seth Myers on late night tv, an obviously middle-aged guy pretending he is young by beating up on old people.
Soprano2
@Kay: It sure doesn’t help that the “normie” press talks about his age as if it’s a real issue, giving credence to Republican “concerns” about his mental state. Every time he trips going up stairs, it’s a story about how he’s old and frail. It creates an impression in “normie’s” minds
Oh, and now I’m listening to the story on NPR where they interview the WSJ reporter who broke the story about the Energy Dept finding of “low confidence” that Covid came from a lab. She asked him about the “low confidence” of the finding, and he completely didn’t answer that question. They’re making it sound like a legitimate finding, to think it came from a lab.
Soprano2
As for the actual issue of Biden’s age, after dealing with my grandfather who had dementia and now this situation with my husband, if he really were slipping mentally it would be hard to hide it because he has so many interactions with people every day where you have to engage in deep thinking about hard things.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro:
Well, than maybe they should move to Florida.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Just curious, who is this “felllow liberal” whose opinion I should forever ignore?
ETA: https://youtu.be/98k05_bM2e4
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I read that one too, and it’s especially dumb because the underlying assumption is that DeSantis would be terrible in the exact same way Trump was. Nobody is making that argument!
Gin & Tonic
I’ll go get my asbestos underwear, but while I heartily support Biden, I have commented and will continue to comment on US political gerontocracy in general. I wish our political leaders were younger. I look at Volodymyr Zelensky meeting with Sanna Marin and note that their *combined* ages are only two years more than Biden’s. I do not think this is healthy for the country.
Jeffro
@Baud: Damon Linker…the piece says he used to write for The Week and has a blog called “Eyes on the Right”
Thanks for the warning, Damon! What we Democrats really need to do is stand down when considering the dangers of a DeSantis presidency (serious eyeroll).
narya
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah–or even that they require the stupidity because it collects eyeballs. Then you start seeing reality show tropes bleed into the political discourse (“I’m here for the right reasons”). The next year and a half is going to drive me mad.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Never heard of him, and he’s already on my list.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”
Layer8Problem
@Soprano2: I have determined with “low confidence” that I’m Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, but neither the Wall Street Journal nor Barron’s has seen fit to call me up for my thoughts on the economy.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Young people should run and win. Too late for president in 2024, but we have thousands of elections in this country.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Wait, what had been two separate lots, one of which she had the land contract on, were merged into a single lot? And the address of the new combined lot was the address of what had been the lot next door?
So her land contract was now on the new big lot, rather than the one of the two old smaller lots it had originally been on? And there was no notification or anything? Wow.
And the address that the county had for the new, big lot was the address that had been the address of the other small lot? A lot of weirdness going on here.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: No kidding, how long did it take them to close down Agape boarding school? I’ve read that a former principal there is going to re-open it on the campus with a new name, but the same old crap, and I’m sure the state of MO will let them do it.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: I agree, FWIW.
jonas
@sab:
Absolutely — Buttigeig wasn’t going to be roped into this mug’s game by the right wherein they whine that you’re not there with a big entourage pontificating in front of the kleig lights but then if you *did* show up with a big entourage to make a speech or whatever, they dog on you for “interfering with the work on the ground” because of your huge ego. It’s heads we win, tails you lose, and Buttigeig is fully aware how it works. Which is why, as you said, he followed the playbook and let the appropriate authorities in Ohio and the EPA do their jobs.
This accident is on NS and decades of Republican-led efforts to gut transportation safety regulations. Full stop. *That’s* what Buttigeig needs to hammer home and advocate changing, and that’s what he’s doing.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: this cracked me up:
‘Persuadable voters’?? You mean, all two or three of them, Mr. Linker? LOL
“Honey, I was thinking about voting for President Biden, but…but these liberals exaggerated their case against Governor DeSantis and well, they’ve undermined their credibility with me. I think I’ll go with the book-burning abortion-banning university destroyer instead of the guy who helped save millions of American jobs, save Ukraine, and got that infrastructure bill passed.
It was a close call, though. If only it weren’t for those exaggerating liberals…”
“Ok dear.”
One thing’s for sure: the Pitchbot is going to have a fucking FIELD DAY today. Whew.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: This, 100%. They are pining for the more exciting days when they could cover TFG without knowing anything about policy or what the government was actually doing, they could just cover the scandal of the day. I think many of them hate having to actually understand what the government is doing, because they find it boring.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Did he give an example of an exaggeration, or is he referring to Twitter where everyone exaggerates about everything?
Kay
@sab:
They’re not for everyone. As the holder of the debt You can’t be greedy and you can’t overvalue what you own because you own it, which knocks out 50% right there. A lot of people, even “smart savy people” delude themselves about values. As the debtor you have to be a good risk- maybe not a “traditional” good risk but a good risk – not a deadbeat or lazy or dishonest.
It’s like matchmaking. You need a perfect fit. Banks aren’t interested in all that analysis for such a small return but small town lawyers can do it. My assistant will check a prospective debtors Facebook to find out if youre crazy or if your entire family hates you FOR CAUSE, like that, She loves Facebook and understands it :)
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m sure it’s being promoted as a way to get around “big government” or save on taxes. My husband said he did a lot of printing for con artists in the 1970’s, and they said it wasn’t hard to separate people from their money if you pitched it as them not having to pay taxes. They would rather lose money not paying taxes than make money while paying taxes!
How many of them will find out they have something like a contract for deed, where they don’t own anything until all the payments are made.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
Heh. Sounds like a spectacularly bad idea coming from–may I guess?–a white male. Curiously, I’ve had two staunch D white cis males (one gay, one straight) recently comment that Kamala Harris can’t/won’t be Biden’s running mate again. Some intimation of her being bad for..reasons unarticulated. No idea what that was about. //
ETA: Misogynoir is powerful in this country, and it does worry me a little as a factor for 2024.
Ksmiami
@Kay: because the average Republican is dumb, biased and ripe for the con. See ivermectin. Sorry, but they’ve hee co-opted and brainwashed and they wanted it that way. Better than siding w the evil Dems or our govt.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Wait, I thought cis meant not LGBT?
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Random internet search yields this:
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: IOW, one can be both gay and cis or lesbian and cis because you identify with the gender that you were identified as having at birth.
Jeffro
@Baud: he lists everything DeSantis is already doing/has done that’s horrible, notes that trump was a relatively incompetent fascist last time around (but appears to be gearing up to be a more competent fascist this time around – at least in Linker’s view) and settles on this:
Got it, liberals? Our number one priority for 2024 is to not go overboard talking about how bad DeSantis would be, because he’d be just as bad as trump but not worse, ok? Not. Worse.
After all, there are lots of ‘persuadable’ voters out there, just watching to see if we get carried away with saying DeSantis is worse. Well, I think they’re out there, anyway…Damon Linker told me so.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Oh Good God, that’s nothing but yet another person who is “anxious” about VP Harris for some reason the author can’t quite put their finger on. /s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s I wish the press could outright say what these “anxieties” are actually about.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
So it means not T.
Thanks.
jonas
@Soprano2:
I agree. People would be whispering to reporters that something wasn’t right and that they were concerned.
Call me when Anthony Blinken resigns in disgust and calls Biden a “fucking moron.” That’s when you know a president it truly unfit to serve.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: I think that’s mostly right, with the addition of people who are non-gender conforming/identifying who are not necessarily T.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I can never remember what comes after T in the acronym. I am old.
Frankensteinbeck
@sab:
They don’t, though. They think they’re wise sages presenting the real truth that normal people don’t have the savvy and political experience to see. Exactly like libertarians and hardcore Marxists, this makes them insufferable idiots with their heads up their asses.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Damn. Prime journalism real estate. Awesome job.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Me too. The kids these days are forcing me to learn new vocabulary and new frameworks for understanding gender and sexuality. IOW, I am being cancelled by the woke mob!
JWR
I caught a bit of Meet the Press yesterday morning, and for a moment thought I’d heard a clip from Fox. But nope, it was Chuck Todd in all his misinformed glory. Blockquoted below is my quick transcription of what he actually said, video is here. So take it away, Chuckles…
~sigh~ With “journalists” like these..
ETA @Soprano2: mentioned this, too.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I think DeSantis would be worse than Trump because DeSantis is not as lazy.
But I don’t think “persuadable voters” are affected by pundits talking about DeSantis 20 months ahead of the election. That is an abstract argument of no practical consequence. Many op-ed writers specialize in these.
Layer8Problem
@O. Felix Culpa: They promised me after college that my thinking days were over!
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m old enough that I don’t need to know anything other than to follow their he/her/they lead. And to apologize when I inevitably screw it up.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
The acronym is slowly losing ground as ‘queer’ becomes more popular among actual queers. Sex and identity are complicated as Hell, and the whole point is ‘the people who don’t follow the traditional pattern’, whether it’s as simple as being attracted to the same sex, or a mutable, changing thing so complex that the person has no labels, they just know it when they see it. Or the people with multiple personalities, but not bad enough to qualify as DID. So, well, the whole group has always been ‘queers’, right? And they’ve reclaimed the word.
Will this trend continue until it’s official? I can’t say. But it’s the movement right now.
narya
@Baud: Usually “Q,” for queer or questioning, which many folks use as shorthand for “not quite any of those categories, but not cisgender heterosexual either” or for “not really sure yet.” Sometimes you’ll see a +, to include other identities (e.g., asexual, intersex), sometimes you’ll see letters for those other identities. (I worked for an LGBTQ org, and LGBTQ was the configuration used most often.)
Spanky
@Baud: Examples are for the little people.
jonas
@Baud:
cis just means you identify with the sex/gender you were assigned at birth, i.e. not trans/non-binary, etc. You can be cis and gay or bi.
Raven
Nazi flyers were distributed all over our neighborhood last night.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay: I guess I’m having a hard time reconciling your posts about all the corruption and corrupt people in Ohio with your fondness for ILCs. I harbor no illusions that for many, traditional lending sources don’t work and some of those aren’t exactly above board either. But a land contract does carry a lot of risks against which some states do little to protect. They were created for a space where one party of the transaction commonly has less financial sophistication than the other.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: cis and trans are chemistry terms for isomers of organic compounds
Isomers: Compounds with the same chemical formula but different arrangement of atoms
I have no idea what this has to do with gender. Probably started as academic jargon which has translated poorly IRL.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Nice… My neighborhood is distributed with Nazis. s//
zhena gogolia
@Kay: they also go with whatever story the NYT pushes out. Cf. Hillary’s e-mails.
sab
@Kay: I was standing in line at my local bank (PNC) eavesdropping and I heard two local managers say that of course it is bank policy not to lend to single mothers. My stepdaughter is a single mother with no help from her ex but she has a good job and pays her way.
I was very tempted to pull all my accounts immediately, and I sure as hell will when my Dad dies.
jonas
@JWR:
Our pundit class is truly awful. Of course what they fail to do is highlight the buried ledes: 1. the DOE’s conclusion was “low confidence”, i.e. based on shitty/shady intelligence and 2. they concluded that if it was a lab leak, it was likely accidental, not some conspiracy to unleash a bioweapon or whatever.
You’d think after the Iraq War/WMD debacle they’d have learned how to report stuff like this, but apparently not.
zhena gogolia
@jonas: Good point.
Spanky
@Raven: I would have thought your neighborhood would be one of the least NAZI-curious in the region. What gives?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: The star of Sharknado? //
READE
WaterGirl
Andrew Yang should come with a trigger warning. At least before 10 am.
O. Felix Culpa
@Raven:
WaterGirl
It’s so weird. I am working in the living room, with a wall of windows in front of me, and a window to my right. it is raining out the front windows, and every few minutes a burst of sunshine that lights up the entire room comes in the side window, stays for very much less than a minute, and then it’s gone again.
JWR
@Jeffro:
Cracked me up, too! (You’re entire post cracked me up. ;) But anyway:
So, don’t talk like a Democrat when discussing DeSantis? No worries. Dems can certainly bad mouth the creep without “resorting to exaggeration”.
Geminid
@Spanky: There is a group based in Florida that specializes in anti-Semitic literature dumps, and they’re not the only one. They don’t rely on allies in a given community; they just sneak in, distribute the flyers and drive away.
Frankensteinbeck
I am struck again by how definitions of queer move all over the place in time and space, and the current definitions are a Victorian construction. In Shakespeare’s time it wasn’t orientation, it was just ‘are you into X specific thing?’ Ancient Greeks took being bi- as normal, and only women who only have had sex with women as worth giving a definition. Lesbians who had sex with a man under any circumstances didn’t count. In Rome’s big days, grown men attracted to little boys was considered merely decadent. I loved the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, and one thing I noticed was that he bragged about how much sex he had with other men when he was 19, but was also much later prosecuted on sodomy laws – purely as a way to prosecute rape. He was the kind of narcissist who would tell you the crime he committed openly, then tell you how great it made him, but he didn’t think sex with men needed defending. Viking era cared only about who penetrated who as a dominance issue. Nothing else was important.
This stuff moves aaaaall around, and I guess my love of old, old literature has left me knowing some crazy shit.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic:
I agree with this.
I can support Biden in a specific sense and wish things were different in a general sense.
Spanky
@Geminid: Oh! Like Jehovah’s Witnesses!
WaterGirl
@moonbat:
Spot on.
Sadly, too long for a rotating tag or a bumper sticker.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Raven: For a minute, I thought you were talking about pilots.
But paper flyers might be even more disturbing
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic:
And the changes in leadership in the Congressional Dems mark a movement in that direction.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t think you’ll get flamed for this. I’ve heard “I wish politics wasn’t dominated by old white men” many times here, and it only gets attacked if you think it’s a total disqualifier and attack some clearly competent politician. In Biden’s case, age has clearly improved him. He learns.
schrodingers_cat
British TERFS are gunning for Malala because she came out in support of Pakistan’s beleaguered trans women.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Sometimes words mean different things in different contexts.
Unless someone is a chemist, one can assume they’re not using ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ as chemistry-specific terms of art, but are rather talking about gender identity.
Reboot
@Jeffro: Damon Linker has a book called The Theocons, written as ‘a former insider.’ Maybe not so ‘former,’ if he’s trying to persuade ‘fellow liberals’ that DeSantis is anything other than an abomination.
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: Can’t remember what publication, but I recently read an essay written by the person who coined the term “cis” as applied to gender, a graduate student decades ago who consciously borrowed it from chemistry.
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
British TERFS are so fucking awful. The culture lets them fly their freak flag. Their arguments boil down to hating trans people because men are inherently rapists and women inherently victims, which somehow makes them feminists instead of misogynists.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck: One of the problems with the argument is that many who make point to Biden and Pelosi as part of the problem. If they would point out that those two are outliers and that Feinstein, Grassley, and even Hoyer are the sort of people they have in mind, they may find less pushback.
matt
And by ‘liberal pundits/staffers’ you mean the Bernie Bros in the press (Dave Weigel, Yglesias, etc) who love to shit on all of the real Democratic candidates.
schrodingers_cat
@lowtechcyclist: You didn’t understand my comment you condescending ass.
Belafon
This, from SNL, sums up what most people will go through (I supported him from the Texas primary on, Harris being my first choice):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46WZfo1yFkI&force_isolation=true
narya
@Frankensteinbeck: At a Widespread Panic/Allman Bros. show, I thought, “gee this crowd is straight” and then (a) inhaled the pot smoke that surrounded me and (b) reflected on how the meaning of “straight” has evolved just in the last 50 years.
schrodingers_cat
Biden and Pelosi are competent so obviously they get into the cross-hairs of those who are rooting for Democrats to fail. This includes leftier-than-thous, pundtwits and journo bros of the MSM, and RWNJs.
Jeffro
@Geminid: Yes – DeSantis would be worse. Linker seems to think that because trump is “temperamentally unfit” that trump’s worse, and that it’s liberals’ job to highlight this distinction.
Linker’s wrong, as they’re both demonstrably unfit for the job. And saying so isn’t going to drive the 2 or 3 remaining ‘persuadable’ voters in America from Biden to DeSantis.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck:
From an account that calls itself Women’s Voices no less:
Women’s Voices
@WomenReadWomen
·
23h
Malala Yousafzai, shot by the Taliban at 15 for demanding girls’ right to education, went on to study at Oxford. Now she has backed a movie about a man who identifies as a woman, and says we need “other ways” to challenge “the social norms that deny women their basic rights.”
Soprano2
They report whatever they think will get the most viewers/listeners/eyeballs, thus how they bury “low confidence” and “not deliberate”, while they highlight “lab leak”.
Jeffro
@Belafon: I’m dead
LOLOLOLOL
So much horrifying goodness – thanks!!
Biff Baxter
Johnny Unbeatable is waiting for the call.
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
People need to understand that the ‘radical’ in ‘radical feminist’ does not mean ‘strongly activist’, it means ‘I hate men.’ For someone who thinks men and women are utterly different, being pissed about trans people is pretty natural. And Britain encourages them.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: British TERFs are appalling. They really give feminism a bad name. I always figured that trans women and I were on the same side, as women beleaguered in a male world. Apparently British TERFs have become so successful that they are just another entitled class defending their turf.
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck:
Isn’t radical a chemistry term that everyone else is misusing?
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: other peoples racism and misogyny which i used to not realise was so pervasive.
She herself was my first choice for President before Biden. She can do the job to my satisfaction.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: dead thread but wanted to reply anyway. They’ve been out here in CA among the evangelical community for well over a decade. The evangelicals play on some dipshit belief that insurance is “gambling” and is not OK but this is.
Had a co-worker of the evangelical stripe – nice dude, pretty dumb – who tried to get our company to pay for his “share” under the health insurance. Had to explain painstakingly that it was not insurance and legally we could not do that. Our CEO, who had formerly worked for Blue Cross, was so concerned she sat the guy down and explained carefully and completely that he was sending his money into a black hole, and he could do that, but there was no obligation for anyone to pay him anything for any reason.
A couple of weeks later he announced his wife was pregnant. A month after that he went off the insurance and signed up for the scam.
They paid nothing. Thankfully uncomplicated, but he now had a nice shiny new debt to pay off.
He quit after he’d burned through that new kid leave, and went to work for the same church that had sold him the scam plan. These people are unteachable. Yeah, the grifters are responsible, but goddamn, the griftees are just as responsible.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: I would say that, from what I have seen of American TERFs, it is a universal thing. Their appallingness, I mean.
kalakal
@schrodingers_cat:
@Frankensteinbeck:
I came across a few and that is an accurate description. Utter hostility topped with a layer of smug self-righteousness
WereBear
For several decades that has been filled with lots of stupid things, I do not understand this mindset.
We’re not casting a movie here. We’re trying to find someone who can get the job done and in fact, maybe even finish the damn job.
Paul M Gottlieb
Interestingly, the real progressives, OC for example, have no problem at all working with Joe Biden. It’s the cosplayers and make-believe radicals who can’t stand him
raven
@Spanky: It is but I’m not sure these fucking morons care.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Yeah but that’s because She’s A Cop!!1!
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: I understand it. Old people die, they have debilitating medical issues, they have all sorts of concerns that aren’t as serious with a younger person. It might actually be less of a problem with a President since they are term limited anyway. But there’s been a lot of general concern in recent years that the Democrats and liberals are a gerontocracy and need new blood.
UncleEbeneezer
Name one bill that Biden couldn’t get passed that would have been passed with another candidate as President. Until someone can convincingly make that argument, I’m sticking with Brandon. The idea of Primarying one of the most successful Dem Presidents in decades is absolutely ridiculous.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin:
Fixed it for you.
I am so tired of this subject. Age is the only Achilles heel they can go after.
Kay is right, too, about those who are still screaming about the “debacle” of the Afghanistan departure. The Peter Bakers and Mrs. Peter Bakers (Susan Glassers) of the Serious People World.
Although leaving was the courageous decision, and the correct one (and, in fact, a popular one).
# Team President Joe
cain
@Kay:
Yet they seem quite accepting of all the non conforming things the GOP has done.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Cis and trans originated in organic chemistry, radical didn’t. I was just giving the etymology of cis and trans in my earlier comment.
Which was apparently a wrong thing to mention. Sorry, my bad.
The Moar You Know
@UncleEbeneezer: thank you. I am absolutely astonished that anyone is even making the argument. We got more from Biden in three years than any other Dem president in my lifetime. What the fuck else do these people want, hand-delivered cookies?
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: It did not come from academia, at least not directly. It originated on a trans issues focused Usenet group in the mid 90s. Trans came first by many decades (though the bit that comes after the trans has changed with time to be less offensive), and given the latin roots, cis was an obvious choice for not-trans people, especially given that an attempt was being made to avoid language that othered trans people by implying cis people were “normal”; gender normative was the term of art at the time.
Both are abbreviations for transgender and cisgender.
@schrodingers_cat: You are incorrect on the etymology.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
You do have a history of insisting that words maintain their exact scientific/mathematical meanings when used by other disciplines (see, stochastic).
Baud
@Belafon:
Oh, that was good. Writers deserve an Emmy.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: It is worse in this case in that the origination has literally nothing to do with the chemistry terms, other than that they’re both based on Latin.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Stochastic in stochastic terrorism is my pet peeve and I stand by that.
Terrorism that is called stochastic terrorism is by no means truly random. I am sorry but mathematical concepts have precise definitions.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: Thanks I didn’t know that. It was an educated guess that it came from academia.
Kay
@sab:
The bigger problem for terfs, IMO, is they no longer do any “feminism”. Peoplearereally at risk for rolling back womens rights! They could be doing a lot! But no- they have decided that transpeople are an existential threat – it seems almost tragic to me, like they’re so far off track they will never again get on track. There’s a truly grass roots and kind of exciting movement starting up to get US women access to health care. Just ordinary women meeting up quietly (actually secretly because they are at risk in some of these states) and helping other women. High profile feminists are not relevant to it because they have made themselves irrelevant chasing these dumb panics.
The same is true for Lefties who fall for the cancel culture panic- they no longer do any Lefty advocacy. They’re so busy scolding the Oberlin Student Council they don’t do anything on the issues they supposedly care about.
kalakal
@Eolirin:
Thanks for that explanation. Makes perfect sense. My first reflex thought on seeing
cis is of Roman Empire province names because I’m very old 😀. When I first saw it in the modern context I thought, yep, that’s smart, makes sense. Good to hear the reasoning behind it
prostratedragon
In my lifetime there have been 5 Presidents who were under the age of 50 when elected. I do not think there is a long-term or systematic issue of old leadership in this country. It’s just that the most viable and best-placed candidate for the Dems is older than usual.
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: You’re welcome. And sorry if I’m a little touchy on some of this. The development of these terms is wrapped up in the history (still ongoing) of a ton of prejudice.
MisterDancer
Thanks for pointing this history out! I think it’s easy to assume much of this is some ivory tower stuff, when in fact, to swipe from William Gibson, The Street (Activists) have their own uses for things.
The one recently-debated term that is really from academia is Critical Race Theory — but it’s not a term that Civil Rights Activists have regularly used, from what I’ve seen. The Right just stole it wholesale and started lying about it’s use and promotion, which…well.
Paul in KY
@Lapassionara: Hopefully Putin will have other things to worry about. Or be dead.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: No worries, and thanks for your explanation. I would be the first to admit that I am no expert on this stuff. And I apologize for my ignorant punditry. I can see how that can be hurtful.
rikyrah
@sab:
Did the Governor of Ohio declare it a disaster area yet?
sab
@Kay: Yes. Rights are being rolled back so much and ‘crickets’ from TERFs.
Trans women are at real risk in male bathrooms. Women (trans or cis) are very much less so in women’s bathrooms, and anyway we have always been taught to go to public restrooms in little herds for safety.
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: Worst mistake Kaiser Wilhelm II ever made was sacking Bismarck.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA AH AH AH AHA HA HAH
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
bingo!
NEVER forget about the books…the endless books, full of material that the failed to tell us IN REAL TIME AS IT WAS HAPPENING.
rikyrah
@JMG:
We have gotten a lot of benefits to Joe Biden and his experience in government. It’s part of his quiet power.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY:
The British sank the Bismarck. Come on, man.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
The attacks on our trans citizens is just getting out of control. I know you said Pakistan, but, the attacks here are very real. They want to eliminate trans people from existence, and I’m worried about not just the adults, because if you see in many of these ‘legislations’ with regards to trans…suddenly, it’s not about ‘ the children’ anymore, but, they are going after ADULTS.
gwangung
Given the change in House Dem leadership, I think worries about gerontocracy is a big exaggerated (more so with Feinstein retiring); in fact, I think it’s healthy when there’s a mix of ages in leadership.
As for Biden….the worst thing that would happen is if he wandered off into dementia…which is NOT happening now (and if it did, I think he’s honest enough to step down). The second worst is if he died…and we have a competent person in the wings for that.
Trying to accelerate the process is asking for problems, particularly when we actually have solutions IN PLACE for them. (Oh, but I think the dogs are reacting to those “concerns”….)
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I have believed from the beginning that the MSM and left-ists resented the COMPETENCE of 46 and his Administration.
COMPETENCE means that you actually have to research and understand policy to write your stories.
That’s called WORK.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: He fell off his bike once!!!!
Paul in KY
@kalakal: You are getting up there, magnus patrician :-)
StringOnAStick
@Gin & Tonic: I agree. I am hoping Maxwell Frost is the leading edge of Gen Z getting seriously into politics and running for office. Until then though, the current situation is the hand we’ve got so we’d better play it.
I too am seeing friends that I know are liberal doing the worry dance about Biden’s age; funny how each one of them are dedicated NYT’s readers.
way2blue
If Biden were to announce that he’s not running, I think it would fundamently change the trajectory of his presidency. In that all that he seeks to accomplish would lose some gravity. So, for politics & policy it’s essential that he indicate he’s ‘in’ for the 2024 race. As he’s done. Thankfully.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: I heard Damon Linker on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, and he’s a raging asshole, smug, patronizing and painting those he disagrees with in the broadest and most useful (to him) brush strokes. He describes himself as a “classic liberal”, so as far as his politics go, I would say Third Way Democrat/Bush I Republican at best with one foot out the door marked “the party left me”. As far as his personality and judgement go, he describes Andrew Sullivan as a “good friend”.
Geminid
@gwangung: I thought I saw a lot of younger Democratic Representatives being elected last year. I wonder how much lower the median age of the House caucus is now compared to 2018.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Such people don’t care about Kamala or the process. He’s trolling.
ETA; nevermind. I got the two articles confused.
StringOnAStick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Andrew Sullivan is Linker’s “good friend”? Totally disqualified to discuss D or even US politics since he’s obviously a Tory git.
Soprano2
@Kay: Like Bill Maher who claims he’s a big free speech advocate, but cannot talk about anything other than the threat of “wokeness”. There are all kinds of actual threats to free speech from actual laws that states are actually passing, but he’s all wrapped around the axle about what some professor or student does on a college campus somewhere, or about how comedians telling 30-year-old jokes aren’t popular with young people anymore due to “wokeness”. *rolleyes*….
Soprano2
@rikyrah: If I were a transperson in Missouri, I’d be making plans to move across the river to Illinois, because they are trying to pass what are probably the worst anti-trans bills being considered anywhere right now, and that’s saying something. It’s going to become impossible to live as a transperson in Missouri if the MO state legislature gets their way, and 50% of the population of MO will be cheering them on due to ignorance and fear.
Soprano2
@gwangung: I agree, having all people under 40 in leadership wouldn’t be any better than having all people over 80, and in fact could be quite a bit worse. People discount the edge you can get from decades of experience.
Anyway
@Omnes Omnibus:
One of my pet peeves is people in cooking shows going “tomato is a fruit” – how does that matter in a cooking context? Tedious bores. Words jump across cultures, countries, disciplines … that’s what makes language so interesting.
Anyway
@rikyrah:
Plus it’s not like Biden prevented younger people from running… he beat them fair and square.
dnfree
@sab: I read Ta-Nehisi’s article on reparations. It was an excellent summation of financial wrongs, among other observations.
kalakal
@Anyway: According to the UK government Turnips and Tomatoes are readily interchangable as far as cooking goes.
NotMax
@kalakal
Don’t even need to change the name on the menu of the BLT.
J R in WV
@JWR:
Because the Department of Energy, aka in charge of making and maintaining nuclear weapons, is so qualified in the equally complex field of virology in the wild. And ignoring that “low confidence” means we can’t verify this wild theory at all. Completely unbalanced bullshit in my book.
The virus lives in bats, which are all over the place around Wuhan. Including being used for food !!!
Anyone who believes this, I have a used car with Mr Fusion on board for sale. Come see it soonest !!!
kindness
I am sorry to say that several of my peeps (the Bernie ones) repeat Republican bullshit about Uncle Joe and loudly wish anyone else would run. These are good liberals who are just nuts in several ways. They go large on the ageist factor and at the same time wish Bernie would run. Liberal hypocrites in other words. I don’t get it. I don’t argue with them any more. I tell them they’re hypocrites and nuts and walk away.
Paul in KY
@J R in WV: That’s why the virus seems to do better in cold conditions. It is 52 degrees in a bat cave (non-Bruce Wayne variety).
Ruckus
My choice in the CA primary for president was Kamala Harris.
I gladly voted for Joe Biden for president and am very happy he selected Kamala Harris for VP. He is an even better president than I expected, and I expected very good. I live in an over 55 apartment complex, very nice, all old farts (or getting real close to old fart) ages that I know of range from 57 to 96. Some still work, I did til about 1 1/2 yrs ago and I’m getting on to 74. I still regularly walk a couple of miles, I’m slower than I was but still I get there in a reasonable time and without feeling like I just climbed Everest.
My point is that I want a world that is better than the one I was born into. I want equality, a human being is a human being right up until the time they prove they aren’t. Aren’t part of the journey of life but are trying to be the master of life. Because none of us get to be that. None. We live in a world that has at least attempted to get rid of those who think they are the masters of life. Rupert Asshole Murdoch, Elon Asshole Musk, these Assholes of Life seem to think their money makes them better than everyone else. It doesn’t, it makes them worse, often FAR WORSE, as it does the majority of people with a lot of it. Money is like a poison to many. It tastes wonderful, it’s nice to have some, but it can destroy you if you let it. We used to tax extreme incomes, not to make them poor but to pay their fair share. We tax at a rising rate so that people that can and do use/demand more, pay more and we used to tax at a much higher rate at the top. But those people bought off enough that they got their rates lowered and got much of their income stream to not be considered at the highest rate and it fucked the rest of us. This could be a far, far better country, those assholes would still be rich and the richest, but we could have a far better country. But they got what they wanted, to be even filthier rich, while the rest of us got fucked, both in life and bank accounts. I say FUCK THE RICH. They will still be the richest if we tax them fairly and cut out all the damn loopholes. The country will be better.
DrDaveChemist
@schrodingers_cat: These terms didn’t “originate” in organic chemistry. Both prefixes come from ancient Greek. “Trans” in particular has lots of common uses that mean “across” like a trans-Atlantic flight or the transcontinental railroad, and cis just means “on the same side”. So a transsexual person usually means a person whose biological sex or sex assigned at birth is opposite (across from) their psychological gender identity and a cissexual person (almost never spelled out) is one for whom those attributes are in agreement (on the same side). Why is this a bad use of these prefixes? It’s not like science has a monopoly on things being adjacent or opposite to each other.
schrodingers_cat
@DrDaveChemist: I was wrong. I have admitted as much in an earlier comments 202 and 209..